Bible In A Year - 1 John (part 1)

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Bible In A Year - 1 John (part 2)

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Continuing our, we're going through the books of the Bible. Today, we'll go through the book of 1
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John. And I hope all of you have a handout that's been given out.
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And if not, you can pick one up from the chair. Before we get started, why don't we open with a word of prayer?
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Dear God, our heavenly father, we thank you a lot for this morning, for bringing us here to your house of worship, to lift our hearts up,
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Lord, to you, and to exalt you and to glorify you in the company of the saints. And even now, Lord, as we look into your word, we ask for your spirit to speak to us through the scriptures, to illumine our hearts and our minds.
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And Lord, so that we would understand your word, and Lord, that your spirit would work this truth in our lives, that we would be changed people by your power.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Before we get started,
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I wanna ask two questions. And I want you to think about these questions as we go through this overview of 1
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John. The first question I have is, am I too loud? It's, that's not the question.
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The question I have for you is, how many of you have questions about your personal faith, about you being a believer, or whether you are not so sure whether you have been saved or not?
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And if that's not a current question, how many of you have struggled with it in the past when you were a young believer?
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Yeah, most of us. That's a very difficult question that most believers go through.
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And that's one of the questions that I hope you'll find an answer for in this book. And the second question that I have for you is a little more challenging.
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The question has to do with your role in your local church.
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Do you know that your role in the local church is done in accordance with God's will?
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Do you know that if you were to die today and you go to heaven and God were to ask you, Fred or Jack or anyone else, did you do what you were called to in BBC?
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Do you think you did everything you were supposed to and you did not do the things that you were not supposed to?
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Would you be confident that you knew exactly what you were supposed to do and that you were obedient to God?
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So the questions I think we're gonna answer is first personally, do you have assurance of your faith?
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And secondly, are you participating and doing the things in a body, in a local congregation the way that we are called to?
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And I believe that this book of 1 John gives us answers to both of them.
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The way we are gonna do this book is a little different primarily because this book is a very small book.
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I hope we'll be able to go through the entirety of this book in the time that we have today. And the way we are going to do that is to use this handout that I've made out for you.
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So if any of you don't have a handout, please do pick it up because we'll be using both this and the word quite extensively in the next 45 minutes or so.
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So let me start by going through this and I'll explain what our purpose is in reviewing each of these things that are printed out here.
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So we'll start with the author. The author of 1 John is? Thank you.
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It is John. And it's the same John who wrote the Gospel of John, the other letters of John and the
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Book of Revelation. It's believed that this book was written sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, quite late in the canon of scripture.
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And the audience, it is believed that John was probably writing from the Ephesus area and to probably one of the churches in the
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Asia Minor region. It was a few churches in that circuit around Ephesus. If you wanna think of different towns, you can think of the seven letters in Revelation 2 and 3.
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And those are the Asia Minor churches. So it's probably one of the churches in there and it was probably read by more than just that church.
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So it's a church, a particular church that is reading this letter from John.
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Now, the context of this letter is very important. We need to understand why John is writing this in order to be able to interpret the verses that we're gonna read very carefully.
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We're gonna spend some time in specific verses where we find evidence to the fact that John is addressing a certain problem and he is affirming certain truths.
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But in general, I'll give you the answer and then we'll go and find them. This church that John is writing to has been through a church split, a very divisive split where sinful so -called leaders had left the church on the basis of doctrine.
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They had taught something that was heretical and they had left the church and not only had they gone away from the church, they were coming back into the church and trying to deceive those who were still within the church.
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So if you wanna imagine the recipients of this letter, the context of what John is writing to, you can imagine a group of believers, early church, having troubles all around, persecution included.
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And here they are wondering whether what they have believed is true and the people who were part of them, who they thought were friends and working with them are actually telling them something different than what they are believing.
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So here they are looking up to Elder John, the apostle, and the apostle is writing something from God to tell them what the truth is and at the same time, what to avoid.
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So that's the general context. And as I said, we'll look at some verses that speak to this in a bit.
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The major theme of this book, does anyone know what the major theme of 1 John is?
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Joy, false teachers, any others? Assurance, thank you.
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And I'm not gonna give away the answer now and I hope that once we finish the book, you'll be able to fill that out yourself.
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But those are all very good answers there. So major themes in the book and we will find out what the major theme of the book is as a whole.
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I want you to look to your outline for a minute. I have broken up the book into five sections.
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Actually, it's not me originally. This book has had a lot of contention, a lot of commentators spent sleepless nights figuring out what's the best way to divide this book.
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So this by no means is a universal consensus, but it's definitely a very good way for us to break up the book so we can understand what the major sections are in order to understand the primary thrust of John.
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Because there's a lot of things that John addresses. I mean, we got three answers about the theme and I wanna pick one central thread and this outline will help us to go through that thread.
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If you actually look at it, you have five sections. We have five chapters in the book of 1 John and they're almost very close to the chapter divisions.
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There's just a little overlap here and there. The first section, as you see, has the whole of chapter one and a couple of verses from chapter two.
