Book: 1 John

Satan’s Playbook, Revealed
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Summary

This passage in 1 John 2:15-17 teaches us that Satan has littered this world with sweet-smelling lures laced with spiritual poison, and we are called to identify and resist them. The central command is clear: do not love the world. Though believers have been transformed from slaves of sin into overcomers, we remain susceptible to worldly temptations that can derail our spiritual growth. Satan’s entire playbook is exposed through three strategies—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—and we are shown how Jesus himself defeated each one.

Key Lessons:
1. Loving the world is spiritual adultery—we cannot serve both God and worldly desires, and harboring love for the world means our devotion to God has grown cold.
2. Satan’s three weapons—lust of the flesh (desire to consume), lust of the eyes (desire to possess), and pride of life (desire to boast)—have been his playbook since the Garden of Eden, and they target every believer regardless of maturity.
3. The things of the world are not inherently evil, but they become idols when we are willing to step outside God’s boundaries to acquire or keep them.
4. Remembering our eternal destiny reframes our value system—temporary pleasures are cheap trinkets compared to the eternal riches God has prepared for us.
Application: We are called to examine our hearts honestly for any love of the world, to crucify fleshly passions and desires, to be generous toward God rather than hoarding wealth, and to use Scripture as our weapon against temptation—just as Jesus did in the wilderness.

Discussion Questions:
1. In what specific areas of your life might you be willing to step outside God’s boundaries to acquire or keep something—and what does that reveal about what sits on the throne of your heart?
2. How has our consumer-driven, on-demand culture weakened our ability to deny ourselves, and what practical steps can we take to build up the muscles of self-denial?
3. Jesus defeated Satan’s three temptations by quoting Scripture—how well do you know God’s Word, and how can you better prepare yourself to use it when temptation comes?
Scripture Focus: 1 John 2:15-17 provides the central command and exposition; Matthew 4:1-11 demonstrates how Jesus defeated the same three temptations; Luke 12:19-21 warns against hoarding wealth; 2 Corinthians 4:18 redirects our focus to eternal things.

Outline
Introduction

It’s a joy to be here again and to be able to open up the word of God with you. Let’s start out with a word of prayer.

Father, we know that we are but sinners. And Lord, even though we are not better than the world around us, we have gotten for some reason an extra share of your grace. We are your children, Lord. You love us and we are thankful that love can never be sundered.

This morning as we come before your word again, we pray that your Holy Spirit would speak to us through your word. We pray that we would become encouraged, that we would fight the good fight, that the evil one would be defeated in our lives, and we would live lives glorifying to Christ. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

If you haven’t already, from the scripture reading, I would ask you to please turn your Bibles to 1 John 2:1. This is on page 1218 of your pew Bibles.

Satan’s Bait: Sweet Lures with Hidden Poison

A few weeks ago, our family was eating dinner at our dinner table. For those of you who have been over our house, our dining table is black. It is a slab of blackwood. As we were eating, one of our kids—I don’t know which one, I can’t remember—pointed to the table and said, “Look, daddy and aunt.”

I looked closer and though I couldn’t at first see it because the table was black, I’ll never forget what looked like a clean surface was actually moving. The table with the dinner on top was crawling with ants.

That traumatized me. That made me vow to never get a black table again.

After we all finished freaking out, I went into the closet. I got one of those ant baits—those liquid ones with the sort of nectar that smells sweet but is laced with a slow-acting poison.

These things are incredible. If you’ve ever seen one of these things at work, within minutes, hundreds of ants are swarming this bait. It was impressive.

I thought to myself, in the same way, Satan has littered this world with bait for us, bait for humans. Sweet-smelling lures, but with poison hidden inside.

Last week we saw in verses 12 to 14 of this chapter that Satan, referred to here as the evil one, has been given permission by God for a temporary time to rule over the earth.

Satan rules through an evil world system. He set up this system, rigged it against Christians, and has erected false philosophies, heresies, false religion, and false systems of thought to hinder the progress of the gospel. This false system is indeed with us today.

Satan has flooded this world with lures and temptations as part of this false system to cause the people of God to stumble and to make them useless as soldiers for the kingdom of God.

“As believers, you are no longer compelled to go after these lures. You have been given the ability to resist the bait.”

But here is the good news. As believers, you are no longer compelled to go after these lures.

In fact, believers uniquely have been given the ability to resist the bait, to identify the bait, to see past the tricks of Satan, and to resist the devil. The Apostle Paul just told us this last week at the end of verse 14.

If you remember, he tells us that even young men in the faith are strong and that the word of God abides in them and they have overcome the evil one.

That means all true believers—listen to this—all true believers who have acknowledged their sinfulness before God, who have repented of their sins, and who have believed in Jesus Christ as the sinless Son of God. He lived a perfect life, came to the earth, died on the cross to pay the penalty of sins for all who would believe, and then was raised on the third day.

If you believe that, all people who believe that are believers who have been transformed from being a slave to sin, as Jesus calls it in John 8:34, into overcomers, as we saw in our last passage. Since believers are no longer slaves to sin, true and lasting victory is possible.

In your life. In fact, we saw last week that it is actually expected that you will achieve true and lasting victory over sin. This is the normal process of maturation for a true believer.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You are thinking, “I want to overcome sin, but I don’t know how.”

Well, that is what the Apostle John is going to tell us today in verses 15 to 17 of 1 John 2. He will expose for us Satan’s entire playbook so that we can break these cycles of sin that we seem to be continually suckered into, so that we can stop falling for Satan’s bait, and so that we can live the most victorious life to the glory of God.

Are you interested?

If so, let’s look at verse 15. This is the Apostle John’s entire counter strategy against Satan in a nutshell.

The Command: Do Not Love the World

Do not love the world.

Do not love the world.

“Do not love the world.”

This statement comes as an abrupt change of tone from what he was doing in verses 12 to 14. You may have noticed in verse 12, John was calling them little children.

You are strong. You are overcoming the evil one. But now his tone suddenly changes to a tone of urgency.

If he were writing this today, this might be all caps. He may be writing this in all caps and in bold face.

This is an abrupt change of tone. And this is John’s one nonnegotiable. This is the one thing that we as Christians cannot compromise on.

If we do, no matter where you are in your Christian growth, this will derail you. This is the main threat.

Remember, the Apostle John here is definitely talking to believers. He’s not talking to non-believers. These are the same people that he just called little children.

It is therefore very possible for you and me, even Christians, to harbor in our hearts a love for the world.

What Does ‘the World’ Mean?

Make no mistake, this is a warning for everyone in the room today. Let’s get specific. What does world mean here?

Clearly, this does not mean that we are not to love the people of the world. After all, Jesus himself tells us even to love our enemies. And Jesus in fact demonstrated that love on the cross.

It does not forbid loving God’s creation because 1 Timothy 4:4 tells us everything that God created is good. And 1 Timothy 6:17 tells us that he has given all things for us to enjoy.

Rather, this is a reference to Satan’s evil system. The evil world system that we talked about that Satan has set up. This is the rebellious system that is installed in this world against God.

The backward system of values, the godless philosophies, false religions, systems set up to confuse the world from the true gospel and the glorification and normalization of sin.

“This is the rebellious system installed in this world against God—backward values, godless philosophies, and the normalization of sin.”

Christians who love the world want to appease and to fit in with the world and to adopt the world’s values in open rebellion to God’s commands.

Why would Christians do this?

The Things of the World: Identifying the Lures

Well, the answer is in that next phrase: the things in the world.

That is, one loves the world so that they can acquire the things of the world.

You see, the things of the world are the lures.

That’s the sweet bait for Christians.

And in order to acquire these fruits, we are tempted to compromise with the thinking of the world.

“The things of the world are the lures—the sweet bait for Christians.”

What does that look like? One commentator puts it this way: the compromise looks like this. You court the world’s favor.

You follow its customs. You adopt its ideals.

You covet its prizes.

And you seek its fellowship.

So what are these things? Well, it could be sex, status, money, cars, houses, clothes, looks, social media likes, titles, girlfriends and boyfriends, connections to powerful people.

These very things are the very things that wicked people in the world are climbing over themselves, devouring themselves to get.

But you might notice that these things that I mentioned are not necessarily evil in and of themselves.

And this is an important point.

It’s Not a Sin to Have Things—But Do You Love Them?

John says, “Do not love the world.” But he does not say do not have the things of the world.

We need to be clear. It is not a sin to have the things of the world if God blesses you with them and if you gain them in an honest way.

“It is not a sin to have the things of the world if God blesses you with them and you gain them in an honest way.”

The Apostle John later in this very book makes the assumption that Christians will have some of the things of the world. In 1 John 3:17, he explicitly instructs those who have the world’s goods to share with his brother in need.

How would you share if you do not have?

Well, you may have some of the things of the world. We all have some of the things of the world.

How can I tell if I love them? This is the question you ought to ask yourselves.

Are you willing to step outside of God’s boundaries to acquire and keep them? If you are, then you have fallen for the poison.

You have now made this thing an idol in your heart and you have pushed God off the throne and put this thing in its place.

Loving the World Is Spiritual Adultery

Look back at 1 John 2:15. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Now, don’t get confused. This is not saying that the Father no longer loves the believer. It’s the opposite of that.

It’s saying that the person who loves the world no longer loves the Father.

This is talking about your devotion, not your salvation.

Your love has grown cold for God when you love the world.

And how could it not? Jesus himself told us in Luke 16:13 that no one can serve two what? Masters.

He will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. This means that loving the world is nothing less than spiritual adultery.

Just as you cannot say that you love your spouse while you are cheating on them, you cannot love God while loving the world.

“Just as you cannot love your spouse while cheating on them, you cannot love God while loving the world.”

But true Christians, hopefully everyone in this room, if you are in that state, you will be very uncomfortable.

And this may be why you are depressed, why you are anxious, why you are distressed.

Because God will not allow his children to be in that state for very long. And your feeling that way may be for you the discipline of God.

A Warning for Every One of Us

Now, John is going to drill down even deeper into this truth for us. But before we get there, let me just mention that it is tempting for us—I’ve done this too—to listen to a sermon like this and think to ourselves, “Boy, that person next to me really needs to hear this.”

My wife, my husband really needs to hear this.

No, this is written for you. This is written for all of us.

We all struggle with this. None of us is immune.

After all, 1 John 1:8 tells us that if we say we have no sin, we are what? We are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

You may appear to others as externally righteous. You may be good at putting up an act when you come on Sundays.

But what do you do when you go home?

1 Samuel 16:7, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at what? The heart.” In the end, really, only you and God know if you love the world.

1 Samuel 16:7: “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

So then, this passage is a call for all of us to examine our hearts for what we truly love.

Satan’s Three Strategies to Keep Believers Weak

Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of this. What ingredients are on the label of Satan’s Christian bait?

Here’s the outline for the rest of our time. We’re going to see Satan’s three best strategies for keeping believers spiritually weak.

“Satan’s three best strategies for keeping believers spiritually weak.”

Let’s look now at verse 16.

Strategy #1: The Lust of the Flesh

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh. Let’s stop there for now.

The lust of the flesh.

This is Satan’s first strategy to incite in you a temptation to sin. He wants to incite in you a lust for the flesh. This is talking about sexual lust which manifests as pornography, adultery, promiscuity.

But the word lust is not limited to that. It just means strong desire. This is talking about any sensual desire.

“The word lust is not limited to sexual desire—it just means strong desire. This is any sensual desire.”

You could have a lust for excessive food. Today, many of us have a lust for leisure and rest, which manifests as slothfulness or laziness.

Some of us have a lust for entertainment, and that manifests as an addiction to movies and social media and YouTube. Or it could be a lust for partying and substances or drugs and on and on.

In Philippians 3:19, the Apostle Paul puts it in maybe a little bit of a humorous way. He tells us that certain people in the world make their belly their god. Their god is their stomachs. And these people are slaves to their appetites.

We can do that. Following your appetite in an unrestrained way leads you to foolish sin, just like Esau who for a bowl of stew gave up the blessing of God. Yet that is what we do.

Good Gifts Twisted Outside God’s Boundaries

Satan loves the strategy because it is so effective. The reason it is so effective is because it taps into what we think of as necessary and good desires that seem to us to be legitimate.

We can easily deceive ourselves. Some of these desires are legitimate. Food is actually good.

Sex, believe it or not, is good and necessary. Otherwise, none of us would be here.

Even YouTube, I’m sure, is good for something.

But these are good in God’s timing, when enjoyed within God’s boundaries, and when consumed with an attitude of thanksgiving.

When you can say with the Apostle Paul that even in plenty or in want, you can be content, you can glorify God either way.

Yet, we know that Satan is a master at nudging God’s otherwise good gifts to be just slightly outside the boundary.

“Satan is a master at nudging God’s otherwise good gifts to be just slightly outside the boundary.”

This whispers in your ear: you just need to compromise a tiny bit. This always sounds reasonable in the moment.

It’s just a quick glance at pornography. No one will know. I’m not hurting anyone, or it’s just a few drinks to take the edge off. Otherwise, I’ll look uncool in front of my friends and co-workers.

Listen, the moment we are willing to sin to satisfy our flesh, we have now made this thing an idol in our hearts.

Have You Crucified the Flesh?

As a side note, I think that the lust of the flesh is especially effective in our consumer-driven culture in America.

We here are used to convenience and abundance. If you’re hungry, you can order Door Dash. If you’re bored, in the palm of your hand is all the entertainment of the world.

Everything is on demand. Therefore, we never have to deny ourselves anything.

I’m convinced that many of us have failed to build up the muscles necessary to resist the lust of the flesh. In fact, Galatians 5:24 says this: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its what? Passions and desires.”

I think you need to ask yourself as a Christian, in what sense have you crucified the flesh in any of your passions or desires? And the answer is none.

Galatians 5:24: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

There is an issue in your life.

I’m not sure many of us have. No wonder then we can be so susceptible to the lust of the flesh.

Strategy #2: The Lust of the Eyes

But while the lust of the flesh is a strong desire to consume, Satan’s second strategy, the lust of the eyes, is a strong desire to possess.

At the root of the lust of the eyes is the false philosophy of materialism.

You see the nice fancy things of the world and you are impressed. You spend all your time, all your energy, and all your money chasing these things.

And maybe you play a little fast and loose with your accounting so you can get there faster, and you leave in your life no room for God.

You can think of this as the insatiable desire to have what God has not given you or what rightfully belongs to others.

“The lust of the eyes is the insatiable desire to have what God has not given you or what rightfully belongs to others.”

The scripture has many words to describe the lust of the eyes. Some of them are envy, greed, covetousness.

In fact, this is exactly what was forbidden in the tenth commandment. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

You see, it is okay if you go into your neighbor’s house to admire it, even to want to improve your own situation.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

But you cross the line when in your heart you start to whisper to yourself, “Why does he get a house like that and I don’t?”

And then you leave an opening for Satan, who then uses that thought to turn your heart from loving your brother and rejoicing with him to resenting your brother and even hating him because he has something you don’t.

Covetousness Destroys Love and Contentment

This is the lust of the eyes. And left unchecked, the lust of the eyes will actually remove from you the capability to love entirely altogether.

At every wedding we’ve been to, 1 Corinthians 13:4 says, “Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous.”

You won’t be able to love anyone because in everybody’s life, almost always, you can find something to be jealous of. The problem isn’t other people. The problem is your heart.

And not only does this type of covetousness make you hate those you ought to love, it curses you to be forever discontent no matter how much God blesses you.

“The problem isn’t other people. The problem is your heart. Covetousness curses you to be forever discontent.”

It’s a curse because no matter how much you have, somebody will always have what? More.

And that is why we live in the most prosperous time ever in human history. Yet people are more depressed than ever.

The Envy Machine of Social Media

In fact, social media platforms like Instagram in particular are an envy-generating machine.

It’s well known that these platforms are linked strongly to depression, anxiety, body image problems, and other issues, especially for teenage girls.

And it’s because they are explicitly designed by the smartest designers in the world to stir within you the lust of the eyes.

“Social media is an envy-generating machine, explicitly designed to stir within you the lust of the eyes.”

We should be very careful then as Christians if we spend too much time on these platforms.

The lust of the eyes is hating your brother for what they have.

The pride of life is looking down on your brother for what they don’t have.

Strategy #3: The Boastful Pride of Life

Here we come to Satan’s third weapon: the boastful pride of life.

It’s translated differently in other Bible translations. We have the NAS in front of us, but other translations will translate this as possessions or property, pride of possessions.

The sense here is having a haughty or prideful attitude towards others because they have less stuff than you. They have less prestige than you on that social ladder. And boy, when you think about it, Satan has a trick for if you are poor and he has a trick for if you are rich.

This is materialism again, but from the other side. And this is maybe the most American temptation of all: to spend your time and your effort and your energy climbing the corporate ladder, climbing the social ladder, accumulating a healthy bank account. All so that you can sit back, relax in style with a self-satisfied smirk.

For this person, having more stuff makes you begin to think you are better than others. Instead of giving glory to God, you begin to think that your wealth maybe says something about you and your glory.

“Instead of giving glory to God, you begin to think your wealth says something about you and your glory.”

King Nebuchadnezzar is a good example of this. In Daniel 4:30 he says, “Is this not Babylon the great which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

Satan’s trick is a very subtle one. It is to take something that is objectively a good thing. Wealth is always a blessing of God. And then he turns your focus subtly away from God and onto the blessing so that you now begin to trust it and love it more than you love God.

And you have turned God’s very blessing to you into a stumbling block. You have kicked God off the throne of your heart and you have replaced him with your bank account.

Money then for you is something to be hoarded, something to be looked at and be satisfied with and spent on yourself instead of spending on God’s purposes. You just want to sit on your throne and enjoy the spoils of your riches away from the unwashed masses, trusting in them to keep you safe and secure.

And this—isn’t this the American dream?

The Parable of the Rich Fool

And it turns out it was also the first century Jewish dream. Jesus tells us a whole parable about this in Luke 12, the parable of the rich fool.

The man in Jesus’s parable is so wealthy that he has a problem, a big problem. He doesn’t have any more places to put his wealth. He’s run out of storage for his wealth.

His overriding concern is not how he can use his wealth to advance the kingdom of God, but how he can build bigger barns to hoard more of it. He says to himself in Luke 12:19, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”

That is the attitude that God condemns.

God calls this man a fool in the next verse. He won’t even get to enjoy it. God is going to take him out that night.

The lesson that Jesus wants us to understand is this: if your life is aimed at accumulating and hoarding wealth, that is your love. Jesus is warning you. It’s the same warning that he gives to this rich fool. In Luke 12:21, he says, “You are a fool who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.”

Jesus then looks you in the eye and asks you point blank. In your finances today, the ones sitting in this room, are you generous towards God or are you only storing up for yourself?

Luke 12:21: “You are a fool who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.”

Even the poorest among us are unimaginably richer than the man in Jesus’s parable. He had to store up grain to make sure he didn’t run out. We have no such problems.

In general, we are not worried about not having enough food. In fact, our problem sometimes is we have too much food and don’t know what to do with it.

Our biggest problem is worrying about whether we should upgrade to the $800 Android phone or the $1,000 iPhone.

Are You Rich Toward God?

So then I ask you as wealthy Americans, have you been rich towards God?

You see, the choice here is clear. You have two choices. You can either be concerned with the things of God or you can be concerned with the things of the world.

Don’t kid yourself. You can’t do both.

“You can either be concerned with the things of God or the things of the world. Don’t kid yourself—you can’t do both.”

And this is what the Apostle John tells us in our next verse in 1 John 2:16.

He says, “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” It’s very simple. You can have the things of the world or you can have the things of God. And you have to choose.

The World Is Passing Away

And just in case you are on the fence, you don’t know which one is the better choice, look at verse 17.

1 John 2:17: “The world is passing away and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”

All these things we lust after, all these things that seem so important to us now, they are temporary. They are already, even now, passing away.

Don’t live your life pursuing the world’s lusts. Would you invest all your money in a stock that you knew was going to crash? Of course not.

Instead, you ought to commit yourself to doing the will of God because these treasures, John tells us, are worthless.

This verse is not actually to be read as a threat that if you don’t do the will of God, you won’t live forever. Actually, the idea here is that listen—you are going to live forever.

That should change your value system. Do you realize that you’re going to live forever? Why are you concerned about temporary things?

The Secret: Remember You Will Live Forever

See, John is giving us now here the true secret of resisting the temptations of the devil. This is it. We are to remember—we forget this, don’t we?—we are to remember that we as believers will live forever.

As eternal creatures, we ought to be looking for eternal things.

“We are to remember that we as believers will live forever. As eternal creatures, we ought to be looking for eternal things.”

As eternal creatures, we ought to look not at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18.

What are these things? What are these things we can look forward to as eternal creatures? Guaranteed eternity.

Well, we know we’re going to live a life without sin, life without death, a life with perfect contentment, happiness, excitement, fellowship, joy, peace, and a closeness with God that would never fade.

But what else is there going to be? We don’t talk about this enough.

Sometimes we can read that list and it can kind of glaze over our eyes because it doesn’t really necessarily mean anything to us. We don’t see it yet.

Think about it this way. As much as you think you will enjoy the lust that you lust after here, heaven will have things better than that.

Heaven will have things that are superior to that in every way.

After all, Jesus already assured us that we will have immeasurable riches in heaven.

But do you believe him?

Do you believe him?

Heaven Will Be Better Than You Can Imagine

I think one of the most effective lies that Satan has ever told, that has made its way into our culture and seeped into our minds even as believers, is to convince us that heaven is going to be like sitting on a cloud playing a harp.

And it just seems so boring.

These lusts, by contrast, seem so interesting.

But nothing could be further from the truth. After all, it is the same God who created this world that’s going to create the next world.

Do you think that the new world is going to be inferior to the old one? No.

If you upgrade your phone, do you expect that to be worse than the one you just had?

Literally, God has been preparing for you good things that you can’t even dream of now. Everything will be better in every way.

These passing lusts, John is telling us here, friends, that is the cheap stuff. That is simply not good enough for people like you who will live forever. Don’t settle for them. They’re disposable trinkets.

“These passing lusts—that is the cheap stuff. It’s simply not good enough for people like you who will live forever.”

These are things of the world which are passing away. They are temporary and they won’t satisfy you the way you think.

Finally, to close our time this morning, I just want to show you one last thing.

Jesus Defeated Satan’s Playbook

I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you will, to Matthew 4.

This will be on page if you are using your pew Bible.

If having reflected on these three weapons of Satan, you realize that you are in fact struggling with these, I believe this may help you. At some point, no one here is sinless. We all struggle with these things in one way or another.

This is the temptation of Jesus. Let me read for you: “Then Satan was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry.

And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the son of God, command these stones become bread.’” What kind of temptation is that? Lust of the flesh.

“But he answered and said, ‘It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him into the holy city and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

Here the tempter wants Jesus to throw himself down so that he could be lifted by the angel servants for all the holy to see how great he is. And this is the pride of life.

“And Jesus said to him, ‘On the other hand, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

“And he said to him, ‘All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me.’” This is the lust of the eyes. All you see can be yours.

You see, Satan has been using this same playbook since the Garden of Eden to trap the people of God for thousands of years. And when Jesus came, Satan gave it his best shot. He took out his best weapons, the best tricks he knew.

Did it work?

Verse 10: “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ Then the devil what? Left him.

My friends, Jesus overcame Satan and in the process he showed us how to do it. And Jesus used as his weapon the word of God. God’s word exposed the lies of Satan for what they are. And that is how we fight back too.

“Jesus overcame Satan and showed us how to do it. He used the word of God to expose Satan’s lies.”

We need to know the word of God.

How to Overcome the Evil One

So if you’re taking notes, write this down. How can you overcome the evil one?

Two things. One, we saw two strategies.

First, look at eternity. Remember, you’re an eternal creature where the best is yet to come.

Second, when in the middle of temptation, remember God’s word to expose Satan’s lies.

If you still find yourself struggling after that, then perhaps these last words in our sermon from Jesus will give you some comfort. These are the words that Jesus himself told his own disciples before they underwent the greatest temptation of their lives.

Right before Jesus’s crucifixion in John 16:33, Jesus says this to his disciples. The disciples all fell to this temptation, so Jesus says this to encourage them.

Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulation, but take courage. I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33: “In this world you will have tribulation, but take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Friends, Jesus has done for us the hard part. He’s shown us by example how to do it.

By the power of his name, you too will overcome the world.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray. Father, we are so grateful for your word. The power of your word is enough to rebuff even the most powerful, time-tested, proven schemes of the devil.

And Lord, we know that even if your apostles fell to the schemes of the evil one at various points in their lives, we are not immune.

We are not so arrogant as to say that we have everything figured out.

And yet, Lord, we have the assurance in your word that victory is within our grasp. In fact, you have done it and you have shown us how.

Lord, we want as Christians to live lives glorifying you. We want our lives to be shining testimonies of your grace and your power and your love. In order to do that, we must overcome the evil one.

