God is love.    He created people to know him.    That’s why, right at the beginning, he walked with human beings in the garden.    Your whole purpose in life is to know God.   That means that your whole self is transformed.   Your mind is transformed by the goodness of God – his majesty, his creating power, his holiness, his love.  And you see that in Jesus.  Your mind is shaped by the nature and goodness of God.   

But there’s more.   God wants you to know him. That means that there is also a spiritual dimension.   The Holy Spirit comes to live in you.  Your heart is changed.    You learn how to love.   When you pray, it’s not just you.    There’s something else going on in your heart.    The Holy Spirit is speaking in you.   You sense things in the spiritual realm.  You change.    John calls this ‘fellowship with the Father and the Son’. 

Knowing God also means that you have eternal life.    Death cannot touch you.  Many of the things that fill our life with futility are taken away.   We see the gifts of God, as God restores us to the status of dearly loved children.  This is what it means to know God.    And we cannot know God without knowing Jesus. 

In other words, the most important, the most crucial facts of life are bound up with this knowledge of God.   If we know this (with our minds) we can know God (as the whole person). 

Note the huge difference between this and philosophy.    This is revealed by God in Jesus.   It isn’t the product of reason.   Philosophy and reason change because people and cultures change.    This isn’t the product of human reasoning.    It’s not religious rules or good ethics codes.   It doesn’t start with our behaviour and it doesn’t depend on our good conduct.   It isn’t spirituality – it’s not a feeling that we promote.    It’s walking with – an act of God. 

John, as he teaches, teaches so that this knowledge should continue.   If the teaching about the Father and the Son are ignored, then human beings will no longer be able to become children of God.   It will be the greatest tragedy in history. 

Who do we know this about? 

We know it about ourselves and others.    We’ll come back to this, but others particularly means teachers. 

How do we know it? 

Obedience.   It’s important to remember the question, and that this is only part of the answer.   The question is ‘how do we know (with our minds) that we have come to know God personally.   

The answer is that we behave as Jesus did, and do what he taught.  We have to be careful here.   John clearly doesn’t expect people to be perfect.   He says that we all sin.    So what does he mean? He wants to bring the idea of eternal life away from theory.    He’s introducing a principle.   That principle is that a) behaviour doesn’t make you a Christian, because it’s a about knowing God. b) Knowing God will change your behaviour.   It’s important to keep an accurate focus.   We’ll concentrate on teachers and ourselves.   There are people who have suffered from abuse, mental illness, drug addiction who will go through things that someone else can’t imagine.   But even here, God will be at work. 

 Let me pick up two dimensions of this.    One is general.   Suppose, for example, that someone asked you ‘how did Jesus live?’ What would you say? Or, of someone asked you ‘what did Jesus teach?’ What would you say?   Think of replies such as ‘faith’. Denying yourself.   Covenant loyalty in marriage.   Forgiveness.    All of these things are the way of Jesus.   They matter.   Look at the Great commission – teaching them to obey everything I have commanded them.    So, if there is, for example, alcohol abuse or adultery in your life, that would be a warning sign.   The Holy Spirit, when he is at work, always makes people more like Jesus.   When we look for signs of the Holy Spirit’s work, we’ll always see signs of financial obedience.   We’ll always see signs of relational obedience.     

The second dimension, though, is love for God’s people.   This is because God’s love sows love.   When I first became a Christian, I had an extraordinary  experience of learning how to love.    It might appear in so many different ways, whether that is bringing food, waiting to talk to someone who is different from you, reaching out to someone who is hurting.   


So let’s get back to the question of who? 

That question applies to you, and I think it applies particularly to teachers. 

For you, there’s a tendency now to focus inward.   How is my mental state, how do I feel?   How is Jesus making me feel right now?    John says this isn’t a good indication of how God is working in your life.   He says that a much better indication is whether you’re changing.   John wans us to evaluate spiritual experience by looking at the whole person and say – what’s going on?   Are lives being changed?  Is demonic influence being broken?   Are lives being healed? 

Then there are the teachers.   Do the teachers we listen walk as Jesus walked?  DO their lives reflect obedience, or do they reflect the pursuit of money, or fame?  If they do, in the end they may put the preaching of the gospel at risk.   They will focus on the blessings that God gives, and turn it into marketing.   We live in a period of influencers, market share, fame, youtube videos.   John is saying look carefully at the lives of those who lead us.    What drives them?