All right, let's look at verse 15 in chapter number 3. And I know that's not my assigned task, but I hope to do more than just preach this morning. In fact, I hope not to preach. I hope to help you. John writes in verse number 15 of chapter 3 of the first epistle out of three of them, John the Evangelist, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. Did you notice there are no caveats to that? Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Would you read that with me one more time? Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Help us, Lord God, to be edified this morning through our time in the Word. And God, just help me to be a good teacher this morning. May your anointing be on me because of my desire to help these men learn the Word of God. And because it's your word, Lord, and because it is the words of life, come here under this tent, Holy Spirit, and do what I can't do. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, I chose that verse because it captures the difficulty of these five chapters. And it captures the difficulty of these five chapters so well. Now, men, me, you, and us, right, because I'm you, The Word of God is hard. Reading the Word of God is hard. And if we're all honest under the tent, I don't want it to be hard. I want to be able to read a sentence one time, comprehend it, and be done with it. In fact, nothing that I read today is as hard as the Word of God. with some exceptions of Shakespearean literature and things like that. But everything else that I read today has been dumbed down, and it's been written in such a low level that most of the time I get it in less than one sentence. I can just about skim over it, and I get what it says, and I move out, and I've got it. Then I run into this genre of Scripture, and let's just be honest, it's hard to understand. And what we have to acknowledge is that when John wrote it 2,000 years ago in a different language to a different culture, it wasn't hard like this. He didn't write it intentionally to make it hard. The issue is, I'm not living 2,000 years ago, and we've got this giant cultural and language barrier between us and back then. That's just the reality. And it's incredibly remarkable if you contemplate the idea that you are reading something written 2,000 years ago. I mean, that's inconceivable. You don't do that anywhere else, and no one else does it anywhere else. I mean, we are the only ones that read and study ancient texts. with this level of expectation. We don't just read it occasionally. Our expectation is that we read it to the point that we can understand it and defend it and articulate it and communicate it. And so when we look at this language right here, John writes, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And I go, I have been guilty of hating my brother. And you just told me I was a murderer. And so what we immediately attempt to do is dumb it down and figure out how we're gonna put words in here and modify it. Right? Because he says you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So what I want to encourage you to recognize is that if you're going to be a good student of the Word of God, you cannot do it in isolation. You must do it in community. And what I mean by that is you've got to get into a relationship with other men who can help you as you work through the Word of God. In other words, microgroups should not be something that's programmatic and scheduled. We're doing it that way to get it started. But it should be happening organically within our organization. That there are individual groups of men that bond together, and their commonality they share is that they're working through a book of the Bible together, and they bounce ideas off of each other as they work through it. Because they understand that reading the Word of God is not enough, Jim. You have to comprehend it. I have to get something out of it. I have to rightly divide the Word of Truth. I have to correctly interpret what I'm reading. And I will often get off course if I don't have someone to help me. And it needs to be the men in this tent that are helping you and guiding you in this. And if we don't get that happening, you're never going to become the self-feeder of God's word that you need to become. Self-feeder being the idea that I can read and interpret scripture for myself. in community. So verse six is my text in chapter number five. And right away you just read verse six and it's just flat out confusing. It's just flat out confusing. It's this cryptic language. This is exactly why devotional books are so preferred. and why they're so unhelpful. Because the devotional author, Pastor Michael, get the verse for me, he'll put it at the top, and then he'll tell me what I need to understand from the verse. That's what he does for me. And so I feel like, man, I had my quiet time, I read a Bible verse, and then I read a paragraph and got some therapeutic application, and now I'm ready to go charge the world for Jesus. But I feel so unequipped to do family devotions. I feel so unequipped to disciple someone else. I feel so unequipped to defend the faith or give an answer for the hope that lies within me. Because my entire Bible study consists of devotional books in which someone tells me what the word of God says. So if you look at verse number six, This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. I want to insert the word the in there. I want to put the definite article