Love in Deed and in Truth

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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Please turn in your Bibles to 1 John, chapter 3, and begin reading at verse 10.

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This is God's holy and infallible word. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.

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

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For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

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Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one, and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him?

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Because his works were evil and his brothers righteous. Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.

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We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren.

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He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

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

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

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

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And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.

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For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

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Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.

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And whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

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And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his

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Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment.

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The Lord be pleased with our study of his word. Pray with me now. O Lord, we recognize that your word is authoritative, it's inerrant, it's infallible, it's sufficient.

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We pray that your people would be attentive. I pray,

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O Lord, that your truth would shine forth, and hearts would be changed, that our lives would be transformed, because we've heard your voice.

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And as your sheep, we respond to your voice, and we act upon it. O Lord, do a good work in us, we pray, in the power of your

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Holy Spirit. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Please be seated.

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Thank you. The title of the message today is

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Love in Deed and in Truth. Love in Deed and in Truth.

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And the theme of the message, which probably could be an overarching thesis for you to keep track of where we're going, is

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Christian Love in Action. Christian Love in Action.

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There are four points that I will be considering, which will be easy to see from the context.

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First, open hearts and open hands. Open hearts and open hands.

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Second, do not merely pay lip service to love.

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Do not merely pay lip service to love. Third, considering conscience and his commandments.

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And fourth, answering the question, what is pleasing in the sight of God?

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If you need help with this outline, it's posted on Slack and the General Channel. We are to love in deed and in truth.

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Christian Love in Action. John has been hammering the anvil of love throughout his epistle.

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And he's pushed us to think of love in a deeper and more profound way than we have maybe acquaintance with culturally or in our society and our age.

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This is not a superficial kind of love. This is a very deep and very profound kind of love that we are to have for God and expressed in our love for one another.

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Let's take up the exegesis again in verse 17. Whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him.

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How does the love of God abide in him? The question of Christian fellowship is often, what is my responsibility?

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What are my duties or obligations or privileges? And in this case, there is a brother who has an ample supply of what he needs to survive.

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He has this world's goods and he sees his brother in need.

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And this need is not a new car or a luxury beach house. This is survival.

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This is the very basics of life. This man, the weaker brother in this situation, needs a supply for what he needs for life.

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This is the condition of one who is deprived of those things which he is scarcely able to do without.

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Water, food, shelter, those kinds of things, clothing. So the

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Christian, if we tout our love for one another, it has to work itself out in practice.

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And there's an issue, a matter of the heart. We have to have open hearts toward our brethren.

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We have to have eyes to see them. We have to be able to discern the need of our brother and then also willing to act and to help our brother in need.

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This word for heart here is not cardia, which we're normally acquainted with, where we get cardiac from in our language.

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This is splencnon. And Christian young men, when you're trying to impress a really solid

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Christian young woman, maybe you can say, I love you from the depths of my splencnon.

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This is the inward parts. This is the heart. This is the affections.

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This is the place, the seat of emotions. It's the internal organs.

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It's gut level. Compassion. It's even bowels and intestines.

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It's where we get the idea of viscera, visceral fat and visceral organs.

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And in the Greek poets, it was the seat of the more violent passions. But the

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Christians, taking from the Hebraic tradition, did not see it as related to things such as anger and lust, but they saw it as the place and seat of tender affections, of kindness, benevolence and compassion.

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The tender mercies and affections that the people of God should have for one another.

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John is arguing here that I should be moved with compassion for my brother.

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You should be moved with compassion for your sister who is in need.

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It's a very basic truth, but we're in our own heads, living our own lives.

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We may not be discerning the needs of the body. Now, in our church, it doesn't seem as though anyone is on the verge of starvation, but maybe there's practical needs that need to be met.

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We should labor to find ways to bless the brethren to meet their practical needs.

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Something is easy for you may be hard for someone else. Everyone always laughs when

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I have computer or phone trouble because it's so easy to fix whatever problem I have, but I don't know how.

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I don't understand. So your expertise helps others who have less expertise.

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So this very simple idea is the outworking of love, isn't it? It's the the real nuts and bolts of love.

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You can say, Oh, I love the church. I love the brethren. Well, can you shut up your heart against your brethren who have need?

