If you would, turn to 1 John,
chapter 3. And I want to read, looks like the
last seven, eight verses. Begin in verse 18. 1 John, chapter 3, verse 18, my little
children, Let us not love in word, neither
in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that
we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us,
God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved,
if our heart condemn us not, Then have we confidence toward
God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive
of him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment,
that we should believe on the name of his Son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth
his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth
in us by the spirit which he hath given us." What I want to talk about today
is the commandments of Christ. The commandments of Christ. I
will say this at the outset. I love the commandments of Christ. I want to keep the commandments
of Christ. It gives me pleasure to know
these commandments and to think upon them and to try and understand
them. Now these are not the commandments
of the law, although it contains the law. It's there. It's there. Christ
said it himself. They're not the commandments
of the law, but the whole law comes down to this. They are not the commandment
of denominations, but they should be. They're not the commandments
of the world, but they should be. These are Christ's commandments. for the ones who know him. John starts it, my little children. There's another translation that
says, my sons. The ones that John had preached
to. I almost said Paul. I get Paul in my brain and it's
stuck there. This is John, the apostle. He's on the Isle of
Patmos. He's writing these letters to places he had been, to places
he had preached. to people he had known who believe
God. That's who these commandments
are for. They are for us. The church, the New Testament
church, these are Christ's commandments for us. But he starts it off
saying, my little children, let us not love in word, neither
in tongue, but in deed and in truth. I'm not going to spend
a lot of time on these first four verses, because I want to
get to the verse 23 But this is the same thing James said
faith without works is dead We're going to talk about works.
We're going to talk about commandments today in a grace church What
is wrong with us? I? Thought we were supposed to
be antinomian Well we are according to Wikipedia
I've read you that definition a few weeks ago We do not believe
in works or commandments for salvation But we definitely believe
preach teach and try To have works because of salvation to
keep his commandments because of salvation to love indeed in
works and in truth It's there. It's in the scriptures,
and we do believe it and Hereby we know that we are of the truth
and shall assure our hearts before him I Looked at that word assure
And it says persuade our hearts Yield
our hearts or assure our hearts. That's what it says What John
is writing here about is our? assurance He wants to comfort
us. Christ wants us to be comforted. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. What? With these words. Whose
words? His words. The words of our Lord
and Savior are a comfort to those who believe him. And to those
who love his brethren. To those who love his saints.
To those who love his people. His words are to comfort. We
love and work and in truth, not just words. You can't show the world Jesus
in you. Okay? They can take that saying
and they can put it where the sun doesn't shine. Use my language. Because it's a hooey. It's a
crock. It's a lie. However, we can show ourselves, and we
can show maybe the brethren, if we love in works and in truth. We can assure our own hearts. He wants us to, if you believe
him. And if you love the brethren,
that's what it's going to come down to. Verse 20 says, for if
our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth
all things. Our heart can condemn us. John,
I believe, is speaking from experience, not just observation. I can speak from experience.
If I look at my heart, I don't like what I see. If I pay attention
sometimes to my thoughts, Mason, I don't like what I think. But God is greater than my thoughts,
my will, my heart, my everything. It's not up to how I feel. although I need to feel some
assurance sometimes. It's not up to how I feel. He's
greater than my heart, no matter how I feel, because I am affected
by circumstance. I had one of the worst weeks
I've ever had at my job this past week. Walter, if you hadn't
texted me, I had forgotten, seriously, that we were doing the table
this week. And he warned me about it last week, and the week before,
I think. But the week I had at work, where
we were one person short, and unfortunately, it was the one
competent person that I actually get some help from. So guess
who was left? It occupied my mind all week. And I forget. When I don't want
to, I forget. But God is greater than my heart.
God is greater than my mind. It doesn't rely on me. Thankfully. Thankfully. Thank God it doesn't rely on
me. Because if it did, I'd be, of
all men, most miserable. Because when you look at yourself,
you're going to see your faults. You're going to see your failures.
That's what you're going to see. people say to me, and I say it
to Walter, and I mean it. That was a good message. And
I sit down, and I'm thinking about where I messed up, and
what I should have said, and what I didn't say, and what I
should have said here, or maybe said a different way. It wasn't that great to me sometimes. But that's me. God is greater than my message. God is greater than my heart.
