me to the letter of 1st John. We will be here sometime over
the next months and months. 1st John. You might want to make
a little bookmark of Ephesians chapter 3 because I'm going to
go back there about midway through the sermon.
So Ephesians chapter 3. I'm going to go there as we get
into the teaching. I want to read the first 11,
basically read the first chapter again, and then we'll begin. Sorry, guys. For some reason,
I get fax messages coming over my telephone. It's crazy. All right. First John, chapter
one. That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the
word of life, the life was made manifest and we have seen it
and testify 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 that we have
heard from Him and now proclaim to you. that God is light and
in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship
with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and 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. Let's pray. Father,
I pray that this Word, Lord, would ring into our hearts and
minds this morning. Father, that we would be able
to put away everything else that may Father, put away the thoughts
and the concerns of this world for just a moment. Lord, that
by your spirit we may be in tune to the truth of the gospel of
grace that is both free and sovereign. That we may be inclined in our
hearts and our ears and our minds and our souls and our affections
and all things to listen and hear the word. And Father, we
who have been given ears to hear and to see, Lord, let us grow
in the midst of the understanding that is required for us to hear
this letter. And Lord, I pray that you protect
us. that you would protect our hearing, that we would not mishear,
that we would not mislisten, we would not move into our own
understanding of things and we would not look at the culture
and the history of the faith and begin to decide what we believe
your word is telling us based on what someone else has said.
And Father, this is so true for myself as well. Lord, protect
these who listen to what I teach from me. that they might see
the truth of your word as it is written and exposed to them
by your Spirit. And Father, if it be your will
that I would be a guide to stand in this truth, that it would
be clearly and simply understood. so that we may grow to understand
more with all the saints the love that you have for us and
that our fellowship, our sharing in Christ may be together in
unity. First, to the truth of who he
is and what he has accomplished for his own. And then second,
as we serve and love each other in this life because of Christ.
So Father, we pray these things in his name this day. Amen. I want to thank Brother Jesse
for preaching last week. I thought maybe you'd preach
again this week, Brother Vince Sweet. I love to learn and to hear the
preached word, and there's no greater place and no greater
people than to be taught amongst you, my brothers and sisters
of this family. We have now reached week three
of this letter, and we are going to be able to finish chapter
one in some sense, but we will be coming back to chapter one
for many weeks ahead. We saw that John, as give a little
recap, has discussed in his introduction the person of Christ. We see
that he has taught and exposed the doctrine of Christ, not just
Jesus as his person historically, but Jesus as the witness of God. Jesus as his own testimony giver. Jesus as the one who brings the
testimony of the Father and the Spirit and now the apostles.
Jesus, who is the one who accomplished what he came to do, the one who
secured his people's salvation, the one who purchased them with
his own blood, the one who imputes his own perfection and righteousness
and reveals that to them. This is this Jesus. And John
is writing this letter so that the saints who are secure in
this Jesus are able to have a true fellowship around this truth
in this Christ. And in having this fellowship,
they know that the reason that they have fellowship together
is because they have fellowship with the son and the father.
And the reason that they know they have the fellowship with
the son and the father is because they know they have fellowship
with the apostles. And the reason they know they
have fellowship with the apostles is because they believe the teaching
of the apostles concerning the person of Jesus. and so on and
so forth. So the apostles now teach concerning
Christ what they have and what they know they now teach. In
1 John 2 over in verse 24, you don't have to go there, but just
listen to it. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning
abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise, this
is the word that He made to us. Eternal life. If you abide in
Christ, it means that you abide in the truth of Christ. If you
abide in Christ, that means you have been shown and can settle
your soul in the truth that John's gospel has revealed from beginning
to end. that there is nothing there,
including those very difficult passages of John 3 and those
very troubling passages of John 6 and those very indicting patches
passages of John 8. And then that last few hours
of Jesus life, the latter half of the entire gospel letter.
All that Jesus has said, all that Jesus has done, everything
that Jesus has revealed, this is the light of God. This is
God visible to you. And if you cannot see Him and
hold fast to Him, you have not been shown Him. You do not belong
to Him. Some people argue, well, you're
arguing for doctrinal perfection. No, I'm not. I'm arguing what
Scripture commands. doctrinal purity. We do not get
to pick and choose that which is taught to us from scripture
and say, well, I believe this part, but not this part. If you
believe some, but not all of what is exposed concerning Christ,
you have not been taught of God. Having the knowledge of Christ
is to know the truth of Christ. And that's why I am always and
always will be until there is no breath in my lungs or a voice
box in my throat. Harp over and over again and
expound continually on the fact that if you are not intimate
with the scriptures, intimate with the printed word of God,
you are not intimate with Christ. Because you are not learning,
you are not being refreshed, you are not growing in the knowledge
of grace. And in that you have absolutely,
listen to this, in that you are not in scripture. You have absolutely
nothing worthwhile to give to anyone in the body of Christ.
Nothing. There is no arm, there is no
water, there is no money that is worth more than you knowing
Christ because all of the service without the knowledge of Christ
and growing in the scripture is powerless unto your joy. And that's what John's arguing
in his letter. This isn't a test of salvation. That's blasphemous
and demonic. I'm going to say that phrase
every week until I'm finished with 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. This
is not a way for you to know that you know that you know that
you have eternal life if you do the things that are here.
That's not the point, because John will show us, as he's already
revealed in the Scripture, the promise of life is found in Christ
alone. The security of life and hope
is found in the finished work of Christ, the covenant of grace,
the promise of God who finished the work of redemption for his
people. And beloved, the reason we gather every Lord's Day and
other opportunities around the scripture is because that is
our lifeline. He is our hope. He is our love. He is our knowledge. He is our
wisdom. He is all that we are. Christ
is our everything. And we have fellowship with him. So being found in fellowship
means that we are in Christ regarding his truth and that we are with
each other as we are in Christ, they are in Christ. Sometimes
it's a little frustrating. We think fellowship just means
being together. It doesn't. From a biblical sense, fellowship
is sharing in something. As a matter of fact, a better
translation is to say all things in common. We have all things in common
with the apostles. We have all things in common
with God, the father. Hear that for a second. We have
all things in common with God, the son. Because we are his body. Therefore, we should have all
things in common in him with the apostles, with each other,
so that we us is always plural in this letter. It is always
inclusive of the audience and the authors. And while John is
the one writing, you know, it is very clearly the case that
the apostles always speak in the plural because none of them
contradict the other. They are all on the same page.
