He meant that chorus, “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the sons of God.” It is in our reading today, and we are going to use that. I mean, we sing it, and we have it memorized, and it is in our hearts. But occasionally, I think we experience it—even like this morning. I think it was quoted, and the theme this morning when we broke bread was on joy.
It is that sense of amazement that we are the children of God. This is God’s love. Just look at this. Behold this. And we are just amazed.
I want to start off by reading a verse from the beginning of 1 John. It has to do with joy again. This is in 1 John 1:3-4, just as we get started:
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also,
that ye also may have fellowship with us:
yea, and our fellowship is with the Father,
and with His Son Jesus Christ.
And these things we write, that our joy may be made full.
This whole book of 1 John is on fellowship. It is a joy to fellowship. I felt all this morning while we were breaking bread: it is a joy to be like this, to be sharing in God’s Word, to share it together, to discover Christ together, and to experience Christ right now. It is the joy of the Lord, and it becomes our strength. It becomes everything that we are doing.
There is one more verse that is more on our focus topic. It is 1 John 2:29, and we will come right back to this:
If ye know that He is righteous,
know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of Him.
If you know that He is righteous—that God is righteous—know that everyone who practices righteousness is begotten of Him.
Let us pray together.
Lord, we come to You, and we worship You that You have called us children of God, that You have set us apart to join in this fellowship. Lord, we give ourselves over to You right now, and we give this time over to You. We pray that You would make our joy full, that You would grant us fellowship with the Father and the Son right now, and fellowship with each other.
As we are in Your Word, Lord, we pray that eternal life inside of us would rise up, and that You would complete us and fill us with Your joy. In Jesus’ name, amen.
We are actually at part six of 1 John, but I recognize that we have forgotten everything else that we have talked about in 1 John, and that is completely okay. For this time, though, we are just going to remember one thing: fellowship.
We are narrowing it down this time to practicing righteousness. We are in a brand-new section, so it is okay if we forgot everything else. But practicing righteousness is an aspect of fellowship, and it is not going to be like what we expect.
When John talks about practicing righteousness in his letter, he is focused on the experience of fellowship. We have to sort of set aside a lot of our concepts of what it might look like, because the way of the Lord is higher than the way of man.
This section goes from the last verse of chapter 2 through the sixth verse of chapter 4. It seems like a long section, but some parts go by very fast as he connects the dots, explains things, and makes it easy to understand. All of this is a fellowship experience of doing righteousness, practicing righteousness, and He is calling us into this.
Fellowship is based on eternal life. That verse we read earlier is right here: “You know that He is righteous.” That is part of God’s eternal life. God is righteous, and we have received the very life of God.
Then there is our part in fellowship: we practice righteousness. The ones practicing righteousness show that they are born again, that they have been begotten of God, because they are doing it by the eternal life they have received.
Our fellowship—our doing of righteousness, our practicing righteousness—is that we draw from the eternal life we have received. Then, out from that, practicing righteousness comes about. It has to work that way. It has to be from the depths of eternal life that our works of righteousness come about. Then it is fellowship.
If it is merely doing right things, it may or may not be fellowship. We are not talking about mere actions that are not bad, or merely good actions. We are talking about joining in the life which is righteous because God Himself is righteous. By living with that life, we fellowship with Him, and in fellowship, we practice righteousness.
Here is something that may seem different with abiding and fellowship: this requires us to be brought into action. Normally, if you think of abiding, you may think of relaxing. That is really the main part of abiding, it seems—at least relaxing from your own dead actions.
But in that abiding comes fellowship, and at some point the Lord inside of you, the life inside of you, is like, “Let’s do something together.” That is this part of fellowship.
Oftentimes, especially at the beginning, our fellowship with the Lord comes when we get right with the Lord. We get back to the Lord. We repent of our sins. We have covered that a lot while talking about walking in the light and getting back on track.
Then we grow as we abide in Him. We start to obey. We start to be with Him, but we stay with Him. We stick together with Him. That is a big part of fellowship. We are just in the light, and there He is.
But then this part of fellowship brings us on an adventure with the Lord. We are to do something together with Him. We are called into something together with Him.
I think it is actually not a common fellowship experience, unfortunately. So many of us have had bad experiences with doing good things. We have done it the wrong way. Then we get afraid of doing good things because we do not think of it as fellowship.
