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1 John chapter 4. And I'm going to ask that these next two weeks, we've been doing this on Wednesday nights, I'm going to ask that you read through 1 John. It is a very doctrinally rich book, but it is also a great encouragement for the people of God, especially in times like these.
I'm going to ask you to refer to your notes a couple of times, just to do that now, so I won't have to remember it later. When we talked about propitiation, I made a little design on the back of one of your notes to try to explain, at least in part, the richness of propitiation.
And hopefully, maybe that will explain it to you just a little bit better. The grace of God. Man, the grace of God. I know in my life, and I'm just being honest, as a man, as a pastor, I have struggled to comprehend God's grace for me.
Because the reason why is, I continually look at my failures rather than God's grace. And I see myself in the light which I think God sees me as a complete and total failure. The problem with that is, is that that is not where God keeps us.
God finds us where we are. In our failures and our sin. But the reality is, grace transitions us positionally from being lost and dying in the world to being in Christ. Now, how do we experience grace more?
How do you feel that connection? Yes, I use the word feel. Feel that connection of God's grace. How do you walk in God's grace? And that's what we're gonna be looking at in the next three weeks. And today, I want to start with that saying that it has to begin with love.
You will never understand the grace of God until you truly try to comprehend the love of God. Let's start in 1 John 4, starting in verse 1. It says this, Beloved, in other words, this is speaking to Christians.
Remember, the word of God is not written to unbelievers. It is written to believers. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
And by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. Ladies and gentlemen, Genesio.
It's the Greek word for knowledge. But unlike knowledge gleaned from school, this is a knowledge based upon experience. Yesterday, Pastor Josiah and I went up with Artie to our deer camp. And this past January, a tornado came through and laid down like what, a hundred trees, Artie?
Something like that, big monster trees. And it actually, one of them hit the cabin and it folded in an aluminum roof. This is a redneck deer hunting cabin, guys. In other words, this is an old cotton, what is it, Artie?
So we took that, that refrigeration unit and we made a cabin out of it. It's just redneck. Some of y 'all will get it. Well, it's a redneck Hilton, baby. So we were sitting in there and the roof is bowed in.
And so Artie and I were in there as Pastor Josiah was on the roof. We were in there and we were trying to shore this thing up. And Artie said, hey, cut me 71 5 8. So I ran outside, marked out 71 5 8 and brought it back in.
And we fitted it up there, but it was still a little tight. And Artie said this to me, shave some off. Now, for those men that have ever shopped for your wife during Christmas and she has given you that absolute objective fact of buying her cute socks, we'll know the frustration of not knowing what the heck cute means.
Because cute is very subjective. I think that my Glock 43 is cute compared to my Glock 19, right? I don't get cute socks. Well, but there's an experience that you can comprehend something based upon hands-on experience that you don't understand through.
Look, I walked out there, grabbed the saw. He said, shave it. I know exactly what he means. I don't have to guess. I don't have to get a tape measure. I took my saw and I went and shaved that two by six.
Brought it right back into him. We went and slid it right in place. Because I understand through experience what shaving a two by six means. Guys, the word of God, the love of God, the grace of God, you can try to understand it intellectually or doctrine through the word of God alone or by a practicing through sanctification, you can understand it by experience.
Some of us in this room, you doubt your salvation because you have never engaged in a consistent process by experience to Genesco know the love of God. That's why you doubt. That's why you struggle. That's why some of us live in fear of what's going on in the world because we have not exercised our faith and our trust in God enough.
And so we don't have the experience or the maturity to sit there and go, God's got this. God's got this. And so we live in fear and we live in indecisiveness. Now look in this first part, it says, but test the spirits and know whether they are from God.
Verse two, by this you know the spirit of God. And you have to understand by this you know, there's a colon after that, which means that which follows is the actual test of whether you know someone or not is truthful.
I can listen to Kenneth Copeland. And yes, I named names in this church. Just like I'm not in competition with Bellevue, I am in competition against Kenneth Copeland because I believe he is a godless, pagan, heathen, money hungry, false teacher and preacher who is anathema.
He is an absolute horrendous example of what a Christian should be. But I can know through experience that that which he is preaching is not the real gospel of Jesus Christ. You can know that. Ladies and gentlemen, you know, I can tell when someone's a Christian or not when I meet them.
