Church Service (11/5/2023)

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Opening w/ music from the LaClaires. Link to sermon only:    • Walk in the Light (11/5/2023)  

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Welcome to Morris Corner Church.
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Let's begin our worship service with hymn number two, Come Thou Found. Megan's going to lead us.
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Hymn number two. Please stand. Blessing, tune my heart by grace, streams of mercy sing, call for songs of loudest praise.
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Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by Flanders name,
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I'm fixed upon it. Name of God's redeeming love.
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Hither to thy love has blessed me, thou hast brought me to this place.
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And I know thy hand will bring me safely home by thy good grace.
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Jesus saw me when a stranger, wandered from the fold.
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He to rescue me from danger, bought me with his precious blood.
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Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily
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I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.
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Proud to wander, Lord I feel it, proud to lead, oh
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God I love. Here's my heart oh, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.
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Let's pray the Lord's Prayer together. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
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Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
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For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Amen.
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You may be seated. We'll go over a few announcements. We have the fellowship dinner after the service today.
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So whether you brought something, whether you didn't, we'd just love to have you stay. So right after the service, that'll be downstairs.
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The men's breakfast will be Saturday, November 25th at 8 a .m.
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Wednesday's evening service continues 6 .30 p .m., continuing through the Book of 1 Samuel. And then, of course,
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Thursday's discipleship group continues to meet in Gil. The missionary of the week is
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Dwight Hostetler, so keep Dwight and his wife Cindy in your prayers. And really, this service, most of you know already, it's going to be a little different.
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A lot of music, so I just kind of want to get out of the way, right up front, and give
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Phil and Ellen LeClaire as much time as possible. So the sermon, I had said, will be a little shorter.
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I want to give them as much time as they need. So depending on that, you know, it'll be normal length sermon to drastically shorter.
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I decided not to go through Matthew, so we'll take a break from Matthew. But yeah,
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I'm just going to get out of the way. You guys can introduce yourselves. You played at a few different churches in the area.
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Yeah, so welcome to Morris Corner. Thank you for coming. Yes, most of you, we don't need introduction because we're related.
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We always, it's really kind of a convenient thing because when you live from away, you know, we moved away from the area back when
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I was 11, and that was a long time ago. So now you come back and you know you're related to most people in the room, and it's easy to just call somebody cuz, right?
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So if I walk up to you and say, hey cuz, how you doing? Don't correct me if I'm wrong. Just call me.
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This first song reminds me of Morris Corner Church. Always has. There's a little mountain church in my thoughts of yesterday
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Where friends and family gathered for the Lord We caught that train and made our way
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For what few coins a convocation could afford Resting all our silliness
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Sat on the pews to solve the dole Can't remember how our voices fit
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Mama sounded like an angel From those high spring windows when the gold was gold
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Under a frozen church house
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As they come in my life's cornerstone It's just there in that little mountain church house
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I first heard the words to face my life upon The giver of wrongs and the sisters who've gone on To go to great lengths to help in peace
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As they come in my life's cornerstone
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It's just there in that little mountain church house
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To face my life upon A frozen church house
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As they come in my life's cornerstone It's just there in that little mountain church house
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I first heard the words to face my life upon I first heard the words to face my life upon Thank you very much.
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The only reason I played the banjo is for Marcus. Thanks. That's not all they got at your group.
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It's a wonderful instrument. He and I appreciate that. I think equally probably.
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You know, it's really, it is amazing. I don't want to talk too much. I want to do more singing than talking. But it is an amazing thing for me to be sitting here and literally with a stone hitting
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Grandpa's barn. And I remember a few years ago, and I won't believe it with all the cool stories, but I remember many, many years ago going in there and seeing
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Dan and Mike, the horses, and don't walk behind Dan. I remember that. Don't walk behind Dan.
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Dan kicks. And he kicked Grandpa once pretty good. And so all these kind of memories and to be able to be here and playing and singing in the church that is so near and dear to all of our relatives' hearts.
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It's nice being here for something other than a funeral, quite frankly. We appreciate it.
