Christians Walk in His Word

Well, if you haven't already, make your way in your Bible, please, to 1 John 2 as we continue our expository handling of the book of 1 John. I have mentioned already— now I'm like insecure about this, what I'm about to tell you, because the young people on Wednesday nights, I hear, have been discussing the sermon. That's one of the things Zach has been doing with the kids downstairs. And so they'll talk about the sermon and what was discussed in the sermon. And I heard, I think it was Valentino that had a pretty good understanding of what this series is about. So now I got to, like, I know the kids are watching, I got to be, I'm self-conscious and I got to be accurate and careful because I don't want to mislead the kids. But I did say, and he got accurately right when he represented what I said, is that the book of 1 John is essentially how to know if you're are a real Christian or not. It's what is real Christianity and how to know if you're the real thing or not. They don't make a meter that can test whether you're a real Christian or not. They don't— there's no way to know other than the tests that are given in this book and the rest of Scripture. And so the main theme of this book is whether or not you're the real thing and what is the real thing. And already up to this point, John has made some pretty clear, strong distinctions of what it is and what it isn't. Things that Christians do that unbelievers don't, or the other way, which is things that unbelievers say but they don't practice. There's a lot of hypocrisy mentioned here. You can say one thing, you can say you know God, but if you walk in a certain way— and so we're already now in chapter 2, John has already given lots of those examples, a few of those examples at least.

And the emphasis here I'm going to make today, and now coming from that theme, which is how do you know if you're the real thing or not, One of the tests will be what you do with the Word of God, what you do with the commandments, what you do. John has already said people don't have the truth in them, people don't have the word in them, people are or are not obeying commandments. Those are all the same way of saying the same thing. If you ever read Psalm 119 in the Old Testament, Psalm 119, every single verse of Psalm 119 has some allusion to God's word in it. Every single verse, every verse. There's 8— the stanzas are in groups of 8 of the psalm, and each one of them represents a letter of the alphabet. It was one of the ways that the Hebrew children would learn their alphabet. So the first 8 stanzas of Psalm 119 are Aleph. The second 8 stanzas are Beth. Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Dalet. You follow the whole alphabet of the Hebrew alphabet, and there are 8 verses each, and every single verse Says something about the Word of God and the commandments of God all being one thing. Commandments, statutes, precepts, Word, all of that is the same thing. What God says. John is doing something like that. Today, he's going to do something like that explicitly. Essentially, John is going to do a "Thus says the Lord" today. That's what he's doing. So the reason I'm saying all that to you is I want you to get into the framework. You have two things happening at once right now. This is kind of hard. Every time this happens, it's a little bit weird. There's two layers of things happening. One of the layers is what John is actually telling the reader to do and understand. And the other layer is that we have good hermeneutics to understand how John writes about what he's telling the believers.

It would be like you having a recipe for bread, right? And you read the recipe and you follow the recipe and you know exactly what the recipe tells you to do and you follow it to the letter. But then there's another skill involved here, which is understanding how recipes are written. And that both are happening here in John, where John is going to say over and over again something about writing in general. But we, with good hermeneutics, as we look in on John talking about writing, we have to understand what it means that something is written in Scripture, the emphasis of that, the authority of that, so that when John says, I am writing to you, it's not the same as your buddy texting you. When John's saying, I am writing to you, that is equivalent to, thus says the Lord. And we take everything he says just the way we would take it if it was from Moses or Jesus. So we can miss that because especially when he uses language like little children, we can get comfortable. We can settle into feeling like, oh, this is family talk, so I don't have to really think of it as authoritative scripture. And then we can decontextualize. So we take this passage and say, isn't this a very encouraging passage? Yeah, but it's in chapter 2 and verse 12. There have been some things that came before it already, very strong warnings, very strong assertions that you can say one thing and do another. So to have all that context happening at once, I want you to be able to have your sanctified hermeneutics, exegesis, exposition thinking caps on. There is the lesson of the verse, but then there's also the fact that the verse is inspired Scripture to be interpreted correctly. As inspired Scripture.

The hypocrites say one thing. Christians live what they say. You know you're a Christian when you live the truth. You know you're a Christian when the truth, it resides in you. You know you're a Christian when the word resides in you. You know you're a Christian when you live the commandments. Now John is about to give an assertion of what real Christians are and did. So these people that he's talking to here are not hypocrites. These people are indicative of the real thing. You might even say that this is a State of the Union for real Christians. This is how you know you're the real thing. And John is saying, I want you to know, I'm writing to you for these things. Now, as John says this, he's going to say it over and over again.