concerning the teaching of Christ. They were not always all on the
same page concerning the operation of ministry and missions and
who would be going where and what and when, but the teaching
and the truth of Christ was always in unity. And even then it was
not divisiveness. It was just differences. So here, this truth of Christ,
this message, as we see in chapter one, verse five, This message
is that we have heard this from him and now we proclaim this
to you. You want to share in the knowledge
of Christ. You want to share in the truth
of Christ with brothers and sisters. That means you share in Christ
the truth concerning him. And this is the message concerning
him. God is light, and in Him there
is no darkness at all. Now this in itself should be
today's sermon, but I have to tie it all together. I could
pick out topically this idea of the revelation of the holiness
and the perfection of God, and it would be worthwhile and beautiful
for us, and we will visit this over and over again as we continue
in this letter. This word of life is Christ and
the doctrine concerning him has been given to the apostles and
now it has been revealed to us and now they reveal it to what? The apostles reveal it to us.
We reveal it to others. It is still the apostolic authority
of the revelation of Jesus Christ. When we think of light, we need
to understand what light does. I am extremely light sensitive.
There are certain hues of light that causes me to be blind. The
way my eyes work and the color blindness that I have, if there
is a light that is not daylight, this is why that can sometimes
affect my ability to see the paper right here. It just sort
of blends away. Nothing I can do about it. But
certain types of light refuse the eyes to see certain things.
Just like there are certain types of light that our eyes cannot
see. But in a general sense, most everybody knows if you light
a match in the middle of a dark room, you can see something.
Specifically, you can see the light and then whatever it shines
on, you can see it. So I want you to see, pun intended,
that when we understand John's writing, in order to understand
John's writing here in this letter, we must go all the way back to
the entire gospel of John. See, while we're not done with
it, we're not going to be done with John's gospel for a long time. for a
long time. Because if we want to see what
it means to see, and we want to understand what it means to
see the light of Christ and what light really is, then we have
to understand what John has taught concerning this, because he's
not reteaching all of this. He just says it in a basic summary.
This is the message of Christ that has been given to us. We've
touched it and heard it and felt it and walked with it. Now what
we heard, we're going to proclaim to you. We have proclaimed to
you. And if you are in, if you share with us in this Christ
and you share with us in this truth, and if you share with
us in this truth, there's some things you need to keep in mind
concerning this truth as it relates to how you live. Here we go.
Your daily lives. And this is where the rub starts.
This is where the rub starts, because when we start telling
people how they ought to live their daily lives, you hear this
accusation, legalist! Friends, let's just put that to bed and
call that nonsense. For the parents in the room,
how many times have we told our children what to do? How many
times have we taught our children throughout the years what not
to do? How many times have we taught our children how to do
things properly? Do we just put them in a crib and shove a bag
of diapers in there, toothbrush, couple of razors, say, you'll
figure it out in about 18 years. Shake it up, pour him out the
back door, and here's 100 bucks. No, we teach. I don't want to
brush my teeth. Well, you smell like a trash
can. Go brush your teeth. You're not paying for that. We've
got to teach them correctly. It doesn't negate the fact that
there are children even when they spit at us or yell at us
or cry or stomp their feet or throw a tantrum. And that's when
they're in their 20s. It doesn't matter at all how
they act. They're always our children.
And so it's not going to change that. But it does matter how
they act because you're not going to act a certain way and live
in what? Say it dads, my house. And for
those who've had teenagers, you understand what that's like.
They turn about 14 and something breaks in them. There's a wire
that goes crazy. You smell it for a couple of
weeks and you don't know what it is. You think something's
on fire. It's the short-circuiting of the brain. It's the short-circuiting
of the brain. Something is frazzled there and
then this thing that used to adore you and can't wait for
you to teach them something all of a sudden hates your guts or
treats you that way. And then a couple of years ago,
and then things get a little bit better. But it doesn't mean
they're not our children. And we help mold them and teach
them and guide them and direct them and instruct them in righteousness,
instruct them in truth, instruct them in just human, common, human
decency. Common sense. You're going to
wear that? You're going to go like that?
You're going to buy that? You're going to spend your money
on that? I remember being in my mid-twenties and my parents
said, you really bought that? Why'd you buy that? Don't call
me when you can't eat. Shouldn't have bought that. We
teach our children to say that we don't need teaching in the
body of Christ is asinine and arrogant. It's ridiculous. We need teaching, but we do not
conflate the instruction of maturity and unity and love with our hope. And that's the demonic blasphemy
that is so prevalent in the context of the writing of John's letters
and the writing of James' letter. And it's time to call a spade
a spade for the sake of your joy, beloved. It's time to show
the body of Christ, not just us, but those who we have connection
with. You need to be prepared to give
a reason for the hope that you have, which is in Jesus Christ
alone, period, full stop, over, transmission, out. Now that we
live together, let's learn how that looks. Two separate important
things, but they are not the same thing. The basic common
false gospel of the circles that would seem to be like us are
that it's all of grace, it's all of sovereignty, it's all
of Christ, it's all of faith, it's all in everything. You don't look saved enough for
me. So let's put a test. Do you have any sin? Yes. Is
it bad? I don't know. Is it this? I don't
know. Is it that? Nope. Who gets to
decide those things? John puts an end to that garbage. He puts an end to that garbage
right here. The message of Jesus is that God is light and in him
there is no darkness whatsoever forever. So who are we talking
about right now? We're talking about God. We're
talking about God the Father. We're talking about God the Son.
