We're inching our way through
this little letter. And we're slowing down in Hebrews
11. Verse one, beloved, do not believe
every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from
God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
By this, you know, the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every
spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is
the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and
now is in the world already. Little children, you are from
God and have overcome them. For he who is in you is greater
than he who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore,
they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We
are from God. Whoever knows God listens to
us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this, we
know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved,
let us love one another, for love is from God. And whoever
loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not
love does not know God because God is love. And this is the
love of God. And this, the love of God, was
made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the
world so that we might live through him. And this is love, not that
we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to
be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If
we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected
in us. Okay. I remind us every week. There
is, I would say that almost every commentary written of man on
this text in print today is eisegetical. What's that mean? That means
that it's been, the text has been read into. If I eisegete
a letter that you write, I come predisposed with an understanding
of what I think you're trying to say and I make you say it.
If I eisegete a letter that you wrote, I read it, openly with
a clear and clean mind having no presumption about what you
intended and I read it and then read it again and read it again
and then through the reading out of the text, ex, out of the
text, exegete comes the meaning. We live in a world of eisegesis. In the old funny way, that's
the way I see Jesus, you know. We live in a world of it. We
live in a world of it where the religion of Christianity is now
eisegetical. Everybody comes with their predisposed
understanding of what should be so we can read into the text.
We can find a little tiny verse here, a little tiny verse there.
We can put it in a vacuum and create an entire movement around
it. Sometimes when people ask questions,
And a lot of people ask a lot of questions. But sometimes when
people ask questions, I can tell how they approach the Bible and
how they've been trained to approach the Bible from how they pose
their question. A lot of times people say, what
does this verse mean? What does this verse mean? What
does this word mean? What does this sentence mean?
Nothing wrong with the question. We should ask those questions.
But usually it comes from the idea that this verse doesn't
make sense, so I need to figure out how to understand this verse. And I want this verse to make
sense to me. So, we go to the verse, and how
do I answer those questions? Let's say that it is chapter
four and verse eight. Anyone who does not love does
not know God, because God is love. See there? Preacher, if
you don't love, you're not a Christian. It's not what John said. Quit
putting words in God's mouth. It doesn't say that anywhere
in this letter. Nowhere. And to say that proves
that we have been duped. If there is anything in the New
Testament by way of condition on the performance or the transformation
of the person whereby they can stand before God and he says,
if he ever would and he won't, okay, you're coming into heaven
because I love my brother. He's gonna thump us like a gnat
right out of there. That's not your confidence before
the Lord in salvation. Jesus Christ died in your place
on the cross 2,000 years ago. And your justification was purchased. Your righteousness is imputed.
The atonement is done. The payment has been made. That's
your assurance before the Father. But these relational realities
that we live in. This is why it is an absolute
horror to not be assembled together as a body. Because you can't get what you
need to get by listening to what this man says. There's a supernatural promise
in the context of assembly. whereby the Spirit of God, through
whatever means, you all and us together, will encourage and
grow one another. My job is not to grow the church. My job is to teach. My job is
to exegete. My job is to do that at the cost
of everything else, that God may grow the body to do the work
of the ministry. no ministry, no body, no body,
no ministry. I can go home. You see, the spirit of the Antichrist,
the spirit of the enemy, the spirit of the liar, the spirit
of the father of lies, the spirit of the devil by the sovereignty
of God is the means through which God continues to deceive the
nations. This lie is the means to which God continues to deceive
a majority of evangelicals, a majority of Protestants. I cannot talk
this morning. Protestants, I need some more
coffee. Protestants, I've got to get that out of there. A majority
of reformed guys and gals, a majority of Calvinists, a majority
of Arminians. And just so on and so forth.
You see these labels? How many could we put up on the
board if I wrote them all up on the board? We could have label after label
after label after label. God uses the enemy to deceive them. And the deception comes not blatantly
and clearly. We know what foolishness looks
like when people say, well, Jesus Christ isn't God. It doesn't take a converted person
to see what the Bible teaches. But we know that. Or God wants
you to be happy in the world when all of it's stuff. John
says not to love the world in all of its stuff. Or like 2020 vision. We were
talking about 2020 this morning. 0202, right? And I remember at the beginning
of the year and all these well-meaning prophets, the Lord is showing
me that it's going to be 2020 vision. Oh yeah, we're seeing
clearly now, aren't we? Clearly, clearly of what the
world really is, and we've seen nothing yet. We're looking at
the box of the, what are them things you put in your eyes?
The contacts. We're reading the warnings on the contacts. We
haven't even put them in our eyes yet. And what's 2021 gonna be? Same
old trash, different date. Same sovereign God, purposing
all of it for the joy of his people. for the benefit of his
people. We have to test the spirits,
beloved. And every truth that is uttered out of the mouth of
humanity is either in Christ or against Christ. There is no
such thing as neutrality. Well, I can prove you wrong.
This is a bottle of water. Touche. But where'd you get that
water? What you gonna do with it? What's
your intention behind trying to prove me wrong? I mean, we
can dig spiritually behind every truth claim, but let's don't
be silly. We know what I'm talking about.
