as we continue there this morning. I would encourage you to, if
you are not able to follow or haven't been following our Hebrew
study on Wednesday night, I would encourage you to specifically
be sure that you hear last week's message because the relationship
between what Paul, as I argue, writes to the Hebrew Christians
in his letter concerning the law and concerning the hope of
Christ, and how John now writes his, therefore, in this first
epistle, they are congruent, and I think it would be beneficial.
I think it would also be beneficial because I spent a little bit
of time, maybe too much time, this past Wednesday talking about
the sufficiency of scripture in its contextual form, and how
we are to understand and read and listen and study and preach
the Bible in its context, not pretext. That's true in any narrative. That's true in any discipline. That's true with any subject
matter, that if we are moving from one level of understanding
to another or one part of a story from another, we must know what
is preceding that and what is among that and what is beyond
that so that we can have the full picture of what we're looking
at. There is no systematic discipline of medicine or systematic discipline
of mathematics that is not dependent upon itself and its whole. The
same thing is true even with our sitcoms or with the movies
that we watch that have sequels. When we see the next one that
comes out a week later or a month later or a year later or a decade
later, we must get the review last week episode, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, then fades in and then next week so
that there's some continuity. That's why we teach the way we
do here amongst ourselves. That's why we preach the way
we do. Because without continuity, it is not just wrong, it is broken. And so as we're reading John's
letter, my prayer for you is that you have been reading John's
letter. That you have been reading this letter throughout the week
because it is where we are as a family. It is what we are doing
as a family. It is what we are responsible
for as a family. I'll remind us all over and over
again that we do not come to church. We do not attend a church.
We are the assembled ones, which is what Kirk means. Well, Kirk
actually means institution, but it's what the idea of the mistranslation
of the word church comes from. Ecclesia, the gathered ones,
the called ones. There is no church that's not
together. The very net definition means
we're together. And so if we are a family, we
don't show up when mama cooks a meal and bring our food with
us, each to our own, and decide that she just gets to throw her
food out because we went separately, individually, and got what we
wanted. That's a war right there. No, we sit down together, and
though we may not all eat every piece of the same amount of a
certain dish, we all enjoy the meal that's been prepared for
us. Beloved, if you're not eating before you get here, you're not
going to have an appetite for it. Not only are you not going
to have an appetite, you're not going to have a palate for it.
I can only do that which I'm called to do. I cannot make you
read the Scripture. The Word of God, My Little Children,
Chapter 2. I am writing these things to
you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And
he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world. And by this, we know that
we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Whoever
says, well, I know him, but does not keep his commandments as
a liar. And the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his
word in him, truly the love of God is being perfected. By this,
we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him
ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 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. At the same time, it is a new
commandment that I'm writing to you, which is true in him
and is true in you because the darkness is passing away and
the true light is already shining. Let's stop there. As we sang
that song this morning, I lost myself in a particular phrase.
To imagine God as the only eternal thing, creating temporal things,
ruling over all things. This is the framework of the
story of legends, of myths, It is from that mindset that all
the gods of antiquity are created in the hearts of men. That the
idols throughout the centuries have been carved and worshiped.
That there is this old sovereign deity. The oldest of olds, the ancient
of ancients. The one who is before all things,
who created all things. Everywhere you look in all the
cults and all the world religions and all of the mythology that
has ever plagued this earth, it all comes from that point.
Because as Paul would say, what is plain to them is that God
is. For we can see that he is because
of what he has made with his hands. But knowing that there
is a God will not save you. He must know your name. And the truth that God, the Ancient
of Days, knows your name is enough. It is your assurance. It is your
rock. It is your foundation. It is
your refuge. He is your life. We've sung it this morning numerous
times over and over. This is what John has written
this day for us to hear. The very beginning of this letter,
that which was from the beginning. That which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, as he wrote in his gospel, we have
seen the glory of God in the face of Christ. Paul says the
same thing to his second letter to the Corinthians in chapter
four. God, who says, let light shine
out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give us the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This letter, as we've heard over
and over again, is not a test to see if you are in the faith.
It is an encouraging letter because you are in Christ. And last week we discussed what
it meant to know God. Two ways, salvificly in Christ
Jesus, the mighty work of God in His sovereignty, in His power,
in His electing love. The love of God that because
He loved us first, we love Him. We sang that this morning. Beloved,
we haven't chosen songs just because they sound good. We choose
our songs because of the lyrics being foundational from scripture. Be mindful of the truth you sing. And the love of God is the effectual
cause of your salvation. eternally. God doesn't start
to love us the moment we believe he loved us so that Christ would
die in our place that we will believe. And these are not theological
debates in classrooms. These are gospel truths against
gospel errors. It is good news only when God
is sovereign and free in his electing grace. and that the
work of Jesus Christ on the cross is sufficient and effectual for
his people alone. If the work of Jesus is an opportunity
for eternal life, it is damning. It is not good. Because the scripture
in every jot and tittle as it relates to the anthropology of
humanity, it shows us very clearly that human beings hate sovereignty. Never has there been an uprising
to secure the monarchy. We hate being told who we are
and what we are to do. And then when we find our way,
we won't credit for it. And in our boastful humility,
look what I came to see. Praise God. We don't praise God
before him. We don't give him glory to say,
look what I did, God. Thank you for providing that
opportunity. And I dug up that treasure and
took it home. Alluding to, as Jesus talks about
the kingdom of heaven. God is sovereign. His grace is
all powerful. He exercises his grace as he
sees fit to save his people. And it is a finished work of
redemption. And it is free. As I said Wednesday night, there
is nothing you can do and there is nothing that you have to do
to receive eternal life. If Christ died for you. Because as long as you carry
with you a small, tiny card in your wallet about what you did
to believe, you've not been saved. A gospel testimony is to agree
with the witness of the Father concerning His Son, is to hear
as the Spirit preaches through the pages of John what He says
concerning the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Great High Priest,
And by the mercy of God the Spirit, He gives us, His people, the
mind to believe and rest in the finished work of Christ. That
is faith. Nothing else. Justification is by grace through
faith. The faith is your awareness of
what God did to justify you, of how God justified you, of
how God is just and righteous in his forgiveness of your sins.
