First John. First letter of John. And let's hear the word of the
Lord this morning as we read. From the beginning of the letter,
please. That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard. Which we have seen with our eyes,
which we looked upon and have touched. Concerning the word
of life. The life was made manifest and
we have seen it and testified to it and proclaim it to you,
the eternal life, which was with the father and was made manifest
to us. That which we have seen and heard,
we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with
us. And indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his
son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things
so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard
from Him and proclaimed to you, that God is light and in Him
is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship
with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and we do not practice
the truth. But if we walk in the light as
He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood
of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned,
we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children,
I am writing these things so that you may not sin, but that
if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our
sins. and not ours alone, but 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, 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 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." Now friends,
when we hear all of that in context, there is much to discern, but
it's much easier to hear. And for fresh ears, I was speaking
with a brother last night and I made the comment that I would
much rather have a thousand people to teach who were ignorant and
philosophical than one person who was extremely astute in theological
studies but proud. Because just as our faith is
explained by Jesus to be childlike, that means that we are dependent
upon the Lord. We are not looking to have dynamic
treatise of theological academia flowing from our minds and lips
at all times, though it's nothing wrong with that. A lot of people
are confused to think that their faith in the Lord Jesus is a
venture of their learning with highbrow. It's an opportunity for them
to say, well, you know, I know all the intricacies of God. or for them to say, I am certain
that I am right in the truth. Yet their attitudes, their actions,
their love wanes. But yet on the opposite side
of that, we can have a lot of people who have known the truth
of the gospel. I don't hear what I'm not saying.
They know the truth of the gospel. They understand who Christ is
and who he died for and what he accomplished on the cross
in a simplistic way. They know simple grace. But yet
they have all these different ideas and philosophies. Well,
what if God is like this? Well, I wonder if the gospel
means this. And one thing leads to another,
and they can find themselves in a grand mess, having an opportunity
for even becoming heretical through their thinking or their dreaming. But the Word of God can teach
the second person the truth and correct their error, but it's
very difficult for anyone yielding the Scriptures to teach the first
person anything. For they, by their own admission,
will say, you can't teach me, I know that already. The very
attitude of saying that we know that is indicative of ignorance
when it comes to knowing God. For probably 500 years, seminaries
have been pumping out pastors like a dime a dozen. I mean,
think about it. If every one of my peers who
had a terminal degree in theological studies or a master's degree
in theological studies, a master of divinity or a doctor of divinity
or a PhD or a doctor of theological studies or whatever it might
be, I mean, the circle is large. If you've got the money, they'll
create the coursework. It's a new degree. But if you
look just in my circle of acquaintances, I could probably call 150 PhDs
right now. I could probably call 1,000 MDivs
on the phone. Yet why is it that when I think
about those circles that very few of them at all have the gospel,
period, and even fewer of them understand what Scripture teaches
Because it's not what they've been taught in school. Beloved, why the point? Because
you and I have been taught by people who have been taught by
people who have been taught by people who have been taught nothing. Historical theology, which is
one of my great hobbies. shows us this truth that all
it takes is just a half of a generation, whatever that means, just the
way I put it, a half of a generation to come to some philosophical
reasoning through some myopic introspect idea of internal creativity
to come up with a new way of looking at a true doctrine. And
then it's just a skip down the street, just a hop across the
crosswalk for it to become truth. Because it becomes truth when
it is rewarded with critical mass. Oh yeah, we agree with
that. There it is, truth, stamp it.
We're done. It's truth. Well beloved, if
critical mass were the evidences of truth long term, then we'd
be in trouble medically. We'd be in trouble mathematically. We'd be in trouble in physics
and in carpentry and in sewing and in nutrition. The very idea when someone sneezes
that we say bless you is because in the period of time where people
thought that the Black Plague, when they sneezed, their soul
would come out and a demon would come in or they'd sneeze out
the Spirit of God. The bless you would encourage
God to go back inside. And the myth goes on and on and
on around that center. But what is John teaching? What does it mean to know God
versus knowing the truth of God? Are those two actually one and
the same? Are they indicative of a true
believer? Beloved, I'm just going to go
ahead and put the cart before the horse right here so that
we can get through the tension. John is teaching a group of elect
saints who are so secure in their eternal life that nothing they
do can separate them from the love of God. Nothing they do. Error, heresy, following after
the wrong crowd, hating one another. But the good thing is that John,
as he writes to his elect brothers and sisters, he's not correcting
anything. He's encouraging them to continue
the way they are. He's expressing and exposing
that every infant Christian is just beginning. Sort of like academics. Or anything
else for that matter. I remember when I finally ranked
in our Kung Fu system. And my Sifu said, James, today
you are the least qualified to hold this rank. Every degree that you receive.
You think, oh, I'm an expert. No, you're not. You're the minimum.
