So our scripture reading for today will be 1 John 2, verses three through 11. I'm reading from the ESV. 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. Whoever keeps his word and him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Beloved, I am writing to you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. This is the word of God. Peace be with you. I'd like to thank Brother Jacob for reading that testimony this morning. Very encouraging for me to hear other people's stories and find out that the details of our lives vary a lot. We have a lot in common with our brothers and sisters. We were lost, but now we're found. And we found the same answer in Christ Jesus. So let me encourage you, be encouraged by a reading of his testimony to get yours polished up. And we'd like to hear from all of you. who are comfortable sharing in public. My dear wife is still sniffles and coughs and thought it would freak everybody out if she were to sit here and cough through the service. She's taking another week off. I know there's been a lot of sickness going around. Ben Lupton, Everett's brother, has COVID. And his wife is pregnant with the new baby, so I'm sure that we need to pray for them. And Chris Osborne, how's Chris doing? What's the latest with Chris? He's doing pretty well. Staying in the rate that's being, you know, radiation. Just get a blanket, let something out, keep him aware. He has to avoid crowds. Yeah. Can't pick up any germs because his immune system is. All right. Praise the Lord. Let him know that we are we are praying for him. and for Ruth. I know this is a difficult time for them. Everett has a big case in North Carolina coming up this Wednesday, and we want to pray for him, that God will give him grace to represent our Lord Jesus Christ and the truth, and that God will dispose of the case to his glory. So let's pray. Father, thank you for allowing us to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. When one member suffers, we all suffer with it. We feel that very intensely in a small church, more so than in a big church. We miss our brothers and sisters when they're not here, and their problems become our, their pain becomes our pain, and their joys become our joys. Do continue to heal Chris Osborne, Father. Guide the doctors, don't let them mess him up. Help him and Ruth come safely through this. And we pray for Sandy and others that are feeling colds and distresses and COVID for Ben Lupton. We pray for safety for the child in her womb. And we pray, Heavenly Father, for you to continue to bless this little church. We pray, Father, you would cause it to be a great church. If not great in numbers, may it be great in spirit. May you be pleased with all we do here. And we do pray for Everett's case coming up, this big case he has on Wednesday in North Carolina. God, that you'll be with him, give him the ability to present the case well. And we pray, Heavenly Father, that you'll superintend the whole thing and may justice be done. May your name be glorified in Jesus' name, amen. All right, as our brother just read, if you will turn in your Bible then to 1 John 3, we took a two-week hiatus. With one week, we talked about why we call ourselves Reformed. And then we took another week, why we call ourselves Reformed Baptists. Excuse me. So I hope no one will feel the need to apologize for using those phrases. They don't mean anything to your lost neighbors. Whether you're Reformed or Baptist means nothing whatever to them. So it serves no purpose for the world to know those things. But it can be very helpful to Christians moving here from another area who are trying to find a church to attend. Because many Christians, if they're taught at all, will know what these words mean. And they'll narrow down their search to find a church. So we want truth in labeling. We don't want people to come in here expecting the healing service and the three ring circus going on down here. We want them to come here expecting to hear the word of God preached, the sovereignty of God honored. We want to hear Calvinism, if I may use that phrase reverently, although we don't agree with John Calvin on everything. We certainly do agree with him on his soteriology, that is the doctrine of salvation, the main points. So we're not apologetic about using the term reformed Baptist, but that's not the thing we want to be known for in the world. We want to be known for those who love Jesus, whose lives are overflowing with the truth as it is in Jesus. I want to remind you who the Apostle John was. John or Yohanan, as he's called in Hebrew, Yohanan had been a fisherman along with his brother James. Their father was Zebedee, the Zebedee Fishing Corporation of Galilee. And James and John were rugged outdoorsmen. They spent a lot of time at sea. And that ain't no, Calvin can tell you, that's no place for sissies. If you want to learn to pray, one of the old parents said, if you want to learn to pray, go to sea and see the wonders of the Lord in the deep. There'll be times you're hanging by a thread out there and it ain't no place for weaklings. Going to sea is a rough, and especially these fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus once called them sons of thunder, James and John. Because you may remember that they went through one of the villages of the Samaritans, and they wouldn't show them any hospitality. The Samaritans hated the Jews. And so James and John said, how about if we call down fire from heaven and wipe them out? Like Elijah did, let's call down fire from heaven and destroy this whole village since they're so ugly, it's inhospitable. And remember, Jesus said, you don't know what kind of a spirit you're of. I didn't come to destroy men's lives. I came to save men's lives. But James and John, he called them Boanerges, the sons of thunder. He ended up a lot different than he started, of course, as we all do, we become new creatures in Christ and John became one who was known as the apostle of love. At the end of his life. It isn't how we begin in this life that matters. It's how we leave