Good morning, church. Let's turn to the letter of 1
John, which is where we are, and let's be reminded of a couple
of things as we get started. First, let's be reminded of John's
audience. John is writing or John wrote
to believers, only believers, There is no one in the writing
of John's letter and the audience of John's letter that he considered
lost, that he considered unconverted. There's no one in the writing
of John's letter that he considered to be a false brother or sister. If there were, he could not make
proclamations to them. You do understand that teaching
the New Testament to an audience assumes that the audience is
an audience of faith. I want to say that again. Teaching
the New Testament to an audience assumes that it is an audience
of faith. That means that as the letters
were written to only the elect, regenerate elect, so is the preaching
considered to be only to the regenerate elect. But now we
do understand that there are some false converts. We do understand
that there are some people who sneak in under the radar. And
they say they believe in Christ, but actually do not. They've
learned the verbiage, they've learned the testimony of history,
they've learned the theological terms, and so on and so forth.
But ultimately, they've not been born of God. How do we know? We'll flesh them out as the Lord
shows us through the years and through intimacy, through long
seasons of suffering, long seasons of opportunity to grow together
in the grace of God. And eventually someone who is
an unbeliever will come to a place where they go, you know what,
I'm just not going to get behind that teaching. I'm not going to get
behind that doctrine. I'm not going to come to a place
where I'm submitting to that. Where they would have to say
that the word of God is true but in their mind they don't
like it and they are unwilling to receive it. The Spirit of
God is the teacher of the body. The Spirit of God, He Himself
is the one who helps you understand that which is even preached from
the pulpit. The Spirit of God is the only means through which
the body of Christ can grow. The only means through which
any particular individual can come to know the truth. The Spirit
of God is the only one who can seal us and keep us in the faith. The Spirit of God is the one
who continually works in our hearts in God the Father's discipline
that we might learn His ways and that we might learn His love
and we may be encouraged. I've still found a great parallel
in the teaching of John's letter and the letter to the Hebrews.
It is amazing to me to see just how clearly these believers are
being taught with two different people, two different personalities,
two different occasions, two different audiences, yet the
same gospel truth, the same gospel indicatives, and the same gospel
imperatives. The indicatives are that which
must be. These things indicate someone is a believer. And John
has done a very good job saying who is and who is not a believer. And beloved, we had some good
conversations with some young brothers up north yesterday.
And they feel the call of God and doing the Lord's work. And
it's amazing just how congruent the Lord, the Spirit of God is
in his teaching of his people. It's amazing because even though
history and culture begins to lay out the road to assurance,
even though, I don't even want to say historical, but contemporary
American reform theology even would lay out opportunities for
people to find confidence in the flesh. We know that the gospel
contradicts that. that that very teaching is anti-Christ. That if anyone is to measure
themselves in the faith, they must measure themselves in the
faith by the promises of God. This isn't new to us. It's something
that we've been teaching from the very beginning as we began
in Ephesians some almost ten years ago. This is not new to
any of you because you've been sitting under the Word of God
for many years. and you know the truth by the
Spirit who has taught you the sufficiency of the Christ and
His redemptive work and you understand that we are to judge by the gospel
of grace and by the confession of the hope that we have and
that anyone, anyone and anything with any other message concerning
assurance, concerning redemption, concerning polity, concerning
ecclesiology or anything else that is outside the vein of that
is Antichrist. The Spirit of Antichrist. Now, I know for us, it's a horrible
time. It's a horrible time in the world. It's a fearful time.
Some of us, it's actually not that bad, but it hadn't changed
much. But for some, I mean, I got news the other day that a friend
of ours has lost 16 friends in just a short time to COVID, just
a few months, 16 people. Now, friends, I've lost a lot
of friends over the last year. I've lost a lot of people that
I know, and I've lost several family members. And it's been
probably the largest death toll in a short time that I've ever
experienced. But even then, some people don't know of anyone.
They've never heard of anyone, nobody. And so what is the oddity
of that? What is the reality of that?
Is that COVID is just worse in some places? Yes. Yes. That God in His sovereignty has
chosen to take some people out of the world and to leave others.
That God in His sovereignty, just like in election, has chosen
to take and save His people and leave the others. And He is righteous
and just in that context. And so for some people during
this season, it's bad because of death. For some people, it's
bad because of fear. For some people, it's bad because
of economy. For some people, it's bad because of politics.
And so we get to a text like this, and it's very easy for
the pastor shepherd to get up here and see the fear of his
church and think, let's just take a week off from the word
of God and talk about politics. No can do. Y'all are looking
at me, please don't do this. No, no can do. No can do. Not gonna happen. Why? Because
we have overcome the world. We have overcome the world. See
the world, and this is, I talked about last Sunday, the world
promises everything. Do you know the very nature of
a politician promising change and success and a future as Antichrist? The very idea that we could put
our hope in chariots, put our hope in kings, put our hope in
crowns, put our hope in government, put our hope in an economy. You
know what God can do? Anything he wants. And you know
what God desires for his people? That through the suffering of
his people, we begin to be taught the sufficiency of his sovereignty. I want to say that again. Through
the suffering of His people, we are taught the sufficiency
of His sovereignty. And that means that in the trials
of having and then losing, of feeling joy and then feeling
burden, and all of these things, that God's discipline is His
loving action toward us as the elect, not to punish us, but
to bring us to the place where we recognize and we come to a
place of resting in His sovereignty over all these things. So that
we no longer have strong fear, but we have subtle fear where
His faithfulness is at work. His faithfulness is really the
dominant theme of our lives. But when everything is good,
when everything is great, when there's no division, when there's
no strife, when there's no stress, when there's no problem, when
there's no fear, the Word of God is powerless and the strength
of God is nothing. I'm gonna say that. And what
do I mean? In the life of His people. Beloved, it's all good
to show up to a 65 degree sunny day and have a great picnic,
five hours, playing games, singing hymns, and hearing the word of
God, and everything is good with the world. It is a false experience. It is a fake reality. Though
we may have it for three hours, it is not true concerning the
world in which we live. It's an escape. And sometimes
I believe that Sunday mornings have become an escape for many
of us. Gotta get away from this rat race, gotta come. That doesn't
mean that we don't use the assembly as a refuge. It's supposed to
be a refuge, but I think we play as actors on a stage. And the irony is sometimes that
though this is a stage platform, the seats are also a stage. We're
all doing our part to act our part and to live our part according
to the things that the culture has told us, that the world has
told us. But you know what the scripture says? We have overcome
the world. How? By Christ, who is the victor,
who is the conqueror, who has already overcome the world, the
faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what does that teach
us? What does that teach us? Is that
faith in Christ is sufficient for our joy. Faith in Christ
is sufficient for our life. Faith in Christ is sufficient
for our fear. Faith in Christ is not even going
to help us overcome our fears or remove our fears, but that
Christ, He Himself has already overcome the world. He has already overcome the world.
Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes
that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you understand that? So it's not I got my faith and
everything else is that everything else is nothing. I want to say
that again. Everything else is nothing. Work is nothing, home is nothing,
bills are nothing, taxes are nothing, illness is nothing,
health is nothing, happiness is nothing, career is nothing.
Savings is nothing, retirement is nothing, business is nothing,
grandchildren are nothing, children are nothing, marriage is nothing,
nothing, nothing, nothing. It's all nothing in comparison
to Christ so that when we know and recognize that we are in
Christ and we learn and His righteousness through our suffering. Then we
begin to put all these things in the right perspective and
we see that they are for our good and for His glory in the
context of His redemptive purposes and promises so that we live
our lives by faith in Him who loved us and gave Himself for
us. How did Paul learn that? By being
destroyed every day. By being given over to death
every day. And he says to the Corinthians, he says, though
every day in this body I've been given over to death, in every
day we die, but death is in our body, but life is in yours. Makes sense, doesn't it? When
we see what he says to the church of Colossae, he says, I pray
I may fill up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for
your sake. What is lacking? Nothing in sufficiency. but in
its witness, in its witness. If there's one lie that the devil
has propagated over the culture of American Church, of American
Christianity, is that a successful ministry is a ministry without
strife. Show me a ministry that teaches
the truth and a people that love each other unconditionally in
the gospel of grace, and I will show you a people who have been
strung through the stringer in the smallest hole, who have been
put through a strainer through pressure, who have gone through
hell and stood firm against the fiery darts of the enemy. You show me a people who all
get along and their myopic views of whatever it is that they hold
dear, these are not God's people. These are not God's people. That
doesn't mean that we don't hold dear myopically the gospel. I
saw some of your faces going, wait a minute, what? But you
know what I mean. These alternate views, these alternate things,
these, you know, we love nationalism. We love liberty, we love justice.
Good, I do too. But it's not about Christ. For
the justice of God is seen in the death of Jesus. and the justice
of God against all unrighteousness will be poured out eternally
against those who are not his. And he is just in that execution. So the believer is born again. The believer here in 1 John is
the recipient of this letter. The believer, verse one of chapter
five, everyone who has who believes that Jesus is the Christ, has
been born of God. That's a past tense. And everyone
who loves the Father, loves whoever has been born of Him. By this
we know that we love the children of God. You ask, how do we love? By this, when we love God and
obey His commandments. For this is the love of God that
we keep His commandments. What commandments? The two that
he's talking about, to love the Lord and to love one another.
This is the only context of commandment that is being discussed in this
letter. To love the Lord your God by loving your neighbor as
yourself, by loving your brothers and sisters in Christ, by loving
your enemies. We are broadcasting tonight because
I was broke down last week. So that question is on the table.
How do we love our enemies? How do we pray for our enemies?
So this is the commandments of God. And His commandments are
not burdensome. Now see, next week we're going
to get into verse 13 of this text, which says, I write these
things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that
you may know that you have eternal life. Some complexity there. I'm gonna close out with that
phrase this morning, and then next week we pick up. And this
is the confidence that we have toward Him. We ask anything according to
his will, he hears us. You know that anything according to his
will is to help us live in a manner worthy of the calling of the
gospel in the context of getting the primary commandment down
in our lives to love the Lord by loving one another and serving
one another, by believing all things, by accepting the testimony
of Christ in our mouths and hearts. by engaging in a way that takes
care of one another's needs, by encouraging each other. How
many of you, don't raise your hand, but I'll tell you this,
I preach on Wednesday night about the discipline of the Lord, and
it's like Thursday morning, God said, let me show you what it
looks like. Have you had a week like that?
I know some of you have, you've told me. I mean, that's the way
it is, isn't it? You remember the old adage, don't
pray for patience. Because then you pray for patience.
How do you maintain patience? The same way you grow muscle,
you tear up the muscle. You tear up the muscle by picking
up things that are heavier than what you're normally used to
picking up. And when the muscle heals, it's bigger and it's stronger.
That's how you gain muscle, by destruction. That's how you gain
spiritual muscle, by destruction, by failing, by stress, by fractures,
by tears. So when we want the tear and
the stress and the fractures and the division and the strife,
we want all this stuff to be gone, which is common sense,
right? What we're actually saying is,
Lord, I don't want to grow. I just want to know. I want the
facts of faith, but not the life of faith. I just want the knowledge
of things. I want the quick tab. Give me
all the justification verses. Give me the 15 elements of the
atonement. Give me all these systems, and
let me get them into my head. But I don't want to work through
this in my life. I want to sit around with the
brothers and just talk shop rather than do the work. And see, it
doesn't work that way. We do the work. That's why we're
here, beloved. That's why we're here to do the work of the ministry.
