Grace Church exists to glorify our Heavenly Father by
 continually making more disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

A Pep Talk for the Family of God 1 John 2:12-14 Get Real: A Study of 1 John Sermon #9 It wasn’t like Scott Kregel to give up. He was a battler, a dedicated athlete who spent hour after hour perfecting his free throw and jump shot during the hot summer months of 1987. But just before fall practice everything changed. A serious car accident left Scott in a coma for several days. When he awoke, a long rehabilitation process lay ahead. Like most patients with closed head injuries, Scott balked at doing the slow, tedious work that was required to get him back to normal—things such as stringing beads. What high school junior would enjoy that? But Tom Martin, Scott’s basketball coach at the high school he attended, had an idea. Coach Martin told Scott that he would reserve a spot on the varsity for him—if he would cooperate with his therapist and show progress in the tasks he was asked to do. And then, Tom’s wife, Cindy, spent many hours with Scott, encouraging him to keep going. Within 2 months Scott was riding off the basketball court on his teammates’ shoulders. He had made nine straight free throws to clinch a triple-overtime league victory. It’s a remarkable testimony of the power of encouragement.   George Adams said, “Encouragement is oxygen to the soul.” Katharine Butler Hathaway, “There is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend.”   1 John 2:12-14 are words of encouragement (p. 862). Up until this point John has been dishing out some strong words, as he warns his flock about false teachers who are attempting to deceive them. He has just said that if you don’t love your brother, you’re in the darkness, not saved! He’s about to say that if you love the world, you don’t have the Father’s love in you.   But before he says that, he inserts this short section, a pause, something like a little poem to encourage those who might be troubled by what he had written. He’s reassuring them that he’s not pointing the finger at them. They’re part of God’s Family. He’s been talking about outsiders. This little poem is filled with encouragement: "You're doing great; you're going to make it! What I see in you is great! When I look at the little children, I see those who are experiencing forgiveness and identity in their Father. When I look at the young adults, I see those succeeding in all the challenges of life. When I look at the mature believers among you, I see those who have a marvelously deep and rich and unchanging relationship with Jesus Christ. What I see is exciting!"   Remember John is this church’s spiritual grandparent. By this time he’s nearly 100 years old. My grandmother always believed in me and saw the best in me. Isn't it great to have an elderly saint, someone who’s known the Lord for a long time, to support and encourage you? That’s what John is doing. He’s seeking to encourage them. He wants them to know that they have authentic faith. It’s A Pep Talk for the Family of God.   John divides his readers into three groups, whom he names little children, fathers and young men. He addresses each group twice. He’s not indicating their physical age but stages in their spiritual development. God’s Family, like every human family, has members at different stages of spiritual maturity. Every church has members at different points in their spiritual walk. And John writes to encourage each of them.   Did you ever have a coach or a teacher or a boss who could really inspire you…motivate you to reach higher…to run longer…to persevere? That’s John in the passage before us. As we work our way through these verses, may the words of this faithful spiritual war horse be used by the Spirit of God to echo in each of our hearts and encourage us to keep growing, to reach for more spiritually, to persevere…to stick to the stuff…to keep on keeping on. So how does John encourage us? 1. John encourages us by pointing out that as there are stages of physical growth, there are stages of spiritual growth. The Sphinx of Greek Mythology was a monster with the head of a woman, the body of a lion, and the wings of a bird. This monster wouldn’t let anyone enter the city of Thebes without answering a riddle, such as this one “What is it that has four feet in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?” Those who couldn’t answer were killed. According to the myth, a man named Oedipus solved this riddle. “That’s a man. Man crawls on four limbs as a baby, walks upright on two as an adult, and walks with the aid of a stick in old age." And the Sphinx killed herself, ridding the Thebans of this monster. According to the legend, they made Oedipus their king.   Just as there are stages of physical growth, there are stages of spiritual growth. That’s one of the reasons discipleship is so important. Jesus did not command us to lead people to salvation but to “make disciples.”  I’m so thankful for the New Steps class Ray Ziebell is teaching. It’s a class on the basics of the Christian life.   With his threefold division John is referring to the stages in their spiritual development. Like every human family, every church has believers at different maturity levels.   While these three verses look pretty simple, they’re some of the most difficult in 1 John to interpret with several difficult issues to resolve. One is how are these three stages to be understood? Some have thought that there are no stages of growth here but instead John is referring to the different traits found in all believers. Others have thought that since “little children” is one of John’s favorite terms and used other places in this letter to embrace all of his readers, that this phrase has the same inclusive reference to all church members who are subsequently divided into two groups only; fathers and young men, or the mature and immature. And certainly the order (children, fathers, young men) could suggest this.   