We pray, Lord, that this passage of scripture will equip us to do so. Where we have been defeated in the past, we will now by the power of your name find victory. In Christ’s name we pray.

Amen.
August 10, 2025
A Measuring Stick for Spiritual Growth
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Note: This transcript and summary was autogenerated. It has not yet been proofread or edited by a human.

Summary

The three stages of spiritual growth as outlined in 1 John 2:12-14 reveal what healthy Christian maturity looks like. Every believer begins as a “simple child” whose sins are forgiven and who knows the Father, then grows into a “strong young man” who recognizes the spiritual war and learns to overcome the evil one through the Word of God, and ultimately matures into a “spiritual father” who has deep, settled knowledge of God and leads others in the faith.

Key Lessons:
1. Salvation is instantaneous and eternally secure — our sins are forgiven for God’s name’s sake, not our own, which means God’s own reputation guarantees our security.
2. Spiritual growth (sanctification) is a gradual, lifelong process that requires active effort to resist sin and pursue righteousness.
3. Every Christian is strong because the Holy Spirit dwells within us — we are not helpless victims of sin but overcomers who must pick up the Word of God and engage in spiritual warfare.
4. Mature believers are called to function as spiritual fathers who lead, teach, and come alongside younger believers in the congregation.
Application: We are called to honestly assess where we fall on the spiritual growth chart — simple child, strong young man, or spiritual father — and take practical steps to advance to the next stage. We must stop believing we are weak and start acting on the strength God has given us through His Spirit and His Word. Those who have matured must invest in helping others grow.

Discussion Questions:
1. Which stage of spiritual growth — simple child, strong young man, or spiritual father — best describes where you are right now, and what specific steps could move you forward?
2. How does understanding that your salvation is secured “for His name’s sake” rather than your own change how you respond when you sin as a believer?
3. In what practical ways can you engage more actively in spiritual warfare this week, both offensively (sharing the gospel, confronting falsehood) and defensively (resisting temptation, standing firm under trial)?
Scripture Focus: 1 John 2:12-14 provides the framework of three stages of spiritual growth. Supporting passages include Romans 8:38-39 (security of salvation), Ephesians 4:14 (spiritual children tossed by false doctrine), Ephesians 6:11-13 (the armor of God), 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (weapons of spiritual warfare), 1 John 4:4 (greater is He who is in you), and 2 Timothy 4:7-8 (finishing the race).

Outline
Introduction

The Story of Brooke: A Picture of Arrested Growth

Well, it was a cold day in January of 1993.

There was a baby girl. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, a month premature.

She weighed just four pounds.

Her name was Brooke.

At first, Brooke seemed like a perfectly normal child.

But by the time Brooke turned one, her parents began to become concerned because the baby wasn’t growing as fast as expected. Even though she was now one year old, Brooke was still the size that you would expect for a six-month-old baby.

Her parents took her to the doctor who examined her and found nothing was wrong. They said that Brooke’s development was a little bit delayed, but she would surely catch up.

But over the next few years, the opposite happened. By the time she turned five, Brooke stopped growing altogether.

At the age of eight, Brooke weighed just 13 pounds.

Brooke’s condition of arrested aging was so unusual that she actually began to garner national attention. Scientists and doctors across the country came to study her for possible clues on how to stop human aging.

Finally, in 2013 at the age of 20, legally an adult, Brooke passed away, inhabiting the mind and body of a 2-year-old baby.

“At the age of 20, legally an adult, Brooke passed away, inhabiting the mind and body of a 2-year-old baby.”

Now, Brooke’s mysterious condition is obviously the exception, thankfully, and not the norm because by and large, we expect our children to what? To grow.

In fact, when my wife and I had our kids, we would take them every week to get measured by the doctor. They would measure your weight, your length, your head size, and then they would show you where the baby fell in all of these charts.

I’ll admit that I would kind of obsess over these numbers and these percentiles. This one’s head is in the 90th percentile, so she must be smart. But this one’s weight is only in the 70th percentile. That’s like a C minus, so we got to work harder on that.

Measuring Spiritual Growth

It’s easy to measure physical growth. But what if we were to measure your spiritual growth as a Christian?

Where would you land on the spiritual growth chart?

And have you been growing as you should?

“What if we were to measure your spiritual growth as a Christian? Where would you land on the spiritual growth chart?”

In our passage this morning, the Apostle John will hold up to us a measuring stick to our spiritual bodies to help us see whether our growth is healthy or arrested.

Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:12-14

Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of First John. We were just in the book of 1 John last week, but today we will be in chapter 2 and it will serve us to start at verse 12. If you are using pew Bibles, it is on page 1219 or 1229.

It’s up on the screen as well if you can see that.

Let’s read 1 John 2:12 before we begin.

I am writing to you little children because your sins have been forgiven you for his name’s sake. I am writing you fathers because him who has been from the beginning.

I am writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one.

I have written to you children because the father.

I have written to you fathers because him who has been from the beginning.

I have written to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one.

Let’s take a moment now to ask for God’s blessing as we look at this passage.

Father, we’re so grateful for your word that gives us clarity on so many things in life and how we ought to live, not only for your glory, but for our good. Lord, we want to be a church that is full of growing Christians, that would grow up to maturity and then be honoring to you as a lampstand, a faithful lampstand here in New Jersey.

We thank you, Lord. We pray that you would help us to pay attention to your text today and to learn from your apostle, the Apostle John. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Background: False Teachers Threatening the Church

By way of background, the book of First John was written by the Apostle John to a group of churches that were in grave danger. They were either in a state of spiritual stagnation already or about to fall into it. This was for a very simple reason: false teachers had crept into the area and possibly even into the church.

These false teachers were the antichrists that we learned about last week where Mark Schwambbley helped us unpack in 1 John 1:4. These false teachers taught numerous heresies and lies, and John deals with them throughout his letter. For example, they taught that Jesus did not come in human flesh, but was a spirit and did not really die on the cross.

John directly rebuts this heresy in 1 John 4:2. These false teachers also claimed to have special knowledge about God obtained outside of God’s word that conveniently only they knew about.

Yet at the same time, these false teachers who claimed they knew God openly practiced lives of unrepentant sin, possibly and most likely including sexual sin. They claimed that God was fine with it.

John deals with this false belief in the beginning of 1 John 2:3-4 and actually all of chapter 3.

This type of false teaching, as it crept into the church and infected it, was threatening to throw the church into a tailspin, into a state of deep confusion and stagnation. Nothing stops spiritual growth in its tracks like bad doctrine and a failure to deal with sin. Bad doctrine clouds the mind and unchecked sin deadens your heart.

“Nothing stops spiritual growth like bad doctrine and a failure to deal with sin.”

The Apostle John combats these false teachings and writes this letter to the churches in Asia Minor out of great pastoral concern. He wants these churches to get back to a place where they are growing again.

The Structure of 1 John

And he structures the letter in this way. It’s helpful for us to understand the structure of the letter. The beginning of 1 John from chapter 1 to 1 John 2:12 is where John is primarily laying out the theological basis and ethical groundwork that he needs to lay out in order to combat this false teaching. This section then is mostly focused on what you would say maybe theoretical matters.

But then after 1 John 2:15, John switches to the imperative mode. He switches to giving them commands, looking the church in the eye and saying, “Okay, now this is what you have to do. These are your marching orders.” He delivers them in a very soft, in a very loving way as the apostle John generally does. But yet these are directives nonetheless so that they can successfully throw off the yoke of these false teachers and get back to what they as a church ought to be doing.

So then that section is going to be more commands. John tells them to turn away from sin. In 1 John 3:4, he tells them to forsake false teachers. In 1 John 4:1, he implores them to get back to loving one another. In 1 John 3:11 and to get back to prayer in 1 John 5:14.

Between these two sections of what you would say maybe theory and practice is this short transition section where John, before he gets to commanding the church, looks each of the groups of the church in the eye and with love and concern calls them to attention. And it’s as if he’s saying, “You, you and you, you need to hear this. You need to listen up.”

And buried into this short transition section, John intentionally lays out for them a picture of healthy spiritual growth. And it’s as if he’s saying this: “This is what a healthy church ought to look like. This is what healthy spiritual growth ought to look like. And if you listen to me, if you obey the commands that I’m going to give you in the rest of the letter, then you can get back onto this track.”

“This is what a healthy church ought to look like. This is what healthy spiritual growth ought to look like.”

Three Stages of Spiritual Growth

So then in our section today in chapter 2:12-14, we’ll see that the apostle John is giving us this vision of spiritual growth in three pictures, three stages of growth. We’ll call this the three stages of spiritual growth.

If you like outlines, before we dive into it, I’ll just give you the outline up front: we’ll see simple children, then we’ll see strong young men, and then we’ll see spiritual fathers.

“Three stages of spiritual growth: simple children, strong young men, and spiritual fathers.”

Now, before we dive too far into the text, I want you to notice a few things that are interesting about the text and its structure.

First, you’ll notice that when John goes through the groups of people in the church, he goes through them how many times? Twice. He goes through twice. There are some slight differences, but mostly it’s the same.

Second, you’ll notice that the first time he goes through, he’s writing in the present tense in our English. Then the second time he switches to “I have written.” So he starts writing “I am writing” and then he switches tense to “I have written.”

Finally, you’ll notice that the order he does it in is from children to fathers to young men. He addresses fathers before young men. So why does John do it this way?

The answer is nobody knows. I looked in a lot of commentaries, and no one has a clue. These just seem like stylistic choices that John uses, perhaps for emphasis.

We’re not going to belabor those choices. But just so that you are aware, we will be taking them a little bit out of the order that John presents them in a way that makes sense in our progression. So we’ll look at children first, then young men, then fathers.

Stage 1: Simple Children

So let’s get into it. The first category that John shows us is simple children.

If you have that up there, it’s a little small. Simple children.

Now John is not talking about little kids in physical age like those in our nursery. But throughout the letter, he actually uses this term “little children” as a term of endearment to refer to the entire church. He’s talking about the whole church regardless of physical or spiritual age.

If you want to see this, he does this twice more in just this chapter. In 1 John 2:1: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” And also in 1 John 2:18 and throughout the book.

So I think that when he says “little children,” he’s talking about all believers. But he’s also talking about the common denominator of every believer. This is true of you even when you are first saved. This is really the first thing that’s true about you and therefore the first stage of spiritual growth.

This is where everyone starts out and then we never really get away from it.

“This is where everyone starts out and then we never really get away from it.”

But it’s where we start out.

Your Sins Are Forgiven

What then do simple children, even simple spiritual children, know at the very beginning of their spiritual journey? Look at the text—it says, “Your sins are what? Are forgiven.” That’s the most basic thing about a Christian.

He does not say that your sins are forgiven if you continue to grow or your sins are forgiven if you do enough good works.

No, this is a statement of finality and certainty. It is done. It is a done deal that your sins are forgiven.

“This is a statement of finality and certainty. It is done. It is a done deal that your sins are forgiven.”

Salvation vs. Sanctification

At this point, I think we need to take a small moment to just be super clear about the relationship between the spiritual growth we’re talking about today and forgiveness of your sins.

You see, your sins as a Christian are forgiven you once and for all at a single moment of your life. In a single moment, it is forgiven. The moment is that you confess that you are a sinner before God. And the moment that you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God who came in human flesh, died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins, boom, that’s it. You are part of this club. Your sins are forgiven.

At that moment, you are saved. And that’s the gospel. And if you are not a believer currently, you literally can believe this right now as you sit there and your sins will be forgiven forever.

At that moment, your sins are forgiven completely and you were given a new life. You were transformed. Your eternal destination was permanently changed from being on the way to hell and eternal damnation to heaven and eternal life.

And we call this moment of conversion salvation.

That’s an instantaneous transformation.

The moment you believe, nothing can reverse it. Nothing you do or nothing anyone else does, nothing Satan does, nothing that can happen to you by accident, nothing can reverse it. You cannot sin your way out of salvation.

No power or height or depth or angels or demons, nothing in the future or in the present. Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God. That’s in Romans 8:38.

So you are saved the moment you believe.

However, at that moment, you are not yet perfected in practical holiness. That is, you are not yet morally perfect. Even though you hate sin and you don’t want to do it, lest you dishonor your God and Savior, you will find as a believer that you do sin.

So then spiritual growth, what we’re talking about is the process of gradually shedding your sin over the course of your life in a practical way and instead putting on righteousness that shows itself in good works.

And unlike salvation that happens in one instant, spiritual growth starts at the point that you are saved and then happens gradually over your lifetime. It doesn’t end until you die. We call that process sanctification.

“Spiritual growth is the process of gradually shedding your sin and putting on righteousness. We call that sanctification.”

And unlike salvation, sanctification actually requires you to actively work on your part to resist sin, to put it off, and to do righteous works.

So although believers do sin and will sin until we get to glory, it will hopefully become less and less.

But here John wants to be very clear and he says your sins as a believer even do not ever affect your standing before God. And that’s why John even makes sure to say in 1 John 2:1, he says this: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you what? May not sin.” But listen, he says this. If anyone sins because you will sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation or the satisfaction of God for our sins.

So then because of this, John can tell you confidently that as a believer, all your sins have been forgiven now and in the future. Past, present, and future.

Forgiven for His Name’s Sake

But then he says, he adds this little mysterious phrase at the end of verse 12. Your sins have been forgiven for what? For your sake?

No, for his name’s sake. And this really changes everything.

This changes how we think about this because we are not saved for our own sake. You are saved for his name’s sake. And what does this mean? It’s not about you in the end. It’s not about you at all. Your salvation is in fact all about God’s name and God’s glory.

God’s name is his reputation, his glory and his honor. He is not saving you for your sake, but for his name’s sake. And that is great news for celebration for us.

Because what does scripture tell us? It tells us that if God cares about anything, he cares about his name. Listen to what he says in Ezekiel 36:22.

This is where God is addressing a sinning Israel. He says, “Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, oh house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my holy name which you have profaned among the nations where you went.”

And then he says in verse 23, “I will vindicate the holiness of my great name.” God is extremely concerned about his name. And in this verse, even though Israel was in a horrible state of sin, God is saying, “I will still rescue you because it is my name on the line.”

And when it comes to your salvation, it’s the same. God is putting his name on the line for you.

“Your salvation is all about God’s name and God’s glory. God is putting his name on the line for you.”

If somehow he breaks his promise, God would then be shown to be unfaithful and his name and his reputation and his glory would be tarnished. This is something that God would never let happen.

So instead, God—John here wants to show us and wants us to know that our salvation is actually part of God’s plan to glorify his name. It’s part of his larger plan and God can never fail at that.

So this should give us immense peace as believers, assurance and security in our salvation. This is John’s intention in 1 John 5:13 when he says this: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

He’s writing this entire letter. One of the purposes is for them to know with security and certainty that they have eternal life.

1 John 5:13: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

The Importance of Assurance of Salvation

And why is this assurance of salvation so important for us as believers? It is a blessing for us to have assurance of salvation.

But I think it is because even though sometimes as new believers, we know in our heads our sins are forgiven, we don’t always act like that’s true.

Sometimes the new believer who sins is prone to doubt God’s forgiveness in his heart or to doubt God’s love. And then guilt creeps in. And what do we do?

We run away from God. We avoid prayer because we are ashamed. We don’t come to church and we don’t take communion because we are afraid.

The Danger of Running from God After Sin

This just makes everything worse. Then we spiral into a vicious spiral of destruction. One actual famous example of this is John Bunyan. You may have heard of John Bunyan, who is the author of the famous book “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”

In his autobiography, “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,” Bunyan tells the story of his life after his conversion, where he underwent agonizing struggle with blasphemous thoughts that would appear in his head. He would be tempted to swear because that’s how he lived his life before his conversion.

After his conversion, the temptation to swear actually increased. As a result, John Bunyan was tormented with guilt and fear.

John Bunyan recounts running away from God, avoiding prayer, keeping away from the Bible, forsaking church, and feeling that God had left him.

For you and me, when we sin as believers, don’t do what John Bunyan did and let that drive you away from God. Confess your sin and remember that your sins are forgiven for the glory of God’s name. This should drive you to your knees with joy and thanksgiving.

“When we sin as believers, don’t let that drive you away from God. Confess your sin and remember your sins are forgiven.”

Children Know the Father

Now, we’re going to skip down to the second yellow text here where he addresses children again.

The second time he addresses children, he says something different: that they know the father.

Now an interesting bit of trivia here is that the word for children in verse 13 is a little bit different than the word for little children. This actually does mean child. This actually does mean small child.

I think the idea here is to bring to mind the kind of knowledge that a small child would have of his father.

If you’re a young human child, you know certain things about your father. Some of you have small children. His name. Maybe what food he likes and what food he dislikes. His favorite couch. His favorite meal. He loves you and protects you. You know that he will provide for you and care for you. But that’s actually about how much you know about your father.

“A child’s knowledge of his father is intimate — he knows he is loved — but it is an incomplete knowledge.”

Even to this day, my teenage children, I don’t think any of them know what I actually do for my job.

I think they mostly think I stare at the computer, mutter to myself, and somehow that results in food on the table. But they don’t actually know how any of that works.

Spiritual Children Are Easily Confused

Because a child’s knowledge of his father is incomplete. It’s intimate. He knows he is loved, but it is an incomplete knowledge. Just like young human children, spiritual children who are young in the faith can sometimes be easily confused.

Listen to how Paul describes this. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:14 describes spiritual children. He says, “As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.”

Why are children so easily tossed here and there? Because even though they know the gospel, they don’t really know much else yet. They can be easily conned by false teachers.

When I was a child, I remember we would go to the mall. That was actually a thing you did back then. Nobody ever does that anymore.

My mom would take me to the mall and she would tell me over and over again to never talk to strangers. She would tell me stories, made up or real, I’m not sure, but she would tell me stories of when the mom is distracted and the child is over here, somebody would come up with a lollipop and lure the child away and then they would be on the back of a milk carton, never to be seen again.

When I became a parent, I would tell my children whenever they went to the park by my house that if they ever see a white van without windows to run because they’ll probably get grabbed and a bag would be thrown over their head, they would never be seen again. I bet they still remember me telling them that.

Why did we tell kids those stories? Because they’re kids and they are gullible and easy to be taken advantage of. They don’t yet know how dangerous the world can be.

And so it is with spiritual children. They know the basics. They know that the father loves them. They have a childlike faith.

But to advance to spiritual adolescence, to get out of the first stage of simple faith, they have to grow up in their understanding of God and they have to grow up in their understanding of the world.

Ephesians 4:14: “We are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.”

Stage 2: Strong Young Men

There’s a point at every Christian’s life, I think, where they begin to realize a terrible and shocking truth.

It’s especially difficult for us, I think, to grasp it because we live in a safe and comfortable environment.

But the truth is this: the whole world is actually a war zone. It’s a giant active war zone. And at the moment of your conversion, you were dropped into the front lines of that war.

“The whole world is actually a war zone, and at the moment of your conversion, you were dropped into the front lines.”

It’s only when your spiritual mind is expanded to understand the true nature of the world you live in that you are ready for the next stage of spiritual growth. This is what John refers to as young men. We’ll call this next stage the strong young man or strong young men, and this is in verse 13.

“I am writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one.” In this stage, you have not only grasped that the Christian life is a life of warfare.

But amazingly, you have learned to overcome the war and be victorious.

The World Is a War Zone

Who is this war between? Who is fighting? Well, the war is between the powers of the world ruled by the evil one, that is Satan, and the kingdom of God.

Now, some of you may immediately look up and say, “Wait, what do you mean the world is ruled by Satan?” Well, John himself is the one who tells us this. In John 12:31, he calls Satan the ruler of the world. The Apostle Paul agrees. He calls Satan the god of this world in 2 Corinthians 4:4. And in Ephesians 2:2, Satan is described as the prince of the power of the air.

It’s a prince of the power you see around you. That is the reality of our world. We live in many ways in the kingdom of Satan.

A lot of things in the world that you see start to make a lot more sense once you understand this.

You are an enlisted soldier of God and you are deep in enemy territory.

Now, I want to be clear here. The battle is between Satan, Satan’s evil world system, and the kingdom of God. In this battle, Satan is by no means more powerful than God. In fact, the Bible makes it clear that Satan is only able to do this because of God’s permission. You could say that Satan operates under God’s leash.

But I think a helpful way to think about it is just as God once gave Satan permission to tempt Job, God has given Satan during this time to rule over the world system and the levers of power in the world to tempt and test the saints.

That’s why there’s so much false religion in the world. That’s why the world seems so corrupted because Satan has rigged everything to be against God and the people of God.

Satan has set up this world to promote evil agendas, to trap people in false religion and idolatry, to persecute the true church, and to set up minefields of temptation in hope of ensnaring Christians.

“Satan has rigged everything to be against God and the people of God.”

As a spiritual young man, you slowly begin to see that this invisible battle is going on all around you. And Satan’s kingdom is bearing down constantly on the people of God and you’re on the front lines.

Your Mission in Spiritual Warfare

And what is your mission in this war?

Well, Paul explains it this way in 2 Corinthians 10:3. He says, “We do not war according to the flesh.” It’s not a physical war. It’s not a war you wage with guns.

But the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying what?

Speculations.

And every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. By the way, that verse is commonly misunderstood to think we’re taking our own thoughts captive. This is actually saying we are going out there and taking other people’s thoughts captive. That’s your mission.

The picture here is that you are part of an invading army and you’re invading the fortress of evil.

Your mission is to use your weapons, which is the word of God, the gospel, and to tear down the fortresses, to tear down the false philosophies and religions of the world constructed by Satan to trap sinners and to free them from those systems.

“You are part of an invading army, and your mission is to use the Word of God to tear down the fortresses of evil.”

But it’s not an easy mission because while you are doing that, you are taking enemy fire in the form of temptations and persecution that are trying to take you out of play.

This is really the thrust of the famous verse in Ephesians 6 about the armor of God. In verse 11, he says, Apostle Paul says to put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of what?

The devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against what?

Rulers, against the powers, against the world’s forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day.

That’s today, by the way.

And having done everything to stand firm.

The Apostle Peter puts it like this. 1 Peter 5:8, “Your adversary, the devil, crawls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to what?

Devour.” But resist him firm in your faith.

You see, Satan is trying to take down your character because he knows that if he can tempt you to sin and to destroy your witness, he can neutralize you as a force for God. And if that doesn’t work, then he will throw trials and persecutions your way to see if that will discourage you and slow you down.

The battle here is both offensive and defensive.

And as a spiritual young person, spiritual young man, you have somewhat amazingly figured out how to win this war. You are an overcomer.

You Are Strong in the Lord

You are an overcomer in both offense and in defense. And listen, this seems like a tough, very difficult war, but victory is not only possible, but is actually expected as you see here of the believer. And if you look in the parallel verse in verse 14, he says, “You are strong.” He does not say you are weak and you have no hope.

He does not say this is going to be too hard for you. He says you are strong.

And in what sense are you strong?

You would have to turn over to 1 John 4:4 to see this.

He says, “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.” If you have the Holy Spirit in you as a Christian, how can you not be strong?

You see, every Christian can enjoy victory in this battle. And you need to stop telling yourself that you can’t.

Somehow I think we’ve gotten to this idea that Christians are weak and victims of our sin. And nothing can be further from the truth. We need to tell ourselves that we are strong because God is in us.

“Every Christian can enjoy victory in this battle. Stop telling yourself that you can’t. We are strong because God is in us.”

And then to advance in this war, Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 16:13. He says, “Be on the alert as a soldier. Be on the alert. Stand firm in the faith. Act like what? Act like men. Be strong.

That is, you already are strong as a Christian because of who is in you, and now you just need to start acting like it. You need to really go do something.

And indeed we as Christians can do everything through him who gives us strength.

The Word of God: Your Source of Strength

And what is the source of our strength?

Well, let’s look at verse 14 there. In verse 14 it says the word of God. What abides in you is the word of God. The source of your strength all comes down to learning, memorizing, obeying, applying, and hiding the word of God in your heart.

So that when the day comes that you need to cross swords with the devil, you can come out on top. You can come out on top.

Let me just pause here and ask you: Do you feel like you have matured as a Christian to the place where you can call yourself a spiritual young man? How active and skillful are you at the offensive and the defensive requirements of this war?

Or on the other side, are you just sitting out the battle? Are you sitting it out? Are you not going on the offensive? Are you watching as other people do that?

If that’s you, then maybe you have let Satan win this round. Don’t let Satan take you out before you even get started. Wake up and see the war around you and realize that you are strong.

You are a strong soldier in this war because God dwells within you. You are to pick up your sword, the word of God, and advance toward victory.

“Pick up your sword, the Word of God, and advance toward victory.”

Amen. That’s how you grow.

Stage 3: Spiritual Fathers

There’s one more category that we need to look at even after a young man. This will be brief, and that is a spiritual father. This is in the first half of verse 13: “I am writing to you fathers because him who has been from the beginning.”

