Go and take your Bibles and turn them to the epistle of 1 John. I'm going to be in 1 John this morning. A lot of my Sunday school people were like, oh no, he's doing John again. Well, it's 1 John, but we're doing John again. So yeah, so any weeks you miss, we're gonna try to cover them all in one morning. So just try to keep up. I wanna actually start out by thanking some folks this morning. First, just a huge thanks to Stephen for filling in for me both this week and last week. And then for Tom for filling in for us as well. There's the two pastors and then there's me and I'll do whatever they need me to do. And so sort of between the three of us, you know, it's pretty rare that we're all gone on the same week, and it just sort of worked out that way last week, and I'm hugely appreciative of the fact that, you know, we can all be gone for a week and just know that you guys are still going to worship the Lord, and the Word is still going to be taught, and that's a huge blessing, and thank you for that. And thank you, Eric, for coming up and sharing from your heart as well. That is, it is always really encouraging when the people in the church, especially I don't want to say especially the men, because I'm leaving you ladies out, but I mean, our church, we have some good men here. We have it really good. A lot of churches, getting men to serve actively is just like pulling teeth, and I'm glad it's not here, and so thank you for that. All right, well, what I want to do this morning is read the first 16 verses of John's first epistle. And so that'll take us from 1 John 1 verse 1 all the way to chapter 2 verse 6. So I'm going to have you go ahead and stand, and we don't have it up on the slide yet, but that's all right. And just go ahead and stand as we read it together. 1st John 1 starting in verse 1 that which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life the life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and which was made manifest to us that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message that we have from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in light, There we go. But if we walk in light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son 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 to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but for the sins of all the world. And by this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments. Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. You may be seated. I think you're all probably pretty familiar with Sir Isaac Newton. Sir Isaac Newton is, of course, very well known to you for his extensive writings on the subject of biblical chronology and alchemy, also for his sweet hair. I meant to get a picture of him up here today because Sir Isaac Newton had a pretty good chin and some pretty sweet hair. In fact, after having looked at his picture, I'm sort of thinking about growing mine out. So, I'm getting the stink eye from my mom now. Actually, you probably don't know Sir Isaac Newton for any of those things. What is Sir Isaac Newton famous for? Physics, and specifically... That one thing, right, gravity, there we go. And there's the Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, which goes something like, any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the products of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Did I get, we have engineers in the audience, did I get that right? Okay, now Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation has since been sort of replaced in some respects by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, which other people are having arguments about now, so who really knows? But the Law of Universal Gravitation does tend to be still a pretty good way of measuring things, and in fact, it works just fine until you get to very, very, very high speeds, or very, very large centers of gravity where you need greater levels of precision. But, When we speak of gravity, we don't call it the idea of gravity or the theory of gravity. We call it the law of gravity. And that is because just as surely as single men with large fortunes must be in want of a wife, so too, some of you got that, so too, if you pick up an apple and you drop it, famously, it falls to the ground. It's a law. It is something that we have observed as a universal constant. It seems to always work. There are other laws of physics as well. There's the law of conservation of energy, which basically says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Instead, when there's a chemical reaction that doesn't create energy or destroy energy, it just transfers it to another state or to another place. And there's, of course, the second law of thermodynamics, which is my personal favorite, as it basically describes what is happening in my garage at this moment. And that is that in a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases. In other words, things tend to go from order to disorder. Entropy increases, unless you do something about it. So we live in a world which believes very strongly in the idea of universal laws, things that you can always sort of count on. When I got on an airplane last weekend to fly out to Allentown, Pennsylvania, the burgeoning metropolis of Allentown, Pennsylvania, there's this great little airport which is, in fact, said Lehigh. You'll be glad to know. That's how everybody there says it. Lehigh Airport in Pennsylvania, they have one flight in and one flight out every day, and if you don't get that flight, you have to take a bus to Newark, and nobody wants to go to Jersey. But there was no point, at no point was I sort of afraid that when I got on the airplane and flew to Allentown, Pennsylvania, that at some point during the flight, the laws of physics were going to just stop working on me, just sort of be like, mm, no physics for you today. And the atoms of the plane were going to come apart, or gravity was going to stop working, or aerodynamics was going to stop working. I didn't really have any fears about any of that. Now, I might have concerns about, boy, that pilot sure looks young. And that's coming from me, you guys. Boy, that pilot sure looks young. There's no kind way to say this. I always pray a little prayer when I get on an airplane that I will