We are in 1 John chapter 2. I'm
going to read verse 1 and 2. We're going to be launching from
that into the subsequent verses. As your outline states at the
top, we are going to begin at verse 3. But I do want to take
off from verse 2. I don't think we treated it as
much as we could have last week. So I want to make sure that we
close out that way. When John expressed in verse
1 to the church of the living God whom he nominated as children,
these things I am writing unto you that you sin not. We talked about the purpose and
design and scope of the word of God is not to ever justify
our sin, give us a ground and cause to sin or an excuse for
sin. And then we looked at that term
in light of the heresies that were prevailing at that time.
We won't go over those again. It's very important if you're
gonna be a student of the Word of God for you to understand
the scriptures contextually and then make application to yourself.
But John's concern for the churches to whom he was ministering was
that they understood the heresies that were prevailing at that
time and what the damnable implications of those heresies were, as you
guys know, they denied original sin, they denied innate and present
reigning sin, they denied the practice of sin, and therefore
by implication they denied the necessity of the atonement, they
denied the necessity of an advocate, they denied the essential purpose
for which Christ took on a human nature. That's the logical outcome
of error. Error begets error begets error
begets error begets error. no such thing as having an erroneous
view within a body of truth without that erroneous view somehow having
implications on the whole system I use the metaphor before it's
old is not new with me but if you have a wool sweater and you
see that there's a snag in that sweater you start pulling the
thread on that sweater eventually over time you're going to unravel
the whole sweater it's not possible to to play fast and loose with
scripture without becoming a wholesale heretic at the end of the day.
It is for this reason that when John began to develop the first
chapter The way that John began to argue his syllogisms are his
rationale for the fallacy of the claims of those heretics
is in what we would call concentric circles. This here is just a
visionary thing. John would use statements that would be interlocking
statements, and you're going to see this through the whole
of The book of John John will say one thing which will be connected
to the next thing and on and so forth They will all be connected
which means with concentric circles You will have an original point
and then you will have another point but that another point
will be connected to the original point which means that it will
sound like a He's being redundant and saying things over, but what
he's actually doing is overlap, overlapping themes, overlapping
arguments, overlapping doctrines. It will sound like he's repeating
things over, but he's actually making progression because he
knows where he's going. What he is not doing is leaving
previous propositions or statements or arguments, uh, independent
of his next point. He's connecting the points. So
with a very good lawyer or a very good communicator, they will
off time sound like they are extra verbose or they talk a
lot and they seem to be going back and forth. But all they're
really doing is connecting the previous proposition with the
present proposition. Now, the problem with us is that
we don't always have the capacity to hear and to reason through
these kind of tight, and complex arguments in a way that we understand
where they are and where they're going. But he has to back up
because for John, the issue of truth is a continuum, as we're
going to see. The issue of truth is a continuum.
That's John chapter 10, by the way. The unraveling of the sweater
is what Jesus meant when he said in John chapter 10, and the scriptures
cannot be broken. He was arguing with the Pharisees
because the implications of Christ's doctrine was that Christ was
God. The Pharisees said, if you claim
to be God, we're going to kill you. Christ said, I do claim
to be God, but you know what the scriptures say. If I am God,
you'll be able to determine it by who I am and what I do. And
if you cannot, uh, if you cannot debunk my proposition or my assertion
that I'm God by virtue of the scriptures, and yet you still
want to kill me. You are in effect what is called,
uh, breaking the scriptures are corrupting. The scriptures are
destroying the continuity of the scriptures. He quotes Psalm
85 in which Psalm 85 says, does it not say that you are gods?
And he was arguing for his divinity in the context of his humanity.
because the divinity of Christ is to be revealed through humanity.
And the Old Testament saints had that prophetic word concerning
the Messiah in the Old Testament. They just didn't believe it when
he came. They knew Messiah would come, but they didn't believe
Messiah would come the way he came. And what Jesus was saying
is, if you would have followed the scriptures in their logic
and their continuity, you would see that I'm fulfilling everything
that the scriptures say. So I'm simply saying that when
you read 1st John, 2nd John, and by the time you get to 3rd
John, you'll understand that he's connecting points all the
way through. For instance, you'll see it here in a moment. When
he opens up in chapter two, verse one, he says that we are not
to sin. And if any man sins, and we talked
about that last week, that is not the phrase or the term or
the term rather for practicing sin. That's the term for falling
into a sin. And I don't wanna go through
that work again. That is a really tough issue for most people who
are not serious about walking with God. There's a difference
between stumbling into sin and there's a difference between
living a lifestyle of sin that's indicative of being lost. You
guys understand that, right? And this is the beauty of the
gospel. The beauty of the gospel is able to take the lost sinner
whose life is filled with sin and bring him out of that sinful
lifestyle into a state of grace and then by and by grow him up
in Christ so that while sin lives in him, he does not live in sin.
You guys got that? That's the grace of God to take
us out of a lifestyle of sin so that now our vocation, our
lifestyle, our witness, our testimony is that of children of God. As
children of God, we are not denying the presence of sin. We are not
denying the power of sin. We are not denying the temporary
victory of sin that may take place in our life, because to
do so would be to deny the advocacy that we have with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous. You guys understand that, right?
