Abiding in Christ | 1 John 2:18-29 (1/21/2024)

John continues his sermon series on the book of 1 John, focusing on the topic of the Antichrist. He explains that there have been many Antichrists who have come and gone, and they were not truly part of the church. John warns the church to be aware of those who deny Jesus as the Christ, as they are the Antichrist. He encourages believers to abide in the truth and in Jesus, as they have been anointed by the Holy One. John emphasizes the importance of endurance and remaining in the faith, as those who truly belong to Christ will persevere until the end. He reminds the church that they have been anointed and equipped to withstand opposition. The main point of the sermon is that because Christians have been anointed, they are to abide with confidence. If you have your Bibles, do make your way to the book of 1 John as we continue our sermon series through this wonderful epistle. And so for this morning, we'll start where we left off in verse 18, and we will finish out the rest of chapter 2, 1 John 2, beginning in verse 18. And these are the words of the one and only everlasting God who cannot lie. Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they are not all of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you have all knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar? But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He made to us, eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you have received from Him abides in you. You should have no need that anyone should teach you, but as His anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in Him. And now, little children, abide in Him so that when He hears, we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him. While the grass withers and the flower fades, let us pray. Heavenly Father, we praise You, as we just read. You have anointed us by the Holy One. You have gifted us Your precious Holy Spirit such that we could do what we could never do on our own, abide in Jesus Christ. And so we do pray, Father, for this time now that You would grant us ears to hear, that You would give us eyes to see, that we might behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and abide in Him, knowing that we have the promise right now, this moment of eternal life at work within us. We ask these things for Your namesake and for Your glory. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, perhaps a few questions in church history have garnered more excitement and more speculation than the question of, who is the Antichrist? Who is this diabolical person that Scripture names as the Antichrist? As you can imagine, there is no shortage of speculation throughout church history. In the ancient church, there were names like Serenthes, or the Roman Emperor Nero, as possibilities. In the Middle Ages, some said that Muhammad was the Antichrist. You may know, at one point, our own Westminster Confession of Faith named the Pope as the Antichrist. And more recently, candidates such as Adolf Hitler or Mussolini have had their names thrown in the hat. I remember when I was a child, I even heard the name Bill Clinton mentioned as the Antichrist. Well, this morning, the Apostle John answers that question for us, though not in a way that would satisfy those speculations. And because John does not so much give us a name, a proper noun, a particular person that we can point to and identify as the Antichrist, rather, John's goal is to warn the church, saying here are some signs, here are some traits of any and all who would oppose Jesus Christ. And John says, you need to know these characteristics, because the spirit of Antichrist is already present. It's already at work, threatening the church then and now, and it's going to be this way until Christ returns. You can see just how relevant that is. The word anti, of course, just means against. And you don't have to look very far out into the world to see those who are against Christ, who oppose Christ and His church. But John does not only alarm us, his goal is also to arm us, to equip us, because he's going to tell you, the ordinary Christian, that you have an anointing to endure such opposition. Now, that's quite a claim. Would you describe yourself as an anointed Christian? That may sound a little too kooky for some, maybe a little too out there. But John wants you to know that you have been anointed in order to abide in Jesus Christ, especially in the midst of opposition. And so, we'll walk through this passage and we'll look firstly at the Antichrist, secondly, our anointing, and thirdly, our abiding. But the main point is simply that because Christians have been anointed, we are to abide with confidence. Because we are anointed, we are therefore to abide. And so with that, let's look firstly at Antichrist in verses 18 through 19. And you might be surprised to know that the word Antichrist never appears in the book of Revelation. It's found only five times in the New Testament and only in John's epistles, and we have two of those instances right here in verse 18. And a good place to start is to notice that John does not use the definite article. That is, he does not place the word the in front of Antichrist. And notice in verse 18, John does not say, you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, as in watch out for this particular person. Rather, he says that Antichrist, plural, are coming. Indeed, as the verse continues, you can see that John does not have in mind this particular singular person as the one and only Antichrist. He says right there in verse 18, in fact, many, several Antichrists have already come. It's just as our Lord Jesus taught, that many are going to come after me in my name, saying, I am the Christ. And they will lead many astray. There will be many false Christs. And now we'll look deeper into the marks of this opposition to Christ. But for now, just notice what