That's why we're here to grow in that context of learning to
love the Lord by loving one another. It's why this pulpit exists.
Otherwise, I'd be in a seminary. Don't know which one. Had to
start one, I guess. We're trying that. The church is not to be a seminary
in the sense that we learn stuff. The church is to be a family
where we learn stuff as we grow. Where we learn stuff as we hurt. Where we learn stuff as we learn
to grow through these things. The greatest testimony of gospel
living is when we have strife and God heals the strife. When
we have divisions and God keeps us together. when we have hurt
and pain and God helps us overcome it and still love one another
with a deeper love than we had before. And beloved, Grace Truth
Church is not a stranger to pain. We are not a stranger to hurt.
We are not a stranger from attacks, from within and without. We are
not a stranger to that and we will continue to see that as
long as we hold fast to the gospel. As long as we hold fast to the
authority of the word of God, we will be in pain. And so the one that overcomes
the world is the one who is the overcomer, who has faith in Jesus
Christ. People in the context of John's
writing, as we've talked about, if you've forgotten all this,
you can go back into the first three or four weeks and you can
re-listen to this. But you need to understand there are people
who were hurting the body of Christ by coming in and changing
the doctrines of Christ, by coming in and talking about how, oh,
you guys weren't saved. We don't know why the details,
but people who make those accusations, and then they make those accusations
based on some other condition that they've applied to the individual
rather than the condition that Christ has applied to the individual,
which is his death on the cross. You realize faith in your own
faith is a failed faith. And faith in Jesus Christ stands
against all things because Jesus Christ says, I am the way. I
am the truth. I am the life. He tells Martha,
I am the resurrection and the life. So that when you have life,
you have Christ. If you are granted eternal life,
it's because you've been granted to be found in Christ. And all
that he's done. and all that he's accomplished.
The effectual nature of the work of Jesus Christ accomplished
redemption. And the Holy Spirit of God applied
that to the elect. And when God the Spirit sees
fit, when he's ready, at the occasion of his choosing, he
causes his people to believe. He causes his people to believe.
And then from that moment on, we grow. And then we're inundated
with all sorts of worldly promises, all sorts of spiritual things
and religious promises, all sorts of division and individuality
and self-righteousness that always comes. And we may stomp our right
foot and say, no, I don't believe that. But on our left foot, we're
tipping over there to test the water to see how deep it is. And God's like, okay, I'll put
a couple of pebbles there. And they take that second step,
boom, they're gone. but He holds us up. He brings us to the surface. He will not let us drown because
He has bought us through the blood of Christ. We cannot fail.
We cannot fail. But there will always be people who are stirring division
in the body of Christ. There will always be people who
will twist the prophets, who will twist the New Testament,
who will twist the scripture. 2 Corinthians chapter four, we
see that. Paul says very clearly, we do not, we do not, Practice
cunning. We do not twist scripture. We
do not take things in our own ideas and start to make them
apply like the Pharisees did. But by bold, clear statement
of the truth before you and before God, our conscience is clear. But if people can't see it, see
there's my problem. You want to know my biggest sin?
This. I can't accept the fact that people can't see it in my
flesh. I can't accept the fact that
those who have walked with me for so long sometimes just walk
away. I can't accept the fact that when we take for granted
an inquiry is genuine when it's really ammunition against a trial. You think that FBI agent's your
buddy? Stop talking. You know, that kind of thing.
I do have FBI friends, but we don't talk much. They don't just
check on you unless they're investigating something. And that's a joke. But when we get through at the
end of the day, I don't like it. Paul says, if our gospel,
even if our gospel is veiled, It is only veiled to those who
are perishing. Even though they can't see it,
they can't see it because they're perishing. Because the God of this world
has blinded the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the
light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. That's 2
Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1 through 4. What does it say at the beginning
of that? We don't lose heart. See, that's the problem. I lose heart.
My humanity loses heart. My flesh loses heart. My mind
loses heart. I lose heart. I want to fix it. Then I pray
like a hero. I pray like a hero. I want to
overcome the world by having the power to do it. I want to
be granted the hammer of Thor or the stickiness of Spider-Man
or the magical power of Dr. whatever his name is. who can
stop time, or the strength of the Hulk, or just the arsenal
of the Punisher. You see? That's what we want. Lord, give me the strength. Sounds
like He-Man, doesn't it? I have the power. Or C&C Music
Factory. No. He has the power. And not only
does he have the power, he's already conquered. He's already
conquered. And beloved, that's why we're
here today, so that you can be encouraged to know that Christ has conquered.
That's why we're here today, that you can be encouraged to
know that all the swallowing, the swallowing. I've had a lot
of experience with water in my life and flooding and all sorts
of things. But recently, as we see holes go into the ground
and the groundwater swallow up stuff, I mean, it's just, I sit
there watching it sometimes and I'm going, that's amazing. Just
underfoot right now there's enough water to put this city 400 feet
deep. All it has to do is come up. All it has to do is let go. The land that we know it's gone,
the United Ocean of America. And it's all by the mercy of
God he upholds the power, upholds the universe by the word of his
power. Sometimes I feel like that in my life. I feel like
everything that is on me has just swallowed me up. I'm just
at the end of that vortex, at the bottom of that drain, in
the midst of a rock bed of water. You ever felt that way? You feel
that way today? In those moments, the strength of the Lord Jesus
Christ is its greatest. Because there's one thing we
cannot do, beloved, We cannot convince, we cannot persuade,
we cannot change the heart of humanity. We cannot change the
culture, we cannot change morality, we cannot change the context.