And so what John laid out in verse one was very clear. We
have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
We talked about that last week and he is the propitiation for
our sins. Now, when John used that phrase
propitiation for our sins, I just want this to be cast in your
thinking. He is the propitiation or mercy
seat. He is the mercy seat. This is
a very good way to translate that particular Greek term, helasmos,
helasterion. In the temple, in the holy of
holies was the mercy seat upon which was the two cherub between
the cherub blood was to be poured once a year as an atonement for
the sins of the people. You guys remember that. the Shekinah
glory of God abode on the Holy of Holies, on the mercy seat,
between the cherub and on the cherub. The cherub really were
symbols of God's glory and God's authority. And so long as God
saw the blood, forgiveness was available for the people of God.
You guys recognize that, right? So long as God saw the blood,
forgiveness was available for the people of God. And now we
have the Old Testament cultic image realized in the gospel
age in the person of Christ. So here's how we put it. Christ
is the believer's mercy. And if you have not had, you
can, well, I won't recommend it, but if you read Psalm 130,
here's what you'll learn. That God himself actually is
our forgiveness. God himself actually is our forgiveness
which means this When you have a right relationship with God
Forgiveness is not merely what God does Forgiveness is who he
is It's important to know that and it's important to know it
in the Since I'm quite near our fellowship with God that if you
have a relationship with God where he is your father What
you have with God is God as the grounds of your forgiveness Because
it's not merely what he does. It's who he is So we read in
Exodus chapter 33 and 34 where Moses said show me your glory
you guys remember that and in that Request God began to reveal
his name to Moses And among that list of attributes that God expounded
to Moses, He said, He is the Lord God merciful. The Lord God merciful. He's proclaiming His name. He
called Himself Jehovah. Jehovah. the Lord God merciful,
the Lord God long suffering, the Lord God who is righteous,
the Lord God who is holy, the Lord God who punishes iniquity. These are all parts of God's
attributes. So when we think about forgiveness, I'm talking
about those of you who are serious about walking with God. Don't
merely think about God in terms of him issuing forgiveness. Think
about him in terms of being forgiveness because it's part of his nature.
God will forgive those who come to him by faith on the grounds
of what God did in the person of Jesus Christ. This is ontologically
part of who God is. Just like God is omniscient and
God is omnipresent and God is all knowing and God is all powerful.
Listen, God is all forgiving, but he does it on the grounds
of righteousness and justice. And that's why the text tells
us over in verse 9, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. John saw that it was necessary
for us to get a handle on this vision of the relationship between
the believer and Christ. according to the proprietary
work of Jesus as the grounds of our confidence that we don't
ever have to worry if we're true believers with any kind of legal
grounds by which God would punish us ever again. So when you understand
the Trinitarian persons, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost,
the role of the Holy Spirit is to bring to bear on our conscious
the profound work of Christ the Son as our substitute and surety
and the profound blessing of the father to give us the son
so that we might have a relationship with the father that is secure
for all eternity. You guys have that vision? Good,
you need to because in the day of your troubles, that's where
you must go to know that God is not moved and that he has
already established the grounds of a a permanent and secure relationship
with you in himself, not outside of himself, within the scope
of himself. Now, what John is about to do now in verse 2, Verse
3 is move from this foundational reality of the fellowship of
the believer in relationship to God Knowing that God is his
father and he is God's son and through his big brother Jesus
Christ He has all advocacy. He has all mercy as all forgiveness. He has all righteousness. He
has all justification So he can move on in his walk The gospel
is designed to produce certain ethical implications in your
life. And this is where verse 2 comes up. This is John's contention
with the heretics in the church. Verse 3, I'd rather. Verse 3,
part A. Notice what he says. And hereby
we do know that we, what? know him. So he moves from verse
two, dealing with the propitiation of Christ as the grounds of the
forgiveness of sin for believers all over the world. Christ is
the only mediator between God and man. That truth is settled.
And then he says, hereby, do we know that we know him? And this is what I want us to
get into now, because he's going to actually start talking about
knowing, knowing we know. Do you guys see that? We know
now again, in theology, when we are not properly taught and
when the truth does not actually make the kind of impact that
it should in our life. The reality is, is that at best
we might suspect or we might speculate, we might theorize. But to be able to say we know
requires a kind of confidence that is incontrovertible. When
people say they know something, They have to be sure on sufficient
evidence that what they know, they actually know. So John is
moving into some very critical territory when he talks about
what we know, and this is what we want to work on tonight, what
we know. So in your outline, verse 3.8,
What we now what we know now you see that in your outline.