Mainly, we think of fellowship as that take-a-step-back experience: just behold the Lord and enjoy the Lord. If somebody starts to talk about doing something, you know where that leads. It just leads to dead works, and it is going to be terrible.
But if the Lord talks about doing something, it is not going to be dead works. It is going to be practicing righteousness. We are called into something.
Some of us lean one way or the other, and I think this section is very helpful. John gives a well-balanced instruction on the practice—the experience—of practicing righteousness: how to do good works with the Lord, basically.
He covers all the different areas where we have problems. We are going to race through all of this.
In 1 John 3:7, he says:
He that doeth righteousness is righteous,
even as He is righteous.
God is righteous. The one who is actually doing this in fellowship is righteous, and God is righteous. We are matching up. We are the children of God, reflecting the life of God and reflecting the face of God.
Then there is another statement in 1 John 3:10:
Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God,
neither he that loveth not his brother.
Now we are in trouble, because are you not of God? We are going to get into trouble in this whole section. This may be the most difficult section of 1 John. If you open a lot of commentaries, they are all scared of this section. All of us are. We start to read it, and phrases like this come up.
But let us keep in mind one thing: we are talking about fellowship.
In fellowship, sometimes I am not in fellowship, and sometimes I am. Does that mean I am not a child of God and that eternity has nothing to do with it? No.
If you want to learn about becoming a child of God, it is the Gospel of John. He teaches you how to become a child of God. This letter teaches you how to live in the good of being a child of God.
Everything John says here is to believers. He is talking realistically: you are not always walking with the Lord. If you are stunted from practicing righteousness, if you will not go forward with the Lord, it is like you are not of God right then.
You can be in Christ but not of Christ, just like we say that we are in the world but not of the world. You can be born again, but you are not about Him right now.
If you are not practicing righteousness and the Lord is leading you into this fellowship, your fellowship is stunted. You are not all about the Lord right then. You are not in that fellowship.
You can look around in your heart and say, “But I do not know of any sin.” Yet the Lord, like in the Song of Solomon, is drawing us away. He is leaping on the mountains and calling us to resurrection works. He is saying, “Get out of the bed. Let’s do something.”
It has been enjoyable to spend face-to-face time with You, but now let us do something together. That is the Lord with us sometimes. You start to sense that something is wrong, and sometimes it is not some specific sin. It is that He is calling us to something more, calling us to do something.
Unfortunately, the ones who actually talk about this are usually younger believers, or believers who lean toward carnality. So it gives a bad reputation to works. There are movers and shakers among us saying, “We need to do something,” while the wise fellowship ones say, “We dare not do anything.”
We end up with these two sides. But I think the Lord would bring it together and show us the right way together. It does not have to be carnal, but it does have to be Christ. It does need to go forward, or else we are not of God in that fellowship.
Practicing is the same thing as doing. In Matthew 3:8, John the Baptist says:
Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance.
“Bring forth” is the same word as practicing. Produce the works of repentance. Show that you have repented. It is an action item.
In Revelation 2:5, the Lord says:
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen,
and repent and do the first works.
That word “do” is our word “practice.” Practice righteousness. It is the same thing.
We have to catch that practicing righteousness is not the same thing as being righteous. God is righteous, and Christ Himself is our righteousness. That truth keeps us steady and assured: all my righteousness is bound up in the person of Christ.
But there is something about actually doing righteous things. When we talk about practicing righteousness, we mean doing righteous things.
Revelation 19 says that the bride has made herself ready, and that it was given to her to be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure:
For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
The clothing of the bride who makes herself ready is not merely the clothing of Christ. She has a garment of Christ; that is how she has been made a virgin and made ready for marriage. But she makes herself ready by doing things together with the Lord—practicing righteousness. It is the righteousnesses of the saints.
When the Lord comes to judge and make war in righteousness, there is a group of believers behind Him—His army from heaven—clothed in white, pure, fine linen. This is not merely the garment of their salvation. It is the garment of the righteousnesses of the saints.
When you read about the battle of Armageddon in Revelation 19 and see the army behind the Lord on white horses, their garments are similar to His. Their garments are the righteousnesses of the saints. They fellowshipped with Him in righteousness. They made war in righteousness today. They overcame today by doing righteous things, and so they receive these garments.
The bride has made herself ready.
Psalm 23 says:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for His name’s sake.
