Well, there's always gonna be
a time where things don't go the way we want them to go. And
quite honestly, I think we could do a lot more of that in the
context of life and find ourselves in a place that has a lot more
joy. Because when we get what we think
we need, and it's not what we definitely need, we are spoiled. We are privileged. And then when
things come along that don't satisfy our norms, we get frustrated,
and that frustration is fleshly. That frustration is sinful. I
was told this past week by someone that is arguing my position on
the context of 1 John, not from a contextual point of view, but
from a traditional point of view. And they said to me, it is impossible
that a true Christian could hate someone. To which my first response is,
then there is no opportunity in your life. You've never had
hatred in your heart. You've never had a place where
you just wished you could just tell somebody what you thought
or pop them real good or shake them real good. But I didn't
ask that. I just said, well, it must be
nice to have perfect love as a human being. It must be nice
to be in a place where you don't have to fight the flesh, where
you don't have to worry about whether or not you're going to
love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind tomorrow morning. And that there is nothing that
can ever happen that would cause you to stumble before the Lord. And that person said, yeah, it's
a pretty good place. To which God, the Holy Spirit
says through the writing of John, if we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. I want you to understand
something, beloved. It doesn't matter how many years
we spend studying. It doesn't matter how many academic
credentials we pile upon ourselves. It doesn't matter how many years
we've been in the ministry, how many people follow us or listen
to what we have to say. What matters is what God's Word
teaches us by the Spirit. Traditional theology, by and
large, is false. Historical theology by and large
is majority error. Philosophy at best, humanism
most likely. And so when we approach the letters
of the New Testament, we do so within the fullness of those
letters, not what the subject heading says, not what the topical
commentary say, not what Pastor Tippin says, but what God's word
has said clearly in the reading of it. And as we move on through this
letter, it's going to become clearer and clearer if we grasp
the foundations of John's writing as a letter to the elect saints
who are secure in the grace of God through the death and burial
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is the satisfaction of God
for them on the cross. And we see these commandments
and we understand fellowship. in that context. I mean, since
March, there have been members of this congregation that I have
not seen with my eyes. There are members of this congregation
whose voice I have not heard. I've received a mail, a messenger,
an email, or what have you, but there are some who just, they're
just isolated. Like a brother from Dublin whose
wife is stuck in Brazil. They are married, they are in
union, in marriage, but their fellowship is waning. Our fellowship
is waning. in the body of Christ. Because
though, yes, we have intimate fellowship in a spiritual sense
in the gospel of free and sovereign grace, it is also required of
us that we have intimate fellowship physically around the Word of
God. We haven't done the Lord's Table
since the first week of March. And it is something we are supposed
to do weekly. We are supposed to eat together. We are supposed to remember the
Lord's body and blood with the physical experience of tasting
the cup. and tasting the bread and being
reminded that Jesus physically lived in this earth and He physically
died and He physically rose from the dead and that He created
a people for His glory who would reveal His physical giving of
His life through their physical giving of their lives. I read
the latter portion at the beginning of our service today of Romans
chapter 12. where Paul exhorts the body there
in Rome, both Jew and Gentile alike, to give of themselves
for the sake of one another, to urge them to do whatever it
takes so that they can come to the place where intimacy and
fellowship is not derailed. And beloved, there are some family
members that we have not seen, that we may not see before this
is all over. We had to make some difficult decisions this week
as a family for one of our dear family members has come down
with Covid and he is not well and he is not most likely going to make it. And it's difficult. It's difficult on many things,
but one of the greatest things about death for the believer
is that we know it's just the beginning. And one of the things
that I remember throughout all my years in ministry, all my
years alive, sitting in the homes of people whose loved ones were
passing away, is being there with them in a time of great
pain. That we might, as the body of
Christ, remind each other that our fellowship is real. And that
even in death, when our fellowship is severed, it's still eternal. Now, remind
us of these things because we need to put that as the complete
perspective of John's first epistle. When he talks of fellowship,
he is saying togetherness, physically, bodily, intimately. He's talking
about fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ physically when
we are physically together with the body. When we are with each
other in the hearing and the teaching of the Word, when we
are encouraging one another, when we are able to interact
in some way, there is fellowship. And he said
that the message of the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect righteousness
through which we have the right to come before the Father boldly
and say, Oh Daddy, We don't take a number. We aren't escorted
into the presence of God by some guard or some angel. The angels
get out of our way. We're the kids here. You're the
servant. Move! That's the attitude of the believer
in approaching the throne of God. Because Jesus Christ, the one
and only Son that He has had, He has crushed beneath His righteous
justice so that we now are guiltless and free. So when we know the truth of
who God is and when we grow in our knowledge of Him, we grow
in the knowledge of what righteousness is. We grow in the knowledge
of what justice looks like. We grow in the knowledge of mercy. We do not grow in the knowledge
of fear. So any so-called, quote, gospel
is not gospel when it imparts fear on you, beloved. Anyone
who has come to believe in Christ because they were fearful of
the judgment of God has never been born of God. Anyone who has caused to fear
the judgment of God as a child of God has never been taught
the truth of God. When Jesus Christ, even in His
three and a half year ministry on the earth, where He taught,
He taught judgment to the reprobate, to the self-righteous. He taught
mercy to the sinner. And this is so backwards from
the Christian gospel, from the American gospel, from the deformity. of what so many people call the
gospel today. And it is why it is so easy to
speak of sovereign grace with this side of our mouth and work,
work, work, you better not burn with this side of your mouth.