You're at the bottom of everything. When you graduate, you have a
bachelor's, you have a master's, you have a doctorate, you have
a specialty. You are at the bottom end of the requirements of that
conferral. You haven't learned anything
yet. You've just got the building blocks. You learn to tie your
shoes and now you have to walk. And anyone who has a brain in
that context of their field understands that. Good mentors in academia
tell you that when you are delivering your thesis for its final review
and they say, oh, this is great, but don't get a big head because
I've graded 6,000 in my lifetime. And I'm one of 15,000 mentors
just in this institution. And you're going, well, I'm a
nothing. And then we need to realize as
we're as is the same way you get your learner's license, you
are allowed to get behind the seat of a car with a licensed
person and you learn to drive. And that person begins to drink
that week. Or wants to, not while they're
in the car, of course. And then when you get your license
and your parents let you go for the first time, they are crazy
scared. for everybody else on the road,
not for you. Because they know if you don't
die in the accident, they're liable. Because now that you
are permitted to drive by yourself, you are the least qualified to
do so. Watch them. Look at these 18-year-olds
even coming to the university every summer. It's move-in day
sometime, isn't it? And it's horrifying. They can't
drive and they're carrying mattresses on top of two door sedans. So their wisdom is a little lacking
as well. Pilot's license. I remember studying to get my
pilot's license and flying and flying every Saturday, just flying
and flying and flying and enjoying the trip. I didn't want a license.
I just wanted to fly. And the first time, the instructor
said, okay, now you take this thing. I'm letting go. Nah, nah,
nah, nah, nah, nah, not gonna do it. It wasn't for me, I didn't
have the guts. And when you get on a plane for the first time,
do you want the guy who just got his license? Well, I'll tell
you this, a pilot is more qualified than a driver, because they have
many, many hours with a very qualified person. But it's just
the same. When our children learn to speak,
they don't speak with proper grammar. They don't read well
when they first began. They don't tie their shoes accurately. They don't put the shoes on the
right feet even. They brush the one tooth when
they've got 12 more. These are brown. This one's sparkly.
You're not brushing your teeth right. They comb their hair and
they look like they have fallen off of a cabbage truck. And the
list goes on. Handwriting has to go. We have
to grow and learn in everything we do. Beloved, you can't grow
to understand the gospel. You don't get a piece of the
gospel or heresy or falsehood and then it becomes truth. That's
just dumb. But when you come to the knowledge
of the truth, you aren't the expert on Christ. When we come to salvation, we
don't know much about salvation at all. We aren't just go to
bed one night, dumb as a bag of rocks, and wake up the next
day with a PhD in theological studies in Christology. How do you know that? Because
the Bible tells us that. The Bible teaches us that. The
very people who are the experts on Christ by the endowment of
the Holy Spirit, through the infused knowledge of Him by God
the Spirit, who put the knowledge of Christ in them, the apostles. After three and a half years,
they're still a little bit ignorant. but they know what Jesus has
taught them. And if you remember what Jesus says to them in John's
gospel, when he is leaving, he is sending the one, he who is
the paraclete, the one that comes alongside, he will empower them
and he will cause them to remember all that Jesus, he, the son of
God, has taught them. Now think about that for a second.
So the authority of what the Spirit brings to mind in the
hearts and the minds of the apostles is by the teaching of the literal
mouth of Jesus Christ, that which we have heard. It's not new. It's taught. It's remembered. Jesus taught
them everything. It took him three and a half
years to do so. How long do you think it's going
to take you to grow in the faith? Well, praise God, brothers and
sisters, that the apostles didn't sit down the day after Jesus
ascended and began to write scripture. Praise God that some 30 years
later, we have the New Testament. That these men were old. These
men were worn. These men were incarcerated. And they were thinking, you know
what? I need to write a book. I need to publish something so the whole
world of Christendom can know how smart I am and can see everything
that I've seen so that they can know something that they don't
know. Every shepherd, every elder,
every pastor who is truly called of God will patiently teach the
church the truth of scripture. because he will have the understanding
by the scripture that the sheep must learn as he must learn.
And brothers and sisters, I learned by the word of God to unlearn
by the academia, from the academics. Spitting out church history,
I can tell you what so and so thought about justification,
I can talk about all the and this is hobby stuff. This is
hobby stuff and we can learn from it. It's good to know. But
what if we don't have access to it? What do we need? What do we need
but the Bible to go into foreign lands? Nothing. How do we train pastors? We better
have a Bible in their hands. And when we train a pastor, we
can train the church member that sits in the front row. It's beautifully
empty this morning. We can show them and teach them
the very same way so that how a pastor is trained, he then
can train others. Man, woman, and child. The message of Christ, the message
of God is a message of righteousness. This letter is for the encouragement
of the saints and their spiritual maturity. It is not a test of
fellowship. It is not a test of salvation. It is not something that is evangelistic. And I know that there are friends
and peers that you have in your lives that will say, Tippins
is an idiot. I am an idiot. Praise God by the power of His
grace. This is the truth of God. To blaspheme what God has written,
whether I'm an idiot or not, is evil. And the yeah buts of historical
theology are getting under my nails and under my skin really
badly right now. Because I'm not going to stand
before God to receive the crown of life for the fullness of the
joy of knowing that Christ is my crown and try to walk my way
through and talk my way through why I became a professor instead
of a pastor. Shepherding involves caring for
and teaching rightly. Jesus Christ has satisfied the
wrath of God. Jesus Christ saved all of the
elect when he died on the cross. Jesus Christ is the high priest
who went through the Holy of Holies and gave his body and
his blood and was raised alive for his people only forever. And God, the Father, justifies
them through the blood of Jesus. And God, the Spirit, through
the hearing of this proclamation, when He wishes, opens their eyes,
regeneration, and then they believe by the gift of faith that this
is their righteousness, their hope, their life. And that is played out in time
as the Lord sees fit through the training of the church to
do the work of the ministry through the relationships that we have,
which is evangelism as we share the faith with our evangelical
friends. Knowing God. needs to be understood. What does it mean to know God?