I can talk with them just for a few minutes and I know, I just know. If they say things like, well, I'm a member of Wynton Baptist Church. I'm like, woo, yay, spirit fingers, that's great. Oh God, let me guess, your letter's been there for 30 years.
You tithe and go to Sunday school. That's a good little Baptist. But then you start talking to a real Christian, someone who has the scar tissue and the trophies of God's grace in their life to know the pain and the suffering, but also to know the joys of victory, that know what it is to hurt at something that is insurmountable by the world's logic, yet they know in the last moment God will come through.
And He will deliver in a way that no man can explain, that will assuage a grief that no mind understands, and He will do it in a way that will bring glory to Himself and Himself alone. So you know. You know, and you can test what is true by knowing.
The believer, when they are born of God, they know certain things. And here's what you should know. You should know that a love has been imparted to you that you didn't have before. Christian, listen to me.
Do you love differently now than you did before you were a Savior? I want to tell you just a quick story. I was on Broad Street. I had been a Christian for about three months. About three months. Now you have to understand, I was not the picture of beauty and grace that I am back then, okay?
Now I had a man's haircut back then. It was called a mullet. For those of you that are looking for maybe a new hairstyle, let me strongly suggest any fashion from the 1980s is going to do you right. So I was sitting there with my long mullet in a ponytail, right?
I had to wear a ponytail. And my entire wardrobe consisted of black t-shirts. It could have Metallica or something on it. And stonewashed jeans with cowboy boots. That's what my entire wardrobe consisted of.
I was sitting at the light, I think right there at Hollywood. I don't remember where I was, but I was right there on Broad. And a guy ran into the back of my truck. I got out of my truck. And back then, I looked scary.
And so I got out of my truck and I started walking back and dude starts rolling up his window, right? Starts rolling up his window. And I remember leaning over and going, hey man, you all right? He goes, man, I'm sorry, man.
I wasn't paying attention. I was like, hey, don't worry about it. God bless you. That's all I could think of. And I went and got in my truck and I drove away. And as I'm driving up Broad, I'm like going, what just happened?
What was that? You see, because the inside of me was different. It wasn't that I walked down an aisle or got dipped in a bathtub. It's something came into my life that freaking changed me from the inside out.
The way I thought, the way I felt, the way I looked at things. Everything had changed. First Corinthians 5 .17. If any man be in Christ, he is a? All things have passed away. Behold, all have become new.
Christian, it's not that you were just forgiven. It's that you were transformed into a totally different state of who you were to who you are now in Christ. And you know this. You can see it. Now, listen to me.
This love is not perfected. It's not perfected. When I look at myself, my gosh, I still look at me and going, Shipley, where were you on that one, man? What were you doing, you idiot? What were you thinking?
My love is not perfected. The reflection of Christ is still marred in the reflection that I give off because of my failures. But I can tell you this, after 30 years of being a Christian, it may not be perfected, but it is progressing.
What about you? What about you? Is your love progressing? Is it maturing? And if it is, it is by this you can know. Now, let's talk about love. Let's talk about love. Go to verse nine. Now, listen very carefully.
You can know certain things, but Christian, unless you know real love, your life is a total waste. Now, I want to say that to you again because some of you are chasing the corporate dream. Some of you are chasing the homemaker's dream.
Some of you are chasing the best pinnacle player or whatever you people do on the weekends. I don't know. Some of you are chasing being this or being that. Some of you are chasing, let me finally find a relaxing, fulfilling life.
And you keep trying new hobbies and new things. Some of you husbands and wives, you're trying new. And it's not changing anything. Because listen to me, if Jesus Christ ain't you and you ain't bringing that to the party, you ain't going to leave no difference, okay?
This is something that would absolutely change your life. Look at verse nine. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
And in this love, not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The Greek word here, like genesco is for know by experience. The word here is that word that has been preached so many times in the last 20 years, the word agape.
Now, some people say agape, it depends on how it's used. But in this particular case, it's agape. And what it means is it is a concept, it is a reality of a self-giving, self-sacrificial love that demands or even expects anything in return.
Yesterday, after I got back from the deer camp, I was come to my house and I was hoping to have a few hours to sit, watch some college football, you know, and to relax before I had to go downtown to do a wedding.
But no, I didn't have that opportunity because all of my children and the little waifs that they call my grandchildren were at my house. I had to help Pastor Jeremiah fix the tire on the truck. I had to do all that.
