Sermons on 1 John 2:3
The various sermons below converge on a clear pastoral kernel: 1 John 2:3 is read as an evidential, relational test of genuine knowledge of God rather than a recipe to earn salvation. Across the pieces obedience (keeping the commandments) is repeatedly presented as the visible fruit of an inward, Spirit-wrought knowing — the proof or assurance that God’s work is present in someone — while professions without deeds are exposed as hollow. Preachers mine the Greek verbs and cultural resonances of “know” and “keep,” and they deploy evocative metaphors (light vs. darkness, root and fruit, a captain keeping course) to show obedience as both the normal pattern of a life transformed and the means by which believers grow in confidence. Nuances emerge: some stress assurance as subjective confidence distinguished from objective security; another frames “knowing” with covenantal, even intimacy-laden language; some press obedience as ongoing habit and navigational perseverance rather than flawless perfection; others are more diagnostic, using John’s rhetoric to expose false claims. All, however, move beyond legalism — obedience is portrayed as the effect and evidence of perfected love, not the ground of acceptance.
The contrasts are where sermon prep gets most useful: one strand gives a careful pastoral pathway—obedience as the reliable route to increasing assurance—while another sharpens a theological distinction that assurance is different from the once-for-all security Christ purchases; one reading emphasizes sacramental/romantic intimacy and revelatory perception (knowing as relational illumination), another emphasizes practical, nautical perseverance and repeated repentance as the mark of true faith, and yet another frames the verse rhetorically as a test that exposes false profession by its lack of fruit. Methodologically they differ too — lexical-cultural exegesis, rhetorical reading of John’s sequential moves, pastoral shepherding language, and doctrinally-weighted appeals to perseverance or freedom — so you can pick from tones that counsel, convict, encourage course-correcting, or reassure the wavering depending on whether you want to press assurance without legalism, press holiness without despair, or press repentance without undermining assurance. The choice you make about emphasis — intimacy versus evidence, assurance versus security, habit versus perfection, diagnostic exposure versus pastoral pathway — will shape whether your sermon comforts believers seeking confidence, confronts nominal profession, or equips hearers to keep course and return in repentance; each approach offers homiletic resources (metaphor, lexical hooks, pastoral questions) but pulls the listener’s attention in subtly different directions, which matters for how you handle passages that link obedience and love, for how you speak of the Spirit’s role in enabling keeping, and for whether you end by urging diligent habit, relational deepening, doctrinal clarification, or repeated repentance — and that decision will determine whether your final charge is to root and fruit, to steward assurance, to cultivate intimacy, or to keep the course by continual repentance and reliance on grace, because the text lends itself to
1 John 2:3 Interpretation:
Walking in the Light: Assurance Through Obedience(Solid Rock Community) reads 1 John 2:3 as a two-fold use of "know"—first as assurance/confidence and second as relational knowing—and insists John is giving a test of assurance (not a means of securing salvation) by pointing to obedience to the teachings of Jesus (the "commands" or "law of Christ") as the indicator that God's work is present in a person; the preacher emphasizes John's simple repetitive vocabulary as purposeful, frames obedience as evidence produced by God's love perfected in us, contrasts a mere profession of faith with genuine faith evidenced by deeds, and uses metaphors (God as light, the absurdity of tanning under an umbrella) and rhetorical "ping-pong" moves (positive then negative) to show how John demonstrates the link between obedience, love for brothers, and confidence that one is "known" by God.
Assurance Through Obedience: Knowing God Personally(Open the Bible) takes 1 John 2:3 as an explicit pastoral pathway: obedience to God's commandments is the clear and reliable means by which believers grow in assurance that they truly "know" God; the sermon offers a linguistic and cultural angle on the pivotal verb "keep" (see below), insists the verse promises not only knowledge of God but knowledge that one knows him (assurance), and moves beyond legalistic duty to depict obedience as the fruit and evidence of God's love perfected in the believer—obedience is both the way and the proof by which confidence in one's status "in Christ" increases.