This is the end goal: to become a spiritual father.

This man has fought faithfully. He has seen God grant him victory time and time again in the spiritual war zone. He is a veteran of many battles, offensive and defensive.

And he knows how to use the word of God to tear down the ideological forces of Satan. He knows how to defend against temptation. He knows how to deal with persecution.

And through it all, he has seen and experienced the faithfulness of God. He can point even to specific times in his life where things seemed hopeless, yet God granted him victory.

And having known God through his meditations on the word of God as well as his experiences of God’s faithfulness, the spiritual father now knows God not just in a way a small child would know, not just the basic facts, not just in an incomplete way, but a deep and settled and unshakable knowledge.

“The spiritual father knows God in a deep, settled, and unshakable way.”

He can now confidently answer all the big questions of life. Why are we here? What is the point of my life? Where is it going? How did it begin? And how did it end?

And he is no longer deceived easily. Having studied the word diligently, he can smell a false teacher from a mile away.

And this spiritual father also knows how to please God. He knows how to please God because he has in fact walked with God.

Deep Knowledge of Christ

Actually, to see this particular point, we can ask the question of this verse. Why does God—why does John say it this way? Why does John refer to God as he who has been from the beginning?

Why does he choose this peculiar phrase?

Just turn back one page with me to 1 John 1:1 and let’s see how he begins the book of 1 John.

He begins it like this: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life.” Okay, so he’s talking about God. But then he says, what we have touched with our what? Hands.

What we have seen with our eyes. So who is he referring to?

Jesus. He’s talking about Jesus.

What was from the beginning.

That is, John is talking about Jesus here. He is saying that just as John himself, the apostle John, when Jesus was on this earth walked with Jesus, touched Jesus, saw Jesus with his own eyes as a disciple.

John is saying that the spiritual father has just as real and as deep a relationship with the risen Christ as he had.

So through the word of God, we can walk with Jesus in no less of an intimate way than the Apostle John.

“Through the Word of God, we can walk with Jesus in no less of an intimate way than the Apostle John.”

We could truly know Jesus.

Fathers Lead the Troops

Finally, just notice that the fact that this man is referred to as a father brings to mind the fact that he is thought of as a father in the church as well. Not only is he engaging in the battle himself, he is now expected to be a leader of the troops.

He is protecting and loving and exhorting and providing spiritual sustenance for the troops. He’s coming alongside the rest of the congregation in the battle and passing down the knowledge and experience that he has won through hard-fought victories to the next generation of believers.

Just as the apostle John has done here, spiritual fathers ought to act like fathers in the congregation to teach, to exhort, to encourage, and to teach them how to fight.

“Spiritual fathers ought to pass down knowledge won through hard-fought victories to the next generation of believers.”

Application: Assess Yourself and Grow

Well, then these are the three stages of spiritual growth: the simple child, the strong young man, and the spiritual father.

Out of these categories of growth, where would you place yourself?

Your responsibility before God this morning is to assess yourself accurately. Understand clearly what it is that you are lacking to get to that next stage of growth, and then make practical changes in your life to get there by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Once you get to the spiritual father stage, you are not just to sit there. You are also to help others in the church to climb that same ladder.

We are to get there together. The spiritual warfare is not just you as one soldier against the world. It’s an army of God’s soldiers against the powers of Satan.

And the army is right here.

Calvary, don’t be satisfied where you are. Grow up and progress upward for your good, for your joy, for the goodness of the church.

“Don’t be satisfied where you are. Grow up and progress upward for your good, your joy, and the goodness of the church.”

When you can finally hang up your boots as a spiritual father, you can say with the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy: the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. And in the future, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray.

Father, as we think about what you have told us today in this small section of scripture, we’re overcome by how much you have blessed us in giving us first of all assurance of our salvation. That once we believe, we are saved fully and forever.

Thank you for helping us understand that we are not weak as believers, but we are strong because of him who dwells within us.

Thank you that we are able to fight the battle that you have put in front of us, to understanding that when we get to the spiritual father stage, you expect us to act like fathers, to come alongside, to teach, to protect, and to make sure that your war is won.

Lord, we know that in this war it is really you doing all of the work.

We know that at the end your victory is unquestionable.

But Lord, we are so thankful you allow us to participate and you allow us even to be rewarded on the basis of what we do here.

To you be the glory forever. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
August 3, 2025
Test the Spirits by the Spirit
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Note: This transcript and summary was autogenerated. It has not yet been proofread or edited by a human.

Summary

This passage from 1 John 3:23–4:11 teaches us to test every spiritual influence against the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are reminded that false teaching is more prevalent than sound doctrine, even among professing Christians, and that the Holy Spirit within us enables us to discern truth from error. The call is to believe rightly about Christ, know the truth personally and relationally, overcome falsehood through the victory already won at the cross, and speak truth faithfully even when it costs us.

Key Lessons:
1. Truth is not abstract information but is personal and relational — truth is found in Jesus himself, and knowing truth means knowing him.
2. False teaching is far more prevalent than sound teaching, even within professing Christianity, and we must actively test every influence by the standard of Scripture and the identity of Christ.
3. Victory over falsehood and the spirit of antichrist is already assured through the indwelling Holy Spirit — greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world.
4. We must not be swayed by eloquence, appearance, wealth, knowledge, or relationships over faithfulness to Christ and his word.
Application: We are called to actively examine every teaching and influence in our lives — including from trusted leaders — by measuring it against who Christ is and what Scripture says. We must resist the pressure to accommodate worldly values for the sake of comfort or relationships, and instead anchor our identity and loyalty in Christ alone.

Discussion Questions:
1. What influences in your life have you accepted without testing them against Scripture, and how can you begin to evaluate them more carefully?
2. Of the things that tend to sway people — eloquence, appearance, wealth, knowledge, relationships — which one most easily impresses or influences you, and why?
3. How can we practically encourage one another to hold fast to truth even when it costs us relationally or socially?
Scripture Focus: 1 John 3:23–4:11 provides the main framework, teaching that the Holy Spirit enables believers to discern truth from error and that the ultimate test of any teaching is what it confesses about Jesus Christ. Supporting passages include John 16:33 (Christ has overcome the world), 2 Corinthians 2:14–17 (we are a fragrance of Christ), and Psalm 119:97–104 (loving God’s word as the path to discernment).

Outline
Introduction

Would you take your copy of God’s word this morning and turn with me to First John chapter 4?

It’s four four books before the last book of the Bible, which is Revelation.

And if you’re following along in the Pew Bible, you can read along on page 12:20.

To give us a little bit more context today, I’ll be reading starting in chapter 3 23 and reading through chapter 4 11.

This is his commandment that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he commanded us. The one who keeps his commandments abides in him and he in him. We know by this that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them.

Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

They are from the world. Therefore, they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this, the love of God was manifested to us that God sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Would you pray with me?

Father, I pray that we would see, seek, and savor your love in Christ as we see it in your word. That our hearts would love and see the truth because we love and see you.

Grant us a growing spiritual discernment and a desire for more discernment as we navigate all of the influences in our lives, particularly for those falsehoods that claim to be Christian.

Show us, Father, where we have believed lies. Free us from those lies and use us to free others.

Help us to overcome lies and the attacks of the enemy with gospel love and truth.

And finally, Father, make us more like Jesus.

As your word says, we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed from one degree of glory to another, even as from the Lord the Spirit. Father, would you do that even this morning? Amen.

The Danger of Being Deceived

Don’t believe everything you hear or in this age of AI, everything you see. The A in AI is a warning, right? Artificial is telling you something, right? All that glitters is not gold, right? Don’t be so naive.

These are common expressions that I’ve heard throughout my li lifetime. Maybe maybe you’ve heard them as well. And they are meant to help us. They are meant to protect us from danger and deceit.

Now being someone who is tends to be a bit more perfectionistic and idealistic I could be a little bit on in on the naive side particularly as a child. One of the common practical jokes that people would pull would say did that they took the word naive out of the dictionary? I was the guy who said really I remember one particular time where I was I was fooled by a friend to my detriment. It was really humiliating and I expressed my frustration to my mom and she said to me as only a mom can say, “Honey, you’re not naive. You’re just trusting.” No, mom, I’m stupid.

So, we understand that it’s sometimes easy for us to be fooled.

These words are very and these these experiences stay with me. But let me ask you this. Have you ever been lied to?

Do you remember when you’ve been when you were lied to? Maybe you don’t remember when you were lied to, but you remember when you realized later that you were lied to.

It’s very unsettling. And I know that for me as life as life progressed, I became less and less amazed at people’s ability to deceive, their skill and ease with which they do it.

“I became less and less amazed at people’s ability to deceive, their skill and ease with which they do it.”

Given all that, who do you believe?

What do you trust?

Do people trust you?

Why or why not?

I have trust issues and sometimes those trust issues are wellfounded.

In that context, why should we believe Jesus?

John stated this purpose in his gospel in John 20:31.

But these things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

Background and Context

Well, as we proceed, let me give you just a little bit of background and context for this passage. The author of this letter is the Apostle John, one of the 12 disciples that Jesus called.

In Mark 3 starting in verse 14, it says that he appointed 12 so that they would be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to cast out the demons. And beyond that, Luke 10:1 tells us, “Now after this, the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them in pairs ahead of him to every city and place where he himself was going.” So when people ask, “How many disciples did Jesus have?”

That’s not necessarily an easy question to answer. We know that he had 70. We know that he had 12. We also know that he had particular three that were closest to him, Peter, James, and John to whom he would reveal himself more personally, for example, at the transfiguration when he would reveal his glory to them. You can read about that in Luke 9:es 28-36.

And then yet within that inner circle, John was the closest to Jesus. John is described some four times in the gospels as the disciple whom Jesus loved. And even in a conversation with the risen Christ, Peter the Apostle recognized the special relationship that Jesus had with John. And so given all this, the Apostle John is uniquely qualified to speak to us today about knowing and loving Christ.

“The Apostle John is uniquely qualified to speak to us today about knowing and loving Christ.”

Now, John wrote this as an old man toward the end of his life. And when he uses the phrase little children in verse four, that is appropriate both with reference to his age and his maturity and the relative immaturity of the churches he was writing to. And the audience of that letter was not one particular church but living in Ephes Ephesus at that time. It was to the existing churches in Asia Minor which is modern Turkey. Interesting that we heard from someone from Turkey last week. And it was before the great persecution of the church under the emperor dimmission.

The Cultural Context: Syncretism and False Teaching

Now with regard to the cultural context, the Greco Roman world at this time was in a state of cultural, philosophical and religious ferment.

Religious synretatism and inclusivism were the watchwords of the day.

Commentator Donald W. Berdick notes this. Apart from the Judeo-Christian sphere, the world was religiously inclusivistic.

There was always room for a new religion, provided, of course, that it was not of an exclusive nature.

Syncratism, however, did not merely express itself in a mood of tolerance toward other faiths.

Its characteristic expression was in the combination of various ideas and beliefs from different sources to form new or aberrant religions. This was the age of the developing mystery religions, the age of the occult, the age of proliferation of monostic sects.

“This was the age of the developing mystery religions, the age of the occult, the age of proliferation of gnostic sects.”

And as John MacArthur puts in his commentary, nowhere was that more evident than in the Roman church province of Asia located in western Asia Minor in modern Turkey. So the main challenge to the church at this time was not direct persecution but cultural falsehood externally and the resulting threat of false teaching internally.

Our Task: Testing All Things

Brothers and sisters, so it is for us today, is it not? Yeah. So each of us has a task before us today. Mine is to preach the word of God faithfully to you by teaching what it means by what it says. As an overseer candidate, God’s word tells me that I must both exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.

We see that in Titus 1:9. And as I preach 2 Timothy 4:es 2 and 3 tells me that I must reprove, rebuke, and exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time has come when people will not endure sound doctrine.

Well, it says the time will come. I’ll say the time has come, has it not? When people will not endure sound doctrine, but will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. Is that not the world we live in today?

So, that’s my job to preach this faithfully to you. But you have a task as well. If I’m reading this passage correctly, your task today is to not believe me or at least not to take what I say at face value, but to be testing what I say with the eternal word of God today.

You have your Bibles open or your devices, whatever it is that you are looking at the scripture as we walk through it together. I’ve asked some of you for input ahead of the sermon. Thank you.

And I’ve asked some of you for specific feedback following the sermon. And I’m counting on you to do that as you examine what I say according to the word of God. So give it to me straight, boldly, and directly from God’s word. So our purpose statement today, our purpose statement is this. By measuring all things by Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, God intends that we believe the truth, know and grow in our knowledge of the truth, be victorious in the truth, and speak the truth.

“God intends that we believe the truth, know the truth, be victorious in the truth, and speak the truth.”

Believe: Do Not Believe Every Spirit

So with these things in mind, let’s explore together. Let’s look at verse one with me. Our first our first point is believe.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. You look at this and as as I read through the end of chapter 3 and through a bit of chapter 4, you might wonder what is this passage doing here?

First John is all about love, right?

About God’s love for us, us loving him, and us loving one another. This passage seems to be out of place because it’s a stark warning. Something maybe more negative than the rest of the book.

But God calls us to speak the truth. Am I going in and out? God calls us to speak the truth in love. And that’s exactly what’s happening in this book.

This is truth surrounded by love in the very scriptures. God calls us to that.

Proverbs in Proverbs it says, “Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an of an enemy.” And I experienced that in a very deep way this past week. A friend gave me a kind of a stinging rebuke and I appreciated it because I knew that it was nothing but love for God and for me in it. And that’s what we must do with one another. That’s what John is doing here today.

God has described himself as abounding in loving kindness and truth. Christ himself as God being described this way, full of grace and truth. And truth is personal. Now, when when I say the word truth, I don’t want you to associate it merely with the words on a page, the words of your Bible, that is true. But truth is personal. Ephesians 4:21 tells us that truth is in Jesus, and in him are all the treasuries of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2:3, “And he himself said that he is the truth.” And so, when you hear the word truth, think of Jesus.

“Truth is personal. When you hear the word truth, think of Jesus.”

Well, let’s proceed to our passage.

Let’s not skip over the first word.

Beloved. Beloved. Loved by God and his apostle. What is about to be preached is an expression of God’s love. It’s an expression of God’s love. And so, right after that, he said, “Beloved, do not believe.”

And this is emphatic. This is an emphatic command that essentially is saying, “Stop believing. There are certain things that you should stop believing.” The implication here is that the audience is already believing things that aren’t true.

Isn’t that true of all of us? You and I need to recognize right now at this very moment, we believe things that are not true. And we need to come along with the truth. And so the word belief here is the same word that we see used for faith.

And the sense here is that it literally means to be believing, trusting or firmly persuaded by. You do know that what you believe impacts what you think and what you do.

So while you can say that you believe something, I can really tell what you believe by what you do, right? What are you relying on? What are you basing your life on? What are you acting on? That tells us what we believe.

And so belief here is not simply something that impacts our thoughts, but how we live out our lives. So beloved, do not believe every spirit. What does this mean, every spirit? And in context, we understand that this refers to those who profess to speak or act under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or by divine inspiration.

Right? These are people who claim to be from God. And in this context, it may have referred to those who claimed credibility through non-biblical prophetic utterances. And given the proliferation of such people in the ancient world and in our world today, do we not see this in our world today?

It’s essential for us to not believe these spirits, these influences, these claims at face value. Vitally important that we do that, but to have a basis upon which to test them, to discern their source. You see these direct comparisons in the scripture. Is this of God or of the world? We need to be able to discern that at all times.

Test the Spirits by Scripture

And so it says next, test the spirits to see if they are from God.

The sense here is that we be on the alert actively proving and examining them. And an early example of this is found by the the Bereans in Acts 7 11. Paul says this. Now these were more nobleminded than those in Thessalonica. For they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

Acts 17:11: “They received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”

With their Bibles or scrolls or whatever they had open, examining what Paul said.

This is Paul the Apostle.

So when anyone resists you challenging them with the word of God, that is a red flag right there. Some of my Eastern Orthodox friends, for example, you can’t talk to them from the Bible because they don’t see that as an authority. The Bible isn’t what I can read in it. It’s what my priest says that it is.

No, we And so in that sense, we have spiritual leaders putting themselves above the Apostle Paul. Think about that. And think about the humility of Paul ex asking people and demanding that they examine his teaching. So this was the apostle Paul affirming those who did not take his words at at face value. So the scriptures are always always our standard. And why do we do this? The next phrase tells us for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

The Prevalence of False Prophets

And the sense here is that there are many false prophets in the world that remain in place and are even among believers, professing believers. Jesus warned of false prophets some five times in the gospels.

He said, “They come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Matthew 7:15. They will mislead many.

Matthew 24:11. They are also described as false Christs, working signs and wonders and leading many astray, if possible, the elect. We see that in Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22.

And they are spoken well of by all people. Luke 6:26. So that these churches had heard such warnings earlier. Paul said this to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:es 28-30.

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. It just hit me that early on in my life in spiritual leadership in the church, this became very real.

I had to point out a wolf that was among our leadership.

And that was hard, but the church benefited from that. This person left, became a pastor at another church, and I don’t think I have to tell you how that ended up. They did not know that he was a wolf.

The Apostle Peter would later warn, “But false prophets also arose among the people just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies.” That’s in 2 Peter 2:1. So the sobering reality, brothers and sisters, this was amazing to me as I studied this as I’ve studied this over year over the years.

The sobering reality is that false teaching is more prevalent, far more prevalent than sound doctrine, even among professing Christians. That’s overwhelming to think about, but that is true. It was true then, it’s true now.

“False teaching is far more prevalent than sound doctrine, even among professing Christians.”

Know the Truth: The Spirit of God

So, how are we to identify and overcome it? Well, like Jesus and like the apostles, with love and with truth. Look with me at verses two and three. Going to talk for a bit of time here on knowing the truth. What does it mean to know the truth?

By this the spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming and now it is already in the world. As I read through First John, I’m amazed at how much the word know shows up.

That you can know certain things for certain. That of itself is countercultural these days when we are told in this postmodern age that you can know nothing for certain which is a is a statement of certainty oddly enough.

“You can know certain things for certain — that is countercultural in this postmodern age.”

Can’t get away from it.

Truth Is Personal: Knowing Christ

What is truth? Pilate asked Jesus.

Listen to this from John 18 37-38.

Therefore, Pilate said to him, “So you are a king.” Jesus answered, “You say correctly, that I am a king.

For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, “I find no guilt in him.” This has been going on for a long time.

But truth as we’ve talked about is again always associate truth not only with the written word of God but with the incarnate word of God Jesus. So truth is not abstract but it’s personal, it’s relational and it’s experiential.

Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:17 that we would have a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.

That’s not just head knowledge. That literally means the active participation in acquiring and personal involvement in applying the knowledge of God. It’s personal. It’s relational. It’s not simply information.

“Truth is not abstract but personal, relational, and experiential.”

And as John said in 1 John 5:20, “And we know that the son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true in his son Jesus Christ.

This is the true God and eternal life.

So brothers and sisters, it’s all about knowing him.

The Internal Witness of the Holy Spirit

With that in mind, let us proceed with our passage verse two.

By this the spirit of God.

Now for those of us who are in Christ, Jesus promised that he would be with us through the indwelling Holy Spirit. He actually said with his disciples that it is better that I go away because the Holy Spirit will be with you and be in you. It’s amazing.

That’s better than if Jesus was physically standing in front of us. God is so good to us. So in unpacking the realities of our salvation, the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 1:13-14, “In him you also after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.”

So how do we know? How do we know? Chapter 3:23 told us tells us the one who keeps his commandments abides in him and he in him. We know by this right the Holy Spirit that he Christ abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us. That’s how we know.

So we have an internal witness of the Holy Spirit which enables us to discern the external witnesses which come at us which claim to be from God. Jesus refers to this indwelling spirit as the spirit of truth who would guide you into all truth. John 16:13 Romans 8:15 reminds us that this Holy Spirit bears internal witness that we are the children of God.

“We have an internal witness of the Holy Spirit which enables us to discern the external witnesses which claim to be from God.”

And in the first chapter of this book, 1 John 3-7, the Holy Spirit resonates with the Holy Spirit in others and is the basis of our fellowship. A rich basis of our fellowship, is it not? So by the spirit we come to know and gain continual assurance of our identity as one of his.

Confessing Christ: The Litmus Test

Let’s let’s move on. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And so the when it says this, it refers to the discernment of external influences that claim to be Christian that claim to be of the Holy Spirit. And so what does it mean to to confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? It’s not merely to acknowledge that Christ was a literal person who existed. It’s not merely that. The sense here is that we confess and concede Christ’s true identity, that he is both fully human and fully divine.

We confess that he is fully divine, that he is God and came from God the father and is one with him and he is eternally preexistent with God. This is a doctrine that’s been under attack from the very beginning.

John 1:es 1-2, in the beginning was the word. That’s Jesus. And the word was with God. And the word was God. Amen. He was in the beginning with God. So we don’t compromise on the nature of Christ as being God incarnate.

This was a mighty battle in the early centuries of the church as you may know. But we also acknowledge that he is fully human and and this is a mystery that we take God’s word as truth on and that he took on flesh forever. Right?

In the beginning of 1 John 1, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life. And the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaimed to you the eternal life which was with the father and was manifested to us. That we have seen and heard and proclaimed to you also so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the father with the son Jesus Christ.

John MacArthur says this. A person’s understanding and acceptance of Jesus identity is the ultimate litmus test of the legitimacy of his professed faith.

“A person’s understanding and acceptance of Jesus’ identity is the ultimate litmus test of the legitimacy of his professed faith.”

We must believe this about him. When every spirit that does not confess Jesus does not confess the reality of who he is is not from God. The person who does not confess and conceit Christ as he is for what he himself and that the apostles testified is not from God. So we measure all things by Christ. He is the limous test of our faith.

The Spirit of the Antichrist

Passage goes on to say that this is the spirit the spirit that does not confess Christ as he is. This is the spirit of the antichrist. The sense here is the one who opposes Christ, who usurps the place of Christ and deny that he is the Messiah, essentially making themselves and not Christ an authority or influence.

And so while knowing that there is a final antichrist coming in the future, you can read about that in 2 Thessalonians 2 and Pastor Bobby has been preaching to us about that from Revelation and that we are learning about the spirit of antichrist precedes him through false religion and aberant doctrine. You notice the the many antichrists that we’ve been talking about pave the way for the final antichrist. So this has been happening for quite some time for centuries now.

John goes on to say of which you have heard that it is coming and now it is already in the world.

No doubt the believers were certainly aware that the antichrist were coming.

They may not have been as aware as they should have been of the antichrists which existed among them.

So they were anticipating they were anticipating the antichrist coming. They needed their senses awakened to see the antichrists that were coming that were already among them. So the apostle Paul had already detailed some of this in a previous chapter in 1 John.

If you look back with me to chapter 2 starting in verse 18, children, it is the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, from now even many antichrists have appeared. From this we know that it is the last hour.

They went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so that it would be shown that they are not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.

I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

Who is the liar, but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist. The one who denies the father and the son. Whoever denies the son does not have the father. The one who confesses the son has the father also. So we see that many antichrist will precede the final antichrist. That false prophets show up as true believers. This is a sobering reality.

1 John 2:22: “Who is the liar, but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist.”

Have we not seen people fall? People even we would say from our own tribe right people who claim to be even reformed Christians who have a high view of God and a high view of scripture even some of them have proven to be antichrists as they’ve fallen away the apostle Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 11 13-4 says for such men are false apostles deceitful workers disguising themselves as apostles of Christ and no wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. We must recognize this sober reality.

But we have the Holy Spirit to enable us to discern. And the litmus test of truth, may we never forget it, is what one believes about Christ. So one of the things I love about this passage is that it’s a very trinitarian passage. You notice this? We notice the presence of the spirit confessing that Jesus is from God the father.

Overcome with the Truth

God in his glory is revealing himself to us. So having discerned the truth, what do we do with it? Well, that leads us to our next two points. We overcome with the truth and we speak and listen to the truth.

Overcome with the truth. Read verse four with me. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them.

Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. What assurance that is.

Satan, our enemy, is much stronger than us. We cannot fight him in the flesh and win, but he is no match for God, and we have the Holy Spirit within us. I loved how pastor Dave explained to us that story from Pilgrim’s Progress about Pilgrim fighting Apolon.

I love that victory through the word of God. He was not powerful enough in his flesh. But with this word of God illumined by the spirit of God, he overcame. And so it is with us. So you are from God, little children.

John reassures them as an elderly apostle and shepherd that they are from God and they can know this by the evidence of the Holy Spirit in their lives and have overcome them. And the sense here is that they have already been victorious and would continue to have victory over God’s enemies. These antichrists who seek to oppose and even replace Christ as authorities.

“Satan is much stronger than us, but he is no match for God, and we have the Holy Spirit within us.”