We're talking about God the Holy Spirit. We are talking about
our triune God. Each person, they are holy and
righteous and set apart. Jesus manifests the visible God
in power. Jesus manifests the visible God
in word. He manifests the visible God
in teaching, in action, in will, and in purpose. He manifests
the fullness of all that God is, everything there is to see
about God. Jesus Christ reveals in redemption,
in truth, the knowledge of Christ as our wisdom. as the resurrection,
as the life, as the bread, and so on and so forth. So Jesus,
in this writing, manifests the perfection of the glory of God,
the beauty of the glory of God, the majesty of the glory of God,
as God can be seen in all of his splendor, he is seen in the
redemption of His people as their eternal life, and more specifically,
THE eternal life. So that outside of Jesus, there
is no life. So outside of the doctrine of
Christ, there is no life. If we share in Christ, but our
doctrine isn't the same, we're not sharing. If you and I have a joint business
venture and we each put $10,000 in and whatever the profits are,
we're going to split down the middle and the profits are a
million and I give you 400,000. Is that right? No. And if you don't know about it,
then you cannot have intimacy and unity and sharing in deceit. You cannot say, I am here sharing
life with you, but really I'm keeping back a little bit of
portions. Keep that in mind. There is no life outside of Christ. Jesus manifested himself to his
people and specifically to the apostles. And the apostles carry
to this very day until the day these paper Bibles will burn
to crisps. the authority of the revelation
of the manifestation of Jesus as God. Jesus is proclaimed and
this is the message. He is light and in Him there
is no darkness. Let's talk about the message
as it comes in verse 6 because in verse 6 we start seeing these
conditional statements and it's inclusive. If I, John the Apostle,
And you all, the saints, say we share together in Christ. While we walk in darkness, we
lie. That's not an evangelistic appeal, as you'll see. It's a
true statement concerning John himself and all the other apostles
and all the other believers receiving this letter and you and me. The message is Jesus lived and
the apostles lived, and Jesus taught and the apostles learned.
This message is they learned by hearing, empowered by the
Spirit to have understanding. The message is they lived with
Jesus and now they live with the saints and in doing so they
abide in the same message. They still share in Christ and
their sharing in the doctrine of Christ is their only true
fellowship. You've heard the scripture where
it says, what good does light have with darkness? How can what? Something that is good be intermingled
with something that is evil. Well, but this is the core reality
of the problem concerning the gospel. How can, if God is light,
he have intimacy with evil? That's the philosophical question
of the age. How can a man be right with God? Job asked it. and philosophers and theologians
and pastors and cult leaders throughout antiquity and all
the way up to the present day have asked that question and
they've answered it all wrong except they answer it by the
power and the authority of the apostles teaching concerning
THE eternal life. There are some nutcases out there
who would say, well it don't matter, carpe diem, Jesus, God
isn't going to suffer anybody's judgment because He loves everything.
No matter how evil they are, how good they are, everybody's
a child of God. Just like your children. You're
not going to stop being their father, but that's not what the
Bible teaches. So we're just going to move along.
We know that's ridiculous. Move right along. And there are
others who will say, well, it's all about what you do. It's about
how you live and how you manifest some type of good and moral righteousness
in your own life, proving to God that you really desire to
do what's right, and He'll see that desire and He'll give you
favor. So you're earning and you're putting a condition on
us as the creature to settle something in our hearts. Well,
how do we know that what I'm doing is even motivated rightly?
Because it's not the motivation in the wrong place, also just
as big an evil as the action themselves. So if I don't cuss,
lie, steal, rob, murder, adulterate, is it because that I really want
to be good Or is it because I don't want to go to hell? Because I
don't want my daddy to think bad of me. I don't want my parents
to think bad. I don't want my community to
look at James. He's the criminal. I don't want to be seen as a
criminal. That's ill motives. Those are not righteous works. And there's many, many, many
ways in which this could be understood. How can a man be righteous before
God? But there's only one right way. And the right way is the
apostles' teaching. The right way is what John even
establishes in his entire gospel narrative and then in this letter
so beautifully that once you see it, I pray that you will
never unsee it. The only way that we stand righteous
before God is not even, here's another sinful narrative of how
it works. Well, no, no, no. It's all about
what Jesus did, but now that Jesus did it and we've been found
in Him, He's going to do something in us. I want you to hear what I'm saying. It's blasphemous. He's going
to do something in us. And at the end of days, we're
going to grow to a place that's going to prove we are the children
of God. Look how I've lived my life. Look how I've not sinned. To say that is a lie. That's what John says right here,
verses 5 through 10. There is no final judgment where
you will be graded by the supernatural work of God in your earthly body
meat suit. Hallelujah. Because if you were
not graded by the perfection of Jesus Christ imputed to you,
you are dead and condemned already. And there's nothing you can do
about it. The gospel is not good news because
you get to choose what to do with it. The gospel is good news
because God did with it what He wanted to do with it and He
saved His people from their sins by putting them on His Son and
His righteousness on them. That is good news. If that is
not your hope, beloved, I pray God would open your eyes to see
the truth. This living together with the
saints, sharing and abiding, as we saw in chapter 2. That little brief foreground
there. It's manifested in this manner.
It's experienced in this manner. John is saying we've seen Jesus
in a physical way. Peter goes on to say, though
you have not seen him, it's 1st Epistle chapter 1, you love him.
Though you don't see him now, you love him. And you are filled
with a joy that is inexpressible. This joy that brings the outcome
of your salvation, which is your soul being saved, the eternal
life. John is not saying you can be where we were and you
can walk with Jesus and you can eat with Jesus and you can sleep
with Jesus and you can live with Jesus and you can carry on ministry
with Jesus. He's not saying that. He's not
saying you can be there at the cross with me as I was watching
Jesus die, and you can be there in the upper room when He appeared
to us, and you can be there at the seashore when He came and
told us of His glory, and you can be there. He's not saying
that. You can't be there. We can't be there. That's said
and done, but we can share in the truth of Christ because of
what the apostles teach us in this word. And in doing so, if
you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and
all of you share in the truth of Christ, and when we're together,
we share together, that is fellowship. And it is the fuel and the foundation
and the motivation of all that we are and all that we live for.
No matter the minutia of life and the work and the taxes and
the preparation and the medicine and anything else we have to
do, car maintenance, all this other stuff, vacations, it's
worthless even though we do it. Everything that we are ultimately
results in our fellowship with Christ because of what the apostles
have shown us. And when we are in Christ together
in truth, we share together with life. And because of that, the
message of God's holiness is at the centerpiece of it. How
can this holy, perfect God have intimacy and share with anyone
else who is not him? And this is the answer, because
he gives us himself. He gives us all that he is. He
credits to our account his holiness. And so John is saying this experience is ours to share
in Christ. And if you hold fast and abide
in what we are teaching concerning him, you too will have this sharing
and you who are in Christ will share the joy that we have. You
understand this is not evangelistic. This is promise of sufficiency
in the finished work of Jesus. In chapter 4, verse 6, you'll
see John writes, he says, we, plurally, The apostles are from
God. We are from God and whoever knows
God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does
not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. How? What John has said concerning
the Son is the truth. What other people say that does
not match in lockstep 1000% equally is a lie. You cannot see Christ, but you
can hear of him and you can know him through our teaching. This
is what John is trying to get across. And this that you know,
this intimacy that you have in the gospel can be shared. As we abide in it, as we walk
in it, as we live together in it, that is why this I can't
even say contemporary, but it is the contemporary idea and
model of ministry where we do a lot of stuff and create a lot
of things and and try to entice people and have them experience
something is really blasphemous, because what it does is usurp
the very thing that God has promised to give us joy, which is intimacy
around the doctrine of Christ, living life together out of our
motivation because of God's love for us first. See, And if we
do other things that segue that or even sidestep that or put
that up on the shelf, then what we're doing is we're seeking
out sharing the joy of Christ without Christ, because we're
not making the doctrine of Christ the centerpiece of all of it. If you have ears, you'll see
and hear. So the joy that comes with all of this is found in
the intimacy, in the sharing, in the fellowship with God's
people as he permits it. And we must do what we can to
assist those amongst us in order that they may have fellowship
in the gospel, in the joy. And one of those things is to
really encourage and prayerfully provide opportunity for people
to get to our fellowship if they so need to be here. We have something
that the world looks on in a wide view and doesn't understand.