I'm not even going to get into grammar today. I don't usually like to talk about Greek that much. I used to. Because you do all that hard work in seminary and you want to talk about all the hard work you're doing. But the real truth is, is that we don't really need the Greek typically to understand the English language or the text before us. But today I am going to do a little grammar work, and I'm going to ask you to buckle up for that. It's not to show off or be flashy or anything. It's just so that you see the, the exact way the scripture is presented so that we understand it best. And it'll help us, I think, understand. And I'm also going to be doing a hefty amount of speculating today. That's not normal. You don't want to speculate in the pulpit. That's dangerous to speculate on Scripture. But there's some varying understandings of this passage and what it means and how to understand it. And I'm going to give you mine, but I'm not like way off base, I don't think. There's a lot of people that think what I do. So as we unpack this, two things happening. One, the lessons or the truths that John is stating and how they apply to us. Second, is that John is writing. And now that isn't just our doctrine of what he's saying, it's also our doctrine of the Bible itself, the nature of scripture itself, our bibliology, if you want to know the technical word for it. Right? Those are both happening. So when John says, "I write," we say, "Thus saith." Got it? So you have that in your mind that when he says this, these are indicative truths, reality-inspired truths, not just a guy writing to people he cares about.

Let's pray. Father, now as we open 1 John again, this is the kind of passage I think, Lord, that we can move quickly through and maybe not mine it for all of the gold that's in it. And I just ask that we would get everything out of it we should. And oh, Father, I beg you that we don't put anything in it that we shouldn't, that we represent the text correctly. And then when we understand the text correctly, that we live it and walk in it. In this case, that we have some assurance and confidence that we are walking the way you tell us we should be according to this passage. Help us with that, please, in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, so you're in 1 John 2. It may sound redundant, I'm already saying it over and over again. John is writing the Word. Again, the Word, capital Word there, right? The Word of God. John is writing, and it's not a typical person's writing. Now, here's the grammar lesson. In Greek, the New Testament's in Greek, if you didn't know that. The original language of the New Testament is Greek. And not just any Greek. It's not classical Greek, and it's not modern Greek. It's Koine Greek. It's first-century Koine Greek. First-century Koine Greek, distinct from classical Greek, is conversational. Okay? Classical Greek is not a conversational language. It's actually hard to understand. The modern language is like our modern English. Most of us don't speak proper English, do we? We don't speak what they call the Queen's English. We speak American English, you know? So our version of English is not the proper early Victorian area English. The same with Greek. Greek has a modern version, which is like our modern version of English. It has a classical version, which is the formal version. And Koine Greek is conversational Greek. And conversational Koine Greek, all verbs, every verb— and by the way, the verb is the most important part of a sentence when you're studying Greek. The verb is the most important part. For us in English, the subject is the most important part, right? The thing, the nouns. But in the Greek, the most important part for translation and understanding the text, you have to understand the verbs. And in Greek, the verbs have tense, voice, and mood. They also have person, but that's not the most important part. They have tense, voice, and mood. Okay? Each one of those things means something different. The tense is the type of verb. The voice is who's doing the verb, and the mood is what kind of action is taking place. Okay? That's not the crucial part. I'm going to give you the 3 in our text today so you have them with you. There is the present active indicative. Now you— again, this is the part where— we started calling my professor, Dr. Walker, we started calling him Dr. Usually, because almost every rule in Greek has an exception or 10. And so he would say, here's the Greek rule. This is how you have to understand it. This is how you're going to be tested on it. Oh, and by the way, it doesn't always work that way. It would happen all the time. So we were like, OK, is this one of those exceptions? Greek class was hard in that regard. So when I say the first Greek verb you need to know is present active indicative, you would think that present means when. It kind of means that. It kind of means that. It does mean now. But the idea is more about it being— think of presently or something like that. It isn't necessarily the time that's the issue. It's that it is happening now, but it's happening presently. That's the idea. And when I say presently, I mean ongoing. Active means that the person being talked about is doing the action. If something is passive, they're receiving the action, right? So if I say, I am washing myself, that would be I am washing. But if I am being washed, that's passive. It's happening to me. Got it? So present means now, but the action is presently happening. Active means I am the one doing it. And indicative just means that it's a matter of fact. Because there's subjunctive, which means that it might be happening. There's imperative, which is a command. But indicative, all of these are indicative. That just means it's a matter of fact that it's happening. It's just a stated reality, okay?