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The second section begins with the early sections of chapter two and almost to the end of chapter two.
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The third section has all of chapter three with a little bit from two and four and so on.
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You have the fourth section with chapter four and the fifth section with chapter five. And I'm gonna just quickly lay out what this outline is before we dig in into these verses.
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Like any letter, you have an introduction which talks about something foundational, fundamental that John is gonna address.
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So we're gonna look at the first section in more detail. We'll spend more time in the first section than in the rest of the sections.
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And the last section, again, is the conclusion where John has laid out all his facts and his points and now he gives the final verdict.
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He says, this is the point of this letter. And so the readers, when they close the letter, they know this is what they had been intended to listen to and this is what they should have on their mind as they walk away from reading it.
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And in the middle, you have three sections and I've broken them down into three series of tests.
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And you will find what those tests are as we get into the first section. And John repeats certain tests over and over again.
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He, in fact, repeats them three times so that there's no question in the reader's minds in terms of what they ought to do and what they have to believe.
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So we'll look at them when we get into the test. So that's a brief overview of the outline.
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And like I said, there have been other outlines. And in my mind, these are like the vertical threads in a weaving, in a rug or in a carpet.
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And you will find parallel threads. And actually, I'll pick out a couple of them for you so when you go back and read them, you can see some parallel threads so you could dissect them in multiple ways.
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But we'll look at the main strands today, this morning. So with that said, let's jump into the word of God.
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And we'll begin with 1 John 1. And like I said, I'm gonna spend a little time on this first section, expounding the scriptures.
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And then the rest of the sections is gonna be a lot more interactive. And I'm gonna be looking for you to respond once I set the tone for the book here.
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So the first row in your first section is verses one through four.
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I have broken them up into one section. And the primary thrust here you'll find is the theme
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I have outlined there, which is the word of God and joy. And let me read that for you here.
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Chapter one, verse one. 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.
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Let me stop there for just a minute. How many of you write letters like this?
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How many of you are familiar with letters in the Bible that start this way? Is there any other letter that you can think of?
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How do letters normally begin in the New Testament? Can someone just tell me what's it?
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A salutation, who the sender is, and in most cases, the recipient, to the church or to this person.
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So that was the way letters were written in the first century. And John actually makes an exception here.
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And you'll find that this is indeed a letter. We will look at that in a little bit. But John here has one focus in his mind.
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He starts off with something fundamental, foundational on the basis of which you need to read the rest of the book.
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He is referring here in the word of life to Jesus Christ. He's talking about the person, the words and the work of Christ.
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And he wants the readers to have this first and foremost in their minds, even as they start to read this letter, even before he gets down to address the specific problems that they are facing.
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Now let's look at this verse a little more closely. He says, what was from the beginning? It reminds you very much of the gospel of John, right?
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Where he begins with, in the beginning was the word. And then he says, what we have heard, what we have seen.
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And then he says something very similar, what we have looked at or gazed or behold, and we have just been staring at this beautiful person.
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What we have touched with our hands, maybe even referring to the resurrected Christ that they handled concerning the word of life.
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And here he is emphasizing something very important for us to look at, which is Jesus Christ, the eternal
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God, was a human being, flesh and bone, just like us, whom this apostle has touched and felt and handled.
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And this is an important truth for all believers to know. This is not just some phantom. Yes, that's an excellent point.
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Daniel just mentioned how this opening is almost like a royal decree, and it is. If you look at the next verse, he says, the life was manifested.
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And he says, we have seen and testify and proclaim. And that word proclaim is this heralding, this calling forth of this truth that John has seen.
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And he does it in a like manner. That's an excellent point where you see this truth about God being blasted forth to the whole world.
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And actually he uses a couple of words in verse two, which I again wanna bring to your attention. He first says, what we have seen and testify.
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How many of you know what that word testify points to? Raise your hands. Yes. That's exactly right.
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What you have know, you tell something that you know. And in conjunction with the words that is used here, seen and testify, here is something that you're saying that you are eyewitnesses of.
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And it's almost like in a court, you go there and say, you stand to testify about something that you have seen, because you have seen something and you are saying this is firsthand information.
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This is not something I've heard from somebody. This is not something that I believe is true. So you've got to believe, but this is something
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I have seen. And therefore I'm testifying to this truth. And not only am I testifying it, I'm proclaiming it to you.
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I'm heralding out. So just like a herald word to a king that you need to listen to.
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So he describes the Lord Jesus Christ in verse one. Verse two is almost like a parenthesis. He says, this word of life, we have seen and we testify.
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And this God was with the father and has now been manifested to us. Verses three and four, what we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us.
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And indeed our fellowship is with the father and with the son, Jesus Christ. The word fellowship you'll find is a loaded word here.
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It talks about an intimate relationship that believers can have with one another and what each and every single believer has with God.
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So John here is saying we, and this word we in the first four verses most likely refers to the apostolic testimony, which is the basis of our scriptures in the
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New Testament, which point to this direct relationship that they had with Jesus Christ and which they are now proclaiming to us on the basis of which we too believe.
