Turn with me to 1 John chapter
2 as we continue in this this morning. It's always a blessing to be
able to be in a particular letter. It's a blessing because it is
the Word of God and it gives us the truth It gives us hope. It empowers
us to see and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. It also gives us boundaries so
that when we go through the trials of life, we're not tossed to
and fro, not just by every wind of doctrine, but by every circumstance.
So that we know that as we've had bad days and bad weeks, if
we open the word of God, it is the same. The pages do not change
overnight. The words do not rearrange themselves
throughout history. Even though this life seems to
always be, as John will say next week, passing away, the word
of God remains forever. And the word of God is not just
written on the pages of this text. The word of God is the
word of life. The Word of God is Jesus Christ,
who is the resurrection, who is the hope, who is the life. So no matter what we see in our
world, no matter what knocks upon our door, no matter what
tramps us through the back of our yard, we know that when we
come together as the saints, we remain the same. For we come
to this letter and it is what we've been called to see and
to hear and to learn and to teach so that I and you alike find
solidarity in a time of uncertainty. Remember, John is writing his
therefore to his gospel. Beloved, I cannot tell you how
difficult it has been to hear and to see people who you would
assume for years to be in the faith, to be your brother, to
be your sister, who would come against the teaching of God's
word with such ferociousness that it would almost seem as
if the devil himself had risen up out of the sea as a beast. And the irony behind that thought
in my mind is it is what we envision when we think of that which is
evil, that which is horrifying, that which is dark. And yet it's the very thing that
John writes in his vision that is revealed to us. So that when we see those around
us and when we hear people who would subject the word of God
to historical hermeneutic, people who would subject the truth of
scripture to denominationalism, People who would come against
the gospel. People who would embrace certain conditionalism
and all sorts of things that they can accomplish, that they
can do, the faith that they have in their own faith, what they
have believed in, the list of things that they know are true
and thus they believe these things, so thus they are the child of
God. The scripture teaches the exact opposite. And when we call
a person's baby ugly, they get ugly. Beloved, we'll never see a beast
rise out of the sea. But if you look into the gaze
of those who oppose the gospel, who say they're in Christ, you
were looking at the face of the beast. You were looking at the
mark of the beast. You were looking at the sovereign
God of this world who blinds the eyes of religious professors
who do not possess Christ. Let's review John's first epistle
this morning. Let's think about what he's saying
because this is a message and this message has an audience
and this audience does not change. John has approached his beloved
brothers and sisters in the faith and he's teaching them All sorts
of things, but to the point that he focuses on is really what
I read earlier, and I'm going to read it again in John 15. He is focusing on what Christ
has done. He's focusing on what Christ
has taught. He's focusing on who Christ is. And that's what the body of Christ
is supposed to do with her time. We are to spend time together
focusing on who Christ is and what he accomplished for us,
his people. So that when the world and everything
in it blows every which way, we stand firm in the gospel of
free and sovereign grace. And beloved, I don't know if
you have recognized it in your own life or not, but when you cement your feet,
let me back that up, I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be culturally
correct in how I say this and blaspheme the gospel. When God
has cemented your feet to the cross of Christ, you are immovable. And when you are immovable and
others are not, they will step away from you. And if you think the Christian
faith is about kumbaya, hold hands, light candles, sing and
let's all get along, if you think the true gospel is about a massive
solidarity around certain things, you have not seen what God promised
He will do amongst His people. There is not going to be en masse
believers. And every waking hour, God, our
sovereign Father, is pressing into the hearts of unbelievers
every single second that they might blaspheme the gospel, that
they may preach it falsely, that they may add to it, that they
would change it ever so slightly, that if it were possible, it
would deceive even you. And John expresses this in this
way, that there's one thing that needs
to remain solid, and that is the love of God for His people. Effectually in Jesus, whom He
put forward and crushed to propitiate Himself so that we, would be
His righteousness, by His work, by His decree, by His purpose. You need to understand, beloved,
we've read John's Gospel. God's glory means all that He
is, visible to see and to know, everything about Him that could
possibly be revealed. Ta-da! Behold! That's what it
means for God to be glorified. When God's glory is at stake,
He wants you to see Him for who He is. And He has revealed His
glory through Jesus Christ by killing Him in order to save
His elect people. So there is no, listen to what
I'm saying, there is no other way under heaven to know the
God of heaven to see His glory except to see the crushing of
