Read the text – 1 John 5:1-21
In this talk we reach the end of this series from 1 John and to the theological and pastoral conclusion of the letter. John has helped the reader to know that the Christ is Jesus and so in this talk Ken Noakes helps us to see the confidence that the believer has to live for Jesus now knowing what he has given for all eternity.
Read the text – 1 John 2:28-3:10
Central to fellowship with God the Father is acknowledging his son and in turn living as a child of God. This talk is about confidence in the Christian faith – confidence that comes from being adopted as a child of God and experienced in the new birth that the Christian person enjoys.
In this talk Ken Noakes describes the process of moving towards a confident faith. And also, the process that person may go through in moving away from a confident faith.
Read the text – 1 John 1:5-2:2
Sin is serious, and even Christians can live as if it isn’t! In this talk, Ken Noakes looks at what the Bible calls sin and helps us to understand more of what sin is and means for our world, our church and our person. Yet to sit right alongside the trauma that is sin, is the wonder that is forgiveness in Jesus. Sin we love yet we should hate. Whereas Forgiveness we want and we all need.
Read the text – 1 John 3:11-24 & 1 John 4:7-21
Love that is Christian, is a love for others that is both pleasing and acceptable to God before it is to the world. This is a huge topic and so contested today. For today, love is often determined by popular opinion or consensus – and as directed by the loudest voices. In this talk, Ken Noakes looks at the importance of understanding Love in the context of truth and obedience. God indeed wants Christians to be loving – love that is truthful, sacrificial, obedient even if different to the way the world looks for love.
Read the text – 1 John 1:5-2:6 & 1 John 2:18-27
The second in this series from the little letter of 1 John – this talk looks at the contrast between truth and un-truth and more particularly the danger of not thinking that truth is important. Truth and knowledge matter when it comes to faith – so does untruth and error.
In this talk Ken Noakes suggests that if we lose sight of the truth of the gospel, then it is impossible to live by the truth of the gospel.
Read the text – 1 John1:1-4 & 1 John 2:12-17
The little letter of 1 John packs a punch. It is rich with ideas we love to debate: truth and error, love and hate, forgiveness and sin, individualism and community, life and death. These ideas are not simple, yet we can be very simplistic in how we think about them for we don’t always consider how one may affect the other. 1 John works hard to draw these ideas and concepts into an integrated Christian worldview. And in the process helps us see the value of having the Word of Life to guide us in how we live.
In this first talk of six, Ken Noakes introduces the Letter of 1 John and its overlapping themes. In doing so he wants to make clear that believers have the Word of Life: Jesus. And life with him looks different to life without. 1 John has a lot to say to help Christians today live confidently for Christ.
Love, Truth and Obedience are three Christian values that together define Christian Love. Christian love, is love where truth is valued. Christian truth tells us how to obey. Christian obedience demonstrates true love.
In the previous posts from this series we have looked at each.
What happens if you corrupt any one of those values?
What is love that is pleasing first to God? It has something to do with obedience in the context of truth. We have considered ‘Love’ (Part 3 of this series) and ‘Truth’ (Part 4 of this series), so this time let’s focus on ‘Obedience’.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them (1 John 3:21-24)
A love that is pleasing to God is a love that obediently follows his commands.
What does it look like for Christians to love the other? It has something to do with that which is true and something to do with obedience. We considered ‘Love’ last time (Part 3 of this series), so this time let’s focus on ‘Truth’.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:16-20)
Without love, truth will not be valued. Without truth, it is difficult to know how to obey. Without obedience, it is impossible to demonstrate true love.
To understand Love, it will help to understand how it is integrally connected to Truth and to Obedience, such that you cannot separate the three. These three ideas intersect with one another at almost every point.
Taking our lead from the letter of 1 John, we have looked at Perfect Love (Part 2 of this series). We turn our attention now to the relationships between Love, Truth and Obedience.
Let’s consider ‘Love’.
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