Because he crushed his son. And so in these words, as we
see. In verse five here, look at chapter two, verse five, this
is where we left off last week. It says, whoever keeps his word
in him, truly the love of God is perfected. Now, we know that
as we've been studying John's gospel, we see Jesus speaking
these very things and we can go and I could I could give you
some proof text all over the scripture that shows us this.
But by the essence of the context, listen to the spirit of God as
he teaches us. whoever keeps His Word. In the context here, there is
this mindset of command, but in the way that this condition
is set forth, whoever keeps His Word, in Him the love of God
is perfected. Where are we going here? We know
that as we get through this letter, John is going to expressly uncover
the truth that the Word of God is Christ. He's going to expressly
show us and remind us, we know this, remind us that abiding
in Christ is indeed first and foremost and eternally believing
in his work. And believing in his word. That
he is our eternal life. That he is the resurrection and
the life. Interesting how Martha and Mary took that, right? In
John 11. If you had just been here, our
brother would not have died. The odor of his decomposition
as Jesus stands and says, take away the stone. No, no, no, no,
don't do that. That's embarrassing. It's our
brother in there. Jesus says, I am the resurrection. I am the life. And their mindset was that, yes,
we know that in the resurrection, at the day of judgment, that
our brother will live again. And Jesus is saying, no, I'm
the life of your brother. You see me alive? He's alive.
You see me resurrected? He's resurrected. I'm going to
prove it to you right now. Take away the stone. All you
Jews watching, you Pharisees watching, Sadducees, let's see
how you like your coffee in the morning. Watch this. Lazarus. Now what did Lazarus do? Rot. Did Lazarus hear the call of
Christ? Sit there and ponder, you know, sitting here on this
slab. I don't know if I want to come back to life or not.
I don't know if I want to come out of this tomb or not. You
know, it'd be good because Jesus is trying to perform a little
miracle here, and I don't want to be in the way of that. So
I guess I'll wobble on out of this stone tomb and hobble on
out with my grave clothes on. Ta-da! Like David Copperfield
in Las Vegas. No, Jesus Christ commanded him
up, commanded him to the body, restored his flesh, and brought
him out of the grave without him moving a muscle. Just like Jesus in John chapter
six teleported the boat as he stepped in it three and a half
miles to the shore of Capernaum. They were halfway through their
journey. Jesus steps in the boat and immediately they were on
the shore. That's what the Bible says. Christ saves sovereignly. Christ saves freely. And you believe those things
concerning the witness of His gospel or you're not believing
in Him. Abiding in His Word is to first
and foremost rest in Him. But now the context of 1 John.
We rest in the grace of the Lord Jesus. We are secure in the truth
of the work of the cross of Christ. We know that we know we are eternally
alive in the person of Jesus. And so now John is writing, because
of this, I want you to live a fulfilled life. I want you to live a joyful
life. I want you to live in a way that
is congruent with who you are, for you are righteous in Him. So let's walk in a manner that
does not blot the name of our God. And now, John's going to give
us The very thing that he's talking about. Because if we're not careful,
this is why you need to listen. I hate doing this, but please,
if you've not been listening to Hebrews, I'm only in week
what? 16. Go listen to all of them.
And they're shorter sermons, they're like 40 minutes. Go listen to them. Because you
need to understand what the Bible says concerning the law, including
the Decalogue. The apostles did not separate
the Decalogue from the ceremonial law. They didn't. And the judicial law. They did
not segregate it like that. Systematicians have done that
because they're too stupid to be smart enough to not know.
You see? That's exactly what it is. We
are not wise enough to know how to deal with how we parse out
the things in the scripture to make them work for what we want
them to do. And we do it so eloquently that we prove ourselves dumb.
Christ is our wisdom. God puts to shame the wisdom
of humanity. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. God
makes the wise stupid. And He proves the stupid to be
wise. Oh, that's a terrible hermeneutic.
You're not exegeting. Yes, I am. And I will stand with
any PhD that wants to come and argue with me. The minute he
says something that's out of the context of scripture, he
loses. That's how that works. We don't
debate historically, we don't debate grammatically unless it's
written there in the grammar. We don't make it up. We read
it simply. John, if he stopped right now,
guess what? We could, and especially his
listeners, they could very easily say, oh my goodness, we are bound
now to the law. How are we going to apply the
law to our lives when the very nature of what we've been taught
concerning the Christ is the fulfillment of the law? What
are we supposed to obey, John? How are we supposed to live? How much doing? How many good
works? What kind of good works? Where's
the measuring rod for these good works? How often? What if we
forget? How do we make it up? You see,
that's bondage. It's not freedom. It's not grace.
It's not sovereign. And it surely isn't free. Is it knowing God or is it knowing
the truth? Is it loving God or is it the knowledge of God? Is
it salvation or is it growing? Which is it? John, we don't know. Well, I said last week that these
infant Christians, that these baby Christians, just like when
children have to learn the foundations, beloved, we all have to learn
the foundations of the faith. And it includes doctrine, teaching.
