Keep Yourself from Idols - 1 John 5: 21

1:30So, by the way, we'll be preaching from a brand new pulpit. I don't know if you noticed it. What's really cool about this is it does something like goes up and down somehow. See that? It doesn't sink all the way, but it does go up and down. So, we can call this the Revelation pulpit because this is what we'll be spending on for the next few years, working our way through Revelation. A book you need to get your mind around.

2:05What a blessing. I look forward to that. But it's been our journey for the past several years to sit at the feet of the Apostle John and learn from him. But John comes to the very end of his letter. Little children, guard yourselves from idols. Keep yourselves from idols. Keep yourselves, little children, keep yourselves. As if there's a tendency for you to be drawn in and drawn away. Little children, guard yourself selves, keep yourselves from idols. Keep yourselves from those images of false gods, from those depictions of false gods, whether they're mental. Or whatever, keep yourselves from false gods. You keep yourselves.

3:09There is an inward draw to embrace and to bow down and to worship someone other than the true God. Keep yourself from being drawn away and worshiping someone other than the true God. Well, John's was a time of crisis. John, there was political turmoil, political upheaval, there was social unrest, there was religious persecution on a level that we're not familiar with. And it's in this context that John is addressing what he sees as the biggest threat to the church. What is the biggest crisis that we are facing today? We look around our world, and boy, there's a lot of things going on, isn't there?

4:12There's crisis all around. What is the biggest crisis that you're facing individually? What is the biggest crisis that we are facing as a nation? What are the biggest crises that we are facing today? Well, John's very clear what that crisis is. Keep yourselves from idols. These are the last words of John's letter. And they're not what we would expect. Here we are working our way through this. He's just talked about, we know that we are of God and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one in verse 19. So we might expect him to say, keep yourselves from the evil one, right?

5:05Or he just says in verse 20, speaking of Jesus Christ, this is the true God and the eternal life. So we might expect him to say, worship him, or serve the true God, or keep yourselves from the false teachers. He's been talking a lot about false teachers. Maybe you would have expected him to say, expose them. I've given you three tests, expose the false teachers, but instead he says, keep yourselves from idols. What idols? It's not what you would expect. He hasn't even been talking about idols.

5:50So what idols? He hasn't even mentioned it. What is going on in John's mind? Well, some commentators think that he's talking. About physical idols, physical idols. Because Ephesus had a temple to Diana, one of the ancient wonders of the world. One of the seven ancient wonders of the world was this huge temple to Diana. And it wasn't just Diana, there were all kinds of pagan crafts and idolatry there in Ephesus. And so, what they would conclude, based upon the context of 1 John, there in Ephesus and there in the surrounding areas, that it's physical idolatry that is John's concern. Kind of like, you know how kids, they love mud puddles, don't they? Especially little boys. You're walking down the street with your son, and there's a, it doesn't matter if the mud puddle's on the other side of the street. There's this draw that just kind of pulls them in and into the mud puddle. If you have kids, you'll know what I'm talking. You know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you will one day. They love, well, it's kind of the same thing here, like this idea that maybe the temples, there's all these pagan practices going on, and they're serving like a draw, and they're pulling in the believers.

7:28The problem. With this view, is that nowhere is this issue being addressed in John? So we just come to the end, and all of a sudden, keep yourselves from idols. Certainly, pagan worship is covered in the general umbrella, keep yourselves from idols. But it's difficult to believe that this is what John really has in mind, that this is the threat, that these individuals are going out and being sucked into worshiping Diana or some of the other things. Not saying that it excludes that, but certainly doesn't seem to be the impetus of why John wrote his letter. So, what form of idol idolatry does John have in mind? What is the threat that John concludes his letter in such a fashion? Kind of abruptly, keep yourselves from idols. Well, if we're going to answer this question, you know that answer has to be consistent with everything else that he has written in this letter. Also, it has to be consistent with what he has written in his other letters or his other, his gospel, other works, revelation.