The first verbs are present active indicative. Then we will have a perfect active indicative, then we will have an aorist active indicative. Now, do you think I'm going to test you on this later? I'm not. I'm not going to test you on it later. Sam, now that you said that, I'm going to test you later. You volunteered to be tested. Okay, present active indicative. I am writing. Some of you, your New King James says, "I write," but it's better translated. I'm sorry that the ESV gets it right. Don't brag too much, ESV people, because they get a lot wrong in 1 John. I am writing. Present active indicative. I am writing. Okay? Then you will have a perfect active indicative. A perfect is more like what you and I hear when Jesus says, "It is written." Do you notice that that sounds both past tense, written, but also is, present tense? Both are true. "It is written" is perfect. So we have some perfect tense verbs here. Like when he talks about your sins are forgiven, that is a perfect tense verb here. And then John shifts to aorist, and aorist is an action that takes place in the past. But there are different kinds of actions that take place in the past. There is punctiliar. It's one of my favorite words because it makes me feel smarter than I am. Punctiliar. What does a punctuation mark do? It just If you can't see me right now, this is weird, but here is punctiliar. How do you describe that with words? Now you say, well, what would the other option be? See the difference? One of them is— and the other one is— so I'd love to hear— I wonder what people are thinking right now, because I don't know how to describe that in words. Punctiliar means single actions at a point in time. The other one is imperfect, means it's ongoing action. But both of those are in the past. So I can say, "I ran," or I can say, "I was running." You got it? "I ran" was a one-time action in the past. "I was running" is an ongoing action in the past. "I am running" is ongoing action now. There's also future active indicative and other forms of the verbs. All of that really matters to understand this text correctly. Typically, I don't say that understanding the Greek Is all that crucial? You can understand it in English? Absolutely. But in this case, there are all three happening, and it has lots to do with how we interpret. Now, I'm going to interpret for you, but I do want you to be on guard for it. What John is doing here is some version of this: I am currently writing as I am currently writing. And when I am done writing, I will be done writing, and it's your job to read it and do and understand it. Got it? Those are happening in this text. It is like— it's as though John is saying, thus is saying the Lord while he's writing. And then when it's written, he says, thus says the Lord. Got it? So that's important because it's almost hard to understand if you don't understand what I just said. Because he says, I am writing, I have written. Wait, what? What's happening in the same verse? It's hard to understand. But I think you'll pick up on it as we go. But I want you to know that. Those verbs have a lot to do with how we understand this. All right, let's look at it together.

Verse 12, "I write to you." Again, this is where this is a perfect or present active indicative. So it could be translated and is rightly understood, "I am writing to you." So when John is writing with his, whatever it is, a quill probably or a pen or whatever he's writing with, a stick, as he's writing that original autograph scripture that he's writing, he is literally saying to us in writing, "Right now I am writing." Presently, actively, I am. As a matter of fact, I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. What is he writing first and to whom is he writing first? There's some confusion here. I'm going to get this out of the way now because I'm going to sit on the fence on it, but I want you to know where the fence is. He's going to write to fathers, he's going to write to young men, and he's going to write to children, okay? Some people believe he's literally writing to fathers, men who have children. Some people mean— think— take that to mean he's writing to older men in the church, age older, like older than the younger men. So an older man might be 40, a younger man might be 20, right? Then there are some people who think he is writing to spiritually mature men, spiritually younger men, and spiritually children, younger in the faith. Got it? So there is either writing to literal fathers, literal young men, and the literal children of young fathers. There is the older men, younger men, children, aged boys or men and kids. And then the other one is spiritual. Here's my answer. I think it's all of them. The reason I think it's all of them and that that's not a contradiction is most of the older in the faith are also older in age. Most of the younger men who need to be strong, they need to be strong in their work as younger physical men, but they also need to be strong in the faith. And most children are young in age and young in the faith because they haven't had a lot of years to grow in maturity. So I'm sitting on the fence there. I don't mind who you follow in that. I'm not going to dogmatically come down on the line here. I think MacArthur says it's the spiritual maturity of each of them.

