All right, if you will, if we're
in 1 John chapter 4, I want to continue in the fourth chapter,
working through, and I need that cut down a tad, too much echo
there. 1 John chapter 4, we're going to start at verse 4. I know you have your worldly
profit outline that starts at verse 5, but I want to pick up
and make an application and just some exegetical comments on verse
4. because verse four becomes for
John a cause or a foundation for the subsequent verses that
are going to open up for us. He said, you are of God, little
children, and have overcome them because greater is he that is
in you than he that is of the world. That statement in verse
four of first John four is a statement of triumph. If you had your previous
outline, we said the triumph of the elect is to overcome this
demonic assault against the character and nature of Christ. The triumph
of the elect is to overcome this demonic assault against the character
and nature of Christ. He used the term that he uses
frequently, both in 1 John as well in the book of Revelation,
overcome. He says, you have overcome them. And that is in the perfect tense. There's a sense in which John
says, you have obtained the victory. You were tested, you were tried,
and you have overcome them. So obviously John is speaking
to the first century church, that church to whom He is ministering,
and as you know, that church was tested with regards to false
doctrine, heresy, and teachings that would lead astray from the
gospel. And John says, you are of God,
little children, and have overcome them. Now, what was the context
in which John is now congratulating them for overcoming them? Verse
three, and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus has
come in the flesh is not of God, and this is that spirit of Antichrist,
whereof you have heard that it should come, and even now is
already in the world." So John describes those that remained
in the church and under the gospel as such as were over comers,
over comers. And you and I, again, as I said,
have seen this term a few times in the New Testament epistles,
but it's mostly given to you in the book of Revelation. Do you guys remember Revelations
chapter 2 and 3? When the Lord Jesus shows up
in his post-incarnate glory, operating out of those attributes
and characteristics that were uniquely applicable to each of
the seven churches. To the church at Ephesus, he
was one thing. To the church at Philippi, he
was something else. And to the church at Sardis and
Laodicea, he was something else. He described himself with regards
to his authority and dominion over each one of those churches
with particular and unique attributes. And then he gave a diagnosis
as to whether they were a healthy church or whether or not they
were a church that had problems. He spoke about the good things
in that church. Then he said, nevertheless, I
have some things against you. Do you guys remember that? So
when he finished his analysis as the great high priest of the
church in the Old Testament, the high priest had the job of
determining two specific health factors in the nation of Israel. He had to determine their spiritual
health and their hygienic health. The high priest had to determine
whether or not Israel was plagued with sicknesses and diseases
that could permeate the community and thus destroy it. That's what
the high priest did. He had to look for uncleanness
in the life of the church. Whether it was leprosy or some
other uncleanness, some plague, some sickness, and his job was
to isolate the plague. You guys remember that? They
were to be removed out of the community of the believer in
order to determine whether or not they could be healed. If
they could not be healed, as was the case with leprosy, they
were to abide permanently in leper colonies. And that sense
of a leopard colony meant that they were exiled, excommunicated
from the church because their particular malady or disease
or a hygienic problem was something that could contaminate the whole
body. And God was teaching in the Old Testament church the
necessity of holiness. Because God is holy, he taught
Israel the necessity of holiness through these ceremonial laws. Well, it was the job of the priest
to examine and determine whether or not the people were healthy,
both spiritually and physically. And when Christ comes to the
church in Revelations chapter two and three, his job is to
examine whether or not the church is healthy spiritually. And so
he gave his prognosis to every church. And there were only two
churches that received a well or healthy status, right? The
other five had problems. Well, in every church, you know
what Jesus says? He that overcometh will I give. He that overcometh will I give. Well, the terminology overcome
is a Greek term, which is the word Nike off from which we get
the term Nike. And it means to obtain the victory. It means to triumph. It's a military
term. It means to overcome your foes
and subdue them. It means to have the absolute
victory over your adversaries. The term is equivalent to the
concept in the scriptures of faith. And so John is gonna pick
up the term overcome in the fifth chapter because the fifth chapter
will be about faith. He opens up in chapter five,
verses one through three. What is it that overcomes this
world? Is it not even this, even our
what? Faith. However, this is what
I want you to understand about faith in the context of the scripture.
Faith has a beginning, faith has a process, and faith has
a conclusion. You must understand that faith
has a beginning, faith has a process, and faith has a conclusion. The
error that we can make in theology is to assume that faith is something
that begins only at the point of conversion, but does not necessarily
operate throughout the process of your life and does not necessarily
culminate in a man or a woman dying in faith. But the Bible
is clear. He that continues to the end,
the same shall be what? That's right. And so biblical
faith, Christian faith has as its genesis, its origin, a life. and that life ultimately manifests
itself in the journey, excursion, the outliving of the individual
believer to the point where they breathe their last breath, believing
God. Now, this is a big difference
between people who profess to know God, but don't. True believers
have a living, vital faith in God, through Christ, by the power
of the Spirit, and that faith grows, it matures, it develops,
it takes on different attributes, characteristics, according to
God's design for every believer. The believer then walks by faith,
lives in faith, and what? Dies in faith. That's Bible doctrine. And so it's important for you
to know that, because what I'm about to say now, when John says,
you are of God, little children, and have overcome them, He has
established an antithesis between who they are being of God and
the false teachers who were of the world. That's the antithesis. True believers
are of God. The genitive form of the word
of means owned by God, possessed by God, controlled by God, designated
by God, as opposed to people who are of the world. That distinction
needs to be captured right now. They are owned by God, possessed
by God, controlled by God, children of God. Just like when the scripture
says Jesus is the son of God, that means genitively, familially,
ontologically, he is one with the father as the father and
the son have that ontological relationship. So those of us
who are born again are therefore called children of God. We are
children of God because we are born of God and therefore we
are part of the family of God if we are born of God. Now what
that means then is that there was given to us in the life of
that familial relationship certain characteristics consistent with
the source of our life. There were things given to us
spiritually speaking on a genetic level by which our sonship would
be manifested. And one of the things that we
know is that when you are a son of God, a child of God, this
is what you are not any longer. You are not of the world. When
a man or a woman becomes of God, they cease to be of the world. I want that distinction to be
made clear for you. It is impossible to be simultaneously
of God and of the world at the same time. You are of God, little
children, and have overcome them because they are of the world.