There is a streak of fundamentalism in all of us by which we hold
fast to the flesh and we think that if there's something in
me that I can do, I must do it and God will be pleased with
me and it will affirm my calling. And in some way that's true. John writes this letter to the
beloved. John writes this letter to the children. John writes
this letter to the elect. John writes this letter to those
whose joy will be complete. And he says, you know the righteousness
of Christ. You know whose you are. Walk
therein in this way. To love the Lord your God with
all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your strength
is to love your neighbor as yourself. And John parses out that reality
that your neighbor is your brother and sister in the Lord Jesus. And that what I do behind the
closed doors of my home, if it is wicked and defiled, it affects
your life. For I cannot pray, I cannot study,
I cannot teach, I cannot lead, I cannot do what God has called
me to do, to throw myself away and to pour myself out for the
sake of your joy and your knowledge, and the same is true for you. That is the context of this writing. Fellowship with Christ is fellowship
with Christ's people. So I want you to take it very
literal. Not salvific, not spiritual,
not about justification. That's a given. John's gospel
is a given. These things are written that
you may know that Jesus is the Christ, and by believing in His
name, you will have eternal life. These things are a given. Now,
therefore, because you are in Christ, because you have fellowship
with God, because you have intimacy in the gospel of grace, you now
need to understand what it's like to walk with Christ. Thank God that the gospel, it
would not be good news, is not, you walk after Christ, you can
have eternal life. The law has never promised life. It has always offered up death
on a platter. And then we like to hear what
we want to hear in our flesh. We love to hear the data that
fits our perspective. We love to hear the forecast
that fits our, that goes against our fear. How many different
ways do we track a storm? Which one do you follow? The
one that looks like it's going to fly off to sea. Oh, this is the one
I'm looking at. Why? So you can walk in blissful
ignorance while the wind blows you down. But it's what we do. I look like NOAA, the National
Organization for Oceanic whatever that stands for. Yeah, not our
NOAA. I look like the weather channel
when there's a storm coming. I've got four screens in my study.
Typically two of them are here and they've got a lot with Bible
verses and things on them. But buddy, when there's a storm
coming, it's like, like the Batcave. I flip the switch and now I've
got satellites flying around. Here's this model. Here's this
model. Here's this model. Why? Because we're fearful and dumb. Like me watching that all week
is going to make a difference as to when the wind blows at
my house. And that's what we do. And it's
the same thing that many of the sheep of Christ have been taught
to do in this world today. By well-meaning but ignorant
men of God, if I could dare say that. And they will take this
letter and they will say, you're not a believer if you have hate
in your heart. So what are you going to do about
it? Nothing. If that's true, you're doomed. Because you're
not going to take the hate out of your heart. If you're not
walking close enough with the Lord, you're not a Christian.
Versus the way I was raised from birth. Son, you are a child of
the king of kings. Walk that way. You don't have
to act on that. You don't have to say those things.
You don't have to go there. You don't have to do this because
you're a child of God. Remember, and Levi could tell
you, whose you are. Remember whose you are, beloved.
