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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back! My name is Aaron Brewster, I’m a biblical counselor, and parenting, marriage, and family ministry has been my focus for the nearly 20 years. My wife and I have two children in college, and we’ve had 50 different young men and women live in our home over the past 20 years of our marriage. In addition to that, I have counseled hundreds of people and spoken for thousands.
But . . . None of that really matters. Why not? Because your family doesn’t need my experience to know how to have the best and most spiritually successful biblical family you can have. God’s Word has everything we need for life and godliness, and I’m honored to be walking this path with you as a fellow disciple of Christ and someone who’s trying to help his own family be a biblical family. Now, before we get much further, if this is your first time joining us, please go back to Part 1 of this family devotional. This is Part 4, and I wouldn’t want you to miss out on the very necessary foundation we’ve been laying. Everything we’re going to talk about moving forward is impossible without the correct foundation, start, and continuation. But if you’re retuning with us, I’m glad you’re here and hope that you don’t just stop by listening to this session. I hope you’ll take advantage of the free notes, transcript, LifeWork, and related resources linked for you in the description of this episode. But we have a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s get started. Topic
I hope that you Read I John 2:7-14 this week, asked the Lord to show you the things you do and say that aren’t motivated by God’s glory, and I hope you shared that with your family members. If you haven’t done that yet, you can always pause this session, share your findings with each other, confess and apologize as necessary, and then just restart the session when you’re ready.
As you engage with the LifeWork, you are engaging with the disciplines God wants His children doing every day. Jesus was a perfect example to us of someone Who spent time in the Word, prayer, and fellowshipping with God’s people every day. And we should be doing the same. And as we live with each other in the light, God has some specific expectations for what that looks like. So, let’s read I John 2:7-14, together “Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. 8 On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. 9 The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. 10 The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 11 But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness blinded his eyes. 12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake. 13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you have known Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you have known the Father. 14 I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” There is so much beautiful truth in this passage, so we’re just going to dive right in. 1. Biblical Families live the Greatest Commandment. I’ve mentioned a couple times now how John has alluded to other very important biblical truths. He did it with the beginning, and he did it with light, and now he’s doing it again with the “commandment.” The Jews would have been very familiar with the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. But there was one commandment that was considered to be more important than the rest because it was the first, and it was the one from which all the others grew. The first commandment was “You shall have no other gods before Me.” When Moses summarized God’s commands in Deuteronomy 6, he wrote, “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments, which Yahweh your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do it in the land where you are going over to possess it, 2 so that you and your son and your grandson might fear Yahweh your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.” So, it’s with this background that the next passage might surprise you. In Matthew 22 a scholar of the Old Testament Law wanted to test Jesus, so he asked Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” If I had to guess why the scholar would ask Jesus (Who was a Jew) what should have been a very easy question, I’d say that the scholar wanted to try to trap Jesus. If Jesus had said any one of the commandments, the scholar would have tried to have a philosophical discussion with Him to prove that another was more important. But—of course—Jesus’ answer was the best answer. Jesus told him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.” In the book of Mark, we learn what happened afterward, “And the scribe said to Him, ‘Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that He is One, and there is no one else besides Him; 33 and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ 34 And when Jesus saw that he had answered thoughtfully, He said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that, no one would dare to ask Him any more questions.” Of course, there was another time that someone tried to test Jesus, and Jesus told them something very similar, but this individual did want to argue, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Well, Jesus then shared the parable of the Good Samaritan and—once again—silenced the crowd with the truth that everyone is our neighbor regardless of whether they are like us or not. I share all of this because John has just written, “Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. 