God is greater than my actions. God is greater than my thoughts. And he knows all things. And
the foundation of God stands sure. The Lord knoweth them that
are his. And that's a blessing. That's
a blessing. Beloved, if our heart condemn
us not, then we have confidence toward God. What's that mean? I like that statement. If your
heart's not condemning you, it's because you're not looking at
it. You're looking at Him. We have confidence toward God.
You're not looking at yourself, you're looking at Him. That's the way it's supposed
to be. Sadly, sometimes it's not. But that's what it means. If your heart's not condemning
you, that's a good thing because you're not looking at it. Now
this is talking to believers, okay? The natural people, their
hearts should condemn them. It doesn't, but it should. How
does this happen? Well, you're supernatural now. You're not natural. So you know
what you were. But thank God, if you look at
Him, you know what you are. You're His creation in Christ
Jesus unto good works. So if our heart condemns us not,
we have confidence toward God. You don't have confidence in
yourself. No confidence in the flesh. None. We have confidence
toward God if your heart's not condemning you. But if you're
looking at your heart, it'll condemn you. That's the way it works. It's
the way my heart is. I remember, what was it? We were
at Mabscot. And Earl looked at me one time.
We were talking. And he said that a fella whose initials were,
I think, John Reisinger. And he said, you know, be careful. Anyhow, he said that you can't
love God unless you love yourself a little bit. That's what I said, David. Oh,
geesh. Because I looked at Earl and
I said, Earl, the only part about myself that I like, much less
love, is what Christ has done for me. If I look at me, I'm
a goner. If I'm looking at me for anything,
and that's what John's telling us, we don't look to ourselves,
we look to Him. And if you're looking at Him,
your heart won't condemn you. And that's the only time your
heart won't condemn you. And whatsoever we ask, we receive
of him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight." Now this is not a prerequisite, okay? Where if you keep his commandments,
God's got to do what you say. That's Pentecostalism. That's
Trinity Broadcast Network. I've heard them say it with their
own lips. the television broadcasting Jesus
to the world No, they're broadcasting themselves to the world See if
you do good, and you do right God's got to do what you say
that's not what this is teaching. That's not what it says Because
whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments
And we're keeping his commandments. We're believing him and we're
loving the breath That's to do commandments. That's what I'm
heading for And we do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
And I did it on the radio a couple of weeks ago. The prayer everybody
calls the Our Father or the Lord's Prayer. Part of that prayer,
Christ tells you. It's instruction on how to pray.
It's not a recite after me. It is instruction. But here He
says, Thy will be done. That's what you pray. If you're
not asking for God's will, It ain't gonna happen to you. And
guess what? That's the will of God. This is not, and I've heard people
use this verse as that. I know they do and I know they'll
continue because they aren't gonna listen to us. But, if we ask according to his
will, we receive. And if we're looking toward him,
our heart will not condemn us. Then John starts off at verse
23. He says, and this is his commandment. It's one of the things I love
about John. Mason, we were talking the other day. John has got a
lot of this is. This is the will of God. This
is that. I mean, this is eternal life. Those were the words of
Christ. Here it says this is his commandment.
This is Christ's commandment, God's commandment to believers
that we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ. Now if you note, I said at the
beginning of this the commandments of Christ plural. Well here John's
starting with this is the commandment. believe his son. Then he says, and love one another
as he gave us commandment. See, there are two, but John
is specifically stating this is his commandment, that we should
believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ. Why? Because you're
not going to be able to love the brethren unless you believe
the son. This is primary. This is for
us, for us as believers or as regenerated, this is where it
starts. Because if you don't believe,
you got nowhere to go. There's nowhere. There's no Christ
if you don't believe. Some people will tell you that.
I don't believe that. Christ didn't do that. He probably
didn't even exist. Some guys wrote this book so
they could start a religion. That's an awful lot of writing
to try and start a religion. That's a lot of work. If you've
ever written anything down, this is a lot of work went into this
thing. Paul wrote some long letters. And that Moses stuff, and the
flood, Noah, and all that, that's all true. And it's all talking
about my Lord, Jesus Christ, because I believe Him. And I
see that in here. But this is His commandment.