When it comes to culture, when it comes to all the different
Aspects of life when we start to look at at community and religion
and faith and truth I mean there is so much out there. There are
things where people try to tie people try to tie everything
to Jesus And that in of itself is a lie
of the Antichrist And people in my position professionally
throughout my entire life have been experts at manipulating
people through those lies. And the crazy thing is they themselves
have also been deceived and not even know that they were doing
it. So if I wanted something out of you that was good, I could bind your conscience
to some way of me expressing the Bible. Don't believe me? Money. Oh my goodness. I could have it all. The reason you're sick is because
you don't have faith. You want to prove you've got
faith? Give some money. I don't have any money. Well, give that.
Give what you don't have. How many times have you heard
that? At a Baptist camp meeting. At an evangelical crusade. On
a Sunday morning. How about relationships? Well,
the reason that you're in such bad shape, financially, emotionally,
there's always a consequence. Now, there may be a consequence.
Our sin does come with a consequence. It comes with a consequence,
but not condemnation. We can manipulate, I could bind your
conscience to something. The only hope you have of making
sure that I don't become a charlatan, whether it be relationally, emotionally,
or financially, or whatever other lease that I could come up with,
is to read the Bible and know that there is a context from
which all these things flow, and that context involves a spirit. The spirit of truth and the spirit
of error. And there's a lot of error. And
there's a lot more error in the world than there will ever be
truth. And there will always be those who purvey wrong doctrine
above and beyond in exponential comparison to those who teach
and know the truth. The Bible shows, reveals, and
promises. I want to use that word emphatically.
The Bible promises that the road to salvation is narrow, that
the gate is narrow, that the way is narrow, and few, few,
few, few will find it. So when then the whole county
is a Christian, somebody's lying about Jesus. And the way evangelical life
has gone is they've isogeted texts like this in the book of
James, which is our next midweek read. When we're done with Hebrews,
it's going to go right into James. And they've said, okay, now I
know what Charles Finney meant. Now I know what D.L. Moody meant. Now I know what Billy Graham
meant. Now I know what they meant. These men, they knew what real
Christianity was all about. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. And very few
of the people that come after them do either. Pretty much,
you can close your eyes and throw a piece of salt in the air and
you can hit a heretic in our country. Don't worry about them. They're
God's heretics. He's got a plan for them. But
we've got to protect each other from diving into some of these
things. Hey, man, don't thump that rattlesnake
in the nose, cuz. What are you doing? And these people think, well,
I know how to test and see who really is. If 1,000 people say
they're Christians and 1,000 people obviously aren't Christians,
the whole town isn't a Christian, I'll put a test. This is what
these people have done. I'll test you. And where do they get
it from the Pharisees? The same idea of Judaism. Let
me see how you dress. Mm-mm-mm. You know he ain't loving
Jesus. I mean, you know. Mm-mm. How do you smell? Well, you don't
stink, but your cologne's a little strong. That's a little vain.
You ain't loving Jesus. Look at all that jewelry. I mean,
you get the point? Where's your hair covering, ladies?
I mean, we could go on and on. There you go. Everybody's swapping
hats now. We can go on and on and on. Yeah, the men are wearing
hats. The women aren't. All right.
We got it backwards at Grace Truth. And then, well, let me
watch how you live, what you're looking at on TV. These are not
bad things to consider, beloved. We ought to protect our eyes.
We ought to set our eyes apart. There are some things that bother
our conscience. Let's put them out so they don't destroy us.
There are certain things we put in our mouth that may be good
for me, but not good for you and vice versa. Don't destroy
yourself by violating your conscience on that which is good and prudent. There may be certain words. You
know, for we who are in the world, and I mean in the world, let
me tell you something, if I talk to 100 people a week, 90 of them's
gonna use the F word in front of me. And some of you know who I'm
talking about, no I'm playing. And we've gotta get to the point
where, you know, for me, profanity doesn't cause me to go, my seven
year old, oh my. She's the perfect censor. You know, turn that off. You
got it, sister. You know? Don't use profanity. But for some of you, it's horrifying. What is good? What is prudent?
What is useful? What is used for building up?
Do these things. But it doesn't prove that you
are or you are not saved by the grace and the mercy of God. It
may prove that you're immature. It may prove that you work in
a job in law enforcement. Pardon me, I'd like to get a
little aggressive here. I'm trying to buy crack. What? Would you please mind, you know,
trading me some crack for cash? I mean, is that how an undercover
agent talks? He must be FBI. And I've actually had people
say, well, there's no Christian that can be in politics and no real Christian
that can be in law enforcement, no real Christian who can be
a paramedic, no real Christian who can be a construction worker.