Now, with all of that said, Now we get right back in the text to when he says, "Little children," that is a different group altogether. So in verse 12, look at it, "I write to you, little children." In a minute he's going to say children again, or little children. These are two different words. So what is happening here? John, why does PJ have to take the first 10 or 15 minutes of the whole sermon prefacing everything? Because I really want us to get this. So let me tell you what I think is happening. And I'll do it all with the verbs too, so you understand. John is saying, I am currently writing to you, my little children in the faith. The first group he's talking to is the whole group, the whole church, all the people that John ministers to. He says this again. Look back in verse 1 of chapter 2. You see how he says little children? He says it in every chapter except chapter 1. John addresses these audience members as little children, and sometimes possessively, my little children. So whatever he's about to say he is writing, the first thing to understand is he's being general. His children in the faith. I don't think that has to do with maturity level. I don't think that has to do with age. I think the first little children is you are my children in the faith. I'm your spiritual father. Like Paul would say of Timothy, Timothy his son. Got it? That's the first group. It's endearment. It's love. It's relational between John and the audience. Then when he goes to fathers, young men and children. He's going now to the groups, whatever that means, age or maturity in the church. So I'm writing to you, my little children, the little children that I am the shepherd of, the little children that I am the spiritual father of. And then he says, I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. This is why I'm writing to you, real believers, not those sayers only, the real thing, because you are spiritual children to me. And your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. Now, all of those verbs, when it says your sins are forgiven you, that's a perfect tense verb. That means your sins were forgiven you when you were saved, they currently are forgiven you, and they will always be forgiven you. That's a perfect tense. That's something that has a— that's an action done in the past that is presently true and has an ongoing future reality. That's what the perfect tense is. Like, it is written. It was written in the past. It's written right now. It is always written and you can't erase it. That's the perfect tense. "Your sins are forgiven you," is what he's saying to his children, the church, those Christians who received by faith the things that he is reminding them of. Remember, he's writing in the beginning of the letter, "I'm declaring the things to you which you knew from the beginning." I've already taught you the things. You've already seen the gospel. You've already understood it. Now I'm writing to you in this whole letter to tell you that your sins are forgiven you, you who are real believers. So I am currently writing to you because— well, you might say because you're real Christians. I'm writing to the real Christians. I'm writing to— how do the kids say it? The real ones. Do they still say that? I don't even know what the kids are saying these days. I'm writing to you because you're real ones. I think maybe the younger guys in here are like, just don't ever do that, Pastor. Stop trying to be cool.

The word for sins here is— the most common word for sins is hamartia, and the word for forgiven is aphiemi. It's a neat word because it means to put away. It's saying that their sins that they had on them in the gospel were put away from them. And John is saying, I want you to know I'm writing to you because you are forgiven people. Your sins that you had that were on you have been put away from you. That's what forgiven means. And then the most important part to me is what he says last in that sentence. We might say, "Yay, our sins are forgiven." But what we're supposed to say is, "Yay, it's for His name's sake." Do you see it? Our sins weren't forgiven just so we could be forgiven. Our sins were forgiven so that His name would be magnified. Who is the biggest beneficiary of the forgiveness of sins? It is not you and me. It is the Lord because now He has a people for His name. Now He has a people who will glorify Him. Instead of people blaspheming Him, He has servants who love him and honor him. So remember that the purpose of your forgiveness isn't so that you go to heaven. The purpose of your forgiveness is to magnify the name of Christ. So he's saying that, I'm writing to you because you're the real thing, you're my little children, and I'm writing to you to make sure you understand I'm writing because you are forgiven and you have been forgiven for his name's sake.

Now verse 13, the first part. I write to you, I am writing to you, present active indicative, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. So the first group he's writing to, either old in age, old in maturity, or some combination of the two, okay? Or fathers, like men who have actual children. They have progeny. They have offspring. I think it means all of them, and I think he wants them to know that they have known God. Now, you need to know, again, if you know that you've heard us say this over and over again, that "you have known him" is in the perfect tense. Right? So "I am writing" is in the present tense, but "you having known him who is from the beginning" is perfect tense. So you know God, you knew God, you know God, and you will always know God. Right? That's the idea. So the knowing part is in perfect tense. But the important word here is this is the word gnōskō or epignōskō. This is the word for intimate knowledge. It's where we get the English word "knowledge." Gnōskō, gnōskō, gnōllige. Okay, so what he is saying is, I'm writing to you fathers, spiritually mature, maybe older men in church, whoever, whichever group, and I think it could be both. I'm writing to you fathers who are already down the line of faith. You have already got some miles on the tires. You have already served the Lord. You have already proven yourself. You already have some level of maturity. You already have some level of confidence and competence in the Lord. And I'm writing to you, and I want you to know it's because The reason that's true is because you have intimately known your Father in heaven. This knowledge is not knowing about. That word oida means mental knowledge, like to know math. This is not that word. Ginosko is intimate knowledge, like Abraham knew Sarah. You can explain that to your kids on the way home. Knowledge, intimate knowledge, familial knowledge, close, relational. I'm writing to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning.