Intimate Knowledge of God: A Transformative Relationship(Desiring God) interprets 1 John 2:3 within a larger sacramental/relational idiom: knowing God is fundamentally a personal, covenantal, even intimacy-laden reality (biblical "know" has sexual and spousal resonances), and 1 John’s "by this we know…" ties such knowing to the ethical evidence of keeping God's commandments; the sermon stresses that true knowledge of God is not mere cognitive assent (even demons "know" Jesus) but a Spirit-enabled relational perception that issues in love and obedience and that 1 John points to obedience as one of the discernible marks of that deep, revelatory knowledge.
Walking in the Light: Freedom and Truth in 1 John(Abundant Life Church) interprets 1 John 2:3 as a diagnostic statement — John is not offering a checklist for earning salvation but giving a test: true knowledge of God shows itself in obedience; the preacher stresses that "by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments" means the fruit of a life (what the tree produces) reveals the root (whether one is truly joined to Christ), explaining that someone who claims to "know him" but habitually fails to keep his commandments is exposed as a liar because the absence of obedience is evidence they are not rooted in Christ, and he ties that directly to the surrounding verses (the advocacy of Christ in 2:1–2 and the command to love brothers in 2:4–11) to show obedience is not an isolated ethic but the outworking of being in the light.
Living Genuine Faith Amidst Trials and Temptations(SermonIndex.net) reads 1 John 2:3 as asserting that keeping God's commandments is the natural reflection and navigation of a genuine relationship with Christ — not perfection but an orientation: genuine believers will be moved by conviction when they sin and will seek repentance, and the preacher uses the lexical sense of "keep" to argue that obedience is the ongoing habit of steering toward God (with course corrections), so the verse functions as evidential reassurance ("we can be sure") that a living faith produces obedience as its habitual sign.
1 John 2:3 Theological Themes:
Walking in the Light: Assurance Through Obedience(Solid Rock Community) emphasizes a careful theological distinction between "assurance" and "security": security is the objective status given by Christ's finished work (no one can snatch believers from God's hand), while assurance is the believer's subjective confidence that they are in that secure state, and 1 John 2:3 is given as the means for assurance (obedience as evidential, not salvific).
Assurance Through Obedience: Knowing God Personally(Open the Bible) develops a theme that obedience to God's commands is the divinely-appointed path to increasing assurance and links obedience to an experiential freedom: true freedom is when a person's deepest desires align with God's commands, so obedience is not legalistic drudgery but the blessed outcome of God's love reshaping desires (obedience as the evidence of God's love perfected and the source of spiritual liberty).
Intimate Knowledge of God: A Transformative Relationship(Desiring God) advances the theme that epistemology of salvation is relational and revelatory rather than merely propositional: knowing God entails Spirit-wrought perception (a "spirit of wisdom and revelation"), and 1 John 2:3’s ethical test (keeping commandments) functions as an outward sign of inward, revelatory knowledge that is the channel of all godly life and godliness.
Walking in the Light: Freedom and Truth in 1 John(Abundant Life Church) emphasizes a theme that obedience functions as evidential fruit rather than meritorious work: he underscores John’s rhetorical flip from inner confession (chapter 1) to outward fruit (chapter 2) so that commandments operate theologically as verification of union with Christ (root/fruit theology) and as an expression of perfected love — obedience completes and tests the claim of knowing God rather than contributing to justification.
Living Genuine Faith Amidst Trials and Temptations(SermonIndex.net) develops the distinct theme that obedience is navigational perseverance — he links "keep" to a captain keeping course and presents perseverance (the Calvinist insight of "perseverance of the saints" as a fruit) as the practical mark that one’s faith is genuine, stressing that obedience issues from relationship under grace (not legalism) and that true believers will repeatedly return in repentance when they drift.
1 John 2:3 Historical and Contextual Insights:
Walking in the Light: Assurance Through Obedience(Solid Rock Community) situates 1 John in its historical setting—late-first-century churches around Ephesus and the Aegean, a culture saturated with pagan worship and emergent false teachers—and explains that John's practical emphasis on commands and love responds to congregations vulnerable to anti-Christ teachings and cultural assimilation; this contextualization shapes the sermon's reading of "commands" as counter-cultural markers of true Christian identity rather than mere moralism.