That's actually the verb form I don't want to get into it too
much, but it's very important when he says what we know now
It's in what is called the present tense. And what that means ladies
and gentlemen is at the moment of John's Dissertation to the
church what he is saying is what I presently believe That's a
synonym for the word know what I am presently believing not
what I believed a year ago Or two years ago like a lot of people
will base their salvation on something they did several years
ago What John is saying is what I'm saying to you right now is
right now what I believe now watch this he says we know and
We hereby do we know that we know him. Do you see that? I
We know present tense that we know who him. So his knowledge
that he is now about to affirm as he prepares to deconstruct
another argument with the heretics is this. We know him. We actually know him. It sounds like he's being redundant
when he uses the phrase and we know that we know him, but he's
not. Here's what he's saying. We presently
know and confess that what we know about him, listen to me,
is accurate and true. And the verb form in which that
second word no is used is in what is called the perfect verb
form. And here's what this means. It's as if you come to meet somebody
a while back and you get to know that person that you met a while
back. And your knowledge of that person
that you met a while back is actually true. Follow me now. All that entered into getting
to know that person, the acquaintance, the experiences, the relationships,
the events that transpired by which you got to know that person,
all that was unquestionably true back then, okay? And now that
you are being inquired of as to whether or not you know him,
here's what you're saying. I presently know that what I
know about him is accurate and true from the time that I met
him to the moment now that I'm talking to you. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? And really what John is getting
into is the idea of knowing God in the truth. So follow me for
a moment. If I, in my attempt to know God, have missed what biblical truth
has to actually say about who God is, and I have over this
period of time, no matter when that began to occur, constructed
an idea of God, that does not comport with the truth, even
though within myself, I believe that I know him. And yet there
comes a time when I find out I didn't know God at all. What
I thought I knew about him was wrong. Now, somehow down here,
when I began to know him, I somehow left off maintaining or obtaining
a proper understanding of who he was. And I began to assume
things like in relationships that we might have with people,
right? You meet somebody and you, you have a casual or platonic
relationship with them and you begin to stack experience with
them. You go to dinner, you go to events
with them. But in the process of stacking experiences, you
are also inserting into those experiences assumptions about
that person that you come to find out are not true. Down the
line, somebody tells you this and that about that individual,
and you're shocked because the way you had constructed your
acquaintance with that person, you have built a whole nother
mentality or understanding of who they were rather than who
they really were, than who they really are. And here's what John
is saying. We know that what we have known
about Christ is true. And here's how he knows. This
is quite interesting. Look at what he says. And hereby
do we know that we know him if we what? Keep his commandments. John is saying to the church,
as we're getting ready to see over in verse four, when you
say that, you know, God, The only real criterion by which
it can be understood that, you know, God is how you respond
to what you know. Are you guys following me that
what John is stating is when a person truly knows God, the
net effect. Of knowing God is obedience to
his commands. See what John is saying is. It's
not possible to actually say in a credible way that, you know,
God. And you don't keep his commandments.
Are you following me? And so as John begins to open
up this second truth and see, you can tell that he's still
working from the flawed logic and flawed arguments of the previous
statements, the heretics made when they said that they were
walking in the light, but in fact, we're walking in darkness.
When they said they knew Him, but in fact the Word of God was
not in them. When they said they knew Him,
but they actually denied that they were sinners in need of
a Savior, and thus the truth was not in them. What John says
is, no, when you come to actually know God in the truth, the response
of knowing God is going to be obedience to His commandments.
Now this is important for you to grasp. One of the reasons
why when you read in the Scriptures, and some of you will hear this
this Sunday, that on that great day, when Jesus comes back as
Lord, many people will be surprised that he will have rejected them. And his rejection of them will
not be predicated merely on what they did, but on the fact of
the absence of the true knowledge of Christ. For he will say, I
never, what? Knew you. I never knew you. So I want you to stay with me.
This is critically important. This is really at the heart of
what John is teaching and is more God-centered, really, than
it is an emphasis on our responding. It is really that when God reveals
Himself to us in a saving way, it is impossible for you and
I to act contrary to that revelation. If God reveals himself to us
in a saving way as our Lord, as our advocate, as our propitiation,
as our salvation, as our redemption, the natural response is to believe
God and to respond in obedience. If God should reveal himself
to you and he reveals himself to you in the person of Christ
so that you come to know him, That knowledge will lead to eternal
life and that eternal life will manifest itself in your keeping
His commandments. Are you guys hearing me? I know
I'm sounding like I'm being repetitive, but I need to help you understand
that the ethical response of obedience is not flowing from
any kind of negotiation of terms or merit compulsion rooted in
you out of fear, but it is a net consequence of God having revealed
himself to you in mercy that you naturally respond to that
revelation accordingly. You respond to the revelation
by submitting to its claims and implications because God has
revealed himself to you. Are you guys following me? Those
who know him obey him. Those who don't know him do not
obey him. I want that to be driven home
because it's important for you and I to know that this is the
way John is going to open up the text. Now there will be people,
as you know, who will have a knowledge of God on an intellectual level,
on what we would call a didactic level, that is learning Bible
verses about God. This here is a sort of a fundamental
prerequisite to the exposure to God. But until God, through
a knowledge of the gospel and the power of the gospel, reveals
himself to you personally, making an impact on your heart, you
will not respond as if you met God See, we're still talking about
the glory of God here. Here's what we're saying. It
is dangerous to tell people you know God and you don't. It's dangerous to tell people
that you know God and you don't. Because the privilege of knowing
God comes with the responsibility of acting in a manner that is
not common to all. Not everybody knows God. Most
people don't. And how is it that you know God
and most people don't, but your knowledge of God didn't have
an impact on you. No different than those who don't
know God at all. Am I making some sense? See what
we're really talking about and I do want to move on, but I can't
move on till you understand this is not about you. This is about
God and his glory. God doesn't reveal himself to
people and it doesn't change their life. It changes their life. It changes
their projectory. It changes their worldview. It
changes their perceptions. It changes their affections.
