Turn in your Bibles with me to 1 John chapter three. I'm going to begin the message at verse 10, but I wanna just introduce it with a lot of what has come before that I preached on last week. I'm not gonna repeat the message last week, don't worry. I'm not gonna give you two for one today. Wear you out.

The Apostle John had written this letter to encourage those who profess to believe the truth, the gospel, to abide in that truth. In fact, the message last week was entitled Abiding in Christ. The word abide means to continue.

You know, there's always, Since the beginning, there's always been divisions among people who profess to be God's people, especially when the term Christian came along in the book of Acts, which means a follower of Christ. People would say they follow Christ, they believe in Christ, they trust Christ. but they would differ on their ideas of what salvation is, how salvation comes about, what it means, the extent of it, all kinds of different things. And certainly I'm not gonna deal with all those things here.

But the problem with all that is this. There is only one way of salvation. There's not two, there's not three or four. There's only one. And that way of salvation is identified in the Bible by the word grace. G-R-A-C-E. Simple word. But it's one of the most controversial words in religion. Because it means different things to different people. And what we need to do is find out what God means by it.

But you'll see some people who believe grace, well, that means God helps those who help themselves. Well, that's not grace. And some say, well, it means God did everything he could do, now the rest is up to you. Well, that's not grace. It may sound good, And there may be certain denominations of, quote, Christianity, unquote, that hold to it, those things. You'll hear the other thing, cleanliness is next to godliness. That's not grace.

One of the greatest illustrations of salvation by grace is Christ healing a leper. That's not a clean person. That's an unclean person. And the Bible describes all human beings born of Adam, and I don't think there's anybody excepted here, but all human beings born of Adam as fallen into a state of sin and depravity and unbelief, ignorance, And that's spiritual leprosy. So when we talk about grace, what we're talking about is that God saves those who are unclean spiritually. And he cleanses them.

Now how does he cleanse them? Well, some denominations say he does it by the waters of baptism back here. That's not so. The waters of, you can be baptized so many times that the tadpoles know you by your first name and it's not gonna clean you up spiritually. Some say it's by confession. It's not so. Do we confess our sins? Yes, we do, but that's not what cleanses us. Some say, well, doing good works or repentance. Well, true believers do good works. They repent, but that's not what cleans them.

You wanna see what cleans them? Look at 1 John 1. Verse seven. If we walk in the light, now the light is the truth. If we know the truth, and of course the truth is God's grace in Christ Jesus. God saves sinners, unclean, by his grace, a free gift, not earned, not deserved, that comes to us by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, his son. And so he says, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, as God is in the light, walking in the light of God, we have fellowship with one with another. Now notice that fellowship one with another. If you're truly saved by the grace of God, as I am truly saved by the grace of God, we have fellowship. You may look at me and say, I don't want fellowship with you, too bad. It's like looking at your physical brother or sister and say, I don't want you to be in my family. Too bad they're there. And of course, that's a poor attitude, I know. But just giving you the illustration, we don't choose these things. God does. God's the chooser, all right? So we have fellowship one with another.

And look at it now. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. Now can it get any plainer? Now what does that mean his blood cleanses us? Now he shed his blood on Calvary's cross. He actually shed it before then. Being whipped, sweat great drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane. But he shed his blood unto death. He outpoured his blood unto death on Calvary's cross.

Well does God somehow take that blood and Put it on us and wash us? No. No, that's not what that means. Does he put it in a cup and we drink it? No. No, all that's heresy. His blood means his death. You understand that? His blood means his death. And the problem that he had to die because The law demanded justice against the sins of His people whom He represented, whom He took their place, substitute, assurity, paying their debt to God's law and justice because of their sins.

And God had imputed, charged, accounted their sins to Him, just like imputing a debt. He imputed that sin debt of His people They're called the elect. I know preachers who avoid that term like the plague. Why? It's a blessing. God chose them, gave them to his son, put all of the responsibility of their cleansing, their salvation on his son. And his son, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, readily and willingly accepted the responsibility. And he said, I'll do what's necessary. And what was necessary? Well, he had to become human without sin. God the son, deity, had to unite with humanity, his human nature created for him in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And so he walked this earth as God manifest in the flesh. He is God, he is man without sin. He's God-man.

