John, 1 John chapter 3. We're about to the place where
we're going to segue into chapter 4, 1 John 3. Scripture this morning in verse
4, I want to read through the end again. Everyone who makes a practice
of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know
that he, Christ, appeared in order to take away sins and in
him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps
on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has
either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive
you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil
has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared
was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes
a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot
keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it
is evident who are the children of God and who are the children
of the devil, that is, whoever does not practice righteousness
is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who
was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain
murder him? Because his own deeds were evil
and his brother's deeds were righteous. Do not be surprised,
brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed
out of death into life because we love the brothers. And whoever
does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother
is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life
abiding in him. By this we know love, that he
laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives
for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees
his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does
God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love
in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. By this we shall
know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before
him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart
and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not
condemn us, we have confidence before God and whatever we ask,
we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do
what pleases him. And this is the commandment that we should
keep, that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ,
and that we should love one another just as he commanded us. Whoever
keeps His commandments abides in God and God in Him. And by
this we know that He abides in us. That is, by the Spirit whom
He has given us. Sometimes it's good to hear it
all in context. And sadly, the context of that
is from the beginning. It's that which was from the
beginning. that which we have heard and seen and touched with
our hands concerning the eternal life which was manifest to us
and now we proclaim to you it so on and so forth. This therefore
letter of John is really expressing to these secure believers the
absolute unshakable hope that they have in grace. That's something that we need
to make sure we keep in the forefront of our minds. Now, because historically,
and when I say historically, I mean contemporary history.
Because historically and culturally, we find ourselves at odds often
when we exegete scripture. Now let me tell you what that
word means. Exegete means that out of comes the meaning. And the meaning of something
is always found first and foremost in the context of it. So that
the grammar, the syntax of the writing in the Bible in and of
itself has every interpretive essence. Everything that's needed
for you to understand by the Spirit what is written in the
Bible is within its context. So that if you want to understand
what John is writing, you only need to know what John is writing.
But there is an assumption when we see the letters of the apostles.
And what is that assumption? The assumption is that they are
speaking to saints alone and only. John, Paul, Peter, James
have never written a letter to a lost group of people, have
never written an audience to a lost person in their letters.
They've referred to them. talked about them, they've made
statements about them, but they've never addressed them. The Bible
was not written to lost people. The Bible was written to the
promised ones. The ones who have the promise
of God. In our culture we have destroyed
the ability to read the Bible. And we need to read it as it's
written and then by the Spirit we understand it. But even then
we have to have some sense to realize the introduction to a
letter tells us who it's to. The constant addressing of the
subject of the recipients tell us who it's to. And so there
is a very large assumption when the apostles write to the church
that they're indeed talking to the church. That they're indeed
talking to people who are saved by the power of God and by the
grace of God. And that there is nothing that
can shake or shatter that salvation. That there is no way that these
people who are receiving these letters can be lost. There is
no way that they could just throw away a salvation that has been
granted them by grace and mercy alone. You would be surprised. Maybe you wouldn't, but I continue
to be more and more surprised at the depths of biblical illiteracy,
biblical ignorance, theological ignorance. Yet we find people
that know a lot of things, know a lot of terms, know a lot of
expressions, know a lot of theologies, yet they don't know the word
of God. And therefore they do not know
God. I want you to hear that again.
They do not know God. When we see what is taught us
in Scripture, and then we hear what the world
of Christendom teaches, Does it not blow your mind that it's
exactly the opposite? Does it not trouble your spirit
that there is always this hook of worldliness that continues
to drive a burden on the shoulders of the elect? We sang that song,
two songs this morning about the freedom that is in Christ,
about the burden lifting, about life. Be still my soul. See, this is the naivety of the
world that they think that peace and the soul comes through some
other means than Christ. Oh, if we could just get this
done. Oh, if we could just see this happen. Or we could just
eradicate these things. We could just have this person
in charge. We could just go to this location. We could just
have these relationships. That doesn't bring peace. The
world and everything in it is passing away. Don't waste your
love on it. Love the brothers and the sisters.
