Oct 10, 2021 Sunday Morning Service

Look up.

Thank you, Lord, for the songs.

Are moved by those words in those songs, just as were moved by the words of God's word, they influence us and perhaps they make people because of it. And certainly, when we think about the Lord, as we protect the Lord's, Supper that autodraw emotion out of us and because it is such a magnificent story. It's about how lost we are. And yet about how found we are, because he has found us, and we're thankful for that. And we're thankful to be here today with each other.

We have been talking about first John for the past several weeks, and I series entitled lighten up. It's about being illuminated by God's word. Say about being illuminated to the point that we understand who you are and who he is and what are specific. Because there's one person in this whole universe that has nail-scarred hands and feet. And it's not us, right? And so when we read first John, we're reading about the conviction, that we ought to have concerning Christ who died for us. And that's what first John is about to show that there is a difference among Christians. However, that there are moldy that there are bogus and that there are fake Christians because another one

And he Compares that to those who are truly children of God. And so he goes on to explain that Christians. We

It's about what we say about who Jesus is. Number one, right? There were some of the congregation here. Are the congregations. It's a region to whom John's riding out to the Christians. There was a group from within that had Arisen and they were teaching some false Concepts about the nature of the deity of Jesus Christ. And so they're holding a faulty view of who Jesus was not today. There are several groups that claim to be a part of Christianity. Also whole concept concerning the nature of Jesus Christ. So I'm go so far as to say that Jesus Christ is not God that he is not.

And yet over and over again, we find that Jesus is the Christ who is any Turtle pee, and that in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. And there was a sign that he is an eternal being along with the father along with the Holy Spirit. They are the tri-park being of God, the godhead.

And then there are some who say well it was the father god Jehovah who created Jesus? And up and we Are Witnesses of that fact. And so, there is that group, that claimed that Jesus is not deity, nor God in any sense? Since God Alone is eternal. And so the emphasis there by that group is on Jehovah and not Jesus. And yet from the very beginning of the Bible, in the book of The Book of Genesis in chapter three, we find the emphasis is being placed upon Jesus or God was talking to The Serpent and the serpent tells, or God tells the serpent that he is going to put enmity between him and the woman. The mother of all living. And that you will bruise his heel but he will crush your head referring to Jesus Christ. So from the very beginning of time. Until the End of Time Jesus Christ by the word of God is proclaimed, that he is God in the flesh. God In the Flesh and he dwelt among us and we beheld his glory so said the writer of the book of that were studying. And so as we consider first, John chapter 4 beginning and verse 7, I'm reminded of the story of a guy who had gone to the doctor. He wasn't feeling too well. So he shows up with the doctor and the doctor test them out and runs a few more tests and he comes back and he says, listen to me cuz I want you to take this green pill with a large glass of water every morning. Then I want you to take this yellow pill. Every afternoon with a large glass of water.

When the guy says Doctor, what what, what's wrong with me? He says, well, you need more water. Sometimes we complicate our lives and what that story represents a week and clutter our lives and complicate things where we don't need to. And John is showing us that very thing. He saying some, make it complicated but it's not complicated if you do exactly what he said to do. And so that's why I returned to the Bible, to the word of God, to understand his will for us. I was reading up an online discussion on Facebook and over number of religious groups gather together and talk about the Bible. And so I kind of entering this group to do just that and some of the people in there were saying, what, how do we approach? God's word? Some people are saying we can never know God's word. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to tell us about God's word and some are saying, well, it's not really God's word because men wrote it. You see how that goes. And so there's a lot of people in the world that look at God's word and they despise it. But what is that doing? That's despising God and it's despising his love. His love is Express to mankind by the cross, but you would not ever know that we're not for the word of God. Not from the scriptures that clearly demonstrate his love for you and for me and so we make things complicated that are relatively simple. And so sometimes life is really just, not that complicated, a Christ follower, where we have to understand that God's word can be understood alike. And it's really not that difficult. We make it out to be more difficult than it is. And we often do that with just about every situation in life, right? Husbands and wives 11, That needs to be stabbed wished and grounded in the love of Jesus Christ. And remember, there's one person, the Bible. I think that would take care of everything in our lives + 118. That Christ deserves the preeminence in all things. Now, you are all things. Well, that would think a good marriage that would include my job. So if I'm going to give everything to God, I've got to give everything to my marriage and I've got to give him the pre-eminence. What does that mean? He tells me that, I need to love my spouse more than myself. I need to put my spouse first before myself. It tells me how to treat others in this world. The same way that I need to love them more than I love myself. I need to consider them more than I consider myself.