Whose you are. And if we're not careful, we
take these little words and we can say commandments and word
and abiding. John is talking about the fullness
of joy that comes with walking with the saints, putting away
sin so that our lives are pure before one another, so that our
intimacy and fellowship is not broken, because in that breaking
of fellowship with other believers, we are breaking that fellowship
with Christ. In verse 7, we see what that
commandment is. Let's look at 1 John 7 through
11. We're going to go through that again today. Beloved, I
am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you
had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word
that you have heard." Now, we spent that time last week and
the week before talking about these things, and we understand
that this is nothing new. This is not John coming up with
some new burden to put upon the saints. But it is the same old
commandment in 1 John 2, verse 7 and 8, or verse 7. It's the same commandment that
has been given from the very beginning, from the beginning
of time, from the beginning of Moses, from the beginning of
the teaching of Jesus, from the beginning of the commissioning
of the disciples in John 14, 15 and 16. from the prayer of Jesus we see
in John 17 where He says, I want you to love one another. When
I leave, that is what you must do, so that the world will know
that you are following after Me, that you are doing the work
I sent you to do, that you love because you have love for one
another. That's why it's so easy for the cults of our culture
and for the evangelical cults of our culture and for the Protestant
cults of our culture and for the world cults and the world
religions of our culture to seem Christian because they do a good
job of tending to the needs of others. So this isn't anything new and
it's not an ambiguous everything I've ever commanded you. It's
not an anchor weight around the throat to the law. It's not a
shackle around the ankles and the hands to the decalogue being
thrown into the sea of life going now swim. It's a beautiful ordained
reality of God the Father who gives us supernatural spontaneous
love for one another. But the flesh fights against
that just like the flesh fights against God's free and sovereign
grace. But he says in verse 8, this
is rerun, this is reminder, it is a new commandment. It's a
new commandment. It's a new commandment that I'm
writing, which is true in Him and in you. Why is it a new commandment? Because it's now understood.
It's a new commandment because it's now been able to be applied
in a way that it's never been able to be applied before. for
the years of antiquity as the Israelites worshipped because
of the precepts of the law. And they worshipped, which in
that worship, as we've been going through Hebrews in midweek, that
worship has not effectually done anything to the heart of God's
righteousness. that worship, and those sacrifices,
and following these rules, and these bathings, and these washings,
and these laying on of hands, and these prayers, and these
pouring of blood, eating of feasts, none of them have done anything
for the Lord in the context of judgment. But they are to point
to the constant impossible work of that which is required, which
is perfection, which is holiness, which is to be in every sense
as God is, as He always has been. Humanity in His creation was
not like God. And it was God's purpose. that
humanity fall, that He would be the just and the justifier
of those who He'd given to the Son Jesus Christ. Romans 3, Ephesians
1, the letter of Galatians. And so now that this is an old
commandment that is understood, didn't that take place all the
time? Did not Jesus do all the work of God, particularly on
the Sabbath, that He might be seen violating man's interpretation
of what keep and honor the Sabbath meant? keep and honor the Sabbath to
the Jews was to take a particular day from sunup to sundown. I mean from sundown to sundown
on a 24 hour period. To take that day and to reserve
it to do nothing. That if you spit on the ground
you are guilty of work because your saliva soaks into the dirt
and that is farming. But if you walk too far, you've
actually taken a journey. And you remember when we talked
about that in the context of Galatians, when we went through
Galatians, or maybe it was even in John, where the day before
they would tie strings to each other's property, because if
the properties were connected by a material object, God help
that the dirt's not a material object, but by a material object,
they could walk the journey as hard or long as it was, and without
violating the Sabbath. But as Jesus shows us in his
ministry throughout the four Gospels, and even with Dr. Luke and his expression of the
history of the Acts of the Apostles, we see the work of Jesus when
he talks about the Sabbath. He says, I am the God of the
Sabbath. I'm the master of the Sabbath. Sabbath was made for
man, not man for the Sabbath. But yet how often do we even
hear in our Protestant circles, that, wow, we have this one day
that we have set apart and this belongs to the Lord. Don't eat,
don't breathe, don't move, don't throw a ball, don't do this,
don't do that. Because if you do, God's going
to get you. I don't know if any of you have
ever been told by a pastor, God's going to get you. But I grew
up listening to it all the time. Those spring revivals. He'd spit on the first and second
rows for an hour. God's gonna get ya. Boy, tie
your shoes! God's gonna get ya! Lookin' like
a bomb in church! I mean, you know, and it's funny
to us now, but it wasn't funny when I was nine. Yes, sir. Am I gonna go to hell, Grandma?
My shoe's untied. No, son. That man's a heretic. And why are we listening to him? Well, he's, he's France at a
preacher. This commandment now is not so
that we are saved or because we are saved because of how we
are saved. This commandment to love one
another is in fact the living out of the gospel of grace and
our love for God. As I talked on the phone yesterday
with a pastor brother up in Ohio, he and I had just a lot to talk
about. We haven't talked in a while.