We have something that the saints who are away go, I need that. I want that. I'll do it. I'll leave my parents.
I'll leave my children. I'll leave my grandparents and
come down here to nowhere. Don't take it for granted because
we get gone tomorrow. May the Lord grant his joy in
all these things. Ephesians chapter 3, Paul, I've got to get my mind,
Paul gets this same sentiment as John does, but he expands
upon it in Pauling style. In chapter 3 verse 7, and I've
posted this online, I've sent it to some of you this week,
of this gospel Paul says, I was made a minister. according to
the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of
his power. To me, though I am the very least
of the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring here, listen, to
light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden now,
not hidden for ages in God, who created all things so that through
the church, through the assembled ones, The manifold wisdom of God might
now be made known to the demons and the devils in the heavenly
places. And I'm changing that so you
get the gist of it. If you want to know what I think about that,
go back and listen to Ephesians 3 from many years ago. boldness. This was according
to the eternal plan of God that in whom we have boldness and
access, excuse me, that he's realized in Christ Jesus our
Lord in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through
our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart
over what I'm suffering for you, which is your glory. That's you
are being exposed for who you really are and you are sustained
by the power of Christ in the midst of great tribulation. and
you are sharing in the person of Christ and you are sharing
with the saints in the suffering of Christ. Paul says this to
Colossians as well. I pray that I may fill up what is lacking
the suffering of Christ in my body. That is so that you, for
you, I may stay alive, that I may continue to die, that I may continue
to be diseased, that I may continue to suffer and be in prison so
that you can share in this joy which is in Christ Jesus who
died on the cross and has been raised alive. Why in the world
has God in his wisdom chosen to manifest His glory in the
sharing of suffering amongst a people who the world would
say in a false Christ, if you're suffering, you're sinful. The
Bible says if you're not suffering, you're in Satan. Because suffering comes with
sharing in Christ. Love comes with sharing in Christ.
Tribulation comes with sharing in Christ. It is as much a promise
to us as the resurrection itself. But Paul doesn't stop there in
three. Verse 14 says, For this reason, Paul begins to pray for
these saints. He said, For this reason, I bow
my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and
on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He
may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit
in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts
through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love,
may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth, and the length, and the height, and the depth, and
to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him, this doxological
ending, now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly all
that we ask or think of. than all that we ask or think,
according to the power at work within us. To him be glory in
the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations forever
and ever. Amen. And this is the same joy that
John's speaking of. with all the saints, the depth, the breadth,
the height, the width, the intimacy of God, the power of Christ in
us, that we suffer well, we live well, we do well, and he's not,
Paul in Ephesians 3 is not evangelizing these people. They are the saints,
but yet he prays that they may be filled with all the fullness
of God and strengthened in their inner being so that they, being
rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend
with all the saints the love of God in Christ Jesus. Why? So you don't lose heart.
So you don't defame the name of Christ. So you don't cause
division. You know why self-righteous people
can't be in fellowship with you? Because they won't like how you
live. They won't like how you worship. They won't like how
you speak or how you talk. And I'm not talking about debauchery
and sinful things and evil stuff. I'm talking about just normal.
It's never good enough. Whatever the painting on the
wall that affixed and then burned in their consciousness as a child,
that's what they envision the true believer looks like. The
scripture says otherwise. And this joy is ours because
we have shared in Christ's death. And when we are together, we
share in Christ's life. And there are things that get
in the way of that. And there are things that cause that truth
to not be self-evident. And there's this is where John
is going. And we often miss the joy of
this sharing life together when we purposefully neglect the teaching
of God's word. This COVID-19 thing. It's tough. We got six ways you
can hear and watch the teaching. Don't neglect it. Don't neglect it. We miss the
joy of the sharing when we focus on the peripheral or the negative
truths more than we do the truth. We miss the joy of the sharing
when we forget that God's promise to us is ours, when we, in our
minds, We just don't think about it. When we ignore the message
of Christ that He is light and we are not. So now back to verse
five of 1 John. This is the message. God is light
and in Him is no darkness at all. Why this message, John?
Why are we dealing with the holiness and the perfection of Christ?
