Bible In A Year - 1 John (part 2)

Dear God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this book of 1

John. And Lord, as we study it, and as we let your spirit convict us and exhort us to holy living, we pray,

Lord, that we would glorify you with our thoughts and with our words and with our deeds.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So if you look at your handout, the first side has a 1

John overview. We will quickly go through the first three sections as we begin, just to refresh and also to remind us of what we've seen before.

And then, as I said, we'll slow down and look at sections four and five a little slowly.

As we've seen last week, this book was written by the Apostle John, written around 90

AD. He was probably in Ephesus at this period when he was writing, and he's writing to one of the churches in the

Asia Minor region around. And the context of his writing, as we saw, was there was some false teaching and false teachers who had separated from the church.

And not only were they separated from the church, they were trying to influence the true believers who remained.

And so John is now writing to this church, which almost can be imaged as one that is hunkered down, which is under attack.

And John the Apostle is now sending a letter of encouragement, of clarity, in order that this church can have confidence in the

Lord Jesus, whom they believe in. So it's gonna talk against false teaching and also proclaim the truth about Jesus Christ.

Again, as we saw last week, the major theme of this book is assurance, which we find in the end of the book, where John affirms that this is a letter for believers.

And the purpose of this letter to believers is that they may know that they have faith in Jesus Christ.

And in order to do that, the Apostle John gives a series of tests. And these tests, as I said, are like bombs that this fighter jet is dropping at the enemy.

And some of these bombs start to drop closer and closer to this bunker in which this church is hiding in or taking shelter in.

And one of the questions that I want us to really ask ourselves this morning is if there is one of us, even one of us here, who thinks that you are a believer and the

Bible through its tests declares that you are not, I would pray that you would come to faith in Jesus Christ.

That's the purpose of this letter, that these tests would reveal the true heart of faith and also deception, whether it is lurking in our own hearts, that we may know the true

Lord and Savior. And once again, before we get into the text, as you see the notes, we've broken them down into five sections.

The first section is the introduction of this letter. The last section is the conclusion. And in the middle, we've got three sections which talk about the series of tests, test one, test two, test three.

They are similar tests that are repeated for emphasis. John comes at it from different angles. And the three components of each test are, does anyone remember?

Truth, obedience, and love. And John comes at it from different angles and we'll look at them this morning.

So the first section begins from chapter one, verse one to chapter two, verse two.

Verses one through four of chapter one is a strong foundation, an apostolic foundation of the word.

So John tells right from the first, the only way by which you may know the truth is the word of God.

For us, it is what is written. And in those, in that time when John was writing, he had an eyewitness testimony to Jesus that he was declaring to this church.

In verses five, chapter one, verse five, through chapter two, verse two, John gives three broad responses to the truth about God being light.

He says, God is light, which means he is holy. There is no darkness. There's nothing evil or sinful in God. And to this

God, if you claim to have a fellowship or relationship, here is how your life would be. He says, the first test in verses six and seven, if you claim to have a relationship with this

God, but if you are walking a sinful lifestyle, then you're lying. You really are not a believer. And then he goes on to say the opposite version, which is, what does a true believer live like?

His lifestyle is characterized by holiness. We find that in verse seven. Verses eight and nine, we find someone who claims to have no sin, again, cannot be a believer because until you're glorified, we will have to deal with sin in our body.

To claim perfection on this earth is again a lie. We are deceiving ourselves.

Instead, we must confess our sins to God. We must agree with God that we need his grace.

We have sinned against him and we rely on him for cleansing and forgiveness.

And in verse 10, again, he says the third response, which is that if we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar because God declares that all have indeed sinned.

And in chapter two, verses one and two, we see a beautiful description of the work and the person of Jesus Christ, how he is the righteous one, how he is the propitiation, how he is our advocate.

And it is on the basis of the work of Christ that we can have a relationship with him. So that's the first section.

John gives a very brief introduction. He starts off by the word of God and who God is and how we ought to live on the basis of that.

The second section, which is the first series of tests, we find from chapter two, verse three, to chapter two, verse 27.