Jesus has not said he would save a nation. The Lord has never
said he'd save a country. He's never said that he would
save everyone. He's never said that he desires
to save an office, or a politician, or the morality of a people. Because even when we're doing
our best, we're still wicked. And the greatest of deeds, the
greatest of morals is still filthy rags before God in the context
of righteousness. That is why we do not operate
writing and buying and selling in the economy of justice. We
operate in the economy of grace. And the only tender that can
be used is faith. That's it. Nothing else. Can't give your life, can't give
your mind, can't give your hands. You can't come before the Lord
and say, look at me, I'm trying. What is a try but a failed attempt?
Wasted experience. First loser. All that kind of
stuff. Stop trying and just be. Be the
instrument of God's mercy. Be the instrument as a child
of God who has been purchased by the blood of Christ. Rest
in the sufficiency of the finished work of Jesus that God the Father
has adopted you. That God the Father has snatched
you out of darkness. That God the Father has transferred
you into the domain of the kingdom of the righteousness of himself
who is Jesus Christ. And then God the Son has given
his life for you. God the Son has propitiated the
Father. You realize the interaction of
redemptive work is between God and the persons of God, the Father
and the Son. And then the activity of God
the Spirit who does the work of redeeming, who does the work
of faith, who does the work of sealing, who does the work of
teaching, who does the work of empowering. This is the overcoming of the
world. But yet these unbelievers amongst
these believers wanted to tell them, you're not believing the
truth. You are not in Christ. So John solidifies that for them
very clearly. The believer, that is, the one
who is born again, who is the elect child, who is regenerate,
overcomes the world. That was last week. Today, I
want you to see that the believer, the born again elect child, believes
the testimony of Christ. believes the testimony of Christ.
Let's look here. In verse four of chapter five,
it says, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world,
and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.
Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes
that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He, the Son of God is
He, who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. not by the water
only, but also the water and the blood. And the Spirit is
the one who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. Go to verse 9. If we receive
the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is
the testimony of God that he has born concerning his son. Whoever believes in the son of
God has the testimony in himself. And whoever does not believe
God has made God to be a liar because he is not believing the
testimony that God is born concerning his son. And this is the testimony
that God gave us. eternal life and this life is
in His Son. So whoever has the Son has life
and whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life
and I write these things to you who are the believing ones, who
are believing now in the name of the Son of God that you may
know that you have eternal life. So the believer receiving this
letter is shaken. It's shaken by the revisionist
who have changed the nature of Christ, who have changed the
purpose of redemption, who have changed the outcome of faith,
who have changed the attitudes and actions of affection and
what it means to be in a community who have said they know all about
who God is, yet they are changing these things. And John is saying,
you're worrying about all too much stuff. I want to focus on
the very things that you should be concerned with. You should
be concerned with that which you know, that was from the beginning,
which you have heard, and I have heard, and we have heard, and
now we've made known to you, the testimony of Christ concerning
himself, which is not just the word of God spoken through the
prophets, not just the word of God spoken through Jesus, not
just the word of God spoken through the apostles, but Jesus himself
and the work he did testify. Remember when we were in John's
gospel and we were in John chapter 4 and John chapter 5, John chapter
6 and things got really, I mean it just sort of heated up and
got really exciting? I remember them. And there's a specific thing
that I constantly said throughout probably a year or so of that
teaching, that Jesus is doing the word, speaking the word of
God. He's doing the work of God. He's fulfilling the will of God.
So as God speaks, as the father speaks, Jesus is speaking. As
the son does, the father was working until now I'm working.
That's what Jesus says. So you want to see the work of
God. You see Jesus and his life. You see Jesus and his work. You
see what he does. You want to hear the word of
God. You listen to Christ. You want to see the will of God.
You put those two together and you understand and comprehend
it. This is the point. And beloved, this is a mighty
work of God, a supernatural divine work of God through which he
causes his elect to understand these things and be settled in
our heart and spirit and mind. And so you might say, well, why'd
you skip over verses 7 and 8 there? Because they're not, I don't
think, canonical. Just don't find evidence for
that. But we can talk about them. They're just not canonical. I
don't think they fit. And there's been a lot of heebie-jeebies
in there, a lot of stuff throughout the ages who have placed some
things in there, like Erasmus placed some things in there,
the King James Bible placed some things in there, aren't necessary.
And the context that is taught there also is taught clearly
in there, the verses. So when we go through it, we'll
look at them, but I wanted to read them in that way. The believer
believes the testimony of Christ. The believer believes the testimony
of the Spirit. The believer believes the testimony
of the word, the believer believes the testimony of the Father,
and the believer believes the testimony of the work of Christ,
and so on and so forth. And so when we see this, this
is He. We who are in Christ believe in the Son of God and He has
overcome the world. We therefore have already overcome
the world. And this is He, the Son of God,
who came by water and blood. Now I want to stop right there
and I want you to look at the literal issue that's taking place here.
Now there are some incredibly poetic ways and contextual ways
in which we can understand the reality of what has happened,
but this is about the literal incarnation and the literal work
of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came by water in
His testimony. You see what I'm saying? What's
the context there? The testimony of Jesus. What is Jesus revealed
concerning himself? The testimony of Jesus in water,
the testimony of Jesus in blood. What is it that John, John's gospel is sort of famous
for omitting? A lot, right? But in one sense
we see that he doesn't really dive a whole lot into the baptism
of Jesus, does he? He doesn't go into a lot of those
details, he just states it. John the Baptist has testified
this is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
John the Baptist, as Jesus comes to the Jordan River and he says,
it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness that I am baptized.
After John, the Baptist says, no, I don't want to baptize you.