And the key word here is His. This is His commandment. It ain't
your commandment. It's His commandment. Do you want to know what Christ
has to say? Do you want to know what God
has to say? If you have an interest, Earl
used to say, that's a valid statement. If you have an interest in this,
if you have an interest in these things, if you have an interest
in Christ, do you want to know the truth of God? It's in the
face of Jesus Christ. And this is his commandment to
his people. Believe on the name of his son
Jesus Christ Most people are not interested at all period Most people don't care what Christ
said and the world doesn't care at all And I'll go ahead and
say this I wrote it down most of Church-going, professed Christians
don't know what Christ said and don't care what Christ really
said. Beyond a few hand-picked, out
of context, and usually partial statements. They have their pet
verses. You can't take the whole scripture
God forbid that you should ever read Romans chapter 9 because
it'll drive you crazy if you don't know God And you don't
know Christ That's why I like to read it to him, but you know
that's just me God forbid that you read John chapter 6 You listen to anybody on any
of these programs when they're talking about the Bible. The
two guys they want to throw out more than anybody else are the
Apostle John and the Apostle Paul. Because there is where
you find the theology of the Son. The study of our Lord Jesus
Christ. More than anywhere else. It's
in the rest of them too. But these guys are just blatant
about it. Paul's a misogynist. And John, I don't know what was
wrong with John, he was old and crazy, I think. No, they were
inspired of God to write this stuff down. And they will not
have this. They will not have this man to
reign over. At best, at best, the religious
societies honor Christ with their lips. but their heart's far from
them. Far from them. That was a condemnation by our
Lord Jesus Christ to some folks. He told them, you honor me with
your lips, but your heart's far from me. That's the way they
treated God. The Pharisees in that day, guess
what? Man's no different now. There are people all around us
surrounded by him all over the world. They'll use the name of
Jesus, but they'll deny his character. They'll use the name of Christ,
but deny his lordship. They'll use the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ and make him a beggar. Well, this is his command. Believe
his son, Jesus Christ. Believers care what Jesus Christ
has said. And this is because we know what
Christ has said is what Christ has done, is doing, and shall
do. Others don't even realize that
Christ has a right to give commands. To give a commandment. Who does
he think he is? He's the King. He's the King
of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It's not a request. It's not
a suggestion. It's not even a question. It
is a commandment. Believe the Son. And here, I do want to just point
out, this is His commandment. John
gets really specific here. That we. We. Who's He talking to? My little
children. And he includes himself. We. This is not the royal we. This
is an inclusive we of we who believe the Son. That we should
believe. That we should believe. Now this
isn't our kind of should where we should or should not. No. This is his commandment that
we should. We're going to believe. You're going to believe. He's
going to tell us that here in just a little bit. is actually, should believe,
we should believe, is one Greek word. It's a compound word about
Yalong and I am not trying to pronounce it. But it is this. It's in the Aorist tense. We have believed. It's in the
past tense. And there is a sense with the
Aorist tense of where you can say, it happened in the past,
it's happening now, it's going to happen in the future. It's
not related to time in some manners. But here, this is his commandment
that we have believed. It's past tense. World cannot, will not, and does
not believe on His Son, Jesus Christ. We have believed. I said it just a little while
ago, it's almost as if we were created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. You are. You are, if you're in Him. Verse 24, and He that keepeth
His commandments dwelleth in him and he in him and Hereby
we know that he abideth in us By the spirit which he hath given
us Again this is not telling of a prerequisite for dwelling
you don't have to believe so that Christ will come and dwell
in you or so that I You can dwell in him. It's not the point. This is present tense, and it
is actually active. All three words, keepeth, dwelleth,
and know. This is all present active tense.
This is stuff we actually know. We do. We keep. It's not a prerequisite. This
is the result of that last phrase. by the Spirit which He hath given
us. It's not how we abide in Him.
This is how we know we abide in Him. If we keep His commandments. And what are His commandments?
We believe the Son and we love the Brethren. That's how we know. That's how we know. This is to
give us assurance If you believe Him and you love His brethren,
you love the assembly, you love coming together, speaking with
one another, being a part of God's family, being a part of
God's building, being a part of His work and being His work,
we know that we dwell in him and he dwells in us. This is
for our assurance. I was gonna preach one time on
we know at the end of this, the end of chapter five, three things
we know. So I got to looking at it and
I counted them up, there's like 15. In first John, five chapters,
there's 15 statements in here. I think Paul, I mean John here
was trying to give us some assurance. There are some things we are
to know because we know Him. He's very clear. I've written
this to you, not that you would believe, but because you do.