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I should say quickly before we go to the next song, so thankful that you folks are keeping the doors open here and this is a thriving church that preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We're thrilled about that. So thank you. Good work. I am taking the sun with fire
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And I say arise dear
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Will there be any stars in my crown Will there be any stars, any stars in my crown
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Any in the sun or the cloud When I wake with the blessing in those mansions of rest
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Will there be any stars in my crown When it sprays like the sea billows roll
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Will there be any stars, any stars in my crown Any in the sun or the cloud
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When I wake with the blessing in those mansions of rest
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Will there be any stars in my crown When in space
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I behold the angels And it's deep to lay down In the sweet and lifeless
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In that city of gold Will there be any stars in my crown
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Will there be any stars, any stars in my crown
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Any in the sun or the cloud When I wake with the blessing in those mansions of rest
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Will there be any stars in my crown When I wake with the blessing in those mansions of rest
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Will there be any stars in my crown I heard a little girl
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She said I know that And this is for you His heart was so heartless
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That he would not believe In any word he'd swear
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His voice spoken loud His Sundays were spent
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Back with the gambling crowd I've never seen my daddy
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Inside the house of God For Satan held his hand Down the path of sinning fraud
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The circle was broken
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When God was sweet and low
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His last words were spoken The angels rejoiced
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In heaven last night I heard my daddy praying Dear God make it right
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He was smiling and singing With tears in his eyes While mother with the angels
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Rejoiced last night While mother with the angels
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Rejoiced last night Thank you so much.
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That wasn't the song we wrote, by the way. Remember, you know my dad, he was not out with the gambling crowd.
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Thankfully he, instead of that, he came to know the
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Lord at a young age. You all know his history, perhaps, as well, maybe better than me. But he and mom were called to go up to Bangor, Maine to start a rescue mission.
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Back then, now we call it a homeless mission, I suppose, I don't know. But back then it was mostly alcoholism that was plaguing primarily men, some women.
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And Bangor, Maine was a pretty rough place back then. And it's not so bad now, but it's still got its needs, that's for sure.
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So we sold the business in alcohol and headed up to Bangor, Maine. And so I learned at a very young age to set people where they are and pray for them and help them come to know the
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Lord as their Savior. And it was a tough ministry up there, but it was wonderful.
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And we saw many people come to know the Lord and get their lives straightened out. And it was a real blessing.
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So while you guys were back down here praying for us, I'm sure, Dad and Mom were up there starting the rescue mission.
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And Gary, Range, and I were learning how to be godly, hopefully. We were learning how, but we did it all the time, and now it's another story.
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♪♪♪ ♪♪♪
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Ellie was one of the better things that happened to me in Maine. We met many, many years ago and were married over 51 years ago.
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And she's putting up with me now. I love it.
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One of the nice things about being Peter is she has to say nice things about me, really.
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Because she's surrounded by my family. Thank you. Can you introduce us while I fix this string that's driving me crazy?
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This song, we have a request to do this song. Oh, thanks.
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You were just pretending to forget. I do that a lot. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪
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But this song is meaningful to him and it's meaningful to us. It's kind of a fun story.
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The people that we got this song from are actually well -known musicians on a national level.
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And they were in a few movies and all that. And they're wonderful folks. And this song,
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Far Side Bank of Jordan, kind of... Did they do that one in that movie?
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I don't know. Nothing happened. Anyway, we got it from them. They stayed in our home on the way back and forth from getting birthed in Pennsylvania to a festival up in Maine.
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And we had a wonderful time to meet them. And the only reason I tell that story is that the ministry that we have, the music that we do, is primarily bluegrass.
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Obviously, we often have a bigger band here. And it's a wonderful thing that bluegrass, the tradition of bluegrass music, started in churches, right?
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I mean, it's old -timey stuff that started in the hills, a lot of it in churches. And so, to be a legitimate bluegrass musician, you have to know some gospel.
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Well, of course, that opens a tremendous door for us because that's pretty much what we do. And so, at the festivals, believe it or not, in America anyway, still, the festivals, the bluegrass festivals, always have
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Sunday morning gospel hour, they call it. I mean, for three or four hours, nothing but gospel.
