Victory, Testimony, Life

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Don Filcek, In the Light - 1 John; 1 John 5:1-12 Victory, Testimony, Life

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Welcome to Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where we are growing in faith, community, and service.
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This is a message from the series called In the Light out of the Book of 1st John by Pastor Don Filsack. If you'd like more information about our church, please visit us on the web at www .recastchurch
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.com Here's Pastor Don. We don't pass an offering plate here, but anything that's marked towards expansion fund will go towards our plans to expand.
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Obviously our facility is getting limited. Last week we had basically standing room only during the worship time.
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We're setting up more chairs in the back and stuff, and so although it fluctuates week to week, we recognize that when we have those spikes and everybody that calls us their church is here.
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We are wall -to -wall in two services right now. So just remember that anything that's marked expansion fund is going to go towards that end of a facility update.
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With all that out of the way this morning, John is going to take us deep into the Christian life, ultimately showing us that victory, that there is a victory that belongs to those who have been born into the family of God.
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He highlights that faith is the way that we've been adopted into his family, and faith is the way that we continue to overcome temptation by victory.
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And so he's gonna basically give us kind of a little bit of a blueprint on the pathway to victory in the Christian life. But what we believe matters in this, so it's not like the end result of all of this is just that we are good little boys and girls, and behave and obey.
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But there's also some other things that matter, and that is that our belief matters. It's not our behavior that is primary, but ultimately belief
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John is gonna say is the core of our victory. And John does not want to leave us thinking that faith is just some leap off of a cliff into the darkness.
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I think some in our culture have thought of it that way, that oh, you've just got this crutch, or just kind of this blind notion of trust, and it's like this picture of you're standing in the dark on the edge of a cliff, and you just jump, hoping that somebody catches you, hoping that there's someone there to save you.
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But there is evidence as John lets us know that true saving faith is grounded in historical events that are then used by the
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Holy Spirit to convince us of the truth of who Jesus Christ said he is. His birth, his life, his death.
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These things that testify to the truth of the life of Jesus Christ. And the result of this is not merely a good obedient life, but it is eternal life found in Jesus Christ, the
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Son of God. If there's one thing that John wants to make clear in this passage, if there's one thing as we go into worship, the one thing that I want rattling around in your mind as we start the service, it is that Jesus Christ is central, exclusive, and pivotal to the abundant life that we have in God.
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It is all wrapped up about, centered on Jesus Christ. Our victory in this life is through him.
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Our testimony to others is of him. And our eternity, our eternal life, is from him.
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Title the sermon, Victory, Testimony, and Life, because we're gonna see John take victory, testimony, and life, and wrap them all up in Jesus Christ.
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And that is the result of a life of faith in the Son of God. And so I want you to open your Bibles to 1st
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John chapter 5. We're gonna be looking at 1st John 5, 1 through 12, this morning, page 879.
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If you take the Bible in the seat back in front of you out, you can turn to 879, and it's right there. We're gonna read this in just a second.
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But let me just highlight where we're going. Next week is our last week together in 1st John. We've been just pounded through this book, and it's done.
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Does anybody feel like it's gone pretty quick? We are gonna be wrapping up 1st John next week, and then the following week, you,
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I'm not giving the message, we're all giving the message, in the sense that it's gonna be our annual Thanksgiving service.
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And that week, it'll come after Thanksgiving. But hopefully you still have some thankful thoughts, you know, even after a couple days of crazy, you know, dumb shopping and stuff.
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You still are thankful for something. But that's gonna be the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and we're gonna have some open mics.
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We're gonna sing a few more songs than we normally do, and then just have some open time for people to get up and share. So you can be thinking now about what you want to share on that day.
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Get up and just kind of testify to the goodness of God, and what he has done in your life, and what kind of things you're thankful for.
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Then after that, we're gonna take three weeks and basically go through a series, the gospel, I mean, the
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Christmas according to, and we're gonna look at Isaiah, we're gonna look at Paul, and we're gonna look at John, and we're gonna look at Christmas according to those, those guys who wrote in the
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Old Testament and in the New Testament. And then after that, starting in the first of the year, we'll go through a small series between Kyle and I, bouncing back and forth, a little bit topical.
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I don't do many topical sermons, but we're gonna just take the time to kick off the year, talking about what is church, what is community, and thinking through the growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service that we highlight here as a church, and then
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I'll jump back into Genesis. By that point, we're already into February, and I'll be taking
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Genesis where we, where we left off, and picking that back up again. So all that to kind of give you a flow for where we're going, but 1
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John 5, 1 through 12, this is where we're going today, so please follow along. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the
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Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love
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God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep
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His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.
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Who is it that overcomes the world? Except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is
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He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. Not by the water only, but by the water and the blood, and the
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Spirit is the one who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify, the
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Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.
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For this is the testimony of God that He has born concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the
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Son of God has the testimony in Himself. Whoever does not believe God has made
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Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has born concerning His Son. And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
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Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, I thank you so much for the testimony of the incarnation of Jesus, for the testimony of the cross of Jesus that has been a fuel for my faith, has been a part of that, and some of the evidence of the faith, and some of the testimony of faith.
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But Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to see the reality of the glory of the victory that is available to all through Jesus Christ, that everyone who believes that Jesus is the
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Christ can have eternal life. And Father, that that would cause rejoicing in our hearts, just even as we have an opportunity to sing praises to you, that we would see you as you are, high, exalted, majestic, glorious, all -powerful, sovereign, and equally loving, and merciful, and kind, and compassionate towards your people.
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Father, I pray that we would be moved in our hearts by an image of you to actually worship you in gratitude, and thanks, and in love, that love would be the motivation of our lives, and not just a list of commandments, a list of rules, but in the end, as we even see what
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John is tying into in his entire context, it is all about love from beginning to end. And so, Father, I pray that we would be a loving people who receive your love, and share that love with others, and even reflect that love back to you in our worship and praise now.
