Ethical Tests

Financial markets

 

What a ride in the last seven days. The chickens have come home to roost. The bear is roaring and the bulls are running. People are frantically calling their financial advisers and the pundits are talking about the biggest buyout in American history. Soon, every American will have a stake in every other house in the US. We are all infected by the massive shifts around us.

 

Wednesday night Larry King had several well-respected financial gurus on his show asking, “How did we get into this mess? Every one of them without question or even skipping a beat said “greed”. The top two executives of Fanny May and Freddie Mac – the two top mortgage lenders in the US, will make 24 million in buyouts as they leave their posts after leading the lenders into bankruptcy. That is their reward for failure.

 

The markets rebounded after the announcement that the feds were going to buy out the bad debt. An article today states that buyers and deal makers were already to pounce and get right back into the game as if nothing had happened. The sub text was, the government will always bail us out.

 

Greed, greed, greed.

 

• Are we caught in a viscous loop?
• Are we ultimately vulnerable and do we have to let the things of the world dominate our thinking?
• Are we locked into the vortex of other forces when we speak about the way we spend our money and respond to poverty and helping others?

 

Not necessarily – there is another ethic at work. We are not speaking about economics today but suffice it to say we do not have to buy into the worlds thinking.

 

^{1 John 2}

³ We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. ⁴ The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵ But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: ⁶ Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

⁷ Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. ⁸ Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

⁹ Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰ Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. ¹¹ But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

 

My father was a chemist. He began the public health lab in Manitoba and was a pioneer in the field. He rose later to head up the whole operation and helped write the Canadian clean water act. The lab was the place where all water and environmental health products were tested and monitored.

 

As a young boy we would walk through his laboratory in Winnipeg and look at all the test tubes and Bunsen burners and special instruments and wonder what they all did.

 

• Either you knew what something was and wanted to know if it was safe – like water.
• Or you wanted to know what a certain substance was. Period.

 

Now – CSI puts it through a chemical analyzer and a print out says it is these chemicals and they came from this side of the garbage dump on the outside of town and that there is likely a crime scene nearby!

 

In dad’s day you smelled it, looked at the color, flamed it, mixed it with other chemicals, even tasted it I suppose.

 

What really freaked us out though was the sink located on every aisle. It was about waist high and did not have a spigot to drink out of but two water jets facing upward with a big tap. It was an emergency sink to run to when you got something dangerous in your eyes. One twist of the knob and two jets of water shot straight into your face – washing out your eyes.

 

Some stuff is dangerous.

 

The tests were dangerous and they were risky.

 

Is this where John is taking us today?

 

Genuine relationship with God demanded three things

• All of these are buried in the first page of the letter.

 

1. Keeping our relationships right

 

⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

• Our life must be characterized by right behavior.

 

Our lifestyle is different.

• If our life is characterized by greed, jealousy, envy, malice, bitterness and a critical and unforgiving spirit we have some things to settle.
• If we do not build up others, stand with them, support them, love them unconditionally – we have some things to settle.
• If we persist in known sin we cannot be in touch with God.

 

One mark of our fellowship with God is that we are in fellowship with other believers – some responsibilities there:

 

⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

1 John 2:9-10

⁹ Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.

 

2. Keeping our theology right

 

⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

 

We need God – we need to be exposed to his love. The hunger must be satisfied. If we fight it we will in essence deny who we are.

 

• We try to redefine sin. It is all about us. We will make it in this world. No one will tell me what to do or believe or tell me how to live my life.

 

God exposes who we are by His very nature.

• His light illuminates and you cannot escape him.

 

 

3. Keeping our communication with God honest

 

¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

• Open ourselves up to God.
• If not we will not hear from him after a while.
• Our lives grow cold and the eternal questions stop.

 

Theft and adultery and murder and lying and hatred and fraud and harsh words and innuendo become tolerable.

 

Greed, jealousy, envy, malice, bitterness and a critical and unforgiving spirit are something to be ignored.

 

If we deny these things we are calling God a liar – we should take this as a shock. We embrace the darkness.

 

And that is not the best place to be.

We are in danger.

 

The Message

If someone claims, "I know him well!" but doesn't keep his commandments, he's obviously a liar. His life doesn't match his words.

Anyone who claims to live in God's light and hates a brother or sister is still in the dark.

Whoever hates is still in the dark, stumbles around in the dark, doesn't know which end is up, blinded by the darkness.

 

So the passage we are looking at today wants to test whether we are genuine.