It includes theological things that the Bible reveals concerning
who God is. It concerns with the discipline
of the Christian life. What are we supposed to be doing?
And that would be a good workshop. Like if we just had a couple
of hours for me to get the whiteboard out. Many of you have never seen
me teach from a whiteboard. It's an exhilarating experience
of ridiculousness. But some of you love it. I'm
like, get the whiteboard out, I love it, you can preach from it. It
keeps my brain from exploding. What was I talking about? Oh
yeah, I need the whiteboard, stay on task. But I mean, we could have an exercise
where we could all just one at a time as it came to our mind,
raise our hands and give me a rule or a way of life or an attitude
or a dress code or some do or some do not, some don't do that
we've heard throughout our lives, whether we're 12 or 92. that we've come to find that
we're not necessarily a biblical instruction, and we could fill
that board up all day long. You had to take a picture of
it, erase it, and keep going. Well, a Christian want this.
A Christian can't that. A Christian shouldn't do this.
And I mock the Southern in me, because that's where I grew up
around here, so, you know. Those prophets of old, the people
that came out of heaven and told us who God was and what we had
to do for Him and then floated back up into outer space, that's
how they sounded in my ear. You ain't got the King James
Bible, you're going to hell. I mean, you know, that's one. The NASB growing up, or the New
King James, that was the big one. When the New King James
became popular, oh man, people hit the streets, street preaching
against the New King James. Take out the blood. And I'm not
mocking that fear, it's fear. It's immature fear. And we can be patient with one
another in that fear. But I'm not talking about that fear,
that misconception, or just that preference. Hey, you use whatever
version of the Bible you want. Just keep up and read it. But it's these things that people
add, the burdens that they add. The Law of Moses, the Decalogue,
everything else. It's burdensome enough if it
is tied to our eternal life. when it's supposed to be a shadow
of the insufficiency of obedience, the inability of obedience, and
the perfection of who Jesus Christ in obedience, which no human
being but He will or has ever been intended to fulfill. But thank the Lord that the Spirit
of God preaches through John. And John was not a philosopher,
or a leadership coach, or a commercialized pastor, or
an evangelical, or a Baptist, or a Presbyterian, or reformed,
or deformed, or informed, or whatever. He wasn't woke. He
wasn't none of these things. John was an instrument of God
and the Holy Spirit preach through his pen and the Holy Spirit of
God answers the question, then how am I to abide and walk in
a manner worthy of the grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ? But I like how John puts it. Whoever keeps his word. In Him truly the love of God
is perfected and by that keeping the word, we may know that we
are in Him. Don't tie that phrase I just
read to verse 6. It's an error. It's a contextual
error. I don't care what the higher
critics say. You're wrong. And you can argue to the day
goes by again and again and again that the cows leave and come
home with goats. Or whatever other funny phrase
we can come up with, you're wrong. Because the scripture teaches
that when we abide in the Word of Christ by faith, believing
in His testimony of salvation, we are forever in Him. And that
if we're not abiding, that means we're stepping out into other
ways of assurance and confidence. We're stepping out in other ways
of solidarity. We're stepping out in other ways
in which we can go to bed at night and think, I'm a pretty
good Christian and I know that I'm a Christian because look
what I did today. Not what the Bible says, because
Christ is my righteousness. When have you ever heard an evangelical
evangelist preach that? You want to know that you know
that you know that you have eternal life, then you got to know that
Jesus is your righteousness. You ever heard that? No, you
won't. The list after that comes with
everything that you can do to respond to what Jesus offers
you by the conditions set before you. That's no different than
when we come to the table and say, OK, now there is a set of
rules that you have to live by. And if you don't, then you're
probably not saved. That's a lie from hell. And if that's what it means to
be antinomian, then tattoo it on my head, because antinomian
in that sense is gospel free, a child of God, a saint forever,
promised, betrothed. He knows my name, but we know
good and well that's not what it means. But that's what unconverted
people argue, isn't it? Everybody show of hands, how
many of you have ever been called antinomian? All right, I'm just,
I'm curious. Whoever says he abides in him
ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. How did he
walk? With the mind that he had of not putting himself first.
What is the walk of Christ? Define it in one word. The world
loves the word love. I mean, we do little hearts.
You know, we got filters on our Facebook stuff, we can make ourselves
look loving. We got the little love emoticon
or emoji or whatever they're called now. They've changed that
over the last 30 years. They keep changing what those
things are called. You know, personified characters is what
they were first called. What's your personified character? So love is a word that everybody
wants to hear and everybody wants to know and wants to use. Oh yeah, God is love, but God
is love in this, that He eternally loved us first and gave His Son
in our place to bring His justice and righteous wrath upon our
sin that we would be free from it forever because Christ now,
who took our sin, has given us His righteousness. But there
it is, the Gospel for four-year-olds. And God the Spirit calls us His
elect when He wishes, upon the hearing of the truth of the Gospel,
to believe it. But the more that humanity gets
creative in their way of manipulating ideas or thoughts or behavior,
the harder it is to come to believe that because you believe that
what people say about faith is continually added to. It's an
undue burden that's impossible to reach. The Ten Commandments
are to teach the elect to worship and praise God for His glorious
grace because not only can we not obey it, We're not obeying
it now. And that's not the point of it
anyway. The law of God is the shadow of Jesus Christ. And if
you don't believe me, then you got a hard time dealing with
Paul. Romans, well, let's put them in order. Galatians, Romans,
Hebrews, just those writings right there. They'll mess you
up on that. So what is now the commandment? The same one Jesus gave the apostles,
John 16, 17. John 14, 15, 16, the same one
he gave them. I want you to love each other. Christ walked in a manner of
love, he loved the father, so he submitted to the will of the
father, which was his will. to redeem his people from their
sins. So he did not take his divine nature. He didn't show
up and say, bow before me and pour fire out of his hands, though
he's coming. He didn't do like a Marvel movie
and just. That's it, it's a snap and everything
just vanishes and whatnot. He didn't do any of that. He
came taking on his the humanity. Taking on a body. Becoming truly
human. And walked on the earth in his
humanity, giving glory to God the Father who sent him to do
his will in his humanity. And what was the will of God?
