Episode 625: TLP 625: Biblical Families, Part 13 | the Consummation

So, practically, we overcome the world when our faith in Christ results in our submission to God's commands.

Parenting isn't about us. In fact, parenting isn't even about our kids. Parenting is just one way

Christian dads and moms are to worship God. So welcome to the Truth, Love, Parent podcast, where we train dads and moms to give

God the preeminence in their parenting. Welcome to the second to the last session of this family devotional series through 1st

John. I pray our time together has been informational, but if it has only taught you about 1st

John, then honestly, it's been a failure. I really pray our time together has been transformational.

The whole purpose of this Bible study has been so that your family can either become a biblical family or continue to mature as a biblical family.

The reality is that we all need to change. We all need to know God and grow in our love and worship of Him.

So I truly pray your family has been influenced and even changed in one way or another.

I may never meet you in real life, but Lord willing, all of you can continue to encourage and sharpen and influence each other in Christ.

And I would love to hear what the Lord is doing in your family. It may be in an email or a phone call.

I may even meet you one day in person, and I would love to hear how God is maturing all of you. Of course, if you're just joining us as you look for parenting content,

I'd like to invite you to start with episode 613, which is the beginning of this family devotional series.

Then again, you might be looking for other biblical parenting helps. And with over 600 episodes, we deal with hundreds of topics.

You can start with episode one, because all of our content is evergreen, or you could go to truthloveparent .com

and search for your topic of interest there. While there, you can also peruse our list of series, as well as learn about our book about how to stop family strife in the home.

There are so many resources, honestly, I pray that many of them will meet you in your need. And as always,

I ask that each of you look at the free notes, transcript, life work, and the other related resources linked in the description, because all of those are designed to take you even deeper into your study throughout the week.

And with that delightful introduction, let's begin. I hope you completed your life work this past week.

If you want to become more like Christ, the life work is an amazing starting place. We need to be spending more and more time in God's word, in prayer, and in applying his truth to our lives.

This is why the third life work assignment is so important. Did you commit to repentance this week?

Did you strive in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of the Father to humbly respond to conviction, confess your sin, seek forgiveness, and commit to real change?

I pray you did, because that's the whole point of what we're doing here. Alright, let's start by reading our passage.

It's a little longer, so it might be a good idea for you to read along with me if you think you might become distracted while I read.

1 John 5, 1 -12 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.

And everyone who loves the one who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of him.

By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and do His commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome.

For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the overcoming that has overcome the world, our faith.

Who is the one who overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood,

Jesus Christ, not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who bears witness, because the

Spirit is the truth. For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement.

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness about His Son.

The one who believes in the Son of God has this witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which

God has borne witness about His Son. And the witness is this, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have that life.

Today we're talking about the consummation of biblical families. According to Merriam -Webster, consummation refers to the ultimate end.

To consummate refers to finishing or completing something. Now, we'll be considering two versions of our family's consummation today.

We'll talk about our temporal consummation as well as our eternal consummation. Number one, the biblical family's temporal consummation.

What's the goal toward which we should be growing? We talked about how we should be changing and maturing, but what does spiritual maturity look like?

Now, you might say, but I thought we'll never be perfect as long as we're here on this earth. And that's true, but this is the destination toward which we need to be moving.

A. Spiritually mature families love everyone. First John 5 .1,

everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the one who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of him.

Listen, we could say so much more about this. We could look at more passages, deepen our understanding, and more importantly, discuss the intricate ways that each of us need to love better in specific instances.

So for more of that, I encourage you and your family to listen to the family love series linked in the description or to pursue biblical family counsel and discipleship.

But for our purposes here, we need to once again be reminded that Jesus says that love is both our process and our destination.

We won't fully arrive the side of eternity. Therefore, we need to perpetually be growing in love and loving better every day.

But we're not just to love our family and friends. God wants us loving our strangers and even our enemies.

Now that may sound impossible. It gets especially confusing if you're misdefining what love is, but by now your understanding should be more biblical.