John concludes from the fact that the spirit of Antichrist is alive and at work in his time. He says there in verse 18, therefore, as in given that these Antichrists are now among us, therefore, we know it is the last hour. Simply put, John is saying because we're encountering Antichrist, that's our tip, our clue, our evidence that the last hour has begun. Now what does John mean by last hour? Well, last hour, John does not mean I'm living in the final 60 minutes of human history. Now that Greek word for last is the word eskate, where we get our word eschatology, study of last or final things. And so for John, already in the first century, he's saying the last days have begun as the spirit of the Antichrist is at work. And so if someone asks you today, hey friend, are we living in the last times, the last days? As in just look at all the geopolitical events surrounding us. Just skim the newspaper headlines and things seem to be getting weirder and weirder by the moment. Don't you think that now we are living in the last days? We could give a tongue-in-cheek answer and reply, yes, we are in the last days and we've been living in them ever since the first century because the New Testament unfolds that with the coming of Jesus Christ, His death, resurrection, His ascension into heaven, the outpouring of the Spirit, that marks the advent, the inauguration of these last days, that time between Christ's first coming and His second coming. And John continues on and he says, here's one way to spot these Antichrists by their lack of endurance. They do not abide in the truth. You see it there in verse 19. They went out from us, but they were not of us. So notice these Antichrists were in the church community in some way, part of the body for a period of time, but eventually they departed. They went out. And it is by their going out, by their departure, that John says, this is how we know, they never really were the real deal, the genuine article, a true, authentic Christian. Their departure reveals their deception. This is one place in Scripture we find the vital truth, that the church as we know it is made up of Christians and non-Christians, the elect and the unelect, the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, those born again and those of the flesh. The church will always be composed of true believers mingled with false professors. And sometimes those false professors reveal their falsity when they depart and defect from the faith. I know for me, I love a good spy novel where you as the reader, you get to know what no one else in the book gets to know. You see how this certain spy has secretly infiltrated a country or an organization. Well that is very much not our position, right? We do not have a bird's eye view of what's going on. We're more like the characters in the novel. We only come to know a person's authenticity by their outward fruit. You see, John continues on and he explains in verse 19 that if they, that is these antichrists, had been of us, they would have continued with us. In plain language, John is saying, if they really were Christians, if they really were united to Christ by faith, if they really did have the Holy Spirit, then they would have endured and remained and persevered till the very end. As our Lord Jesus says, the one who endures to the end shall be saved. As Hebrews exhorts us, let us run the race with endurance that is set before us. Indeed, I'm sure it's the sad truth that we probably all know those who at one time they were running well, and then they slowed down a little bit, maybe a little bit less church, a little bit less word, a little bit less fellowship, a little bit less prayer, maybe a little bit more of the world, maybe a little bit more of some new novel teaching. And then at one point, sadly, they just stopped running, no longer in the church, no longer professing faith, no longer trusting God and His promises. And friends, we are right, all of us, to have a healthy fear of failing to endure. As Hebrews says, while the promise of entering God's rest still stands, let us fear, lest any of us should fail to obtain it. Because John says at the end of verse 19, that the departure of these opposers makes it plain, it makes it clear, it makes it obvious that they are not all of us. At about as plain a verse as there is to demonstrate, the church will always be made of true believers and false professors. It's not the case that these opposers were saved, and now they lost their salvation. No, John says they never were of the faith in the first place, and their leaving reveals that reality. And what's so encouraging is that we're also right to take the flip side of what John says here, that just as false professors fall away, we're to take equally great courage of the reverse truth, which is that true Christians do not fall away and persevere and run the race till the very end. And we'll see the reason why for our steadfastness is not found within us. The power of our perseverance is not this inward power that we well up within us. No, it's because our covenant-keeping God keeps us, that He guards you and keeps you, that He is the one who says, I will never leave you and never forsake you. And because He never leaves us, therefore we never leave Him. And so John instills much of that confidence as we look now at the second section. And you can hear the contrast right away in verse 20 when John says, but you. Notice that contrast. Unlike those who have fallen away, unlike those anti-Christ, now let's talk about you. You have two things, he says in verse 20. You have been anointed and you have all knowledge. So firstly, you have been anointed. Now again, is that how you would label yourself? Hi, I am an anointed Christian. You might be wondering, am I in the right church? You know, honey, did we accidentally wander into a Pentecostal church? I thought this was Presbyterian. And if the term anti-Christ is subject