Well, good morning. Let's turn
over back again to 1 John chapter
5 as we continue in this text this morning. Let's read again verse 13 through
the end. I, John, write these things to
you believers. who believe in the name of the
Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And
this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask
anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that
he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request
that we have asked of him. If anyone sees his brother committing
a sin not leading to death, he, the believer, shall ask, and
God will grant him life to those who commit sins that do not lead
to death. There is a sin that leads to death, and I do not
say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin,
but there is sin that does not lead to death. We know that everyone
who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who
was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch
him. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies
in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God
has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is
true. And we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and the eternal
life. Little children, keep yourselves
from idols. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
again for your word. Father, for your amazing grace,
for your beautiful and sovereign love. We thank you, Lord, that
this text is not just something that we hear and move right on,
but Lord, that we are able to engage it and to think about
it and to work through it. And Father, that we have a gospel
center to our understanding by your Spirit. Lord, that we know
that there is nothing hidden from us concerning Christ. There is nothing that we need
to know about you or your hand or your work or your will that
Christ has not shown us. That we have seen the fullness
of all that you are, your glory in the face of Jesus Christ and
his work for your people. And so, Lord, as we continue
in this text, as we make a close to this letter in the next few
weeks. Father, I pray that it would
be food for our soul, that we would be reminded of this great
good news that is ours in Christ Jesus alone and forever, and
that we would not be frustrated and that we would not fear. For
you have loved us with an everlasting love, and we belong to you, and
we belong to Christ. Therefore we believe. In his
name we pray. Amen. We know. Of course we have heard
of John's gospel so much as a congregation, it's almost gotten to be funny. And if we're not in John, we're
gonna get there soon enough, you know? As we continue in the
epistles of John, I'm gonna continue to teach in the same theme for
the purposes of John's writing through the next two postcards,
second and third John. That's all they are, little tiny
notes, little tiny notes. And then when we get done there,
by the Lord's mercy, I will probably preach through the letters of
Timothy on Sunday morning. Preach through the letters of
Timothy. or the letters of Paul to Timothy. But as we approach
this text, as we look and are reminded, I know what our humanity
does, I know what our minds do, I know that not everyone is the
same, we're not all thinking in the same way, but we're all
feeling sometimes at some point something like this, and that
is, okay, we get it, we know, let's move on. That happens. We know, let's move on. But if
God's Word wanted us to move on, He wouldn't repeat Himself
so often. If we were supposed to move on, we would not, once
we read 1 John for the first time, we'd never look at it again.
If He wants us to move on past the Gospel, then we would just,
you know, we'd read the Gospel accounts and then we'd cut them
out of the Bible. You know, let's save space. We'd just get us
a, we'd get us an index. or we'd get us something, and
that's really the way we, as cultural Christians, I don't
wanna say we, but that's really how many cultural Christians
live. And sometimes we have found ourselves, haven't we, beloved,
using the Bible in that manner. I'm gonna use the Bible as my
guide to doctrine, I'm gonna use my Bible as my instrument
of my theological thesaurus, and I'm gonna go in here, I'm
gonna proof text, proof text, proof text, proof text, that
is not intimacy with God the Spirit. It's not intimacy with
God the Spirit. Let me tell you what that's like.
That's like if my wife and I were on a trip, she wanted to hold
my hand, but I clipped a fingernail and handed it to her. Just hold
this. And how odd would that be? That's
as odd as it is, in my opinion, in my experience, in the context
of scripture, when we piece it out to the point that we're actually
living with the Bible as a tool, rather as the intimacy with God. The Word of God is the instrument
of grace to us as believers. It is the agent of awareness. It is the exposure of the revelation
of God. It is the expositor to our soul,
the scripture, because God exposits himself. He exegetes himself. in the person of Christ, and
the person of Christ is exegeted through the lives and the writing
of the apostles, and the writings and the lives of the apostles
are exegeted through the reading of the word, which is exegeted
through the constant intimacy with the word and the oversight
of the church as it operates according to the commands of
God. This is God's only means of grace to the body of Christ
whatsoever, and anything, anything close to the edge as it looks
over the horizon is a fool's errand. It's a fool's errand. It is doing that which God will
not, will not, God will not bless any other effort whatsoever. God does not bless
sincerity. God does not bless zeal. God
does not bless passion. God does not honor the works
of the flesh of man whatsoever. It is a foolish and stupid an
ironically dumb thing for me to think that I have a say in
your spiritual growth when God does it all through his word.
Period. It's like if we could have world
peace by just sticking our fingers up our nose for an hour a day in public and
walking around like that. Oh, he's looking for world peace.