We are to want and work toward God's best interest for the person in front of us, whether we like them or not, and whether they've made us feel good or hurt us.

Whether we know their name or have no idea who they are, God expects us to love them. And this point is a precise application of the next point, letter

B, spiritually mature families keep God's commandments. First John 5, 2, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love

God and do his commandments. To love God and others is to keep the

Lord's commands. Jesus said this in Matthew 5, 37 through 40, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and foremost commandment, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets.

But I don't want to oversimplify this. Yes, if we love God, we can do whatever we want because whatever we want will be in submission to the

Bible, but we all need more specificity in our application. Some of us are sinfully angry.

Others are very fearful. Others of you are impatient, unkind, unmerciful, malicious, maybe slanderous gossips, lustful.

Perhaps you take what you want, say what you want, do what you want, even when you've been told not to.

You lie, cheat, are lazy, are discontent, sassy, prideful, arrogant, and any number of hundreds of sins which

God warns us about in his word. The temporal consummation of the biblical family, our movement toward completeness, must involve obedience to the scriptures.

But it's not just about doing something externally. We've learned that we need to be doing the right thing in the right way for the right reasons.

And when we truly obey, we will actually like obeying and not have a bad attitude about it.

So let her see. But your families enjoy obeying God. Verse three of our passage today says,

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

The word burdensome refers to heavy, weighty, serious, and even savage. That means keeping his commandments will be light because it's not burdensome.

In Matthew 11, 28 through 30, Jesus says, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. I've avoided mentioning the last facet of biblical obedience until right now.

If I'm doing the right thing in the right way for the right reason, I have a promise that I will do it in the right power, and that power is the almighty power of God.

Yes, obeying God is a burden, but the Holy Spirit allows us to carry that burden with joy, to obey with contentment and peace and thanksgiving.

I know it may be hard to believe, and that's why this will require our next point. Letter D, Spiritually Mature Families Have Strong Faith.

First John 5, 4 through 5 says, For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the overcoming that has overcome the world. Our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world?

But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Faith is not simply a feeling or a thought or a piece of knowledge.

Faith is a confident trust that something is undeniably true. And if it's true, there are consequences.

It's faith that keeps us from jumping off of tall buildings. We believe that the fall will hurt or kill us.

But it's also faith that will motivate a child to jump off of something into his or her parents' arms. The child trusts that mom or dad will catch them.

We submit to God because we believe His way is best. Therefore, a biblical family striving to obey the scriptures is doing so because they trust

God. If we want our faith to grow and mature, we must obey more. We must trust

Him more. There is so much more that can be said about this point, but I'm going to strongly encourage you to listen to our

Mearest Christianity series. Those episodes will teach you all about faith and how to grow in it.

And speaking of growing faith, we also have a series on the celebration of God called Grow Your Worship. That too will be vital in this process because practical daily worship is only as strong as our faith in God.

Both of those resources have been linked for you in the description. And all of this love, obedience, joy, and faith will result in a truly amazing reality.

Letter E, spiritually mature families overcome the world. The two verses we just read talked about overcoming four different times.

The Greek word here you would recognize as the word Nike. Yes, Nike, the shoe company, actually

Nike was believed to be the Greek goddess of victory. But the true God uses the word

Nike to describe the victory His people will have when they believe in His Son. So what is it to overcome?

What is this victory? Well, I believe there are two facets of this truth. In Romans 12, 21, Paul writes, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This beautifully sums up so much of what John has been teaching us. The world wants to overcome us.

It's one of our enemies and the world system wants to influence us to walk in darkness. But we need to overcome that evil influence.

We need to be a more powerful influence for the light than they are, I should say, for the dark.

So practically, we overcome the world when our faith in Christ results in our submission to God's commands.

We'll not only be living righteously and so overcoming the world, but some of that righteous living will be in deliberate evangelism that will result in sharing the light with those in the dark.

But there's also a future implication here of overcoming the world. And so let us turn to our final point for the day.