That's what it's written to. It's written to people like you
and me. And it's not written just to the pastors. It's not
written to the theologians. It's not written to the scholars
or anybody. It's written to the everyday saint of God, the believers
and the saints. We are to know these things.
Assure yourself. Assure your own heart. Persuade
your own heart that He has done something for
you. Because you look at it, the spirit
he has given us, that's the one part of this verse that's in
the past tense. You're not gonna have this dwelling, you're not
gonna have this dwelling in him, or him dwelling in you, without
the spirit. Those things are present tense,
we keep his commandments. Present tense, past tense, what?
He gave us the spirit. There is a cause and an effect,
but we ain't the cause. We are never the cause. The Spirit
of God is the cause here. That's what John tells us. God
Himself is the cause. We believe by His mighty power. The greatness of this salvation.
He gives you life. He gives you faith. And He causes
you to believe. And He dwells in you. And you
dwell in Him. and you keep His commandments.
Why? By the Spirit. I can't do anything of myself
except war against the Spirit. It's what Romans 7 teaches us. We fight naturally. Our natural
heart fights. Wars against the things of the
Spirit even in ourselves. A war in my members. How do we know? By the Spirit. How do we keep? By the Spirit. How do we dwell? By the Spirit. It's all by the power of God.
And this ought to assure us. This ought to comfort you. It's not up to you. It's not
up to me. It's up to God. When Christ commands
us, He performs His command in us by His Spirit. I believe that His Son, Jesus
Christ, is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him
until this day. and until the next day and until
the last day. He is going to keep all of his
children and raise them up at the last day. That was his promise,
his words. I believe he's able. I believe
he is entirely capable. I know he's capable. Just as
well as I know I'm incapable. He's capable. And I don't have
to be capable. Yes. I can say amen to that. Thank God I don't have to be
capable. Because if I did, I'd be lost. Now, my conclusion. I'd say turn in your Bibles to
1 John. But you're already there, hopefully. But chapter 5. Verse
1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. How about that? I wish we knew what that meant
some days. Really knew. And everyone that
loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of
Him. By this, we know that we love
the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments.
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments
and His commandments are not grievous. Man, that's a glory. Give God
the glory. Why? It's His work. It's all
His work. The word translated here, begat. I read another translation and
they used the word engendered. I like that word. Because the
archaic meaning of that word, which means about when this time
was translated, the archaic meaning, fathered. You said that, Walter.
I remember you saying that. Fathered. So whosoever believes
is fathered of God. Now, what does the child have
to do with being fathered? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely
nothing If you believe it's because God fathered you right That's
what it means That's what it means That's what he wrote and
that's what he meant because that's what God meant Everyone that loves him that
fathered Loves him that is fathered So if you love Him, it's because
He fathered you. And if you love Him who fathered
you, you're going to love those that He fathered. Your brothers
and sisters in Christ Jesus. This is not an either or situation.
This is not a request. This is a statement of fact.
This is the way it works. What Joan said, that's it. And you've got to have both.
You've got to have both. I did say, and I meant to say,
believing the sun is primary. But that doesn't make the secondary
non-essential. Because he says conjunction is
the Greek word chi. I've learned to really like that
word. And I can read it because it's K-A-I. It's real simple. It means and. It's not but. It's not however. It's not maybe. It's and. And that's what John is telling
us here. They're both necessary. They're both essential. They're
both vital. There are those out there who
say they love Christ, but they hate his brother. They don't
know him. They don't know him. They have
not been fathered according to the apostle John. And there are
those out there who are so full of love, they love you even though
they haven't met you. Now, nothing against you. They
love me, but they haven't met me. Usually I can fix that, because
it doesn't take long. All I have to do is speak. Sometimes
I act, but usually speaking does enough. But they don't love Christ. They're
not fathered. That's what John's telling you.
It's both. It's and. It's together. And
if you got both, if you believe him and you love the brethren,
you've been taught. And he says it clearly in the
truth, the spirit of truth, not the spirit of error. It's in
the truth. It's not in ecumenism. Let's
all get together. No, let's all not get together,
please. Come out from among them and
be ye separate, O ye my people. There was a reason for that in
the Old Testament. There's a reason for it now in the New Testament. You can't serve two masters.