How silly people would think we were, because we would look
ridiculous. It would be impossible almost
for me to do that. Then maybe if we put them in
our mouths, how gross. I couldn't do it. But world peace, but that's just
stupid. Oh, world peace, let me do this, let me do that. Nope,
this is the only way we're gonna have world peace. That's just
dumb. That's how we feel in our flesh when we hear someone say
it is the grace of God alone through his word that brings
about spiritual maturity, change, resolution, intimacy, power,
hope. We don't wanna look stupid. We
don't want to sound stupid. We don't want to walk around
doing something dumb that the world looks at and goes, that's
just silly. It is silly. That's the whole point of 1 Corinthians
1. It's foolish to rest in the cross of Christ. It's foolish
to rest in the promises of God. It's foolish and it's antithetical
to the very logic of humanity. It's antithetical. And so this
instruction that we have here is married to that. Why? Because it's what I'm talking
about. It's what John is writing. You know, it's only, it's really,
I mean, that's not a lot, is it? I mean, think about that. That's
not a lot, but yet there's a lot in there. And He wants us, the
Lord God wants us, as He has written this through John, God
the Spirit is teaching us how we should live a life successfully
in the faith. He's teaching us. You want to
be a successful Christian? You want to be a successful missionary?
You want to be successful in evangelism? This is what you
do. This is all you do, and this is the only thing that you do.
Anything else is adding to the commands of God. Anything else
is adding to the word of God. Anything else is adding to the
gospel of grace. Well, how's it adding to the
gospel of grace? If you think you can bring resolution, if you
think you can bring productivity and success in the things of
spiritual, in spiritual things, outside of that which God has
said He would do, then you are adding to the gospel. It's like, it's just a new kind
of circumcision. Yeah, I know what the Bible says,
but I need to, but I need to, but I need to, but I need to,
but you need to hush. You know, that's what I tell myself. You
need to hush, Tiffins. You need to quit talking to yourself
so much and pray. You need to stop pondering so
much and turn those thoughts to prayers and focus on the word
of God and eat the bread of life and hope only in the salvation
that God has already secured for you through Christ. Christ. The biggest waste of my life
is that four years where I entertained the academic pursuit of a counseling
degree and obtained it. It's the biggest season of waste,
yet God was gracious in it. Why? Because I had everything
I needed right here in my hands. I had it in six
languages and probably a hundred different types of translations.
We had everything we needed. We had it all. You have it all
right here in this bound book. You have 66 books of power that
teach you about the gospel, the good news of God's salvation
for his people, period. You don't need anything else.
And so we work together through these things. And when someone says, well,
how do I handle this circumstance? We can gain up some wisdom that
makes sense. But the only thing that's really
going to change us is when we put our mind on eternal things. We put our mind on eternal things.
Beloved, when I look out at the sea of sovereign grace believers,
I see very few of them, if any, in a given day who put their
mind on eternal things based on what they say with their mouths. Now let's don't, let's don't
pat our backs and go, yeah, man, I'm sharing some eternal. No,
you're not. We're not sharing eternal things when we are continually
laboring over things that are not contextually derived. Let
me say that again. We are laboring. on earthly things
when we labor for things that are not contextually derived.
What does that mean? I read this in two paragraphs
of the Bible in this particular section of scripture. Therefore,
it is saying this. We are wasting our lives. It is the prodigal son living
in a hog pen wanting to eat the slop of sows. Yet our culture praises it and
glorifies it. Oh, look at that man of God.
Show me a man of God. I'll eat my shoes. And you know
me, I don't eat shoes, and I sure ain't gonna eat nothing that's
been on the ground. It's hyperbole, don't hold me
to it. You said I was lying, okay? I was lying. I'm not gonna eat
a shoe. Point taken. So here we are,
getting this instruction, we're coming to the close of this letter,
and as a shepherd of God's sheep, of myself, it's the craziest
thing. It is the weirdest stuff to be
a husband and a pastor. But I'm really a bride and a
sheep. Because Christ is the husband, Christ is the pastor,
Christ is the head, and we're just little minis pretending
to be that which we're not. And what we should be doing is
be instruments of the word. We should be ministers of the
gospel. By teaching the Bible and praying and teaching the
body, myself included, to do the work that we've been called
to in the area of our giftedness for the sake and the benefit
of each other. What should we be doing? We should be obeying
God at every breath. That's what we should be doing.
Y'all heard beginning of the service? I read out of John.
I read John 14 in its entirety. Where Jesus says, don't be troubled. Don't let your hearts get in
a tizzy. Believe in God and believe also in me. Then he says, I am
God and the Father is in me and I am in the Father and I and
the Father are one. And where I'm going, you can't
go. And of course, what does Thomas and Philip say? Lord, we don't even know where
you're going. How are we going to know the way? I am the way. I am the truth, I am
the life. This is not the first time he's
said that. So we're in good company, beloved,
when our flesh is blocking our understanding the sufficiency
of God's grace, of His sovereignty. You see, what we do oftentimes,
many people are a little puzzled by this statement that I made.
I use Facebook sometimes as a notepad, so I'll remember what I need
to say. But a lot of times we get so enthralled in the idea
of sovereignty, oh God is sovereign, God is sovereign, God is sovereign,
until we're frustrated. God is sovereign until we're
scared. God is sovereign until we can't figure out what's gonna
happen next. Guess what? We're not gonna figure out what's
gonna happen next. I see these young couples all
over the place, you know, and they're out going out on dates
sometimes. They're sitting in the cars and all that, and they're
20 years old. And I remember 25 years ago this year when my
wife and I got married and how our parents looked at us like
children. And now we look at my child who's 23 and married
and expecting, and I'm going, what is happening here? These
are babies. They shouldn't even be married.
But that's the way it is. And I want to go up to them.