Again, that is different from saying that He has made me righteous. It is different from the assurance of salvation. It has taken a long time for all of us to relax and realize, “I am righteous because Christ is righteous, and He is my righteousness.” We have to hold onto that.
But He will lead us on a path, and that path is the path of righteousness. We are taking steps, and we are doing righteous things.
This is the action item. In 1 John 3:17-18, John says:
But whoso hath the world’s goods,
and beholdeth his brother in need,
and shutteth up his compassion from him,
how doth the love of God abide in him?My little children, let us not love in word,
neither with the tongue;
but in deed and truth.
This is almost like James: you say that you have faith, but show me your faith by what you actually do. You say that you have love for the brethren, but show it by deed and truth. This is practicing righteousness.
It does not negate the life of love or the truth of being righteous. But if you say that you love your brethren and then they have need, are you willing to lay down your life for them and actually help them?
When we are talking about practicing righteousness, we are in the mode of doing something together with the Lord.
Let us return to 1 John 2:29 and 1 John 3:1:
If ye know that He is righteous,
know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of Him.Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called children of God.
These statements go together. God is righteous, and we are called to practice righteousness. Everyone who practices righteousness is begotten of Him. You are born of Him.
Catch this experience: you find yourself in fellowship with the Lord. You practice righteousness. You do something together with Him, and the joy of the Lord fills you because you are fellowshipping. You are doing these things from the eternal life within.
When you do that, you know you are born of Him. This is one way to be assured that you have eternal life: when you do these things together with Him, by His life and by His strength.
In 1 John 5:13, he says:
These things have I written unto you,
that ye may know that ye have eternal life,
even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.
This is that type of experience: “I know I have eternal life because I just practiced righteousness with Him.”
When you realize that you have eternal life, that you are begotten of Him, you burst into joyful praise: “Behold what manner of love!” That is what chapter 3 starts with.
Sometimes when you walk away from doing something with the Lord, you are just in amazement. It is not always pride. Sometimes it is, “Wow, did that come out of my mouth? Did that action actually happen through me? Did I really turn the other cheek? Was I really gentle when I normally am not?”
We are so familiar with not practicing righteousness, or trying to do right and failing, or barely making it. But when it is the Lord, it flows, and you are amazed. You know you are born of God.
John continues:
Therefore the world knoweth us not,
because it knew Him not.Beloved, now are we children of God,
and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.
We know that, if He shall be manifested,
we shall be like Him;
for we shall see Him even as He is.
The world does not understand us. At the end of this section, John says, “They are of the world: therefore speak they as of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God.”
The world is not going to understand. When we get into practicing righteousness, it has to do with being born of God and eternal life. Worldly Christians do not understand it. The worldly mindset does not understand it.
People may look at how you do things, how you hesitate, and how you go forward, and they are not going to understand. We have to be okay with that. We are doing things based on being children of God.
There are too many worldly messages that say, “You need to do good things and stop doing bad things.” That whole mindset has to be set aside. People who preach it and receive it may not understand.
Unbelievers and worldly believers may despise what you are doing. You may have too many works, or not enough works. You may take up too many things, or people may tell you that you need more time for yourself. These worldly mindsets come at you, and you have to let them flow off your back like water off a duck’s back.
If someone is of the world, they are not going to understand. But if someone is of God, you fellowship together, your joy is made full, and you know that you do these things together with the Lord—both not doing things and doing things—because it all is based on the Lord.
People did not understand the Lord Jesus. They asked Him, “Why do You not go up to the feast? Why do You not show Yourself as the Messiah?” But He would dare not do anything except what His Father told Him to do. He did not say anything except what the Father gave Him to say. He practiced righteousness in that way.
There is another part of our expression as children of God that renews our minds. I realize that I am begotten of God. I have eternal life inside of me. Yet we often see how we are right now, get depressed, and give up. We have tried and failed, and so we stop.
But know this: as you see Him, as you see that you are born of Him, and as you behold the love the Father has given—that you are a child of God—relax for a moment and realize that where you are going is found in Christ.
What we shall be is not here right now. Yes, I am a work in progress, but it is going to be. I am a child of God. All this sin and failure will be gone. At some point, even my body will be changed, and that principle of sin will be removed. I will only practice righteousness.
Do not be discouraged. Take courage. When we see Him, we will see Him as He really is, and we will be like Him. We are being changed. We are being brought into this glory.