You struggle to walk in victory sometimes to recognize that the victory actually is already yours. This is an amazing thing to think about it. It’s as if playing a great contest, a great war, a great battle, a great sporting event, knowing that the outcome is sure, no matter what the score is on the scoreboard. We know this. We know this.

Greater Is He Who Is in You

And times are dark now. They will be getting much darker, but victory is assured. Greater is he who is in us.

Amen. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. The Holy Spirit within is greater than he who is of the spirit of the world, namely Satan.

1 John 4:4: “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.”

If you look a little further at 1 John 5 18-19, it reassures us the evil one for us, the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

So now we’re starting to get in the point of the passage where it’s talking about the world contrasting what is from God and what is from the world. And that’s explained to us very clearly if you look back with me at chapter 2 verses 15-1 17. I trust these are familiar verses to many of us. Do not love the world, nor the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the father, but is from the world. The world is passing away and also its lusts. But the one who does the will of God abides forever.

What assurance we have.

How We Overcome

So how is it that we have overcome such overwhelming power. How is this true?

The first way we overcome is by being in him and doing his will knowing that this will last forever as the verse said. And while the world’s values are passing away, Jesus said that he has already overcome the world in the midst of tribulation.

John 16:33, “In this world, you have tribulation.” Amen. We do. That’s obvious. But take courage. I have overcome the world.

And he is in us. So, we overcome through the cross. Jesus has disarmed and publicly humiliated both the rulers of this world and the demonic rulers who rule. We see this in Colossians 2:15 what a former pastor friend of mine called the divine beatdown. It’s a decisive victory.

“We overcome through the cross. Jesus has disarmed and publicly humiliated the rulers of this world.”

And we notice even in 1 John in chapters 2:es 13-4. It tells us we’ve overcome. I am writing to you fathers because him who has been from the beginning. I’m writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one.

I’ve written to you children because the father. I’ve written to you fathers because him who has been from the beginning. I’ve written to you young men because you’re strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. Interesting.

The word young men comes up a few times. I have a specific word for you young men a little bit later. My heart is with you and your desire to be strong in the Lord. So in the ultimate sense we overcome false teachers because we are alive in Christ. The false teachers are not. And we overcome Satan because he is headed for eternal destruction, but we for eternal glory.

With that, let’s go to our last point.

Speak the Truth: The World vs. God

Speak the truth. Speak the truth. Read with me verses five and six. They are from the world. Therefore, they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. But we are from God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Sometimes this is obvious.

Often it’s not. When professing Christians use the language of the world that shows up sometimes in pretty obvious ways, but it is often veiled and deceptive, maybe even clothed with scripture. You do know that Satan used scripture to tempt Jesus.

The basis of falsehood is truth. Truth twisted. We must know that.

“The basis of falsehood is truth — truth twisted. We must know that.”

So when it says they are from the world, the sense there is they are ruled by the values of the world and its ruler.

In contrast, Jesus said in John 14:30, “The ruler of this world is coming and he has nothing in me.” Just elaborate a little bit on this. They are from the world. We can know this sometimes by the simple words that someone says that are worldly and in contrast contradiction to the scriptures.

But we need to look deeper than that. To the extent that we can, we need to look at their lives. So what’s going on there? Right? Even as undersheperds, right? The scriptures tell you to examine us. Hebrews 13 it says look at the outcome of their way of lives of their of their way of life and imitate their faith. Don’t follow everyone. Don’t imitate everyone but look look more deeply.

This is one of the things I love about this role is the examination and the protection that comes with that. It’s with it. It’s very very sobering. So they are from the world. Sometimes you can tell by the words often you can tell by the actions. And therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. And the language here is very interesting.

The Echo Chamber of the World

The sense here is that of an echo chamber. We hear that phrase a lot I think these days. An echo chamber babbling randomly and continually with the failed values of the world. You notice there’s a there’s a unique old stale familiar familiarity with what the world says. The same arguments, the same phrases so often over and over again.

It’s interesting as people talk about, for example, issues related to marriage and sexuality. I’ve been hearing these same phrases and arguments since I was a student in college. It’s nothing new.

It’s nothing new. It’s nothing clever.

And the world is understanding.

They’re just kind of nodding, affirming what is being said. They follow the same old playbook. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life. We know the folly of these lusts. What is lust? I think the best definition that I can come up with from scripture is lust is an overwhelming desire that is way out of proportion with the value of the thing desired. Right? You desire something that’s just not going to be of benefit either in this life or the next.

“An echo chamber babbling randomly and continually with the failed values of the world.”

And so that’s really what lust is. And false teachers exper experience apparent success in the world because they are accommodating to the values of the world. As the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:14, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.

These false teachers are coming after you are coming after us. They may even be among us. Don’t think that we’re immune from that. We have a strong commitment to the truth here. But the word of God is sober and straightforward that false teachers arise from among you. I was I was amazed. Some of you might know the name who’s the Mars Hill pastor who wrote Love Wins? Rob Bell. Some of you might know that name Rob Bell. Rob Bell was a sound teacher until he wasn’t. And at our former church, I met a young man who was a student at Rutgers who grew up in that church.

And it was going well until it wasn’t.

And fortunately, he was grounded in the word of God and his family was as well.

And so they began to recognize things as they were drifting away from the truth.

But not everybody did and not everybody does.

So in contrast to this speaking as from the world, we recognize what James pointed out to us that friendship with the world is hostility toward God.

Listen to this harsh warning to us. Very important that we recognize you adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. That’s James 4:4.

A Word to the Youth

Let me just say a word or two to the youth on this. Pure pressure and strong.

You can’t be one of the cool kids and be faithfully following Christ. You can’t given the choice between pleasing God and pleasing people. You must choose God.

This is real. When our kids were entering the teenage years, typical thing to talk about is areas of sexuality and marriage and the birds and the bees talk, right? If you will.

We didn’t start with that. We started with peer pressure. What will you do if your friends want you to do something that is against what God says and you have to choose? What will you do? Will you go along with the herd?

Interestingly, I thought of this phrase that I I heard a pastor say this and I thought it was really helpful. He said, “You can’t make a difference by being like everyone else.” After which this pastor became like everyone else eventually.

So it happens.

So settle that. Settle that in your mind. Please God, that has a much longer shelf life, an eternal life for you. I noticed as a young person as soon as I came to Christ at the age of eight, I began to notice that the things that my friends enjoyed doing had no appeal to me.

“You can’t be one of the cool kids and be faithfully following Christ.”

And the things that bothered me didn’t bother my friends. I felt very out of place.

It was hard . And then I soon recognized this was because I have the Holy Spirit and I am out of place.

You and I are out of place in this world. If we feel comfortable in this world, there’s a problem. If you’ve read the book Pilgrim’s Progress, you may know that sequence where they travel through Vanity Fair. So interesting.

There’s a magazine called Vanity Fair.

It’s not a good thing. Not a good place.

And they just wanted to travel through and the people there would not let them because they not only could could just not participate. They were they had to participate. They had to go along with the sin that was happening. And because they wouldn’t do that, they were tortured and one of them was killed.

That’s how the world is. It’s not enough for you to just do your own thing. No, you’ve you’ve got to you’ve got to go along. You’ve got to along go along. We we must know the truth. Who must know him and resist that.

And so, while we seek to love and to bless people in the name of Christ, Christ himself warns us in Luke 6:26, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.” And I noticed the phrase, “When all men all men speak well of you.” So, not all approval from people is a warning, but the approval of all certainly is. If you’re getting no push back, you’re doing something wrong.

You’re doing something wrong. All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Settle that in your mind. What do you love and who do you love? 1 Corinthians 2:12-14 reminds us that the Holy Spirit is not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who’s from God that we might know the things freely given to us by God, revealing truth to us, spiritual thoughts and spiritual words.

Second Timothy, I’m sorry, 2 Corinthians 2:14-17, let’s turn there together. I think this is worth looking at together. Is a wonderful reminder of these truths that we’re discovering today. And it’s something that I think about really almost every day as I go into the world and as I interact mostly with people who are far from God.

Second 2 Corinthians 2 starting at verse 14. But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ. There’s that victory again. Amen. And manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of him in every place.

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like me many pedalling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.

Interesting. We are a sweet fragrance to whom? To God among the world. Some will be drawn to that, but most will not.

Most will oppose. We do not pedal the word of God. We don’t use it as a commodity to reinforce the world’s values, but we speak his word sincerely and truthfully to please him. You do know that a lot of people, particularly politicians these days, are abusing the word of God, co-opting it selectively to promote their agenda. We ought not that is pedalling the word of God. And preachers who go along with that are pedalling the word of God. They’re not preaching it.

We ought to recognize that.

We Are From God

Let’s move on. We are from God. Now, that sounds like a really presumptuous statement. We are from God. And often I’ve heard this throughout my life. Who speaks for God. Who are you to speak for God? Well, I’m nobody. But I’ve got something that I can share with you from his word. How do we know that we’re from God? As established earlier, it’s by his Holy Spirit that testifies within us.

This is not an assertion of our power or our goodness, but of Christ in us. And we ought be confident in that. It’s not about you and I, but it’s about him. He who knows God, as we continue, listens to us.

When we perceive God properly, we understand and obey him together. We’re all in this together, brothers and sisters, aren’t we? Yeah. He is our king and our father. We are family in Christ, submitting to his loving rule, his loving shephering, his loving fathering.

“This is not an assertion of our power or our goodness, but of Christ in us.”

We need, bro, brothers and sisters, we need help. We need to help each other in doing this and encourage each encouraging each other to do this day after day. It says in Hebrews as long as it is called today, we are to encourage one another to obey.

He who is not from God does not listen to us.

It’s a sobering reality as Jesus said, “If they hate you, know that they hated me first.” Those who hate God hate us.

That’s how it goes. If we’re living rightly, I do want to qualify that the Apostle Peter says there’s no benefit if you are if you suffer for doing wrong, right? We’re not we’re not making an excuse for sinning as Christians, but if we do right, and we are persecuted, we are blessed. Amen.

Knowing the Spirit of Truth and Error

So by this as the passage ends we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error because we have the spiritual perception by the indwelling Holy Spirit. We certainly know and continue to understand truth. Truth really means the unveiled reality and the veritable essence of something. You have to look below the surface very often to see what is true. Truth is very often not on the surface. So we know the truth and we know error what is deceiving, seductive and fraudulent.

“We have spiritual perception by the indwelling Holy Spirit to know truth and to know error.”

Error looks good. It’s very persuasive.

Let’s talk about that a little bit. I won’t read through this, but in 1 Timothy 1 chapters 3-7, a faithful brother just pointed this out to me Friday. Tells us to avoid certain people.

I’ll just read a a couple phrases from it. Instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths andless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith. Speculation takes on various forms. Some of it is clever philosophy.

Some of it is as one preacher often says, “Well, I don’t know.” Well, if you don’t know, maybe you ought not preach.

Just a thought, right? And this and this says that many have turned aside to fruitless discussions wanting to be teachers of the law even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. People can say very they can say nonsense very eloquently and confidently.

We need to be on the alert for that. So we must recognize how appealing and how seductive error can be. I mentioned earlier Ephesians 4:14, our warning that we not be tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

And then what we read earlier in 2 Timothy 4 that the time will come and I said the time has come when men will not endure sound doctrine but wanted to have their ears tickled. They will accumulate for themselves teaching teachers in accordance with their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. As I interact with some of my Christian brothers and sisters people say well people don’t want that.

You need to give people what they want.

Really really the mind on the flesh is hostile toward God for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even able to do so. But we preach the foolishness of the cross don’t we?

Guarding Against Deception

Because through it God saves some. We don’t back down. But we we can easily turn aside right if we are not careful if we are not on guard we will drift toward deception. Nobody drifts toward truth right it doesn’t happen.

Hebrews 2:1. I was at an apologetics conference early this year, and I love this emphasis from Hebrews 2:1. For this reason, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it.

Pay much closer attention. I hope you’re really paying attention today. I hope someone points out something that I missed today. That would be really a blessing to me to know that you’re paying attention.

I didn’t put anything I’m not tricking you. I didn’t put anything intentionally wrong to do that, but I’m sure I didn’t get everything right. So, I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Hebrews 2:1: “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it.”

So, we must always be looking beyond deceptive appearance to underlying reality and truth. Jesus reminds us in John 7:24, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” Right? I love I love that sequence with David and Goliath do not look or this is actually prior to that with with David and his brothers.

Do not look at his appearance, nor at the height of his stature. Good news for us short people.

Some of you caught that. Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature. For God sees not as man sees, for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Even in Isaiah 11:2-4, as Isaiah prophesied about Christ, he said that Jesus would not judge by what his eyes see or by by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he would judge.

And so here we in summing up we note both the internal and external tests. The internal assurance assurance of Christ in us through the Holy Spirit and the external assurance of our faith and measuring all things by Christ. So with that let me get to our conclusion and application.

I’m going to get a little specific here.

Application: What Are You Swayed By?

In any influence that’s coming at you, we need to ask ourselves, what does that have to do with Christ?

Someone claims to come in the name of Christ. Well, h how much is that person like Christ? How much are his words like Christ? We we need to be so familiar with him and his words that we can spot that. But we can still be fooled. Ask yourself, what what are you impressed with?

What are you swayed by or attracted to?

Is it eloquence?

Proverbs 26:24-25 says, “He who hates disguises it with his lips, but he lays up deceit in his heart when he speaks graciously. Do not believe him, for there are seven abominations in his heart.” When we preach, we try to be clear, but we don’t rely on on eloquence as a tool, as a persuasive tool. Paul didn’t do that. We saw that in 1 Corinthians 1, did we not? I did not come to you with eloquence. And I don’t know if that was because he couldn’t or he wouldn’t. But we know that he didn’t. And God used him powerfully.

“In any influence coming at you, ask yourself: What does that have to do with Christ?”

How about appearance or style?

Again, we read from Jesus, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” John 7:24. It’s worth noting that both John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul were distinctly unimpressive in their appearance. Yet, Jesus said of John the Baptist, “There was no one greater among men.” And God used the Apostle Paul to write most of the New Testament. Maybe not most, a lot of it.

I’d have to look that up. I remember the the verse where it says that of Paul that his words are are weighty, but his personal appearance is unimpressive and his words are contemptable. Praise God.

So, are you impressed by eloquence, appearance, or style? How about wealth?

This is a big one. James 2 reminds us that we should not be partial to the wealthy. I love how it begins. Says, “Do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus with an attitude of personal favoritism.”

Glorious Lord Jesus. If we know his glory, we’re just not that impressed with people. And it’s important that we not be. Psalm 49 16-20 read this. Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased.

For when he dies, he will carry nothing away. His glory will not descend after him. Though while he lives, he congratulates himself. And though men praise you when you do well for yourself, he shall go to the generation of his fathers, they will never see the light.

And I love this. Man in his pomp, yet without understanding is like the beasts of the field which perish.

Isaiah 2:22 says, “Stop regarding man whose breath is in his nostrils.” We should be we should not be so impressed. In fact, in many in many ways, we should be distinctly unimpressed if we know God. How about knowledge or skill? This is one we read earlier in 1 Corinthians 1. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the message preached.

The foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

It’s beautiful stuff. The foolishness of God is wiser than men. The weakness of God is stronger than men. And we should boast in him. So, there’s a godly sense in which we should not be impressed with what the word world is impressed with.

Are You Swayed by Relationships?

But here’s one that might be a little bit more subtle that I want to talk to you about. Are you swayed by relationships?

This is a big one, an important one, because we want to be at peace with people. We want people to like us. We want to have healthy relationships.

1 John 5:2 says, “By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe his commandments.” At our former church, the preacher took that verse and he said, “We love God by loving one another.” I thought for a minute and I looked at the passage and it says the opposite.

It’s counterintuitive. How do we love one another? By loving God. We love others best by putting him first. That’s how that goes.

I’ve seen people consistently choosing peace in relationships over truth.

Essentially choosing people over God.

This is hard. This happens in our families. I’m looking at some of you and I know this is really hard in your in your own families. Yeah. But to choose people over God is actually not loving.

“How do we love one another? By loving God. We love others best by putting him first.”

People seek or stay in places where they are comfortable socially.

There may be people their age or programs catered to them. These may be helpful, but they’re not primary and they are no substitute for truth. I’ve seen people sacrifice relationships for truth. Yes, doctrine can divide, but doctrinal truth unites us like nothing else. Brothers and sisters, what are we all doing here? I’m looking out at you.

It’s like, why are we even together?

Because we love him and we love the truth. It’s an amazing thing. I’ve seen people compromise in this area in terms of where they fellowship, go to church, they say, “Well, I know they’re not really teaching so strongly, but but my friends are there and or or in a relationship say, “Well, I I choose the relationship.

Which one?

Which relationship? With God or with others?” And again, I’m looking at you.

And I know this has come at a cost to some of you. Is he worth it? Is Christ worth it? He is worth it. He is worthy.

So true unity and deep fellowship can only come through truth that is in Jesus. And unity with each other comes not by focusing on each other but on Christ who unites us all. Calls us into fellowship with with him and with one another.

So as I’ve said, this is difficult, but what we gain in Christ is worth it. So what draws you most? Is it eloquence, appearance, wealth, knowledge, skill, relationships?

What about truth? What about character?

What about Christlikkeness? And for these we must discern below the surface.

Falsehood in the Church: Identity and Design

I’m going to just suggest a couple of areas as we close where falsehood has crept into the church. And I wouldn’t even say crept. It has been intentionally planted into the church by false apostles. Think about God’s design for marriage and sexuality. God’s beautiful design. In his image, he created us male and female. The two shall become one flesh. The man and the woman shall become two. Two shall become one flesh. That is beautiful. When you are when you are at a Christ centered wedding, anything less than that just seems ugly because it is. The beauty of God’s design is on display.

And when we think about issues of identity, Psalm 100 verse3 says that it is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Our identity comes from him. Our greatest flourishing comes from him. We don’t define ourselves. We don’t identify ourselves. He does.

Colossians 3:es 9-11 I think is worthy of our consideration today.

Do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. A renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, cythian, slave and free man.

But Christ is all and in all. Brothers and sisters, when we make our identity anything other than our identity in Christ and we emphasize that we are in rank sin. We are emphasizing the things that God says don’t emphasize. I’m not saying don’t be sensitive to people’s experiences and backgrounds.

Colossians 3:11: “Christ is all and in all. When we make our identity anything other than Christ, we are in rank sin.”

Vital that we do that, right?

But our identity is in Christ. Do not lie to one another about these things.

Right? There is no distinction in Christ. Praise the Lord. This is an amazing thing to think about. I came from a church that emphasized these differences. We don’t. And we are far more diverse in that church, if I might just say so. Interesting. Why? Because Christ unites us. Because Christ does the work. So, we ought not lie to one another by emphasizing our differences, but our common identity in Christ.

There’s some other things I can mention.

Our Citizenship Is in Heaven

There’s a lot of abuse right now, as I said, in terms of how people view government and abuse scriptures. With regard to that, our citizenship, brothers and sisters, is in heaven. From whom we await a savior. He is our lord.

So we are completely free to evaluate all of this by Christ. And we can say I’m not I’m not aligned or my loyalty isn’t to a political party or a movement or a person. It’s to Christ. So we’re completely free to accept this and say that I think aligns with God’s word and that doesn’t because our loyalty is to him. Critical that we do that. There’s a lot of abuse in that area. And so we ought to think about that and I trust that you will.

“Our citizenship is in heaven. We are completely free to evaluate everything by Christ.”

So the world and increasingly the professing church often says things that are contrary to the word of God.

We’ve learned that friendship with the world is hostility towards God and is spiritual adultery.

That is serious.

You and I cannot serve two masters.

Conclusion: Follow the Voice of the Good Shepherd

Will you choose the world or the word? We can and we must know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

My final question for you today is, will you follow the voice of your great shepherd?

Hear the words of Jesus from John chapter 10.

When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them. And the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. I am the good shepherd and I know my own and my own know me.

My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Our great shepherd to follow a leader who knows where they’re going. That’s something right there, huh? Wow. So, how do we do this?

Let me close with just a couple verses from Psalm 119, which is a prayer for us, and I think will be instructive in terms of how we do this in our lives. So, pray this with me, and we’ll end our time together. Psalm 119, starting in verse 97.

Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine. I have more insight than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged because I’ve observed your precepts. I’ve restrained my feet from every evil way that I may keep your word. I have not turned aside from your ordinances. For you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, yet sweeter than honey to my mouth. From your precepts I get understanding. Therefore I hate every false way.

Father, Savior, Holy Spirit, may you yourself lead us, teach us personally by your perfect word. May this all be true of us. May we believe, know, grow, overcome, and speak and listen to the truth as we know, love, and become more like your son, Jesus.

