A Reason for Confidence.

Clint Miller

[0:00] Good morning, Village Church. [0:02] Good to see you guys. [0:05] It’s kind of bright up here.

[0:09] I am not Steve, obviously. I’m not Nate, either. [0:12] My name’s Clint. I am currently serving as Youth Pastor here at Village Church. [0:17] I also serve as the head usher here at Village Church. [0:21] I always like to ask my fiancee Brooke how it feels to be dating the head usher at Village Church. [0:29] It’s a ridiculous title. I actually made it up.

[0:35] But it makes me feel good sometimes. [0:37] So it’s a pleasure to be up here with you today. [0:42] I came to Village Church about a little bit after it opened, about three years ago. [0:49] And really just, God has just taken me to a new place of knowing Him [0:56] and actually loving Him by using Village Church. [1:01] And so while it’s Jesus that’s done the work within me, He has definitely used this place.

[1:06] And I’ve come to love it. I love you guys. [1:09] I pray that you would come to love Village Church. [1:13] Those of you who are new here or have been coming for a little while, [1:18] I pray that this would be a place for you, that you could come and worship and come [1:24] and to really be in an environment where we nurture your growth [1:30] and we nurture you as you become more and more made in the image of Christ.

[1:36] And so I’m glad to be here this morning. Super nervous. [1:43] So excuse me for that. I have never preached before, at least from the stage of a church. [1:50] And so I am actually, I teach the kids from the stage, but it’s a little bit different. [1:56] You’re much more important than they are, right?

[2:01] I’m just kidding, guys.

[2:06] No, I love those guys. [2:09] I’m looking forward to getting some ice cream with them later on in the evening.

[2:16] Maybe some of them will buy mine tonight. Maybe, I don’t know. [2:21] But it is good to be here.

[2:25] And so otherwise about myself, I teach at a juvenile detention center. I teach history there. [2:31] I don’t really love history. I do love the gospel. [2:35] My kids don’t want to be where they are. Hopefully you want to be where you are. [2:40] So it should have something gone for me there this morning. [2:43] If you do have criticism for me, that’s fine. I’m very used to being criticized by my students. [2:50] In fact, many of their criticisms are extremely vulgar.

[2:56] And so, you know, anything that you have to say, I’ll probably not be too offended by.

[3:06] Anyway, if you’re new here, like I said, we’re just going along in first-hand. [3:11] At Village, we like to preach through books of the Bible. [3:15] It’s a great way to learn the scriptures, learn what scripture says. [3:19] It also is great in that we can’t avoid the hard topics. [3:22] We can’t get up here and say, well, you know, first John four has some tough stuff in it. [3:27] So you know what, guys, we’re just going to skip those ten verses.

[3:30] And we’re going to go to the verses that we all just find supreme comfort in. [3:38] And my goal today, as we talk about, if you notice the title, is a reason for confidence. [3:45] And so my goals for today are really that you would have your affections for Jesus raised [3:52] and that you have more confidence when you think about the coming judgment. [3:57] We will talk a little bit about judgment today, but know that Jesus came because we are going to face judgment. [4:05] And we can’t hope to embrace judgment if we’re headed there without Jesus as our advocate and as our Savior.

[4:15] So know that. My other goal is that you desire to love God. [4:22] If you haven’t come to a place in your life where you do love God, I pray that would be today. [4:27] If you have a pray that we ultimately would find a greater love for God, [4:34] we should all, like Paul, desire more of God. [4:38] If we know Him, we will in fact desire more of God. [4:42] If you love your wife, you desire to love her more. You want more of her.

[4:46] You want to deepen that love. And so that’s what I hope to get after today. [4:51] I also don’t want to faint.

[4:57] That’s another goal of mine today. [4:59] So if I do, somebody call 911. [5:05] The rest of you pray.

[5:10] OK. If you’re jumping in here, if you’ve been with us through First Shan, First Shan is a tough book. [5:18] It’s really three tests that if you pass these tests, if these things are true in your life, you do have confidence. [5:25] You have a reason to have confidence before God. [5:27] The problem is John’s language is so black and white and he uses vicious language where he calls us, [5:34] you know, we’re either sons of God or we’re sons of the devil. [5:36] It’s very black and white. It’s very dividing.

[5:39] And at some point that can be a little bit intimidating. [5:43] He says, if we love God, we will love others. [5:47] And we all know that as we walk in our Christian life, we fall short constantly. [5:53] And thank God, John at least puts I think two or three verses in there where he says, [5:59] but if we do sin, we have an advocate in the Father. [6:02] OK, so we come back to Christ and we understand that, yes, there is grace and yes, we are going to fall short.

[6:11] He also puts in there, I think, two times the word propitiation, [6:14] this idea that we have been moved from our own and in our own. [6:20] We’re under the wrath of God. [6:21] We’ve been taken when we come to know Christ and trust him. [6:25] And we’re connected to the work that he did. [6:28] We have been taken out of wrath and we’ve been given the favor of God.

[6:33] And so we can go before God in judgment and we can have confidence. [6:37] And that’s crazy. OK, it’s crazy for you, a sinner, for me, a sinner to go before the judgment, [6:45] and be in the throne of a holy righteous and just God and be pronounced righteous. [6:52] OK, that’s crazy. [6:54] OK, that’s like murderers going before a judge in a courtroom and being just pronounced innocent, [7:02] not only innocent, but not guilty and just sent back out.

[7:06] And so when we trust in Jesus, we get his righteousness, we get his obedience. [7:11] And because of that, we can go before the throne and we can we can we can say, yes, bring it on. [7:18] We can expect to go before the throne. [7:21] We have great anticipation of the coming day of judgment because we know we’ll be pronounced righteous [7:27] and we know that we’ll live with Jesus forever and eternity.

[7:31] And so that that is our hope. That is the reason for our confidence. [7:38] John does not want us wondering if we’re in Christ or if we’re not in Christ. [7:44] He wants us fully confident. [7:46] Ten times he uses language like you can know or by this you will know. [7:54] OK, so according to John, there is a way that we can know if we are in Christ. [7:58] There’s no reason to walk around and go, you know what, I don’t know if I’m in Christ today.

[8:04] OK, yet we do that. [8:06] We all have days where it’s not the feelings out there. [8:10] We fail in our love. [8:12] We’ve gotten to the end of the day and we look back and then how many times did I not love somebody today? [8:19] And so what do we do with that? [8:22] And that’s the time when we need to come back in and preach the gospel to ourselves.

[8:27] But John says we can know and we can have assurance. [8:30] And that’s really where I want to go today. [8:32] The reason that we can know. [8:34] How do we know? [8:35] What are some marks in our life that tell us that we are abiding in Christ? [8:40] And so that’s where John goes for us today in Chapter 4, verses 13 to 21.

[8:52] Another note here. [8:53] The first time I read 1 John, I got to admit I was super intimidated by it. [8:59] And my reaction was to go out and start doing these things. [9:03] So I’m going to go out and I’m going to love people. [9:06] Right? [9:06] I’m going to be obedient.

[9:08] I’m going to cut out all the sin in my life. [9:10] And so I made it about pursuing all these obstacles, all these commands. [9:14] And I didn’t necessarily make it about following God. [9:18] OK, I didn’t necessarily make it about abiding in Christ. [9:20] So what happened was I started doing all these things. [9:23] Because when I put my mind to something, I can usually do it for a while.

[9:28] And so I’m able to love people for a while. [9:30] I’m able to do these things. [9:32] But in a short time, I start to fall short of these things. [9:38] And actually Christianity becomes exhausting. [9:42] You can’t love people. [9:43] You can’t follow obediently.

[9:46] You can’t profess true doctrine. [9:49] The three tests that John throws at us. [9:50] You can’t do that stuff if you’re not abiding in the vine of Jesus. [9:55] If you’re not loving Him. [9:57] OK, and we’ll talk about that at some length today.

