We're going to be looking at 1 John chapter 2 this morning, continuing our study through this epistle where John is giving us assurance of our salvation. "I write to you these things who believe in Jesus, that you may know that you have eternal life." That's His purpose and intent.

Well, we're looking at an interesting text this morning, and sometimes when I begin to study a text and read it over and over, I become perplexed. Sometimes the sermon outline jumps right out at me and a thousand Scriptures come to mind, and the intent is clear and the message is vivid. But other times, I read it and read it and I think, "What in the world is going on here?" The text before us is one of those passages. It seems so obscure, so out of place. What is John talking about? Why are these three verses here in this context? These are the passages that require a little more work, a little more study, and a lot more prayer.

And what I have found whenever this happens is that by the end of my study, I find that God has for us in this kind of passage a rich and important and instructive teaching—something that we really need to grasp and understand. And that's exactly what I found as I worked through these three short verses and prepared for this message.

John has spent a chapter and a half telling us what is true of the believer—the born one of God—and how this contrasts with the unbeliever. And he's done this in order to give us assurance of our salvation. He said that believers walk in the light. That they have life—the life of Christ in them. That they have new hearts filled with the love of God by the Holy Spirit. And their deep down desire is to believe Jesus and love one another, keeping the New Covenant commandments of Christ.

He says that the born again believer in the church in the New Covenant age now has a new way of life by the Spirit, not by the letter. And he can now, having been regenerated, having received a heart of flesh, having been quickened in his spirit, and having the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in him, he can now love with an agape love. He loves God and he loves others, especially the brethren. And John has given us truth concerning who the believer is in Christ, what his heart and his mind and his desire now consists of, and how this drastic change affects his outward life.

All of these things are true, and they are vital to our understanding. But what I think John is trying to explain to us in verses 12-14 is that all believers are not at the same stage of growth. There is a diversity within the body. There are different stages of maturity and understanding, and he wants each believer to understand that that is okay. That that's how it is, how it's supposed to be. And he uses the illustration of a man to explain by a picture of physical growth what spiritual growth should look like.

Remember, John's main intent is to give assurance of salvation to those who believe Jesus and, secondarily, to warn us of false teachers leading some away from the simplicity that is in Christ to another gospel. So John wants us to understand the natural, necessary growth cycle of the believer and assure us that whatever stage we find ourselves, we are growing and increasing in the grace of God. And if this is true, that we are secure in the faith and we are on the right track.

He does this using the illustration of the physical growth of a man. He writes to the born ones in verse 12. This is all believers. Believers have had their sins forgiven, he says, for His name's sake. But then he talks to the babes, to the young men, and then to the fathers. The terms he uses are most instructive for us. And we will see as we dig into this text that there are some vital applications for us in our time, in the context of the church today, and in our own understanding of spiritual growth.

Let's look together at verse 12. "I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one."

Well, there's four points on your outline for the message this morning. First, we're going to look at newborn babes. Second, young men. Third, fathers. And then, intentional holiness.

Well, spring is an amazing and busy time for us on the farm at Whitney Creek. We're transitioning now from winter through the mud to the glories of spring. And there are challenges in this time, mostly anticipating the green lush grass and the drying up time so that the animals can go back out on pasture and enjoy the warmth of the sun and the nutrition of the rapidly growing green plants. And then there are the babies—lots and lots of babies. We have 21 lambs right now on the ground, 35 piglets, and over 200 baby chicks. 

What we see and experience in the spring of the year after the cold and darkness of winter is new life. New life is everywhere on the farm this time of year. And the anticipation, the excitement for this new life is growth. The babies are drinking their mother's rich milk, and you can literally watch them grow day by day. Some of our lambs were born at 7 pounds, and within a week or so, they're over 10 pounds, some as much as 18 pounds. The piglets are growing at an amazing rate, achieving eight times their birth weight in just three weeks. And the grass and the trees are growing as they drink in the spring rains and soak up the sun. 

