Discerning God’s Children & the Devil’s Own | 1 John 3:9-11

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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So, before I begin, I did want to draw attention a little bit to the hymn we sang,

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Oh, Four Thousand Tongues to Sing. It's a very nice hymn, but something caught my attention that I guess

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I didn't notice before. In the third part of it, stanza it looks like, it says, Jesus, the name that charms our fears.

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And I was like, oh, that's funny. Typically, charm is something that's associated with paganism and magic and stuff like that.

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So, I guess if I were to suggest a revision, I would say calms our fears rather, but that's just a little something to keep in mind.

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But anyway, I'm really looking forward to this message again.

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There's a lot of important stuff that I'm going to cover here. And I want to bring to our attention and bear in mind, as usual, that whenever we read a verse, any verse or passage, especially difficult or challenging ones, we must always grasp it in light of its immediate context and in light of its big picture context, whole counsel of God context, using the analogies of Scripture and of faith.

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So, looks like we got some background music today. So, there are other, because there are, at least with respect to this passage, there are other bookend doctrines that we must grasp in order to, and are required for understanding these verses correctly.

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And that's often the case. That is often the case because it's never isolated. We don't believe in an isolated set of truths.

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It's all systematic doctrine. It's a system of doctrine that we hold to. And with, you know, including of doctrines of salvation, regeneration, conversion of the flesh, sanctification, love,

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God's law, sin, so on. It's all sorts of different teachings that we have to know well.

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And as well as how they all logically relate to each other and how they are to be prioritized, like I've covered before.

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So, the beloved apostle continues expounding for us here, the black and white, good and evil, light and darkness,

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God and devil, Cain and Abel contrasts. Lots of contrasts that we are seeing in addition to God's seed and purpose or providence and the devil's seed and schemes or works.

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And I have another caveat here. I had to revise the sermon title because I'm not going to get it.

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I'm not going to get to verse 12. And so the title of today's sermon is actually

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Discerning God's Children and the Devil's Own. Discerning God's Children and the

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Devil's Own. And this, in fact, is actually one of the primary contrasts throughout

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John's entire letter. How to discern God's children, those who walk in the light and truth and the devil's own, those who walk in the darkness, we have

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Antichrist and so on. So, I want to focus on verse 9 of 1

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John chapter 3, in verse 9. And we'll see there that God speaks saying,

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Everyone who has been born of God does not sin. This is descriptive, by the way.

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Notice that it's descriptive. No one begotten of God commits sin, habitually lives in sin or continues in sin.

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Like Romans 6, 1 says. Again, everyone without exception. Why? Because his seed abides in him permanently and he cannot sin because he has been born of God by the

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Father's adoptive love and is thus dead to sin. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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Like Romans 6, 11 says. Verse 10. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested or discerned.

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Everyone, again, without exception, who does not do righteousness is not of God.

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Descriptive. Notice that it's descriptive. As well as the one who does not love his brother or God, for that matter.

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Remember the connection there. So, there is at least a threefold sense here that I saw to God's seed throughout this chapter.

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Okay, there's threefold sense to what God's seed is. And the first one is that God's seed refers to the one, that one, who is righteous.

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Jesus Christ, the righteous, the Son of God, who was manifested in order to take away sins.

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Like it says earlier in the chapter. And to destroy the works of the devil.

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Verse 8. God's seed also refers to, number two, everyone who has been born of God.

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Who has been born of God and therefore God's adoptive children. Spiritually, to all of us believers who have his seed abiding in them.

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Like verse 9 says. His seed. And then most obviously, number three, it also refers to his seed itself.

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What is this seed? It is God's spiritual seed. To the anointing of truth and love and righteousness and sound doctrine.

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For you have been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed.

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That is what? Through the living and enduring word of God.

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Amen. That's 1 Peter 1 .23. That's the word of God. That's the seed of God. The word of God.

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Because the seed, as Christ also taught us in the parable of the sower, is the word of God.

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It is. So the seed that gets scattered on different types of ground and different types of people receive it in different ways or reject it and so on.

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So therefore, we who are God's seed, God's children, believers.

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Cannot sin. Cannot sin. Now, that's a that's a hard that's a that's a hard thing there.

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It's a wait a minute. What? Don't we still sin? We have to understand what this means properly.