And some of our brothers around the world love to just be hateful. At the end of all of this, this
is how we need to look at it. It doesn't matter if a man's
gospel theologically is perfect. It doesn't matter if his Greek
is absolutely pristine. It doesn't matter that he spent
60 hours this week studying for the message and it sounds as
though Jesus or Paul or John were teaching. If he does not
love the church, he is not to be fellowshiped with. Fellowship comes from and centers
on and births out of our love. Love is not how we feel. Love
is what we do. Love is how we give. Love is
how we prepare. Love is where we are able to
put ourselves in the place of others and in the path of others. Not just for serving, but also
for teaching and encouraging. To be the filter when our minds... I mean, think about your life.
When you are at your wit's end, when things are crashing down
around you, it's very seldom that you just pull yourself up
by your bootstraps, brush yourself off, and you go, you know what?
I can't be like this anymore. I'm climbing back to the top.
No, it's some loving brother or sister who comes along with
a helping hand of care, concern, and prayer, tells you the truth
of Christ and reminds you of the power of God's grace and
sets you back on a place where you're looking to Christ instead
of looking at the mire in which you found yourself drowning.
That is the instrument through which God will always bring us
back to see Christ. And the struggle comes when we
are so isolated, when we're not having fellowship because of
things out of our control, or we're not having fellowship because
of just continued sin and hatred. So the commandment is different
because the darkness is passing away because the light of Christ
is shining in you. You know Him. As Peter would
say, you don't see Him, but you love Him. And you have not seen Him, but
you love Him with a love that is impossible to get rid of. And you do so because as your
fellow Jewish brothers and sisters are suffering for the sake of
Christ, you too are suffering with them. Paul would say that
to the Colossians, wouldn't he? Don't worry about my suffering.
He said that to the Philippians as well. Don't worry about my
suffering. I am suffering in chains for you. God has put me
here that I may show the suffering of Christ. He even says it to
the Church of Colossae in such a way that people have a hard
time when they've never read the letter and they don't understand
the theology of Paul. They just see that verse sometimes
and they say, how is it that Paul can say, I pray I may fill
up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ in the suffering of
my own flesh for your sake? How does that work? How does that work? It works
because when we are going through our lives, And when we hide our
needs, and when we bear our own burdens, and we're not fellowshipping
and intimate with the saints at any level, then all of a sudden,
we don't tell anybody. We don't want to be a burden
to someone else, even though that's what our calling is, to
be a burden for someone else. But then, sometime in that season,
we see someone else going through something similar or worse, and
we see how God uses that And we see them resolve and come
to a place of going, praise the Lord for it. The Lord gives and
the Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the Lord
that all my children have died. That's what Job says. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. And we go, wow. That must have
been what it was for Jesus to suffer and to die and to be persecuted
and to be hated and never spoke a word in His defense. I don't know if I've made jokes
like this before, but that'd be the worst superhero movie in the
world. Here's the God of all creation,
the most powerful thing that exists in the cosmos and outside
of the cosmos, who created the cosmos, and he hangs on a cross
and dies. And he comes back to life and
he hides himself from most everybody, talks to a couple of his friends,
teaches them a couple of things. Then 500 people audience, he
ascends into heaven, says, Please be with you. Teach each other
the word of God. Everything that I've taught you
teach each other, and I'm gonna be with you forever. Just wait
the end. You're going. Where's the fire?
Where's the smoke? Where's the laser beams? Where's
the enemies drinking and having a good time? Yeah, we got rid
of Jesus and he flies through the wall. Boom! Hey, gotcha,
didn't I? Haha! I mean, you know, that's
the one, that's the gospel we want. That's the sword we want
to see. That's the power we want to see.
We want to see the cross come up out of the ground and melt,
turn into snakes and bite everybody. We want to see Old Testament
stuff going on here. Jesus subjected himself to the
Father, who judges righteously. He laid his life down as God
and did not take equality with God something to be made much
of, thought it not robbery, as the old King James says, to be
grasped, to be displayed. Well, I'm God, you're not going
to crucify me. Now, I'm the son of God and I've
come to do the will of God, the father who sent me to die for
my people. This is the love of God, the
love of God seen visible that he gave himself for us, that
he satisfied God, the father on our behalf, that he substituted
himself in our place. This is the good news. This is
the gospel. This new commandment is shining
by visual example of the history of what Christ is and what Christ
accomplished. So in like manner now, the darkness
that we think has overcome the world, as John has already said
in his gospel, it will not overtake the light. So, beloved, it will not overtake
the light in you. For the light in you is Christ. And you are in the light. And
because you are in the light, you ought to walk as in the light. And if the light of Christ is
a display of His righteousness and a display of His love through
the giving of His life for His people, that's love. This is
what John's saying. You need to love like Jesus loved.