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For us in AD 2006, we have that through the scriptures, what they have written down for us.
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And he says that John himself has a relationship with God the father, and he's writing these things so that in Christ, we can have fellowship with one another.
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And the purpose of this writing we find in verse four, he says, these things we write so that our joy may be complete.
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And the purpose again here is that John is almost saying, my job is not done until I have done what
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God has commanded me to do, which is to proclaim this truth to you and have this fellowship with those of you who are in the faith.
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So that's the first section that John addresses and that's the foundation about Jesus Christ.
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And he establishes that, and then he goes to the next point. So the next line you have there is 1
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John 1 .5. And I've actually broken down the rest into three sections. You can almost take 1 .5
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through 2 .2 as one section, because 1 .5 is going to tell us a central truth, which is central to that section.
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And in fact, it's central to the rest of the book itself. It is on the basis of a certain truth that John has for us here, that we are going to be able to look at what
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John continues to say in the rest of the letter. In verse five, he says, this is the message that we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
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Can someone tell me what God is light means? God is righteous, holy, pure, and all of,
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I'm sorry. He is truth, yes. No shadows, no sin, that refers to the no darkness at all.
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And I think that pretty much covers it. We are talking about a God who is thrice holy, who has nothing sinful, evil in him.
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And we need to have that right understanding of God before we can think of even having a relationship with this
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God. So we have a God who is light, who is holy, who is righteous, who is pure.
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And then on the same time, you can't just say, oh, he is holy. At the same time, he is also something else.
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Absolutely not. He is just pure and holy and there is nothing evil or wicked in him.
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And if you wanna look at the context of what John is talking about here, you would, and for us here in the modern 21st century, it's very easy to understand this.
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Post -modernism, there is no absolutes. Yeah, you can think about something that's good and nice and even these things are acceptable.
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We just have to be inclusive. Or if you think of the far East, we have this dualism where God is both good and evil and you just have this all mixed up in one deity or two forces of evil working against each other.
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Absolutely not. God is light, he is pure, he is holy. And that's the basis on which we need to understand him and the basis of which we have to have a relationship with him.
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So he gives us the central truth about God. God is light, no darkness. And then he gives us three responses in verses six through 10.
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So I'm gonna just quickly read them out for you. And as I read them, I want you to think of these two aspects that John lays out.
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And as I said, this is still the introduction. He's laying out something for the believers to think right. And these three responses will have two sections in each.
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In the first section, he's going to break down something that is false. And in the second section, he's gonna build up something that is true.
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So in each of these responses, you wanna watch for this breaking down and building up. And that is important for each of us as believers today.
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So if you look at verse six, he says, if we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
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Let me just go word by word here. He says, if we say, so there's something that we are claiming here.
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And what do we claim? That we have fellowship with him. So fellowship with him, we just saw what fellowship means, which is an intimate relationship with God.
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So if we say that we have an intimate relationship with God, how would you translate that into modern parlance?
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Amen, thank you. If we say we are a believer, and then what do we do here? And yet walk in the darkness.
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What does walking in the darkness mean? Acting the way the world does, walking in sin, living a lifestyle of sin and evil.
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And walking in the Bible terms refers to a pattern of lifestyle. It refers to a behavior that characterizes a person.
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We either walk in the ways of truth or you walk in the ways of falsehood. It is something that characterizes you.
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So when you look at this person who claims to be a believer, but his lifestyle is just one of sin, of darkness, then he says, we lie.
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What do we lie about? The claim that we are a believer. We may say that we are a believer, but if we are living in darkness, we're living in sin, then our claim is not true.
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And that's because we do not practice the truth. We are not living out what it means to be a believer.
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And that exposes the false claim of being called one. So that's the first thing.
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John says, God is light. And so if you think you're a believer and you're living in darkness, then you cannot be a true believer.
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And on the flip side, he says, how does a true believer live? We find that in verse seven. He says, 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.
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And so he says, now, what is the true believer? He is one who walks in the light. So it's very same parallelism.
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He's now talking about someone whose lifestyle is characterized by holiness. He's not talking about someone who is perfect yet.
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We'll cover that in a minute, but he's talking about someone whose lifestyle is patterned after holiness.
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And he says, when we do walk in the light, we have a relationship with one another as believers in Christ.
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And we have the blood of Jesus, which is cleansing us from all sin. And here for a minute,
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I wanna just take a detour because it'll help us understand the rest of the book. And we're gonna look at a little of theology here.
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So when someone gets saved, what happens? What is the first thing that happens when you need to become saved?
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You have to confess your sins and repentance and confession come together. So what is the first thing that happens?
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Regeneration, because you have a sinful heart, you have a dead heart, and now that needs to be enabled to look after the things of God.
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So God has to do a work in you to want to respond to God, regeneration. And what happens after regeneration?
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Sanctification, actually, right at the time of regeneration, there's something that happens, which is called justification. And justification is where we have our sins transferred.