His Son. You can study his attributes
until your eyes twist and become ears. You will not know him until
you see the death of Jesus as the centerpiece of all that he
is and everything that he is ever going to be. And he is the motivator behind that
purpose, the counsel after his own will. You see, this is hard. It's hard because we don't want
to think. We don't want to think about
things we can't think about. We're all so smart that we think
we've got it down. That which was from the beginning,
we're just saying about the ancient of days, the ancient of days. He's with me. He's carrying me. He is the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's no wonder that there's so
much ridiculous heresy in the world. So many ridiculous divided
opinions because men in their free time with their idle hands
and their stupid brains have created so many philosophies
surrounding what could be. And this is logical inference
of that. Who gives a rat's behind about it? God is going to destroy
the philosophy of men. He dumbs down the wise. And when we study the Bible,
we see that. That which was from the beginning. Who did God blind? Who did God
the Son blind in his earthly ministry? He blinded those who
had studied their lives to serve him. He blinded the brilliant. He blinded the intelligent. He
blinded the academic who could deal with things and research
things. Beloved, none of you in this
room have any idea how much I have read in my life. 2009, 2010,
2011, I read two to three books a week. And I can read 12 times faster
than most of you can talk. Worthless. You want to go see
Plato? Let's go to talk. Let's talk
about Plato. Let's pick it back up. I'll find that in my Rolodex,
and I'll refresh my brain, and we'll talk about that. You want
to talk about economy? You want to talk about economics? You
want to talk about anthropology? And here's a new one. No, I don't
even get there. I'm always learning something
new. It's just what I do, it's my
hobby. And anything that catches my attention, anything that catches
my attention, I can divest, I can invest myself and I can divest
everything else that I'm doing and I can put myself inside that
center of a particular topic or a particular discipline, and
I can make myself be that just in a short period of time. It
doesn't take long. It doesn't take long, and all
of us have that capability. All of us have the capability.
But guess what? That's not where you find the
truth of Christ, even when you're studying the history of Him,
even when you're studying the historical record of the so-called
church. I'll submit to you that I don't think we have a historical
record of an actual gospel-believing church since the fourth century. I don't believe God has established
a record of theological fervor, because what man does is worship
those who put it on paper. And Paul says, do not worship
me, but worship Christ that I proclaim. This is an unfriendly, hard reality. The cause of it all is our sovereign
God, but the remedy for the people of Christ are to hear it and
to know it. What are you hearing? What are you hearing? Spend your
time in The scriptures burn your study Bibles. There you go, book
burning. I've gone liberal now, haven't
I? Gone crazy. No, I'm serious. Get rid of them. If you look at the notes in your
study Bible more than once a year, stop reading it. Because you are being indoctrinated
by people who wrote those notes who don't even agree with each
other. And I know they're big, and I
know some of them are beautiful, and I know you spend a lot of
money on them, so what? We buy tires and it's $300 a
piece, and a few years later they're worn down, we throw them
away, we buy new ones. Guess what? Bibles that hurt
you are not worth the time. Put up your study Bibles and
study your Bible. Turn off your internet. Shut down your Facebook if you
have to. Get out of your forums. Delete all your notifications.
And for the first time in your life, be a child of God, spending
time with Christ in His Word, so that you will know the Father. See? Theological dictionaries and
systematics do not teach you Christ. God will not use these
things by the Spirit to show you anything but knowledge. I've never read, and I've read
a bunch of systematics, and I love them. I love to see the diversity
of how people approach certain systems and certain things concerning
God and his attributes. I love the way I've read almost
everybody's view on immutability and impassibility. It is my thing. I've read as much as I can about
how systematicians and theologians have parsed out the idea of God's
love. What does it do? How does it
operate? I enjoy it, but it doesn't teach
me God. It teaches me men. It teaches
me their hearts. And I could stand here without
ever opening this Bible, beloved. I don't have to open this Bible
to stand here and fool you. I can close it and leave it on
this podium and never look at it. And I could go golfing all
day long and I could stand here and out of the center of my memory
banks, I can talk stuff that you'll agree with until I die
at an old age. I can tell you my stories. I
hope I don't lose my place. I can tell you all sorts of things. But if I'm not telling you Christ,
I'm wasting your time. And if I'm telling you Christ
from a lineage of historical things, I'm not teaching you
the truth. I'm teaching you somebody else's
thoughts on the truth. And when you have everything
in your head that belongs to somebody else's study and time
with a particular discipline, guess what you are? You are at
best a protege, at worst a slave to another man's ideals. Don't
be a slave to me. Don't be a slave to my theology.