Because that's the kind of person it took to be our surety, our substitute, our representative, our redeemer, our keeper, our glorifier. So salvation, grace, is wrapped up in God's purpose to glorify himself in the salvation of his people by Jesus Christ the Lord. And it's not conditioned on you, it's not conditioned on me, it's all on Christ.

Somebody said that the word grace, you know how you make a cross sticks? I think that's what it's called, isn't it? A cross stick where each letter of a word stands for something. That grace stands for God's righteousness and riches at the expense of Christ. I don't remember what the E stood for now when he said it. Should've wrote it down. But anyway, at Christ's expense, that's what it is. God's riches, God's righteousness at Christ's expense, not at your expense. See, Jesus paid it all, you remember the hymn? All the dead I owe, sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

Now how did he wash it? He didn't get a washcloth or a bathtub or a baptistry. He died. He shed his blood. The Bible says in Hebrews 10, I think it's verse 14, it says, by one offering, that's the offering of himself, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, them whom God set apart and gave to him. So you see, it's the blood of Christ. So the Bible teaches that sinners who are saved have been justified. You know what justified means. It means you're declared not guilty. But wait a minute, preacher, I'm a sinner. Yes, that's right, I am too. And I'll be nothing but a sinner until I come to glory, until I go to be with Christ. But God has justified me on a proper ground and that ground is the blood of his son. And as my sins were imputed charge to him, his righteousness, the righteousness of God. Remember the gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God, Romans 1, 16, 17. The righteousness of God has been imputed to me.

Now go back to 1 John 3. Now in this passage, He talks about being delivered from death unto life. And he talks about those who have, in verse 14, he mentions this. We know that we have passed from death unto life. And then he adds, because we love the brethren. We'll go into that in just a minute. What is it to pass from death unto life? is to be born again by the Spirit. Remember Christ told Nicodemus, you must be born again. Or you cannot see the kingdom of God, or you cannot enter. We fell in Adam into a state of spiritual death. That's how we're born. And this includes even religious people now. Even those who are trying to work their way into salvation. That's a dead person, spiritually. But at a given appointed time, God brings us under the gospel message and sends the Spirit to raise us from the dead spiritually. He gives us a new heart, a new mind, a new life. We see things differently. That which we thought was good, we see now as evil, and that which we thought was evil, we see now as good. And I won't go into all that, but how do I know that I've passed from death unto life?

All whom God has cleansed by the blood of Christ, all for whom Christ died and was buried and raised again the third day, they're going to pass from death unto life if you haven't already. If you're one of God's people, chosen by God before the foundation of the world and given to Christ, you've either already passed from death unto life in the new birth, you've been born again by the Spirit, and you're a believer, you know Christ, or you're going to be.

How do we know we have, or how do I know that? That's what he's talking about, from death unto life. Well, if you go back to verse 10, and I concluded with this last week. He said, in this, the children of God are manifest. This is how we know the children of God. Know who they are. And the children of the devil. whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God and he says neither he that loveth not his brother.

" Now what is this doeth not righteousness? That is a way of describing a person who forsakes the Lord Jesus Christ. In John's letter here There were those who claimed to be Christian, but who left the faith. They apostatized. They fell away. They turned against it. And John's answer to that was over here in chapter two. He said, they never were saved, folks. They didn't lose their salvation. If God saves you by his grace based upon the blood and righteousness of Christ, you can never be lost again.

And that's not just some notion of once saved, always saved. If God saves you, you're saved. Now people can go off the map, well what if you do this, what if you do that? Well, you better read your Bible. That's what you need to do. And you have some pretty awful things committed by Christians, believers in the Bible. But I'll tell you one thing, a true believer, a sinner saved by grace cannot do. He cannot totally apostatize from Christ. He cannot totally turn away and leave him. Why? It's because the Lord God keeps him. Keeps him, preserves him. He said in John 10, he said, no one shall pluck them out of my father's hand. Paul said, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that. And what have I committed unto him? My whole salvation.

So when he says in this, the children of God are manifest, is they look to Christ and they persevere, they abide in Christ. They may mess up and they will mess up, we will. I better stop saying may. We will. But they will not totally turn away from Christ and forsake Him altogether because God won't let them. It's not because they're better than anybody else, not because of their power and their good, it's because God saves His people to the uttermost that come unto him by Christ, what the scripture says. And that's what he's talking about. That's the whole context.