And in doing so, you love the Lord alone. See, this is the
message of 1 John. And from the very beginning of
days, when the serpent, when the devil through the serpent
questioned God's Word, Sinfulness has always been revising what
God has said from the very beginning. That's why when we see John reminding
his readers that there are wicked people, there are reprobates
in the world, and they do good-looking things, ministry things, worshipful
things, and some of them do horrible things. wicked things and sinful
things and lustful things and angry things and murderous things. And that they are doing exactly
as their father, who has been sinning from the beginning, who
has been lying from the beginning. Beloved, we need to have the
discernment to see the difference. Because if we can't, If we can't
see these statements that John has written to us, we're going
to forever be in an extreme dichotomy in our soul. I don't know if any of you have
ever had someone come into your house and threaten you. Or come
into your house and talk trash to your face. It happens to me. And I'm not one to get flustered
about it because I'm not scared of anybody, naively. I should be, but I'm not. And when someone gets in your
face in a general way, it's like, okay, we'll handle this. Get
a little closer. Keep talking. Lord, help me not
be physical. Help me not be fleshly. Thank
you, Father, that you took that from me this time, you see. Because I'm a fighter. You hear
me make the joke about punching throats. Folks, that was my MO. We fist
bump now because we don't want COVID. I throat bumped. People talk trash to me. What'd
you say? I mean, it was just a sinfulness, but it was easy. It put things in quick check. Nobody got hurt. Nobody was going
to jail. Nobody got shot. You may say,
where's Pastor Ben? Listen, when you work and live
and minister in big cities, and when everybody always thinks
that you owe them something, sometimes you have to defend
yourself. And that's one thing on the street, but when somebody
comes into your house, when they walk in the front door of your
house and nearly tear the screen door off the hinge, and they
bust up into your study, and they get up in your face, and
they touch you on your nose, And they threaten you, and they
threaten your family, and your children, and your wife are just
16 feet away. There's something extremely crazy
that goes on in your body. And when you're trained to stay
calm in situations, and you're trained to be cool on the street,
and you're trained not to respond and not to react, but just to
interact, you're trained. This training works until somebody
comes into your house. And only by the mercy of God,
that gentleman three and a half years ago did not die in my study. Because it was very close. If
you've never had somebody break into your home, bust into your
home and threaten you, you don't know what I'm talking about. And it's something that you don't
take lightly. You certainly don't sit there
when it's all said and done and go, you wanna go for ice cream? Everything good? No, you really
seek out what could have happened. You begin to get very angry and
they get very emotional and you start thinking, wow, if this
had gone differently, what would have happened? Then you get angry
again. Then you get in your truck and you go find that guy. Then
you pull up to his house with all intention of showing this
man just how powerful you can be. And the Lord breaks you and
you preach the gospel and God does something. Beloved, when people, now imagine
yourself in that situation, that's a true story. Imagine yourself
in that situation, how would you respond if someone threatened
you and your family in your own home? Beloved, just back it up just
a little bit, and that's how I feel when people threaten you. Threaten you with attacks, with
accusations, with lies, with false teaching. When the world
comes against you, it's just... But the Bible teaches me something.
John is teaching me something. Do not be like them. You cannot be a murderer, James.
Because you are mine. See, beloved, all of us in this
room could lie today. All of this in this room could
worship an idol today, and we probably are, we just don't see
it. I promise you, the list is long. And that's graciousness
that God doesn't show us the idols all the time. I think Sister
and I were talking about this morning, we'd just be balled
up into a fetal position, weeping into the sand all day long. But
God is merciful. But yet, none of us will be idol
worshipers. None of us will be liars. None of us will be murderers. None of us will be adulterers,
even when we commit these things, because we are standing before
the father of righteousness, before the light of God, innocent. You know what it means to be
innocent? You are not that thing. You did
not do those things. That's what justification is. How is that righteous? Because
Jesus, who is perfect in every way ontologically as God, and
perfect in every way also in the essence of His perfect human
life through which He obeyed the Father in everything. His
righteousness is our righteousness. So not only are we completely
forgiven, we are exonerated. And now we are crowned as the
righteousness of God? Now I want you to think about
this. This is the pressing of the motivating
for John's writing. We have seen the glory of the
Son, the only one of the Father, full of grace and truth. And
from His fullness, all that He is. Imagine God coming into the
world into creation, and instead of
just going, poof, you're all gone, He dies to save us from
our sins. And from His fullness, we do
not receive condemnation, we receive grace upon grace upon
grace upon grace continually, forever, eternally, forevermore. There is no condemnation for
any believer ever before the Father. But He loves us, evidenced
by the fact He gave His Son for us, and it effectually justified
us, the death of Jesus, paid for our sins, they are paid.
Even when the elect don't know it yet by faith, their debts
are paid in the blood of Jesus Christ. And so when we philosophize
on that, we don't then create a new doctrine that the Bible
doesn't teach. An unbeliever is an unbeliever. But a believer is safe. And because of all of that, the
love of God is manifesting. And we have fellowship with Christ.
We have fellowship with the Father. We have fellowship with the apostles.
We have fellowship with the first century church and the second
century church and the third century church. and the saints
forever that one day we will gather as we'll see in Hebrews
in a couple of months or whatever and when I get to chapter 12,
that festal gathering of the saints. It's the only time we
see a physical church that includes all believers at one time. Physical gathering is the day
of glory. We get to share in the glory
of Christ because of the love of God for us. Therefore, abide in the love of God in your
living by holding fast to the confession
of your hope, which is a gift of God. That's faith. And because
you have been given such a glorious salvation, Because of God's sacrificial
love, can we not just lay our lives down for one another for
a short hundred years? You're not murderers. You're
not liars. You're saints. So when we act
in these ways, when we sin, we're practicing lawlessness. And I
hate that word because it's not a good translation. And in doing so, we look like
lost people. Like when we go, in Hebrew, see,
Paul would have a different way of expressing that, wouldn't
he? When we go back to Judaism, we look like unbelievers. Don't
do that. You are in Christ. He settled
the debt. Stay in Him. Don't walk over there. Because
God's love is yours, then love your neighbor. Love your enemy.