Well, in John 17 3, Jesus says, and this should come to your
mind when you hear that question, This is eternal life that they know
you, the one true God and the son whom you have sent. What
does that mean? That means the knowledge of who
God the father is in grace, in redemption through the election
of his people from the foundations of the world, propitiated through
Jesus Christ and all of that that is encompassed there. And
it's taught. Romans, Galatians, John's Gospel. It's taught over and over and
over again. It's there. It's not hidden from us. It's
not a mystery, though it is wonderful and mysterious. It is simple. It is absolutely able to be understood
by an unregenerate person. However, they will not believe
it, even if they understand it. Belief and faith are the same
word. And belief in faith is not in
itself belief in belief or faith in faith. It is faith in the
proclamation of the person of Jesus Christ. It is wholly subjective
and it is proclaimed through the gospel of the Lord Jesus. through the apostles that is
undergirded by the wave of history who are the prophets. And God
does not speak any more besides this way through Jesus Christ,
through the writing of the apostles. And I'm not going to have that
argument either anymore. Do not answer a fool with his
own foolishness. You know what that does for me? It makes my blood pressure go
down and it makes my body temperature go up. My body temperature is
going down. It's always been 97.4. Now it's 97.1. I don't
like that. And I've learned that stress
causes that. Hallelujah. Either way, I'm not
cold hearted, just cold skinned. Maybe I'm a vampire. Knowing
God. Salvation. This is eternal life.
That is the first part of understanding what it means to know God. But
the context of these verses actually make the difference. Here in
chapter 2, verse 3. And by this we know that we have
come to know him if we keep his commandments. Now John has already
established the gospel clearly to his gospel brothers and sisters. This is not a test of eternal
life. Because if it were, then works
salvation and works confidence and works assurance is true. How can it be true when John
is clearly opposing that? And He also clearly shows that
there's some things that I want you to do. I want you to not
sin in these ways. But if you do, Christ propitiated
the Father for you. No judgment. No condemnation. You know why that bothers religious,
unconverted, so-called Christians? Because they work really hard
to establish their security and they do so to the level that
they actually do live a more moral life or a better righteous
life and image than most Christians. To the point that they don't
understand liberty then they add to the law all these don't
touch, don't eat, don't drink, don't do's. Is this the knowledge of God?
Do we look in the mirror and say, look how good I'm doing?
No, because the only example of that given in scripture is
condemnation. where Jesus gives the parable
that there was the Pharisee that stood over here. And he says,
and I'm going to paraphrase according to the meaning of the passage.
Thank you, God, that you are doing the work in me and you've
caused me to be the person that I am, that I do all this good
stuff for you and that I live a life. Thank you, God, that
you've caused me to not sin. And the thief, the publican,
the tax collector who robs his own people for profit, tears
his clothes. beats on his chest and says,
Oh God, propitiate for me. And Jesus says, that man is justified
before the father. This man is damned. See the difference? And anybody who says in the hearing
of what I just said, so you're saying we can send all you want
to is on their way to hell. I'm done playing politics with
the gospel. If you, yeah, but the gospel,
you're lost. You're lost and you will not
live until you get that out of your system. And I don't care
if you're the closest friend I have, you need to know the
truth of Christ. And by his mercy alone, will
you see it? No more will I sit down and just fellowship around
the silliness of philosophy, thinking this brother or sister
is just going to come around one day. It's not wrong to say,
are you saying this? But to make that accusation is
the devil's tongue. And I would find it hard pressed
not to find most people in the evangelical world who make that
accusation. Because John is telling you they're
not sin. He's saying, don't do it, don't do things that are
contrary to the righteousness of Jesus. We just sang it. Spirit of God, oh, work in me. Lead me not into temptation.