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Christ takes our sin and we are given his righteousness. We are declared not guilty before God. And that's a positional standing.
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So all of us, when we come into the faith, when you're born into the kingdom of God, we are justified, we are declared not guilty.
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And we have this, it's okay for somebody else to do it, but it's definitely not okay for me.
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I thought I had put it on off. So anyway, so the first thing that happens is justification.
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And I want you to keep that very clearly in your mind. It's a positional standing before God, where God looks at you, he sees
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Christ, and he says, this person is declared not guilty and righteous. And then we have the next stage, which is called sanctification.
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While justification is an instantaneous action, sanctification is a lifelong process.
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And when we walk in this world, we are made more and more like Christ. And that's the process of sanctification.
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And ultimately, one day, when we reach heaven, and when we see Christ face -to -face, we will be glorified, where we will be made unable to sin, where we'll not have sin at all in our lives.
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So when we look at these verses, we need to be careful to understand when he's talking about justification, and when he's talking about sanctification.
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And it's, John uses some of the tenses of the words to refer to sanctification, as opposed to justification.
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And he uses a certain language that is very obvious that he is talking about one or the other.
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But when you have that clear in your mind, it makes it easier to read these verses. So we saw the first response to this truth that God is light, and that was in verses six and seven.
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The six was the false response, and the seven is the right response, which is living a lifestyle of holiness. So if someone claims to be a believer, his lifestyle will be righteous.
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And if it is not, then he is not one. So let's look at the second response. We find that in verses eight and nine.
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And here he says, if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
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And this one is a little, it helps us understand from the context of what John is addressing here.
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I mentioned that there were some heretics in John's age, and some of the claims during this period where some of them would claim there was no sin nature.
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There's really nothing inherently sinful in us, and therefore, we have no sin. Or they would claim that if you were, if you, let me just give you a few names of the heretics.
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There was this early form of Gnosticism that was there where they said, you need to know the truth, and the truth in their mind was there was a dualism between body and spirit.
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So this body could be contaminated, but when you know that you are essentially a pure spirit, you would no longer be contaminated by the sin.
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So there was a form of heresy that came out where they kind of somewhat separated this physical things from the spiritual, and they said, well, as long as I understand
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I'm just a spiritual being, everything I do with my body really doesn't matter, and therefore, I have no sin. That was one of the forms of heresy that was in that time.
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And there's a person called Serentis who was a contemporary of John, who's believed to have taught some things along these lines.
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And there were a few other heresies. We'll look at them when we look at some of the other falsehoods in that time.
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But those days, they said, you know, we have no sin, and that's not very uncommon in our modern days.
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You know, there are people here who would rename sin. In the world, if you go out and say, you know, sin is a word that nobody likes, you know, they would just say, what, sin?
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That's, you're a caveman. And they would, what would they say? You know, if you had a problem -
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Syndrome. Exactly, syndrome. We'd like to make excuses. We would say, you know, we have a disease. I have a problem.
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I have a issue. I'm, you know, struggling with it, but it's not a sin. You know, these are things that, you know,
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I was beaten as a kid, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You can just find ways of covering up the issue.
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But then John gives the right response, and it's very insightful when you look at it in the context of the problem.
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In verse nine, he says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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On the opposite of giving an excuse, you need to actually agree with God on what is wrong.
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When you admit, confession is just saying to God, yes, this is a sin.
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I have sinned before you, and admitting that you are a sinner. And it's only when you do that, that you can receive and acknowledge forgiveness from God.
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Now, again, he says, on what basis does God forgive us? It's on his faithfulness, because he has said he would do it, and also because he is righteous.
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Why is God righteous in forgiving us? Amen. Because he is no longer, he has already paid the penalty for our sin in Christ, and he is no longer looking at us in our sin, but because that sin has been paid for in Jesus Christ.
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And he says, he cleanses us from all, he forgives us from our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
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Forgiveness takes away the debt, cleansing removes the stain. Your guilty conscience is no longer, it can be assuaged by what
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Christ has already done, and you can walk in purity and holiness. And in verse 10, he gives a third response, which he says, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
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Here is someone who says, and I either from a child, I've never done anything wrong. All I've done is pure and holy, or I've now been saved and therefore
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I'm perfect. There's nothing that I do that is wrong. Everything that I do is right. I mean, we have both strands of that, that's very common.
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There are actually, do any of you know a group of Christians who would claim the second, that after salvation, they can have absolute perfection?
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Yes? Yes, Wesley taught this perfectionism where he said you could have a second blessing or you could live a life that it can be perfection.
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And that's not true on this side of heaven. God wants us to live greater holy lives.
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We want to be more and more like Christ, but until we go to heaven, when we are glorified, we will not be perfect in our bodies.
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And he says here, the person who says that we have not sinned is actually calling
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God a liar. Why would that be? Why would? That's right, can you think of a verse?
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Amen, Romans 3 23, all have sinned. And to say that I haven't sinned, I'm an exception to the rule is to call
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God a liar. And his word has no place in our lives. And if you look at the various lies that John talks about in the first, second and third response, this is the highest of the list.