And it doesn't mean that you have to die for people. It doesn't
mean that you have to become homeless for people. It doesn't
mean that you have to throw everything away for people, but if the shoe
fits, God will make a way. Because whoever, verse 9, says
he's in the light, you know what, I'm walking, I understand this,
this isn't about being saved. This is about saying, I'm walking
and living in the light of Christ. I'm living. Look at my life. He says he's in the light and
hates his brother still in darkness. What's that look like? I've been
practicing the last few weeks. When I get up in the middle of
the night, instead of turning on a little light or whatever,
I've been practicing to see if I could walk without sight. And I've hurt my toes a good
bit. Where did that clothes basket come from? Oh, that's the wall,
not the door. It's amazing your your sense. I mean, my bed's
been in the same place for six years. Why is it now five feet
further over to the right when my eyes are closed? See, I think
I'm smart. I'm really just a dumb kid playing
in the dark. So I think about that, you know,
I've got a friend in Canada that I'm praying for who's losing
his sight. He can't see now or read in his left eye. And it's
it's it's sad. I know what it's like to wake
up one day and have different vision, and two or three days
later have different vision. My vision is weird. So I thought, what would it be
like to just not see at all? How do these people, well I know
what they do, they don't have anything in the house. They don't have
stuff, they don't have knick-knacks in the corner. They don't have,
you know, ottomans here that can slide. And so I may think that I'm walking
in the light, but I'm not looking where I'm going. I bump into
something. I run over something. I stumble
into something. I stub my toe on something. I walk into the
wall. And it was a failed experiment to one degree. The other success
on the experiment is I'm not a good blind man, and I don't
want to be blind. And I am very, very, very, very
impressed with people who acclimate to that context of life. Well,
where's the illustration? I'm glad you asked. When we are
in Christ and when we continue to harbor unlovingness and hatefulness
for each other, for any reason, it's like we're trying to walk
around without turning on the light. That's what John is saying. It doesn't mean you're lost,
though in a sense you are lost, but not eternally. You ever felt
lost? Not that God had forsaken you,
not that you were condemned, but just like, where am I going?
Where's my life going? What am I doing? Take your eyes
off Christ. Take your eyes off Christ's people.
And take your eyes off living your flesh toward that glory. And I promise you, you'll feel
lost. You'll feel like you don't know where you're going or what
you're going to do. And there's nothing you can do
about it. So when you're still in darkness.
You're stumbling around. You're hurting yourself, you're
hurting others, you're not living the way God has called us to
live as an example of his loving kindness. And then verse 10, that's why
he says what he says here. Whoever loves his brother. Abides
in the light. and in him there is no cause
for stumbling." You know when you catch your
kids sometimes in a lie. You ever caught your kids in
a lie? Those of you who have kids old enough to lie? And you
know they're lying, you even witness the situation, and they
give you the dumbest answer. They could have gotten better
wisdom from a fortune cookie, but they instead decided to compose
this incredible fabrication of sorts And with every question
comes another stupid answer. That's what happens. And we as children did the same
thing to our parents and grandparents, and it goes on down to Cain. And even Adam and Eve gave the
same dumb answers to God. Uh, that woman you've made? Ask
her. Oh, that snake you made? Ask
him. And we just keep passing the book. We make some kind of
stupid answer. And we stumble. And we get caught. And we find ourselves in a place
where we dig a deeper and deeper hole. Then the only way to avoid
the confrontation And to get through it is twofold. There's
two ways. We either come clean and say,
you know what? I'm just made all that up. And this is what I did,
dad. This is what I did, mom. This
is what I said, and I'm sorry. Or we just run for our lives
and we hide forever. Right? That's what happens in
the judicial system. There's a warrant for my arrest.
I'm going to run forever or I'm going to give myself up and answer
for it. Friends, when we walk in a manner
incongruent of our righteousness imputed, we're stumbling in the darkness.
And we're stumbling because we're trying to find a way of keeping
that hatred, keeping that bitterness, keeping that frustration, keeping
that flesh, because pride is a powerful, powerful possession. And that's what it is, a possession.
It's something we own. We own our pride and we are proud
of it. And along with that pride comes
stubbornness and along with that stubbornness comes obstinance.
And you may think it's the synonym game, but beloved, these things
breed and then they breed bitterness. And the next thing you know,
we're disfellowshipping with people. That's the way of the
world. That's why talk shows exist. That's how they do. They call
thousands of people. Hey, do you hate anybody? No. Hey, do
you hate anybody? No. Hey, do you wish you could
kill somebody? Yes. Oh, we'd like to talk to you here. We're
sending you to John. Hey, John, she'd like to kill somebody.