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So, if you get on stage at a bluegrass festival Sunday morning, you have to play the gospel. And it's funny to watch some of them.
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It's a stretch for some of them. But most of them started in church, just like we did.
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And so, it's a wonderful thing that we get to get to know some really good musicians, real nice folks.
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Many of them are believers, and they love to pass along songs like this. So, this one's for Uncle Nate. And somehow, what a day it may be
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When no more time to travel, like, why don't you feel lost
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For I will be the first one that you see And I'll be waiting on the far side bank of Jordan I'll be waiting, drawing pictures in the sand
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And when I see you coming, I will rise up with a shout
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And come running to the shallow water, reaching for your hand
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The years we've labored hard to earn our meter fare
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It's brought us trembling hands and fingers, I Trust you're on the shore, we'll see paradise
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I'll be waiting on the far side bank of Jordan I'll be waiting, drawing pictures in the sand
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And when I see you coming, I will rise up with a shout
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And come running to the shallow water, reaching for your hand
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And I'll be running on the sand
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And I'll be running to the shallow water, reaching for your hand
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And I'll be running to the shallow water, reaching for your hand
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We'll turn it back over to Pastor Gary in a minute We'll try to wake him up now and see
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Oh yeah, yeah, yeah Well, this one, uh, we've actually talked a little bit about this one in the service already this morning
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It took your blood I give to Thee to set me free
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Grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me
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Well, I only asked, do you want me to do that last one? I think it might be good for just the four of us
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This is good, yes This, we'll do one more for you And, uh, this is a wonderful song that is so simple, domestically so simple
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Some friends of ours from upstate New York actually wrote this one A couple of fellows, the
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Gibson Brothers They're a fairly well -known group now and wonderful guys
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And the song just, the simplicity of it is just so good and solid
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And pungent, really, I guess You know, we talk about, you're all here at church, right?
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Sunday morning, you're at church Well, guess what? We're in the minority now, right?
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I mean, a real small minority in New England I mean, the statistics are horrible I hope they're wrong, but I'm afraid they might be right
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But in New England, less than 5 % of people go to church And you think, really?
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Is that possible? Because we've grown up in church You know, we go to church and it's just what you do
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For all the reasons that we could talk about for hours But people get away from church
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Life gets busy, right? And there's no cultural pressure to be in church anymore, right?
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Back when we were kids I mean, we're in our 70s now When we were kids, it was the norm
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You know, you went to church And if you didn't go to church, you must have some reason, some excuse or something But we all just went to church
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Well, guess what? Not that way anymore, as you know So this song is really simple
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But it pushes home the point that we all know We need to be in church
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There's a whole host of reasons why we need to be in church Worshiping our Heavenly Father And our
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Lord Jesus Christ, His Son And fellowshipping with each other And having meals together All those things that are just so good for us
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And so necessary So that's what this song is about I found the church today
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You led me to the store There was love about It made my spirit soar
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We had worship there And Jesus' name was praised And I sang along I found the church today
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All the souls inside Were hung from their heels You were in their eyes
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And in their voices too And my heart was full When it came time to pray
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I came back to you I found the church today And your love shone into the windows wide
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And it brightened the room Till there was nothing left to hide Oh, I can't recall
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What kept me awake Yet you knew my need I found the church today
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Bring a friend along He needs to hear your words
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He needs to sing your song Keep the fire in me And your love shone into the windows wide
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And it brightened the room Till I had nothing left to hide Oh, I can't recall
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What kept me awake Yet you knew my need I found the church today
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Oh, I can't recall What kept me awake Yet you knew my need
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I found the church today It's a free will offering
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If you'd like to give something You can, if not, that's up to you But the plate is out there next to the
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CDs And yeah, just really thankful To have you guys with us Thank you So Mark is going to come up with the
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Scripture reading which will be from the Book of 1st John 1st
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John Chapter 1, that's where The sermon will be Mark's going to read the whole chapter
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So that's 1st John 1 1 through 10 Good morning
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Good morning 1st
