God is Greater Than our Heart (1 John 3:19-24) Adult Sunday School

Kootenai Church

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Good morning, everyone. Oh, that's loud. Come on in and find your seats.

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We'll get cracking. Before we get started, let's go to the

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Lord for a word of prayer. Father, we just come before you and just offer, just come before you,

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I guess, just to thank you for who you are. Just the fact that you have given us your grace through Christ.

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Thank you for providing all the things that we need to live our lives appropriately. As we go forward in this lesson this morning,

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Lord, I pray that you'll just open our hearts and our minds to the truth that you have before us and that it would penetrate our lives and that we might be able to go out into the world and to share our faith with anybody that will listen and that we might be able to teach our families, lead our wives, and just be a testimony to your amazing love and grace to us,

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Lord. We just thank you now in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, we're coming to the end of chapter three today, and it's been a little bit of a journey in chapter three.

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I've learned quite a few things through this. One of the first things that we've learned in chapter three is that we're called children of God.

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What a blessing that is, isn't it? Have you ever thought much just about that concept, just that you are a child of God now?

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You're saved, and you no longer belong to the world system with its destructive tendencies and all of that, and that we're a child of God.

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We've been adopted into a new family. That's exciting to think about for us.

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It provides a whole level of meaning and understanding for us that we didn't have before, and the most beautiful thing about it is all of you.

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We've been adopted into a new family, so we have a whole lot of new brothers and sisters that we need to get acquainted with all over the world.

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We have new brothers and sisters, and I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but we have a higher regard for members of our own family than those outside the family, don't we?

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Even in our own physical relationships with our family on earth, we tend to love our family way more than just someone that we don't really know all that much.

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And so in the body of Christ, that love that we have is demonstrated, and that's really some of the things that we've learned in chapter 3 is that a true child of God is supposed to act differently towards their brothers and sisters in Christ.

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We have a new love and a new appreciation for them that doesn't come from a self -serving, self -centered relationship, but it comes primarily from our relationship that we have in Christ.

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And just being a child of God comes with new responsibilities, comes with new responsibilities.

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We're to purify ourselves from the sins in our lives. That's in chapter 3.

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We've gone over that. We're to be holy because he's holy. That's a difference in our lives, being a child of God, and we're not to be deceived.

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And in order for that to happen, we must understand the truth, right? We understand the truth.

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We look into the Scriptures so we're not deceived because in the

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Gnostic teaching, that's what they were trying to do is lead the believers in Asia Minor astray, away from the truth, away from Jesus Christ who is the answer.

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And that's a big focus of this book John is writing about is showing us how not to be deceived.

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And it's by knowing and understanding the truth so we can be living righteous lives that are pleasing to the

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Father. That's the goal of a child of God is that we conform to the image of God and that we follow after him in all of our lives.

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A true child of God has no greater purpose than to love our Lord and to love our brothers and sisters.

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That's what we're going to be talking about a little bit today as well. But the kind of love that we're talking about, it isn't an emotional love.

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It's a love in action. It's a love in action. And where do we see that love in action?

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In the Scriptures. We see it in Christ's sacrificial death on the cross for us.

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That's love in action. That's what we have come to believe in our lives is that love in action.

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And it motivates us to love others. It's a sacrificial giving, something we must do.

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Not just say we're going to do it, but actually do it as Christ was sacrificial in his example.

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That's the way we're supposed to look to our own brothers and sisters is that sacrificial love for them. What good is it if we see our brothers in need and then turn a blind eye to that need?

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That's a little bit of chapter three. What good is it if we see something that our brother needs and turn a blind eye to that?

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A lot of times I've heard a lot of excuses when it comes to helping the brothers and sisters in Christ.

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You kind of hear sometimes, I would, but you know, I've got this other appointment. I can't really make it out there today.

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And we hear that. Sometimes we hear, well, you know, my paycheck ran out, so I can't really help you anymore financially, but you know,

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I'll certainly pray for you. Sometimes there are excuses in serving the brothers.

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And I think the thing that I always think about is asking yourself a question.

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Why can't I help my brothers and sisters in Christ? What is holding me back?

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What is preventing me from doing that? Because if we truly have an eye to our brothers and sisters, we'll stop what we're doing and we'll go help them.

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And I think of it this way, is sometimes I think it would be better if we planned it out.