Because that is the foundation of our righteousness. That's it. Sermon's over, go
home. That is the foundation of our
righteousness. He is light and in him there
is no darkness at all. So if we want fellowship with
him, he has to be the difference maker. He has to be our righteousness. And beginning was the word and
the word was God and the word was with God. He was in the beginning
with God. All things were made through
him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was
life. And the life was the light of
men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has
not overcome it. The true light, which gives light to everyone,
was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world
was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came
to his own and his own people did not know him. But to all
who did know him. who believed in His name, He
gave the right to become the children of God, who were born
not of blood, no matter where you come from, nor the will of
the flesh, what you choose to do or what you want to do, or
the will of man, somebody else's choice for you, but the will
of God. And the Word became flesh, the holiness of God, in whom
there is no darkness, dwelt amongst dark people. And we have seen
His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of
grace and truth. For from His fullness, we all
receive grace upon grace. And why does this apostolic shepherd
of the sheep of Jesus start with that message? Because it is the
centerpiece of our hope. Because John loves the sheep
like Christ loved the sheep, like Paul loved the sheep, and
he wants them to have the joy of Christ with him. He wants
them to share in the joy of Christ. You understand this isn't about
being saved to get the joy, joy, joy down in your heart. This is about abiding as believers
within the joy of Christ that our joy is complete. It's plain and simple. It's plain
as day. Shepherds fall into different
categories. You hear pastors. There are so
many different types of pastors. It's almost like the word doesn't
even mean what it's supposed to mean anymore. Overseer, shepherd,
caregiver. What is the role? What is the
job description? It's in the Bible alone, not in the documents
of some institution. But you've heard me say this,
and if you haven't heard me say this, you're just not remembering,
but my greatest barometer, and it used to be of my pastoral
success, was that you all had joy in Christ. My barometer of
pastoral success needs to be the faithfulness of Christ to
continue to teach through my mouth until my mouth is shut
and somebody else can come up here and just pop, pop, pop,
pop off like that. But my greatest desire for you
is that you share with me in the joy that I have. I want you
to grow so that you can never look at another thing but Jesus
when you're looking for the fullness of joy. Beloved, what is there
else to look at? Just take your pick. There's pastors who want to manipulate
and grow and create leadership and create good qualities and
create a certain type of righteous group. A certain type of benevolent
group that's known and has accolades and, oh yeah, you know that ministry
there, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my
gosh. You know, it's over and over and over again. It makes
me want to throw up twice. And I don't. Unless I get food
poisoning. There are the joyful pastors
who seek to share that joy and there are what I call the dreadful
pastors who want to make everybody just come underneath the lordship
of Jesus or else. Anathema. Here's the good news. Here's the good news. Oh, the
glory of God, the grace of God, the love of God for you elect
beloved ones. Oh, how much the father loves
us that we should be called the children of God. And so we are
the children of God. That's verse one of chapter three,
by the way, of this letter. And I feel like if John had not
been old, he'd have been break dancing when he wrote that down.
I know I would. The pastor who is in the word
is in the word because of the joy of the saints. He wants them
to have this sharing, this fellowship. When you hear the word fellowship
from now on, think of sharing. He wants them to have the sharing
of the joy in its fullness with Christ and his soul is fed by
the truth that he eats so that he can then share it with you
so that your fellowship will be good and full and complete. And then he proclaims it to those
under his care so that you might proclaim it to yourself and to
one another and so on and so forth. And so that the shepherd
who loves the flock truly molds his life to that end. And every
waking hour, no matter what is happening, God the Spirit is
constantly pressing the burdens of the sheep of Christ and their
joy. in his soul and there's nothing that you can do to escape
it. There is no way to get out from under it. And this joy is
found in the truth of Jesus Christ over everything else. And it
often feels like a fool's errand as a pastor, because it is only
in God's timing that he will ever give it. And the filling
is not a finished work. It is a continual up and down
life. Sometimes we miss. The joy, sometimes
it feels like a fool's errand in our own lives because we're
seeking after joy in places that we should, and we seek to find
joy in temporal pleasures. and sinful lust and escape and
fun and activities and our felt needs. This is what I need for
me. This is what I wish for me. So what I want for me and how
we think God should work in his timing. Oh, God, you should have
done this. If you'd have just done this, then I could have
been here. And in our planning and our wisdom, we find joy in
each other. Sometimes at the cost of the true fullness of
the joy of God, we we find try to find joy in being a warrior
for God. We're going to battle sin. We're
going to battle the devil. We're going to be prayer warriors. We're going
to get together. We're going to light candles. We're going to burn
hell down. It's already on fire. No, I'm
joking. You get the point. Some people
find joy in policing the saints. I'll get these people to act,
live, and learn, write, and love the way they're supposed to be.
I'll show them they'd just be like me, just a little bit more
like me, then they'll be fine. That's not joyful. Sometimes
we seek to find joy in comparing ourselves to others. Well, at
least I'm not like that guy. At least I'm not as bad as them.
At least I'm a Republican. Had to throw that in there. Nothing
wrong with that. Just throwing it in there. At
least I'm a Democrat. At least I'm a libertarian. I almost made a joke. Some people
seek to find joy in self-worth. Some people seek to find joy
in ministry. If I could just do this, if I could just be here,
if I could do that. You know what God will do for his people? He
will take us straight out of those things that we think will
give us joy and will put us in the thing that we hated the worst,
that we hoped would never take place. And he will keep us under
the discipline of his affectionate, powerful, merciful love so that
we will never lose sight of the joy that comes through sharing
Christ together. Because when we seek to find
joy in all these things, it is unbelief. And the remedies. The remedies to all this unbelief
is just abiding in that which we already believe. Sharing it
with each other. Abiding in the truth of Christ
to the apostles, teaching, sharing in the joy of Jesus. Who is the
light of God? This is seeing Jesus and His
mighty power for you, seeing the light in this message, being
in light. And everything else that John
could have written, this is what he wrote. So as we see this message, as
we see the truth of who Christ is, God is calling us to pursue
this light. You hear what I said there? God
is calling us to pursue Christ, share in the joy of Christ. Not
unto salvation, that's ours. Unto joy, intimacy, unity. Seeing the light of Christ is
to see the mighty power of God at work for you. Paul just said
it. The power which is at work in
us. Joy. Christ in us. Life. The beauty of the perfection
of Jesus on our account. Nothing is hidden from His sight.
There is no darkness in Christ. Jesus Christ is pure. He is unstained. He is separated
from us in every way. In His essence, in His glory,
in His morals, in His wisdom, in His power, in His very existence.
We are His creation. There is no darkness in Him. None whatsoever. No shadow in
His presence. None whatsoever. So seeing the
majesty of Christ as the holy God is the establishment of the
foundation of His essence. That He is perfect in all His
ways. Getting this reality is essential
to understanding our sharing as a merciful and loving unity
through Jesus. And it puts the purpose in His
cross. It puts the purpose in His death. If Christ is not God and holy
and above all things, then His death was powerless. Many claim today that Jesus didn't
have to be God. He's just a good man to learn
from. That's ridiculous. He claimed deity. He claimed
to be of the Father. He claimed to be, I am. Not just
God, but the one and only God. That's what I am means. Some people say that he could
just been a very good man. This is a lie. It is a lie because Jesus
came from the Father and the Bible witnesses it. The apostles
witness it. Some people say that Jesus could
personally sin in His flesh. It didn't matter. It did matter.