Love the brotherhood and the sisters. Love us. We all love
one another. And here's the point of today's
message. We know what love is. Look at verse 16. We know what
love is. Love is that God laid His Son bare. God put forth His
Son on the cross to satisfy His wrath. God the Father is satisfied
in the killing of Jesus. God the Father is satisfied in
the humanity of Jesus. I want you to understand this.
Because everything that Christ is, is righteousness. Therefore,
everything that Christ does is righteousness. Therefore, what
we can understand in the picture of the law of Moses, in our finite
way and in its finite revelation as a shadow, Jesus is more than
that. And Jesus, out of his own mouth,
says that all the righteousness of God is fulfilled in the two
commandments, to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor
as yourself. Walk here in, but our doing those
things in our flesh will not establish righteousness for us.
Christ has done those things perfectly. And his righteousness is our
righteousness. Now that may sound very close
to some other things, but that's a conversation for tonight's
broadcast, not here. But we live our Christian lives
when we try to play out in our day-to-day doings. We look at
this idol, we look at this sin, we look at this thought, we look
at this frustration, we look at this feeling, we look at this
emotion, we look at this attitude, we look at that person. We look
at that person, we hate them. We look at that person, we lust
after them. We lust after other things that
we see. We lust after situations. I wish this was this way, blah,
blah, blah. And the list goes on and we go to bed at night
and our prayers sound something like this. Oh my God, help me. I have tried all day and all
I can do is just, I keep finding all these things wrong. Lord,
help me tomorrow to not do this and to not do that and to not
do that and to not do that. And that's not bad to pray. Jesus
even says that, doesn't he? Father, lead us not into temptation. In other words, there is an expectation
that without the working of God the Spirit, we will not walk and be able to establish the
fighting against temptation. And that's a moment by moment,
day by day, hour by hour type reality. But the problem with that being
our only focus is that it indicates something. It indicates that
we are always focusing on us. I want you to hear me. It indicates that James gets
up in the morning worried about doing what pleases the Lord.
Good, I should be concerned with it. But you notice the operative
word, worried with it, rather than joyfully doing the service. My life and my attitude and my
affections and my heart is never going to be up to par to what
is required for me to actually live my life for the glory of
God, except that Christ and His righteousness and His life is
given to my account. So that by faith now He is living
through me and for me, not effectuating all this great transformation
that's going to be perfect or nearly perfect by the time I
die. There's no such thing as nearly
perfect, nearly gold, nearly real money, nearly alive. You're alive or you're dead.
It's gold or it's plated. It's real or it's fake. And so we walk in this way and
we're always focusing on ourselves and we should be, according to
the teaching of the apostles, focusing on what Christ has done
for us, not me, us. See how the American idea has
invaded the gospel? The good news is mine. That is
true, beloved. But nowhere do we see Jesus say,
I died for that lamb. He said, I died for my sheep.
My sheep know my voice. Beloved, we are one body. Salvation
is given to the body of Christ. So when we focus in that way,
we're losing sight of where our conscience should truly rest. And this is where John is. We're
not talking about assurance of salvation. That's a given, okay? The people who received this
letter weren't worried about whether or not they had eternal life.
It's not on the table. The people who received this
letter were troubled by people who continued to change by asking,
did God say this? Is God like that? You know what,
I can do this. Maybe this is how Christ did
it. And so on and so forth. We're 19 weeks in, 18 weeks in.
You can go back and hear all those other thoughts if you want,
or you can just read it. And there were some that were
so troubling the church, and there were some people that were
so hateful that they went out from among the apostles in their
hatred, and they were excommunicated from the fellowship of the apostles,
then they went to the congregations. And the apostles were saying,
they're not with us because they're not holding fast to the gospel,
number one. And number two, they're not loving. And they're always being divisive.
And they're always showing favoritism. And they're always having something
snide or rude to say. They're always judging you against
their terms and their conditions. And there's no patience, there's
no affection, there's no long-suffering. We know what Paul teaches to
the Corinthians. They had the same problem. But the problem isn't rectified
by saying, you need to love each other. How dare you? Though that
would be good advice. That'd be an admonishment. How dare you treat each other
ugly? Like we teach our children. Don't say that to your sister.
Don't say that to your brother. Don't say that to your mother.
I can't tell you how many times I've said that through the years.
Don't speak to your, or I do it like this when they're being
ugly. I say, talk to my wife like that. It's only because of her they
haven't killed you long ago. Test me, you know? You give me
the word, baby. You can make another one. I mean,
you know. Don't speak that, so it's an
okay exhortation. Or worse, why are you treating
them this way? There's always a reason. You
know, that's the only answer that my children have never said,
I don't know. Why did you say that? Why are you doing this?