Now, it could mean known God who is from the beginning, eternal. It could mean that, the eternal God and Father of Jesus Christ. It could mean that. It could also mean that you have known Jesus, right? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and they know Christ. And so they have known Christ who was from the beginning. But for these purposes, that's not the crucial part. The crucial part is that they have a familial relationship with God. These fathers at the audience of John's letters know God. And I'm going to ask you right now, especially you fathers since he's writing to fathers, do you know God? Do you know him? I'm not asking, do you know about him? I'm not asking, do you know the theological propositions relating to sola scriptura or ecclesiology or eschatology or the doctrines of grace? There's a big difference in knowing about God and knowing God. Those are not the same thing. I'm not writing to you fathers because you have theological degrees. I'm writing to you fathers because you know God. You love him and you know him and you're in a relationship with him. So there's all kinds of errors we can make in these things. There's— we can get to the idea that we think these are mere knowledge things, but that's not what he's saying.

I'm writing to you fathers because I'm writing not because I feel like saying hi to you, because I want to encourage you— well, he does want to encourage them, but I'm not— I want to make sure you know that distinct from the people I've been talking about who say one thing and do another, who say they love God, who say they walk in the light, who say their lives are God's kind of life, but they live in darkness— I've already talked about them, but not you, fathers. You know God, and you've known him from the beginning, or he's the one who is from the beginning. So first thing, this letter I'm writing to you, the book of 1 John, is to the fathers who have known God, and I ask you to take that with you. And that doesn't just go for fathers, it goes for all people. But I'm asking you in the room, do you know God? Are you in a relationship with him? How do you know if you're in a relationship with somebody? What are the marks of a relationship? There's conversation, there's love, there's trust, there's Service. These are all things that mark a relationship. Do you love God? Do you know him? Do you live for him? Do you walk with him? Do you care what he thinks? Do you consult him? Do you go to his word regularly to hear from him? So he's writing to the fathers because they have known God, known intimately, relationally.

Verse 13, the second half, I'm writing to you young men. He's already said, I write to you 3 times. This is why I'm calling this, saying Christians walk in the Word. That's what this is about. That's why I'm emphasizing this whole thing about the Word because John is saying, "I'm writing," and he's writing words. And when he's saying, "I'm writing," I'm suggesting to you those words are anchored and concrete and for all time, "Thus says the Lord." So he's writing to the little children because they've been forgiven and he knows they've been forgiven. He's writing to the fathers because he knows that they know God, they have known God, perfect tense, have known God. They're in a relationship with God, intimate fellowship. And now he is writing again I am writing to you, or I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. This is an amazing text. This text here, and then what he says in a bit, is amazing what he's saying to young men.

Again, I hope the ladies aren't feeling left out. He's obviously talking to— even if he's talking to young men, he's also talking to young ladies. So ladies, don't turn off your ears. And for sure, don't say, yeah, sick 'em, PJ. It's like a Father's Day sermon. Get those guys. Tell him to shape up. No, he's writing to Christians. My little children starts this text, and it's everybody. I write to you, I am writing to you young men. This is an interesting word, this word for young men. Do you want to know the best way to translate it? Young men. That's the best way to translate it. That's a perfect translation. I'm writing to you young men because you have overcome the wicked one. The wicked one is a very interesting phrase. This is very similar to the Lord's Prayer. The model prayer, not the prayer that the Lord makes because he doesn't have to be delivered from evil, right, but we do. You'll notice sometimes the translation will say, "Deliver us from evil." Sometimes it'll say, "Deliver us from the evil one." And you say, "Well, what's the difference? What does it look like in the original?" They're both adjectives. And whenever that's translated either evil or the evil one, in both cases there's not an additional word in the second translation where it adds the evil one. So like here when it says, "You have overcome the wicked one," that word "one" is not in the original. It's literally, "You have overcome the wicked." So this is a substantival adjective. And you say, "Well, that's weird. Why doesn't it just say it?" Just be careful because we do it too. We do this too. Like, God loves everyone, right? He loves the Jew, the Greek. Those are— even though those are kind of nouns. Yeah, how about this? Does God love the skinny? Does he? Does he love the not so skinny? Those are adjectives, not nouns. The skinny is an adjective. It's not a noun. Okay? That happens quite a bit in the New Testament. Quite a bit with the evil one. The evil one. The evil. And the reason I believe they translate it substantively as a noun is because of the article. The word the. But that's neither here nor there. I just want you to see that it could be translated, I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome wickedness, the wicked, right? But that, like I say, it's a safe translation to say the wicked one because it can be a substantival adjective.