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John Starting verse 1 That which was from the beginning
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Which we have heard Which we have seen with our eyes Which we have looked upon And our hands have handled
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Concerning the word of life The life was manifested And we have seen
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And bear witness and declare to you That eternal life Which was with the
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Father And was manifest to us That which we have seen
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And heard we declare to you That you also May have fellowship with us
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And truly our fellowship Is with the Father And with His Son Jesus Christ And these things
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We write to you That your joy May be full This is the message
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Which we have heard From Him and declare to you That God is light
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And in Him is no darkness At all If we say that we have fellowship
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With Him and we walk in Darkness we lie and do not Practice the truth
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But if we walk in the light as He Is in the light We have fellowship with one another
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And the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses Us from all sin
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If we say We have no sin We deceive ourselves and the truth is not
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In us If we confess our sins He is faithful and just To forgive us our sins
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And to cleanse us from all Unrighteousness If we say that we have not sinned
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We make Him a liar And His word is not In us And all
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God's people said Thank you I'd like to talk to you today
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About a Consistent pattern of Faithfulness A consistent pattern of faithfulness
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I think that's what we see here in chapter 1 Of John's Epistle.
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Notice what he says In verse 7. John writes But if we walk in the light As He is in the light
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We have fellowship with one another And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us
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From all sin So I want to start out by Asking the question what does it mean
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To walk in the light Well John basically is Describing a pattern of life
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A consistent Walk of faith And we want to make sure we have these
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Patterns in our lives Our Christian walk So just the term walking here
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Carries the idea of Continual progress Just a continual moving forward
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Light speaks of Purity which of course is God's Holy nature.
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God is pure So if we walk in the Light as Christ Is in the light
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That is really the evidence That we are in fellowship With Christ and in fellowship
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With His people Because I think we know this Anyone can say I believe.
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Anyone can say I'm a Christian So how do you
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Know? And it's not really Today. It's not about How do you know about others.
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How do you know About yourself? We want to Have that assurance That I believe.
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That I have This consistent walk. That I Am in fellowship with Christ. But how do we know?
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Well I think this is one of the Reasons why John Writes this letter. So I Want to compare.
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Just to start out With the Gospel of John. If you just want to Turn to the Gospel of John for a moment We're in 1st
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John so this is Towards the end of the New Testament but the Gospel Of John.
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You know where that is Matthew, Mark Luke, John. We just want to compare
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How these Two books Line up and how they start out
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Here's what we want to do Establish why John wrote His Gospel and then
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Why is John writing this Epistle. Compare that and then Go from there. This should help us to understand
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The context. Notice The Gospel of John chapter One. He says
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In the beginning was The Word and the Word Was with God and the
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Word Was God. He was in The beginning with God Verse three.
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All things were made Through him and without him nothing Was made that was
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Made. So John starts out his Gospel By highlighting the
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Deity of Christ. Okay now let's just Go back to 1st John And of course the whole purpose of John's Gospel if you read it through to the end
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Why did John write his Gospel? So that So that people might believe that Jesus is the
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Christ, the Son of God. So that's Why he wrote the Gospel.
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To convince People of that. But I think He wrote his first epistle To maybe add
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On top of the Gospel, add this Assurance The Gospel is to get people
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Saved. 1st John is to Strengthen believers so that we can Know that we're
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Saved. What does John say towards The end of his epistle? Flip over to 1st
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John chapter Five. If there's any one Verse that I would Encourage you to memorize from 1st
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John It would be Chapter five verse thirteen Where John says these things
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I Have written to you who believe in the name Of the Son of God. What? That you may
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Know that you have Eternal life and that you may Continue to believe in the
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Name of the Son of God So in other words he's writing the Gospel to get people saved.
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He's Writing his first epistle so that People are strengthened in the faith That you know that you're saved
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That you have that Assurance. Don't you want assurance That when you die you're going to go to heaven?