And here we see the three tests. The first test is a test of obedience. We see verses three to six.

If we say we have come to know him, if we call ourselves a believer, we keep his commandments.

We obey what he has told us to do. And the one who says that he's a believer but does not do so is a liar.

The second test, verses seven through 11, is the test of love. And we saw, actually,

I didn't mention this, he talks about this old commandment and he is referring to one specific commandment which is most important of all the commandments that he's given.

And he's talking about the commandment of love. And he talks about how it is both old and new. It's old in the sense that it is throughout scripture.

We are called to love God and our neighbor. And it is new in the sense that it has been revealed in a new extent in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And we are called to love as Jesus loved us. And we saw in verses 12 through 17, there was a little detour.

I kind of bolded it in your outline for you. And it's almost as if John is speaking specifically to the believers at this point, walking away from the test, to encourage those who are young in their faith, to those who are just children, and to those who are fathers and mature in the faith.

And then he also talks something about what you should not set your love on. And then the third test we find in verses 18 through 27.

And this is the test of truth. And here John gets to the heart of the problem that is afflicting this church.

And he declares that anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ is an antichrist, is someone who is against the work of God.

And the one who is a believer must have faith in Jesus as declared by the scriptures.

So that's the first series of tests. We see obedience, love, and truth. The same series of tests are repeated in the third section, which is found in chapter two, verse 28, through chapter four, verse six.

And again, you see obedience in verses, chapter two, verse 28, through chapter three, verse 10.

We will not look at these verses. We'll focus on the last section when we look at the verses. But primarily, he comes at it from a different angle.

He now comes at obedience from the eschatological perspective. He says, if Christ is gonna come back, how ought you to live?

It was almost like first Peter, where he says, if we know he's coming, we would live a holy life.

And he says, a true believer is one who practices righteousness, not just one who claims to have a relationship with God, but walks a lifestyle of sin.

And then in verses 11 through 18, you see the second test, which is the test of love once again.

And again, he gets really down to the matter in this section. He says, well, you should be willing to love all the way to give up your own life, just as Christ gave his life for you.

And on the other hand, you should be able to do anything that you give the things that your brother needs.

And we'll kind of work this out as we look at the application later this morning.

And then verses 19 through 24, we see another detour where John talks specifically about assurance.

And then that brings us to the third of these tests here in chapter four, verse one to six, which is again the test of truth.

And again, if you look at the truth in particular, you will see that he emphasizes specific key truths about Jesus Christ.

And there are certain things that if you deny, you cannot be a believer. And he shows how truth is fundamental to the believer.

So that's a quick review of what we have seen last week. Now we'll spend a little time on the fourth and fifth sections.

The fourth section begins with chapter four, verse seven, and it ends in chapter five, verse five.

And you see the same three tests. And let's take a few minutes here just to look at some of these verses and to let them sink into our minds and hearts this morning.

So the first test you see here is the test of love. We find this in chapter four, verse seven, and it goes all the way till verse 12.

And two of the verses that I want to focus on here are verses 10 and 11. Would someone like to read that please?

Chris, would you continue to the next verse?

And in these three verses, you see an essential truth about love. We find that even in the previous test of love, which is love does not find its source in us.

If you look at verse 10, he talks about God's love for us in sending us his son to be the propitiation of our sins.

It is on the basis of God's love alone that we can love one another. And we will spend some time to look at what the world calls love and what is true biblical love the way it is given to us in the scriptures this morning.

But John goes on to say something more. He says, well, it is true that it is on the basis of God loving us that we indeed love.

However, this love is not just something abstract. It's to say, yeah, I love God and everything is cool.

He says, if you do not love your brother whom you see, you cannot really love your

God whom you cannot see. So the true test of your love, of a changed heart of love is one that is directed towards your brothers and your sisters in Christ.

And it is only by what Christ has done for you that you can indeed have this heart of love and fellowship.

Now, in this third section, as I said, there's a difference between the previous series of tests because in the previous series of tests, we see each of these aspects, love, truth and obedience in isolation.