Verse 3 says:
And every one that hath this hope set on Him
purifieth himself,
even as He is pure.
What is this hope? I fix my eyes on Jesus, and I have hope in who He has called me to be in Christ. I have hope that all my redemption will be completed eventually. I have hope that it is going to be amazing, even though I am stunting it sometimes right now.
If you have this hope in you, what do you do about it? You do not get discouraged and stop everything. You do not get discouraged and go the way of the world and practice whatever you want to practice. You do not give up because it is too hard.
Instead, you purify yourself, even as He is pure. This purifying yourself only works if it is “even as He is pure.” You purify yourself because He is pure.
It is like having two eyes fixed on Jesus. One is that He is the hope, and I am found in Christ. The other is that He is pure, and His life is inside of me. Therefore, I will purify myself.
This is not the same thing as being cleansed by the precious blood after you have sinned. That is what we have talked about in walking in the light: we confess our sin and are cleansed. But let us say you are cleansed right now. As you fix your eyes on Jesus and know that He has called you to walk with Him and do some things, there may be something impure in your life that keeps stopping you.
The issue is not merely whether there is a sin unconfessed. The issue is whether there is something in my heart that I am holding onto. Is there something in my life that I regularly get into that keeps pulling me away from this way?
As we look at Him, we may immediately know some things. Sometimes we ask Him. Sometimes we do not know of anything, but at least we can set ourselves apart to the Lord.
Occasionally, you find that you are struggling with sin and that you seem to love the world and love the Lord. But this should not be a long-term struggle. There is hope, He is pure, and now I am going to purify myself.
Again, this is not a dead work. It is not drumming up strength in yourself. It is fixing your eyes on Jesus. Your heart is laid bare before Him. Yes, there may have been a sin, and you had it cleansed. But perhaps there is a stone in the heart, a hard spot where, whenever temptation comes, you seem to love it and be drawn to it.
That stone is something you want to set aside together with the Lord. Setting aside a stone has to do with your will, desire, and choice. There is a choice in the moment, but there is also the deeper choice: “I have decided to follow Jesus.”
When you find that stone, sometimes it involves fasting and prayer. Sometimes it takes days. You find a spot in your heart that you have struggled with for a long time, and you say to the Lord, “I do not actually want this. I choose not to want this. I put the stake in the ground that Jesus is my Lord over this spot.”
That stony heart, that rock in the way, is set aside. It does not mean temptations never come again in that area, but they do not have the same power over you anymore. You have purified yourself. Before the Lord, you have set it aside.
Even when something comes, you can say, “In me He has nothing,” just like Jesus said, “The prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me.”
As you let go of that area with the Lord, He crushes the stone and removes it. You put the stake in the ground and say, “Jesus is Lord over this area of my life.” It may mean losing things that you love or giving up something you have held dear, but you take the time to make the choice.
Purify yourselves because He is pure. This is not a call merely to fix yourself. It is in the light of this hope: “Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us. I am a child of God. This is who I am in Christ.” Let us forget about the stone and the area of life that keeps draining time and energy through love of something else.
Now we get into lawlessness. John says:
Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness;
and sin is lawlessness.
It is super important to understand that if you are going to practice righteousness, lawlessness is indeed sin. This statement works both ways: if you practice sin, you practice lawlessness; if you practice lawlessness, you practice sin.
Lawlessness is not merely bad things that you do. It is doing things without a Lord. It is doing things without God being God.
This was the problem in Matthew 7 with those who came to the Lord saying, “Lord, Lord, did we not do many things?” They had cast out demons and done many good works. But He said, “Depart from Me, ye that work lawlessness.”
He called them workers of lawlessness—not merely sinners or unbelievers. Their problem was that everything they did was without Him. It was lawless. There was no “Jesus is Lord over this. I am going to do this together with the Lord.”
The first principle of doing righteous deeds is that we are not going to do things without the Lord. Many believers have learned this at great cost. Lawlessness is not worth it. If I simply go out and do things because I think I should do things, it is not worth it.
But there is a way to do things. Realizing that lawlessness is sin gives us a right fear and trembling concerning the flesh. It keeps us from just doing things randomly.
John continues:
And ye know that He was manifested
to take away sins;
and in Him is no sin.