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If we set aside the resources in any given month and then look for the needs that we can use those resources on and say, okay,

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I'm going to give $100. I'm going to give up two hours of my time. I'm going to give some materials that I have, maybe set aside some resources for the purpose of giving, and then look for the needs within the body to do that.

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That could be a way to do it. But because here's the end all here is that prayer is a thoughtful and nice.

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And if that's all you can do, that's okay. But verse 18 of this chapter 3 says that we are not to love with word or with tongue, but in deed and in truth.

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It's an action. It's not just words like, hey, go in peace. You know, I hope you do well. I know you're struggling, but no, it's to do something about it.

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And I think the motivation behind that is when our eyes are laser focused on Jesus, we should be motivated to love because we're reminded that he laid down his life for us.

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That's the motivation behind it all, is that he laid down his life for us. And I think about, you know, the church isn't typically made up of the rich and famous.

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Sometimes the world looks at the church maybe as, you know, housing the outcasts and the sinners.

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And, you know, the world's standards are a little harder to love, but for us, the brothers are not harder to love.

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They're easy to love because they're of the family of God. And that's what a child of God does.

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We see our brothers as broken vessels, like ourselves. We're all broken vessels.

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But when I see my brothers leaking needs, I'm supposed to come in and plug that gap for them.

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That's the idea. How could we possibly do anything else given what

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Christ has done on the cross for us? We see that great love, and it should motivate us like no other because we're so grateful that he has done the sacrifice to save us.

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Wow, what an amazing gift that is for us. And why would we withhold something to our brothers and sisters?

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It builds up our faith and it helps them. That's the beauty of it all.

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This chapter has illustrated the vast difference between children of God and children of the devil.

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And it's not a mystery why, though. Because everyone who has been born of God has the seed of God in them and will practice righteousness.

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That's in chapter 3. We saw that. Anyone who has the seed is the one who practices righteousness.

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We have a new nature in ourselves. The opposite is true of the children of the devil.

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They hate instead of love. And we looked at that with Cain and Abel last week.

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We looked at that. And so now we move into our passage for today.

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And the title of this message is God is greater than our heart. And so we're going to read. We're going to go three.

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We're going to read from 16 on down to the end of the chapter. So starting in verse 16 of chapter 3 of 1

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John. By this we have known love, that he laid down his life for us.

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And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

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Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and in truth.

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And by this we will know that we are of the truth and will assure our heart before him.

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In whatever our heart condemns us, for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

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Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.

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And this is the commandment that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he gave a commandment to us.

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And 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 gave us.

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So in verse 19 and 20, it is the assurance of our faith. That's what we're going to be talking about.

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It's the certainty that we have of our faith. And that's what it's talking about.

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This verse is about having assurance of our faith. You get the idea that John has been giving us assurance of our faith throughout this entire book.

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I has been driving us to the ultimate conclusion that it is those who practice righteousness are the ones who can have the assurance of their faith.

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That's what he's saying. Remember, walk in the light as I am in the light.

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And then you'll have fellowship with one another. That's a true assurance.

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If you're doing those things, if you're having fellowship with the saints, if you keep his commandments, we've talked about this before, you can know that you have assurance.

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If you hate the world, if you hate the things of this world, and you follow after the Lord, you can have that assurance of your faith.

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And that's what he's talking about here. And again, we see the same thing in this verse, don't we?

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Another test, if you will, by being of the book, if you will, by loving our brothers, we have assurance.

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By loving our brothers, we have assurance. So what does assure mean?

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What does assure mean? Think about that. If you have an assurance of something, it means literally to persuade.

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That word means to persuade. So I'm trying to persuade you that what these words are saying are true.

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That's what it's about. It's to be convinced. So if you're assured of your faith, you are convinced of it.

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You're convinced. It's a confidence that you have in your mind. It's not a doubt.

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It's not anything other than pure confidence of the mind. And it's a freedom from self -doubt.

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So in the context of this verse, it's when we are loving our brothers, your heart is persuading you that you're doing the right things.

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That's what it means. Your heart is persuading you and telling you that what you are doing and the way that you are loving your brothers is honest and true and right, and it lines up with the truth of the word of God.

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It's pulling you in that direction, literally persuading you that you are doing the things.

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That's a beautiful picture in our minds of the word of God, assuring us that we have faith in him and confidence to follow after him.

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You have confidence in your mind that this is right, and there is no self -doubt. And John gives us the ultimate assurance of our faith, doesn't he?

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If you turn over to chapter five, verse 13, we'll look at this real quick. The ultimate assurance of our faith, chapter five, verse 13.