But here John brings them all together. He talks about love and how it is from God directed towards your brother and thereby a proof of your own love for God.

And then he combines truth and love in the second section. You find that in verses 13 through 21.

And he starts with the spirit. And actually, if you look at this book, you'll find how the spirit of God gives us truth.

They are very closely tied. If you look at, for example, the end of chapter three, he says, we know this, that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us.

And then in chapter four, verse one, he says, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone into the world.

By this, you know the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

So you see the importance of the spirit of God within you, which convicts you of truth and establishes the truth in your heart.

But here in this section of 13 to 21, we see the twin aspects of love and truth.

The verses we're gonna look at are verses 14 through 16 and 19 to 21. Would someone else like to read those verses, please?

Pastor Dan. 14 through 16. Yes. Yeah, we'll stop there for a minute.

You see how John begins with the test of love. You have to believe that Jesus is the son of God.

And it is by this belief and affirmation of what is true about God, the son, that you can be a believer.

And then he moves on quickly to the fact that this is not separated from love.

He says, we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. And then he goes on to say,

God is love. And the one who abides in love abides in God and God in him.

And actually, if you look at this verse on face value, it may be actually shocking. And like I said, once again, when we apply this,

I want us to think about this verse some more. If you read that verse, he says, the one who abides in love abides in God.

So it's everyone who just loves a true believer. So if somebody goes around, does a lot of loving things to one another, is that person truly a believer?

What would you say? No, yes, no.

Why not? That's a good way of saying that because love isolated from everything else is not necessarily the only test.

In this particular case, though, I think John uses this verse with a slightly different focus.

And his aspect is, he's almost at the end of the book, he has defined what true love is.

And so when he actually says love here, he's not talking about love in the way that people normally talk of in the world.

He has a very specific focus when he uses the term love here and he's already said this love is the kind of love that has its source in God loving us first.

So that is the love that he's talking about. And that love is manifested both in its relationship with God and with its fellow man.

So when he says, when we abide in love, he's actually saying the way God defines love.

And that is different than the way the world actually talks about love. And that is a very common theme in this world.

When we talk about love, everybody say, I'm nice to my friend, I don't hurt his feelings, I'm very affectionate and therefore

I'm loving. No, that's not what true love is. And like I said, again, we'll spend a little more time when we apply this in the second section this morning.

But again, you see the closeness of truth and love and John ties them very tightly in this passage.

And actually, if you go towards the end, he talks about love once again. He says in verse 19, we love because he first loved us.

It is this basis on which we do love. And if someone says, I love

God, but hates his brother, he's a liar for the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love

God whom he has not seen. And this is very essential for us when we pass this test of love.

Because it is very easy to claim that we love God. You know, God, nobody sees, nobody has seen.

And it is easy to say that I have something in my heart. But the true test of genuine relationship with God, genuine love for God is in that love expressed to your fellow brother or sister in Christ.

And he says in verse 21, this commandment, again, something that you need to obey. We have from him that the one who loves

God should love his brother also. And then the third section, third test in this last section is found in chapter five, verse one to five.

Last week, we read this, and I think this is very important. So I'm gonna read this again. And as I read, I'm gonna do what

I did last week, which is emphasize those verbs that John uses. And each of these verbs, you'll find repeat those tests of truth, obedience, and love.

And you will see how they are all so closely tied together. And I'm not gonna explain this anymore than just read it, because it is very, very clear and precise what

John means by this. Chapter five, verse one. John, whoever believes the test of truth that Jesus is the

Christ is born of God. And whoever loves the father loves the child born of him.

By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe obedience, observe his commandments.

For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. Again, the test of obedience.

And his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world?

But he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. You see here again, love, obedience, truth, all so intimately tied together.

You can actually look at this verse from a number of different angles. You can see how he starts this section where he ends up in the middle and then how he closes.

But it's almost, if I had to put them in order for just for our rational minds, you would almost say faith comes first.

And that is true because without a true belief in God, without knowing what is true of God, nothing else can start.

And so you start with a belief in God and that belief involves a relationship with God. And that's a relationship of love.