Now, let's talk about this real quick. Young men in here who can hear me right now, I hope you are smarter than what seems to be happening in our world where because our world is indeed losing the traditional roles of masculinity and femininity, Because it is absolutely happening that men are becoming more and more feminine and more and more androgynous in our culture and that all masculinity is seen as toxic. I hope, oh, I hope that you young men who sense in your guts that that is not correct and that you're supposed to be masculine, I hope you are not going to the stupid internet to find out what a man is. Please. I know the guys, the Andrew Tates and these guys who have web pages and they get out there and they say, this is what a man is. Don't be stupid. Don't listen to them. God defines manhood. It's ridiculous to see these big groups of men all for some reason with the same haircut listening to this masculine man tell them what women want and how to be a strong masculine man. Stop listening to them. You're smarter than that. It disgusts me because I find out that young Christian men listen to them too. God defines what a male is. And it's absolutely true that we need to be truly masculine. It's absolutely true that we need to be strong and ready and battle-tested and like a soldier. This is language the Bible does use for us. But it doesn't then go to YouTube or TikTok to find out what a man looks like as a soldier.

So men, remember Jesus kicking over the tables in the temple grounds, fighting for his Father's honor. That's masculine. But so is Jesus picking up the little girl he raises from the dead and holding children on his lap. I get sick of these things because the world knows there's a problem. Well, there's a problem with all of this homosexuality out there. There's a problem with all this trans ideology out there. So what do we do? What do we do? We fix it. With what? And then you ignore Scripture. No, no, no, no. Young men are defined as strong in this text. Those of you who have Nikes, those of you who know what it means to just do it, the word Nike comes from this word, overcome, nikaiō. And overcome is not how much you can bench. It's not what your T levels are. It's not how many girls follow you on Instagram. It's how much you overcome the wicked one. So if you want to be a man, be holy. If you want to be a man, overcome evil. Stand up to evil. And I don't just mean out there, the evil that might be attacking us, whether it's Islam or something else or cultural evil. I'm talking about you internally. Fight evil. Fight sin! Fight the wicked one! Don't stand there and let the devil beat you like you're some kind of wimp. This is what a soldier does. He overcomes evil and he stands for righteousness.

There's Jesus being tempted by Satan with the biggest temptations you can imagine. Jesus, you don't have to die. I know you have the idea that you need to go to this cross and let these stupid humans beat you and kill you. I know that's what you think you have to do, but listen, I have a shortcut for you. Just throw yourself off this building, off the corner of this pinnacle of the temple. Just throw yourself off there and you'll die, but I will raise you up. And what does Jesus say? Get behind me. You have nothing for me, Satan. You have nothing to offer me. You want to try to offer me a kingdom? So what? You want to try to offer me sex and pornography? So what? You want to try to offer me strength and power in this world and influence in this world? So what? I have Christ. I walk with Jesus. What do you have that you can offer me? I have Christ. So men, young men, if you think you're strong because you can bench press whatever pounds, but you can't stop scrolling inappropriate things on your phone, you're a weakling. You're not strong. You're enslaved. So be strong. And if you have to throw your phone in the toilet, throw your phone in the toilet.

Now he goes to the more immature— interesting word choice John makes here. "I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father." Wait, I thought he was already writing to little children. Now, the ESV does something right here, but again, before you go a little crazy, you ESV-ers— yes, every time PJ says the ESV gets it right, yes, we chalk it up. Ahaha! You got caught! Because here, you think it's translated better when it says children? It is, that it doesn't say little twice. It only says children here. It is the better translation. But the word little is also not in the first children of the earlier verses. So if the New King James is wrong for adding little children, so is the ESV. Can I say neener neener? Is that all right for me? That's fine. If the translation is right, it's right. But here it gets children right, but in the beginning it doesn't.

The reason is, is there are two words for children. The one word is tekneon. It doesn't have to do with technology. It's not tech, T-E-C-H. Tekneon is the first word for little children. And that's the word that John uses over and over again in the letter, tekneon. And then this word here has the idea of paidion, or where you get pedagogy or pediatrician. That's where this word comes from. This word is little, like you think of a little newborn, like a a toddler. The idea, I think, is spiritual, that the other children are children by familial, they're my relationship. It's an endearing, it's like calling someone darling, you know, my sweetheart, somebody you love. That's the first little children. But now the second little children that he's saying, I write to you children or little children because you have known the Father. This is saying like the children, children, the spiritual children, even maybe the young children in the church, babies that are learning. Spiritual toddlers that are carrying on. And I also like that it says that, that distinction's there, because it says, "I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father." Do you notice the language there? You're a little child, and you're— maybe you're new in the faith, or maybe you're a child, maybe you're 6 or 10 years old.