And here's how you know you have overcome them. Watch this, because
greater is he that is in you than they that are of the world.
So what John is doing is telling the believer this, that the reason
that you overcome the world system is because of the one who is
in you. You got that? The reason the believer overcomes
the world system is because of the one that is in them. What
makes me an overcomer is my union with God. What makes me capable
of breaking free from the world system and its influence over
my life is the fact that there is now a real union between my
spirit and God's spirit, which has extricated me from the pull
and the influence and the control and the power of this world system. I want you to get that because
as we unpack the scriptures here, it's gonna make itself very clear.
What is it that overcomes this world? It's Christ in you, the
hope of glory, planting faith in your heart, which now moves
you in a direction towards God away from the world. Did you
guys get that? Remember again, what we are dealing
with in 1 John chapters three and four is the nature of what
it means to be born of God. So I wanted to state that because
when we begin to work through this passage a little bit more,
John is going to come back to a subject that we dealt with
in chapter one. And in fact, he's dealing with
it here in verse three. Again, notice what it says. Write
this. Notice what it says here over
in verse two and three. Hereby know ye the spirit of
God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh is what? All right. So what John is going
to be underscore underscoring for us is the nature of faith
in the context of confession. And I need to make a few statements
about that again so that we can work this through. The last thing
that I want you and I to do is to be inept or misinformed or
mal-informed about this term. When John says, whosoever confesseth
that Jesus hath come in the flesh is of God, he's making an exclusionary
statement, and that's this. You cannot confess that Jesus
is come in the flesh. if you are a heretic, if you
are a reprobate, and if you are a devil. So let me make these
three applications for you so you can work this through. This
is very important. To be a confessor of Jesus Christ excludes you
from being a heretic because a heretic cannot tell the truth
about who Christ is. You got that? So a heretic cannot
confess who Christ is. Because to confess who Christ
is, remember what we learned about confession? Confession
is the total agreement and full consent of everything the scriptures
say about who God is. Confession is the total agreement
and complete consent to everything the scriptures say about who
God is. Homologeo simply means you fully agree with everything
the Bible says about Christ. Now a heretic can't do that.
Because a heretic fundamentally disagrees with the biblical testimony
of who Christ is and what he did. So the first category of
people that are excluded from being confessors of Christ are
heretics. Got it? Heretics. So listen. We live in a church age right
now where ecumenism is the basic blanket that warms everybody.
And it basically destroys any sense of necessity on our part
to distinguish between orthodoxy and heresy. Everybody wants to
be called a Christian. And we are more inclined to want
to accept their Christian testimony without first examining whether
or not they actually know what the gospel is. But if what I
am saying is true, if a person who is an heretic, who denies
the deity of Christ, who denies the humanity of Christ, who denies
the person and work of Christ in terms of the clear, explicit
biblical testimony, that heretic cannot be one who confesses the
same Christ that I do. We are not confessing the same
Christ. Are you hearing me? Secondly,
The second category that we have to worry about or consider is
the reprobate. Now the reprobate in this sense
is the unregenerate man or woman who basically just lives outside
of the scope of the kingdom of God and has absolutely no desire
for the word of God. Although they may have gone to
church, they may have grown up in the church and they may be
aware that the Bible says Jesus is the son of God. They may even
be aware that the Bible says that Jesus Assume the human nature
they may be aware of a lot of fundamental doctrinal truths
being privileged to grow up in church But while as yet they
are unregenerate and their minds are still at enmity against god
I want you to hear this now. They cannot confess the truth
of god's word concerning christ Are you hearing me? The unregenerate
reprobate cannot confess christ as lord the heretic cannot confess
Christ as Lord. And the devil cannot confess
Christ as Lord. Are you hearing me? This is very
important. Now, the devil can acknowledge that he's the son
of God. The devil can even tremble because he's actually God. The
devil can even negotiate with God in the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ, not to send them to hell today. But what the devil
cannot do is the same thing that the heretic will not do, which
is the same thing that the unregenerate person cannot do. They cannot
totally confess to the saving of their soul that Jesus Christ
is God come in the flesh. See, to confess Christ is to
believe on him, which means that you have repented and change
your mind about the way you have thought. And devils cannot do
that. Confession is rooted in faith.
Faith is rooted in a revelation of God's glory where the heart
now has a predisposition towards believing God, believing God
and devils don't have that predisposition. So they are more than willing
to foster error and foster heresy and help reprobate men and help
heretics produce doctrines and teachings contrary to the word
of God. Three categories, you guys got that? Devils, reprobates,
and heretics cannot confess Christ as Lord. Now, as we continue
to talk about confessing Christ as Lord, it's important for you
to know that when the Bible talks about confessing Christ as Lord,
it is not merely you standing before somebody and simply saying,
I believe Jesus is Lord. That's not what it means to confess
Christ as Lord. To confess Christ as Lord actually
requires the work of all three persons in the scheme of redemption
to be operating in your life. For you to be able to confess
Christ as Lord requires the Father revealing to you the glory of
the Son. And it requires the Spirit Quickening
you so that you are brought into union with that glorious son
By which the mouth then is naturally and spiritually qualified to
say Jesus is the Son of God Are you hearing me? We are now contemplating
what our master did right before he headed to Capernaum before
he went on into Jerusalem when he stopped the disciples in Matthew
chapter 16 verses 16 through 19 Matthew 16, 16 through 19. And he turned to them and he
says, fellas, who do people say that I, the son of man am? Remember
that? See, this is what we're getting
at. Some said you are a good prophet. Some say you are a good
teacher. Some say this, some say that,
some say you're Elijah, some say you're Jeremiah, et cetera.