And these little kids are just running, they're like cockroaches, man, and I love them. But you know, sometimes I just want to go, be silent, be quiet. The older I'm getting, the more I love and appreciate silence, right?
You love when they come over, grandparents, right? But you love it later. One of the most beautiful things of agape love is this, in my humble opinion. Little Skylar, that's Petey Pit and Javion's kid, little Skylar, she decided that she was hungry and she didn't go up to her mother who's nursing her.
She didn't go up to her mother and go, I'm a bit famished, a little peckish. Could I perhaps have a little bit of nourishment? This is how she asked. Ah! What did Javion do? She picked up that child and she walked upstairs and from her own body, nursed that child.
She gave. When it was over, I doubt very seriously Skylar, you people that are innocent children concept, I doubt very seriously Skylar said, well, mom, thank you very much. That was quite fulfilling.
Would you like an after dinner mint? And even say thank you. She probably burped and puked on her and said, clean me up. You see, the love of God is in this. God loved me when I had absolutely nothing to offer and continues to love me when I still have nothing to offer.
Even though I puke on him and I defile his name, even though I fail miserably all the time, we know that God loves us. Verse 10, in where it says, not that we have loved God, but he loved us. Understand this, people.
You did not find Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and his majesty left that majesty and came to earth to find me. You see, the under difference is understanding this, that as a godless, heathen human, I can take an attribute of grace from God.
But Jesus did more than that. As we are elevated from lost to found, Christ did the exact opposite. He took on human fallibility, human pain, human frailness, and came down here. When it says was manifested among us, it literally means we saw God in Jesus Christ.
When there was nothing other than the law and the book of Moses, when there was nothing other than rituals and understanding of the temple, God showed his love for us and then he went a step further and became man, manifested for us.
How much did God love me? He came down here into the filthy cesspit. His love for us. Guys, it's more, I say this all the time, we didn't find God, God found us. I want you to understand this. It is God's love for me that initiated my ability to even understand the concept of love.
Now, I know there are lost people out there, there are atheists out there that love. I get that. But it is so superficial to the reality of agape. You see, there are people out there that have given and given and given for various reasons.
But I tell you, I don't know anybody who has taken their child and beat them to death for a child molester. I don't know anybody who has taken their only child and slowly and ritualistically watched them be tortured to death for somebody else.
For those of you that think you've experienced pain in this life, and ergo, no one understands where you're at. Here's the, no one's ever walked a mile in your shoes. Well, I promise you this, you've never walked down the Via Dolorosa and been nailed to a cross.
You've never known the pain of taking on the sin of the world when you didn't deserve it. Guys, we live in the beauty of God's grace. It was initiated towards us. Understand this, you could not have gotten saved were it not for God's love.
And listen, those people that don't know God's love, that don't know the power of God's love, sometimes I think churches and Christians see loving people as an option. If you are a child of God, go back to verse one, beloved, let us love one another.
That's not merely a suggestion, it is a command of Almighty God. In fact, in other places in John, John three and John one, back in John two, it says this, if you don't love your brothers and sisters in Christ, you do not love God.
You don't love God. How do you love? How do you show the love of God? You show the love of God by the folks in this room ministering to them in their time of need. If the height of your Christian experience is an emotional feeling during praise and worship, that is not loving God.
That is loving yourself, looking for fulfillment in feelings rather than the sacrifice of what it is to give unconditionally to someone in this room who does not deserve it. Guys, you want to see God?
And that's why John says right here, no one has seen God. In verse 12, no one has ever seen God. John four tells us this, God is the Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.
No one has ever seen God. The closest we get to seeing God though is this, the closest the world sees to seeing God is this, that when we love each other. When I look out there and I see baby Ben, you know, and he's such a dork, right?
And he's marrying a crazy chick, right? And that's kind of a redundant statement, but anyways, he's marrying her. And in my heart, my heart is like, it's proud, proud, proud of them for what they've all come through, but it's excited for them.
You know, it's the dozens of babies they're going to have. Let's go boy! Are you happy for them? I mean, is it more than just a, yeah, that's great, praise God, amen. When's this going to be over so I can go home and eat?
I promise you, if your love for your brother and sister in Christ is dead, so is your love of God. I promise you that no matter how good you think you act, that is the litmus test of where you are with God.