be, you know, especially if I'm sitting in a middle seat, that I will be next to skinny people. You know, it's just a, it's just a, I mean, I have to be on this plane for six hours. It doesn't have to be awful, right? So I have other fears associated with travel. My biggest fear associated with travel is that, is going through the TSA line. because I sometimes forget to deny my belongings. And actually, the last time I flew for business, I was going through TSA, and the lady pulled me over and said, sir, I think you want to check this bag. And I was like, well, it's a toothpaste or something. Just toss that out. I don't want to mess with all that. She said, no, sir, I think you want to check this bag. And sure enough, there was a great big old Leatherman multi-tool in there, and they didn't want me carrying that on the plane. And that was fine, so I checked the bag. Because it was a $40 Leatherman, and the bag check is free. But I always have that fear that I will forget something, like contraband, and I'll get stuck in security. I hate going through TSA. But we managed to do it pretty event-free this last time around, so that was good. So we believe in universal laws, and our belief in universal laws is basically what makes us, you know, like we have a fair amount of confidence that some things are always going to happen the way that they do. Now, people have always believed that certain things happen the way that they do. If you drop the apple, the apple falls. We've always believed this. But we haven't always attributed it to universal laws. And actually, if you go back just a little bit before Isaac Newton, who was sort of standing on that cusp in the Age of Enlightenment between the modern era and the Middle Ages, the medieval era, You get a different idea, and this is that idea, as it is expressed by one Jeffrey Chaucer in his not as well-known work called The House of Fame, which I actually like better than The Canterbury Tales, but The Canterbury Tales is the only thing anybody ever reads in school, and they only make you read, like, the prologue and, like, one or two excerpts, because it's quite long. It's also pretty good, but it's quite long. But this is what he says, he says, every kindly thing, we'll come back to that word, every kindly thing that is, hath a kindly stead there he, may best in hit conserved by, unto which place every thing through his kindly inclining moveth for to come to. Now let me just explain what I read, because I probably will require a little bit of explanation. When he's saying the word kindly, he doesn't mean it's nice. He doesn't mean like it's a very pleasant, like it's a kindly thing. When he says kindly, he means a thing of a certain sort. So what he's saying And this is how, in the Middle Ages, they sort of tried to understand, why does fire go up, but rocks go down, right? That's actually a pretty good question. You know, like, you can see gas, you know, gases go, you know, they don't fall, but rocks do, so what's the reason for that? And essentially what this comes down to is, as Chaucer is expressing it here, they believe that every kind of matter had a a home, which is what stede means. Had a home. And that if you released whatever was acting on that matter, it would sort of want to naturally return to its home. And so they conceived the earth, and they didn't know the earth was molten at its core, so they conceived the earth as being sort of all of the most dense things, they belong to the earth, and so they tend to go farther down than everything else. Okay, and then water was less dense, and so the home of water was right above the home of earth, and that's why water will go down until it hits ground, and then it stops, and it turns into a lake, or an ocean, or a river. And then, on top of that, you had types of air and types of light, and that is why they believe light and sound, they go off into the atmosphere, and you can see them and you can hear them. And fire, fire goes upward because they believed it was a gas. It's not quite a gas, but that's pretty close. You know, good job 1,000 years ago. So they had this idea that everything was basically sort of, if you can think of it, almost as a homing pigeon, right? That these things desired, that they wanted to get home, and that was why the natural elements behave the way that they do. Now, it would be quite easy for us to sort of smile condescendingly and look back 1,000 years and say, now guys, do you really believe Like, do you really believe that fire really just wants to go to its home, which is beyond, you know, like, it's like the moon? Or do you really believe that water just really wants to go to its home, and that's why it runs together? And like, do you really believe that these things have desires? To which I think he could quite reasonably respond, well, do you really believe that there are written laws somewhere that these things naturally obey? Now, do you really believe, with all of your language about laws and obedience and things like that, do you mean that any more literally than what I mean when I talk about kindly inclining? See, these are both ways of using human terms to describe natural phenomena. In both cases, it's, why does the apple fall? From a modern perspective, we say because there's a law that says that it has to. In the Middle Ages, and before that, going all the way back to the classical era and late antiquity, they said because it wants to. Now, what I want to sort of give you the idea of this morning as we get into our text is that there is a huge difference on an imaginative and on an emotional level whether you believe that whether you project upon the universe the idea of strivings and desires, or whether you project upon it a police system and traffic regulations. And what I want to sort of suggest to you is that that way of thinking about things as police systems and traffic regulations, and I'm not here to do away with the laws of physics, goodness, That would be entirely beyond my capacity, even if I wanted to do such a thing. But what I want to suggest to you is that when you project upon the universe around you, project upon the world around you, instead of an idea of desire, the idea of regulations and traffic laws and policemen, that it produces a profound difference in the way that you understand things. It produces a profound difference in the way that you understand the Bible, and it produces a profound difference in the way that you relate to the people around you. So, take that idea, tuck that away, and we'll come back to it at the end. Now, by way of introduction, The very last sentence of the text that we just read, which will be our main text for this morning, said, by this we may know that we are in Him. Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way as He walked. And the Greek word for abide or to abide with or to dwell with is meno. And meno, in some variation, is used in the epistle of 1 John 23 different times. And in your translation, depending on which one you're using, it will be translated variously as abides or dwells, but it is the same word. And there are 23 uses. in there, and I put some examples up here, so you can sort of go maybe and look at the verse that I've outlined there in 1 John, and you can sort of see which word your translation uses, and maybe you can just sort of underline that, so next time you're reading 1 John, you'll be cognizant, you'll be aware that that's the same word. Now, to abide means to dwell in constant fellowship with something, to stand by something, to stand fast with something, to remain or to continue to remain with someone or something other than yourself. This is the theme of John's first letter. It's the keyword for the whole letter. He uses it, again, 23 different times. It's a very short letter, by the way. I think in the ESV, I just sort of put it into a Word document and did a count on it yesterday, because I was curious about how long it was. I think it came up at being just a little under 2,500 words, the whole letter. It's not very long at all. It's quite short. It's just a few pages. Most of us, for school or something, have written much longer papers than that. So it's a short book. It's a short letter. But he uses this word 23 different times. And that is because this idea of abiding is the central theme for 1 John. And 1 John, I think in many different ways, can be seen as a commentary on Jesus' farewell discourses to his disciples. Now this is where I'm going to need you to follow very closely, because I don't want to overwhelm you with information here, but this will be important to what we're saying. So, there are four farewell discourses in the Gospel of John. Now, Gospel of John, written by John the Beloved, John the Apostle. Epistle of 1 John, also written by John the Beloved, John the Apostle. 1 John is written before the Gospel of John. Gospel of John, we think, is probably, probably the last thing that John wrote. There's a lot of speculation on that, of course, it's very hard to know now, but we think it's probably the last thing that he wrote. So, you've got But 1 John here, and John has, and there are a lot of similarities in the wording at the beginning and end of the Gospel of John and the wording at the beginning of 1 John. You can go through and you see those similarities for yourself. If you're just reading, they'll sort of naturally present themselves. It's very clear this is the same author. And in 1 John, what John is writing first comes across as sort of a commentary on certain things that Jesus said, which John later records in John's gospel. And specifically, these are the farewell discourses. So those of you who have been in my John class know that there are four farewell discourses plus a prayer. And those five pieces together make up actually the bulk of John's passion narrative. Unlike the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John spends more time on the words of the passion week than he does on the actions. The actual actions of the entry into Jerusalem and the crucifixion and the resurrection get probably about two and a half chapters, whereas everything else gets about six. There's a much greater focus in the Gospel of John on the words of Jesus versus the deeds of Jesus. That's why there are only seven miracles recorded in the Gospel of John. It's a focus thing. So there are four farewell discourses. These are basically Jesus talking to his disciples right before he's about to be crucified, and he gives them four different talks or discourses. And they're starting in chapter 13. And I'll just summarize them for when I can read all of them. I will read excerpts from each of them, because that'll be important. But just to summarize them, the first one is, I have a new command for you, a new commandment I give you, and the new command is to love one another. Second discourse is also a command, and it is abide in me. The third discourse is that the world will hate you because they hated me. If you're abiding in me and you're bearing fruit, the world is going to hate you. And the fourth discourse is that it is better for you that I leave. It is better for you that I leave, because I will send the Comforter, I will send the Holy Spirit. So these are the four discourses. I'm going to read just some quick excerpts from those. And please pay attention as I'm reading here, because if you think about what these are, what these discourses are, these are Jesus' final words, His final commands, His final wishes for the disciples and for the church before He leaves earth. So it's important. When he had gone out, Jesus, first discourse, love one another. When he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified. And God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, just as I said to the Jews. So now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. A new commandment I give to you, that you also love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. Now, if this is Jesus' final words to his disciples, and he's saying, here's the really important stuff. If you didn't get anything else I said, get this. The first thing is, love one another. The second thing is, abide in me. I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." So there's that idea of abiding that are so crucial to the epistle of 1 John. That's Jesus saying this. He's saying, abide in me, dwell with me, stay with me, so that you can bear much fruit. The third thing he says is that the world will hate you. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. And then the fourth thing that he says is, it is better for you that I go. I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come. It goes on to say, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. And he will declare to you all the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. Those are just the discourses in excerpt. They're all much lengthier than that, and they're all really beautiful. This is some of the most profound stuff, I think, in the whole New Testament. of certainly in the gospel it's it's tremendous stuff but what i want to sort of draw out of those excerpts that i've just read for you this morning and we've gone into them in much greater detail in our john class is this that each one of these things is about at least among other things is about how we relate to god so first one Love one another. Why? Because that is how men will know that you are my disciples. So, how do you demonstrate that you are loving God? You love your brother. Okay? Second one, abide in Christ. Why? Because that is how we will bear fruit. So, it's about your relationship with God, how you relate to Him. The third one is, because you abide in Christ, the world will hate you. That's still about the relationship that you're supposed to be in, in relation to God. The last one is that it is better for us that Jesus leaves. Why? Because when he leaves, the Holy Spirit will come to the church and he will bring a new way of relating to Jesus, a way that we talked about this morning that isn't constrained by geography or time. You know, we don't have to live in first century Jerusalem to be able to speak with God. Each of these discourses is Jesus expressing his desire for his disciples. This is the important stuff. This is the last thing you will hear from me in my earthly ministry. Here's what I want you to know. It's sort of his last will and testament to his disciples and to his church. This is the most important thing. and he's expressing his desire for what the disciples and by extension in the church what they ought to be when he leaves. Now, throughout all of the farewell discourses, Jesus says things, again, this is all about relationships, so he says things about our relationship with the Father, with the Son, that's himself, and with the Holy Spirit. And then he ends his discourses with what we call the High Priestly Prayer, and that's all of chapter 17, and it's one of the most beautiful and moving passages in the New Testament. And in part, it goes like this. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. So the first thing he desires is that we could be with Jesus where he is in relation to the Father. Do you get that? O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I have made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." Now the key words here are that they may be with me where I am. And of course, Jesus is not wishing for all believers at all times to be with him where he physically is in first century Judea. Rather, what I think he's wishing for is for his disciples and for their future converts, he is wishing for them a heavenly state so that they would be where he is right now. Where is Jesus right now? He is in perfect communion, unbroken fellowship with the Father. Now, this is not, and this is not an eschatological prayer. This is not praying that someday we will be in perfect communion with the Father. That someday, when we get past of all of this, when we get shed of all of this, we will someday be able to be in perfect communion with the Father. That is not what Jesus has just prayed for. That is not the thing that he says is my final desire for the church. He says my final desire for the church is that they would be with me where I am. Present tense. to pray for this is to pray for the perfection for the completion of the act of salvation which Jesus begins on the cross. In that sense, it's always something that we have to look forward to, but in another sense, it is something which is a reality for the believer right now. This is what Paul says in Ephesians, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us. Even when we are dead and our trespasses made us alive together with Christ, and raise us up with him and seated us with him in heavenly places seated us with him and that's that's perfect in other words it's been done seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus what Paula saying and what Jesus was praying for for you was that you would be seated where Christ is in relationship to the Father. This is basically, this is praying. This is a prayer that you and I would be able to participate in and actually be a part of and get inside of the love that flows between the Father and the Son and creates the Trinity. So we believe in a triune God. And what this means is that the Father exists for all of eternity, and the Son, who is begotten of the Father for all of eternity, and that they exist together in this relationship of perpetual love. And you know how sometimes, when you've been somewhere, and maybe it was like a fellowship gathering, you got together with some friends, or you're in a, like a, I don't know, I assume you're all in book clubs, right? Because you're all homeschoolers. Book clubs were something I really wished I could have done as a kid. I always thought book clubs were the coolest thing. I was, yeah, I was a nerd. But you know how sometimes you'll be in a group of people, and then afterwards, maybe you'll be walking away, and somebody will say, maybe your mom will say, or if you're a mom, you'll say, or some grownup will say. There was just a really pleasant spirit about that whole thing, right? And we speak, of the spirit of a relationship as though it is its own thing. But God, who has much more personality than we can possibly comprehend, we talked about this in Sunday School, but I think that part of the reason the Trinity is a mystery is that because trying to understand it is like a flat square trying to understand a cube. Like, if you existed in two dimensions, like you can only ever see like one line of a side of the thing like those of you who have read flatland you're with me everybody else's like what is he talking about but i'm going to be flatland you'll understand the bible better just just do it But there's this, there's this, you know, it's, you know, God who exists in so