I want to go up to them and bang on the window at Burger King
and say, you have no idea what you're doing. Everything that
you're talking about right now on the ride home with your Big
Mac. No, wait a minute. Whopper. I got to get it right.
It's not going to happen. All these plans you're making
are going to go down the toilet. Let me teach you how to do that.
Flush, flush, flush. That's what I teach you. I need
to give every new couple a plunger at their wedding day. That's
good. That's what's coming for y'all. You know, and because
it's going to be, you're going to, everything you think is going
to take place, it's not going to take place. The same thing
is always true in your parenting. The same thing is always true
in your faith. The same thing is always true in your job. Nothing. Your business, nothing. Nothing's
going to go the way you want it to. And if you want it to
go some way, God in his absolute love for you is going to turn
it the other way. Because when we say, if the Lord wills, we
don't mean it. We've got our little work camp,
see? Our little camp of work that we're doing, our little
thing, and we plant the hedges of sovereignty around it. Yeah,
God's got this. and we let the weeds grow up
in front of it, and we tell everybody, yeah, God's sovereign, and we
jump down behind the bushes, and we lurk like the devil, thinking
that if we can't fix it, it's not gonna happen. Beloved, we're
all guilty of it. And the best thing we can do
is laugh at it. The worst thing we can do is be in despair over
it. How are we gonna grow? We gotta
learn that if God is sovereign, you realize this, beloved, The gospel is because of sovereignty. Grace alone saves. Nothing you
do saves you. You cannot be saved if Christ
is not your Savior. And there's nothing you can do
to make Christ your Savior. He either died and saved you
or He did not. Well, that doesn't sound like
a gospel message. It is the only message that's truly good news.
Well, what about all these people who don't believe? They don't
belong to Him. And some of them do belong to
Him, and they've yet to believe, but they will believe. So what
is our job? Trust in Him. Be instruments
of His grace. Be instruments of His mercy.
Be instruments of His love. And completely share and teach
and preach the text as it is written so that God in His sovereignty
is glorified for His grace, for His amazing grace in the salvation
of His people, which was obtained and finished and accomplished
on the cross. See, when someone believes, they're not saved.
Someone believes they are not saved in that moment. They were
saved when Christ died on the cross. That's what faith knows. You understand? Faith knows that
salvation was accomplished. And I know theologians and big
talkers and all this stuff through the years have always said, well,
there's an application. This is philosophical expression
of all the things that we've gathered through the centuries.
Let's stay with the simple text of simple grace from the simple
word of God. Do you believe in the sovereignty
of God and salvation that God alone has created all things
necessary and accomplished all things necessary for the salvation
of his people? This is the gospel. God has done
it. God has provided justice. Even in grace. The irony behind
that is that grace and justice are opposed to each other. But
God's grace is still just. Why? Because he killed Jesus
in place of his wrath for his people. See, the penalty of sin
and eternal life is granted to the elect through the finished
work of Christ. And then the new birth is that
power of God in sovereignty that He calls His people to know this. That's faith. So God is sovereign over faith. You can't convince someone to
act on faith. But we who have been given faith,
we can be taught and trained to trust Him. to rest by faith. I live this life by faith in
the Son of God. Faith works in love is our obligation. And these things are clearly
and simply stated in this one thing. Believe in the sovereignty
of Christ and salvation for his people. and then love each other
as Christ has loved his church. That's it. If you're worried
about any other command, you are wasting your time. Let me
say that again. If you are worried about any
other command other than loving others as Christ has loved his
church, you are wasting your time. Because when you strive
to not lie, you are focusing on the flesh, and you are making
provision for the flesh. and you are establishing a work
in a way that God will not grant. The gospel says you're not a
liar. Why are you lying? Don't believe me? The Bible's
already taught us that. You're not a liar because you're a righteousness.
You are the righteousness of God. You're lying in the name
of grace? You're lying in the name of love?
Well, what has love got to do with it? Well, if I steal, if I sin, if I lie,
if I get angry and I'm doing everything I can in my life to
make myself happy, I'm not loving any of you. I remember I was 13 years old when
I said this. I came out of my room. And I
have my little notebook out. I looked for this notebook over
the last week. I can't find it. And I said,
I figured it out. I figured it out, Mom. I figured
out the whole of all the commandments of God could be boiled down into
one commandment. Don't be selfish. And I remember
for a year, we started having these conversations with people. And I remember another time in
my life in high school where I came to the conclusion that
everything that we do as believers is an act of worship. We're either
worshiping God and honoring God in all that we do, or we're dishonoring
Him and we're worshiping ourselves. And I remember a mentor when
I turned 20, and I mentioned that to him, and he said to me,
he said, no, you can't put your socks on as an act of worship.