8:53So, first of all, remember what this letter is about. Like I said, we're at a lookout point. We're looking out over where we've been. Remember, this letter is about distinguishing between true and false Christians, especially those who say they are of Christ, but are proclaiming a very different Christ than the one proclaimed by the apostolic community, John and his apostles and those who had embraced their teaching. And remember, John gave three basic tests, right, to discern or to distinguish between true and false believers. I will call them the three L's by way of reminder. Three L's. Remember, the test of the lips. What does a person confess about Jesus? That is the test of the lips. Are they confessing a lesser Jesus?

9:52Second L, the test of the life, the life. Does one follow a lesser Jesus? And third, the test of love. Love. Does one love like a lesser Jesus? These are the basic tests. The test of the lips, what is one confessing with their mouth? The test of the life, what does one confess by the way they live? And the test of love, what does one confess by the way they love, specifically the church of God? So that's what this letter is about.

10:30Defection is going to involve that, but also remember what John has just said. Look back at verse 5, I mean, chapter 5 and verse 20, the verse right before this. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true. In His Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. This is the true God. Now, therefore, children, keep yourselves from idols. He's just proclaimed who the true God is. Any defection, any service to anyone other than this one, amounts to idolatry.

11:15Anyone, any worship that does not embrace Jesus Christ as the true God and the eternal life amounts to idolatry. And this declaration is consistent with everything John has said in his gospel and his letter. Take a few moments, and I just want to show you a few things. You can go all the way back to 1 John chapter 1. I mean, John 1. You can listen or you can turn there. But there's a few verses that I want you to be mindful of because all of this ties together John's thoughts. You know, if you take a class from different professors, you get different professors' backgrounds, different professors' thoughts. But if you take different classes from the same professor, guess what? Some of the same truths show up. So here we are at the feet of John, and he's saying the same things. John chapter 1, verse 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through Him. Apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life.

12:40In the beginning was the Word. The Word became flesh. Look at verse 14. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He's saying, In the beginning was the eternal life, through whom everything came into being. And this Word has become flesh. In John chapter 20, I'm sorry, John, yeah, John chapter 20. You can look over there at John 20 and verse 30 and just circle this verse. Verse 30, therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these, verse 31, have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life. In his name, John's purpose. Now, flip over to 1 John 1.

13:39You're going to see very similar thoughts. 1 John 1, verse 1, what was from the beginning, or we could even say who was from the beginning. What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the word of life. And the life was manifested. And we have seen and testified and proclaimed to you the eternal life, the eternal one, the eternal being, the life we proclaim to you, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.

14:20Now, come back to 1 John 5, verse 13. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. How do you know you have eternal life? By knowing Jesus Christ. If you're in union with Him, you are in union with the eternal life, the pre-existing One, in whom life is, in whom everything has its being, who holds in His hand the life of every living being. That life.

15:00And so, when we're talking about eternal life, we're not talking about just duration of days, we're talking about a person, we're talking about union with the individual whose character is one of eternal, enduring kind of life. And so, of course, if you're in union with him, you are going to live forever because he is forever, because he is life, and he gives life, he sustains life, he is the source of life. And if you're in union with him, you have life.

15:36So, if you know the name of the Son of God, you may know that you have eternal life. John 5, verse 20. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Children, guard yourself, protect yourselves, keep yourselves from idols, from every false depiction of God that is out there. Keep yourself from it. You're going to be tempted to bow down and worship them and serve them. This is the biggest crisis you are facing this year.

16:30It's the biggest crisis that the churches of Asia Minor or modern-day Turkey were facing. You see, when a person is caught between the true God and a hostile world, there's a temptation to start redefining God in a way that relieves the tension. When a person is caught between the true God and personal desires, there's a way to redefine God that relieves the tension so that you may pursue what you want to pursue. And you end up with a lesser God.