But then Jesus says, who do you say that I am? Now mark this. Then Peter spoke up and said,
you, are the Christ, the son of the living God. Now, when
Peter said that, our Lord let him know right then and there
what was behind that unction. You remember what he said? Peter,
flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father, which
is in heaven. Now I want you to hear this now
very carefully. Our master was not saying that Peter's words
were the confession. They were, they were the articulation
of that statement of truth. But what was a confession was
the revelation that he had in his heart and in his mind that
allowed him to speak clearly and boldly and confidently and
assertively and certainly about Jesus Christ. Are you guys hearing
me? And upon that statement, Christ said, it is upon this
rock that I will build my church. Now watch this. And the gates
of hell will not prevail. You know what he was saying?
The confession of who Christ is, which is a consequence of
the revelation of God, the objective of the father in glorifying the
son and the minds and hearts of men and women who are called
by God is a ongoing work that takes place every day of our
lives. of which it is so profound and
so pervasive that even when the adversaries come against us to
question us or threaten us even with our life, because of the
operation of God underneath and behind and within the believer
that gave them the capacity to comprehend who Christ is, he
sustains their confession. Even in the midst of trouble
so that they are willing to lay down their lives For that revelation
of God's glory in Christ Did you get that? So it's not as
simple as oh, yeah, I believe Jesus is Lord It's not it's not
that simple now we understand first Corinthians chapter 12
verse 1 2 & 3 Where the Apostle Paul said I speak to you concerning
spiritual gifts brethren You guys remember how you were led
about by dumb, stupid idols, even as you were a dumb, stupid
idol yourself. I want you to understand no one
can call Jesus a cursed. Who is speaking by the spirit
and no one can call Jesus Lord in the sense in which I have
been talking to you, except by the spirit of God. Are you hearing
me? So as you and I unpack the next
several verses, that statement is going to resonate and kind
of help put things in order. It does not mean that men don't
say Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord can be just as
much an empty incantation and statement that has absolutely
no divine unction under it as a parrot saying it or a heretic
saying it or a child saying it or any reprobate saying it because
they want to just express the words that does not constitute
confession so now we can go to work in in your worldly profit
outline I guess I will start at verse 5 and make our way through
we'll just work our way through this now verse 5 they are of
the world you guys see that they are of the world therefore they
speak of the world and the world here at them and when we were
working through this last week I said that false prophets and
false teachers operate fundamentally out of four premises. The false
prophet and false teacher, they obtained their arguments and
their conclusions about God from their own mind, from the world,
and from where else? Demons. The man or the woman
that is not being led and governed and controlled and influenced
by the spirit of God is either developing their doctrinal convictions
out of their own mind, their own carnal mind, either from
the world that is the secular world, like philosophy and and
psychology and different pop cultural modes and worldviews
for which they put them together and formulate a ministry and
then start peddling that ministry to the world and call it Christianity. But the underlying premise or
foundation of their whole ministry is carnal worldly and secular. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Now it's important for you to be able to detect that
too. And we said it last week. You can know whether or not a
ministry is authentically of God or not because it is radically
biblical. Radically biblical. That means
it is biblical through and through. That requires qualifications
on your part, because not every professing Christian or every
person who calls himself a Christian has the capacity to discern biblical
things. A lot of folks go to church and
they hear God quote one Bible verse and the rest of the sermon,
he's telling stories and anecdotes and giving you all kinds of pop
cultural soliloquies. And you think that was a great
message, but it had absolutely no foundation in the truth of
the gospel. And you felt good. And you said
you were edified, but you couldn't have been edified because biblical
edification first breaks you down, brings you to an absolute
need of Christ, and then lifts you up into Christ if you are
his, so that you find your joy in a fresh revelation of his
glory for you. That's biblical edification.
Now you might've been puffed up, in that they affirmed you
in your agenda as you wanted to do something for God or have
God to sign off on something you want to do. This is what
we call man-centered theology is humanism. Are you guys understanding
what I'm saying? Man-centered theology is humanistic
and therefore it is catered toward meeting your felt needs, not
as it were, making manifest the glories of God in the person
and work of Jesus Christ. The Christian who is truly and
authentically born of God cannot long endure a diet where they
are being catered to by some motivational speaker. Because
the Christian being born of God must necessarily feed on the
word of God to be strengthened by that word, to be affirmed
by that word, to be corrected by that word, to be built up
by that word. That's the only way that they
can have assurance of faith. Am I making some sense? They
will go a while if their carnality is prevailing in their life.
We can all be carnal. And it always feels good when
somebody pays you attention. Tell the truth now. But over
time, what you realize is that you are being hoodwinked. Because
a person cannot do you any eternal good who actually obscures a
revelation of God, which you need for the lights to stay on
so that you can fight the battle within and without. You and I can't fight a spiritual
battle when somebody's cutting the lights off. And when you
come to church, the lights ought to be cut on in our conscious
and in our hearts and in the word of God. So by the time we
leave, we are far more clear and aware and cognitive of the
reality of God and God's will and God's work and his purpose
in our life. We've been calibrated. Am I making some sense? Even
if that calibration hurt a little bit, you know, it's like going
to the, uh, Chiropractor. If you way out of line, that
chiropractor is going to hurt you. But a couple of days later,
it feels good. It depends on how out of line
you are. But we need to be lined up, don't we? So this is what
John is saying. And I just want you to mark when
John says they are of the world, therefore they speak of the world
and the world hears them. He again is really clearly affirming
what Jesus said in John chapter eight. And you can read it in
your own time. John eight, 23. He told the rulers of the church,
you are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this
world. I am not of this world. Then
you know what he said in John 17, 14 concerning his elect.