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Cannot sin. And the Greek there is really interesting. It's the word where we get the word dynamite.

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Do not die. Dynamite. Do not miss. And the believer has sin.

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No longer has power or dominating sway or there's no longer a trajectory to sin in the believer's life.

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The trajectory has now shifted towards truth, love and holiness.

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Why is that? Because we have been spiritually reborn or begotten of God.

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Now we are begotten of God spiritually. We have new desires, new habits, new way of life because of God's spirit dwelling in us.

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So that's very important to understand. We are regenerated by God and adopted by his fatherly love, adopted by his father.

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It's like that really awesome catechism question that we read today from the

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Orthodox catechism. Why did Christ command us to call God our father at the very beginning of our prayer in the

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Lord's prayer? God wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer.

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The childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our father. Our fathers do not refuse us the things of this life.

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God our father will even less refuse us to give us what we ask in faith. Amen. So that's very important to understand

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God's regenerating adoptive love. It changes us. It renews us towards holiness.

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And that's what we learned from previous verses and from the doctrines that they teach, which were also very nicely summarized in the larger catechism, the

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Baptist larger catechism, about adoption being an act of God's free grace and powerful love of God the

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Father. In him for his only son, Jesus Christ, by which all those who are justified by grace through faith are also received into the number of his children, his adopted children.

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Have his name put upon them, have the spirit of his son given to them, are under his eternal fatherly care and discipline, are welcome to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God, and are made heirs to all the glorious promises and victories and fellow heirs with Christ in glory.

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Amen. Right. So, however, this does not mean that we no longer sin at all or that we no longer struggle against sin.

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It's a daily struggle. Stay tuned for that. OK, I'm going to hold you in suspense for a little bit.

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But remember that it's a daily struggle because of our flesh. Now, by counterfeited contrast,

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I thought that was clever, counterfeited contrast. The devil and his own his seed are diametrically opposed to God and his seed.

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His seeds and all that is true, good and beautiful, pure, lovely and excellent.

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Like Philippians 4, it says, because we know that the devil is a lying murderer from the beginning.

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Like like Abel, I mean, I'm sorry, like Cain, like Cain and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

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Like our Lord says in John 8, 44, he was the first murderer like Cain was on Earth.

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And we we learned last week what the devil's seed and works are.

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In some, they are the devil's anointing, which is a false anointing of lies and disobedience, sin and shame and guilt.

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And I forgot to mention this one. It's also an anointing of overexposure.

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The devil loves to overexpose us with perversion and corruption.

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So that's why he tempted them by saying, oh, you you will know you will know good and evil. You will be like God.

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And that's oftentimes what the tactic that the devil uses. He uses overexposure, especially in young children and stuff, overexpose them to sin or to pornography or to violence or things like that to try to get into their minds.

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So the devil's anointing is one of overexposure to perversion or sin and corruption.

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The Antichrist is also one of the devil's seed, a false incarnation of Christ and the false head of the church, as well as the many

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Antichrist that have appeared who are the devil's children, children of the devil.

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Like John 8, 44, the Lord says to the Jews who didn't believe him, it's unbelievers, all unbelievers.

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And every Antichrist spirit that does not confess Jesus, that is not of God, is of the devil.

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It is it is a false holy spirit, an unholy demonic spirit.

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So. That is the devil, the devil's seed and evil works, wicked wiles.

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And so although these verses in specifically 9 through 10 and the previous ones as well, although they contain serious warnings against living and continual unrepentant sin.

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Remember that they are also indicatives because they describe what

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God's people, his seed will look like because they have God's spirit in them and the means of grace operating in them.

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What they will act like, what their fruit will be. And by contrast, what the devil's people, his seed looks like, acts like and their fruit is.

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Which is also illustrated by the object lessons of Cain and Abel in verse 12. Right.

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So it's that contrast. And the one who does sin, the one who does sin.

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And therefore does not do righteousness. Is of the devil, black and white.

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It's you are the one or you're the other and is therefore not safe.

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If you do sin, you don't do righteousness and you're therefore of the devil and you're not safe.

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You're not right with God because this refers to sinning, ongoing, doing sin as continuing in sin, like Romans 6 says, in an ongoing, deliberate, self -willed lifestyle.