Intimate Knowledge of God: A Transformative Relationship(Desiring God) draws on Old Testament covenantal imagery (Adam "knew" Eve; Hosea's betrothal language) to show that Hebrew/ancient Near Eastern senses of "knowing" include intimate, marital, covenantal dimensions; the sermon uses this cultural-linguistic background to argue that New Testament talk of "knowing God" (and 1 John’s ethic) should be heard in the register of covenant intimacy rather than abstract cognition.
Walking in the Light: Freedom and Truth in 1 John(Abundant Life Church) supplies historical-context detail by dating the Johannine epistles to roughly 90 AD and situating the letters in a clash with both Gnostic dualism (which devalued the flesh and denied real sin) and a Jewish milieu that still prized the commandments; he argues John writes first to Jews (hence the emphasis on commandments), explains the Gnostic background that prompted John’s insistence on real human sin and real atonement, and also points to Greek nuances (e.g., the affectionate force of the phrase "my little children") to show how the original audience and linguistic texture shape the force of 1 John 2:3.
1 John 2:3 Cross-References in the Bible:
Walking in the Light: Assurance Through Obedience(Solid Rock Community) weaves multiple cross-references to support 1 John 2:3: John 10:28–29 (security in Christ) to distinguish security from assurance; Galatians 6:2 (bearing one another’s burdens) and other sayings of Jesus to define the "commands" as the law of Christ (love and discipleship ethics, not only Ten Commandments); James 2:14 (faith shown by works) and Romans passages about faith and confession to argue that profession without obedience indicates a counterfeit faith; John 13:34 and 1 John 4 (God is love) to show how obedience, especially love for brothers, is the experiential evidence that God’s love has been perfected in someone.
Assurance Through Obedience: Knowing God Personally(Open the Bible) groups a broad set of biblical supports around 1 John 2:3: 1 John 5:13 (John’s stated purpose—to give believers assurance of eternal life); John 15:10 and other Gospel links (Jesus: "If you love me, keep my commandments") to tie obedience to abiding in Christ; Jeremiah 31:34 (New Covenant promise "they shall all know me") to argue that knowledge of God will be direct, not secondhand; Romans 8 and Philippians 3 to show how Christ’s work enables the righteous requirement of the law to begin to be fulfilled in believers; and Philippians/1 Peter references (pressing on, living for righteousness) to frame the moral life as the outwork of conversion and a path to greater assurance.
Intimate Knowledge of God: A Transformative Relationship(Desiring God) clusters biblical cross-references to explain what "knowing God" entails: Mark's story of demons recognizing Jesus (to warn that mere factual recognition is not saving knowing); Romans 1:21 and Ephesians 4 (human futility and hard-hearted ignorance) to diagnose why people don't know God; Hosea and Adam/Eve narratives to highlight covenantal and sexual metaphors of "knowing"; John’s words on eternal life ("that they know you") and 2 Corinthians 4:6 (God illuminating hearts with the knowledge of his glory) plus II Peter 1:3 (everything for life and godliness comes through the knowledge of him) to show how 1 John 2:3 sits within a biblical network that links revelation, Spirit-work, ethical fruit, and the life of godliness.
Walking in the Light: Freedom and Truth in 1 John(Abundant Life Church) clusters several scriptural cross-references around 1 John 2:3: he connects it back to 1 John 1:7–9 (walking in the light and the cleansing blood — showing the inner cleansing that precedes the outward test), to 1 John 2:1–2 (Christ as advocate and propitiation — the basis for forgiven believers who nevertheless show obedience), and to the immediately following verses (2:4–11 about loving one’s brother — the concrete ethical expression John expects), and he even appeals to broader New Testament theology (e.g., 2 Corinthians’ statement that God was in Christ reconciling the world) to show that forgiveness and reconciliation are the ground which make commandments the proper test rather than the means of salvation.
Living Genuine Faith Amidst Trials and Temptations(SermonIndex.net) connects 1 John 2:3 to other biblical material to clarify its function: he uses James’ teaching ("faith without works is dead") to argue that works (keeping commandments) reveal the reality of faith, appeals to Matthew’s teaching (the house built on rock vs. sand) to insist obedience demonstrates a foundation able to withstand storms, and ties the verse to New Testament warnings about apostasy (e.g., 2 Thessalonians 2:3 on the falling away) and perseverance passages (Paul’s rhetoric about being rooted and immovable) to show that the command to "keep" is both evidence of present union and the habit that sustains believers amid trials.