There's no exception to that rule. And understand this, because we are created, Genesis 1, verse 26, one of the most powerful verses on the triune nature of God. For those of you that struggle with that triune nature, some of you may call it the trinity.
Chapter one, verse 26 says this, "'Let us can go down and make man in our own image.'". You see, God the Father created man uniquely among all other creation. And he said that they had a reflection of himself.
We were created in the image of God, our bodies, our hearts, and our minds, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. But understand this, in that reflection of God, our job is to reflect the love of God to a lost and dying world.
Our job is to reflect that. And even though because of sin, that reflection is tarnished, it is not erased. We're like one of those mirrors from the old times. Have you ever seen mirrors from like the old west or something?
They're not the highly polished, you know, but you can kind of see, that's me, that's me. I reflect a very poor image of God because I am still sinful, but yet I promise you, my life is not a vacant black hole that just sucks the life out of everything and everybody else.
Understand where you are as a Christian. Do you understand how powerful your reflection of love should be? And then the last thing is this, is propitiation. Once again, in verse 10, let me read. In this is love.
Not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Verse 11, beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to also love one another. No one has ever seen God.
If we love one another, God abides in us and love is perfected in us. Just a few things from that small passage. First of all, understand propitiation. Someone tell me what propitiation is. Who said that?
Besides a pastor, God. No, the whole table's disqualified now. Shane, can I have your flip-flop? Now here is Shane's flip-flop. He is a police officer, which means he doesn't walk a whole lot, he sits in a car all the time, but he is a 220-pound man, all right?
I have seen Shane work. I have seen Shane sweat. Sheen Shane, Peter Piper picked a. Now, I'm gonna do something here because I love you people so much. Kinda smell like cheese, like a fine Limburger. Guys, propitiation is this.
It is an odor eater, okay? It is literally where, when it says, Jesus Christ is our propitiation, he absorbed the wrath of God. And if you need, does anybody need a, are we good, y 'all good? Mickey's like, all right.
Propitiation means that God absorbed the wrath. If you look at that picture on your little piece of paper where the wrath and the holiness and the justice of God met the mercy, love, and grace of God, it was founded, it met on the cross of Jesus Christ.
We are the effect of that causality of atonement. And I know that's a lot of doctrinal words, but unfortunately for you, those aren't made up. Those are actually in the Bible, okay? Understand this, Jesus Christ absorbed the wrath of God.
Some people think the forgiveness of God is God going, it's cool. That ain't how it works, man. Because God is just and God is holy, somebody's got to pay for your sin. It's either gonna be you burning in hell forever because you have no way to pay to get out, or it's gonna be Jesus Christ.
But it's gonna be one of the two because in the scales of justice, they will balance. Now it says that he is the propitiation for our sin. He absorbed the wrath of God for my filth. And when did he do that?
Romans 5, eight tells us. But God showed his love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 2 ,000 years before I asked Jesus Christ, my heart be my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ had already gone to the cross for me.
I did nothing to earn it, nothing to deserve it, yet that is agape love. And I know this because the love of God has had a massive effect on my life. God's propitiation to see God is to know the power and the love of Almighty God.
Now I want to just last in this last thing, it says God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. When I first read that verse many years ago, I was like, well, I suck. I mean, God's love is perfect in me?
God, I'm a loser. If this is the love, my failures that I give out, if that's a demonstration of God's love for me, it's gonna be a long time in hell. How can God's love? Well, that word perfected in the Greek is actually teleo.
And it means this, it means a growing maturity, not something that yet has been obtained. Christian, let me ask you this, just real quick. How do you measure your Christian maturity? How do you measure?
I ask people all the time, how are you doing with Jesus? Emotionally, this is the answer I get, well, I sin. Yeah, you're breathing too. Tell me something I don't already know, right? What that really is is a euphemistic idea of trying to legitimize you wallowing in sin.
And I've been in the wall or pit, okay, I get it. I've been in the wall or pit, it's not a fun place. But what I'm really asking is where are you with Jesus is how much are you reflecting or shading His love for you by loving others?
You know how the world knows that we're Christians? Scripture says it, by our love for one another. It's not a great doctrinal understanding. It is simply they know us by our love. Understanding that we are not perfected in completion, but we are maturing every day and moving forward.
Understanding that in God, we will be glorified one day, but our job is to continually remove things from our life and add things in our life that brings us to more maturity. Lastly, I'm gonna ask the music peoples to come up.