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Or peripateo, like one of the words that John uses in Greek, without repentance, confession of sin, mortification of sin, without true saving faith in the gospel and the sanctification that follows through God's spirit and means of grace.

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While on the other hand, the one who does righteousness is righteous, is righteous.

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Verse seven. Right. He does not sin and cannot sin because he has been born of God and because his seed abides and anointing abides in us believers.

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Now, I really appreciate what theologian and church historian

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W .G .T. Shedd, William G .T. Shedd has to say about this matter.

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So I want to read a paragraph from his commentary on Romans. Holy inclination is inability to sin, which is exactly what

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John is saying here. It's just restating it. The holy inclination originates in the operation of the

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Holy Spirit upon the believer's will. The will being how we make choices, what choices we make.

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While the unbeliever's sinful inclination is self -determination.

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It's self -determined, self -will, pure and simple. It's the flesh.

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It's purely the work of the flesh without any internal efficiency or power of the

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Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is not in unbelievers. There is consequently a slavery to righteousness.

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When you're a slave to righteousness, you can no longer sin. That's what he's saying, as well as a slavery to sin.

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A believer's will, which by regeneration. As well as I'm sorry, by regeneration has been powerfully determined, which is a quote from the

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Westminster larger catechism. And inclined now to holiness is unable to sin in the sense which

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Christ intends. When he says that a good tree cannot bear or bring forth evil fruit, just like a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

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And in which St. John intends when he asserts that the regenerate believer cannot sin because he is born of God.

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Verse nine. Right. This does not mean that the regenerate while here upon Earth is sinlessly perfect.

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Right. We have to have a balance. Committing and no longer commits any actual transgression and having no remainders.

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Having no remainders of sinful inclination by means of our flesh.

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Right. Like first John, when he says he who says he has no sin is a liar and doesn't have the truth in him.

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But it means that the regenerate believer's will is unable to sin in the manner of the unregenerate unbelievers will.

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That is impenitently and totally. So without any repentance, that's how unbelievers sin without any godly sorrow or repentance and totally.

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That's all they do is sin. The plowing of the wicked is evil because they don't do it in faith. They don't believe

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God and they are guilty by Adam's sin and by our sinful nature, the flesh.

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So but we still have to crucify our flesh daily. Right. So I wanted to also correct my something

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I misspoke last sermon because I said that a bad tree cannot bear bad fruit.

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And that's that's the only thing a battery can bear. Right. You know, a battery only bears bad fruit.

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I meant to say that a battery cannot bear good fruit. So and another clarification here is that when

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I previously mentioned that our conversion includes a drastic life altering change.

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That takes place in our relation to sin in every aspect. Again, it's not necessarily as drastic or as massive or the same for everyone.

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It depends on where your background is. It depends on how you were raised.

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It depends on a lot of things. Right. And like Watson says, not not

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Sherlock Holmes assistant, the Puritan Thomas Watson says in the new birth, all have pains.

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So all have birth pains, but some have sharper pains than others. Some of us live the more wretched lifestyle than, you know, drugs or alcohol or sin or sexual sin or perversion, homosexuality, whatever.

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Some of those things may take more time to deliver, to get full deliverance from and trauma and stuff like that.

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So sin has consequences. Right. So as opposed to somebody who was raised in the faith, raised in a

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Christian home and protected from that and brought up so that as he gets older, training up a child in the way he should go so that he gets older, he won't depart from it.

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Right. So it's not always the same.

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Nevertheless, however, nevertheless, the difference between us believers and unbelievers should be drastic and noticeable.

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It should be night and day, black and white, light and darkness. Behold, all things are become new.

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Right. Therefore, if anyone anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

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The old things passed away, died to sin. Behold, new things have come.

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That is a gospel promise from God's mouth in Second Corinthians 517.

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Amen. Right. This is this is what will happen by God's power.

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It's not something we have to do. We do have a role to play, but it's something that we receive in our sanctification by virtue of believing the truth and having the anointing and the seed of God in us.

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The truth of God, his word sin, then therefore no longer dominates or overpowers or controls us.

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It no longer has that do not miss over us. We now strive to not sin.

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To crucify and mortify sin, put it to death, even though we still sin. We still sin, but now we repent.