Oh, well, tell me more about this. And then they set it up and they
put it on an hour television show and they get out there in the
sling chairs and they curse and they make all sorts of things and say all
sorts of things about what's taking place. And we all go,
Oh, I can't believe they're so dysfunctional. Welcome to you
and to me. to the internal essence of our
flesh. It's who we are. Some of us are
just bougie enough to realize that we shouldn't act that way
because somebody might think ill of us. So what are we going to do in
the context of the gospel and God's people? See, when people
are corrected through church discipline, the purpose of that
is for their joy and for the intimacy of the church to walk
in fellowship so that we don't continue to have division. And when someone refuses that,
they're actually saying, I hate you. I don't care what you think
about what I'm doing. It's my business and I hate you
and I'm never coming back to where you are again. Why? Because
they're refusing, because of pride, to be honest about their
sin. And before we think, oh no, what
is this spiritual police department, church discipline issue? These
are issues that become knowledgeable. These are issues that come out.
These are issues that are obvious. We don't look and peek. That's sinful. That's called
a busybody. When we look and peek and try to find something,
that's a sin too. But we know what it's like. I mean, when we're upset, is
the first thing we want to do is go and pray with our enemy
and teach the scripture to our enemy and get the Bible and go
and fellowship and pray and sing together with our enemies? No,
we want evenness. We want retribution. We want
to speak our minds or at best, we want to humbly keep to ourselves. I'm so humble. I'm not going
to be like them. They're not going to get me on that talk
show. I'm just going to be humble. Well, beloved, if there's hatred
in the heart, there's hatred in the life. And if there's hatred
there, we're walking around in darkness. And what happens if
someone else is walking around in darkness, and we're walking
around in the same room, we're eventually going to step on each
other's toes or bump each other's heads. It's not going to be a
comfortable thing. And I know I'm overdoing it with these illustrations
today, but I want you to see. Because I really believe that
everybody, under the sound of my voice, has this cultural blasphemy
In the context of John's first epistle, as well as the book
of James, which we'll probably do after Hebrews on midweek,
we'll read through James. As if it is a test of true salvation
or not. And it's not. And there's not
anybody worth their salt and exegesis who can prove that. Because it's always a, yeah,
you're right, but... Not, yes, but the scripture teaches. You
can't say, yeah, but, because that's a contradiction. You have
to say, no, you're wrong. This is what it says. So when you're still in darkness,
you're walking around in darkness. You're not looking at the light.
You're not walking in the light. This is not about darkness as
in spiritual blindness. This is about blindness. This
is about dark living. This is about hatred. Is hatred
darkness? Yes. Does it blind you? Yes. It causes bitterness, it
causes rage, it causes isolation. For those of you who have been
in the context of seeing God bring intimacy out of misunderstanding
or out of frustration or out of anger, you know what happens
when the light comes on and you're able to see and you're able to
engage. You love each other with a love
that you've never had before. It's greater on the outside than
it ever was before. Whoever loves his brother, verse
10, abides in the light. I want you to get that picture.
And there is no cause for stumbling. We abide in the light. I've taught
personal defense and close quarter defense combat stuff for 17,
18 years. And There are some common sense things
that we teach people when they're just doing personal defense training.
And one of them is when you come into a place or to a building
or to a parking lot or out of a building, you need to understand
where to go and where not to go. There's a parking lot right there
with 30 cars in it and 16 lights, or there's that sweet close spot
right there next to the back alley in front of some bushes.
Where are you going to park your car? Because when the sun goes
down, yeah I see you boys, yeah I'm parking in the bushes, yeah
I see you. When the sun comes down and you're going back to
your car that you got to at 10 in the morning but now it's 10
at night because you've been in the mall 12 hours, don't lie. And you
walk out, now you're in a place where you have to walk in the
darkness to get where you need to go or where you want to go
because you put yourself there to begin with. That's what hatred
does. That's what bitterness does.
It parks us in a place where we think we're fine. We go right
to the edge, next to a wall, and when the sun goes over here,
it casts a shadow on where we are. Friends, things happen in
darkness that are bad much more than they would happen in the
light. So when we're hating our brother,
we're hiding in the darkness. We don't want to be seen. We
don't want to be told. But when we're loving our brother,
we're standing in the fullness of the light. We're being exposed.
We're also showing the righteous picture of the love of God in
Christ Jesus. This is the point. The point is that when we love,
We are displaying the gospel. We are living the gospel. We are portraying the gospel. We are proclaiming in a way of
life and love the gospel, but it is not evangelistic. You have
to always use words to share Christ. We need to love each other. Because when we're in the light,
there is nothing for us to trip on. There's no cause for stumbling.