He says, he tells him, he says, abide in Christ, abide in him, continuing it, set your mind to look to Christ, to continue looking to him and stay right there and don't turn away from him. And if you're truly, if you've passed from death unto life, that's exactly what you'll do.

Now again, you know, we look at ourselves. We have a treasure, Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4. This gospel is a treasure. This is a message that is unprecedented and unrivaled. Nothing better than this gospel message. Nothing better, now I'm telling you. I know we have a hard time entering into this, but if I had a lottery ticket up here and I put it up there and every one of you had those numbers, I've got a message better than that. And that's this gospel because that lottery ticket, it's going to burn up in the end and even the money you get by, but this gospel, this life in Christ, that's going to go on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and never end. And that's how we got to learn to think in eternal issues.

So what is it? The children of God are manifest. They look to and rest in Christ for all salvation, all forgiveness, all righteousness, all life and eternal glory. They don't look to themselves. They don't look to their neighbors. They don't look to the preacher. They don't look to the baptistry. They look to Christ. as he is identified and distinguished in this book.

And I'll be honest with you now. I mean, there are denominations that call themselves Christians who deny the deity of Christ. Well, they're not looking to the same Christ I'm looking to in this book, because he is God. And there are denominations that deny the humanity of Christ. They're not looking to the same Christ I'm looking to, because he is man without sin. and His work, what did He accomplish on Calvary's cross? He saved His people from their sins. They're gonna pass from death unto life.

So look at verse 11, or verse 10. In this, the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God. Whosoever doesn't look to Christ and rest with Him and stay with Him and abide in Him is not of God. Neither he that loveth not his brother. Now he connects this with fellowship. Just like he did back in chapter one there in that verse, verse seven. If we walk in the light, if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another. Our fellowship is established in the love of God for us. If you look over in chapter four, And look at verse 10, listen to this. He says, herein is love, not that we love God. The essence of love is not our love for God, because by nature, as we're born into this world, we don't love God, not the true God. What most people love is a God like themselves, because they love themselves. He said here is love not that we love God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

What is that propitiation? That's a satisfaction to His justice for the sins that we have. Christ satisfied it. He brought in a perfect righteousness and He paid for our sins. So this fellowship is established in the love of God for us and that's a love that none of us have by nature.

This, you know, somebody said, I think somebody mentioned last week, is that agape love? Well, man doesn't have that by nature. We have the love of ourselves, love of each other, the love of a woman, love of a man, all of that. But agape love comes from God. That's the love that God sheds abroad in the hearts of his people by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel.

So look at verse 11 of chapter three. He said, for this is the message. This is the commandment, is one way to put that, that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another. If we're walking in the light together, we ought to make it our goal to love one another. Now that doesn't mean send each other a Hallmark card. It's not this sappy love that you see on the Hallmark channel and all that. This is a love that begins with love of God in the truth that binds us together so that we cannot separate.

Now, I know believers can get mad at each other and do this and do that, even stop coming to church for a while or go to that, I know all that. But we still have this fellowship because you can't break that. And so, how do you know that? Well, look at verse 12. Here's the illustration he uses. Not as Cain. Cain? That's Adam and Eve's first son, wasn't it? Yeah. Who was of that wicked one? Who was of the devil? And Slu killed his brother, Abel. You know the story. It's in Genesis chapter four. You probably heard it from your youth up. And wherefore slew he him? Why did Cain slay Abel? Look at what it says. Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. That's why Cain slew Abel. Cain's works were evil. Abel's works were righteous.

Now somebody looks at that and they say, boy, that Cain, he must have been some awful kind of person. Surely he was a drunk or a murderer or a rapist or something. Well, if you read the Bible, the only thing you know about Cain, starting out, is that he brought a wrong, evil offering to the Lord. Cain was a farmer. And he came to worship the Lord at the altar. What did he bring? He brought the fruits of his labors. His produce. And I'll guarantee it's probably some of the best produce you'd ever eat. But God hated it and rejected Cain's offering. Why? Because God had already taught Adam and Eve that in order to be saved, in order to be accepted with him, in order to be in fellowship with God, that offering had to be a blood offering. The soul that sinneth, it shall surely what? Die. The wages of sin is what? Death. The best you have to offer will not do it. It's got to be a blood offering. If you read back in Genesis 321, that's what God did. You remember Adam and Eve when they fell and they realized they were naked. exposed to the wrath of God. They sewed fig leaf aprons together to hide their nakedness, that represents the works of man. God took that off, he slew an animal, I believe it was a lamb, shed blood, and made coats of skin. That's a picture of the death of Christ, the Lamb of God, and his righteousness which clothes his people, the imputed righteousness of Christ.