Jesus is the High Priest of the indestructible life. He is the
one who went through the Holy of Holies and laid His blood
as the mercy seat and the sacrifice before the Father so that His
elect children, His loved ones, would be redeemed. So light reveals
the truth about God, and light reveals the truth about God-man,
and in contrast, light reveals the truth about mere man, about
us. And beloved, this is not something
that we do to lead people to the light. Only when the light
has been given them can they see it. and John chapter 3 Jesus tells
Nicodemus that which is born of the Spirit of flesh is flesh
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit he gives the
imperative you must be born again later in that chapter in verses
16 through the end He says, For God so loved the world that He
gave the only Son that He had, that whoever is believing in
Him will not perish, but does have eternal life. For God did
not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but rather that
the world might be saved through Him. Whoever is believing is
not condemned, but whoever is not believing is condemned already
because they are not believing in the person, in the name, in
the authority, in the work, in the message, in the witness,
in the sharing of the proclamation of the only Son of God. And this
is the judgment, Jesus said. This is what I was trying to
get to. The light has come into the world And people loved the
darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. Now look in the comparison. Who's
Jesus talking to there in John 3? The Teacher of all Israel. One of the most humble Pharisees
that's ever recorded in Scripture. Probably the most pious man that
walked in Jerusalem in that day. He had a great deep love for
the sheep of Israel. Not like the others that we see.
Not like Saul some years later. So the works will be exposed
if you come into the light. If I'm fiddling around in my
backyard trying to unlock your window and the floodlights come
on, I'm exposed. If I'm hiding in the dark of
a store trying to burglarize it and the lights come on, I'm
seen, I'm caught. Everything that I am is there.
Like the Wizard of Oz, pay no attention to the man behind the
curtain. We don't want exposure for what is bad. But listen,
who came to the light in Jesus' ministry? Wicked, sinful people. Who avoided it? Self-righteous
religious zealots. Because they didn't want to be
seen as somebody who needed salvation. They didn't want to be seen as
someone who was lost. They didn't want to be seen as
someone who was blind. They didn't want to be seen as someone who was sinful.
I don't want to be seen as sinful, the Pharisees would say. How
dare you call us sinful? Problem is, it's your sinful.
They would turn it back on the people. Who's going to convict
us? Your sinner, Jesus. We know your daddy. We know that
your mom and dad were not married when you were born. I got you. The works that are exposed Primarily
are the self-righteous works of trying to be righteous before
God, trying to share in a glory that hasn't been granted to you,
trying to share in the power of God in any way, to give credit
in any way to any creature, to any volition of anything created
in any circumstance whatsoever. This is a tragic, wicked evil. Self-righteousness is worse than
murder. Self-righteous religion is worse
than kidnapping. Self-righteous zeal is worse
than mass shootings. Yet those people would say, condemn
the shooter, condemn the murderer, condemn the kidnapper, while
they themselves are condemned. Whoever does what is true comes
to the light, so it may be clearly seen that his works have been
carried out by God, in God. So we see that God's testimony
concerning His Son is true. God is light, and in Him there
is no darkness. We also see that God's testimony
concerning sharing with Him is true. Let's not misunderstand
this. No man is sinless, as John is
about to show us. And no man is ever going to sin
less or be less sinful than another man in his life. Do you realize
that? The deepest and darkest of criminals
that could ever do harm in the world today are no more sinful
than you and I. A little bit of road rage on the
inside. Imbecile, idiot. Blankety blank. Nobody's in the
car, nobody heard it but the Lord Jesus and your conscience.
It deserves the same wrath as a tyrant. And it will receive
it if Christ did not pay for that sin. And it's a greater sin to be
self-righteous than I think anything else. Because to be self-righteous
is to blaspheme the testimony of God's Son. And it is, in my
opinion, according to the Scripture, not my opinion, the Apostle's
opinion, according to the Scripture, to abide in unbelief. We must
tell the truth about Jesus, and in doing so, we must also tell
the truth about ourselves. We must walk in the light of
the truth of the doctrine of Christ, which will include our
darkness being wiped out by Christ's light. being exposed and seen
for what it is. And we stand in the light of
Christ like this. Here I am. And we see spots and
Jesus says, I'm going to shine and cover him. It's easy to compare ourselves
against others morally, but it's hard to be honest about our sins.
It's hard to be honest about our spirituality, like Nicodemus. There's the serpent. Did everybody
there deserve to be bit? Yes. But not everybody grumbled, but
everybody was bitten. No one deserved to live. So God promised life as he raised
salvation. And he granted faith that those
who believe would look and live. And Jesus uses that
example. And speaks of himself. God is
light. So in this comparison now, John
moves in verse six to say this, if we say we share with him. While we walk in darkness, we
lie and we do not practice the truth. We lie and we do not practice
the truth. Very quickly, let's go through
this. First, I want you to understand
that he's continuing to use the plural, we, of himself as well. We have fellowship with Him.
If we are sharing in the light of Christ, His redemption and
His witness and the truth, if we are sharing in His gospel,
if we are sharing in a way that we know who we are and what He's
done for us, then we should walk in a manner worthy. We are believing the light of
Jesus. This is not a determination of redemption but a state of
joy in sharing in Christ's finished work in knowledge and intimacy.
So if we say we have fellowship while we walk in darkness, get
this, I'm in the room and the light is on and I'm walking with
a shroud over me with my eyes closed. And I don't care about
what you're doing or what's going on in here, because I can't see
you. I'm not looking at you. I'm not looking at Christ. I'm
not listening to the Word. I'm just doing my own thing.
And I think, you know what? It's about time to start breaking some bricks
in martial arts. And right in the middle of the
preaching, I just do my own thing. Regardless of what is happening
in the life. James, what are you doing? I'm
with y'all. I'm sharing life with you. Now
you're doing your own thing over there. You're playing peanuts
on the piano during the prayer. What's happening here? We don't walk in darkness, saying
that we're fully focused on Christ and His people. and sharing with
them the fullness of Christ and His gospel while we walk outside
the obvious light of His perfection and purity, we are having a contradiction. It's not about saying we're not
saved. It's about saying we're not sharing
in the joy of Christ and we're doing damage to one another and
our testimony and in the name of God. So in this walk in darkness,
it includes the idea of the truth of the gospel, of course. But
more in view here, as we'll see as the letter unfolds, is that
he is now moving to an idea of a moral life in regard to the
saints. God is true purity and we share
in that purity. And when you are in that purity
and I'm in that righteousness, we are sharing together and we
are intimate together when we all walk in a manner congruent
with that perfection. And some people would take that
and that's why John is just so amazing. It's the first thing
that comes to your mind when people say stuff like that. Well,
how can we do that? Must be sinless perfection is
where some of these people come. Sinful, that's wicked. Well,
it must be growing in a certain manner. Maybe it's the Ten Commandments.
