Fellowship of the Forgiven Follow
Jonathan McGuire
The Fellowship of the Forgiven Follow • Sermon • Submitted
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Last week, we looked at what love does not look like and what love does look like. Love is not what Cain did to Abel if you remember. Cain killed Abel because Cain had evil in his heart. We will often seek to justify the evil in our heart rather than acknowledge the righteousness of the other person. We also looked at what love is that Jesus laid down his life for us. Though we were evil Christ died for us! This is what love is and love calls us to action when we see someone in need we must have a deep felt compassion for those who are in need.
Check this video out. (Video)
It is the followers who begin to start a movement. Us who know Jesus as Lord seek to follow Him. We are exploring during this series what does it mean to fellowship with Jesus as He has forgiven us. In essence what does it look like to be a follower.
Little children, we must not love with word or speech, but with truth and action.
It is easier to say I love you then to actually look out for the best interest of the one that you love. Our love must be done with truth and action.
How do you love those who are unloveable?
Great question and for the answer I turn to Jesus who loved us even while we are sinners he loved us and went to the cross for us. We are evil and He died for us. Love is a fruit of the Spirit and in order to love those who are unloveable we must ask the Spirit to empower us with love who we think are unloveable.
Lord empower me to love them with action and not with words.
Imagine if we pair this verse with loving our enemies and say that your love for your enemies must not be with just speech but with truth and action!
It is easy for followers to say they love others but the challenge is that we show that love by our actions.
This is how we will know we belong to the truth and will convince our conscience in His presence,
Our conscience really likes to mess with us sometimes. We start to let it take over and it says you don’t really love God do you. He says we can know we belong to the truth by living out love in action. Chapter 5 says how do we know that we Love God if we obey His commands. Our conscience can be made clear by living and following his commands.
Example: It is crazy to think that a person who is living in sin will find peace in His presence. It is crazy to think that a man and woman who is living together and not married to say we don’t know why we struggle so much in our relationship. We love Jesus but we don’t want to get married.
Living in sin does not bring a clear conscience and peace. We can know we belong to the truth if we really obey the commands of Jesus.
even if our conscience condemns us, that God is greater than our conscience, and He knows all things.
We can know that He lives in us by our love for one another but even if our conscience condemns us then God is great than our conscience and He knows all things.When we are at our worst He remains at His best. When we think we are not in him and we struggle with our love for others then know that God is greater than our conscience and He knows all things.
Dear friends, if our conscience doesn’t condemn us, we have confidence before God and can receive whatever we ask from Him because we keep His commands and do what is pleasing in His sight.
When our love for others is authentic then our conscience does not condemn us. We then have confidence before God and can receive whatever we ask from Him because we keep His commands and do what is pleasing in His sight.
Our ask will be more in line with his desires. This chapter we talked a lot about love/looking out for the best interest of others. As we follow his desire, our prayers will reflect this love and looking out for the best interest of others.
Our desire is to do what is pleasing in His sight. This is the goal of the Fellowship of the Forgiven is to be pleasing in His sight and that our desires are what He desires.
As a follower, the more we obey the leaders commands the more His will for us becomes our will. Again, you can’t live in sin with no regard to His commands and wonder why he never answers your prayers. Living in humility, love, patience, kindness, gentleness is when you will long for the will of God in your life.
Now this is His command: that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commands remains in Him, and He in him. And the way we know that He remains in us is from the Spirit He has given us.
Verse 23 sums all this up Believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as He commanded us.
To believe His Son Jesus Christ is to believe that Jesus not only just existed but that He was God in the Flesh. It is to believe that He is Lord and died and rose again. Many people believe that Jesus existed, but many deny that He was God in the Flesh. We believe that Jesus Christ is God in the Flesh.
The fellowship of the forgiven is that we believe in Jesus and love one another. We look out for the best interest of everyone around.
The one who Keeps His commands remains in Him. It is about following Jesus and keeping his commands. Following Jesus is not about constantly saying I am sorry. True sorrow demands a change to not do it again. We are moving from a life of “Just messing up” to a life of keeping His commands and remaining in him. Start obeying His commands rather that giving reason for failing His commands.
Yes we at Bridge of Faith create a culture of grace but a culture of grace is never meant to leave you where you are. Grace moves us to obey His commands.
The beautiful thing about this is that you don’t go at it alone. He gives us His Spirit to empower us to remain in Him.
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
He wrote in verse 23 that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and here in verse one he says don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God. Many false prophets have gone out into the world.
It is a sign of Spiritual maturity to be able to test the Spirits and know what is a false spirit. This means that you not only know what you believe in but to also know what you don’t believe in.
He then gives us some indicator for this.
Ever spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
Notice again the importance of believing that Jesus was God in the flesh. Many believe and know that Jesus existed but they don’t believe that He was God in the Flesh. Just confessing Jesus does not mean that everything is ok.
We see in scripture evil people speaking of Jesus.
Mark 1
The Holman Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1
23 Just then a man with an unclean spirit was in their synagogue. He cried out, 24 “What do You have to do with us, Jesus—Nazarene?
Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, those possessed fell down before Him and cried out, “You are the Son of God!”
Acts 19:15
The Holman Christian Standard Bible Chapter 19
15 The evil spirit answered them, “I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul—but who are you?”
The evil spirit said I know Jesus. It is essential that you believe Jesus was God in the Flesh and that He is God.
John Stott says this
The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary 1. The Content of the Teaching (4:1–3)
By this acknowledgment is meant not merely a recognition of his identity, but a profession of faith in him ‘openly and boldly’ (Westcott) as the incarnate Lord
But every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist; you have heard that he is coming, and he is already in the world now.
Again know what not to believe! This is to follow Jesus is to know that every spirit who does not confess jesus is not from God. This is the antichrist.
The antichrist is coming and the spirit of the antichrist is already prevalent.
You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.
You have conquered them. In the early days of ministry here at Bridge of Faith, I was constantly hearing stories of demonic activity. People would talk to me about Ouija boards and the CRAZY things they saw them do or about some ghost that they had experienced. I have met people who have come out of cults and they would tell me about the power of the demonic activity they had experienced and everyone who would hear these things would be amazed, but look a the this verse he says little children you have conquered the antichrist because the One who is in your is greater than the one who is in the world.
Story of Wednesday night (Tell the story)
The beauty of the story is that I watched with my own eyes what I have seen in scripture where My Lord, My Master, King Jesus MADE the demon submit to him.
Hear me clearly addict, hateful, bitter, anxious person that God’s word says little Children you have CONQUERED them because the ONE who is in you is great than the one in the World.
Anyone who knows God listens to us and anyone who does not know God does not listen to us. This is how you can know the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of deception.
Conclusion
It is followers who start a movement. It is act of Grace that Jesus would use His followers to grow His Kingdom and yet he done just that. Think about the followers of Jesus. The 12 disciples were used to start a movement. These guys spent time with Jesus and walked with Jesus and then it was the grace of Jesus in their lives that they radically followed Jesus and out of this a movement was started.
I can preach Jesus all day long but church if we don’t live out the Gospel daily in our lives, then this dream of transforming generations that transform communities will never become reality. I am convinced that if followers live out and seek to obey His commands then life is different to the point that nonbelievers see a difference and some will want to be a part because of seeing a Biblical life lived out.
Upset with your church, upset with your community, upset with your home, then let me ask what type of follower are you?
Be a follower of Jesus, love with action, obey His commands, Believe that Jesus was God in the Flesh, know the Spirits, and be a child who understands the Father!