We're going to have the Lord's table here. There's a verse in
there that says you can't take of the Lord's table and the table
of devils. Separate. Separate. So either
you've been fathered or you haven't been fathered. And by this we
know, we know that we love the children of God. We love God
and we keep His commandments. Believe on the Son and love your
brothers and sisters. Love the family of God in works and in truth. Truth ain't left out, but it
is works and in truth. You show up. You come to hear
his name proclaimed. You come to learn from his word.
And hopefully I've come to teach and preach. I understand some days are better
than others and it goes for me and for you. But that's why I'm
here. That's what I want. That's what
I want to do. It's what I want to hear. It's
what I want to learn. And I want to hang out with you people.
Cuz y'all are crazy too. That's right. The world thinks we're nuts.
For carrying, you drive that far? Yeah, I've drive past hundreds
of churches to get here. Maybe I do, I don't know. I never
counted and I'm not going to. I just try to remember the interesting
signs. I'll drive past 100 churches
to get here. I'll drive past 1,000 to be with the people of
God and to hear his name extolled, explained, and to hear him proclaimed
in his glory as best we can. That he fathered us, and we love
him that fathered us, and we love those whom he's fathered.
And by this we know we love the children of God. For this is
the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments
are not grievous. We keep his commandments, how?
I said it before, by the Spirit. It's by the Spirit. If it wasn't
for the Spirit of God, Mason, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't. I'd be asleep right
now, maybe. Getting ready to watch football. That's where I always wanted
to be whenever I was having to go to the Catholic Church. I'd rather stay at home, watch
bad Japanese cartoons, go speed racer. That was more interesting
to me than the Catholic Church. And that was definitely more
interesting to me than Christ. It ain't the same anymore. Why? Because I'm not the same anymore. I want to come here. My wife
is extremely hard to wake up in the morning sometimes, but
I wake her up and I make that effort and she makes that effort
because why she wants to be here. I want to be here and I think
you all want to be here. His commandments are not grievous. I've got to love the brethren
I Gotta love David I'm picking
on you David. I do like I Have to love Emily
there. We'll pick on her I Have to love
all you people I Want to love you people His
commandments are not greedous they are not what's worth burdensome
I It's not a burden to me to believe His Son and to love the
brethren. It's not a burden to do that.
It's grievous to me when I look at my heart and my heart condemns
me because I don't love the brethren the way I should, because I don't
believe Him the way I should. My heart condemns me over that.
But my desire has changed. My want to has changed. By His Spirit. By being fathered. It's not grievous. It's not. Jesus Christ said it Himself.
My yoke is easy and my burden is light. And He's right. He's
right. His yoke is easy and his burden
is light. It's not a burden to me. I feel
disappointed in myself if I don't love somebody. I'm not a kind
of person that goes up, you know, and I know Mr. Jones, Dr. Jones said something
about that this morning that, you know, really, really cheerful
Christians annoy the junk out of him sometimes. I mean, I understand
that. I have a saying at work, I can't
stand perky people real early in the morning. I can't take
but only so much perkiness. That's just the way I am, okay?
Now, unless I'm feeling really perky in the morning, then it's
fine. Because I'm the one annoying everybody. Because I'm cheerful
and they're not. But really cheerful people, that's
not what we're talking about here. There are people who seem
to be open more than I am, but I want to love the brethren.
I feel a kinship when we went down to Dingus and heard Don
Fortner preach, and he preached the gospel, he preached the truth,
and the people in there rejoiced, and it was like, wow, there's
more than just us. And I feel a love for those people. I don't even know those people,
but I do feel a love for them. Why? Because we are sharing being
fathered. And I love the one that fathered
us, and I love the ones that he's fathered. If my heart doesn't condemn me,
I have confidence toward God. Because if my heart doesn't condemn
me, I'm looking at him and not at myself. Our keeping of his commandments
comes from him by the spirit. Thereby we know that we are of
the truth, that we love the truth. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
again for this time in this place, but most of all for you. Thank
you, Lord, for sending your son. Thank you, Lord, for having him
come down, preach to us, live, suffer for us, die, shed his
blood, and be raised again. Everything we have comes from
you. In Christ's name, we pray, praise you. Amen.