[10:03] So those are some warnings there. [10:06] I will warn you also that last week, Nate decided to give me three of his verses. [10:11] So he went 30 minutes. [10:12] A lot of you probably enjoyed that.

[10:16] That’s my goal today. [10:19] Probably already going to exceed that probably. [10:23] But maybe not. [10:24] We’ll see. [10:25] Like I said, I don’t do this every weekend. [10:31] So, yeah, blame Nate if you’re here for an hour.

[10:36] By the way, Steve will be back next week.

[10:43] He did that false doctrine and false teaching sermon. [10:48] And then he hasn’t been around. [10:49] So some of you are probably wondering.

[10:55] He’s not in Montana creating a cult. [10:59] He’s actually in Houston creating a cult. [11:02] No, he’s in Houston at a church conference. [11:07] But yeah, he’ll be back next week. [11:10] Thankfully, I’m thankful for that. [11:13] I love Steve.

[11:14] I love listening to Steve. [11:15] I know you guys do too.

[11:18] All right. [11:20] So I do want to put this out here to you too as well as we get started here. [11:27] I want to avoid any chance of misleading you. [11:31] Because what John talks about today is that we should have confidence in the Gospel taking effect in our lives. [11:39] So I don’t want this to seem like I’m saying, look, if these works are present in your life, [11:44] that’s why you should be confident.

[11:48] We’re always confident because of the cross. [11:50] We’re confident because of what Jesus did on the cross. [11:53] We never trust in our own righteousness. [11:57] Even as we change, even as we do the works of God, those works of God are still caused by God. [12:05] So I don’t want you to hear me today saying that you should have confidence because you’re doing something. [12:13] Absolutely not.

[12:15] But by the same token, John is protecting us from this idea that we can be saved. [12:22] We can know Christ. [12:23] We can be assured of our salvation and nothing in our life be changing.

[12:28] This is what we’re ultimately called in theology is sanctification. [12:34] We are being changed. [12:35] When we’re saved, when the Spirit comes into us, which we’ll look at and leads us in life, [12:41] we will be changed and we will be made more in the likeness of God. [12:46] Our desires will change and our ability to feast on those desires, to follow those desires will change. [12:54] Our lives have to look different post salvation.

[12:59] They have to. [13:00] If they don’t, John’s saying, you need to check yourself. [13:04] You need to check your heart. [13:05] You need to know if you do abide. [13:08] So some serious talk here today. [13:13] I think I’ll think I’ll leave it at that again.

[13:15] The three tests are confessing true doctrine. [13:18] In other words, we confess Jesus is the son of God and he is a savior. [13:22] And then to being obedient to the commands of Jesus, what he commands us to that is a mark of a true believer. [13:29] And then three, loving others. [13:31] We will, in fact, love others. [13:33] All those three are necessary if we are to have assurance.

[13:38] It’s not a two for one deal. [13:40] You can’t pick, hey, you know what, I’m going to confess Jesus and and obey him. [13:45] But I’m not going to love people. [13:47] Can’t do that anyway, because love is an obedient or love is a command. [13:51] So you’d be breaking the second one. [13:55] So anyway, all three of these things must be present.

[13:57] That must be the effect of our salvation if we are to have confidence.

[14:07] OK, I do want to talk a little bit about just where I’ve come from, because I think it fits in well today. [14:16] And I don’t want to spend too much time on it, but I probably will. [14:19] The torture of not knowing when we think about judgment.

[14:27] This was a severely uncomfortable time in my life when I was thinking about judgment. [14:33] We’re all, I think, on some level aware that there is a judgment coming and that we do go before a God, even people who don’t necessarily believe in Jesus or believe in God. [14:43] They have some some premise that there is going to be a judgment. [14:47] And we can tell this by society. [14:52] You can tell if you start to if you start to talk about anything to do with judgment or condemnation or even hell. [15:02] If you start to talk about that stuff with people, one of two things will happen.

[15:06] They’ll either make light of it. [15:09] OK, they’ll recreate hell from what it actually isn’t to or what it actually is to something that it that it isn’t. [15:17] OK, is it an eternal conscious punishment for failing to pursue the glory of God, for failing to love God? [15:26] And we’re all guilty of it. [15:29] OK, so so the severity of judgment is is super high and we don’t like to deal with that. [15:34] The other thing that we’ll do if we don’t make light of it is ultimately we will we’ll just avoid the subject.

[15:42] OK, nobody likes to talk about death because it’s sad and death is sad. [15:49] But we don’t like to talk about any any any actual consequence that could come from living a life apart from God. [15:58] We can’t bear the thought of it. [16:01] We really can’t. If you can think about the possibility of judgment for more than 10 seconds, honestly, if you think about it for a week, [16:11] it’s going to do one or two things that either drive you crazy or it’ll drive you to Jesus because you know that you have no chance without them. [16:20] OK, and so judgment is a heavy thing.

[16:24] Actually, one of my students I asked just asked this week, you know, hey, do you feel confidence before God? [16:32] And she she actually said she actually said, you know, since I since I accepted him, I don’t feel confident. [16:42] And so what I want to do is I want to guard against that today, [16:47] because when we do talk about the reality of condemnation and the reality of hell and the reality of punishment, [16:56] we do need to go to the gospel. [16:59] And the reality is even as we walk as Christians, we constantly have to return to the gospel.

[17:05] We have to return to the fact that our hope is based on Jesus, that we will not be counted for our obedience. [17:13] We won’t be counted for our righteousness, but rather will will be will be a creditor will be imputed. [17:21] Christ’s righteousness and his obedience. [17:23] So God looks on us and sees Jesus’s work. [17:27] That is our only chance.

[17:30] I remember a time in my life when the weight of judgment was on me. [17:35] And, you know, I grew up in church. [17:37] I grew up going to church, actually.

[17:42] Thought I got saved in about eighth grade, I think it was at a camp. [17:48] Continued with unassurance, gone to church, not really liking it. [17:52] It was just what we did. [17:53] It was what I grew up with. You went to church. [17:56] You know, it’s weird that people didn’t go to church. [17:59] And so I continued going there, actually got baptized there in my junior year of high school,

[18:05] but really went on in life with no real no real passion for Jesus. [18:11] I didn’t love him. [18:13] He was just kind of there. Yeah, I could say, yeah, Jesus came to earth. [18:17] He died. I think he rose again. Sure. [18:20] Why not? You know, even if we look at historical evidence, it’s probably true. [18:27] But the reality is, if we don’t have a passion for that, if we don’t have a love for that,

[18:31] if we don’t have a desperate need for that, it doesn’t drive our life, [18:35] then it hasn’t really taken effect. [18:39] And so I had this intellectual knowledge of Jesus and I thought that maybe I was saved. [18:44] I continued to walk in sin, walked away from them, stopped going to church through college, [18:50] and actually post college I went like three times, I think. [18:55] It made me feel a little bit better about myself, really for no reason.

[19:00] But nevertheless it did.

[19:04] And through all that, I had this constant idea that as I sinned, you know, [19:10] judgment would creep in and I would say, man, am I really saved? [19:12] If it ended today for me, would I be with Jesus or would I suffer the consequence of hell? [19:21] And the reality is, I knew that I would suffer the consequence of hell. [19:25] The scary thing is, that didn’t drive me to change.

[19:31] Like I just continued to do it. [19:33] I actually thought, you know, you know what, man, I’ll get it figured out when I’m 30.

[19:39] By the end of my life, I’ll have probably 30 good years, maybe 10 bad years, that should even the scales. [19:45] And that’s how most people look at judgment. [19:48] And the reality is that even if you could do that, it wouldn’t work. [19:54] You’re still guilty of sin. You’re still in and under the wrath of God.

[20:06] So I kind of drove myself crazy for that for a while. [20:09] And then finally Jesus just said, you know what, you’re going to start going to church. [20:14] And when I did, couldn’t resist. [20:17] One day I remember being in church and they talked about a coming baptism. [20:22] And I just had to go and talk with one of the elders after church and say, man, there’s vast changes taking place within my heart. [20:30] I know my need for a savior. I know I’m sick. I know I need a doctor. I need a cure.