It changes their priorities. It changes their choices. The
revelation of God changes a person. You don't come in. I'm talking
about knowing God. I'm talking about knowing him. So in your
outline, let's work with this a little bit. Here's what it
says. What what we now know at this very moment and are presently
confessing, remember what it means to confess, tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right? You're compelled
to when you get to know God. You're not ashamed of the gospel,
and you're not ashamed of the glory of God. You're not ashamed
of His attributes of righteousness, of holiness, of justice, of wrath,
of punishment. I'm not ashamed of the fact that
God will send people to hell. I'm also not ashamed of the fact
that God is able to, willing, and does save sinners according
to His own sovereign decree. I'm not ashamed to tell people
God will save whom He wills. He will call whom He will. He
will quicken whom He wills. I'm not ashamed to call God sovereign.
You know why? Because when he revealed himself
to me, that's how he revealed himself as sovereign. He didn't
beg me. He didn't negotiate with me.
He blew me away. That's the God I met. He came
in, he crushed my world and took me captive. It made me a slave
of Christ. And when I asked the question,
what about everybody else? He said, what about everybody else? Are you hearing me? It's very
important to know. So we read at this very moment,
we are presently confessing that we have come to know him, perfect
tense, accurately and truthfully because of this reason. Here
is the evidence that we know him. Are you ready? We keep his
commandments. Isn't that what he says? Now,
we're getting ready to work this through. And here's what I want
you to hear now, you who are gonna become solid exegetes of
the scripture. I want you to hear this. I love John because
if you read John's epistles carefully, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, John
was so wrapped up in the person of Christ. that he said little
more than Christ said. Virtually everything John says,
he derives from what his master has already said. John doesn't
say hardly anything that Christ hasn't already said. For instance,
when John says we know him because we keep his commandments, that's
exactly what Jesus said. Jesus literally told John, The
reason why they don't believe on me is because they don't know
me because they didn't know him. For had they known me, they would
have known him. And if they knew him and knew me, they'd believe
on me. John says, that's right. That's exactly right. And so
as we unpack this, I want you to understand that what John
is doing is echoing his master, which is the safest thing for
all of us to do, to say what the master said. Now, the reason
I have a double two here is the first no is in the present tense,
the second no is in the perfect tense. What we know presently
about him is what we have always known, and it is accurate. And
it's this, when you come to know God in the truth, the natural
outcome is a compelling desire to keep his commandments. So
in your outline, the next thing I want you to see here is this,
we, you see the little word we? When he says we here, that's
an inclusive term, right? It's an inclusive here by do
we know that we know him if we keep his commandment? See that
the we is a plural person of the plural form for those who
are in the scope of having known him and obey him. And the we
here are the apostles. And the true believers. So what
can be said about the apostles can be said about all true believers.
So I want you to follow this in your mind. This will help
you because I already know what a lot of you are getting ready
to do, particularly those of you read a lot of Bible verses
and you, you know, you all over the map with terms like commandments
and stuff like that. We can really get into that whenever. Book is written a letter on epistle.
It's always written contextually And so you have to deal with
it contextually before you make larger applications or you will
assign definitions to terms That in their immediate sense need
to have definitions derived from the context rather than the larger
scope of things Okay, because this is a big it's a lot to chew
off to say and we keep this commandment. Is that right? that's why nobody
was jumping up running around shouting hallelujah and Because
why you hoping you keep this commandment, you're not quite
sure what that means. I'm telling the truth so So so
it's important for us to stay within the framework Of course,
I wrote it in the outline in a way to gradually unpack this
but what I want you to mark now I've already shared it with you
Between the gospel of John and 1st John and 2nd John, you will
get all the text to affirm a right interpretation of these passages.
Go with me in your Bible to John chapter 10. We're going to look
at verses 3 through 5, then verse 14. And here's what we're looking
for as we go to John 10. Does a person who comes to a
saving knowledge of Jesus Christ obey him? That's the question
we're getting ready to answer, right? So I want you to see it
now in the scripture. Now watch. John derives these
emphatic statements and claims from his sitting with Jesus for
three and a half years and keeping his mouth shut. Remember what
I told you? You'll learn if you keep your
mouth shut. And John never really talked. You didn't hear John
talking a lot in the three and a half chapters. Peter talked
a lot, but John didn't. But when John began to talk,
guess what? It was evident that he knew what he was talking about.
Watch this. Does the believer, when he comes
to, does the individual who comes to see God and know God in the
truth obey him? Jesus is speaking in John chapter
10 about the nature of the shepherd. Verily I say unto you, he that
enters in not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up
some other way, the same as a thief and a robber, but he that entereth
in by the door is the what? Shepherd. He's the shepherd of
the sheep. So Christ is describing his relationship
to the believer in terms of him being the shepherd and there
being the sheep, right? To him the porter openeth. To
whom? The shepherd. Watch this. And
the sheep, what? Hear his voice. Did you hear
that? So the way Jesus is opening up
this parable as he's going to be dealing with two classes of
people that are in front of him. Right now there are two classes
of people in front of him. You know who they are? They are
the disciples and they are the Pharisees. So what he's getting
ready to teach his disciples by an object lesson in the parable
of the sheep and the shepherd is the reason why the Pharisees
could never hear him. Are you guys following me? Watch
the language. And to him the porter openeth
and the sheep hear his voice And he calleth his own sheep
by what? And he does what? Lead them out.