much more personality than any of us have, the love between the Son and the Father is not just a metaphorical spirit, it is an actual spirit and it is an actual person. And that's the closest I can probably come to describing this relationship to you. And what Jesus is praying for, when Jesus says he's sending the Spirit to us, What he's saying is, I am going to take the spirit of love who is a person and who exists between me and my father and I'm going to put that in you so that you can be part of this love and so that you can now enjoy this relationship. He's asking us to participate in triune love. This relationship is the foundation of all creation. To participate in this relationship is what Jesus ultimately offers to the church. what Jesus is saying that he desires for his disciples. This is Jesus' final wishes. I hope I've said that enough times for you to really get onto that, you know, this is important. This is Jesus' final wishes for his church, and it turns out that Jesus' final wishes for his church are not first and foremost that we be really good or decent or moral people. It's not that we don't cheat on our taxes. It's not that we're just, you know, good and faithful husbands. It's not any of that stuff. Jesus' final wishes for his church are that we would participate in the relationship of love which exists between and which creates the three personal Godhead which we know as the Trinity. Now, try to imagine that for a moment. To be able to participate in triune love is clearly what Jesus desires for his disciples. It's what he wants for us. It ought to be the ultimate goal, I think, of the Christian But it's difficult to imagine, isn't it? And I think part of the reason is because there are some obstacles to it. There are some obstacles to realizing the relationship fully, and John realized that only too well. And that's why he writes 1 John. So writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John pens a letter that becomes 1 John. It wasn't 1 John at the time. It was just John or something at the time. It was like John's letter. And then he wrote two more, and they labeled them. But this is a letter which is full of love, and it is centered around this concept of abiding with, or dwelling with God. And this is something which Jesus commanded, and which John, by way of commentary on the words of Jesus, which he later records in the Gospel, he now expands upon and explains. Because, as it turns out, it is an idea which needs some explanation. So, here's what we're going to do. This week, in the time that remains to us, and the next week. We're going to look at this concept of abiding. We're going to look at the obstacles, which we'll start on this morning. And the next week, we're going to talk about how it works, what it looks like. So, if you feel like I left you hanging this week, that is intentional. So there's a problem with abiding. And that is, of course, our great burden, our sin. Here's what John says. He gets through his introduction where he's talking about things that he's seen and touched with his hand, and it's all talking about Jesus, right? And probably quite literally touched, like, with his hands. Like, that's what we talked about in Sunday school this morning. But after he gets through his introduction, he starts out his letter this way. He says, But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus' Son 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 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 now there are two kinds of people in this audience this morning pretty sure there are those of you who really want to walk in a way which is in accordance with God's Word, and you really want to see Him at work in your life, and you really want to abide with Him, but you have this sin, and maybe it's one particular big sin, or maybe it's a lot of little things, and these sins are constantly getting in your way, and it seems like you can't get ahead. The good thing about you is that you are telling the truth to yourself. So take heart, take comfort in that. But there's also a kind of person, and I hope we don't have any here this morning, but, you know, playing the odds, I'm pretty sure that we do. And you think you're doing a pretty decent job, like you're not as spiritual as you could be, you're not as good a Christian as you can be, but there's nothing really that big, there's nothing really that onerous, there's nothing that's really, you know, you just, you know, you're gonna do better this year. And John says, You are lying to yourself, and the Word of Jesus is not in you. Now, I don't know where that puts you. I don't know where that puts you as far as your standing with the Lord goes, and that's something you should probably, you know, if you say, I have no sin, you know, even if you're just acknowledging, yeah, I had some sins, but I'm doing pretty well overall. I don't really need a lot of forgiveness right now. If you don't find yourself in a position where you're praying for forgiveness every day, I mean, part of me doesn't want to scare anybody, but part of me hopes I do. You need to go home and examine where you are with the Lord, where you stand in relationship to Him. So just that there is no mistake about what John is about to say. Because he's going to say something in a minute that, if we don't grasp this first concept, we're going to be horribly confused. And a lot of people have been. So just that there's no mistake about what he's about to say, John says, churches are full of sinners. There is nobody who is perfect. Everybody sins. If you say you don't have any sin, if you say you're not sinning, the truth is not in you. You are lying, and you're making God a liar. The good news, though, John says, is that Jesus' blood cleanses us from all sin, that if we confess our sins, Jesus is going to be faithful to forgive them. So the Christian, then, by John's definition here, somebody who has the truth in them, is someone who sins and who constantly has to confess their sins and seek Christ's forgiveness. And this is very important, because if we don't understand it, we will misunderstand what John says next. Because what John says next is that my little children I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. Well, okay, that sounds pretty good. John, I