I don't know, I don't know. Why did you say that to your
brother or your sister? Well, and they've got a whole line
of reasoning. Three minutes later, and then he said, and then she
said, and then I did, and then he did, and then this, and it's
always like this. I mean, it's just the way we
are. I'm growing up with four younger brothers and an aunt
that's just four and a half, five years older than me, like
an older sister. I mean, we fought like cats and dogs. Sometimes,
and sometimes we got along very well. You decapitate Barbies,
it doesn't go over too well. Doesn't go over too well. Put
them in a G.I. Joe Jeep and blow them up, doesn't go over too
well. I mean, you know, things like that don't go over too well. So then you're mortal enemies.
You look at somebody too long in the car, and you're mortal
enemies. But we're still family. And parents and grandparents
will get on to you and say, don't act that way. It's a good exhortation.
Why am I spending so much time on it? Because I want you to
get the point. I want you to all, for a minute, get to that
place where you've been, either as a parent or as a child, you've
been there and somebody has corrected you and you've corrected others.
But yet at no time is the relationship in danger. But what happens to
the relationship if we don't correct that? The familial tie legally and genetically can never
be broken, but the intimacy can. And almost every one of the circumstances
we find ourselves not loving someone else is because we are
thinking about what we want, what we feel, what happened to
us, what was said to us, what we experienced, and how it affected
me, myself, and I. That is antithetical to the gospel
of grace. God, the Son, came into the world,
created Mary throughout all of his sovereign secondary causes,
creating genealogy from Adam all the way through Abraham,
through David, and so on and so forth, through Joseph and
Mary. And here is this virgin having
a son that he created for himself, as himself. and then he's born into the world
that he created. Not so he could stand up on the
mountain. Not so he could stand up on the
precipice of time and space and laser beam everybody to bow down
out of fear. No, so that he could be the sacrificial
lamb and save his people. When and ever, ever, Has a hero
ever truly sacrificed himself for the bad guys? And that's what God the Son has
done. We're the bad guys, see? But we're the objects of God's
eternal love. So there's a few things that
are interesting because of John's writing here. The first thing
is that he's telling us we must love, but the motivator behind
that is what I just described to you. Because of the love of
God, we then in turn are motivated to love. We know what we've been
given. We know what we've been forgiven.
We know how we ought to be seen by God, yet he has not just spiritually
but judicially rectified the problem of sin and guilt. And
then he has given us an alien righteousness that we should
never have been given so that there is never, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever an accusation that can come against us. Yes, James, that was unloving.
Yes, James, that was over the top. Yes, James, that was insensitive.
I mean, I've said these things. People have said these things
to me. And because of the gospel, and
the camaraderie, the intimacy of the church, we immediately
find ourselves in a place where we can go, oh, I don't want to
be like that. But when we separate ourselves
from this means of grace of being together and being in the Word
and being reminded of the Gospel, and we end up finding these theological
dumpster fires that we'd rather be a part of. Dumpster fires
never create intimacy. That's nasty for one, and it's
very hot. But I would love to watch a few
burn. I like to watch things burn in a dumpster. I've bought
me a little dumpster at home that I can burn stuff in. So
we have all of these things taking place. And then when we are self-absorbed
and self-focused, we all of a sudden then are carried along by this
huge wave of guilt that carries us all the way from Calvary back
to Mount Sinai. And then we get down there and
say, no more, I can't hear anymore, please, I don't want to hear
it. I can't do any better, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's
how we treat the gospel. Because we misunderstand grace
as a means to maturity, as a means to our love, as a means to being
able to do that which God has called us to do. And the glue
and the adhesive that keeps us all together is the cross of
Christ. What He did is the precipice. is this cornerstone is the centerpiece
of our hope and our hope then is not movable because Christ's
work is immovable and then our relationships can as they move
be re-centered. Love. Love. Love indeed and in truth,
because otherwise, what are we doing? Even if we're not like
not loving, I'm not saying that when we're not loving, it means
that we're just hating folks and we don't care. We're not
empathetic, non-sympathetic. No, that's not the place. Now,
sometimes we're that way, aren't we? Some of us may be that way
right now, but God will grow us to love indeed and in truth. when we hear the message of the
cross and the instruction of the disciples, specifically this
therefore letter of John's. But it doesn't work all the time
and every day, does it? What happens? We find ourselves
self-absorbed, we find ourselves introspective, we find ourselves
in this existential, this nightmare, and we're like, oh, woe is me.
We stay so long. in Romans 6 and 7 that we never
get to Romans 8-1. If you don't know what that means,
that means Paul's talking about how idolatrous and covetousness,
his heart, his covetousness reigns in his heart and his flesh is
always on fire like a dumpster rolling down a hill into a preschool.
And he's worried, how is he ever going to escape such things?
And he answers it, God has already escaped me from this through
Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. So praise be to God. There is therefore now no condemnation
for all those who are in Christ Jesus. And he closes out that
very chapter with the words that nothing can separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Beloved,
and if nothing can separate us from the love of God, how dare
we put obstacles in the way of our relationships as the body
of Christ that can separate us from one another? But it still doesn't solve the
problem, does it, of our flesh? And this is where John is. What
do I do When all I do is think about me and where I am and how
I'm not where I need to be. Well the remedy then is to not
think about you. So this isn't about assurance
and confidence in salvation. I've made that clear hopefully.