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We'll read it. 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.

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These things are written to assure you, to show you, to demonstrate that you have eternal life to those that believe it's possible that you know that you have eternal life.

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That's such a beautiful thing for us. In the world, there's so much doubt about end times things, so much doubt about salvation, even within the church in the

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Arminian views of losing your salvation. There's no greater thing than to have that eternal security in what we believe.

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There's no greater thing. We don't have to doubt. We don't have to worry about it. And it sets our soul at peace because we know that no matter what happens, we're going to be with our father someday.

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And that's an assurance that the world can't give us. The value of knowing, what is it?

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The value of knowing that we have assurance is that we have confidence to be bold. We have others to the truth.

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That's what we do. When we know our own assurance, we can be bold before the

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Lord. We can be bold before others. We can persuade others of the truth and share the great love that we have within us to somebody else.

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The first part of verse 19 says, and by this we will know that we are of the truth. What does this refer to?

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By this, we know that we are of the truth. Well, these are some tough verses to assess today.

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And there's a lot of, you know, difficulty at times to do it. But what

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I think this verse is saying is by this, it's referring back to verse 16 of chapter three.

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So if you look at that, by this, we have known love that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

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We can know love by this, by loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. That's how we do it.

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Our assurance is built on our capacity of caring for the body of Christ.

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That's what it is. It's our love for the brothers that proves that we are of the truth.

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It's our love for them that proves that we're following after him.

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You see, the world's love is alien to that. The world's love is alien to that.

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The assurance they have is persuading them to follow the evil one. They're trying to get you to know, get you to believe in a different system of philosophy.

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And that different system of philosophy is alien to Christ. They don't have the same love that we do for the brothers because Christ is not in them.

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They are following after their father, the evil one. And the world love is focused more on self than it is on other people.

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We see that quite a bit. So verse 19 says, by our love, we will know we are of the truth.

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See that? We are of the truth. What does that mean? We're of the truth.

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It means that we're people of this book. We're people of this book.

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This is illustrated beautifully by Jesus in John 18 .37. Therefore Pilate said to him, so you are a king.

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Jesus answered, you yourself said, I am a king. For this

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I have been born and for this I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

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Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Everyone who's of the truth hears my voice.

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He came to witness to the truth. Everything in this book is truth. When we're of the truth, we're of the scriptures.

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We make it a part of our lives and we embed it into our lives like no other.

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Jesus told Pilate, the reason he came into the world was to testify to the truth. Jesus is a king, but his kingdom is not like Rome.

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His kingdom is of the truth. Those of us who belong to Christ understand his truth because we can read it ourselves.

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You see this right here. You can read it every day if you want. We don't need any teachers steering us like the

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Gnostics into some kind of secret revelation. We don't have to come up in some other way to learn what the truth is.

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We are of the truth because we practice the truth found right here. It's for anybody to read.

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You just have to open it up, look at it, and read it. It's not complicated, but we make it complicated at times,

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I think. Loving the brothers is not a burden, but it's a blessing. The same idea we can see when

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John describes Christ as our shepherd. In John 10 .14, I love this verse too.

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I'm the good shepherd and I know my own and my own know me. I love that.

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My own know me. We are of the truth because Christ knows us and we know him.

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That's how we're of the truth. It doesn't come outside of knowing Christ. It's of him.

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To know him is to be saved, isn't it? And the result is a willingness to a lifelong practice of truth.

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A lifelong practice of truth. Loving the brothers is not a burden, but a blessing.

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That's true. So there's only one true shepherd and that shepherd knows the ones that are his.

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They are the ones who love the brothers. So you think about what a shepherd does.

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He takes care of the sheep. He loves us and we are to love others as well. I think about the scriptures when

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I, you know, read and come here to teach and stuff and it's,

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I'm reminded always that I'm never prepared enough. You know, you can read days and days and still never be prepared enough and in our own personal lives,

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I think it's good that we want to devour the truth. We want to continue to devour the truth to make these scriptures so embedded in our lives that nothing can shake us.

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Nothing can shake us. We want the scriptures to overflow into our minds and into the outward body of Christ with ease and with comfort.

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It's not a burden for us to do these things. We should want to read the truth.

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Just saying that we are of the truth picks up our discussion on Cain and Abel from last week.

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I remember that, right? Like we talked about that. That's what it is. Cain obviously was not of the truth.