would like to do that. I would like to not sin. And he goes on to say, by this we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way which he walked. Says, you know, whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. So John is saying, How do you know if you're in Him? How do you know if you're abiding in Him? How do you know? How do you know? Well, are you keeping commandments? Are you walking with Him? If you're not walking the same way that Christ walked, then you're not with Him. You're a liar. Now wait a minute, John. Wait a minute. You just said we're all sinning. And if we're all sinning, how can we all be keeping His commandments? What's going on here? And this tension is where a lot of us get bogged down. It's where a lot of us get confused with the New Testament. But it's where we have to live. And the answer to this is that you were not made to sin. You were not created with sin in mind. That is not your function. But our sinfulness is a fact. But the good news is that just as our sinfulness is a fact, so is the forgiveness for which Christ paid. but our sinfulness is not the whole story. We're not intended to sin, and we're certainly not intended to keep on sinning, but rather we are intended to keep the Word of Christ in us so that the love of God is made perfect, is what John says. So, whoever is in Christ ought to walk like Christ. The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating, right? But we know from what we just read a moment ago that we are not there yet, that we are sinning. John started out by telling us you're sinning. If you say you're not sinning, you're a liar and the truth is not in you, right? We know from what we just read a moment ago that we're not there yet, but what John is saying is that this is the goal, to be as much like Jesus as we possibly can. Not to deny that our sin exists, but to seek forgiveness, the forgiveness that Christ offers, and in time, to become as much like Him as possible. This is the tension that we have to live in as Christians in a fallen, sin-stained world. It's the tension between an eternal reality and a temporal reality. Let me explain eternity to you. Yeah, because, you know, physics is beyond me, but eternity I got so yeah. I think the mistake that we tend to make about the way that we think about eternity is that we think about eternity as something that is going to happen. There's actually a word for that. It's not eternity. It's called the future. Future is what is going to happen. Eternity, by definition, cannot be in the future. Now, think about that for a second. Living in time We think about a past, things that have happened, the present, what we're doing right now, and we think about the future, which is what will happen tomorrow or someday out there. Eternity cannot be in the future because for it to be eternity, it must have always existed. Do you guys follow? I hope you follow. So, what Jesus promises the Christian is not future life. it is eternal life. What's the difference? Eternity Eternity doesn't have a future because it doesn't have a past because everything in eternity is one single, I'm not going to say present because that word is meaningless without past and future, but it's one single, see I can't even talk about this without using time terminology, but it's one single eternal moment. It never stops. It never began. What Jesus is promising the Christian is eternal life. It's not that when you die, boom, pick up, now I have eternal life. It's that when my physical body dies, eternal life just keeps on going, eternal living, because it never stops. And so there's an eternal reality, and the eternal reality is that as a Christian, as somebody who believes in Jesus and says, I can't fix my sins for myself anymore, Jesus, you have to do this for me. Jesus, I humble myself, I accept you as my Lord and my God. As a Christian, I am seated eternally in this relationship of love with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In heavenly places with Christ. Am seated. Right now, it is done. And it continues to be done. But the temporal reality, and that's the reality that is locked into time, is that I continue sinning. It's that I continue becoming whoever it is I'm going to end up becoming. And it's that tension between the eternal reality of who we are in Christ and the temporal reality of who we are as sinful people living in a world which has been marred by sin. It is that tension that we have to live in. And the call of the Bible is that you reject both fatalism and license. That you don't say, well, I guess nothing really matters. And you don't say, well, I guess I can do anything I want to because I'm, you know, my sins are paid for so I can just, you know, I'm going to continue in sin that grace may abound. Paul says, God forbid, don't do that. Very strongly, don't do that. We're supposed to reject fatalism and license and instead hone the narrow way. And the narrow way that I want to give you this morning, we'll talk more about it next week, I just want to introduce the concept this morning, is holiness for love's sake. Now, speaking of lines and narrow ways, I think there is something really damaging that has crept in to the way that you and I think about love and how we think about holiness. And let me try to paint it for you this way, and maybe this will be familiar. Maybe you've heard somebody teach this. It's this idea that on one side, there is holiness. It's like doing all the right stuff, being holy, being perfect, being a mature Christian, not doing these things and doing these other things. On the other side, there's love, and the love is sort of like not being horrible to people, right? It's like love is like, you know, just treating people kindly and showing the love of Christ to them and overlooking their faults because you're seeing them as a person. And that somewhere between this holiness, and I'm going to put on my priestly vestments, and being loving and helpful to people, somewhere there's this narrow line. If we could just walk it, then we could be both personally holy, but also show the love of Christ to people. Now maybe that's the idea that you have in your head, and maybe you had that idea without knowing it. Maybe you've heard that idea taught. What I want to propose to you this