[20:38] Okay. And I wanted it instantly. [20:40] And so that’s what happened to me kind of through thinking on judgment. [20:46] But the real thing that saved me was actually Jesus coming and saving me and giving me an appetite for him. [20:51] It wasn’t so much about fleeing from my the reality of hell as it was fleeing to Jesus. [21:01] Like he looked attractive. All of a sudden he wasn’t the Jesus that I grew up with that was just there. [21:07] He was a Jesus that I loved, that I wanted, that I wanted to know.

[21:12] Started reading scripture. I read the scriptures in high school. [21:16] Didn’t do much for me. Didn’t love them. [21:22] I could go months without reading. Really wouldn’t bother me. [21:27] Whereas today and at that time, man, if I go a week without reading scripture, I’m in a bad place. [21:33] That’s like quitting coffee for a week. [21:36] Okay. A lot of you would be in a bad place if you quit coffee.

[21:40] Trust me, I try like every other week.

[21:45] Alright. So know that Jesus has to be our passion.

[21:53]

[21:58] I think we’ll just get to the text.

[22:03] Anybody else with that? [22:04] Alright. Let’s go to 1st John chapter 4.

[22:10] 1st John chapter 4. I feel like this page is, my Bible is automatically going to turn to this page for the rest of my life probably. [22:19] But 1st John chapter 4 will be in verse 13 today.

[22:27] Alright. Read with me. 13 to 16. [22:32] By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us His Spirit. [22:39] And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. [22:44] Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him and He in God. [22:50] So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. [22:55] God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him.

[23:00] Alright. So firstly today what we’ll kind of get at here is the reality that God abides in us and we in Him if we continuously confess Jesus. [23:14] That will be point number 1 for today. [23:17] And what this means is we need to confess Jesus as our Savior and we need to do that continuously. [23:27] It’s not a one time thing.

[23:31] When you do it one time, yes you’re justified, yes you’re saved, yes you’re good. [23:37] You’re saved in that moment. [23:39] However, we continuously will yearn to profess the gospel in our life if we abide in Him. [23:49] One of the reasons I love coming to Villa Church is because we hear the gospel every week. [23:53] I love the gospel. [23:55] If the gospel doesn’t move you, if you don’t get excited about it, there’s something probably missing.

[24:03] The reality that Jesus came subjected Himself to a death that He didn’t deserve for our own sake. [24:13] He, the Creator of the universe stepped in and actually took on the wrath of His Father, the wrath that we earned and He didn’t deserve. [24:23] He actually took that on Himself and died the death that we deserve. [24:28] It doesn’t stop there. [24:30] He gives us His obedience and His righteousness. [24:34] That’s what we need.

[24:35] That’s what we need for eternal life. [24:38] And further, that’s what we need to know Him. [24:39] That’s what we need to know God. [24:41] It’s about, like Nate said last week, it’s about the gospel, the glory of the gospel is that we get Jesus Himself. [24:48] It’s not that you escape to eternal life. [24:50] It’s that you escape to eternal life with Jesus.

[24:54] If you could go to heaven and Jesus not be there, you should hope that He’s there. [25:03] The point of going to heaven is to be with Jesus. [25:06] The point of going to heaven, yes, it’s a perk for eternal life, absolutely. [25:09] Yes, you escape hell, absolutely. [25:11] Those things are great. [25:13] Yes, sin will be crushed.

[25:14] Yes, we’ll know perfection. [25:15] Yes, our bodies will be glorified. [25:17] But the real news is that Jesus will be there. [25:23] We’ll get to see the Savior.

[25:27] So I hope that that is a continual confession. [25:32] It’s a continual desire to say.

[25:38] All right. [25:38] So in light of just laying out, again, last week what we kind of looked at, God is love and God defined love by His work on the cross. [25:45] That’s how He showed love. [25:48] We want to keep that in mind as we go through these words. [25:53] If we can get back to the text there.

[25:59] Verse 13, by this we know that we abide. [26:04] All right. [26:04] So this word abide, or God through John uses, actually three times in this little text he mentions the fact that we mutually abide. [26:14] That we abide in God and God abides in us. [26:17] What is the significance of that? [26:18] Why is that so important for us having assurance of our salvation?

[26:24] It’s safe to say that abiding is going to be key in confidence. [26:30] We have to acknowledge that. [26:32] He puts it in the text three times. [26:35] What does it mean to abide? [26:36] So abide means to remain, to stay, to continue, to endure and to reside permanently. [26:42] If you were here in the beginning of the year, Steve started the year off with this three session series called abide.

[26:51] It was out of John 15. [26:52] It was about abiding and that Christ is the vine and that we are the branches and that we’re grafted in and our very life comes from the vine.

[27:03] So when we abide in the vine, we’re actually made like the vine. [27:08] We receive our life from the vine. [27:10] If you look at it this way, you can’t be a branch attached to a vine that’s not the same as the vine. [27:17] If you were a different branch, that wouldn’t work out so well. [27:21] In fact, all of the branches die and wither and are detached from the vine.

[27:29] So abiding is very important. [27:31] It means we’re yielding our decision to him. [27:33] It means that we are led by Jesus and we are dependent on him. [27:36] It is more than obeying. [27:38] It is being made like him. [27:41] I think part of the problem with Christianity as we walk through it, as we try to obey commands, the real commandment is to abide in Christ.

[27:51] So we need to we need to look at Christ. [27:54] We need to understand that he’s given us the ability in the spirit to be made like him. [27:59] He is our example. [28:01] Yes. [28:02] The good news is he also through the spirit gives us the ability to be like him. [28:06] This isn’t like other religions where you just will yourself to obey.

[28:12] Christ actually gives us the ability and the endurance to follow him and to be made more and more like him. [28:18] The world can’t see Christ.

[28:22] The world needs Christ. [28:23] The world should see Christ in us.

[28:27] And that’s what will happen if we are abiding in him. [28:30] God abides in us. [28:31] We are not alone. [28:33] Isn’t that comforting? [28:34] To know that God abides in you, that you’re not doing this alone, that God favors you as a son, as a daughter. [28:44] I have to remind myself of that constantly.

[28:46] God favors me. [28:47] It reminded me of that, you know, two minutes before I came out here. [28:50] God favors me. [28:52] He’s not against me. [28:53] He’s for me. [28:54] Mainly because he abides in me.

[29:00] God does not expect us to abide on our own. [29:03] He’s given us the spirit to guide and hold us. [29:06] There’s a warm intimacy here. [29:08] So understand that, again, our God is not distant. [29:10] He’s made himself known through scripture. [29:12] He’s made himself known through Jesus.

[29:14] And he’s made himself known to us by actually dwelling in us. [29:18] We abide in him. [29:19] We come to him. [29:19] We call him daddy. [29:21] This is an intimate relationship. [29:24] Okay.

[29:24] He’s not a far off creator God that doesn’t care what’s going on. [29:28] He’s an intimate God. [29:29] We run to him as children run to their father. [29:33] They don’t run to their father in fear. [29:35] They run to their father because he loves them. [29:37] Doesn’t mean they don’t fear him in a respectful way, in a reverent way.

[29:46] John 15 verses four and five. [29:48] So I talked about this idea of abiding in the branch. [29:51] We’ll just put it up there. [29:53] It says, abide in me and I in you. [29:54] As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, [29:59] neither can you unless you abide in me.

[30:02] I am the vine. [30:03] You are the branches. [30:05] Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. [30:10] For apart from me you can do nothing. [30:13] All right. [30:13] So abiding is dependence on Jesus.

[30:15] It’s a life that flows from the vine, like I already said. [30:18] Our lives then bear fruit on the vine. [30:22] Our lives take on a new life. [30:25] You’re grafted in. [30:26] Remember, you were separate. [30:28] You were apart.