Don't be a slave to reform theology. Don't be a slave to evangelical
theology. Don't be a slave to Protestant
theology. Don't be a slave to historical theology. Be a slave
to righteousness. Who is Jesus Christ? Who is the
word of God revealed to the apostles and established before the foundation
of the world so that we can see the Father in all that he is?
He is no more than what we can see. And what we can see is that
he has crushed his son for the sake of his elect, and they are
free. Why? Because in the counsel of
his will, he has loved us eternally. He created the world so that
he could be seen as the redeemer of his people. That's it. And from that love is the motivator
of everything for the elect of God. It motivates how we dress,
it motivates how we speak, it motivates how we think, it motivates
how we interact, but most importantly, and I don't know that I got this
out as clearly as I should have last Sunday, but most importantly,
it is going to motivate how we relate to other people, to our
friends, to our neighbors, to our enemies, and most importantly,
to each other in the faith. this word of life that is you,
yours, that we've proclaimed, that you have heard, and now
we have unity, we have fellowship, and our joy is complete. I want
you to listen to Jesus' words in John 15. Some of you weren't
here this morning when I started it, but John 15, the first 17
verses, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
Listen to this. This is John's letter. Every
branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. The Father
takes away. And every branch that does bear
fruit, He prunes that it may bear more fruit. Already you
are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide
in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless
you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Who's he talking to? The disciples.
Whoever abides in me and I and whomever I abide, it is he, it
is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do
nothing. For if anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away
like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown
into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and My words
abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for
you. Now think about that for just a moment. Fellowship with
the Father, walking in unity of the Spirit, loving one another
as the Father has loved us, as the Son has loved us, as the
Son has loved the Father, as the Father has loved the Son.
Love each other in this way. Be one as we are one, Jesus says
over in John 16. You have intimacy to walk up
to the Father of Majesty and say, hey Daddy, Help us here. Hey, Dad, give us what we need
here. And He'll give it to you. By this, my Father is glorified. How is the Father seeing in all
of His fullness in Jesus that you bear much fruit? Do you know
what it means to share in the glory of Christ? that we stand,
I want you to see this folks, oh history has ruined the gospel,
we stand as Christ stands revealing the nature and the face of God. The very thing that Lucifer claimed
for himself I should stand in the place of majesty. I should
stand on the mountain of the gods. I should sit next to the
majesty on high. Look at me, don't I reflect him?
I'm as pretty as he is. What's the scripture say? That
Lucifer said in his heart, he should be like God. You can't
be like God. You can either be God or you
can reflect the nature of God. You can reflect God. And the
church of Jesus Christ shares in the glory of Christ, which
is the glory of the Father, so that all that God is, we display. See why we don't like to think
about things we can't think about? Because you know what we're going
to do there? Our proverbial jaws drop in our souls and we go,
oh. That's all we can do. Like the
skater dudes of the 80s. You can't approach God with an
academic mind. He's not impressed with that. God's not impressed with anything
but His work. In His work, grants faith like
a child to the smartest man thus ruining that intelligence and making the dumb man who can't
even read or tie his own shoes or spell his own name more powerful
than the man who's been to seminary six times the people were amazed They were amazed when they heard
these dumb idiots proclaiming deep wisdom that they themselves
could not parse in the public square with the philosophers
of their day. And that the very leaders, the
very teachers of Israel were dumbfounded and silenced and
their mouths were shut because they couldn't stick it out. when
stupid, nasty, gross shepherds and fishermen and wicked, evil,
disgusting tax collectors were preaching truth. You see? The only Pharisee that was called
of God was sent to the Gentiles, the dogs. The rest of these guys were filthy. lowly, uneducated men. Jesus saved them for his purpose and
for his glory. My fathers glorify that you bear
much fruit and prove to be my disciples as the father has loved
me. So I have loved you abide in
my love. As Paul would say it, keep yourself
in the love of God. What does that mean? Rest therein
in Christ, beloved. Sit at the feet of our Savior,
knowing His love effectuated your redemption. It is the sole
beginning of your everlasting life. As the fathers loved me, so I've
loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments,
you'll abide in my love, just as I've kept my father's commandments
and abide in his love. This is the most practical teaching
Jesus ever gave. These things I've spoken to you
that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This
is my commandment. So see, Jesus is talking about
obeying. What? What to obey? Jesus is saying, here it is,
obey this, that you love one another as I've loved you. Greater love has no one than
this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are
my friends. If you do what I ask you, if
you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants,
for the servant does not know what the master is doing. But
I've called you friends for all that I've heard from my father.