Do you see that? And when he puts forth his own
sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep do what? For they
what? Now, isn't that obedience? Isn't
this describing the obedience that comes from the revelation
of the gospel in the life of God's elect when the shepherd
calls them? Is it possible then to be one
of God's elect lost in the sheepfold of humanity, waiting for that
time when the shepherd will come and call you by the gospel and
call you specifically by the gospel, calling you by name. And you hear his voice and you
don't follow him. Is that possible? The answer
is no. It's not possible that God would
meet you in the dark pit of your sinful condition, your lost estate,
your damnable estate, speak to you specifically and you not
come to him. See, we call that the power of
the gospel. What happens in that hour in
which Christ reveals himself to a sheep and the preaching
of the gospel is a revelation of his glory and the redemption
of their souls. And the only logical response
for that sheep to do is follow him. What he makes known to them
is that he is their shepherd. What he makes known to his sheep
is that he is their shepherd. Now, Follow this. You may or
may not know what I'm talking about experientially, but you
might have a loved one who have come to know God. And here's
what you experience with that loved one. You and them were
hunky dory and y'all spent a lot of time together until God called
them. And when God called them, you
found yourself separated from them because they were following
Christ and no longer hanging out with you. You are wondering
what's going on, what guru, what nut, what, what, what, what,
what, what fool got a hold to your friend inside their head
and heart. But it was God. That pulled them out of the listless
aimless pit in which we're all in and began calling him Calling
them to himself a journey that you could not take with them
a Journey that you could not take with them. Are you guys
hearing me a journey? You couldn't understand a journey
you couldn't explain a journey you didn't like a because another
authority, another power, another dominion of which you were foreign
to has now seized their heart and their attention and is leading
them towards him. This is the thing that threatens
the world when it comes to the power of the gospel leading God's
sheep to himself. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? So my proposition now isn't so radical, is it? If God
reveals himself to you, you will respond by obeying him. Is that
a legitimate proposition? If God reveals himself to you,
you will respond by obeying him. In our context, the obedience
is represented by following him. And we're going to see that John
is going to use that same analogy here down the line as he connects
all of these arguments that he makes. So then in your outline,
John chapter 10, verses three through five, by the way, please,
please grasp this, you teachers and you preachers. So you can
help people who pretend or think, I would love to believe that
they know God, help them to understand that if they're God's sheep,
they must follow Christ. and if they aren't following
Christ, they have no grounds to say they're God's sheep. You
have to tell them that. You gotta let them know they're
playing games with God so long as they are willy-nilly on the
hillside of sin. Are you hearing me? Because the
implications of them being willy-nilly on the hillside is that Christ
hasn't caught up with them yet. He hasn't called them. He hasn't
led them out of darkness into His marvelous light. Am I helping
you? See this is not about them. It's not about you. It's about
God's glory See and so if the scriptures gives us the testimony
of how the shepherd works, he leaves the 99 in the wilderness
He go hunts down that one. He finds that one and puts them
on his shoulders Which is the sovereign side of responding
to Christ where he picks you up and puts you on his shoulders
it appears like you are following him, but in reality he's carrying
you and That's Luke 15. So look at verse 10, I think.
No, verse 14. Are you there? Now, here it is. I am the good shepherd, and I
know my sheep. Do you see that? See our word?
The Greek term is genoske. Common Greek term we could develop
it. I may I may not tonight This is the term that Jesus used primarily
not exclusively and this is the term that John uses Primarily,
but not exclusively the term Genoske's Genoske denotes a genuine
and effectual knowledge of a thing that is on a par with covenant
relationship between a man and a woman. I've told you that before.
Genoski is a broad Greek term that denotes, uh, metaphorically
the intimacy between a man and a woman. You guys get that? So
if God says, I know my sheet in an intimate covenant away,
and then the last clause is, and they know me. Isn't that
what it says? And they know me. Isn't that
what it says? And they know me. I know mine and mine know me.
So there is a, watch this, reciprocating knowledge. There's a reciprocating
knowledge between God and the sheep. That's the pleasure and
benefit of God revealing himself to you. He allows you to know
him. in the same way, not the same
measure, but in the same way he knows you. So that it is a
mutual knowledge. God in his omniscience knows
everybody, but God in covenant only knows those who are his. Am I making some sense? Pastor,
how can I build on that? In your own time, read Psalm
139. David explained it. But listen to what he says. I
am the good shepherd and I know my sheep, and am known of mine. In verse, in John chapter five,
verse 24 and 25, listen to it. Let's go through a few verses.
John five, 24 and 25, and then we'll go to John eight, and then
we'll go to first John chapter four and build on this so we
can lock this in. When John says, hereby we know
that we know him if we keep his commandments. He's echoing what
his master said, and here in John chapter five, verse 24 and
25, this here's another expression of what happens when we truly
get to know him. Are you there? Watch this. Verily,
verily, John chapter 5, 24, I say unto you, he that heareth my
word, right, and believeth on him that sent me hath what? Everlasting life and shall not
come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is when the
what? Dead shall hear the voice of
the Son of God, and they that hear shall what? Hear. The terminology
that Christ uses for the ethical response of the believer to the
voice of Christ in the proclamation of the gospel is live. It's everlasting
life. And we will unpack that too,
because here's what he's saying. When a person actually hears
the voice of God, he responds by a life giving faith in him,
which results in him following God, which for Christ to follow
God is eternal life. See, sometimes in our theological
constructs and in the way we frame things, We put eternal
life out in the future, like the end product of our relationship
with God. The Bible does speak of that
final experience of eternal life, where our bodies are renewed
and glorified and so compatible with our souls. But eternal life
is something that takes place when the word of God actually
enters inside of you. And that eternal life is manifested
by what are called primary fruits or evidences that you are alive. The primary evidence that you
are alive is faith in Christ. That primary evidence of faith
results in following him. You and I know we are alive when
faith moves us in obedience to follow Christ as our shepherd.