What is true of life is that it's constantly producing growth. And when there is a lack of growth, especially with new life such as a little piglet, then there's something tragically wrong. If a little piglet becomes ill or experiences some sort of injury, it will fall behind rapidly and its brothers and sisters will soon be twice its size. And if that illness persists more than a couple of days, it will likely die. Life and health is marked by growth. And a lack of growth is a very serious concern. 

This is true for the Christian life as well, my friends. What actually has happened to us when we believed is that we were born again. John taught in John 3 the necessity of the new birth. Jesus taught in John 3 the necessity of the new birth. Paul made clear statements concerning this in Romans 6 that we have been raised to newness of life. That we have died, were buried, and rose again as new creations in Christ. Regeneration is being born again. It's being given a new life. And Peter said, as newborn babes, we should desire the pure milk of the Word to grow thereby. 

John, in our text, talks to the newborn babes in Christ. Now in verse 12, he is addressing all of the believers as he did in verse 1 of chapter 2 when he writes, "I write to you little children." The word he uses here is technion and it literally means born ones. Anyone who is born of God. It refers to all believers because all believers have been born—they are born ones. 

And as we see in verse 12, they have also had all their sins forgiven for His namesake. I want to just take a moment to address that important phrase: for His namesake. Salvation, forgiveness of sins, our new birth is all the work of God. It's all by His grace through faith alone. God saved us for His namesake, to glorify Himself, to keep His promises, to display His power in us. It is because of the very essence of who He is, because of His name—that great name, Savior—that He brought salvation to men. He magnifies His name. He displays who He is. And He shows His grace and mercy by saving us, by forgiving all of our sins, by changing the very essence of who we are. And all of this is dependent on Him and His words and His promises for His name. What an amazing and important truth that is to understand.

So John is addressing the believers in general here in verse 12. Little ones, born ones, I write to you because your sins are forgiven for His namesake. But I want you to notice in verse 13, toward the end, he again addresses little children. But here John uses a different word. It's paideion, and it means babies or infants. He is here specifically addressing the newborns in the church. The ones who are like babies—new, full of life, but immature and ignorant concerning the great knowledge that they have yet to learn.

And look at what John says about them. "I write to you because you know the Father." Again, John is using the illustration of a man here—the growth from birth to manhood. And I'd like for you to think about a newborn babe, perhaps even a toddler. What does a toddler know? They know their parents. They love their parents. They depend on and they need their parents. They look to them. But they know very little else. 

I remember when Caitlin was very young, perhaps two or three, and Bobby and I took her on vacation with us and another family to Daytona Beach, Florida. We stayed in a very nice suite, several stories up, right on the beach. And there was a balcony outside our living room, and it had some chairs where you could sit out there and look out over the ocean. One day we were standing on the balcony, my friend and I, and Caitlin came walking out, holding on to that railing six or seven stories above the ground. And as I was talking to my friend, I watched as Caitlin slipped through the rails and was standing on the outside of the railing, holding on with her little hands, looking out at the beach, not thinking about a thing. I froze. I couldn't move in the moment. But my friend noticed what was happening and he reached down and he grabbed her hand and he pulled her back through the rail. It was a frightening experience. The baby's head shouldn't fit through the rails. But Caitlin didn't know any different. She had no fear of falling and she had no fear of the death that she would have experienced had she hit the concrete below. She was a babe; she was vulnerable. And she needed protection. 

I could hold her in my arms, and she'd look at me with those big blue eyes and laugh and giggle. She knew her dad. She loved her father. But that was really all she knew in the world. This is the way it is with babes in Christ. It's wonderful—newborns filled with the first love, that fresh experience of salvation, believing Jesus, knowing the Father. But these newborns really do not have much of a grasp of doctrine, of truth, of danger and false teachings and pitfalls in the world. And that's okay. That's how it's supposed to be.