[30:29] Now you’re grafted in. [30:30] Now you receive life from that source and therefore you bear the fruit of God. [30:35] You bear the fruit of Jesus. [30:36] You’re changed. [30:38] You’re being changed.

[30:41] The connection here absolutely should give us confidence. [30:47] Okay. [30:48] If we’re abiding in God, you’re connected to him. [30:53] He is through the Spirit ensuring that you are changing for the better, [30:58] that you’re changing to be more like Christ. [31:00] Yes, you play a part in that.

[31:02] Yes, you have to respond. [31:03] So when you feel the Spirit tugging on you to change, to do this, to read, to love, [31:10] to do all the things that we’re called to do, you need to listen to that. [31:17] I believe that you can resist that to a point, but your life will be miserable. [31:22] Part of the reason that some Christians are so miserable is because we have this inclination to love [31:27] and to do all these great things, but we don’t actually do them.

[31:32] Why would we find joy in that? [31:35] You’re not going to. [31:37] I found joy in following Christ when I actually stepped out, [31:42] when I actually got out of my Bible and started putting it into practice. [31:47] Okay, that’s where you’re going to find joy. [31:49] That’s where you’re going to feel the connection to the vine, and you have to do that.

[31:54] If you don’t do that, you’ll continue in mundane misery, and Christianity will become, [32:00] it’ll become boring, monotonous. [32:02] There’s plenty of churches around that have monotonous Christians. [32:09] Don’t be one of those.

[32:12] Abiding, sorry, abiding is a dependence on God. [32:20] Be dependent on God.

[32:23] Let’s go back to 1st John 13.

[32:29] Verse 13, [32:30] By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us the Spirit. [32:34] He has given us his Spirit. [32:36] What I want to do now is just look a little bit at what the Spirit has done in our life, [32:43] because it is awesome to recollect on what the Spirit has done in your life. [32:48] If you are a believer of Christ, you will constantly need to come back to this,

[32:52] to have assurance on those days when you struggle, when you don’t feel like you know them. [32:57] Look at where you came from. [33:00] In the moment, sometimes, guys, I feel like I don’t even know God sometimes. [33:07] I have to go back and say, man, look at where he’s brought you from. [33:11] He’s brought you from a total life of sin. [33:13] He’s brought you out of that.

[33:14] He’s given you a new passion, new desires. [33:17] He’s set you on this track of becoming more and more like him. [33:21] You care more and more about his glory and not your own life. [33:25] You’re losing more of your life. [33:27] God’s working.

[33:30] If that day is not gone, how that day goes, know that God is not absent. [33:34] He is working. [33:36] He has worked. [33:37] He has brought you from somewhere. [33:39] Take heart in that.

[33:46] What has the Spirit done in our life to give us assurance that we abide in God? [33:51] One, that we’re saved. [33:53] If the Spirit didn’t move in your life, you would have never woken up. [33:57] You would have never known him. [33:59] Okay? [34:00] If we are in Christ, God has used the Spirit to save us.

[34:03] The Spirit has enabled us to be born again. [34:07] John 3.3. [34:10] John 3.3 reads, [34:12] maybe.

[34:16] This is a conversation between a Pharisee, Nicodemus, and Jesus. [34:20] Nicodemus is concerned about what it takes to enter the kingdom of God. [34:24] In other words, what it takes to have eternal life. [34:27] He says, Jesus answered him, truly, truly I say to you, [34:30] unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. [34:34] Jesus is telling this Pharisee, this religious man,

[34:37] this guy who has every reason to think that he has assurance in knowing God. [34:42] Jesus is telling him, you know what you need? [34:44] You need to be born again. [34:46] And he’s totally amazed by this. [34:50] He has no idea what he’s talking about. [34:51] He starts talking about re-entering his mother’s womb.

[34:56]

[34:57] I mean, seriously?

[35:01] So he’s totally dumbfounded by this. [35:03] The rebirth, the rebirth is a beautiful thing. [35:06] It’s God using the Spirit to regenerate our hearts. [35:10] In other words, according to the scripture, your heart was dead at one point. [35:14] You can know this. [35:15] You had no real ambition for Jesus.

[35:18] You could take it or leave it. [35:21] And in the rebirth, we’re totally changed. [35:23] We have now the ability to see Jesus as the Savior that he is, [35:27] as the Lord that he is. [35:29] The Spirit is doing that and has done that in anybody’s life who has been saved. [35:35] And so God uses the Spirit to do that.

[35:39] This means that we’ve received new spiritual life. [35:42] This also means that one can hear the gospel and respond in faith to it. [35:48] I don’t know how many times I’d heard the gospel before I actually responded really to it. [35:53] You ever think about that? [35:55] How many times have you heard the gospel before all of a sudden it seemed like something that you actually needed to respond to? [36:03] So understand that the Spirit did that.

[36:07] Understand that when you went up and received faith, [36:11] when you went up and confessed your life, you confessed Jesus as Savior, [36:15] understand that God made that initial step. [36:18] Man, that is awesome, an awesome reality to know. [36:23] Why? Because we didn’t make the decision. [36:25] If we didn’t make the decision, we can’t leave him.

[36:27] If he chose us, he has us. [36:30] We’re not going anywhere.

[36:33] There’s no reason to ever question your assurance of faith if you know that Jesus has come to do that. [36:41] If he’s done that in your heart. [36:43] He’s taken the step. [36:44] He’s the one who signed on. [36:46] You think of the covenant with Abraham. [36:48] God was the one who initiated it.

[36:50] God defined it. [36:52] God was the one who made it true. [36:56] Okay? [36:57] Abraham couldn’t stray. [36:58] God made the covenant with him. [37:00] Ultimately, it was God who made that true.

[37:04] So in the same way, it’s God who initiates our salvation. [37:09] It’s God who saves us. [37:10] If it’s God who saves us, God will not abandon us. [37:15]

[37:18] Like I said, at some point, the gospel has to become the best news to you. [37:24] The Spirit dwells within us. [37:26] All right? [37:27] So we’re continuously changed.

[37:31] Again, you could compare this to a child or a five, six-year-old. [37:39] I don’t know what kids. [37:40] I don’t really know when kids get their first taste of soda. [37:45] I think I vaguely remember mine. [37:47] But when a kid gets his first taste of Mountain Dew, man, what is that like? [37:52] Okay?

[37:53] I mean, it’s awesome. [37:55] All right? [37:56] If you don’t like Mountain Dew, I don’t know about you. [38:02] I love Mountain Dew. [38:03] I wish I could drink it. [38:06] But anyway, so this is like when we get the taste of Jesus, man, that’s what it is like.

[38:13] We have a taste for more. [38:15] We know the forgiveness that God has given us. [38:18] We love the Bible. [38:19] We start to pray. [38:21] We delight in worship. [38:22] We delight in and desire Christian fellowship.

[38:25] We love coming to church. [38:27] We love singing with the saints. [38:29] We love just gathering with people. [38:31] Isn’t it awesome to come here? [38:33] I mean, I just love coming to Village Church on Sunday mornings and gathering with the saints and worshiping. [38:39] There’s something about collective worship that at one point in my life I really didn’t care.

[38:45] It was just going to church. [38:47] Okay? [38:48] If that’s what it is for you, I pray that you would see differently. [38:52] I pray that you would love church. [38:55] Desire to tell people about Jesus. [38:57] You desire to obey Jesus’ commands.

[39:00] All of a sudden things that seem to burden some to you, you now have a desire to actually follow. [39:06] And we should. [39:07] Why? [39:07] Because God’s way is the best way. [39:11] Even if we can’t see that. [39:13] That’s super hard sometimes.

[39:15] Because we know that we think we know better. [39:17] We know that our way will be more joyful, more happy. [39:21] The reality is it won’t. [39:23] The reality is God’s way is always the best way. [39:27] How could it not be?

[39:30] So understand that. [39:33] Alright, back to verses 14-16.

[39:39] Let’s read this. [39:40] And if we have seen and testify that the Father who has sent his Son to be a Savior of the world, [39:45] whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. [39:51] So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. [39:58] First test here, doctrinal test. [40:00] Again, John has three tests.