8 On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.” What’s the difference between the old and the new commandment? Not much, really. John is saying that the commandment is the same that it’s always been—love God and love your neighbor. But he’s also alluding to another truth. That truth is that no one can truly love God or their neighbor unless they are grounded on God and are living in the light. In order to do that, you need to be saved through the blood of Jesus Christ. In John 13:33, right before He was crucified, Jesus told His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” The new part of this command is that Jesus is using Himself as the standard for love. Ezekiel 36 is a very interesting passage in which God promises His children that “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to do My judgments.” Our inability to be righteous in our own strength is why God gives us the Holy Spirit to empower us to live in the light as He Himself is in the light. Now, this is a long introduction to this point because it’s important for us to understand the foundation off which John is writing. These are things most of John’s audience would understand, and it’s important for us too. The commandment is simple: love God and others. The execution is impossible without God helping us. So then John explains the greatest commandment: “The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. 10 The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 11 But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness blinded his eyes.” John is staying with the themes he’s already used, but he’s adding the new layer of love and hate. Now, we just don’t have time today for me to provide a thorough biblical proof for my next two claims, but we do have a whole series called “Family Love” which I really encourage your family to consume together. It walks through all these truths with significant biblical explanation. But here’s the biblical truth we need to accept. The love and hate John is describing are not primarily feelings. They’re not emotions. They’re beliefs, words, and actions. To love someone is to want and work toward God’s best interest in their lives. It’s basically to do for and to them what God wants you to do for and to them. And to hate someone is to do the opposite. To hate someone is to set yourself against God’s best interest in their lives because you’re pursuing your own perceived best interest. If you are living in the light, you absolutely will righteously pursue God’s glory in the lives of the people in your family. However, if you are sinning against the people in your family, you are hating them. You can even biblically hate someone when you feel positive emotions toward them. Here are a couple examples. A child has big emotions toward her mother, so she tries to get her mother away from her baby brother so that her mother can spend more time with her. That’s selfish. That’s not in the best interest of her mother or the baby. Parents do this too. Parents can be tempted to play favorites with their children, but playing favorites it unloving and biblically hateful because it goes against God’s expectations for your family to love as He loves you. Now, John is going to talk a lot about love and hate throughout the rest of his letter. He’s going to revisit these themes over and over because love is the foremost evidence that someone is living in the light, and hate is the foremost evidence that someone is living in the dark. Peter shows us this same truth in his second letter. He reveals that love is the evidence of spiritual maturity. We discuss this in our Evidence of Spiritual Life Series. And Paul repeatedly shows the preeminence of love all throughout each of this letters, and he dedicates all of I Corinthians 13 to the topic. Please take some time as a family to work through the Family Love material. Most of us—I would argue that all of us (I included)—absolutely don’t love the way God loves us. We need to better understand love and live it more consistently. Okay, so that was point one, but—don’t worry—there’s only one more point for today. 2. Biblical families have everything they need to live righteously. As I mentioned earlier, I will have been ministering to families for 20 years in 2027, and it never ceases to surprise me how many professing Christians truly believe that they can’t live righteously or that they are missing something that’s keeping them from living righteously . . . even though the entire Scriptures argue the opposite. I used to have a teacher whose favorite thing to say when professing Christians said something that was biblically untrue was, “You should buy a white t-shirt and black sharpie and write, ‘I don’t read my Bible’ on the shirt.” If you told me that you love the story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but then as you were telling me the story, you told me The Wizard of Oz instead, I would know that you don’t really know The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And the same is true for professing Christians who claim to know God and His Word but who contradict it. II Peter tells us that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. I Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” And John is about to show us that we have everything we need to love as God loves us. A. If you have been saved, you have everything you need. I John 2:12 says, “12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake.” And then John repeats himself in the second half of verse 13, “I have written to you, children, because you have known the Father.” If you are the youngest child in your family, and you have confessed your sin and believed that Jesus is God, then John is actually writing to you. And he says that your forgiveness in Christ is the foundation for how you’re going to be able to love the way you should. Romans 8 reveals a really scary reality. It says that those who are unsaved—Paul uses the phrase “in the flesh”—are absolutely incapable of glorifying God. He writes in verses 6-8, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is at enmity toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.” We cannot submit to God’s commands and live righteously in the light and love as He loves if we are not first born again. I really should have made this point two episodes ago, but it’s important to make here because the opposite is true. If I am born again, I can live righteously. Just a couple verses later Paul writes, “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” When he talks about our body being dead because of sin, he’s referring to our sin nature we inherited from Adam, but then he says that our spirit—that’s our heart—is alive because of