This is about assurance in practice. Am I doing what God wants me
to do? And I started to talk about this last week, remember?
Am I living the way God wants me to live? I got to do more.
I got to answer the call. I got to be a bigger. No. There's
nothing about being bigger in ministry, doing more in ministry,
about doing more for the kingdom. This is so American. Why can't we just have the Mac?
No, it's got to be the big Mac. I ordered a small drink this
morning and it's like 22 ounces. When did that become small? You
remember Dairy Queen cups were like this, the large was like
that? Small and large. Now they got jumbo. Now you can
get like a 96 ounce soda with a backpack and a straw. You just
put it behind the seat with a urinal in front of you and just drive
to California. Never have to get out of the
car. We always want to do more. We
always want to be bigger. We always want to be better. We
always want to be noticed. And it seems like the more we're
noticed, and social media has done a great job of doing that,
which man has always done, and that is to focus on itself and
focus on him or herself and make much of him and herself and everything
else and find the amen corner in the yes man who always give
likes, thumbs up, high fives, fist bumps, yeehaws, hearts,
cares, whatever it might be. And then it makes us feel good.
Oh, you know what? We're doing something for Jesus. No, we're not. We're
not doing something for Jesus when James Tippins tweets. I'm not doing something for Jesus. And I use it as a personal notebook
and it gets me in trouble every three months. Or every three hours, depending
on who's reading it. So what are we going to do? How are we
going to wake up in the morning feeling refreshed in our spirit,
feeling refreshed in our minds and in our conscience and go,
okay, today is the day God has given me and I'm going to continue
to serve him like I've been doing by his mercy and by his grace
and by his power. How am I going to do that? Where
is this peace of mind? It's right here. By this, see verse 19. All right,
what's he talking about? By this, verse 16, we know what
love is. We lay down His life for us,
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. There's
an example of that, verse 17. If anyone has what somebody else
needs, and somebody says, I need something. You go, well, I ain't
got it. Get somewhere else. How is that the love of God?
That's the question. It's rhetorical. It's not didactic. It's not saying anyone who does
that does not have the love of God in his heart. No, it's a statement. This is not Romans, this is John. John's not teaching like Paul.
Matter of fact, John's grammar's deplorable. It's hard sometimes
to figure out what he's doing. You go to the Greek, then you
gotta call your PhD friend who's got Greek. And you talk for two
hours with him, he don't clue either, because John's grammar's
so bad. Well, I think what you're saying is probably better accurate. We can get it. But we know from
the context that He's saying, this is what love is. So don't
do that to your brother or your sister. Don't withhold. The love
of God is not abiding. It's not working in your life.
It's not being manifest in your life. You're not displaying the
love of God. That's what He means there. It's
not about salvation. It's about experience living
out the Christian life. And then he says, and he reassures
us, verse 18, little children, my beloved perfect siblings,
my perfect children in the faith, my elect infants. That's a term of endearment.
It's a term of theological significance to call them children, just like
we don't call everybody a brother because they're a man. For everybody,
a sister because they're a woman. In the faith, we know the difference
in someone who's a brother or sister. In the faith, they believe
the one and only true gospel of free and sovereign grace.
And they do not reject the testimony of God through the Word concerning
His Son. You can't lie about Christ and
be my brother or sister. So these are little children.
He says, here's the example. Here's an example of what it
doesn't look like to love. Here's an example of what love
is. And so my little beloved children, let us love not just
in how we speak to one another, which we should, but let us love in how we serve
one another. And in doing so, we actually
are what? Demonstrating the truth that
which is from the beginning. By this demonstration, by this
lifestyle, by this living, by this pressing, we shall know
that we are of the truth. Remember, he's not talking about
salvation. They're little children. They're beloved. They're the
elect. But we're not going to bed at
night going, am I saved? Am I not saved? That's not the
point. That's not what we're going to
bed saying. If we're at that place, we need to talk about
the gospel more. We're going to bed at night going, have I
served the Lord rightly? I just can never get it right.
And depending on what we know the gospel is, it may lead us
to, am I saved? But here, it's about reassuring
our heart before Him. The accuser of the brethren is
the enemy. And let me tell you something,
he knows what is evil because he's the epitome of evil. He's
the source of evil in humanity in the context of its relationship
temporally. And so we come to know that the
enemy accuses us, whispers to us, tells us, our conscience
bears witness to that. We are tempted, that's temptation. Not to go off and do some hellish
living, but our temptation is to not be secure and confident
before the Lord in the gospel. And another temptation is, even
though we are, we feel like we need to do more to prove ourselves
to the Lord. or that we're not doing well enough. So we get
this long list from the culture of everything that we must do.
The percentage of giving goes up. The attendance requirements
goes up. The service requirements goes
up. We start creating positions where we're going to have a clock-changing
ministry. That's my job. It takes about three weeks to
get the time change on all the clocks in the building. So don't
look at them. You better look at something
you brought with you. Oh, but we need somebody. It'll be a
good opportunity. Let's get a clock cleaner and
get a chairman. No, no, no. That's too antiquated.