And the list goes on down. So you don't bind the consciences
of people. We can grow and mature. I'm not saying that we should
just throw caution to the wind. But beloved, we've got to stop thinking that we're doing well and doing
better and growing better because we mold ourselves after someone
else's ideal. You know the ideal of righteousness
is God alone. And until you can answer like
God answered Job, you're not God. Test the spirits, beloved. Test the spirits. There's a lot
of things we ought to do. There's a lot of things we ought
not to do. But one of those things is we ought not to ever think
that we're not saved because we see sin in our lives. Matter
of fact, when we see sin in our lives and the Spirit of God breaks
our heart, he breaks our heart not in guilt and condemnation,
but in joy and thanksgiving. That's what a grieving spirit
is like in the context of seeing sin. I have sinned against my
savior. Not, oh, no, he's going to get
me. I sort of like the religion conversation
that I saw earlier this week. Relationship, you know. We don't
fear our father. And we don't flaunt sin. That's
why church discipline, church correction, church maturity,
church intimacy is so important. Hey, there are times in my life
where I struggle with things that are unbecoming and absolutely
evil and they should not be. And when you as my brother and
sister see them, you call me on them in compassion. Test the spirits. And a lot of folks will say,
well, Tippins is an antinomian for sure. People who say that
are of the devil. I'm going to say this right now
and again. Why? Because John says that they're
listening to the world and not to the word. That's a lie. The gospel is the
good news. We are from God. Whoever knows
God, God listens to us. If you know God, you will listen
to his word. When someone says, I will not
submit to what the word says, they do not know God. What does
that mean? Isn't that the age old question? Unbelievers don't know God. And
sometimes believers don't know God. So we've already gone through
this. What is there to know about God? A lot. There's a lot of
learning to do. How much do we know God's sovereignty? Not much
at all. Evidence by the way our culture
is experiencing life right now. We don't know God's sovereignty
the way we ought to do, but we do, we have been taught of His
righteousness. And today we're going to be taught
of His love again. Yet, but I'm willing to bet the
$12 or whatever I might have in my pocket that any of us will
go about our day and either today or tomorrow we will say, I love,
and we'll fill in the blank with some subject. And it won't be the proper use
of love. I love this weather. I love pizza. I love green grass. As long as
I'm not cutting it. I love, I love, we love, they
love, we all love. We use the word and it's ridiculous
how we use it. It is not what the Bible teaches. So the spirit of error is when
we see people use love inappropriately. And then we apply that same love
to how we feel about Jesus. I heard one of the biggest heretics
in the world say over the weekend, toward the end of the week, that
he loved the Lord with all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength.
And that for his entire life, he's always done that without
fail. And I'm going, I'm just curious
enough to keep listening. And he was emphatic on that truth
that he had never not loved the Lord in obedience to that commandment
the way he should. He was perfect in that commandment. Crazy. If you say you have no
sin, you lie and you do not practice the truth. So here we are. Test the spirits
about what I'm about to say. Test them. You better test them. Whoever listens to us, we can
know that they are from God. We can know that they know God.
If they do not listen to us, we can know that they're not
of God. So what is he saying? Beloved,
let us love one another. Verse seven. Beloved, let us
love one another. For love is from God. Now we'll stop right there because
it's very easy for someone to say this is part of the eisegesis
of these ridiculous commentaries if you ever decide to waste your
time reading them. Well see, a true believer will
love and anyone who doesn't love is an unbeliever. We've already established that
John is talking to believers alone. He's called them little
children, he's called them beloved, he's already said, you don't
love your brother. Now that word there, is he talking
about neighbor? No, he's talking to believers
about loving their brothers. You know what's impossible? An
unbeliever to love a brother. Because an unbeliever doesn't
have a brother. Think about that for a second.
unbelievers are not our brothers and sisters. People who lie on
Christ, who put themselves and their will and their decisions
and their actions as the precipice of their salvation, they're not
our brothers and sisters. How can they be our brothers
and sisters when John said right there that when people don't
listen to the scripture and refuse the truth of Christ that they're
not of God. Now the implications of that
are far-reaching. And some of you have not been
around long enough to hear me say that, but this is not new.
I've been saying this for years, since I've been here. So we're to love one another.
Yes, we are to love our enemies. Yes, we are to love those who
persecute us. We are to pray for those who curse us. But this
isn't the context of what John is talking about. He's talking
about the love for the saints with each other. He's talking
about the intimacy of the body of Christ and that when someone
comes into the body, comes into the church, comes into the assembly,
and they're starting to teach something different, whether
it be a gospel heresy, whether it be a doctrinal heresy, whether
it be a heresy on the Trinity, or whatever it might be, we deal
with that very quickly. But there is a subtle way in
which people come into the fellowship of the church and they begin
to start qualifying saints versus devils and they build a case
to set upon the conscience of the body of Christ from which
the burden is so heavy that we stop looking at the cross and
we start looking at ourselves. You see, that is the point of
the letter of Hebrews. Don't look at yourself. Don't
look at your religion of old. Look at the cross of Christ.
Look at the blood of Christ who justifies. And so now the command is this,
to believe in the Lord Jesus as He has confessed through scripture.
Believe the Bible's testimony. Believe the Father's testimony.
Believe the Spirit's testimony concerning Christ. That means
all of it. and then love one another as
a result of it. This is the commandment of God
to his people. Now see, we can banter back and
to and we can talk philosophically on the assumption of certain
things and the probabilities of the hypotheticals of God's
intention on certain aspects of what he's taught in scripture.
However, we cannot come to the place of saying that God is commanding
all people to believe and all people to love in the sense that
he wants them all to do it. Because God grants the faith
and gives it to his people only. Everyone who was on the cross
with Christ 2,000 years ago will come to believe in the salvation
that he gave them. That old, that's probably a bunch
of heresy in the song, but I always think about this from my childhood.