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We repent. Godly sorrow, godly repentance. We mortify sin and put sin to death.

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And that's that's that's how we have to balance these book and doctrines.

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A lot of imbalances there if we're not careful. Now, as we move forward towards verses 10 and 11, we see yet another explicit connection between doing righteousness and love.

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Very clear there between loving, specifically loving your brother.

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By contrasting what the opposite looks like. Right. Starting in verse 10 in chapter three, if we go back there.

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By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested, are discerned.

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Everyone, without exception, who does not do righteousness is not of God, as well as the one who does not love his brother.

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Or if you don't love your brother, you don't love God. Like James also says, because faith without works is dead faith.

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It's not a true faith. It's a hypocritical faith. For this is the message, the angelia, which we get the word angel from.

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The message which you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.

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The two great commandments, love God and love your neighbor.

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Remember, to do righteousness is to believe and apply the truth of God.

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First and foremost, you cannot do righteousness if you don't believe the gospel. There is an order of progression here of logical necessity.

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Unless you believe the truth, you cannot do righteousness. You're putting the cart before the horse.

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So those people who think they can get right with God by doing good works are mistaken.

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Because you can only be good and do good if you first believe.

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You believe the truth, first and foremost, the gospel, and apply it. And it means to love as well.

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To love God and neighbor and our enemies, our personal enemies too.

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Even like the gospels repeatedly teach as well.

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But loving God and neighbor also means to love and obey

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God's law. As I made very clear last week, it is all about His holy, righteous, just, and good law.

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God's law, the moral law. And this is what the women that I encountered from Abundant Living Faith when

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I was street preaching completely failed to understand about love.

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About love, righteousness, and the law of God. Now, I have a public service announcement.

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It is absolutely fatal. It is fatal, destructive heresy to divorce love from the law of God.

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That is heresy. And it is called antinomianism. Antinomianism teaches that, oh, we don't really have to, you know, like the parody goes,

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I can sin as I please and still have remission. We can all do what we want now because we are not under law, we are under grace.

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That is a perversion, a misinterpretation of that twisting of that passage onto destruction.

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Heretical destruction. Very important to understand.

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There is no such thing as love without the law. There is no such thing as lawless love.

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There is no such thing of love that has no repentance because God's love is not unjust.

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God's love is not unrighteous. God is love. And His love, like His law and like Himself, is holy, just, righteous, and good.

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Right? These people are basically saying, who say that, you know, God's love is not the law.

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We don't have to obey the law. They're saying that God's love is unjust. It's wicked. Yet, sadly, again, you will find many today, both within and without the church, who agree with movements like He Gets Us.

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You may have seen the commercials, those He Gets Us commercials, where they're very pro -LGBT.

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Commercials about Jesus and stuff. He Gets Us is referring to Jesus. Jesus Gets Us. And movements like these claim that Jesus is, quote, the world's most radical love activist.

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Now, isn't that nice? The world's most radical love activist who, quote, created a radical love movement, who, quote, touched lepers, welcomed outcasts, and loved without condition.

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Right? Without unconditional love. That's some of these guys' favorite words, radical and love.

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It's all radical and love. They also say, we're challenging our own assumptions and preconceived notions about who

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He is and creating, listen to this, creating space to doubt, question, and learn from the authentic Jesus.

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So they're creating space to doubt and question Jesus, the authentic Jesus at that.

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OK. This is just so stupid. I'm sorry. And not only that, but outside, outside of the church.

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Because, again, I quote, He Gets Us is not a back to church campaign.

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So there, Jesus doesn't really care about church or about going to church. Even though the real, authentic Jesus said that the church of the living

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God, of the true God, is the pillar and support of what?

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The truth. Amen? 1 Timothy 3 .15. And the gates of hell shall not overpower it or prevail against her.

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Matthew 16 .18. I mean, what kind of, what are, they don't believe the gospel.

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They don't believe, they don't want the real Jesus. Why are you saying you want the authentic Jesus when

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He said that the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth? You cannot, you also, again, you cannot divorce the truth from the church.

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The church is defined by the truth because the church receives the truth. So, this is utter nonsense.

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It's like blatant contradiction. But I guess in some ways there's a twisted logic to it, right?