• Is our faith authentic?
• Keeping our relationships right

 

Here is the reason – He wants you to be in the light and not in the darkness.

• There is much at stake. Eternal life.

 

1 John 5:13-15

¹³ I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

 

So here are the two tests today:

 

Obedience - the Moral Test vs.3-6

 

God wants to reveal himself.

• He is active and wants to reveal himself.
• He desires to be known.
• There was no secrecy in Him; He is not hiding in the shadows.

 

God is light.

• Light scatters darkness – it is the truth about which all other claims are measured.
• Light penetrates everywhere unless it is deliberately shut out.
• Light reveals reality, exposes what the darkness hides.
• Light makes us uncomfortable as it illuminates.

 

³ We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. ⁴ The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵ But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: ⁶ Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

 

Christians do what Christ commands

 

3 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.

 

It is not by simply knowing some secret formula – a valid religious experience must have moral consequences.

 

• The goal is not shoehorning someone into the kingdom and saving them.
• They are being saved due to God’s grace and his grace spills out in love and fruit.

If not – vs.4

The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

 

This the first test - the test of moral obedience.

• We must keep his commands.
• Not just to possess accurate information but to be personally acquainted with him.
• We are talking about those who strive, according to their capacity as humans to form their life in obedience to God. (John Calvin)

 

This is not popular today.

Even Christians equate obedience with legalism or following the rules.

 

A person is quoted as saying they do not read the scriptures, do not go to church, do not do anything that they feel they “ought” to do – they just love Jesus.

 

Jesus response to that, not ours.

 

John 15:9-25

⁹ "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit — fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

If we do not obey we are liars because our behavior belies the truth.

 

^{Vs. 5} But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him.

 

The more we obey God’s word the more we open the door for his love to accomplish its purposes in our life. (made complete vs.5)

 

• Where is the state of our faith today?
• Do we sense his assurance?
• Is that passion for the things of God on our minds and are we pursuing the things that will give him pleasure?
• Is our character being transformed?

 

⁶ Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

How did Jesus walk?

• Walked in love with those who were needy on his daily encounters.
• Listened to the needs of others.
• Asked questions that changed their perspective.
• Loved unconditionally.
• Had deep compassion.
• Invited himself into their homes.

 

Have you invited Jesus into your home?

 

Mark 14:3

³ While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume.

Matt 9:10-11

¹⁰ While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

Luke 7:36-37

³⁶ Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. ³⁷ When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house.

Obey him and walk as he walked.

 

• The reason John is so exercised about loving others is that this was his experience.
• Wherever he turned Jesus showed his love by messing with people – especially the undesirables – you and me.

 

This is not about religion – it is about people.

 

And in case we missed it…

 

Love the Social Test vs.7-11

 

⁷ Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.

^{John: In case you missed it}

^{Us: In case we missed it}

Old because they had learned it before –

1 John 2:24-25

²⁴ See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is what he promised us — even eternal life.

·        This is foundational to following Christ.

·        It was part of the ethical instruction they received from day one in their faith.

 

⁹ Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰ Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. ¹¹ But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

There is a genuine love for other Christians.

 

God is not a cosmic killjoy

·        Father who says to his wife – go find out what the kids are doing and tell them to stop.

 

The OT law was the father – a loving all knowing father – guiding his children into a life that would be life giving and fulfilling.

 

It was the character of God to love.

John 13:34-35

³⁴ "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

 

The idea of love was not new but Jesus reinvested in it a deeper meaning.

Deut 6:5

⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Lev 19:18

¹⁸ "'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Good Samaritan – neighbor is anyone needing our help irrespective of race and rank.

 

Here is the explosive piece

⁸ Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

 

Seen in him – Jesus – I get that.

 

But “and you”

·        The new age has dawned and in which God has put his law in our minds and writes them on our hearts.

·        God lives in us and through us.

·        We are full of light and the darkness has already begun to pass away.

·        The darkness is fading and the light of Christ is dawning.

 

Love allows us to see straight, think clearly and makes us balanced in our outlook conduct and judgment

 

• The fires of love are fanned by other Christians.
• To keep walking in the light is to walk with fellow believers.

 

There is only one thing that can prove the divine order of Jesus ministry.

John 17

²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³ I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

 

I would say it is very difficult to live as a disciple without participating in a community of disciples.

• The culture will overwhelm us.
• We were not meant to live that way.
• Christian community encourages obedience.

 

The body of Christ reduces cultural pressures.

 

How do we do this?

1 John 5:20

20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.

Not more info.

Not what is true.

Know him who is true.