to misuse, then certainly the term anointed is subject to abuse as well. Because indeed, the term anointed has been hijacked by the charismania of our day. To be anointed means you can now speak in tongues, you can decipher dreams, you can predict the future, and so on and so forth. But we'll soon see John does not list a single one of those things when speaking of your anointing. And so let's not let the abuses swallow up the goodness. Because to be anointed is a very real and very precious thing. The priests of old were anointed with oil smeared on their head, marking them out as if to say, this person is now set apart for a priestly life unto God. The kings of old, anointed for royal service. Friends, John says in verse 20, But you, that is, each and every ordinary Christian has been anointed, not with oil, but you see there, by the Holy One, by the Spirit of Christ. That great promise of the new covenant we just read from Joel was that God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, from the greatest to the least, to the old men, to the male and female servants. All believers would have the Spirit of God. And we need to know, firstly, that we receive this anointing solely because Jesus Christ Himself was first anointed. We do not have an original anointed. Rather, we share in His anointing, as we just confessed. That just as the oil dripped down Aaron's head and down onto his body, so too the Spirit goes from Christ, our head, down onto His body, the church. Christ is the fountain. He is the source of our anointing. And so in Him, every Christian, set apart, empowered, sanctified by the Spirit, guided into all truth. And that's right where John goes next in verse 20. He says, yes, we are all anointed, but secondly, we have all knowledge. To be anointed is to have all knowledge. That goes without saying, though I am saying it now. And, of course, does not mean that you are omniscient. To be anointed means you will never lose your car keys again and you know all the deepest secrets of the universe. But remember those pesky Gnostics are always in the background of 1 John. And those Gnostics would have claimed a kind of special, elite, mystical knowledge, this higher plane of knowledge that a simple Christian could not attain to. In fact, you can just skip down to verse 26. You can sense the danger right there. John says, I write to you these things regarding those who are trying to deceive you. You've got these so-called experts deceiving and duping the church that they don't really have true knowledge. And when those same experts depart, it would leave you shell-shocked, right? Wondering, am I missing something? What's going on here? And, of course, this same phenomenon is alive and well today. You see it in certain cults. A particular guru claims a kind of a special, secret knowledge. Even closer to home, we had a visitor here who visited with us for quite some time. And he sincerely enjoyed his time. He enjoyed the fellowship. He wanted to stay here at Cornerstone. But on his last day, he confided in me with no small amount of sadness that he felt obligated that he had to return to the Roman Catholic Church. Because in his mind, he was persuaded that church and that church alone contains real, true knowledge. This is why the Protestant Reformation taught what is popularly called the priesthood of all believers. Did you know that about yourself? You are a priest. That doesn't mean you have to start wearing a robe and a collar. But it does mean that if you are in Christ, then you are a priest of sorts with all the benefits of a priest. That as 1 Peter 2 says of us, we are a royal priesthood. And what does a priest do? Well, a priest has unique, intimate access to God. As only the high priest of old went into the Holy of Holies, through Christ, our high priest, he opened up this new, this living way for you and I, for ordinary Christians to have the most immediate, awesome, intimate access to our Heavenly Father. That's just what John says in verse 27, that though they try to deceive you. You see, he says there, this anointing you receive from Him abides in you. You have no need that anyone should teach you. This anointing teaches you about everything. Simply put, there's no special class of people, no gurus to mediate knowing God. Every believer anointed by God to abide in His truth. Now, one clarification on verse 27. When it says, you have no need for teachers. So for instance, today, following the service, we have this joyful occasion to elect church officers, to elect elders and deacons. Who among many things are competent to teach the Word of God. But is verse 27 not saying, well, cancel that meeting. You actually don't need any teachers. You don't need anyone to instruct you. Teachers are a thing of the past, because you've got this special anointing to be self-taught. Go into your closet with your Bible and that is all that you need. Well, certainly some have taken this verse to mean exactly that. And they've done away with teachers. But also to their peril. Because verse 27 is not saying, do away with teachers. John himself is teaching them with his very letter. As Ephesians 4 says, these offices of pastors, apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers. These are gifts of the risen Christ to teach and equip the saints. So that's not John's meaning. But this anointing does mean something. And if you just look at the context again. Comes in the previous verse, this attempt at deception. These Gnostics would have been saying, put down that Bible of yours. You can't learn anything from those doctrines. No, what you need is me as your special teacher and our new philosophy to show you the way. But Jesus Christ said, I am the way and the truth and the life. And His anointing with His Spirit through His Word is what guides us into all truth. And that is John's encouragement amidst the deception. So back to verse 21. He