No, that's wicked too. You're not going to meet one
of them today. You're not going to obey one of those commandments
today. If you strive for it, you can
do well in your own eyes and in mine. But you will not do
well in the eyes of Christ. Well, we just won't do anything
then. Well, that's a license for sin and God forbid. See why we can't tie this to
salvation? We should live in a place that does not throw shade
on Christ or throw shade on each other. This is the point. Do
not misunderstand it. Do not abuse the language and
the audience. This is not evangelistic. This
is about maturity and honor, and most of all, love. John's
audience has nothing to change. He didn't commend them to change
one thing. He commends them to abide in
the very thing that they're doing, and this is part of that instruction.
Don't step into places that defame and divide and destroy, because
there will be consequences. He is teaching them how to stay
in the joy of Christ that is theirs forever. He says we lie. If we say and we walk in darkness,
we lie. We do not practice the truth. Do not practice the truth. As
Jesus has already shown in Nicodemus, as we've seen in John 3, those
who know the light and can see it will also see their sin. This is after conversion, not
before. And the depths of this sin will
be revealed to them more and more as they grow in the knowledge
of Christ. As we abide in the truth that's
been given to us. He's holy, we're not. His holiness
is our holiness. What a merciful, loving, powerful
act. Wow! I don't want to sin because
it's already been paid for. Why do I want to do this? This is the dichotomy of Romans
7. And the promise and the beauty
of Romans 8. Therefore now there is no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus said that Nicodemus sinned. was his self-righteousness and
his humility. So we lie and we do not practice
the truth. We do not do the truth. What
does it mean to do the truth? Well, first and foremost, to
do the truth in an evangelistic sense is John 6. What must we
be doing to do the work of God? To believe in the Son of God.
We already believe in the Son of God. What then is it to practice
the truth that we believe in? And that is to share in the joy
of Jesus Christ. So that which does not give unity
that is antithetical to the sharing of the joy of Christ should be
put away. Lying in life concerning the
sharing of Jesus. We lie when we live in a contrary
manner to the purity that we are. It's like a king pretending to be
homeless. holding the sign, we'll work
for food. Ain't that the king? I guess he has some hard times. John is going to give exact examples
of this very soon. So let's not beat ourselves over
the head and go home and worry about it. We know what sin is.
We know what sin is in our lives. We're not stupid to that. We're
not ignorant of that. We're not blind to that. We know
what is sin. The Bible is clear and gives
the saints plenty of instructions to put away certain sins along
with the clear authority to deal with those who refuse to do so
for the sake of sharing the joy of Christ. Church discipline. And those, as those who share
in Jesus, they share in each other, they share in the truth,
they share in the faith concerning the holiness of Jesus. And so
when we walk away from that life, we are actually lying with our
testimony, with our life. when we live contrary to it.
We seem hypocritical because of the holiness of God. We seem
hypocritical when we cuss out our neighbor. What's the remedy
for that? Christ has already remedied that.
What's the remedy of that? Sharing. How do we share the
gospel on Monday and cuss them out on Thursday and then go over
there and do something with them on Sunday? What do we do? We
apologize. We confess. I sinned against
you. My flesh got the better of me. I'm sorry. Christ died
for that sin. I want you to forgive me for
sinning against you. It's that simple. Why? Because our relationship
with our neighbor in the context of eternity is far more important
than our lawn or our cats, even though they're
important. Don't bother our cats. We're
cats only now in my house. And then when we do these things,
when we sin in a manner that causes division in our own soul
and with our relationships, we seem ultimately ungrateful. And
it's ultimately unloving because of Jesus' life. We literally
ignore the life of Jesus and the holiness of God when we actively
pursue sinful things. We're not sharing in His life.
We're not walking in fellowship. We're not intimate with His message
that has been manifested concerning Himself when we are fighting
for darkness. But this is not always bad things.
Sometimes it's bad doctrine. Sometimes it's bad attitudes.
Sometimes people say, well, in the bad doctrine, they'll say,
well, I can sin all I want because of grace. No, you could, but
you shouldn't. So don't. Oh, you do? You're
out of here. You're not bringing that in here.
Does that make sense? That's how simple it is. And
some would say, well, I'm probably lost. That's a lie too. See, people hate the light because
it reveals what they really are, especially in their self-righteous
religion and ministry. Beloved, let me tell you something.
You can never do good enough to prove that you're in Christ.
You can only believe in the testimony of Christ. And because the testimony
of Christ is sufficient for your hope, the call now is to walk
in a manner worthy of that calling. And it's ultimately about love.
Isn't that what Jesus tells the disciples? Love. How do we do
that? We share in God's light by faith. We share in God's light by loving
one another. And we share in God's light by
serving one another, and the opposite of serving each other
is to serve our own flesh and desires, which is sin. No matter
what it looks like. But if we walk, verse 7, I know
I'm going a little long, bear with me. If we walk in the light,
as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another in
the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all sin. We, who are
securely in Christ, are to walk in a manner worthy of this calling.
We have eternal life. He is the life who is the light
of men and we are the children of light. We are to understand
that what Christ has done for us is love and this is the truth
of Him. first that He is holy, and now
that we are in Him, we are holy. We share in this life. This fellowship is in truth and
the effectual work of Christ, so let us strive to shine in
that way. My grandmother would always say
it this way, you live like you are before the Lord. You don't
have to say that. You don't have to do that. You're
a child of the King. Show it! That's a motivator for
me. How am I child of the King? Because
He adopted me and bought me with His blood. When we share in a manner consistent
with the light of Christ, with the holiness of God, we share
in a manner consistent with each other and most of all consistent
with the fact and the truth that the perfect blood of Jesus has
cleansed us from all sin. He has not kept us from committing
sins, which is going on to verse 8 here, but He has cleansed us
from all sin. So we share Jesus' righteousness. We share Jesus' life. We share
Jesus' promises. We share in Jesus' glory. We
share in our lives together. We are motivated then out of
love, not of fear. It's part of the argument. So we walk by faith in Jesus
Christ, let us also walk by faith like Jesus asks. Walking around
in the same light together, being exposed, seeing who we really
are, knowing whose we really are, and that we're righteous
in the light of Christ alone. Let us stay in the light in unity. This is not about losing salvation,
it's about living salvation. Thank God that the Apostle John
does not give us or leave us up to our own interpretation.