For me the distinctive content of the message addressed to these three groups seems to favor the view of some ancient Latin commentators like Augustine who held that they represent three different stages of spiritual pilgrimage. Little children are those newborn in Christ. The young men are more developed Christians, strong and victorious in spiritual warfare; while the fathers possess the depth and stability of a ripe Christian experience.   Since the description of each group is similar on both occasions that they’re addressed, it’s simplest to put the corresponding pairs together. The repetition of the three groups and the messages addressed to them, which if not exactly the same are very similar. It’s obvious John did it for emphasis.   One point is clear, both here and in other Scriptures, we must never be complacent with where we're at in our Christian walk. Instead we must continually strive to know Christ better in order to keep growing to maturity. Physical growth is normal for children. It's very abnormal when children do not grow and mature. Every believer should always press on toward the goal of knowing Jesus Christ better and growing in godliness.   My friend, if you become spiritually complacent, you won’t remain neutral…you’ll go backwards. God's grace demonstrated for us on the cross is the greatest motivator to keep growing.   To be frank, it’s often more difficult for those from Christian homes to appreciate God's grace as the motivation to grow. Those who have been saved out of a difficult past know where they would be if God had not intervened in their lives. They’re more likely to see that they have been forgiven much, and thus to love Christ much (Luke 7:36-50). But those who grew up in the Church are prone to think Pharisaically, that they didn't need as much forgiveness as someone with a sordid past.   We need to see how wretchedly sinful our hearts really are, how truly deserving of Hell we are. If God had let any of us go, we'd be enslaved to a multitude of terrible sins. With the hymn writer, we need to sing often, "O to grace, how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be; let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee." God's grace encourages me to grow in my walk with Him.   Too many Christians are like the little fellow who’d been tucked in to bed, but, after a bit, had fallen out. When his mother came rushing upstairs to see what had happened and asked how he’d fallen out, the little guy said, “I don't know, Mommy, unless it was that I went to sleep too near where I got in." Many Christians do that! To fail to grow is to ask to fail.       Just as we’re saved by grace, we’re to keep growing in grace. “Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity” (Heb. 6:1). “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). 2. Young believers experience the enjoyment of the most basic promises and gifts of God’s grace. “I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name...I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father.”   Those two English words “little children” are actually one word in Greek, meaning “born ones.” It comes from a verb meaning “to birth” or “to bring into existence.” It’s a general term of endearment to describe all of the people of God. If you’re a member of the family of God, my friend, you’re included in this term of endearment.   But you can’t get into a family without birth. That’s true of both our physical and spiritual families. Remember, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (John 3:7).   It’s said that as John Wesley went about England, everywhere he went he would preach on that text, "You must be born again." Someone said to him once. "Mr. Wesley, why do you so continually repeat that text, 'you must be born again'?" And John Wesley said, "Because, 'you must be born again.'" That’s the one and only way into the family of God, the second birth, the receiving of Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.   Every church needs to know the joy of having spiritual babies in its midst. Nothing puts more life, excitement, and joy in a church family than to have a multitude of new Christians in its congregation. You haven’t lived until you have lots of children around your house! We have three in our home. When a couple has a baby, Daddy has a huge smile on his face, Momma has a special glow. And they tell everybody that they have a new daughter or son. That’s to be normative for a church. That’s the way God wants it to be. Tragically, there are churches that are sterile. If they grow, it’s through transfer growth not evangelism. Our mission must be to continually birth children into God's family.   a) Young believers are encouraged because they have been forgiven. “Your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.” Please don’t ever allow yourself to read a verse like that and think, “Ho hum!” The forgiveness of all of your sins for His name’s sake is the greatest blessing in the whole world! Never get over the amazing truth that although you were a rebel who deserved God’s wrath, He graciously sent His Son to bear the penalty in your place! As David exclaims, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him” (Ps. 32:1-2). Jesus’ last words to the disciples before He ascended into heaven were that “repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations” (Luke 24:47).   When John tells the little children in the faith that their sins are forgiven on the “account of His name,” he means that their sins are forgiven on account of the person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Our sins are not forgiven because of anything that we do. We can’t do penance to work off our debt of sin. Instead Jesus paid our debt in full. We cannot add good works to atone for our sins but Jesus atoned for them fully through His blood. Forgiveness of sins is for His names sake, not for anything you have done or can do. All you can do is receive it by faith. There’s only one thing a babe in Christ has to remember, the name of Jesus. That Name fills the hosts of hell with fear.     b) Young believers are encouraged because they are now experiencing fellowship with the Father. “Because you have known the Father.” What does every baby know? They know who their Mommy and Daddy are. Let a parent walk in the nursery and that child will light up, even if just an infant, at the sound of their parent’s voice. Knowing God as Father is for the Church, not for Israel. I love that wonderful Aramaic word “Abba” that we find in our New Testaments. I just read recently that a child did not have to have teeth to say “Abba.” It’s our equivalent of “Dada.” A baby believer’s first word is “Father.”   