tells them exactly that. He says to them, I write you not because you don't know the truth but because you know it. No lie is of the truth. And so indeed while today we do not have pure Gnostics. We very much in our day have things like relativism, pluralism, postmodernism, liberalism, paganism and so forth. That all wage war in opposition to the truth of Scripture. That for you to claim, I know the truth. And it's not just my truth. I know this as the truth. It's said to be oppressive, if not even hateful. But John says, stand firm because you do know the truth. And God has anointed you through Christ unto this very thing. Well by contrast, in comes the liar in verse 22. And just as you had two positives of anointing, the liar has these two strikes against him. Firstly, he denies that Jesus is the Christ in verse 22. Notice that's not a denial of Jesus. How many, both then and now, would readily confess, yes, Jesus was a real person, historically verified, real rabbi, real teacher, real person of influence. From the Mormon all the way to the man on the street would come those admissions. The denial is not of Jesus. It's that Jesus is the Christ. The Lord's anointed, that Jesus is God incarnated, God with us, who accomplished the redemption of his people. And as Satan is the father of lies, this all traces back to him. Remember Satan's temptation towards Christ. If you really are God's son, let me cast doubt upon the truth that you are God's son. And as he tempted Jesus, now he moves on to tempt his church in the same exact way. Secondly, closely related in verse 22, is the denial of the father and the son. Once again, how many, both then and now, would hold to, yes, a generic belief in God. I believe in God, a God, whoever he, she, or it, or they may be. That's rightly said that many, if not all, heresies can be traced back to a denial of the Trinity. But John reminds us here that man cannot ever have part of the Trinity. The Trinity is not a buffet of divinity wherein you could pick and choose as if some belong to the Father, some belong to the Son, some to the Spirit. No, John says so clearly in verse 23 that if you deny the Son, you do not have the Father. And stated positively, if you confess the Son, then you have the Father. Recall those words of Christ. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. What a claim, what audacity, if he's just a man. But because Christ is the image of the invisible God, it is no mere claim, it is the truth. And you remember how his disciples stumbled over this at first. Remember Philip asking Jesus, Jesus, show us the Father. And that would be enough. And Jesus said, sure, you have seen me. And in seeing me, you have seen the Father. I am in the Father, the Father is in me. If you want to see the Father, then just look at me. And so indeed, if you're here this morning and not a Christian, the only means of knowing God is through Jesus Christ. If you do not know Christ, then you do not know God. And the first step of knowing is trusting, trusting him. Believing that Christ is the Lord's Messiah. And turning from your sin, and placing all of your hope and trust and dependence upon him as Savior. And then you will have God as your Father unto everlasting life. Alright, so we've seen the Antichrist, those who deny and depart. Secondly, we have seen our anointing. We know Jesus as the Christ. But thirdly, what then is ours to do? John kind of shifts into answering the sort of, how then shall we live as God's anointed ones? Right, does being anointed just mean I sit back and I glow with a kind of halo hovering over my head? Well no, John's battle cry is to abide. Because you are anointed, therefore abide. Kids, what does it mean to abide? You probably don't use the word abide a whole lot in your everyday speech. Well kids, to abide just means that you remain in. You stay in, you dwell in. During the winter storm this past week you probably abided in your house quite a bit. Maybe went out a little bit to play in that little bit of snow that we got. But by and large, you remained in your warm home. Kids, that is to be us. We are to abide in Jesus Christ. We saw just last week, we are not to love the world, we're called out of the world. Well where then do we go? Well John says abide in Jesus Christ. And he tees that up for us in verse 24. He says, And now in this verse, we're not yet the ones doing the abiding. We'll get there. But you see in this verse, we're actually the home. We are the dwelling. We are the soil. We are to let something else abide in us. Let's see it once more. John says, What's he getting at? Well it's just as Romans says, that faith comes from hearing, hearing the word of Christ. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And so you're right to ask yourself, just how hospitable of a dwelling am I for God's word? How welcoming am I? How well do I receive the word of God and treasure it up? You can probably think of a few bad experiences you've had of hospitality. Maybe you go over to someone's house, and the moment you walk in the door, it just seems uninviting, cold, unwelcoming. Though they invited you over, it seems they can't wait to have you leave. And you're happy to oblige. That's where you pull out the secret signal. Honey, I think we left the stove on at home. Better go home and check right now. And may that not be us. May we never be unwelcoming to the word of Christ in our hearts. Because by contrast, I'm sure you've been over to someone's house, and the moment you walk through the door, it's like this wave of warmth just smacks you in the face. And the longer and longer you stay, the better and better it gets. You're soon tempted to cross all social boundaries. Hey, do you think we could stay the night here? I see you have a spare bedroom. And that is to be our hearts. We're to have the most warm and welcoming of hearts when it comes to receiving God's word. Where the