The gospel does. We're both of
those women. We're the defiled woman in our
flesh and then the innocent in Christ. I was thinking about
how that point was so good about the thigh. I was thinking about
how the Lord touched Jacob's thigh and caused it to shrink
and he never walked the same again. When God subdues your
flesh and creates in you a new man through that same Word, it
kills and it heals. You never walk the same again.
And that was a blessing, Ben. Thank you. Let's turn in our
Bibles now to 1 John 2. I may not get through all of
these. I may just stop halfway through and take the rest next
week. But I want you to look here with me, 1 John. This epistle gives us many commands
that God's saints heed. We heed these commands. And they're
all included in Christ's one command to believe on Him and
love our brethren. All these things that are said
in this epistle are included in that one command. Faith in
Christ and love to brethren. And as we look at these things
here, John told us back in In verses 3 through 5, He told us
that God's saints heed these commands because the love of
God brings us to this purposed end. This is the end to which
He brings us, to believe on Him and to love our brethren. But
as you read through John's epistle here, John speaks very comforting,
very assuring words. There's no whip of the law involved. There's nothing written so as
to frighten the people, the Lord's people. John's purpose here is
to give us comfort and assure us that we're His. and to encourage
us to be devoted to Christ and to our brethren. But he uses
no law in this. He doesn't use any of the threats
of law and condemnation and there's no legal tone in anything he
says here. So what is the motive? What is
the constraint that causes God's saints to obey His command? and believe on Christ and love
one another. What's our motive? What's our
constraint? John begins in verse 12 and he says, I write unto
you. He's saying that these things I'm writing to you. All these
things that, these commands that I'm writing to you to heed. I'm writing these unto you because. I'm writing unto you because.
What he's saying is, the reason and the motive of why, what makes
you obey and heed these commands is what I'm about to tell you
right here. It's because of these things I'm about to tell you.
This is the motive whereby Christ constrains us to honor Him in
our lives. This is it. This is the constraint.
This is the motive. When John says, these things
I write unto you, he could just as well say, these things we
preach unto you. This is our message. And this
is the message whereby Christ constrains the hearts of His
people to honor Him in our lives and to heed His command. To believe
on Him and love one another. This is why we preach this. The same reasons He was writing
this. The motive of God's saints to obey Christ is not because
we're trying to obtain the blessings of salvation. And it's not because
we're being threatened by law. It's not law that is constraining
us. But because we already possess
the blessings of salvation in Christ. That's our motive. Look
at this. First of all, our constraint
is we're already in the family of God. He says in verse 12,
I'll write unto you little children. Verse 13, He said, I'll write
unto you fathers. I'll write unto you young men.
I'll write unto you babies in Christ. He's speaking of a family. We're already in the family of
God. We're in the church of God, in His kingdom. This is our constraint,
to honor Christ. And then look, here's the second
thing. Our constraint is God's already forgiven our sins. He
says in verse 12, I write unto you, little children, because
your sins are forgiven you for His namesake. Thirdly, our motive
is because God's saints already know God. He said in verse 13,
I write unto you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from
the beginning. You already do. You already do. Fourthly, our constraint is we've
already overcome the devil. Verse 13, I write unto you young
men, because you have, present tense, right now, overcome the
wicked one. It's done. Fifthly, he says,
our motive is, we already are strong. He says in verse 14,
I've written unto you young men, because ye are strong. You are strong. Sixthly, we're
constrained because the Word of God already abides in God's
saints. He says, verse 14, the Word of
God abideth in you. So we see the motive in the hearts
of God's saints. This constraint that causes us
to obey Christ, it's not threats of law. It's not promise of reward. to obtain these blessings. It's
because by Christ and in Christ we already possess the blessings.
That's what John was writing to motivate them to obey these
commands. And that's what we preach to
motivate God's saints. Let's look at these for a moment.
First of all, our motive to honor Christ and love our brethren
is because we're already in the family and church of God. Look here in verse 12. I write
unto you little children. Now this word right here is different
from the word little children down the page in the next few
verses. This word describes all of God's
people that are sanctified and brought to faith in Christ. This
describes all of us. Grace makes us as little children. Remember Christ said unless you
be converted and become as little children Grace gives us a broken
and a contrite heart. This describes all His people.
