Happy Father’s Day! This Father’s Day, we will continue our study of the book of 1 John. John wrote this letter to believers who were wrestling with doubt. False teachers had left the churches and were spreading confusion about who Jesus is and what it means to truly have eternal life. In 1 John 5:13, John tells us that he writes so that those who believe in the name of Jesus would know they have eternal life. Throughout the book, John repeatedly gives us three categories of examination: the test of obedience, the test of love, and the test of right doctrine regarding Jesus.

In 1 John 2:3–6, John turns our attention to the test of obedience. Before you bristle at the thought, John is not teaching legalism — he is not saying that obedience earns or maintains your standing before God. Rather, he shows that a life increasingly directed by Christ’s commands is the fruit of a heart already transformed by the gospel. Just as a tree is known by the fruit it bears, a person who has genuinely come to know Jesus will bear the fruit of a life that strives to walk as Jesus walked. The question John puts before us is not whether we are perfect, but whether the direction of our lives — the pattern, the aim, the longing of our hearts — is pointed toward Christ, because this is what God promises to do in those He saves in the New Covenant (Eze. 36:26-27).

1 John is both comforting and convicting. These tests comfort us because they show us the evidence of God’s work in us, not what we must do to be right with God. Yet the examination is also convicting because it calls each of us to honest self-examination, and no one fulfills these things perfectly (1 John 1:8-10). While perfection is not under the microscope in 1 John, the reality of our life lived for Jesus is. Read 1 John 2:3-6 several times before Sunday as we prayerfully come together to hear God speak.

I. Obedience Is An Evidence of Knowing Jesus (v. 3)
II. Obedience Is The Fruit Of God’s Love In Us (v. 4–5a)
III. Obedience Is The Result Of Being "In Christ" (v. 5b–6)