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Because they say, oh, well, we want to create space to doubt and question the authentic Jesus. It's like, okay, well, suit yourself.

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But hell awaits if you don't believe the right, the true gospel. So, in other words, this

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Jesus, their Jesus, is only about unconditional love. Not hate, not repentance, not even about church.

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But about love divorced from truth, justice, holiness, and even the church.

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And, again, there's many also who agree with liberals, like these movements, and like Gary Wills, a leftist

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Roman Catholic scholar who wrote a book called What Jesus Meant. And I will, how do

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I say this? I will preempt this by saying that is the worst misinterpretation of the gospels

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I've ever read in my life. So, if you want to see ugly, you can read his little book.

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But it's bad, okay? I'll give you a little taste of that. What Gary, the problem is that what

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Gary thinks Jesus meant is that the Father's love is, quote, undiscriminating and inclusive, not graduated and exclusive.

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That's a direct quote, okay? It looks like this guy forgot to read Romans 9, you know, and, I mean, all over the

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Bible. All over the Bible. He continues, what are the tests for entry into the reign of heaven?

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What are the tests for entry into heaven, in other words?

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They are, it's very simple. One will not be asked whether one voted, whether one was a good citizen, or whether one dealt justly.

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That is not enough. The simple test is this. Did you treat everyone high and low as if dealing with Jesus himself, with his own inclusive and gratuitous love?

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Oh, I think you know where he's going with this. Whenever you did these things to the lowliest of my brothers, you were doing it to me.

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Okay, take note of that. Watch where he's going here. He says, our test for entry into heaven's reign,

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I'm sorry, wait, I skipped something. Those neglecting the homeless are neglecting Jesus.

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Those persecute, wait, no, I'm sorry. Those, this means that those who despise the poor are despising

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Jesus. Those neglecting the homeless are neglecting Jesus. And those persecuting gays are persecuting

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Jesus. Surprise, surprise. Our test for entry into heaven's reign is whether we fed

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Jesus in the hungry, clothed him in the naked, welcomed him in the outcast.

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They really like that word too. Jesus loves the outcast. And in other words, those who fail to accept

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LGBT people, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, homosexuals, all that stuff.

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So if you don't welcome them or accept them, you are persecuting

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Jesus. So this is just abhorrent to God.

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It's an abomination to God because they give approval. It gives approval to the things that God hates, like Romans 1 says.

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They not only practice these things, but they give approval and use the name of God to approve abominations.

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Similarly, not surprisingly, he gets us, also says, you can look all this up on their website.

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But direct quote. Many of those who represent Jesus have made people in the

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LGBTQ plus community feel judged and excluded. And others in the

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Jesus community have simply ignored their stories and lived experiences.

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So let us be clear in our opinion. Jesus loves gay people and Jesus loves trans people.

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The LGBT community, like all people, is invited to explore the story of Jesus and consider his example of unconditional love.

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There's that word again. Grace and forgiveness of others. No matter who you are, you are invited to explore the story of Jesus and consider what it means for your life.

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So what Gary Wills and he gets us liberal movements like this are saying is that God's love is unjust.

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God's love is an abomination and perverted. And this is make no mistakes about this, beloved.

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This is antichrist. It is antichrist and it is heresy because it makes no mention whatsoever of repentance.

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What about Jesus when he said, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish like Sodom and Gomorrah.

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What about that? What about the holiness of God's law, which condemns all of us as guilty sinners?

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Romans 3. I mean, it's all over the Bible. This is a false gospel. It's false love and a false gospel and a false

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God. It's false. It's completely false to say these things.

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And, you know, you know, he gets us, says many of those who represent

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Jesus. He's saying they're calling out Christians like you and me. They they have made people in the

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LGBT community plus community feel judged and excluded. Well, guess what?

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You should feel judged and excluded if you're a sinner who does the things who does unrighteousness.

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If you do sin, the gospel is an offense to you. It will cause offense because it condemns you and your sin.

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That's the we have to be willing to offend people with the truth. That is what true love is.

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So they should feel judged and excluded. Because God's love is holy.

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And again, isn't God a just judge who has indignation?

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What does indignation mean? Righteous hatred. Oh, but God is love.

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No, no, God is all love. No, he's not. No, he's not. God has in how often does

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God have indignation, righteous hatred every single day? Psalm 711.