17:15You see, the apostolic witness is that God revealed Himself by taking upon human flesh. Not just the form of human flesh, as these incipient pre-gnostic teachers were advocating. He really did take upon our humanity so that we might take upon his divinity and be the image-bearers that God intended us to be. Jesus is God incarnate, and he deserves all that is due to God Himself. And so the false teachers in John. John's letters are advocating the worship of a lesser Jesus.

18:09Listen, you're going to be faced this year with many temptations to defect from the true God. And John clearly sees that defection from the true Christ is an expression of idolatry. Little children, guard yourselves from idolatry. You're about to enter into a new semester, a new routine. Be sure you're putting into practice, putting into place a routine that's going to guard, that's going to protect, and keep yourself from idols. How does this relate to us today? Times are different, aren't they?

19:00We're not dealing with some of the Gnostic issues that John, false teachers like Cyrenthius, but the human condition hasn't changed, has it? So I want to go back from our lookout point. I want to revisit these three tests briefly, not with the intention of us being equipped to take Test true and false theologies. We've already been there. We've done that through the whole time. I want to go back and look at these three tests at what might give us an insight into these idols that they were being drawn away, enticing, that were, that John is concerned are enticing his people.

19:55And I think as we look at these three temptations, we can get a better idea of what the temptations they were facing and the idea of what we may be facing today, that pull, that draw to turn away from the true God. And so I want to look at the three tests in retrospect. But then I want to add a fourth if we had time, have time. Three idols. And maybe a fourth. And I want you to be aware of these four idols specifically that you will be tempted to serve this year so that you will specifically keep yourselves from these.

20:49And by the way, I've been reading a lot of John Bunyan lately, you know, Pilgrim's Progress guy. And so I think some of his, the way he Depicts personalities might show up in my outline, just because that's where I've been reading. So keep yourselves from the idol of, if I can, we'll just start going through. Keep yourselves from the idol, first of all, of social approval. Keep yourselves from the idol of social approval. This God or goddess is really an elevation of pure approval over God's approval. You see, the world is always trying to define God. The world is going to come around you and tell you, let me tell you about God. Let me tell you how you should think about God. So this is how you are to worship Him. Basically, the world is always trying to come up with a socially acceptable Jesus. And what this defection really boils down to is yielding to other people's definition of God rather than God's definition of himself.

22:07People have been fashioning gods from the very beginning. Remember, I just read it in Exodus 20, right? God said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol of any likeness of what is in heaven above or on earth beneath. Or in the water or the earth. He just goes on, You shall not worship them, you shall not serve them. Why? Because they're not gods, they are just creations of man.

22:43You see, man's search for God has not been an honest one. Quite the contrary, God has revealed enough about Himself to where you do know God. You know Him enough to where you should at least give Him thanks for being God. You know Him, you know quite a lot about Him. Scripture is very clear about that. But our search for God hasn't always been honest. When people search after other gods or when they create other gods or other mental depictions of God, they are nothing more than expressions of rebellion against the true God. You see, people come up with all kinds of mental depictions, all kinds of psychological representations of what God ought to be like. They come up with all kinds of God substitutes so that they can have a God that acts and thinks the way they want a God to act and think. And then they bow down and worship Him.

23:54And the bottom line is, they do this because they do not like the God of the Bible. Well, you remember the test of theology? The test of theology. This is the test that John gave these churches to pay attention to what people say about Jesus with their mouth. What do they confess? Look back at 1 John 2, chapter 22, verse 2, chapter 2, verse 22. Who is the liar? But the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.

24:40Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, and whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Listen, Jesus is the Christ. He is God's Son. He is God's anointed ruler of humanity. He is also God's Son, right? God's Son of the same essence as the Father. I heard on the radio yesterday a conversation about is the God of Islam the same as the God of Christianity, true biblical Christianity. The answer is no. The one who denies the Father and the Son, Islam denies whether God even has a Son.

