1 John 2:28-3:6
Remind me
Emily:how we started because it's been a year. It's been a year. Do you know it's been a year? Geez. I'm sure you know.
Emily:You probably know that.
Megan:No. I did not know that.
Emily:It's been a year. I listened to our last episode, and it was before Savannah's birthday, which was February. Oops.
Megan:Well, we're back. We're back. We're back and better than ever.
Emily:After a whole year.
Megan:We wanted, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. We were just trying to make our fan base, fond us.
Emily:Y'all have missed us so much because we made you wait. That or everyone left. We we have to start all over. But here here we are. Here we are.
Emily:We made it. We made it back after a year. I had a baby. Megan is now solo bold movement. Officially
Megan:full time bold movement. Can you believe that?
Emily:Full time, which means no episode will be lost after this because you've got all the time in the world
Megan:now. Dite. This is my job. Mhmm. And in case you don't remember us, I'm Megan Mullins.
Emily:And I'm Emily Richardson.
Megan:And we are co hosts of the Talk Bible to Me podcast where we go verse by verse through scripture, and we are going to finish first John now that we are back. So excited. So we might be a little rusty, but we are going to try to keep this to a good 20 minutes, so you guys can listen to it on your way to work. And if you have longer than a 20 minute, commute, don't worry. We've got more podcasts from the past that you can listen to.
Megan:Here's what we do. We are using the bold method BOLD. It's an acronym and B is begin with prayer and scripture. So Emily why don't you open us up in prayer and we'll get started.
Emily:Alright.
Megan:Okay. Jesus, we thank you
Emily:so much that you have given us tools to be able to have a podcast that we can use for your glory. And we just ask that everything that we talk about, everything we teach and share over the next 20 minutes is words that your spirit leads us to share and nothing more and that we would follow after you in everything that we do. We pray that you would give us wisdom and that all of our friends listening would have ears to hear and that we would just have a great time.
Megan:In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Alright, so we begin with prayer and when you're studying scripture, it's a really wise idea to actually scripture, to read it in multiple translations. And so, I like to read from 3 translations. 1, word for word, one thought for thought, and one paraphrased.
Megan:And so I have those. Emily, what translation do you have?
Emily:I've got the ESV.
Megan:Perfect. Because I have the ESV as our word for word. So do you wanna read, today we're covering first John 228 through 36, and you wanna read that from the ESV?
Emily:I can do that. Alright. 1st John 228 through 36. And now little children abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him and shame in his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practice right practices righteousness has been born of him.
Emily:See what kind of love the father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. And we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness sin is lawlessness You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him, there is no sin.
Emily:No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
Megan:Oh, I cannot wait to dissect this bad boy. Mhmm. Before we do that, let me read it from the New Living Translation. And now, dear children, remain in fellowship with Christ so that when he returns, you will be full of courage and not shrink back from him in shame. Since we know that Christ is righteous, we also know that all who do what is right are God's children.
Megan:See how very much our father yeah. See how very much our father loves us, for he calls us his children. And that is what we are. But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know him. Dear friends, we are already God's children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears.
Megan:But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. All who have the eager expectation will keep themselves pure just as he is pure. Everyone who sin is breaking God's law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin, but anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.
Megan:I did it in the message too. Do you have that? I
Emily:can pull it up unless you have it if you have it on you go ahead.
Megan:Okay. For a paraphrase version, I have the message for this one and it says, and now children, stay with Christ. Look deeply in Christ. Then we'll be ready for him when he appears, ready to receive him with open arms with no cause for red faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives. Once you're convinced that he is right and righteous, you'll recognize that all who practice righteousness are God's true children.
Megan:What marvelous love the father has extended to us. Just look at it. We're called children of God. That's who we really are. But that's also why the world doesn't recognize us or take us seriously because it has no idea who he is or what he's up to.
Megan:But friends, that's exactly who we are, children of God, and that's only the beginning. Who knows how we'll end up? What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we'll see him, and in seeing him become like him. All of us who look forward to his coming stay ready with the glistening purity of Jesus, life as a model for our own. All who indulge in a sinful life are dangerously lawless, for sin is a major distribution of God's order.
Megan:Surely, you know that Christ showed up in order to get rid of sin. There is no sin in him, and sin is not part of his program. They've got him all backward. They've got him all backward. I love the message.
Megan:Obviously, we do not condone it for study, but I think it's great for just reading. Mhmm. I love it.
Emily:Yep.
Megan:Okay. So typically with the b, begin with prayer and scripture, we have you annotate scripture if the passages are short enough, or the book is short enough, reading the passage in context of the whole book, but because we're studying this altogether, we're just going to read those passages in those versions, and we read them out loud, which is another part of our, how how we study the Bible. The next step is, oh, on your own, wrestle with the text. And I just have a couple questions for you, Emily, to help us wrestle with this text. Are you ready?