And you can take your own time, if you can, in your own time,
work through the implications of that statement. I was sharing
with our men on Saturday how this works. It's probably unfortunate
that we don't know how to build on these kinds of statements
and we kind of get stuck. But one of the questions that
had come to me in our men's meeting last Saturday was the idea of when we read the
scriptures and it talks about obedience, that often what we'll
say is, is I don't obey God. I can't see where I'm being obedient
to God or where I'm keeping his commandments. And what I had
to say to my brothers was that that kind of statement is lazy.
That's a lazy unbiblical statement, it's rooted in a carelessness
of examining the evidences of what it means to have a relationship
with God. It's pious and it comes off as
if it's holy, but it really actually denies the glory of God. Can
I help you? Now, I remember these. This is
the danger of short little terms that we often try to use to to
describe something. You know, if you don't say enough
about something, you actually endanger not actually saying
something about that thing. There there is there is a way
of saying something about something that may be true, but not sufficient. And therefore, because it's not
sufficient, you leave room for misinterpretation. Like one can
say a thing, one can describe a thing and I can affirm that
what his description of that thing is, is accurate, but it's
not sufficient. Like talking about the doctrine
of election. There are some people that think that election is equivalent
to salvation. And what we have been teaching
for years is do not make election equivalent to salvation. To make
election equivalent to salvation, is to fail to recognize the process
that flows from the intention that election has designated. To make election equal to being
saved is to deny the process of being lost, being called by
the gospel, being quickened by the gospel, being regenerated
by the spirit, being sanctified by the spirit, being used by
the spirit because of the power of the gospel, and then ultimately
being glorified when Christ comes again. See, election is God's
determination and choice before the world began to save a people
for himself. But election is unto salvation,
election is not salvation. Therefore, what we don't do is
we don't make an unsaved person equivalent to a non-elect person. Did you guys get that? The notion
of saying, well, that person appears to be non-elect, because
they appear to be unsaved, is a flaw in your understanding
of election. Because election encompasses
the whole experience of the man, or the woman, or the people.
Lost, under the wrath of God, unregenerate, living like a goat,
but actually being a sheep. See, this glorifies God. If you
deny the process, you deny God an aspect of His glory. If God
didn't mean for us to be able to explain what salvation is
in terms of the process, He wouldn't have given us a Bible filled
with testimonies of men and women who were ordained unto salvation
but lived like hell and were written in the Scriptures as
living like hell until He converted them, i.e., the Apostle Paul. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And what I'm saying is we get lazy in terminology. Here's what
I'm also getting at it's impossible To be a true believer in Christ
and not obey him It's impossible to be a true believer in Christ
and not obey him see because To be a true believer in Christ
is to have Christ in you Willing Doing of his good pleasure This
is the miracle of regeneration Are you following me so far?
So if I say, you know, I'm a sinner saved by grace and I don't ever
do anything, right? And I don't never keep God's
commandment. You just lied on God and stole his glory That's called a meltdown of the
brain and because you aren't willing to take the time to reconcile
the tensions in scripture. For instance, you know, a fundamental
and ongoing and never changing act of obedience on the part
of God's people is faith. Did you get that? So if I am
a believer, I am in a constant state of obedience on that level. Did you hear me? The first and
primary command is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you
shall what? So at the core of my being is a principle called
faith which got placed in me Which makes me not what I'm doing,
but what I am a believer Whenever you test me or whenever I test
myself I discover I believe God I am trusting Christ and my Savior. I am trusting Him as my advocate.
I am trusting Him as my mediator, my grounds of righteousness,
sanctification, and glory. I've done that ever since He
revealed His glory to me. I trust Christ as Savior. Do
you? That's an act of obedience. Don't steal His glory because,
see watch this, if you say you are a believer and yet you say
you never obey God, you just contradicted yourself. Believers
also not only believe God but they worship God. Do you worship
God? From the moment God quickened
me, I've been worshiping Him. God made me to worship Him. He
caused me to worship Him. He prompts me to worship Him.
I call on the name of the Lord. Not just one time at conversion,
but every day of my life. I call Him Lord. Do you? I trust
Him to redeem me out of iniquity and trouble. Do you? I trust
Him to counsel me and guide me by His hand. Do you? I depend
upon God to uphold me by his grace. I study God's Word. Do you study God's Word? I do. I study it because I love it.
Those are signs of what it means to be a believer. You know what?