red-haired, meditated priest, as James just taught us, received with meekness this implanted word, which can do what? Save your soul. And so always be checking. What kind of dwelling have I prepared for God's word? Because indeed, it is things like our pride, our indifference, our apathy, our neglect, our unconfessed sin that would grieve the Spirit's working of the word into our lives. You could add to that difficulty. We live in a time where it is now fashionable to be so-called spiritual, but not necessarily biblical. A recent book pointed out one of the great lies of our modern day is that I can be a spiritual person, but not necessarily a person of God's word. This is the great lie of our modern day, right? I can be pious, I can be spiritual, apart from doctrinal integrity. Well, John knows nothing of this category because the Spirit's very work is to guide us into all truth, the truth of God's word. Those two great instruments that God uses to chisel us into Christ's likeness are word and spirit. As one pastor warned rightly, some honor the word, but they neglect the Spirit. Some honor the Spirit, but they neglect the word. The only safeguard is word and spirit. So just ask yourself, am I living below the poverty level? Am I impoverishing myself, neglecting this great treasure that God has revealed to me in His word? Unless we ever think that reading our Bible is simply a daily discipline. And to be clear, it's not less than discipline, but so much more. And John goes on to say that as this word abides in us, we then abide in God. The word in us and us in God. That's just what John says in verse 24. That as the word abides in you, here's what he says, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is God's promise to us. Eternal life. It is just as Jesus said when describing Himself as the vine. And we are the branches who abide in that vine. Now kids, a simple experiment you could do today. Go home and cut off a branch off of one of your trees. Ask your parents, which branch before? But cut off a branch. Do an experiment and just see how long does this branch live for? What happens when I cut off this branch? And kids, of course you'll see not very long before that branch starts to lose its vitality. It loses its greenness. It loses its life. Not long after it fades and it dies. And compare that cut off branch to the branches that remain on the tree. And that is us. Christ is the true vine. We are the branches engrafted into Him. We cannot do anything apart from Christ other than languish and die. But as we abide in Him and Him in us, we reap this promise of eternal life. Of course, eternal life means far more than just I live forever. No, it's qualitative. It means life and life abundantly. Life without sin. Life in communion with God with His unrestrained blessings upon me. So, we have spotted the Antichrist who denied Christ. We know that we are anointed from above. Therefore, we are called to abide in Christ the life-giving vine. On the final section, we could simply ask, okay, well, what is the net result of all of this? What is the payoff, so to speak? And you see, John sums it up for us in one word, this word confidence, in verse 28. He says, And now, little children, abide in Him so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming. Now, we should ask, well, why confidence? Why would our confidence be shaken to begin with? Why does John choose that word? Well, just imagine that you've been intensively training for combat and you're in this squadron of soldiers and you've been training now together for months. You're preparing for this mission, let's say. And then at the very last moment before deployment, the squad leaders, the very best soldiers, the ones who were the elite, they up and they quit. And then as they're going out, they say over their shoulder, yeah, we've decided we no longer believe in this mission. This cause is no longer worth fighting for. There's actually a better, truer fight out there for us. In fact, we still have room. Why don't you come with us? Now, how well is your confidence? Well, friends, that is just what John's church has gone through. That those who seem to be very pro-Christ turned out to be anti-Christ. And they have departed. And there you are, left standing with your peashooter rifle. Now, what is the church going to cling to? What is your confidence? Well, John tells us, keep abiding in Him. You can be sure as sure gets that if you practice righteousness, you are born from God. You have been anointed. You have the hope of eternal life. And as you abide in Him, your confidence will only grow and grow and grow at the hope of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only that, when He comes, you have no reason to shrink back. That when Christ comes to claim His bride, you have no need of shame, no need of turning your head, no need of looking down at your feet in humiliation. Now, friends, John wrote this letter to promote our joy. Well, friends, here it is. Whoever believes in this Christ, the Lord's anointed, whoever believes in this cornerstone, will never be put to shame. And so let us abide in Him with confidence. Let us pray. Our gracious God, our Heavenly Father, we praise You for what we have just read and heard and considered. Though once dead, we've been made alive in Jesus Christ. We've been anointed by Your Holy Spirit that You have given us all things in order to abide in Him as such that we have confidence now and forever that when the Lord Jesus returns, we'll have no need of shame. For we know that we shall always be with the Lord. We praise You for why that is true, because You are always with us. And so we do pray You would teach us to gird up our loins, help us to stand firm, help us to fight the good fight of faith, help us to abide, clinging to this great promise that is in the future and already in the present, the promise of eternal life. In His name we pray. Amen.