Emily:I'm ready.
Megan:Can you summarize this passage in one sentence?
Emily:Yes. Because I prepared for
Megan:Okay.
Emily:For everyone else, it might take a little a little minute to summarize it, but, the summary I came up with was because we have been reborn as children of God, we should behave as such.
Megan:Okay. I think that was really good. Thanks. Yeah. Mine was when you choose God, you'll choose not to sin.
Emily:That's good. It's a lot more simple than mine.
Megan:Well Yeah. It doesn't always mean it's better though. Right?
Emily:I didn't say better. Just more simple.
Megan:Oh, I said better. Probably. I never said it was better, Megan. Ever. I have a new question for you.
Megan:Uh-oh. And I just I'm gonna spring up on you.
Emily:Go for it.
Megan:Okay. What is God revealing about himself in this passage?
Emily:Oh, that's a good question. Alright. Let's see. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is his fatherhood, his father characteristic that he is not only a father to those who follow him, but a good one. Because, you know, sometimes we can think of father as a missing piece or a lot of times in our earthly experience, we have not the best experience of a father, but he's giving us a good definition of what father looks like.
Emily:Love and teaches obedience. Yeah. What about you?
Megan:I think what it reveals and what I'm taking from it is that God takes sin seriously.
Emily:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Megan:I think too often, it's like, oh, we'll sin and he'll forgive us. Oh, we'll sin and he'll forgive us. But Paul even says, like, should you send more so that grace abounds more freely? Absolutely not. Mhmm.
Megan:And I think there's too often we just don't take sin as seriously as we should. And so Yeah. I think that's what it tells us is he takes it seriously, so we should too.
Emily:That's good. That's good.
Megan:What should I be taking away from this passage?
Emily:So the question I had was the connection to the meta narrative. Are you are you thinking the same thing or Yeah.
Megan:II was just trying to make it simpler terms in light of all of scripture. What should I take away from this passage? That's probably a better way of asking it.
Emily:I think it shows that when you abide in God or you live according to the way he wants you to live and you seek him and you, find your purpose in him, it gives glimpses to how creation was originally meant to be, that we will have that pure relationship with him where following him is a joy and loving others is a joy. And then it looks ahead to, I think, what it will be at his return as well because it it brings all of that back together, that perfect relationship and that, you know, that he's a good father and that we're his children, and sin will be no more when he comes back, which will be great. But in the meantime, we live the way he tells us to live, and that helps helps us not sin as much as we maybe want to.
Megan:Absolutely. I think it's I like to summarize all of scripture similar to the way that I summarize the gospel. Right? Creation, fall Mhmm. Redemption, restoration.
Megan:And I think it's part of that restoration process, like you said, where he restores us back to what we are originally designed to be and originally designed to look like and reflect him. Last question where we wrestle with our own. Are you ready? Mhmm. Now that we know what this is saying, what is this passage not saying?
Emily:This passage is not saying that sending it all means you're not a child of God. Because I think we can read that and turn it into either self righteousness of, oh, I'm never gonna send again because I'm a child of God or into self hatred of, oh, if I sin, sin, then I'm terrible. I'm not doing what I'm supposed to. Maybe I'm not a child of God. No.
Emily:We're still gonna sin.
Megan:Mhmm.
Emily:But it just means that our hearts are changing to want to sin less, to become more like Jesus. And when we do sin, we have repentance, and we turn towards him because we actually truly feel bad about what we've done, and we want to change.
Megan:That was really good. I totally went a completely not completely different direction, but that's why we have 2 of us hosting this. Right?
Emily:Yeah.
Megan:In verse 29, it says, if you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. What it is not saying is that, just because you do good deeds or just because you're doing good things that you are saved. Mhmm. Morality doesn't save you, and being a good person doesn't save you. It's Jesus alone that saves you.
Emily:Yep.
Megan:And, what John is talking about here is, when you practice righteousness, which is right standing with God, not just being a good person, and I don't want people to confuse that.
Emily:Yeah. I feel like that's becoming more and more prevalent too, that people think that their good works are earning them something.
Megan:Yeah. I have a tendency to fall into that. I'm not even gonna lie to you. I think, a lot of times I, it's like, oh, I gotta make God proud of me or I have to make him love me more. Like, I don't want to disappoint him.
Megan:And at the end of the day, like, there's nothing I can do that will ever make him love me less than he does or more. And that's really hard to fathom, because everything on earth is so conditional.
Emily:Mhmm. Yeah. Which is it's interesting the way both of our minds went after that, because I'm the opposite where I tend to focus on my sin and think like, oh, gosh. I've done so many wrong things instead of thinking of like, oh, I've done this much and this much for God. Instead, I think, oh, I haven't done or I haven't done this much.