And I just accepted it because he's an older man. He's telling
me the truth. OK, I accepted it. Well, I'm wrong. Let me peel
back through these things and figure this out again. And sure
enough, for a little while, I thought I was wrong. And then I just
came to the conclusion that I was right. I just maybe wasn't saying
it correctly. All that you do and whatever
you eat or whatever you drink or whatever you say or wherever
you go or whatever you think, be subject to the glory of God? Is it expressly exegeting God? That's what it means. The glory
of God is that God is exegeted. He is made known. So when we're
loving one another and living a life confined to the reality
that Christ loved us, so let us live as Christ lived, and
we struggle in this war together, we are fulfilling the law of
Christ. Not unto our salvation, but unto
the visible, exegetical revelation of God Himself among us. And
the world looks at us as if we've got our fingers stuck up our
nose thinking it's going to bring world peace. You see? And they go, that's the dumbest
thing I've ever seen. Now, we have come through many
texts over the last few months concerning love and things of
that nature. And some of us have decided to
define love in our own way. Well, I am loving in this. We'll work through that at the
last message of this text. Because there's a few pastoral
things, and I want to get some of the elder brother's thoughts
and wisdom before I launch that sermon. It may just get scratched
all together, but I want to get thoughts and wisdoms of a few
things that I think practically and pastorally it would be healthy
for us as a church to consider because of the gospel. Just some
things. And if I climb too high on my
soapbox, I will fall down. and hurt myself and be guilty
of all the things that I hit along the way down. It's like
falling out of the tree. So we know we have confidence
before the Lord. All that being said, we know
the gospel. We know the truth of Christ.
We know why we're here today. We know why we're to be gathered
together as a body. We know our responsibility to
one another. We know the command to love each
other. And in doing so, that is the
only way in any way whatsoever that you could ever love Christ.
Well, I love Jesus. But, no, you don't love Jesus
until you are actually loving your brothers and sisters in
the faith. Your love of Jesus is not how
you feel about him. I mean, we have a particular
style of music that we sing here during our assembly. Why? Because
it's compulsory. And we stick to simple hymnal
type compositions. Unless this pianist can't play
it and I just make up my own stuff. Either way, it's simple.
It's truth. It's doctrinal. But it doesn't
mean that songs that are really awesome, I can get into some
other songs, like some of them that were playing right before
service. And I can see myself just consumed with all of the
awesome feelings that come with some of that type of music. And
I love it. I love it, but that doesn't make
it spiritual. It makes it intimate for me. Truth makes it right. And the truth in the spirit of
truth makes it spiritual. So we come to all of these things
and we come to this text and we see that we can trust and
have confidence to pray when we know that we are not loving
one another. We say, Father, it is your will
that I love my brother. Grow me here. Now, I know that
many of you think, well, I've prayed that prayer for months,
years. It's not answered yet. Well,
God doesn't say he's going to just hit you with a magic wand and
poof, you're going to become like the kindest, lovingest person
in the world. But I sometimes get people that
call or they'll email or they'll text and say, I need to talk.
I've been praying for the Lord to give me, you know, to help
me in my finances for months and nothing's come through. And
the first thing I ask is how many jobs have you applied
for? Have you taken any side work?
No. Well, I'm going to put a brick
around my neck and jump off a bridge and say, God, don't let me get
wet. Keep me from water. Get out the water. You see, we
expect sometimes God to answer things in a silly way, like some
magic trick. Rub the genie, poof, yeah, what
do you want? I don't want to be poor. Poom, and you're in
a mansion. Guess what? You got taxes to pay on that mansion.
You're going to be poor next month. When your property rent
comes due, aka property taxes. It's crazy, isn't it? Well, I
just pray the Lord would help me be healthy. Okay. I want to be healthy. Lord, help me be healthy. But
yet, we know what it takes to be healthy. God's not going to
answer prayers against the very things that we're doing in these
small little practical things. I'm not saying we shouldn't pray
for them. But we can trust God sovereignly in salvation. We
have the confidence to ask that anything that is His will, He
will do. It is His will, beloved, that we love each other, and
He will answer that. That's why we struggle with it
so hard, is because we don't ask God to work in us. And when we ask God to work in
us, sometimes it's just a change of our minds and hearts, sometimes
it's a change of opportunity, and sometimes when we do that,
we are inundated with people to love that we really wish weren't
calling on us. Or we're confronted by these
issues that seem unloving. Wow. I mean, did Jesus get on the
cross and get out there and say, okay, anybody who loves me, come
up here and let me see you loving me. Weeping over the fact that
I'm dying innocently, going to suffer the wrath of God, okay.
Well, there's John and my mama. Who else? Well, I guess the only two that's
going to get my salvation are these. None. While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us, beloved. While we were enemies,
Christ laid his life down. Husbands and wives, the reason
that marriage is a temporary picture is because it's just
like the temple and the tabernacle. It points to something greater. And I would say that so many
of us, we would spend more time cleaning the temple, the physical
temple, than we would working to the glory of Christ in the
gospel with the temple of our marriage. And when it's all said
and done and the temple is destroyed, when marriage is done, the one
thing that remains is the love of God through Christ Jesus for
His people. And that is what's supposed to
be manifested in the marriage covenant, in the household, in
the parenting, in the fact that children are to submit to their
parents. And then as the church gets together as family units,
then we collectively illustrate the same thing. But the great
news is that the difference between the marriage Home and the Assembly
of the Saints is that the Assembly of the Saints is working toward
an eternal intimacy that will never stop. So our love for one another starts
at home. It starts at work. Why? Because Christ stepped out of
glory and subjected himself to be like the creation and in every
way was tempted, but he was impeccable. He could not sin. He could not
not resist. How does that feel? I can't tell
you because I've got my breaking points in every temptation. I've
got the point where I'm just going to get the back scratcher.