Watch this. Father, those that you have given
me, I have kept. And just as I am not of the world,
even so these are not of the world. All believers have been,
as it were, extricated from the world. upon conversion and regeneration
and brought into union with Jesus Christ and therefore this union
with Jesus Christ makes them aliens in this world in a kind
of sense of which it's essential for you and I to be aliens because
were you and I to, as it were, be born again and yet have all
of the love and accolades and affirmation of this world system,
we would be adulterers. That's why Jesus said in John
chapter 15, if the world hates you, don't marvel. It hated me. This is the this is the best
thing that could happen to you for the world to hate you, because
you and I don't naturally run the things that we that hate
us. We run from them. And so when the world demonstrates
antipathy or hostility towards you or aversion or forms of persecution
or forms of extrication or forms of ostracization, All that's
designed is to keep you aware of the fact that you're not of
this world. And it allows you to maintain
your allegiance with Christ. Am I making some sense? It's
very important for you to know that. It's very important for
you to know that. So John goes on to say, verse
six, we are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth
us. He that is not of God does not hear us. Hereby know we the
spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So we have two spirits
operating in the world. the spirit of truth and the spirit
of error. The spirit of error denies the truth of the gospel.
The spirit of truth affirms the truth of the gospel. And the
starting point is Jesus Christ. Now watch what he does. Now we're
turning the corner into another subject. Verse seven, beloved,
let us love one another for love is of God and everyone that love
it is born of God and knows God. See verse seven, Verse seven
is a profound statement of truth that interlocks three essential
truths. And these three essential truths
go like this. If a man or woman is not born of God, they truly
do not know what love is. Biblically speaking, love has
its origins in God. Are you guys hearing me? So let's
unpack this a little bit. If I hate God, I cannot be a
person who loves. Technically speaking, love has
its origins in God. And so when we are talking about
divine love, in order for a person to demonstrate divine love, they
must draw that divine love from the source, which God is. Now,
when the commandment tells us, which John has done several times
since chapter one, beloved, let us love one another. The assumption
is that you already are a recipient of the love of God. You got that? Now watch this then. You can't
love somebody with a love that you don't have. Now notice what he says. To love
one another requires the love of God and to actually exhibit
that love towards one another, which comes from God, means that
you know God. Isn't that what the text says?
So we are getting back to confessing God because to confess God means
to know him. So the source of our conduct
is based upon, now watch this now, the source of the believer's
conduct has to be based upon their relationship to God. What
John is getting ready to do is demonstrate that the reason that
the believer can overcome the world, the reason why the believer
can love one another, the reason why the believer can walk in
faith is because the believer now has God in his life in total. And all three persons of the
Godhead are actually operating presently and practically and
permanently to bring about the dynamic of this love. Watch how
this goes. He says in verse eight, he that
loveth not does not what? Doesn't know God for God is what? This is a this is what we call
a practical syllogism in the scripture if God is loved if
love has its source in God and an individual does not love then
it means that individual does not know God is Fundamentally
true. This is why Jesus said in John chapter 8 again John
chapter 7 again concerning the rulers of the church. He says
if you guys Had known my father You would have loved me because
you would have known that I came from my father but Because you
hate me, it is evident that the love of God is not in you. You got that? So now what this
also teaches us is that there is an antithesis between the
two systems. The people that are of the world
and that the people that are of God, there is no middle ground.
Like you can't have a person who is not really of God actually
loving like God loves. You can't have people who are
non-Christian actually loving God. The Bible is very clear
that the natural man is enmity against God. There's a fundamental
hostility, a fundamental aversion from God in our unregenerate
state. Is that true? And so there are
only two camps, the camp of those who are truly born again and
the camp of those who are not born again and therefore are
hostile. And so John makes it clear, brethren, it's critical
for you and I He's building on the love doctrine. Chapter four
is the love doctrine. It's critical for you and I to know the love
of God, which is in Christ, because the love of God, which is in
Christ, is going to grant us a knowledge of God by which we
are able to confess him as Lord. Now look at verse nine. Verse
nine also will affirm what we have already been dealing with
before. Verse nine says, in this was
manifested the love of God towards who? Okay, so now what John does
as he's speaking to the beloved is telling us this there is a
targeted Designation for God's love and it is his people In
this was the love of God manifested towards us This is critical in
your own Affirmation of faith. It's one thing that to believe
that there is one mediator between God and man, the mediator, our
man, Christ Jesus. That's one thing. It's another
thing for you to be able to say, Christ is my mediator. It's one thing to believe that
God sent his only begotten son into the world, that whosoever
believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It's
another thing for you to say, Christ died for my sins. The difference between the two
is a general and objective truth that has no personal application
and a personal subjective truth that means everything to the
person who has experienced the love of God. And remember, what
we are talking about is experiencing the love of God, because what
the Bible teaches the love of God is, objectively, is this
Christocentric, cross-centered, radical act on the part of the
Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost to make Christ your mediator
by which you are brought into eternal union with God for all
eternity, entering into the bliss of those things that Christ accomplished
for us by His death. and made known to you through
the gospel and the power of that gospel bringing you into union
with God. Did you hear that? Bringing you
into union with God through the power of the gospel, revealing