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I ask this in Jesus' name. Make sure you have your Bibles open in front of you to 1
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John chapter 5, the first 12 verses. I know some of you came in a little bit later, and so you didn't, you didn't, weren't here when we read that passage, but 879 in the
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Bible, and sit back in front of you. Let's just jump in. Remember that at any time during the message, you can get up and get coffee, donuts, juice.
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But just to kind of set the stage for this text, last week, John established that the source of all love comes from God, and the primary way that we know that love is through the incarnation and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
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It's primarily through that avenue that we understand what true love really is, is by that sacrifice.
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He, another way of stating this is what John is saying is that Jesus Christ embodied love toward humanity by coming in humility to be one of us.
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He demonstrated the greatest act of love by laying down his life for us, and in that we know love, incarnation and atoning sacrifice.
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And now John begins the next chapter carrying that same theme of love, but first he wants to make a strong statement.
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So look down at verse 1 with me for just a second. Everyone, everyone, everyone who believes that Jesus is the
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Christ has been born into God's family. This is a rich and a deep statement.
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I can imagine preaching an entire sermon just on that phrase, on that one sentence alone. It's, it's, it's very deep.
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But notice that one of the first words is, the first word really is everyone, and that shows that who does this extend to?
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Who does this offer of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ extend to? Everyone. But there is one exclusion mentioned in the text.
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Everyone who, what? Everyone who believes. And so belief is the one exclusive thing.
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The one thing it excludes is there will be those who believe and those who don't. And John is making it abundantly clear that to be in the family of God, belief is necessary.
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Now I want to point out that although it's available to everyone, it's broad in its scope. It's broad in its dissemination.
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It goes out throughout the world, everyone who believes. But it is, is it a narrow brand of belief?
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And the, and the world stage, is it a pretty, is Jesus, in other words, another way of saying this, is Jesus a narrow door to come through in our culture and society?
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I think the world sees him as a narrow door. And Jesus referred to himself as the gate or the door.
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And so, you know, to think in those terms, it is available to everyone. But what is it that you must believe in order to be in with Christ, to be adopted into the family of God?
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Well, to believe that Jesus is the Christ is theological shorthand for a whole host of understanding and doctrine and thoughts.
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That is that, really ultimately, taking on the life and death of Jesus, believing and trusting in that, that he was the chosen one of God who would save his people.
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It's to believe that Jesus was the one promised from ancient times. Who would come and set things right.
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To basically believe that he is the Christ, the Messiah, is to go back into the Jewish scriptures, the Old Testament, and see all of the promises that one is coming.
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And how many of you, how many of you have read the Old Testament? Or heard preaching through the Old Testament? Or, you know, listen through the
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Old Testament? Or any of that? You get this notion that there's one who's coming. The kingdom hasn't arrived yet, but one is coming who's gonna usher in the kingdom.
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All the way back to a conversation between God himself and Eve. After humanity first sinned,
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God said, one is gonna be born of you. A male child is gonna be born of woman on down the road who is going to crush the head of the serpent.
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Early, very, very early stages of an understanding of one who is to come to fix things. And so ultimately what
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John is saying here is that to be in the family of God, you must believe that Jesus is that Messiah.
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He is the chosen one. The one who has come to save us. And John logically concludes then in verse 1, everyone who believes that Jesus is the
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Christ has been born of God, has been, has come into his family, has been adopted by God. Is that an awesome thing? We talked a little bit about that last week.
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Is it an awesome thing to think that God has adopted us? That's amazing. Been born of God and everyone who loves the
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Father loves whoever has been born of Him. In other words, if you love the
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Father, you're gonna love the Father's kids. Okay, so now put that, put that in just practical terms.
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Just think about that logically for a second. If you want to love me, you know, you could buy me a gift. That would be super awesome. I'd like that.
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But if you bought my kids gifts, that would be even better. I love people who bless my children. Okay, how many of you can, how many of you as parents can relate to that?
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You kind of go, oh, I get that. Yeah. I mean now, now imagine a person comes to you and says, I hate your kids, but boy, do
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I love you? Okay, now when you put it in those terms, is that kind of like, I mean, how could you say to God, I love you
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God, but hate his family, hate others? Are you getting kind of what I'm saying here? Are you getting what
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John is saying here? The one who loves the Father is gonna love his kids as well.
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And John made a pretty strong case for that last week. We discussed it at great length.
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If you weren't here last week and you want to know more about that, you can, you can come and check that out. It's pretty, pretty key for us, for our understanding that he was over -the -top last week.
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John was over -the -top saying, if you love God, you're gonna love his children, his followers.
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But now in verse 2, John introduces a new concept. Look at it with me. By this we know that we love the children of God.
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So if you're asking yourself, and it's probably not a very common question for most of us, many of us, we don't live in a culture that's gonna doubt whether we love others or not.
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And part of it is that we just kind of give ourselves the benefit of the doubt regularly. Things are just falling over here.
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Timber. Thanks, Kyle. Don't mind the guy behind the curtain over there.
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I couldn't, I just couldn't figure out a way to tie that in with where I was. And where was
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I? Verse 2. Thank you.
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By this we know that we love the children of God. We don't doubt whether we love others. It's not a really common question because we are a culture that often gives ourselves the benefit of the doubt and assumes that we are loving, right?
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We're like, yeah, I'm a pretty loving guy. I'm a pretty loving person for the most part, you know. Yeah, I'm gonna raise your hand if you've got somebody that you love.
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Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay, so we're just good. We're all good. And so we don't doubt that very often, but John is answering a legitimate question.
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How do we know that we love the children of God? And ultimately, how do we know that we love the children of God, each other, in the way that God wants us to?
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In other words, what John is saying is there's a right and a wrong way to love. I mean, would our culture agree with that?
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Ah, just love however you feel like loving, right? He's saying there's a right kind of love. And how do we know that we have that right kind of love for others?
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Well, John suggests that the commandments of God are a good measuring stick for the content of our love toward one another.
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By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey, what? His commandments.
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How do we know that we're loving each other well? Well, the commandments are a good place to start. The things that he has told us to do in regard to loving one another, well, that's a great measurement.
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If I'm loving you right, then my life is going to conform in some way to these commandments that God has.