25:24And listen to what John says. This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father. And the Son. You remember the message of 2 John, right? He writes this letter to the elect lady, right? And what was happening there? There were all these false teachers that were going out, advocating, confessing, and proclaiming a very different Jesus. And what the message of 2 John is: do not receive these people into your house. Do not give him a greeting. For the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds. In other words, you need to pay very attention to what kind of missions you're supporting here, dear lady. You need to be very careful of what is coming out of the mouth of the people that are confessing or professing to be teachers and followers of Christ. If they deny that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus has come in the flesh, that God has a Son, his name is Jesus, you can be sure they are of the Antichrist mentality.

26:37Listen, if you embrace the worldly notions that define Jesus, you will be serving an untrue God. God has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus. And if you let your friends, if you let your society tell you what God is like, you will. End up with a very warped, twisted, and distorted view of the true God. This was the crisis of John's day. This is the crisis of our day, right? No, let me tell you how God really is. Let me tell you how to read that verse a little better because you've missed it, right?

27:24Many sources are wanting to advocate and wanting us to embrace a politically correct Jesus. And you are going to be tempted. You are being tempted right now to let the world define Jesus to you. Keep yourself from idols. Keep yourself from the false depictions of God. They are warped, they are twisted, they are distorted. Listen, this idol of social approval is a deceiving witch. A deceiving witch. Do not serve her. Second, keep yourself from the idol of worldly indulgence. Keep yourself from the idol of worldly indulgence.

28:30This God is an elevation of your own personal desires over the desires that God has for your life. Yielding to fleshly desires or worldly pursuits over God's desires for your life. Listen, God's got humanity figured out, He knows what is good, He is not a tyrant. He knows what He wants you to want because He wants you to want what is good. But the moment you elevate your personal desires over that, you bow the knee to a lesser God.

29:18Remember the second test, the test of Christ's likeness. This is what a person confesses with their conduct. You remember, there's a confession that comes by what a person is saying with their lips. There is a confession that one makes about Jesus by the way they live their life, their conduct. 1 John 2:5, John says, This, by this, we know that we are in Him. The one who says He abides in Him ought to walk in the same manner as He walked. If you abide in Him, you're going to live like Him. 1 John 3:7, John says, Little children, make sure no. No one deceives you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil. For the devil has sinned from the beginning, and the Son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. No one, get that? No one who is born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him. And he cannot sin because he is born of God. Cannot continue, cannot continue growing in the practice and habitual routine of sin because he is born of God.

30:42Well, welcome back, college students. Glad you're here. College life provides many opportunities for fleshly living, doesn't it? You're outside the normal constraints of your family and your home. There's all kinds of opportunities, whether it's food or fun or fashion or the pursuit of fortune, the three F's, four F's, right? Food, fun, fashion, fortune. Probably could add some more if you wanted. But regardless of your situation, you will be tempted to elevate your fleshly desires over God.

31:30And you will start, if you do not repent and turn away from these, you will join the multitudes in our society today who are following a God of their own making. They are elevating their fleshly desires over what God has forbidden for them, and then they are coming up with a God that embraces fleshly indulgence. Keep yourselves from the idol of worldly indulgence. She is a bloodthirsty prostitute. She desires to have you. Third, idol, the idol of little sacrifice, the idol of little sacrifice. Keep yourself from the idol of social approval, worldly indulgence, and this idol of little sacrifice. This God is an elevation of your personal resources over God.

32:48This is the tight-fisted princess of the devil, the one that does not give, the one that does not force. Forgive. This happens when protecting your money, your energy, or your mental and emotional engagement from someone, or maybe keeping hold of your time when all of that becomes more important than sacrificing to God for his name's sake and for his people's sake, which, by the way, can't be distinguished. Right? We tend to hold on. If you're going to sacrifice for God's namesake, you know what it's going to show up in? Giving of your time, your energy, your efforts, coming alongside sacrificing yourself for the well-being of one of his people, where he has said, he or she will bear my name. And so when you're doing something for God's name's sake, it inevitably involves his people's sake, because it is there that he has promised and has purposed his name to be exalted.