When he was on the cross, I was on his mind. That's true of the
elect. Boy, you've seen that song in
a mass crusade. Everybody out there so touched
by the sweet sensitivity of Jesus dying. Jesus' death is not about
sweet sensitivity. It's about the answer of wrath.
It's about justice. And justice was paid on the cross.
So if justice was paid, did God put that payment in an account
and then dole it out as he sees fit? Oh, you're doing pretty
good. Here you go, sister. Oh, not doing too good. I'm gonna
take it back. You have to balance that. You have to get your statement
at the end of every spiritual quarter and check to make sure
you're not NSF. No, because your account is paid
in full through the death of Jesus Christ. Love. Let us love one another. And this is going to be part
one and part two next week. Loving, learning and living love. This is what we're doing here.
We're learning about love and then we're going to live love.
And I'm going to go into some other places of scripture next
week to show you that this is congruent. This is synergistic
throughout the entirety of the New Testament. works together
and it forms together. It's one message and the message
is the cross and the message is then for the beloved we love
one another. Look at that. Beloved, let us
love one another for love is from God. Aren't that interesting,
isn't it? A believer must believe, right? How can you be a believer if
you don't believe? How can you have faith in something that
you don't believe? That's the whole point. The idea
of faith is that you believe in something. And specifically
in the Christian Bible, saving faith is believing in the saving
one who is Jesus Christ who is faithful. You believe in the
faithfulness of the promises of the story of Jesus who died
for his people and set them free. He came to seek and save his
and save his people from their sins. He did the work. It's finished.
He said it is finished. He didn't say, I hope it's finished.
I'm just getting started. Round one, strike one. He said,
it is finished. It's over. I have completed the
work that you have sent me to do, Father. So return to me to
the glory that I had before the foundations of the world with
you. Eternally. Jesus has no beginning. The Father has no beginning.
The Spirit has no beginning. They, all three, are one God. Love is from God. And when we love, look at that. Whoever truly loves has been
born of God and knows God. Beloved have been born of God. OK, listen, right? Beloved, you've been born of
God. Now, when you love others, you've been born of God, so you
believe. You don't believe and then you're born of God. You're
born of God so you believe, so you are beloved. You have been
born of God and you are loving. And when you are loving, you
know God. You are cognitively aware of
God. You are relationally understanding of God. You are learning the
theology of God proper and living it out appropriately. If this place filled with smoke, several options come to mind.
Most of us, with any sense, would think what? There's a fire, and
we head out of either those two doors or those two doors. That's what we would do. But
let's say all the children were sitting over here, and they're
just coloring. When they see smoke barreling out under the
stage, they would think, ah, youth ministry night. They'll run through the smoke
and they'll play in the smoke. No sense to think it's a fire. Let's run into it. No, let's
leave. No, let's run into it. Let's take our dollies and throw
it in the fire. I mean, they're not fearful at all because they
don't have the sense. They don't have the knowledge.
They don't understand. They don't have the intimacy
and the relationship and the wisdom. The same thing is true
with believers. The more we grow to understand the righteousness
of God, to understand His essence, to understand His glory, to see
the perfection of His love. See, it's real easy to say, Oh,
God loves me and Jesus loves me and He died for me. and it
might seem like it feels very exciting, but ultimately we have
to stop being excited for a minute, and we need to grow in our solitude,
and we need to grow in our assembly, and we need to grow in our understanding
of the essence of God's glory, which is wrapped up in Himself.
God is light. Now John will say, God is love. And if God is love, then we should
love. We ought to love. What if I can't? Then you'll
be taught how? You'll be taught how? But if there's not a pagan in
the world that can't be taught how to love, there's not a cult in
the world that doesn't teach how to love, but only the believer can know
God in his righteousness, know God in his love, and be born
of God by faith. You see that only a believer
can have this wonderful reality. And because of our true righteousness,
which is Jesus Christ, we need to love each other. That's been
the argument. So here is the commandment. Here is what John
is binding to your conscience, beloved. This is a command of
God and it is bound to our conscience. We must work on this. And for
someone to say, I'm not working on that, then they're not listening.
And it's a matter of correction, aka discipline. For a person
to say, well, I'm not gonna love, I'm not gonna forgive, I'm not
gonna serve, I'm not gonna do this, that, or the other. I don't
care about so and so. Have you ever said that? Yes,
we've all said that. Matter of fact, sometimes we
can care so less we care too much. about what happens to certain
people. I don't care about what they
got going on. Look, we gotta see and look and think and we're
so involved in not caring that we're always invested in looking
and seeing what other people are doing. And the Bible says
to love them. Beloved, you gotta love one another. You have to
love one another. It is something that must take place. It must
take place. Why? Because if you don't, you
can't be together. Reconciliation continues unity,
but a refusal to reconcile severs it. The word for that is divorce. And we can never be divorced
from Christ. We can be divorced from Christ,
people. And we can be divorced from living
a life that separates us from the world. And we can be divorced
from love. We can. But it shouldn't cause
you to fear. And that's what I'm trying to
get across here. You've got to rest in Christ and you've got
to be honest. Paul teaches the Thessalonians.
