Though I’ve only been on this Earth for twenty-seven years, over those years life has taught me a number of important lessons about myself. One of those lessons which it has seen fit to teach me over and over again, just to make sure that it sticks, is that I am, in many ways, a bit of an odd-duck.
I think this first began to dawn on me somewhere between the fourth and fifth grade, when I realized that the kids I liked to hang out with were the kids no one else liked to hang out with.
I think this first began to dawn on me somewhere between the fourth and fifth grade, when I realized that the kids I liked to hang out with were the kids no one else liked to hang out with.
It was hammered home to me during the time when everyone is feeling a bit strange, middle-school. While all the other boys were getting good at basketball, listening to cool music, and writing notes back and forth with their girlfriends, I was trying to learn how to skateboard, listening to music that made my parents uncomfortable to say the least, and whenever I got a note from a girl, the type of note that says “circle yes or no” at the bottom, their pencils started to wear little holes into the paper because they were emphasizing “no” so heavily.
I continued to exhibit some of this same odd behavior through most of high school; I had the spikey hair, the studded bracelets, the jeans that were four times the size of my leg, and getting involved in church stuff at 15, rather than reversing the behavior, only enabled it to run wild because now I was hanging out with a group of people who thought it was cool that I was odd.
Now being odd, knowing that you’re odd, and accepting that you’re odd can be liberating in a number of ways; the chief of which is that you accept the fact that you sometimes see things in life a little differently than everyone else. Now, sometimes everyone else is right, but occasionally you get to be right as well.
One of the ways in which I tend to see life differently is that I tend to be very detail-oriented; not in the perfectionist sense, the sense in which you have to get every minor detail right in order to feel comfortable, far from it, I’m a slowly-recovering slob. No, I mean in the sense that, if you tell me something, or tell me to do something, I’m going to have a lot of seemingly annoying minor questions about whatever that thing was.
My mom has occasionally said in conversation that I was the “what-if” kid. When I was younger, if she had to go run a quick errand, say to drop something off in the mail, and leave me or one of my brothers by ourselves for a few minutes, she’d always tell us “don’t answer the door, and don’t answer the phone, pretend like you’re not here.” And, of course, I’d always ask “but what if it’s Uncle Kevin, or what if it’s Grandma?” And after so many times of me asking that question, she finally replied “anyone who needs to get in here has their own key.” It wasn’t enough to simply be told not to do something; I had to know why and if there were any exceptions.
Ironically, now working with kids on a daily basis, one of the things I find most infuriating is when I give a kid a directive statement and they start asking all the “what-ifs.” I’ve heard myself say more than once “just do what I told you to do and don’t worry about the rest.” So, I guess it’s not that asking these sorts of questions is all that odd, but what is odd is that I never really grew out of it.
Even now, when at work, if you’re informing me about some new part of my job, perhaps a change in some client’s behavioral plan, be prepared for a slew of questions about implementing that plan and just what you mean by the way you worded certain things. I want to know exactly what’s lying behind what you’ve told me; otherwise I’m going to feel confused.
Being that odd-duck; I sometimes see problems where no one else sees a problem. Most of the time everyone else is right, there isn’t a problem. But occasionally I get to be right to, and there is one, and it needs to be looked at. And, for good or for ill, I tend to approach Scripture the same way. I’ll read particular passages, and they’ll set off little red flags in my brain, and I’ll have to ask a hundred different questions about the passage and look up the answers until I feel the questions have been satisfied.
Sometimes this is a good thing, it enables me to look at a passage that others might see as rather unexceptional, as Scripture goes anyway, and find something perhaps a bit more striking behind it. Sometimes, however, I have to be cautious; because, as far as I can tell, the Pharisees functioned this way as well. It wasn’t enough for them to be told that you had to rest on the Sabbath; they needed to know how many footsteps on a Saturday could be still under the category of rest. And, as Christ pointed out, they also had the tendency to take a passage which was meant to be direct and impactful, and they’d spend their time with it determining all the possible exceptions. There is a danger in focusing on the letter and neglecting the Spirit; as Paul says, the “letter kills but the Spirit gives life.” And, of course, I feel it is within my nature to say that even using that phrase that way is different than what Paul himself actually meant- he meant that the ministry of the law kills while the ministry of the Gospel gives life.