To love his people. What is the will of Christ? To
love His people. What is the love of God the Father
and God the Son? That Jesus Christ would stand
in the place of His children and die in their place and raise
to life as their life. That is the heart and the mind
of Christ. That is how Christ walked. When
John says walk as Christ walked, that's what he's talking about.
Man, you're just crazy. No, I'm not crazy. I can read. I can be the deacon. For those
of you who've seen that meme. I don't know how to read. What's that walking look like?
Beloved for seven. Beloved, beloved, beloved, beloved, beloved. Don't
read over that word beloved. I have a lot of ways in which
I refer to my wife when I'm talking to her. Hey, Robin, honey, sweetie,
baby, good looking, main chef, she can cook. But there was a sister in our
church in California whose given name was Honey, and I was on
the phone with her one time, and I kept saying, honey, honey, honey,
boy, I caused some problems there for a minute. Because I always talk in the
earshot of my wife for accountability's purpose. Who are you talking
to? Maybe short-lived, but I mean, there was some tension there
for a second. It's not a name you just throw out, unless you're
a waitress, diner, diner waitress, you know, a waitress diner. You
know, honey, honey, honey, honey. If you're in the South or in
Texas, maybe it's just a common word, like brother here. Hey,
brother, what's up, brother? What's up, brother? Hey, there's a dog. Hey, brother.
I mean, you know, we use brother all the time here in the South.
It's for everything. So it sort of lost its flavor, but beloved.
Is beloved a word we use? It is. You hear it often from
this pulpit. You hear it from the elders and the people who
preach beloved and friends. Beloved is something we can't
overlook. John is saying beloved, beloved, beloved, beloved, beloved.
He is not concerned about these people's eternal destiny. He
is not concerned about whether or not these people are in Christ
or not. He nails it down. Beloved, my little children. our joy, our fellowship, our
intimacy, our hope, our lives together. So don't overlook that. That greeting, that salutation
is important. Beloved, I'm writing to you no
new commandment. Don't worry about it. Don't sit
there and think, oh, now what have we got to do? What's coming? Oh, no, a new commandment. I've lived my whole life under
these commandments and I thought Christ freed me from them. What
next? Christ walking away, man, he
was perfect. How am I going to be perfect?
The love of God is perfected when we when we rest in the sufficiency
of his sovereign and free grace. Because it is the love of God
that effectuates that relationship. It is the love of God that creates
that promise. It is the love of God that causes
us to be born again. It is the love of God that keeps
us in his love as as we see in Titus. Second Thessalonians. So my beloved little children,
the elect of God, my brothers and sisters in the faith, the
eternal hope that is yours, you are in our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who we have seen and heard and touched with our hands,
the eternal life. You are in him. You are live. You are alive. You are living. You are. Say. I'm writing to you no new commandment.
It's OK. It's one that you've had from
the beginning. You understand it. You can see it. And what
is the I mean, if we took the Decalogue and we sort of panned
over it, we'd see that there are two primary things at work.
We love our God and we love one another. Those are the two primary
things. Jesus even says that when he's been tricked, trying
to be tricked by the by the Jewish leaders. It's an old commandment that
you had from the beginning. Jesus left it for the disciples.
For us, we give it to you. You've had it from the beginning
of your salvation, from the beginning of your faith. You've had it
from the beginning of your birth. You've seen it. You may not have
understood it, but I'm going to rephrase it for you. This
is what I'm talking about. John is talking about one specific
thing, and that is that intimacy with the body of Christ, no matter
how mature or immature the believer may be, is perfected under the
knowledge and the power of God's love for us through Christ when
we love one another. Period. That's the end of it. And until we get that done, we
don't need to work on anything else. Because we're not going to get
that done. So let's don't work on anything else. And our love
for the brethren is our love for the Lord and our love for
the Lord in that way, anything that gets in the way of me serving
or praying or being available to you by way of sin, I should
put away. If I have things in my life that
are sinful, that interrupts my ability to pray and worship with
you, pray for you and to serve you, it needs to be put away. Including politics. Including idols of any kind,
because isn't that the point? What is a love that violates
the covenant of grace? What is a love that causes us
to not be able to serve one another? It's an idol. And that's the
very last thing John says. Beloved, keep yourselves from
idols. That's his closing sentence of
this entire letter. The old commandment is the word
that you have heard. At the same time, however, verse
8, it is a new commandment that I'm writing to you. And it's a new commandment that
I'm writing to you because it is true in Him and it is also
true in you. The darkness is passing away. And the true light is already
shining. Now you've heard me. It just goes so well with Hebrews,
y'all. I'm just telling you right now.
There is no shadow because the light is shining. And when the
true light shines, there is no shadow. It disperses all darkness. It lights up everything. Jesus
Christ, as the light of the world, lights up everything. As Paul
would say in Hebrews 4, Jesus is the word of God. He uses the
personal pronoun, he, referring to the word of God as living
and breathing and active and sharper than any two edged sword.