I just got some pictures from the kids today and some notes, a poem from the kids today. I love when I get those, and they give those things, and they're new in the faith, and they're learning, and they want to know the truth. And John says, hey, you have known relationally, intimately, familiarly the Father. That's what defines you as a child, not just your age, but are you a child of the Father? I said earlier that the fathers know God, they know him. Here now it's familiar. Little children, do you know the Father? Are you in a relationship with him? And Is he close to you? See, fatherhood is all over the Bible. In fact, the whole Old Testament can be called patriarchal. The Hebrew language is a patriarchal language. It's a fatherly language. It's how you talk to someone you love. And so I think John is appealing to that, that at all levels we need to be taken care of. And you little children, your Daddy in heaven takes care of you. He loves you. That's where that word Abba comes from. Comes from, the father. This isn't that word, but the idea of fatherhood is there.

So we have a pendulum that we swing in as Christians. We swing the pendulum, as usual, from one extreme to another. You have the modern evangelical that says all that counts is relationship, that you're loved and that you love. That's all that counts. They almost idolize love, that you have a love relationship with the Father. All that doctrine, that just sets you back. Pride, that's knowledge puffs up, and that kind of pride is bad for you. So you need to not spend all your time on doctrine. You need to spend your time on relationship, right? That's one end of the pendulum. And then it swings over here, and we'll fix that. We will make every single Christian a PhD in theology. We will make all of them understand Greek participles. Every person will understand the doctrines of grace at their most intimate level. And they will understand the iota subscript in the New Testament Greek language so that God becomes a subject instead of a person. So you don't want your pendulum on either end of that spectrum there. You don't want to just think you have a relationship with him and I don't need to know doctrine because if I don't know doctrine, I don't know this God that I love because he describes what he's like in his doctrine. And then over here, you don't just want to only have doctrine because you might just think it's doctrine and academic and something you know, not someone you know and you're in a relationship with. So you get right down the middle and you find this perfect balance here. You know him, but you also know about him. They're both real.

Now the shift happens. I don't need to spend the same amount of time on this part because he will essentially say the same thing, except for the little ones get left out. Sorry, kids. John didn't mention you twice. He's going to repeat what he said. There's a little bit of amplification. But here's the key. Remember that Greek lesson we had before? John is writing in the present active indicative. I am currently writing. And then the things he is saying to the people he is writing to, Those verbs are perfect active indicative. So you have been, are, and will be forgiven. You have been, are, and do know God, know him who is from the beginning, have been, do currently know the Father. Those verbs are perfect. Now there's a shift to aorist active indicative where he says, "I have written to you." Now that's strange, isn't it? Don't you find it strange that literally in one verse he says, "I am writing," And then the very next verse he says, "I have written." It's hard to interpret. It is. And by the way, not everybody agrees on what's happening here. So I'm going to give you my best guess. This is my best speculation. It's an educated guess. I'm not just pulling this out of my ear. "I have written to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning." That sentence is exactly the same as the previous sentence when he was writing in the present. It's exactly the same in this case. With the fathers, it's the same. The only difference is the tense of the verb. Earlier, he was writing. Now, he has written. So what's going on here, John? You all remember when Pilate put the sign over Jesus' head on the cross, "Jesus, the King of the Jews"? And remember, what did the people think of that? What did the Jews think of that? Don't write that on there. Take that off there, right? And what did Pilate say in response to them? I hear you. What I have written, I have written. What is Pilate saying when he says that? There's no whiteout, no backspace, no spellcheck. There's no, I'm not gonna erase it, I'm not writing a new song, a new sign. It's written. Got it? Something like that is what I think John is doing here. I was writing it to you, but now that it's down in pen and ink, it's written. And now that it's written, you better know it. I think that's the emphasis here. Now that it's written, it's a settled issue. Now that I have written to you, read what I wrote and believe what I wrote. And don't dare adjust it. Don't erase it. Don't mistranslate it. Don't add to it. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known him. I was writing to you, but now I have written to you. That's the idea. I think it has the idea that now that I've said it, it's like marching orders. It's like this. If he's physically writing, okay, I'm writing to you, fathers, because you've known him who is from the beginning. Here, I wrote that. You take it. Take that. Put it in your soul. Put it in your heart. Put it in your brain. Know it. Live it. Walk it. Now I have this thing written by John. He's done writing it. I have it now. It's been written. It's like John signed on the dotted line. It's almost like a contract. So that's what he's saying here, because they have known him who is from the beginning. But now I want you to see. That it's like marching orders. You gotta go live this. Now that it's written, it can't be unwritten. He wrote it in the past. This is aorist. Then verse 14, second half, I have written to you, young men. Now here's where the shift happens because there's amplification. He said before he wrote to the young men because they have overcome the wicked one, or evil. They've overcome the wicked. Now he adds to it, look, I have written to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. Do you see why I was yelling earlier about YouTube and TikTok and stupid Instagram and everything else that tells men what to be? Why were these men strong? Why were these young men commended by John? Why is he telling them they overcome the wicked one? What's the difference between them and the young men of their age? What's the difference between them and what the world says as a man? The difference, the Word of God abiding in them. Do you see it? They have the Word of God in their heart. Young men, the answer to your problems is not women, money, influence. It's having the Word of God abide in you. This is where the failure is. This is the failure of all time, is hath God said, to doubt the Word of God. And no, it isn't do 10 more Bible studies, it isn't 10 more accountability groups, it isn't 10 more software things to protect you. It's having the Word in you and dwelling you. You think Scripture. You've got a thick Bible internally. Yes, you have a thick Bible outside too, or at least a digital one. But I'm talking not about the Bible you can Google. I'm talking about the Bible that you have internalized. The reason I don't go down that path is because I agree that I made a covenant with my eyes, like the Scripture says. The reason I don't go— down that path is because I am a man of God and I'm called to love my wife. And if I don't have a wife yet, I'm gonna love my future wife enough to stay pure now. The reason I'm doing these things is 'cause Scripture has filled me so much that I care more about what God says than what I think or what I feel or what my hormones are telling me. He's already said, "If you confess, you're forgiven." He's already said, "We have an advocate before the Father." He's already talked about forgiveness. But now he's saying, You've overcome because the word is in you.