All that being said, when I read our passage for today a number of those red-flags start going up for me. One of the first red-flags isn’t even the passage itself, but the title which this passage is often given by translators and study-bible publishers. The heading often is “Love one another.” Which, on the face of it, seems to make sense. I mean, we already know that John is all about love. After my junior year in college I went on an Emmaus walk, and one of the things I remember most from that walk is this song we kept singing over and over again, “love, love, love, love, the Gospel in one word is love, love your neighbor as yourself, love, love, love.” And John would have LOVED that song. In fact, that could be the theme song of just about everything John wrote.
And it’s easy to see why the translators and Bible publishers would print the heading that way. The word “love” occurs no less than seven, arguably eight, times in this passage. But, the word which comes in a close second, occurring five times in our translations but representing two separate words, is the word “know.”
That is where this week’s sermon, “how we know what we know,” comes from. In philosophy, there’s a branch of study called epistemology, the study of what we know and how we know it. In a sense, you might call this passage a treatment of Christian epistemology; it answers the questions “what do we know about God and our relationship to Him,” and “how do we know it?”
These two Greek words which are translated as “know” mean “knowing” in two different ways. The first word, eido [“a”-doe], is used only in the past tense and typically of something known, essentially, as a fact. If you’ll allow me to read a bit into it, I’d put it this way, things which are “eido” are “taken as given.” It’s something you know with your head. An example would be verse 15: “you know (eido) that no murder has eternal life dwelling within him;” that is, you can’t be out in the world, unrepentantly hating people, murdering them in your heart, and at the same time have faith in God. The two contradict each other.
Now here is one of those red-flags. It’s taken as given, of course, but how is it that we “know” that someone can’t both have faith in God and be a murderer? Is it impossible for a Christian to commit murder? Is it impossible for a murderer to become a Christian? In both cases, I think the answer is no, it’s not impossible. It is possible that in a moment of passion, in a time when we are so overcome by rage, or fear, or whatever the emotion may be, that a person who is a Christian could in fact pull the trigger, plunge the knife, or whatever it may be.
In the same way, as John reminds us of the words of Christ “whoever hates has committed murder in his heart,” it is possible that a Christian could have had something so terrible done to them, or could be so utterly offended or angered by something someone else has done, that they might, at that time, hate the other person.
But, we “know” that sooner or later, it will dawn on them, by the power of the Spirit, that this is not how God wants them to act or feel. The Spirit will remind them that they must forgive; that God forgives them and likewise they should forgive others. And in that moment, one of two things will happen. Either they will repent, or they will tell God they don’t care what He thinks and that they’re going to go on hating. The later of the two, the one who shakes their fist in defiance at God, cannot at the same time have faith in Him. It is not the act, the hate or the murder, which excludes one from having eternal life, but the living out of that act, the embracing of it and all its consequences, the choice of hatred over God, which nullifies any forgiveness, any eternal life, because it refuses it. Instead, the person deafens their ears to that Word of forgiveness from God.
And maybe that’s you today. Maybe that’s the word you need to hear from this passage. Maybe you’re holding on to some hate in your heart; maybe in your heart you’d just as soon someone in particular was dead, or worse. If that’s you, let me speak the Word to you this morning. Let it go. Repent and believe. Take hold of the forgiveness that is here, for you and for others; receive it.
For we know, “eido,” that this is how “passing from death to life,” verse 14, works; we turn from death, hatred, murder, and defiance of God, to forgiveness, to forgiving others, and to love, God’s love for us and a developing love for others.
The other word that is translated as know is “genosko.” You may hear in that word the similar Greek word for knowledge, “gnosis,” which I have mentioned before in relation to the “Gnostics.” And I’d like to think that maybe John is using a “play on words” here, but I don't know enough to say that's the case, either way that's off the path a bit. If “eido” is something which you “take as given,” or perhaps “take for granted,” if it is something which you “know with your head,” then “genosko” is something which you don’t “take as given” or “take for granted,” but rather is something which you are reassured by; “genosko” is, in a sense, something which you know with your heart.