Emily:And so then I sit in the depression of Yeah. Oh, gosh. I'm not good enough for him, but that just shows that you can you can take these and focus on 2 totally different things from one verse.
Megan:Yeah. It really is for everyone. There's a song by sovereign grace and it says, it's called cling to Christ And, the opening lyrics are like, Lord, I come and boast of things I've done. And then essentially, it's like but basically, the only thing that gets me to you is clinging to Christ. And I remember listening to that song.
Megan:I was like driving to, an event and I was just like sobbing. Oh my God. Like I laid my trophies down and, like, you don't even care about my trophies. You just love me for me. And I was like, oh, you can tell I'm a goal oriented person.
Megan:That sucks.
Emily:So between you and me, something is right in the middle. We just need to, like, lean on each other.
Megan:I know.
Emily:I'm like, no. No.
Megan:We're guard her, and you'll be like, just rest in his Yep. Oh, okay. The next letter is l, which is learn something, and this is where you can use extra biblical resources and tools. Emily, I'm gonna let you take this one.
Emily:Okay. Let's see. Okay. Verse 28 where it says, and now little children abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink back from him and shame at his coming. My expositors bible commentary had a really great little note on this.
Emily:It said confidence is one of John's favorite words to describe the freedom and boldness that belong to the Christian before God in prayer and at Christ's coming. So the 2 situations that he uses the word confidence is when we go before God in prayer and mention of Christ's return, which is just to me so beautiful because of when you think of the old testament and how no one could go before God with confidence except for the one priest. And thinking of Jesus's return, so many of us get scared. Oh, I'm not ready for him to come back yet because I have so many things I wanna get done before then. But instead, we're supposed to have this confidence in both areas that we can approach God with confidence.
Emily:And I always love that picture of, you know, going before a king. If you went into England and you went before the king of England, you couldn't just walk in with confidence. You'd get arrested, put in jail, whatever. But with our God, we get to actually just walk up and talk to him and be with him. And he is not only king, but he's, again, his father.
Emily:So that confidence to just go before him with whatever our needs are and then also knowing that when he returns, if you're in Christ, there is no fear in that moment. It's, I mean, I cannot wait. And but it took me a long time to feel confident about his return because I thought it was gonna be a scary thing, but it's it's beautiful. It's wonderful if you are in Christ. So, there was that, but I just thought it was great.
Emily:Yeah.
Megan:I wanna tell you this one thing. Yeah my grandmother my Gigi was in hospice and I was reading 1st John to her and the last thing I said to her was and now little children abide in him so that we and in the translation I was reading, it said, so that we can go boldly before him and not shrink back in shame and I said Gigi isn't that wonderful. We can boldly just go before God and she took her last breath.
Emily:Oh my goodness.
Megan:It was the coolest way to go. Like, she was a godly woman. I know where she is. We were devastated because she was matriarch, but like, what a way to go or
Emily:it's talking to you. Just hearing that that's beautiful.
Megan:Oh my god. It was so cool. So this passage has a very special place in my heart.
Emily:Oh, I love that. Yeah. I love that. That's if we could all go that way and have that confidence, it'd be it'd be a whole different thing.
Megan:Okay. Keep going. I'm sorry I interrupted you. I just had to No.
Emily:That's a good interruption. That was a worthy introduct interruption. That's great. Let's see. And then the dominant theme, I also got this from my exposures commentary.
Emily:I just had to read through my notes. I handwrote everything. So my chicken scratch, I have to read it every now and then, but, the dominant theme is to provide assurance that even as the believers continue in Jesus. So in other words, as we live on this earth, and we have to kind of live through the evil things in the darkness of this world, we have to be bold and continue in Jesus. They can know that they're children of God.
Emily:The tests for knowing if you're a child of God are 1, doing what's right to loving one another and 3 testing the spirits. And, and then obedience will guarantee confidence before Jesus at his coming
Megan:So this is not saying that this is what saves us. This is what gives
Emily:us assurance that we So this is not saying that this is what saves us. This is what gives us assurance that we are living in God's will, I guess, is the best way to put it. Are we being obedient? And if we're being obedient, and we know we're being obedient, first of all, as a believer, obedience is gonna be a joy. It's not gonna be something that we dread or hate.
Emily:It's it's a joy because we know what he's done for us, and we'll get to that a little more in some of the other sections of first John because that we do talk about we love because he first loved us, but, this idea that obedience will guarantee that confidence before Jesus. If we know that we've been living the way he wants us to live, then we're not gonna be afraid of his judgment when he comes back. If we are obedient to his word, to love him and love others, then when we pray, we know we're not, praying for things that are probably out of his will. So so, yeah, that's that's the main the main pieces I got out of this and studied on for a while.
Megan:Yeah. As you grow in your faith, your heart's going to align more with his. Yep. Love that. I just wanna add one thing real quick.