We are talking about the sin of lawlessness. He has come to take away that lawless sin—that experience Adam and Eve had in the garden when they went off on their own.
The principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is that you do not need God. You know right and wrong, and you can decide to do right. That is a lawless principle.
The principle of the tree of life is, “I may not know what I am doing, but I am going with life. I am going together with God. I will learn right and wrong eventually, but even if I do not know it, I am at least with Him.”
Christ has come to take away the sin of lawlessness. In Him there is no sin, and in Him there is no lawlessness. Whatever Jesus did and whatever He said was what the Father was doing and saying.
Even when Jesus said, “Is there another way than going to the cross?” He said:
Not My will, but Thine, be done.
That is the heart of not practicing lawlessness. That is how He takes away that sin. He gives us the heart to want only the Father’s will—not merely to do things, but to do God’s things.
As a brand-new Christian, I understood, “I am going to try to do good and try not to do bad.” But discovering that lawlessness is a problem upgrades your whole mindset of practicing righteousness.
John says in 1 John 3:6:
Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not:
whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither knoweth Him.
Whoever practices lawlessness has not seen Him or known Him in that moment. Yes, as a believer you have seen and known Him. But do you know Him right now? Are you fellowshipping with Him while you practice lawlessness? Not really.
When we abide in Him, we do not need to practice lawlessness.
We are learning another aspect here. We are not even at the doing just yet. I think this is how it works with the Lord. Ephesians 2 says that we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. He is always working on us and making us ready to do something, but we are going to do something.
This whole section may seem to be about not doing bad things, but it is preparing us to practice righteousness.
John says:
Little children, let no man lead you astray:
he that doeth righteousness is righteous,
even as He is righteous:
he that doeth sin is of the devil;
for the devil sinneth from the beginning.
To this end was the Son of God manifested,
that He might destroy the works of the devil.
There are the children of God and the children of the devil. Let us set aside, for a moment, the mindset that this is only talking about unbelievers.
John continues:
Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin,
because His seed abideth in him:
and he cannot sin,
because he is begotten of God.In this the children of God are manifest,
and the children of the devil:
whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God,
neither he that loveth not his brother.
That sounds hard. Whoever is born of God cannot sin? We actually just read that. But the Bible is correct.
Think about your experience as a Christian. You have noticed that there is still a sinful nature somewhere in there. Our old man has been crucified with Christ, and we can deny ourselves. We can choose to say, “No, I deny my flesh. I am going to walk by Christ.”
But we have noticed that it is possible for us to sin. There is a nature of sin—really, a death of sin—inside us. It is not us, and it is not who we are in Christ, but it is there.
In a sense, there is something of the child of the devil still inside us: the principle of sin. You are not a child of the devil. But what is the child of the devil? It is sin. That principle of sin comes from Satan, who has sinned from the beginning.
When Adam fell and sin came into humanity, we inherited that nature. Jesus and John the Baptist spoke bluntly about people acting as children of Satan—not as though they were incapable of salvation, but because they were acting according to the nature of sin.
For a believer walking in sin and living by the sin nature, is it possible for the Lord to say, “You are not acting as a child of God”? It sounds harsh, but it changes how we think when we are practicing sin.
Instead of saying, “I am struggling a little with this thing,” or, “We are all human; I have my issues and you have yours,” someone walking with the Lord sees the desire to sin and says, “That is of the devil.”
In repentance, you can say, “I repent because I was like the devil in that moment. I was of sin. I was of evil. I hate to be on the side of the devil. I hate to be on the side of sin.”
This renewing of the mind helps us repent. Something born of God is inside you. In your spirit, you are born again. You have received eternal life. In the future, when our new bodies come, we will see the complete manifestation of the child of God.
We should read this in the mindset of fellowship, not as a question of whether someone is born again. You cannot simply look at someone’s actions and say, “There is an unbeliever,” or, “You sinned, so you must not be a believer.” That is not what this is saying.
What is born again never sins. Christ in you does not sin. That is hallelujah. That is joy made full. That is “Behold what manner of love the Father has given to me, that I am a child of God.”
If I live by that life, I will not sin. That is of God, and God does not sin. God has given me this provision: Christ has been manifested to take away the work of the devil.
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live,
but Christ liveth in me.
When Christ lives in me, I am not sinning. That is the hallelujah experience.