But then He describes the various stages of growth in grace. He said, I write unto you fathers,
I write unto you young men, I write unto you little children. That
word little children means babies in Christ. Newly born again that
haven't been in the faith very long. And this has nothing to
do with age. Nothing at all to do with age.
A young man in age may be a father in grace. And a father in age
may be a baby in grace. Newly born of God. Newly brought
to faith in Christ. But what did you and I do to
be born into our earthly family? Nothing. Nothing. We did nothing. How did we enter our family?
We were either born into it or we were adopted into it. And
that's how it is. A sinner does nothing, he can
do nothing to be in the church and family and kingdom of God.
He can do nothing to put himself there. It's all by the grace
of God. Whenever, Ben just read Ephesians
1.4, and when God chose His people and blessed us with all spiritual
blessings, in heavenly places in Christ before the foundation
of the world. When He did that, brethren, He
made us His children. He made us His children. And
it says, and at that time He predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. And why did He do this?
According to the good pleasure of His will. Simply because He
would. According to the riches of His
grace. That's why He did it, by grace.
And by this He made us accepted in the Beloved. Then it tells
us when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His
Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that
were under the law. He came to redeem those God chose. And why did He do that? That
we might receive the adoption of sons. And He said, and because
you are sons, Because you were already sons. God sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
Wherefore, you're no more a servant. You're not a servant in bondage
and sin and death anymore. Now you're a son. Now you know
it. Now you've experienced it. And
if you're a son, then you're an heir of God. And you're an
heir with Christ. And all this is through Christ
Jesus. So He says, now therefore, you're no more foreigners and
strangers, but you're fellow citizens in God's kingdom with
His saints. And you're of the household of
God, of the family of God. That's why the Apostle Paul says,
I bow my knees to God our Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and in earth is named. We're a family. God's people
are family. So get this now, God's saints
are already in the kingdom, church, and family of God. You right
here who have been sanctified by His grace and brought to believe
on Christ, you're already in the kingdom of God. You're already
in the church of God. You're already in His family. God is our Father and we are
His children. Christ is our elder brother. The Holy Spirit is our comforter.
And we are heirs of the same heavenly inheritance. What is
it? It's heaven with Christ. We're going to get the same inheritance.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we shall be called the sons of God. I showed you at the beginning
there that all God's family were all little children. But there's
various stages in growth and maturity, in grace and understanding. He doesn't grow us all at the
same pace. There's fathers, there's young
men, and there's babes in Christ. Babies. And at times the stronger
are weaker, and the weaker are stronger. And there may be a brother who
he's grown to have an understanding of doctrine that another brother,
he doesn't understand it yet. Remember how Peter said, Paul
writes some things that are hard to be understood. Peter himself,
the apostle Peter said, I don't even understand some of these
things Paul is saying. But does that make us kick a
brother out? Or make us desert the family?
God has given one understanding and He hasn't given another one,
or one is weaker than another one. Of course it doesn't. He
put us in this family not only to hear the Gospel of Christ
preached, He put us in this family to experience the sufficiency
of His grace working in us, making us to be patient and to be long-suffering
with our brethren. That's why He put us in the family.
He put us here. And remember this now, true growth
in grace is to be little children in malice, but men in understanding. Paul said, Brethren, be not children
in understanding. Howbeit in malice be ye children,
but in understanding be men. So you get John's point here.
He's saying our constraint to honor God our Father, our constraint
to devote ourselves to Christ, and to love our brethren, to
be patient and long-suffering and forgiving with one another.
Our constraint is not long. Our constraint is because we're
already in the family. We're already in the Church of
God. It's because, here's our constraint, it's because, beloved,
now are we the sons of God. And so this is how Scripture
in the New Testament, in the epistles, this is how the believers
are constrained. This is how we're motivated.
Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. You see that? That's the constraint
because you already are dear children. Be ye therefore followers
of God as dear children. Secondly, look here. Our motive
to honor Christ and love our brethren is because our sins
are already forgiven. Verse 12, I write unto you, little
children, because your sins are forgiven you for His namesake. Do you get what I'm saying? When
He says, I write unto you, He's saying, when I tell you to love
one another, not in word only, but in deed and in truth, here's
why I'm telling you this. Because your sins are already
forgiven. That's why. That's our motivation. That's
our constraint to do this. Christ is victorious, brethren.
He didn't come into this world and die for all men and give
all men a chance. He's victorious. He accomplished
the redemption of all God's elect for whom He died. He accomplished
it. He made us just and righteous.
He established the law for us. He did it. And this forgiveness
we have is the forgiveness of all our sin. Not just some sin. all sin. There's a whole lot
of sin you don't know about. There's a whole lot of sin you're
guilty of in your flesh that you don't know about yourself. There's sins we commit and there's
sins that are sins because we omitted doing what we should
have done. But all these sins are forgiven and God forgives
us for His namesake, for Christ's namesake. It's not for merit
in us, it's not because of our works, it's not because of our
worth, it's not because of any service done to us, it's for
Christ's name's sake because He did the work and He accomplished
it. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach
unto thee. Are you sitting here that are
without Christ? You that don't know Him, you
that don't believe on Him? Ask any of these believers sometime.
Have you ever thought about just asking these that do believe
and say, what did God do for you? They'd be happy to tell
you. Christ sent the gospel to us.
And the Holy Spirit convinced us that we were sinners. That
we are nothing but sin in our flesh and can do nothing pleasing
to God. And then He drew us irresistibly
to Him, to God. to confess our sins to God and
to ask Him for mercy. And that's when He made the Gospel
good news to us. He made us to know our sins are
forgiven. And we've been happy ever since.
Happy is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy is the man unto whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit is no God. So
the Lord teaches us here, honor Him, love our brethren, not that
we may be forgiven, but because in Christ we have redemption
through His blood. The forgiveness of sins according
to the riches of His grace. So, when you are in Ephesians
4.32 and Paul is talking about forgiveness, does he say now,
If you don't forgive, God's going to take it out on you. He's going
to get you if you don't forgive Him. If you don't forgive your
brethren, He says, be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving
one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath already forgiven
you. You see, this is our motive.
This is our constraint. The love of Christ constraineth
us. This is it. Look at this third
thing. Christ constrains His saints
to honor Him and love our brethren because we already know Him.
He has made us to already know Him. Verse 13, He said, I write
unto you fathers because you have known Him that is from the
beginning. I write unto you little children
because you have known the Father. Now listen carefully. We don't
know God by the wisdom of our flesh. Now I encourage everybody
to hear the messages preached and then to go and compare what
you've heard preached to the Word of God and make certain
that what I'm telling you is true. I encourage you to do that.
But we're not going to know God by our fleshly wisdom. We're
just not. After that in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom. The world by the world's wisdom
didn't know God. And God in His wisdom made it
that way. And after that, the world by wisdom knew not God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believed. If there's one thing we see all
through the Old Testament, it's this. We by our wisdom can't
know God. And after that, God sent forth
His Son. He poured out the Holy Spirit.
