God, the Perfect Example of Integrity
One of the foundational truths we learn about God in 1 John 1:5 (ESV) is that, "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all." This is a statement about God's integrity, his character, consistency, and truthfulness. God does not contradict himself. His words are utterly true and his actions are trustworthy. There is perfect congruence between what God says and what he does. You can stake not just your life, but your plans and your soul, on God's words. Revelation 22:6 (ESV) says God's words are, "...trustworthy and true." Romans 3:4 (ESV) says, "Let God be true though every one were a liar..."
Now a lot of times, people put words in God's mouth. They speak where God has not spoken. They misinterpret what God has said, and they misapply his word and therefore mislead people. This has been the history of religion from the beginning. Many presume to speak for God, announcing, "Thus says the Lord" only for their words to ring hollow later. The Bible refers to such people as false teachers, false prophets, and even liars.
I sit on Facebook or Twitter watching people's status updates, I listen to talk shows and talk radio, I read newspaper and magazines, and also blogs. You gotta really be careful these days. If something sounds true, or sounds spiritual, or smacks of human wisdom, we assume it's true, and we share it! Our default is tolerance. We grant everyone expert status-- the benefit of the doubt. Whenever we hear a sermon or read something, we should discern its basis in scripture. We should be asking questions. Did God say that? When? Where is it written? What book? What chapter? What verse? Is that a literal Bible translation, a devotional translation, or no translation (a popular sentiment)?
God himself is faithful and true, but beware of God's followers, no matter how popular, how credentialed, or how loud or sincere! In fact, the more popular, the more credentialed, and the more loud and sincere, the more skeptical you should be! The believers in Berea in Acts 17:11 give us an example of the right kind of skeptism we should use. As the apostle Paul preached to them, they searched the scriptures daily to see if what he was saying was true. Romans 3:4 (ESV) is an invitation to a journey. "Let God be true though every one were a liar..." 1 John 1:5 is a core doctrine, "...God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." In 1 John 3:20 John warns us that, "...God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything."
Now our culture is invested in a different journey which says something like, "Let men be found true, and God a liar. Let the scientists, the moralists, the politicians, the professors, and the scholars be proved true, and God a liar." One of the things I am learning is that I don't have to argue with the evolutionist who denies creation, the astrologist who denies God's power, or the sociologist who believes God to be a human construct and Jesus a superstition. I don't have argue with the moralist who perverts God's truth to advocate abortion, redefine marriage, or distort human sexuality. Instead, my motto is, "Let God be found true, and every man a liar." Reality is on our side. The truth is on our side. In time, wisdom will be proved right by her offspring. Men are continually proven wrong. In contrast, God's word will not disappoint us, not ever. God's words are faithful and true.
Our Word, Positions, and Doctrines Need to Match God's
Because God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all, our words, positions, and doctrines ought to match up with God's words. This is why the Bible says we should be slow to be teachers, and that teachers will be judged more harshly. It's not that we shouldn't speak or teach on behalf of God. Clearly, older women are to teach younger women, older men are to teach younger men, and parents are to teach their children. The Lord knows what a crisis we're in because most believers abdicate their responsibility to teach their families to professional pastors and church programs. We need more parents, men, and women to teach! It's just that when we do speak on behalf of God, we need to insure that our words are congruent with God's words. 1 Peter 4:11 (ESV) says "...whoever speaks, (should speak) as one who apeaks oracles of God..." This is verbal integrity. Jesus had verbal integrity. In John 12:49 (ESV) Jesus says, "For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment-- what to say and what to speak."
A major concern in 1 John 1 is that the Church was losing her verbal integrity. God was saying one thing, but the Church was saying another! Here are some examples. 1 John 1:6 (ESV), "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." 1 John 1:8 (ESV), "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 1 John 1:10 (ESV) says, "If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." 1 John 2:22-24 (ESV) says, "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father."
Restoring Verbal Integrity
So how do we restore verbal integrity? We confess. We agree and speak with God. 1 John 1:9 (ESV) tells us, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 4:2 (ESV) says, "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God..."