Amen.
July 27, 2025
The Wonder of God’s Love

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this morning I would like you uh if you have your Bibles to turn to 1 John chapter 4 like to read verse number 7 through verse 21 because when we sing about the Gospel of Jesus Christ when we celebrate Christmas we cannot forget that Christmas is really about God’s wonderful love towards a lost Humanity that that is the key to um understanding the heart of God when it comes to Salvation so 1 John chapter 4 verse number 7 it says beloved let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God the one who does not love does not know God for God is love by this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him in this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins beloved if God so loved us we ought to love one another no one has seen God at any time if we love one another God abides in us and his love is perfected in Us by this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his Spirit we have seen and testify that the father has sent the son to be the savior of the world whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God God abides in him and he in God we have come to know and have beli the love which God has for us God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him by this love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment because as he is so also we in this world there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment and the one who fears is not perfected in love we love because he first loved us if anyone says I love God and hates his brother he is a liar for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen and this commandment we have from from him that the one who loves God should love his brother also let’s pray father this morning as we come before you we thank you for this time of year that we can specifically focus in on the celebration of Jesus Christ coming into this world we thank you for the plan that you had an eternity past that this would take place that you had a plan for us that Jesus would come he would live a perfect life and he would ultimately go and submit himself to the cross of Calvary and die in the place of unjust people like us so Lord I pray that we would recognize this morning that that was all because of your wonderful love because you are the source and the originator of love we would never understand it we couldn’t even know what it is unless we we see it in the greatest demonstration that you have demonstrated for us in sending your son and then also in dying the place of Sinners and so Lord we praise you today for this great work you have done in behalf of us and we want to we want to Bas now and listen to and be see from the word of God about your wonderful ful love and I pray in Christ’s name amen so what a blessed time of year Christmas season is it’s the excitement fills the air while people are talking about meeting with family friends enjoying their favorite foods and people are chatting about giftgiving and about time off from work in school but too often in all the commotion there EX resist a societal confusion a a misinformation in other words about who Christ is and what he came to do while there is no facts proving the reality of Santa Claus elves reindeers and things like these every year they are presented as realities yet on a silent night in Bethlehem in the city of David there has been born for you a savior who is Christ the lord see this news is a historical fact it is a prophetic fact and it is a scriptural fact still every year it’s buried under a pile of misinformation and its message is purposely obscured now for example you have seen bumper stickers that read xmiss on it uh and people see that and they respond and say we we ought to put Christ back in Christmas as a substitution of the letter X for the name of Christ see what they may not know is because the knowledge is not readily available is that the idea of X as an abbreviation for the name of Christ which came into use in our culture with no intent to show any disrespect for Jesus in fact the first letter of the Greek word christas is transliterated into the alphabet as an X it is the first in the Greek name letter in the Greek name for Christ yo Christos is an X that we would view it as so X has come through church history to be a Shand symbol for the name of Christ and has a long sacred history it’s a short version that people used however that does not mean that when people of our day have used the letter x some do intend to ex out Christ from the holiday and use it in a derogatory manner so things can get UNM misunderstood very easily if you don’t always know the history behind it and one of the things that is definitely confused is who Jesus is and why he came so in the midst of all the confusion of the holiday season let’s instead get lost in three astonishing things about the love of God about The Wonder of God’s love and so I’m going to look at it from first John just two verses verse 9 and 10 I read you the context and the first point is this that the wonderful The Wonder of God’s love can be seen in his initiative to secure salvation of Sinners it says in our text in verse Number Nine by this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world and by the term World it it meant the world of mankind indefinitely ruined by Adam’s sin if you are spiritually alert you must conclude that God is active in Salvation in other words God actually goes out after us and seeks for us he is not a God who can be persuaded by our lives and by our actions to forgive us but a god whose love is actually so great that he not only forgives but also persuades us to be forgiven if salvation is something we earn there’s no incentive to lift up our voices to praise God for wonderful for his wonderful love and great salvation we there’s no reason to do it however if salvation is entirely the result of something God has done well then praise and wonder must be part of the astonishment of the Saints who lift up praises to God for the great things he has done and for so great and magnificent a Salvation he’s given to us even in the book of Hebrews it declares that if someone rejects the salvation of this offer in in the Heavenly father’s initiative to send the only one fit to carry out the mission to save people that is Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ who is who was nominated and appointed by the father to be the savior of the world and by way of the question in Hebrews is this how we how will we escape if we neglect so great salvation that’s a question and the answer to the question is There Is No Escape if someone neglects the message you see when Jesus showed up on the earth that is when God’s love appeared in visible form if it tells us this also in Titus but when the kindness of God our savior and his love for mankind appeared he saved us not on the basis of Deeds which we have done in righteousness but according to his Mercy and in the passage that I just read was really a passage that shows us that we observe God’s omnic God God’s um ability to show his love to mankind by Jesus Christ coming into the The World God was manifested in the passage we read actually in our scripture reading God initiated an announcement to Mary by the angel Gabriel and God’s promise Plan of Salvation was given to her and what was her response when God the angel spoke to Mary Mary said to the angel how can this be since I’m a virgin now of course that would be a great observation and Mary’s question how I’m a virgin I never known a man her question really was not a question of Doubt her question really was a question of Wonder it was a question of design that Mary is asking about the mechanics of the whole thing how’s this going to work out how can such an impossible thing be fulfilled something like this has never happened if before it is unheard of also historically remember that people were not familiar with hearing from God since Malachi the prophet since Malachi the prophet really God did not even have a message for people they had the Old Testament but God wasn’t speaking through a prophet anymore God didn’t speak through a prophet for 400 years not until John the baptizer did he speak John being the last prophet and but remember Elizabeth was pregnant with John as Mary was pregnant with Jesus at the same time so she was along with everyone else unaccustomed to Supernatural appearances and miraculous promises let alone having an angel talk to her so The Wonder of God was absent from the general population as it is today however it pointed to God doing something entirely new and Mary was sensing it you get that in this the text you get that sense she was sensing something credible so her question was stuck in the realm of human reasoning how did Gabriel answer her when she asked the question he said the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you and for that reason the holy Offspring shall be called The Son of God so God initiated jesus’ virgin birth Mary will conceive without an Earthly father the holy spirit will overshadow you that means he will surround and influence your womb with creative power and produce a special child the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ as a man is entirely entirely the work of God we had nothing to do with it we had nothing to do with the plan we had nothing to do with how it happened and we had nothing to do with the outcome of it see the male human being did not enter into the question of conception the man is put on one side and he has nothing to do with it it emphasizes the total inability of man to bring about his own salvation so that means the initiative was entirely of God in his plan to save people from their sin Jesus will be conceived without sin unlike any other child Jesus was Jesus was wholly separated from any sin and by Nature the Son of God so the operation of the Holy Spirit was done in such a way that this human nature that the son took on himself was sinless free from pollution entirely free from the effects and the results of the fall of Man that jesus’ Incarnation was so unusual so exceptional so miraculous so mysterious it was unlike anything ever heard of and as the apostles view Jesus they said this in John chapter 1 the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory as the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth but if you think about it everything about the Lord Lord is mysterious his coming into the world is mysterious his going out of it is mysterious he did not enter life like anyone else he did not go out of life like anyone else the resurrection was as unique as the Virgin birth everything about him is Exceptional from beginning to the end and according to God’s plan and design it was done and as it says in Luke Chapter One For Nothing is Impossible with God because you would have to conclude this is impossible that’s right it is impossible that means God had to be involved with it because if we got involved with it we would mess the whole thing up but we weren’t involved with it and so the answer to Mary ‘s design problem is this God’s designer God is the designer period don’t worry about it it’s taken care of now let’s realize and remember that it all happened so that we might be saved that our sins might be forgiven that the Son of God became man that the children of men may become the children of God John again says this but as many as received him to them he gave the right to what to become children of God even those who believe in his name who were not born not born who who were not born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God again emphasizing this whole truth that God is the one who took the initiative showing his magnificent and great love towards Humanity that God was pleased to send his son to assume our nature and to die for our many sins the giving of the Redeemer was the work of God’s free Mercy instead of God giving the sinner what he deserves he gives Jesus what he doesn’t deserve and that is the punishment of our sin 2 Corinthians 5:21 he made him who knew no no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him so nothing moved God to do this but his own love and the point being that the story of Salvation is not the story of God waiting for us to do something waiting for us to repent and turn to him and do good works neither it is is it just the story of God responding to what we have done and rewarding Us by pardoning us and forgiving us no God is active who is actually who actually goes out after us it was God who sent his son to work out the great salvation it was God the father that sent his willing son to the cross it was God who raised him from the dead it was God who does everything all is of God and at the bottom of it all the source and motivation of it all is that God is love and this is a trustworthy statement it says in scripture deserving a full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save Sinners that’s what the scripture says so if we ask the question why did God love us we really would have no answer the answer would be this because he loved you so if you are a believer in Christ today the answer to that question in short is he loved you because he loved you because God is the source of love so The Wonder of God’s love can be seen in God’s initiative to secure the salvation of Sinners secondly The Wonder of God’s love can be seen in the extent that he went to bring life to dead Sinners because we were dead in our trespasses and sin but this what it what this is what it says in 1 John 4:9 by This is Love by by by this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him so this love shows up in all of us who respond positively to the demonstration of God’s love by believing in the son through faith in Christ life has come to us through Jesus Christ and then the love of God is manifested in us where it tells us also in the Gospel of John this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent but it had to be more than God sending his son Jesus Christ into the world God’s loving nature [Music] knew that there had to be a far greater demonstration of love one that would Tower over any other human example ever found in history that how spiritually dead we are as humans can become spiritually alive so dead spiritually that as our text says humans are not suited naturally to love God it says and this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us the notion to think that we you or I have an ability to love God on our own is flatly a lie it could not have entered your heart or my heart to love God or to desire his remedy to recover you or I from sin and its condemnation only by God’s grace could you or I have imagined to ask that the Eternal Son of God should assume our flesh and be made sin and a curse for us we just would never conceive it in our spiritually dead and darkened Minds would have never come up you know when people say well the Bible’s written by man but when you as a Believer read the Bible you know what you conclude man couldn’t come up with this not only is it so consistent but the very message of how one gets saved is there’s no man in it there’s no human in it to mess it up God has full control of salvation so that means that when when a person is made spiritually alive they quickly come to know God loves them the first and the greatest way the love of God becomes wonderfully known to a redeemed sinner is the cross right how astonishing is God’s love well to answer that question Paul wrote in Romans chapter 5 but God demonstrated his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us now think of it for a moment the god you and I defied the god you and I have ignored and disobeyed not only has not damned and destroyed you and I but has actually sent his only begotten son to die for you and me and redeem us see the way of Salvation and the way of Heaven is open to us why because of God’s wonderful love that’s why that is why the Lord had visited this Earth and had provided everything needed to redeem his people that is all those who would come and believe in Jes Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior the love of God is made as conspicuous as light and by the death of Christ also that we know we know love by this that he laid down his life for us that’s how we know love that someone laid down their life for me and you as Sinners that’s how we know God loves us however there is something else we become very aware of our unworthiness that the Son of God should become human and die for our sakes I like how the Apostle Paul put it in the Book of Romans chapter 5 and this is really key to this elevation of an example of a love that Jesus Christ displays towards Humanity that’s greater than any love that we ever had an example of before where it says one will hardly die for a righteous man though perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die now if you know me I like reading military books I’ve read many books on military and special forces in the past several years the Seal of God level zero level zero Heroes these are some titles the last rescue the American Sniper unfair advantage and some of these these who write this and men who were actually in these special forces were many of them were Believers but I’ve noticed when I read through those books a common thread that runs through all these books is the camaraderie the Loyalty the Brotherhood that exists among these men they develop a deep respect and love for each other and several of the books have of course quoted the passage greater love has no man than this that one laid down his life for his friends almost every one of the books quoted that Passage all of them have answered the question would I give my life for someone else for my Noble comrades that I go into combat with with would I make that ultimate sacrifice if it came down to it would I take the bullet for my fellow brother they all answered in the affirmative yes I would and many have gone down range and have paid the ultimate price for their brothers in arms they took the bullet and they gave their life and I thank the Lord for every one of them who who has sacrificed in that way but if they were to be asked this question would you lay your life down for your enemy for the Taliban for Al-Qaeda for Isis for Hamas the answer would be no way their life is not worth giving my life and the point being that the case is rare that one should die for another even if he or she was a good and a righteous person it is for for the most part non-existent that one would willingly give their life for an enemy and here’s where the love of God takes on an astonishment Wonder like no other in all of human history never has and never will afterwards the demonstration of God’s mercy towered above the proport it towered above in proportion that uh to any other friendly person who would give their life for a good person see God sent his son to die in the in the place not of those who were good and just but those who are not good who were unjust who were Wicked who were ungodly who were haters of God for those who were all in a damnable state he sent his son to to die for us sinners see that’s a love that can’t be compared to any other thing he rescued and freed us from Eternal death to make us partakers of eternal life but God demonstrated his own love toward us while we’re yet sinners he died for us see God the father because of Christ calls us friends who were once enemies but now are reconciled to God that God’s love it held back nothing to bring a dead sinner to life and see there’s the Wonder The Wonder of God’s love can be seen in the extent he went to save Sinners and Jesus is no longer in a Manger he’s no longer on the cross he’s no longer in the grave see Jesus Christ accomplished all of it for who for his enemies that’s unheard of that’s why the the love of God is so astonishing it should be astonishing to you that his love is that great and then one last thing number three three is The Wonder of God’s love can be seen in that he spared no cost to save condemned lost Sinners for it says in our passage in this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to to be the propitiation for our sin that’s a big word it’s a theological word see love is always to be understood in terms of God’s love for us and never in terms of our love for God and that means love does not originate in man it never has it never will and notice how striking God’s action is here not that we loved God but that he loved us that God was initiating the action to send his son as an atoning sacrifice with no immediate return for him no reciprocity see relationships in society are usually governed by reciprocity I’m nice to those who are nice to me Mike invites me to lunch I invite Mike to lunch in return I borrow tools from Brian he borrows tools from me even Sinners Jesus once commented in Matthew 5 46 for if you love those who love you what reward do you have do not even the tax collectors do the same of course they were looked at the lowest of anything Tax Collectors I don’t think it’s changed much today see the Lord knew when he sent his son it would be an intoning sacrifice for sin that his sacrifice would need to go beyond beond where any other sacrifice had gone before that’s again making the sacrifice of Christ way different than any other sacrifice you find in the Old Testament and we don’t really live in a world that understands the reality and significance of animal sacrifices in the Old Testament yet sacrifice is what the word of God means when the Bible says God sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins meaning that it meant death and that means that Jesus is not just acting like a high priest to offer up the sacrifices of animals on the altar before God in behalf of the people the very word is the word hilan which means Mercy seed and it came to denote not only the mercy seed or the lid of the altar of the Covenant inside the holy of holies but also the propitiation or for the reconciliation by blood that on the day of atonement the high priest carried the blood of the sacrifice to offer for all the people within the veil and sprinkled It On The Mercy Seat so to make prop propitiation that means to make satisfaction before God but there’s something much more that Jesus Christ is not only the high priest the one making the offering Jesus is the offering and that makes his sacrifice of propitiation go to an extent that no priest had gone before that God the Father sent Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice to remove the guilt we had incurred because of our sin so that we may have eternal life that Jesus Christ’s death paid for our sins and satisfied God’s judgment on sin in other words what Jesus did on the cross satisfied the father that’s why it’s so one-time Eternal sacrifice because it’s done and there’s two things that come to mind when we think about that sacrifice it’s the removal of guilt because of sin completely cleansed of it that Christ is the propitiation because by his becoming our substitute and assuming our obligations he ex expiated he covered it our sin by taking the punishment in our place see this is all connected to the birth of Jesus Christ this was his mission all along a second thing is the removal of God’s anger towards sinners the god Christ appeased God’s Wrath that the death of Christ totally satisfied God’s justice his righteousness and His holy hatred on sin so that means we can be completely saved so that’s why there’s no fear and love because Christ taken everything that would cause fear out of it and demonstrated to us the greatest act of Love ever in all of human history and I would say in all of eternity so in giving his son God paid the greatest death debt by paying the ultimate cost and Brethren I hope and I pray you never get bored of hearing the message of The Old Rugged Cross and the love that our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated not only that demonstration came in a Bethlehem stable but also on calvary’s hill so those who have confessed Jesus Christ as their lord and savior and have believed in him and put all their trust in him casting all trust to side of whatever they were trusting beforehand that means they could walk away knowing because of the love of God in Christ Jesus that their sins are forgiven that all their offenses are removed that they are reconciled and made right with God that they are possessors of eternal life that they are partakers of the divine nature that they are now born of God and has passed out of condemnation into life that is the promise that God gives us that all comes from the source of the Lord Jesus Christ loving his people so what a blessed state it is to be saved to know that truth to be delivered from the wrath of God so may may this message never be commonplace but every time you think of how God saved you it if you are saved that you would also thinking about his amazing love about The Wonder of God’s love that is a love that can be defined only by God himself and that in thinking of it you would rejoice and if you have not yet come to know Jesus as your lord and savior you should don’t put it off one more day one more minute and for sure the invitation here is what Jesus did on the cross is applicable to any person who comes to him and I pray that for those this day who do not believe who have not believed yet that they may come to Jesus and may have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous that they would know that Jesus Christ does receive Sinners he does receive his enemies he does receive all no matter what they have done how far they have fallen he will receive every one of them if they come so Jesus is now a friend to those who believe and Jesus is willing to take all who come to him just the way they are and make them whiter than snow see this is the great promise and the effect of not only the birth of Christ but the Cross of Christ you can’t have one without the other you have to have both and I would like to ask you today has this wonderful person been born in your heart today do you know for sure that if you were to die right now that you know for sure in your heart that you would die in go into the presence of God or if that may be something you’re still working on if you’re still working on it then you’re trying to work your own salvation and not God so has that happened to you have you been born from above there was a conversation between a a a pastor and a young man and it went like this the young man uh was asked um was was presented the question have you been born from above and the young man’s reply was well I don’t know if I have or or if I haven’t and the next question the pastor asked was this have you ever been born physically and the man answered of course I’ve been born physically I know that then the Pastor said and it was told to the young man my friend if you had been born again you would know that as well and is it true that when when you are truly a Believer you know it and I ask again this Sunday before Christmas a day we are celebrating the birth of the Savior has he been born in your heart and I would urge you to humble yourself to acknowledge your sin and look to Jesus the Savior and invite him to come and be born in you to cleanse you to forgive you to transform you if you don’t look to Jesus the only conclusion is you’re still lost and without him you have no hope and my friends when you leave this world and leap into eternity where will you be with Christ in heaven or consigned forever to a punishment the Bible calls hell complet complet separation from a merciful and gracious and kind God and only be left there in hell with his wrath see our our inability to please God by ourselves means that the real change of a Christian conversion must involve relying on Christ Alone to save you why because God took the initiative for salvation because God showed his wonderful love in his extent in its initiative and in the cost that he paid so you and I can be saved there’s nowhere else to go there’s no one else to go to with all the religions in the world there’s only one way to be saved it has not changed from the beginning until now yes Jesus Bears the name he well deserves and no one else that he is the savior and if that is true then what must one do if they don’t know the savior they must repent of their sins they must repent and believe the gospel they must turn away from the many individual sins by which they have offended God’s character and broken his law they must turn away from any attempt whatsoever to justify themselves before God by appealing to their own orthodox beliefs and acceptable behavior and they must then turn to God and look to him for pardon for their sin to give them the right to stand before God and to bring them into close fellowship with him see believe in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation that’s what the Bible teaches us and true saving faith always responds in obedience once that message comes and a person is ready for it you know what they want to do they want to run to Jesus and be saved and many of you have but some have not yet some of the children have not yet and the children need to be saved because they’re not guaranteed tomorrow they’re not guaranteed to live a full life in this crazy world and all the stuff that’s going on there’s more things are more unpredictable and uneasy and uh just so wacky that it’s completely undefinable and yet right we come to the scripture and know what we get we don’t get misinformation in scripture we get truth and the truth makes everything clear this is what I must do so yes the love of God is truly a wonder and it should always be in the heart of God’s people always and that’s really why we celebrate this time of year because the birth of Christ leading to his crucifixion and Resurrection is the gospel they all go together and so I pray if you don’t know the Lord today and you would like to know you can speak with me afterwards if you do know the Lord I pray that you would walk out of here with an understanding of how much and to what extent God went to save you and it’s all because of his love amen let’s pray Lord thank you so much for allowing us Lord not only every Sunday that we meet together as Christians but Lord even in this special season where we focus in on you coming into the world I pray Lord that you would allow us not only to every day thank you for how you accomplish salvation on our behalf and I pray Lord that you would continue to move on people’s hearts don’t allow them to settle in on just being ignorant of the truth or hope that they’re doing all right that God would accept them but I pray Lord all that foolish thinking would be pushed aside and they would run to you and they would come and believe in you as their lord and savior as you did with me as you did with others in this church and those who know you who are visiting that Lord the only way to be saved is to come to the Lord Jesus Christ because you are the only way you are the initiator of Salvation this is the way one is made right with God this is the way one’s sins are forgiven this is the way that we receive the spirit of God and then the love of God is Manifest in us because of that so thank you Lord and I pray that you would use the truth of your word today and every day in our life transform us in our minds that we would know the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God and I pray this today in Christ’s name amen

December 22, 2024
Children of God

Answers Bible Curriculum Year 3 Quarter 4 Lesson 8

We continue our study of some of the great themes of the NT epistles this week with a look at the concept of being children of God. Are all people children of God? What privileges or blessings follow from being children of God? What responsibilities and expectations? Join us as we look at these questions and others.

Our main texts for this lesson are 1 John 3:1-10 and Romans 8:12-25, but you would be well served in reading each of these chapters in full as preparation.