I love how he does this. When Paul talks to the Thessalonians,
he says something. Chapter 1, verse 2 of 1 Thessalonians,
we give thanks to God always for you, constantly rementioning
you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your
work of faith and your what? Labor of love and steadfastness
of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. See, there's the picture that
John's painting. He wants the people to receive
this letter to live like the Thessalonians. He wants that
praise report to be their praise report. One of these things is indicative
of the believers and it can never change is that they do believe
in Jesus Christ and they have been born of God and they are
sealed through the Spirit of God through the eternal decree
of salvation that comes alone at the cross. But then there
are some other things. There are some imperatives there
that need to be done. And the Thessalonians had it
together. I love this. Listen, let me read that again.
Mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and
Father your work of faith, your labor of love, and your steadfastness
of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we are certain of this, brothers,
verse 4, loved by God. That's what it means to say beloved
and brothers, loved by God. Lost my train of thought. That
he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in
word but in power in the Holy Spirit with full conviction.
You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your
sake. And you became imitators of us. And of the Lord you received
the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit so
that you became, listen, an example to all the believers in Macedonia
and Achaia. For not only has the word of
the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but
your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not
say anything. For they themselves reporting concerning us the kind
of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from
idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for
His Son in heaven, from whom He raised from the dead, Jesus,
who delivers us from the wrath to come. So he praises them for
their love and for their faith, for the steadfastness of their
lifestyle, exuding righteousness, displaying righteousness. They
did a good job. They did a good job. But then
he goes on to tell them later, what does he say? He goes on
to tell them later this. Finally, brothers, we ask and
urge you in the Lord Jesus Christ that as you receive from us how
you are to walk and to please God just as you are doing. Now
listen to that. As you receive from us how you
are to walk and to please God just as you are doing, he says
this, that you do so more and more. Now what's the point of
that? If you ever feel content in how
you're loving and serving, you need to back up. You're never going to do it always
right. You're never going to do it as
much as you should. We're never going to be fulfilled because
we're not going to be fulfilled in that. We're going to be fulfilled
in the knowledge of Christ who perfectly gave himself for us.
Perfect love. And John's going to share that
with us. Whoever's love is from God and whoever loves God has
been born of God. Whoever loves, excuse me, has
been born of God and knows God. We know this. So if you have
faith and you're loving your people, we know that you're from
God. Look at you. Isn't that what Nicodemus said of Jesus?
Different circumstances, different identifiers, but he says, we
know that you are the one come from God for no one can do the
things you do except God be with him. We know that you are our
brother and sister in the faith because you believe in the one
true Christ and we see the love that you have for us. Every letter
written by Paul talks about the love that they had for him and
the love that he had for them. And in Thessalonians, Paul talks
and he grieves over the fact that he can't be there, he can't
see them, he's in prison. And he's worried about them and
he sins somebody and they get hurt and sick and he's worried
about them. And so when he finally gets word back to him that everybody
is well in the faith, were they suffering? Yes. Was Paul concerned
with their suffering? To a degree. What was he most
concerned with? Their faith and their love for
one another. Because the second should be the motives. I mean,
the first should be the motives for the second. And the second
should be the constant attention of the body of Christ. Above
everything. That is why programmed ministries
are sterile. You see, some people don't know
much about me. Because I've been here nine years now, and they're
like, who is this country pastor? But I mean, I've been in these
large churches. I've taught in these large stages. I've seen 650 children in a children's
ministry on Wednesday night. I've seen 3,000 people over a
weekend of five services. You have to have 100 parking
lot attendants just to get the cars in and out. Not just one
church, but three churches. Three so-called ministries. And I've been in the budget meetings
where we'd have millions and millions of dollars and have
to go around and say, okay, we've got to hire somebody to fill this thing here,
and we've got the preschool ministry over here, and we've got this, that, and
the other. We've got all this stuff, and we're doing all these things. We're
getting together. We've got these programs running. We've got to find some
cool firecracker of a guy that's got a little bit of a beard,
but not too much. Hat on sideways, but not when he prays. And so that the kids will like
him and everything will be good and we'll get some teenagers
to come. And then what happens is you get, if in a perfect world
all the people involved in that kind of stuff are truly born
of God and they truly love one another, they can't love one
another because they're too dang busy to do anything but the programs
of the church that think they're going to grow the people of the
church. God has not promised any growth whatsoever through
those programs. And I used to concede, you say,
you know what, there's a way to have programs that aren't
necessarily detrimental. No, there's not. Because I'm good at it. You throw
an idea, I can do an extemporaneous program setting right then. It
just comes natural. I was trained to do it. From
19 years old, just push through an extruder like program manager.
I mean, that's sort of like, I could have run for president. We can't. We can't usurp the
promises of God and think that we have... You know what's crazy?
Have you ever been in a ministry situation that you were so busy
that you didn't even have time to be in the Word? Hey, you want to get together
for coffee so we can talk about your marriage? I don't have time,
I've got to go to youth ministry. I've worked 60 hours this week
at the church. And it breeds failure. So then they add another ministry
on that. What is it? The counseling ministry. And what was it for? All the workers who haven't been
in a service in six months. Just throwing out candy on Sunday
with the mascot. What's the mascot? The holy chicken. I don't know. Things I've seen. So we know That those who love, they understand
God, they understand who He is, and they understand His righteousness,
and they're growing to understand that. And then they want to put
into practice that which they've learned. But anyone who does
not love God does not know God. And anyone who does not love
does not know God. So these people who are among
us, who are our brothers and sisters in Christ, they oftentimes
get, I think the church breeds a non-loving attitude. You ever
been in a business meeting, or a deacon meeting, or an elders
meeting, or a ministry team meeting, or whatever it might be, and
the only smile is when it's adjourned? Early? Praise God, we got out
of here quicker today than last time. Let's go to Huddle House.