The Bible tells us that we can love our friends, but do we love our enemies and that's where the rubber meets the road right there. He tells us anybody can love a friend. Can you love someone? You don't know, how can you love someone? Who's even your enemy? And he tells us you can but not only that, he tells us, we must. And so we understand the love of God. Compels us the motivating factor in our lives. The Bible says we love him.

Because he first loved us, you see he initiated the movement, not we ourselves. And we talked we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go on and as we consider first, John chapter 4 and we've already read it. I think I'm just going to forego reading it again, but and just stick with some of the passages some of the verses with in it, but when we consider the passage, I don't know if you noticed what the theme of chapter 4 is.

Who here knows what the theme of chapter 4 is. God is love write 27 times in the Book of John no 27 times in the fourth chapter. Love is mentioned. So love. Love, love, love, love, love, love as you reading on down those 21 versus or those 15 verses 4. Verse 7 verse 21, you going to find 27 mentions of love, that kind of tells us the same but then we also find that 15 times in the Book of John love one. Another is found and then we read in 1st John 4 3 times that very phrase, love one, another is found. And so if you love God you love others. If you don't love others.

You don't love God, right? That's that's the outcome. There's a mathematical equation there if you loved going to be loving others, but if you're not loving God. And so he's making it a point to show us what love is. And you've heard me say this before love is not just some drippy. Syrupy, emotion. It's an action word. It's an emotion that drives us to do things for God, for one another. And so in first John chapter 5 verse 3. He says this is the love of God. You might want to underline that passage and say, this is the definition God gives to love. This is the love of God, that you keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not burdensome.

They're not hard to do. We make them more hard and complicated than they need to be. That's the point that we can do them. God has not given us something that's impossible for us to do or to accomplish. And even when we think about the love of God, did you know that everything that emanates from God is emanated from his love? Right. We already know. God is love. That's a definition. Definition of God.

Not just an attribute it to you. Is all other attributes. Fall fall out from that quality, that essence of love, love produces the grace that he gives us. Love produces the mercy that he gives us. It produces the loving-kindness that he demonstrates toward us. And love also produces his wrath because he loves you so much and want you to be safe so much, that there has to be a ref. Because you're not being saved by the love of God. His discipline is out of his love and Hebrews chapter 12, verse tells us that God disciplines those, he loves if you have never felt discipline by God. I'm sorry. I wonder why. But I also wonder in 2nd, Timothy chapter 3 verse 12 into says, all those who desire to live Godly lives.

In Christ, Jesus will suffer persecution.

Have you ever felt persecution in your life? Maybe if you have not felt persecution, maybe you're not living as Godly a left as he ought to. Because there has to be a separation of yourself from the world. And if the world is not coming at you, in a negative way, it may be because the love that you have for God is not grounded. In the love that God has provided you to love in that love is in Christ Jesus and that's what he says. The first John chapter 4. So his very essence is love. No, no, other religion in the world teachers that no. Other religion in the world teachers at only Christianity and you're going to find that if you want a relationship with this God or those gods or this cow or whatever, if you want a relationship with that, God you better make the first move. You better make the first move, you need to do this this and this and this and this and this and this and if you get it, right, perhaps he might love you, perhaps he might want a relationship with you. Now, Christianity reversed totally. God loves us. We love him because he first loved us, he initiated the process, initiated the move. He said, I love you. And here's what I'm going to do for you. Even while we were yet. Sinners, imagine that the how great a love do you want in your life? Then somebody somebody who loves you even when you're the worst person in the world. It's right to get emotional about that. We have every right to be emotional. And so Christianity starts with the love of God, and then it flows into our hearts and that love of God, produces a love for others. That's how it works. So as we think about first John chapter 4 or we're just going to skip ahead. What time the first John chapter 4 verse 9 and he says, in this the love of God was manifested toward us. That God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him.

Don't say you will live a lot of people talk about that. They said, well, if you're a Christian you can't help but love other people. You can't help but love God.

Bible. Does it say that? Bible says, you might. You know, what makes a difference your motivation your commitment to Jesus Christ, makes all the difference in the world. You see some people, that's the difference between the bogus Christian and a real Christian. The bogus Christian says that he loved God. The true Christian says he loves God. And does things for God? That makes all the difference in the world and So based upon one's motivation, there. Is that subjective or subjunctive mood that says you might You might not. It's all up to you than your hands. Right? Jesus is saying the ball is in your court. He made the first move and in the process, he continues to move to you and for you everyday of your life, but he still says the ball is in your court. That's why we're saved by grace through faith. Right, but that's my face and my face. The measure of my faith is dependent upon me. It's dependent upon my commitment, my devotion, and my will toward him, and his love toward me. That's all she says, in this love not that, we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the atonement for our sins beloved of God. So loved us. We also ought to love God. Well, that's implied. But that's not what he says. He says we also ought to love one another one, another. It does no good to claim that, we love Jesus. And yet despise, our brother or sister. Despising, a brother or sister. Is not loving God.