And God told Cain, he said, you know, why are you angry that I rejected it? And I believe this was Christ appearing in the garden or outside the garden and telling him, said, why are you angry? You know, if you do well, you'll be accepted. What is it to do well? How can I do well before God? I plead the blood, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, hear ye him.

Well, Cain rejected that message, like all of us do by nature. And he brought the best that he worked hard for. God said, no. What did Abel do? Well, Abel was a shepherd. He brought the blood of a lamb and God accepted it. That lamb represented Christ, the Lamb of God. And Hebrews 11 tells us that Abel knew that. He knew Christ then as the promised Messiah. So what happened? God rejected Cain. Your works are evil. But he accepted Abel. And it made Cain so angry that he hated his brother and he killed him.

Well, look at verse 13. He says, marvel not my brethren if the world hates you. Remember Christ told his disciples in John chapter 15 the same thing, marvel not if the world hates you. It hated me before it hated you.

You see, Christ came along. You know, a lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about Jesus. They think he came along in this world and he did nothing but speak kindness to everybody, but he didn't. In the Sermon on the Mount, when the Pharisees, the religious majority, the religious leaders came to see him, hear him preach, what did he tell the people? He said, except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of God. He said, they're teaching you wrong, their deeds are evil.

John 3 19, this is the condemnation that light has come into the world. Remember he said, if we walk in the light here, light is coming into the world and men love darkness and hate the light. Why? Because their deeds are evil. The deeds that he's talking about there is their religious efforts trying to work their way into heaven. They're evil because they deny the glory of God. They're evil because they reject the person and work of Christ. They're evil because they give the sinner room to boast and glory. The Bible says those who have passed from death unto life, they glory in Christ. They glory in the cross and not anything else. That word glory means to boast.

So he says, marvel not my brethren if the world hates you. Verse 14, we know that we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. And he that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Now, I know that we can talk about all kinds of different things, relationships, you see them in the Bible. For example, in Philippians, you see believers arguing with one another and disagreeing with one another, and Paul tells them to settle their differences, all of that. But one thing that will not divide us, is the gospel, the light of God's grace. I believe salvation by grace. How about you?

But he says in verse 15, he says, whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. Now you know what he's referring to there. When Christ at the Sermon on the Mount, he said, when you get so angry with a person, he says it's murder. And somebody told me one time and said, well, I've never killed anybody. Well, you have in your heart. You ever wish him dead? Whosoever hated his brother is a murderer.

Now, I know they can't put you in jail for wanting somebody dead, but I thank God they can't. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. He's talking about this fellowship here now.

So verse 16, hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. And I know that's a high calling. For me to lay down my life would take a lot of grace from God. And you too. You say, oh, I'd do it just right now. Okay, Peter. I hear you. Remember Peter said, I'll never deny him. Denied him three times. And wept bitterly. Lord, help us.

And then he brings it right down. He goes from the highest to the lowest. The highest being lay down your life for your brother. Then he says in verse 17, but whoso hath this world's good and seeth him his brother have need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? If my brother or sister is thirsty, give them some water. If they're hungry, give them some food. If they need some money, give it to them. If you got it, If there's a real need, now I'm not talking about welfare here. I talked about that in the earlier lesson today. The Bible does not push welfare for those who are able to work but won't. The Bible says, if man won't work, he won't donate. That's what it says.

But here, those in need, and he's talking about mainly those who lost their means of income because of their profession of the gospel. And so he says in verse 18, my little children let us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in truth. That's the message.

Let me say that grace means something. And it's not just your view of it. It's what God says it is. We have a media ministry here at this church called Reign of Grace, media ministry. And I took that name from Romans 5.21, which says this, that is, sin hath reigned unto death. In other words, if you stand before God having sin charged to you, that's death. Even so must grace reign. through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That's how grace reigns. So understand that. Get into the Bible and pray that God will reveal it to you. All right?

Let's sing, I love thy kingdom, Lord. Hymn number 188 is our closing hymn.