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Our love for God and obedience to his clearly revealed will is a great indicator. John says, for our love for others.
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I would suggest this to you. So many of the commands of God were focused on living in a loving community together.
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Now you can go back through the Old Testament. You can find a handful of them here or there that you're gonna go like, well, that command doesn't sound, I don't really understand how that ties in with community or whatever.
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But even just like some of the Old Testament commandments that are a little bit out there, any of you own an ox? You don't own an ox.
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None of us own oxen. But some of the laws are don't, you know, what to do in the case that your ox runs loose, gets off its chain and gores your next -door neighbor, what do you do?
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You know, and is that about loving community? Yeah, it's about caring for your neighbors and making sure you got a thick chain on your pit bull or whatever.
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There goes dogs again. But um, you know, it's taking care of those kinds of things.
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And so you can look at the Old Testament law and can you see the kernels of love in the laws? Can you understand? And Jesus certainly drew some of those things out for us.
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So many of the commands were focused on living in a loving community that it's not a stretch to say that if you truly love one another, if we truly in the biblical sense of the word genuinely are moved to sacrifice for one another, to love one another, then the law itself will be fulfilled.
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I don't think it's a stretch to say that if you start with the goal of biblical love, your life will conform to the rules of God, to the things that he desires of you.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? That your starting point could be love and you could find that you've accidentally completed the law of God if you were really able to fully obey
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God's desire for love for you, you would find his commandments worked out in you. Are you getting what I'm saying? So a lot of times in our mind we start with the law, we start with the rules and hope that that leads to love or that somehow love gets in there somewhere.
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But he's, you can start with love and actually find that you fulfilled the laws of God and are completing those. Are you, does that make, it's tracking, some people are looking at me blank.
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Hopefully this will explain it out a little bit more. Let me, I don't, do
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I talk about commandments very often up front? I don't, do I? So there's a reason
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I'm kind of hedging this and trying to explain it and things because John is directly talking about this. And so I believe that Christians should be a people who zealously cherish and obey the laws of God.
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I want to get that right out on the table at the beginning. Christians should be a people who zealously cherish and obey the law of God.
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But the commandments of God come to the child of God as love expressed from him who created us.
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How many of you know he knows the way that life works best? Have you guys noticed that before? That when you live according to God's way that things go better for you and when you live according to your own way things get a little bit rough and dicey.
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The rockiest times in my life are times when I'm living for myself. And I'm not talking about the the physical circumstances around me because how many of you know that sometimes when you are honoring
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God and going through difficult circumstances and you're going through pain physically or whatever but those can be some of those rock -solid times of your life because you're connected in with God and you're you're honoring him and you're loving him and you're dependent upon him.
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You get what I'm saying? So the laws of God come to us as love from him who knows what a good life looks like.
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And then also the laws of God come to us as a call to express love toward others.
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So what is the difference between a person who lives their life based on law? Some of us have been there.
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Some of us have been to that point in our lives where it was primarily just wrote I'm just gonna check boxes and I'm just gonna try to live my life based on laws and rules.
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So what's the difference between that kind of life in the Christian life? Because isn't he telling us to obey commandments here? Well, I would suggest this to you is the difference between a legalist a person who lives only based on law and the
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Christian is the love of God received through Jesus that then in turn frees us to obey him.
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Remember that cycle that we talked about last week? That cycle that starts with God's awesome and amazing love for us first and out of that love flows a life of love back towards him and a life towards others.
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And so what is the motivation for the Christian life? Love, not law.
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Love, but a love that has content to it that results in a sense of fulfilling those laws and those rules and those regulations.
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So think of it in these terms. Let's just pick a specific law that we can think of.
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Specific law. How about a murder? Okay, hopefully, I'm really just hopeful that nobody in the room struggles with the sin of murder.
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It's like I'm just trying to recover from murder. I'm just trying to get over that. That's a sin that keeps recurring in my life or something. I hope not.
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No, no, that's not good. But so I pick murder because it's one that I believe is easily kept by the legalist.
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How many of you think that in your own strength, in your own power, you could avoid murder your entire life? Do you think you could do that?
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Okay, I think we could probably all do that in our own strength. Well, a couple people are like shaky and that scares me. But I'm not talking about redefining it the way that Jesus redefined it because how many of you know, he might murder deeper to even calling somebody a fool, right?
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And now all of a sudden that gets uncomfortable. I'm just talking about straightforward slaughtering somebody. We're probably not struggling with that so much.
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So the person who is a legalist and living based on law can avoid murdering people, right?
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And the Christian can avoid murdering people. And so then the question becomes on what's the difference between those?
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And I would suggest to you that the one that is the Christian avoids murder out of love and gratitude.
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Love for God, love for others, and gratitude for the forgiveness that's been given to us and extending in turn that forgiveness toward others.
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So that's the motivation. But there's a whole host of motivations that motivate the legalist to avoid murdering and none of them ultimately come down to love unless it's self -love, right?
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Because there's self -interest involved in it. How many of you just like even just the straightforward like I don't murder because it's against the law and there's gonna be punishments.
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Like sometimes punishment is, would you suggest, would you agree with me that punishment is often our motivation for keeping laws?
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I mean, I doubt many of us, how many of you really when it comes down to keeping the speed limit, if you do, it's motivated out of love, right?
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You just see the sign and you're like, oh, I just love culture. I love society. I'm just gonna drive it right there 55.
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That's me. That's my wheelhouse. Now, I mean, we could get into a step further, like, you know, that if,
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I don't want to, yeah. That guy who is like over the over the dash line looking to kind of get past you, you know, and kind of like maybe he's gonna pass you on the right or whatever.
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Is there an extent maybe to loving people while we're driving? Could we drive in a loving way? Yeah, we probably ought to.
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But primarily our motivation is like, I see a cop, brakes, you know, and that that fear of getting caught, you know, paying the ticket or whatever it is, or points on your license.
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Those are the kinds of things that tend to motivate the legalist. And so I think we can understand those two categories. But I'm not sure that that's our primary problem.