You love God because he loved you. And that love expresses itself in obedience.

So when you truly love God, you obey what he has given. And then you do what he has commanded to you and you live like a child of God.

And then in the end of verse one, he says, who's the one who overcomes the world? The one who is able to obey?

He is the one who believes in Jesus Christ. So he kind of ties it back to faith that it is without, they're all so intimately tied.

You just cannot have one without the other. If you truly are a believer, you will pass all three tests. And if you fail one of them, it really means that you've failed all of them.

You just don't know that you have failed them. So that's the third series of tests which is in the fourth sections.

And then let's quickly look at the last section, which is the conclusion where John brings to bear how you need to apply this in your lives.

And we find that there are four portions that I've broken it down to.

The first is called the three witnesses. That's found in verses six through 12. And again, this section is a little difficult because John was writing to a church which knew what he was talking about.

So there was a certain connotation, certain things that John writes that the church at that time fully understood.

And as we try to interpret it, there's been a lot of discussion about what this primarily means. And I believe we can know what

John has taught here. But as I mentioned, there has been quite a bit of discussion about what this verse means.

So let me just read it for you, verse six in particular. This is the one, Jesus Christ, who came by water and blood,

Jesus Christ, not with water only, but with water and the blood. It is the spirit who testifies because the spirit is the truth.

For there are three that testify, the spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement.

And the question that has come out of this is what is the water and the blood that John is talking about?

Does anyone want to, if you've studied this or you've thought about it, what does water and the blood mean?

Absolutely, go for it. Right, that is one of the explanations that commentators have put forth because John was the only apostle who was at Christ's death and he saw the water and the blood flow out.

He was talking about the death of Christ and that he was an eyewitness to it. That has been one of the views, yes,

Charlie. That is one other explanation that has been given to this.

What Charlie just said was the water referring to the ritual cleansing, maybe even to John's baptism, and the blood referring to the atonement.

And if you look at the Old Testament, you have the labor with the water, and then you have the sacrifice which symbolizes the death of Christ.

So that has been another view that has been talked about, you know, what this water and blood could mean. Daniel, oh, sorry.

So Daniel just mentioned the water could refer to the physical birth of Christ and death on the cross, his death and resurrection.

And that's actually close to what I think is the truth. What I think is the right interpretation of this, what

John actually meant. Anyone else? And actually, this is good, because what you have all done is try to look at these symbols that John is using here and tying back to something else that the scripture uses for water and blood.

And that is the way we need to read the scriptures, to look and see what does scripture talk about these symbols, and can we tie them together?

And like I said, this is a hard passage, but what seems to be the most logical conclusion here would be that the water talks about the baptism of Jesus Christ when he started his ministry, when

God the Father attested him, the spirit of God came on him, and he went forth publicly into his ministry.

And then the blood referring to his death on the cross, where he completed his work as the

Christ, as the son of God. And the reason we think this may be more logical, and again, this is something difficult for us to understand, but for the first century church, they knew exactly what he was talking about.

He's using symbolism that was very familiar with them. And if you look through the whole book of 1

John, he teaches them wrong, he corrects wrong teachings about the Christ.

And one of the things we saw was Jesus is the Christ. Jesus came in the flesh,

Jesus is the son of God. And as we saw last week, one of the heresies was that Jesus was just a man, the word, the

Christ just came on him at baptism and then departed before his death because God could not die.

There was different types of theories that were prevalent in first century at that time. And identifying the water with the baptism of Christ and the death with the blood with his death on the cross makes this very clear that this particular error is what

John is refuting. And the testimony that we have, it was very public, the water baptism and his death on the cross.

Nobody could dispute that. And it is a spirit that actually makes that alive and true in each of our hearts.

So he's used tying them all of them together and saying, here is an absolute testimony, historical testimony, and an inward testimony of the spirit that you cannot refute.

Yeah. Charlie, we just brought up the point,

John 3, 4 and 5, John 3, 5, and where Jesus is talking to Nicodemus and he says, unless you're born of water and spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

And Daniel just mentioned that. And is that where you were drawing the parallel from? Yes, so tying the gospel of John with the epistle of John.