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Don't you want to have that assurance That yes I am in fellowship with Christ and with his people That God loves
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Me. How do I know that? Because he sent His son to die for me. That's The whole story of the
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Gospel. So when we compare John's Gospel to this letter There's some other similarities
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His gospel starts out As we saw in the beginning was the Word. Well how does
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This letter start out? Verse One. Go back to chapter one John writes that which was
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From the beginning. So you See the similarity And then he refers to Jesus As the word of life.
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So He starts out the letters and the Books in a very similar way As some of you know the term
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Word in Greek Is logos And while there's much that could be said about This term we know that God Spoke the worlds into Existence and he did it how?
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Well I just told you how How did God create All things? He Yeah he spoke
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And Jesus is the Word. So you could put it this way Jesus. God used
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Jesus to create all things. God Created through Him. Okay so God created through Christ Paul says in Colossians one that All things were created through Him and for him
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And that is in Christ All things consist So why does this matter?
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Well because God The father doesn't have a physical Body. Here's another reason why
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John Wrote this letter. God the Father doesn't have a physical body but who Does? God the
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Son has a physical Body And all physical things
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Exist because of Christ And for Christ He is
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Lord over All creation and John In his all of that to say
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This in his writings the gospel of John He's stressing Christ's divinity But in his first epistle
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He's stressing Christ's what? What's the other part of Christ's nature? His Humanity.
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Now for us as Protestants Or Bible believers or Baptists Or Evangelicals you know
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Whatever term you just want to use For yourself. I like Christian these days Myself I just want to Be called that I think but We Tend to put more emphasis
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On the divine nature of Christ. That's just the nature of it because That's most likely what is
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Going to be denied today In churches sad to say But do you realize people were
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Denying Christ's humanity Early on in the first century This is why
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John Is writing another reason to combat The heresy known as Gnosticism.
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So there Were these teachers the Gnostics Who were teaching Jesus didn't actually Come in the flesh.
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So they Affirmed that he was a divine being But he wasn't actually A man.
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So People today deny Christ's Divinity. People back then were denying His humanity.
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This is Why John stresses in verse 1 Look at it. What does he say? We have seen him with our eyes
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We have handled him like John Is saying. We touched him. Jesus was A man. He was real.
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We saw Him. He had a physical body Like Us. Why is that important?
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Well it's all helpful Information to explain how Salvation is possible. To really have
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The assurance of salvation You have to understand Salvation. Why is it important to Kind of go through all this and establish
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Christ's deity and His humanity. This is Why we are saved
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Through Christ. Christ Is the bridge. This is the only way we can be
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Reconciled to God. Through The God man. Jesus Christ. God is up here
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We're down here God is holy. We're Not holy.
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We're sinners. All Have sinned and have come short. How do You bridge the gap?
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Well Jesus is the door He is the bridge because He stands
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In between. So right? God up here Man down here. Jesus Is our one mediator.
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Why? Because He is both God And man. That is The only way man can be
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Reconciled To God. This is how Jesus Was able to say in John 14
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Verse 6. I am the way, the truth, and The life. No man comes unto the Father except through me.
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In John's gospel he says I am the door So This is really the basis
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Of our fellowship with God. We Have fellowship with God through The God man.
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Jesus Christ. So that's how salvation is Possible. Jesus died On the cross to atone
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For our sins. He rose again the third Day that we, because He lives We might live also.
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So that's the basis for Fellowship. Faith in Christ. Salvation In Christ. Look at John 1 1.
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John calls Jesus the Word of life. We saw That. Verse 2. The life was
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Manifested and we Have seen and bear witness and Declare to you that eternal life
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Which was with the Father Was manifested To us.
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So going Back to John's gospel. Chapter 1. In the beginning was the word and the word was
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With God and the word was God. The word came And he dwelt among us.
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Paul says to Timothy In 1 Timothy 3 .16 He says great is the
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Mystery of godliness that God Was manifest in The flesh.
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Verse 3. John says to the church members that Are under his pastoral Care. He says that which
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We, probably a reference to the Apostles, what we have seen And what we have heard
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We declare to you That you also may have Fellowship with us.