to you this sacrificial love on the part of Jesus Christ,
which the father gave through the son in order to have you
for himself for all eternity. The impact of that revelation,
the impact of that revelation results in you loving God. That's why John's getting ready
to say, not that we loved him, but that he loved us first and
gave his son to be a propitiation for our sin. Listen to it. We're at verse nine. And this
was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent
his only begotten son into the world. I want you to hear this
last line. Are you ready? That we might live through him. See it? John makes the cross
work, which is the centerpiece of the triune God's objective
in the redemption of sinners. He makes the cross work the basis
of our confidence that we are alive. It becomes personal. Here it is again. God sent his
son into the world to be a propitiation for our sins. Here it is that
we might live in him. See it. In other words, John
understands the principle objective of the atonement. A person might
believe that Christ died as a propitiation for sins, that Christ died to
atone for sins. But until an individual comes
to the realization that that was done in order that they might
live with God through him, they have failed to understand the
targeted objective of the cross work of Christ. This is an aside. I won't stay long on it. But
for years, years and years and years, when I was part of churches,
where we examine people on a theological level for a membership in the
church and ask them as to what they believe the gospel is and
how the gospel made an impact in their life. This became a
very tangential and shaky area. When the elders sat down and
began to ask a person, can you tell us what salvation is? Can you tell us how it is that
God actually saved you? It became very tangential, very
sensitive, very ginger. Why? Because see, now we're getting
at the heart of the matter. We're getting at the question
as to whether or not an individual actually knows that they know
God, watch this, and knows how to tell somebody about how they
know God. We're really getting at the fundamental
concept of confession. because confession is the capacity
to not only explain the gospel, but to explain its impact in
your life. See it? Subjective propositional
truth concerning what God did in Christ, and then, I mean,
the objective propositional truth of what God did in Christ, and
then the subjective dynamic of what Paul called in Romans 1,
verse 16 to 17, the power of the gospel to everyone that believes,
to the Jew first, as well as to the Gentiles. The power of
that gospel. Did the gospel do something for
you? Did it change your life? Did
it open your mind? Did it bring you out of darkness
into light? Did it raise you from the dead?
Did it get a hold of you? Did it apprehend you and bring
you into a knowledge of Christ? Did it cause you to love him,
to pursue him, to desire him? Did the gospel actually get a
hold of you? Did it rescue you? See, did it
rescue you? This is what John is dealing
with when he explains to the believer how it is that they
have overcome the world. See, we're really talking about
overcoming the world. See, back at verse four again, you are
of God, little children, and have what? Overcome them. First
John five, this is how we overcome them, even by our what? Faith.
John's explaining what faith is in terms of the work of Christ.
Now here it is, let's go on, verse 10. Here in his love, here
in his love, here in his love, not that we loved God. Do you
see that? I love that because John is actually
writing in about 80 AD, 85 AD, for me here in the 21st century
in this country wherein everybody loves to say they love God. He
wrote that for me because in this present culture, we love
to put up a front talking about how much we love God. But I'm
here to tell you that even the true believer must shrink in
a great measure of honest shame when they open their mouths and
say they love God. I'm talking true believers. I'm
not talking the hypocrites. I'm not talking simply church
folk that know how to turn phrases and pretend and practice religion
and their life is filled with hypocrisy and hatred. I'm talking
true believers who in an honest heart can actually say, it's
very hard for me to honestly say, I love God. When we lay out what love is,
I might be able to say, I think I love him. I want to love him. The love of God towards me inspires
me to love him. But sometimes I wonder whether
or not I love God. See what I'm getting at? So what
John does is say, hold on, hold on, hold on. Before you get beyond
yourself and say something that will get you in trouble, watch
this. It's not that we have loved God,
but that God have loved us first. So the impact of the gospel is
not so much, do you love God? The impact of the gospel is,
does God love you? Does God love you? And can you
explain that proposition, that inquiry, that question? Can you
explain what it means for God to love you? And if you can say,
yes, I can explain what it means for God to love me. I can tell
you exactly what the Bible says. The love of God towards me is.
And in fact, God's love towards me is my only confidence. It's
the reason why I wake up every day and continue doing what I'm
doing, because I need God to love me. I need the love of God
to be the foundation for my destiny, my eternity in my everyday life. Now, when you ask me how much
do I love God or do I love God? That becomes the struggle I have
every day. "'Tis the thing I long to know,"
the hymn writer said. Do I love him or no? Verse 10 says, hearing his love,
not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son
to be a propitiation for our sins. See that last line? Never
ever fail to recognize that the certainty of God's love for you
is the past, finished, perfect work of your mediator by which
you stand accepted before God for all eternity, never ever
having to worry about God rejecting you again on the grounds of your
disobedience and rebellion towards him. This is how I know he loves
me, that he left glory and assumed my nature to take my place and
to secure me a place in glory. And because he can't lie, he
can't change, he can't fail, I'm all right with God. Do you
see that? Yeah, listen to it. Herein is
the love of God. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us and his son to be a propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, beloved, if God so loved us, we are also to what? So again, that's what we call
a parallel clause. That little word so is a parallel clause. What it does is it establishes
the analogy of the former to the latter or the greater to
the lesser. If God loved us, we ought to love one another.
And in fact, the soul actually becomes descriptors. It becomes
an illustration or it becomes a model. How am I to love my
brother and sister in Christ the same way that God loved me?