And it cuts all these things, soul and mind and marrow and
body and bone and all this stuff, laying us bare before him. Jesus is the logos, is the word,
not the logic, the revealing of God, the knowledge of God,
the visible glory of God, glory defined this way simply, all
that He is, that's glory. And we use it appropriately. And you've heard me use this
analogy before. We see our kids and they take off all their clothes
and they're little kids. They run through. Oh, we saw you in
all your glory. It's basically it. And some people are more glorious
than others in that context. Either way, it's embarrassing
when you're aware of it. Oh, I'm not supposed to be naked?
I mean, what age does that happen? The glory of God is to see him
as he truly is. And how God truly is, is he has
an eternal love for his people and he's established with them
a promise. He's established with them in pictures of that promise
throughout millennia. Through the choosing of Abram,
through the garden, through all the prophets, through Israel. And even in those small pockets
of these shadows, he's even shown the trueness of that shadow by
keeping a remnant out of his chosen to show that here's the
microcasmic reality, the microscopic picture, and then out of that
is this incredibly tiny detail of Christ in the church. This
is what he means when he created Adam and then created Eve out
of Adam and then brought them together and the two became one
flesh. They knew each other. This is the gospel of free and
sovereign grace. This is the power of God unto
salvation. And this is the promise of God to his people that he
has shined his light in our hearts. And we see the fullness of all
that God is. And we see that God knows us. And we know that
God knows us because he gave us to Christ and Christ died
in our place. And the Bible teaches us these
things so that we're no longer in the dark, we're no longer
looking through veiled face. Boy, there's an object lesson
for our current problems. Put a mask on. We're no longer
looking at the back of the shadow of the robe of God's presence.
We're no longer looking at a bush burning but not being consumed,
taking off our shoes and kneeling down in the sand. We're not looking
at Sinai, fearful and trembling. There has never been a weather
system or an earthquake or a fire in this world, all combined,
that will stand against the tempest of Sinai. I'm convinced of that. That when God shook the ground,
He shook the ground. It wasn't like the roller coaster
rumbling. I believe those at Sinai, when
they stood there and Moses went up on that mountain, they kissed
him goodbye. And I believe that they were
so scared that when Moses came back down off that mountain,
they said, we don't want to see your face because they were scared of dying.
And he'd been there, so he'd been up there. They figured I
might die if they look at him. So he covers his face. No longer
do we look at God in that way or through that means the curtain
has been torn down. The wrath has been appeased,
God propitiated himself in the blood and the flesh of Jesus.
And he proved the righteousness of Christ through the resurrection
of his body. And that promise is ours forever.
That is the light of the knowledge of God. The darkness is passing away.
But I could. May the Lord just do what he
wants, but what is the darkness? The darkness is the condition
of man. The darkness is the wrath of God. The darkness is the justice
of God. The darkness is the tempest.
The darkness is holy anger. The darkness is the blindness
of humanity, the depravity of the human nature, the flesh. The darkness is the world in
which we live, that most of it, by the will of God, is depraved. The darkness is the religious
and the self-sufficient and the self-righteous and the denominations
and the confessions and the histories and the sermons and everything
else that does not preach Christ alone. throughout all of history,
no matter how spiritual, no matter how experiential, no matter how
amazing it may feel or seem, or even in the poetry of the
experience of reading these people, and you think, I want that experience. Well, you're getting it right
now, this very moment, as you hear that the light has already
shined and the darkness is passing away. When we think about false
teaching, we think, when is it going to stop? It will not stop.
It is the will of God that heresy and false teaching and divisive
things and false gospels and false Christs be prominent in
the world until the day of judgment. If we mark 105 million more come
the next morning. I like how Brother Mitch said
on a Facebook forum, heresy hunting isn't really a hunt, you're just
shooting the barrel. It's like fish in a barrel. You don't have
to look for it. It's everywhere. You want to
find it, close your eyes, throw a dart in the air. It'll hit
6,500 on the way down. And most of them are evangelical
Protestant. But the darkness is passing away.
Our job is not to overcome darkness. Jesus did that. Our job is not
to be warriors for Jesus. Jesus is the warrior. Don't believe
me? Look at Revelation 21. We don't have to win a victory
for the Lord. We're not Joshua. We're not David. We're not the
soldiers who did all of the work of God in the Old Testament.
The purpose of that was to show Jesus as the sure victor. Jesus as the commanding general.
Jesus as the victorious king. And when he came into Jerusalem
on a colt, on a donkey, and they laid down the palms
on the street and fanned him as he came in, that was indicative
of a king's reception bringing in the spoils of war. And they were looking for Jesus
to be their conquering king. And what they thought was the
greatest darkness in their life was oppression and the inability
to worship God as they had been commanded. But that worship in
and of itself was darkness. Look at John 3. Light has come
into the world, Jesus speaking to Nicodemus, the teacher of
all Israel, and people have loved the darkness rather than the
light because their works, your works, Nicodemus, of praying
and teaching and studying are darkness. Jesus, the Bible says, or the
Spirit teaches through John 3, that Nicodemus came to Jesus
by night, under darkness, and said that he could see. You see?
We know that you are the one that has come from God. For no
one can do what you do, except God be with him. And Jesus says,
you cannot see the kingdom unless you're born by the Spirit. And then Jesus explains it. He
does apologetics with Nicodemus. He explains it through the law.