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And the us is probably not Just the apostles but all the Faithful Christians who are alive at That time and indeed all faithful Believers throughout history.
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And because you are in fellowship With the Lord and with Us, you can enjoy
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These benefits. He continues On. Truly our fellowship Is with the
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Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And These things I write to you So that what?
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Your joy May be full. Do you realize That's the benefit
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That we have in Christ? Not just that we're saved but that Our joy may be
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Full. I like one of Those songs that you sang. Your presence is, what was the line?
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Your presence is My favorite gift of all Is God's presence.
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Knowing that God Loves us, that His Spirit Is present with us. And we have a home in heaven.
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If that can't give you joy I don't know what can. People are searching for joy
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And happiness and pleasure in this Life and it's very elusive But Christ came that Our joy may be
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Full. So what can bring greater joy Than to know that you have fellowship
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With God. That all of your Sins are forgiven. And that you have eternal
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Life. Nothing. There's nothing greater Than that. But again, how do you Know? Because the devil will
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Try to get you to doubt. Some people might say things to you That cause you to doubt.
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There's all sorts Of temptation and things that Might lure you in another direction. So how do you really know if you're
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A believer? Well John wrote, 1 John 5 13, we saw the verse, I write these things
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So that you may know. John wants Us, God wants us to have this Assurance. But what it sounds
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Like, and I don't have time to go through The whole letter, but Reading the epistle of 1
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John It sounds like he may not be Completely convinced that Everybody is
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Enjoying this fellowship. Some people Say things, do things, fall
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Away. We don't know exactly what John Was dealing with. They had the false teachers The Gnostics who were
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Starting to maybe convince Some people. So how do you really know that You have this fellowship
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With God? Well one way to Evaluate this is The test that John is presenting.
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Are you walking In the light? And I think this comes Down to that consistent pattern
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Of faithfulness. Any Christian on any given Day, you can do something
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And you might think to yourself, or Someone might say, what kind of Christian would do that?
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What kind of Christian Would say, have you ever had those moments? I know You do. Something comes out Of your mouth, you do something.
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Or maybe it's just The way you've been living recently, and you think And you wonder How do
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I really know? Well John wants us to know. Again, God wants us To know.
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Let's just spend a moment on The joy. This is one of the evidences That we
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Are in fellowship with God. That our Joy may be full. 1 John 1
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Verse 4, what does it say? In these things we write To you so that your
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Joy may be Full. So Christians should have This joy.
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You should at least Have the joy that you're saved. And that you know it.
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And that you know that you know it. You know what I'm talking about? Well, Fellowship with God, that's reason
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To be joyful. And just Because some people aren't living And the Bible says the joy of the
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Lord is your Strength. Not everyone's walking In the joy of the Lord. And you might wonder Is something wrong?
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Well, we don't Want to misunderstand this. Having the joy Of the Lord is not your smiling All the time.
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There's one famous preacher I'm thinking of. He's just smiling He's got this permagrin
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He's just smiling all the time. I look at that and I think What's wrong with me? Because I'm not smiling
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All the time. You know, maybe he's Like that in real life. Maybe he isn't. Who knows? But I don't think that's
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What joy is. You're always Smiling all the time. And that you have this bubbly
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Kind of personality where you're Always upbeat. That's not Really the point.
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Because you read about Some of the greatest saints in Scripture They had ups and downs and it was just Like anyone else.
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I think of David in the Psalms He went through Great times of Suffering.
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And Some of the apostles Even doubted. Jesus rebuked them For their unbelief
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At times. So Christians are going To go through times of sadness Suffering.
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Great Suffering, perhaps. But here's the thing about joy Our joy is not
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Dependent on our circumstances. You know, happiness Is usually what
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We talk about when it's based on Circumstances. And I realize the two are synonyms But I think there is a difference between Happiness and joy.
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Happiness depends on what you're going Through at that moment. Some of you, maybe this
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Weekend, even this morning, something Happened and you weren't very happy But that doesn't mean that you lack
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The joy of the Lord. So we don't want to misunderstand this because This would be another way
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That the devil could get Into our ear and tell us No, you're not really A true believer.