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This is the same God who hates, who hates all workers of iniquity.

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Those who do sin, those who do practice unrighteousness. Psalm 5, 5.

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Who will by no means clear the guilty. By no means clear the guilty.

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Exodus 34, 7. Unless they repent. We all are commanded to repent and believe the gospel.

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Repentance, that change of mind from not believing to believing the gospel and understanding that we are wretched, ungodly sinners.

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And that all of those things are sin. LGBT is all sin.

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That is perversion. It's abomination in God's eyes. So doesn't again, doesn't

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God love Esau? I'm sorry. Well, I literally mistyped that.

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Doesn't God love Jacob? Excuse me there. Doesn't God love Jacob and hate

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Esau? And not only that, but prepare beforehand, prepare vessels of wrath that are fitted for destruction.

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He's talking about the reprobate. Unbelievers like Esau and like Cain beforehand are not the wicked reserved for the day of doom and also be brought out on the day of wrath.

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That's from the book of Job and Proverbs 16, 4. So God absolutely hates sin and the wicked.

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That is straight from the Bible. That doesn't even require interpretation. But now, of course, that doesn't mean that we ourselves should hate sinners, that we should hate them.

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The Bible says to love our enemies, right? Our personal enemies. Now, there is a sense, again, we need to distinguish because there is a sense in which we should hate

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God's enemies. We shouldn't have any love for the devil or for the devil, demons or for willful, unrepentant heretics who are anathema by God, condemned by God because they preach a false gospel willingly, false teachers and so on.

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But that does not mean that we should hate any kind of physical violence or anything like that.

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It doesn't mean we should hate sinners or LGBT people, but we must love them and warn them, love them with and warn them with the truth.

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And the truth is that unless you repent, you will perish. Amen. That's the truth of God's word.

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And it's not uncommon for scholars like Gary Wills, who can read the

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New Testament proficiently in its original language. He provides his own translations in his book, some of which are even better than many of the popular translations today.

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It's so ironic, but they and yet to remain utterly clueless as to what it truly teaches and what

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Jesus actually meant. Even though they write books to dispel popular cultural misunderstandings of Jesus, but completely.

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This is the same thing that he gets us is doing. They're trying to dispel the misconceptions, the politicized and corruptions of Jesus that many in the church have supposedly done that make people feel condemned, judged and excluded.

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But in doing so, they fail to realize they completely fail to realize their own polluted presumptions that grossly distort

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Christ's teachings and promote a perverted Antichrist agenda of, quote, on discriminating love and inclusive love.

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Right. Is that what God's love is on discriminating?

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I mean, we just read everything that contradicted that. So and more.

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There's more. The God of liberals like Gary Wills and of movements like he gets us is a false God.

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Plain and simple. It's a false God. So some public service announcements here.

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True love, true love, biblical love is defined and conditioned by the law.

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It's conditioned by and defined by the law. OK, you can never divorce true love from the law of God.

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It is defined and conditioned by the law. That's how you define it and qualify it and understand it.

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Another public service announcement, a little follow up there. If you do not have repentance, you do not have

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God's love. If you do not have repentance. You do not have

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God's love. Plain and simple. That is what

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Scripture teaches. And that again, it's like these ladies from abundant and many like them who say, you know, we're not under law, but under grace.

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That's not what that verse means. Like I covered before. It means we're no longer condemned by the law because Christ satisfied the wrath and punishment of sin that we deserve.

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Right. Turn with me to Romans 13, verse eight here as we start wrapping up.

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Romans 13, verse eight. So Romans 13, verse eight.

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God's word says, Oh, nothing to anyone except to love one another.

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For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law of God.

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And thus also loves God because it is his law. Now, here's the big question.

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What then does it mean to love? What does it mean to love? Well, Paul continues for this.

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God's law. The commandments. You shall not commit adultery.

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You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not covet.

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These are all sins of commission that are being condemned. And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, in this word, this logos.

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That's where we get the word, the decalogue, which is the 10 words. It's another word for commandment.

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In this one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not work evil against a neighbor.

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Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. So again, there you see plain as day.

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The word of God. It defines and conditions the love of God. And how we are to love by the commandments of God, by the law of God.

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That is what it means to love. Anything outside of that is not true love.