between the S and the C. I want to do that all the time. I want to read it and think like this. This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus the Christ. I want to remind myself continually that Christ is not a last name, that it's a title. Jesus the anointed one, Jesus the Messiah. Not by water only, but by the water and blood and the spirit is one who testifies because the spirit is truth. You're like, what am I supposed to do with that? So question number one, what water event offers a testimony? Baptism. Great. Who's baptism? In this case, who's baptism? Christ's baptism. Where is that? Where is that? Don't yell it out because some of you never go through the mental gyrations. And I want to do more and more questioning as the pastor because I want to create the expectation in our congregation that I'm supposed to know this. that I need to know generally where this is. So where would you take someone to show them the baptism of Jesus Christ? I don't want you answering anymore, okay? Because brother, you're on fire for the Lord and I love it. And that's why we have such a relationship. That's why we text five times a day because you want to learn the word of God. I'm trying to get somebody who isn't energized to recognize I need to get on fire. And I want to tell you right now, I'm ready to have a relationship with you. You tell me I want to text with you more. I reached out to Austin Q and said, Austin, we should be texting every single day. Every day. Austin's deployed right now, was here last year. He'll be here hopefully next year. I am not too busy for you. So where are we going? What? Not for the baptism of Jesus. Where? Matthew 3. Anybody else? It talks about it, but do we get the narrative? No. The narrative. So you can go either way. All right, what is significant about this narrative? We don't need to go there right now because I have way too much to cover. Ryan, what's significant about this narrative? Why is John reaching all the back and going, testimony of water? Because Christ This is my son. Yeah, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And then what else happens? There's a visible spirit coming down. So he's saying here, this is what John's doing, this cryptic language is, he's bookending the life of Christ. He's bookending the life of Christ, the ministry of Christ, the adult ministry of Christ. And he's saying that the adult ministry of Christ began at the baptism, at the anointing, at the public display of who he was, Booming voice from heaven says, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. All right, blood. Okay, you guys are giving me an answer, crucifixion, all that. All right, what about birth? Shoot, people go there, John, they go births. And there's a debate within the evangelical community as to is he talking birth, right? I think that because of 1-7, so look back at 1-7, 1-7, because of 1-7, I think that John has already told us which way he's using it. So someone on Gene, read 1-7 real loud, please. CSB, dear friends, I am not writing you a new command, but an old command that you have had from the beginning. The old command is the word you have heard. Okay, I must have messed it up. One more time. If we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. All right, so I think that John has already told us how he's using blood. early in the letter he told us. And Doc this morning used that word recursive parallelism. He just whipped it out there, just you know, like, you know, I got my PhD, you don't, I'm gonna use recursive parallelism. But you know, it's this idea that the way John writes is, I tell you something. I tell you again. I tell you again. And every time I tell you again, I give you a little bit more information. I give you a little bit more details about it. I drill down on it again. So I think that when he says blood, what is he talking about? His death. But is it just his death? Okay, so now we need to make a distinction here. Are we talking like Jesus takes his physical blood and washes me? Okay, it's a picture of his blood covering, but is blood sufficient? Can he just take some blood from his side and sprinkle us? Yes, his death. Right, blood is a cryptic reference to his death. Okay, you'll hear somebody say, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. And they're absolutely correct. Please understand that they're not talking a blood transfusion. The lamb dies when it sheds its blood. Right? And we know that he's not merely talking death because in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul tells us that if Christ be not raised from the dead, this is all in vain. This is all for naught. So in one word called blood, one word called blood, you just got one, Ron, you got one word blood there. You've got death, burial, resurrection, atoning, sacrifice. Right. And fellowship. Sure. I don't think that way. That's not the way I think. Nobody writes like that. They spell it out for me. Right. So I don't want to just preach to you this morning, man. I want to help you learn how to read scripture for yourself. Amen. So what's the next thing that we see going back to our text? We've got water, we've got blood, Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood, and then the? Spirit. And the Spirit. Now why do you think it is, and we'll answer Spirit in just a minute, but why do you think it is that John goes out of his way to testify in three ways? Water, blood, spirit. Why does he do