This is what Christ meant when he said to the disciples in John
chapter 12, 13, rather, when he says, what you
have seen me do, you do also. Remember, he humbled himself.
took off his clothes, put on a robe, started washing the disciples'
feet. So that doesn't mean churches
are supposed to start foot washing ceremonies. Listen, this is how
we jack this thing up every time. We turn an illustration, which
is supposed to have a spiritual principle behind it, into a works
religion by which we determine how holy we are. Wash your own
feet. Now, we're in the 21st century, we
all got showers, you can wash your own feet. Back in the 1st
century, as you know, it was customary in the Middle East
for people to wash the feet of their guests whenever they came
in the house, because they wore sandals, it was dusty. It's very
practical. It didn't have this legalistic
connotation that churches put on it. You guys understand that?
Washing somebody's feet doesn't make you Christ-like. In fact,
you can actually increase your sin as you are being forced by
the leadership to wash somebody's feet you don't like in church. Now you gotta go wash that person's
feet and you know, reeking through your whole being is a repugnance. I gotta wash his feet or her
feet and you call it humility, but it really is not. It's just
religious words. What Jesus was demonstrating
by him taking off his clothes and putting on the garments of
a servant is that the nature of the gospel, when it actually
avails us to the love of God, is designed for us to become
servant-oriented. You got it? Grace is supposed
to give you the capacity to serve. Grace is supposed to give you
the capacity to serve. Take the word serve, write equal
marks and go love. Because service and love are
two sides of the same coin. Got it? It's impossible for a
Bible informed Christian to believe that to operate in love means
for everyone to cater to them. It's absolutely unbiblical to
think that when God called you by his gospel and graced you
into the kingdom, that you now become the object of favor by
everybody, that they lavish on you everything. That's completely
wrong. When the grace of God enters
into your life and the love of God floods your soul, and you
become impressed by who God is in Christ and the humility of
Christ. We learned this last night in biblical theology with
our women, one of what we call the humility doctrine, the humility
doctrine, the dissension doctrine. How is it that this infinitely
glorious God who sits in the circuits of the universe, who
encompasses eternity, who is the highest of the heights of
divine entities could condescend to assume a human nature? That's
coming down, isn't it? That's coming down. John Owens
called it the infinite descent of God. The infinite descent
of God. For God to leave his throne in
glory and take on a human nature, so much so to be willing to call
himself a worm and less than a worm is an infinite descent. The only way we can explain that
action is love. Got it? That's the only way you
can explain it. This is why for Bible-believing,
Christ-centered Christians, listen now, listen carefully now. Everything
that God does for us is an expression of his love, everything. The
creation of the universe, the sustaining of this universe,
the providence of God in the universe, the sovereignty of
God in every detail that takes place, good, bad, and ugly, for
us is the love of God. Judgment Day will be a manifestation
of God's love. You got that? It will be a manifestation
of God's love. God would not love himself as
holy as he is if he didn't send rebels to hell. Did you get that? On that day, God will be loving
himself as he ought. He is the most worthy object
of love in the universe. Right now, God has, as it were,
suspended his love towards himself for sinners like you and I. Please
understand, the reason you and I are still breathing is because
of the love of God. The reason this universe is still
being kept in store is because of the love of God. Because men
and women are not swallowed up in hell right now is because
of God's love towards his creatures and for his elect. You got that? There's a day coming when that's
all over with. This is why Peter says, consider that the long
suffering of the Lord is about salvation. God is slow to wrath. but he's certainly not permissive.
He will punish sin. And the reason why the days of
judgment are being delayed is in order for God to demonstrate
that the world really does hate God. For every day, mankind treasures
up to himself wrath against the day of indignation and judgment.
They are treasuring it up, living in God's world. Breathing God's
air walking on God's property using God's material and not
giving God glory for it hostile hell-bound Creatures who refuse
to acknowledge the goodness of God in sustaining this universe
See in the day of judgment. God will show that he was a just
God in Throwing them into hell. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Very important for you to know that judgment day is not about
God just unhurling as it were the fury of his wrath in some
type of Saddle masochistic fashion. It will be the demonstration
of his love towards his holiness, which necessarily must remove
everything that is abhorrent to him because God is holy. He will punish sin. We are certain
of this as Christians, aren't we? And how are we certain? By Calvary. Calvary tells us
that God must punish sin. Let's go on a little bit. A couple
more. Beloved, if God so loved us, in this manner loved us,
we ought to also love one another. Now look at verse 12. Now watch
this here. This is gonna be an interesting
contemplation here. No man has seen God at any time. You guys got that? I want to
work with that for a minute because John just put a little twist
in here. That's really good Here's the problem with folks Who are
vainly puffed up by their own fleshly minds and love to impress
people with their knowledge Everybody talks about hearing from God
and seeing God and knowing God got that I Got that? All of your
prophets, all of your bishops, all of your special folks that
have a special insight to God, the folks that can get right
up on God's elbow and whispering God's ear and say, God, give
me a revelation so I can go influence the people. You got folks like
that all over planet Earth, right? These are megalomaniacs. These
are people that are hyper narcissistic. They all want to tell somebody
how they got a special in with God, right? These are the people
that if you are not grounded in truth, you'll think that they
actually do But paul said in colossus chapter 2 they are vainly
puffed up by their fleshly mind imagining things that they have
never seen Now they may have heard some things But they haven't
heard from god Now here's what john says. I want you guys to
get this. This is this here is what we call an axiom. It's an
absolute It's an absolute This is true across the board. This
is not a relative concept. Relative concepts can apply in
one area and in another area it doesn't apply, right? Relative
concepts. But this is an axiom, an absolute
across the board. Now watch this now, watch this.