Number two, the biblical families eternal consummation. Letter A, overcoming the world.

In John 16, 33, Jesus says, these things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace.

In the world, you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world.

This world will try to beat us down. Satan wants to eat us like a lion eats a lamb. We will definitely suffer tribulation when we live for Christ, but it is

Jesus Christ himself who has overcome the world. Jesus has already won. Satan, the world, and our flesh are fighting a lost battle.

Jesus has already defeated sin and death, and we're merely waiting here and now for God to finish calling his people to him.

Once that's done, the countdown will reach zero and the promised consummation of the scriptures, our glorious hope, will be revealed.

From then on into eternity, sin will cease to exist. The world will be utterly and finally completely overcome.

As we strive to overcome it now, then it will be complete as we get to experience, letter

B, eternal life. 1 John 5, 10 through 12 says, the one who believes in the

Son of God has this witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the witness which

God has borne witness about his Son. And the witness is this, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his

Son. He who has the Son has life, and he who does not have the Son of God does not have that life.

We talked about this hope earlier. The final consummation of the biblical family will be an eternity living life as God created it to be lived sinlessly in his glory and fellowship.

What a glorious day. And as we discussed before, it's this hope that should motivate our righteous living in the light here and now as we mature in Christ and move toward that final consummation.

The word consummation refers to the end, the completion of a thing, but our completion is a process.

We are to be living more and more in the light and daily being perfected in Christ as we move toward our total glorification at the

Lord's return. We shouldn't sit back complacently waiting and stagnantly existing. If that's how we're living, we don't have true spiritual life.

God is actively working to sanctify us. We need to be participating in that process for his glory.

We need to be obeying better, loving more, experiencing joy in righteousness, and overcoming the temptation to sin from the outside and the inside.

Once again, I strongly encourage your family to listen to the Spiritual Warfare in Your Home series. It will help you better understand and fight against the moment -by -moment temptations that you experience every day.

I want to thank you for spending this time with us. It's a beautiful thing when God's people work together to love God and each other better.

It's the Lord's plan for us to be more biblically mature, so I'm proud of you for making it this far. Next week is our final session in this

Bible study. I look forward to spending that last bit of time with you, equipping your family to be more biblical. But before we finish today, we're going to reread our passage in light of the truth we've learned.

Turn your brains on and see how it all comes alive as we read it. First John 5, 1 -12.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the

One who gives new birth loves also the One who has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love

God and do His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome.

For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the overcoming that has overcome the world, our faith.

Who is the one who overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the

One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood.

It is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that bear witness, the

Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.

For the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness about His Son. The one who believes in the

Son of God has this witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which

God has borne witness about His Son. And the witness is this, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have that life.

This wasn't in my notes, but I want to throw it in here really quickly. If you're still listening to this and you are not born again, you have not believed that God is who

He says He is, you are calling Him a liar because you're not believing in the witness which God has borne about His Son.

Please stop that. Please trust in Him. Please have eternal life. Now, in light of all of this, here's our life work for this week.

Number one, meditate on 1 John 5, 13 through 21 at least two times this week. Continue spending time with God every day as you read through the last part of 1

John. Number two, daily ask God to convict you of your sin and empower you to change.

We know that's what He already wants to do, but praying this keeps us engaging with His plans. And three, pursue your consummation this week.

Don't stagnantly wait for glorification. Grow in your sanctification this week, right now. Strive to become like Christ, the glory of the

Father and the power of the Spirit. Run toward the light and away from the dark. And then share this series with your friends, family, and pastor.

And never hesitate to email us at counselor at truthloveparent .com or leave a voicemail at 828 -423 -0894 if we can minister to you in individual or family counseling.

And then I'll see you next week as we discuss our confidence. See you then. Truth Love Parent is part of the

Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you worship God through your parenting. So join us next time as we study

God's Word to learn how to parent our children for life and godliness. And remember that TLP is a listener -supported ministry.