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If you have provision, the question has to be asked. Does the love of God abide in you?

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You and I have a kind of love for one another, and John is asking us to have a greater depth of that love in service to God and to our brother.

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What brings me to what could be one of the main ideas of our message, and it's the second point, and that's the idea of do not pay lip service to love.

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Let's look again at verse 18. My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

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It's easy to say the words I love you. It's easy to make grand promises to love our wives, but the rubber meets the road in action.

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Words can be cheap. Words are powerful. Words are important. We need to elevate the place of words and our careful use of words in our lives.

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We need to be very skillful and very discerning about our words, but it is empty and hollow to speak of love, particularly

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Christian love, if it's not accompanied with actions. I watched a true crime story yesterday and a man killed a couple of his wives over a period of years.

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Very sad situation, and all the women who encountered him said he was a man of, he said all the right things.

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He told me he loved me, and I was in a desperate place, and then I married him, and that's how they got into this mess.

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We need to be discerning about real, genuine Christian love. It's easy to say

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I love you, but sometimes we pay lip service to love and don't do the things of love.

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Husbands, you are called and commanded to love your wives, and that's not just to have those romantic feelings about them.

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In every sense, you are comprehensively to love your wives and sacrifice your own interests to serve your wife and her needs, and correspondingly, wives, you need to do that for your husbands.

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And in the church, it's so essential that we love not merely with words, but if you're not saying

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I love you to your wife and your children, shame on you, you should say it a lot, but never let them doubt your love because your deeds and your work of love is so evident to them.

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I think we need to do the hard things of love, and we need to let our deeds even outpace the regular occurrence of us telling each other that we love each other, that I love you.

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Let your deeds outpace your words. Let your actions speak louder than words we might say.

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It's easy to say it. It's much harder to do it. And this is at the very heart of what

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John is getting at for us. So I ask you today, what kind of love do you have for Christ, for his church, for your family?

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Is it a love built on sentimentality? Is it a love that's superficial?

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Or is it a deep love? Is it a love accompanied by actions, by words, by deeds?

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It's very important for us to come under some conviction if necessary. Husbands, you can't be all sweet and loving to your wife and then deal treacherously with her the rest of the time.

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You can't just take her on a date or on one night and then treat her bad the rest of the days of the week.

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Your words are empty and hollow if you do not love her in deed and in truth.

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There's something you may not know or have forgotten about the word truth.

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It's aletheia in Greek. And truth is reality.

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It's how things really are. We have to love not only according to the precepts of God, not only to obey scriptural command, but we have to love in the reality of things.

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We have to be the people of the truth comprehensively. If your wife is struggling, you need to love her in the reality of her struggle.

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Does that make sense? You can't just say, hey, you need to step out of it.

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You need to have a better attitude. She may need that. Maybe true. But in the reality is she's hurting.

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So the wise husband says, I'm going to love her in the reality of her pain, and he's going to serve her in that way.

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And this all helps us to have assurance in our hearts before God.

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Look again at verse 19, that language there. By this we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before God.

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One of the things that Christians should prize is a conscience, a clear conscience before God.

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Now, this is something that we don't talk a lot about, at least in recent times, the idea of conscience.

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But we are created in the image of God. The Imago Dei says that God has created us for communion with him.

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We have access to language in a way that other creatures do not. We have access to the revelation of his word.

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And most astoundingly, we have access to the incarnate one, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. The truth himself. And you and I must labor to have a clear perspective on truth.

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We must understand the reality of things, and we must look at our lives and look at our situations and look at all the trials and all the things we're facing in our lives.

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And we must hold them up to the mirror of the truth of the word. We must examine ourselves in connection to the word.

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We need to walk in truth. And this assures our consciences and reveals in us an earnest desire to please him.

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So I have two questions for you. Are you loving in word or tongue only today?

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Think of the many applications. Or are you loving in deed and in truth?

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If you're not loving in deed and truth, run to Jesus again for forgiveness.

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You can start doing it today. Well, what a religion this is. That we can change our ways.

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That we can be reconciled to God. That we can start anew and we can live a different way today.

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We have to love our spouses, our families, our fellow Christians, not merely in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

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So the first conviction, the first question is, am I loving my wife, my church, my children in this way?