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First thing, we are lying to others. Second, we are lying to ourselves, deceiving ourselves. And the third one is actually calling
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God a liar. So those are three responses to this truth. And now these are gonna break down into the tests and we're gonna look at those tests.
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But before we do that, let's spend a few minutes on chapter two, verses one and two, because it almost exalts Christ.
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And I mean, if you want to have one verse, irrespective of everything else that you wanna focus your heart on, this would be it.
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He just exalts Christ for what Christ has done. In verse one of chapter two, he says, "'My little children,
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I am writing these things to you "'so that you may not sin.'" The purpose of his letter is that, of these writings is that we would not sin.
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But if anyone sins, what do we have? We have an advocate. Their word here is, does anyone know what word is used here for advocate?
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Yeah, it's the word paraclete, yes. And the paraclete is someone who comes alongside, who speaks for you, who is supporting you in this process.
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He is the one who is speaking with the Father. And who is this? Jesus Christ, Jesus the
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Messiah, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the one who has lived a perfect life in our stead, and it is his righteousness on which we live, on which we stand.
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And he says that he himself is the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation, another heavy word here, where he has taken the wrath of God upon himself.
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God's wrath is revealed from heaven against the sins of all the world. But Christ has come and lived a perfect life, and he has borne the wrath of God on the cross.
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And he has made propitiation, where we no longer face the wrath of God, but we have his pleasure, his favor, his goodwill toward us.
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So Christ is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for us, but also for the whole world.
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There's no one who can be separated from God. No matter how far you are in your sin,
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Christ is able to save you to the uttermost, no matter which geographically, no matter how sinful,
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Christ has paid provision for salvation. So that's the first section, the introduction.
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I want that to be central, because that's John's purpose here. Now, having done that, he goes into these series of tests.
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And here, I'm gonna kind of open up the floor for us to work through. And if you look at your notes again, the first section is the section on obedience.
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And I've broken that by verses three to six. And I want us to just read verses three and four, because we won't have time to look at all the verses.
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And when you go home, you ought to do that. It's a small book to read through. But let's read verses three and four, and identify what this test is.
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Verse three and four. By this, we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
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The one who says, I have come to know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
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Again, you can see, black and white. Here is someone who claims to be a believer. And in the verse four, you see, does not keep his commandments, does not do the things that God wants him to do is a liar, is not a believer at all.
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But the one who does keep his commandments is the one who has true fellowship with him. Again, this refers to a pattern.
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It doesn't refer to the fact that, you know, somebody never breaks anything that God has commanded, but rather that his heart is one that wants to do the things of God.
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He's looking to please his master. And out of that pleasure of loving God, he obeys his command.
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If you look at verses in John, and actually even in 1 John, we'll be looking at a few verses. The one who says he loves him, does the things that God has commanded him to do.
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If you say you love me, and you will keep my commandments, Jesus said. So a person who claims to be a believer must be characterized by obedience.
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So here's the first test of orthodoxy. So here's a church hunkering down. And the question that they have to ask themselves is, am
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I living a life that is seeking to please my God? Am I living a life that seeks to find out what he has told me to do?
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And am I doing them with the intent of pleasing my father? And if so, you are a believer, the
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Bible says. And on the other hand, here is someone who says, oh, I think I have a relationship with God, but I really don't care about what
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God is telling me. And yeah, I know he says somewhere in the scriptures, this is what is right.
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But I mean, to me, I don't think it's important. I'm covered by the blood and coming up with excuses.
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Then John says, black and white, if you do not have a heart to please your father, if you do not look to see the things that give him pleasure, then you are not a believer.
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So that's the first test of obedience. And we're gonna see this in a couple of different angles in the second and third repetition.
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The second test, and that I think I have left as a blank in your sheets, and I'm hoping that you'll give me the answer to this, is found in verses seven through 11.
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There are actually two sections here, which is seven and eight are the introduction to that theme, and verses nine through 11 explain that in more detail.
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So let's just pick up verses nine and 10, because those give directly the clue. Why don't you read that, and then venture what that test might be.
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I'll read the verses. The verse nine says, the one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.
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And verse 10, the one who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.
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What is the test that John is talking about? Love for the brethren.
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That's exactly right. There is a love in the life of hearts of believers for their brothers, which identifies the person to be a believer.
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And actually, if you look at verses seven and eight, I'm not going to explain them in detail. He talks about an old commandment and a new commandment.
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If you look through the whole of the scriptures, love is a central theme. You look at Deuteronomy six, love the
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Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. In Leviticus 18, 19,
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I believe he says, love your neighbor as yourself. And that same thing is repeated in the New Testament when Jesus emphasizes this is central on which all the law and the prophets hang.
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And then what is the new commandment? Jesus came and lived out that life and he showed the quality of love.
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It's not new in the sense it's something different, but it is new to the extent to which this love would go, to the extent where you would lay down your life and so forth.
