Act Rightly ***

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts.

Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's Word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

Turn to 1st John chapter 3. 1st John chapter 3. Practice is defined as the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories relating to it.

Let me read that again. The actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories relating to it.

In other words, you know, it's one thing to have it up here, then I would ask, do you have it in here in your heart?

And if it's in here, it should be coming out here, the works of your hands. The Greek word translated practice in this chapter simply means to act rightly.

Act rightly. To put it in simple terms, you could say a teaching, okay, just to illustrate this, a teaching thou shalt not bear false witness.

That's a teaching. That's a doctrine. Thou shalt not lie. You're not supposed to lie.

Thou shalt not bear false witness. The practice comes out in that you actually tell the truth.

You know, it's one thing to say, well, I believe it. I believe it's wrong to lie. Yeah, but are you telling the truth? What good is it is if you believe it's wrong, but then you're just ignoring it, right?

It doesn't do any good. Another illustration, and there's,

I believe there are Christians who are teaching in the public school and, you know, and I feel for them, but I do believe there are good

Christians that are within that system. They might be few and far between. I don't know, but I do believe there are some there.

Here's the thing. You can say that it's wrong to lie, and you can agree with that in your mind.

It is wrong to lie, but then if you teach children that they evolved from primates, you're practicing a lie, right?

So it's one thing to believe and have the doctrine lying is wrong, but then what if you're practicing the lie?

See, the practice, this is where it gets a little more difficult. As long as it stays in the theoretical, some thought you have in your head, that's easy.

That's easy. Jesus is Lord. Amen. Do you believe that Jesus is

Lord? Well, are you obeying the Lord in all things? Well, that, well, that's, that gets a little more complicated, you know?

So we all understand hopefully what the Bible teaches about Jesus, his person, his work, the practice or the application of that.

Are we doing what he wants us to do? First John chapter three, verse 10 says in this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

For this is the message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brothers righteous.

Do not marvel my brethren. If the world hates you, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren.

How do you know? How do you know you're saved? There's a test.

The scripture again, how do you know you're saved? You love the brethren. How does a person know they're saved?

They love God's people. They love to be having fellowship with God's God's people.

Let me just read that again. Do not marvel my brethren. If the world hates you, we know we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren.

He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

So Christians are to practice, John says, practice righteousness, right?

To act rightly. And we do that. One of the main ways we do that is by loving one another.

The question then becomes, okay, what does that look like? What does it look like to love one another?

I don't think you would get any argument from anybody about that. Love one another. Yes. What does that look like?

Thankfully, the Bible gives us an objective standard. We don't have to wonder.

Jesus in Matthew chapter 22, he talked about, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Some of us who are here on Wednesday, you remember this. We talked about this. Jesus, when he said that love your neighbor as yourself, what was he quoting?

Jesus didn't come up with that. He was quoting from the book of Leviticus. He was quoting from God's law.

So God's law gives us that objective standard of what love looks like.

Love is more than just a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart. And it's certainly not lust.

Love is when you consider the welfare of others and you even put their needs above your own.

Again, that doesn't come naturally. That's not the default setting of mankind. It's to look out for our own needs and take care of yourself.

Christians, we love the brethren. We put other people ahead of ourselves.

So when Jesus made that statement in Matthew 22, you can just make a note of this, look at it later on.

Matthew 22, 37 through 40, he makes that statement. You shall love the

Lord, your God. What's he doing? He's summarizing the 10 commandments. First, you shall love the

Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment. The second, the second half of the commandments, the second is like it.

He says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Summarizing the commandments, the first half deal with our relationship and responsibility before God.

Worship him alone. Don't take his name in vain. The second half of the commandments give us what love looks like, showing love to one another, our responsibility, our practice, if you will, towards our fellow man.

How do you love your neighbor? Well, on the negative side, you don't kill your neighbor. And that's pretty low bar, isn't it?

Well, I haven't killed him yet. I love him, right? Well, okay, not, but it's true.

You don't kill your neighbor if you love them. You shall not commit adultery. So you don't commit adultery with their spouse.

You don't steal from your neighbor. So if you love your neighbor, you don't harm them in those ways.