John gives us the picture of Cain and Abel:
For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another:
not as Cain was of the evil one,
and slew his brother.
Cain was of the wicked one. Was Cain literally a grotesque offspring of Satan? No. He was like Abel in that they had the same parents and inherited the same sinful nature. But one acted by that sinful nature and the other did not.
Abel got right with God by his sacrifice of blood. Cain did works of lawlessness. He brought good vegetables, but there was no leading of God, no connection with God, and no principle of God. He worked as if good things were enough.
“I am not sinning. I am just gardening. This is good. This is useful food.” But he did not realize that we must come into the presence of God and then do our labor. We have to come by the precious blood.
John asks:
And wherefore slew he him?
Because his works were evil,
and his brother’s righteous.
Cain’s first work was worship; his second work was murder. His works were wicked because he worshiped by his own works—lawless works. When he went to worship, he never got connected to God.
Why did he slay his brother? It was not merely because he was a bad person. He never got connected to God. He did not come by the blood and get into God’s presence. Therefore, the sin nature continued to grow until it grabbed him, and he killed his brother.
That is the fruit of the nature of sin. There was no difference between Cain and Abel except that one got connected to God in worship and the other was disconnected.
That sums up this whole concept. When I am connected to God, I practice righteousness. I do not practice sin. When I am disconnected from God, even my good things are lawless actions, and lawlessness is sin.
If I am disconnected from God, I am of the devil for that moment, like Cain was of the wicked one. Do not think of yourself in a condemning way, but realize that the sinful nature is of the wicked one, and we dare not touch that way.
John then explains that the world hates us because it does not understand us:
Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you.
We know that we have passed out of death into life,
because we love the brethren.
How do you know that you have gone out of the worldly way and into the presence of the Lord? You know it because you love the brethren—the opposite of Cain. Cain could not love his brother. He became jealous of him.
He that loveth not abideth in death.
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer:
and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
A murderer—or one who hates his brother—does not have eternal life abiding in him in that moment. This does not mean that eternal life does not exist in a born-again believer. It means that the life is not being allowed to dwell and act in that person.
Now, with this understood, and with the fear of doing lawless things, we want to get to work. John says:
Hereby know we love,
because He laid down His life for us:
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
We know love because the Lord Jesus did something really good. He did not merely come to teach us. He actually died for us on the cross.
We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That is doing something. It is when I do not want to do something, but the Lord calls me to do it. I do not have the energy or the desire, but nevertheless, “Not my will, but Thy will, be done.” I go to the cross. I deny myself. I love the brethren with actions.
If I say I love my brethren, but I have the world’s goods and see their need, what do I do? Do I shut up my inward being—my heart, care, concern, and compassion—from them?
How does the love of God abide in me if I do that? It is missing. Jesus died on the cross for those who were crucifying Him.
When we act, it is not merely for the people who will return the favor or for the lovable people. It is for the unlovely, the enemies, the sinners, and the people who have not apologized yet.
Little children, let us not love in word,
neither with the tongue;
but in deed and truth.
This is the highlight of the point: practice righteousness. Let us do something.
Keep the fear of God in mind: “I dare not do this by the old nature. I dare not do lawless things.” But keep in mind even more the joy of being a begotten person, having eternal life inside, and being called to something amazing. We are called to be who we are in Christ.
When we step out, we need a humble boldness—not a prideful boldness. If you are going to do good works, go forward. Stop the hesitating. Stop the concern. Yes, understand the principles, but let us do this.
John says:
Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth,
and shall assure our heart before Him:
because if our heart condemn us,
God is greater than our heart,
and knoweth all things.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not,
we have boldness toward God.
Many of us have experienced being afraid to step out and do something because we have done it wrong so often. We fear doing it in the flesh, so we dare not do anything. But that is not the right response.
It is time to be bold in a humble way. How do I know what to do when the command is not direct? I am trying not to sin, but how do I go forward and practice righteousness?
If your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart and knows all things. If your heart does not condemn you, you have boldness toward God.
And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him,
because we keep His commandments
and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
Our heart will show us when to stop, and that is enough. There is boldness in knowing that the Lord can convict me and guide me. The Apostle Paul in Acts 16 was going out to preach the good news and establish churches, yet he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit from going into Asia.
His heart stopped him—not because he had sinned, but because the Lord did not want him to go there. Then he tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not permit him.