And really, when you despise a brother or sister, guess who your despising God, but you're also despising the church that Jesus Christ died for it because that person, your brother, your sister is a member of the church that Jesus died for. The church, a lot of people want to want to hold on to Jesus on one hand, but talk down about the church on the other. And run down their brothers and sisters. That's why we we come to church. That's why we pray. That's why we want to be with one another. That's why you for taking the Lord's Supper because what we're doing is the emphasis is on, Jesus and his blood and not me and what I do. Because if I relied upon me and what I do,, I will never make it, you will never make it. It's relying Upon Jesus, his blood that makes the atonement. That's what he's talking about was a propitiation for our sins.

I can be baptized to him water while, but that's not going to save me. I'm not saying you don't need to be baptized. Sandy do need to be baptized but baptism alone will never seen anybody and I'mma put the emphasis that up. I'm baptized, and therefore I'm saying and I just kind of back away from Jesus. Now, for a while, and I'll back away from his people called the church. That will never get it done.

You need to be a part. But the body you need to be a part of Christ, and you need to be a part of the cleansing blood of Jesus. That's where the power lies for all of us for all of us. And it's because of that blood that we are willing to say, I don't particularly care for. I'm going to treat him with respect. I'm going to do things for him. I'm going to help him out. Because I want to love that brother. Right. Love is not something that just falls out of the sky and I begin loving right? You learn to love Mom and Dad. You learn to love your husband and your wife. You learn to love your friends. It's a learning process and as you gain in growth, you gain in love and love does things for the ones you love. You do things. You make them better people for the sake of them being made in the image of God. That's what it's about. That's what it's about when we're talking about door-knocking. We want to make people in our community better people.

Not because of what they do, but because of Jesus in their lives, we want them to be in the life of Jesus and we want Jesus to be in their lives. And so, what's going to motivate us? What's going to motivate you to go donut. Are you going to be too scared? Are we too scared for Jesus? Think about what he's done for us?

You think about the first century Christians? And how they were persecuted Paul. So he led the way in the persecution killing Christians putting them in jail tearing families apart.

And then what did the Christians do? It says and they went everywhere. Preaching the gospel. Mention that in the face of persecution, they're willing to preach Jesus Christ. Are you being persecuted? If someone slamming the door in your face persecution, I think not we expect that, right? So door-knocking is an important thing, some say well so old-fashioned thing. Yeah. It's an old-fashioned thing. It's just hard to do today.

Because hearts. Are more callous hearts are harder. Hard to break callous heart. But Jesus can. And Jesus has the power to do that. It's the gospel. So let's understand that she's going to do the work. We're just giving the invitation here. It is the ball's in your court. We love you. That's what we're going to do. That's what we're going to say. And so we're motivated to do that because of the love of God. And so we need to speak the love language, the language of love that, God speaks.

Use his language. And so as we continue, we also already said this but the initiated must be imitated. All right, he initiated the love move. He said, I loved you even before you even knew him. And because of that, he says, now you copy that, this is how Christianity grows you imitate. What Christ has said, you imitate what Christ did, what would Jesus do? Was the the phraseology several years ago, maybe 20-30 years ago. Wwjd. What would Jesus do? Well, really, it's what Jesus did is what it's about a week and actually read that and we can say here's what he did. So this is what I'm going to do. And so it needs to be imitated. So does our confession. To Christ, Our confession of Christ. What do you think about that? You know, we often think well, let's see if there's a Plan of Salvation. You need to hear you need to believe, right? You need to repent. You need to confess and you need to be baptized, and then you need to remain faithful the rest of your life. Right? So there's a six-step process depending on which part of the nation you come from.

But whatever the steps are. There's just not enough. The whole Plan of Salvation is written forest in New Testament. I told him, we think about what we need to do as Christians. In order to be saved. The list is longer than just five things. Longer than four things. But there is one thing that we can rely on, and that's Jesus. So he says are as love grows. So does our confession of Christ and when we think about confession we think about a one-time deal. I confess Christ as Jesus and savior, the Lord of my life, my king, my Messiah, My Savior and then we baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It doesn't end confession. Doesn't end everytime. We live for God. Every time we live for Jesus were confessing Jesus. This is present tense. Little show you here in just a second. He says, whoever keeps on confessing. That's the present tense. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God continues living in it, and he, and we have notable leave alone that God has for us. God is love. No, everyone wants us to know that, right? Everyone. You're even those who don't know anything about the Bible if they know one verse. They know that God is. So don't tell me about my life. Don't tell me about my drinking in my carousing around my sins. Don't tell me all about that. You don't want.