Because if he did, we'd be pulling down the cross of Christ and
we'd be painting pictures of our heroes who we look to. Okay,
I know I'm like this guy. I'm good. Versus the cross that
says, he's my righteousness. There's a huge difference. As
God has revealed, you hear the old term, Coram Deo, in the face
of God. God sees all things. We are walking
in the face of God, and you know as well as I do, beloved, that
when we sin, and we then know we sin, we have shame, and we
have guilt, and we feel like we've got to do a whole lot of
bathing, and cleaning, and undoing, and overdoing, and overcompensating
in order to get back in the good graces of God. That's a lie.
Christ is ours. We are His, and we belong to
one another. This is the point. The joy of
the Lord wanes when our sin comes up and we give in to it. And light walking establishes
the joy in us and for us together. One who meddles in darkness is
downtrodden, isolated, outside of the sharing of the saints
in many ways. Guilt, fear, hatred, doubt, depression, all follow
suit. Believers, we can be stuck in
this state. We can be stuck here, but we
are in Christ. And this letter is not to help
us find out if we're in Christ. This letter is to help us because
we are in Christ. I cannot make this point enough. This is about sharing the truth
of redemption with one another in a manner worthy of the holiness
of God. Jesus is the indestructible life
as our High Priest who intercedes for us continually. He finished
the work of redemption and His blood cries, as I said Wednesday
night, forgiven, pure, holy. Christ looks at His people and
says, these are mine and no one can take them out of my hand.
Not your sin cannot take you out of the hand of God. Nothing
can separate you from God but God, Romans 8. And God will not
separate His people because of their sin. He will separate their
guilt from them by placing it on His Son. And He will give
them perfect righteousness by giving them the righteousness
of Christ. We are still sinners in the flesh,
but we are not sinners before God because we have been declared
righteous. Let's walk there in. Before anybody gets all excited,
you see the last verse or two here. We see here that says. We say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, the truth isn't in us, if we confess our sins, he's
faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sin, we make him
a liar and his word is not in us. This small section puts to
death the idea of sinless or progressive sinlessness, sinless
perfection or progressive sinlessness. We at times, while we live, will
be sinful in some manner, even when we don't know it. I want
you to hear this, church. When we tell the truth in our
minds concerning our sin, we agree with God. Thus, we share
in Christ's work. He has redeemed us. He has imputed
righteousness to us. We must then be mindful of His
judgment concerning sin and righteousness. We are sinful, and now we are
holy. This is not evangelistic. This
is a promise to the saved. Verse nine is a promise to the
saved. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. It's a promise. We confess that
we have sin, we can trust in God's dealing with them. God
forgives us because we are His. And Jesus' blood pays for our
sins. God is still light when He forgives
us. Why? Because Christ paid for
them. If God forgave sins without justice,
He would be dark. To move outside of this, To move
outside of this teaching in any way is to make God a liar. And
that is to forget or to ignore. What does it mean to move outside
this? To forget or to ignore who is Jesus Christ, who He is
and what He accomplished. And the remedy of that is to
be mindful of His gospel, mindful of sin, mindful of justice, mindful
of righteousness. This is important, beloved. We
are not sinless. We're forgiven. We are not righteous
in our flesh. We wear the righteousness of
another. The skins of the Lamb of God
whose blood has taken away our guilt. The very thing that was
depicted in the garden when they were naked and ashamed. God killed
an animal and shed the blood of the animal and he covered
the shame of Adam and Eve with the skin of the animal that died. We are covered in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ who died for us. Why would we want to dress
up in darkness and cloud out that righteousness? That's a
clear question that John continues, and he gives the explicit teaching
on how we abide in the truth of grace and how we are to live
therein. Because we have our guilt taken
away, we must learn and be taught the truth of living a life in
the light of God. It's not our proof, it's not
our hope, it's not our holiness, it's our happiness. Why is that happy? Why is that
joy? Because we share in the glory
of Christ. This is it, this is the last thing I'm going to say.
We share in the glory of Christ. So let us walk to that end, because
He is faithful. God is light, and when we walk
in His light, all that we are is clearly visible. When we see
these spots and stains on us, we hope not in our washing them
away or avoiding getting stained to begin with, but we hope in
the cleansing of the blood of Jesus. When we say there are
no spots, we lie. and say that God is lying. When
we trust that we're not staying that badly, we also make God
a liar. So we should not trust in ourselves.
We should trust in God. We should not look at ourselves.
We should look at Christ. And in doing so, joy comes in
these things. Where do we go from here? Well,
I said it at four o'clock this morning. One of the most dangerous things
that a human being could ever do in life is to stop eating.
Because there comes a point, some of you read it, there comes
a point where you will eat so little over a period of time,
you will not eat enough, and then your body will stop wanting
to eat, and then your body will begin to die. And even when they
try to feed you, it will not digest, and you will die of malnutrition. The same is true for the saints
who long for more than what Christ is. What happens when we look
for joy other places or when we are not in the word of truth
and we're not sharing together this word with the saints, even
if we have to do it remotely for a season like now for some
of us. We become malnourished. And we are not able to digest
it. And then we begin to fall into sin and to depression and
to almost all sorts of things that take us out of the light
of Christ in our hearts. Doesn't take us out of the life
of Christ. But God's truth, Jesus the Christ,
is our sufficient fullness in times of good and bad, lean and
blessing, joy and sadness, sickness and health. When we're together
or when we're alone, when we long to eat from a dying world's
table, we lose the taste of what is marvelous, beloved. If you
want to hold fast and abide in Christ's joy and share it with
one another, you must keep eating the word of truth. Because in
doing so, we walk in a sense that we know things that the
world does not know, and we hold our head high, and we march forward. And quite honestly, nothing can
stop us. Let's pray. Father, it is long-winded
day. I pray your mercy on our bodies
and our hearts and minds as we listened this morning. I pray
your mercy on our ability to comprehend and absorb. Father, I thank you for your
ability to use frail people like myself. To help other frail people see
the joy of Christ. There's so much more that we
could always say. But Father, if we are saying
that which you have not already said, we are just adding nothing
to everything and wasting our time. So keep us grounded in
the truth of Christ. Stir in us a desire to walk together
in sharing the joy as we learn to live under the banner of holiness. imputed to us through Jesus Christ
who is our righteousness. Knowing that we will never ever
be in this life what we will be when we see Christ face to
face. Keep us from idols. We thank
you for this truth in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you church.