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I'm not sure that our primary problem is that we tend to live our lives only based on law. I think the flip side is also equally a problem, and that is that we live our lives based on some nebulous fuzzy notion of love, right?
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Is there a sense in which our culture is married to the notion, is married to the idea of a love that is different in each and every situation?
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So in other words, the loving thing for one couple in our world's eyes, the loving thing for one couple to do is to get a divorce, right?
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That's what that's what our culture will tell you. The loving thing to do in this situation is to get a divorce. The loving thing for this couple to do is to stay married.
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And it just kind of depends. And boy, you know, at one point you said, I do, but now I don't.
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And so, okay, well, we'll just, the loving thing. Have any of you ever actually heard somebody say, the loving thing for me to do is to set her free?
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Or set him free? That's the loving thing to do. Really? Really?
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Defining love based on what? Defining love how? On the way that you feel?
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How many of you, is that our culture? Does our culture define love based on how I feel? And I'll tell you what,
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I feel different today than I did yesterday that I'm going to feel tomorrow, right? So if I base my love on how I feel,
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Lynn and I would get remarried and remarried and unmarried and divorced and remarried. And I mean, it would just be, I mean, are you getting what
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I'm saying? Those of you that are married, you know exactly what I'm talking about. We'd have been married and divorced in cycles 17 times by now. You know what
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I'm saying. I mean, if it's based on the way we feel, really? Really? Is that it? And so what
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I want to point out to you is there is a content to the love we are to have. Love is not without content.
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But God gives us the content of loving one another here. Getting to know what he desires of us in relationship and in community together so that this is the content of love.
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Not defined situation by situation. It is defined by the word of God. So on the one hand, and if you're taking notes, this is kind of the key to this section.
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On the one hand, there is no room for a Christian who has no regard for the direct commands of God. Let me say that again.
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For a Christian, there is, I'm sorry, there is no room for a Christian who has no regard for the direct commands of God.
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In other words, you tell me you're a Christian and you say, I've got no room for God's laws, God's rules. That doesn't matter to me.
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How do you think we've got an issue? I mean, I don't care what God thinks. I'm just, I'm a loving person and I'll figure it out on my own.
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Thank you very much. Okay, issue. You're calling yourself a follower of Christ and he says, if you love me, you will obey my commandments.
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There's something to that, right? But on the other hand, so we've got a balancing act here.
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Because on this balancing act, on the other side is that there is no room for a
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Christian who is primarily motivated by commands. Do you hear what
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I'm saying? On the one side, if the primary motivation in your life is obedience to a set of rules and regulations, do we have an issue as a
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Christian? Where is Jesus in that? Where is a relationship by grace and faith? On the flip side, somebody says,
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I've got no room for rules and laws. That's an issue too. So it's like this balance beam that we want to walk and not fall off either side.
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And that was my walk of shame when I was in middle school, by the way. I mean, the balance beam, when it was gymnastics time in gym, it was like the drill instructor slash gym teacher was like, get up on there.
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And I'm like, no. And I'm really gangly and tall and grew six inches in one summer. And it was just like, oh, that was my walk of shame because I could not make it all the way to the end.
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Like, if I just tell you guys this up front, okay, if I ever get pulled over and I get charged with a
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DUI, it's because I could not walk the line straight. Okay, that's the only, that's the reason. So that's it.
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Okay, I just, they pulled me out. I was weaving. That guy trying to pass the other guy. Walk the white line.
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Oh, no, what do I do? I'm off. Anyways, I distract myself.
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And it is hot in here, by the way. There is no furnace running. There's one. There is no furnace running.
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It has not been running all morning, and it is just like blazing. A lot of hot air.
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There is no room for us to be primarily motivated by commands. John was abundantly clear what should be motivating us in the
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Christian life. What is the fuel? What is the engine that drives the Christian life? Anybody remember from last week?
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God's love expressed towards us that then is reciprocated towards him and towards his children. That he first loved us is the fuel.
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That's the motivation. Not commands or rules or checklists or laws. Will those matter to us once we are in his love?
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Yes. Yes, they will. But it's not the, it's never the primary motivation. The primary motivation is the love of God expressed to us in Jesus Christ, that we want to share that with the world.
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If you doubt what I'm saying, look at verse 4 where he's going with this. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.
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He's talking about victory in relationship to commandments. He's just got done saying we want to obey the commandments. Well, what is obedience to the commandments?
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Looks like victory. And everyone, everyone, again, who is born of God, who has been welcomed into his family by adoption, overcomes the world.
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So here's the logic so far in these first four verses. Notice how he starts verse 1.
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Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Do a checklist for yourself. Can you check that one?
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I believe that Jesus is the Christ. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the chosen one of God from the
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Old Testament foretold to come and fix this mess, then welcome to the family. You've been adopted by God.
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But then he goes on to say everyone who is then in the family of God has been adopted by him that has been born of God.
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Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. Now, some of you, does that seem like a pretty lofty statement, overcomes the world?
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The chain of events begins like this. It's faith which leads to adoption.
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We are invited into his family as heirs with him, as the beneficiaries of him being our father.
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It starts with faith, leads to adoption, and ultimately results in victory in our lives.
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Now, some of you are like, man, I'm having a hard time even having a good attitude sitting here right now, man. Things are going bad in my relationship with my wife in the car on the way here, and you're talking about victory over the world?
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I mean, I can barely respond to my children with grace, okay? And you're talking about overcoming the world?
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What John's talking about here is we're conquerors in our lives over the world. Does this mean world domination?
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Christianity is eventually just going to take over the world and there's a big political kingdom and empire and stuff? We know that that's not the case.
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Does it mean that we live aloof as if we have conquered emotions and feelings and right above everything going on around us and the world just can't touch us?
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I just don't feel anything. Is that what this is? Does it mean that the world can't touch what we have found in Christ?
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I think that's in part what it is. The way that faith overcomes, think about the word faith, think about what it looks like, a trust, a trust in that which we can't see.
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But faith is by seeing through, is ultimately seeing through the lies and embracing the truth.
