If you have your Bibles with you, turn to 1 John chapter five. I've just got a few verses I'm gonna deal with concerning the subject of evidence of spiritual life. Evidence of spiritual life.

Beginning at verse one of 1 John chapter five. The apostle John writing to the church, those who profess belief in the true Christ, He said, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth him that begat, that's Christ, the first hymn there is Christ, loveth Christ, who begat, that is, who is the author of the new birth, spiritual life. Loveth him also that is begotten of him, that's a brother or sister in Christ.

So if you've been born of God through the life, the resurrected life of Christ, then you'll love others who are born again. Now that love, we can say a lot about it. And a lot of people have different ideas and unrealistic ideas. And I'm not saying this as an excuse. You know, it's not necessarily that you'll like all your brothers and sisters or like everything they do. It's not necessarily you'll be their best friend forever and all that stuff. But it means that you've been bound together into one spiritual family. You understand? And that's what you are. You're separate from the world because you believe in the truth. of Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. And what he's telling us there is that's the first evidence of spiritual life, that you've been born again.

Now understand the new birth. See, our Lord warned that there be many who call him Lord, but they don't know him. And the classic passage on that is Matthew 7, 21 through 23. Remember, those who stood before him at judgment and they said, Lord, Lord, haven't we preached in your name? Haven't we cast out demons? Haven't we done many wonderful works? And then he said to them, he said, it's not all, it's just not them who say Lord, Lord, it's those who do the will of my father. And he told those fellas, he said, depart from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you.

Now he knew who they were and he knew their hearts. He's omniscient. It means he knows everything. He knows everything about you and me. He knows what you're thinking right now. Be careful. He knows. He hears your thoughts because God is omniscient. The problem with those fellas is they were pleading what they thought God had enabled them to do. instead of pleading totally, exclusively what Christ has done. That's the difference. Now listen to me. That's the difference. You remember the first words out of their mouth was not, look at what I've done. The first words out of their mouth was, I thank God. I thank God that I preached in your name. I thank God that I've done many wonderful works." So they were attributing it to God, giving him the credit, but he didn't want credit for that because that's not the ground of salvation and that's not the source of the new birth.

The ground of salvation and the source of the new birth is the obedience unto death of Christ alone as our surety, our substitute, and our redeemer. It's totally his work. It's his righteousness. You hear me preach the imputed righteousness of Christ. That means I'm the recipient of a righteousness that I had no part in producing. And what's the problem? Why is that necessary? I'll tell you why. Because I'm only a sinner saved by grace. And if you're saved, that's all you are. Even now, as saved by grace, you don't do anything in your best efforts to equal the perfection of righteousness that Christ did. That's what God requires. That's why he sent his son into the world. That's why he's called the Lord our righteousness. That's why the gospel is the preaching of the righteousness of God.

And the first evidence of the new birth of spiritual life is you believe that message of grace, whereby Christ alone is your hope. That's why we sing that hymn. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame.

I've preached this gospel for 40 years. But I don't trust that to save me. I trust Christ. His work. His blood to wash away all my sins. A thousand sermons, even truthful sermons, cannot wash away one sin. Cannot satisfy the justice of God against me. There's only one thing that can do that, and that's the blood of Jesus Christ. It's not my works, it's not even my will.

You say, well, you can make the choice. You've already made the choice, because that's how we're born. The natural man, the unspiritual, spiritually dead man or woman, receives not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, they're spiritually discerned. Why did Christ tell Nicodemus, you must be born again, or you can't see? the kingdom of God. You can't enter the kingdom of God because by nature we don't have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts and minds to receive and understand it. By nature our minds are elsewhere, focused on ourselves and what we must do to make the difference.

But when we're born again by the Spirit and have evidence of spiritual life, we know that Christ alone has already made all the difference in the world. And I like it that way, how about you? That's the way I want it because I know myself. I know if salvation were conditioned on me, I would lose it. I wouldn't even gain it to begin with.

But that's true. The gospel is a salvation conditioned on Christ alone, who by himself as our surety, our substitute, our redeemer, fulfilled all the necessary conditions and qualifications and stipulations to secure the salvation of all for whom he died, was buried, and arose again the third day. That's what it's about.

And so when God brings us into his family by new birth, Now we've already been in his family providentially and purposely for the foundation, but we're born in sin as an enemy of God. And that's shown by our reaction to the gospel when it's preached. How do you react when the gospel is preached, the true gospel? You either ignore it or you hate it, you leave it. That's natural man. That's what we all would do apart from God intervening. by the Spirit to bring us to spiritual life. Believing on Him. And in believing on Him, we reject everything else. We reject false Gospels.