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Abel was of the truth because his actions were righteous and for Cain, it says he followed after the evil one.

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So he didn't have the truth within him. So that's verse 19.

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Any questions on 19? I need a drink.

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Sorry. All right.

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Verse 20. God is greater than our heart. Let's read it. In whatever our heart condemns us, for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

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In whatever our heart condemns us, for God is greater than our heart and he knows all things. Having assurance of faith doesn't mean that we don't have doubts in our lives, does it?

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We're not without that. We have that humanness in this. So sometimes our hearts condemn us.

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We're serving the brothers and sisters in Christ and sometimes there's doubt. Are we doing the right things?

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Are we living according to what we're supposed to be doing and we're unsure whether we're actually doing these things correctly?

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And condemn here means to place blame. So whatever our heart condemns us, whatever our heart places blame or finds fault with or to pronounce judgment is what he's saying is that's what happens.

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In whatever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart. So our conscience at times is blaming us.

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Blaming us. Doing something contrary to God's word. The feelings of guilt can come over us when we don't know why.

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Sometimes it just happens. You ever felt that? Where you just don't feel worthy.

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You don't feel up to par and you don't even know why. It's not even because you've done anything wrong, but sometimes those feelings of guilt condemn our own selves.

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Where does that come from? Where does that come from in our lives? Well, I think it comes from the fact that we all have the law of God written on our hearts so that we know right from wrong.

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We know that. Romans 2 .15 says this, in that they demonstrate the work of the law written in their hearts.

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Here it is. Their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately either accusing or defending them.

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So our thoughts either are accusing us that we're doing the wrong thing or defending us that we are doing the right things.

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Our conscience plays a role in helping us to be assured of our salvation.

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We can be assured of it. Our thoughts either accuse us of wrongdoing or they defend our actions as truthful.

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John MacArthur wrote a whole book on this, The Vanishing Conscience, and he wrote this, I quote, the conscience is generally seen by the modern world as a defect that robs people of their self -esteem.

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Far from being a defect or a disorder, however, our ability to sense our own guilt is a tremendous gift from God.

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And it is. Conscience plays a very important role in our lives when you think about it.

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When you're approaching a situation that will draw you into sin, it's good to have a conscience.

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It's good to understand, you know, that you shouldn't be walking into that. It's that little voice inside your head that immediately says, that's a bad idea.

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That's a bad idea. You ever had that happen? I have that happen daily. I think of communion.

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I think of communion in this scenario. We're to self -examine ourselves. We're supposed to self -examine our lives to see if there's any sin that would prevent us from taking communion, right?

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We're supposed to self -exam. A good conscience reveals that sin in our lives, calls to memory so we can confess it, and then we can move on and take communion.

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You ever been around any perfectionists in your lives? Ever? I have.

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It's the person who always feels like they fall short when serving. They're so perfectionistic that their acts are never good enough.

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It would be natural for them to feel like they're not measuring up to God's standards. This hits home to what

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I believe John is trying to get across to us in this verse. During all the times when you feel unworthy, it's possible for you to misread your conscience.

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It's possible for you to misread it. Sometimes I feel guilty when I'm not sinning, that I'm not worthy of God's love, and I have to be reminded over and over again that the second half of this verse is applicable to me.

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God is greater than our heart and knows all things. So when our conscience and we're struggling with that and it's accusing us, we have to remember that God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

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He gives us grace when we don't give it to ourselves. We are often too hard on ourselves,

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I think. We must stop and breathe at times. When life is busy and you have a million things you're trying to accomplish and you get them all done, sometimes a conscience can lie and we need to just step back and breathe and understand that God is greater than our heart.

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When we are accusing our own selves, God is greater. You have to give yourself the freedom to fail and to not be condemned.

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And I don't mean a freedom to fail into sin. That's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about a freedom to fail into sin.

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It's an understanding that when your motive is true but the outcome is off, that there's no need for a guilty conscience.

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There's no need for that because we are saved. We have that assurance of our salvation.

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God is greater than the feelings and emotions that we sometimes have that cause us to have guilt and a conscience.

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And so it's good for us to step back at times and realize that it's okay because he knows the motives of our hearts.

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As long as we're not trying to intentionally sin and do the things that are contrary to him and we fail,

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I think we have to realize that he's there to pick us up. And it's like that perfectionist that just can't get past it.

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Sometimes I feel like it's just stop and breathe. It's okay. It's okay to fail sometimes.