That's the ministry when the Huddle House meets up. The other
stuff, now I'm not saying you don't have to administrate. We
have to clean and do simple stuff sometimes as we grow, but that's
not the point. The point is, are we intimate
with one another? And it cannot be calculated,
it cannot be contrived, it has to be organic. Not everybody
in our fellowship is going to have affinity with other people
in life, but we all have one true affinity, and that is the
Lord Jesus Christ. So we all have intimate fellowship
in Him. And we can sit around and talk
about Him, and grow in Him, and counsel in Him. And the person
that you may never ever do anything else with in the context of the
assembly of the saints, may be the very person who will guide
you through the darkest season of your spiritual life. It ain't
your buddies that you shoot with and you hunt with that oftentimes
become your spiritual mentors. It's the people that you don't
know that way. So if you know God, then you
know that he's love and you know that love is what we ought to
be doing because you know the love of God and therefore we
ought to be knowing and then living what we know. So we need
to know more about God. And John tells us that anyone
who does not love does not know God. Because God is love. God is light. God is love. These
aren't things that God has. This is who He is. And then he reminds us, verse
9. Look, he reminds us of the gospel again. In this, the love
of God was made manifest among us. Because isn't that the obvious
question? These men weren't geniuses. John
was not a genius. His grammar is awful. But God,
the Holy Spirit, put these words to paper for him, through him. The next question is, all right,
well, let me see how God loves and let me do it. If I'm gonna
love, I'm gonna go all out. I'm gonna be, you know. Judd,
there's God, and I'm just going to be just a little bit lower
than him. I'll do what I can do. How do we do it? Here is the picture.
The love of God is manifest among us that God sent his only son
into the world so that we might live through
him. God sent His only Son into the
world that we might live through Him. That is why God created
the world in order to send His Son into the world to take His
people out of the world and give them life. This is the
good news. It's good news, beloved. And nowhere in the gospel do
we see an opportunity The Bible doesn't say God tried to save
people out of the world, that He sent His Son into the world
in hoping that somebody would come and believe. It doesn't
say that. God saved His people out of the world into the light
of the kingdom of righteousness, His Son. I've got a question
for tonight. What does it mean to be found
in Christ? And the answer to that question
is far-reaching. Christ's life is my life. Christ's
righteousness is my righteousness. Christ's obedience is my obedience.
Christ's death is my death. Christ's resurrection is my resurrection.
Christ's glory is my glory. And the list goes on. We'll spend
some time with it tonight. God is love. He sent His only
Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is
love. Now get this, in this is love. Some people say, well, you know,
you gotta love God for Him to love you. Or these people, I
can't love them cause they don't love me. If they don't love me,
why am I gonna love them? Because that's what the gospel
is. In this is love. Not that we have loved God. What
have we given to God the Son except our guilt? What exchange
was made before the foundation of the world and the contract
that God made with Himself to satisfy His justice in the death
of Jesus? What part of the contract down there, what addendum was
added that says, well James Dippens is going to have to do this,
this, this and the other? No, it had my name in the book of
life and my part of the contract said this, he's going to hate
God and he's going to be full of sin. So we're going to take
all of that and put it on Jesus and Jesus is going to die for
it. That's our part and we're passive in it by nature. We don't have to give our lives
to Jesus. I was thinking about that the other day when I talked
to some kids and they were like, you know, I asked Jesus to my
heart yesterday. And a nine-year-old, you can't
be cheeky with a nine-year-old. You have to be, if that cat was
20, it would have been a different
tale. And I said, you know, I think Jesus needs to have you in his
heart. He better accept you into his heart or you're not gonna
have life. What's that mean? I said, I don't
know, go ask your daddy. So I'll see how long that relationship
lasts. God loved us. Not that we loved
God, but that He loved us. Paul says it over and over again.
While we were still sinners, God loved us and sent His Son
and died for us. Paul says that it's not my life.
You're not looking at the apostle Paul living his dream. You're
not looking at who I am and what I am. This isn't me. He said
everything that I do in the context of love for you all is because God has first loved
me. And so in that sense, Paul would say, I live my life by
faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. This one and only begotten Son,
the only Son that he has, full of grace and truth. God loved
us and sent His Son to be. Now, I want you to hear this.
See, people think, well, you just make too much of the gospel. There's too many pieces of the
gospel. You're wanting some type of perfectionism in the context
of doctrine. No, I want the simple gospel
coming out of your mouth so I can call you my brother or my sister.