I've made known to you that which was from the beginning, that
which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes and
touch with our hands concerning the eternal life, the love of
God manifested for you, that you know he is yours and you
are his and he is in you and you are in him. And the father
is with you now. This love, as you live it out
together, you have intimacy. And the knowledge of God grows
in you. You're no longer little children,
but you've grown to be fathers. To be spiritual heads in the
body of Christ. Women teaching women and men
teaching men. That's how it works. And now
we love each other and we're instructing each other. We're
not debating theological things. We're learning the Word of God
and we're seeing Christ. That your joy may be full. I've told you all these things,
I've made it know. And remember, he says, you did not choose me. But I chose you and I appointed
you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should
abide. So that whatever you ask the
Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command
you so that you will love one another. If you do what I'm telling
you to do, you're going to be loving one another. Why? All
right, because I have loved the Father and I want you to love
like I love. Where's their security? Election. That God has chosen them out
of the world. So now, back to 1 John. I'm writing you a new commandment,
verse 7, same place we've been the last two weeks. But an old
commandment that you had from the beginning. I wrote it to
Moses. I gave it to Moses. He wrote
it down. Love your neighbor. The old commandment is the word
that you've heard. You know that, my Jewish friends. At the same
time, it is a new commandment. We talked about this last week.
It is found in Christ. which is true in him and in you
because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already
shining. Whoever says he's in the light
and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his
brother abides in the light and in him there is no cause for
stumbling. But whoever hates his brother
is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and doesn't know
where he's going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
Beloved, listen, love one another. Don't live in darkness. It's a letter teaching us to
love. And just when we start to think,
because we parse this out with our extremely incredible higher
critical eyes, that we have got it all figured out and we know
the difference between who is born again and who is not born
again, and blah-di-di-blah-di-di-blah, then we see verse 12. And we
see this poetry that John writes. He writes this little poem. And
if you want, I can lay that out for you and show you the chiasm
and show you the meter and show you all that kind of stuff. I
can do that for you and get a whiteboard here and we can talk about it.
But you know what? It doesn't matter. You don't have to know that stuff
to hear what he's saying. Just listen to the words real
quick. I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are
forgiven for His namesake. I'm writing to you, fathers,
because you know Him who is from the beginning. I'm writing to
you, young men, because you've overcome the evil one. I write
to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you,
fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. And
I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word
of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Now,
John loves to be diverse in his linguistic usage of terms and
vocabulary. The diversity in the language
and in the words have nothing to do with the meaning of the
terms. Just like when Jesus talks to
Peter and he says, do you love me? Agapeo, agape, et cetera,
phileo, and all this other kind of stuff. It makes no difference. And people who parse that out
that way are unschooled, they have not learned it from their
own study, and they are using someone else's philosophy to
impart usage of the scripture that is unbiblical and ungodly. This is the same thing you'll
see if you were to divide a commentary on 1 John. You would see some
people say, oh, there's a difference in the children of the first
three verses and then the last three verses. One indicates an
issue, blah, blah, blah, as a learner. The other is an intimate context.
John doesn't change his mind in the middle of his writing.
Maybe he's trying to, as he wrote in his old age, use some language
that he knew. Is it wrong? Does your vocabulary
not grow through time? Sometimes do you use synonyms
so that it doesn't seem bland? It doesn't matter. My little
children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven. He's talking to the body of Christ. And I think that there is something
to be said that there are those who are father and mother types
in the church. And I think there's something
to be said that there are the young men and the young women of the
church. This isn't a misogynistic letter. He's not just writing
to the boys. And I think there's something
that we could derive there in this poetic interjection here.