And you won't find a single person in the New Testament that didn't
call through the preaching of the Gospel. Because by this means
God humbles our pride. And the wise and the prudent,
they don't like that because they think preaching is foolishness. But it's through this foolishness
of preaching that God destroys the wise and prudent. You won't
find wise and prudent men in God's church. You won't find
them. Those you go find in God's church
will tell you, I'm just an ignorant sinner. How are they brought
to that place? How are they brought to stop
glorying in themselves and glory only in the Lord? Because it
is through the preaching of Christ and Him crucified that God makes
Christ wisdom unto us. And we stop glorying in our flesh
and we glory in Christ our wisdom. We hear men say, you have to
know this doctrine and you have to know that doctrine and you
have to know this much doctrine and so on or you cannot be saved. You know there was a lot of doctrine
that the apostles did not know and they were saved already. Christ said, I got a lot of things
to tell you, you can't bear it now. But they were already saved. He had already called them. They
already believed the gospel and knew Him. But men go around saying,
well you have to know this doctrine, you have to know that doctrine,
you have to know this much doctrine. What does God say? This is life
eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. Christ said, All things are delivered
to me of my Father. No man knows the Son, save the
Father. No man knows the Father, save
the Son. And He to whom the Son will reveal Him. So God's saints, we see through
a glass darkly. We don't see and know all things. There is far, far more about
this book that I don't know than I do know. You heard me say this
the other day. I heard this old saying, I think
it's great. If you took all my wisdom and
put it in a thimble, it'd rattle like a peanut in a boxcar. But here's what we do know. We
know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true and we're in Him that is
true even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and this
is eternal life. And see, this is what motivates
us to honor God. He's made Himself known to me
and that's my constraint. Look at this fourth thing. our
motive to honor Christ and love our brethren is because we've
all already overcome the devil. All God's saints have already
overcome the devil. He said in verse 13, I write
unto you young men because you have overcome the wicked one. You have. Not that you're going
to one day. You have. You've already overcome
him. And that's true of every believer
sitting right here right now. All of these things are true
of every believer sitting here. Every true believer. We have
already overcome the wicked one. The devil and Christ, they're
not in competition. It's not like sometimes the devil
wins out and sometimes Christ wins out. They're not in competition. When Christ came, He allowed
the devil to, in a sense, put Him on the cross by putting Him
into the hearts of men like Judas and the Romans and the Jews that
despised Christ. And that was the bait. That was
the bait. Christ was the bait. And the
devil took it. And Christ was the trap. He allowed the devil to bruise
His heel and in doing so, struck a death blow to the devil's head.
Go over to Revelation 12 and look at this. Revelation 12. Look at verse 10. I heard a loud voice saying in
heaven, now is come salvation and strength in the kingdom of
our God and the power of His Christ. Because the accuser of
our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day
and night. And they overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb. That's how. And by the word of
their testimony. Oh, so we need to stand up and
give our testimony. It's real short. The only way
I've overcome is by the blood of the Lamb. That's it. That's
it. And they love not their lives
unto death. That means God made us to cease
trying to save our lives by defending our works and our worth and man's
responsibility. And He made us bow to Christ
and trust Him to save us. And we overcame by the blood
of the Lamb. Because on that cross, Christ
justified all His people. So now the devil can come with
all the accusations he wants. And here's the thing, they're
true accusations. It's not like He's making up
things about us. He don't have to make up things
about us. There's enough sin in me and you right now. If it
wasn't for Christ's blood, there's no way we would overcome. They're
true accusations. But because Christ justified
His people from all our sins and established the law for us,
God says we're innocent. He says there's no condemnation. And so the devil cannot proceed. So, when we know that we are
already more than conquerors through Christ that loved us,
what is it that makes God's people want to send the Gospel into
the world? What is it that makes us want
to give of ourselves to see the Gospel go forth and to support
the Gospel? And why do we do that? Because
we know we are already more than conquerors through Him that loved
us. This is our constraint to move us to do these things. Look
at this fifth thing. The motive of God's saints to
honor Christ and love brethren is because you are strong. He
said in verse 14, you are strong. Go with me to Daniel 10. Daniel
10. You are very familiar with what
Paul said about when the Lord gave him that thorn in the flesh
and the Lord wouldn't take it away. And the Lord told him,
my grace is sufficient for you Our strength is made perfect
in weakness. And so Paul said, when I'm weak,
that's when I'm strong. Scripture tells us in Isaiah
that He gives power to the faint. To them that have no might, He
increases strength. You're not going to have any
power from Christ until you don't have any. But let me tell you
something. Do you know that we do not have
the strength to even behold ourselves as being totally weak? We don't
have the strength to do that. We don't have the strength in
us to see ourselves as being absolutely, totally weak and
incapable of doing one thing. We don't have the strength to
see that we're nothing but weakness. Who's our strength to make us
see we're weak? Christ. Look here. Look here. And verse 16, ìBehold, one like
the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips,î thatís
the pre-incarnate Christ, ìthen I opened my mouth, and I spake,
and I said unto him that stood before me, ìO my Lord, by the
vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and Iíve retained no
strength.î He touched him, and he made him see, ìI donít have
any strength.î For how can the servant of this, my Lord, talk
with this, my Lord? How can I speak to you? I don't
have strength. For as for me, straightway there
remains no strength in me, neither is there breath left in me. Now
look at verse 18. Then there came again and touched
me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me. And he said, O man, greatly beloved,
fear not, peace be unto thee. Be strong, yea, be strong. And when He had spoken unto me,
I was strengthened and said, Let my Lord speak, for Thou hast
strengthened me. You know what we just saw there,
brethren? Christ is our strength to behold that we have no strength. And He is our strength to behold
Christ is all our strength. That's strength, isn't it? When you don't even have strength
to know that you are weak. And Christ is that strength as
well as the strength to make us strong. That is strength.