And no, that's a good question. And actually, it's probably something worth spending a few minutes on here.

Does anyone want to speak to that verse from John 3? He's talking again about the second birth, the spiritual birth that a believer has, as opposed to the physical birth that all of us are born in the flesh.

As human beings, we need to be born again. And he explains to Nicodemus what it means to be born again, which is to be born of the spirit.

Well, there are no takers, Charlie. But yeah, I think what just in matter of the time that we have, we'll move on, we'll come back to that maybe after the class.

So here we have the three witnesses that John emphasizes. Again, his purpose here is assurance.

He's saying, here are some ways by which you can know that Jesus is Christ. And then on the basis of that, you can have, you can know that you are believers in Jesus Christ.

So after talking about these three witnesses, he goes into the section on assurance. Verse 13 is almost the theme of this book.

If you, we'll just read that actually along with verse 14. Verse 13 says, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the

Son of God so that you may know, and the know here is an absolute confidence and assurance.

This is not just something that you are vaguely thinking is right.

Here is something that you can put your feet on, put your pegs on and have confidence in. And you may know that you have eternal life, that you are a believer.

And these are the things. And all these three tests that John has written is for people to examine their lives and know whether they have passed these tests or not.

And by these tests and by the Spirit of God, which he talks about, which gives us confidence in you, you can have assurance of eternal life.

And then he, in verses 14 through 17, he uses one specific application of this confidence that believers have, and that is prayer.

He says in verse 14, this is the confidence that we have before Him that if we ask anything according to His will,

He hears us. And that is a strong confidence that every single believer has in Jesus Christ.

As a Son of God, as a child of God, you can approach the Father confidently and put your request before Him.

And He actually qualifies what this request is like. You know, it has to be in the will of God. It is asking according to His will.

And He says that God will answer it. And He goes on to talk about a specific aspect of answering this prayer about praying for your brother in Christ who may be in sin and how they can be restored.

Once again, that's again a passage that has got a lot of stuff in it, meat in it.

And we would not spend too much time on it. And moving on to the third section, we have verses 18 through 20, where He talks about three things that we as believers can know.

In verse 18, He says, we know that no one who is born of God sins. That is fact one.

We know that a person who is a believer lives a lifestyle of holiness. And verse 19, we know that we are of God that we are children of God.

And then in verse 20, we know that the Son of God has come and given us understanding. We know these three things, and we can put our pegs on these and hang our life on these truths that God has revealed to us.

And then in verse 21, He concludes by saying, guard yourselves from idol. And idols, as we saw last week, these are things that were prevalent in the

Ephesus area. If you wanted to look for physical idols, false gods, little Gs that were in this area, there were just tons of them.

And again, here, in the context of what John is talking about, he has given us the truth of the gospel and truth about Jesus Christ.

And we need to guard our hearts and our minds from everything that is false about God.

So our view of God, if it is false, creates for ourselves a little idol. And so John is saying, here's my letter.

It declares to you what is true. Use that and guard yourselves from the false teaching that is all around you in this world.

So that brings us to the conclusion of our first section, which is just to read the text, make sure we understand the broad theme of what

John has declared. Do we have any questions? Anything that we might have talked about or skipped?

And we'll spend a few minutes on that before we get into the application. Yes, Daniel. Yeah, verse 18 says, "'The one who is born of God keeps himself safe.'"

There is actually a textual variant here. If some of you have the King James, what version do you have?

NIV? And I think the King James too has a similar verse.

And I think in the NASB, it says, "'We know that no one who is born of God sins, but he who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.'"

And he here is capitalized. And so the one who is born refers here to Christ.

And so the textual variant is either the one who is, if you read it in the

NIV or in the King James version, it talks about a child of God being able to keep himself safe by virtue of the new birth that he has.

And I think the older texts talk about Christ, the one who is born of God, who keeps the believer safe.

Yes, Pastor. It's Jude, it says in verse 21, "'Keep yourselves in the love of God.'"