A leadership team. I'm going to have a team, you
see, and then we're going to make sure that you know that
if you really love the Lord, that you'll get on that team
and you'll find a place somewhere in some team to lead and to serve
others. That is so far beyond truth,
but that's what America does. because America is biblically
illiterate. Well, I've been to seminary,
so what? I read clinical news about neurosurgery
every month. I get a magazine in the mail.
I love it. things that they're going to
try to do to the brain. And one day they're going to say, never
forget another thing again, I'm signing up for that surgery. And I'll be in a mess, right?
Because I never forget the sin that I do. So if we want to reassure our
heart before the Lord, I mean, isn't this and for those of you
been following us midweek on in Hebrews, we see that Paul
makes it very clear that there is a There's an essence where
we call God Pops. He tells it to the Romans too.
This adoption, we call God Pops. In the context of the celestial
worship of God. Now imagine, this is all imagery
by the way. God, for those of you who are
on our Slack channel, Trey did a fantastic job talking about
God in the context of his spatial existence and all. It was very
well done, I think it was your question. So imagine, though, this innumerable
heavenly host and the spirits of the saints and everybody's
worshiping God, who is ethereal in the context as a spirit. And
then Jesus Christ, the God man, physically in the context of,
you know, we see these. This is the imagery that we get
and everybody's worshiping. Bowing down and God is reading
or speaking his word or whatever, you know There's a scroll or
we see John with us with these pictures and then somebody comes
in says hey pops. I Know what I would do Can you
have you lost your mind? Interrupt in worship service
like that But what is the father? What is the picture and this
thing sacrilegious to so many of us? It's because we don't
understand grace Notice in the picture that God
would ignore the worship to pick his child up. Now I'm not teaching
that that's how that would play out because it's completely hypothetical
and actually completely impossible, but this is the relationship
we have with the Father. However, Just like with our earthly
parents and our earthly authorities, when we've done wrong, when we
haven't done well, and when our conscience doesn't bear witness
to us being in the right state of intimacy, we won't come in
to the front door and say, hey pops, we'll sneak in the side
or we'll go in the back like in music school when I was late.
And the professors would lock the doors. And you just stand out in the
hall like an idiot. And then he gives a pop quiz because he sees you
standing out there. And then he opens the door and says, Oh, Mr. Dippins,
glad you could make it. You know, I had to walk six miles
to get here for my last class. Give me a break. You're embarrassed. You don't
want to come into the throne room of God when you've been
hating on your brother or not having a good attitude or cussing
out the guy in front of you at McDonald's because he doesn't
pull up to the window enough for you to pay. And of course
they're too impatient, so they're trying to get it and you drop
all your money on the ground. There's a lot of things that go on in
our lives and in our hearts that make us feel as though we're
guilty, but the gospel says we're not. It doesn't make the sin
good, it just makes it ill-effectual because Christ has suffered the
full effect of the consequence of sin. And that is an amazing
love. So when we come to the condemnation
of our hearts, what John is saying, if we just would tend to other
people's interests. Paul said the same thing. Do
not think of yourselves too highly than you ought. And that means
in your theology, or your ability to teach, or in your physical
fitness, or in your nutrition, or in your parenting, or in your
work, or in your 401k, or in the fact that you come from good
pedigree, or for the fact that you came out of the gutter to
where you are now, or whatever. Don't ever, ever, ever think
that you did anything that God has not ordained. And if God can take a king who
rules a nation and make him think he's an ox and he strips off
his clothes and he walks around on all fours eating grass, don't
ever underestimate the power of God to take everything away. But we don't live in that state
of fear. It's just a respectful awareness. This is my pops, and
you don't want to make him mad. He loves me, but he don't love
you. You better not make him mad. That's how the young men
who wanted to date my daughters felt when they come ringing the
doorbell. Your parents wouldn't even miss
you, boy. Get off my porch. What? Get off my porch. That's what I told one of them.
I don't even know his name. I don't know where he is. He probably
ran off and never came back. So our heart condemns us. But
when we're loving, when we're not seeking after our self-interest,
when we're thinking of other people's needs as important as
our own and thinking of other people's lives as they are just
as important as ours, no matter where they stand, even the reprobate,
even evil people, even enemies. When we're loving in deed and
in truth, we have a fruitful conscience. I think that's what
I titled this message. I don't know. We have a fruitful
conscience that tells us that we're honoring our father. By this, we shall know that we
are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever
our heart condemns us, See, sometimes we think, and
I've said it, but I have to say what John says, yes, our loving
each other surely brings us to a place of a fruitful conscience.
We can then act, because what do we do when we feel guilty?