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Love does not work evil against a neighbor. Therefore, love is fulfillment of the law.

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It's kind of like that secular song. What is love? Baby, don't hurt me no more, right?

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And I'm not saying that's a Christian song. I think that's probably that may be referring more to unrequited or unreciprocated love.

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But in a sense, love is not to work evil.

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In other words, against a neighbor. It is not to harm a neighbor. So that is true love.

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Defined and conditioned by God's goodness and his law.

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Amen. So and we receive

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God's love. And we love truly because he first loved us.

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Like for strong for 19 says he first loved us. But God demonstrates his own love toward us.

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In that even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

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Romans 5 8. Right. So, OK, now we have to make.

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I want to close out with a careful distinction here. It is true in one sense that God loved us first without us having to fulfill any conditions ourselves.

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It is unconditional in that sense. But this is not the full picture of God's love.

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Because not only is God love defined and conditioned by God's goodness and law.

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It is conditioned by God's goodness and law. But his gracious, adoptive love also grants us and conditions us.

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God's love is a conditioning love. It conditions us or conforms us.

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It conforms us with the gifts of regeneration and repentance and faith and sanctification and glorification.

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All of salvation. All of Christ benefits to the image of God's son.

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It conforms us. It changes and conforms us by grace alone through faith alone.

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Apart from works conditions. That's the sense in which it's unconditional. There are no conditions of works that we have to satisfy.

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We must just repent and believe the gospel. Which is a gift of God in Christ alone based on the ultimate authority of scriptural alone and all to the glory of God alone.

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God's love conditions us and conforms us to the image of his son and away from away from sin.

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Away from our fallen wretched old man that has been crucified away from the flesh.

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Like Romans 829 and countless other passages speak to. Right. That is the true work of sanctification.

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So when you see people try to divorce like this. All they talk about is love and they don't talk about holiness or sanctification.

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That is not true love or God's law or repentance. Because God disciplines those he loves.

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Right. If God's love doesn't discipline you. You don't have your bastard.

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You're a bastard child. You don't belong to God. Like Hebrew says. So biblical love then is a summary and fulfillment of the law of God which defines determines and conditions.

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Not just what sin is but what righteousness is and does.

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What righteousness is it's both and. And that brings me to another question here for you all.

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How can you glorify God. How can you glorify God. Like the

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Baptist Catechism for young children says by loving him and obeying him.

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By loving him and obeying him. That's a beautiful way of summarizing exactly what we read from God's word.

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Love and obedience. So that's really the moral of the story here.

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Love. Love and obedience go hand in hand.

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Love and righteousness and law and truth and God and his glory all go hand in hand.

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All of them. All of them. Amen. Oh, there's so much more to cover here.

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But we will dive into this more a little bit more with the following verses.

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Next Lord's day. Lord. Lord willing. Let us go ahead now and bow our heads.

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Beloved with a word of prayer. Our gracious father. We thank you so much

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Lord for the blessing of. Your seed father of your your true seed your holy seed of of truth.

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Love and righteousness of the words that give us spirit and life. Father God we thank you so much for.

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Allowing us the privilege of receiving the truth of your word and being saved by it

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Lord by your precious gospel. The gospel of Christ dying for our sins for all our sins and the grace to recognize what sin truly is and what love truly is

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Lord. Help us to internalize to digest these things to harmonize them and to systematize them with your.

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With your with the faith that you have delivered once for all to the saints in the system of doctrine that you have given us.

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And the whole council of God the truth of your word we thank you father for your manifold blessings.

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Help us Lord to be grateful and to not lose hope or despair in light of the many different circumstances that we may be facing or trials and or tribulations.

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Lord we know that these things will continue to happen because as your word says here.

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Those who love you will be hated by the world and help us to stand fast in this last and evil day father.

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We thank you and we ask these things in Jesus precious almighty powerful name who takes away all our sin and who crushes the devil and destroys all of his works.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church where the

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Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical reformed historic confessional loving discerning

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Christians who evangelize Stan Furman and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.

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If you're looking for a church in the El Paso Texas area or for more information about our church sermons and ministries such as Semper Reformanda radio and Thorn Crown Network podcast.

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Please contact us at thorncrownministries .com and may the mercy peace and love of our