And so it's sort of, you know -

Exactly. Right, Pastor Mike just referred to Jude, where we see both

God keeping us and we keeping ourselves. There is God's work in us, and that works itself out in our responsibility in living out this life.

And that is actually a very important theme in these tests, because every time you examine yourselves, you're not saying, well,

God didn't do this for me. You're looking at whether you have done what you would do if God was in you.

So either way you look at it, that is true. And any other questions?

Okay, with that, you can turn over your sheet, and we have some application questions. And I think the most important portion of any

Bible study is to ask, so what? We've studied it, we know what it means, we've got a broad understanding of it.

Now let's try to get a quick, spend actually a little bit of time here looking and asking the question, so what?

So the first, we're gonna look at truth, love, and obedience one after the other, and the questions I have under each are similar.

And I want to help you think about how you would apply this in your own lives, and what this means practically for us.

I've highlighted a few verses for truth. You can turn to them as you ask that question.

It comes from each of those three sections that John talks about truth. Chapter two, verse 22, 23, 24.

Chapter four, verse one and two. And chapter five, verse five. They all talk about various aspects of truth, and its opposite, falsehood, that John is declaring in this letter here.

So I want to open this up here. As per John, what is truth?

What would you say truth is? Oh, by the way, you can ignore that second section

I have there. Yes, Lewis. Well, truth has been defined as truth is what is, even if nobody believes it.

And so you can expand on that, and the whole contention that truth exists, number one, and that to some extent, it has been revealed to us, and we can know what truth is.

That's what really gets us in trouble to the world in general, when you start saying that not only does truth exist, they might go with you to that, but then you say, and to a certain extent,

I know what the truth is. That's when we really get into trouble. People get very upset when you start asserting that you know what truth is.

And yet, that's what we have the Bible for, that our Heavenly Father has revealed truth to us.

And actually, that is - The Bible says of itself, what He says is true is true.

Whether it seems to be true, or whether circumstances would seem to support that, or any of the rest of it, if God says that it's true, then it is true.

Absolutely. And actually, the verse I would point to is in chapter five, verse 20.

He says, we know, which is something we can have assurance on, that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know

Him who is true. There is an objective basis of this truth. And then just to summarize what

Lewis said, firstly, truth refers reality as it is. And secondly, we know that because God has told us about it.

We cannot know this truth maybe by ourselves, because we are not

God. Only God knows everything that is true. But He has revealed this truth to us. And because of His revelation, we can know what is true.

So, and that is a broad framework in which we need to look at life, because in this postmodern world, people either deny that there is absolute truth, or that this absolute truth can be known.

But now let's kind of contextualize it a little bit. In John's letter, what specific truth is

John contending for? Jesus is Christ.

He's the Son of God. He is God, yes.

Jesus came in the flesh. Those were three aspects that John kind of comes through at different angles from.

And this was a specific heresy that John was addressing in that particular church. There were false teachers who were teaching the wrong things about Jesus.

And John says, here is the truth, and this is it. And actually, if you talk about what he says about God, there are two statements he makes outside of the context of Jesus Christ in particular, which is

God is love, yes, this light, yes.

He begins in chapter one, verse five, by saying God is light. He says God is love a couple of times in chapter four and five.

And then we have these statements about Christ. Now for us in modern America, what does this truth mean?

What should we as believers in America fix our hearts on, fix our lives upon, and know that we cannot compromise on certain things?

What would those truths be that we cannot compromise? Yes, lady. I think in John 17, when he says thy word is truth, we have to find that thy word.

Right, right. And I think especially now, as we look at the context of post -modernism, you just mentioned

John 17, where it says thy word is truth. It is on the basis of God's word that we ought to receive truth and live that out.

Now let me rephrase that question a little bit. Some of you may be familiar with the purity of the church.

The closer you are to the objective standards of the word of God, the more you are glorifying

God, honoring God, and believing God for what he has declared to be true.

And there are certain things that some believers might not fully accept what is here and may still be believers.