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Otherwise you'd always be Happy. This is simply not The case. That's not what you see in Scripture.
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How do you have joy, though? I think there is a way And this is the acronym that We use for joy.
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J O. Y. You want to have Joy in your life? Put who first?
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J. Yeah. Put Jesus first. And then Second, you put others
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Ahead of yourself. And Who comes in last in this Situation? Y.
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Yourself. You. And a lot of people have That inverted. You know, it's upside down.
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And people are Self -centered. They put themselves First. They're always thinking about themselves.
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It's me, me, I, I. And these are some of the most miserable people You will ever meet. If I focus only on myself
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All the time, yeah. I'm gonna be not very Joyful.
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But when we Focus on the Lord and His goodness And put other people Ahead of ourselves.
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It's counterintuitive But this is really the way To have a joyful life. Philippians 2, verse 3 says
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Esteem others better Than yourselves. If you want the joy Of the Lord, just look at where your focus is.
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Is it on others? Is it on the Lord? Is it on others? I think that Can fix a lot of it.
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And then just ask this question. Am I walking in the Light? Let's skip ahead to chapter 2 for a moment.
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So how do you know? John is Again, I think, presenting a test. How do you know
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If you're saved? That's typically how we put it. But how do you know if you have fellowship
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With God? How do you know if you Are in fellowship with One another? Look at 1
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John 2, 3 and 4. Now by this We know that we know
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Him. And who is the Him? Is it capitalized in your Bibles? Yeah, well that's an indication
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That it's the Lord. Now by this we know That we know Him If we do what?
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Keep His commandments. Again, that's that Consistent pattern of faithfulness. Do you break the commandments
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At times? Do you sin at times? Of course. Every Christian does. But do you Have that consistent pattern
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Of faithfulness? Now by this we know that we know Him if we keep
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His commandments. He who Says, I know Christ and does Not keep
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His commandments Is a liar and the truth Is not in Him. Well that's pretty clear.
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That's about the most clear statement you could Ever hear. Now why Would John say that unless He saw some of the church members
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Maybe living in open Sin and open rebellion To God and His commandments?
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You say, well like what? What was John Seeing? Well look at verses 7 and 8 Of chapter 2. Sometimes you have to read between the lines.
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John talks About the new commandment that Jesus Gave to love One another.
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So apparently some church Members were not obeying This command. They were not loving one another.
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Many church members probably Again reading between the lines They were mistreating one another.
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Backbiting and all sorts Of things going on. You're going to have this in a church.
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I mean that's just the reality that sometimes Personalities clash. Not everyone is going to be your best friend.
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Again that's not really The point. But this seems A lot worse than that.
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Chapter 2 verse 11 I think makes it clear that Some people Were even hating one another.
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1 John 2 .11 But he who hates His brother is in darkness and Walks in darkness.
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Why would John Say that unless that's what he was hearing Or that's what he was Observing.
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Can you imagine This? And I've never seen this in church. I've certainly never seen it here. Although maybe it happened long ago.
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Maybe some of you have seen it. Can you imagine being in a church And seeing a brother and a sister or a brother and a brother
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Screaming at each other Yelling at each other Arguing and one of them says I hate you.
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Maybe it's just clear In the way they're acting that They really despise this.
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What a bad testimony That is. I won't ask you If you've ever seen that.
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The world is a big place. There's a lot of churches, a lot of Christians. This has happened somewhere.
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It's happening Somewhere right now. So something like that must have been
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Going on. And what's John's Admonition? He doesn't say hey if you Treated someone like that I guess you're not a real
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Christian after all. That's not what he does. He just encourages them Well he admonishes that behavior But he says walk in the light.
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Make a change. Apologize. If you don't Have that consistent pattern of faithfulness
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If you don't have it now Start now. So we started
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Out reading in 1 John the word Fellowship. Christians are To love God, love the things of God, love one another.
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Pretty simple but verses 15 Through 17 of chapter 2 we Learn that some people had a love
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For the world. This is always one of the big Things that Christians deal with.