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And this is the way that a true follower of Jesus lives, seeing past and through the lies to the truth of the way that things really are.
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We overcome by faith, like with spiritual eyes to see past the glamour of earthly fame.
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We overcome by faith by seeing through the glitter of silver and gold. We overcome by faith by seeing past the passing pleasures of sexual impropriety and there's a whole host of other things
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I could tackle that we overcome by faith. We overcome by faith that the accolades of Jesus are better than anything.
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The treasures of eternity with Him is better than all the gold and silver in the world.
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And the satisfaction of His glory is better than any passing pleasure that this world has to offer. That is how we overcome the world, by faith.
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Obeying His commandments looks a lot like a life motivated by faith, trusting that which is true and love expressed first by Jesus to us and then returned to the world through us.
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And all that is contingent upon adoption into the family of God through His love for us.
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All of it begins with our adoption. That's the starting point of this life of victory. What's amazing is that for those who have received
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His love and love Him, His commandments are not, what does the text say?
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His commands are not burdensome. They become a delight, a joy. Jesus said this, quote, quote the guy himself.
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Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you, what?
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Rest. Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
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Matthew 11 verse 30. I want to point out that this is not just talking about a method of salvation.
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Some people I think get in their mind that we live, we come to faith in Christ by faith and then
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He heaps a big burden on us. So it's like, well don't, you're not saved by works. How many of you knew that?
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You're not saved by what you do. Are you, is there three of us? Let's just try that again. I just want to get some participation.
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I know it's hot in here and some of you are going to start falling asleep if I don't get your arms up above your head. How many of you know that salvation does not come by works?
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Okay, so we can't earn it. We can't get it ourselves. And so then we're going to go, but then once I'm in the family, now
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I've got to put my nose to the grindstone. I've really got to get working for Jesus. And all
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He's going to accept is my extremely difficult and hard work. What it says is my yoke, take my yoke upon you.
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My yoke is easy and my burden is light. He didn't come to add more weight to an already heavy life.
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He didn't come to load us down with laws and rules and regulations. He came to show love.
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Not a love without content, but a love. And remember that in summarizing the law, He simplified them all by placing love at the heart.
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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. The commandments of God that show that you love
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Him when you keep them are commandments that flow out of a love from God, which makes us love Him in return, which we demonstrate by loving others, which looks like not just not murdering your neighbor, but not even calling him fool,
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Jesus says. It looks like not just avoiding adultery with someone else's wife, but not even lusting after her.
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Have you asked yourself, why not call him fool? In my car, it always comes back to my car, my sanctification is right here in the driver's seat.
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Have any of you ever been moved, if you're honest, to actually think the word, maybe even speak the word fool while you're driving in your car?
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A couple of you? I think it's eerie that I've actually used that word. I mean,
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I know Jesus says, don't call others fool, or you're liable, you basically are committing murder in your heart, you are hating another individual, and there it is, and it's just right on the tip of my tongue,
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I'm like, Jesus, save me, help me, get control of this rage. He says, don't even call him fool.
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Why not call him fool? Why not lust after her? Because the law says not to? Is that why?
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Just don't lust, just don't call him fool because the law says not to. Or is it because you're moved in your heart to love that guy who cut you off?
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Or because you love her and you recognize that she wasn't created for your enjoyment, and she is not a thing, but she is a human created in the image of God, who does not deserve your lust toward her.
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That's not why she's there. What is it in our hearts that could motivate us to love and victory on that kind of scale?
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John identifies that it is our faith that gives us this victory, our trust in that which we cannot see, our trust in that which is eternal and beyond us, but a belief that there's more to this life, that she is more than flesh, that he is more than that driver that cut us off, but there is more than meets the eye to the world around us, and that people have inherent value that goes beyond the way that we treat them as things.
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That motivate us? Faith that they are more than just things, that there's more going on behind the scenes than us trying to hurry and get to our next meeting.
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There's more going on. So John establishes here for us a place of victory for those who believe in Christ, and we know that in the end, there is an ultimate victory that's going to be had that goes beyond this life, and that's the ultimate victory that we have, even our faith, which is that we get to, by faith, ride the coattails of the very
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Son of God into heaven itself. That's an amazing thing. That by being adopted into his family, that we get the ultimate victory in the end.
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He's established that place of victory for those who believe in Christ, and John now launches into evidence that Jesus is worthy of our trust.
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He says, what do you get if you trust Jesus? What do you get if you trust him? Victory, here at the front end.
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In a minute, he's going to talk about eternal life. Pretty awesome gig. You put your trust in Jesus as the
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Christ, you get victory, and you get eternal life, but now in the middle, he's going to give evidence for the trust.
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Why would we trust Jesus? Starting in verse 6, he mentions that Jesus came by water and blood, as if we should understand that.
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While I'm reading it, were you guys kind of like, oh yeah, I track with that. Water, blood, spirit, I get all that. It's a little bit confusing, isn't it?
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Suggested his audience at the time had some understanding of what he meant when he said this, but there's a lot of debate among scholars and New Testament theologians over what the water and the blood represent, and I want to tell you, it's not very often that I go off on my own.
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What I do is I study pretty in depth on Monday through the text on my own, no help at all, just the text and me.
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I come to my own conclusions, kind of draw things out, and then I spend the remainder of the week going over what other people think about the text.
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Eventually, I actually write out a manuscript of my sermon right here, and then actually practice it a couple times.
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I've got a system down that I use for my own study and things. But it's very rare that I come across commentary after commentary that says, oh, the water means this, and I go, no,
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I don't think the water means that, because I'm not that bright of a guy. I mean, when it comes to some of these theologians, they're out there, they're studying these specific nuances and things.
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I actually disagree with them on this one, so I'm setting that up so that you know that if you read something that disagrees with what
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I say, you can feel free to go with that, okay? I'm just telling you that after my study and going through the book of John, I kind of came to a little bit of a different conclusion.
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I believe that the audience at the time understood what the water and the blood was. Most of the commentaries are going to say the water is baptism, the baptism of Jesus.