Jesus tells us to pray to the Father that very thing. Father God, my Father, please
help me not to sin. Lead me away from temptation,
that I may love my neighbor, that I may love my enemy, that
I may guard my stupid mouth, that I may keep my mind on heavenly
things, that I may stop stealing, that I may stop lying, that I
may stop committing adultery, that I may stop murdering. Help
me, Father, not be an idolater. Help me to stop worshiping the
idols of family and faith and nation. Help me in my fear. Help me in my unbelief. Lead
me away from the temptation of my flesh to think that I can
do anything to cause anyone to believe and be saved. Lead me
away from the darkness that always overshadows my brain when I'm
not eating the morsel of heaven. Through the Word of God, take
me out of this area, Lord, and lead me into the pastures of
green, awesome grass from which I will be full forever. You pray
that for yourself. I pray it for you every single
day. Temptation is the common place
in America's church right now, because this is unprecedented. These are unprecedented times
of fear. Don't you dare mock the grace
of God by saying, oh, yeah, but Thank you for not doing that,
beloved. Knowing God here in this context
is not about salvation, it's because of salvation. Some of
you I have met before, before you moved here or talked to online
or talked to on the phone for years, and we knew each other,
but now we're getting to know each other more. And for real
this time. It's funny how we don't really
look like our profile picture. I don't know about you, but the
one that I have up, I took at my desk, and I think I took 12
before I got the one I liked. You ever done that? I mean, nobody goes, puts that
up, unless they mean to. We don't know each other for
real and it takes time to know each other. It takes time before
we put our guard down. It takes time before we begin
to share experiences. A very seasoned pastor told me
one time in one of my pastorates, and I had a really difficult
time connecting with a long standing group of church members that
had been there years. And they were always looking
at me suspect because of this kind of preaching. And I told
them before they called me, you don't want me. That sounds good
on the radio, but when I'm standing in your living room, it don't
sound too good. And he said, when you go through
pain with these people, when you go through funerals with
these people, when you go through marriage problems with these
people, when you deal with church discipline with these people,
they will see your love for them and you will know them better
than you could ever know them. You will learn who they really
are and it won't be what they tell you, it's be what you know. Same is true in marriage. We
get married. We think we know each other,
whether we've been engaged for a year or 10 years. We just, you know,
we get married and it changes. There's something weird about
marriage. That today we're just ready to
get married, we're going to be together forever and tomorrow
is like forever. This is the first day of forever. It just
sort of hits you. In a couple of weeks, you know,
we're going to have a new baby in the church, and, you know, oh, we're going
to be parents, great. And then you bring it home, you're like,
we're parents. This is crazy. Who is this? What is this thing?
Who is here? Who are you? And you will learn
who they are until the day you die. You will continue to learn. You
will continue to grow in the knowledge of who they are until
the day you die. Knowing God in the context of
John's letter here is about growing in the knowledge of him, not
the academics of God, not the study of God, not the reading
of the Puritans, not these things. Put these things away until the
word of God flows from your fingertips. Then pick them up. And take them
as the hobby that they should be. Not the source of your joy,
life or knowledge. We know that we have come to
know Him. We know that we have grown and
learned Him. We know that fellowship with
God is what? Walking in obedience. I think I gave the example last
week leading into this week. I didn't preach last week. But
maybe I did it in my own head. Maybe I dreamt it this morning,
but I thought I gave the example about, you know, when I was a
fitness instructor. Remember that? Yeah, I did talk about
that. And then, you know, when you
go and you tell everybody, I know the Lord. I know who he is. I'm
in fellowship with him. I'm hanging out with Jesus. This
is the point. I want you to start thinking
about that. I know God. I'm hanging out with God. What
are you doing today? I'm hanging out with God. I'm
hanging out with my father. Friends, when I hang out with
my father, I know what he expects of me. When I'm hanging out with my
father, I know the line that I can cross and how I discuss
things. When I'm hanging out with my
father or when I'm not, I know he's my father and that I carry
his name. And I will tell you this, since
I was old enough to remember conversations, I remember my
father telling me very clearly, son, you've got two things in
life that you can never repair. One is your name and the other
is your integrity. And if you mess up the second,
you screw up the first one. And I still have that. Boy, you
better not. And integrity, as he always taught
me, is who you are when nobody's looking. Because you still bear
my name, son. Don't you be a thug. And don't
you ever, don't you ever mess up my good name. I've worked
hard to be a responsible, respectable person. And you know, I'm 46 years old.
That carries heavily on my conscience this very day. I hate to say
it, sometimes it's more powerful in my mind when I'm upset than
it is to know that the Lord's looking at me. Because the Lord
is an ever-present Father of mercy. My dad might not be so
merciful if I start messing around with the last name Tippins. Making
him look bad. So that's true for our earthly
families. Look at the job market. Look at the job market right
now. Go find a job and have some foolishness on your Facebook
page. You're not going to get the job.
Because what you say and what you do in life is indicative
of who you belong to. It's indicative of how you represent
other people. Just to be in law enforcement
in this county, you have to take a polygraph. And if you lie,
you won't get hired ever in this county. Have you ever stolen
anything? Nope, but in sixth grade, you
stole a pack of pencils from the teacher's line. You lied,
and it'll show up. They don't want liars with badges
and authority. So now back to the text. We know that we know Him if we
keep His commandments. We are sure that we know Him.
