Love Embodied

Love Embodied

BECAUSE GOD EMBODIED LOVE BY SENDING HIS SON, WE MUST LOVE OTHERS. Good morning, Calvary. Christ is risen. Amen. Some of you might be looking up here saying, you know, I thought it was hazy this morning, but that does not look like Pastor Kyle. And you would be correct. I’m Jason O’Grady. I’m one of the elders here at Calvary. I also have the privilege of being on the teaching team. You see, Pastor Kyle, in addition to his fantastic preaching and being able to divide the word of truth, he also loves to train up others to preach as well. And so I’m grateful to be able to do that. I have to be honest with you, though, that just because I’m up here preaching to you does not mean that I have arrived. Doesn’t mean that I’ve attained to all these truths of Scripture that we’re going to be looking at today, that I’m a local sojourner with you, a fellow servant. And so what the Lord is teaching me is what I’m sharing with you. I first preached from First John over 25 years ago, and the Lord continues to show fantastic and sometimes hard truths from these scriptures to me. So he’s teaching me before I’m teaching others. Last week, Pastor Kyle talked about testing the spirits and that how we might know the spirit of truth. And this week, in First John, we are going to return to a common theme of love. This, in fact, is the third passage in First John that explicitly tells us to love one another. And if you’ve been following along with this summer series, this is actually the fourth sermon you likely have heard on loving one another. In fact, the words love, loved, loves, loving is used 46 times in this small epistle and in this chapter alone, First John four, it is used 27 times. So it’s obviously a theme that John wants to impress upon us. Maybe you’re like my youngest and you just love love. But you know what? There’s going to be some hard truths here as well as we look into this together. If you take nothing else from the sermon today, I want you to take this away because God embodied love by sending His Son, we must love others. I’ll say that one more time because God embodied love by sending His Son, we must love others. Would you pray with me? Father, I praise you and I thank you that we could come here and worship you. I thank you for your word that we can dig into together. I thank you, Lord for how you continue to grow this local body. It’s really exciting to hear about that land purchase, Lord, but we pray for wisdom, direction, and guidance for where you would like us to go from here. Lord, we want to pray for those in the northern of the state that are dealing with the wildfires. I pray, Lord, that you would protect life and that you would also be with the firefighters that are there. Lord, I pray for peace in this world. I think of the brothers and sisters right now that are facing persecution or in war. Lord, I pray for peace in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, in Iran and South Sudan. Lord, as we look into your word right now, I pray, Father, that it would not be my words, but that it would be yours, that you would use my weakness to show your truth. Father, thank you so much for your goodness and thank you for your love. It’s in Jesus name we pray. Amen. So we’re going to be in First John four today. That is in page 1023 in your pew Bibles. But I’ll also have it on the screen for you as well. And in typical Baptist fashion, I’m going to give you four points to remember today. So first let’s look at love commanded. Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. So he starts this passage with beloved. This is actually the fifth time that he’s used this word. It basically is showing that he truly loves his hearers. It’s kind of like a pastoral concern. He’s actually showing his hearers, hey, I am loving you and you must love others. Beloved, let us love one another. It sounds so repetitive here in First John, let us love one another. Do you think it’s just something that John cooked up on its own? Maybe it’s his own pet doctrine of love. Why did he continue to harp on this? And I would say that it was because this is exactly what he received from our Lord Jesus. You already heard it read in John 15, but I think it’s so powerful. I want to hear those words from the Lord again. John 15 and verse 12, he says this, John 15, verse 12, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants. For the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another. So you see, John is again returning to this theme because it is what he heard throughout the ministry of Jesus as three years he walked with him on this earth. Even when Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees and they said, what is the number one commandment? The first commandment? Jesus responded in Matthew 22, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, and your strength. And he says, and secondly, you should love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another was something that Jesus preached again and again. And it’s something that John wants us to do. And here in this passage, when he commands love, we see three reasons why we should love one another. First, love is from God. Love is from God. It is a gift. Love is out of by means of God. To paraphrase John Piper, this from here, love is from God, isn’t like the letter I would get from a mailman, or even letter I would get from a loved one. Think of it more like light I get from the sun because of what the sun is. It gives light or heat that I get from the fire. The same type of love is here, that love is from God. But some of you might say, well, wait a minute. There’s this one person and it might be a co-worker, it might be a neighbor, it might be a family member that I just can’t love. They are just so annoying. Or more commonly, they’ve hurt me so bad in the past. How can I love? There’s no way. And God is saying exactly. You can’t love on your own. It is only through the new spirit that I put in you that you are truly able to love others. So when he commands us to love one another first, it’s because love is from God. Then next, see, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Did you have a question there as you read that? Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. You see, I know many people that don’t profess Christ that seem to love. It could be an atheist, it could be a Sikh, it could be a Muslim, it could be a Hindu that seems like they love. Well, does that mean that they know God, that they show that love. Well, that’s where we have to actually return to context here because we see in First John 4:2, we heard about this last week. By this, you know, the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. So we see that we might have that right, that truth, that right belief to be able to actually be from God. And I also think that that love that I’ve seen exhibited in others that are non-believers is not truly that deep, abiding, self-sacrificial biblical love that is talked about here. So whoever loves has been born of God. Born of God, does that spark anything in your mind? I’m sure John was thinking back to that time with Nicodemus that he talks about in John three, where Nicodemus comes and said, how must I be saved? And Jesus said, you must be born again. Nicodemus says, well, how can I be born again if I’ve already been born? And that’s where Jesus then talks about being born in the spirit. He says, for that which was born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So if we have that new life, if we are born again in Christ, then we must love. But what does it mean then to know God? If whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. What does it mean to know God? Many of you know that I’m an Orioles fan. In fact, when I was growing up, my favorite player was probably Cal Ripken Jr. He was fantastic. In fact, I probably I, I do, I have his Wheaties box. I have a few signed balls. I have a picture of him in my bedroom. I mean, this guy I really enjoyed. Okay. And I could even go on some stats probably for you. I mean, he won the World Series in 1983. He had 2,632 consecutive games. He was a 19-time All-Star. In fact, his last All-Star Game, he hit a home run in the third inning that put the American League up one. Nothing and I could go on and on. Probably my son could give you more stats than me, but does that actually mean that I know Cal Ripken or that Cal Ripken knows me? No, because I haven’t really experienced him. I haven’t walked with him. I don’t know what he loves and what motivates him. Conversely, as I’ve walked with my wife and gotten to know her, I know her because we have experienced life together. I know what brings her joy. I’ve found out now that she absolutely loves trees. So that means that if it’s Mother’s Day or her birthday or some other holiday, I’m probably going to be getting her a tree because that brings her joy. If I’m planning a vacation, well, you better hope that there’s trees there because that brings her joy. Even my kids are picking up on the fact that their mother loves trees so much that they started to call her The Lorax. So we know that I experience love with my wife because I’ve walked with her. And in the same way, we need to know God, we need to experience him. And how do we experience him? We experience him through his written word as we spend time in it every day, not just on Sundays for a few minutes. We experience him in prayer, praying daily. We experience him in the fellowship of other believers, and we experience him as we serve and show forth his love to others. So we see whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. And then the apostle flips it on its head and says, anyone who does not love does not know God. Here we come to one of the hard truths that was actually probably best translated anyone who does not love has never known God. So very convicting. Because you see, love is a defining trait of a true Christian. It is essential to the new life. Any biologists or scientists in the room? So you know that mammals are defined by typically three things. They give milk to their young. They have hair. And I bet you didn’t know this one, but they have three ear bones. Okay. That’s what makes a mammal. And so that doesn’t matter if it’s a platypus or a giraffe or a lion, they’re all a mammal because they have those three characteristics. We as believers should have love as a defining characteristic. As an essential part of our nature. So it doesn’t matter for those that proclaim Jesus as Lord, whether that’s in India, Iran, Indonesia, Israel, or Ireland. Those that profess Jesus as Lord should show love and we must show love. That’s why the apostle Paul in Galatians five talks about the fruit of the spirit. For the fruit of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. He starts though with love. Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. And lastly, the reason we need to love one another is because God is love. God’s character defines love. And I have to be honest with you that this is in direct opposition to the popular cultural zeitgeist of the day that you’ve probably heard. Love is love. Because we have so commonly in our culture, wanted to redefine what love is by our own likes, our own preferences, our own desires. But I’m telling you today that true love, deep, abiding, biblical love is defined by God. And so we need to look at him and what his character really is. And we see with the prophet Isaiah that he is holy, holy, holy. He is just righteous and faithful. The Westminster Catechism asks, What is God? Answer. God is a spirit infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. That God is a God of love. God is love. So then, how did he show his love? Let’s look back at our text. Love manifested. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. Jesus is the manifestation of God’s love on earth. Other ways to translate that manifest is to illumine, to reveal, to make known, to show openly. That’s what God has done for us. God sent his only son, and that word only that might hearken back to what the Apostle John said in John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Same exact Greek word there. Some of your translations might say only begotten. And the only reason that I like one and only over only begotten, is because Jesus is eternal. There was no beginning to Jesus. It wasn’t as if God the Father birthed him. But really this is getting at is one and only that he is unique, the only Son of God. And he sent him into the world so that we might live through him, so that we might live through him. You see, we are dead in our trespasses. It says about that back in Genesis two, where God put Adam and Eve in the garden and instructed Adam, you might eat of any tree in the garden except for the one in the center of the garden, that one you shall not eat. For when you eat of it, you shall surely die. Well, our forebearers, unfortunately, did eat of that tree. And we now all have that sin nature. And because of that sin nature we are dead. But the good news that we have here is that God sent His son into the world so that we might live through him. One of my favorite passages, John 10:10, Jesus says this, I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly. Have it abundantly. What a joy that is! That love was manifested in that way. On Monday I was mowing my lawn. I had one of those old pull push mowers that you’ve got to pull to start it. And so I get it ready. It was already hot out, so I wanted to get this done as soon as I could. And I went in, I pulled that mower and it started, but then the pull cord ended up in my hand, totally detached from the mower. And I said, oh man, I just have to continue. I have to finish this lawn because I don’t know how to restart this now. So I was trying to zip through things and I got the front lawn done. I was happy with that. And I went around to the back lawn. I didn’t want to let that bar go, that safety bar, because I knew it would shut off. And I get almost two thirds of the way through and I could start here in my lawn mower sputter and I was worried. And then it quit on me. And so I tried to fix it. I thought, you know, I went, I went to YouTube to try to figure out how I was going to redo this pull cord. I thought I could do it, my lovely bride came out and said, hey, you know, dinner’s on the table if you want to come in and, and partake. And I’m into this for about an hour and I still didn’t fix it. And I could not finish the rest of my lawn mowing. So there’s a third of my yard that is much higher than the rest. And how does that apply here? Well, let me tell you that lawn mower after that pull cord was done was just a hunk of metal. It was dead. There was no bringing it to life. It was essentially useless. It was not doing what it was designed to do. And in the same way, I am dead in my transgressions. I could not truly live apart from Jesus Christ. But it was Jesus, because of the love that he had for us, that came into this world that we might have life. So we see love commanded, love manifested. Now look, this is so wonderful. Let’s look at this love demonstrated. And this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins. Not that we loved God. He starts there just because to let us know this is not works-based. There is nothing that I can do to earn the love of God, to make him love me more. All the other religions of the world talk about things that you have to do to attain to heaven, or to have a relationship with their God. But you know what? There’s nothing that I can do to attain to heaven. It’s only because of what God can do. It is not works-based. So in this is love, not that we have loved, but that God has loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation. That word sent there is apostolo. The same sending as you would for apostles, and it’s to be a propitiation. Now, how many of you have used that word in your conversations in the past week? Raise your hands. I actually had two people that raised their hand in the first service, which I thought was fantastic. It’s not one we typically use. It’s actually only used one other time in Scripture. It was earlier in First John. In First John 2:2. Propitiation essentially means an atoning sacrifice. To do away, to take care of the wrath that was due for us. You see, because of our sin, because God is a holy and just God, we are deserving of God’s wrath. We don’t like to talk about God’s wrath in today’s age, but the Old Testament and these believers in the New Testament knew about that wrath because they understood how a holy God could not deal, could not cohabitate with sin, and because of his righteousness he demanded a blood payment, an atoning sacrifice, and Jesus was that atoning sacrifice for us. I’m going to read from Romans six, you may turn there with me if you’d like. Excuse me, Romans five. Or you can read about it later today if you wanted to go back and do this. But listen, the gospel story here about Jesus being our propitiation. Romans five, verse six: for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. That was me. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if we, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. We deserve death. We deserve to have that wrath upon us. But Jesus was the propitiation for us. He went through that wrath of crucifixion. He was beaten, pulverized, mocked, spit upon, nailed to the cross, and then suffocated for me and for you. It allowed our God to still be holy, just, and righteous and be able to provide that grace and mercy to forgive me of my sins, because he placed it on his one and only son. One of my favorite singers growing up was Larnelle Harris, and he wrote this back in the 80s called He Loved Me With a Cross. Don’t worry, I’m not going to sing it. He left a throne in heaven to come to Bethlehem. And I will not forget the way he loved me even then. And everywhere he traveled, he spoke with words of love that said he’d go to any distance to show what I was worthy of. And when at last the dusty road had turned to Calvary, he picked up a rugged burden so that one day I would see. He loved me with a cross. He knew from the beginning the price he’d have to pay, for my heart had gone so far beyond what other loves forgave. I wasn’t on that hillside to see him on the tree, but as my guilt was placed upon him, I know that somehow he saw me. He loved me with a cross. How amazing is that gospel story? Undeserved love. The propitiation placed on Jesus that I might have eternal life. Wesley and his famous hymn said. Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, should die for me? That’s how love was demonstrated for us. So we’ve seen love commanded, love manifested, love demonstrated, and lastly, love perfected. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. Again, John returns to that euphemism, beloved, saying, hey, I’m loving you and I want you to love one another. If God so loved us, sending his only son to be a propitiation for us, we ought, we owe, we are indebted, we are obligated to love one another. I think back to the passage in Luke seven, where the woman was washing the feet of Jesus in the house of Simon. And honestly, people were getting on Jesus because they said, why would they let that sinner touch him? And Jesus rebuked them and said that since she has been forgiven much, she loves much. And I have been forgiven much. And so the natural inclination is I must then love much. The same we saw in Deuteronomy in the passage that was read today. Listen to this. Deuteronomy ten: for the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him land and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore, for you are sojourners in the land of Egypt. Because God has loved us. We must then love others. He goes on, no one has ever seen God, which that seemed like an odd aside, although true, no one except the father has seen God. But then he tells us why he says this if we love one another, God abides in us. God abides in us, dwells in us. This talks about the Holy Spirit assurance that we can have, and it’s an evidence of that love. Next week, Pastor Jamie is going to be preaching on how to abide. And I won’t spend too much time on this, but it is such a wonderful assurance that we can have the God of the universe, his Holy Spirit dwell within us. It’s also really neat that we see from this passage the Trinity. We see God the Father who sent his son. And then we see that blessed assurance that we can have through the Holy Spirit. Since God abides in us, his love is perfected in us. His love is complete. His love is consecrated in us. One of my favorite contemporary preachers is Doctor Tony Evans, and he speaks of biblical love this way. Biblical love can be defined as the decision to compassionately, righteously, responsibly, and sacrificially seek the well-being of another. That’s how we truly love. That’s how his love can be perfected in us. Because even though no one has ever seen God, his love can outflow through us that they might actually see God in our actions and in our love. The second message in this sermon series Pastor Kyle talked about that song In the Light. Do you remember that one? And then Pastor Jamie came up and sang it with us. In the Light was written by a band called DC talk. They also wrote another one that I wanted to just touch on because I think it’s very true. They wrote, Love is a Verb. You see, love is not just a noun. It’s something that we do. It’s something that we demonstrate. It’s something that has been demonstrated to us. And when they accepted their Dove Awards, which is, you know, close to their, their musical awards for contemporary Christian music, they said, you know, they will know we are musicians by our Doves, but they will know that we are Christians by our love. And I hope that they will know you are Christians by what you love. Just a few weeks ago we were driving in the car and I have no idea how we stumbled upon this, but the kids said, I bet we can name all the things you hate, dad. I said, okay. And so my first daughter, Sydney, she just started spouting things off. She’s like, you hate mowing the lawn. You hate spending money. You hate incompetence. And then my son popped up and he’s like, you hate the Yankees. You hate the Red Sox. And then I think he was trying to make me feel better. He’s always trying to make people feel better about it. He’s like, well, and you hate the devil, dad. But as I thought about this, too many times, and I’m talking to me here, too, I’m known more by what I hate than what I love. And I hope as Christians, that we will be known by who we love and how we love others. May his love be perfected in us. That’s why our mission statement here at Calvary is to glorify God by making disciples who live with passion for God and compassion for others. That’s what we hope to have for you. So as we close, I just want to talk to two groups and all of you are included in this. One group may be those that don’t yet know Jesus as Savior. You have not yet experienced that blessed, holy, deep, abiding love of Jesus. And I hope that today is the day of salvation. He loved you so much that he sent His Son to die for you, and rose him up again on the third day that you might have life. If you don’t yet know Jesus, please speak with a pastor, an elder, a small group leader. Don’t let the day go by without knowing this precious Lord. For those of you like me that profess Jesus as Savior, my question for you then is, is his love being perfected in you? Is the outpouring of love to others evident in your life and in my life? And if not, why not? Confess that to the Lord and ask him to love others through you this week. May we pray.

Spiritual Leading and Misleading

AS CAREFUL CHRISTIANS, WE MUST ASSESS THE INFORMATION WE HEAR ABOUT GOD BY COMPARING IT TO GOD’S REVEALED WORD, SO THAT WE KNOW WHETHER THE SOURCE IS RELIABLE. Well, I was talking to a friend one time about spiritual matters. She was an actress alongside me in a play that I was in. And this was many years ago. And she was telling me about how she was part of the Unitarian Universalist group that was in town. If you’re not familiar, Unitarian means that God is a single entity. They chose this word to directly oppose the Trinitarian view of God as the Bible teaches. Universalist means that every view and belief about God is legitimate. There are many, many ways to know and approach God. Whatever you believe is just fine by them. And their view of Jesus was that he was greatly influenced by God and was therefore a deeply spiritual person, as we should all strive to be, but that he was not God incarnate. Now, since I knew this was where my friend was coming from, I knew our conversation on spiritual matters would not last long. Not because I was unwilling to kindly talk to her about her beliefs, but because I knew the moment that I began to steer the conversation toward any kind of true false statements about God, she would become uncomfortable and skeptical of me. You see, the only way that universalism works is if no one is wrong about any belief they hold. Okay. That’s how it works. And they have to be able to hold that belief without making a case for it, without arguing for it. And the moment someone says, I hear you, but where do you get your information? I don’t think that’s what God is like at all. As soon as you say that, universalism crumbles, can’t stand up to scrutiny. And just as I thought, my friend made some statements about God’s love and how Jesus is the perfect example of how God loves all people without agenda, regardless of what we believe, and I simply asked her where she got her information about Jesus and she said, it’s complicated and quickly shut the whole conversation down. Now, I mentioned this brief conversation as a tiny example of a pattern that you will find in every corner of the world and throughout all of human history, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. There are plenty of people who will gladly teach you their understanding of God. Lots of people will teach you their understanding of God. Now, that’s not a bad thing. I’m doing that right now. Okay. It’s not a bad thing. Discipleship is built on sharing about God. God’s word instructs us to pass truth about God onto other people. But it is very, very important for all of us to understand that the messages we hear about the character and nature of God are not always true facts from trusted sources. There are plenty of people who would gladly share information with you about God, information that they will present as true, but may not be accurate at all. And I feel comfortable saying that thanks to technology, this has never been a bigger problem in human history than it is right now. Okay. This is bigger than probably it’s ever been. I mean, from the Garden of Eden all the way to like 1992. Okay. You could read some misleading books, or you could listen to a misleading teacher, you could have some bad influences in your life. But as soon as the internet became a thing, everyone who has ever had something to say to you about God now has the ability to say it directly to you. Who are these people? Who knows? Right? They’re just out there. Where do they get their information? Probably from other people on the internet. Right. And it’s only gotten worse. Right now, every single one of us has a machine in our pockets that we will spend hours staring at this week, that is filled with people who will gladly tell you who God is, how life works, and what you should value. Now, I’m not anti-technology, I’m not anti-internet or anything like that. We just need to be aware that false teaching and spiritual misleading has unprecedented access to our minds and hearts. And today in our passage, John is going to teach us how to test the spirits. That’s his phrase. Test the spirits. He’s going to help us discern between true information about God and falsehood that leads us away from God. And he’s going to do that by showing us how to listen for the spiritual source that is behind the information. As careful Christians, we must assess the information that we hear about God by comparing it to what God has revealed about himself so that we know whether the source is reliable. There’s a lot in our passage today. So let’s get started here. We’re in First John chapter four, verse one. I’m going to frame our time this morning around three questions. What does it mean to test the spirits? What do we listen for? And who do we listen to? Let’s start with that first question. What does it mean to test the spirits? Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. So you’ll remember at the end of chapter three, John said that the spirit that God has given us, the Holy Spirit’s presence within us, is the way we know that we abide. It’s the sign to know that we abide with God or that we are connected to God. So the Holy Spirit’s work in your heart that leads to conviction of your sin and trust in the in the saving power of Jesus, that is evidence of your relationship with God. And that evident relationship should lead you to confidence. You shouldn’t be walking around worried about your life or scared of what God thinks. You shouldn’t be afraid of what’s out there in the world that might harm you. Christians are not built to shrink in fear. Okay. That confidence is rooted in the objective spiritual reality that the Holy Spirit now resides in you. But the Holy Spirit is not the only spiritual entity. We’re told throughout Scripture that there is a demonic force that inhabits our world. It’s led by Satan, our enemy. It’s filled with demons who act as soldiers in an army designed to attack God’s creation, particularly people. And this army’s goal is to try to take worship away from God and redirect it to Satan, who acts as a kind of false god for this world. God has allowed Satan, with his sovereign plan to exercise some power and influence over humanity. Now, why God allows this is a very big question, and it is beyond the scope of our passage this morning. But I will just say very briefly that in God’s plan to redeem his church and bring us all under the kingship of Christ, he uses evil for his greater purposes. God uses or allows it and uses it for his greater purposes. This is why Peter can preach in the streets of Jerusalem after the resurrection of Jesus, and they are filled with the Holy Spirit. He can stand in the streets and preach this. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. See, God used it. This is why God can allow Satan to test Job in the Old Testament, taking everything from him to prove that his faith will last. That’s why Paul can say that God gave him a messenger of Satan to harass him, to keep him from becoming conceited. Now God is not battling Satan in a war as if there equals. God has already defeated Satan. He defeated him on the cross. But God is allowing demonic forces of this world to have some influence. Because through those influences, God is bringing about the greater good of those who trust in Christ. In a whole section on the power of the Holy Spirit sustaining us through suffering, in Romans chapter eight, Paul says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. So, when Jesus came, he defeated Satan. And he described his ministry as coming to bind the strong man and plunder his house. So Jesus came into the world to tie up Satan, to throw him into the front yard, and then to go into the house and take back all of God’s stuff, specifically us. People. Jesus says Satan will no longer have you. He’s not going to influence you anymore. Your mine. I’m filling you with my spirit so that those evil spirits can no longer reside in you and have power over you. And that’s what’s been happening for 2000 years now. That’s what’s been happening as the gospel has spread across the world through faith in Christ, human hearts and minds are set free, and they’re filled with the Holy Spirit who unites us with God. So what we have now in the world are two types of people. Despite all of our differences in culture and location and skin color and language, there’s only one distinction that really matters. Those who are set free by Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, and those who are in bondage to Satan and influenced by demonic spirits. And this is the context, okay? This is the context in which John this morning tells us as believers, to test the spirits. He’s telling us to remember the spiritual reality of the world around us, and recognize that Satan has been given some of this permission. Some authority to move and act. And so we have to test the spirit so that we can discern between those things that are coming from the Holy Spirit and those things that are evil. Now, what does this test look like? Okay. What do you actually do? How do you test? I mean, it sounds very Halloween, doesn’t it? You know, is there a seance involved? Is this the plot of The Exorcist. Like those are the things that come to mind, a lot of times, when we think about spiritual engagement, right? Testing the spirits. It’s mostly Hollywood. It’s actually far more simple than that. But before I show you, let me just encourage you to avoid all the nonsense that often gets packed into phrases like test the spirits. The only instruction that we are given in Scripture anywhere for engaging with demons is to denounce them in Jesus name. That’s it. That’s the only instruction we’re given. Jesus sent out 72 missionaries, right. Into Israel. And they came back to him and they reported back. And they said, even the demons are subject to us in your name, Jesus. And Jesus said, you know what? That’s great guys. I saw Satan defeated. That was great. Saw him fall from heaven like lightning. But don’t rejoice in your authority over demons. He says, rejoice because your name is written in heaven. That’s what you should be concentrating on. We’re not told to do anything with the demonic world other than to preach the gospel, to pray for God’s power to overcome evil, and on rare occasions demand demonic presence be gone in Jesus name. So don’t be misled into what I’ll call demon hysteria that sometimes grips the parts of the church. People get all caught up in identifying demons and naming demons and marking the territory of demonic presence. None of that is in the Bible, okay? None of that is in the Bible. It’s not instructed to us. It’s not even described to us in that terms. That’s not what testing the spirits means. Testing the spirits requires exactly two skills. Okay. Two skills. Listening carefully and weighing. That’s it. That’s the whole process for the test. Look carefully here at what John says. As soon as he tells us to test the spirits, he then warns us that many false prophets have gone out into the world. So he doesn’t say, watch out for the spirits. He says, watch out for the people. The dangerous spirits are embodied in the false prophets, just like the Holy Spirit now resides with Christians. And so to test the spirits means simply to listen to these people and weigh their messages against God’s revealed truth. Okay. And you’ll know whether a message is coming from the Holy Spirit or from a demonic spirit, based on whether it aligns with what Jesus has revealed to us and through the apostles. Right. Like John himself here, as we’re going to see in just a minute. I think it’s worth noting that even in the first century. Okay. Even in the first century, John has already seen that there are many false prophets in the world. I mean, the church just got started and all of a sudden there’s false prophets. And he’s saying there’s lots of them all over the place. Sammy and I have been going to college visits lately to figure out where he wants to go. And we were walking through one big campus. You know, it’s in a downtown setting. So the campus in the city are kind of intermingled together. And we were passing a bunch of church buildings, and it was sad for me to keep saying over and over again, well, you’re not going to want to go there. Oh you’re not, you want to avoid that place. You don’t want to go. You’re not going to want to go. I know that looks like a church. You’re not going to want to go to that place because there’s so many denominations that have abandoned the authority of Scripture so long ago, right? That they don’t even they don’t even teach the Bible. What did they teach in there? Whatever they want, wherever the wind of culture drives them, whatever tickles the ears of the people, that’s what they teach. False prophets, false teaching, errant theology, mishandling of the Bible. It is everywhere throughout our world, and churches have not been exempt to that. So I want to just talk to you young people, some of you getting ready to maybe head out into the world. Let me just tell you something. You need to, you gotta get ready to pick a church, right? Please, please remember that not everything that calls itself a church is a church. Okay? Just because that’s what the sign says doesn’t mean that’s what’s happening in there. Use the people you know here at Calvary to help you find a good church in the place that you’re going to so that you can find a true church community that you can trust. What do we listen for? Okay. What do we listen for to determine whether we are hearing from the Holy Spirit or not? Well, that’s our next question. By this, you know, the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. You know, I love it when the Bible tells me how to know something very clearly, very plainly. And here’s is what it says here. Here’s how you discern between the Spirit of God and the spirit that is Antichrist or against Christ. You listen. You listen to the message. Does it align and support and accurately explain the gospel, or does it change and undermine the gospel? Does it match up with God’s plan of redemption? Or is it offering you another plan of redemption? Notice how John says that each of these spirits points back to Jesus. You see that? Each spirit offers a message about who Jesus is. One says, Jesus Christ entered our world in the flesh. Meaning he became a human being. The other spirit does not confess Jesus, which in this context would mean that Jesus was not fully human or that he didn’t come into the world at all. Now, I probably don’t have to tell you that if Jesus didn’t come into the world at all, then there is no plan of redemption. There’s not one. There wouldn’t even be Christianity. It would be very hard to explain our presence here this morning if there was no historical Jesus. But more likely, more likely what’s happening here is that the group that left John’s church was teaching that Jesus was not fully human and only appeared to be so. Now it’s very hard for us to know why they would teach this, because we don’t have their argument. We don’t have their explanation of things. That movement didn’t last at all. But if Jesus was not fully human, then he cannot be a substitute sacrifice for our sins. And then the entire gospel is undermined if Jesus wasn’t fully a man. Because the cross makes no sense. In fact, he wouldn’t be able to die on it. The resurrection would then not be a miracle at all. And there is no offer of forgiveness to us from God if our sins haven’t been paid for by Jesus. What’s left, if you remove his humanness, what’s left of the gospel? Nothing, really. You know, sometimes I hear people say that doctrine doesn’t matter. You ever hear that before? People go, oh, you know, we don’t want to get all caught up in doctrine. Doctrine doesn’t matter. Only love matters. That itself, by the way, would be a doctrine. But that aside. Right. They say they don’t like doctrine, right? I don’t hear that very much around Calvary here because we’re a pretty astute church. But in some Christian circles, that’s the vibe. I’d say that doctrine is pretty close to the only thing that matters. It’s pretty close. What can we say about God without sound doctrine? Nothing, really. We can’t. Every piece of scripture illuminates some aspect of God that is vital for us to understand God’s nature and his character and his plan. This is why the church leaders got together in the year 451. Okay. 451 they got together to form the Council of Chalcedon, and they searched the scriptures carefully to figure out the best way to describe Jesus. And what they came up with, based on what Scripture says, is that Jesus had two natures. He was fully God and he was fully human. They determined Jesus is, quote, perfect both in deity and in humanness. This selfsame one is also actually God and actually man. Again, this isn’t just something they decided. They didn’t come together and go, hey, how do we want to talk about Jesus? They got together and said, what do the scriptures say? And how can we best encapsulate what Scripture describes Jesus to be? And while that is mysterious in one way that Jesus would have two natures, it’s revealing in another way. We can more fully understand how God can take our place with Jesus two natures. Without losing his deity, he added humanity, making him the only one who can both receive death and conquer death. Anyone who would come to us saying that Jesus is not fully human destroys Christianity. It nullifies the gospel. But now you might be thinking, but Kyle, I don’t know anybody today who struggles with this view of Jesus. You’d be right. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anybody who struggled with this view of Jesus. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered the heresy of Monophysitism. That’s a fun word, right? Write it down. Work it into a sentence later this week. Monophysitism. That’s right. It’s the belief that Jesus only had one divine nature that’s not big on TikTok. There’s not, I don’t recall any Monophysitism influencers out there ravaging the consciences of Christians everywhere. Right. But what John says here can be applied more broadly because it’s not just about this one heretical teaching. It’s a principle. He’s giving us a principle. See, what we have to do is we have to ask, what are the confessions about Christ today that undermine the gospel and indicate that the message doesn’t come from the Holy Spirit? What are we dealing with today? And it’s interesting to me that the popular heresy of our day is actually the opposite of John’s day. The message of our culture is to humanize Jesus and remove his deity. Like my Unitarian friend. The popular way to treat Jesus today is to remove his deity and to turn him into a kind of heightened spiritual man. He’s an example for us to look to, but not a god to be worshiped. Some build on this by, on this sort of human Jesus, by saying that Jesus only showed us a particular way to God, but not the exclusive way to know God. And this has been a very popular way of seeing Jesus in our culture for a pretty long time. This has been preached from many sources who claim to be authoritative in our culture. I know it’s been a few decades now, but Oprah Winfrey has been saying that there are many paths to whoever we call God for a long time. And I know she doesn’t have quite as big a voice today, but they’re there. Her spirituality has spawned hundreds of copycats all throughout media. There are lots of people who speak this way. See, if Jesus is just a man, then he doesn’t have anything more to offer than any other man. And then this allows me, in my mind, to have any view of Jesus I like, without any consequences for how I see him. And that’s the preferred spirituality of our culture, isn’t it? To have my own beliefs, my own way of thinking, but without any consequences. When we hear messages like this church, we must listen and weigh carefully what we hear against what God has revealed. Because demonic spiritual presence perpetuating errors through false prophets is still a tactic that Satan uses today. He’s used it since the garden. And as I said earlier, it’s never been a more effective strategy in our culture. So who do we listen to? Who do we listen to? This is our final question. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Well, I know that I’ve set up a pretty scary scenario here this morning. Demonic spirits influencing false teachers who broadcast misleading messages about God could be a recipe for fearful Christians shrinking into isolation, getting away from the world as much as we can. In some parts of the church, that’s exactly what they do. If you grew up with a lot of very strict boundaries and tight controls on what you were allowed to see and hear, your family probably erred on the side of isolation from the world. But the Bible doesn’t tell us to retreat or to isolate. It tells us to engage with the world around us boldly for Christ. So how do we do that without falling prey to false teachers who are peddling an errant gospel? We do that by making sure that we listen to the right sources, and that we do it so well that when the time comes to discern truth from error, we are ready to do that. First of all, first of all, John says, remember. Remember the God who is in you by his indwelling Holy Spirit is greater than the demonic world around you. If God has transformed you in Christ, you are his. He owns you. He has you. You should watch out for false teaching, but you don’t need to fear it. Okay, God has equipped each one of us with everything we need to discern truth from error. Everything we need. The gospel hasn’t changed, okay? The message of the gospel has not changed. So when someone presents us with a gospel that seems to have changed, we’ll know that we’re looking at a counterfeit, because the Holy Spirit will make that clear to us in that moment. I love how John starts this section. Little children, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. Stick with the Holy Spirit. Remember the gospel you were taught. And relax. Relax. No one is taking you from God because you belong to him. Okay, now, from that relaxed position, what do we do? Well, first, here’s what the false teachers will sound like. He says they are from the world. They speak from the world, and the world listens to them. The world, the word world here is short for ungodly false spirituality that John is warning us against. And, and what we know is that false information about God is usually widely palatable. Okay. People like it. People want it. If I hear a way of describing God that is very popular and is accepted by the masses, I’m on my guard for false teaching. I am. Because somewhere, somewhere in that very, very popular view of God, the one that calls the gospel, that calls me to come and die for the sake of Christ, the one that demands my soul allegiance to Jesus. Somewhere that gospel has been shaved and manipulated into something that is less than biblical, because those who speak from the world, John says, appeal to the world. The world wants a God that caters to their desires. So if the message about God aligns with worldly values, even if it sounds like someone used a little bit of Bible to kind of pepper it in there and make it sound a little bit Christian, right? I’m asking questions if I hear that. That’s the negative on who to listen to. Okay. Be on guard for that sort of false gospel. But here’s the positive. Here’s who we should listen to. John says we are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. Now, there could not be a more arrogant statement on the surface, right? Can you imagine a more arrogant statement than this? If I said this, if I said, you know, people who follow God, listen to me. You’d rightly find a different church, right? It’s like no one could just boldly state this. But remember, we have to remember as we read that, that John is an apostle. He’s an apostle. He was given the authority by Jesus to establish the church. Church recognized apostolic authorship as one of the criteria for the inspired scriptures, just like the prophets of the Old Testament. That’s why the writings of the apostles make up our New Testament. So when John says, listen to us, and if you follow God, you will listen to us. He’s not just being arrogant. He doesn’t think he’s the most important person. And he’s not saying that he has a superior gospel. He’s saying he has the gospel that came from Jesus, and he was given