For example, my son, being a typical two year old, has a tendency to throw fits from time to time if he has to do something he doesn’t want to do, such as being strapped in his car seat. And during these fits he screams and flails his arms and feet. He can put up a pretty good fight when he gets going.
Now, if during one of these fits, amidst all the screaming and flailing of appendages, if my son happens to inadvertently kick me in the face, I can know two things at that moment. I can know, “eido,” as a fact, that he just kicked me in the face. I can take that as given. However, I can also know, “genosko,” as a reassurance, that he didn’t mean to kick me in the face, my face just happened to be in the way at the moment.
In a similar way, being two, and still very early on in his understanding of life, language, and a thousand other things, my son can know, “eido,” that when I say the word “hug” this means that we put our arms around each other and squeeze. But he’s also coming to know, “genosko,” that this is meant to comfort and show love. One of the cutest things in the world is when he sees either my wife or me mildly annoyed by something and he comes up, puts his arm around us and his head on us, and says “aww,” or, in his pronunciation “ooohhhwww.” That’s a very “reassuring” form of “understanding,” which I take to be the essential meaning of the word “genosko” in this passage.
“Genosko” knowledge, and again, I may be reading in a bit here, is the way in which we take what we know in our heads and puts it in our hearts. We may know, “eido,” that passing from death to life is a matter of turning to God’s forgiveness and love; but how do we know, “genosko,” that it is there for us, even us? How are we reassured of God’s love for us? Verse 16: “By this we know (genosko) love, that He laid down His life for us.” We are reassured that God accepts us, forgives us, and loves us, because He came in the flesh to die for us so that those things which stand over us, those things which we feel guilty for, could be washed away by His death on the Cross.
We are reassured by it, we “understand with our hearts” that this is His love for us. Likewise, we “understand with our hearts” that we “should lay down our lives for our brothers,” as the rest of the verse says. Christ has died for you, and by this you know, “genosko” that God loves you and understand love itself, by which you begin to love others.
John goes on to encourage those who understand, “genosko” this love to first, live it out in actual deeds rather than stopping at just words. It’s one thing to say that you love someone; it’s another to try to act on that love. He says “don’t lock-up your hearts” against a brother who’s in need. If you continue to do so, knowing that God wants you to love, forgive, comfort, and aid others, how can you continue to say that you have faith in His love for you? How could you possibly understand and be reassured by love if you shake your fist at it and refuse to live in it? Instead, because you do understand it, because you are reassured by it, spread it to others, help those in need, forgive those who hurt you, pray for those who persecute you.
John then gives us four ways we can be reassured in God’s love for us- even when we feel condemned! First, he says, “Whenever our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts.” Even when our subjective assurance, our feelings of assurance, are weak, God’s objective assurance is still there, He is still greater than anything which might try to come between us and His love for us. As Paul says in Romans 8:38, 39 “38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” One might want to add to that list feelings of guilt, inadequacy, or condemnation; our weak hearts.
Second, John says in the same verse that, in addition to being greater than our hearts, “God knows (genosko)” or understands “everything.” Like we are told in Hebrews 4:15 “15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” He sympathizes with us. He understands. He knows our imperfections and struggles better than we do ourselves.
Third, if we do trust Him, we then see the evidence of Him in our lives. John says that we “keep” his commandments. And here again is that word “keep,” meaning something, not that you absolutely obey with no failures or mistakes, but something which you hold in your heart, something which you treasure, something you guard and protect. And what is that first commandment? That we “believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.” And, lo and behold, Paul tells us in First Corinthians 12:3 “no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.” Not only do we have faith in Him, but merely having faith reassures our faith, and this leads to the fourth way in which we can be reassured.
This “evidence” is of the presence of the Holy Spirit, by which, John says in verse 24, we know that “God lives in us and we live in Him.” The presence of the Spirit itself is a testimony to God’s love for us, He has given us His Spirit.
So let us be confident of God’s love towards us, and show that same love to others in our actions.
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