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let’s begin it is time for Sunday school to start so let’s do that welcome I see that my my view has been elevated I feel like I’m have a different view this week I’m higher up anyways we’re continuing on in our study of the New Testament epistles actually we’re just little bit more okay last time we talked about we we broach the subject of the relationship of faith and works this week were just introducing ourselves to another great theme of the New Testament epistles and indeed of the whole New Testament in Scripture and that is the concept of children of God being a child or being children of God now this is extremely common description in the New Testament it’s so common that we actually might not even notice it or not even think about it what does it mean to be a child of God how does one become a child of God why do the New Testament apostles so emphasize this description to us how should we be impacted by the concept of children of God that’s what we want to begin to explore today this is a topic that we can’t even really we can only begin to cover but I think it will still be edifying for us to do so here’s our agenda we’re just gonna overview this concept as it appears throughout the scriptures the Fatherhood of God or people being children of God and we’re gonna look at two specific passages from first John 3 and Romans 8 and then finally and briefly will consider some application that’s praise we begin our Lord and God our Father in Heaven God I thank you for this time to look in your word and I pray that you would open our eyes to this wonderful astounding truth that we might be called children of God lord I pray this be something that we think about more often and that as we look more closely at it today we’re gonna be deeply affected I pray that your spirit would do this you helped me to be able to explain it well Jesus name Amen let’s start with background and really the most basic question what is a father may seem like a silly question don’t we all know what a father is in fact it is one of the first realities that we encounter when we’re born into this world we encounter the reality of the parent-child relationship specifically that we have a mother and that we have a father we quickly learned even as a baby that a father is someone who at least partly is the source of his children he’s the source of the life of his children without the father a child could not exist the child owes his life in existence at least partly to the man who begot him his father we also quickly learn as children that because of the father’s role as the originator of his children the father almost automatically exercises authority over his children he has a role of authority he’s able to command to direct his children and he expects obedience from his children and from these two basic factors almost intuitively a child learned to earth quickly learns as he grows up to revere or respect his father father’s a source the child’s life along with the mother of course in Bob earth God really and the father also exercises authority over the child and so that the child has a certain reverence for his father now these are some basic facts of what a father is but what else well to explore further we have to acknowledge that not every father is the same or not every father is a good father and even some of the best fathers are not perfect our experiences can readily attest to those facts and we know that there’s some variation of my father’s but I just want to share with you a couple more factors that I brainstormed of what typify a good father and a typical good father and child relationship what does a good father do for his children I’m just brain brain store seven factors and it’s useful for us to think through these things so that we have a background when we consider the Fatherhood of God what does a good father do for his children well first off he loves his children good father besides being the source of his children’s life besides having authority besides expecting reverence he loves his children he feels a genuine affection for them and a genuine desire for their good and he shows this not only in displays of affection but also in the actions he takes towards his children in response to the father’s love what ought the children to do Pro Express love back to the father again through affection and through actions especially obedience the father not only loves his children he provides for his children he anticipates and he meets the needs of his children this includes material needs like food water shelter but also less material needs like encouragement admonishment confrontation just the expression of love itself father meets the needs of his children and how I children to respond how our children to respond to their father’s provisions or with certainly with gratefulness with contentment with patient expectation my father provides me I’m waiting for that provision father loves father provides father also protects father protects his children a good father does not allow harm to come to his children does not expose his children to dangers when those children are not ready for those jane dangers or without some sort of purpose in exposing that’s those dangers some sort of training purpose again this is something we readily know and experience in our world father protects his children from physical dangers such as being hit by a car or being stolen by a stranger but a father also protects his children from more abstract dangers in life like the danger of a self-destructive style or the danger of a of a dangerous relationship so father protects his children how odd the children to respond to this protection they ought to seek it they have to be grateful for it and they ought to trust the father for his protection what the thing the father does for his children that he teaches his children good father wants to equip his children to be adequately prepared for a successful life this includes practical skills like how to tie your shoes or how to do your laundry but also he wants his children to understand themselves and understand the world where the child knows about the world the more he’ll be prepared to interact successfully in it father is especially concerned that his children would learn wisdom they will not make foolish decisions and suffer painful consequences ha how our children to respond to their father’s teaching the father’s instruction well clearly they should listen to it they should practice what the the father teaches them and they should endure through the teaching not just give up and say oh I don’t want to listen it along with this teaching comes the discipline of the father father disciplines his children once to instill the right ways in his child even through some uncomfortable practice and even corrective discipline this is momentarily painful for the child often when he has to endure some may be difficult chores or he has to be corrected or to to endorse some discipline but it’s extremely useful extremely important for the child so that he’s prepared for life now how a child to respond to his father’s loving discipline well he should accept it he should even seek it and endure through it now already you’re probably seeing connections the way the Bible speaks about God and that’s good two other things I want to mention besides loving providing protecting teaching and disciplining while they’re also models for his children he provides a an example or a role model for his children everything that the father does the way he responds to life to difficulty to relationships to the way he interacts with the mother to the way he he deals with money other people etc these are all powerful examples to the child good father wants to set the best example as possible father should want his children to take up after him to even be like him now in some ways children can’t help but be like their parents a son like his father a daughter like a mother or even the daughter like her father and a son like his mother have you ever found your this to be true even in your own family in your own relationships you found yourself doing something that your father did even though you never even tried to learn it something speaking like him or saying something that he would say or acting like him this is what happens children learned from their parents even when they’re not even thinking about it but the father wants to be conscious of this and he wants to set a good example for his children how are the children how are children to respond to their or how children respond to respond their to respond to their father’s example they want to imitate him they see the good example he lives and they want to become like him that’s true of a good father then finally one other aspect of a good father I want to bring out is that a good father prepares for his children for their future it only provides for his children now but he also makes sure the children have a future where he does his best at least to make sure what does this look like today well often this kind of preparation includes Pepperberg includes specific provisions for the child’s career or a future education many fathers some fathers choose to pay for their child’s education not only through elementary school and high school but also even in college some parents or fathers will pay for part of or even all of it it’s tuition but in earlier days the father did even more than this ancient times for example fathers were diligent to pass on a family trade to the children whatever job the father had he would train the son in that trade or a father would also be very diligent to arrange a suitable marriage for his child whether for a son or whether for a daughter he wanted to secure the future for his children but most importantly a father arranged and this is especially true in ancient times the father made arrangements for the child’s inheritance a child would our sons would receive property from their fathers usually upon the father’s death while ladies of the house they would receive other provisions father would make sure they’re taken care of by another family member or that they are taken care of and their husbands new households I’m going to make sure that they had a future inheritance and most of these future preparations the child doesn’t actually receive that preparation immediately but merely a promise of that preparation that would be fulfilled in the future father says here’s what I’ve done for you it hasn’t happened yet but it will happen now how a child to respond to his good father’s preparation for those future provisions is to be grateful used to be patient he’s to look forward with hope confidence and trust even desire for that future provision now we could add more to this list this is not exhaustive exhaustive but I think this gives us a little useful background for considering the Fatherhood of God but you can see kind of a three basics and then then seven additional items of what a good father does for his children now now what do these things have to do with God well as I said as we’ve alluded to already you shouldn’t be surprised that father is one of the titles that God uses to describe himself throughout the Scriptures God is a father and because God is righteous loving and holy he is the best father but to who is God Father if he’s a father who his children well probably uses this term or uses this description for different relationships and we’ll just overview them briefly one sense God is the father of all people he’s the father of all men and why is this well because just like earthly fathers God is the source of all life and therefore he is also deep authority over all men to whom he has given life because God is creator this is precisely Paul’s argument in acts 17 remember we talked about that that sermon from Paul in the city of Athens and acts 17 recently Paul makes an argument to the Athenians as to why they should repent and turn to God based on God being their father he says God made all things we are his children why should we think that God needs something from us he’s the one who gave us life like why would he need a temple why would he need sacrifices from us or how is it that we think we can make God according to our own imagination when he’s the one who made us he’s our Father we’re his children and as a father God demands what is only right for a father to demand this is Paul’s argument that is that his children should seek Him and in in Paul’s words that’s that all men should repent and they should worship God so in one sense God is the father of all people of course man rejects this fatherhood by and large man rejects this creation fatherhood rebels against their father and they fall under God’s wrath but this is one sense of father it’s not the most frequently used sense of Father in the Bible but it is one another sense is God’s you got special fatherhood of Israel God is father to Israel God did not miraculously be get the people of Israel though he did call out Abraham but God chose this group of men group of men and women to be his people and to be a father tonight in a sense God did things for the people of Israel just like a father would even some of the things we discussed he loved them he provided for them he protected them he had authority over them he expected reverence from them all those things we previously discussed and they were to be blessed the people of Israel be blessed by the Fatherhood of God but how did they respond to his father fit well we look at some of the prophets and we can see how this description is used to describe Israel’s unfitting reaction to their father consider what Isaiah says Isaiah chapter 1 verses 2 to 3 God says to Israel through Isaiah listen o heavens and hear o earth for Yahweh speaks sons I have reared and brought up but they have revolted against me an ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s manger but Israel does not know my people do not understand they rejected the Fatherhood of God even Israel Malachi 1:6 says Malachi 1:6 a son honors his father and a servant his master then if I’m a father where is my honor and if I’m a master where is my respect so even though God was a great father to Israel they did not honor him as father they did not seek him as father they did not love him and of course that was part of why God had to judge Israel and why Israel is still in the state that it is today but the bible does speak of God as father to Israel what also speaks of God as a unique father to David’s house and David see now this is really interesting because we see God as father in a broad sense but now we’re getting more specific he’s the father of all people the father of a nation but now even of a house and a bloodline consider what God says to David and you’ll remember this is something that we’ve alluded to at sunday-school many times sooner what God says David in second samuel 7:14 this is part of his davidic prom or the promise of the Davidic covenant to David God says of David seed I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me and we also see in the Psalms the same idea Psalm 89 verses 26 to 27 Ethan the ezra height is one of the psalm psalm writers he says this about David’s house and see Psalm 89 verses 26 to 27 he will cry to me you are my father my god and the rock of my salvation I shall also make him my firstborn the highest of the kings of the earth now why these things are significant because no one in the Old Testament dared to call God his personal father you might sometimes see people refer to our Father people of Israel might refer to God as our Father solomon does that one instance the jews do that in a couple instances in the new testament but no one calls god my father and yet god prophetically says of david seed i will be father to his seed personal i will be the personal father a very individual relationship but we can see where this leads because who in the new testament is constantly calling god his father well jesus christ jesus son of mary and this is another sense that we see god as father in the bible this is the favorite title that jesus uses what addressing god he says father or my father and this drove the pharisees and the jews absolutely crazy how could he do that how could he call god his father and they saw even in this that he was making a specific claim you might remember this verse john 5:18 john 5:18 geez it says for this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he not only was breaking the Sabbath but also was calling God his own father making himself equal with God you don’t call God your father you don’t assume that kind of relationship with God unless there’s something different about you and clearly there was something very different about the man Jesus and is that he he was and is the son of God He is God in the flesh and this is a unique aspect of God’s fatherhood that only applies to the son the the eternally begotten uncreated member of the Trinity the Son of God has unique relationship to his father no one can completely mimic that relationship buts on the basis this this fourth kind of sonship this forth kind of fatherhood in the Bible that actually results in the last one and the one that we’re really trying to get at today because throughout Jesus’s ministry do you just not only refer to God as my father but even when speaking to his disciples he would sometimes call God your father or your heavenly Father he would refer to God as the father of his followers particularly significant is John 20 verse 17 John 20 verse 17 this is where Jesus meets Mary Magdalene after rising from the from the dead and it says there John 20:17 Jesus said to her stop clinging to me for I’ve not yet ascended to the Father but go to my brethren and say to them I ascend to my father and your father and my god and your God in might remember we made some comment about this verse what’s special about this declaration from Jesus go and tell my brethren such and such this is the first time Jesus refers to his disciples as his brethren it’s not until after Jesus rises from the dead that he actually calls his disciples and followers his brethren and that’s a term that’s a very important term right because if you’re a brother or sister of Jesus then that means that you’re part of the same family and that his father is your father which is exactly what Jesus is to Mary I go to my father and your father and so it is this final aspect of fatherhood that we see especially in the New Testament that God is a special father of believers those that belong to Jesus those that have been brought near to God through the life death and resurrection of Jesus and this is all over the New Testament that Paul’s letters often start with a greeting that emphasizes that God is the father of believers consider this is what Paul writes in many of his letters he says grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ never hear that kind of thing in the Old Testament this constant reference to God being thought of believers but you hear it all over the place in the New Testament why well this is experienced as a result of salvation and because of that it’s not the Fatherhood that everyone on earth experiences it’s only for believers rather for those who are not believers in the Lord not followers of Christ they don’t have God as father in this way rather they have a different father and John 8:44 is very clear about that Jesus is speaking to the Jews who are contesting some of the things he’s telling them in John 8:44 and this is what Jesus says to those Jews you are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him whenever he speaks he speaks from his own nature for he is a liar and the father of all lies or the father of lies so we consider these various aspects of fatherhood in the Bible we should see that yes in one sense God is the father of all people but in another sense he’s only the father of believers and you want him to be your father in that way because otherwise you have a different father the devil and you’re gonna act a certain way based on that and you also have a certain future awaiting you based on that now it’s this last aspect of God’s fatherhood this last kind of fatherhood that I want to investigate a little bit more with you today why is it important what does it mean for us that God is now our Father since we believed and repented because of Jesus we can certainly apply many of the aspects that I discussed earlier that God is the source of our life that God has authority over us that God loves us that God provides for us that God trains us etc those things do apply in this aspect of fatherhood and if we were to investigate those various things the New Testament we would see those aspects we don’t have time to do that this morning now so I just want to look at two different passages that explore some of those ideas a little bit further first John 3 and Romans 8 let’s start with first John turn there first John 3 please see a little bit more about how the Apostles talk about the Fatherhood of God and what it means for us to be children of God now just a little bit of background quick back on our first John 3 remember the context John is writing later in the first century probably around 8090 he’s dealing with a heresy in the church teaching that believers can live any way that they wish because whatever happens in the body doesn’t matter all you need is the secret knowledge of God and you’ll be saved but John writes to reestablish what the true gospel is how the true gospel affects behavior of believers by necessity and one of the arguments he makes appears in the section of text we’re going to look at look at first John 229 2 3 3 we’ll make some comment on the rest of the chapter but specifically I want to look at these verses first John 229 2 3 3 follow along with me as i read if you know that he is righteous you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of him see how great a love the father has bestowed on us that we would be called children of God and such we are for this reason the world does not know us because it did not know him beloved now we are children of God and it has not appeared as yet what we will be we know that when he appears we will be like him because we will see him just as he is and everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure alright let’s make some observations on these on these verses now just had the last verse the previous chapter introduces the idea of God as father with the phrase born of him and then we transition to a fuller discussion of that now we’ve already discussed discussed the idea of the new birth that comes about through God in previous lessons tied up in this phrase is that truth of salvation being totally of God we were dead in trespasses and sins totally helpless we needed spiritual life but it could only come from outside ourselves and God provided it to us he caused us to be born again and in this way he became a father to us but notice the phrase in verse 1 chapter 3 see how great a love the author pasal John here he quickly describes for us how we can see this great love that the father as bestowed on us it’s not just gesturing into the cosmos see how greater love know he has something specifically am i how do we see the great love of God well namely that we should be called children of God that we would be allowed to be called children of God and note in verse 1 also that we see that the term father is to apply directly to God there there stowed on us from the father he’s the father that we a believers are his children very says see how great a love that we should be called children of God and then he says and such we are now this is interesting John was to point out to us not only are we called children of God but we actually are children of God and I think that distinction is important in human terms what do we what do we what term do we use to designate a child who is not biologically a child of a family but according to name and according to the law he belongs to that family adoption right I mean I biologically be a child but he is called by that family name because he’s been adopted into that family so he says we applying this John we are called children of God but we actually are children of God also then at the phrase that comes next for this reason now oftentimes that phrase is an indicator that the author’s referring to something that he just said that’s every so often the author will use a phrase like that to point to something he’s about to say and we can see that here the sense of the sentence is the latter situation for this reason the world does not know us and what’s that reason because it did not know him it didn’t know God now what does this have to do with what he just said about being a father and being children well we can apply it in this way the world did not know or understand God our Father therefore the world does not know or understand us the children of the father it’s a connection because we are the children of the Father now note the contrast that appears in verse 2 we have a contrast between the now and what’s coming in the future says right now we are children of God and in the future it’s not yet appeared what we will be but there is something we know about the future because look at the rest of verse 2 what we do know is that when he that is God appears we know that we will be like him how do we know that why do we know that John tells us the reason because we will see him just as he is and this knowledge will have or this knowledge has an effect on us notice verse 3 it says it refers to this hope he who has this hope well what hope well the only item that could qualify as a hope has to be something related to the future the only thing that’s been mentioned about the future in this context is what we just discussed that we will become like him in the future when we see him as he is so that is what John refers to when he says this hope he who has this hope of becoming like him seeing him and becoming like him just as he is and it’s interesting that John uses the term hope here he who has this hope it’s not merely an expectation or a promise it is a hope which tells us that it is something desirable it’s something that a person longs for he looks forward to he waits for so you as this this wonderful hope of seeing God and being transformed into God’s image it has an effect on them they do something now what did they do they purify themselves just as he that is God is pure and how pure is God oh he’s perfectly pure he’s God he’s 100% holy there’s no holy there’s no one who is holy like God and the person who has this hope he purifies himself just as God is pure so what do we do with these things let’s talk about interpretation now we’ve made these observations and ask some questions first why was it such a great act of love that we should be called children of God certainly because of what it cost God to make us his children yes because of the the great sacrifice that was required of the son that love displayed and his being made a man and his living and dying as our substitute yes Danny right it’s another aspect of this great love because of what we were we were enemies of God children of Satan we were evil rebellious despicable sons and daughters we hated our Creator we exalted ourselves we rejected God’s many overtures of peace to us all we wanted was sin I wanted nothing to do with God we want a God to die we want to just go the way of Satan are our new father the father we would rather have and to such and by the means of Jesus Christ that costly precious means God himself made peace with us and then he called us by his own name he made us into his children he brought us into his family why should we considering what we were what the attitude we had to work out why should we be called by God’s family there is no reason except for God’s great and undeserved love now consider that for yourself personally consider your lack of worthiness to be call all God’s son or daughter but if you believed in him it is nonetheless reality you are called a child of God you have God’s name you are a part of his family now in what sense are we called children of God and then our children of God I think well it’s possible John may simply be reiterating that concept of adoption that we mentioned that we are called his family we are adopted and indeed we are adopted it may be emphasizing that I think there’s something more going on though because of this emphatic repetition and I think some something might help us see this consider what T’s does every maybe not every but do often cool older siblings like to play at one time or another on a younger brother or younger sister it will say something along the lines of you’re not a real member of this family you’re only adopted right and of course that causes a great consternation in the younger one and someone might make the same accusation of believers you are called a part of God’s family but if you’re only adopted yes you have the rights and privileges of being part of God’s family but if you’re not really a son if you’re not really a daughter then you don’t share his nature meaning that when it comes to sin you’re just as powerless against it as you were before because after all you don’t really belong in this family but there’s something in the context that counters such an assertion that you’re only a child and name only what in the context shows us that that’s not really true back to verse 29 it says how did God become our Father because right yeah verse 1 I tempt you because we were born of him we were born of him so consider them the profound nature of our adoption by God he not only calls us by his name but he actually truly becomes our Father rewriting our DNA as it were and you can see this further in verse 9 of this chapter it says that God’s seed abides in the believer just as a father seed abides in a child to make a child grow up and to look like the father so God’s spiritual seed abides even in his adopted children to give them life and to make them grow up into him into his image so then God is not only the father of believers by adoption but also by regeneration adoption gives you and me the privileges of being part of God’s family but regeneration gives us the power of our Father to be like him to become like him and I think that’s why John says we are called children of God and such we are now verse 2 says that we will become like God when we see him as he is why does seeing God make us like him well this really goes back to you the profound nature of God’s glory and power to behold God and His glory is to be transformed by him and a great example this is Moses in the Old Testament recall that Moses spoke face-to-face with God or at least that’s the way the Bible describes it he beheld God’s glory in a very intimate way and he began to bear the reflection of that glory in his own face so much so that when Moses came back to the people of Israel they hid from him because they were they were scared of all the glory that was being reflected off of Moses face in the same way as believers behold the beauty and the glory of God believers cannot help but be conformed and transformed into the image of the God they behold and this is what Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 3:18 he’s talking about the believers experience of sanctification on the earth 2nd Corinthians 3:18 Paul says but we all with unveiled face beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the spirit well that’s true in a sanctification sense right now it will be true in a fuller way when we actually see him in the future when we see him face to face we see him just as he is he’ll be transformed to be like him now verse 3 states that it’s the believers hope to be conformed into God’s image in the future why should it believe our desire to be like God to be transformed into the very image of God well God is the most glorious and worthy being in all existence to be shaped into a reflection of the beauty and wondrous character of God is a great prospect of joy for the believer I think a father child analogy will help us understand this when a son has a good father especially if it’s a young young son what does the son naturally desire to do he wants to be like his father the son desires this because what he sees in the father is beautiful it’s noble it’s admirable and the young son because he enjoys who his father is he wants to become like him and is glad when he becomes so so it is for believers we are not glad to become like God so that we might somehow revel in our own glory God’s glorious now I’m like God look how glorious I am no we realize that we don’t have anything good in ourselves rather we want to become like our glorious God so that we might revel in him even more we desired him and we admire and we we love who he is so much that becoming like him is a great prospect of joy for us now this does not mean that we ourselves will become deity we’re not becoming God or we’re not becoming gods but we become like him we reflect the righteous beauty of God as we are transformed and that is a great prospect of joy for the believer and as a results of this first three says a believer purifies himself in the present so why does this future hope of transformation lead to purification in the present well again I think this analogy of father and a child is helpful for illustration if a child looks forward to truly becoming like his dad like his father in the future he’s not content to merely leave such a transformation for later he says wow someday I’ll be like my dad that’s great no a child if he loves his father his father’s indeed a good father he’ll already even in his youth begin taking up after his father’s ways and you can see this sometimes in a really cute way especially if it’s a young child but this is even true of older children he really loves his father but this father’s really a good father the son will start to act like his father he’ll talk like his father he’ll walk like his father it won’t address like his father he want to do he wants to do what his father does he wants to conform himself more and more to the father’s image so that earn more and more and more to the father’s image now even as he looks forward to one day becoming the spitting image of his father and so it is for believers it is a great joy for us to think that we might one day resemble in a great and full way the purity of our great God but we want to become pure now and that’s such a great joy for us in the future we want to experience that now we’re eager to become more like him so that we might enjoy him all the more and so we put off the sin that is so unlike our God and we put on the righteous beliefs and thoughts emotions words and actions that reflect who our God is now if someone says that he is a child of God but he doesn’t look like it and he’s making no effort to become like his father what conclusion according to John’s teaching can one make of such a claimants he’s not a real child he’s not a real child if he doesn’t look like his father doesn’t act like his father is not becoming conformed any it at all into the image of his father it’s probably because he’s not a real child of his father and this is exactly John’s argument in the rest of the chapter we won’t read through it I encourage you to read through it on your own but look at verse 10 first John 3:10 John says by this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious anyone who’s not who does not practice righteousness is not of God nor the one who does not love his brother so in short John says if you’re a child of God you’re adopted into his family and if you’ve been regenerated with the seed in you then you’re going to become like him because that’s what you true children of a good father do if you believe if you proclaim that you belong to God but act like the devil you show who your father really is you have no part in God’s family and therefore you have no part in God’s inheritance for his children no as I’ve said before we ultimately as humans we cannot see into someone’s heart so it’s possible that we might encounter someone who claims to be a child of God doesn’t really seem like it but actually is he’s just confused or untaught or in a season of sin but because of what we see from John here we understand that if we see such a one brotherly concern ought to move us to say friend brother this is what I see and I’m concerned about you if God is truly your father why aren’t you taking up after him this is part of John’s argument in his book that if you’re a believer it’s gonna affect you and one way to look that is God your father yours child you’re gonna be like your father this is what John writes to us now many of these same truths are echoed in Paul’s writing and Romans eight so let’s turn over there now we’re not going to go as slowly through these verses we don’t have the time but you will notice many parallels in this section of Romans that we’re going to look at just to give you a little background on the context remember the book of Romans is Paul’s theological introduction to the Church of Rome so that those believers My partner with Paul and ministry and in the previous seven chapters Paul explains how both Jew and Gentile are under God’s wrath for sin how salvation comes only by faith how this faith leads to a life of holiness and how mere adherence to moral rules that is the law cannot produce a holy life and the beginning part of Romans 8 which we don’t don’t have time to read but Paul explains there how the Spirit the Holy Spirit through the gospel of Christ is able to do what the law cannot do the Spirit frees Christians from both the power and the penalty of sin through the gospel Jesus perfectly fulfills all the moral rules of God the law on behalf of believers through the gospel the God gives life to previously spiritually dead believers makes them alive and he imparts his spirit to believers well notice what it says in verses 12 to 17 and this we will read Romans 8 verses 12 to 17 says so then brethren we are under obligation what’s the flesh to live according to the flesh for if you’re living according to the flesh you must die but if by the spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live for all who are being led by the Spirit of God these are sons of God for you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out Abba Father the spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God and if children heirs also heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him now notice just a few things there are many parallels here to what we read while we read in first John we see first of all because of God’s salvation and more specifically because of God’s Spirit believers cannot live any longer according to their old way according to their old sinful desires the spirit of adoption in believers now leads them to holiness as they cry Abba Father after their God just as Jesus cried to the father he often addressed God by saying Abba Father now sidenote is often been said that Abba means daddy or Papa but this is not quite accurate Abba is literally Aramaic for my father so while the term is full of affection and familiarity it still has a sense of reverence in it that daddy doesn’t quite capture but anyways through the spirit believers have a new father that they now look to for help and deliverance and believers cry Abba Father now this spirit this new spirit in the believer it testifies to the believer of his sonship both by the fruits of the spirit in the believers life and that inner sense of belonging to God that comes from the spirit but notice that verse 17 it there in verse 17 says and this I want to key in on a little bit more the fact that believers are children of God Paul says also means that they are heirs heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ now what does Christ inherit from the father he’s a son he has an inheritance what’s he going to inheritance well what’s he going to inherit everything all things are going to be be given to the son rule of the entire universe is going to be given to the son so if we are also heirs if we are co-heirs with Christ then what will we inherit same thing all things this is why it says in other scriptures all things belong to you and that we will rule and reign with him such is the result of our sonship but notice the end of verse 17 if you are children and fellow heirs then understand that you must also experience what you must suffer with Christ if you’re going to inherit with Christ if you’re going to reign with Christ then you must also suffer with him so that to the end that you will be glorified now Paul explores this connection between suffering and a glorious inheritance further in the following verses we can’t again we can’t take a close look at that but I want to expose that to you look at verses 18 to 25 I think this would be very useful for you to meditate on as we move on from this lesson today but verse 18 to 25 notice what Paul continues to say for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us but the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God for the creation was subjected to futility not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God but we know the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now not only this but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons the redemption of our body for in hope we have been saved but hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes what he already sees but if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance we wait eagerly for it so notice here we have another instance what theologians sometimes call they already and not yet have we been adopted by God are we as children yes that’s why we have the spirit of adoption but we’re also looking forward to our adoption we haven’t received it in full yet we’re looking forward to the glory that will that will be revealed when all of God’s children are shown to be indeed his children before all the witnesses of the universe and they receive their inheritance now such waiting such expected waiting will include suffering in their present but just as a son of a great man in ancient days waited patiently for his inheritance so we also because of the great glory that is to be revealed in us and for us we do not become unsettled due to the small comparatively small sufferings of life rather with eagerness with perseverance we wait for our full adoption now think on that for a moment if you’re a believer you are God’s child you have been given a full inheritance as a co heir with Christ imagine receiving that inheritance as best you can imagine what Paul describes here this final unveiling of the sons of God sons and daughters of God and their inheritance being given them imagine that being given to you if you are God’s child what did you ever do to deserve that it is indeed as John said in his passage first John 3 see how great what kind of love this is a love that we do not understand or encounter in our world what kind of love the father has bestowed on us that we would be called children of God so in sum Paul in light of our future inheritance as children of God he urges a life of steadfast holiness in the meantime by God’s Spirit and of course we’ve only skimmed the surface of what the New Testament says it has to say regarding our being children of God regarding the believers being children of God but I hope that even from this brief look that your spirits have been moved to meditate more on your sonship or daughter ship what it means for you to be an inheritor and what all of this means for the holiness in your life and your hope for the future now as we’re winding down here a few questions for you to think of as we close we’re considering application here most important of all is are you a child of God are you really a child of God not just by creation we’re all children of God in a sense by creation but are you regenerated by God born again and are you adopted by God does your spirit cry out Abba Father by means of the Holy Spirit or does it instead cry for some Idol do you long to be transformed into the image of God do you with eagerness look forward to the inheritance that will be yours in the future or do you merely serve your fleshly lusts do you live for your or do you live for this present world do not be deceived as John warns us as Paul would warn us the sons of the devil will end up just as the devil it will be thrown into the lake of fire forever but the sons of God sons and daughters are God they will reign the God they will reign with Christ sure are you really his child if you are do you think much of your being part of God’s family that’s something that moves you not why not do you think much of the inheritance to be given to you how much does that come up in your mind how much does that inform the way you look at life and the way you make decisions in life the Apostles considered the hope of what will be in the future crucial for our present sanctification so if you think you can be sanctified without really paying attention to what happens in the future there’s something off of course there are other factors that motivate our sanctification but this is a crucial one how much is that part of your thinking and then one of one other thought how do you view other Christians because if you’re a child of God so are they and they’re your brothers and sisters they aren’t fellow inheritors with you do you treat them that way do you to the sake of your father for the sake of pleasing him do you get along with your brothers and sisters or are you indifferent contemptuous even as if you were the only child of God consider Jesus’s own attitude he was not ashamed to call his people his brother and he endeavoured to save and sanctify that so what about you that’s it for this week next week we sample what the epistles have to say about prayer that’ll be another big topic let’s end with prayer by God we thank you God I pray that the people at Calvary anyone who’s listening to this message today that they would think deeply on this what this is just beyond comprehension then we even us who are we we would be called your children that we would be inheritors with your son Jesus Christ that we would rule and reign with him forever why why should we ever be given such a gift why should we ever be blessed in such a lavish way oh we were only rebels hateful towards you sons of the devil but those whom you have made into your own sons and daughters but God thank you I pray Lord that we would live worthy of this gospel that would be purified by the hope that we have for what will be in the future I pray that you would do this work by your spirit in Jesus name Amen all right I’ll see you next week

May 20, 2018
Be Holy in 2016

How important should a holy life be for a Christian? In this sermon, David Capoccia looks at the teaching of the Apostle John in the letter of 1 John. David Capoccia explains that, in contrast to false teaching circulating during John’s time, Christ’s apostle taught: 1.) Believers must walk in light because God is light, 2.) Believers have been cleansed by and continually seek cleansing in God’s light, and 3.) Believers are empowered to keep God’s law of love by the new light of Christ.