authority to share this. For the for the church today, we have the same instruction. Okay. The source of our authority has not changed from this, this first century, the way we listen to John and the other apostles and the prophets who were filled with the spirit today, is to read their spirit inspired writings. In Second Peter, the apostle Peter wrote, no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. He’s not saying that no prophecy is ever produced by the will of man. He knows there’s false prophets out there. He knows that people make stuff up all the time. He’s well aware of that. He’s saying no prophecy of Scripture was produced that way. Now Peter spends most of that letter warning against false prophecy and errant gospels, just like John is doing here in our passage today. And the instruction is exactly the same. If you want to avoid the lies, you have to know and remember the truth of God’s Holy Spirit-inspired Scripture and church. That’s why we study the Bible so much here. That’s why we look at it so carefully. It’s why we’re always together, looking at it so often. It’s not just because we want to know what God has said. It’s so we know lies when we hear them. It’s so that we can hear the falsehood that presents itself as truth, the foolishness that that acts like wisdom, the demonic that masquerades as the Holy Spirit. There is truth from the Holy Spirit that God wants us to walk in, so that we don’t fall prey to the errors that hurt and mislead us. And I want to encourage us, as a church this morning, to be much more discerning than we usually are. I think we’re a pretty discerning church, but I want to encourage you to be more discerning. And I’m talking about the church in general now here. I don’t think the American church in general is as discerning as it ought to be. And I say that because of the large amounts of popular level books and podcasts and online personalities that find an audience in the evangelical church. And it seems like every year there’s something that everyone is reading that turns out to be subtly heretical. You know, and we’re like, oh boy, now we got to deal with that. We as a whole church can help discern in some ways, but we can’t assess everything. Usually the only things that we can address as a whole church are the things that rise to really mass appeal. But we can’t watch every YouTube video together. Okay, I don’t got time for that. We can’t do that. Your pastors can’t analyze the lyrics of every song or talk through every piece of advice or every comment you ever receive from someone who claims to be a spiritual person. So what we need then is for every follower of Jesus at Calvary to be discerning about the spirit of error that we know to be out there. We know what John is saying is true. So we are aware of the things that are out there, the Antichrist spirit that works through false messages and false gospels. We know that that is happening. And so I want to encourage us church, to take seriously what John is saying here. Be on your guard. If something doesn’t sound biblical to you, it probably isn’t. If your spidey sense is tingling a little bit and you’re thinking, that doesn’t sound quite right, it’s probably not quite right. If something sounds like a new twist on the Bible, something that no one has ever discovered and now this guy is taking us in a new direction. Remember? I just want to remind you that the youngest book of the Bible is 2000 years old. Okay, we’ve had it for a little time at this point. People have studied this book really, really carefully. We stand on the shoulders of giants who have carefully studied the word. So some guys new prophetic take is not the Holy Spirit. It’s a spirit, just not the Spirit of God. And study the word church. Study it, read it, work through it with trusted sources, meditate on it. Pray it back to God. As you’re reading, pray it back to God. Know it inside and out so that when the false teaching comes, it’ll be obvious to you and you can engage it with truth as we are called to. Would you pray with me?

God is Greater Than Our Heart

FOR THOSE OF US WHO HAVE HAD OUR HEARTS TRANSFORMED BY THE GRACE OF CHRIST, GOD’S SPIRIT MUST AND WILL BREAK OUR RESISTANCE TO HIS COMMANDS. Well, we’re about halfway through our series in First John. How’s everybody doing? You doing okay? As I said at the beginning, First John is near the top of the list of the most personally challenging books of the Bible. Spiritual challenge is found throughout this book. And that’s because from beginning to end, John relentlessly stays on the topic of how to know your own heart. The reason he’s writing to the church is to prevent them from falling prey to false teachers who are coming to try to mislead them. But the way he equips them, the way he gets them ready for those false teachers who are coming, and teaches them how to spot this false teacher, is by assessing their own spiritual state. So, for example, he says, watch out for people who say they walk in the light but encourage you to sin and to then say that that sin is no big deal. And the way he teaches them to see this is first he asks the question, are you walking in the light? Do you walk in the light? Are you genuinely waging war against your sin because your heart has been made new in Christ? If so, you will know what to look for. You’ll be able to spot what I’m talking about. And if not, you’re not going to spot false teaching because you’ve already embraced false teaching. So quite unsurprisingly, our passage today is yet one more description of the inner workings of our hearts and minds. And this is an interesting passage because it’s slightly confusing, but once you untangle it and you follow what John is saying, he describes a condition of our hearts that we don’t talk about very much. And that’s resistance. He talks about resistance. This what do we do when we sense inside of us resistance to the clear commands of the Lord? Some use the phrase hardening, the hardening of our hearts. What do I do when God is giving me ‘yes’ and my heart wants to tell God ‘no’. God says go, I say stay. God says give, I say keep. I harden myself to God’s directions. What do I do in that case as a Christian? For the non-Christian, that’s just life. That’s just all the time. But for me as a Christian, what is happening inside of me and how do I then overcome it? I’m going to show you this morning that for those of us who have had our hearts transformed by the grace of Christ, God’s Spirit must and will break the resistance in our hearts to his commands. For the true Christian, the resistance won’t last. It won’t. It’ll be there for a time, but it will fade away. The hardness will break. And that’s because the Holy Spirit will conform us to obedience. And if that doesn’t happen and the hardness persists, that’s a sure sign that you don’t have the Holy Spirit and you don’t know Christ at all. We’re in First John chapter three, verse 19 this morning. First, John is going to describe this resistant heart and what God does about it. Then he’s going to describe the restored heart. And then finally he introduces for the first time in this letter the Holy Spirit’s role in all of this. So let’s start with the problem of the resistant heart. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Now you’ll remember in our passage last week, John framed our Christian life in terms of loving our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. He said that since Jesus laid down his life for us, we should then lay down our lives for others. He’s saying that a heart that has been transformed by the gospel will result in a life that is shaped like the gospel. And he gave a very specific example of this. He says, if you see a brother or a sister in need and you have what they need, you’re going to jump in. You’re going to help. You’re going to be you’re going to go into that situation. The phrase John uses is ‘you will not close your heart against him’. That’s what resistance is. See, gospel shaped love will act in gospel ways. It will compel us to just not just stand there or to look the other way, or to make excuses as to why we don’t need to be involved. We will not close our hearts against him. That’s the hardness, right? That’s resistance. You see the need. You know what God commands. You don’t do it. You refuse to do it. That’s hardness. John has been pleading with us over and over again not to fool ourselves into believing that we can live that way and still claim that Jesus is our Savior and our King. And here in verses 19 and 20, John is not leaving the topic of loving people. He’s not saying, okay, I’m going to talk about something else now. He’s not leaving the topic altogether, but he is broadening it out. He says, don’t just love with words and talk, love with deed and truth. So we’re challenged to ask then, is that true of me? Is that how I love? And to answer that, John turns away from the specific example and he says, okay, let’s talk about what’s happening inside of you. Let’s talk about what the inner workings, the machinations of your heart. By this, he says, we will know that we are of the truth. Truth here ties back to verse 18. So he’s saying, here’s how you know that you are in fact living an authentic, a truthful Christian life. And then discovering that you are in the truth will then do what? It’s going to reassure you. It’s going to reassure your heart. You see that there in verse 19? And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Don’t we all want reassurance? Don’t we all want to be sure of who we are? Don’t you love it when you’re in a potentially dangerous situation and then you receive some information, some bit of truth, and that then reassures you that you’re fine, that you’re not in danger at all. You know, it’s why we say to a loved one who leaves our house and drives home, we say text when you get home, right? Text me when you get home. Why? Because we want that little bit of information, that little bit of knowledge that settles your heart and assures you that everything is going to be okay. John wants us to have that assurance in our heart that we are, in fact, new creations in Christ who have received God’s grace. We are, as he says, of the truth. Now, how he gets to that assurance is the part that’s a little twisty this morning, but it’s interesting, and it’s not usually how I assure people of anything. This is not how I assure people. If you’re anything like me, the way you usually assure people of something is to assume the positive. That’s what I do, right? So I start with the assumption that the person is probably doing all right until I hear otherwise. So somebody says, I say, how are you doing? They say, fine. I say, great, right? I said, okay, you said fine. I assume fine is how you are, right? They tell me their plans. Sounds good. I assume those plans will be fine, right? They tell me that things are going well. Glad to hear it, right? We don’t really. I don’t really need to dive in too much more to that. John starts his assurance with this, ‘whenever our hearts condemn us’, that’s his start. You get the sense that John’s not really into small talk too much? Like he wouldn’t be great at parties, you know, he’d just go really deep right away. He just got done telling us how tangible and sacrificial Christian love is supposed to be. And then he goes directly to our hearts. And what does he do? He assumes that there is going to be resistance to that. He assumes resistance. That there will be times when we’re not going to want the thing that he just told us. He knows that God’s command to love in a gospel-shaped way is going, at times, to pass through our ears and bounce off of our stubborn hearts. If you have ever been thrilled with the benefits of God’s grace, but then challenged to accept the high call of living in obedience, showing grace to others, forgiving people, loving your enemies, sacrificing your time and money for the sake of the mission of Christ. If you’ve ever had any of that resistance, then you know why John starts with this. The believer in Jesus is no longer a slave to sin. Okay? If you trust in Jesus, you are no longer bound down to sin. You have been set free. The world, the flesh, and the devil have no actual power over you anymore. But the remnants of the sinful patterns of our old lives are hard to change. We are new creations, but we are living in weak bodies and we are surrounded by temptations. We are surrounded by foolishness. And this is why we have sections of Scripture like Ephesians six, where we are told to put on the full armor of God. It’s why Paul tells us to take every thought captive, to press on toward the goal of the upward call of Christ. See, God knows that sin is still going to influence our heart and harden us against obedience at times. Resistance to God’s commands comes from a gap. Okay? There’s a gap. There’s a gap between who we are, our new identity as new creations in Christ, and our current spiritual maturity. There’s a gap there. And the hope would be that when you experience the gap and the resistance that comes out of the gap, that you would feel God’s condemnation of your attitude. That would be the hope. And for the believer, you will. You will experience that. John assumes it here. That’s why he says, whenever. Not if. Okay. Whenever. Not if your heart condemns you. Whenever it happens, John knows not only is this going to happen, it’s probably going to happen regularly. Now, the condemnation that John describes here is not the final condemnation or judgment that Paul talks about in various places. But in Romans chapter eight, when he wrote ‘there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’. He’s thinking there of final judgment, final condemnation. If you are trusting in Jesus, that’s gone, okay? That’s not in your future anymore. John is talking about the conviction that a believer feels when he’s resistant to God’s direction. Here’s some strange comfort for you this morning. If you are regularly feeling the sting of condemnation over the times you failed to live in obedience to God, that is great news. That is great. If you’re regularly feeling bad when you are disobedient to the Lord, that is good news for you because it means that God is at work in you. If you are never broken over your sin, you are always right, You’re always ready with an excuse, always the Victim of others, never the perpetrator, and never feel inadequate before God, that’s because you don’t know him. You don’t know God. You couldn’t know the true God and feel that way all the time. A truly saved and transformed person is going to feel the inadequacy of coming up short. You’re going to feel the pain of your own stubbornness toward God. And when we do, John says, here’s the solution. Here’s the solution to all of it. God is greater than your heart, and he knows everything. Now, this phrase is a little bit hard to interpret. In what sense is God greater, bigger, louder than our heart? The key here is to remember that John is talking about a condemned and convicted heart. Okay. Keep it in context. It’s a heart that struggles to want what God wants. A heart that fails to love what God loves. And when you remember that’s what he’s comparing to, it clears it up. The whole gospel, the whole gospel is the powerful antidote to that condemnation. That the power of God at work in you will overcome this hardened, resistant heart. That’s what Jesus did to save us. That’s the whole gospel. He triumphed over sin and death. We would succumb to it and be condemned forever, but in Christ we have victory over sin and death. So when I am resistant to God, and I feel myself hardening toward his commands, what I need to do, what you need to do, is rehearse the gospel in your mind. You got to remember who you are and what God has done for you. That prick of conviction in my heart is God’s way of getting me to remember and apply the gospel that is greater than my sin. It’s stronger than my own resistance. See, my inclination when I sin, is to hide my sin, or excuse it, or defend it, or explain it away. But God is not fooled by this because John says, God knows everything. God knows you’re not hiding anything. You’re not excusing anything from God. He knows you better than you know yourself. He knows all the truth deep down into who you are. The only proper response to the condemnation that we feel when our hearts resist God’s call to sacrificial obedience is to repent and to remember, and then to rest in the powerful work of Jesus that is greater than our sin. And here’s what happens when we move from a resistant heart to a restored heart. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God, and whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him. Notice first how John says in verse 20, whenever our heart condemns us. And then here he says, if our heart does not condemn us. Okay. So he assumes first of all, that our hearts will condemn us at times, and then the God who is greater intervenes. And then our hearts are no longer condemning us. He assumes that there’s a process that’s taking place. And I gotta tell you, church, that process is the Christian life. That’s the Christian life. It’s stumbling forward toward greater Christ-likeness. It’s living in victory over sin through the power of God’s great gospel at work in us. That’s the process. We’re hardened against him, God intervenes, we repent, we trust, we become more like Jesus. So if you come to me and you say that you’re struggling with sin, I will tell you that that struggle is good. That’s the first thing I’ll tell you. That’s step one. Step one is conviction. But don’t stop there. Don’t stop at step one. Step two is letting the weight of that conviction drive you to Jesus. Remember, your sins went to Jesus on the cross. There is no final judgment against even this resistance that you’re feeling against God. You now stand with Christ, which means that with the full weight of the gospel behind you, you can kick sin in the teeth. You can overcome it. You can kill it. But don’t stop there. Don’t stop there. Step three is to walk with Christ in victory and confidence, as John says here. I want to pause here just for a moment and dwell on this phrase that we have here ‘confidence before God’, ‘confidence before God’. You know, the religions of the world and the secular worldviews of our day do not offer confidence before God. World religions offer God, but not confidence. They offer a series of religious practices and hoops that you can jump through so that you can take a shot at being accepted by God. You can’t really have confidence because your future judgment is based on your inconsistent effort. Could you imagine if your whole confidence was in you before God? Oof. That’s what world religions offer. Secular worldviews offer confidence, but no God. So if you remove God as the source of objective truth and create your own reality, complete with your own set of values and morals, you can have total confidence that you’re living just fine. All you have to do is ignore the overwhelming amount of evidence for an intelligent designer and clear moral objectivity and all the historical evidence for the resurrection and reign of Christ. You just put all of that aside and you can have confidence. Why? Because you get to move the goal posts anywhere you like, and you always are fine. Secular worldviews and world religions fall short. They cannot offer the full package together. And that’s why the Bible is so amazing. It. It offers us something utterly remarkable, totally unique. The ability to stand before the true Creator of the universe with total confidence that despite your failings, you are accepted. And that’s because your confidence isn’t one through your efforts, and it’s not lost through your failures. It is bought for you by Jesus. And it is given to you as a free gift. And when you have this confidence before God, you can live right now boldly and faithfully. John says, whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. Now, if I were to take that line out of context, out of the letter, you know, just take that line, that sentence by itself, it sounds pretty transactional, doesn’t it? Right. If I keep God’s commandments well enough, he will give me what I want, right? It’s like treating God like a bank, you know? I just keep making deposits with God, and eventually I can start making withdrawals and get my funds back as needed. But that’s not what John is saying here at all, because he’s describing something completely different. He’s describing the loving relationship we have with God as part of his family. My confidence before God means I know that he hears me when I pray and when I ask for what I need. I know. I know he hears me and he then takes care of me. We don’t exploit God. We commune with God. We’re in his family. It’s just like your family, probably. I mean, mostly, right? Everyone works together to live in harmony together, right? Hopefully that’s what’s sort of taking place in your house. That’s what we’re called to do, right? Your kids then make requests and then you grant the ones that are blessings and that make sense, and you say no to the ones that are not in their best interest. Right. My daughter wants a ride to a friend’s house. Fine. I can do that. My daughter then wants a ride home from her friend’s house when I am tired. Okay, sure, we can do that. She’s also put in a request for me to buy her a Bronco Sport. Nope. Nope, not doing that. Nope. Her first car is going to be much older and cheaper for her own good. So when she bumps into things, inevitably, right? It’s not the end of the world, right? As we repent of our resistance to God and His commands, our confidence before him is strengthened and emboldened, which makes us want to listen to him. It makes us want to obey him even more faithfully. And that’s the cycle of spiritual growth. As he commands, we obey. As we obey, our confidence before God and our trust in him grows. The more our trust grows, the more we want to know his commands. That’s how his instructions become a delight to us. A delight. The resistance in our heart drops as we see and experience and enjoy the fellowship that we have with God when we listen to him. That’s how the psalmist in Psalm 119 can write this. With my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments. I don’t want to wander away from your commandments because I’m seeking you with my whole heart. Church. Does your whole heart seek God and His commandments? You see, I seek after God. Yeah. Do you seek after his instruction? Do you want his guidance in your life? If we want God, we want direction and instruction. Faithfulness then becomes a joy. God commands. We sacrificially love our fellow Christians. Why? Why does he do that? Is it because God wants to annoy us and put us out? No. It’s because by sacrificing for others, we come to know and understand and enjoy the Savior who sacrificed himself for us. See, my knowledge of the gospel is deficient until I live out the way that God has commanded me. And then I come to know Jesus even more. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. So if your heart is resistant to the commands of God. There are only two ways things can go. You will either remain resistant and harden yourself against Him, and prove that you are not transformed by Christ and have no relationship with God at all. Or you will call out your own heart. You will point at your own heart and say, no, this is not going to be the way it is. You’re going to break that resistance and thereby prove that you truly have a mutually abiding relationship with God through Jesus Christ. But I have to say, church, this is pretty tough. It is hard to spot the hardness in our own hearts. That can be very, very difficult. See, we have a tendency to wander very far from obedience to God’s Word because we move by degrees. We give ourselves excuses for why we’re still faithful when we’re clearly not faithful anymore. And it’s not usually because we don’t know what God’s Word says. It’s usually because we think that our lack of faithfulness is not really so unfaithful. My family and I experience a wonderful illustration of this on a regular basis, because we see it in our dog, Chewy. We don’t like when Chewy runs around our feet under the table when we’re having dinner. Or I should say, I don’t like it when Chewy runs around our feet underneath the dinner table. And so we have trained Chewy at mealtimes to go to his bed, which sits across the room. Now he can still, we can still see him. He’s still sort of part of us or whatever, but he’s across the room and he has to stay there until we’re done. And then what happens is we when we get done, we verbally release him usually by saying, okay, Chewy. And he gets up. And he knows the rules. He knows the rules. In fact, he knows them so well that he will often go straight to his bed, unprompted, as we start to move toward the dinner table. He knows what’s coming, but every once in a while, we start to see this. Every once in a while, I took this picture from the dinner table. This week, my family was like, what are you doing? I said, illustrating a sermon. This is what I’m doing. And so you’ll see here in this picture that he is technically still in the bed. His back legs are still touching and kind of in the bed. This is absolutely what he is hoping that we will think. That he will say, that, see, my legs are still in here. By the way, it looks like he’s sleeping. He is not. He is looking me square in the eye right now saying, you see those legs, right? You see that they’re still back in there. Now, has he obeyed? Has he obeyed? By the letter of the law? Perhaps, but certainly not by the spirit. But maybe he just needs to stretch, and sort of he stretched out, and this is just sort of what happened. Okay. Clearly now, clearly now, we are outside the letter of the law here. I think we would all agree on this. Right. We’re outside the letter. Again, still full stare at me. Those eyes are looking right at me. At this point, he is bed adjacent. Which means he’s obedience adjacent. He’s in the ballpark of what obedience to the command might look like, but he’s resistant to actually carrying it out. But you will say to me, Kyle, Kyle, now, look, it was such a hot week. It was such a hot week. Surely that wood floor is cooler than that bed. He’s probably trying to be obedient as he can be under these special circumstances. Have you ever seen a dog army-crawl across a wood floor before? Neither have I. Because he waits till we’re not looking to make these moves. We just look up and, ‘oh, look where he is now’. Wow! Can we do now do away with the story here that says Chewy is just trying to be obedient and he just can’t because of his exceptional circumstances going on in his life. Right? But you say, Kyle, he’s such a good boy. He’s such a good boy. Okay, clearly he’s resistant to the command, but maybe, maybe he’s confused. Maybe he doesn’t quite remember where he’s supposed to be. It can be so confusing. Maybe he doesn’t quite know what the command actually was. Maybe. Maybe he needs more information. That’s probably it, right? He needs more information so that he can be faithful. So he would know what faithfulness would look like. He’s not hardened in his heart. He’s just uninformed. Chewy, bed. Oh, he knows exactly what the command is. He knows exactly where he’s supposed to be. He just doesn’t want to be there. Have you ever seen a more dejected walk back to faithfulness? That little face just slumps down on the bed like, umph, I don’t want to do this. Right. That’s priceless. He knows exactly what is required of him. It just isn’t his joy and delight, yet. He doesn’t delight in the command. God has commanded that we believe in the name of Jesus Christ and love each other the way Christ loves us. Deeply, sacrificially. This is for our good. It’s for our joy as we participate in the family of God. And when we find ourselves cells resistant to the theology of the gospel or to the practical outworkings of the gospel. We need to turn once again to God, who is greater than our stubborn hearts. We need to be willing to let others point out that stubbornness, too. And that can be very difficult to have someone else point out to you where you are not being faithful and you are resisting what God has said. Part of growing in spiritual maturity is listening to fellow Christians when they point out just how far from faithfulness our resistance has caused us to stray. We need to be sensitive to the leading and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And that’s how John ends this section. And by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us. This is the first mention of the Holy Spirit in the letter. It’s the beginning of a section where he’s going to describe the work of the Holy Spirit in us. For instance, next week we’ll look at what it means to be spiritually discerning and to know the difference between the work of demons and the Spirit of God. So there will be a lot more to say about the Holy Spirit in the coming weeks. But here he introduces the Spirit’s work by saying, it’s the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer that confirms that we abide in God. So when you repent of your sin and you give your life to Jesus, what happens is you are born again by the Holy Spirit. He makes you spiritually alive. You were dead before. Now you’ve come alive. And that’s hard for us to grasp because you can’t see the Holy Spirit. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit’s movement and his work in John chapter three as like the wind. We hear its sound, but it’s mysterious to us. We can’t see the Holy Spirit. But if you’re truly a new creation in Christ, you will see and feel the effects of the Spirit’s work in your heart. And one of those jobs that he does in us is that he gives us the confidence that we are, in fact, abiding, remaining connected to God. By this we know, he says, this is how we know, by the Holy Spirit’s presence. We know that we are in a forgiven, binding and sealed relationship with God. In God’s family forever. But again, you can’t see the wind. What is the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence in you? Well, it would take another sermon to describe all of the ways that the Holy Spirit works in us. But I’ll just limit it to the two that we find in our passage this morning. John says, the first commandment God gives us is to believe in the name of Jesus Christ. That means to put your faith in his saving work. You cannot do that unless the Holy Spirit makes you spiritually alive. So your trust and your rest in Jesus is evidence that you have the Spirit. And the other thing that the Spirit does in this passage is bring conviction, that conviction that we’ve been talking about this morning, the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins. That’s the power of God that is greater than your heart. If you’re deeply convicted over your resistance to God and it draws you into repentance, that’s the Holy Spirit at work in you. Thank you, God, that you have not left us without the evidence of your Spirit to confirm our faith and give us every confidence to stand before you. Right. This week, church, I want you to fight back against your resistant heart. I want you to fight back hard against the resistance that you feel in your heart. Work hard in prayer, okay? Work hard. We don’t think about prayer as work. Sometimes it’s work. God, don’t leave me like this. Work in me. Have you ever thought about prayer as work in your heart? It is. We pray to align our hearts with God’s will, with the Spirit’s work in us. So, ask God openly, plainly, boldly to show you where his commands have fallen on your deaf ears, where you’ve been resistant to what he’s commanded us in Scripture. Ask him to expose the sins that you protect ferociously. That’s hard to do, isn’t it? Say, God, I know I’m protecting my sin. I know I’m stubborn. Peel it back. Penetrate this stubborn heart. Ask him to show you where the power of the gospel and the conviction of His Spirit must be greater than your hardened heart. Let’s pray right now.