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It is characterized in Christ for us to live this out. Our life should not be characterized by hatred towards one another, but by genuine love for the brothers.
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So that's the second test. And then the next two rows I have italicized in your notes, primarily because they are not the central theme.
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They emphasize something in addition. It's almost like a digression. It's like this. You can imagine this church calling up to John and saying,
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John, this group has left us. We have no idea. We are attacked all around. We are hunkering down. We are in the bunks.
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Come and help us. So John sends this plane out and he says, I'm sending reinforcements.
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So the reinforcements are coming. And how do they come? They send drop bombs and take out all the enemy and say, okay,
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I'm being taken care of. But some of these bombs are falling too close. And I read this test and I say, am
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I also out there? Is this gonna get me? And you can see this test can get very intensive as you study this test of obedience, this test of love.
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It can, because John is black and white. He doesn't say, well, your sanctification hasn't progressed this far.
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He's just saying, if you don't obey, you're not a believer. And so these things, these tests get really hard.
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And then John says, let me take a break just as a fatherly advice. He takes a break and then he says, let me tell something specifically to believers.
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And that's what he does in chapter two, verses 12 through 17. He says two things. And the first thing in verses 12 through 14 is specifically affirming what believers are.
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And he talks about three groups. He says, children, young men, and the fathers. He's talking not about age, but about spiritual maturity.
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People who, children just cross the dividing line of sin. You have a right relationship with God, enjoy that.
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Young men, you feed on the word of God, you are strong, you can overcome, you are overcoming the evil one in Christ.
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He exalts them. And then fathers, you have this matured relationship with God, and he again commends them.
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And so he just takes a break to just affirm the true believers. He knows who he's writing to here, John. And then verses 15 through 17, he gives an admonition.
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Actually, if you're looking for an imperative, this is the first imperative in this book, which is do not love the world.
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And he talks about what believers should not set their hearts on. He explains what the world is.
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The world here is an invisible, organized system that is set up against God.
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It's not just talking about all the people or just the universe in general, but here is something that is organized under Satan, which is independent of God.
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So if you wanna think of the world, you can just think of the world outside our churches. If you try to go talk to anybody about a
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God who created you and who you are accountable for, it makes no sense. They would just look at you like you were foolish.
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And here is a world that is set up in its own self, and it's independent of God and working against the purposes of God.
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Again, we won't get into this in detail, but in verse 16, you'll find the famous words, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, things that Christians should be aware of and stay away from.
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Lust of the flesh, internal desires to do things that are contrary to God's word. We all didn't drop from heaven with wings and a halo.
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We all were sinners saved by grace. We have the sin principle that has been removed by the blood of Christ, but we know what sin is, and we have that temptation that still exists, and we need to avoid that.
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Lust of the eyes, you look outside, you have enough to lead you astray, and you need to be careful about not letting the things outside influence your heart.
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And the pride of life, which is a boastfulness of the things you possess and your relationship with your brother, you need to remember that.
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You have a one -to -one relationship with God and not boast about being better than another person or try to just walk up this ladder of corporate deceit,
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I think, that we have in the world. But going out of the digression, we come to the third test, which is the test of truth.
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And here we'll spend a little time because it's important to understand why John is actually writing this letter, the context.
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Verses 18 and 19 talk about this in a little detail. He says, children, it is the last hour.
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And just as you heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared. From this we know that it is the last hour.
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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.
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But they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. And I wanna read verse 26, where it says, these things
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I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. These antichrists who are trying to deceive you.
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As I mentioned, again, the context in which John is writing here is this group that has split away and gone from them. And this group that is not only staying outside, but is trying to come back and deceive those who remain.
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And while we don't have too much time to spend here, let me just throw out the question.
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There are two words that are very confusing for most people. The one is the last hour, and the second is antichrist.
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Does anyone have an idea what this might mean, last hour? Yes? If you take the view.
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That's exactly right. It's still the last hour. Exactly.
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So what Lewis just said was, we have two events that we are looking up to. The first and the second coming of Christ.
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And after the first coming of Christ, we are in the last hour. We do not know when the second coming is going to appear. And if you look to even all the evidences that the
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Bible points to, before you look to the rapture, everything is here. There's nothing else you need to look for and say, ah, this has to happen.
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Everything is right here. And all we need is for the second coming of Christ. And we're just waiting for him to come down.
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So in that sense, we are in the last hour. And I think one commentator wrote this very beautifully.
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He said, as you walk up this mountain of time, if you just think you're going up, you're hearing all this rumbling and this thunder and everything else.
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But as you walk up to the top, you stand and see it's a volcano ready to erupt.
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And at this point, which is after the first coming, you're just walking around the mouth of that volcano. You just don't know when that's going to blow up.
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And everything that needs to happen has already happened. And the second coming is imminent. And the second word is antichrist.
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And here it refers to the... Actually, antichrist is used only in this book. You don't find this in any of the other books.
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John is the only one who uses them. Although there are other words referring to the antichrist, the one who works against the purposes of Christ, who pretends to take the place of Christ on this earth, who will one day come.