He explains it through Moses. He explains it through the shadow
of Deuteronomy. And Nicodemus is baffled. He's
like, I don't understand. And Jesus says, if you can't
even understand it in a human sense, how are you going to understand
the spiritual sense? Here's how you're going to understand the
spiritual sense, Nicodemus, because only that which is from God understands
the mind of God. Only that which is from heaven
can see heavenly things. So you have to be transformed
into that which is from heaven. You have to be given a new birth. And that birth is regeneration,
which is experiential in that now you believe in me. The darkness is passing away. It's passing away. God has destroyed
it. It is worthless. Some of the kids were little
and they'd put on their... Jacob, my son, he would always... He
had this muscle suit that he got when he was three years old.
He was still wearing it at twelve. And like, it was his whole body
when he was three, but you know, it was just sort of like right
here when he was twelve. But it had muscles and abs and
all this kind of stuff. He loved that thing. And he would
put that thing on and he'd come into the living room like, rawr,
I'm strong, rawr, rawr. And he'd pick up a clothes basket
that was empty, you know, rawr. He'd pick up a broom handle.
He'd get mad, I'm strong, I'm gonna hurt everybody. I wasn't
scared of him. I wasn't scared of him. He was
a three-year-old in a muscle suit with blue tights. and a diaper. I wasn't scared
of him, but in his mind, he was a strong man. The false teachers
of our day are worse than that. We need to laugh at them, and
we need to weep and pray for those who have been deceived
by them, so that God, in his mercy, would call his elect out.
See, evangelicalism and evangelism as a whole has been ruined I
was raised and through my childhood and early adult life and ministry,
man, I was certified in every way under the sun and back on
how to share the gospel. But yet, in most all of those
circumstances, the gospel wasn't even being shared in the process. Well, you do this, you say this,
you go out and you do this, you do that. You know what the gospel
evangelism is? It's to teach people to love
this truth. to teach people of the love of
God and the giving of the Son for His people only. Christ came to save His people
from their sins, and this is what the Bible says. In order
to share the gospel, you have to teach the person of Christ.
You have to teach the story of Christ. You have to teach the
promise of Christ. You have to teach the purpose
of Christ. You can't do that in 30 seconds. But yeah, we've got a 30 second
wait at the drive-thru, we've got a 30 second wait at the coffee
shop, got a 30 second wait on the internet, then we're upgrading.
We're not gonna wait that long. If our phone takes 30 seconds
to bring up a call, we're gonna swap it out for a new one, go
into debt for two years, not even know it. I paid how much
for that? It's free upgrade. Yet we've exercised that same
mentality. Well, you know what? I can share
the faith in 30 seconds. Can you? Sure, you can articulate
the gospel in 30 seconds, but can you share it? Can you live
it? Can you invest in it? Matthew 28 in the Great Commission
is about the body of Christ being taught the Word of God, and then
we spending time with others teaching the Word of God. It
is not about the quick outside going, doing, and barking so
somebody coming by in five seconds can hear it. We need to teach the Bible. We
teach it outside on the street, we need to teach the scripture.
We teach it in the pulpit, we need to teach it on the internet,
we need to teach the scripture. Memes don't teach. They mock. Memes don't teach. They sort
of send us on our way. Beloved, this new commandment
that I'm writing to you, which is true. It's true in him because
things are different now. To love God in the days of old,
my Jewish beloved brothers, you had to do a lot of stuff. You
had to go to the festivals, you had to go to the feasts, you
had to do this, you had to do that, you had to present sacrifice,
you had to save, you had to tithe, you couldn't light a match, you
couldn't break wind, you couldn't spit on the sidewalk. I mean,
these are And then you had the Mishnah,
then you had all the teachings of the elders, and then they added to the law
and added to the law and added to the law. And these people
who were the spiritual leaders to show them the grace of God,
the day of Jubilee, where sins are forgiven and debts are paid
and we're free to go. We're always attached with some
other trailing like a just married car with 10 cans running 40 miles
behind it. And that's how most Christians
live their lives. They're running in the freedom
of the gospel of grace. But they sound like a train on
fire with cats being pulled by strings because of the garbage
that they're hauling behind them. And they never find a way of
freedom because the pulpits of America are constantly adding
to that pile of trash. And that pile of trash is a false
gospel. And those people are false teachers. And only by the mercy of God,
they don't stand in judgment forever. Just like me and you. The true light is shining. Love one another. And here's the answer, verse
nine, I didn't even read it to start with. Whoever says. He is in the light. Hates his brother is still in
darkness, now we have a different circumstance. Any of you beloved who hate your
brother are still in darkness. Remember we talked about last
week about knowing God in a secondary sense. We learn to grow in the
knowledge of his righteousness. We see the righteousness of Jesus.
We see the imputation of his perfection for us. Then we learn
the things of God and we learn how our lives are to pattern
themselves in a way that's pleasing to God so that we are loving
one another. And if we're not loving one another
in the way that we ought to be, then there's a sense in our mind
that though we are in the light, we're not walking in the light
because we have a little bit of shadow here. The light up
here, the couple of weeks ago, the pulpit got moved and it was
a little bit too far and there was a shadow cast right. And
I had a hard time seeing. Sorry, guys, not blaming you,
but a hard time seeing. So I had to get back up here
and fix it. Because a little bit of shadow
with the eyesight problem and my eyes go like this and I can't
see anything. A little bit of hatred in my
heart and it's all of a sudden shadowing the gospel. Little bit of bitterness. And
I'm not focusing on the righteousness of God and I'm not focusing on
Jesus Christ. I'm focusing on how my heart
feels in the context of these things. And there's nothing wrong
with being honest about how you feel. You cannot help your feelings. Don't hear what I'm not saying.