that? I heard picture of Trinity. Anybody else? Yes, Marcus is exactly right. I'm going to read it to you. You don't need to look back, but Deuteronomy 19.50 says, A single witness shall not suffice. A single witness is not enough. You do not convict anyone on a single witness. A single witness against a person for any crime or wrong connection for any offense that he has committed only, listen to this language, only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. So what are, John's giving you his letter, what are his three witnesses? What are his three witnesses? Witness number one is the baptism. Witness number two is the death, the burial, and don't negate the resurrection. Because we don't know that the death is efficacious without the resurrection. Make sure you understand that concept. Right. If he merely dies, we don't know that he's just not another ordinary criminal who dies a death. Right. So he's resurrected. And then what's witness number three? The Spirit. Yeah, the Holy Spirit. The very Holy Spirit. And Paul the Apostle will teach us that your Spirit bears witness with that Spirit. Right. And there's something going on internally that I really can't explain to you, Mike. I just know. And we'll talk about that idea in just a minute more. So verse nine says, so verse seven says, there are three that testify, spirit, water, and blood, and these three agree. So I'm making my case to you, my final chapter, my final precipe, and this is a testimony. Verse nine, if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is, what's it say? Greater. Greater. Now you're going, wait a minute, I heard that. Yeah, you heard that from Bill's message. And this is language that John uses on multiple times. So here you are doing your morning Bible study and you're at this verse and you read God is greater. And you go, wait a minute. Let me just stop right now. I don't have to plow through a lot of scripture. My devotional quality is not measured by Clifford by how many verses I cover, but the quality of it. Everyone get that? Quality is much better than quantity. So I pause for a minute, Daniel, and go, wait a minute, I read greater before, and I go back to the previous chapter, I underline that. I go back to the previous chapter, I underline that. And suddenly I realize that this is Johanian language. We take John, the noun, and we add that Ahonian to make it an adjective. This is the way he writes. God's greater. And because God's greater, God's testimony is greater. Because he's making a case. He wants you to see this. So in 1 John 3 20, whenever our heart condemns us, this is Bill's message. God is greater than our heart. And Steve, I thought that your summation was excellent. You're exactly right. Subjective guilt, its origin is the pit of hell. It's where it's origin. Objective guilt comes from the Holy Spirit. Right. And what you have to figure out is, is this objective guilt or is this subjective guilt? If it's objective guilt, I need to deal with it. This is legitimate. I need to deal with it. If it's subjective guilt, stop. Stop. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. Stop. Just literally stop. You don't need six months of therapy. Okay. I mean, Steven, stop it. Just stop it. We don't need to pay a therapist to tell us to stop it. We just stop it ourselves. Right. Right. Get up. Go live victorious in Christ Jesus. You're not under condemnation. You're as righteous as you're ever going to be in Christ Jesus. Now when it's objective guilt, Jason, then stop and deal with it. You know, that's what Steve said. He dealt with objective guilt yesterday and had to deal with it. And what's struggling is he gets an attitude when he has to deal with it, because it's so infrequent that it's problematic. The rest of us that are sinners all the time, we're like, yeah, I know what objective we have to live with, and I deal with it all the time. When you live where he lives, it's like, this is a rare occurrence. Get out of here. But do you see, 1 John 4, 4, little children, you are from God and overcome them, for he who is greater than you is in the world. Verse 10, back in chapter five. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe, now listen to this language, it can't be any stronger. whoever does not believe God has made him a liar. So you encounter somebody and they don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. They subscribe to the existence of a supreme being and they're willing to capitulate that we're gonna call him God. They won't call him Yahweh. because Yahweh is too specific. Yahweh is the God of Israel, so he's a generic God. And then you look at him, Dr. Boyd, and say, well, you know he has a son. In fact, he only has one son, and his name is Jesus. They named him Jesus because he'll save his people from their sins, Matthew 121. And they go, I don't believe you. And your response is, do you understand that you have just determined that God is a liar? Because that's John's argument. Make sure you see it. That's John's argument. John is saying that if you deny that Jesus is the Christ, if you deny that Jesus is the Son of God, then what you in fact have said is, God, you're a liar. Look at the language. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe, so we're dealing with an unbeliever who does not believe God's testimony, where do you get God's testimony? It doesn't say that. Go look at verse number nine. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. So in verse number 10, when he says, do not believe in God, he's talking about God's testimony. God's testimony that Jesus is the son. Wait a minute. How did you make that connection? Matthew 3, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. That's God's testimony. You understand that? God said, this is my son. You're like, no, he's not your son. I don't believe that he is the son of God. I think he was a good man. He was a good teacher, but surely you're putting too much on there. Then what you've just said is that when God said that, he was lying. Verse 11, and this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Verse 12, whoever has the Son has life. Now, John does not have to insert eternal in front of them, but he could, because he just established what life he's talking about. So we could read it to reinforce how specific he's being, we could read it like this. And this is a testimony that God has gave us eternal life, and this eternal life is in His Son, and whoever has the Son has eternal life, and whoever does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life. You understand how we did that? I write these things to you, verse 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. All right, how big of a deal is this? In my passage, my pericope, eternal life is mentioned specifically, not including the ones in which I put it parenthetically, three times. In the entire book, it's six times. In the New Testament, it's 43 times. There are 43 references to eternal life in the New Testament. And in this little tiny book with five chapters, there are six. Look down at verse 20. We'll go back up, but look down at verse 20. Scroll all the way down to foot 20. And we know, and we'll talk about that in a minute, that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, insight, a mind, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and what's it say? Eternal life. He's eternal life. God is eternal life. God is eternal life. That's what he says. Do you see it with me? He says he is eternal life. So I want to ask the pastors in the room who've been working through this with me. Bill's not here. He had to go back and take care of something. Steve Ron had to officiate a wedding. Is anything more important to John that you know that you have eternal life? Is there anything in the first John? You said you've been reading it for a year. Is there anything more important to the author John than to get you, his reader, to understand that eternal life is available in his son? What do y'all think? Yeah, he wants you to know that you know that you know. Steve, would you? Yeah. It does say the exact same thing. You are correct, Paul. John 20, 21 is the purpose of this gospel. It's so that you would know that Jesus is the Christ. He's the son of God. And in knowing this, that you will have eternal life. Right. Why is eternal life such a big deal? Why can't I just go, hey man, if you want to live forever, that's cool for you, but I'm okay with just having a good life this side. Why is eternal life such a big deal? Why can't I just say, hey man, if you want to do that Jesus thing, and live for eternity with Jesus singing songs in heaven, you know, tweet, tweet, tweet, that's cool for you. But I'm just gonna live a good life this side. What's not being included, but John knows you know this. What's not being included, but John knows you know this. The consequences, right. Yeah, say that one more time. If there's eternal life, there has to be eternal death. Right. Now God could choose, if he wanted to, not to do that, but he's revealed to us that he did chose not to do it that way, right? Right. What do we call this? Eternal separation from God. Okay, we call it eternal separation from God. Hell. Okay, we call it hell. I want you to turn to Revelation 20, please. You know the Johanian literature. The Johanian literature consists of the fourth gospel, John. You know that it consists of 1, 2, and 3 John, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. And you also know that the book of Revelation is authored by the same John. If you read the book of Revelation, what you notice is that what is absent is the word eternal in front of life, but what is present is there's a tree of life, there's a crown of life, there's water of life, and there's a book of life. All in the book of Revelation. A tree of life. a tree of life, water life, water that produces life, a crown of life, and a book of life. So now let's look at Revelation 20 together and see if we can understand how significant this is. Then I saw a great white throne, and Him who was seated on it, from His presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the great, the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. And then another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged from what is written in the books. according to what they had been done. And the sea gave up the dead that were in them, and according to all that they had done. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death." We're talking about the second death. He says, the second death, the lake of fire. and anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. This is our motivation. This is what drives us. This is why we pray. This is why we preach the gospel. This is why we make disciples. This is why we do all we can to call you to love God, to love your brothers, to believe in Christ because of the reality of the second death. We literally want to grab you by your shirt and shake you into the reality that there is a second death. Wake up, please. That's why we do this. This is what motivates us, Landon, to look at you and say you don't want the second death. It sucks. Your heads are down in the back and we wanna lift them up to you and say, wake up and listen. John wants you to know that eternal life is available to you through faith in Christ Jesus. He told you that the blood will cleanse you from all unrighteousness, but that blood is only applied to those who believe that he died for their sins, was buried and rose again on the third day. The T-shirt is that authentic, authentic faith, authentic belief is what gives assurance. And we're trying to make a clear distinction between what is intellectual and heart. And the text allows us to talk about that. So let's do that. I wanna go down to verse number 18. We know, I'm back in chapter number five, everyone. I'm looking at verse 18. We know that everyone who is born of God does not keep on sinning. I mean, that's just about as hard as what we just read in the very beginning. I just really got some bad news for you. Have you ever hated your brother? Well, I... Guilty. Well, you're a murderer. And murderers go to hell. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning. So it seems to me that it's a reasonable conclusion and you tell me if you think I'm on target and I don't mind being corrected. If my cell phone needs to be turned off, I need to turn it off. It seems to me that if I can't see sin being crushed in my life, in some sense, Steve, if I'm not being victorious over sin, if I'm not conquering sin in some sense, if I don't have moments in which I feel a sense of accomplishment in crushing sin, then I need to ask myself, is my faith in Christ authentic? And we're not suggesting, Gene, that you don't sin because if I say that I don't sin according to chapter one, I'm a liar and I make God a liar, right? So this is why we can't read individual verses, Sean, in isolation. The entire book has to be read in its totality, right? So you just told me that if I act like I don't sin, then, well, that doesn't work. And then you just told me if I make a practice of sinning, then I'm not born of God. So if that's this side and that's this side, Nate, then it's gotta be something here. It's gotta be something here. Which is, I haven't arrived, I haven't arrived, but I can see progress. I can see progress. And you need to be tracking progress. Some of you are still using foul language that you don't need to be using. You use it at work, you use it with teenagers, it's cool to use it. You need to get victory over that. You say, but I fall. Yes, we all fall. But what you need to be seeing is measurable, quantifiable victory over that. What do you mean by that? It could be something like, it's been 12 days since I've dropped an F-bomb. Say 12 days. Yeah. Yeah, because before that, it was three days. Yeah, exactly. In the culture we're living in. When you guys go to university. But that's a sin. And I can't make a practice of sinning because I believe I've been born of God. So I've got to be victorious over this. And so be diligent about it. Actively work hard at this. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who has been born of God protects him. And the evil one does not touch him, so stop blaming it on the devil. Right. Wow. Wow. Do you see it? What verse is that? Wow. 18. 18. Yeah. So you can't use it. Right. Everyone else can, but you can't. You know, the devil made me do it. Yeah. you have a promise that the Father is protecting you from the evil one. First John chapter 1 verse 7 through 10, but if we walk in the light as he's in light, we have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ. The death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins. He is faithful and just or righteous, if you have the NASB, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Chapter 2. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate, we have an intercessor, we have a mediator. We have a lawyer on retainer, right? Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation. He is the wrath absorbing sacrifice. The satisfier on our behalf. 1 John 2.12, I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. So, Let's go back to Bill's message just for a moment. Let's make sure we understand what happens. Objective guilt. I was rude and inconsiderate and I surely wasn't kind. I was short with my wife. I look her right in the face and I tell her, you're right. Guilty as charged. I'm sorry. I'll work harder at being kinder. Would you please forgive me? Lord God, forgive me. From that moment, any future guilt is now subjective. Right. You need to understand that. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So that moves you from no longer having objective guilt. Does everyone understand what I meant there? You no longer have objective guilt, but many of us will still have subjective guilt. And the reason we'll still have subjective guilt is because sometimes our wives won't let it go. Wow. And so we'll think that she's bringing objective guilt, but if she's bringing objective guilt, then the word of God is no longer true. Now, this is where you're gonna have to navigate a really significant tight wire. Let me talk you through it, okay? Because you know that your objective guilt has been forgiven. but she's still bringing up subjective guilt, right? And if you're rude back to her about her bringing up subjective guilt, then more objective guilt comes in. Man, what a vicious cycle, right? So you literally have to work on two planes. Come on, stay with me on this, man. Plane number one is my wife is attempting to bring subjective guilt into my life. I'm gonna be kind to her. and recognize that she's going to have to move that and I'm not going back under subjective guilt because I've been forgiven. But if I lose control again over this subjective guilt, then there's more objective guilt. It's almost like you need the Holy Spirit leading you. Yeah, you know? All right, I want to look at 19 with you please. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And John has just giving us the theological truth that lets us know why it's often sucks to live in this world. Because the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And so there is a dichotomy here that we live within. And you've got to see it in the text. Don't lose sight of it. In verse number 18, the evil one does not touch you. In verse number 19, you live in the world in which the evil one has power. Do you see it, everyone? Right, and the two are true, and they are held in tension. Verse 20, and I know it feels like we're rushing, but we have to. I want you to look at 20 with me. There are two different words for no in verse 20. In the first no, and we don't have to worry about pronouncing the Greek. We can if we're trying to look cool in front of our Sunday school class and everything. What we do need to know is that it's not the same no. We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, we'll talk about that in a moment, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Now, if we're reading in the Greek, we would see that the difference between the K-N-O-W and the third word and the K-N-O-W in the middle of the verse are two different Greek words. Steve, this morning you said, mentally, I get it. Do you remember when you said that? You said mentally, comma, I get it. If you wanted to, you could, in verse number 20, looking at that third word, are you with me this morning? And we know, bracket, mentally, comma, I get it. That's the way he's using no in that one. Mentally, I get it. So I want to use this illustration. Some of you were like, why is that old white man bringing in a basketball? So yeah, right. Mentally, I get it. What do you mean mentally get it? Okay. I understand that this ball has to go into that round hoop. I understand that it's way out here, I get three points. I understand that it's two points of that, and if I'm on that three-fo because I've been fouled, I get one point. I understand that if I'm moving the ball, I have to dribble it, and I can pass it, or I can shoot it. I understand that I have to minimize my contact, or I'll get fouled. I understand that the person who scores the most points wins the game. I got it mentally, but I don't know how to play basketball. I know how to play basketball. I could tell you how to play basketball. I've seen enough basketball games and barely participated. Chad was busting my chops about this. I don't know why you were busting my chops about this. You're like, I paid money to see you play basketball. And you know, we're going to do that and see where your money is on a worthy cause. It's coming up. So start putting some savings away. But mentally, I know how to play basketball, right? But if you saw me out there, this is what you'd say. He doesn't know how to play basketball. That's what you'd say. You'd say, that cat doesn't know how to play basketball. I don't want him on my team. Yet, if I came out here and talked to you through the game, you would say, man, yeah, he knows how to play basketball. He's got the general idea. There's two teams, five on a team. They're at full court, they oppose each other, they pass the ball, they have an objective of, yeah, he's got it. All right, that's, in my opinion, exactly how John is using the two nos. Only we're not talking basketball, we're talking about Jesus Christ. And here's where we're at in the evangelical church, and even under this tent. There are a lot of you that mentally know how to play basketball, but you don't know Jesus. And we're so concerned. We're so concerned. We're praying for you. We're begging God to do a work in your life. And this is really problematic because the longer you're in the church, the more you know Christ. Mentally, I get it. and you get to the point where you've heard it so much that you think that your K-N-O-W is the second one when it's really the first one. So how do I know? Well, how do I know the difference then? How do I know whether I know? Well, if you're honest with yourself, I know that Sean Harris can't play basketball. If you're living a lie, then you might perpetrate a fraud. So then, how do we determine it? Well, you say, Sean, put your money where your mouth is. Get on the three-on-three team and let's see if you know how to play basketball. Right? Okay. Do you know what the basketball court is for us? It's called life. It's called life. It's called life. And instead of shooting, we're conquering sin. We're loving our brother. Our faith is growing. There are less fouls and more baskets. Are y'all getting this? I'm trying to give you an illustration that you can apply. You're getting it. The whole basketball court is life. And there is a team that opposes me and the captain is the evil one. The captain is the evil one. But my captain is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He's greater. And I need to apply what Steve taught me this morning. I need to apply it. I need to get up in the morning and go, greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. 