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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome to the second to the last session of this family devotional series through I John. I pray our time together has been informational, but if it has only taught you about I John, then it has been a failure. I pray our time together has been transformational.
The whole purpose of this Bible study has been so that your family can either become a biblical family or continue to mature as a biblical family. The reality is that we all need to change. We all need to know God and grow in our love and worship of Him. So, I truly pray your family has been influenced and even changed in one way or another. I may never meet you in real life, but Lord willing all of you can continue to encourage and sharpen and influence each other in Christ. And I’d love to hear what the Lord is doing in your family. It may be in an email or a phone call. I may even meet you one day in person, and I would love to hear how God is maturing all of you. Of course, if you’re just joining us as you look for parenting content, I’d like to invite you to start with episode 613—which is the beginning of this family devotional series. Then again, you might be looking for other biblical parenting help, and with over 600 episodes, we deal with hundreds of topics. You can start with episode 1 (because all of our content is evergreen), or you could go to TruthLoveParent.com and search for your topic of interest there. While there you can also peruse our list of series as well as learn about our book about how to stop family strife in your home. There are so many resources, I pray that many of them will meet you in your need. And, as always, I ask that each of you look at the free notes, transcript, LifeWork, and/or the related resources linked in the description because all of those are designed to take you even deeper into our study throughout the week. And—with that delightful introduction—let’s begin. Topic
I hope you completed your LifeWork this past week. If you want to become more like Christ, the LifeWork is an amazing starting place. We need to be spending more and more time in God’s Word, in prayer, and in applying His truth to our lives.
This is why the third LifeWork assignment is so important. Did you commit to repentance this week? Did you strive in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of the Father to humbly respond to conviction, confess your sin, seek forgiveness, and commit to real change? I pray you did because that’s the whole point of what we’re going. Alright, let’s start by reading our passage. It’s a little longer, so it might be a good idea for you to read along if you think you might become distracted while I read. I John 5:1-12, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the One who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the overcoming that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that bear witness: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness about His Son. 10 The one who believes in the Son of God has this witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which God has borne witness about His Son. 11 And the witness is this, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have that life.” Today we’re talking about the consummation of Biblical Families. According to Merriam-Webster, “consummation” refers to the ultimate end. To consummate refers to finishing or completing something. Now, we’ll be considering two versions of our family’s consummation. We’ll talk about our temporal consummation as well as our eternal consummation. 1. The Biblical Family’s Temporal Consummation What’s the goal toward which we should be growing? We talked about how we should be changing and maturing, but what does spiritual maturity look like? Now, you might say, “But I thought we’ll never be perfect as long as we’re here on this earth.” That’s true, but this is the destination toward which we need to be moving. A. Spiritually mature families love everyone. I John 5:1, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the One who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of Him.” Listen, we could say so much more about this. We could look at more passages, deepen our understanding, and—more importantly—discuss the intricate ways that each of us need to love better in specific instances. For more of that, I encourage you and your family to listen to the Family Love series linked in the description. For our purposes here, we need to once again be reminded that Jesus says that love is both our process and our destination. We won’t fully arrive this side of eternity, therefore we need to perpetually be growing in love and loving better every day. But we’re not just to love our family and friends. God wants us loving our strangers and even our enemies. Now, that may sound impossible. It gets especially confusing if you’re misdefining what love is, but—by now—your understanding should be more biblical. We are to want and work toward God’s best interest for the person in front of us whether we like them or not and whether they have made us feel good or hurt us. Whether we know their name or have no idea who they are, God expects us to love them. And this point is a precise application of the next point. B. Spiritually mature families keep God’s commandments. I John 5:2, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments.” To love God and others is to keep the Lord’s commands. Jesus said this in Matthew 5:37-40, “‘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.” But I don’t want to oversimplify this. Yes, if we love God, we can do whatever we want because whatever we want will be in submission to the Bible. But we all need more specificity. Some of us are sinfully angry, others are very fearful, others of you are impatient, unkind, unmerciful, malicious, slanderous gossips, lustful, you take what you want, say what you want, do what you want even when you’ve been told not to, you lie, cheat, are lazy, are discontent, sassy, prideful, arrogant, and any number of hundreds of sins about which God warns us in His Word. The temporal consummation of the biblical family—our movement toward completeness—must involve obedience to the Scriptures. But it’s not just about doing something externally. We’ve learned that we need to do the right thing in the right way for the right reason, and—when we truly obey—we will actually like obeying . . . and not have a bad attitude about it. C. Spiritually mature families enjoy obeying God. Verse 3 says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” The word “burdensome” refers to heavy, weighty, serious, and even savage. That means keeping His commandments will be light. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” I’ve avoided mentioning the last facet of biblical obedience until now. If I’m doing the right thing in the right way for the right reason, I have a promise that I will do it in the right power. And that power is the almighty power of God. Yes, obeying God is a burden, but the Holy Spirit allows us to carry that burden with joy . . . to obey with contentment and peace and thanksgiving. I know it may be hard to believe, and that’s why this will require our next point. D. Spiritually mature families have strong faith. I John 5:4-5 says, “For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the overcoming that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” Faith is not simply a feeling or a thought or a piece of knowledge. Faith is a confident trust that something is undeniably true. And if it’s true, there are consequences. It’s faith that keeps us from jumping off tall buildings. We believe the fall will hurt us or kill us. But it’s also faith that will motivate a child to jump off of something into his or her parent’s arms. We submit to God because we believe His way is best. Therefore, a biblical family striving to obey the Scriptures is doing so because they trust God. If we want our faith to grow and mature, we must obey more. There is so much more that could be said about this, but I’m going to strongly encourage you to listen to our Merest Christianity Series. Those episodes will teach you all about faith and how to grow it. And speaking of growing faith, we also have a series on the Celebration of God called “Grow Your Worship.” That too will be vital in this process because practical daily worship is only as strong as our faith in God. Both of those resources have been linked for you in the description. And all of this love, obedience, joy, and faith will result in a truly amazing reality. E. Spiritually mature families overcome the world. The two verses we just read talked about overcoming 4 times! The Greek root word here you would recognize as Nike. Nike was believed to be the Greek goddess of victory. But the true God uses the word to describe the victory His people will have when they believe in His Son. So, what is it to overcome? Well, I believe there are two facets of this truth. In Romans 12:21, Paul writes, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” This beautifully sums up so much of what John has been teaching us. The world wants to overcome us. It’s one of our enemies, and this world system wants to influence us to walk in darkness. But we need to overcome that evil influence. We need to be a more powerful influence for the light than they are for the dark. So, practically, we overcome the world when our faith in Christ results in our submission to God’s commands. We’ll not only be living righteously—and so overcoming the world—but some of that righteous living will be in deliberate evangelism that will result in sharing the light with those in the dark. But there’s also a future implication here. And so, let us turn to our final point of the day. 2. The Biblical Family’s Eternal Consummation A. Overcoming the World In John 16:33 Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” This world will try to beat us down. Satan wants to eat us like a lion eats a lamb. We will definitely suffer tribulation when we live for Christ, but it is Jesus Christ Himself who has overcome the World. Jesus has already won. Satan, the World, and our Flesh are fighting a lost battle. Jesus has already defeated sin and death, and we’re merely waiting here and now for God to finish calling His people to Him. Once that is done, the countdown will reach 0, and the promised consummation of the Scriptures, our glorious hope will be revealed. From then into eternity, sin will cease to exist. The World will be utterly and finally completely overcome. As we strive to overcome it now, then it will be complete as we get to experience . . . B. Eternal Life I John 5:10-12 says, “The one who believes in the Son of God has this witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which God has borne witness about His Son. 11 And the witness is this, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have that life.” We talked about this hope earlier. The final consummation of the biblical family will be an eternity living life as God created it to be lived, sinlessly in His glory and fellowship. What a glorious day! And—as we discussed before—it’s this hope that should motivate our righteous living in the light here and now as we mature in Christ and move toward that final consummation. Conclusion
The word “consummation” refers to the end, the completion of a thing. But our completion is a process. We are to be living more and more in the light and daily being perfected in Christ as we move toward our total glorification at the Lord’s return.
We shouldn’t sit back complacently waiting and stagnantly existing. If that’s how we’re living, we don’t have true spiritual life. God is actively working to sanctify us. We need to be participating in that process for His glory! We need to be obeying better, loving more, experiencing joy in righteousness, and overcoming the temptations to sin from the outside and the inside. Once again, I strongly encourage your family to listen to the Spiritual Warfare in Your Home series. It will help you better understand and fight against the moment by moment temptations that you experience every day. I want to thank you for spending this time with us. It’s a beautiful thing when God’s people work together to love God and each other better. It’s the Lord’s plan for us to be more biblically mature. So, I’m proud of you for making it this far. Next week is our final session in this Bible study. I look forward to spending that last bit of time with you equipping your family to be more biblical. But before we finish today, we’re going to reread our passage in light of the truth we’ve learned. I John 5:1-12, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the One who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the overcoming that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that bear witness: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness about His Son. 10 The one who believes in the Son of God has this witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which God has borne witness about His Son. 11 And the witness is this, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have that life.” In light of this, here’s our LifeWork for this week. 1. Meditate on I John 5:13-21 at least two times this week. Continue spending time with God every day! 2. Daily ask God to convict you of your sin and empower you to change. We know that’s what He already wants to do, but praying this keeps us engaging with His plans. 3. Pursue your consummation this week. Don’t stagnantly wait for glorification, grow in your sanctification this week. Strive to become like Christ to the glory of the Father in the power of the Spirit. Run toward the light and away from the dark. And then share this series with your friends, family, and pastor. And never hesitate to email us at [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (828) 423-0894 if we can minister to you in individual or family counseling. And then I’ll see you next week as we discuss our confidence. See you then!
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