34:06You remember the test, the third test comes out of John, 1 John, the test of sacrificial love. Beloved, 1 John 4, 7, 1 John 4, 7, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God. God. For God is love. By this, the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might believe, we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Love involves sacrifice. The kind of love that God is talking about here involves great personal sacrifice. That's really what love is. The opposite of love is that stingy hand. The one that, be careful of that hand that puts a gift on the altar and the other hand that takes it off, right? That's us struggling, right, to give to God.

35:291 John 4:19, we love because he first loved us. And this is his commandment that we have from him: that the one who loves should love his brother also. The one who loves God should love his brother also. You can't get around it. He, you cannot, that's why he says, you must take up your cross daily and follow me. You're going to have to die to self. And a lot of that's going to be in loving people who at first Blush may be very unlovable. But this is what love is.

36:12Remember what 3 John is all about, right? You remember? 2 John, the people had confession problems. They had problems with confessing the right Christ. 3 John, the false teacher, has a love problem, right? A love problem. Diotrephes. 3 John verse 9, I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, doesn't accept what we say. He accuses us with wicked words. He does not receive the brethren. He forbids those who desire, and he puts them out of the church.

36:49What John's saying is, have nothing to do. Do not imitate this guy. He's evil. We know he's evil because he has love problems. Love problems. But what does God want? He wants loyalty to him and to one another to the point of sacrifice for the honor of his name and the well-being of those he loves. He wants loyalty, love, to the point of sacrificing. Of personal sacrifice. You will be tempted this year to serve a God who requires very little from you. The God of little sacrifice, the goddess. She's the devil's little princess who loves to hold on to her resources, to be comforted, to be pampered.

37:58But she is the devil's little princess. This goddess will allow you to hold on to the grudges, will allow you to hold on to the offenses that you do not want to give up. This goddess will allow you to keep on to your resources at all costs. No cross necessary when you bow down to this goddess. Do not serve her. Do not serve her. I think all of these are in John's mind in this letter. Keep yourselves from idols. Keep yourselves. Through these three tests that he has been talking about so much in his book, keep yourself from the idol of social approval. Keep yourself from the idol of worldly indulgence. And keep yourself from the world. From the idol of little sacrifice.

39:06There's one more God that I want to bring to your attention. It doesn't come out of 1 John directly, but it's related. And it's the idol of loveless motion. The idol of loveless motion. I want to take you for a moment to Revelation. Just a preview. We're going to come to this in the weeks ahead, but I want to bring you to Revelation chapter 2, where the angel, where the word is given to the angel of the church of Ephesus. Remember Ephesus. This is where John is. This is where John has left a huge imprint. And it's very clear, based upon Revelation 2 and verses 1 through 7, that the church at Ephesus had become good at rejecting false doctrines. Listen to what he says. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write, the one who holds the seven stars in his hands, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this, I know your deeds and your toil and your perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles. And they are not, and you have found them to be false. Sounds like they're getting pretty good at putting these tests into practice. They got very good at it. But then he says, This, verse 4: But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

40:51Therefore, remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first, or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. You think about all that John has done. They're combating false teaching and they're good at it. And yet he's saying, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. And as you survey the seven churches of Revelation, only this one is under the threat of having its lampstand removed.

41:35God says, If you do not repent of this, I'm removing your lampstand. What happened? It's very easy that we can get into a routine of loveless motion. Even we can defend theology to the T's and to the I's. We can be very good at that, but we can do it from a loveless. Heart. What kind of idolatry is this? Well, think about this. Think about if you're going through the motions of Christianity, you're able to articulate sound doctrine and sign the best doctrinal statements, and yet you're serving God with a loveless heart. You are testifying to a completely different image of God than the one Christ served, right? Than the one revealed in Jesus. Jesus loved his Father, and he delighted in him. Go back and look at the temptations that Christ went through. He loved union with God more than he loved all the riches of the world, all the fleshly indulgence. He loved just simply because the Father was worthy to be loved.