Now what can we assume if the word is not in you, young men? What can we assume? No wonder our world has the problems it does with sin. No wonder there's so many voices out there. I'll talk about that— I was gonna say this evening, but this afternoon. I already said that Nike's slogan is "Just do it." But the word Nike means It's already done, did. The word Nike is the word for victory. It assumes it was done. So this word for overcome means nobody can beat you because the word of God dwells in you. I do want you to catch that this doesn't say read the word, even though that's how you get the word of God in you. I think sometimes people get mechanical, like, like we heard on Wednesday night about prayer, where people can just just kind of repeat the same old prayer over and over again and get mechanical, get robotic with it, right? People can do that with Bible study too. "Well, I'm just gonna read this passage again. I'm gonna read this book again. Just read it real quick." No prayer, no consulting the Lord, no telling the Lord, "Please hide this word in my heart so that I wouldn't sin against you. Lord, I communicate with you through prayer. You communicate with me through the word." No communication, no dialogue, no receptivity. My antenna are not up. I'm not prepared to have the Word of God just saturate my being. When you go to the Bible, that's the way you should go to the Bible. You should go to the Bible like you're going to talk to your father, and you know he loves you, and you know he's gonna give you something good. And then that word goes in, and you're strong, and you overcome. There will always be a direct relationship between your lack of internalizing of Scripture and your trouble with sin. It's always directly related. They're proportionate. It's practically a 1-to-1 ratio. However much you neglect Scripture is how much you're gonna struggle with sin. And when I say neglect Scripture, I don't mean go through motions. I don't mean read a lot. I mean, "Lord, I'm about to open your word. I wanna hear from you. Give me wisdom, give me strength. I know your word is true. I know you've written it for your people of all time, and I know that you have something good for me when I read your word." That's a lot different than checking 10-minute boxes of Bible study.

John wants us to know that we're forgiven, that we know the Lord, and that we're strong. So how about we go, because he has written it, and it's now written, and it's now preserved for you and me, go be forgiven, know the Lord, and be strong.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for John and for his testimony. I've been saying a lot lately that I'm surprised at how strong John speaks, even though I've read this letter so many times. He's so strong and so intense and urgent. And as I read this passage today, I'm reminded of it again. And I ask, Father, that we would indeed take to heart what John wrote, that it's written and now we need to internalize it. We need to have the word in us, we need to know the Father, and we need to live like people who are forgiven. Help us do that, please, in Jesus' name. Amen.