We're hanging out with Him. We're walking with Him. So this
knowledge is about walking with the Lord. Walking with the Lord
is not eternal life. Eternal life is all of grace. Eternal life is all of justice
and righteousness and propitiation, who Christ is. So if we are walking
with the Lord and we just throw out all sense of righteousness,
throw it away, not display it, then doesn't that make us a liar
in how we act? Yes. Oh, what are you up to? Well, I'm a child of the king.
Let's go bash mailboxes. That might not be fun to y'all,
but in my generation, when you're 15 years old, that's what thugs
did. And then the generation behind me egged houses. Then
they started tolling up paper yards. It's just mischief. No, I'm not gonna do that. Why
not? My daddy will kill me. I'm not going to do that. Why?
Because I don't have to. I'm not going to do that. Why? Because
it disrespects who I am. Oh, you're just approved. You're
not going to have any fun. I'm not going to go to the penitentiary,
dummy. I mean, do you want to be an
honorable person? Of course we do. How much more
so should we concern ourselves with how we represent the Lord's
mercy, the Lord's righteousness? This is what it means here. When
we see John said, you know him, that means you're walking with
him. And you think, you are really imposing. No, he tells us. I
told you I was going to give you the punch line. Look at verse
six. Whoever says he abides in him,
walks in him, knows him, same language, ought to walk in the
same way he walked. Ought to. It's what we ought
to do. It's what we should do. It's
not tied to our righteousness. It's not tied to our salvation.
It's not tied. It's because of it. And then
the very next thing that he's going to talk about is the love
of God and the love for one another and the love of Christ for his
people, the true Christ and what he's done to purchase us. We belong to him. So if we belong
to him, let us live as his children. Let us live as siblings of Christ,
of God. Let us live as siblings of grace. I know him. You know that you know who God
is when you obey. I know my father, and because
of that, I do the things that my father wants me to do. And
when I do the things that my father wants me to do, it ingrains
in me the knowledge of who he is, because I'm walking in the
pattern that he set for me. I'm walking in the philosophy
that he set for me. I'm walking in the worldview
that he set for me in that context. So in the same way, when I walk
in the manner of righteousness that God is, when I walk in light,
I'm learning. Those of you who take martial
arts, we learn these different strikes. We learn these hand
positions and we learn these different ways of approaching
defensive and offensive techniques. But right now in the early stages,
we're just mimicking the teacher. We're just doing what the teacher
does, but eventually you'll get into your own. You'll understand
and it won't be awkward to step in a certain way. It'll just be instinctive. And
then you'll think back years from then and years away, and
you'll think back and you'll go, wow, I know what this was
doing. I see what this is. When we walk
in a manner worthy of Christ, we are reminded who he is. We grow in our understanding
so that when we say, yeah, I'm hanging out with Jesus and people
see our life, they go, yeah, I can see that. And do you know what the number
one thing that causes you to begin to doubt your salvation
to begin with? When you rebel against Christ. When you know
that you have sin in your life that you're just not going to
try to do something with. You're not going to be accountable
for. You're not going to confess it. You know we lie to God when
we pray. We know there's sin sometimes.
It's right there on our tongues and we just don't say it. Like
he doesn't know. But there's something emotionally
and psychologically troubling to us when we know and when we
say, you know what, I am this way. That's why even in a 12-step
program, one of the first steps is to say I know who I really
am. Who are you? If we say we're the righteousness
of God because we are little children because we are, verse
one of chapter three, see what kind of love the Father has given
to us that we should be called the children of God. And so we
are. We're called the children of God because we are the children
of God. So let us walk in a manner worthy of being children of God.
And in doing so, we learn to understand who he is and we grow
in the knowledge of him and we grow in the knowledge of his
grace. And our sins become, I believe, more obvious and our sins become
more minute in the sense that they can be hidden. But we know
our flesh, but we know our Father, and so we walk in growth and
maturity and wisdom. And we do so because of love,
not because of fear. I mean, this is John's whole
letter. This is the argument. Whoever says, I know him, he
explains it in verse four, I know him, I'm hanging with God, I'm
hanging with the Lord, but does not keep his commandments as
a liar. Because we're not hanging with
the Lord when we're sinning against him, are we? We're not. We're not in intimate
fellowship with the Lord when we're sinning. How are we in
intimate fellowship with the Lord? I've taught this over and over
again. First and foremost, we are regenerate and we have the
knowledge of the truth of Christ. We understand free and sovereign
grace. That's not the discussion of John's letter. We love the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we're in His word, we are with Him and He is with us. We
are hearing Him and the Spirit of God is teaching us the truth
over and over again and ingraining in us the knowledge of His grace
and we are learning His person. We are learning His righteousness.
We are growing in our knowledge and our wisdom who is Christ
Jesus. We see who Christ is. Why does
Peter write and why does Paul and Peter and James and John,
why do they write to the church about behavior and attitudes
and actions and affections? Because these things must be
dealt with in order for us to grow into the joy of the knowledge
of intimacy so that we are walking not in fear but in grace. Because here's what I get in
the context of most my pastoral counsel when it comes to people
who are insecure about their salvation. They just like, well,
how do I know that my faith is enough? You're not going to know that
your faith is enough because your faith isn't enough. Your
faith doesn't save you. Your beliefs don't save you.