I don't want to do that. You baptize me because he knows
who he is. But what happens at the baptism
of Jesus? What happens at the water? There
are three who testify. Jesus' ministry began at his
baptism. Jesus' ministry was completed
and fulfilled at the cross. He said it himself, it's finished! Now I love to consider and to
think deeply about the fact of what Jesus' life was like. About
what the boy was like, about what the child was like, about
what the baby was like, about what the adolescent was like,
the teenager, the young man. What was Jesus like before his
frontal lobe was complete? Before his beard came in. I mean,
it doesn't matter because it's not important. What's important
is that the testimony of God the Father concerning his son
is established not just through the prophets, but verbally right
there at the day of his baptism. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of people have come down and stood before John and John took
his hand on top of their head and he raised his hand up and
in and in Rabbinic fashion he pushed them down under the water
as they squatted and then they stood back up He went under the
water and they came back up as a symbol of washing and remission
of sins and redemption as a symbol as a sign of one saying I trust
in the promises of God for cleanliness and Yet before that time, it
was a ritual cleansing. There were three forms of baptism,
pouring, four forms of baptism, pouring, immersion, sprinkling,
and wiping. And they were practiced throughout
the first century in the context of worship. Here, John is saying,
you know who I'm talking about. the one who came from God. Isn't
that what Jesus says? What is it that we must be doing
to do the work of God? They ask him at John 6 after
he has fed them. What does he say? This is the
work of God. This is the work of God. That
you believe on the one whom he has sent. No one can come to
me Unless the father who sent me draws him and I, the son of
God, will raise that one, him, up on the last day, as it is
written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God.
Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. So the Son of God is he who came
by water, by baptism, that at that moment when he came out
of the water, not like the hundreds before him, when he came out
of the water something different took place. The Spirit of God descended upon
Jesus. It says like a dove, that's a
simile. You understand anything about
grammar and writing? That's an employment of something
that is like. It didn't say a dove, it said
like a dove. It wasn't a bird sitting on Jesus.
It was as if, like a bird would sit down on a light on a wire.
When we would dove hunt, I always liked to get by a pole. Levi
knows about that until you get by the pole when you're young,
because you don't have to shoot them flying. But as you get older
and you get larger guns, you don't really want to be shooting
at the flyer. But back to the point. When they
start to sit down, they slow down a little bit and they light
very lightly. They don't run into what they're landing and
get up and stars around their head and then they topple themselves.
No, a bird is very delicate. A bird is very light. So the
Spirit of God in some way was manifested in a way in which
people could notice something descending on the Son of God. And then the voice of God the
Father. The voice of God the Father said, this is my beloved
Son with whom I am well pleased. Now there's a lot to be said
here. I could go on a couple of week treatise on the doctrines
of Christ and his eternal nature. God the Son is eternal as a person. God the Father is eternal as
a person. God the Spirit is eternal as a person. These things are
taught without fail in the Bible in its context. These three persons
who are one God, who are God, have revealed themselves
in this way, but most importantly, God the Father has revealed that
this is His Son. And God the Spirit has testified
that He is the Divine Anointed One because He has lit upon Him
in a way that witnesses saw it. And then for four years, Jesus'
ministry of teaching and doing the word and the will of God
and the work of God manifested to the day in which the blood
came. You see, the blood where Jesus died on the cross and shed
his blood for the remission of the sins of his elect people
to pay in total for the justice of God's righteousness. so that
God could be the just and the justifier of all who have been
given to the Son. All who have been given to the
Son before the foundations of the world. His elect. He, the Son of God who has overcome
the world, you have been born of God if you believe in Him,
His work, His person, what the scriptures reveal concerning
Him. You know the Son of God who came by water, who was revealed
by baptism, who was revealed by the testimony of the Father,
who was revealed by the testimony of the Spirit, who those testimonies
also were of the prophets. You realize there's not a day
in created history that the promise of Messiah has not been. Not a day. On the day Eve was
given to Adam, she was tempted to eat of the fruit that was
forbidden. And she failed. And we see this in Genesis. We see that at that moment God
promised Jesus. for Christ. Not Jesus, Moses'
assistant, but Jesus the Christ. And the blood of Christ is the
testimony of Christ. The baptism of Christ is the
testimony of Christ. We see who He is. We know what He's done. And so to be counted as a child
of God, one must have faith in this testimony. So you see the problem with these
incredibly cultural distinctions? You see the problem for those
of you who know me and have heard about my ministry experiences
and all the exposure that I've had to so many different things?
It's like sister said today, why is it that it seems like
every person you spend time with ends up falling off the wagon? Going crazy, stabbing you in
the back. It's not every person. But it's a majority of people.
That's what happens when you get around folks, you think,
wow, we're all believers. And then we preach the gospel
according to the word of God. We have no idea what all these
other things are, what all these other things mean. We just assume
everybody's on the same page. And then just a few weeks in,
they go, I don't like what you're saying. I don't like how you're
preaching. You must be a Calvinist. A Calvinist, what is that? A racist? That's what I thought
a Calvinist was. What's a Calvinist? Nobody can tell me, but they
thought I was one. A few years later, oh, you must be Reformed. We can't have that kind of people
here. Reformed? I'm deformed, but I don't know
what you're talking about. Well, you ain't going to preach
that. Well, I'm going to preach the word of God. Well, you need
to go someplace else. You need to get out of here.
We're not going to tolerate this kind of stuff. You ever been there? You ever
joined an assembly of believers and gotten into a Bible study
or got to know some pastors and next thing you know, they're
saying, hey man, slow your roll. What do you know? We're not going
to be that distinct. In other words, what it means
is we're not going to exegete. We're not going to expose the scripture.