We could think about that, but in the context of what he's writing,
we have a message that we've given to you. You know the truth
of the gospel. You have been saved by the power
of God. Now remember that Christ lived in this humanity in a place
of righteousness, that God the Son is perfectly pure, and that
all that he did, he's commanded us to do, so we would walk in
like manner. So in doing so, my little beloved
children, for I am your spiritual father as an apostle, I'm teaching
you these things, listen to me. Obey me, follow me as I follow
Christ and do what I tell you to do. Otherwise, we're going
to mark you as not being brotherly. And it may even be through that
process of marking you that you prove yourself not in the faith
because you reject the gospel and the finished work of Jesus
by refusing the love of God. And Jesus deals with that in
Matthew 18. Paul deals with that in 1 Corinthians
and other places. So I'm writing to you little
children. He's emphasizing the intimacy of the fact that they've
been adopted by the Father. They've been chosen by Christ. They've been given to Christ.
They are the prodigy, the progeny rather, of, see there's a play
on words, they are the children of God. Nothing can take them
out of the hand of God. And I'm writing to you, my little
children, I'm writing to you because your sins are forgiven
for the sake of His name. Whose name? Jesus' name. I'm writing. Your sins are forgiven
for the name of Christ. Because Christ died and His name
is at stake. If He did not justify you through
His death, then He's a liar. If there's something else you
must do in order to establish that salvation, then Jesus didn't
do anything. If he met you halfway, if he
did 99.99% and you gotta do one one thousandth, then you're in
big trouble. No, for the sake of his name.
Does that sound familiar? When did God speak to the Israelites,
to the prophets? All the time. And what is one
of the things that he said specifically, we can find this a lot in Ezekiel
36, 37. Not for your sake am I about to act, but for the sake
of My great name, which you defamed among the nations. How did they
defame the name of God? They fell into pagan worship.
They fell into pagan living. They fell into pagan affections. They begin to love the things
around them so much that they forsake the very nature of the
love of God for them. And then in turn, I promise you
this, they were not loving each other because you cannot love
me and I cannot love you if we are not centering our love and
the outflow of our affection from the cross of Christ. And so God throughout antiquity
has always acted for the sake of his name. I will show my glory
and vindicate my name by redeeming my people in spite of them."
That's the point. And you might think, well, I've
never really considered that. Well, beloved, let me tell you
something. We don't have two people in the Bible here. In Ephesians chapter 1 There
were historically one people, the human race. Eternally, there are two people
in the mind of God. And this is philosophy here.
But Paul explains it this way. God then out of no people called
a people his people, or the Chaldeans, Abram. made Him the Father of
Israel. And then there was a distinct
separation of a small people amongst all people to show His
purposes of election, His love, His work, His redemption of His
people. And then even there, it gets
smaller because even amongst the physical people of Israel,
God shows the trueness of what election looks like. You got
the world and there's a group out of the world that I'm going
to show something with and then out of that group I'm going to
divide it even further and I'm going to show that same picture inside
of my people. I'm going to show my true people
and these are the people who have my love and these are the
people for whom my son died and I will give them to him that
when he laid on the cross and his blood was shed, and his body
was crushed, their sins are forgiven. And in the forgiveness of those
sins, in the election of my beloved, I will be their husband, and
I will show them the truth of my love for them, and it will
be far beyond the ability of any philosophy of men, or the
acknowledgement of men, or the thoughts of men. My ways are
higher than their ways, and I will show them that which they cannot
comprehend apart from me. No matter how many years they
study and seek and try to find me they will not find me until
I find them and They are mine and I have
bought them and nothing will change that and their sins are
Forgiven and my name is glorified in their righteousness Right to you children Because
your sins are forgiven for His name's sake, I'm writing to you
children, because you know the Father. Then he says fathers. I'm writing to you fathers, because
you know Him who is from the beginning. Jesus Christ is the
object here. Or more specifically, the knowledge
of Christ, the teachings of Christ, the gospel of Christ, all that
He is. This isn't a history lesson on who was Jesus and what did
he do? It's a revelation, supernaturally, on beholding Christ, standing
there, looking, seeing, knowing, resting, hoping. Not in the precepts
of how this theology is laid out on paper, but in the person
of Jesus who was laid out on the cross. It's a huge, huge,
huge difference. I'm writing to you, fathers,
because you know Him who is from the beginning. And I'm writing to you, young
men, because you've overcome the evil one. I'm writing to
you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abides
in you, and you have overcome the evil one. And we could say, well, now there's
some distinct individuals. He's writing to the dads. He's
writing to the men. He's not. It's poetry. He's writing to everybody. He's
calling them children. He's writing to some. If I were
to say, hey, hey, fathers, and the mothers in the room would
be like, he's talking to you. Listen, wake up. Say, hey, teenagers. Young men,
young women, hey, children. Hey. If I say something remotely
about anything of a bodily function, all the little kids will pay
attention. It gets your attention. Hey, parents. Isn't that where we're going?