When I came to Christ as a teen, I didn’t understand repentance. I’m not even sure that I grasped eternal security but I knew that I had a Heavenly Father. Young believers are encouraged because they are now experiencing fellowship with the Father. 3. Mature believers are encouraged that they have a deep, growing faith. “I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning.” John’s two statements to those who are spiritually mature are identical. Unlike human beings, when the Bible speaks of an older Christian, it never has an allusion to feebleness or decay but to depth, power and maturity.   So what distinguishes the mature Christian? It’s not how many years he/she has been a believer but the growth and spiritual maturity he/she has achieved in the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. Mature believers have an intimate knowledge of God. Because they know God, they also know the dangers of the world.   We live in a world that doesn’t value aging but in the Church we must. Robert Law points out that we must look to mature believers for a larger view of God, a calm untroubled depth of conviction, a clear-eyed judgment of life which youth rarely have.    No Christian ever comes to that place in this life where they’ve arrived spiritually. The mature believer John is writing of has mastered the fundamental principles of the spiritual life. Every day they become a little more Christlike, they have a little more depth. They just keep becoming more and more like Jesus.   We often speak of maturity in physical life. When a child reaches the age of 21 we say he’s full grown, mature. But do we mean he is ready to stop living? No, he is really ready to start living. This isn’t the end of progress.  More than anything else, it’s the beginning of the enriching of life. He now has all of the physical equipment he needs. That’s the point. There is nothing he needs yet to have in the way of equipping himself. But he needs to learn a great deal in the way of using this equipment. That’s what John means here. The fathers are those who are mature because they have learned how God operates. They’ve mastered the techniques of faith.          a) Spiritual maturity means that you are a reproducer. Inherent in this term is that you can’t be a parent without having a child. Some Christians believe they’re mature because they know the Bible. But you can know the Bible without knowing God. God’s plan is that every Christian is to reproduce themselves over and over again. A person is not spiritually mature until they’re a spiritual parent, until they’ve brought another child into the family of God. Are you a spiritual parent? In fact, God’s plan is that we be grandparents and great-grandparents. That’s what God wants you to do and why He saved you. One purpose of life is to reproduce itself. We must never be content merely to be a Christian; but our desire, our burning passion, ought to be to win other people to Jesus Christ.   b) Spiritual maturity means that you’re willing to confront. A parent has to parent. That means they’re capable of confrontation. Paul wrote “I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children” (1 Cor. 4:14). This word warn means "to speak to the heart of." It has the idea of confronting a human heart with the Word of God. That’s one of the things a parent does with their children, they confront their behavior with the truth. When my children do wrong I confront them with the authority of the truth. A spiritual parent is responsible to confront those whom he or she has won to Jesus Christ, to lead and guide them, to speak the truth in love and help them to grow.   c) Spiritual maturity means that you’re an example. A parent must be an example. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Therefore I urge you to imitate me” (1 Cor. 4:16). A parent has the wonderful opportunity of providing for his/her children an illustration of what life really ought to be.   A little girl followed her father through newly planted clumps of grass. She stepped exactly where he stepped. And she said, "Daddy, if you don't get mud on your feet, I won't get any mud on me!"   Abraham Lincoln said that for a man to train up a child in the way he should go, he must walk that way himself. Spiritual maturity means that you’re an example that younger believers can follow. 4. Young adult believers are encouraged because they have the growing toughness of the Christian warrior. “I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one...I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” This term “young men” was commonly used of those who were between 24 and 40. John’s words reveal that the Christian life is not some Sunday School picnic. God has called us to fight. The Church is to be an army. Too often we’re little more than self-help support group. John affirms this group of believers because they have “put on their big boy pants.”     My son, Ben, has gotten me to pay attention to Nascar. For the most part I enjoy it. But there’s one driver that gets under my skin, Tony Stewart. He’s such a big baby and always whining about something. John encouraged this group of believers because they were winning warriors.   I believe John placed this last for a very important reason. He’s already described these young men as those who have overcome the evil one. He repeats that again but then adds this explanation, "you are strong, and the Word of God lives in you." That’s last because it’s the secret of spiritual strength.   