So I am not going to give you less to think about, I just have to give it to you in less than half the time. So we're in 1 John chapter 2. Can you hear me at this volume? You can? Okay, so I will hold. So tonight, or today, we're going to pick up where Steve left us off last night. And as we're thinking through what he talked to us about, what he challenged us about, there were questions there. And it wasn't that he started with, are you saved? He took us then to what would John say about your salvation? And then he gave us four questions. Do you continue in the fellowship of a local church? Do you continue to confess your sin to others? Do you continue to love brothers and sisters? Do you continue to live out the logic of the Gospel that is walking in the light, abiding and obeying the will of God? And the will of God for your life, if you haven't figured it out yet, is do not sin. You don't have to worry about all the plans and all the details. God's will for your life is don't sin. One choice at a time on that. But that's where Steve took us, and those were challenging questions. The continuing. And so we're going to continue with that. 1 John 2, starting at verse 18. Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard, that Antichrist is coming. So now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us." But they went out that is that it might be complained that they are not of us verse 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One and you have knowledge I write you not because you do not know the truth But because you know it and because no lie is of the truth 22 Who is the liar? But he who denies Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He made to us eternal life. things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him." Let's pray. Father, in the next few moments, allow us to listen to the words of Your Word, and that we would allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us, that we would be more like Jesus. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So now as we walk back through the passage, We need to understand the different elements. They're in verse 18. Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard, the Antichrist is coming. So now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. Now with our eschatology, we all know that there will be the Antichrist that will come. But yet we have to understand that every unbeliever is a type of antichrist because you are either with God or you are against God. In Matthew 12 30, whoever is not with me is against me and whoever does not gather with me scatters. And so I'm asking you, are you gathering disciples in your life? Are you making disciples in your life? What are their names? If you are gathering people to God, then you know who they are. And you should be able to think right now off the top of your head and name them. And if you are not able to name specific men that you are gathering to God, then you're scattering away from Him. You're being an antichrist. You're either gathering people to Christ You're continuing in your faith or you're pushing people away. There is no third option where you get to hang out in the middle and you're just a good person. You're with God or you're against God. 19 they went out from us, but they were not of us for if they had been of us They would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us They did not continue in the faith Unbelievers might have something that seems like faith momentarily But yet it doesn't last it doesn't continue. They don't continue Believers continue. That's right. When we talk about authentic belief is going to produce your assurance, we want you to clearly understand as you continue in the faith, in your faith, that should be what brings you your assurance. It shouldn't be what pastor says to you. It shouldn't be what I say to you. It shouldn't be what your friends say to you. you should be able to see the Holy Spirit helping you continue in your faith each day. Matthew 7, starting at 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father, again, continues in the faith. On that day, many will say, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. You can't do a few things for God. and think that you're set and you're gonna get there to the doorstep of eternity and go, well, back in the day, I walked the aisle, I said the sinner's prayer, and I helped these people a little bit here and there. No, it's a continued faith. I wanna go back to Steve's questions, noticing the continuation that he challenged us with last night. Do you continue in the fellowship of a local church? And so that means not that you're on the membership role, not that you attend, but are you continuing in the fellowship relationally? If you come to Berean on Sunday morning, That's not what God is looking for. He's looking for you to love Him relationally and love others relationally. And that means you're part of the family. You're integrated into the family, not just showing up and here, check the box, and I'm done, I'm good. But you're relationally involved all the time with each other. The second question, do you continue to confess your sins to others? I need to work on that. You know, as Steve was challenging me last night, I could see a couple different times, a couple different places, Sunday school sometimes, micro groups sometimes, DD at times. But yet, I have to admit, I don't know that I'm doing that to the level that I need to do that. And so I need to be open to challenging myself to do that more. Do I continue to love brothers and sisters? It's easy to love some brothers and some sisters, okay? So I continue to love some. But that's not what scripture challenges too. Do you continue to live out the logic of the gospel that is walking in the light and doing the will of God? I need to strive on that. Verse 20. But you have been anointed by the Holy One and you have all knowledge. As believers, God the Spirit dwells within you and me. He will provide us everything that we need. All knowledge, all understanding, all power. Whatever we need to live out our faith, He will provide it. We're not alone in this walk, in this relationship in any way. Now, we have a warning. 1 Thessalonians 5.19, do not quench the Spirit. And so as believers, We need to embrace the Spirit in our life. Not quench the Spirit. Not say, well, you can come along with me today if you want to. We need to embrace the Holy Spirit each and every day. So I ask you, are you seeing the influence of the Holy Spirit increasing in your life? When you look back five years ago, a year ago, a week ago, Can you see where more and more the Holy Spirit is influencing you? That you are allowing yourself to be more and more guided, more and more controlled, more and more surrendered to the Spirit. Where are you seeing that in your life? In what area? Are you seeing it in your language? That you're seeing the Holy Spirit change your language the way you talk? maybe from four letter words to words that have more letters, maybe in your tone, maybe in your sharing about Jesus, sharing your testimony, sharing your story. You're seeing him change you in that. Maybe he's changing in you singing that you didn't use to want to sing. but yet now, even though you might not be very good like Daniel, okay, but you sing loud, okay, because the Holy Spirit's working in you to at least bring it out loud. Not good, you know, not good like Sean, but loud. This Sean, not this Sean. Just to clarify on that part there. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is in the truth. Is your life a lie? No. As a believer, you should be in the truth, which means no lie. Now, yes, that means you shouldn't tell any lies. But yet, are you living the truth? Or is there some lying, some inconsistency that's going on in your life? The thinking, the being, the doing, the proclaiming. Is it consistently aligned with the truth? Or is there inconsistency? Again, not that you're telling lies, although that could be an issue for some of you. but is your life a lie? Maybe on the outside, it looks pretty holy, but you know what's on the inside. Steve challenged us about that. We only know each other as much as we let each other know each other. And so that's where we gotta challenge ourselves. Is the truth being lived out in our lives each and every day? Romans 12, one and two. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Absolute truth, there is no lies. And so are you living a life of truth? Often we say, yeah, yeah, the truth will set you free. And we think that means that we're supposed to go around and blast other people with the truth and it's going to set them free. No, the truth is for me. When I'm in the truth, through the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, I'm free. And the same for you. 22, 23. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Denying and confessing Jesus as Savior and Lord is not that you say the words. It's not that the words come out of your mouth, yes, Jesus is my Savior and Lord, or no, Jesus is not my Savior and Lord. It's the how my life goes. Am I denying Christ in the way I live? Am I confessing Christ in the way I live? What are other people seeing? Are they seeing me continually confessing Christ as Savior and Lord through my life? or do they really not see Him at all through my life? Because if they're not seeing Christ in me, through me, and coming out of me, then I'm denying Him. I am not allowing Him to come through me. Little old school example, but if you want to test yourself, there's four books that you can look at to see if you are denying or confessing Christ through your life. First one, the Bible. The way you handle the Bible will show you, are you denying Christ in your life or are you confessing him in your life? How much are you in it? Do you love it? Do you want to be around it? Do you want to understand it? Do you want it to challenge you in living like Christ, being transformed like Christ? The hymnal, I know, old school, we don't use hymnals. They're up there on the screen on that part. But are you striving to make a joyful noise unto the Lord? Or when you get an opportunity to sing out, are you just a bump on the log? you, if the Holy Spirit is within you. Now, I grew up Presbyterian and I am not, you know, the big, you know, amen, you know, raising hands and I'm not that. If you give me a little amen or yes sir or yes uh and if you get a little, you know, little hand movement down here like below the waist, okay? I mean, that's that's I'm maxing out like, you know, spirit worship right But yet, I can sing and I can at least be loud. I can sing out. Calendar. When you look at my calendar, when you look at your calendar, are you denying or are you confessing Christ through your calendar? Your checkbook. I know, nobody has checkbooks anymore on that. But yet, the way you handle your money, are you denying Christ or are you confessing Christ? 1 John. 2 6, Steve read it last night, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. So who's sitting on the throne of your life? Who's ruling and reigning in your life? Is Jesus? Are you? Is it your wife? For some of us, we're not the head of the household. Our life is. That's not us confessing Christ and living Christ. That's denying Christ. 24, 25. Let what you have heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you have heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son, in the Father. And this is the promise that He made to us, eternal life. Do you abide with God through His Word? Do you feel the presence of God through his word? Are you praying without ceasing? Are you communing with God? John 8, 31, 32. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. That's for us individually. not for us to go tell other people. Now if you're living it out, you are telling other people. They will see it, they will hear it, they will notice the difference that you abide with God through His Word and it's changing you. It is transforming you. And so it's not only that you're hearing it, but you're abiding in it. Personally, do you abide in the Bible? When you come on Sunday morning and Sunday night, are you abiding in the Bible? Are you excited about getting in there and digging in and seeing what it's challenging you to do, to know about God, to live out your relationship with Him? In small groups, Sunday school, Wednesday nights, are you looking forward to digging into the Word with fellow brothers and sisters, Berean family members, and discussing it back and forth and being iron sharpening iron? Are you in a micro group where you're digging even deeper and being even more transparent as to how scripture talks to you? 26, I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. We live in a fallen, broken world. There is deception around us everywhere. Satan, his dominion is trying to deceive us as he's attacking God through us and our own flesh, our own sin nature is striving to deceive us because it wants to be selfish and self-focused and self-centered all the time. And so we have to realize, are we giving in to the deception that is coming at us? And a lot of it is just us. We are our own worst enemy. We can blame the world. We can blame Satan and his dominion. But most of the time, it's us trying to deceive ourselves. Galatians 6, 7, do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Are you sowing a continuing faith? What are you putting out there? Are you putting out there the truth in your life, or are you allowing deceptions to come in? Are you sowing deceptions? And lastly, 27, but the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him. We talk about being a Bible self feeder. with the Holy Spirit and God's Word, God has provided you everything that you need to learn, to study, to dig in, to allow the Holy Spirit to transform you. Now he's not saying that you should forsake the assembly of other believers, that you don't need to hear preaching, and that you don't need to be in small group and discussing it. He's not saying that. He's challenging you and me. that we need to be teaching ourselves. Looking around this group, most of us are eating at least two to three meals a day and snacks, and we're not waiting for somebody else to come alongside us and feed us and give us the food, okay? We're finding the food ourselves, cooking it, preparing it if we have to, and then we are doing, you know, elbow movement back and forth from the plate to our mouth. Okay? When it comes to God's Word, we need to do the same thing. Now it's nice when we come on Sunday morning, when we're in Sunday school, when we're in Wednesday night, to have other people and we're eating the Word together, but it's up to us on our own, are we being Bible self-feeders? So the last thought, assurance will come to you as you see the difference that belief brings to your life versus unbelief. Assurance will come to you as you see the difference that belief brings to your life versus unbelief. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the moment that we could come and dig in your work. Father, help us to live it out the rest of today. Amen.