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Now, in order to believe that the water that's mentioned here is baptism means that you have to actually believe that John, writing this letter, all of a sudden in the middle of this introduces the concept of baptism in a pretty fuzzy way, just out of the blue.
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He hasn't talked about baptism at all in his letter, and then all of a sudden he's going to just start talking about water baptism and the baptism of Jesus.
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Didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And the immediate context leads me to the conclusion that water is speaking of the literal birth of Jesus Christ.
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The blood is representing his sacrifice. Remember that just a few sentences earlier, John made a case that the love of God is most clearly expressed to us in two events.
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Can anybody tell me the two events? Christmas and Easter. Incarnation, the birth of Jesus, and his death.
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The birth, water. The blood, the sacrifice. That's what I think
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John is talking about here. Again, I read a handful of commentaries, and nope, everybody was like, oh, this is baptism, this is talking about his baptism, and they didn't really give a lot of evidences.
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But I also want to point to one other thing that led me to this conclusion, and that's that John, the author here, actually uses the word water in context of a natural birth.
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Back in John chapter 3, his gospel, John 3, same author, John 3, 5, he used the phrase born of water as a phrase for natural birth.
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Talking with Nicodemus in the middle of the night, he said you don't need to just be born of water, but you also need to be born of the
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Spirit. In contrast, natural birth doesn't cut it to enter the kingdom of God. It's not enough that you've just been born of water, you also equally need to be born of the
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Spirit, a second birth. And in context, that's parallel, it's very, very clear in John 3, 5, and John 3, 6, that he's talking about natural birth there.
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So what I think John is referring to here is the baptism, is not the baptism of Jesus, but his birth, and the amazing, glorious things that surround
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Christmas. So we're getting ready for the Christmas season, and hopefully your mind, as we go through Thanksgiving, and you begin to start thinking about Christmas, that your mind turns less to the presents you're going to buy, and more to the present that God gave to you in Jesus Christ, and all the glorious majesty of the incarnation that John is saying is evidence for who he said he is.
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But it is not just the incarnation, it's not just Christmas that testifies to the truth, but the blood of the sacrifice of Jesus, Easter, is also equally a witness to the truth.
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All of those amazing, glorious events that surrounded Good Friday, and the resurrection, and all of that, the blood testifies that Jesus was indeed who he said he was.
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And yet, if we're honest, so we talk about the blood and the water, the incarnation and the cross, is that enough to truly convince someone?
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Like, if you explain the incarnation to them, and you explain the death, and burial, and resurrection of Jesus, they must believe, right?
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It's just natural, they have to believe. Is that the way it works? Water -type proof, right? It's not.
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We know that there's something else that has to happen in here.
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There are amazing witnesses, right? Incarnation, amazing witness. The death of Jesus, and all the events that surrounded that, amazing witness.
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Yeah, pretty cool. But not water -type proof. God has allowed enough room for people to poke holes through the testimony if they want to.
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I just want to point out that it's by faith. What did he say is our victory again? Faith. Faith and trust.
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I mean, we weren't there. I wasn't there at the, I didn't see with my eyes the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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I wasn't there in the manger. I didn't see the angels out in the field with the shepherds. But some pretty amazing things happened there, and I have to take the testimony of the things that I have heard.
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I have to believe John's testimony, one of the men who's testifying to the things that he saw.
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But there's another witness. So we can do all that we want telling people about the water and the blood and the incarnation and Easter and all of that.
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But there is one who testifies that is greater than all witnesses. The star witness to the
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Son of God is the Holy Spirit himself. And when he testifies, people are moved in their spirit.
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We can testify, but how many of you ever had that situation where you thought you just gave an excellent, I mean, you gave an excellent explanation of the gospel, and the person didn't budge?
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They were just kind of like, that's good for you. Awesome. Great. Bravo. You've got your truth, and I've got my truth. Thanks. Thanks for your time.
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What's missing? Did you not do a good enough job sharing the gospel? Or is it that the
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Spirit has not yet moved into that person's life in a way that there's conviction and that he is witnessing to their spirit of the truth of these things?
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The three testify, the water, the blood, and the spirit, incarnation, sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit. And they all agree.
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They all point to Jesus as the Son of God. They all point to him as Messiah. They all point to him as Savior. And so let me take a moment to figure out, where do we fit into this testimony?
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You have the incarnation, you have the sacrifice, and the Spirit. What about us?
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Well, verse 9 takes for granted, look at verse 9, if we receive the testimony of men, it takes for granted that we will on occasion take the testimony of men.
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How many of you have actually believed the testimony of another individual before? Okay, I think a lot more of us are going to raise our hand after this illustration.
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Have any of you been to the Philippines in the last week? Have any of you been there? Okay, none of us have been there. How many of you believe that there's catastrophe and devastation on the ground in the
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Philippines? Why do you raise your hand? Why do you believe that that's true? Somebody has witnessed that.
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Somebody has testified that indeed there was this cataclysmic thing that happened in the Philippines. We haven't been there, but we believe it.
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So do we take on and adopt the testimony of men? Oh yeah, we do that all the time.
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We are often putting our trust in others that what they are sharing with us is true. And there are some in our lives who will take our testimony, who are looking at your life and they're going, and when you actually open your mouth and testify that Jesus is indeed the incarnate
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Son of God who died for them, they're going to go, you know what, on your word alone, I'll take it. And they're actually going to say,
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I believe that, because they're seeing your life and they're seeing the way that you work, and they're watching and they're observing.
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How many of you know that there's people who are watching you? They're observing you and they're going, that guy, that gal, that lady is proving herself to be trustworthy.
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And I believe that she's got love in her heart and there's something different about her. There's something different about him. And they'd be moved to take that testimony.
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So there is a sense in which there is a testimony of man that we take on. But now, now that we know, right now,
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I mean, if God were the one giving the news, so we read about the Philippines, but if God were the one giving the news, would we trust his testimony above and beyond our newscaster?
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Well, you know, sometimes they get it wrong. Everyone knows that. I mean, the news isn't infallible. But if God were the one giving the news, we'd trust it.