And if you can't say that Christ died for the sins of his people
and paid for their sins. You haven't read this about the
love of God. He says, Beloved. In this is
love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and
sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. When the sacrifice
dies, payment is made. Maybe I'll go on Wednesday night
and talk about the sacrificial system a bit, but it's a bloody
mess. They cut the throat of the animal, and they lay it on
the altar, and it bleeds out, and they catch the blood. It just bleeds. The whole thing
bleeds out, and they catch the blood. And what they don't catch,
they only catch a little bit, and what they don't catch falls
all over the floor. And then the priests take the
cup of blood, and they splatter it all over everything. You ever
drop a piece of meat in the kitchen? When you're trying to get it
out of the package and blood is everywhere? There's your mini-sacrifice. And that's not enough. And they
splattered the blood everywhere. The blood purifies. If the blood
is not splattered everywhere, then everything that's not splattered
is evil, is wicked, is dirty. The blood purifies. The blood
of Christ was shed. The blood of Christ purified
His people. The blood of Christ, because it purified His people
and made them righteous in Himself, justified them before the Father
because the wrath of God is satisfied. Justice has been paid. There
is no debt. Let me tell you this. Because
God cannot lie, He cannot punish. He cannot punish you, beloved,
for your sins. He cannot. He has no power to
do so because he punished Jesus in your place. You see? It sounds
odd, doesn't it? God can do what he wants to.
No, he can't. God does what he wants to and everything that
he wants is righteous and he's just and he's already satisfied
justice so he can't become a liar and reverse that. God cannot
lie. Paul emphasizes that in the context
of the sacrificial system in Hebrews chapter 6 and 8. Jesus is the propitiation for
our sins. Why would He do that? Because
He loves us. How does He love us? By giving
His Son to die for us. To satisfy God's wrath for us.
You see how when we preach the gospel, it's so better than preaching
works. transformation. But I don't have
to get up here and tell you what your sins are. Because by the time I got through
with my list, the hour would be up. Let the gospel deal with them.
Let the gospel grow you, let the assembly of the saints together
in the truth of Christ grow us to maturity, to the full stature,
what does Paul say to the Ephesians? To the full stature of the manhood
of Christ. He's not talking about his masculinity,
he's talking about his adult, being adult, growing up. As Jesus grew as a child, as
a teenager. Can you imagine a sinless teenager?
I might have a stroke before I get through with that thought. Sorry, dudes. Could you imagine a sinless 20-something?
A sinless 30-something? Sinless 40s? Sinless 50s? Sinless
60s? Jesus never got to that point.
But I mean, could you imagine? I can't imagine. I can't imagine
what it would be like. Jesus grew as a human being in
the light of righteousness. Because He is the righteousness
of God. Jesus could not sin just like I cannot turn into
a T-Rex and eat the microphone. For Jesus to be able to sin would
be just absurd as that. And by the way, that's called
the impeccability of Christ. God loved us and Christ satisfied
God's wrath, paid for the justice that is required. It is paid. Verse 11, and we're done. Beloved, if God loved us in this way,
you see, so loved us. He loved us like that. So loved
us. If God so loved us, by giving Jesus to be a propitiation for
our sins while we were not in love with Him, while we did not
care for Him, while we were hostile to Him. And by nature, Paul says
in Ephesians 2, like the rest of humanity, children of wrath.
My mouth is not working. If God so loved us, we ought
to love one another. And we've already seen what it
looks like, right? The giving of oneself, the availability
of oneself. And don't look at me as your
example. verbatim. Well, if I want to love, I'm
going to become an elder and I'm going to preach and I'm going
to teach and I'm going to. No, no, no. Not everybody's called to that.
I urge you not to go there. It comes with it comes with a
lot. But as we are pursuing not worldly
interest, but spiritual interest, it is for your sake, that is
love. That's love. If we see needs,
we take care of needs. Without, we go to 1 Corinthians
13, we can see that. We don't hold a record of debt,
we don't hold a record of sin, we don't go, well, you know,
I'm at 489, you've only got one more forgiveness. 490, I guess, and I've seen some
theologians take that literally, and I'm thinking, well, what
about 1 Corinthians 13, it says, love believes all things. Love
holds no record of debt. How do you know how many times
you've forgiven? You unforgiving, wicked man. Unloving man. You see? That's marriage. Could
you imagine having a record in the marriage? My wife would come
out 490, wouldn't touch it. She brought out a book. Well,
I'm sorry, this is volume one. I need volume four. I mean, you
know, okay, James, this is 65,000 times I've forgiven you. Thank
God. How in the world can we love
like that? Because God does not hold a record of debt against
us. He took the whole record of all that we are. You understand
ontologically that we are evil, sinful, before we ever sin and
worthy of all wrath. See, that shocks our worldview
because little babies are awesome. He took it all, all that we are,
all that we've done, all that we ever will do, and he put it
on Christ. The fullness of God's wrath was
poured out on Jesus Christ and our debt has been paid. And then we begin to understand
what John is talking about. If God can love me this way,
surely I can love others. Why is the assembly compulsory. You know what that means? You
have to be together as the body. It's something that the Word
of God requires. Because you can't not forgive
the person you're going to sit and pray next to. And the elders are watching Like
little shepherds, scared of their own shadows, wondering what's
going to fall apart, and who's going to fall down, and who's
going to pull the string, and the whole Afghan comes loose,
or, you know, and we're going, oh no, oh, don't be loving, oh,
what, what, you know, it's a delicate, it's a delicate thing. And that's why you don't lord
over people. You encourage them to fake. You call them to change
their way of thinking and to love. Why? Because when we get
together, we're learning and being reminded. Everybody can
sit by themselves in the car driving down the interstate and
listen to the gospel and just feel at one with God. But then when you come together
as the body and there's strife, the gospel presses it out of
you. You have to. It's the elephant in the room.