What makes a child, spiritually, become a young adult, spiritually? The Word of God abiding in him/her! What makes a young adult become a parent? The Word of God abiding in him/her! That’s the secret of growth. That’s what will move us forward from one stage to another until at last we are parents, able to reproduce ourselves in others. It’s by the Word of God abiding in us.   a) Spiritual toughness is a derived strength. It’s absolutely impossible to grow up as a Christian unless the Word of God abides in you. This is why the devil fights this whole matter of Bible study, the building of your life around the centrality of the Scriptures and the authority of the Scriptures, and why there is loosed a constant barrage of attack at this level. It’s the supremely important thing to move us into maturity. Though the devil cannot stop us from being Christians, he can certainly keep us from becoming strong Christians, and this is exactly the way he does it. He introduces false methods of maturing. He tries to divert our attention, and get us off on spiritual rabbit trails. He brings in certain apparent shortcuts which offer to bring us to maturity in an instant…instant spirituality and instant maturity. Too many Christians are looking for spiritual shortcuts. Satan suggests if you have an experience, you’ll be mature. Or, if you have lots of Bible knowledge, you’ll be mature. But all of these things are simply ways, cleverly designed by the Adversary, to arrest Christian growth.   Now we’re not talking merely about Bible study. There’s a very mechanical, wooden approach to Bible study which gets you acquainted with the teachings of the Bible, but that’s not enough. This passage says the Word of God lives or abides in us. That means a knowledge of Scripture  plus obedience to It. It’s submitting and allowing the Spirit to use the Word in our lives. It’s not a matter of merely taking the teaching of the Word into the mind. It’s something deeper. God’s Word lays hold of us. We first lay hold of it, and then it lays hold of us. Thus, the Word abides. It penetrates to the conscience, it lays hold of the will, and it exposes and “it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb 4:12b). That’s what produces maturity. Now this means that our studying must be deliberate. The knowledge of the Word must be more than a hobby with us, or a diversion, an option in life, a kind of low-calorie dessert which we can take, or leave, as we please. No, this demands time and strength. The exhortations of Scripture are to be diligent in this. We must be diligent about searching the Scriptures and studying the Word. All big Christians are first Bible Christians.   b) Spiritual toughness is a displayed strength. “You have overcome the evil one.” The Christian life is not just enjoying the forgiveness and fellowship of God; it’s also fighting the enemy. While Satan was conquered at the cross, we still must fight and overcome him on a daily basis. He loves nothing better than to cause Christians to stumble. Too often we focus on the clean-up promise of 1  John 1:9, when we need to focus on the victory promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” Our picture of the Christian life must include Marines on the front line. As Guy King writes, “A weak Christian is a contradiction in terms.”   Friend, if you get nothing else today, please get this. Our strength to triumph over the evil one comes from the Word of God living in us. My prayer is that this will be an incentive to you to become more and more Bible-saturated.   Too many Christians want a quick fix. They want somehow to be zapped by God and instantly changed from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. It doesn’t happen that way. Growth is gradual, not instantaneous. We must recommit ourselves to be people of the Book. We must be people of the Word if we are going to be like these young men John writes of – strong, energetic and able to overcome the evil one. Only in that way will we ever come to the place of full spiritual maturity in Christ. Conclusion: God wants us to grow and develop into spiritual Samsons for Jesus. We must never be content to be weak Christians. We ought to want to be strong. In 3 John we read, “Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” John is saying, "I am praying that your physical body will be as strong as your soul is." Friend, what if that prayer were answered in your life? What if you left the chair where you are sitting as strong and yet only as strong in body as you are in soul? Sadly, some would have to be carried out on a stretcher. Some of you are big, strong, healthy people physically, yet spiritually you’re weaklings. As a result, you’re very susceptible to disease, spiritual disease. You’re a pushover for the devil because you’ve never gained strength in your Christian life. That’s why you give in so easily to temptation. You are baby Christian who has never really grown.   Most of us can remember our spiritual defeats much more easily than we can remember our victories. God doesn’t want our past defeats to sabotage our future Christian walk. His grace means that your sins are forgiven and that you’re now His child. Knowing that should not lead you to sin more, but rather to be encouraged to grow more.   Are you still growing? Do you know the Father better today that you did yesterday? Have you got a bigger view of God? Are you a victorious soldier? Does Satan tremble when he sees you in the Book? Are you leading others to the Lord? Are you growing?   John wants to encourage us, no matter where we’re at in our level of maturity, to keep growing!! Friend, don’t settle for spiritual mediocrity! Keep growing!! Stay in the Book and let the Book live in you!   God wants you to grow strong through His Word so that you will overcome the evil one. As you do, you’ll grow into a mature believer. That’s why John wrote these encouraging words. May they urge each of us to keep growing and maturing in our faith!