When we're loving one another, there's no cause for stumbling.
Listen, now what's that stumbling? Out of the faith? No. John is
secure. These beloved children are in
Christ. We're not stumbling out of the
faith. We're stumbling amongst each other. We're stumbling in
a place to where we're causing problems, where we're causing
pain, where we're causing division, even inside our own minds and
hearts, we are destroying the very fabric of what Christ accomplished
in our conscience. Are we not? When you're in the middle of
an argument or a fight, whether it be verbal, external, or internal. You ever had an internal fight
with somebody? Don't confess that, man. I do it. I role play, get mad at somebody.
They're going to say that to me, I can feel it. And then you
talk to them, I am so sorry I offended you. Well now I'm an idiot. That's
how it is. But we get to that place where
we have this argument internally or externally, at that moment
We don't come in the midst of that and go, wait a minute, oh
my goodness, I'm being hateful. The gospel of grace, look how
the Lord loved me. I'm not going to not love you. Let's not even talk about this.
Is that the way your fights go down at home? At work? In the car with the guy cutting
you off in front? Lord bless that guy. The gospel of free
and sovereign grace. I love foolish drivers. They're just amazing.
I wish the Lord would put them in my path all the time so I
could celebrate the gospel of grace a thousand times a day. Well, he did. He let me live
in Oakland. Fifteen mile an hour speed limit.
Ninety-five an hour average speed. Nine lanes. Oh, there's my exit. Lane 7. Sorry. You're going to
San Jose. I mean, it's just the way it
is. No, we don't get that. We get that, and then we have
to come to a place of, what's the first thing that comes? Guilt.
What's the first thing that comes? Guilt! Condemnation! The lies
of the enemy tell our flesh, you are no more a Christian than
your car is. John says you are a believer,
you are in Christ no matter what, but you need to love each other
or you're going to live a tough life. There are consequences
for sin, but there is no condemnation.
There are consequences for hatred, but there is no death. There are temporal consequences
amongst the brethren, amongst the sisters. amongst the pastors,
amongst the saints. There are consequences when we
are not loving and forgiving and humble and serving. And it can become emotional,
it can become psychological, it can be physical, it can be
literal, it can be relational, it can even be gospel consequences. That the light of a particular
fellowship of a body is snuffed out and it no longer exists.
You think every sound, orthodox congregation in the world that
has vanished from the face of the earth and is now known as
just an apostate, heretical group, do you think they started out
that way? No, many of them started in the truth. And either some false gospel
came along and choked out the truth. But why does God permit
the truth to be choked out? Typically because a group of
people are not loving toward each other. I don't know about you, but I
mean, I've been in ministry a long time. And I know a lot of people. I know a lot of people. I know
a lot of pastors. And I can drive through hundreds
of cities across this country and I can look at that church
and I know some stories about these congregations historically,
but the majority of the stories I know are negative. Oh, there's First Baptist Church
and so-and-so. They split in 1989, 1996, and 2012 because
of this, that, and this. Oh, see that church over there?
What you don't know about that, that used to be a farm owned
by this family. And then about 35 years ago, that family wanted
the land back to plant some tobacco. And they split on that. Well,
I see this church over here, there's some land behind it that
they needed for expansion and the pastor prayed that God would
kill the owner of that land so that they could have the land
for free. And that's a true story. I was sitting in the congregation
when that happened. We know the negative stories.
Church splits, church fights, church divisions, because those
make the history books. So don't think there's not a
consequence for not loving each other. And beloved, all it takes
is one relationship in the midst of our body to become hateful,
to divide the entire thing, and we're gone. We're gone. One time where the elder brothers
of this church decide not to exercise discipline and to deal
with it swiftly, and the enemy comes in and everybody's bitter
or scared or frustrated. One wrong pulpit supply. You know? One stupid move. Yeah, go ahead and get up here
and say your peace. Everybody's laughing because
we've done that, right? What if it was a pastor? A buddy of mine who used to be
cool and I'm just like, get on up there, boy! And he preaches
stupidity. It's going to happen. Things
are going to happen. The question is, do we love each
other? Are we willing to love each other? We can. This is the
commandment. This is the only commandment
given to us in John's letter. This is the point of abiding
in the righteousness that's been given to us. This is the point
of walking. This is the point of fellowship
with the Lord Jesus, is to have fellowship with each other. And
beloved, if you don't know because it is not taught to you, even
through directly or through observation, if you don't know how to work
without differences, you come to a brother or sister in the
church who can help you. You don't have to give names
or details. All you have to say is that I
have bitterness in my heart and I need to be helped. Because
we don't want to gossip either. We are here to help each other.