Somebody, over these years, I've been accused of, well, you say you're the only ones on, no, I say that anybody who does not believe this Gospel is lost. The Bible says that. I hope you believe the Gospel. I want you to believe it. I want everybody who hears the gospel to believe it. But I can't do that. I can't save you. I can't even save myself. God alone gives spiritual life from the dead. God alone can raise the dead to life. And that's it.

So he says, this is the first evidence. And the second one here is everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. Like I said, I could spend a lot of time on this love thing because it's important. This is a particular love. It's not a Hallmark card. It's not romantic love, erotic, or anything like that. It's not even what the Bible calls brotherly love in the sense of we're all part of the same human family. We are. It's not love of our country, it's not patriotism. This is, you've heard the term agape. Well, what that is, that's divine love that nobody has who doesn't have spiritual life.

Now, you can congregate with people in a religious group under a false gospel. Now, you can do that. But that means you don't have this agape love. Because this love, first and foremost, is love of God as he reveals himself in the Bible. It's love of the truth. Over in 2 Thessalonians chapter two, the Apostle Paul was inspired by the Spirit to speak of the future. And what he spoke of was a great falling away of what is commonly thought of as the church from the truth. It was an apostasy where it is infiltrated with false Christianity. It's a very sad thing.

But who's going to be saved from that? Well, he says later on, he says that those who perished, perished because they believed not They had not the love of the truth. Well, who has the love of the truth? Only those who are given spiritual life from the dead. If you can sit under a false gospel, you don't love the truth. And if you don't study the scriptures to find out the difference between the false gospels and the true gospel, then you're not doing yourself any good, religiously anyway. God brings his people to love that truth. That's what this love is.

So this causes us to unite with people where the true gospel is preached. And that's what this love is about. Now you're gonna have your problems. You're gonna have your arguments. You're gonna have personality conflicts. All that stuff's gonna still be there. And the reason is is because we're only sinners saved by grace. I mean, I've seen two believers, two men, get so mad at each other, they almost wanna kill each other. But they still love the truth. And that's a love of each other. I could look at somebody and say, boy, I wish you'd change. And you could look at me and say, boy, I wish you'd change. Either way, we're not perfect people. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. of whom I'm chief, Paul said that.

Remember when he and, who was it, Barnabas, that got into an argument over John Mark? Barnabas or the other guy, I can't think of his name now. But they had to part company over it, but then they came back together. But this is the evidence of spiritual life. Everyone that loveth Christ, that beget them, that cause them to be born again, love of him also that is begotten of him."

Look at verse two, he says, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. Now, the keeping of his commandments is something that we need to have explained. He's not talking about the 10 commandments there in that form, but he's talking about the commandments of Christ, especially believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and love the brethren. That's what he's talking about. he's also talking about the obedience that springs not from legalism, you know what legalism is don't you? That's when you seek to serve God because you're afraid if you don't you're going to go to hell, that's legalism. Or if you don't you're going to lose your reward in heaven, that's legalism. Or you think, on the other hand, like a mercenary, if you serve God enough, you can make yourself righteous or fit or qualified for heaven. You can't do it, even on your best day. Your obedience does not make you fit or qualified for heaven. Only the blood of Christ, only His righteousness imputed, you see that?

Should we obey God? Yes. Should we try our best? Yes. Should we try to be the best we can be every day? Yes. But look on verse three, for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and this is important, and His commandments are not grievous, burdensome.

Now you don't want to know what the burden is. That burden is legalism. Paul dealt with that in Galatians. You had some people who claimed to be Christian, but they had a little twist on it. They were Jews, and they'd been brought up under the old covenant, which is a covenant of works. And it wasn't work salvation, because you couldn't be saved according to the terms of that covenant. But these Jews claimed that if the Gentiles believed and were brought into church, that the men had to be circumcised in order to be really saved.

they put that burden, that grievous burden on them and Paul came along and by the power of the Spirit he said, look if you be circumcised Christ will profit you nothing. If you do it for that reason, you see these grievous things are things that preachers put people under that burden them down. that says the only way you're gonna be, you might be saved by grace, but you gotta work hard to stay saved. That's grief, that's a burden. You think you can bear it, but you can't. If you don't come to salvation by the grace of God before you die, you'll find out just like those preachers in Matthew 7. That's a grievous burden.

salvation is free and these commandments to believe and to repent and obey God, they're not grievous because you see, they're not things that we do in order to be saved or in order to be righteous, these are things that we do because God has freely given us all things through Christ. the foundation of them is not legal threats or mercenary promises of earned reward but the ground of them, the motivation for them rather, is grace, love, and gratitude. The obedience of a believer is a life of thanksgiving.

Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation so rich and so free."