We hide. We don't pray, we don't serve,
we don't show up. You would never know because
they don't tell you, they tell me. You would never know the
number of people who sort of get gone for about a week or
two, week or three in normal time, not during the disassembly
series that we're currently under. And then you don't know where
they are and you can't get them, you can't text them, you don't know what's
up. And then after a while you finally meet with them and say,
well, you know, I just, I lost my temper and I just didn't want
to come back to church, I felt guilty. I felt like a hypocrite sitting
there. You can't be a hypocrite if you're a child of God being
in the assembly of God's people. You're not acting like a child,
you are a child. The love of God is yours. You
are not just having the title of child, you are a child. That's
what John says 3.1. And so even when our heart condemns
us because the instruction I've given you thus far, we can go
back and say, okay, now I'm going to love better so I can feel
more confident. You're still going to feel condemned.
You're never going to feel good enough because if we ever woke
up, or worse, went to bed one day and went, you know what?
This has been the most spiritually productive day that I've ever
had. God must be throwing a party on my behalf. We're in great
danger. Because, I mean, John's already
said that, if we say we have no sin, we're lying. Let's be
honest. So the conscious awareness that
we are doing sin sometimes, but we shouldn't, and the conscious
awareness that we need God's help to walk in a manner worthy,
and all of it's boiled down to this, is that if we just think
of others and how we could serve others and not ourselves, And
you might think, well, I got a lot to do. I got work and I
got this and I got the other. Okay, pray for someone else. Consider someone else. When you get that bonus, take
$50 of it and bless somebody else. I mean, why would you do
that? Because you've been thinking
about your neighbor who can't buy groceries and you're about
to go buy a new gun. That's what men do. Whenever our heart condemns us.
So look at the second part of verse 20. God is greater than our heart.
He knows everything. So when we say, woe is me, I'm
pathetic, I'm a loser, I'm this, I'm that, and the other. Remember,
this is the context. God is greater than our hearts.
And he knows everything. He knows what we can't know about
ourselves. He knows what we've forgotten.
He knows, even in our efforts, purely what really is motivating
us there. Often fear. And if it's not fear,
it's typically pride. He knows and we're still not
condemned. Now see how that drives us to
be at peace. Grace is so true that it ought
to make everybody in the room think, I can really live however
I want to live. But God forbid, why? Because
the love of God for you is that He laid down His Son's life to
satisfy your sin and to destroy the work of the devil. So why
do we want to live like the devil lives? It's simple, but we've
made it too complicated. And when we are in a Difficult
relationship because of sin. We don't pray correctly. And
that's the very next thing that John talks about. Beloved, if
our heart does not condemn us. Notice it doesn't say God condemns
us because God is greater than our heart. But when our heart
does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. What does
that mean? I'll give an example. First year of marriage. Things
are going well financially. Then things weren't going well
financially. That's typical for first year marriage, okay? This
job didn't work out, this thing didn't work out, oh my goodness,
now what are we gonna do? Oh, I got it, we'll do several
jobs. And we'll have multiple streams, so we'll never be without
zero, you know? And that's sort of the mindset.
So things are good, and then all of a sudden things got bad
again, and I asked for help from my father, and he helped me. And then things got good and
I bought a pistol. Because that's what men do. That's the second
time I've said that today. And then things got bad. All
within like a four-minute period. And then my daddy found out I
bought a pistol. And things were rough. I mean, because that was
foolish. You see? Should have put that
away for the next bad season instead of expecting something
else to just come along. And so there was, I couldn't
go to him and say, oh dad, can you help me? Because I did, I
asked. And you know what he said? Sell the pistol. So I did. You know, didn't want to, but
I did. It's upsetting. And there was
friction there. It's the same thing in our heart
when we do something dumb like that and then expect God to bail
us out. The only difference is God doesn't
condemn us. And so when we have confidence
before God, whatever we ask, we receive. In James chapter 4, we see James
writing to these extremely secure and elect people. I keep turning
past it, over who are Jews. And he says, what causes quarrels
and fights among you? Is it not this? You desire and
you don't have, so you murder. Now see, nobody was killing anybody. Nobody was killing anybody. But they were hating each other
in their hearts. You covet and you cannot obtain
so you fight and you quarrel. You do not have what you need
because you do not ask for what you need. And you do not receive what you
ask for because you ask wrongly so you can spend it on your passions.
You ever been there? You ever help somebody out? They
were down and out and I need groceries and you give them grocery
money and they come back with a gun? Here's my new gun, or
a boat, or a new dress. Why don't you just ask for a
new dress? Here's your dress money. Or you're
out on the big cities and some dude's like, man, I haven't eaten
in three weeks. And you know he's lying. You
mean three days? You mean three hours? I'm hungry,
man. I cannot say no to somebody who says they're hungry. But
now I buy food. But early, I'd just give them a $20 bill. Next
thing you know, right into the thing. come out with something
that they don't need. Lottery tickets. Are you kidding
me? You just won $2 on my 20? You
could have just asked for $2. I'd have saved 18. Or you buy somebody food because
you don't want to give them cash, and when you drive off, they
throw it in the garbage. I've seen that. That's aggravating.
We also do the same thing. Sometimes. It says, you ask wrongly
so you can spend on your passions. And James says, you adulterous
people. Don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with
God? Don't you know that? Why are
you living that way? You know this. John's same message. The message that we've heard
from him is that God is light and in Him there is no darkness.