Christ saved you. His blood paid for your sins.
The mercy of God satisfied his own wrath by killing his own
son. And that's what faith is. Faith
is the granting of the knowledge that this is your hope. He is your salvation. He is your
righteousness. He is your propitiation. He is
or he is the father's propitiation. And one of the reasons that most
people fall into that area of doubt and frustration is because
they look at the sin in their lives and they say, there's no
way that I'm saved because they have bought the lie that's being
whispered in Christendom today about judging your salvation
on the condition of how less you sin. You can follow me all you want.
You can follow me all you want, all day long. You can walk around
with me for weeks. You can follow me. If I had a
camera on my lapel or on my head or on my watch and you could
hear and say everything that I did, I could make sure you
never saw sin in my life. I can promise you I can put it
on. So I could do it for you. But is that my hope? No. But
what you can't see is the sin in my heart. What you can't see
is the sin in my mind. What you can't see is the sin
in my attitude unless I show you the attitude. You may notice
it as I'm driving down the road and these imbeciles who shouldn't
have a driver's license get in front of you and slow down. Oh, how dare I
have to tap my brake and readjust my cruise control. So I have
a rule, if I can read your tag, you're too close. You know, fly
by, move over, slow down. I hate that. In my family, I just, ah, idiot. And the navigator's like, yep,
they're an idiot. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. That's sin. And we may belittle
that, but that's not sin, it's murder. It's murder. But if you were in the car with
me and I didn't know you that well, I'd be like, what's wrong, man? Breathing
problems, man. But then sometimes it wouldn't
bother me. And I'm using that as an example. Because we all
have something like that, this innate thing that frustrates
us, and it's sin. This lack of doing things that
we should do, this procrastination, this laziness, this mindset that
we have to always be working like Martha. Are we Martha? Are
we Mary? What are we doing? Are we, say we're going to net
fixed bling because we, you know, we're going to be like Martha.
We're going to be like Mary. We're going to sit at the feet of Jesus,
open the Bible, watch seven seasons. You see, sin is always among
us. It's always crouching outside
the door to grab us by the legs. And beloved, we've been freed
from the penalty of it. We've been freed from the power
of it, which is death, because Christ took death for us and
he proved that he finished the work of redemption because he
raised himself from the grave. And when we know his righteousness,
when we see Peter say, we know what? Jesus was wrongly arrested,
wrongly accused, wrongly tried, exonerated, then wrongly kept,
and then wrongly murdered, crucified, executed. But he did not speak
a word of revile against those who reviled him, but he entrusted
himself to the one who was faithful, the one who judges righteously. Paul says the same thing to Philippians.
Have this mind among you, which is yours in Jesus Christ. You
have the mind of Christ, he is in you. Who though he was equal
with God did not take equality with God to be grass, something
to be grass. The King James says, start it
not robbery. In other words, it wasn't stealing glory from
God for Him to be equal with God because Jesus Christ is the
Son of God, He is God the Son. But He made Himself nothing,
obedient to death as a thief, as a criminal on the cross. In
the same way, have this mind among you. Do not feel like you
are better than anybody else. Now how about that sin in our
lives? How is the task of loving one another and not feeling like
we're better or worse, feeling like we're guilty before the
Lord? That's a sin too. Should we go on? Should we spend
the rest of our time this morning dealing with what is sin so that
we all have a clear picture of just how wicked we really are
in our flesh? And if it weren't for the mercy
of God that we would be hopeless? No, because those things are
settled in Christ. So now let's be encouraged by
the grace of God, by the finished work of the Lord Jesus, and then
let's grow and be exhorted on to good works and to love. So whoever says I know him, I'm
with him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar. What
is he saying? He said you're not with him. He's not with you. Remember, this is not salvific.
You're not walking with the Lord right now, man. That's why church
discipline is what it is. You're not walking with the Lord.
Remember I said the first way that we're intimate with the
Lord Jesus Christ is to be in His Word? The second way is what? To love
one another. How do we do that? We serve each other, we pray
for each other, we teach each other, we're engaged with each
other in some way in which we are able to exercise gifts that
God has given us with our knowledge, our wisdom, our counsel, our
listening, our hugs, our money, our food, whatever it may be. That we love one another. We're
trying to do what we can do to help one another. That's how
we love the Lord Jesus. It's not a feeling about Jesus.
It's a doing for the body of Jesus. That is what it means
to love the Lord Jesus. So we are in the word and that
we are loving God's people, serving God's people. Beloved, do you
know that if I just sat up here and into an empty room and just
taught the Bible with no specific people to apply it to, I would
not be loving anyone? I'd just be lecturing. And it wouldn't mean that that
wouldn't be true or that it wouldn't be useful for somebody to hear
somewhere in the future or even live on the Internet, but it
would not have purpose in the context of me loving the Lord
Jesus. It is not me preaching is not my love for the Lord Jesus.