But when those feelings bury into bitterness and that bitterness
births hatred, we have lost our bearings. And beloved, if I'm hating one
of you, I'm hating all of you. If I despise seeing one of you,
I despise all of you. Now how are we doing in that
one? We've got 75% of our congregation
we haven't seen since March. And then we've gained a bunch. The old church is going to come
in and say, who's the new church? It's the COVID-19 clan right
here. Oh, that's probably not a good joke, is it? But if you say, oh, I understand
the righteousness of God. I know it. Oh, I understand that
I'm to walk in a manner worthy. That's good. I understand that.
I know that. How would you say that? I know.
It's time to take out the trash. I know. Then why didn't you do
it? You need to clean up your room. I know. They know everything. They don't
know anything. But yeah, they're not doing the
things they say they know, then they really don't know, do they?
This isn't about salvation. It's about a warning that is
you, beloved, if you are saying that you have hatred in your
heart toward your brother or sister, then you are not seeing
the truth. You've got a shadow over the
truth. The darkness is passing away
and the true light is shining. So if you say you're in the light,
if you have the knowledge, you go, yes, I'm walking with the
Lord Jesus. Look at me. And I'm hating this guy next
to me. I'm lying. I'm lying. And I'm standing in darkness.
See why it's important that we don't confuse these things with
salvation? Because if we do, we're going
to mess them up and we're going to create a false gospel and
we're going to undercut the very nature of the gospel of grace
and the sovereignty of God. And we're going to put conditions
on eternal life that John is not writing about right here.
You know good and well that we ought to have a love for one
another and that it's not about how we feel, it's about what
we do. And some of us say, well, how
can I serve? What are we going to do? See, the evangelical world
has taught us to create programs and plug people in. And you have
these hierarchies of leaders and managers and administrators
and shepherds and all this kind of stuff. And everybody just
sort of flows in and you try to get them from the bottom and
you get them to the top and you get them in. It's just this revolving door of awfulness. And if you want to feel worthy,
you want to feel useful, you got to come find a way to plug
in. But beloved, how's that working in today's time? So if what we're called to do
can't be done in the middle of a pandemic, then we weren't called
to do it. It's not the will of God. It's
not so many men who feel who come to me through the years.
We know I'm called to be a pastor. Here's what you're going to do.
You're going to spend five years here. You're going to spend five years later
after you're approved as an elder, you're going to serve in the
midst of your preparation for service. And most all of them
come back and say, you know what? I feel like God's calling me
somewhere else. No, he's not. But you go right ahead. You go
right ahead. You're not having my hand put
on you. And this church's hands put on
you. We're not ordaining you to send you out the door. That's
not biblical. But that's what it is. We get
impatient. We think, this is the call of God, this is the
call of God. Listen, if you aren't loving people, if you aren't
serving people, you're not loving people, you might think, well,
where is my service? I'm not going to be an elder. Are you
studying the Bible? Are you reading the Bible every
day? Are you in the Word of God? As I say at the beginning of
almost every sermon that I preach, are you in the scriptures every
day so that the Spirit of God preaches to you and teaches you
so that when you close the Word of God and then you engage, whether
it be on the internet or on the phone or in person or whatever,
or just in your mind, or you think of someone else, you are
empowered to pray by the Spirit for each other. Let me tell you
what the most important thing that I need as your brother,
I need your prayer I need your prayer. Because the
warfare in my life is real. And as me and a few brothers
were talking yesterday, if I opened up the reality of sometimes how
I'm tempted in my murderous heart, most of you would say, James
Tiffins is lost. That's unbecoming of a pastor.
You better believe it. And if I exercise those things,
I'm not going to be standing in this pulpit for a while. Because I'd be disqualified until
I can get that under control. You protect me and you serve
me by praying for me. The same thing for you. If I
don't pray for you during the week, you know what's more important?
When I first started ministry, I thought study was more important.
Prayer is more important than study. Because prayer feeds my study
and prayerful study feeds my purpose. and prayerful study
in the purpose of God is for you so that I could serve you
in the way that God has called me to serve you and in doing
so I'm loving you and in loving you I'm loving Christ. So I remember in 2001 when I
got up in the pulpit in front of a thousand people and I pointed
my preaching to two people in that thousand. And I got up in
there and I mean I was, golly, I was like a motivational speaker
on drugs and I mean, I could think probably 20 minutes ahead
of where I was in my mouth. I could parse out an argument
with any, I don't even know what I had for breakfast this morning.
I mean, you know, now it's something just, and I'll never forget standing
there and thinking to myself, this is about to go down. Smug
in my spirit, and I walk up there and open up the Bible, and I
do my little theatrics, and I just, preaching Revelation chapter
two. And I got through, the lights
came back up, and almost everybody in the congregation is like,
what was that? What have we done? Did we do
something wrong? I pointed my preaching. And before
I got home that afternoon after lunch, I'd already had a voicemail,
because that's before we had phones in our ears all the time.