Love One Another

OUR LOVE FOR FELLOW BELIEVERS, OR THE LACK OF THE SAME, HAS ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES. Good morning. Forty-five years ago, on May 17th, those of you that are Norwegian know the significance of that date, I preached my first sermon at Calvary. Calvary was a lot smaller then. We met in southeast Rochester we had about 150 people who attended on a regular basis. And I was actually a pastor at the time, a small church in southeast Minnesota. And we did what was called a pulpit exchange, where the pastors went to a different church to preach for that particular Sunday. So, I was invited to preach here at Calvary. And I remember the passage that I preached on was Ephesians chapter five, verse one, be imitators of God as dearly loved children. And I talked about the fact that children love to imitate. And they learn, in spite of our efforts to teach them good manners. As part of my message, I asked the congregation, I’m going to ask you to do a couple of imitations. First, I’d like you to tell me, what does a cow say? (Moo.) That’s pretty good. Pretty good. Better than the first service. Here’s another easy one. What does a cat say? (Meow.) Okay, now here’s a little bit harder one. Imitate God. Imitate God. That’s a much harder challenge, isn’t it? Well, today we have a challenge placed in front of us from the book of First John. First John 3 verse 11, where he says we should love one another. When Linus told his sister Lucy that he wanted to become a doctor, she laughed and said, you a doctor? That’ll never happen. You know why? Because you don’t love mankind. Linus replied, I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand. First John 3:11 says, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. And as we look at these verses this morning, I would like to suggest that our love for one another or the lack of the same, has eternal consequences. Our love for one another, or the lack of the same has eternal consequences. Our passage is First John 3, verses 11 through 15. We’ve been preaching through First John since April, we’ll be going to the end of the summer. The verses will be on the screen as I share from the message. But if you don’t have a Bible with you, you can take one of the seatback Bibles. The passage is found on page 1022. Now, this passage builds on the one that Pastor Kyle preached on last week when John wrote these words in verse ten. By this it is evident, who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. And John in verse 11, contrasts that with what should be true of us as followers of Jesus. We should be known as those who love one another. Now note I always, when I’m studying the Bible, I like to look for words that are repeated or words that are used in contrast. And we have both in this passage, in these five short verses, he uses the word love three times, the word hate twice and the word murder or murderer four times. Another pair of words that are used in contrast, he uses the word life twice and the word death twice. Now, as we look at this passage this morning, I would like to observe three truths that should be true of every follower of Jesus. The first truth is that we should love one another. First John 3, verse 11, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Now John has referred to the message earlier in his book, in chapter one verse five. He talked about the message that we have heard from him, that God is light. And he also referred to that what you have heard from the beginning in chapter two, verse 24. It’s been suggested that what John is talking about here is when these people, John’s audience, first heard the gospel message. When they first heard the gospel message, it was emphasized to them that they should love one another. Now, I remember when I first heard the gospel message. I actually grew up in a family that went to church every week. I prided myself on knowing the Bible and knowing the stories from the Bible. But it really didn’t make a difference in my daily life. Life just went on. And yeah, something that we did once a week, but so what? Well, when I got to college, I had a friend from high school who went to the same college. We were going to a state university. And he shared with me that he had just written a 92-page paper on the deity of Christ. This is again, at a state university, and he had written this paper for one of his college classes. One, I could not believe that he had written a 92-page paper, and he had written on that subject matter. But he went on to share with me how I could know Christ personally. He shared with me what was called the four spiritual laws. I don’t know if Campus Crusade still uses those, but that’s what he used to share the gospel with me. And he said, you can know God personally through his Son, Jesus Christ. That’s the first thing that I remember when I first heard the gospel. Now, at that time, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. In fact, the next few months, every time I heard an invitation to receive Christ, I prayed that prayer and I thought, that’s what it means to be a believer. You ask Jesus to be your Savior, and I did it over and over and over again. Well, as I learned and as I am still learning, there’s more to being a follower of Jesus than that. As we have learned from our study of First John, to be a follower of God through His Son Jesus, means to obey His Word. To be aware of when we have sinned and to repent of those sins and to seek God’s forgiveness. And here in our passage this morning, we have another mark of followers of Jesus. They should be known as those who love one another. Now I love the one another commands that are in the New Testament. There are over 51 another commands in the New Testament as you have opportunity to read through the New Testament, look for them. They include commands like be devoted to one another, honor one another, accept one another, greet one another, encourage one another. And as we have here, in First John, love one another. There are also negative one another commands. Don’t judge one another. Don’t provoke one another. Don’t envy one another. Don’t lie to one another, and don’t hate one another. One of the scriptures that was just read for us from Colossians 3, did you catch the one another commands in that passage? Paul wrote these words bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. When John wrote in verse 11 that we should love one another, he was echoing the words of Jesus. John was one of Jesus’s disciples, and he wrote the Gospel of John to record Jesus’s earthly ministry and many of the things that he taught. The night before Jesus was betrayed and then went to the cross he shared many thoughts with his disciples. He knew that this was his last time to teach them, his last time to be with them before he died. And four times in that evening, Jesus told his disciples, love one another, love one another. If there was one thing that Jesus wanted his disciples to know is that they should love one another. This command is also found in the book of Romans, first and second Thessalonians, Hebrews, First Peter, and here in First John, and also in Second John. Are there any believers that you find it difficult to love? Perhaps you’re like Linus, you love mankind, but there are some people that you can’t stand. Well, John tells us that we should love one another. And in verse 12, he tells us an example that we should not follow. And so the second truth in this passage is that we should not be like Cain. Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Cain and Abel. It’s found in Genesis chapter four. But read what John says in verse 12. We should not be like Cain, who was the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous. Now again, John had just taught us, he had just written in verse ten, that it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. And so, as John was thinking of an example of someone who did not love his brother. The story of Cain and Abel came to mind. Again, it’s found in Genesis chapter four. We’re not going to take the time to read it right now, but I would encourage you to read it later. This is the first recorded murder in the Bible. Cain and Abel brought sacrifices to God, and presumably by that act of sacrifice, you would assume that they were both worshipers of God. But God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and he rejected Cain’s sacrifice. This led Cain, it made him furious. Furious to the point where he wanted to kill his brother. But before he did so, God warned Cain. God took the time to speak with Cain, and he warned him about the sin that was crouching at his door and how he needed to resist it. Cain turned a deaf ear to God. He went and spoke with his brother Abel, and then he murdered him. Now, after murdering his brother, God once again spoke with Cain. He asked him, where is Abel, your brother? And Cain said, I don’t know. And then he added those infamous words, am I my brother’s keeper? God then announced Cain’s punishment, and you can read the details as punishment, but one of the details was that he would be banished from God’s presence. And Cain said, this punishment is more than I can bear, and from your face I shall be hidden. He was also worried that someone would kill him because of what he had done, but God told him that wouldn’t happen. Cain had the opportunity, after murdering his brother, to acknowledge his sin, to seek God’s forgiveness. And I hope that God would have forgiven him. But the Bible is silent on that. The last words in Genesis regarding Cain is that he went away from the presence of God. Sin separates us from God. A holy God cannot tolerate sin in his presence. And that is why John, in the first chapter of this book, told us that when we sin, we need to repent and confess our sins and seek God’s forgiveness. The author of Hebrews also shares the story of Cain and Abel in chapter 11, verse four. You might look at that later. But the emphasis there is on Abel’s righteousness. And Cain certainly was not righteous. He appeared to be a worshiper of God, but by his actions he proved that not to be the case. And so John warned his readers in verse 12, we should not be like Cain, who was the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. He showed by his actions that his faith, if there was any faith, was not important to him. And John warns us against following Cain’s example. Cain was very angry and probably hated his brother before murdering him. And in the last half of verse 13, John warns his readers, do not be surprised that the world hates you. Once again, John is echoing the words of Jesus as recorded in John chapter 15. It was also read for us earlier, but let me read those verses again. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before. It hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. In verse 11, John had said we should love one another. Jesus disciples should be known for their love for one another. But then he warned them, but don’t be surprised if the world hates you. Jesus has taught his disciples that one of the marks of being a disciple was their love for one another. But because a person follows Jesus, the world which does not follow Jesus, will often react with hatred. And John says we should not be surprised when that happens. Have you ever experienced hatred because of your faith in Jesus? Because you are a follower of Jesus. In much of the world, people who follow Jesus do experience the hatred of the world and experience persecution and oppression, and often pay with their lives. If it happens to us, John says, don’t be surprised. A third truth that we find in this passage is that we should have confidence in our eternal destiny. In verse 14, John returns to the subject of love for our Christian brothers, and we read these words. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Now notice that John says, we have passed out of death into life. Past tense. Not we will pass. Life now, and eternity with God is a present reality, not something simply to be hoped for. John likes to repeat words in this short book, and 15 times he uses the phrase we know. He wanted his readers to know certain truths. And here in verse 14, he wanted them to know the truth, that they had life in Jesus Christ because of their faith in him. They could have confidence in their eternal destiny. Once again, John is echoing the words of Jesus. In the Gospel of John, he recorded these words from Jesus in John chapter five. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but he has passed from death to life. And John is echoing those words here in verse 14. Later in First John, he writes these words. First John five, verses 11 through 13. God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. Since becoming a believer in college, I have looked forward to the promise of eternal life in heaven. After my wife’s death a little under two years ago, my anticipation of what happens, excuse me, of what happens after we die has become even more significant to me. Last year, Phil Wickham released a song called Homesick for Heaven, and I’ve been hearing that a lot recently. And I know how he felt when he sang that song. I wish I had Pastor Kyle’s pull and have Jamie sing it for us, but instead, I’m going to read one of the stanzas to you. In my father’s house there are many rooms. Enough for everyone. Enough for you. I know that it takes some faith, but today you can know without question. Believe in the power of Jesus name and you’re going to heaven. Hallelujah. In Jesus’s name, we’re going to heaven. John writes in verse 14, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. But in contrast to those who are followers of Jesus and love their fellow believers and have passed out of death into life, notice what he adds in verse 14. Whoever does not love abides in death. Note the contrast love for our fellow believers leads to life, lack of love leads to death. Which will you choose, life or death? Paul told the Colossians to set your minds on things above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Similarly, he told the Ephesians this in Ephesians chapter two, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive with Christ, and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You might think that you’re sitting here in church, but if you’re a follower of Jesus, and obedient to God’s Word, you have a chair waiting for you in heaven. And Paul says, we are seated there with him in the heavenly places. If you are an obedient follower of Jesus, you can know, you can be assured, that you have eternal life. But how does that make a difference in our daily lives? Well, certainly it should make a difference when we love our fellow believers. If you are not yet a follower of Jesus, we would love to share with you the good news of how you too can experience God’s love and forgiveness. Well, John closes this passage in verse 15, I wish he had stopped at verse 14 with the good News, but he didn’t. He adds these words in verse 15. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Now again, he’s thinking of the example of Cain. But notice he equates hate with murder. And we might think that John is being too harsh. But again, guess what? John is echoing the words of Jesus. This time words that Jesus spoke and are recorded from the sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. Whoever says you fool, will be liable to the hell of fire. Now we’re quick to put sins on a sliding scale and we feel that, well, certainly some sins are worse than others and are more worthy of God’s judgment. But God’s Word says any sin, any sin, is an insult against God and offends God. A holy God cannot tolerate sin in his presence, and any hope of life is found in repentance and obedience of His Word. The good news is that even those who hate and murder, they can be saved if they repent of their sins and seek God’s forgiveness. Many years ago, my wife had a nephew who murdered someone. We couldn’t believe it when we received the news, and as was my wife’s custom, she said, let’s pray about this. And so I prayed, and I asked God to bring good out of this situation. And my wife looked at me and she said, how can God bring good out of a murder? How can God bring good out of a murder? Her nephew was sentenced and convicted, and he spent over 18 years of his life in prison because of that murder. I asked him recently what good came out of that situation? Well, what good came out of it is that he turned his life over to God. He sought God’s forgiveness. He couldn’t undo what he had done in murdering someone. But God forgave him because he came to him in repentance. He said that he had learned that he could not do life without God. I asked him, how did you make it through 18 years of imprisonment? And he said, I trusted God, I believed in Jesus, and I prayed. And that’s the only thing that kept me sane. He said over and over again, I saw how God answers prayer. Those who hate, those who murder, and those who sin, whatever the sin might be, can find salvation, forgiveness, and hope through faith in God, through His Son Jesus Christ, and through obedience of His Word. Our relationship with our fellow believers should be characterized by love. John says, love one another. When we obey God’s command to love one another, we can have assurance of eternal life knowing that we have passed out of death into life. Let’s pray.