Me serving you through my teaching is my love for the Lord Jesus. And so when we're sinful, when
we just throw caution to the wind, when we stop caring whatsoever,
when we're infants, look at the Corinthians. They were hanging
out with temple prostitutes. They were getting drunk. They
were going crazy in the context of signed gifts. They were just,
they were in a mess. And everywhere you look, you
saw different things where the apostles had to write letters
and say, y'all don't get it. You're saved by the grace of
God, who is our righteousness. Jesus Christ is our righteousness.
Walk that way. Put that stuff down. Come to
my dinner table without clean hands and watch what happens.
I don't care who you are. I have a subtle way of, even
if the kids aren't in the room, hi everybody, wash your hands.
Because I can't stand it. If you've been outside holding
a cat or petting a dog or digging in the dirt and you come in,
you've got to wash your hands or I can't eat with you. And I had a friend one time who
never washed his hands, literally never washed his hands, ever,
ever washed his hands. He never washed his hands. And
we were working on some plumbing one time, and we went and got
a sandwich. He didn't wash his hands. I mean,
you could see it under his nails. I said, man, you got to wash
your hands. He said, I ain't washed my hands in 66 years.
I'm not going to start now. And I couldn't eat. That's OCD
right there. I'm sorry. It's just me. It ain't
you. So what is love? I forbear, breathe. It's OK,
James. Hey, you want a biscuit? No,
that's all right. You eat it. Can I cut your food for you?
That's all right. I'm on a fast. Walk in a manner worthy of the
gospel. So if I say, hey, I'm walking
with the Lord, but I'm living in sin, I'm a liar. New Christians
have to be taught this. It's not automatic. That's where
I was at. It's not automatic. It's not automatic for people
to be Jewish their entire lives and to learn this is dirty, this
is dirty, this is dirty, this is dirty, this is dirty. And
in being dirty, it's sinful. That's where I was going with
the hand washing thing. Imagine if my equation to people washing
their hands was spiritual, if it was aligned in some way. And
some people have that weakness. And Paul had to rebuke Peter
for that. He was an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and he
showed favoritism when his old cronies showed up. He didn't
want to eat with Gentiles and he didn't want to be seen eating
meat that was sacrificed to idols and all sorts of other things
that were not sinful. So Paul, in his loving, compassionate
way, kindly rebuked him sharply in front of everybody. James
does the same thing with his Jewish brothers and sisters who
have been taught their entire lives that Gentiles are dogs. And then they come to the knowledge
of grace. God saves them and gives them the knowledge of electing
love and salvation through imputed righteousness and the cross of
Christ, etc. And then all of a sudden now
they're thinking, you know what? We love those dogs. These are our
puppies. But they still eat at the floor,
not the table, right? I mean, I've loved animals. I've
had a dog die before that I cried for three days and didn't know
why. Why am I crying, stupid dog? Well, have a pet die, you'll
understand it. You don't realize what you do
in the context of looking at those pretty little blue eyes.
Almost a person, but not, because you don't let it eat off the
table, usually. I have friends that do. That's their business. Some people, well, that's a dog,
I love it, but I'm not gonna let it eat on the table. I'm
not gonna let it Chew on my brand new pair of shoes. I'm not going
to let that cat use my closet as a litter box. You see? But I love it. But I will pop
it with a fly flap, or a rolled up newspaper, or a water spray
bottle. Could you imagine if we're in here and somebody sits
in the wrong seat and you go, get up out of my seat. Or you slap
them with a fly flap. Or you say, you're not an original
Grace Truth member. You go to the back. Your name
ain't on that plaque that we don't show anymore because we've
had to excommunicate two people off of it that I don't really
want them to see. I don't know why. I don't know
what to do. That's a whole other conversation. The Jewish people in James' congregation
were showing favoritism. Those high and mighty people
in the Jewish faith, when they came to church, oh, they're sitting
here in the seat of honor. The old nasty Gentile who didn't
bathe last week, his hands were dirty, he's coming up for the
Lord's table. You sit in the back, you're going
to offend my Jewish friend here. And James is like, shame on you.
Don't you dare do that. How dare you have a dead faith.
If you can't serve the least of these, you aren't serving
the Lord Jesus Christ. You get to the back of the line,
bonehead. That's what James is about. Why
are you talking trash about these people? Why are you mocking them?
Why are you doing it? Why are you arguing? You're praying
for something because you want it because somebody else has
got it. That's why you're praying. That's why God's not answering
your prayer. That's why many of you are getting sick, Paul would say. You're
taking the table and you're abusing the grace of God and the physical,
tangible reality of the experience of being reminded of the blood
of Christ and the body of Christ being shed at the Lord's table.
And you're doing it in an unworthy manner because you stuff in your
pockets because you're hungry and you don't, you're too cheap
to pay food. Where these homeless guys who lost everything because
God saved them are our responsibility and they need to eat first. If
there's anything left, all you need is a crumb to remember the
cross. Don't get up here and eat. You let them eat. See, it's
everywhere in the New Testament. Because you're not walking with
the Lord when you act like that. Now some people will call that
idea discipleship. Are you a disciple of Christ?