Isn't that what we're doing? Isn't that what John is all about? He's saying,
hey, you are all the children of God. And just as children,
this isn't new, this is week nine. I've been teaching this
from the very beginning, pun intended. We grow in the faith. We grow in our knowledge of grace.
We grow in our relationship with the Lord Jesus and the relationship
with His word. And in the same time, at the
same time, we grow in our relationship with each other. This is what
pastoral oversight is predominantly focused on. We grow, we learn,
then we learn to live that learning. And that learning is lived out
in love. And so we're all looking to see
the children grow up to be fathers. We're looking for the children
to grow up to be mothers. And it doesn't necessarily mean
that everybody's called to marriage and that everybody's called to
parenting. Some people are called to celibacy
and to singlehood. Some people will have the time
when God is ordained for them in that season and only in that
season. So for us to press what God has not done is for us to
not be thankful. But that is the common way. People
grow up, we mature. And in the day of John, there
was only one job, marriage and making it. That was it. And the more children you had,
the more likelihood you made it. They were like a commodity, if
you will. Well, we're not going to survive
it. Some of my ancestors in the 19th century, I read some of
their letters and things and having 10 and 12 and 13, 14,
15 children, half of them died. We will have to take more children. Why? Because they couldn't run
the farm without that many kids. And there's a whole nother American
history issue there. We'll leave that for later. But we are all children, then
we grow and mature. Imagine that concept and the
idea of fathers, and then I'm gonna undo what I'm saying here
and say something else too, as a way of perspective. And on the way to that, When
you consider a father, when you consider a head, when you consider
a mother, when you consider a patriarch or a matriarch, these aren't
the people who are active or who are often healthy. These
are the ones whose bones have become a little sore or whose
muscles aren't quite going, but the mind is sharp and the truth
and the wisdom is there. And so the young people are doing
the work. And there are exceptions to these
rules. This is not a treatise on aging. This is not a treatise.
But just imagine this for a moment. We are talking to the church
and there are amongst us children. It has nothing to do with age.
Fathers. It has nothing to do with seasons.
And young men. It has nothing to do with power
and strength. It has everything to do with
spiritual things. And John is so his readers don't
go down the wormhole of ridiculousness to begin to say, now I'm probably
not a believer because I've got hate in my heart for somebody.
John is saying, listen, I'm writing to you beloved because your sins
are forgiven for the sake of His name. Your sins are forgiven.
Stop thinking otherwise. I'm writing to you, you fathers,
you mothers, you spiritual leaders, because you know Him who is from
the beginning. You have grown in your understanding. You have
learned to love. You have matured in the faith.
You have grown in a way that now all the children sort of
look to you. Now how is this guy? How is this
girl? How are these people handling this? How are they dealing with
their suffering? How are they dealing with death? How are they
dealing with frustration? How are they dealing? Are they teaching
others? See, John's so poetic. I think
that's why I find such an affinity with him, because I can waste
time thinking about things that don't even exist. It's just crazy. It's crazy. I told my father
this week, I think I'm gonna buy me a hammock, like old times.
And I got to thinking about how many hours I used to lay in that
hammock and look at the sky. Literally look at the sky. Three,
four, five hours straight. And I never stop thinking. Some
of you think, that is boring. I've never been bored. Never been bored. There's a lot
of time to think sometimes. And we look and John is writing
in a way different than Paul. Paul gets to the point, do this,
do this, don't do that. This is why, good gracious, can you
hear what I'm saying? Are you crazy? Stop, do, thank
you. John is like, let me just, let
me get it out. John spent his days looking up
in the sky, I think. And it comes out in his writing. the wives of the church, the
older elders of the church, the older men and women of the church,
they've grown through it. But guess who's in the middle
of it? Guess who's there in the war? Guess who's there in the
trenches? It's the young men and the young women. It's those
who are in their teenage years spiritually, and they're learning
submission, and they're learning humility, they're learning to
keep their mouth shut, and they're, you know, And everybody's got an opinion,
and everybody's smart, and everybody's learning stuff, and we've got
all these resources at our fingertips. God knew not to let me be a child
in this age. I would have been in a middle
institution, I'm not kidding. If I had grown up with the World
Wide Web at my fingertips, they would have had to put me away. Because I would have never stopped.