And John is going to teach us this too as we continue working
through the test. Guess what? I love God's elect. I love God's
people. Do you? I love those that are begotten
of God just like I'm begotten of God because God says that's
one of the evidences. He that is born of God loveth
God and loves those that are born of God. That's 1st John
chapter 5 verse 1. Are you following me? See so
when you go around in a lazy fashion talking about you never
obeyed God just Just ask the person to whom you're talking
that kind of Jargon to to step back because God liable to open
the ground up and swallow you up You know spare them your lazy
talk Are you hearing me? There is a lot of things that
a true believer does that he never did prior to conversion
because these are all intrinsic to the new nature. I confess
my sins. I never did that before I was
born again. I grieve over my iniquity and
my transgressions. I never did that before. I never
did that before. You, are you guys hearing what
I'm saying? It's very important then to,
because what's happening is when we use the term obedience to
his commandments, we are taking on a more legalistic, Uh, idea
of a performance based obedience that is predicated upon a measuring
stick that you impose upon yourself. Ain't got nothing to do with
God, his glory, the gospel, the power of Christ, the intrinsic
nature of Christ in you at all. Ain't got nothing to do with
that. Are you hearing what I'm saying? You didn't set up your
own set of rules and regulations and you didn't condemn yourself.
That's cool. If you want to do that, but don't blame it on God. So when John says, we know that
we know him because we keep his commandments, it's inclusive
of all these things of which I've been speaking to you. When
the word is preached, I was dead. He quickened me by his grace.
He raised me from the dead and he gave me life. That life was
evidenced by faith, a longing for God, a desire to worship
him, a desire to know him, a desire to keep his commandments. Go with me to John chapter eight.
John chapter, am I making some sense to you? Good. So straighten
your language out because it doesn't honor God. If you've
been in the Lord five or 10 or 15 years to be using this lazy
meltdown language, either you are obeying him in the evangelical
sense of the power of the gospel, making Christ in you the hope
of glory or you're dead in trespasses and sin, and you need to be saved.
Is that okay? Is that a legitimate proposition?
Either I'm born again and my heart pants up to God or I'm
not. It's just that simple. John chapter
8 verse 42. Listen to what Jesus says. He's
speaking to the same category of people he spoke in John chapter
10. And this is what he says in verse 40 and 41. But now you
seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I heard
of God, this did not Abraham. Now let me ask you a question,
saints. When you hear the gospel preached or expounded or taught,
let me say by me, do you wanna kill me? See, they wanted to kill Christ.
Are you hearing me? They wanted to kill him. They wanted to kill him because
The father was not in them. And because the father was not
in them, they could not stand the truth. Now, I know I preach
bold and I preach pretty succinctly and I teach in a poignant way.
But this is a good opportunity for you to find out, do you love
the truth? Am I making some sense? Yeah, I mean, you know, you can
get somebody to lie to you and send you to hell telling you
all right when you're not. Or you can go, you know what?
That hurts so good. I thank God for this, because,
you know, I just thank God for this. I, you know, this is this
has secured me in my longing for God. I'm glad he clarified
that. Listen to it. You do the deeds of your father,
then said they unto him, we be not born of fornication. What
a way for those who say they're saved to respond to the Savior.
We'd be not born of fornication. We have one father, even God,
how arrogant Jesus said unto them, if God were your father,
you would what? Do you love Christ? Do you love him? See, see, do you love Christ? See, because that's the core
of all the other stuff that I was talking about. Love is really
the foundation of it. You can't believe God if you
don't love him. You won't follow someone you
don't love. You won't suffer for someone you don't love. You
won't endure for someone you don't love. Are you hearing me?
If God reveals himself to you, nobody else in the world, as
your propitiation, as your sacrifice, bearing the wrath of God, the
justice of God, the way of his holiness in your place, which
is an indescribable love. And God reveals that to you.
How much he loved you. And you are able to experience
the power and freedom that comes from that. Can you tell me you
don't love him? Why are you hearing what I'm
saying? See Christ. purchased that love, which he
demands that you affirm in yourself for him. He purchased that love. Are you hearing me? The love
that he pours in my heart by the Holy Ghost, by which I love
him, is the love he purchased when he laid down his life for
me. That's the reciprocating nature of the relationship between
God and the center. Do you understand this? Remember
the commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind,
and strength. Isn't that what the commandment
is? And in the gospel, guess what? He makes that possible
for us to do that by not only Meeting our requirements for
loving God in perfect obedience But suffering also in our disobedience
and then granting us the righteousness of his obedience So that we can
have a relationship with this God who loved us and gave himself
for us You're gonna tell me you don't love that kind of God now
watch if you don't love that kind of God you is really messed
up because I don't think there are any other gods in the universe
talking like that. Do you? Is there any other God
in the universe giving these kind of deals out? Hey sinner,
come here. I'll tell you what I've done
for you. Will you do this for me? Will you love me back? So listen to it. He says, if
you were of God, you would love me because I proceeded and came
forth from God. Neither I came of myself, but
he sent me. Verse 43, why do you not understand
my speech? Even because you cannot, what? Hear my words. John is listening carefully to
this. He's listening very carefully to this language. And John is
understanding very specifically that these people are outside
of the scope of God's love for several reasons. They don't understand
his words. They hate what he's saying because they're not of
the father. Go with me to first John chapter
four, verse six. I think I'll sum this part up. First John four, verse six. Let's
see here. First John chapter four, verse
six. Listen to what John says. As we talk about those who know
him, and then we'll move on for five minutes and I'll stop. We
should stop now. First John four, verse six. Are we there? Listen to what
he says. Well, let me start back at verse
four. 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. And do you see what he's saying? That there's something
in you that grants you the ability to overcome you guys see that
You are of God little children and have overcome them because
greater is he that is in you than he that is where? They are
of the world. Therefore. They speak of the
world and the world hears them We are of God see the word we
again He that knoweth God there's a word no again. Do you see it
does what hear us? I? He that is not of God does
not hear us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth and the spirit of air. Go back to 1 John 2 then. Let me introduce us to the next
point. The we are the apostles and all
believers. The knowing is an understanding,
a comprehending, a believing and obeying of Christ. And we'll
see this under the word commandment. You see commandment in your outline?