Okay. On the positive side, if you see your neighbor in danger, you help them out, right?

If you drive by and they're broken down on the side of the road, you know, you stop and hey, how can

I help you? If you see someone breaking into their house, you stop it or call the police or, you know, you do something, you look out for their general welfare, even when it's an inconvenience, right?

And we don't do it grudgingly because, well, you know, the Bible says I have to, so I guess I got to do it.

No, you want to do it because God has given us a new heart. You might not have a warm and fuzzy feeling for your neighbor at all.

Matter of fact, if you did, it might be a little weird, but that's not the point. Love is not some nebulous thing floating around or it's not something that means one thing to one person, something else to another.

There are concrete examples of what love looks like.

So, love is to be, pay attention, love is to be put into action.

Amen? Love is to be put into action. There's a standard. God's law shows us the standard.

So, our practice, what we need to do, it needs to be in line with that. And remember the

Bible says about sin, sin is a transgression of the law. So, when you sin, you're not loving your neighbor when you're sinning.

You're not showing love towards God. You're not showing love towards neighbor. What does John say in verse 10?

Look at verse 10. In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God.

And the word practice communicates that this is something that you do and it's ongoing.

It's not just this one time. It's ongoing. It's a lifestyle.

Every Christian, let's face it, every Christian at some point has told a lie. Every Christian at some point, many times, you've done this and you've done that.

Here's the difference between a believer and an unbeliever. An unbeliever doesn't really have that remorse.

They don't really see the problem. A believer, it's not going to be an ongoing pattern of life.

Just consider what John says about murder. He says in verse 15 that no murderer has everlasting life.

Well, King David, he was a murderer. He had a man murdered.

Well, that's the Old Testament. Okay. New Testament. The apostle Paul, we started out Philippians.

He wrote Philippians. A strong case could be made that Paul, when Stephen was murdered in Acts chapter seven, strong case could be made.

They did it because Paul ordered it. He was there. He seems to be almost like the ring leader.

So whether it's David, whether it's Paul being an accomplice, actually ordering someone's killing, well, then

David and Paul have no part in the kingdom of God because they're guilty. Well, that wasn't their pattern of life though.

See, it's different from doing something once, doing something in the past to where you're doing it today.

And it's just, I'm going to do it tomorrow and I'm going to continue to do it. It's two different things.

So the difference between a believer and an unbeliever, a believer will recognize what they did was wrong.

A believer will repent and seek forgiveness. John references Cain, the brother of Abel.

Cain murdered his brother without remorse. Sinners, speaking of unbelievers, justify their sinful actions.

Saints often will shed tears over their sinful actions.

So just to summarize, speaking of Christian practice, Christians don't live lives characterized by selfishness, adultery, lying, lusting after what doesn't belong to them.

But you know, that's the world, right? That's what drives the world today.

Lust. The world is driven by fleshly desires.

The world is driven by lust, a lust for sex, a lust for money, a lust for power.

And the subtlety is that those things in their proper context aren't even wrong.

You know, this is how the devil is. He's so subtle, right? Relations within the context of marriage is good.

God ordained it. Money is not evil. It's the love of money that's the root of all kinds of evil.

And power, power is not wrong. God has all power. But when you lust after the things of the world, that's going in one direction.

God and his people are going in another direction. So the gospel kind of shines a spotlight on all of that.

And that's why people react so negatively towards it, because they don't want to accept that truth.

They want to kind of stay in the matrix because they love this world system too much.

So a believer in Christ, on the other hand, led by the spirit of God, we see those things for what they are.

We still may be tempted at times. You may even fall into some patterns of behavior for a season, but we must seek to live differently.

That should be our practice. Live differently than everyone else. John continues with verse 16.

By this, we know love because he laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

That's a tall order, isn't it? We also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

How do you know if you're Christian, you love the brethren? Well, here's another test.

Would you give your life for a brother and sister in Christ?

Now you don't really know unless you're in that situation. Look at verse 17.

By whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

What's the title of the message? Doctrine and Practice. Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Moores Corner Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website moorescornerchurch .com.

We'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.