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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.
Are You Denying or Confessing Christ Through Your Life?
Series 2023 Men's Retreat
| Sermon ID | 1010231723363304 |
| Duration | 22:08 |
| Date | |
| Category | Devotional |
| Bible Text | 1 John 2:18-27 |
| Language | English |
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