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And failing, I don't mean like we're, like I said, we're not we're not failing into sin. I don't,

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I don't want to make that clear. So John is saying that there's no need for you to do that.

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God knows you better than yourself. A saved person isn't trying to sin but rather to avoid it.

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So we know that their motives and desire is to serve God and he knows that. So basically give yourself an ability to lighten up on yourself.

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That's what we're talking about. Your ability to fully live to God's righteous standard, it's not possible in this life anyway.

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I mean we're striving to live a life of righteousness and trying to meet his holy standards but you know we're never going to meet it in this life.

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And I think those are the times when we think I should be doing more. I'm failing. I'm not doing enough for him.

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It's like how much are you doing? Look back at all the positive things that you are doing for him and understand that God is greater than your heart and knows that.

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So that's verse 20. Verse 21. Despite sin we possess confidence in God.

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Beloved if our heart does not condemn us we have confidence before God. We just learned how we can have confidence in God when our heart condemns us.

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Now what if our heart doesn't condemn us? What if our, oh sorry

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I didn't see you. Yeah.

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Right. Yeah so equating the heart and the conscience is what you're saying shouldn't. Yeah. Yeah so what what misfires is what you're saying?

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Is it the heart or is it the conscience? I mean. Gotcha. Yeah I think,

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I mean that's a good question. I think in the context of it all we're talking about whatever our heart condemns us and sometimes it does condemn us.

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That's really what I'm talking about there. It, it's telling us sometimes that it is doing that.

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Right. And so I'm just saying that sometimes it isn't always accurate. Yeah I'm saying that the conscience isn't always accurate.

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That, that's, that's what I believe. I could be wrong there. Yeah Jim. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Absolutely the conscience is informed by what comes in. That, that, that makes sense.

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Did that answer your question Peter? Okay. All right.

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Let's see. So 21. Let's, yeah 21. Let's look at that.

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Beloved if our heart does not condemn us we have confidence before God. So we just talked about that. The assurance we, we have in God brings us a level of confidence and our heart doesn't condemn us because of it.

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Confidence is basically means a freedom of speech. That's what it means. 1 John 2 .28

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says, and now little children abide in him so that when he is manifested we may have confidence and not shrink away from him.

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In shame it is coming. That's, that's the same usage of it. It's a freedom of speech.

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God is greater than our feelings. He gives us that confidence through his word. The confidence is, it's a great privilege

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I think for us to have that. That we have a boldness and we can have a freedom of speech in God that the world can't have.

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In the Old Testament the high priest was the only one who could enter the Holy of Holies if you remember that. And he had bells on the bottom of his garments so they could hear him while he was in there and they had a rope tied to his ankle in case

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God had struck him down. Okay, that's, that's real confidence.

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We have real confidence, excuse me, here's the real confidence we have over that old priestly system. We have full access to God now through Christ.

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We can come to him boldly. We have the confidence to approach him that they didn't have in the

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Old Testament. Hebrews 4 .16 says this, therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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We have that confidence before God. In verse 22, and whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.

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What's pleasing in God's sight? You ever thought about that? What's pleasing in God's sight?

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Well we know from this chapter those who are loving their brothers and sisters that's pleasing in God's sight. 1

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John 2 .5 says he loves those that keep his word. John 2 .5,

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1 John, but whoever keeps his word truly in him the love of God has been perfected.

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By this we know that we are in him. He loves those that obey his commandments.

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That's pleasing to the Lord. We covered that back in chapter two in verses three and four.

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Obedience is the key to proving one's salvation. Compared to the apostates in this book they did not have the command, they do not keep the commandments at all.

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And we have that boldness to pray. When we abide in Christ it leads us to a willingness to follow him.

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The obedience is the reason whatever we can ask we receive of him. Is that true though?

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If we ask just anything, can we just ask anything in Christ's name? There's a qualifier here because it says in 22, and whatever we ask we receive from him.

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We can ask anything. Can I ask him for a million dollar house just for myself?

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Or can I ask him for a million dollar house to house missionaries that are on furlough?

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The motives are there. There's a qualifier. We're not going to get everything that we ask for.

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John used the same language in his gospel. John 14, 14. If you ask me anything in my name

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I will do it. The key to answer prayer is does it line up with God's will?

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So we don't fully know what his will is in every situation we pray. We can know a lot about it but look at verse 514 of this book.