righteousness. And this truth is for everyone who is born again. B. The longer you have been saved, the more grace has been given to you. In the beginning of verse 13 we read, “13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you have known Him who has been from the beginning.” In verse 14 he says, “I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who has been from the beginning.” Not only do we see John using the beginning as an indication of divinity, but we talked about grace a little bit last time. We don’t experience more of God’s grace by sinning more. We experience more of it by living in it longer. You parents have likely been saved longer than your kids have. That’s not always the case, but frequently is. You should be loving better than your children. You should be hating less than they. You should be living more consistently in the light because you have more practice by the grace and power of God. But this is true of all of us. We should all be walking in the light better this year than we were last year. All living things grow, so if you have been made alive in Christ, you need to be growing and maturing and changing into His image. I always question someone who says they’re a Christian but who is exactly the same (or worse) than they were when they claimed to have been saved. C. The more successfully you live in the light, the easier it is to live in the light. In verse 13, John changes his audience again, “I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.” And then again in the middle of verse 14 he writes, “I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” There are moments in everyone’s life where you are able to accomplish that one thing that you thought you’d never be able to accomplish. I remember when I finally beat Super Mario Brothers. I was so excited. I thought like I could do anything. Of course, that’s a comparatively silly example when compared to getting a driver’s license or having a child after years of infertility, but the truth is the same regardless. The more you have been born again, the more you have been able to live in the light by the power of the Holy Spirit. Those experiences of doing what you could never have done on your own—loving the way God loves and living righteously and being holy as God is holy—give us encouragement and hope for continuing to do so in the future. But there’s one more absolutely necessary truth John is teaching us. D. You have God’s Word to give you everything you need to live righteously. John said, “I have written to you, young men, because you are strong.” Of course, we know that it’s God’s strength in us that allows us to live righteously as He is righteous. But the next part is the key, “and the word of God abides in you.” Psalm 119:9 asks and answers a question, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.” Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” In fact, the entirety of Psalm 119 (the longest chapter in the Bible) is all about the importance of God’s Word in our lives. But there’re more. All throughout the Old Testament, the children of Israel were told to keep God’s law, statutes, ordinances, and commands. Colossians 3:16 commands, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” II Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Do you want to be equipped for every good work? You absolutely need the Scriptures. Earlier I mentioned that Peter said that God had given us everything we need for life and godliness. Do you know where we find that? Peter goes on to tell us that it comes through the knowledge of God. Do you know where we learn of God? In the Bible. This Bible study isn’t important because you’re listening to it on Truth.Love.Family. or because Aaron Brewster is guiding you through it. It’s important because none of us can glorify God as we should if we’re not consistently studying His Word to know how He would have us glorify Him in this life. Our family cannot be a biblical family if the members of the family are ignoring the Bible. There are so many countries in this world where owning a Bible can get you thrown in jail or killed. You are blessed if you live somewhere you’re allowed to listen to a family devotional like this and own a copy of God’s Word. But owning a copy isn’t good enough. You need to read and study and live it. We can live righteously because the Word of God abides in us. It fills us. It lives in us. Conclusion
This is why I really hope you’ll participate with our LifeWork. Don’t neglect time with God in His Word and in prayer.
John is going to revisit these themes of love and hate, and we still have so much to learn about them. So, in preparation for next week, here’s your LifeWork. 1. Read I John 2:15-25 two times. 2. Ask God to show you the hate in your life. Last week you were to identify two times when you might have looked like you were doing something good in the right way, but when your motivation was sinful. This week we want to identify at least two times that we’re being hateful. It may be obvious like deliberately sinning against someone, but it may also be harder to see like the examples last week. But we need to keep our brains turned on and be looking for areas to grow. When you identify these areas, be sure to confess your sin and ask for forgiveness. But then also ask the Lord to teach you how to love better. 3. Come back next week to learn about the Enemy of Biblical Families. Now, you may think you know who the enemy is. In fact, you may think he was talked about today—you know, the “evil one.” But though he may be an enemy, he’s not the one we really need to worry about if we’re a biblical family. And lastly, I’ll share that we are approaching the 10th anniversary of this ministry. In preparation for another 10 years of ministry, we’re trying to raise money. You see, we’re a non-profit. We don’t make money by selling things, we make money to continue creating these free resources when families like yours donate. Please visit TruthLoveParent.com/donate if you would like to help us minster to families all over the world. See you next time.
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