And I just wanna ask you a question. Take the love of God right now and look at your life individually. Look at your life individually. I can look at this church collectively and I can say, man, we're hitting home runs.
Maybe not on Sunday afternoons and the softball games, but spiritually, spiritually, we are hitting home runs. I mean, for a church of 200 people, guys, this place does more than most churches five times our size, literally.
And I know that for a fact. I'm so proud of you guys. But we're not talking collectively right now. We're talking individually. I want you to look at your life, your life, and ask, what is the level of reflection that you have?
Number one, is there even an image there of Christ? Please, I beg you. And I know it's 1245. I get, or I'm sorry, 1145, whatever. Listen, some of you in this room, listen to me. You've got a religious Jesus and you're not a Christian.
Stop talking and listen. You do not know what it means to be transformed. You don't. First John 1 .9, if anyone claims to know the truth yet continues to walk in darkness, he is a liar and the truth is not in him.
I want you to ask yourself, are you really a Christian or are you a religious moral person? Okay? I'm not gonna go on and on about that, but I want you to seriously ask yourself. I want you to understand, and some people, as you know, they're like, well, pastor, you don't know me, I'm a big, fat, stupid loser.
That's who Jesus died for, is big, fat, stupid losers. Never let it be thought by anyone in this room that you are at any time beyond the reach of God, no matter what you've done. I don't care whether you're a murderer, an adulterer, whatever sin you can think of, you are never beyond the reach of God's divine mercy, as long as you are in the land of the living.
See, that immutable, that unchanging, unbounded grace of almighty God who is not, it's not for anything else than the most vilest of sinner, who recognizes they have nothing that they can give back. God calls to you this morning.
Even those who are afraid of being swept in hell, God is calling you, God's grace, God's love is calling you this morning to know the peace of being His child. Number two, if you are a Christian in this room, but your love is pretty dim, that reflection is pretty dim, guys, you need to repent.
I know that that's a hard thing to hear. I know some churches just say, pray silently in your heart and God, it don't work, does it? I mean, let's be honest, how many times have you silently prayed in your heart?
How many times have you heard someone on TV, the radio, or sitting in here and going, ooh, that's for me. I'm gonna stand and pray silently. That strategy never works, you know why? It's not from God.
It's from the arrogance and pride of ourselves of not sitting and coming to a place where we find accountability for our lives. And so we complete a vicious circle again and again and again. And you know, it gets into a rut.
And as I've said before, all a rut is is a grave with both ends kicked out. Listen to me, do you want to be changed today? I can't change you, because I'm just like you. Same spirit of God's in me, the same spirit of God's in you.
But I can help hold you accountable. We have Christians in this room who I promise you can bind your wounds like no one else. I promise you I have some women in here who have gone through hell nine times and back.
I have some men in this room who have failed and struggled, and though they have stumbled, they walk a straight line. There are people in this room that if you need someone to identify with you, we got them.
We got them. And here's what's even cooler. They're willing to invest in your life. They're willing to sacrifice their time and their comfort for you. Well, pastor, I'm not worthy of that. Well, neither are we.
So one more won't make a difference. Come on down. All right? But you are going to have to take that step. You're going to have to come down and you're going to have to say, I need help. Maybe you're in this room and you need to pray for someone like that.
Maybe they're not here. Come down and let's pray. Let's fill this altar with people who are praying because they're reflecting the love of God. And as Jesus did in John 17, He prayed for the church. Let's start praying for the wounded.
Let God's people's voices be heard, not condemning homosexuality, but let our voices first be heard commending the love and the faith of Almighty God to one another. And then thirdly is this, that accountability, fleeting as it is from week to week, maybe you need to take a step and sit there and go, I need to plant some roots.
I need a place where my children and grandchildren can grow, where people are going to be all up in their business, who are going to help me be accountable as a parent, as a grandparent, who are going to help me be accountable as a Christian.
Maybe you need to join a church. Now, when you join Witten, we expect you to go to work. Go to work. And I'm not asking you to get up here and preach a three-point homily. I'm just asking you to love your fellow brother and sister in Christ.
If any of that applies to you, as we sing, as the pastors come down, I want you to just honestly and openly say, here's where I'm at. I just need a little help. I'm going to ask you to stand with me. And if God has spoken to you today, I humbly ask that you come this morning as God leads.