morning is that that idea is completely wrong, it's entirely false, and is not taught anywhere in the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible do we see anybody saying, be holy, but don't be too holy. Peter does not say, be ye holy, but not too holy. He says, God says, be ye holy as I am holy. And we don't ever see anywhere in the Bible anybody say, love people, but you should also not do the sins that they're doing. Like, no, no. It's sort of a given that if you're being loving, you're also not sinning. You can't sin lovingly, right? You can't love sinfully. When you love sinfully, that's called lust. That's a different thing, right? So the idea I want to propose to you instead is holiness for the sake of love. And this is where we're going to go back to what we talked about early on in the lesson. Because there's not a line that needs to be walked between holiness and love. Love is the destination of holiness. Love is the destination of holiness. The whole point of being holy is to get to love. Whose love? What love? God's love. Which is a wonderful paradox because God just went and brought all the love to us and he invites us into it. And that is what John is talking about when he says, if you abide with him, you will walk as he walked. Because as you are walking as he walked, you get closer and closer to love. And nobody gets close to love and then turns around and acts selfishly. If you are a selfish person, if you are being unkind or unholy to the people in your life, if you are being legalistic or you're not walking a line between holiness and love, you're walking a line between love and your own pride. Okay? Holiness is the path towards love. Love is the destination. Now, this is where I think it really does make a big difference how we think about the world. The vision of the world that John is describing here and that the New Testament describes is this vision of love and the Father as the destination. But what we sometimes do when we read the Bible is we take this modern idea of regulations and laws, and we make the universe into a place where God is a cosmic traffic cop. And what we're really trying to do is get to wherever it is we wanna go. And maybe that destination that you're trying to get to is having a good family, or kids that don't go crazy on you, or it's a good job and a happy career. whatever that destination is. And what you see the commands in the Bible as are, these are ways, these are things, and I have to not do those things, and if I don't do those things, then I won't get pulled over, and I can get to where I'm going on time. And that's how a lot of us think about the Bible, and that's how a lot of us think about God. But the picture that John is giving is saying, no, no, no, no, those other things, that's not the destination. That's a distraction. The destination is love. and holiness is the path. The way to abide, to dwell in the triune love, that's what abiding means, it means to dwell in the triune love which Christ desires for his church, is to keep his commandments, keep his commandments, keep Christ's commandments. Now, pop quiz for those of you who were paying attention in the super long introduction. Jesus, when he gives a command in John, abide in me, that is the second command in the second discourse, or the first command in the second discourse, what is the command from the first discourse? What is the command in context that we're supposed to keep to abide in Christ? Love one another. So if you wanted to pick a place to start to abide in Him, if you wanted to pick a place to start and say, okay, holiness sounds like a really big word, Richard, could you give me one thing I could go home and do this week? Here it is. love one another by this will all men know that you are my disciples that you love one another this commandment is given to us by our Lord as our proof of discipleship And here, John takes it, and as we're gonna see next week in 1 John, he makes it the requirement of abiding. We are commanded to abide in Christ, but we cannot do so without keeping his commandments, and the first and the most crucial of those is to love one another. And the reason all of this turns out to be so important is that you and I are all in the process of becoming. We are all in the process of becoming something. Beloved, Paul says, it does not yet appear what we shall be. We are all moving, so there's an eternal reality I talked about, and that is a fixed thing. But in a temporal reality, we're still moving towards it. And we're all in the process of becoming something. And some of us are in the process of becoming something so beautiful and so holy that if you saw it right now, you would be tempted to fall down and worship it as an idol. Something so beautiful, not even the angels can imagine it. Some of us, and I hope nobody here, some of us are in the process of becoming something so ugly and so lonely and so broken that we will spend an entire eternity cursing the God who made us. We are all in the process of becoming one of those two things. So take the people in this room very seriously. Because the person sitting next to you or the person on the other side of the congregation that you try to avoid talking to them on your way out of the door or whatever, they are in the process of becoming something so holy or so abominable that you can't even imagine it. So when Jesus has love one another, it's a very serious charge. You are in the presence of immortal beings. You have never met an ordinary human being. So next time, next week, here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk a little more about the Trinity and why it matters to all of us. And I promise it'll be theological, but I promise it'll also be practical, because in my experience, theology is usually more practical than I'm entirely comfortable with. All right? So we're going to start out with that. Then we're going to talk about this idea of becoming, and us as human becomings, what we should become, John says, and what we should not become. And then we're going to talk about what is the proof of this, how does this work out, and we're going to talk about loving one another and how we should love one another. But today, if you want something to do and just go home and do today, and a lot of people really