If you are nervous about whether you are speaking God's word, there is a simple solution. Open the word! If someone is teaching and getting off track, open the word! Have them point to the verse(s), and read it to you. And read the verse in its full context. Read it in light of other verses. We get in trouble whenever we shut the word out of our lives.
But there is a second concern. For sure, our words need to be congruent with God's words. But our walk must also be congruent with God's words. There is a huge problem when we as Christians say one thing, but walk an entirely different path. So look at your outline. Suppose you go around talking the talk by saying things like, "I know God. I have fellowship with God." I know that sounds like an awesome thing for Christian people to say, right? But what if we get in the habit of saying these things while living in direct contradiction to what God desires? God wants our words to be right, but he also wants our walk to be right!
Integrity is twofold. It entails speaking the truth and it entails living the truth. So if our talk is that we know God, there should be evidence of God's fruit in our lives. One of the first places a lack of integrity reveals itself is in our speech and behavior. It's a whole lot easier to say things, or preach things, or sing things, than to live them or back them up with character.
A lot of people believe that lying is only a matter of speech. But this isn't true! A lie is just as much what we do as what we say! Have you ever heard the expression, "living a lie"? We can just as easily live a lie as we can tell a lie. A liar is a person who speaks and acts in ways that aren't congruent with reality. So a person might say, "I know God. I know God!" and yet be a walking contradiction.
Our text in 1 John 2:3-11 reveals three ways we ought to walk the talk. For our purposes, I will frame these in the form of questions, for our self-evaluation.
First, do I keep God's commands?
1 John 2:3-5 (ESV) says, "And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected."
I John 5:3 (ESV) says, "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." John 14:21 (ESV) says, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."
The whole concept of keeping God's commandments is relational. To know God is to love God. To love God, assuming it's not shallow, sentimental love, is to know why you love God. It's to know his character, his divine nature, his power, his marvelous deeds, his salvation, and his Son. To know God in such splendor is to worship God, serve God, and reciprocate his love. His commandments aren't burdensome, but a delight. They're done out of the overflow for who God is and all God has done through Jesus. You can't truly know God and be callously indifferent about what God desires and what you have done in response to those desires.
The idea of keeping means to guard, protect, observe, and cherish. It's captured in Colossians 1:9-14 (ESV) where Paul prays, "And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
John says that as we keep God's commandments, God's love is perfected in us. Think about that! Perfect love perfects us. God's perfect love, when fully received, changes us, transforms us, reconciles us, and endears us to God. We live and respond from the heart. Keeping commandments is relational language. Another way to get at the same thing is to ask, "Do I love God's commands? Do I love knowing countless ways to please God?" Go look at Psalm 119 if you want to see what it looks like to love God's commands. But ask yourself, do you love God enough that you want to please him? To walk the talk is to love and keep God's commandments.
Second, do I walk in Jesus'footsteps?
1 John 2:5-6 (ESV) says, "By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked."
The best place to turn if you want to follow in Jesus' footsteps are the gospel books of the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These books illustrate that there was never a man who lived more fully for God than Jesus. In John 8:29 (ESV) Jesus said, "And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him." Colossians 1:19 (ESV) says, "For in him (Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." It's not surprising that those who have most wanted to love God through the ages have sought to follow in Jesus' footsteps, and they've made Jesus' life a point of deep reflection and imitation. Last year I spent 30-40 hours with a group of men studying the life of Christ. And for every hour we spent together, the guys easily spent 1-2 hours in personal study. What did Jesus say? What did he do? What were his priorities? And just as importantly, "How then shall we live?" To walk the talk is to follow in Jesus' footsteps.
Third, do I love my brother?
I will simply mention this third point, because we will return to it several times in our study of 1 John. What does it mean to walk the talk? 1 John 2:7-11 (ESV) says, "Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes." 1 John 3:18 (ESV) says, "Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." 1 John 4:20 (ESV) says, "If anyone says, 'I love God',and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen."
To walk the talk is to love as Jesus loved. How can we move toward deeper integrity, not just with words, but in our walk?