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And second, is your hearts assured before God?

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And that gets us into the third point today, and probably the longest of the four, the question of conscience.

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The conscience, the inner man, seals the truths of the

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Christian life. Its faculties or its utility is in that it works.

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It takes the working of the Holy Spirit, and it makes it accessible and ready for action.

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Have you ever not been able to put your finger on Bible, verse, chapter, and verse, and had assurance that whatever was happening was wrong?

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There's something in the conscience, something about creating the image of God, something about being renewed by the

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Spirit that enables us to discern truth and error, right from wrong.

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And we have to preserve and protect our consciences. Someone may say, well,

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I'm doing this thing that you call sinful in my life, and my conscience is clear.

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I feel okay about it. Your conscience is misinformed now. It's seared.

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It's hardened. It's taken you away from the reality, the truth of things in Christ.

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You and I must labor to preserve the integrity and tenderness of our consciences.

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This is part of the renewal of the inner man. God has a perfect omniscience in relation to our hearts.

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I asked my students the first week of class, how many of you pray sometimes in your head?

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I think I've mentioned this to you before, without saying anything. And most of them raise their hand.

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I pray sometimes just in my head in the moment. You know he sees and hears your thoughts.

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Intuitively, don't we? A little child seems to know it. God knows what's going on, really.

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He knows the truth. He knows the reality. And in verse 20 tells us, if our tender conscience is condemning us, we should be concerned because God objectively knows the truth.

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So that conscience, that inner man that is telling us this is wrong, telling us we were wrong not to help that brother in need, telling us that it was wrong to not love the brother or sister in Christ proactively, actively with deeds and works.

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In verse 20 it says, if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart.

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To condemn is to find decisively guilty.

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And we always think of this word in our culture negatively. It's not always negative. Specifically, the condemnation is a result of firsthand awareness of the facts to be charged guilty with the facts.

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And it is accusatory in nature. And again, it's not always in the negative sense.

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Sometimes our heart condemns us. Our conscience says no. And we press on into sin.

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We find ourself in danger. When we walk in truth and in love, we have confidence toward God.

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One of my favorite Proverbs, Proverbs 28, 1. The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as lions.

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They have a clear conscience. If someone is speaking ill of you and it's really troubling you and you're really having a hard time with it, you may not have a clear conscience.

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If you're walking in righteousness and people are speaking ill of you and reviling you, you know you're walking with God.

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You're walking in righteousness. Their accusations have no foundation. Joel Behe said the conscience is an echo in the human mind of the verdict of the righteous judge.

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A man's judgment of himself according to the judgment of God of him.

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It's partially how we know what is pleasing to God in any specific circumstance. A fallen or weakened conscience tends to excuse inward wickedness where sin begins.

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Consciences may be seared to numbness by habits of sin.

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So if you say, well, I'm not really living holy life right now.

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And I'm not so troubled by it, so it can't be wrong. This very thing that serves as a safeguard and protection of our inner man is now under duress.

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We've not been protecting our consciences. It should be noted that the conscience should only be subjected to God and his word, not the mere traditions of men.

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Read something like the Book of Colossians, the Book of Galatians. The Judaizing church members were trying to impose circumcision on the

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Gentiles. In the Book of Galatians, they were laying a heavy burden that was not required.

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They were teaching the commandments of men as the commandments of God. And our consciences are only bound by the word of God.

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That's the only place that we find our consciences being bound, not by men, not by mere traditions.

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According to the Westminster Divines, God alone is the lord of the conscience and has left it free from the commandments and doctrines of men, which are in anything contrary to his word or beside it, if matters of faith and faith in worship.

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Paul said keeping a clear conscience took careful attention and effort.

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Acts 24, 16 says, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and man.

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I'm going to ask you to turn to one verse with me really quickly. Turn to Romans chapter two. There's an extreme liberty that exists for the people of God who walk in his ways, who love him and love his commandments and love his people.

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They are unburdened from guilty consciences. They're free.

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They're free to act. They're free to walk in his ways. Begin reading in verse 12 of Romans two.

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For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law.

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For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of the God of God, but the doers of the law will be justified.