42:54Be careful of going through this semester through the routine of loveless motion, testifying to everybody, yeah, he is to be served, but he is not to be loved. A tyrannical God emerges, not one that's worthy to be loved. We can, I think there are two temptations. Listen, we can beat people down with the truth, we can shame people. With the truth, there are two temptations, I believe, come out of this. Number one, arrogance, a sophisticated snobbery can take place. We can see ourselves as God's vicar on earth or the Lord protector of theology and the Lord protector of the souls of men, and we can have a very arrogant view of ourselves.

44:05There's a second temptation with serving this idol of loveless motion, and that is one of dejected resignation. That's going through this, the motions of loveless devotion, indicating that God is God. I recognize that, but he must be slavishly served. He is not to be delighted in. He requires self-denial and sacrifice, and I guess we better give it to him, even though I find no joy in his commandments or him. Do you see what a horrible picture of God this is?

44:53Be careful. Guard yourself from the idol of social approval, the idol. Of worldly indulgence, the idol of little sacrifice, and the idol of loveless motion. What's common in all four of these idols is that they have set self up as the primary one to be pleased. That's what's going on. The reason why we are tempted by such idolatry is because we love ourselves and we are constantly trying to figure out ways to exalt ourselves. And idolatry really boils down to a form of self-worship.

45:35And John exhorts us to keep ourselves from the idolatrous ways of the world so that we would serve the true God. He's revealed for us, and he wants you to serve him because he is worthy to be delighted in, because he delights in himself, he delights in his ways, and he is this source of eternal life and gives that. You see, the biggest crisis you are now facing is not COVID. The biggest crisis that we are facing right now as a nation is not what's happening in Afghanistan. The greatest social pressures that we are facing have nothing to do with CRT.

46:24It's not the disintegration of the United States of America that is even the biggest crisis. It's the disintegration of your soul into idolatry, a church that abandons the truth. This is the greatest crisis. And when we start bowing down and worshiping the gods of our own making, whether it comes out of a desire to be approved by people around us, or a desire to do what we want to do, or a desire to hold back what we don't want to give him, or a desire to just go through life in some sort of dead religious motion, whatever it may be, that is what robs the church, that is what robs you, that is what disintegrates and is the greatest problem facing our nation. That was John talking to people in a very different time than ours. Political upheaval, social unrest, all that, religious persecution. Last thing he says, y'all keep yourselves from idols. He'd say that if he's here in college station, if he didn't let y'all be keeping yourselves from.

47:42But listen, the biggest crisis is allowing your soul to be captivated by idols. But I say this to you. Keep in mind that no matter how far. Away from God, you run. You will have to come close to Him one day. Charles Spurgeon said it well. However far we may get away from God, we will have to come close to Him one of these days. Like the comet that flies afar off from the sun, wandering into space for an altogether inconceivable distance and yet has come back again. However long the time its circuit takes, so we will have to come back to God either willingly, repentantly, believingly, or else unwillingly and in chains to receive our sentence of doom from the lips of the Almighty, whom we have provoked to anger by our sin.

48:53Little children, guard yourselves from idols. The good news is that God is with His people. Know that who are we? We are born of God. That's who we are. We are the ones who are joined to eternal life. That's who we are. We are the ones who are forgiven. We are the ones who continue to be forgiven. We are the ones who know Him. We are born of Him. His seed. Remains in us. Do not bow down and serve any other God.

49:39Since we know the true God, we know we have eternal life. Let us keep ourselves from idols. Heavenly Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for the truth. Help us to understand who we are, what it means to be born of you, and how that shows up. Help us to leave this place serving the one true God. Thank you. Thank you. Father, I pray for everyone in this room that does not know you that they would hear your voice today calling them.

50:27Come out of your sinful place into the wide expanse of God's favor and blessing in Christ Jesus. For it's in His name we pray. Amen.