Paul could have pressed through that restraint and preached the gospel in Ephesus. He could have said, “Lord, did I not preach the gospel in Ephesus?” But it would have been lawless if the Lord had not led him.
The heart can let you know, “Not that.” But Paul was still going. He was still doing.
How was he bold to go and do? He was keeping the Lord’s commandments to love the brethren. He was praying and going forward.
He prayed, “Lord, save souls. Raise up testimonies.” Then he went boldly, knowing the Lord heard his prayers. He obeyed the small commands the Lord gave him. Therefore, it was up to the Lord to lead him on the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
It is an unknown path. Sometimes it is dark, because He leads through the valley of the shadow of death. But He still leads step by step. While He leads, you are in motion.
How do you have humble obedience and humble boldness? When He speaks, you obey and keep His command. When He leads, you respond. When He convicts you, “Not this,” you respond. But when He does not convict you, you have boldness to go forward.
Prayer connects us to the Lord. Prayer says, “I am not doing this without You. Lord, let us do this.” You pray, and the Lord seems to say amen. Then, in humble boldness, you go forward with what you have in your heart to do.
You may sense that you should love a brother or sister in a particular way. You may sense that you should call someone. So you pray: “Lord, help me with this phone call.” Then you call.
Has the Lord given you a script for what to say? No. Has He told you, “Today is the day you call this person at 2 p.m.”? Probably not, though that might occasionally happen. But as you go to call, you may sense, “Let us not. Let us write a letter instead,” or, “Let us speak another day.” That is okay. Follow that.
Part of humility is this: if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. My heart knows only this much. I do not know all of God’s plan. I do not know all that is sin or maturity. I am growing. I am walking in this way.
Knowing that God is greater, and allowing God to be in charge of all these paths of righteousness, gives humility. I am in His hands. He is working on me and creating me for good works. It is okay to step out and do things if I am doing them together with Him.
In all prayer, I go forward with boldness. I respond to His tasks, whatever small things they are. Usually, they are things in your own life because you are His workmanship. As He works on you in the morning or evening and you respond, then you can do good works.
You have apologized for your mistakes. You are in His presence, and you are going forward. We do not need to be so concerned about failure or doing the wrong thing. The concern is simply, “Am I open to the Lord?”
God is greater than all of us. If I am open to Him, He can redirect me even right at the point of doing something. That does not mean I am immature. It means I am on the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
We are humbled because we do not always know what we are doing, but we know that He knows what He is doing. If He is not telling us not to do something, and we are praying and holding onto Him, then we go forward and love the brethren.
We know His command to love the brethren. John says:
And this is His commandment,
that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ,
and love one another,
even as He gave us commandment.
If things fall in line with that, I trust in Him, fix my eyes on Jesus, believe, and love my brethren. Then it has the character of the path of righteousness. He can redirect our steps as needed.
Sometimes, because of the saints and what other people may think, we hesitate more. We feel as though it is humble to do nothing. But that is not the right kind of humility. It gets us out of faith and into ourselves.
We become concerned: “What are other people going to say if I do some things? They are going to think I am proud. They are going to think I am doing too much. They are going to think I think I am awesome.”
We have to live before the Lord. We have to be beside ourselves and go by faith. The Apostle Paul said that he was beside himself, but he was honest.
In 1 Corinthians 15:10, he says:
But by the grace of God I am what I am:
and His grace which was bestowed upon me
was not found vain;
but I laboured more abundantly than they all:
yet not I,
but the grace of God which was with me.
That is practicing righteousness. “I have labored more abundantly than all of them.” It sounds bold, but in humility he said it: “I have done these things, but by God’s grace.”
In Galatians, Paul says that if he sought to please men, he would not be a servant of Christ. People wondered whether he had talked to James, Peter, and John—the pillars in Jerusalem. Paul admitted that he was concerned when he went to speak to them, though he knew in boldness that he was a servant of God and not a servant of man.
They gave him the right hand of fellowship. There is that human feeling: “What are the others going to say?” But we have to fix our eyes on Jesus in faith.
We do have fellowship with one another. If someone says, “I am concerned because what you are doing seems off,” we can listen. Perhaps they are right about something, because God knows all things. We are going according to our conscience and trying.
Those walking with the Lord can often tell when someone is simply fumbling around. New believers may have carnality mixed in with their service, and we should expect it. We can help them, but we should not squash them by saying, “Do not do that; you will do it in the flesh.”