[40:01] Doctrine, obedience, and loving others. [40:04] The doctrinal test here. [40:06] Seeing, testifying, and confessing. [40:08] All those words are in there. [40:10] Remember what we just saw. [40:11] The work of the Spirit.

[40:13] At one point we didn’t have these things. [40:15] But then all of a sudden we were awakened to them. [40:18] Okay? [40:19] And so we do those things.

[40:24] Verse 14. [40:25] Scripture is the story of redemption. [40:27] The Father and Son agreed before the beginning of time to redeem man from sin.

[40:35] So if we know, we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. [40:42] Understand that since the beginning of creation, before the beginning of creation, [40:46] God and Jesus had a plan to redeem man. [40:50] God knew that man would sin, that he would rebel against him.

[40:55] Okay? [40:56] And he knew that. [40:57] And he knew. [40:58] And it was always his plan. [40:59] There was no other plan. [41:00] It was always the plan for Jesus to come and redeem the world.

[41:04] Why? [41:04] Because it demonstrates his glory to the fullest. [41:08] Okay? [41:10] So understand that when you’re confessing that Jesus is the Savior of the world, [41:16] we are choosing to believe that since the beginning of time, God has planned this. [41:21] The whole Old Testament is a story leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

[41:29] Okay? [41:29] Everything is about Jesus.

[41:33] So God had this whole thing in mind the entire time. [41:36] If you can really think on that for a while, it’s awesome.

[41:41] And I would challenge you to do that. [41:42] Everything in history is working up to the cross. [41:45] History isn’t just going anywhere at that time. [41:47] It’s going to the cross. [41:49] Think of everything that had to happen the week before Jesus’ death. [41:53] God had to providentially work those things to work up to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

[42:02] That’s crazy. [42:03] I mean, I can’t imagine how many things actually had to work in order for that to happen. [42:09] And God’s behind all of it. [42:12] So a beautiful plan of redemption. [42:15] Also, we see all the foreshadowing. [42:17] If you’ve been with us through Genesis, we’ve seen some of that.

[42:22] This idea that the New Testament is not disconnected from the Old Testament, [42:27] rather is not disconnected from the New Testament. [42:29] It’s not disconnected from Jesus at all. [42:31] In fact, it just speaks truth.

[42:35] It actually confirms that everything in the Old Testament is about Jesus.

[42:42] God was working everything towards the cross. [42:44] Jesus is a savior. [42:45] We need a savior.

[42:48] Some of the other teachers that I teach with, [42:52] I use that quote thing because they were showing the movie The Avengers this week.

[43:01] And to be honest, we go at the juvenile detention center. [43:06] We go all the way through the end of June. [43:09] So we have a number of weeks left. [43:13] And I make the kids read and write, which is why they totally hate me.

[43:20] But I do know what’s best for them, I think. [43:23] And anyway, this idea, I was thinking about it, this idea of superheroes, [43:28] and they’re all like, why is everybody obsessed with superheroes? [43:30] And I asked them that because if you look across society, [43:35] we are obsessed with superheroes. [43:37] And I think it’s because somewhere in us, we know that we need a savior.

[43:41] We know that we want to believe in something greater than us. [43:44] We know that we need to be saved.

[43:49] And that’s just about Jesus. [43:52] Jesus is the true superhero. [43:55] He saves us. [43:56] That’s why we love superheroes, because they save us. [44:00] They save the day. [44:01] And that’s exactly what Jesus does for us.

[44:03] He saves us. [44:04] Without him saving us, we are totally, have no hope. [44:10] And if left upon ourselves, we’ll head for destruction every time. [44:15] We love to do that.

[44:19] So the kids didn’t get that at all, by the way. [44:23] They’re like, Miller, why do you hate superheroes? [44:25] I’m like, I’m not hating superheroes. [44:28] I’m just loving the real superhero.

[44:33] Anyway, confidence is then in Jesus as savior.

[44:39] This is the gospel that Jesus did totally redeem us, [44:44] that we are judged righteous, that we’re not just not guilty. [44:48] We’re actually credited with the obedience and righteousness of Christ. [44:53] So when we’re at judgment and God is looking on us and Jesus is judging us, [44:58] we are pronounced righteous. [45:01] That is, again, it is an abomination that we are proclaimed righteous.

[45:06] It’s an abomination that Jesus got killed for never sinning. [45:10] It’s an abomination that we get to be totally excused from that. [45:15] And we get the greatest prize ever, God.

[45:21] So know that, love that. [45:23] Have a passion for that. [45:25] Love to hear it and to proclaim it.

[45:35] Confessing the gospel leads to change, and the Spirit guides us in that change. [45:42] You cannot go on unmoved by the gospel. [45:46] It’s the sweetest song. You cling to it. [45:48] If we look at Paul and when he heard the gospel [45:51] and when he figured out that Jesus was in fact the Savior of the world [45:55] and that his track was wrong, he was totally blown away by it.

[46:01] In fact, it’s awesome that God takes Paul, [46:04] somebody who was actually killing Christians, [46:09] and turns him to the greatest missionary of all time. [46:14] Okay, that doesn’t just happen. [46:15] People don’t just stop what they totally believe in for their entire life [46:21] and then take another course without the Holy Spirit of Jesus moving in them.

[46:27] That’s what happened to Paul. His faith was no longer in his works. [46:31] His faith was no longer in his entire worldview. [46:34] It actually all changed for him. [46:37] Paul did what he did because he loved Christ.

[46:42] He believed that it was better to be saved by Christ than to be saved by himself.

[46:49] We need to believe that. [46:52] We need to believe that it’s better to be saved by Christ than ourselves. [46:56] Even if we could save ourselves, you shouldn’t even desire that. [47:00] You should desire that we’re saved by Christ. [47:05] Why? Because again, he is the ultimate prize.

[47:09] What we see here in summary, the Spirit gives us great confidence. [47:13] God gave us the ability to see and confess Him. [47:15] Don’t forget that. Come back to it constantly. [47:18] God gives us the ability to be changed. [47:21] The Spirit guarantees our salvation. [47:23] If we go to Ephesians 1, this is one of the most encouraging assurance verses out there.

[47:29] Ephesians 1, 13-14. [47:32] In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, [47:36] the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, [47:39] were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, [47:43] who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, [47:47] to the praise of His glory. Did you catch that?

[47:49] The guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. [47:54] So until we’re taken up into heaven or Jesus comes back, [47:59] the Holy Spirit is your seal. [48:02] You’re not going anywhere. [48:04] You have assurance. It’s not based on what you did today or yesterday. [48:09] The Holy Spirit is your seal.

[48:11] You can’t go anywhere. [48:13] The Holy Spirit will constantly draw you back, constantly pull you back.

[48:19] Romans 8, 16-17. [48:23] The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. [48:29] And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, [48:33] provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. [48:38] So the Spirit bears witness that you are a child of God. [48:43] If the Holy Spirit dwells within you, that’s what it tells you.

[48:47] Listen to it. Preach to yourself. [48:49] When Satan and when your flesh and when your heart try to condemn you, [48:55] you need to preach to yourself. [48:58] Your heart is still deceitful in sin. [49:02] It still will try to play games with you. [49:05] So you need to preach to it.

[49:07] Awesome promises there. Also says that we’ll suffer with Him. [49:11] So the Holy Spirit drives us to follow Christ no matter what, into suffering. [49:16] I don’t know if you noticed, but this culture is not running into suffering. [49:21] Okay? [49:23] We need to run into suffering for the Gospel’s sake. [49:27] Alright? You need to abandon comfort and run into suffering.

[49:32] That’s what Paul did. Why? Because he loved God.

[49:37] We are safe in the Spirit. We continually confess and proclaim Jesus as Lord.

[49:44] Alright. [49:45] [49:46] This morning, point two. [49:49] It doesn’t sound good.