And like those newborns on our farm, the intention of God in bringing a man to new life and causing us to be born again is that we would grow. That from that new birth, from that point of obtaining life, that we would grow—that there would be rapid growth for the babe in Christ. Ephesians 4:11 says, "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, listen, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect, complete man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into Him who is the Head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

God has given gifts to the believers, to the church, including men gifted to teach and preach, in order that we might understand the truth, God's Word, so that we might grow thereby. The growth of the Christian is by the truth. It's by God's Word. That's why Peter said that as a baby longs for his mother's milk, we should desire, we should long for the truth of God's Word that we can grow thereby. This is God's method of sanctification. Jesus said in John 17, "Sanctify them by your truth. Your Word is truth."

And believers should be continually growing, studying, hearing the Word of God, to know the truth, to believe it, and to become discerning—to grow up as a child would into a young man. Look in verses 13 and 14 at what John says to the more mature Christians, the teenagers, the young men. "I write to you young men because you have overcome the wicked one. I've written to you young men because you are strong, and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one." 

This is so instructive for us. How do we grow? We grow by ingesting, consuming, knowing the truth—God's Word. We must study, hear, meditate on the truth of God's Word so that it fills us with all knowledge, that it soaks in and nourishes us and causes us to grow—to become discerning, to know good from evil. And that is what is true of these young men to which John writes. 

Notice what he says: they had overcome the wicked one. What does that mean? How do we overcome the wicked one? Let me ask you this: What is the primary weapon of Satan? How does he cause us to fall, to stumble, to be led astray? How does he keep lost men from Christ? How does he disable believers and cause them to become fruitless? It is by error, my friends. By lies. By false teaching.

You see, what you believe will dictate how you act. And spiritual growth has everything to do with knowing and believing the truth. This is how we overcome the wicked one—by knowing and believing the truth. Babes in Christ must be taught. They must be nurtured. They must be brought along in their growth by consistent teaching of the truth, and if not, they will not grow. Just as a physical baby grows by good nutrition, love, and admonition, so the babe in Christ must be nourished continually by the truth of the Word of God—drinking it in, taking it for himself, learning, growing, and believing.

It's disheartening, to say the least, to see an infant who does not grow physically or mentally. And it is perhaps even more disheartening to see a babe in Christ who does not grow in the truth. And I'm afraid, my brothers and sisters, that this is the norm in evangelical Christianity today. There's no discernment. There's no overcoming the wicked one. There's no fruit because there's no growth, and there's no growth because there's no emphasis on the truth—on preaching, on doctrine, on growing up into a young man and on to becoming a father.

Much of evangelicalism is stuck at phase 1. Many of them are born ones—technion. But they may have been born again for years and years, and they are still paideon, like a baby. Think about how a baby relates to you as a parent. He loves you. He delights in you. He wants you. He depends on you. And that is wonderful. But he's also ignorant, vulnerable, has no discernment, and no knowledge of the truth. 

And we see this in the church. Everyone living on emotion, celebrating their birth, their new relationship with God. But there's no preaching, no truth. And these babes are vulnerable. They are easily deceived. And Satan is working overtime to lead believers astray. And then, overtime, they do not grow. And then comes along some false teacher, some false doctrine, and they are taken captive because they don't know the truth. They haven't grown. And then they are led astray. That's just what John was worried about for these believers in these churches.

It's not that it's wrong to have the loving relationship, the dependence, the need—we are to maintain that first love. But we are to maintain that first love while growing in truth and knowledge and discernment—overcoming the wicked one and his minions, his false teachers and lies who masquerade as ministers of righteousness, who preach in pulpits. 

Do you ever wonder why some Christians that you know are so easily deceived, so easily entangled in false teaching? They approve of things, involve themselves in things that make you shake your head, that seem so clearly false and dangerous, yet they seem to be able to find Jesus in anything. It's because they are still babes. They may have been saved for 30 years, but they don't know any real depth of truth concerning salvation and who God is and who we are in Christ and what God intends for our lives. 