No man has seen God at any time. Got it? No man. So all these books about folks
going to heaven and seeing God and coming back and telling you
little kids all that, Understand that's the delusion of their
own mind or what demons? Got it This is what we call an
axiom. Now. He's he's setting this axiom
up for a reason Because what he wants you and I to understand
is it's not the job of the Christian to go around the world Trying
to impress people Are you hearing me? With how much you know God This tongue can lie about anything. The job of the Christian is not
to try to impress people with some special chamber into the
oval office in heaven. Right, are you hearing me? Because
people will follow you if you say, come out to the wilderness
or go into the secret chamber and I can show you where God
is. People will do that. They are just that naive, just
that gullible. The Christian who is grounded
in God's word will never entertain the notion of deceiving people
as if they are a Gnostic. That somehow you have some deep
esoteric truth that if they follow you into this cave or into this
chamber, you're going to show them something about God nobody
in the world has seen. You know what God says? Forget
it. Here's what I want you to do.
by which you are going to influence men and women to inquire about
my son. This is what I want you to do. Don't tell people how much you
know me. Show them how much you know me
by your conduct towards one another and let your conduct towards
one another be the foundation upon which the conversation gets
started. Now, why? Do you do what you
do? Got it? Now, why do you do what
you do? See, because we can do a great
deal of, as it were, distracting people from the real issue of
our weaknesses and our flaws and our foibles and all of that
by talking. But when folk see that we have
been impacted by the gospel in such a way that it prioritizes
our life, that we are able to establish categories of conduct
and are able to live out the gospel in terms of seek ye first
the kingdom of God and all his righteousness and everything
else will be added. That person now is going to take you serious.
In fact, what would have been more susceptible in John's day
is not that impressive in the 21st century, particularly here
in America, because we have hoodwinked people for decades now, and people
are pretty much tired of hearing us talk about how much we love
God. It really is true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard
that. People are pretty much tired because everybody loves
to talk about, oh, I love God. But now let the man that is married
do the diligence of taking care of his family as a Christian.
Let the wife that is married do the diligence of supporting
her husband in raising those kids. Let those young people
who are still under the auspices of their parents do the diligence
of respecting that structure that God set up so that once
they are in that same mode of operation, they can then pass
that process on in their own family. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? We are talking about being legitimate and authentic
witnesses of God versus people that make an empty profession.
So notice what he says, no man has seen God at any time, if
we love one another, there it is, got it? See, now you're in
trouble, because God is saying, stop talking, start walking,
got it? If we love one another, here
it is. Now watch this, I want you to get this because this
is going back to my fundamental point We are of God little children
and have overcome them because greater is he that is what in
you Here it is beloved if God so loved us. Let us love one
another We ought to love one another no man has seen God at
any time if we love one another God dwells in us It's absolutely
profound Profound You know I want to move
on quickly and get to those other objective truths about Christ,
but I got to stay right here. Because this is where our trouble
is. This is where our challenge is.
You know what John says? The man that is actually the
woman that is actually the people that are actually functioning
in that love is because God's in them. You got that? Whoa, you know what he just said? He said, God is not necessarily
in you just because you can articulate the five points of Calvinism
or the doctrines of grace or even the gospel. Got it. God's in you when the power of
the gospel has so taken hold of your life that the father,
the son and the Holy Ghost has taken up residency in your soul
and is causing your affections to be led towards honoring God
by what you do. Powerful, isn't it? Powerful.
Now, the reason why I'm taking my time is because I'm under
conviction of making sure you understand at least what I understand
by inference, and that's this. God dwells in the believer in
order for them to be a effective witness. God dwells in the believer
in order for them to be an effective witness, not a defective witness,
not a false witness, an authentic witness, a legitimate witness,
not a perfect witness, not an impeccable witness, but a legitimate
witness. Are you hearing me? God dwells
in them in order to do for them what they cannot do for themselves. So John tells us, nobody has
seen God at any time. Don't pay no attention to that.
If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected
in us. See that last line? And his love
is perfected. Now, again, I talked about this
earlier. As with faith, so with love,
and faith and love are two sides of the same coin as well, because
faith works by what? You guys believe that? You better
know it. Faith work is by love and love
can be perfected. The word perfected here simply
means matured. Matured. Tell the LTs matured. So let me see how I can help
us with it. I actually love starting with the gospel and becoming
very practical. because it's the practical areas
of our life that authenticate the gospel. If I'm born again by the grace
of God and the spirit of God is working in my life over a
10 or 20 or 30 year period. And I'm being renewed in my mind
because my mind has been quickened by the spirit of God and I'm
being renewed in my affections because my heart has been Changed
by the spirit of God stony heart taken out new heart put in God
writing his laws on my heart and mind and him Putting his
spirit within me so that as the promise is he will cause me to
walk in his precepts Is that what the promise is? That's what
we call new covenant theology. It's god fulfilling in us What
he promised to do to make us authentic witnesses if I am a
christian for 20 30 years over time I should be growing in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord in certain areas of my life where
I develop and mature as a Christian. Are you hearing me? Where I put
away childish things and I function out of a level of maturity because
I am learning what the good and acceptable and perfect will of
my God is. And over time, what I have come
to discover is because he's made me a new creature in Christ,
I am a son of God. I actually, like my master, delight
to do my master's will. I actually delight to do his
will. I actually don't like when I blow it. I don't like when
I miss the point. I don't like when I continue
failing in areas that I know I should have grown up in. I
would much rather God grow me up so that I can honor him in
my life. And so the believer is in this
state of growth in grace by which they put away things that no
longer serve the purpose of God. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And that level of maturity to whatever degree it rises is going