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I’m grateful to be presenting the word of the Word of God to you and pastors place this morning mmm I take this off I pray that the Word of God convicts you and embolden you and assures you as you look forward to this new year pray with me please Great God great God in heaven you are so lovely in your holiness and you’re set of partner so father you are so majestic either help me to be able to explain your word give me the ability to speak clearly what your word says I pray that we would understand it open the eyes of those who listen today open their hearts to pay close attention to your word to be persuaded by it and to do it only your spirit can accomplish this I know that the means that you have ordained is preaching and yet God it is your spirit that has power so please work powerfully now in Jesus name I pray amen well you can’t talk about the new year without talking about new year’s resolutions what resolutions have you made for this year as you know one of the most common new year’s resolutions is to lose weight or to become more fit I want to get in shape I want to lose X amount of pounds want to get rid of my spare tire we say therefore i’m going to start eating healthy no more carbs no more sugar i’m going to start working out twice a week or something like that but new year’s resolutions are notorious for being broken people start out with enthusiasm and grit but within just a few weeks most people slip right back into their old patterns why does this happen we make resolutions to improve our lives to make us healthier or happier so why if there’s such a good goal why don’t we keep them when it comes to breaking the resolution to eat healthy or to hit the gym you will probably hear or even say these kinds of excuses my goal wasn’t realistic life got in the way I no longer had the time to work out or to cook healthy meals I got hurt or sick and I lost my motivation to continue it was just so miserable getting up early in the cold dark to work out it was just too hard I was tormented by hunger all the time I didn’t get enough support from others I just need to accept and be happy with who I am really all of these excuses are covers for the real fuller explanation which goes something like this I decided my goal wasn’t important enough for me to endure the pain and sacrifice is necessary to obtain it now people don’t say those words and might not even articulate those words in their own minds but their actions show that that is what they truly believe goal wasn’t important enough for those sacrifices now this sermon is not about losing weight or even the wisdom or helpfulness of new year’s resolutions that’s a separate topic but I mentioned this ultimate reason for failed resolutions because there is a parallel to the Christian life do we as believers communicate with our actions the same idea when it comes to personal holiness I decided my goal wasn’t important enough for me to endure the pain and sacrifices necessary to obtain it for truly we say we want to be holy we say we’re no longer going to do certain things we resolve we resolve to make holy certain parts of our lives and we really try but then when it just doesn’t happen we can’t figure out why well we start to give the same kinds of excuses of those who fail to eat healthy or to work out but could it be that though we want to be holy we don’t want to be holy enough that the reason we fail to live lives of consistent holiness is because we actually don’t think personal holiness is that important therefore we are not willing to make the changes in our thinking on our lifestyle that would allow us to live lives of holiness but just how important is it to live a holy life aren’t we after all made holy by Christ through our belief in him what does it mean to live holy and is it possible for a Christian to be a Christian and not live a holy life there’s much confusion when it comes to the topic holiness that is the topic of sanctification that special set of hardness of a Christian so let’s go to the only trustworthy source on the topic the Word of God if you haven’t already please open your Bibles to the book of 1st John near the end of the New Testament we’ll be starting in verse 5 but before we read the text again let me give you some background on this book who is the author the letter is written by the Apostle John one of the original twelve disciples and a member of Jesus’s inner circle John with one of the closest I witnesses of Jesus earthly ministry and teaching once called a son of thunder by Jesus it had to be rebuked by Jesus when John wanted the call down fire on a sinful Samaritan town John became later known in church history as the apostle of love indeed all of John’s writings are filled with statements about God’s love or the love that Christians ought to have toward one another in his gospel John even refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved John was obviously obviously changed by Jesus love but he never lost his zeal a zeal that characterized him as a son of thunder John wrote five books of the Bible the Gospel of John probably earliest around 80 to 90 AD towards the end of the first century then his three epistles including this letter first John probably probably around 90 to 95 ad and then the book of Revelation the last book of the Bible around 95 ad as the last surviving Apostle John and his teachings were treated by the Christians in the latter 1st century with particular reference it was the last apostle now more about this letter in particular first John is a general epistle that is it’s a letter not written to any particular church or person so who exactly received it we know from the book of Revelation and from church tradition that John ministered extensively to churches in Asia Minor that would be modern Turkey John probably wrote this letter while he was in the city of Ephesus and tending the letter to be read and passed from church to church in Asia Minor now why did john write this letter well the Apostle himself tells us why he wrote the letter in the letter he mentioned several purposes first John 1324 you can just glance over there and give this one what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also so that you two may have fellowship with us and indeed our Fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ these things we write so that our joy may be made complete John says I want to have joyful fellowship with you so I right this is for your joy and from mine John gives another purpose in chapter 5 1st John 5 13 he says these things i have written to you who believe in the name of the son of god so that you may know that you have eternal life john says I want you to have assurance of salvation and eternal life in God therefore i write to you but these two purposes are related to a larger issue that John must deal with the Apostle John is very concerned about something in the churches of Asia not endurance through Roman persecution that would come later the concern is false teaching false teaching dangerous heresy has infiltrated the churches under John’s care and has led some of his beloved brethren astray first John 226 says this these things I’ve written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you and then 1st John 3 at the wrong verse number here but first on three I think it’s 17 no not 17 I have to look up which purse that is but he says little children make sure no one deceives you what exactly was this deceptive teaching that John was so concerned about we can’t say for sure we don’t get very many details in the letter but the details we do have fit the pattern of an early form of Gnosticism Gnosticism recall that Gnosticism as a general term referring to some form of teaching declaring new secret knowledge obtained outside of Scripture usually from a self-proclaimed prophet or some other supposed holy book generally this teaching when understood would result in a person’s enlightenment and salvation for an example of Christian Gnosticism still exists in today see Mormonism while there are many forms of Gnosticism most forms especially during John’s time taught that matter and the physical world were evil and inferior while the spiritual world was clean and superior there is a dualism and we see such we see a reference to such dualistic Gnosticism in the letter first John 42 I won’t read the verse but John tells us there that false the false teachers were denying that Jesus Christ came in the flesh they are denying that he came in the flesh why would they denied that detail in the flesh well because according to the Gnostics as mere physical matter bodies are weak and even evil so God’s Son could not have had a body or else they thought god son would have become tainted by evil a pure holy God cannot have an impure body so how did Christ calm well there were different explanations one explanation was that he must have what he must have come and what merely appeared to be a bod but actually wasn’t a body this belief later became known as docetism these false teachers were denying the true and full humanity of Jesus because of their Gnosticism but Gnosticism not only leads to a wrong theology of christ but a very twisted view of personal holiness john macarthur points out in his study bible notes Gnosticism usually goes one of two ways either severe outward treatment of the body like the Judaizers because the body is evil you’ve got to cleanse that evil outer body with various acts and rituals or total surrender to the body and all its desires it’s this latter version that fits the situation described in this letter total surrender to the body and the rationale for this teaching goes like this if the body as physical matter is intrinsically evil there’s nothing you can do to stop it from sinning so it’s futile to try after all the sin only affects the body the spirit doesn’t take part in the body sins and Jesus came not to save your body but your spirit it is your spirits knowledge and belief in God that saves you what you do in the body has nothing to do with your salvation and short the Gnostics taught this if you really know God and is truth then you know that you can’t stop yourself from sinning and that’s totally okay you will still be saved because of your knowledge of God and your belief in this would be an extremely appealing message but it not a gospel of new higher knowledge that not only provided you with salvation but allowed you to indulge all of your evil desires without feeling bad about it this teaching takes actual truths about salvation by faith and the evil nature is still present with believers and it warps them viciously versions of this false teaching plagued many of the New Testament churches and truly this false teaching is still plaguing Christian churches today and doesn’t matter what you do you’re still saved if you just believe in God many in Asia Minor were deceived first John 219 after discussing how people who love the world and what it offers will not be saved the Apostle John writes this chapter 2 not chapter 3 they went out from us but they were not really of us but if they had been of us they would have remained with us but they went out so that it would be shown that they are that they all are not of us people were leaving the true church to follow this new exciting and liberating teaching and they show themselves to have never been true believers so what does John the Apostle do in response this so-called new knowledge John sets the record straight he gets back to the basics of the true gospel the fundamentals of the faith and he does so emphatically there will be no wiggle room for this reason as many commentators have noted the letter first John is quite repetitious it is an insistent message of what salvation and the Christian life really consists of in contrast to the fleshly demon inspired ideas of these false teachers some have described the letters organization as being like a circle or a spiral it keeps coming around to the same topics and truths in a slightly different way each time my own view is that the book centers on six truths with similar implications for holiness and the lives of believers these truths alternate describing who God is and what God has given us this morning we’re only going to look at the first of those six truths and its implication for our lives that truth is this God is light with his background information in mind let’s reread our text first John 15 to chapter 2 verse 11 read with me verse 5 or follow along with me this is the message we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all if we say that we have fellowship and and yet walk in the darkness we lie and do not practice the truth but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin if we say that we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in US if we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in US my little children I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin and if anyone sends we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous and he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his Commandments the one who says I have come to know him and does not keep his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him but whoever keeps his word and him the love of God has truly been perfected by this we know that we are in him the one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked beloved I am NOT writing a new commandment to you but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning the old commandment is the word which you have heard on the other hand I am writing a new commandment to you which is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now the one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him but the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes we can divide our text into three main points and they are the three points of my sermon first believers must walk in light because their God is light second believers have been cleansed by and continually seek cleansing in God’s light third believers are empowered to keep God’s law of love by the new light of Christ let’s look at each of these three points and see how the apostle develops each idea point one believers walk in light because their God is light believers walk in light because their God is light John starts by pointing out that what he’s about to say carries all the authority of the Son of God himself verse 5 this is the message we have heard from him and announced to you the self-proclaimed teachers did not carry Christ authority John says to his audience listen now to the one who was with Jesus and whose message from Jesus has not changed since Christ first commissioned him John next points out a central concept of Christ’s message the Holy nature of God look at the second part of verse 5 of chapter 1 God is light God is often associated with light and the scriptures even from Genesis 1 God’s very first creation was light God dwells in inglourious light in heaven God manifests the light of truth to men his angels often appear in light light then becomes a symbol of God’s beauty and God’s purity it’s God’s dazzling holiness represented in light and this quality is so central to God that John doesn’t say God has light but God is light John ee emphasizes this concept by stating the opposite and in him there is no darkness at all God’s holiness is so beautifully pure that not even a trace of darkness can be found in him God is to majestic and too holy for that now there’s an implication of God’s holy nature concerning God’s people because of God’s holiness God’s people do not walk in sin look at verse six if we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness we lie and do not practice the truth since light refers to God’s beauty his holiness and his truth darkness must refer to ugliness sin and falsehood John says if you claim to know God and enjoy communion with him and yet you live a life with unrepentant sin you are a liar you do not know God nor do you have any fellowship with him why is this true because God’s holy nature demand that his people also be holy the god of light cannot have fellowship with the people of darkness nor can God allow those who belong to him to so misrepresent him to the world no those who continue to walk in patterns of sin who live in sin who walk in darkness do not know God nor have any fellowship with him despite what they may claim notice again a double emphasis from John at the end of this verse not only do they lie not only do people lie when they claim fellowship with God and yet walk in darkness but they show that their habit is not to practice or do the truth they not only lie but they show themselves to be continual liars they don’t do the truth because how do God’s people really walk verse 7 tells us but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin now we see the positive opposite of what we just saw God’s real people do not walk in sin they walk in light that is they walk in righteousness and truth they become like God they want to do this they feel compelled to do this they behold the beautiful holy light of God and they are changed by it to become obedient and there are two outcomes two outcomes mentioned here first because of this God’s true people have fellowship with one another now this is a slight change from the previous verse and verse 6 John said that those who walk in sin do not have fellowship with God but here he says those who walk in righteousness have fellowship with one another what happened to God well this shouldn’t confuse us too much the opposite of verse 6 is still true for believers those who walk in light do experience true fellowship with God and because of that they also have fellowship with one another the people of light have a common bond they all love and then and are transformed by the light of God they therefore enjoy happy and holy fellowship with one another but those who walk in sin they do not enjoy fellowship with God and cannot enjoy fellowship with God nor can they enjoy fellowship with God’s people they are in the darkness but there’s another result not only do those who walk and light have fellowship with one another but the blood of Jesus his son cleanses them from all sin those who were transformed by the light of God have full assurance of salvation they know that the blood of Jesus shed on the cross totally cleanses them of all their sin all of it they know that they that they have been once and for all sanctified they have been made holy set apart now why do they know this how do they know this because their lives have been changed they now walk in light they now imitate God they are now righteous they now obey Christ commands wait a minute you might say that sounds like work salvation it’s not my holy work that results in my cleansing or keep me saved it’s Christ’s work on my behalf isn’t it you are right and John is about to explain how cleansing is part of the believers experience but don’t miss his point those who are transformed by the light of God know and expect that the blood of Jesus has cleansed them from all sin there’s nothing left to be cleansed they have total holiness through Jesus blood this encourages them to persevere and to walk in righteousness so we see the first point from John to his audience believers walk in light because their God is light however cleansing from sin was part of and is in a limited way part of the life of Christ true follower we now come to point number two believers have been cleansed by and continually seek cleansing in God’s light believers have been cleansed by and continually seek cleansing in God’s light in this section Paul first reminds believers that all people have sin that needs cleansing before they can walk in light vs eight to 10 of chapter one if we say that we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in US if we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in US you know that one of the most important realizations a person can make is that they are indeed a condemned sinner under the eternal wrath of God many people will at first protest and say I’m not perfect but I’m still a good person but God’s Word shows us that this is not true each person and their natural unredeemed state is like the people of the flood mentioned in Genesis 6 5 i’ll read that verse then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually each person lies lusts hates and steals disobeying God’s commands and therefore refusing to acknowledge God to be worthy of all glory obedience and worship this is a great offense to God each person in Pride rebels against God and God knows this God declares this many times in the scriptures Romans 310 quoting the songs Paul writes there is none righteous not even one and Romans 323 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God all men need cleansing from sin but God provided such cleansing God provided a way of such cleansing and it is this repentance and belief in Jesus Christ verse 9 described the process we confess our sins to God literally we say the same things to god about our sins that he does about that yes god i agree i am a wretched sinner deserving the highest outpouring of your anger my deeds are evil I have not kept your law I have not given you what you are rightly do but in this confession is also trust in Jesus Christ I have no righteousness to cover me Oh God but I place my trust in your son Jesus I take his life and righteousness as my own and trust that he has paid the full price of my sin on the basis of his sacrifice I ask for your mercy and for your acquittal such a prayer of faith God will honor as verse 9 also says God is faithful God is faithful to his promises of mercy that he has proclaimed in Christ and God is righteous but we can also be translated just God is just to acquit those who have been covered by Christ’s sacrifice he’s just a judge those who are covered but those who are covered he knows that he must equip them Christ’s sacrifice has paid for them and full so God totally forgives and cleanses those who are in Christ what would if a person still maintain that he does not need cleansing oh I really am a good person or I’ll work my way back to being good enough for God or what I do in the body doesn’t matter in my spirit I know that I am clean God will accept me to these notions John is four times in phatak you are dead wrong verse 8 John says you deceive yourself if you say these things and you show that the truth is not in you at all and verse 10 when you say these things you contradict the Word of God therefore you make God out to be a liar you dishonor God by doing this and you show that you do not know or value his word at all every man needs cleansing from sin in order to be saved but what about after salvation don’t save believers still sin well yes John clarifies that Christ also provides cleansing for the sins that believers still commit look at verses 1 to 2 of chapter 2 and first John my little children I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin and if anyone sins we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous and he himself as the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world notice first the tender affection John has for his brethren my little children he calls them the term here for children is in the diminutive form it is a term of endearment from the old apostle to his young brethren John grants that though believers are transformed to walk in light they will still sin now and then but they are not to fear when this happens because they have someone to come alongside an advocate who pleads his own righteous work on their behalf Jesus Christ Christ propitiatory work that is his work of satisfying the just wrath of God by sacrifice that appreciation means his repository work is so powerful as to cover all the sins of a person’s life past present and future and not just that person since but as the end of verse 2 tells us but also the sins of all believers everywhere in the world we don’t have time to fully look into that phrase those of the whole world the sins of the whole world but just know that it’s not proclaiming universal salvation or unlimited atonement for more on the doctrine of limited atonement see the pastor’s sermon on the doctrines of grace available on our website so not only have believers been cleansed once and for all by Christ but also Christ’s work is applied to them any time they sin in there but don’t miss an important caveat it should be understood that when believers sin in this way they always return to righteousness they repent they change they put to death the sin so that it does not remain a pattern or have it in their lives this is what they want to do they feel compelled to do this otherwise you know assuredly someone will come along and say well if all my sins are covered and I always have Christ as my advocate and I don’t really need to worry about walking in light because technically I’m righteous through Christ my behavior isn’t really a factor before God so and actually doesn’t matter whether I put to death patterns of sin in my life or not this idea probably fit very well with the Gnostic view affecting the churches of Asia Minor but John is not going to allow for that twisted interpretation nurse again verse 1 of chapter 2 I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin don’t misunderstand me John says these truths about your cleansing in Christ are not licensed for you to sing or permission for you to treat your buceta ng sins nonchalantly no I’m actually writing these things do so that you don’t sin John further clarifies himself in verses 3 to 6 essentially repeating what he said earlier in chapter 1 those who have been cleansed of sin change and they keep God’s commandments Luca vs 326 chapter 2 by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his Commandments the one who says I have come to know him and does not keep his Commandments as a liar and the truth is not in him but whoever keeps his word in him the love of God has truly been perfected by this we know that we are in him the one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in same manner as he walked jon is again very emphatic here don’t say you know God or abide in christ if you do not do what he did and if you do not do what He commands you to do if you say you know God while you continue to walk and sin you show yourself to be a liar with no knowledge of God’s truth you can see here John specific bent against the Gnostics who claimed to have been perfected by their higher knowledge and to have a perfect love for God John says if you really have love for God if you truly have been perfected and you will obey God’s commandments jesus said this himself John 14 15 Jesus says if you love me you will keep my Commandments how many people today and in ages past have claimed to know God and love God while refusing to be like him or to obey their words have proven empty brothers and sisters do not be deceived those who know God and have been cleansed by Christ keep Christ commandments now perhaps you’re saying to yourself wait I’m confused John says that those who know Christ obey but he also acknowledges that they sin and they need Christ as their advocate how can these things both be true let me clear things up true believers do sometimes sin they occasionally sin but that is not the pattern of their lives that is not the habit of their lives they walk in light their lives are marked by righteousness and obedience they are not content to just keep on falling to the same old sins in the same old ways they change they change their thinking to conform it to what the word God says and they make changes in their lives consistent with that new way of thinking if they see that something a person or activity or whatever it may be causes them to a stumble they get rid of it if they need help they reach out to their brothers and sisters in Christ they continue to devote themselves to the Word of God to prayer to fellowship to the teaching of God’s Word knowing that if they neglect these things they will not have consistent victory over sin they want victory so they devote themselves to these things please listen listen to this believers are so transfixed by the wondrous light of Christ they go all out in their war against sin they love Christ they want to please him they want to be like him and are therefore glad to war against any sinful habit until it is defeated such warfare often it often involves getting to the root of symptoms sins for example I keep going back to pornography because I don’t trust Christ to take care of my anxieties I’m searching for comfort outside of Christ because I don’t know how to deal with my situation or another example i keep getting angry at my spouse because I pridefully believe the Lord doesn’t give me what I deserve I’m discontent and ungrateful and therefore I cannot be gracious to others to get to the root of some sins we often need the help of others and we need the teaching provided in church because we might not even know we might be blinded barson we need others to help us see it truly believers by the Holy Spirit working through their striving efforts yes effort is involved they pluck up every we’d of sin root and all in their lives when they sin when a habit of sin appears in their lives and they notice it they immediately go all out and putting it to death they don’t listen to the flesh they believe God’s Word and overcome fleshly feelings and put to death any sinful pattern this is the big difference between people of light and people of darkness the people of light are marked by righteous behavior the people of darkness by sinful behavior believers do sin but it is not their pattern they do not allow patterns of sin or habits of sin to continue in their lives so we see John’s second point believers have been cleansed by and continually seek cleansing and God’s light but you might be thinking I thought the point of God’s law and commands was to show us we cannot obey them and to just seek God’s mercy how can John now say that we need to keep God’s commands and God’s law let’s examine John’s third and last point believers are empowered to keep God’s law of love by the new light of Christ believers are empowered to keep God’s law of love by the new light of Christ in this section Paul begins by presenting both a contrast and the continuity between a certain old and a certain new commandment regarding love look at verses 7 to 8 in chapter 2 beloved I’m not writing a new commandment to you but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning the old commandment is the word which you have heard on the other hand I am writing a new commandment to you which is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining notice you see the word beloved here but it’s actually the term brethren I’m not sure why it’s translated as beloved it’s the word a dull boy John is about to say something about brotherly love and he affirms his audience as brothers and sisters but what is this new commandment and what is the old commandment these terms actually show up multiple times in John’s writings there in his other letters and they actually come from Jesus himself the Gospel of John chapter 13 verses 34 to 35 records these words from Jesus a new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you that you also love her even as I loved you that you also love one another by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have what from one another now when Jesus said that when he gave them that new commandment he was actually presenting his to his disciples an old commandment goes back to the Pentateuch Leviticus 19 18 19 18 be but you shall love your neighbor as yourself i am the lord this old testament commandment is a summary of God’s whole law God had always intended for people to love him and therefore love one another loving others as an ordinance tied to the very nature of God and it has existed from of old it is the old commandment so why did Jesus then call that commandment a new commandment for his disciples well it’s because Jesus command to love became new in several ways first there was a new standard not just love someone as you love yourself but love someone as Christ loves you that’s an even higher standard second there was a new example not just the love of self or even the Father’s love demonstrated in the Old Testament but the love of God displayed in Christ the Son of God who laid down his life for his enemies and thirdly there was a new power because the disciples be held and experienced and receive Christ love they were changed by it they were now empowered to keep the old commandment of God by the new work of Christ love and this way Jesus makes the old law of love into a new law so it is here in our passage in 1st John John says if you walk with God and light and have come to know Christ then you will obey the old commandment that you have first heard from me and others when we share the gospel with you this commandment is of old because it is tied to the character of God however John also says you will be able to obey this old command because it has become new for you it was true in Christ and now becomes true in you your old life of darkness has passed away and is passing away because the life-giving light of Christ is now shining on you and in you in contrast to the Gnostics who saw who celebrated new revelation from God and of God John says no the revelation you need to pay attention to is the old revelation don’t absolve yourself from it by what you claim is new recognize that the old is still binding but that it becomes new for all who believe in Christ the gospel of Jesus is the only fresh revelation from God nothing else may stand with it the law of God then summed up in the command to love which formally condemned all men is now able to be obeyed by believers nay it must be obeyed as Jon says next look at verses 9 to 11 of chapter 2 the one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother in the darkness until now the one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him but the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes this section of Texas in the same format as what we saw earlier it is totally inconsistent to say that you are in the light that you belong to God and yet walk in a pattern of lovelessness toward your brethren the term brother here has fellow believers especially in mind but the principle extends to non-believers to if your knowledge and love for God does not manifest itself and sincere consistent it in sincere and consistent love for people especially fellow believers and you do not know God you are walking in darkness you are still in it something has caused you to stumble in your belief in God you have not yet believed God to be all lovey and satisfying and worthy of obedience and you have not given up your pride and your hatred and your contempt for others you therefore don’t know the god of light and we’re still you don’t even know where you are or where you are going hatred of others has blinded your eyes the verb translated as going here in our text is an interesting verb because it contains the idea of going away or going down the brother hater is not simply wandering but he is stumbling away from God down towards the fire of hell and he doesn’t even know it but John warns such people make no mistake only those who demonstrate love to their brothers and sisters in Christ and to all people are the ones that actually abide in God’s light a believer may slip now and then but lovelessness is not his pattern his life is marked just as Christ was by real love for others so we see John’s Third Point believers are empowered to keep God’s law of love by the new light of Christ let’s now review John’s argument and consider where we stand in light of it first believers walk and light because their God is liked second believers have been cleansed by and continually seek cleansing in God’s light and third believers are empowered to keep God’s law of love by the new light of Christ please ask yourself this morning do you walk in light his righteousness the pattern of your life are you zelus to identify and remove all the settings sins that appear in your life do you go all out in your war against sin have you ever said the same thing as God about your sin that without is cleansing you will be justly damned in torment forever have you pleaded with God for Christ’s merciful work to cover you and to pay your sin debt and having been cleansed by Christ do you walk in holiness immediately repenting and putting to death whatever occasional sin you notice appears in your walk do you love the Brethren and does that love proven in your deeds do you love your spouse do you love your children do you love your coworkers do you love your enemies and those who mistreat you do you see how Christ has empowered you to actually live out a new life of love because of his love if you can confidently answer yes to these things and let us rejoice and fellowship with one another let us thank God let us encourage one another just as the Apostle John intends let us rejoice in our hope of heaven the fruit of the Spirit is the seal of the Spirit it is the mark of guarantee that when you and I die we will go to be with the Lord those who walk in light can be sure that they will dwell in light with the god of light but if you cannot confidently answer yes to those questions then repent and believe the gospel true belief is always marked by change and persevere perseverance are you willing to give up your old patterns of thinking and behavior in order to obtain God and His salvation are you willing to line up under Christ as a good soldier and to fight to the nth degree for his sake are you willing to be discontent as long as a pattern of sin remains in your life brothers and sisters let us not be deceived bad teaching has infiltrated our day just like it did John’s let us beware of any teaching that does not lead to practical holiness to lives of obedience if we are not willing to do whatever it takes to change and if we do not actually change in our behavior but continue in our same old patterns and we do not know the god of light we were in darkness the darkness will destroy us so where are you this morning let the Word of God and first John penetrate your soul and spirit and show you what you really are either to comfort and encourage you or to convict you so that you may repent that’s closing prayer father I have sought to faithfully deliver your word help us God not to rationalize sin in order to twist your word into saying something it does not say protect us from bad teaching from things that sound holy but are actually abuses of your word you made this letter from John so emphatic and so clear that we would know that those who belong to you walk and holiness it is their pattern God make it our pattern we know our effort is involved we know our will is involved but we know also God that if anything happens is because you do it so we give you all the glory make us holy protect us from sin protect us from temptation deliver us from evil show us more of yourself order our feelings speak against your word and tell us don’t do righteousness it won’t be good for you help us to persevere and to not believe those feelings about to believe your word your word is true it is so good what we love you please accomplish great change in us make us into your holy people just as you have designed us to be in Jesus name Amen

January 3, 2016
The Wonder of God’s Love

In this sermon, Pastor Babij discusses why it is that Christmas should fill people with great wonder at God’s love. Pastor Babij explains that, in Christ coming as a man, mankind sees that: 1.) God took the initiative to secure salvation for sinners, 2.) God’s love held nothing back to bring life to sinners, and 3.) God provided once-and-for-all propitiation for sinners. Such truths are made even more wondrous with the realization that man is utterly sinful and, therefore, is completely undeserving of God’s love.