1 John 2:3 Christian References outside the Bible:
Assurance Through Obedience: Knowing God Personally(Open the Bible) explicitly appeals to the Heidelberg Catechism as a historical theological resource to nuance the practical outworking of 1 John 2:3: the speaker cites the catechism’s teaching that "in this life even the holiest have only a small beginning of obedience" and uses its Q&A framing to hold together two truths—no believer perfectly keeps God's commands, yet every true believer begins to live according to them—using the catechism to guard against legalism and to encourage serious pursuit of obedience as the path to assurance.
Living Genuine Faith Amidst Trials and Temptations(SermonIndex.net) explicitly draws on post‑biblical Christian commentators and traditions while discussing 1 John 2:3 and obedience: he cites Matthew Henry’s historical reading (used earlier to frame Revelation 14) and invokes Martin Luther and the Reformers as part of a historiographical lens on scripture’s application, he references Calvinistic theology (TULIP) specifically the doctrine of perseverance of the saints to support the claim that true faith perseveres and produces obedience, and he mentions contemporary evangelistic figures (e.g., Ray Comfort) as practical exemplars of using the law to show people their need of Christ; these references are used to ground his assertion that keeping commandments is the expected fruit of authentic conversion and to locate that expectation within historic and contemporary Christian interpretation.
1 John 2:3 Illustrations from Secular Sources:
Walking in the Light: Assurance Through Obedience(Solid Rock Community) uses several concrete, everyday analogies to illuminate 1 John 2:3: the preacher’s "tan under an umbrella" image depicts the incoherence of claiming fellowship with light while remaining in darkness (you can't sunbathe under an umbrella and get a tan), and repeated metaphors like being a "conduit" or "reflector" of God's love convey that Christians are channels rather than originators of divine love; the sermon also paints a vivid historical scene—John in Ephesus amid a culture of entertainment and pagan worship—to show why moral markers like love and obedience function as community-level proofs of genuine faith.
Assurance Through Obedience: Knowing God Personally(Open the Bible) leans on a practical, historically-inflected secular analogy for the Greek-derived sense of "keep": commentators' comparison of the verb to a ship captain navigating—constantly scanning skies and seas without modern instruments—becomes a central image for "keeping God's commands," portraying Christian obedience as vigilant, ongoing biblical navigation where the Scriptures are the instruments used to chart daily course; the sermon also cited a Scottish paraphrase of Psalm 23 ("The king of love my shepherd is") as a familiar hymn illustration to evoke the personal assurance of belonging ("if I am his and he is mine forever").
Walking in the Light: Freedom and Truth in 1 John(Abundant Life Church) repeatedly uses everyday secular images to make 1 John 2:3 concrete — most notably the apple‑orchard/tree analogy (chopping out the root so the fruit dies) to illustrate how Christ severs the root of sin so sinful fruit withers but may remain for a time, a "car wash" metaphor for ongoing cleansing by Christ’s blood to show daily forgiveness as background to obedience, and blunt everyday imagery (being "hit by a train" as a caricature of fear‑based religion) plus the apple‑tree-with-pears image to show how outward fruit exposes inward identity, all used to demonstrate that keeping commandments is the visible evidence of an inward, transformed life rather than a legalistic performance.
Living Genuine Faith Amidst Trials and Temptations(SermonIndex.net) peppers his treatment of 1 John 2:3 with popular‑culture and contemporary analogies to underscore the verse’s practical import: he uses the ship‑captain/course metaphor (explaining that "keep" is the same idea a captain uses to stay on a planned route) as a primary secular analogy for keeping commandments; he appeals to public figures and media (Joe Rogan as cultural influencer, Kevin James’ public 40‑day fast and weight regain as an image of perseverance and relapse, TikTok/social media dynamics and Chinese social‑credit examples to show cultural pressure and the stakes of influence) and cites celebrities (Taylor Swift, Ice Spice, Katy Perry) and news examples (the Planned Parenthood exposer’s legal struggles) to illustrate the surrounding cultural forces that make obedience/fruit an urgent, visible test of genuine faith in the modern public square.