But there are certain things which, if you walk away from, you cannot be a believer. You are, in fact, the

Bible declares a liar, a heretic, and an apostate. Now, can you just think of some of the central aspects of truth that we cannot compromise on as believers?

Jesus is the son of God. Who Jesus is that is vital to the faith. Who Jesus is, what he has done for us, justification by faith.

So when it comes to salvation, how can man be right with God? That is essential. Without that, everything falls apart.

Yes. The Trinity. Who God is. God is father, son, and Holy Spirit. And if you take away from God, you are making an idol.

You do not have the truth. The exclusivity of Christianity.

You cannot have God and something else. You cannot have both light and darkness mixed together.

And Jesus is the only way. Sufficiency of the scriptures.

And as Lenny was saying, it is the word of God on the basis of which we get our truth. So if you walk away from the scriptures, you can come up with anything that is called truth.

And all your doctrine can come from the world and from yourself and from the devil. So these talk about some of the key aspects.

If I just had to rearrange them, I would say, we need to know who God is. The Trinity. Who Jesus is and what he has done for us.

Who man is. He's sinful. And it's only by the work of Jesus Christ that you can be justified. Nothing you can do and nothing anybody else can do can save you.

And if you compromise on any of these things, you do not have the gospel. You have something else. And as I think last week we heard in Galatians, Paul teaching, if anybody preaches anything other than this, let him be accursed.

So that is the truth. Now the question is, you wanna ask yourself, do I pass this test? Do I pass this test?

Do I believe what the scriptures tell me about Jesus Christ? About myself?

About salvation? Am I truly saved? And I want you to think about that for a moment here.

Like as we began, if there's one of us here who is not having this assurance that the spirit of God can give us,

I want you to examine your life. Because if you do not believe what God has told you about himself, you cannot have eternal life.

And I wanna ask the next question. What areas can I improve here? All of us can continue to learn through the scriptures.

We need to spend our time in the word. There are things that we can still continue to learn and grow in.

And it is vital for a child of God. And actually in I think 1 John 2 verse 13, he talks about the young men who are strong by virtue of his word.

It is by the word of God that we can stand and live on this world and live our life in accordance to his truth.

I'm gonna skip the next section and we'll come back and answer this question of how we respond to others in one collective way for truth, love and obedience.

But let's move on to love. So the verses that we have for love, I've again picked from the three sections that John addresses love in.

And then you wanna ask the question, as per John, what is love? What is love that John talks about in this book?

That Christ gave his life up for us. It is the basis of Christ's work that John refers to over and over again to know what love is.

It is not on the basis of our works, our ideas, our thoughts, but it is on the basis of Christ that we can know love.

So now that you know what love is, what God has done for us, how does this love come from within our hearts and outside?

How can this love be expressed? That's exactly right.

So Charlie just said, if God loved us unconditionally, we must love our brothers and sisters in Christ unconditionally too.

Because John repeats that over and over again, just as Christ loved us, we ought to love one another.

And this love is expressed to your brothers and sisters in Christ in the same manner in which

Christ loved us. And what is this manner in which Christ loved us? If we can elaborate this unconditional nature a little bit.

Yes, that's very important.

Love is not just a feeling, but it is an act of sacrifice. If you sacrifice your things in order to love and express that love that you have for your brothers and sisters.

And actually we see that in chapter three, verse 17. Whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

You cannot claim to have love in your heart when it is not expressed. That's very good.

So when we think about feeling, most of the time when we talk about love in the world, we love people who are nice to us.

We try to express good things towards those. That's a very good point.

And actually we look at both aspects of it. Daniel just brought up the question that if somebody is unlovable, is that person truly a believer to begin with?

And how do we as believers express our love both to the brothers and in some cases to unbelievers as well?

And to just tie up this point because that's very essential in our hearts, we need to examine our hearts for this true love of God.

We said it's not a feeling. Feelings normally are commensurate with a person who merits our love.

But here we have Christ as an example of a love who loved the world which was in rebellion against him and self -sacrificially he decided to show his love on us and we ought to have that same attitude as Christ which would love despite what that other person might be like or how we wanna do towards that person which may not naturally be the right thing to do.