Nope. Yeah, I'm done. I'm not going
to do that anymore. I'm not going to resist that
anymore. I got the point where there's a button. You got the
button. You got a button. You people can push you so hard,
but they hit that button. Oh, you see, we've all got that.
Christ did not have that. Christ in his humanity is perfectly
righteous. Yet he was tempted in every way.
Yet he was submissive to the father. Yet he submitted himself
to the will of God, the father, in order to establish righteousness
and the forgiveness of sins for the elect of God. Through his
own blood, through his own body, through his own obedience, even
unto death on a cross as a slave. Have this mind among you. See,
this is what it means to understand the gospel is to have the mind
of Christ. Understanding the gospel is not
about the precepts of the theological positions of the doctrine. Understanding
the gospel is understanding the mind of Christ, that he gave
himself for his people and that God established righteousness
and the forgiveness of these sinful elect children through
the death of Jesus Christ, the perfect man, who was also God. Substitution. Imputation, all
these big words that are fun to dialogue about are simple
realities of the death of Jesus and the power of God's sovereignty.
So we can ask when God is, when we feel as though we cannot
love, we can ask and God will grant these things. We can ask, as we talked about
last week, for God to help one another. So here is an area of
accountability. I talked about this, I approached
this subject last week. but I wanna hone in on it. See, in the church of contemporary
culture, and that could be 500 to 1,000 years, but specifically
in the church of the 19th and 20th century, 21st century, when
we've seen a need amongst a gathered people, we've created a federal
type oversight by establishing some type of program some type
of process. These things in and of themselves
are fool's errands because God will not establish blessings
through these opportunities. He will not do it. God has promised
to teach our children the Bible by letting them sit under the
teaching of the Bible as a family. God has promised to establish
the answer to your prayers and to your needs and the things
that you are looking for in the context of intimacy by being
a part of the intimate body. That's it. And if what you need
is anything but Christ and his people and their gifts, then
you don't need Christ. You see? But our world is full
of this. And our world is full of this.
And I remember being part of different types of parachurch
ministries throughout the years of looking and saying, okay,
you know what? I really do like the fact that we want to help
feed people who are hungry. Let me go over here and volunteer
in this community thing. Let's go over here and help hand
out food. Nothing wrong with that. It's not sinful to feed
people. It's not sinful to give clothes.
It's not sinful to give water. Matter of fact, we're commanded
to do that even to our enemies. But it's not the answer. We're not going to eradicate
hunger and poverty. It's never gonna happen. Jesus
says that in John 11 and 12. Don't pour that annual salary
over the feet of Jesus. What's wrong with you? You ever had something that's
very valuable and somebody break it? Irreplaceable? It happens. And I grew up looking at nice
things as a child, nice things, great grandparents. They've been
alive a hundred years, you know. Got a lot of nice stuff. There
was cheap stuff in the day, but it was nice stuff then. That's
really nice. Why? Because cheap stuff then is antiques
now. That five cent dish, it's worth $500. And I remember when
Katie was a baby and she went into my grandmother's living
room and sat on a couch that I was never allowed to even look
at as a child and put her feet on a table that I was not allowed
to touch as a child and picked up this container, this porcelain
container that I would have been slaughtered for touching. And she does it like a cymbal
and breaks it. And I feel like I'm about to
vomit. My child has broken this death sentence. She's, you know,
it's like Pandora's box. She's crashed it open, and now
here comes the wrath of God. And I walk in there to my grandmother,
who was at her desk doing her deal. She's sewing that day,
making some window treatments. And I walk in there, and I said,
grandmother, I gotta show you something. She said, what is
it, son? You know, she could sew without looking. And I looked
at her, I said, I'm so sorry. She goes, oh, hmm. She reaches down like this and
she picks up a trash can. She said, just put it right here.
I said, what? She says, put it right here. Are you sure? She goes, James,
that's just a piece of glass. It's got nothing to do with eternity.
Put it in the trash. I've had it long enough. And I'm, you
know, I didn't make a joke about it then, but later I did because
I was like, thank God I'm not going to die. See, I have all
these nice things. We put so much stock in all this
stuff. We put stock in how we're supposed
to relate to each other, and we create all these nice idols. See, I'm headed to the end of
the messages anyway. We create all these nice idols of how we're
going to affect God's promises in each other's lives. I tell
you what I want to do. I want to develop a counseling ministry
where I can give you therapy for 17 months, twice a week. No. I've done that. And you know
what it did? It helped people for 17 weeks,
and then when the week 18 was there, they fell right back into
the despair that they had because what we provided for them through
therapy was not sufficient for their joy, and it had nothing
to do with the power of God's promises. Now I'm not saying
that we don't need some therapy sometimes. I'm not your guy. I promise you this. gracious,
and I'm kind, and I'm just going to keep pointing you to Christ,
and I'm going to keep asking you, how much are you in the Bible? If
you're not in the Bible, it's like not getting out of the water
and praying for God to dry off the water. You've got to get out
of the water, you see. God will establish His will in
our lives for us to love one another, and when we are helping
each other, this accountability does not look like this. I'm
watching you. When I first moved to Oakland,
I love a hardware store. I love a hardware store. That's
the first thing I look for is a hardware store when I move
to a town. Why? Because I'm always fixing something
because something's always breaking. It's part of God's discipline.