We're going to pick and choose some really cool things that
would be good on grandma's coffee table. We'll pull them out. Remember
those bread of life? You ever have those? The plastic
bread with all the little cards in it? Yeah, we had several of
them. Somebody gave them to us for Christmas when I was a kid
one time. And it had a Bible verse in it. There was never
anything out of John 6 in there. Never any Romans 9. Never any
John 10. Daily Bread, remember that magazine?
The greatest value of that magazine is the fiber in its pages, if
you ran out of food. That's the world of Christianity,
it's just a subtle, nuanced, feel good, yay, Jesus, God, it's
all great. Praise God from whom all blessings
flow, you know. This month I've got free HBO.
I mean, that's how it works. That's about as significant as
the blessings of God are for the cultural Christianity of
our day. Hey, I got free cable for a month. When you preach the truth, it's
gonna cost you. And it's not just the gospel truth. When John
holds the line about how the body ought to operate and live
and deal with things, and how we discuss and distinguish who
are and who are not our brothers and sisters in Christ, by the
testimony of the gospel, it rubs. And fatalities are inevitable. Jesus Christ came into the ministry
by water, through baptism. But not just baptism, but by
the blood of the cross. And the Spirit is the one who
testifies of Christ, because the Spirit is the truth. Isn't that crazy? Jesus says,
I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and the Spirit
of God is the truth. John has already said, God is
love. God is light. God is truth. So just as Christ's ministry
was witnessed by many the witness of God the Father and God the
Spirit also testify to the ministry of Christ and more importantly
testify to the truth of the ministry of Christ that Christ by definition
is the one who has come from God and the only one that God
was sending is the one who could redeem his people from the world
and the only ones who will be redeemed from the world are those
who God has loved everlastingly who will believe the testimony
of God the Father, and of God the Spirit, and of God the Son,
and of the Apostles, that which we now proclaim to you, that
you may have fellowship with us, and that our fellowship is
with the Father and with the Son, that your joy may be full. This is the reason for this letter,
that your joy may be full, that you would not be troubled and
broken and depressed and downtrodden over the nuances of this sinful
and fallen world, and that you would not be cut to the heart
when those among us do not hold to the truth because they want
to judge in a different way. It's devastating. It's my greatest
sin. I want to fix it. And I'm a fighter. I'm arrogantly able to fix it
in my own mind. If I could just get this. You
ever been that way? Man, Christ's overcome the world. So the believer, the born-again
child of God, the born-again elect child, believes the testimony
of Christ in the Spirit and the Word and the Father, as evidenced
by the baptism of Jesus, as evidenced by the finished work of Christ
on the cross. He has given life to his people. You've heard me
say out of John 6 already, I will raise him up on the last day. Eternal life is the promise.
It is the blessed hope. Eternal life is Christ so that
we are in Christ. That means we believe him For
he says I am the bread of life that comes down from heaven And beloved we witness this don't
we We witness this gospel this good news when we hear and are
taught by God the Spirit and we witness this when we actually
testify to it and proclaim it We witness this when we stand
firm, though it would be better to please men and be in some
sense of unity because we love others. But beloved, if we do
that, we are compromising the gospel. The Spirit is a witness. The
Father is a witness. The apostles are witnesses. The
Word of God is a witness. And we can make a very good argument
that the Word of God is like the water to the seeds of the
soil. But ultimately, the word of God is Jesus Christ alone. The born again elect child overcomes
the world and believes this testimony. And the born again child has
faith in this testimony, has this testimony in him and herself,
period. Because we've already said that
the audience of this letter are the elect who are born again. In John 5, Jesus says, I'm gonna
tell you this most assuredly, Those who hear my word and believe
the one who has sent me has everlasting life. And that one will not pass
into judgment, but has passed from death unto life. That's
in John 5. And if you know much about what's
going on in John chapter 5, that's a scathing rebuke. That's where
Jesus tells the Jews, the Pharisees, that the word of God is not in
them. that they search the Scriptures day and night for eternal life.
But it is He who testifies to life. You look to Moses because
you think Moses is going to save you. You think the separation
of Israel from the peoples of the world is what brings assurance. Jesus says, I'm not going to
indict you before the Father. Moses is going to indict you
because he wrote of me. The elect child of God understands
and trusts in this work, in this testimony. Believing on the one
whom the Father has sent. So what's the context? Doubt
is the context. Doubt. Doubt. You know the greatest
thing that causes us to doubt? It's not necessarily our sin,
is it? Is it? Yeah, man, I see sin in my life
and I'm doubting. But it's not the sin that causes us to doubt.
It's the people who call us to doubt because of sin. It's the people who call us out
to doubt because of a condition that they have created that we
don't meet. It's other people who claim to be loving us who
are not loving us because they do not stand with us on the gospel
alone. So what do we do with our doubts?
We stand in the truth of this testimony. We stand in it. We stand in the
truth of all the powerful evidences as witnesses. We don't have to
worry about what the preacher gets right. We don't have to
worry about history. We don't have to worry about
theology. We don't have to worry about, you know, the culture. We don't
have to worry about anything because the scripture has already
testified to the witness of the finished work of Jesus. This
is the work of God. And so we stand in the truth
of God's promise with all the witness of God himself. Now think
about that for a second. Though there were 500 plus people
who saw the ascension, though there were hundreds and probably
thousands who witnessed the crucifixion, it is not their testimony that
satisfies our soul, is it? Though we see the apostles and
their writings concerning these physical eye, that which we have
seen, that we have heard, that we've touched with our hands.
I want you to think about that. We've touched Jesus. We've sat
with Jesus. We've heard Jesus. For three
and a half, four years, we've been taught by Jesus. We spent
all of our days, morning, noon, night, and overnight with Jesus,
except when he disappeared. And we didn't know where he was.