[49:52] I don’t know when I started, so I don’t really know where I’m at here. [49:56] But anyway, perfected love gives us confidence in the day of judgment. [50:02] Okay? Perfected love gives us confidence in the day of judgment. [50:04] So some of you are like, why are we talking about judgment? [50:07] We haven’t even gotten to that. [50:09] Here it is. If we read verses 16 and 17.

[50:17] So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. [50:22] God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him. [50:27] By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. [50:32] Because as He is, so also are we in this world. [50:35] There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. [50:39] For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

[50:46] The key word in this, guys, is perfected. [50:49] Okay? If we can know what perfected means, we can know a way to have confidence in judgment. [50:56] Alright? So if we look at this,

[51:01] we go to verse 16. We have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. [51:04] I actually want to pick up on that real quick here. [51:08] You have come and know and believe the love that God has for you. [51:13] Okay? We now know God is love. [51:15] Outside of knowing Jesus, God is what? [51:18] Terrifying.

[51:20] Okay? He is terrifying if we are outside of Jesus. [51:24] Why? Because He is going to punish us for our sin. [51:27] It is really not complicated. [51:29] Anybody who doesn’t know Jesus, they don’t really like to talk about God. [51:35] Mainly because they do have some inclination that they will have to face judgment. [51:41] They don’t want to think about that.

[51:43] We, on the other hand, as Christians, we are called to look forward to that day. [51:47] We should yearn for the judgment. Why? [51:50] Because it means that we are, and we have attained glory, and that we are with Christ forever.

[51:59] Alright. Verse 17. [52:00] By this is love perfected with us. [52:03] So by abiding in God, love is perfected in us. [52:06] What love? The love of God in us for God and others. [52:11] So perfected. [52:12] The Greek word for this is teleo.

[52:15] No idea if I said that right.

[52:18] But what this means is to finish, accomplish, complete, or reach its goal. [52:24] So what it does mean is that we abide in God and that love is perfected in us. [52:29] We want to know because that will give us confidence. [52:33] Alright. So what does this mean to have the perfection of love or a perfecting love happen in us? [52:39] It means that it’s to, it means this. [52:43] This means that God’s love in us is coming to completion or coming into action as we love others.

[52:51] Alright. I’ll read that again. [52:53] This means that God’s love in us is coming to completion or coming into action as we love others. [53:00] So the perfecting of God’s love in us is found when it takes effect in us. [53:07] In other words, when the love of God pours into us, it has to pour out. [53:13] Okay. [53:14] It is taking effect in us. It’s changing us.

[53:18] We are being changed and therefore we are loving others. [53:22] Nate’s sermon last week was, here’s how God loved. [53:25] Follow that example. That’s what the text said. [53:29] Okay. This week it’s, here’s how God loved. [53:31] I’m giving you the spirit. You have the ability now to love as I loved. [53:37] Okay. Again, two totally different things.

[53:41] We are not imitators, but rather we are realizing the spirit that dwells in us empowers us to do this. [53:48] You have inclinations to love people. [53:50] The only question is, are you following through on them? [53:55] Okay. If the spirit dwells in you, the love of Jesus is being perfected in you and you are being led to grow. [54:04] Just make sure you’re listening. Make sure you’re following.

[54:09] This also means that God’s love in us is put into action so it reaches its appointed goal. [54:15] God’s love in us does not remain in us, but it is put into action by loving others as God loves us.

[54:24] All right. So really that’s how we are perfected in God. [54:33] So friends, loving other Christians is the mark of Christians. [54:36] It’s at the core of who we are because the spirit lives in us and we are reflecting the image of God that is being restored in us. [54:42] When we come to know God, the image of God that we were created in that was fractured by sin is actually being restored as we abide in him. [54:53] So we are becoming more and more like God. [54:56] We are becoming more and more like Jesus in our job.

[54:58] Our primary purpose in life is to reflect the image of God to a culture that needs him. [55:04] Okay. People need Jesus. They need to see the love of Jesus. [55:08] That’s us. Okay. [55:11] He wants to show his love through his church, through his believers, through people who are redeemed for the purpose of redeeming. [55:23] Again, this is a realization, not so much an imitation.

[55:28] Realize who you are. [55:29] Realize what’s happening in you and what your purpose is. [55:32] Your purpose is to reflect the image of God to people who need him.

[55:42] The last part of verse 17 there, another way that we have confidence, we’ll like this one. [55:46] As he is so also are we in the world. [55:50] As he is so also are we in the world. [55:52] So if we think about Jesus when he was in the world, Jesus was loved by the Father. [55:55] When he got baptized, God said in his voice, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. [56:03] In other words, he loved his son.

[56:05] Jesus stood in a position of love to the Father. [56:08] The Father loved the son. [56:09] The son loved the Father. [56:11] We stand in that same position. [56:13] God loves us. [56:15] God loves us.

[56:16] We stand as Jesus stood. [56:17] It also means that we stand with the righteousness of Jesus. [56:25] God looks on us and doesn’t see our sin, but rather he sees Jesus’ righteousness. [56:30] He sees somebody who he approves of, who he loves, who he wants to use to bring glory to himself. [56:38] God wants to use you, church. [56:41] You should also want to see God’s name lifted high.

[56:45] [56:47] The glory of his name, that’s what we live for. [56:50] We live to see God’s name receive the praise and glory that it’s due. [56:55] You should want to see that. [56:57] A, people are getting saved, and B, God is receiving glory. [57:01] You could reverse that order, too.

[57:06] All right. [57:07] Verse 18.

[57:10] There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. [57:13] For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

[57:22] So, again, there’s this idea of perfected in love. [57:25] If you’re perfected in love, the fear that you once had of God is cast out by the position of love that you stand in now. [57:33] By you being perfected, by you knowing the effect that the gospel is having on your life, you can feel the effect of it. [57:41] Your desires and passions are changing. [57:43] Your actions are changing. [57:45] You’re following Christ.

[57:46] You’re becoming more like him. [57:47] You will have reason for confidence. [57:49] You have reason to know that you stand justified. [57:53] You know that the gospel is taking effect in your life. [57:56] Therefore, that fear that comes with punishment is cast out. [58:00] If we go to Romans 8.1, super popular verse here.

[58:06] There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

[58:12] No condemnation.

[58:16] You will not receive punishment if you’re in Christ. [58:20] All right? [58:20] So there’s no reason to fear. [58:22] If we live in fear of punishment, what happens is we start to try to earn our own righteousness, and this becomes exhausting. [58:30] Every day is about pleasing God instead of running to God with love. [58:35] Running to God and saying you need him.

[58:36] Running to him and depending on him. [58:38] You’re just trying to please him. [58:41] Brooke has a dog. [58:43] My girlfriend Brooke, she has a dog that’s pretty sheepish. [58:48] When I walk into the house, if it doesn’t please me, she turns in shame.

[58:55] Okay? [58:56] And we shouldn’t act like that when we go to God. [59:00] We shouldn’t go to God. [59:02] And if we’ve done good that day, we can say, God, you know, oh, you’re awesome, and she’ll jump up on me or whatever. [59:08] But if she’s done something bad, she cowers in fear. [59:12] If we do something bad, we don’t cower in fear.

[59:14] We go to God and we repent of it. [59:15] We saw that earlier in 1 John. [59:18] Anybody who goes, anybody who sins, when you do sin, you will sin, go to God. [59:22] Run to him. [59:23] Run to your father. [59:25] He’s not going to condemn you.

[59:26] It’s already taken care of. [59:28] He already knows what you did, what you’ve done, and what you will do. [59:33] Okay? [59:33] He saved you anyway. [59:35] Know that.

[59:41] All right. [59:42] So with the perfection of love, fear is taken out. [59:47] Guys, there is no fear if you stand in Christ. [59:50] Okay? [59:50] There’s no fear of judgment. [59:52] There’s no fear of punishment.