They believe, they know their Father, but they have not had consistent, continual truth teaching, and therefore they've never grown. Life should grow. We have life. We have Christ's life in us, and the intention of God is that we grow. Peter said we should grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we do immerse ourselves in the study of the truth, then we overcome the lies of Satan. If some false teacher comes along and tells us that Jesus is not sufficient for all life and godliness, that we need something more, then we know right away to avoid such a man, that he is a liar and the truth is not in him.

The one who has grown, who—look at verse 14 again—concerning the young man who has the Word of God abiding in him. This is the key. He has the truth, the Word of God abiding in him. He will not be deceived. He will call out falsehood and error and warn the brethren. He has overcome the wicked one and his lies through growth—through discernment, by immersing himself in God's Word.

So we see the babes. We see the young men. And we also see that John addresses the fathers. 

Verse 13: "I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning." Verse 14: "I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning." 

In the illustration of the growth of a man from birth to maturity, clearly, a father would be more mature than a babe or a young man. He would have grown to a greater degree, a more mature man physically. And so it is with the father used here in terms of spiritual growth. A father has wisdom, has patience, and has advice and guidance to give to the younger man because of his time of growth, but most of all, because of his experience.

And this is what John is driving at here when he writes to the spiritual fathers in the church—those who have known Him who is from the beginning. The babe in Christ knows His Father; that's really all he knows. The young man in Christ has grown; he knows the truth, and he's ready to stand and fight for that truth and be bold and warn others, and he's overcome the wicked one because the Word of God abides in him. 

But there's a deeper level of knowing God, and that comes with growth, but also with experience. We can know the truth. We can know the doctrine, and that is vital. But really, applying that doctrine through the struggle and hardship and tests and joys of life is how we come to know the Father in a wise and fruitful experiential way.

Think about a young man full of energy, full of desire, and knowing enough, as they say, to make him dangerous. It's a proper stage of growth. It's good. It's much better than being stunted as a babe. But knowledge alone is not the end goal—it's not the maturity that God intends for the believer. 

What we see in the spiritual father that John writes to is not only knowledge but wisdom in the application of that knowledge. The babe in Christ knows His Father. The young man can fight for the truth. But the spiritual father has been through life. He has seen the hand of God work in ways that the younger may not yet appreciate. He has learned how to trust, how to wait, how to expect God to work. And in those experiences, he knows God's faithfulness and the depth of His love in a powerful way.

God allows us to go through trials and tribulations. He allows us to grow through the tests of life in order to give us the wisdom of experience and the understanding of His Word applied in our lives. The spiritual fathers are those who have walked a long while with their Father. They know Him deeply and intimately through the trials, the victories, the hard lessons learned. 

And so the process of spiritual growth continues. When we experience challenges and difficulties, when we learn to depend on God, we grow. We learn to trust Him more. And the fruits of the Spirit come forth in our lives. Love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control become evidences of our growth and maturity. 

This is how the church grows and thrives. It starts with the newborns who need nurturing, who must be taught the Word of God, and then they grow into young men who can stand firm against deception and the lies of the enemy. Ultimately, that young man should mature to the point of becoming a spiritual father who can lead and guide others as they grow. 

And as we consider these truths, let us be intentional about our growth. Let us not be content to remain as babes. Let us pursue knowing our Father and knowing His Word, and let us grow in grace and knowledge so that we can effectively serve Him in this world around us.

And as we close, I encourage you, my friends, to press on in your spiritual journey, to seek after the water of life that is the Word of God, to desire to know Him more fully, to engage with His truths deeply, and to allow His Spirit to work in you transforming you into His likeness. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we're so thankful for the new life that You've given us in Christ through faith. And we're so thankful that You're our Father—our Abba, Papa, Daddy, Father—that we can crawl into Your lap, Lord, and find grace for help in time of need. And we also thank You that You have saved us for the purpose of having grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, and that You intend for us to live holy lives by Your power. 

Father, give us a great desire to grow, to live a holy life, to be a witness in this world, and to glorify You in all that we do for Your name's sake. It's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.