I'm telling you, it's part of God's discipline in my life. Something's breaking or I'm breaking
something in my body constantly. And I'm not even jumping out
of planes or climbing rocks anymore or climbing off mountains. But
I'm still, God does it. So I go into this hardware store,
and I'm used to local hardware stores. I walk in, hey, James,
how you doing? You need anything? Oh, don't worry about it. Take
it and try it. Come back and pay for it if it works. That kind of
stuff. That's what I like. So I go into this little True
Value hardware right downtown in Piedmont District of Oakland.
The cutest little hardware in the world. And I had a particular
screw that I needed a particular bit to fit. You know what I'm
talking about? One of those screws that you strip them all out and
never can get All right, so I'm down there on my knees, and I'm
looking, and I'm trying this thing, and I'm trying this thing,
and I'm trying this thing, and I feel someone looking at me. And I look up like this, and
the guy's standing like this over my head. And I said, is
something wrong? He goes, I'm just looking out
for thieves. I said, I'm sorry? He says, I'm
just watching. We got shoplifters in here today.
And he's standing over me like that. I like to lost my mind. So I go home, I get every receipt
that I'd ever spent in that place and I walk back up there to the
manager and I said, you see this? That's not accountability. That's
not accountability. Being a police officer and keeping
the peace is not accountability. Looking for something wrong is
not accountability. Hoping to find it, and when we
find it, going, ha-ha! That's not accountability. Jesus
prohibits that kind of stuff. He forbids it. He says, when
you get the logs out of your own eyes, then will you be able
to see the speck. Well, let me tell you this, brothers
and sisters. If you've gotten the logs out of your eyes, I'm
being honest, I wanna talk to you. Because I got a couple of
folks among us that if we could just spend a few minutes together,
they'll show you there's some more. And we don't like that. That's not accountability. Accountability
is first and foremost to faithfully trust in the gospel. Faithfully
trust in the gospel. Knowing that our brothers and
sisters, when we are in sin, what does it mean? We're living
in unbelief. You say, we don't like that term. I'm not an unbeliever.
Did I say that? Did John say that? No, we're
living in unbelief. When I'm fearful, I'm living
in unbelief. When I'm worried, when I'm scared,
when I'm angry, When I'm feeling insufficient in my spirit, I'm
living in unbelief. So the greatest remedy for unbelief
is what? The gospel. You who are the believing
ones, listen to the gospel that you have been taught. How many
times did Paul write that? Every letter he wrote. John's
letters the same way. Hey saint, do you know whose
you are? Do you know what Christ has done
for you? Yes, you do. So focus on those things. Put yourself in that. So when
we see our brother or sister sinning with a sin that does
not lead to death, and we talked about that there's no way of
knowing what that is, every answer is speculative at best, but the
point that John is making is not to emphasize the difference
between sins, because he says in verse 17, all wrongdoing is
sin. But there is a sin that does
not lead to death. What sin does not lead to death? I look at
it this way. We are to pray for any sin that
we see in the life of one another. We are to pray. Now this isn't
I sin against you and then we have to reconcile. This is you
see me in unbelief. There is an act of sin We're
always got sin, but there is an investment of sinfulness.
There's an investment of life that sometimes reveals the fact
that we aren't trusting in the Lord, isn't it? So we ought to
pray. Father, help me love my brothers
and sisters. And part of that is help me pray
for them. But see, you know what the iconic
superhero syndrome is? Well, I'm going to help And we
jump right into it without ever laboring in prayer. Or we pray the prayers of Jonah. Give me the power to change these
people. Give me the words to change these people. The Bible
doesn't teach us to pray for the words. We're focused on the
Gospel and the Gospel is in our mouth. We have the testimony
of God concerning His Son in our heart. We're reading the
Word of God. God the Holy Spirit will give us the words we need
when the time comes without preparation. You see. We don't have to write
out a speech just to have a conversation with somebody. So we pray, we
love each other by praying that God would help us to love, and
then in that same breath, we pray for those that we love. It is the first and the foundational
reality of living as a family. We trust in the, here we are,
the sovereignty of God, which is not a hedge around our work,
it is the foundation upon which our work sits. It's not a hedge, it's a bedrock.
Upon this rock, Jesus Christ and His sovereignty. Upon this
rock, this is the point. Because every wrongdoing is sin.
All wrongdoing is dabbling in unbelief. Isn't it? Can you see that, church? Don't conflate the idea of faith. Let me change that. Don't conflate
the idea of assurance. and living in the light. Where is your hope? It is in Christ. Where is your
life? It is in Christ. Therefore, let
us pray for one another. Let us pray for one another.