Before I got to third grade, I had read over six sets of encyclopedias. That was my summer fun. What
are you doing this summer? I'm going to read the world book. All 30 volumes. I'm playing baseball. I see.
I'm gonna do that too. But I'm gonna read the world
book first. Got a new set coming in. It's just what I love to
do. Some people don't like to do
that. I like new stuff in my brain. I couldn't imagine. But young people, we know how
we are. We have zeal. Paul tells Timothy, hey, put
away youthful passions. It's time for you to become a
man. It's time for you to become a spiritual father. Paul says
the same thing to the Hebrews. Some of you, I should be talking
to you as teachers, I should be training you to handle the
word of God. Remember last Sunday? Or the Sunday before? Go back
and listen to 1 John. I talked about that. Some of
you should be handling the word of God, but you aren't, because
you can't even get the basics of grace correct, because you're
still dabbling in the law, wrestling with alligators, putting heads
in the mouth and stuff. You're doing stupid stuff, and
you ought to be ashamed of yourself. This isn't what you're supposed
to do. Grow! But you young men, you've overcome the evil one.
You're growing. You aren't lost. And I'm writing
to you. The evil one has your name, he's
got your number, and he's tapping on your shoulder every moment
of the day by the will of God. And he's tempting you, causing
you to stumble. And the one where you're gonna
stumble, beloved, is when you hate your brother. If you think
there's any other sin that's gonna take you down a rabbit
hole of depravity, when you start hating somebody, you're gonna
have a problem. And when you start doing stuff
to satisfy your flesh, devours the intimacy, you're not loving
each other, so it really is the remedy of all sin. I had a man tell me one time
after the death of his mother, about three months later, he
struggled his entire life, I'd counsel with him some and once a month we'd have breakfast
and he told me after the death of his mother, you know what,
the Lord used the death of my mother to set me straight. Because
there's things that I used to do in private that I don't do
anymore because I'm afraid she can see me. I think that's a pretty good
turn there. I like that. I start using that. But it's wrong. That's not true,
number one. Number two, it's funny how love
for someone and how they view you can motivate us to change
our behavior. And it's either we don't want
people to see us in this way because we don't want to have
shame, we want them to be proud of us, or we don't want to be
ashamed, we want them to look at us in a certain way, or we
do it out of fear, we don't want to be chastised. We don't want
the pain, we don't want the suffering, there are consequences. So we'll
change our behavior in that context. But what does the scripture say?
What is John saying here? Because your sins are forgiven,
Because you have fellowship in the light of Christ, because
the message of Christ is that he is righteous, because of his
righteousness being given to you, this is our motivator. It
is our love for Christ because of his love for us. And see,
it's an obvious, logical argument. And that's why he gets over in
the very next breath about what we love and what we should love
and how God has loved us. Get out of your mind about how
you feel toward people and get into your mind about how God
feels toward you. And His love for you satisfied
His wisdom to give His Son in your place. Grace is strong enough. Grace
is powerful. Grace in every aspect of it in
its context. Merciful, a merciful God cannot
condemn His children. And it's so easy to say, then
I can just keep sinning. And the answer to that, yes you
can, but you ought not to. And that's why Paul answers that
in Romans. Should we continue to sin, that grace may just keep
on going. He says, it should not be. That's why the love of the brothers
and the sisters, the saints together, we help each other in our struggles
and that when our sin becomes divisive to the body, we deal
with it in a way that everyone is corrected so that God is glorified
in our love for one another. This is the bearing of fruit. Why do we share the gospel? Because
we love Christ. We love our enemies. We love
the lost. We love the elect. And we want to do that which
is pleasing. And you, young men, you've overcome
the evil one. You children, you know the Father, you fathers,
you know Him who is from the beginning. How is it that we
have overcome the evil one? Look at what He says in the last
stanza of His poem. He says, I write to you, young
men, because you are strong. You've overcome the evil one because you are strong. And you might think, well, I'm
not strong. It's not talking about physical strength. It's
not talking about emotional strength. God help me if my emotional stability
is, is a prerequisite for true service to the body because this
past week is not good for me. Award this morning about four
o'clock. Do I even preach today? Do I preach something else? That's