to be used by God to bless others. Let's say We are talking about
the intimate witness of a local Christian family because see,
look, if you are a true believer in the context of a husband,
wife, children dynamic, you got 20 years to prove the authenticity
of your conversion to your wife and your children. They going
to know. Now you might fool everybody at church, but your family is
going to know. Am I telling the truth? It is
hard to persuade your family. But that becomes the area in
which the acute work of the Spirit is taking place to break down
all of these false refuges and images that you put up, the facade
of knowledge and wisdom and insight that you will use as fig leaves
to pretend that you mature. And in reality, you're just as
carnal as you were the day you were born again. So we have to
grow up out of those areas and mature in that knowledge that
Christ gives us. When your family member can say,
you know what? You have really changed. That
means something. You have really changed. You're
not the same hypocrite you used to be 20 years ago. But I want you to mark this now
because this is going to be important as I close. No man has seen God
at any time. If we love one another, God dwells
in us. Huge. Right? Because what we're
talking about is the foundation and the source of the life that's
in us. What we are not saying is that
you and I have the capacity in ourselves to keep one of God's
commandments. What we are not saying is that
we muster up by our own bootstraps and our own effort and our own
energies obedience to God. What we are not saying is that
we can do this thing in the flesh. What we are absolutely asserting
and affirming is I need God to work in me the will and to do
of his good pleasure. Are you hearing me? The only
thing that we have to consider is whether or not God is in us
doing that. We are not at all even faintly
entertaining the idea of works religion. We are, however, affirming
a religion that works. After all, if God is in me and
he's determined to give me the will and to do of his good pleasure,
because he can't lie, change or fail, he's got to get the
job done, isn't that right? So all I need to do is ask the
question, Lord, are you in there somewhere? One more, one more verse, we'll
shut it down. I'm looking forward to getting to verse 17, because
verse 17 is the way John sums this up. Hereby know we, that
we dwell in him and he in us because he has given us of his
what? That's right. See, that's what
I was saying to you earlier. John is not leaving the saints
in his church stuck on themselves. John is explaining that the grounds
upon which they overcome is faith, but that faith is based on a
love that has been poured into their hearts by the Holy Ghost,
Romans 5, verse 5, of which love abounds in their life every day,
bringing them into conformity to Jesus Christ and giving them
the assurance of faith, the assurance of hope, the assurance of knowledge
and understanding, and the assurance of the spirit that we learned
earlier. You know how John said in the third chapter, beloved,
if our heart condemns us, God is what, greater than our heart?
We are talking about the dynamic of going through the daily process
of failing and going to Calvary and asking God for mercy and
for grace and expecting God to pour out on us his spirit afresh
so that we can get up and continue walking in obedience before God
and then even in our obedience because it's so weak and impotent.
Lord, give me grace so that I can do this in a more effective way
because I want to honor you more and more and more and more. You
got that? That's the dynamic of the relationship
between the believer who has now experienced the love of God
in his heart because he loved me. I want to love him back.
See, this is a dynamic. It is a it is a dynamic. It is
a symbiotic relationship between God and the believer. It is it's
as exclusive on a personal level as our Lord Jesus. I'll close
with him as an example. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world in complete dependence on his father. He abrogated all
of his deity when he left glory to assume a human nature and
be born of a little servant girl named Mary. For him to be willing
to assume a human nature required him to depend on his father and
the Holy Ghost. It was the third person that
Place the seed in that woman, Mary, by which Christ could accomplish
a human nature. The miracle of his birth and
his life from a child to an adult is absolute total dependence
by the son toward the father. Complete yielding of the son
to the spirit of God that kept that little boy and grew that
little boy up and qualified that little boy to become a minister
of the gospel. And then upon his public declaration of preaching
the gospel, he still needed the unction of the third person.
You remember that? The third person still had to come down.
Didn't we learn two weeks ago that even the father opened the
heavens and said, this is my son to affirm the fact that his
humanity had to be told that you're getting ready to go through
hell just because you're my son. And he said it himself, I don't
do anything of myself. Everything that I do, I do only
because my father is working in me. I don't say anything of
myself. I don't do anything of myself.
I'm not here to do my will. I'm here to do the will of him
that sent me. Do you see the all encompassing
dependence of the son upon the father? Do you guys see that?
And he does that to model to us as the last Adam and our brethren
The key to successfully walking with God is absolute dependence
upon him. Complete dependence upon God.
A complete abandonment of yourself to the father by the spirit in
order for you and I to do what God has called us to do. It didn't
even enter into his mind to think, to act out of his own strength.
He needed the grace of his father. He needed the grace of the immediate
presence of the spirit of God. And you and I do too. In the
same way, the father could say to the son, son, without me,
you can do nothing. So the son says to us, without
me, you can do nothing, nothing, nothing. So why is it that we
are overcoming false doctrine and false teaching and heresy
and lies and all of the tricks of the enemy, the allurements
of the world, the temptations of the world, the trials of the
world? Why is it that the believer can rise up again daily, trusting
in the Lord, the grace of God, the grace of God. That's all,
just the grace of God. Amen, let's pray. Father, thank
you for this time. Thank you for my brothers and
sisters. Thank you for this opportunity to study your word. Help us understand
that overcoming is the consequence of your grace, your mercy and
goodness in our life. We do want to honor you. We do
want to live out our calling as sons and daughters of God
in a way that brings glory to your name, but we can't do it.
Only you can Lord. And you have already overcome
in your son. He has accomplished eternal redemption
for us. He has established for you a
people for your own namesake. And we are part of that number.
If we trust you today, help us Lord to abandon all boasting,
all self-righteousness, every sense of dependence upon you.
But at the same time, we know that you are all powerful. You
are all wise. You are all knowing, and that
you are able to do above and beyond all we think or ask. And
so we ask And we are thinking, give us grace to do what you
called us to do. As we go our way, give us traveling
mercies, we pray in Jesus name, amen. God bless you.