And you see, I have the word, his word, the commandments are
his words. And then I say that the commandments
are his words in the sense that they are his teachings, they
are his message, they are the gospel. So when you read John's
statement, we keep his commandments. Here's what John is stating.
We keep the very words that Christ has told us to keep because Christ
is the highest authority of all of the scriptures. So when John
says we keep his commandments, it is the same as saying everything
that Christ told us, we adhere to, we observe and we maintain. This is how we know we love him
because he told us in John 14, if you love me, you will what?
If you love me, you will keep my words. And so he gave these
12 men, one failed, he picked them up in the apostle Paul and
he says, go into all the world and tell the people what I have
told you. Isn't that what he said? Remember
John 17 father. I have given them thy word and
they have kept it So now follow the logic for us to keep God's
commandments It's for us to keep the gospel of the person and
work of Jesus Christ which informs us of the meaning of all scripture
To keep God's commandment is for us to know the gospel and
to believe the gospel. For in believing the gospel,
we are accurately informed of all the scriptures. The scriptures
point to Christ. And when they lead you to Christ,
you find out by the revelation of God in Christ who God is,
who you are, what you need and what the benefits are of entering
into a relationship with God. Are you guys following me now?
It's called evangelical obedience. Every believer, therefore, keeps
God's word in the general sense of believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ and the daily pragmatic sense. What we come to learn
is how to walk with God according to the privileges of the covenant,
having Christ as our advocate, our surety, our representative,
our paraclete, our propitiation, having God as our father. Now,
as we walk with him, we can use the resources of grace, the blood
and righteousness of Christ to sustain the fellowship as we
are confessing who God is, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth concerning God. This is what is meant by keeping
his Commandments are you guys following me so far very important
for you to know that so I'll share that with you two verses
in first John that underscores that chapter 2 verse 20 Chapter
3 verse 23 Chapter 3 verse 23 listen to what it says. Are you
there? Here it is. And this is his what? Okay, stay
right there So see I told you I don't have the time to do it.
But here's what John does. He builds on his points by going
back and recapping. By the time you get to the ninth
point, he explains the third point. See, he's not in a hurry,
so he doesn't have to do what I'm trying to do with you in
one study, explain and expand on terms like commandment. God,
John already knows for himself that the commandment that he's
saying is a Christocentric commandment that is rooted in a knowledge
of the superiority of Christ and the finality of Christ's
work on Calvary as the foundation for obedience to God. He is not
saying to you and I to obey God apart from Christ. He's not saying
to us to keep God's commandments apart from a knowledge of the
perfect obedience of Christ. He is not saying to us to love
God apart from the grace that Christ's atoning work imparts
to us. He's saying to us to keep his
commandments by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? And everything else flows out
of belief in Christ. So he says in verse 23, And this
is his commandment that we should what? Believe on the name of
his son, Jesus Christ. What's the second one? And love
one another as he gave us commandment. Now, you know what he just said?
Jesus told me to tell you to believe on him and to love me
back. Now, if you know your Bible,
you know this is true. If you go to John 13, if you
go to John 15, if you go to John 17, Jesus kept repeating to the
disciples, love one another. Isn't that what he said? Love
one another. And then he said in John chapter 13, love one
another as I have loved you. You guys follow me? And they
had a chance to vividly see how Christ loved them a few days
later when he was stretched wide and high between heaven and earth
as their sin bearer. You guys got that? For John,
the prism through which commandments come is the crucified, dead and
buried, exalted, reigning and ruling Christ. He is never telling
us to obey him apart from what chapter one has already explained
that we have. And this is the fellowship that
we have with the father and the son. The blood and righteousness
of Christ grants us privilege to obey him because he has furnished
us with everything necessary to do so. So the idea of commandment
keeping starts with believing and then responding by faith
and following Jesus Christ. Now you can ask yourself, do
I keep his commandments? All right, I'll take a few questions.
If you have any, I'll let you guys go. How many of you guys
coming out to the next Thursday's class? Let me see. Oh, y'all
ain't coming. Y'all ain't coming out. All right,
we'll see. I have to make sure, because it looks like I'm going
to have to make about 400 copies for this seven week class. Any
questions? Let's stand for prayer. Father, we come to you in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and we thank you for your word. And
we thank you for the study. We thank you for the necessity
of slowing down and pausing and asking very, very, very serious
questions. When we say we know you, the
implications are staggering because we're talking about knowing the
true and the living God, and we don't ever want to bear false
witness. So grant us grace to respond
to this confession of knowing you by a life committed to this
overwhelmingly glorious revelation of this infinitely, infinitely
perfect and gracious and merciful God who has bowed himself from
the heights of heaven to the depths of hell to scoop up sinners
from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue, and to not only make
them his, to make them his sons and his daughters is just beyond
our capacity. We thank you for what you've
done for us. As we go our way, give us traveling mercy, prepare
us to worship you on Sunday. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you.