So when we walk in a darkness, we're not walking as Christ.
is. Therefore whoever wishes to be
a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose
it is no purpose, as the scripture says, he yearns jealously over
the spirit that he's made to dwell in us? See when you stop
right there and everybody's like, oh my gosh, he brought James
into the sermon. I'm going to go home and throw
myself into that dumpster he was talking about and roll down
to the daycare. We're gonna go, but Lord as you
say in verse 6, but he gives more grace. He gives more grace
Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. John says
it in a different way. Submit yourselves, therefore,
to God by your love for one another, and do not condemn yourselves
when you fail in this way, because God knows your heart, and you
will not be condemned by the Father. All the more reason why
you should press into loving. Now, which is easier, to stomach?
Just love each other! Or, you know, this. The first,
right? I won't have hatred in my heart,
you know, as I'm hating. I love the murderous pastors
banging the pulpit about love. It's just funny. Snots flying
everywhere and spit. That's why there's no front row,
folks. So we think, well, what else? Whatever we ask and receive from
Him because we keep His commandments. There's a context that's been
here all the way from the beginning. But we still ask the question,
okay, which ones? Here it is, verse 23, that we
believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ. You know what that
means? That we understand and see the application of God's
love for us. And that we know that while we
will never make righteousness the standard of our lives in
any real spiritual way, Though we will mature, we will grow.
And by the Lord's mercy, together, we will keep each other in check,
not by policing each other, but by encouraging each other in
grace to put these things that are ungodly out of our lives.
And in doing so, we're actually loving each other. So that when we believe the gospel
and we believe the love of God. We're really loving each other.
And when we're loving each other, it's because we believe the gospel. To love one another just as he
commanded us. And then John restates that which
he has already said, whoever keeps his commandments, it is
he who is walking with God. And God is, of course, walking
with him. Because if God doesn't walk with us, we would never
believe in the first place. And if God doesn't walk with
us, we will never love effectually because we'll just go through
the motions. Because without the gospel as the centerpiece
of what love is, all active, loving acts are filthy before
God. And then someone would ask the
question, how do I know that He abides in us? Do I know that
He abides in me because I'm loving somebody? Now when we're walking
with God, we know because we're walking in the manner that God
calls us to, by faith, period, and then love for the brethren,
which is love for Him. But then the very next thing
is that, well, does that mean, how do I know that I'm His? It
says it right there. Remember, I think I taught this
this way, that God, that Christ is connected with us, and we're
connected with Him, and He will not tear us apart. So even when
we are living in an unworthy manner, Christ is not divorced
from us. And by this we know that He abides
in us, that is by the Spirit whom He has given us. Whom, personal
pronoun means person, He has given us. The Father, He has
given us. Him, the Spirit. Just reemphasizing
that. vital doctrine without which
you cannot be born again and then John says beloved don't
believe every spirit so now we have a spirit what is the spirit
doing right now and I know we're out of time but what is the spirit
doing in this context right now this morning God the Holy Spirit
he is testifying to your spirit that you belong to him in the
manner that you believe the testimony that I've just preached to you
from the pages of John's letter And you know that it is not your
assurance before God that you were doing the right type of
love, that there is no condemnation, for God is greater than your
heart, but there is a level of fruitful freedom in the conscience
whereby you can live free in the gospel as you serve each
other. And this is what John is telling
us to do. And so the remainder of this
entire letter deals with love by the Spirit. And that's what he's teaching
us. There is no way, absolutely no way that you can be lost even
when you're not loving. But because you cannot be lost
because of the love of God, would we please love each other? And
when you love each other, I'm writing these things to you so
that your joy may be full. That's what John says in the
very first part of his letter. You want your joy to be full?
You want to know what it's like to live in freedom? Then let's
get this right. Freedom in the gospel is not
deliverance from every bad thing. Freedom in the gospel is deliverance
from the oppression of self-righteousness and the worry of never measuring
up, which then gives us the freedom to live in a way that's worthy.
of the righteousness of Christ. Paul says in Ephesians that we
ought to grow up in every way into Him who is our head to the
full stature and the maturity of Jesus Christ. And we'll talk
about that next week. Let's pray. We thank you Father
for your everlasting love for the grace upon grace upon grace
that is ours in the Lord Jesus whose Life, exemplified righteousness,
who everything that He did is obedience to you, even death
on a cross. And the fullness of all that
Christ is in His perfect righteousness, His perfect obedience, is credited
to us, is given to our account, that we are also, in a very true
way, your righteousness. And one day, as John has shown
us, that we will pull all together next week, Father, Lord willing,
keep this in my mind, please, is that there is an eschatological
reality that when we see Him face to face, we shall be like
Him. Lord, we long for the day of glory so that this flesh will
be forever gone. And that there will be a real
way in which the perfection of Jesus and His humanity and His
imputation of that obedience, Lord, will be a reality in our
new bodies. Praise You for that. But until
then, we strive, by faith alone, to give You praise, to give You
glory, to give You honor, by thinking a little less of ourselves
and a little more for each other. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.