Megan:I think this is one of those things that we don't talk about enough, and we're just gonna boldly put it out there in, verses 4, 5, and 6. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. I just want to put this out there. Scripture tells us that if you love Jesus, you will keep his commands.
Megan:Right?
Emily:Mhmm.
Megan:And the last thing he told us to do is to go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of father, son, and holy spirit, and teaching them all the things that I have commanded you. And how often are we not sharing our faith? In Hebrews, he tells us do not forsake the church. How often are we skipping services and just watching it online? Or, I'm so sick of people saying, and I'm not putting up with it anymore.
Megan:Sorry, guys. I'm so sick of people saying you don't have to be a Christian, or you don't have to go to church to be a Christian.
Emily:Yeah.
Megan:Yeah. And I'm just like, you do to be an obedient Christian. Mhmm. And first John tells us if you're not being obedient, like what are you doing? Like, if you have the Holy Spirit, you're going to be convicted and you're gonna step it up.
Megan:Now, I'm not sitting here telling you who are listening to this that you're going to hell because you don't have a church but what I am saying is if you're truly a follower of Christ, he tells you not to forsake the church and here's your here's your sign. This is your call to accountability like I'm I'm calling you because I love you and I want you to do what Christ has called us to do. You need to find a church. You need to have a group of people who have your back. You need to be in the word every day.
Megan:You need to be sharing your faith. These are not options, and your personality does not excuse you from it. It's not share your faith unless you're shy. Share your faith if you're in a good mood. It is to die is Christ or to live as Christ to die as gain.
Megan:And we really need to step up as Christians. I feel like we've become very lackadaisic and, I'm just, I love you too much to let you live in ignorance.
Emily:Yes. And even just, and I can't think of the exact reference as we were we were just talking about before the podcast that we wanna learn how to memorize where things are in scripture. But the verse that talks about, when you go before kings and authorities and, you know, during persecution to share the gospel, it actually says, don't think about ahead of time what you're going to say, be prepared for it. But the Holy Spirit will give you words. And so we spend all this time not sharing the gospel because we're afraid gospel because we're afraid.
Emily:And yet the Bible tells us that he will give us words to say what fear is there if we know that the words of God are going to be aiding us as we're trying to share the gospel with our friends. Who knows what small little thing you say is gonna stick with them forever and be a seed planted? So, and we've even talked about at our church, I say we've talked about our church very lightly because I'm a pastor's wife, so, we talk about lots of things. But we've talked about the idea of not having video, like, online services because I think it kind of it does kinda help people stay home when we want them to be coming in church. Yeah.
Emily:At the same time, it's like, you know, if your kids are sick and you can't go to church that day, it is nice to be able to still be connected. So it's like a pro and con of it. But, overall, I do feel like in our country, it's just kept people lazy because they're like, oh, I can just watch it online and how nice it I see it on Instagram all the time. Oh, so nice to just stay home and watch online today for no reason other than just wanted to stay in my jammies.
Megan:Yeah. We're missing out. Yeah. It's God created us to be relational beings. We need one another.
Megan:We need accountability. We need support. We need love. We need prayer. We need, people to rejoice with us when we're rejoicing and mourn with us when we're mourning.
Megan:And when we're not a part of a local body, we are not being obedient
Emily:to the way he created us and
Megan:what he's called us to do. Yep. So get into church. Alright. Let's wrap this up.
Megan:It's great to know scripture. It's great to study it. But unless we put it into action, we're just gonna be arrogant jerks running around. So, d, do something with it. How can we take this passage of scripture and apply it today?
Emily:So I put, along with what I was studying those three questions that were from my commentary, or the three tests of knowing if you're doing what's right as or know if you're continuing on with Jesus, your children of God, doing what's right, loving one another, and testing the spirits. And I thought, you know, I could be asking myself that, you know, daily or weekly, Am I doing what's right? Am I loving those around me? Are we loving one another? And am I testing the spirits?
Emily:Am I making sure I'm not just believing everything I hear, but testing everything I hear to scripture to make sure it's lining up correctly? So those 3 those are the 3 things I think I could take away from that.
Megan:And I'm I'm just gonna piggyback on yours. Am I doing right? The only way we know is if we check it against scripture. So I think you have to be in the word and you have to know what God has, commanded of you to know if you're doing it right or not. So my challenge is to get into scripture and to, stop living in habitual sin.
Emily:If you
Megan:have a habitual sin, this is another call to accountability. Confess it and repent. It's time. You got this. The world needs you, obedient to God.
Megan:We gotta this lost and dying world needs you. So it's time to step up, ladies.
Emily:Go with the challenge, Meg. I love it.
Megan:That's right. Call to action, baby. I hope you guys return next week. Next week, we're gonna be covering 1st John chapter 3:7 through 18. I really hope you guys join us, and I hope you know that we love you and we want the best for you.
Megan:Until next time.
Emily:Go out and be bold.