You know, a lot of people, they think they're serving God. They're not, but they serve God because of what they can get out of Him. You know, if you do this, God will do that. But how about serving God just because of who He is and what He's freely given to you? None of which you deserve or earn. None of which I deserve or earn. That's what salvation's about.

His commandments are not grievous because they're the acts of a willing, loving bond servant whose debt has been paid and who has all the righteousness that he already needs in Christ. And here's the thing. You've been blessed by God. I've been blessed by God. But there's not one blessing from God that I can tell you that I earned it or deserved it. It's all a gift in Christ.

And so he says in verse four, now listen to this. He says in verse four, for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. The world tells you to serve God, in a legal mercenary way. You know, you better do this, you better do that, you better, well, we just come out of, you better not, Pat, you better not cry. That's the God of this world, really. You better not, what is it? Shout. Pat, I'm telling you why. You're gonna reach judgment someday. That's the God of this world, it really is. And I know we tell these things to our children, just having fun, I know that. But that's not the gospel, you know that, don't you?

He's making a list, checking it twice. That's the God of this world. But when God brings you to know Christ and the freeness and fullness of the salvation that he's provided based upon his blood and righteousness alone, you've overcome the world. You've separated yourself from the world. And why is that? Well, look at it.

Verse four, for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Now, the reason he says our faith overcomes the world is because our faith looks to Christ, who alone has overcome the world. We didn't do it. Christ did it, and that's what our faith says. Remember in John 16, he told his disciples, he said, in the world you'll have trouble, but be of good courage, I've overcome the world. Our victory is in Christ. Our victory over sin is in Christ, our victory over Satan is in Christ, and our victory over the world is in Christ.

So he says in verse five, who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the son of God. Now that doesn't mean you just say the words, Jesus is the son of God. He is, that's his deity. But he's also the son of man, a human being without sin, born of the virgin, People have been thinking about that these days, and that's okay. But he was born of a virgin with a human nature, human body and soul, just like us, except he was without sin. He wasn't conceived by man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And he united his deity with his humanity and was born, and he grew in wisdom and stature, and he walked this earth as a perfect human being.

Now there's a lot we don't know about his youth. We know that he withstood the elders in the temple who were teaching salvation by works, that's what they were doing. That's what the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Herodians were all about. That's what the Jewish faith as well as all other faiths except true Christianity teach, salvation conditioned on the sinner, salvation by the works of man, salvation by the will of man. And it's all false.

So he was withstanding them in the temple, and his mother and father, his mother and his adopted father came to get him. And the next time we see him, he arrives on the scene with John the Baptist to be baptized. And he came upon John the Baptist, and John the Baptist, by the power of the Spirit, recognized him to be, here's the Messiah. Christ went down into the water with John the Baptist and said, John baptize me. John refused at first, said I'm not worthy, and he wasn't, but Christ said suffer it, and here's what he said, he said suffer it to be so for us to fulfill all righteousness.

You know what he was telling them there, he said this is why I came into the world, to fulfill all righteousness. How are you going to do that? By his death, is obedience unto death, burial, and resurrection, and that's why he was baptized. When we're baptized in water, we go down into the pool, indicating our faith in Christ that when he died, we died with him, and we're buried with him. And when we come up out of the water, we're indicating that when he arose, we arose with him. And we're confessing our sins, we're confessing our Savior. But when he did it, it was to show in type that his work was to fulfill all righteousness through his obedience unto death and his resurrection from the dead. That's why he came. And when he went through this life in that three, three and a half year period, he always overcame his enemies, the world, the flesh, the devil, all of it. And when he hung on that cross, all that time, just before he gave up the ghost, which means his spirit left his body, he died, he said, it is finished. What was finished? He fulfilled all righteousness. And his righteousness is the righteousness of God. And

I thank God that when I stand before God at the judgment, I'm not standing there in some supposed righteousness of Bill Parker. I'm standing there in the righteousness of God. And that's why the gospel is identified this way. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first, the Greek also, or the Gentile, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the justified shall live by faith.

Now, what is it to be justified? Well, it's to be forgiven of all my sins. I mean all of past, present, and future. They cannot be charged to me, for who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. And it's to be declared righteous in God's eyes. Not necessarily in your eyes. You might look at me certain days, you're not going to see righteousness. You might see something else. But I am righteous in God's sight, based upon the righteousness of His Son, imputed, charged, accounted to me. My debt's been paid. Isn't that what we want? Isn't that the message of grace and salvation?

Well, I hope that the Lord will make it effectual to our minds and our hearts. All right, let's close the service by singing Redeemed, hymn number 475. We'll just sing a A couple of verses here,

redeemed, how I love to proclaim it.