And that is what Christ is for us. And so whenever He calls
on you and I as brethren to be patient with one another and
to suffer long with our erring brethren and to do so with joy,
how are we going to do it? What's going to be the strength
that's going to constrain us in our heart to be patient and
long-suffering with somebody that's speaking against us, a
brother that's speaking against us in error and in sin? How are we going to do that with
joy? How are we even going to do that? And how are we going to do it
with joy? Listen to this, Colossians 1.11, strengthened with all might,
according to His glorious power unto all patience and longsuffering
with joyfulness. So when I say Christ is the constraint
of our heart, I don't just mean we have all this good news and
we ought to be motivated by it. I mean He uses this good news
and He is the strength who actually constrains us to obey Him. Alright, then look here at this
last thing. The motive of God's saints to honor Christ and love
one another is this last all-important present possession. Verse 14,
the Word of God abideth in you. Now, we've seen that God has
blessed His saints right now, right now, to be born into the
family of God. We're forgiven of all our sins. We've overcome the wicked one.
We have known the Father. We are now strong by Christ.
And all these things are true because we now possess this last
blessing. The Word of God abideth in you. That's how all these other things
are true. It all began when we were born
of that incorruptible seed, that Word of God which by the Gospel
is preached unto you And He put that Word in us and created a
new man after the image of Him that created him in righteousness
and holiness of Christ. That's when we began to have
the Word abiding in us. And look over at 1 John 2, I'm
sorry, verse 27. Look here. Here's the good news. The anointing which ye have received
of Him abideth in you, and you need not that any man teach you,
but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things." That's right. This is how, even through the
preaching of the Gospel, this is how we learn these things.
That Word abides in us, and the Spirit of God, Christ in you,
teaches you. And that anointing that is in
you and teaches you all things is truth. It is not a lie, it
is truth. It is according to this Word
right here. And look at this, and it is no lie. And even as
it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him. What makes us persevere? He makes you abide in Him. It
is by this Word that abides in you. So, here is what we have
seen here. The Lord used John to command
saints to brotherly love. We have seen some of it already. We are going to see more as we
go through this epistle. He has commanded us to brotherly love,
to godly behavior, to devotion to Christ. But He did not use
any threats of law at all. Not any. Never in the epistles of the
New Testament, nowhere in the New Testament are the saints
of God forced into obedience by fear of punishment. Not one place. Not one place. The whip of the law, it will
produce an outward fake obedience in the legalist. And he likes
it. He likes it. He has got to have
that. But the child of God has an infinitely
stronger constraint. And we have this constraint that
is so much more pleasant than the whip of the law. What is
it? Beholding how that Christ died
for us, so that now we are all dead. We are dead to the law
by Christ. And seeing that how we live by
Christ, now we discern. that we no longer live unto ourselves,
but we live unto Him. We live unto Him that died for
us and rose again. And our motive to do it is this. We are constrained by the love
of Christ. That's what Paul meant when he
told the Galatians. If you bite and defy one another
with the law, you're going to consume one another. But the just live by faith. We
walk by faith, which worketh by love, by the constraint of
Christ's love, because we already possess these blessings. Amen. All right.