need, you know, Richard, that's your big ideas, but what is the thing that we go home to do today? First, let me give you a series of questions to ask yourself. Every good act of self-improvement, which has ever taken place, if you believe in self-improvement, which I'm not sure I do, but every good thing starts with a question. So here are some questions. Is your pursuit of holiness First question, is your pursuit of holiness really a pursuit of pride? And an easy way to tell is if it leads you away from love. So if you're pursuing something which you really believe is holy, and like, I'm doing this because holiness, and it's just, it's really turning off all these other people in my life, well maybe, maybe you should reevaluate what you're doing. Holiness never leads you away from love, right? Second question is, is your measure of holiness personal and or arbitrary? Now why would I ask that? I'm asking that because I know you guys and because I know myself, right? And I can remember a time in my life when I drove a lot of people away from me because I had a measure of holiness which was personal and arbitrary and didn't have so much to do with the Bible as it did the standards I thought other people should be held to. Now, if you're saying, but Richard, we need a list. We need to know, here are the things, because if we don't know, then we might accidentally do the things. and and you know i a list so that i don't find you know if i'm a good christian and i need some boxes a check you know how do i know it right you know we're joking this morning about getting to church early and and stuff like like is is there a thing like what's the thing i should do to know if i'm a good christian well okay if you like lists if you like list this list is not actually stated as such in the bible but i think it's a pretty good list so if you want one uh... uh... the early church came up with one and they call these seven cardinal sins And they are pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, gluttony, and sloth. Now, that's a pretty uncomfortable list. But if you want something to go home and work on this week, let me give you one. Pride. This is Pride Week. Everybody go home and work on your pride. When you come back next week, I'll give you greed, okay? And then envy, and then wrath, and then lust, and then we're gonna skip over gluttony because we're Baptists and it's not really a sin. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I think it is remarkable. Every list in the Bible that you find lust in, it's always accompanied by gluttony, because they're really sort of extreme to the same thing. They're both choosing physical pleasure over Christ. Different kinds of physical pleasure. But we make a really big deal about lust in our culture, like, you know, in our Christian culture, I mean, we make a big deal about lust, like, you know, pornography or adultery, things like that. Those are really big deals, and they should be. This should be. Pornography is, it debases humans who are made in the image of God. It destroys your soul. It eats away at your marriage. But you know what else is a sin? Overeating. Like, you know, we joke about overeating on our Facebook statuses. Right? Overeating. You know what else is a sin? Laziness. Which we joke about in our Facebook statuses. Oh, I just don't really feel like doing anything today, so I'm going to sit around and binge some Netflix. Ha ha, LOL, whatever else. I don't actually know how to Facebook, but I assume there's an LOL in there. OK. Be serious about your own sin. If you want to know, but Richard, it's important. Holiness is important to me and that's why I am this way. Okay, go home and stop being serious about other people's sin for a while and be serious about yours. And start with pride. On the flip side of that, here's another question to ask yourself. Is your pursuit of love really a pursuit of license? Does it lead you off the path of holiness? Great way to know, go back and look at that list. If you're saying, oh, but I don't have to do what so-and-so says, because that's not really in the Bible, and I'm just really more about this other stuff, and I can do it, look at the list. Pride, okay? It's a sword that cuts both ways. is your pursuit of love. And by the way, I'm not trying to take this list of seven cardinal sins and say this is all there is, but it's a pretty comprehensive list. I can pretty much take anything that I did this last week that I need to ask forgiveness for, and I can fit it in one of these rubrics. And then maybe ask yourself this question. Is God for you? Is He the destination? Or is he a traffic cop whose rules you try to avoid breaking so that you don't get pulled over and so that you can really get to where you want to go, which is, I don't know, it's a comfortable life. It's whatever your idea of a comfortable life is or whatever your idea of the way that your current situation could improve. Because God is not just a cosmic traffic cop. These rules are not just traffic laws that you can sort of get away with if nobody's looking. There's a path here. The path is holiness, but the destination, the destination is eternal, unending love. And if you're in the place right now where the idea of eternal, unending love is difficult to imagine, or maybe doesn't even really sound that appealing to you, that I want to encourage you this morning, as Stephen comes to lead us in singing, that you come forward and you get your heart right with God. There's a quote, which I like rather a bit, and it says something along the lines of, perhaps we don't like goodness nearly as much as we think we do when we see it. So in other words, when you're confronted with goodness, like, you know, we're sinful, broken creatures. Why should goodness sound appealing? And if you're at the point where it doesn't, if you're at the point where the idea of participating in the unending love which flows between the Father and the Son, and Jesus says, Father, if there's anything I could desire for my church, it would be that they could come and be with me where I am in relationship with you. If that doesn't sound good to you, then I want to strongly encourage you to come this morning and repent, because your desires are not right. You are not kindly inclining yourself to God.