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And here it refers to the spirit of antichrist that is in these false teachers. It is antichrist working through all these people who pervert the truth, these heretics.
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And those are the people that John is addressing here. Now, so what is this test?
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So he's talking about the people who are causing this problem. Now, what is this test? You find that test in verse 22. And he says, who is the liar?
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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.
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Now, if you look at the various lies he talks about, at this point, John almost says, you want a banner on lies?
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The liar is this, who denies that Jesus is the Christ. You know, for us,
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Jesus is the Christ seems almost like a simple sentence. But what do you think it means?
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What does Jesus is the Christ mean? Chosen one.
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Yes, Gladman? He is the promised Messiah. Christ in the
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Greek refers to the Messiah, the anointed one whom God was to send. And so Jesus, when you think of Jesus as the physical human being, a man like you and I who came and lived on earth is the
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Messiah. He is the anointed one who has been sent by God in order to provide for salvation. And so if someone denies that this physical human being called
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Jesus was indeed or is indeed the Messiah, the anointed one, then he is a liar.
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He is a heretic. He is not of the truth. And so that is the truth, the test of truth of orthodoxy that John is giving for us here.
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Now, if you look at the further test that John looks at, which we may not be able to get to, it is not just this one particular truth about Jesus being the
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Messiah that is in question. It is anything that God has revealed to us about God himself, about Jesus Christ, about salvation.
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If someone were to detract from these, he is not of the truth. He is a heretic.
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He is a false teacher and must not be listened to. And we'll look at some of these hopefully in a few minutes.
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Now, on the flip side, John says, okay, what about true believers? Like I said, he's breaking down the false argument on the truth aspect, and how does he build it up?
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We find that in verses 24 and 27. Verse 24, as for you, which is the believers, let that abide in you what you heard from the beginning.
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If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the
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Father. We see Paul talking about this quite a bit in his letters to his churches. But for us here, we have the scriptures which are given to us, which is an objective basis of truth on which we can live our lives.
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And what we have heard from the beginning, what has been written down for us, we need to not stray from this.
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We need to stand by the book, by what God has revealed for us. And that's the basis on which we evaluate truth and error.
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And on the flip side, he also gives us one more, and he says in verse 27, as for you, the anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you.
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But just as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, just as it has taught you, you abide in him.
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I don't even know if I wanna get into this verse too much. But let me spend a little time on this because it is important.
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The anointing which you have received from him, what is he talking about? Amen. And when do we get the anointing of the
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Holy Spirit? When we first believe. So every single believer has this anointing of the
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Spirit, which is in him. We have the Spirit of God within us, which gives us conviction of these truths.
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Nobody can just read this Bible and say, you know, I've come to faith in Christ on himself. It is only by the Spirit of God that we can read and understand and believe the things of God.
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And the Spirit of God who is within us gives us this conviction of what we believe to be true.
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So not only do we have an objective basis of this truth, which is in the scriptures, we also have the teacher himself within us who is teaching us all these things.
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And when he says, you know, you do not need anyone to teach you the truth, he's not saying that you don't need me here right now or a pastor later to come and tell us.
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What he is saying is you have this internal conviction of the truth that the Spirit of God gives you.
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And here I am just expounding what the Spirit is now gonna confirm in your hearts. Now, that's the first series of tests.
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We've seen obedience, love, and truth. Now let's look at the second series of tests. And that's found in verse chapter two, verse 28 to chapter three, verse 10.
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And I'm just gonna pick a couple of verses for you to give me what that test is.
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Let's look at verses two and, actually, let's not do that.
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Let's look at verses five and six. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in him is no sin.
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No one who abides in him sins. No one who sins has seen him or known him.
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And verse nine and 10 also expound on that. It says, no one who has been born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him.
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And he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious.
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Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God. What is this test again?
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It's one of the three you've already seen. Obedience, yes.
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Your lifestyle is a lifestyle of holiness because you live a life of obedience to God.
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Let's look at verses 11 through 18. And here, let me just look at verses 16 and 17.
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He says, we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
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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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What test is this? Test of love. And again, both this obedience and love, if you look at this test, they're not the same thing.
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John is not just cutting and pasting the same test again. And say, okay, you just need to read this twice. He actually comes at it from a different angle.
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If you look at the test of obedience, actually verses 28, chapter two, verse 28 and 29. If you look at it, he says, you know,
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Christ is coming back. How ought you to be? Don't you want to be eager to see him? And how would you be eager to see him if you're not obeying him?
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You know, if you are, it's almost like first Peter, where he says, Christ is coming back. So live holy lives. So he comes at obedience from a different angle.
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Here with love, he says, he laid down his life for us. So the motive for obedience,
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Christ laid down his life. Wouldn't you give up your own life for your brothers? And that's the exhortation at which he comes at here.
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And he gives multiple exhortations here. He says, you should be willing to go to the extent of giving your love.
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But at the same time on the simple daily things, you know, you have a thing that your brother doesn't have and is in need of.