And beloved, that's as far as we should ever take it until
the behavior becomes divisive amongst the saints. You hear me? Truth is divisive,
but it's divisive internally in the mind, in the spirit, in
the marrow. The Word of God is living and
breathing. Hebrews 4.12. It's not the truth that divides
the body of Christ, it's the actions and the attitudes that
divide the body of Christ. And people say, well, I'm standing
on the truth. No, you're not. You're being a butthole. Can
you say that on video? I don't know. Well, I did. You're
being a pompous. have better, less crude ways
of expression. You're being awful. You're being
wicked. Stop it. And most importantly,
you're being self-righteous. Self-righteous. I have the authority
to tell you in the manner in which I want to tell you what
I need to tell you. That's not speaking the truth. That's not
speaking the truth at all. We speak the truth in love, with
humility. How did Christ speak the truth in love? He got on
the cross. Well, he rebuked the Pharisees.
Well, when you become the son of God, you go right ahead. He
tumped over tables. Same thing. When you are the
divine one, the holy and anointed one of God, jump down on it.
Start with this one. Turn over every chair in here
because we are all guilty of the same marketplace as the Jews
of the first century. We've all got idols that need
to be tipped upside down. But we've been saved by the mercies
of Christ. We need to pray for each other. And in the context
of our intimacy, God will protect us. We won't stay in this unbelief. We won't stay in this idolatry.
We won't stay in this bitterness. We won't stay in these things.
We won't stay here. See, this goes so well with what
I'm teaching on Wednesday night over the last few months. It's
hard for me to stay focused on this. I want to just go back
into Hebrews 12 and 11. And then Hebrews 13, which expressly
talks about the practical reality of how this stuff is governed
and overseen and kept together, how disunity is kept from the
church, is through the oversight of the body, through the elders
of the word, who continue to push people back
to the gospel and then to the service that they've been so
passionately commanded to do in the name of Christ for His
honor and glory. We're too smart for our own good. Everyone who has been born of
God does not keep on sinning. In other words, James Tiffin's,
If I Lie, is not a liar before the Lord because Christ took
my lie and it is finished. The same goes for you. So these
sins that Christians commit, that believers commit, I'm going
to lose that word Christian, except in a historical sense.
Sins that believers commit are not counted against them. There's no condemnation. Sins
that believers commit are not being stored up for some kind
of judgment. The judgment's been done. We have confidence in the
day of judgment. Why? Because of the love of God. When we walk into the, just imagine
for a minute the imagery of walking into the courtroom of heaven.
Into the place where the indictment shall be read. When God reads
the indictments against the elect, it is true. When God's justice and His judgment
says all of the world and everyone in it is guilty from birth to
death, from one second old to a zygote to 99 or 135 or however
old, you're all guilty. You all deserve to die. And then Paul says that every
mouth will be stopped because the law of God has judged us
already and we are according to the righteousness of God,
but in His loving mercy before the world was ever created, He
made a promise with Himself in contract with the Son that He
would save His people who He would create to the praise of
His glory. And then He said, let there be
light. In the light of God is Christ. In the light of hope
is the Word. And when that judgment comes,
Jesus... It's not going to be like this.
I'm painting pictures for our own ability to see. Everybody's
guilty together. Then Jesus the Son stands up
and says, Yet all of the guilt of these has been passed to me. The sheep. Everybody else, your guilt remains. That's it. And when we enter
that place, we don't enter like they entered. This is this coming
Wednesday night, by the way. We don't enter into the presence
of God in fear. I've done two movies in their,
what do you call it? Their releases, the midnight
show. The first time I did that, it
was a huge mistake. Everybody's dressed up, I'm not
dressed up. Everybody brought food, I didn't bring food. I'm
like, why are they bringing food? We can't take food in there.
No, this is for the wait. What? I show up 30 minutes early and
the line goes around the building twice. I'm like, yeah, I ain't
doing this. Some of these people have been
there since the day before. Chairs and tents and camping and stuff.
They were so excited to get inside there and see this show. They
couldn't wait. Beloved, that's how it's going
to be for us. To stand inside the courtroom of justice. We can't wait. Oh man. My redemption
is about to be complete. Glorification is right here.
We're gonna get to the place where there's no more fear at
all. I can't wait. And everybody's like, what you
so happy for, man? I'm a lamb. I'm a sheep. The Son of God has
saved me in His death. Oh, you're one of them. I'm gonna
plead my case. And we're like, I don't think
so. You know, I'm guilty too, right?
I'm just as guilty as you are, right? Yeah, but I got an advocate. I have a lawyer who is also the
judge. Ain't nothing gonna happen to
me. I mean, you talk about nepotism. There it is. I was born into the kingdom before
I was born, and God has loved me everlastingly, and the Son
of God is my judge and my lawyer and my advocate, and he took
my place. I hate it for you. Well, can
I get in on that? Too late. You didn't belong to
Him. So when we approach people with
sin, we approach people with unloving divisiveness, and we
correct them, the Spirit of God establishes in their heart a
brokenness, a resolution, and a joy, all in the same moment.