1 John 4, 4. Today I will be victorious. Today, I will be victorious. You're struggling in your walk with the Lord with your wife. You need to wake up every morning and say, I'm gonna do better today than I did yesterday in my relationship with my wife. Let's look at verse 21 together. And we're done. Some have concluded that although we call 1 John an epistle, that it probably shouldn't be called an epistle, a letter. And one of the reasons why they argue that it should not be called a letter is because it doesn't have the normal characteristics features of a letter. There's an absence of an introduction. We have no idea who he's writing to. James, we know who he's writing to. Church of Ephesus, we know who he's writing to. Church of Rome, on and on. We don't know who it is. We don't know. And now you look at the last verse, you're like, what? You're done? Exactly. That's exactly how we feel. There's actually a textual variant Between the Texas Receptus and the majority text, say I have no idea what you're talking about, but then you need to spend more time in church. You need to spend more time in Sunday school classes. Some have added the word amen in the Texas Receptus. If you have a King James Bible, the word amen is after the period in idols because it just seems just too abrupt. So let's unpack this last verse. Little children. This is the seventh time John has used little children. He loves to call you little children. He loves to call you beloved. Don't be offended by him calling you little children. Don't be offended by that at all. This is the most elder statesman for the entire evangelical Christendom alive at the time. He is the only man alive who walked with Jesus. From his perspective, everyone is little children. They're all little children. And he loves you. He's crazy about you. He thinks of you as his grandson. He can't wait to bring you and put you on his lap. And all of you that aren't grandfathers yet, you don't get it until you have one. And it's literally a game changer. It's unreal. Am I wrong, Steve? Because you just became one. I had no idea. All these grandparents would come up to me as the pastor, show me pictures, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know? And you just, you know, you give them the courtesy, you know, like, you know, you try it out. Yeah, okay, great, you have grandchildren. Right, that's how it works. And then you get one, and you're like, this is amazing. Wow. Right, it's so cool. Randy, we're praying. Amen. I mean, there's good news. All right, they picked a person of the opposite gender. We pray that they'll know her. You can tell who knows the Bible well. This is how John is. So the last thing he tells us, like, this is important. I need you to think about this. You going to see your grandfather for the last time. Mine was Opa. Love my Opa. He was just amazing. I mean, I'm not exaggerating. I really feel like, you know, Oma Opa in the dictionary, this is how it's done, yours. And I was just blessed. I just really, really blessed. Mom and dad sucked. Oma and Opa were amazing. Just good. Really blessed. So the last thing he tells you, Sam, is he says, guard your life from idols. That's it, that's the last thing. This is your grandfather talking to you, Mike. Is he still alive? No. Who's got a grandfather that's still alive? And your grandfather loves Jesus. And your grandfather just walks with the Lord. And your grandfather knows the Bible inside and out. It's like he authored scripture. And you have the highest respect for your grandfather. You know that he lived the faith. He lived it to the very end. And the last thing he tells you, he looks at you, Nate, and says, Nate, just guard yourself from idols. So what's an idol? Anything that keeps you from one, worshiping the Lord, or two, having right theology. Now I know most of you were thinking just worshiping the Lord, but I need you to realize that for five chapters, he's been talking to us about right theology. Right theology. Like if you don't think Jesus came in the flesh, you're a heretic. If you don't think Jesus is the son of God, you're a heretic. If you don't think Jesus is the Christ, you're a heretic. If you don't believe that Jesus is the God man, you're a heretic. That's how harsh he is. So if there's a teacher in your life that is influencing you to leave who Christ is, That's idolatry. And you guard yourself from him. If getting promoted is keeping you from a walk with the Lord, then that has become an idol and you get that right. Let's pray. Father, we love you so much. We're so thankful that Jesus Christ died on a cross for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day. We don't take that for granted, although we are guilty of it. We articulate to you, oh Lord God, that for this day, at this moment, we don't take it for granted. We realize that you died for our sins, that in Christ Jesus, we are as righteous as we will ever be. And for that, we are incredibly thankful. God, if there's even one young person under this tent that is yet to be born of God, we pray God that today they would give serious contemplation to have I been born of God, in Jesus' name, amen.