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Wouldn't you share that with him? And wouldn't you be practically expressing this love? And that is the basis on which he comes at love from.
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He comes at the same thing from different angles in order for us to centrally be fixed about the need for these tests to be true in our lives.
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And verse 19 through 24, we have an assured heart.
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He goes back to this theme of assurance. And if you look at verse 18 and 19, he talks about how we as believers can have assurance.
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Now, this whole concept of this test is to give us evidence that we are indeed in the faith and not of the lie.
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And he just finishes this test of love. And he says, well, if your life is characterized by this love, by this heart that has been transformed by the love of God towards your brothers, then you can have assurance.
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And sometimes you may not feel like you have assurance. You know, you look at everything and say, well,
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I'm still, I'm not matching up to the holiness of God. No, you're not. But you know that your life is transformed by his power.
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And when you examine your life by his spirit, using these tests, you can see that your life is different.
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And he says, use that as a basis for assurance. And actually, he says in verse 19 and 20, he says, whenever our hearts condemn us, here is what gives us assurance, because you can see that your life is transformed.
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And then he goes on to say, if your heart does not condemn us, which means you have this great confidence towards God, how boldly you can approach him in prayer.
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And then the third test, which again, you haven't got listed out, is found in chapter four, verses one through six.
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And let me just read verses two and six. In verse two, by this, you know the spirit of God.
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Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. Actually, let's stop right there.
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What do you think the test is? That's right.
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And if you had to go to one of the three tests we've seen so far, what would that be? Is it a test of obedience, love, or truth?
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That's right. So you need to believe something about Jesus Christ. Without right belief of God, you cannot have the rest of the test pass on.
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And here he says, Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. The specific error he was combating was a form of docetism, which said that, you know,
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Jesus Christ was just somebody who appeared like a man. He was not really a physical man. Right now, I don't think anybody has such a claim about Jesus Christ that we have to refute, but we have a lot of other claims to refute.
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You know, Jesus Christ was just a teacher. He was just saying good things. You know, just obey him, do the things he said, and you'll be fine.
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And those are the kinds of heresies in liberal theology that we have here that we must refute. But you get the point.
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When you talk about truth, you're talking about all of the truth of scripture. And primarily, you'll find most of them directed against Christ.
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Christ is the one who brings us salvation, and people who take their aims take at Christ. I think Calvin said that.
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So that's the second series of tests. We've seen obedience, love, and truth. And the point is to say, you know, do you pass this test?
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Can you have assurance that you're a believer, or are you not one? And then the third series of tests, and this one
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I'll kind of walk you through is verses seven through 12 of chapter four. And two of the verses to look at would be verses 10 and 11.
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And he says, and this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins.
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And then if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. And again, the test is love.
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And then here he gets towards the closure. And then in verses 13 through 21, what you see is a combination of tests.
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He uses love and truth together. And some of the verses I've listed out, we won't look at them as we would be wrapping up in a few minutes.
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You can go home and read them. You see how truth and love are intimately related. And then chapter five, verses one through five, it's excellent.
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And actually I'm just gonna read that as we close because it highlights how all these tests are so intimately woven together.
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You cannot have one without the other. And I'm gonna just emphasize the verbs that John uses here.
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And you can just listen along. Chapter five, verse one. Whoever believes that Jesus is the
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Christ is born of God. And whoever loves the father loves the child born of him.
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By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love
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God and observe his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.
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And his commandments are not burdensome for whatever is born of God overcomes the world.
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And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world?
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But he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. So you can see again here how your truth will lead to love and that will be expressed in obedience.
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And one who passes these tests can have assurance that he is a child of God. So if you need to have assurance this morning about your own faith and about your own salvation,
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John has given you these tests in order to examine your heart to find whether you are indeed a believer or if you fail this test that you need to be in a right relationship with him.
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And the last question that I had, and I think we'll kind of skip this and I'll just point you to it.
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I've just broken down the three witnesses that we have in chapter five, verses six through 12.
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And the assurance and the blank that you have for verses 13 through 17 is assurance.
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And the key words that you wanna remember, which is the theme of this book, which is assurance is chapter five, verse 13.
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He says, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the son of God so that you may know, which is an objective knowledge that you have eternal life, that you are believers.
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And so that's for individual believers, we can know that we are indeed in the faith. And as a body, all these tests will give you how to examine truth and falsehood.
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When you see within the body, how should you respond in love and outside when you see false teaching, what you should do.
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And as a member in Bethlehem Bible Church, you would know how to respond both in love and in correction as the
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Lord would lead. So let's close with a word of prayer. Dear God, our heavenly father, we thank you for your word.
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We thank you for the instructions that you have given us in your scripture and for your spirit that you have given within us.
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We pray a lot that your spirit would continue to work in our hearts and in our lives to conform us into the image of your son.
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And Lord, even now, as we move into the worship service, we pray that you would enable our hearts to lift you up, to glorify you and to be thankful for the precious salvation that you've given in our lives and help us a lot to love one another as you have loved us.