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And so just by that nature alone, we understand that his testimony is greatest. But that doesn't mean that we should step aside and stop speaking, because look at how verse 10 starts for us.
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Look at verse 10. Eyes down there for a second. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony, where?
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In himself. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has the testimony already in them.
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I love what John is saying here. If we've been born of God, we have the testimony residing already in us.
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We do not need to attend an evangelism class. We do not need to memorize the four spiritual laws or have some rote method of evangelism down pat or be able to draw the bridge illustration, filling in all the verses in order and have them memorized.
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Now, how many of you have been to an evangelism class? Some of you have done that. And I'm not saying that that's pointless or fruitless, but it can be detrimental in one way.
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And so hear me out here. If you are in Christ, you have within you everything you need to testify to the glory of Jesus Christ already.
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It's in you. As a matter of fact, I would suggest to you that there is greater power and glory in the person who testifies about Jesus in their joy, despite being weak in their presentation, than someone who is slick and practiced without passion or personality.
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You get what I'm saying? Now, I'm not suggesting that it has to be one or the other, that you either are, like, you've got something memorized, and so it's, like, slick and fake.
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You can memorize something and have it still be something that's valuable to you in your heart and in your presentation. You show passion about it.
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Or that over here on the other side, you're just completely inept, but you're, like, honest, right?
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So it doesn't have to be one or the other, but often I would suggest to you that it does interfere when we memorize stuff.
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Memorized gospel presentations, I would suggest, lead away from personal enthusiasm and often come off to the world as marketing, right?
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You've just got your sales pitch. And we don't want to minimize or diminish the gospel to being a sales pitch.
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Here, let me draw out in three quick ways how
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I can sell eternal life to you. Okay? You getting what I'm saying? I mean, is there passion in it?
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Is there personality in it? And is it you sharing what God has done for you? The content of our testimony is simply spelled out for us by John.
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When here at Recast, when I'm looking for a testimony, there's a couple of things I'm looking for, because it isn't, again, there is content involved to it, okay?
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So when somebody puts down on their membership application, you know, Jesus saved me from a car accident, and he saved my marriage.
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I'm going, that's great, but where's the cross in here? Where is the incarnation of Jesus in here?
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Because our testimony should all be relatively the same. Now, how many of you, starting off, like, I was a sinner.
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Are you guys a sinner? Is that the start of your testimony, sinner? And what that looks like, is that variable for each one of us?
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I was saved as an eight -year -old in a church. It's not like I wasn't, like, cooking meth with an easy -bake oven or anything, right?
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I mean, it was like I was just an eight -year -old boy who grew up in church, and I was just kind of doing the stuff that I do, right?
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So, you know, I mean, I wasn't that wicked or evil, but I was destined for hell as an eight -year -old boy without Jesus.
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Is that pretty serious? A pretty good kid in Midwestern America who was bound for hell aside from Jesus Christ in my life.
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That's pretty serious. And so our testimony should all, you know, I mean, it kind of starts a little bit with a little bit of flavor.
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I don't have a whole lot of drugs or anything like that in my history or my past. Some of you do, and it's, you know, we have a tendency to glorify those really dynamic testimonies.
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I tell you what, our testimony all boils down to this. Jesus Christ, the second person of the
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Trinity, come in flesh and died for you and me. That's our testimony. That's what we have to offer.
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Is that a pretty simple message? That didn't take long. That is our message to the world around us.
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That is the witness. That is the testimony. The blood and the water, the death, the birth of Jesus Christ, his incarnation, he came to be one of us.
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What love he has given to us, that he would even go to the extent to die on a cross for you and me.
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Amazing love. That's our message. That is our testimony. Simply spelled out, water and blood, incarnation and sacrifice, birth and death, manger and cross,
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Christmas and Easter. That is our message. And then I would suggest to you that maybe, potentially for some of us, the hardest thing is what comes next, and that is leaving the results up to the
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Holy Spirit. Testifying to the world around us, Jesus loves you. He's shown his love by the incarnation.
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He's shown his love by the atonement. Spirit, you've got to go from here. And how many of you have been praying for somebody for years?
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You have somebody in your life, you've been, go ahead and raise your hand. If you have somebody that you've just like, I really want them in the kingdom and they have yet to recognize.
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Spirit hasn't opened their eyes, hasn't revealed this to them yet. Just, I'd encourage you to just stay your course. Just keep praying faithfully.
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And yet, at the same time, John acknowledges that some will not believe. And will even, in essence, call
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God a liar by rejecting the testimony of the Holy Spirit. That's true. That is reality. And verses 11 and 12 snap us into focus about what is at stake in our testifying.
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And I just want to suggest that I think John has softened things a little bit for us to help us survive under the weight of testifying to eternal life.
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Because that's really what's at stake. And I praise God that it is clearly the Spirit who is responsible for heart change.
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Not you and me. I don't think I could sleep at night if I thought that the eternal destiny of people around me were dependent on how slick and well -polished my testimony was.
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How good my sermon is. How good my gospel presentation is. I think I'd struggle to sleep.
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If I really thought that it was all on my shoulders, the salvation of people. Whose shoulders is their salvation on?
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The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit testifying to them. But the testimony in the end is that we have received eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
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Eternal life resides with Jesus Christ. And whoever has the
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Son has life, and whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
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Is there a narrow way? A narrow way that's available to all. It's not that people aren't getting into the kingdom because it's clogged at the gate.
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It's available to all, but it is narrow in the sense that it is the Son of God. The destiny of every human on this planet to ever live rests on this one question.
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Do you have the Son of God? It's a question that we all ought to ask ourselves.
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A question that should be on our tongue for others. Do you have the Son of God? Is your life wrapped up in His incarnation?
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Is your life wrapped up in His life? Is your life wrapped up in His death and resurrection? Is Jesus your life?