what I'll do. I'll preach something else. That's
why the little treatise at the beginning about the perfection
of the word of God and its boundaries to keep me on task. For your
sake. These young men are strong because
their sins are forgiven. They have overcome the evil one
because Christ died in their place. And because of that, the word
of God abides in them. The Word of God, Christ, abides
in us. Nothing can change there. And we can abide in His Word
by continuing to hold fast to the truth of the Gospel. But
it's not about, am I saved? Am I not saved? Am I remaining
in salvation? Am I losing my salvation? It's
not the focus here. The focus here is, am I abiding
by remaining steadfast? Am I cemented to the cross? Am I stuck to Christ? Yes, you are. So because I'm stuck to Christ,
it means He's stuck to me. Yes, He is. And because we're
stuck together, all that I do is a reflection of Him. Yes,
it is. So that when I glory in Christ
and I sin, I bring reproach upon him. Yes,
you do. What's the remedy? He's stuck
to you. And you can't get away. And all
that he's all that he does. Reflects of you. And all that he accomplished
on the cross, all of his righteousness and all of his work counts for
you. See that two-way street? See
that unity? See that love? See how it works? Who's changeable? We are. Christ is unchangeable. He's immutable. His work, He
is stuck forever. We are in Him and He is in us
and He will abide in us. So part of our abiding in Him
is to abide in that gospel and that good news and know that
because He is stuck to us, We can welcome a man worthy of
his name. And there's no shame there, and
there's no fear there, and there's no horror there, there's no condemnation
there. Beloved, this is the only way we live. This is it. God's love for us in Christ is
His glory to us. And you may think that the things
that we see with our eyes and touch with our hands in this
world is magnificent, but it's garbage in comparison to this
revelation of glory. God will not cause life to those
who marvel in his creation. But those he calls us to live
in Christ will marvel at his new creation. And the world will hate us. If
we go back to John 15, what's the very next thing Jesus says
in verse 18? If the world hates you, know
that it has hated me before it hated you. And that's where John
picks up over in verse 15 of chapter 2 of his first epistle.
Do not love the world. Why? Because you're greater than
the world. The world is dying. The world
is accessible. The world is broken. You're not
of it. Don't love that which you're
better than. You have overcome the evil one.
See, it's not a new topic. It's the same thing. And there
is such deep encouragement there. It breaks my heart that we haven't
seen it before now. Be encouraged in the gospel and
the good news of Christ, beloved, and know, know whose you are. And let's help each other walk
to reflect the nature of our God. Let's pray. Lord, we are going to suffer
for your gospel. Thankfully, in our day, we do
not lose life and freedom. We do not have our property taken
and our children removed. We are not branded and sold. Father, we are hated. Because you've given us an everlasting
love through Christ. And you've given us a true and
sufficient promise in Christ. And Lord, the world hates this
gospel. And many who claim to have it
will take this pure grace and they will twist it and malign
it so that we can all just get along by being close enough. And Father, there is no such
thing as close enough. Close enough to life is still
dead, Lord. Cement that into our conscience. So, Lord, as we are rooted to
the seed of righteousness, as we are attached as branches to the vine of glory, to the seed of David,
to Jesus Christ, our God, Louie, thank you, Father, that there
is nothing that can separate us from that love. Lord, I pray
for us. I pray for each of us. I pray
for all of us, Lord, that we would truly rest in this sufficient
love and grace, that we would not wobble, that we would not
do things in our lives that would cause our intimacy to be shaken. That we would consider each other
before we open our mouth, before we type on a keyboard, before
we enter into conversation, before we open our eyes, before we listen
with our ears, before we consume with our mouths, before we ponder
with our minds, before we go with our feet, before we spend
our resources, that we would consider each other and we would
ask, am I loving my brothers and sisters in these things? Thus loving you, our Father. who made us your children. Lord,
we thank you for this word. Drive it into our hearts. Let
us hear this entire letter in one sitting every day. Please,
Father, guide us to that. For it is almost impossible for
me to even pray these things without already hearing the rest
of this letter in my heart. Because I know that which is
true Because you have granted me the knowledge of Christ. And you've granted us all that
knowledge to be found in Him. So that at the day of reckoning,
we're free. And Lord it is in His name that
we pray. Amen. Thank you church.