It presses it out of you. It's easy just to block and click
off and move. And remember what John says in
verse 18 of his gospel of chapter 1. He says, No one has ever seen
God. The one and only God who is at
his side has made him known. The word there in the Greek is
literally exegetes. Jesus Christ exegetes God. Okay? Helps us understand Him, helps
us see Him, helps us know Him, helps us learn of Him. Jesus
is the key to knowing that. Now look what John says, and
I'm going to have to pick up here next week, but look what
John says now in verse 12 of chapter 4. No one has ever seen
God. Same phrase as in John 1 18. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love
is perfected in us. I'll give you a preview. When
we're walking in love, the exegesis of God is visible. And love is deep. It's loving
to share the gospel. It's loving to serve. It's loving
to give. It's loving to care. It's loving to sacrifice. It's
loving. But there's so many ways that are good and necessary that
the Bible would instruct us on how to love, dealing with situations
and circumstances throughout the entirety of the New Testament.
And when we do that, we are seeing God and knowing Him and enjoying
this truth of God. And then we are living out our
love for God in our love for one another. And we see it in
one another. We see it. You ever had an unbeliever
die? And you knew they weren't a believer,
but they were so loving that everybody else thought they were
a believer. You ever? Oh yeah. Good philanthropists,
nice missionaries that overseas, I mean, I could name a dozen
or so, but they die and then the, you know, the sovereign
grace preacher goes, well, that person did not believe in the
gospel. He did not believe in the promises
of God for eternal life through Jesus Christ. And everybody's like,
don't you say that. Look how much he loved those
children. Look how much he cared for those orphans. So even the
lost understand that when they see this type of affection, they
see this type of service, they see this type of love that exemplifies
who God is. But they mistake the fact that
this proves that they're with God rather than Christ being
the one who come down from heaven. Christ is the one who says that
heaven will be opened up and angels would descend and ascend
upon him, that he would bring heaven down to us and us to it. not our love. So if the pagan,
unbelieving world thinks that all the loving people are God's
people, shouldn't the true people of God exegete Him the same way? This is John's argument. And he doesn't want us to feel
like, oh, so in order for me to stay saved, it's not about
staying saved, it's about walking in a manner worthy of the gospel,
of the calling, love, love, love, love, love. A lot of my friends,
especially those, I won't even give an adjective, a lot of people
that I know, I won't even say friends, a lot of associates
I have through the years, who are hateful and mean and nasty
and destructive and divisive. in their spirit, in their attitude,
in the way they teach the truth of the gospel, they should be
shunned. It is better to be quiet, having the truth of the gospel,
than to speak without love. And love concerns itself with
the well-being, with the heart, with the mind, with the emotions,
with the needs of the person that we're talking to. And if someone's lost and we're
talking about the gospel and they can't see it, the last thing
we need to do is to crush their spirit on top of it by treating
them with disdain. Because we know that we are in
Him, because His Spirit is in us and it's taught us the truth,
remember? We talked about that two weeks ago. We know the truth,
and because we know the truth, we need to testify of the Father's
love through our own. And the truth of the gospel.
See, you can't do one without the other, can you? How are you
so kind to me? Because God is kind to me in
this way. The gospel is presented. Rest, beloved. It's never going
to be good enough in our own eyes, but we are good enough
in God's eyes because we are His righteousness through Jesus
Christ. So let's work together, the strong and the weak and everybody
in between, so that we may fulfill God's purposes as a body, as
a family, and know the truth as we live it. Let's pray. We
thank you, Father, for the glory that you have shown us in Jesus
Christ, the glory that you have revealed to us through your scripture,
the glory that you have secured in us by your Spirit And I pray that as we leave this
assembly, the gathering today, that Lord, in our hearts, we
would not divide. And that many who have yet to
become, be able to get back together because of our circumstances,
Lord, I pray that you would never, that you would cause us to be
unified in spirit, that we would pray for one another, that we
would be encouraged by our prayer, that we would reach out to each
other in a manner congruent with our concern for each other. In times like these, Lord, I
become very practical. And one of my greatest sins is
thinking that I can orchestrate peace in the context of pragmatism. So I thank you, Father, for causing
that to always fall apart. And that I must trust in your
word to do its work, thus trusting in you. The same is true for
our love for each other. Let us trust in your word to
do its work because that is trusting in you. And so this morning,
Father, your word has begun a good work. as it brought us to life,
whenever that may be, to teach us the truth. And you are continuing
to do a good work in us, to teach us who you are more each day,
to teach us to live according to you, to your knowledge, to
the knowledge of yourself and to the purposes that you've called
us to as a body. Lord, there are many who are
struggling with what to do, where to move, what they need to be. But, Lord, your word is clear.
We seek first your righteousness and your kingdom. And all these
other things will be added unto us. So as your people, Lord,
help us to walk by faith. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.