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Have you tasted of the eternal life that is at His disposal? It is possible to know about the
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Son without having the Son. It is possible to hang around people who have the
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Son without having the Son. It is possible to talk about the Son without having the
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Son. It is possible to be a part of a family that has the Son without having the
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Son. And everything in this text hinges and everything in this life rests on this testimony that the
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Holy Spirit Himself, inspiring John to give us today, is this. Whoever has the
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Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not. There's three applications from this text.
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And surprise, surprise, they're all going to revolve around Jesus. First one, where are you looking for victory?
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Where are you looking for victory? We live in a world that needs to be overcome, and not overcome in the sense of militarily or politically, but in this sense, either we are overcome by the world or we are overcoming by faith in Jesus.
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I would encourage all of us to take an honest assessment of our own lives. I could ask you at this point in the message a really comfortable question.
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I don't think John wants me to ask that comfortable question. The comfortable question is, are you loving enough?
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Do you love others? And that would be kind of sad. That would let us off the hook a little bit, because how many of you raised your hand earlier and you said, yeah,
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I love others. There's some people in my life I love. Do you? Some people that you love. John knows that that question is too soft, and so he takes it one step removed and says, sure, we've been talking a lot about love in this letter, but a life of love in Jesus will be a life that conforms to the commandments of God.
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Victory looks like obeying the commandments of God out of love for him and love for others.
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And the second thing, everybody here, every one of you, is testifying to something, especially with social media.
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We market ourselves. We market for businesses. We advertise our preferences. How many of you know that through Facebook, you're actually advertising.
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Every time you take a picture of your dinner and report where you're at, you're marketing for someone. You ever think about that?
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We're advertising machines in our culture right now. We're accidentally marketing for businesses.
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They love it. We even often will advertise our preferences.
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We vocalize our opinions about what others should and shouldn't be doing. But where is our testimony of Jesus Christ?
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Are we ashamed of the water and the blood? Now, when I talk about your testimony, I'm not talking about that thing that gets forwarded around by Facebook and gets passed along, and if you don't forward this and you don't post it as your status, then you don't love
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Jesus. Can you just can forwarding those? Especially if it says, you don't love Jesus if you don't do this, or send it to 10 of your friends or whatever.
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Just stop doing that. Certainly be willing to share. I love reading status updates that are telling me what
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God is teaching you through the word. I love that. And so just keep those coming. You might even feel like it's cheesy. Those are great.
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Those are encouragement to others. But that whole forwarding that thing on is annoying.
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I have an opinion about that, apparently. The love of God is poured out on us through the condescension of His Son and the substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross, and I'd encourage you, don't leave talking to others about that to the experts.
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There are people that only you can reach, and God has given you a specific sphere of influence to reach out in your own unique way to testify to the content of the great love of God lavished on us through Jesus.
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Extroverts in the room, I'm going to ask you, raise your hand. Extroverts, you know you're an extrovert? There's not many. Introverts, raise your hand.
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And then everybody in between is just like, done. The rest of you are just cooked. You're like, this is too much. Each of us has a different personality.
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Each of us has a different way of testifying, right? And I don't expect everybody to be like me in their evangelism. I expect everybody to be doing evangelism.
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I expect everybody to be testifying about what Jesus Christ has done for you. Some of you, that's going to be in more subtle and gentle ways.
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Some of us tackle things head -on. I personally like to talk about the awkwardness in the conversation. I feel like that dispels some of it.
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So to actually go to somebody and say, you know what? We're going to talk about Jesus right now. That probably makes you uncomfortable, but if you're willing, let's go for it.
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And if you get awkward at any point, just let me know, okay? So, I mean, that's kind of my personality, and that's kind of like the way that I would just address it up front and just be like, you know, yes, sister, this is the fifth time we've been together this year, and we're going to talk about Jesus again because you still need him, okay?
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So, I mean, it's just kind of like that kind of thing where every time I would get together with my sister over the last few years, it was always a gospel conversation.
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Using the abilities that God has given you, the personality, it's going to look different for each one of us, but testifying to the water and the blood and letting the
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Spirit do His work. Lastly, are you experiencing the eternal life God has given through Jesus? Have you come to the source of living water?
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Has your thirsty soul been quenched by the springs of living water that flow from Jesus Christ?
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Our urgency to proclaim this message is growing, and I believe it's growing more and more just kind of as a pastor who gets a chance to kind of see our culture and see the direction that things are going.
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It's becoming more and more disagreeable to our culture to say that Jesus is the only way. Would you agree with me on that? I could see us coming to a point eventually where it's illegal to say
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Jesus is the only way. Now, that's about as political as I get, but I could see that.
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And so we need to strike while the iron is hot. We need to be bold. We need to be taking opportunities to share with those around us while we can still do so legally and with truth at the center and the core.
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There is one cure, and John says in verse 11, this life is in His Son, period.
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One cure, and everyone can come through belief in Him. Now, many of us here have been adopted in the family of God by faith in Jesus, and I would encourage you to join together in communion.
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We're about to pass that out here. We take the juice to remember His blood shed for us. The cracker reminds us of His body that was broken for us.
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Maybe take a morning this morning to do something different as we focus on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Consider one person that you know that has yet to receive the testimony of Jesus Christ.
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They have not yet received the testimony of the water and the blood. And take a moment to pray for them, even while you're holding the juice and while you're holding the cracker.
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Pray for them that they also might believe the testimony, that they might experience the victory, and that they might receive the eternal life that is only found in Jesus Christ, the
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Son of God. Let's pray. Father, I thank
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You for this testimony. I thank You for the power of the Spirit that is alive and well in this world. And even as things could turn in a bad direction for us as a church, things could turn in a bad direction for our culture, but we know that Your Spirit remains in the testimony of the water, the testimony of the blood, and the testimony of the
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Spirit is still alive and well today. Father, I pray that You would help us to make hay while the sun is shining, to take the opportunities that we can to testify to others.
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Give us boldness, a directness. And for those who are extroverts in the room, just a passion and a zeal for sharing the word around them.
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For the introverts in the room, the guts and the willingness to just step out and share even just with one or two people in a gentle and kind way.
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Father, that You would use us to see people come to faith in You as a result of Your boldness through us and the great and awesome love that's been given to us.