[59:53] In fact, we embrace judgment. [59:55] You should be looking forward to the day when Jesus comes. [59:59] You should be looking forward to Judgment Day. [60:02] Okay? [60:02] That’s super hard. [60:05] Because we have things in this world that we want to accomplish.

[60:07] We want to see. [60:09] I want to get married.

[60:12] But I also should desire that Jesus come today. [60:15] Because that would mean that, man, we get to go and be with him. [60:20] And that is the greatest thing. [60:21] It must be our treasure.

[60:24] All right. [60:25] So really what this says is that what we’re getting at here is that sanctification is a key to having insurance. [60:31] And sanctification is simply this. [60:33] The progressive work of both God and man that makes Christians more and more free from sin and more like Jesus in their actual lives. [60:42] So it’s the progressive work of both God and man that makes Christians more free from sin and more like Jesus. [60:51] I had a premonition early in my faith that I just need to be free of sin.

[60:56] I didn’t need to be like Jesus. [60:58] It’s a huge difference there. [61:00] Okay. [61:01] Being free from sin is just, as we think about it a lot of times, cutting the bad out of our life. [61:06] Okay. [61:06] Yes, you need to do that.

[61:07] Yes, you will do that as you struggle in your early faith. [61:12] But we come to know Jesus and we come to be like him. [61:16] Okay. [61:17] What did Jesus do? [61:18] He loved others. [61:20] He laid down his life for others.

[61:22] He was about making himself known to others. [61:26] He was a servant. [61:27] Okay. [61:28] And then that’s what we need to be. [61:30] We don’t need to be non-sinners.

[61:34] Okay.

[61:37] All right. [61:38] Romans 6 13. [61:41] This helps us, I think, understand this. [61:44] Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. [61:56] So in the flesh, before you knew God, you used your body for unrighteousness. [62:01] You were a sinner who loved to sin.

[62:04] Okay. [62:05] We all were. [62:06] Okay. [62:06] That’s not who we are anymore. [62:08] We instead now use, we use everything that we have as instruments of righteousness. [62:13] Guys, this means pursuing righteousness.

[62:16] Okay. [62:17] It doesn’t mean admitting that we’re not righteous. [62:19] It means pursuing. [62:21] Okay. [62:21] I think a lot of our tendencies is to get together and acknowledge that we’re all falling short. [62:29] And that’s great.

[62:29] We need to do that. [62:30] But we also need to move forward. [62:33] [62:34] Your salvation should not be stagnant. [62:38] You need to move forward. [62:39] You need to pursue Christ.

[62:41] Paul’s goal was to pursue Christ to the end of his life. [62:46] It needs to be our goal, too. [62:47] Okay. [62:48] We are not satisfied in just acknowledging our failures and our shortcomings. [62:53] Okay. [62:54] We need to press forward.

[62:55] We need to press onward. [62:57] That’s what, that’s what believers do. [63:01] Philippians 2, 12 to 13.

[63:05] Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, [63:13] work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. [63:15] For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

[63:22] We see God’s lead role in sanctification here. [63:26] [63:26] And you becoming more and more like Jesus. [63:29] We see that God is leading us in that. [63:31] He’s working in us both for our will, so both that we will desire and both that we will follow through with that will. [63:39] Okay.

[63:40] God is working in you. [63:41] You need to listen. [63:42] You need to follow. [63:43] You need to submit. [63:45] Jesus is the authority in your life. [63:48] He has a great life for you.

[63:51] Okay. [63:52] But you need to follow him. [63:54] And so we’ll continue to do that. [63:55] We continue to press onward. [63:58] Also here we see this word fear. [64:01] Now there is a reverent fear, a respectful fear that we shouldn’t have.

[64:04] This is not the fear that we’re talking about in 1st John where we talk about fearing punishment. [64:09] Okay. [64:09] We should fear straying from God. [64:12] Why? [64:12] Because we should take our sanctification seriously. [64:16]

[64:17] Take your pursuit of holiness seriously. [64:20] Okay. [64:21] You don’t want to just skate into heaven not really having stepped, not really having pursued Christ fully in your life. [64:30] Okay. [64:31] That should not be the mentality. [64:32] The mentality should never be I want to do the least amount of stuff that I need to do.

[64:36] I want to have the least amount of change in my life and still get into heaven. [64:43] Okay. [64:43] That’s not the attitude of a Christian. [64:46] Okay. [64:47] If that was Paul’s attitude, guess how many people in Asia get to know Jesus? [64:53] Not many.

[64:54] Okay. [64:56] Not many. [64:56] It’s the same with us. [64:58] The same in our communities. [64:59] The same in our circles of people that we know. [65:03] Okay.

[65:03] Be praying for them. [65:04] Be pursuing them. [65:06] Be loving them with the gospel.

[65:11] God is working to change you if you know him. [65:15] And you’ve if you don’t feel this change, guys, this is what John’s calling you to. [65:22] He’s calling you to belief. [65:24] Okay. [65:25] You don’t feel these things. [65:26] John is saying we need to get this figured out.

[65:29] You need to come to belief in Christ.

[65:37] All right. [65:38] I had a bunch of points here, but I’m going to cut them out. [65:42] Guys, the real thing with our sanctification in order to do this, because I think a lot of us get we do get to a point where we read our Bibles and we are doing that. [65:52] We are going to community group. [65:53] We are doing these things. [65:54] But if we are going to know a fuller sense of God’s love coming and being perfected in us, then we’re going to be able to do that.

[66:09] Okay.

[66:22] I felt that it’s the awesomest thing in the world. [66:27] Okay. [66:27] Is it grueling sometimes? [66:28] Yes. [66:30] Do you have to sacrifice your life for the love of God? [66:31]

[66:31] [66:31] [66:31] [66:31] [66:31] [66:31]

[66:31] [66:31] [66:31] [66:31] [66:31] Do you have to sacrifice your time in order to love other people? [66:33] Do you have to sacrifice your time in order to know God more?

[66:37] Absolutely. [66:37] But it’s worth it. [66:38] Okay. [66:39] There is no greater joy. [66:41] There is no greater joy. [66:42] And I can’t tell you that.

[66:43] You’re not going to believe that unless you experience it, unless you see it. [66:46] The scripture speaks to it. [66:47] It’s true. [66:48] You just need to move in and experience it for yourself. [66:52] Understand that you can’t make the excuse of, oh, I’m not, my personality is not for that. [66:58] My personality was not for being up here.

[67:03] My personality was not for, you know, loving people. [67:08] Frankly, before I knew Christ, I wanted to stick to my group of friends and frankly, anybody else I could care less about. [67:15] Okay. [67:16] And then looking back, I didn’t even really care about my friends. [67:20] Okay. [67:20] If they did something to hurt me, they were gone.

[67:24] So understand that it does take action. [67:28] You and your Bible are not going to be enough. [67:31] In fact, if you’re reading your Bible, you’re reading about the love that takes place in believers and the things that they do. [67:38] And if you never experience that, it should drive you crazy. [67:42] Okay. [67:42] Because you feel the Spirit calling you into action.

[67:47] You need to follow that action.

[67:51] Lastly, this morning, loving God always leads to loving others.

[67:57] Verses 19 to 21 will be done here. [67:59] I’ll make this short. [68:02] We love because he first loved us. [68:03] If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. [68:07] For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. [68:13] And this commandment we have from him.

[68:15] Whoever loves God must also love his brother. [68:18] So we know that when we love God, we will love others. [68:21] We also know that that’s a commandment. [68:23] So again, two of John’s tests here, obeying commands and loving others. [68:27] Really one thing here. [68:30] Okay.

[68:30] Really one thing. [68:31] One idea. [68:32] Loving others is a requirement of a legitimate life and a reason for confidence. [68:37] Verse 19. [68:39] We love because he first loved us. [68:42] Guys, God first loved you.

[68:44] Again, we talked about it before. [68:45] He initiated this special love in you. [68:49] Okay. [68:50] That should lead you to unending gratitude for that. [68:55] God came and got you. [68:57] Okay.