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For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do the things of the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves who show the work of the law written in their hearts.

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Now, those of you know, this was a great promise from the prophets about the new covenant, that this law would not merely be imposed from without, but the people of God joyfully from within would accept and receive and love the teaching of God.

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Paul's argument here is the Gentiles have not been tutored in the law the way that the

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Jews have, but now in this colossal work of the Holy Spirit where they're being brought into the kingdom, now the law and the commandments of God are pleasing in their sight.

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It says again, who show the work, this is verse 15 of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness in between themselves, their thoughts accusing or else excusing them.

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And the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to the gospel,

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Paul and his pastoral epistle to Timothy says, now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and from sincere faith.

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William Ames had a recommendation for us. For those of you who are note takers, as I turn back, this may be a good place to take notes.

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It's a practical word from William Ames, great Puritan. First, we need to feel the burden of sin, the conscience, the tender conscience, the renewed will of man feels the burden of sin.

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Don't stop feeling the burden of sin. Second, we need to detest all sin.

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And important here, all means all. Detest all sin.

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Third, the conscience, well -ordered, even though it's tempted by lust, does not fulfill sin's lust.

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Its wisdom overtakes the decision. The conscience also is a place, the seat of man, this heart area that he's already given us.

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Fourthly, under Ames, work to put these lusts to death. And the conscience also does something else.

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It causes us to, according to Ames, consider God's promises to flee to Christ and to cling to him more and more.

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As we have need of him. And finally, he says, you must purge all gross and heinous sins that shake your consciences and call into question your salvation.

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Sin destroys assurance. If you struggle with assurance of salvation, you may be cherishing sin and your life.

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Be troubled by your sins. Find peace by trusting Christ in relation to your sins.

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Our sins are forgiven in him. And thirdly, resolve to please God in all things.

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This all requires an honesty and humility before God, a redeemed conscience always confronts us with the truth that God is indeed

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Lord. Let's go back to our text in 1 John 3.

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How is your conscience? Labor to have a tender conscience.

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If sin is not troubling you, it's a sign of a weakening of your conscience.

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Look again at verse 21. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us.

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We have confidence toward God. Our sinful hearts can be in a state of feeling condemned and we can run, as I said earlier, and flee to Christ and we can be set free from it.

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We can turn from sin as Christians. What a glorious truth. And we have confidence and boldness toward God.

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And whatever we ask, we receive from him. We walk in truth and love.

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We have confidence toward God and we receive what we ask because we keep his commands.

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We do those things which are pleasing in his sight. And therefore our prayers are governed.

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So we ask and act in accordance with his will. Not my will be done,

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O Lord, but your will be done. When you pray that way, you can be assured that your prayers will be heard and God will answer them favorably.

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And sometimes that is no, not giving you what you want. Sometimes he just says no.

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So it leads us to the final question today.

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What is pleasing in the sight of God? What is it that pleases him?

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It says whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments. And do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

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The scripture that we're studying, I believe, gives us a huge part of the answer. Look at verse 23.

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He says, this is the commandment. That we should believe on the name of his son,

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Jesus Christ. Salvation can be found in no other.

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O people of God, remember again the salvation that is ours in Christ.

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We have been set free from the bonds of sin and death.

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We are now enabled to walk in his righteousness. We are now able to be reconciled to God and to his people.

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We are now able to have peace and hope. What a glorious truth in the gospel.

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If you're an unbeliever and you don't know Christ today, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Turn away from your sin, that bondage that holds you and run and flee to Christ and find refuge.

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There's no salvation in any other. There is no name under heaven other than Christ that we can be saved.

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Turn and look upon the author of our salvation, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved. And if that happens, it seems consistent with John's thesis that we would love one another.

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That we would love one another, not merely with hollow words, but in truth, in reality, in action.

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That word action comes from the word ergo, to work, to accomplish.

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This is a deed that carries out an inner desire.

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It's an interesting irony in a sense because if I'm loving someone, only paying lip service, then

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I'm probably not operating from an inner desire of love for the brethren.

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But if I put into action my love for the brethren, then I'm going to love them.

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And indeed, and indeed, and in truth, we're going to perform the work.

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We're going to do the thing, the hard things of love.