And that's why the Lord's Table every week is so important to
us because You have to look at the gospel. You have to touch
the elements. You have to taste them and feel
them. And you have to all stand up and come up here together
to do it. I love that. And it happened by mistake, just
logistics of how we just stand up and all come together. But
in some way, we're doing something together. We're facing each other. And when there is unforgiveness
or bitterness in our hearts toward anyone, we're sort of confronted
with that at the end of every preaching time, at the end of
every worship service, so that we're caused to think about what
Christ did. But if we don't, if we don't
deal with it, then what happens? We're in the darkness, verse
11. We're walking in the darkness. We do not know where we are going
because we cannot see. I think Paul calls it a root
of bitter deceit somewhere. You know what deceit means? You're
deceived. You don't know you're bitter.
You don't know you're in darkness. You don't notice. But somebody
notices. Here's some of the most practical
teaching that I've done in a while. Here's something that we need
to do, beloved. When we notice someone who is deceived in bitterness,
we don't point to them and go, you sinner! You bitterness! We
should love them in a way that we should pray that the Lord
would allow us to come into their lives in such a way that we would
remind them of the gospel and be patient because it doesn't
just click on like a switch. I know for us, Grace Truth, I
know for us, we've had pain. Not just in our nine years together,
but we've had pain throughout our lifetime in other congregations
and other denominations and other churches. We've been hurt. We've
been hurt for just asking questions because we want to know. We've
been hurt because we were fearful of false teaching. We've been
hurt by just wanting to grow in the knowledge of grace and
saying, hey, where is some opportunity for depth? We've been hurt. A lot of us. And beloved, sometimes that hurt
rises back up. Sometimes those feelings like broccoli that you
hate as a child and you smell it when you're 50 and you go,
oh, and you lose your appetite. Or maybe you escaped a house
fire when you were in college or you lived through a tornado
and every time the clouds get dark, you feel it. When you smell smoke, you think
there's fire. When you see a breeze, you think it's a storm. When
you hear water, you think the floods are coming. And when you
see someone who approaches you in such a way, you automatically
assume that they're going to be just like everybody else who's
just like them. Beloved, we can't do that. We
must be long suffering and giving the benefit of the doubt for
our brothers and sisters. Because Christ, in His eternal
patience, gave Himself so that we could be called the righteousness
of God. Now we are the children of God. And because of that,
beloved, we have complete joy. And that joy is sustained and
that joy is fed and that joy is purposed by our intimacy together
as a church as we're able to forgive and to love as we've
been called to do. And we are just getting started
on how we do that. We'll see some of the details
of how that plays out as we continue in this letter. Let's pray. We
thank you, Father, for the greatness of your mercy and love. And Lord,
for the details of our lives, all the stuff that's just in
our heads right now as we think through these things, Father,
move it out of the way so we can see the simplicity of Your
grace, the simplicity of Your gospel, the simplicity of Your
love, that we may emulate that love by the power of Your Spirit
as He teaches us through the Word that we might affect each
other in intimacy. Lord, teach us what true love
is. Love is patient and kind and long-suffering. It holds
no records of wrong, Lord. And I'm thinking to myself as
I say those words that you have penned through Paul, Lord, have
mercy. I've got a note in my pocket
and a sense of something I need to tell somebody. Lord, help
us to truly seek wisdom. and learn to take that to the
battlefield, which is truly worth fighting for and teach us to understand, Lord,
that sometimes the truest of love is to let go these small
offenses and then when it's not offensive to teach each other
in kindness and patience. Our relationships and the way
we communicate with each other is truly an amazing thing. Lord, you have created humanity
with such complexity, yet we are all so much alike. But as
your body, Lord, we are uniquely driven to the greatest display
of mercy and love that the universe will ever see. And that is that
you, the God of heaven, sent your one and only son, that you
crushed him in our place. Though we deserved his death,
we received his life. And though we are not taking
the table today because of health reasons, Lord, help us to in
our mind, take that table. to consider one another and what
it was like in the days of Jesus where He broke that bread and
gave that cup and He heard them say, this is my body and my blood
which was broken and poured for you and shed for you for the
remission of your sin. Lord, as the first church ate
together often and took up scraps to do that very thing, Lord,
help us to take up those scraps in our mind this day. and to
remember what Christ has done for us for the sake of your name. In his name, we pray. Amen. Pray. Amen. Pray. Amen. Pray. Amen. Pray. Amen.