And we looked like fools out there going, I don't know. For the most part, they spent
with Him. It's not even that experience that gives credibility
to the witness of the gospel that saves. It is God Himself. It is Christ Himself. It is the
Father. It is the Spirit. And so we hold fast, as Paul
would say to the Hebrew people, hold fast your confession of
hope. As he would tell Timothy, which
is a letter written to an elder, to be understood in the context
of elders, by the way. And everybody in the body is
not an elder, so everybody in the body doesn't have to obey
all the things that are taught in Timothy, nor do they have
the authority to exercise those judgments. Why is it written then? So you
can check me. So when the elder brothers, after
a couple of weeks or whatever, start getting some puzzle pieces
put together because two or more witnesses have said the same
thing to them, then they have to make a judgment. The confession of our hope. What
do we do with our doubts? We hold fast. We stand in the
confession of our hope. What else can we do? We encourage
each other. We should encourage our brothers and sisters who
become bewitched. You want to know what demonic
activity looks like? Let me show you what demonic
activity is not. Demonic activity is not the culture in which we
live. Is it true? Yeah, but put that aside. That's obvious. Demonic activity
is not devil worship. Is it true? Yeah, but let's put
that aside. Demonic activity is charading as life. The devil is not out there to
look evil, he's out there to look righteous. The work of the
enemy is to look righteous, is to be pious, is to speak the
Word of God, is to align himself and others according to his nature
as liars to come into the body of Christ as wolves and serpents
and dogs and anything else and to bother the believers culturally,
individually and in the assembly. So the enemy is all about bewitching
believers. Converted, regenerate brothers
and sisters in Galatia are the subject and recipients of that
letter. They were believing the gospel
and then now they were believing the conditions. It doesn't go
the other way around. You haven't been born again when
you heard the conditions and you put your trust in them. But
you have been born again when you believed in the gospel and
you put your trust in Him. But the business of the enemy
is constantly trying to bewitch the believer. And believers can be deceived. And believers can doubt. And
believers can worry. And believers can be wrong. And
believers and pastors and everybody else in that fold, deacons, servants,
and missionaries, and evangelists can get on a roll when they hear
something like, That's an easier way to explain that. Let me teach
it for 30 years. Not really that long. Let me
teach it for three weeks until somebody slaps the silly out
of me. That's what Paul did. He slapped the silly out of a
bunch of folks when he sent that letter to the region of Galatia.
And he's angry. He was not angry at the church. You don't get angry with the
church. You don't get angry with those, but you can get angry
with false teaching. But you don't get angry with
the person who's believing it when they claim to be your brother
and sister in Christ. You teach them rightly, you encourage them
in the faith. People are bewitched by false things and they're confused
by the world's conditions. How many of us are confused in
our spirit and conflicted in the context of our culture right
now? It has nothing to do with spirituality. But we don't know
whether we need to get up and look at the news or throw ourselves
out of a two-foot window. Just a two-foot one. Brush ourselves
off and go, OK, I had to get out of that house for a minute.
I'm going back inside. We remind each other of the truth
that they have been shown by the Spirit of God and to hold
fast to the confession of hope that is witnessed by the Lord
Himself. And we are to remind believers that we have received,
we should remind each other that we have received the promises
of God in Christ alone. Many people doubted in the New
Testament. John the Baptist doubted. Peter doubted. Peter and James had some issues
later in their apostolic ministries. The issue, I believe, beloved,
is learning to read and comprehend basic grammar in one sense. How do we do that? Let me give
you some practical things. I think we need to learn not
just the discipline of reading the Bible on an ongoing basis,
but learn how to read the Bible. And here's how you read the Bible.
Here's how you grow in your understanding of scripture. Read it. That's all you gotta do. Read it. Don't
read the verse. If you've got a daily verse,
great, keep the daily verse, put it back in the bread sack, and
then read an entire letter. I had a brother email me this
morning who was encouraged some months ago to do what the scripture
called for him to do in the context of his home. So he and his wife
got together, and now they read the Bible. They just read the
Bible. That's what we're to do. We don't have to teach theology.
We don't have to teach doctrine. We don't have to parse out things.
Just read the Bible together as a family. That's the most
important thing we could do. We should be doing that every
single day if we can, but at least before we come to the assembly,
we should be reading the Bible at least once. And we should
be reading it in context, and as we read more and more and
more, we'll begin to take hold of what the Bible is teaching
in its context. And the writing of the scripture
by the power and the witness of the Holy Spirit will become
our overall God. Why do you say that, Tippins?
Because that which we know and have heard and have believed
is Jesus. And the Word of God reveals the testimony of Christ.
So we don't need to be listening to all this truncated and particle-based
system of religion. These particles and this idea
and that idea. Listen to the Word of God and
let the Word of God be your judge. You judge your faith and your
eternal hope by what the Bible promises for you. Not by what
I say. And in turn, you judge my preaching
by the Word of God. Not my vocabulary, please. Not my grammatical prowess. but by the word of God. And so
in doing so, do not listen to anyone who tries to judge your
eternal life by anything but the gospel of grace. And beloved,
as Jude would teach us, we need to separate ourselves from listening
to that stuff. Stop engaging in the arguments
of people who aren't standing submissively and humbly in the
gospel, period. The more we breathe on a fire,
the hotter it gets. You realize that? I've got a little fire pit at
home. I'm trying to set up an air hose. I want that thing to burn. Air
hose. Everything I put in, it melts. The more we breathe, These people
who try to revise the gospel, try to revise conditions, the
more we give credibility to the debate, the harder they get.