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Verse 514. And this is the confidence that we have before him that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

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So it has to line up to what it is and I think the closer we are to him, the more we keep his commandments, those things that are pleasing to him, the more we know how to pray according to his will.

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We know the things that we know how to pray according to his will. Matthew 7 11.

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If then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him?

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So a mark of a true believer is answered prayer. The gnostic believers do not have the same access to God that we do, nor does anyone who has not believed in the

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Lord Jesus Christ in faith and repented of their sins. Verse 23.

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Right.

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Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. The commandments of God inform our hearts.

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Yeah. The commandments of God inform the heart, which should inform the conscience, right?

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Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why we need to be saturated by God's word so we fully understand it.

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So yeah. Verse 23. The two greatest commandments. And this is his commandments that we believe in the name of his son

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Jesus Christ and love one another just as he gave a commandment to us. It's not an option for us.

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We're commanded to believe. The commandments are plural here if you look at it.

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It's to believe and to love. That's what it says. And this is the commandment we believe and we love.

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The two greatest commandments are to love God and to love people. That's what we heard in Matthew with the two greatest commandments.

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Love God and love people as Jesus commanded us. Command is an action. It's a verb that requires obedience in our lives.

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Whatever he commands us to do, he gives us the ability to accomplish it.

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Whatever he commands us to do, he will give us the ability to accomplish it. The question becomes, which

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Jesus do you believe in? Where do you put your faith? All people have faith in something, right?

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Just ask them. You ever ask anybody, hey, what do you think about Jesus? What do you think about your faith?

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You're going to get all kinds of answers. The Gnostics had faith in their knowledge. They had a

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Jesus made in their own image, but that's the wrong Jesus. Have you ever asked yourself, am

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I following the wrong Jesus? Having the right Jesus means loving our brothers.

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We have an assurance from God that we are believing in the right Jesus because it leads us to love.

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We're following after his commands. Last verse 24.

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And 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 gave us.

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So the word keeps here and the one who keeps that word, it means to guard. We are to guard the commandments.

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How do we guard or keep the commandments? I think it's that we abide, we obey his commandments.

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It's just further proof of our salvation that we are abiding or keeping his commandments or guarding them. I know abide is kind of something we've been talking about a lot, but it's to remain in him.

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We live in Christ. God is alive in me. It is an intimate relationship.

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And then the second half of that verse, that relationship brings confidence. The spirit brings confidence to us because we keep his commandments.

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We know that by this he abides in us by the spirit he gave us.

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We know, it says, what do we know? We know that the Holy Spirit living inside of us brings us that assurance of our faith.

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1 John 4 .13 says, by this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit.

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We know that we're in him by the spirit of God that is living inside of us. The connection we have to our

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God and the spirit is living in us. Without the spirit, it's tough for people to be able to abide in Christ.

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We don't have that same ability to do so. Assurance comes from living in obedience and it is the spirit who confirms that in our being.

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Obedience to God's commands allows us to commune with him. The one who is obedient lives in God.

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So this ends chapter three, an amazing piece of truth for all believers. Here are a few takeaways from it.

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Well, we can look at one where we're children of God. We're children of God and the world hates us.

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That's a message of chapter three, but there's great hope that we have because when he appears, we're going to be like him.

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We're going to be like him. We'll see him in his glory.

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And at that time, we're going to be changed. Children of God are much different than the children of the devil.

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We learned that in this chapter. And we should love one another. Not as Cain murdered his brother.

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True love is proof that we have passed out of death into life. And Christ is that example, as we've talked about, of sacrificial love.

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And God answers our prayers. When we obey him and keep his commandments, when it lines up with his will, he answers the prayers of the saints.

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And the last thing is God is greater than our heart. He provides assurance in times when we question our faith, when we might have doubts.

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But rather than condemning us, he comforts us because he knows the motives of our hearts.

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He comforts us. When we are living at peace with God, we can be assured that when our feelings of guilt and shame come, that he knows our situation and he offers us that grace.

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All right, that's it. Any questions? Chapter 3, we'll start chapter 4 next time.

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Let's pray. Father, we just thank you that you love us, that you care for us, that your word is truth, that everything that we're learning here comes directly from you, out of your scriptures.

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Thank you for Christ on the cross and what it means to follow you. I just pray for our service this morning,

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Lord, that you'll go before us. You'll prepare the hearts of the saints that are going to hear this message.

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I pray for Jim that you'll give him the wisdom and understanding to be able to deliver your truth with passion and wisdom.