[68:58] He came and got you. [68:59] If we understand that, we’re going to think properly and we’re going to have the appropriate response and worship to God. [69:06] If you still think that you decided to follow Jesus, if you still kind of think with that mentality, [69:14] you need to know that God saved you. [69:16] You need to know that he initiated that. [69:18] If you think that you did that, where that runs into a problem is that the minute that you kind of aren’t performing well,

[69:27] you kind of think that you’re lost. [69:30] That you might have lost them. [69:31] Okay. [69:32] Take assurance in the fact that God loved you first. [69:34] That he saved you. [69:37] Okay.

[69:37] You didn’t save yourself.

[69:42] If we abide in God, we are being perfected by him and we are going to love. [69:49] In the spirit, we have the capacity to love like Jesus. [69:52] We love that others come to know Jesus. [69:55] We live incarnationally. [69:57] If you think about that word, incarnationally, Jesus came and loved us incarnationally. [70:02] He came into our lives.

[70:04] He came into our world and loved us. [70:07] Okay, friends, we need to go into people’s lives and love them. [70:11] Okay. [70:12] They’re not going to roll up to your door. [70:14] Okay. [70:15] We need to be purposeful.

[70:17] We need to be intentional in our relationships. [70:19] Okay. [70:19] All of our friendships should be mainly about helping others see the love of Christ, [70:26] both in us and then in Christ himself. [70:29] Okay. [70:30] For your friends, you should greatly desire that they be saved, that they know Jesus,

[70:35] that they know the treasure that you have. [70:38] Nobody has a treasure and can hide it. [70:40] You can’t do it. [70:42] You can’t do it.

[70:49] Jesus gives us the ability to love. [70:51] The sinner has no real capacity to do this.

[70:55] That is love truthfully and unconditionally. [70:58] Frankly, with the Holy Spirit, we are equipped to do this. [71:02] Okay. [71:02] The world does not love. [71:04] We do.

[71:08] So if we think about this in terms of vertical and horizontal, [71:11] we need to love God vertically, so our relationship with God needs to be loving. [71:15] Love needs to be flowing through that. [71:17] And when love is flowing vertically, our love will spill over and flow horizontally into others. [71:24] Okay. [71:25] And that is the key.

[71:27] So in other words, think of the vine again. [71:28] We go to God and God gives us the incentive and the ability to go out and love others. [71:34] He does. [71:36] Okay. [71:36] I know when I spend time in the Word in the morning, when I spend time praying, [71:41] when I’m living missionally, I go out and I love others.

[71:45] Why? [71:45] Because I’ve filled myself with the love of God that morning. [71:48] It’s not that it ever went anywhere. [71:50] It’s just that’s how God designed it. [71:53] He designed us to be filled by His love again and again by reading His Word. [71:57] You’re not reading the Word.

[71:59] You’re not going to have an inclination to love others. [72:01] You’re not going to be overwhelmed with the Gospel. [72:04] You’re not going to be overwhelmed with Jesus’ love for you. [72:07] All right. [72:08] So we need to do that.

[72:16] Last point here. [72:17] Loving God is not actually loving others. [72:21] Okay. [72:21] So loving God is not actually loving others. [72:25] Okay.

[72:27] We love God and because we love God, we love others. [72:32] All right. [72:33] Don’t disconnect the two. [72:35] Okay. [72:36] You love your wife. [72:38] So what do you do?

[72:40] You do stuff. [72:41] Okay. [72:42] You love her by living sacrificially for her, but loving her and doing the duty are two [72:48] different things, right? [72:50] They are. [72:51] We love, because we love God, we will love others.

[72:54] Because you love your wife, you will sacrificially live for her. [72:59] And we have to understand that. [73:02] We’re not, God is not after our duty.

[73:06] He’s not.

[73:09] If you live in a dutiful way, if I am a dutiful boyfriend to Brooke, she’s not going to really [73:15] appreciate that. [73:16] If I show up Valentine’s Day with flowers and give them to her and say, here you go, [73:20] it’s Valentine’s Day. [73:22] What’s her reaction going to be? [73:25] She’s not going to be that happy with me.

[73:27] If I go to her with flowers and say, baby, I love you so much, I just had to get these [73:33] flowers for you. [73:35] She’s going to be thrilled with that. [73:37] Why? [73:37] Because she knows that out of love, I move to action. [73:41] Okay.

[73:42] I’m really not good at buying flowers either. [73:46] I bought her a plastic flower one time.

[73:51] I figured it would last forever, so I only had to do it once. [73:55] It’s not good. [73:58] She’s getting the better deal, by the way. [74:00] I’m sorry, I’m getting the better deal, by the way.

[74:05] It’s getting late here.

[74:09] No, I’m definitely getting the better bargain there.

[74:15] All right. [74:15] So guys, this is not dutiful. [74:19] If Christianity is dutiful, it will get boring, it will get exhausting, and you’ll die. [74:23] We need to keep our love for Jesus fresh. [74:25] That’s why we need to continually confess the gospel. [74:28] That’s why we need to continually gather and hear the gospel.

[74:31] That’s why we need to continuously read our Bibles and be refreshed and renewed by the gospel. [74:38] If the gospel doesn’t do that to us, John says, you need to see if you’re abiding. [74:43] You need to see if you know me. [74:46] And so friends, do that. [74:49] We have great assurance, just to kind of recap, we have great assurance in the fact that the Spirit has enabled us to confess. [74:57] The fact that you confess Jesus as Savior of the world, that one point in your life you didn’t, and now you do,

[75:02] and it’s a daily thing, should give you great assurance. [75:06] Be assured by that. [75:07] Be assured that your assurance isn’t in your actions, but your assurance is in the love of God being perfected in you, [75:14] knowing that your desires are changing, knowing that you’re becoming more and more like Christ. [75:19] Those signs of evidence that you do know Jesus. [75:23] Okay? Be submissive to that Spirit.

[75:27] Listen to it. Be led by it. [75:29] It wants to lead you into further and further dependence on God and a more joyful life. [75:36] Christianity is awesome, all right? [75:39] Because, yes, it’s tiring and grueling at points, but it’s all worth it. [75:44] And it’s all worth it because in the end, guys, we’re gaining. [75:48] Remember, we’re gaining everything.

[75:49] We’re gaining eternal life with Jesus. [75:54] So be encouraged by that. [75:56] Also, be encouraged by the fact that you do come to a church that is going to help you grow in that. [76:07] We’re not going to stand by and allow you to just remain stagnant in your faith. [76:14] Okay? We want to see you guys grow. [76:15] We want to grow ourselves.

[76:17] We don’t want this vision, we don’t want this mission to end here. [76:21] We have a desire that more people would know the name of Jesus and that his name would be praised. [76:28] And so we want to make our lives about that. [76:31] We want everything in our life to be about Jesus. [76:36] So as the band comes up this morning, we will, in fact, now shift into a time of communion. [76:43] And what this is, guys, is a time to reflect on the love that Jesus displayed in the cross.

[76:48] And the fact that if we do know him, we are, in fact, absolutely privileged to reflect on the gospel, [76:59] to reflect on how he saved us, to reflect on his body that was broken for us. [77:05] And so this morning, come as an act of worship and partake in this. [77:11] Come and confess that Jesus has, in fact, saved you, that he is changing you, [77:16] that you are becoming more and more made like him, that you desire to love people, [77:22] that you desire to know him more and you will know him more through loving people.

[77:28] If you don’t know Christ, if some of these things aren’t happening in your life, [77:32] I pray this morning that you would respond. [77:36] You’re not here for no reason. [77:38] Okay? God draws his people. [77:40] He draws them here and then he saves them. [77:43] And so if that’s you this morning, I’d love to talk to you.

[77:45] There’s people in the back who would love to talk to you. [77:48] Okay? If you need to be born of God, be born of God this morning. [77:52] The rest of us, be renewed by the Spirit that dwells within you, [77:59] the Spirit that’s been giving you, the Spirit that is your seal of salvation. [78:05] Join us.