Well, obviously they have not read then what follows God is love and he is in love and God and God and hip, he who continues a body and gut. How do you abide in God by abiding in his word? Jesus said, truly, you are my disciples if you continue in my word. That's what that means. And so abiding in or continuing in or living in or remaining in God's word is what continues us being his child. Because we can shovel ourselves from God because we stopped living within his word. And so the love of God produces within us a love to do his word. That's what Jesus was talking about and John chapter 14 and verse 31. Jesus said the Commandments that the father has given me. I do exactly what he has commanded.

And he's our greatest example, so ought, we not to do the same. To do exactly as the father. Now by this, we know that we know him if we keep his Commandments, he who says I know him and does not keep his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word. Now. I want you to go back. so if we keep his Commandments, you might want to underline this underlined Commandments. And then he says, and does not keep his Commandments is a liar, and the truth underlying truth. Right. Number keeps his word underlined word. The Commandments truth and the word are identical. Do the same thing. That's what John is alluding to hear. He's using three different words to reference the very same thing. But whoever keeps his word truly. The love of God is perfected in him by this. We know that we are in him, he who says he abides in him or himself also to walk. Exactly. As he walked. That just as is the same word as found in John chapter 14 in verse 31, where it means exactly. And so if Jesus walked exactly is God desired him. We too. Must also walk exactly. As he walked that is to do the things that he desires us to do to live a christ-like life.

Now, we might get it right on occasion. but because we're Well, for lack of a better term sheep. We're sheep. The Bible describes us as sheep. We've gone astray is sheep. Are dumb animals, right? In the sight of God though, we're not.

It's so the sheep have gone away and and sometimes we get it right because we are sheep. Sometimes we don't. We like to leave the pastor. Sometimes. We like to leave the shepherd sometimes. And yet he still calls us back to the pastor. The great Shepherd. He says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

No worries. No worries. Love has been perfected Among Us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgement. I think a lot of people are afraid of the judgment. There should not be a reason to be afraid of the judgment. The judgment is coming. But Jesus has come. And because Jesus has come, he's giving us a victory and he says, you need to believe that that's going to give you the confidence that you need to get through this life and to face judgment. You can face judgment with a smile on your face. Not because of what you did but because of what he did. You rely upon that and you're going to not ever fear judgment that lucky says, have boldness in the day of judgment because as you show us, are we in this world? There is no fear in love, but perfect love cast out, fear. If you fear the judgment. Then I'm going to tell you this morning that you probably fear God right to go hand-in-hand. And you fear God? Because you fear yourself.

You feel perhaps I've not lived. The way I should be living. And now I have to face judgment. We can see how that produces fear. And we can see why people fall away. Fear. Well, I'm going to go to hell anyway.

Why do people feel that way? But he says, perfect love cast out fear, and he's not saying Endless Love. Not by a long shot. He saying, complete love. Our love is made complete by him. Not for us. We can love to a plane or to a degree, but because of his love. Our love is just skyrocketed. To the love of God because of him. So you says, we love him because he first loved us. I'm going to tell you this morning that you can get rid of that fear forever knowing that Jesus has done that for you that he died upon the cross that he shed his blood and he wants to live with you forever. And if you believe that Jesus says, if you believe that he that believes and is baptized shall be saved. What a beautiful thought. Perhaps you've done that but perhaps because we're sheep. You have wandered out of that Pastor. You've wandered into the world. Some come back sometime. Some come back quickly and then go back out again and it come back in and then go back out again and it come back in.

Every time I said, I'm leaving the pastor, right? Remember if we say, we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US. What keeps us in the pastor's Christ? Even though we follow him, and even though we're following him. We sometimes mess up. Because we're not God. God created Created us at a lower level even lower than the Angels. So he knows us.

Fiber of your being redesigned, your heart. So he knows you inside and out. And all he's saying is come back. Repent, change your mind. And if you're willing to do that. That love is restored. That love is recaptured. It's yours for the taking, the ball is in your court this morning, right? And so Jesus says, if you're subject to the invitation that he has provided, won't you come and Faith? That's Together. We Stand and sing.