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The world wants The world wants to Own us. The world
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Wants you as one of its own. We are Or we belong to who?
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You're Either of God or of the World. Sometimes people are of God but they're acting like they're of The world.
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Again another Admonition. John encourages people to Walk in the light.
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So look At 1 John 1 verse 5. Try to wrap this up here In a couple minutes but This is the consistent pattern
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Of faithfulness. This is the test. Walk in the light. Starting in verse 5.
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This is the Message which we have heard from him And declare to you that God Is what?
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Light and in him is no Darkness at all. So God is absolutely
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Pure. Christ was sinless. Verse 6 John says but if we Say that we have fellowship
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With him and walk in darkness we lie And do not practice the truth. So how do you know
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If you have trusted in the Gospel? Because such Faith causes a person
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At the very least to want To walk in the light. To want to walk
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Just as Christ walked. Not in sinless perfection. Here's another thing you don't want to misunderstand
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About 1 John. Some people have read This letter and this is the idea That if I'm a real
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Christian I'm not going to sin anymore. There are some verses Admittedly that sounds like that's
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What John is saying. But wait Let's go back. You're in chapter 1 Right? Let's look
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Verse 8. If we say That we have no sin What? We deceive
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Ourselves. So this is not some Sinless perfection doctrine. Like some people would have you
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To believe. John says if we Claim that we don't sin If we have no sin we deceive ourselves.
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Why does he say that? Because you're not Fooling anyone else. You're self deceived if you think
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You don't sin. But if you do sin Verse 9. If We confess our sins he is faithful And just to forgive us our sins
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And to cleanse us from all Unrighteousness. And verse 10 again. If we say that we have not
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Sinned we make him a liar And his word Is not in us.
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But just going back To this statement This Statement of verse 7.
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But if we Walk in the light As he, as Christ Is in the light we have
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Fellowship with one another And the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us from All sin.
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So Let me just leave you with that Idea. We want to Develop a
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Pattern of faithfulness. Not to prove, not even to prove To somebody else because you know
01:04:29
At the end of the day who decides Who's a true believer or Not. You know that's his
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Job. That's above my pay grade As you know they say. I mean all you know
01:04:41
About someone is based on you know what they say And do. But really We want to focus on ourselves.
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We want to have that Assurance that John wrote about. First John 5 .13.
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These things I've Written that you may know that you have Eternal life. I want every believer To have that full assurance
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Of faith. I want every believer to Know that they're a child of God. I want every professing believer
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To be a believer who is in Fellowship with God and fellowship With one another.
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And How can we have that assurance? Walk In the light.
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A reliable pattern Of faithfulness to The Lord. And you say
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Well again that's not me. There might be One or two this morning listening later On. You say that's not me.
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Up until This moment I've had a very Different pattern. You realize you can change that right now.
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First John Last quote. First John 1 .9 If we confess our sins
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He is faithful and just To forgive us our sins And to cleanse us from all
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Unrighteousness. Who is Able to do that? Christ. The God Man.
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God is up here We're down here. The only Way we can come to God. There's One bridge.
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There's one Door. And that's the God Man. Jesus Christ. If we profess faith
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In him. If we say we Trust in him. Let's live it out. Let's show
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That consistent pattern Of faithfulness to the Lord. Let's pray. And Heavenly Father I just pray that each one would
01:06:23
Either continue this or Put one Foot in front of the other to just Live a life that is pleasing to You Lord.
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This is where we Can find true joy. True happiness. Knowing that we have
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A home in heaven. Knowing that God above loves us. And Lord you have displayed
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That love by sending Christ Into the world to die on the Cross for our sins.
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Lord I thank you for each and every person Here. And if there's someone who Does not have the assurance
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That when they die that They will go to heaven. Lord they can settle That right here and Right now.
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They can simply Bow their head and say Lord Jesus I know that I Have sinned.
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I know that I fall Short. I'm not fooling Anyone else and I'm not
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Fooling myself. I realize I need your forgiveness. Lord I pray that they would turn
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To the only one who is able To save their souls. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.