Are you walking with Christ? Are you following Christ? This
is the knowledge there. If I say I'm following Him but
I don't keep His commandments, I'm lying. I'm not following
Him. Following Christ is keeping His commandments. And the truth
is not in me. Because I'm saying I'm following
Christ. Doing the opposite. You're following Christ. But
in your business you are double charging people of color. In
your business you are double-charging ignorant women who come in to
buy a car? You're following Christ, but
yet you cut your bonuses for your employees because you wanted
to go on an African safari? Church discipline is the answer
to that, my beloved. And the saint will go, I'm sorry,
forgive me, and we will forgive them. That's it. It's over. It's
done. And then our unity is there,
and we walk with Christ together. We don't labor over, I'm going
to watch you for about six years and see. No, if they do it again
in a couple of weeks, we call them on it a couple of weeks.
And of course, we know there are sins. And Trey talked about
some of those last week that are, we act quick, and then we
restore slowly. But not in stuff like that. not
in the general every day. And thank God that through John's
writing, we're taught what these commandments are. He parses them
out in such a way that we don't have to figure it all out. It's
all the teaching of Jesus Christ that he has in mind when he says
in Matthew 28, go make disciples of all nations, teaching them
what I've taught you and obey. Make disciples. You realize that's
not evangelize. He's not talking about causing
people to be saved. He's talking about taking the
elect and who are saved and teaching them. Evangelism is teaching people
the Christ, people who go, oh, you know what? I want to learn
that. I want to grow in that. I want to I want to live in that. I want
to have that intimacy. So if I'm living in a way contrary,
say I'm living in Christ, I'm lying. But whoever keeps His
word, whoever holds fast in these things, in Him truly, the love
of God is perfected. And that's next week's sermon.
The love of God is perfected. What does it mean to have the
love of God perfected? That means it comes to its full
potential. And the full potential of the
love of God is that we are confident in His love for us. We're not
purposefully causing our soul and mind to be divided because
we're purposefully rebelling against the very instruction
of walking in a manner worthy of the gospel. By this, we know that we are
in Him. Whoever says he abides in Him
ought to walk in the same way in which He walked. So see, there's
the instruction. There's the simple instruction. And verse 7 is what he's talking
about. Verse 7 is what he's talking
about. So when we talk about the love of God perfected next
week, when we get to verse 7, we will see it in practical application
for the church. This is what John is writing.
Pragmatic application of the gospel love of God. Whoever says he is walking with
the Lord ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
Ought to have his attitude, ought to have his mind, ought to have
his heart, ought to have his hands, ought to have his feet.
Not do the things that Jesus did, but have the heart that
Jesus has. How are you going to know that?
You have to be taught it. Hence this letter. Therefore,
you're saved by the mercy of God. Now let me teach you how
to live. for your joy together as a people that gives glory
to God. Paul talks about it in Ephesians, doesn't he? He gives that entire first chapter
of Ephesians to the idea that the church together, walking
together in the true faith, then living out the faith together
is what? That's just chapter three, sorry. The church and its assembly,
life together, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God is
made known to the devil. And if you remember my teaching
on that particular text, what Paul is saying there that the
authorities in the heavenly places, the angelic beings, including
Lucifer and the fallen angels, they all know that Christ is
victorious because we are the people of God. And not only that,
but that God has given us his love and that through the shepherding
of the flock together, we are growing to be a people by his
grace for his glory. So rest in that, beloved. Hold
fast in that, beloved. Walk in a manner worthy of grace,
because grace upon grace upon grace is yours in Christ Jesus,
and there's nothing you can do to escape it. But there's everything
that we can do together as we learn to know Him more, to live
for His namesake, which we will never perfect. but we can live
together in love. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for this teaching that you've written for us. Father, as Paul
would say, I've been crucified with Christ It is no longer I
who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live
in the flesh. I live by faith in the son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me. Father, as we understand
that more and more, as we learn to know you more, to learn to
walk with you more intimately. Father, we never look and think
that we're walking more perfectly. But Lord, many of your sheep
look at this teaching and they don't even want to hear it because
they don't want the knowledge of the truth of the so what's
in their force. So I pray that you would. Soften
their hearts. and that you would not permit
the flesh or the enemy to hold us in a place of guilt and condemnation
but Lord that through your word we would rest in the finished
work of Jesus as we live our lives so that we are honoring
your name and we are serving one another and that we are pleasing
to the people of our community and that we are known for being
Christlike. so that our joy and our fellowship
and our walking together with you and each other would be glorious. And we love you, Father, because
you've loved us in Christ. And Lord, we know that you've
loved us in Christ because you've shown us the gospel of free grace. No conditions that have not been
met through the person of Christ, and you've shown us the truth
of sovereign grace and that it is all in your hand and all executed
by your power and that nothing can separate us from you. Because
we are in Christ Jesus. Not sin, not doubt, not unbelief. Because Lord, when our faith
wanes, He is faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. He cannot
deny His work. He cannot deny His redemption
of His people. So it is in that we rest. It
is in Him we rest. And it is by His name we pray.
Amen.