Now, the second question is, how do you know and how do you love the brethren and how do you love everybody in general?

And I think through the book of 1 John, he over and over again talks about the love that we have for the brothers and the context is mostly within the church where you have a certain relationship as brothers and sisters in Christ where you ought to go out of your way.

Actually, one of the things I was thinking of this week very quickly was my sister -in -law was at the hospital and when

I went to see her, I was just amazed at the number of people who had come to see her. People traveled hours to come and see her.

And I was saying, you know, these guys really went out of their way to express their love they had for this person and most of them were unbelievers.

And then I was examining my own heart and my own motives to say, you know, am

I loving my brothers and sisters in Christ the way that these unbelievers are doing?

And in one sense, it was a shaming aspect of it because there are times when we just do get too busy and we do not expend ourselves for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We had several people in our body who were in the hospital in the last couple of weeks or even in the last month or two and it was encouraging to see how so many of you went out of your way to help them out in their needs and as they were.

And on the other hand, you know, it was also convicting to see that, you know, if a natural, sinful, depraved man can do these things, how much more should we as believers express our love for the body?

And again, if you look at it from John's aspect of tests, you wanna say, you know, let me examine my heart and is my heart right with God?

Am I really loving God? And is that love expressing itself the way it should to my brothers in Christ?

And ultimately, even to those who are outside of the faith in terms of showing God's love as representing

Christ before them in a lifestyle of love and purity. And this love,

I wanna just go back to this. It's not a feeling in the sense that we're not just trying to please them. You know, sometimes they may not like what you say.

You tell them, you know, if you do not believe in Christ, you're all going to hell. That's what the Bible teaches. And my desire is that you would not repent and believe in the gospel.

That's not a loving message in the world, but that's the love that God had for us. And that's the kind of love we must have for the lost and dying world.

And when you wanna think about this love, especially as you see in the world, you have to distinguish the love and affection that they express and how that is different from the word of God and how

Christ died for us. And it is always on the basis of Christ's finished work that we must love our neighbors.

It is not just because, you know, I wanna look good in front of these people, or I'm, you know, everybody will think

I'm a loving guy, or, you know, this is what everybody does, or I'm kind of really cool if I sacrificially do these things.

Everybody thinks I'm good, or I think I'm good when I do these things. It's not because of all those motives. It is because you stand before a holy

God who has loved you and who has died for you, that your heart is motivated by truth in loving your neighbor.

Now, we have run out of time, but I want to just spend a minute on obedience, because I think that is probably the simplest test for anyone to examine your life in.

We've seen what obedience is. Obedience is to say, well, God, you have told me this is what you want, and my heart is so changed by your truth.

It is so changed by your spirit. It is so changed by your love that I wanna obey you.

And that is the test that you wanna really ask yourself this morning. Is my heart one of love for God that I will do what he says?

And you wanna just think for a moment, because we are so used to calling ourselves believers that if we do not have this passion for God's word, we do not have this passion to please

God, it may be that we are not believers after all. There are several other questions here.

I'd like you to go home and look into them. And I want you to think, especially the questions of how you relate to your brothers and sisters in Christ and to the world at large with regards to truth, love, and obedience.

And I hope that the spirit of God would encourage you, spur you to move you on to greater love, greater purity, greater obedience.

And if you are not a believer this morning, I would encourage you to repent, to confess your sin, and pray to God that he would change you, give you a new heart, because only he can do that.

Let's pray. Dear God, our heavenly father, we thank you for your love that has shown in our hearts.

And Lord, I pray that your spirit would work in each and every one of us this morning.

Lord, I pray that you would encourage, build up, and assure those who are redeemed by your son's precious blood.

And Lord, I pray that in your love, you would indeed convict and bring new life into those who haven't heard your truth, who have been deceived by Satan and by their own lies.

May your work, oh Lord, continue in this world. And even, Lord, this morning as we glorify you and we worship you in song and scripture, and especially,

Lord, in your word, we pray that your spirit would continue to do its work. And may your name be glorified.