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I have a couple words of application here, and this will be our conclusion today.

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First, I want to ask a sincere question. Are you ready to meet the practical needs of the brethren?

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I'm not meaning just material. Are you ready to, are you willing to go over and help the new mom with her children?

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Are you willing to make a meal? Are you willing to go fix a tire? I've said this now probably a half dozen times.

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I firmly believe this. The rich man needs to serve, so not just write a check.

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He needs to go out and serve, and the poor man needs to give.

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Do you understand what I'm saying there? The hard thing for the rich man to do is to serve.

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Because money, he can fix it with money. So he needs to go serve. He needs to labor. The hard thing for the poor man is to give.

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He has no money. The rich man needs to serve. The poor man needs to give. And all of us, wherever we are in between, need to do the hard thing, either of material sacrifice or personal labor and service to our brethren.

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Are you ready to meet the practical needs of the body? Secondly, it's far easier to say

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I love you than it is to love young women. I want you to pay close attention to me now.

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Many men have deceived young women with smooth talk and flattering words.

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Do not marry a man who doesn't have the love that is rooted and grounded in deeds and in truth.

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It isn't just talk that talk. He walks the walk. It is who he is.

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When you say I love you, say it frequently, but mean it and do all that's required.

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Do the hard things of love. And again, let your deeds outpace your words.

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Thirdly, and surprisingly, this became more and bigger and bigger in my mind about the message.

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It was a smaller portion, but it's now bigger. As we get to the message today, keep a lively and tender conscience.

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The heart, the seat of the emotions that govern so much of who we are, needs to remain submissive to God and his word.

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And we can sear it and wound it by practicing and cherishing our sins and so much so that we are no longer bothered by it in our consciences.

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Keep a lively and tender conscience. The Lord has given us his spirit to indwell us and to inform our consciences.

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Hardheartedness mutes the inner man. It mutes the conscience of the believer and begins to cherish sin.

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This may be an answer to a question that someone has today. Why are they not putting sin to death?

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Well, they've not done the inner man work in cooperation with the spirit of the conscience.

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And finally, we need to receive it, everything that passes through the hand of God.

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His word, read, preached, meditated upon. The fellowship that he gives us in communion with himself and the fellowship he has granted to us with his people.

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His sacraments, the way he allows us to commune with him in prayer. Whatever we ask of him, we receive of him.

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If we ask in faith, in accordance with his will, we do this, we should expect his blessings.

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So people of God, today I ask you, what does your Christian love and action look like?

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Is it bearing a resemblance to what we've been studying in First John? Or is it something else?

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Today I urge you again to love in deed and in truth.

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The thing that is pleasing, most pleasing in the sight of God is to believe on the name of his son,

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Jesus Christ, to keep his commandments, to love one another.

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May he grant the grace to enable us to do so. Amen? Let's pray together.

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Lord, we thank you for the pounding of the anvil of love by the hammer of your word.

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This message has been repeated to us numerous times, and oh Lord, I pray that we would heed the message.

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Lord, if there be any among us today who are paying lip service to love,

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I pray that you would bring them under heavy conviction, but also grant them consolation in Christ.

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Assure them in the power of your spirit that they can love in a way that is appropriate and is pleasing in your sight.

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Oh Lord, I pray that each one here would love increasingly so in deed and in truth.

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Oh Lord, I pray that you would give us and restore a fleshy and tender conscience for us, that we would receive your truth and it would be internalized and that we would be able to discern truth from error and that we would blush in the face of sin.

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Oh Lord, do not allow our hearts to harden. Help us to have fleshy hearts always.

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Oh Lord, help us to open our hearts to our brethren. Help us to love each other from the deepest part of us with pure affection.

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Help us to love the stranger and the widow, the orphan in this way. Oh Lord, even help us to love our enemies from the heart.

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Oh Lord, I pray that we receive your chastening and the condemnation in our conscience that this would lead to repentance.

43:23

Oh Lord, we want a lively conscience. I pray that you would grant it to us.

43:31

And oh Lord, we know that we love because you have loved us. And oh, how you have loved us.

43:38

Help us to meditate on these things, to be grateful and thankful and allow this to be the impetus and motivation to our love for one another.