They may do some things in the flesh, but God knows. He has given them a conscience at their current level. Let them serve. He will raise it, and He will raise it again.
Where other people are at is another matter. In humble boldness, we go forward.
There is help along the way for those who are boldly going, so that they do not get off course. At the end of chapter 3 and in the first six verses of chapter 4, John addresses discerning between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
This is not a side topic. At the end of 1 John 3:24, John says:
And hereby we know that He abideth in us,
by the Spirit which He gave us.
How do you have boldness when you are doing something? You have the strength of the Holy Spirit.
The joy of the Lord is your strength. You are walking with Him, abiding in Him, keeping His commandments, and you have a sense that He is with you. You have the power of the Holy Spirit to do these good things.
But then the question comes: “Is this the Spirit of God, or is this something else?” Some people go out preaching and doing many good works, but they do them in the wrong way. John mentions false prophets.
Beloved, believe not every spirit,
but prove the spirits,
whether they are of God;
because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
False prophets may do works, but lead people away from Christ and toward the antichrist or Satan. Jesus said that we would know false prophets by their fruit. Their fruit is lawlessness.
There are enough false prophets in the world. Let us not become one.
Sometimes people who began as genuinely born-again believers become dangerous. They start quoting angels and saying terrible things. Some accidentally become wolves; others sell themselves to it. They get other spirits.
As they serve, they sense resurrection power and the anointing of their gifting. But selfishness begins to want more power and more of that experience. They accidentally or purposefully get into other things. There is a need for discernment of spirits as we go out and do things, so that we do things only by the Holy Spirit.
John gives this provision:
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:
every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is of God:
and every spirit which confesseth not Jesus
is not of God:
and this is the spirit of the antichrist.
This is a real test when dealing with an actual demonic spirit or another voice. Such spirits do not want to confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh.
But we can also take the principle in a milder sense. When the Holy Spirit leads us, He brings Jesus Christ come in the flesh into our experience. The result of works of righteousness is that the Word becomes flesh and tabernacles among us. Christ comes down through us, through the church, and He lives and does things.
The opposite—works of lawlessness—is that we ourselves are what gets manifested. It becomes, “I can do this without Christ.” That is more antichrist-like, more like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil apart from the tree of life.
As you go forward, you can look at the works you are doing and ask: Is Christ proclaimed? Is He displayed? Is He the fragrance of what I am doing?
If Christ is manifested and glorified, you know it is not the antichrist style. The Holy Spirit desires to show Christ.
Greater is He that is in you
than he that is in the world.
People of the world may praise you when you do good. Even Christians sometimes praise in the wrong way. But encouraging someone is not bad when it points to Christ: “Christ was working through you today. That was the Lord. Thank you for sharing that. I needed that verse you sent me.”
That does not ruin someone. It helps them say, “Amen. That was Christ.” Christ came in the flesh through His people.
In practicing righteousness and fellowship, I believe the Lord is encouraging us that His joy is our strength. There is a new way to enter into the joy of the Lord: actually doing the things He is calling us to do.
When we stand before Him at the judgment seat of Christ, He is not going to ask whether we are born again or saved. That has already been settled. He will look at what we did with what He gave us.
“I gave you the born-again life. I gave you eternal life. I gave you grace. What did you do with it?”
Then He will say:
Well done, good and faithful servant;
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
That is the Lord’s desire: that we actually do something with what we have been given. We can enter into the joy of the Lord as we do that.
That is “Behold what manner of love.” There is joy in this fellowship, and our joy is made full as we walk in righteousness and practice righteousness.
Let us pray together.
Lord, we cast ourselves on You and can easily say that these things are too great for us. Lord, we do not know what we are doing, and we do not know how to do what You are calling us to do. But our eyes are fixed on You, Lord. We see that You are pure, and so we come and want to purify ourselves even as You are pure.
Lord, search our hearts and remove these things. Bring us grace right now to choose to follow You in these areas of our lives.
Lord, show us the things You have prepared ahead of time for us to do—the works of righteousness and the things for us to practice. I pray that we would be in the experience of loving the brethren in the church, that You would raise up many priests in the house of God, and that we would see labor among all of us.
May we see the joy of the Lord as we all serve in fellowship in this way. In Jesus’ name, amen.