I had a voicemail from somebody from Atlanta. Said, I heard you
pointed your preaching this morning, son. Right? I'm ashamed of you. I didn't
serve, you see. I got my point across. I wasn't
loving, I wasn't pre- I was more concerned with getting to those
two under the cover of a thousand than I was shepherding a thousand. That's not love. See how simple,
see how easy it is to be unloving, to hate somebody? Hatred in this
minute, and then love in the next minute. It's not about our
feelings, it's about what we do. I've had neighbors before
that I wish would move. And I see them out there with
a box, well, you need help? I mean, you know, I'm gonna love you
today, get on the truck, goodbye, oh, you're moving your daughter
out, eh. I thought you were leaving too. And then God purposes sometimes
then in that season where we begin to pray for those people
and we begin to serve those people. And we do it in a way that, not
because they deserve it, but we don't deserve the mercy of
Christ either. And even if they're unbelievers, we're to pray blessings
over our enemies. So if we're to do that for our
enemies that heaps burning coals on their head and establishes
more of a record of justice when God prevails in His judgment
as the Ancient of Days, then what, pray tell, what does it
do for us? It gives us freedom to know that we are absolutely
understanding the mind of Christ. We see it without shadow. It's
not dark in that part of our understanding of it. It doesn't
mean that we're lost when we find ourselves there. You can
serve the body of Christ in your prayers. And you can serve the
body of Christ in your giftedness. What is your giftedness? Some
of you are professionals at certain things, and you have gifts. Some
of you are hobbyists in certain things, and you have gifts. Some
of you have more furniture than you know what to need when somebody's
sleeping on the floor. I mean, you know, and this is
all things that have happened. I mean, how much furniture have
we taken from one household? I mean, my goodness, there are
like six households now furnished because of one house. And it's
just it's a blessing. Little things like that, opportunities
arise. How do those come to pass? Because
we're considering one another in our daily walk. And we know
little things, because we all have these masks on to some degree,
but we know little things and little needs that pop up. And
even if we don't tell somebody, we have opportunities where we
can come serve and those happen. But when those opportunities,
as John's going to say in a couple of paragraphs, when those opportunities
come and we have what someone needs in our body and we say,
you know, I know so and so needs that, but I ain't giving it to
him. That's hateful. And John says the love of God
is not in you. He doesn't say you're condemned.
He goes, shame on you. Love your brother and sister.
Don't we treat our children? Don't we teach our children the
same thing? Well, I know you had it first, but he's younger.
Give it to him. Don't fight over a toy. I know that was your new
pack of crayons. I'm sorry your sister chewed
it up. But we're not going to divide over a chewed up crayon.
I know you didn't want onions on your hamburger, but we're
600 miles away. Tough it up, son. We have to do unpleasant things.
We have to serve sometimes at a great cost. Sometimes we have
to do things that are hard. What was it, last year this time,
some of you guys came over and chopped up a tree that had fallen
in my yard? And that wasn't easy work. I didn't ask you to do it. Thank
God for it. We serve, and in that service
we love. But that love and that service
is never a condition for our eternal life, and that love and
that service is never meritorious. God doesn't go, well done, I'm
going to let you into heaven now. But he will say, well done,
my good and faithful servant. Isn't that the analogy that Jesus
gives in Matthew? Many of you who saw, you say
you're with me, but what have you done for each other? You
saw me in jail. You saw me hungry. You saw me
sick. You saw me thirsty. You saw me naked. You saw me,
but you did nothing. And they said, well, when did
we, when did we, when did we see you? And the others, he said,
you, you clothed me, you fed me, you gave me something to
drink. You did these things. When did we see you? When you
did it under the least of these, my brethren, you did it under
me. If you understand the righteousness
of God salvificly, then we need to grow in our understanding
of the righteousness of God relationally. And that anything that snares
us from helping to love each other is darkness. That's the
context here. And he's blind, he doesn't know
what he's doing, he doesn't know the call of God in his life and
all sorts of things. That's next week's sermon. Let's read it,
verse 9. Whoever says he's in the light
and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother Abides
in the light. He's walking in the light. He's
doing light stuff. And in him there is no cause
for stumbling. See, now it starts to make sense.
But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks
in the darkness and does not know where he is going because
the darkness has blinded his eyes. And then John gives a reprieve. He gives an out. He helps us
see that we are still, in that context, little children and
that our love is imperative for our joy. and our unity in our
life together. So in that, where does our hope
lie? In the same place it was before we started this letter.
In the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ. in his appeasement
of the wrath of God for us in his death and his promise of
eternal life through his resurrection and the crediting of his righteousness
to us that we might stand before God, not in a sense of judgment,
but to call him daddy. and to worship Him truly, in
spirit and in truth. Let's pray. Father, we are glad
to be able to hear this truth, and Lord, I have labored over
this point over and over again, and I feel in my mind that maybe
I could have stopped 20 minutes ago, but Father, You can take
the superfluous and you can bring it to simplicity. So I pray that
you do that for us. Our bodies and our minds are
tired at times. And Lord, we do pray for our
brothers and sisters who are continually suffering because
of these circumstances, because of pandemic issues, because of
financial issues, because of flesh. And as I pray for us every
day, Lord, I pray also today, together, as we stand in the
sufficient, glorious grace that you have given us through Jesus
Christ, we are secure, we are your beloved, and nothing can
change that. But Lord, help us to love each
other. Help us to walk as light walkers. Help us to walk in a
manner worthy. Help us to see the mind of Christ
and to grow together. Lord, that we are not condemned
and guilty and downtrodden when we see failing, but we know that
our perfect righteousness is in Jesus Christ. So therefore
we cannot fail in these things, but Lord, for the sake of our
joy, for the sake of our stumbling, for the sake of our worship,
for the sake of our brothers and sisters, help us to love
one another as you have first loved us. And this is the message
of the cross. And this is the message of submission. And this is the message of obedience,
as John has taught us in this letter. As you have taught us
in this letter. That there is great reward. Yes,
we could live as misers and grumpy and frustrated. one day receive
Christ and be together in glory, but Father, why not aim for that
intimacy today as we look forward to the forever? And we thank
you for showing this to us in the spirit. And we thank you
for showing this to us through Christ. In his name we pray,
Amen. Thank you, Church.