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alright let’s figure our Bibles this morning and let’s turn to first John first John chapter four and we’re going to look specifically at verses 9 and 10 first John chapter 4 verses 9 and 10 well let me read verse 7 through verse number 14 first John chapter 4 verse 7 beloved let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God the one who does not love does not know God for god is love by this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through him in this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins beloved if God so loved us we ought to love one another no one has seen God at any time if we love one another god abides in US and his love is perfected in us by this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit we have seen and testify that the father has sent the son to be the savior of the world let’s pray father this morning as I come before you in the great name of our Lord Jesus Christ and I depend on the Spirit of God to bring the Word of God forth to your people I pray Lord that you would use this to again bring to our minds the wonder of God’s love help us every day to wake up with that on our minds and I pray Lord that we would live by it also that it would really change us each day as we think about the depth of the love of Christ and I ask you Lord that you would guide us in this way this morning in Christ’s name Amen now this time of years is really a blessed season for many people excitement fills the air while people are talking about meeting with family meeting with friends enjoying their favorite foods people are chattering about giving gifts about time off from work and school but in the midst of all that in the midst of all the commotion we may forget the most important thing a little girl once quoted John 3:16 in this way for God so loved the world that He gave His only forgotten son of course she misquoted the verse but her mistake is worthy of our consideration it is not is it not all too true that Jesus is God’s only forgotten son so at this season of the year the peril is always present that we should forget the primary and proper meaning of Christmas and really overlook the fact that Christmas celebrates the coming of God’s Son into the world and so let’s not make that mistake and let’s never forget that this holiday season is something that we are to remember that so we need to stop we need to worship and we need to celebrate Jesus Christ now I was like that to help you to get focused this morning and get your attention on the wonder of God’s love it was the late D James Kennedy it was famous for his evangelism explosion who said this how wondrous is his love how incredible is it that the creator of the galaxies should come into the world and be murdered by the very creatures he made he gave himself for all those who would come and believe in him what wondrous love is this that came to this earth this season so long ago upon a midnight clear D James Kennedy now in thinking of that there are three things I want to share with you from this passage of Scripture looking at verse number nine the first thing is this that God’s love is filled with wonder because God took the initiative to secure the salvation of sinners in verse number nine it says but this is the love of God but this the love of God was manifest in us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world now that’s where he starts off in that passage of Scripture so if you are spiritually alert you must conclude that God is active in salvation in other words God actually goes out after us he actually goes and seeks for us that’s often overlooked that he is not a God who can be persuaded by our lives in our action into forgiving us but he is a God that pursues us goes after us and you know if salvation is just something that we earn which we all thought before we actually became believers there’s no incentive to lift up our voices to praise God for his wonderful love or his this great salvation he’s given us there’s there’s really no reason to do anything however if salvation is entirely the result of something done by God if that’s our understanding and that is the understanding of scripture well then praise and wonder must be a part of the astonishment of saints who lift up their praises to God for the great things that he has done and for so great and magnificent a salvation that he is given to us who do not deserve it in fact when Mary questioned the angel Gabriel Mary was given the announcement by Gabriel that she was going to be the chosen one to bear the seed of God to bring forth the Son of God it was an astonishing thing and her response to the angel great Gabriel in Luke chapter 1 was this how can this be since I’m a virgin now Mary’s question how I’m a virgin I’ve never known a man so her question was not a question of doubt it was a question of wonder it was it was a question of design see Mary is asking about the mechanics of the thing how is it going to work out how is such a thing possible see something like this Mary was thinking has never happened before this is unheard of and not only that historically remember when the angel Gabriel came to Mary to give her that announcement people were unfamiliar with God’s speaking to individuals it was not we had to go back 400 years the Prophet Malachi was the last time God spoke through a prophet so it was quite unusual that God would speak to people so she was and every yell everyone else was not accustom to the supernatural appearances and the miraculous promises that were coming to her from the angel Gabriel the wonder of was absent from the general population in that day however it did point to God doing something entirely new and Mary and everyone else was sensing that because of what the events that were happening in that day so her question was really stuck in the realm of human reasoning how did God how did Gabriel answer her in Luke well he said this to her the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God now that was what he told her that was not easy to understand see the point being that God initiated Jesus virgin birth Mary will conceive without an earthly father that the Holy Spirit will overshadow you in other words the Holy Spirit will surround an influence Mary’s womb with the creative power of God and it will produce a special child the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ as a man is entirely the work of God he had no earthly father he was born of the will not of the will of man not of the energy of the flesh the male human being did not enter into the question of conception whatsoever so see that the man is put on the side he has nothing to do with it this just emphasizes the total inability of man to provide salvation at all for himself the initiative was totally of God it was the plan of God for the very sake of delivering people from their sin from the condemnation of their sin so G Jesus will be conceived without sin unlike any other child Jesus was Jesus was holy and separated from any sin and by nature the Son of God so Jesus is God in human flesh the operation of the Holy Spirit was done in such a way that this human nature that the son took unto himself was sinless it was free from pollution it was entirely free from the effects and the result of man’s fall into sin Jesus was perfect it was the perfect son of man so Jesus incarnation was so unusual so exceptional so miraculous so mysterious that it was Lunt unlike anything ever heard of and ever not only in this time but ever in all of human history where John said and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory as the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth it was truly a miracle everything about Jesus was mysterious his coming into the world was mysterious is going out of the world when he was scented heaven was mysterious he entered like no one else he exited like no one else the resurrection was unique the virgin birth was unique see everything about him was exceptional from beginning to the end it was exceptional what was the what was impossible became possible only with God and that’s exactly what happened in the conversation between Gabriel and Mary where it finally says there for nothing will be impossible with God that had to be enforced in the mind of Mary about what was going to take in her body and in that day so see Mary’s answer was an answer of design there was a design problem but remember God is the designer because he is the limit he has limitless power and of course can’t accomplish whatever he pleases to whatever extent he wants to do it everything is possible with God everything in the past everything in the present everything in the future so we have to realize and remember that it all happened so that we may be saved that our sins might be forgiven that the Son of God became man and the Son of God became man that the children of men might become the children of God that’s the reverse order there in fact it was in the very Gospel of John that if you remember from the Word of God that it says in the Gospel of John for as many as received him to them he gave the right to become the children of God even those who believed in his name who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God in other words it was completely God’s initiative we had nothing to do with it did you have anything to do with you being born physically no you have nothing to do with you being born spiritually actually see it’s all the initiative of God all of it so see God was pleased to send his son to assume our nature and died for our many sins the giving of a redeemer was the work of God’s free mercy and instead of God giving the sinner what he deserves he gives Jesus what he doesn’t deserve and that is the punishment of our sin for scripture tells us for he for it says for he made himself who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf for what reasons so that we may become the righteousness of God in him see nothing moved God to do this but his own love nothing moved God but his own love so the point being that the story of salvation is not a story of God waiting for us to do something it’s not a story of waiting for us to repent and to turn to Him and to do good works it is a story of God being active who actually goes out after us who makes the first move it was God who sent his son to work out such a great salvation it was God the Father that sent his willing son to the cross it was God who raised him from the dead it was God who does everything all of it is of God and at the bottom of it all is God’s love that’s what moves it but if I were to ask and if you were to ask why why does he love us what of it why does God love his children we would have to answer like this because because he loves you because he loves you period he loves you it’s the same reason given to Moses concerning God’s choice of Israel if you remember when God chose Israel what did he say to Israel this is what he said to Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 7 he says the Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples for you were the fewest of all people but because the Lord loved you and kept in oath which he swore to your father’s the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery slavery from the house of king of egypt so the answer is this why does god love his children because because of who he is because in scripture here says that he is a god of love that’s the very nature of god so when we think about it like that if you are believer in Christ Jesus today the answer to the question is in short he loved you because he loved you because he is loved and such undeserved love should cause believers to worship and praise God with their mouths and then ultimately thank him for every single thing there must be wonder in our heart about what Jesus did because he took the initiative he took the first step that’s the first thing that God’s love is filled with wonder because God’s love is took the initiative to secure our salvation the second thing is this in verse number nine first John chapter four that God’s love is filled with wonder because it held back nothing it held nothing back to bring life to dead sinners it held nothing back to bring life to us four it says in Scripture but this by in verse number nine by this the love of God was manifest in us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through him see this love shows up in all those who respond positively to the demonstration of God’s love by believing in the son so through faith in Christ life comes to us through Jesus Christ and then the love of God is manifested in us in fact in verse number seven of the passage that we read it says beloved let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God so the real reason why we can act actually love in a genuine ways because God loved us in fact it says this in John 17 this is eternal life that we may know you the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent so life involves knowing and having Jesus Christ himself for life is tied up in him if it wasn’t for him we would have no life so in giving his son God gave the best there was to give there was no nothing better the father could have given us than Jesus Christ Romans tells us he who did not spare his own son but delivered him over for us all how will he not also with him freely give us all things so because of Jesus Christ brethren all things are possible for his children but rather remember that it had to be more than God sending his son to this earth into this world it had to be more than that see God God’s loving nature knew that he had to be there had to be a far greater demonstration of love one that would tower above all human examples it was not just God sending his son that was just the beginning that was just the start of it but we have to ask ourselves the question how spiritually dead are human beings well look at verse number 10 of our text it says this and this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us so in other words the answer the question is so so dead spiritually that our text tells us that you are not suited naturally to love God in fact the notion to think that you and I have the ability to love God on our own is a flat-out lie we can’t even do it we wouldn’t know where to start because it does start with knowledge and understanding that comes from God’s Word it could not have entered your heart or your mind on its own to love God or or cause your desires to understand and seek after God that we would want God to come into the world to be a remedy for our sin and it’s condemnation that we wouldn’t come up with that only by God’s grace could you and I have imagined to ask that the eternal son of God should assume our flesh and be made sin and occurs for us and died on a tree and everyone who dies and lifted up in a tree is cursed we just would have never conceived it in our spiritually dead Minds it could have never been orchestrated by a human being you’re just not that smart but now with that we’re dead we can’t even think that way so then when a person is made spiritually alive they quickly come to know maybe the first thing you come to know is Wow God loves me right and you know what a good friend once said to me about the simple song jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so he said to me that’s not the shallow end of the pool that’s the deep end of the pool it is true because the rest of your Christian life one of the key things to keep you from sin and to keep your desires and flamed is the love of God if it’s thinking about it and meditating on it and getting it in your heart and mind that whatever to the extent would what God did for you you never would have deserved it you could have never accomplished it so the first and the greatest way the love of God becomes wonderfully known to a redeemed sinner is the cross they can’t talk about the birth of Christ without talking about the death of Christ actually if you talk about the birth without the death you don’t have the gospel you only have one part of it and so it was not just God sending his son it was God sending his son to die that’s why he really came now take your Bibles and turn quickly over to the book of Romans chapter 5 this is a perfume angel’ ISM this is a passage of Scripture you definitely want to use alright because it just shown you on there in this passage of Scripture the wonder of God’s love from this verse in verse number chapter 5 verse number 8 it says but God demonstrates his own love toward us this is Romans 5:8 in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us but look at verse number 6 of that same chapter it says for while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly now that is a passage of Scripture that tells us listen what God did what was way beyond anything ever anyone could have ever done is that he demonstrated a sinless man demonstrates his love towards sinful ungodly humanity by what by dying now think for a moment the God you and I defied the God you and I ignored and disah paid not only has not dammed us and destroyed us but he actually sent His only begotten Son to die for us and to redeem us we have to think about that more often we can’t just say we understand things and that I’ve heard it before see the way of salvation the way to heaven is open and it is a wonder that it’s open to sinners it is a wonder the Lord had has visited this earth and has provided everything needed to redeem his people the Lord has visited this this earth and those all those who would come and believe in him the love of God has made conspicuous as the light that we see in our day today the light that’s beaming through that window right now because of the cross it makes his love very conspicuous you can’t miss it when you look at the cross for John first John 3 verse 16 says we know love by this that he laid down his life for us that’s how we know the love of God that he laid down his life for us so there’s something else that we become very aware of when we are aware of the love of God we’re aware of at the same time we begin to discover wow I cannot believe God loves me I can’t believe how God demonstrated his love for me on the cross I can’t believe what happened there on the cross that he took my sin he died in my place when I should have been there I should have been there see there’s something else that happens and it’s this that we begin to Dan now sense our unworthiness our unworthiness that the Son of God should become human and died for our sakes we become aware of that in fact you’re still right there in Romans chapter 5 look at verse number 7 Romans 5 7 for one would hardly die for a righteous man though perhaps for a good man some would dare even to die now let me just stop right there now this passage of Scripture is an incredible passage of Scripture that highlights the extent to which Jesus died for sinners I have read many books on Special Forces both in the US and around the world in the past several years and I have noticed a common thread that runs through these books it is the camaraderie the loyalty and and the Brotherhood that exists amongst these men they develop a deep respect and a love for one another in fact several of the books some of the men quote this passage greater love has no one than this that one laid down his life for his friends some of them have that tattooed on their arm they’re not necessarily believers but this this verse resonates with them all of them have answered the questions would I give my life would I make the ultimate sacrifice if it came right down to it would I take the bullet for my brother who’s standing next to me they all answer in the book they all answer in the affirmative all of them yes I would without question without doubt without hesitation they answer yes I would now many who have gone downrange have paid the ultimate price for their brother in arms and their country they took the bullet and they gave their life but if we were to ask those same soldiers would you lay your down your life for your enemy would you lay down your life of the Taliban for al-qaeda for an Isis soldier would you lay down your life for the organization called the GI a which is the Islamic army group that is a terrorist organization that has the authority ability to train soldiers and send out groups of men that are skilled in beheading people would you die for them well the answer would be no way my life is not worth giving for them they are my enemy it is really something we have to think about but relating that to this passage the point being that the case is rare that one should die for another even if he or she was a good and righteous person because life is precious and we don’t want to lose it unnecessarily do we or for flippant reasons or reasons that don’t have certain weight to it so it is for the most part non-existent that one would be willing to give their life for an enemy you don’t find that anywhere I haven’t read it in any of the books it’s just not there it’s not gonna happen now here is where the love of God takes on wonder of its own that’s compared you cannot compare it to anything else it is unequaled by any other thing any other person the demonstration of God’s mercy towered above the proportion that any friendly person could ever display for someone else God his son to die in the place not of those who were good and just but those who were not good those who were unjust those who were wicked those who were ungodly for those who were all in a damnable State he sent his son to die for the ungodly for sinners and to rescue and free us from eternal death and make us partakers of eternal life in other words in verse number eight of Romans chapter five this is where this comes in but God demonstrates his own love toward us and while we were yet sinners that’s when Christ died for us God the Father because of Christ calls us friends who were once enemies of God he calls us friends he died for his enemies people who would never love him who worshipped other things in other gods and then he reconciles them to himself and anybody who is reconciled to God is a friend you don’t have to reconcile enemies or reconciled to God and become friends of God tell me that doesn’t say something about the wonder of God that if God were to stand right here in this place this morning and you having trusted and believed him in as your Lord and Savior he would come up to you as a friend not as a judge as a friend think of that for a minute when we come to the Lord’s table we come to the Lord’s table because we are at peace with God and he’s our friend not in in a human way but in a way a very holy way we understand that and if that does not humble you I don’t know what can humble you did the extent he gave his life for us see this is Christmas message this is the message that we we need to hear because God’s love is so wonderful that it has gone to the uttermost to save sinners and it held back nothing to bring dead ungodly sinners to life held back nothing then there’s one last thing first John passage you could turn back there one last thing this morning that God’s love is filled with wonder because it would held no cost to restore lost sinner’s back to the loving heavenly father where it says in verse number 10 of 1st John chapter 4 and this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins no better word than that word there so if your Bibles changed it to something else get that word back in there because this is a word we just can’t find anywhere else this is a word particular to scripture it’s because it has to be there because it’s related to the death of Jesus Christ see love is always to be understood in terms of God’s love for us never in terms of our love for God that means love does not originate in man it never has and it never will now if you notice how striking God’s action is here not that we loved God but that he loved us that God was initiating the action to send His Son and atoning sacrifice with no immediate returns in other words that God did something for us God’s not saying okay I did something for you you just you do something for me no there’s no reciprocity in in what Christ did on the cross there’s no okay you know I invite Carlos to lunch you know he to lunch I invite him to lunch that’s a reciprocity right or I borrow tools from Joe and so Joe borrows tools from me there’s nothing going on in the gospel like that that’s now God’s not requiring anything from us that’s why it’s free that’s why it’s a gift so the Lord God knew when he said his son it would be an atoning sacrifice for sin that his sacrifice would be would need to go beyond where any other sacrifice had gone before and we don’t we don’t really live in a world that understands the reality of there were significance of animal sacrifice do we yet sacrifice is what the Word of God means that God sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins this means that Jesus is not just acting like the high priest that was authorized to take the blood of the sacrifice into the Holy of Holies he is not just like a high priest to offer up the sacrifice of the animal on the altar before God and behalf of the people actually the Greek word is the word that means mercy seat is connected to that word and can it came to denote not only the mercy seat or the lid of the Ark of the Covenant inside the Holy of Holies if you’ve been coming to son in school you should understand all that but also propitiation or reconciliation by blood on the great day of atonement the high priest carried the blood of the sacrifice he offered for all the people within the veil and sprinkled it on the mercy seat and so made propitiation that there is something much more Jesus Christ is not only the high priest that’s the one making the offering but he is the one who becomes the offering he is the one who sheds his blood he is the one who makes propitiation that means satisfaction he satisfies the father with his sacrifice on the cross there’s nothing else that needs to be done Jesus completely and totally satisfies the father so God the Father sent Jesus to be an atoning sacrifice to remove the guilt that we had incurred because of our sins so that we may have eternal life that Jesus Christ by his death paid for our sins and satisfied God’s judgment on sin in other words what Jesus did on the cross satisfy the father in two respects number one the removal all of all guilt because of sin that by his sacrifice cleansing and forgiveness comes to the sinner and then also this word propitiation has to do it the Lord expiating our guilt or covering our guilt or and then by by taking the punishment in our place and then a second way is the removal of God’s anger towards us the appeasing of God’s wrath that the death of Christ totally satisfied the Justice of God the righteousness of God and the holy hatred God has for sin so again you just can’t talk about the birth of Christ without talking about the death of Christ and without talking about the resurrection of Christ and without talking about the Ascension of Christ and without talking about the second coming of Christ it’s all part of the gospel and it’s all important for us to understand so see in giving his son God paid the greatest debt by paying the ultimate cost he paid a cost we could never afford now I’m how long we could save if you could pay for it we could never afford it but Jesus paid it so brethren I hope and I pray that you never get bored of hearing about the old rugged cross I pray you’d never get bored about hearing about the gospel about Jesus Christ demonstration on Calvary’s Hill his love there for those who have confessed Jesus Christ as their own Lord and Savior they are the Bible says in Christ and so therefore if they are in Christ then they are their sins are forgiven all offenses have been removed they are reconciled to God they are possessors of eternal life they are partakers of the divine nature they are born of God and have passed out of condemnation to life that’s what Jesus does oh what a blessed state it is to be saved to be delivered from the wrath of God and to know it to know it so may this message never be commonplace but every time you think of how God saves you and the wonder of God’s love you would rejoice you would go off into a praise time wherever you are driving your car it’s laying in your bed in your office behind the desk somebody hear you shout think something’s wrong and say no I’m just praising God because I’ve been thinking about my salvation maybe that’ll give you an opportunity for it I think right do that try that in your office hopefully you’ll keep your job but nonetheless I really pray that for those this day who do not believe that today may become you may come to Jesus and you may you may find an advocate advocate with the father a lawyer with the father Jesus Christ because you always have to ask ourself that question can we honestly say that this Christmas season that you have looked to Jesus alone for eternal life or are you still looking to yourself are you still trying to work it out yourself I looked are you looking to someone else to save you besides Jesus so have you learned the great truth that through Christ a thousand times born in Bethlehem if he’s not born in you if he’s not born in you your soul is still perishing I’d like to ask you again has this wonderful person been born in your heart truly truly Jesus says I say unto you unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God see the question is has that happened to you has that happened to you Christ who is the king of the kingdom Christ is the one who says who will go in and who will not go in and Jesus has said in fatica Li you can in no wise enter the kingdom of God unless you are born again born anew born from above see have you ever been born from above one yet what one young man may reply well I don’t know if I have or I haven’t well the next question could be well have you ever been born physically of course he says I’ve been born physically and I know that then it was told a young man my friend if you have been born again you would know that as well it’s not an elusive thing it’s something you understand and you know God made it that way you can’t say I hope I am you have to know you are so I ask you again this Sunday before Christmas Day a day that we are celebrating the birth of the Savior has he been born in your heart I would urge you to humble yourself knowledge your sin and look to Jesus the Savior and invite him to come and be born in you to cleanse you to forgive you to transform you see if you don’t look to Jesus you’re still lost and without him you have no hope and so my friends when you leave this world and you leap into eternity which by the way is a very very long time eons and eons of time without number where will you be with Christ in heaven or consign forever separated from God because of your sin because nobody took care of it you didn’t have a sacrifice everybody needs to sacrifice for sin everybody and that sacrifice is Jesus Christ it is the only sacrifice there’s no other see that’s why all other religions are false because it has no sacrifice and if it has a sacrifice and it’s not Jesus Christ then it’s not rooted in Scripture and rooted in eternity and rooted in God’s initiative and if it’s not rooted there then it’s false and it’s untrustworthy and it cannot save it actually damns a person but when you know the truth we should be so filled with Wonder we should be so filled with praise because of the great things God done for us we should understand that as Peter said for Christ also died for sins once for all the just for the unjust what was his purpose what was his mode motive in order to that he might bring us to God that’s what Jesus does he brings us to a relationship with the father and we become one with him we become to know him and by repentance that’s true repentance means that you turn away and you turn to your the Lord that you turn away from the many individual sins by which we have offered actually offended God’s character and broken his law you turn away from any attempt to try to save yourself and then you turn to God who can pardon your sin who can make you right before him who can bring you into closed flat fellowship with him and then of course repentance and belief belief means to trust only in the person death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that’s what it simply means to trust that G trust Jesus as really God’s appointed provision for the forgiven of sins and of course we trust Jesus for moral power to affect change in our thoughts and our attitudes and our motives and our desires and our affections and our words and our actions and the patterns of how we live our life God gives us a spirit to change all that so we’re different and then of course we trust Jesus to keep us we can’t keep ourselves saved but Jesus who saves will keep you if you’re truly saved he will keep you he keeps us in saving belief on he’ll till he takes us away to heaven whether by death or by his coming either way we’re gonna be in his presence right see that’s how you need to live and that’s what Christmas is about I prayed that we would be a bunch of people that are so filled with the wonder of God’s love we just can’t help ourselves that’s what we ought to be amen let’s pray Lord just this morning I do thank you for the Word of God I thank you Lord for the wonder of God’s love and I know Lord for for believers Lord that means it should lead us to worship you to praise you to be humble under your mighty hand and then desire to serve you and Lord for unbelievers it means it should lead them to yearn to repent of their sin and to believe in Jesus Christ the only substitute and Savior for all those who are ungodly sinners thank you Lord Jesus thank you Father that you took the initiative that you didn’t hold back anything and that you would you did not withhold any cost that it would take to save us sinners I appreciate that Lord and I thank you and I give you praise and glory this morning for it please bring those who don’t know you saving faith strengthen our faith for this new year so we can live with the thought of the wonder of God in our mind every day and I pray this in your name amen

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