The Practice of Sin

THOSE WHO ARE A NEW CREATIONS IN CHRIST, WHO ARE BORN AGAIN BY THE GRACE OF GOD, WILL LIVE IN REPENTANCE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. THOSE WHO ONLY CLAIM TO BE CHRISTIANS, BUT ARE NOT ACTUALLY TRANSFORMED BY GOD’S GRACE, WILL BE EXPOSED BY THEIR SIN. Well, I’ve talked to a lot of you who have become part of Calvary in the last few years. And sometimes I’ll ask, what made you decide that Calvary was the place for you? And almost to a person, the answer has something to do with how carefully and seriously we handle the Bible. And I’m glad we’re known for that. I’m glad this. This church is known for its handling of Scripture. I, for one, think it would be a huge waste of time to come to church or to go to Bible study and not hear the Bible plainly taught. It’s God’s word. It is the tool that the Holy Spirit uses in his hands to form us and to shape us into Christ likeness. I don’t want to be shaped by human opinion. That’s not what I want to be shaped by. You don’t need my top three ways to have a great life this week, right? You don’t need that. What we all need is to look fully and honestly into the mirror of God’s Word. See who we really are. See our need for God’s grace in Christ, and learn to apply the gospel so that we are transformed by it. You need that. I need that. We all need that. That’s what we need. Keep that in mind this morning. Remember that we all agree that that’s what we need. Because today we’re looking at a passage of First John that teaches the weight, the origin, and the soul crushing devastation of sin. John teaches this to a group of Christians who might be tempted to think that sin is not that big a deal. And we live in a time in church history, the United States, 2026, when people who would claim to follow Jesus also treat sin like it’s not that big a deal. They don’t see the acceptance of unrepented sinful patterns and practices in their lives as evidence that they don’t actually know Jesus. They have learned to excuse and tolerate and even embrace their own sin as something that is just part of who they are. They’ve incorporated a certain amount of sinful behavior into their walk with Jesus, never even considering that if you’re engaging in unrepentant sin, you can’t be walking with Jesus. This morning, John is going to sort people spiritually. I believe this passage is going to sort us spiritually as well. Those who are a new creation in Christ, who are born again by the grace of God, will live in repentance and righteousness. Those who only claim to be Christians, but are not actually transformed by God’s grace, will be exposed by their sin. I had a weird prayer this week and a strange prayer for our church. I prayed that a lot of you would be exposed. Not by me, not by my preaching, but by the Word of God that we have all gathered here this morning to hear, because we all agree to take the Bible seriously. We’re in First John chapter three, beginning in verse four this morning. This passage is filled with statements of fact, all of them intended for us to self-diagnose the state of our own soul. And I have framed this passage into four statements about sin. And the first statement is simply that sin is lawlessness. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. Now, the first thing we need to do with this verse, and with the rest of this passage, is make an important distinction between committing a sin and making a practice of sin. You can see that the ESV translators here use the word practice twice: a practice of sinning, practices lawlessness. If you look up in your Bible to chapter two, verse 29, you’ll see that these phrases here parallel a phrase there that says everyone who practices righteousness. Now that word practice is a translation of the word does. Okay. The word is does, this person does righteousness, does sin, does lawlessness. And by adding the word does to sin, it gives it sort of a prolonged or ongoing meaning. He’s talking about a chosen direction, what we might call a lifestyle. He’s not talking about a sin committed by a Christian that is followed by confession and repentance and reconciliation with others, and restored fellowship with God. That would actually be part of the practice of righteousness. John is talking about someone who commits sin habitually without repentance, regardless of whether that person calls himself a Christian or not. That is the practice of sin. And this is a very helpful distinction. As long as we remember that there are many sinful lifestyles. Okay. It’s fine to think that way, but we got to remember how many there are. We tend to use the phrase sinful lifestyle only to describe things like LGBT matters or sex outside of marriage or criminals, or things like that. But let me tell you, church, being an angry and controlling person is just as sinful a lifestyle as any of that. Seething bitterness toward another person is a sinful lifestyle. If you don’t believe me, if you think, well, that doesn’t sound right, look down at verse ten in this passage. Just glance down at verse ten right there. John says, you’re a child of the devil if you refuse to forgive and not love another person in your life. A neighbor, a brother. Controlling others and demanding your way always is a sinful lifestyle. Emotional manipulation is a sinful lifestyle. Gossip and slander, disobedience to parents, greedy accumulation of wealth without generosity, all these things and so many more can be sinful lifestyles if they make up the content of the unrepented practice of your life. I’ve heard people say that there’s no such thing as a practicing homosexual Christian, and that’s true. But it’s also true that there’s no such thing as a practicing, spiteful Christian. Or a mean Christian, or sarcastically hurtful Christian, or the Christian who doesn’t care about the suffering of others. These things are also not part of the walk in the light with Jesus. And we need to keep this in mind throughout this passage so we don’t make the mistake of thinking that this applies to everyone else and not to you and me. The reason sin is so egregious is because it is lawlessness. Now, John is probably not talking here about the Mosaic law, specifically. He’s talking about criminality against a lawful God. It’s crimes against God. Sin is an act of rebellion against God. And here I want to quote the late, great R.C. Sproul, who in his book The Holiness of God, described sin as cosmic treason. It’s a great phrase, cosmic treason. Sin is a violent act of rebellion against our creator. Here’s the quote. What are we saying to our creator when we disobey him at the slightest point. We are saying no to the righteousness of God. We are saying, God, your law is not good. My judgment is better than yours. Your authority does not apply to me. I am above and beyond your jurisdiction. I have the right to do what I want to do, not what you command me to do. Church the reason we don’t take sin seriously is because we don’t understand it biblically. Okay? We don’t define it the way the Bible defines it. The only reason we could ever think that sin is no big deal is if we’re ignoring what God says about it. Because he has said sin is lawless rebellion against me. Criminals don’t look at the judge and say, sure, I’m guilty, according to you, but I don’t see it that way, here’s what I think. Right? You can say all you want while they’re slapping the cuffs on you, right? You’ll have plenty of time to mumble about what you think sin is because you’ll be sitting in a cell. Sin is lawlessness. Sin is cosmic treason against God, and no amount of redefining or excuse-making on our part will change sin into something that it’s not. And I have to say, one of my greatest fears for our wider Calvary community is for those of you who intellectually know and understand the gospel, but you’ve not been made new by it because you love your sinful lifestyle and you think God will just forgive your sinful lifestyle while you make a practice of it. And if that’s you, please listen to these next verses. Please listen to what John says in these next verses, because that what I just described, that is not Christianity. Here’s our second statement. Sin has no part of Christ or Christians. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. If you want to know how bad our sin is, just look at what was required to forgive it. God himself stepped into his own creation. He suffered and died a horrific death on the cross, just so that he could take on himself what our sin deserves. That’s what our sin deserves. No one could possibly accept the gospel accounts of the crucifixion and go on thinking that sin is no big deal. Now, you could ignore those accounts. You could disregard those accounts, but you cannot accept and believe them and maintain a light view of sin. But notice how John phrases this. You know, he could have just said that Jesus is the substitute for our sins. In fact, that is what he says up in chapter two verse two. But here he says that Jesus showed up to take away our sins. This has the idea of removing them from us, right? Separating them from us. Like when you turn around to the back seat and you separate your kids from each other, right? You put the armrest down. You don’t want them to touch one another, right? Jesus didn’t forgive our sins so that we could continue to engage in them while presuming upon his grace. He came to remove, to remove our sins. In him there is no sin. That means obedience to Jesus, which causes me to become more like Jesus. Leads me toward sinlessness. If sin isn’t part of Christ, then it can have no acceptable role in the life of a Christian. Which is why John can say the next two very sobering statements. And this is where I really want you to dial in here, church, because here’s where all the excuses stop. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. Let that settle on you for a moment. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No person who is truly connected to Christ continues in a sinful, unrepentant direction. You say, well, I am saved by Christ. I love the Lord. Fantastic. That is fantastic. Part of what that will look like then for you is rooting out the sinful thoughts and actions, feeling the weight of conviction, turning from those sins and toward faithfulness. And if that is happening in you, if that’s what’s going on in your life. Fantastic. Because that is evidence of your abiding connection to Christ. That’s part of the living connection we have with Jesus through his indwelling Holy Spirit. If, however, what is actually happening in your life is that you are simply claiming Christ while continuing on in your sin, secretly or without any interest in being obedient to your Savior and your King, then you are not connected to Christ. My dad was a customer engineer with Hewlett Packard, and that meant he traveled all over his region fixing computers for most of his career. And I asked him one time, how many of your calls are for computers that are simply not plugged in? And he said, far more than you’d think, far more than you’d think. A surprising number of computers simply just not plugged in. If your life exhibits sin and there is no conviction in your heart over that sin. it’s because you’re not plugged into Christ at all. You’re not connected to him. See, because Jesus ministry removes sins. So if you continue on in your sinful lifestyle, if you’re unwilling to change, resistant to repentance, that’s because you’re not actually abiding in Christ. Which is why John can turn the logic around in his second statement. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Notice how seen and known here are both past tense while perpetually sinning, keeping on sinning is now. It’s in the present tense. So if you’re engaged in ongoing sin right now, no matter what your testimony from the past sounds like, you don’t know Jesus. Now this can get a little bit fuzzy. This can get a little bit fuzzy because sometimes we can be blind to our own sin. Sometimes we just don’t know what we’re caught in, right? And it’s difficult for us to see. And what we need is for someone else to come and show us, or for the gospel to show us the Bible, to show us and expose some things. But let me ask you, when that exposing happens, what happens in you? What happens when it’s pointed out? What do you do when your sin becomes evident to you? Do you excuse it or ignore it? Do you just move on unaltered by it? Do you harden yourself against conviction? Do you get mad at other people for judging you or pointing out your flaws? Are you the victim and not the criminal? Then you don’t know Jesus. You don’t know him. Another thing that can make things fuzzy is that we’re all prone to greater temptations for certain sins. We’re built differently, and so certain sins are more tempting than other sins. But you know that about yourself. Let me ask you, what are you doing about it? What are you doing about that sin that’s so tempting to you? You know this about yourself. What’s your strategy for victory over the sin? Or have you surrendered to it? Has it found a role in your secret life that you hide away from other people? Are you just resigned to the idea that this is who you are? And God will just have to be okay with your sinful lifestyle? If that’s true, then you don’t know Jesus. You don’t know him. See, God knows that we struggle. But church, it’s a struggle, right? He knows that we struggle, but it is a struggle against sin. Our fight against sin is to the death. We don’t lay down arms against it. We don’t come to terms with sin. We don’t reside alongside of sin amicably. I run into this attitude of secrecy and surrender and excuse a lot when I’m talking to men about pornography. There’s this attitude of defeat in them which could be a good starting spot for repentance and moving forward, but often in the place where there should be resolve to overcome this sin, there’s just excuses. Loads and loads of excuses. I say, well, if the problem is your phone, well then let’s just get one that doesn’t have internet access. Oh, I can’t do that. I can’t do that. I need it for work. I need this phone for work. You might need calling and texting for work, but you don’t need an internet-capable phone for work. So I gotta have these apps. These apps are so important to me. Okay, well, there probably is a way to work around that. There’s probably a way to walk in victory here if we just change the technology a little bit. I can’t do that. I can’t do it. And I say, okay, well, let’s get some accountability software on there. You know, let’s, let’s shed some light into this darkness. Let’s open this up. Let’s put it on all your devices and make sure that everything can be seen by your wife or by whoever your accountability partner. Let’s just throw the light of the gospel on this so that it’s exposed. Oh, well, those cost money. That’s too much. I can’t spend money on that in this economy. I just checked this week, Covenant Eyes, which is a fantastic software for this. It costs $18 a month, $18 a month. $18 is one serving of salmon eggs Benedict at Canadian Honker, one serving. What is your sexual integrity in the state of your soul worth? Is it worth more than breakfast? Tell me it’s worth more than breakfast. Tell me it’s more than the cost of eggs. Can we all agree that the battle against sin is probably going to require sacrifice on our part? No war is free. Sin is powerful and resourceful, which means that we will have to draw on the greater power of the gospel, and that we need to use every resource necessary to keep our hearts and minds away from sin. And if we are unwilling to do that for the sake of Jesus, that means we don’t know Jesus at all. And if that’s you this morning, if that’s you, I’m praying that you will repent and throw your whole life on the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus. He will forgive you. Jesus will not accept your sinful lifestyle, but he will forgive it, and he will give you the power to leave it behind. The last two statements on sin cover the topic from two different angles, and the first is the origin of sin, and that’s that sin is of the devil. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. For the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Once again, John alerts us not to be deceived on this topic, because there are plenty of people who would like to combine and confuse the categories of sin and righteousness. False teachers do this all the time, and John is telling us to be on guard, not to let that happen. And to do that, we need to understand the different origins of sin and righteousness. The logic of verse seven works backwards to the source. He says, whoever practices righteousness is righteous. So righteousness in this context is moral goodness that comes from being obedient to the Lord. It’s like when in the sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that a good tree bears good fruit. You can’t look at a tree that doesn’t have fruit on it and know if it’s a healthy tree or not. But once you see the fruit, you know if the tree is healthy. If your commitment to the Lord has love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control flowing out of you, then you know that you truly are in a state of righteousness before the Lord, right? You can see it by the action. And again, this is not something you do to earn a righteous standing before God. This is evidence that you already have a righteous standing before God because of God’s grace to us in Christ. And working backward one more step, right? So the righteous things we do shows we’re in a state of righteousness, but that shows that we are connected. It’s evidence that we have the connection to Jesus, who is himself perfectly righteous. That’s the source. Let’s put it into terms of using a tree, what I’ll call a spiritual identity flow chart. Okay, so commitment to Jesus with all of its good works and repentance and worship and passion for Christ and compassion for people and, and faithfulness to God’s Word, even when it’s hard. All of that demonstrates a person who is in a state of righteousness before the Lord. And that state of righteousness is only possible for a person who is rooted in the one who is righteous, Jesus Christ. The opposite is also true. Verse eight works backwards in the same way, except that John assumes the middle component. He doesn’t talk about the middle part there, right? He says that the person who makes a practice of sin is of the devil. He just goes right straight to the source. You see how he skips that middle there? He simply…unrighteous fruit means you’ve rooted yourself in the devil, not in Christ. Sin is of the devil. It is behavior that is rooted in, and that flows from the leader of the opposition to the Lord himself. To lead a life of unrepentant sin, then, is to serve the devil and to do his bidding. It’s to work in his favor and toward his goals. Jesus came in opposition, to destroy and to undo all that the devil has done in this world. How can anyone claiming to be serving Christ at the same time work for the opposing army that is trying to destroy Christ? You can’t. You can’t. It’s not possible. And here’s why it’s impossible. It’s our fourth statement. And that’s that sin is evidence that you are not a new creation. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil? Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. So when a person is saved by Christ, a transformation of heart and mind takes place. That’s so powerful. You become a new person. Jesus called this the new birth. He said, you are being born again into the world. Paul described it as becoming a new creation in Christ. He says, the old you has passed away, and the new you has now come. Here, John uses the phrase born of God, and he says that this person who is born of God has received the seed of God that’s planted in him, which I believe is a reference to the Holy Spirit who comes into the life of a person when they turn and trust in Jesus. They become a new creation. And the Holy Spirit’s presence is there. And for someone who has truly become this new creation, John says he cannot keep sinning. He cannot. The word is unable. It is not possible for this person to make a practice of sinning. For the person born of God, sin is so irritating, it’s so condemning, it’s such a burden on the heart and mind that he can’t go forward in it. He has to rid himself of it. She has to get it out of her life. Do you know why James tells us to confess our sins to one another? People don’t like to do this. People really don’t like to confess their sins to each other because they think that they’ll be embarrassed or they’re going to feel badly about themselves, so they don’t like to confess their sin. But do you know? Do you know why we’re told to do it? It’s because for the Christian, the confession of sin is releasing a burden. See, that’s pulling sin into the light so it can be exposed for what it is and killed, because the sin for the Christian is the burden, not the confession of the sin. That’s not the burden. The sin is the burden. And if that’s not how you feel about your sin, please listen to John this morning. Please listen to the words that he is writing to the church. If you’re content to walk out of here today without making changes to the sin that you enjoy. You do not know Jesus. You have not been transformed by him. You have no reason to have any confidence in your salvation. You’re trusting in a salvation that you don’t have because you can’t have it, because it cannot exist alongside your practice of sin. You cannot wage war against God openly and without repentance, and at the same time trust in the grace that covers you. You can’t do both those things. You’ve probably noticed that I have said the word evidence as we’ve been working through the this letter, First John. That I’ve said the word evidence quite a lot. It comes from verse ten here. By this it is evident. By this it is evident who are the children of God. That word means visible, viewable. You can see it. This is how you see yourself. Okay? This is how you can know yourself and see yourself plainly. It’s also how we see one another. It’s, to the best of our ability, it’s how we see the spiritual state of other people. See, because I can’t see your soul and you can’t see mine. I can’t see the thoughts of your mind, the commitments, the passions of your heart. I can’t. I can’t see those things. None of us can. What we can see is what’s expressed from those thoughts and passions. We can see the actions that you take, the commitments that you make, the love that you show to other people. We can hear how you talk about your struggles with sin. We can see if you are waging war against your sin because of the peace that you have with God in Christ, or if you’re making war against God because of the peace that you have made with your sin. And we can hear you talk about Jesus. We can hear your confession of sin and your profession of faith. We can see the fruit that comes from genuine new life in Christ. It’s all evidence. It’s all evidence. And it’s evidence so important that it determines the difference between children of God and children of the devil. There’s a phrase for you. Children of the devil. We’ll say children of God, right? We’ll say children of God without hesitation. The world likes the phrase children of God. That is not a problem for anybody. But I don’t hear children of the devil even in church. I don’t ever hear that phrase. But remember, we all agreed to be biblical this morning, right? I once knew a man who was highly respected in his church, highly respected. He served faithfully. He led Bible study. His wife was a very godly woman. He was put forward by his church as an elder candidate. In every way he was esteemed within the church. And if he said, follow me as I follow Christ, everybody would have said, yes, we believe you. And then one day, his wife happened to be on his laptop and found evidence of what turned out to be an adulterous relationship that had spanned years with another woman who was also married. And soon after he was exposed for that adultery he admitted to another adultery that spanned years before that. And his wife was suddenly thrown into turmoil as she realized that decades of her marriage had been stained with the awful reality that while she was looking up to this man as a leader and the great love of her life, he was totally unfaithful to her. And one of the most distressing things for his wife was what to do with her memories. This was one of the hardest things that we worked through. What to do with your memories. See, because every time she had a happy memory of her marriage and a happy memory of her family from the past, it was suddenly overlaid with the reality that she was being deceived and violated at the very same time that all of this was taking place. And the only reason that this came to light was because this man was caught. He didn’t come forward with his sin. He was caught. Let me ask you, church, if he hadn’t been caught, do you think that situation would be no big deal? Do you think that would be no big deal? See, this man had placed a huge mental barrier between his sinful lifestyle and his outward display of godliness. Can he do that? Is that possible? Is there a category of spiritual reality that is acceptable to God, where this man can live both lives and it’s no big deal? I used such an obvious, powerful and difficult example because I want you to feel how utterly ridiculous that sounds. I want you to see how utterly ridiculous that is. Of course it matters. Of course it matters that this man was violating his marriage vows. Of course, his confession of faith was false at that time. I can tell you that only by the grace of God at work in this woman’s heart did that marriage stay together. He confessed. He repented. And as far as I know, their marriage is still healing today. That man was heading for eternal destruction if his sin remained hidden. It was God’s grace to this man that God broke him in half, destroyed his life. God destroyed his life with the truth so that it could be rebuilt in Christ. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God. But let me remind you of what John said earlier in this letter back in chapter one. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Pastor Jamie is going to come and lead us in a final song, and that song is entitled All Sufficient Merit. It’s a song celebrating the work of Christ who takes away our sin. And the chorus goes like this. It is done. It is finished. No more debt I owe. Paid in full. All sufficient merit, not my own. It’s a song celebrating what John wrote about in verse five today. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins. To take them away from us. To free us. That is Jesus ministry. To come pay our sins with merit that we don’t have. We don’t merit it. Jesus got it for us. Jesus paid the price for us. To take them away from us, so that we’re no longer under the condemnation of our sin. But as the song says, stand accepted before the throne of God. Let me tell you what it takes to sing that song and mean it, okay? Anybody can sing that song. Anybody can. You can stand up and sing that song. Anybody can stand up and sing that song today. Here’s what it takes to stand up, sing that song and mean it. For this song to reflect your reality, you have to reject your sinful lifestyle. You’ve got to reject it. You can’t wage war of cosmic treason and also claim to the unmerited gift of Jesus Christ. You can only be on one side or the other. Children of the devil cannot be children of God. So before we sing this morning, Pastor Jamie is going to lead us in a time of confession. I am pleading with you. Church I am pleading with you this morning to confess your sin. Confess what you’re hiding. Refuse to lie to yourself and to other people anymore. Turn away from that. I also invite you to reach out to me or to one of your pastors if you’re going through something. That’s what we’re here for. We want to walk with you through this. We want to see you have victory over your sin. And I promise you, I promise you, Jesus is faithful and just to cleanse you of anything. You are not too far gone. The gospel fixes everything. Would you pray with me?