Separate yourself from them. And we should also remind believers
of the promises. We should also remind each other
that our faith is not the anchor of our hope. I want you to hear
this. I know I've gone a little bit
longer, but listen to this. Our faith is not the anchor of our
hope. It is the object of our faith. In 1996, when I began to teach
and preach, I named my ministry Anchoring Faith. Because that's
really what it all looks like for me. is that Christ is the anchor
of my hope. He is the one who has attached
me to his righteousness. He is the one who has tethered
me to his glory. He is the one who has captured
me and chained me. You realize we're chained to
him. We are bound to him. Remember some months ago when
I talked about putting away sin, little children, I write these
things. Because we are bound to Christ,
He is bound to us, we cannot escape Him, we cannot escape
His testimony, we cannot escape His work, the efficacy of His
redemptive work. It is not possible to be separated
from Christ so that when we engage in a way that is unworthy of
His name, we are dragging Christ into the debauchery of our flesh. And the witness of Christ is
tainted by those that see, and in our own conscience. But we
need to remind each other that the faith that we have is not
the anchor, but it is the testimony of God concerning us. It is the
testimony of God concerning Christ. Because see, Antichrist conditions
salvation on merit. Antichrist conditions salvation
on a proper form of knowledge. Antichrist conditions salvation
on associations. And I have a long list in my
head of things that I could talk about. Antichrist belittle the
knowledge of grace. By refusing to love, by refusing
to submit to the scripture no matter where it comes from. That's
the spirit of Antichrist. The spirit of Antichrist calls
people to doubt the promises of God. The spirit of Antichrist
changes the nature of Christ and his eternal essence. That's
why understanding the Trinitarian truth of Christ is essential. But believers can be wrong. So
the Word of God is shown and then God shows them. And those
who refuse to submit to the Word of God, even our brothers, what
do we do? We separate from them and treat
them as unbelievers until such a time as God the Spirit causes
them to come back into our life and ask for reconciliation. There's always a time for hard
conversations as believers. But the point of those conversations
is for reconciliation, not getting one's own way. Antichrist, the spirit of antichrist
stirs strife amongst the beloved against the doctrines of Christ,
often by imposing their own convictions instead of the pure context of
scripture as a witness to the truth. God's witness concerning himself
and his son. See, our assurance is based on the revelation of
God alone. On the witness of God alone, on the testimony of
God alone. Look at the rest of this text. Verse nine, if we
receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.
I've already taught this, I just forgot to read it. You hear what I say, you need
to test it by what God has said. In context. What we're talking
about today. For this is the testimony of
God that He is born concerning His Son." And here it is, whoever
believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever
does not believe, God has made God a liar because he does not
believe in the testimony of God as born concerning His Son. So
when we see people not believe the sufficiency of the gospel
of grace, they are saying, I do not believe God. And by saying
I do not believe God, they are saying God is a liar. And that is the spirit of Antichrist.
And I've already preached it. I've already explained it. I
just forgot to read it. And what is the testimony? What
is the promise? What is the revelation of God? What is it that God gave
us? Eternal life. Look at verse 11. Eternal life. That is what you
have when you have Christ because Christ has you. How do you get
Christ? Because you've been given to
Him. How have you been crucified with Christ? Because when Christ
died, He substituted Himself for you. Whoever has the Son has life.
Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I
write these things to you, those of you who believe, right now,
in the name of the Son of God, so that you can have confidence
that you have eternal life. He's talking about this, verse
6 through 13. Not the whole letter, okay? That's the syntax, right there. I'm telling you about this testimony,
I'm telling you about this witness, John says, for those of you who
believe so that you can know that you have assurance in your
belief. To know that the witness of the Word, the witness of the
work of Christ, the witness of the Apostles, the witness of
the Beloved, we have eternal life and you can be confident
in that. Why? Because this is the work of God. This is the
promise of God. So don't put any other conditions
whatsoever. Don't put a time on. Stop worrying about the biggest
idol that I believe that Christians have is when they were saved. March 12th, 1978, whatever, 3.15
in the afternoon. Because typically those types
of pinpoints pinpoint to some type of action. But there are some that can say,
hey, I remember when I heard the gospel for the first time,
great. But don't worship that day. Don't
worship that moment. Don't worship that conversion
experience. Don't worship the testimony that's in you about
what you have become. Worship the Christ whose testimony
is sufficient to save his people, because it did. And in that and in that alone
are we going to find the greatest of joy. And in that and that
alone are we going to find the greatest of power to love one
another and to be long-suffering and patient as we grow and deal
with all these nuances and all the stuff and all the silliness
and the knuckleheadedness that's going to come in and out of our
lives for the remainder of them. Because it's going to get a lot
worse and it's going to be a lot better. No matter what it is,
it's going to never, ever change. But one thing that does never
change, one thing that will always be the same, not only that we
suffer, but it will ebb and flow, is the finished work of Jesus.
It's the Christ and His redemptive work so that we no longer have
to fear, but we can rest. Isn't that what we want? Rest,
rest. So rest in the gospel, beloved,
and share this truth with those around you. Share this truth
with your family. Share this truth. Teach them
of who Christ is and what he did for his people. And let the
word of God be your guide. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for your everlasting love. We thank you for putting no conditions
on our salvation that you yourself have not met in Christ. Thank
you, Father, for giving us clarity and simple grace. Thank you for
giving us a mind to see the simplicity of your word. Lord, keep us from
conflating the parts and the pretext that are so easily just
disturbing the body. Help us to not feel animosity,
but to have genuine affection for those around us, even our
enemies, even those who seem to be enemies, but are probably
not. But most of all, Father, help
us to avoid the constant intrusion of things that dissatisfy the
joy that comes in Christ. Whether it be politics or theology
or whatever it might be, Lord, help us to put away those things
that stand in the way of focusing on that which is most ultimate,
the terminal end of all creation, which is your glory and your
people who are made perfect by the finished work of Christ.
And it is in his name that we pray to you, our Father. Amen. Thank you, Church.