Not despair. But when we overbear ourselves,
when we just come down and crowd up like a cop looking to catch
a crook, We aren't helping people. We're not having the mind of
Christ. And we must be patient. Sometimes
intimate conversations can be resolved within just an hour
or less, and sometimes they may take months, sometimes they may
take years, but ultimately we are responsible for continuing
to expressly teach and be patient with each other. As a shepherd,
as an elder, the elders of this church are commanded by God himself
to be patient and to patiently endure those who doubt, those
who are in unbelief, those who cause division as long as they're
submissive, and endure evil, to patiently endure evil. And when we go and we see what
Paul teaches, especially with the Corinthian church, we see
a lot of folks that they're acting like Corinthians. But the Corinthians
were God's elect. They were born again. But there
were some of them acting and living in a manner that was divisive
and wicked and sinful in the testimony of Christ. So Paul
says, call them out. Tell them to stop. And when they
danced their little dance, and double down on their division
and double down on their lawsuits and double down on their sexual
immorality, kick them out of the church and tell them they're
welcome back in the fold when they're ready to behave and be
submissive. To who? To the gospel. How do we have that promise?
Look at verse, oh I'm overhearing. The wrong chapter. Hold on, here
we go. How do we have that promise? Look at the last part of verse
18. He who was born of God protects him. And the evil one does not
touch him. Now, I read John 14 on purpose
because it fits so well with this text. And Jesus says, I'm
going away and I'm going to be with the Father and the ruler
of this world The evil one, in which all the world lies, is
wanting to destroy me, but he's not going to because he can't
touch me, he has no claim on me. What is the claim of the
enemy against humanity? You want to hear it? The law
of God. The enemy can say, these people
aren't righteous. And God says, you speak the truth.
And when the enemy says, your people aren't righteous, God
says, you lie. Why? Because he is our propitiation. So Jesus Christ, the incarnate
Lord, protects us from the evil one. Because His righteousness
is our righteousness. See, that should have been the
whole sermon. His life is our life. His death counts for our
death of our own sinful flesh. And His promise of eternal life
is ours in Himself. The evil one does not touch Him.
So this is who we are, and this is what we are, and this is how
we are, these things, then the promises of God are enough. If
the promises of God for salvation is sufficient, isn't the promise
of God to answer the prayers concerning the elect and how
we live together sufficient? Yes, this is the point of John's
writing. Do not let people tell you that
you do not have eternal life for any reason, beloved. The testimony of Christ is in
you. Because the testimony of Christ
in you is the witness of the Spirit of God Himself. And yeah, a lot of people can
say a lot of magic words, but in time it will be told. The
wheat and the chaff will always be together until the day of
glory. But we don't fluster ourselves over that reality. We rest firmly
and we pray and we love and we teach and we abide The evil one cannot touch those
who have been born of God. Verse 19, we know that we are
from God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil
one. And at the end of all of this,
in verse 20, John says these words. We know that the Son of
God has come. He's just reiterating everything
we know. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, has come to do
the work of the Father. We know that the Son of God has
come. We know that the Son of God has given us understanding
in his word. Terminology is not important.
Understanding is important. Do you understand that? Terms
are a dime a dozen. We can create new words today.
Thousands of new words will be created today by the pharmaceutical
company and by the entertainment industry.
I mean, I guarantee you they're going to say, oh, that's a good
one. We'll use that. What's it mean? Nobody knows. Understanding matters. Do you
understand the gospel? Do you understand? Do you apprehend
Christ and who he is and what he accomplished and for whom?
You need to know that the elect are saved through the finished
work of Christ because that's what he came to do and that their
sins are no more because he has paid for them in full and that
we are not guilty before God the Father because he has granted
us forgiveness and his righteousness is to our account. And if this
is the love of God for us, we know that we have understanding
of how we should love one another. For this is the message that
we have been given, that He is light and in Him there is no
darkness. See, go right back to the purpose
of the letter to begin with. He's given us understanding to
what? To everything? No. So that we may know Him who
is true. John 17 verse 3. This is eternal
life that you know the Father and you know the Son which He
has sent. We know the Son of God has come. We know He has given us understanding
so that we may know Him who is true. And so that we may know
that we are in Him who is true. That is in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and He is
the eternal life. And we will close this letter
out next week with that message that we've already preached today,
but we'll be reminded of it again next week. And then if the Lord
so chooses, I will preach verse 21 separately as it is a parting
shot that can be wrapped up very quickly. Beloved, you are in
the Lord because He has saved you eternally to the uttermost and nothing can take you away.
Doubt, fear, frustration, division, all these things are just opportunities
for us to rest in the sufficiency of His grace and to grow to learn
to love those very people that are hard to love because we're
hard to love too. And we do so not because we have to perform
for the Lord. We do so because Christ didn't
perform for us. He perfected us in his death.
And we have been sanctified forever, once and for all, in the person
of Christ. Rest. Rest. And rejoice. Let's pray. We thank you so much, Father,
for this true and comforting reality. that we are indeed your
children, that we are indeed your righteousness. And Father,
that which we are is not yet seen, but we can know that we
have been given the righteousness of Christ until such time where
you create us anew. Help us to Learn more and more
deeply the love that you have for you, for your people. Love
that you have for us. The love of Christ for you and
for us. Father, help us to love each
other because of your love for us. To not be tossed to and fro. To not feel like we have to effect
change in belief and faith. But father, just to be simply
obedient. To the true commands. That give
you the greatest glory. And that we would be about the
work of righteousness together as a body and also outside in
this world. As you call your elect to faith. And we pray these things in the
name of Christ. Amen. Thank you, Church.