it. Think about that. We're all pretty raw material when we come to Christ. But God ain't finished with us yet. When he finishes with us, we can be very different from what we started. Along with Peter and James, John became part of Christ's inner circle. They went with him on the Mount of Transfiguration, you remember. And when he went to do a certain healing, he took Peter, James, and John with him. They were his inner circle, even among the twelve. And John was very close to Jesus as the disciple who leaned on Jesus' breast. How touching is that? How close is that? He was that close to Jesus that he was able just to go lean on his breast at the Last Supper. Just before he died, from the cross, Jesus assigned John to take care of his mother, Mary. Think of that. Dying Jesus says, woman, behold your son. Son, John, this is going to be your mother from now on. You take care of my mother. Now historians have wondered, suppose that Joseph, Mary's husband, must have been dead by this time. else he would have been taking care of his wife. Why would Jesus have to? So people assume in a reasonable conjecture is that Joseph was dead before Jesus died. But why not assigned to one of the brothers? Jesus had some younger brothers. But he didn't assign any of them to take care of his mother. Now that does seem strange, doesn't it? He's the older oldest brother, Jesus. So he had the according to the law, he had the lion's share of the inheritance. He was supposed to take care of the mother. Part of his birthright, but he didn't assign it to his brothers, not even to James, his brother that later wrote James. He didn't even assign him to James and people in conjecture. Why not? Well, here's a theory for you. James would be dead long before John, martyred, thrown down from the temple and then stoned to death at Jerusalem, James. So James wouldn't have lived long enough, in case Mary lived a very long life, he wouldn't have lived long enough to take care of her. Jesus knew all that. So he says, woman, behold your son, John. John, this is gonna be your mother from now on. Isn't God good? Jesus loved his mother dearly. And while we don't pray to Mary, she was on her knees with the apostles in the upper room praying. She's not one to be prayed to. Who is my mother and who is my brothers? But they that hear the word of God and keep it. But at the same time, Mary was a believer. He's making a point that it isn't Our human relations endear us to each other. It's our spiritual bonds. And haven't you noticed that you're closer to some of your brothers and sisters in Christ than you are to some of your own physical brothers and sisters? Haven't you noticed that? If they don't believe. Ideally, if it's both, you have a spiritual and a physical bond. That's wonderful. Not everybody has that. John's purpose is for writing, 1 John, and I say purpose is plural because he says in chapter one, verse three, that which we have seen and heard, declare we to you that you may have fellowship, koinonia, with us. And truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. These things we write to you that your joy may be full. We want you to have the same fellowship with the Father and the Son that we have, and we want you to be full of joy. So if you want to be full of joy and enjoy fellowship with God, study 1 John, which we're going to be doing here the next, Lord willing, the next few weeks. But there's another purpose in chapter 5, and this is the record that God has given to us eternal life. And this life is in his son. He that has the son has life. And he that has not the son of God does not have life. Think about that. There's only two kinds of people in the world. You know, we have Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Muslims, Baptists, Iranians, Chinese. We have so many different categories of people. But from God's perspective, there's only two kinds of people in the world. Those that have the son and those who do not have the son. Think about that. There are saved people and lost people. There are children of God and children of the devil. There is no middle ground. You either is or you ain't. By the grace of God, we is. You can correct my English later. But I revert back to type occasionally when I get carried away preaching. So my wife cringes every time I revert back. But anyway, chapter chapter five, verse 13 says, and these things, right? And do you that believe on the name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal life? So part of his reason, another reason for his writing of this first letter is that you might have assurance of your salvation. There are a lot of Christians who are what I call trembling on the rock. They're saved, but they're not sure they're saved, and they're miserable all the time. They're always insecure about their faith. But if you study 1 John and grasp it and obey it, you'll know that you have eternal life. You won't be in doubt. Assurance is a gift from God that we have to labor to get. and whole. But it's better to be trembling on the rock than confident on the sand. And a lot of people out there think they're going to heaven and they are not. Now that's a dangerous state to be in, to think that you're saved. Well, I'm pretty good. I've never, I never killed anybody. Never raped anybody. I never One woman sat in my office one time and told me 15 things she never did. I don't cuss, I don't chew, I don't this, I don't that. And finally I said to her, well, what do you do? The Christian life is not 15 things you don't do. The Christian life is what you do. The devil doesn't do all those things either. The Christian life is more than a list of things you don't do. Thou shalt not. The Christian life is be full of God and do, do, do. So his purpose is. So if we're to enjoy fellowship with Christ. By the way, it is Christ we're talking about here when he comes to verse three. Hereby know we know him if if if we know we know Him, if we keep His commandments. Now, got to be sure about who He is. So go back to verse 1. My little children, these things I write to you that you sin not. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, a lawyer representing us to the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. And hereby we know that we know him, who? The one who God has appointed to be the sin bearer, the propitiation for our sins. We know that we know him, Jesus, if we keep his commandments. So the first test he mentions here is the test of obedience. We are called to be obedient. Think of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I do always those things that please my father. Jesus had one thing to do in life. Always. I think about that. Life is not easy, but friends, life is not complicated. I have one thing to do in this life, and that's to please the one who bled and died and rose for me. This one thing I do. Years ago in The Navigators, they had a five list of priorities we were taught. All right, priority one is your relationship to God. Priority two is your relationship to your wife and family, and then your job, and then other things like sports and that. So keep your priorities straight. That's so confusing. Because there are times when even though you love your wife more than your job, Your job demands, if you're gonna support your wife, you gotta work a lot of hours. How do you keep track of your priorities? Where Paul would say, I have one priority in life. This one thing I do, forgetting what's behind, reaching for what's ahead, I press toward the mark to please my God. Now I have to love my wife. I can't please God and not love my wife. The Lord is not pleased with me if I don't love my wife. Children, you can't please the Lord and not obey your parents. It ain't going to happen. So the thing you have to do is please the Lord. That's why you obey your parents. We know that we know him, we have assurance that we know him if we keep his commandments. Anyway, getting back to Jesus, this one thing I do, I do always those things that please my father. Though he were a son, Hebrews says, though he were a son, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Now, I had trouble a long time with that passage. What does it mean that Jesus learned obedience? Was he ever disobedient? Was Jesus ever, ever disobedient? No. What does it mean he learned obedience? So I translate it like this. You can put it in your maybe file. He learned how hard it can be to obey. When he sweat drops of blood at Gethsemane, sweating drops agonizing. I got to go die for these. sleeping people, these people who are going to desert me. I've got to go die and suffer and agonize. Oh, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. It was not easy for Jesus to be obedient. But he learned the meaning of obedience. He never disobeyed. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And he knows how hard it is for you sometimes to obey him. Sometimes it's easy to obey the Lord. And sometimes, friends, it's agony to obey the Lord, is it not? It's costly. The only thing more costly than obeying the Lord sometimes is not obeying the Lord. That's what you have to weigh. There's a cost if I obey him. This might cost me my job. If I tell the boss the truth, it may cost me my job. If I don't speak the truth, it'll cost me my relationship to God. So what do you do then? You better tell the truth, no matter what it costs. True Christians obey Christ's commandments. And His commandments really are not grievous, we learn later in 1 John. The Old Testament Commandments, the thing the Pharisees had come up with was onerous, long list of things, even how far you can walk on Sunday or Saturday in their case. How many pounds you can lift on a Sunday. Jesus said, you load men with these heavy burdens, this onerous set of commandments. Things you can do, things you can't do. you'd had to carry around an encyclopedia with you to keep track of all the things, like the IRS code. I mean, there's no one that can know all the commandments, let alone keep them all. So if they want to come after you about some violation, they can surely find ground to do it, right? But his commandments are not hard. They're not complicated. but they're not easy. And especially his great commandment, which is what? What's the great commandment in the law? And the second is like unto it? So this is really not a new commandment. God had been telling them all along. that all the commandments, 500 and some commandments I gave you in the law can be summarized in 10. And those 10 can be summarized in two. The first four commandments have to do with your relationship to God, loving. And the rich young ruler said, well, I've kept all these commandments from my youth. What do I lack? And Jesus says, well, Jesus beholding him loved him and said unto him, one thing thou lackest, go thy way and sell what you have and give it to the poor and come and take up the cross and follow me. And remember, the young man went away sorrowful. In other words, this young man, it was easy for him to think, I love God, I love God. But Jesus said, OK, well, prove it. Give away your stuff. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. So we can deceive ourselves into thinking we love God when we really don't. And he'll give us a test. I believe all of us get a test sooner or later to find out if we really do love him. He'll ask for something very, very hard to give up. With Abraham, you remember his son, his only son that he loved, Isaac, And God said, all right, offer him for a sacrifice. The thing nearest and dearest to you. So before you think, yes, I love God, don't say that superficial and say it's by the grace of God I have any love for you at all, God. It's your overwhelming love for me that matters. My love for you is a very poor return. But please work in me something supernatural I don't have. We must trust him, we do not have it within ourselves to love God as we should. But the second commandment is, great commandment is that we love others. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Again, that's not a new commandment that goes back to the Old Testament. By the way, I found some interesting stuff in Leviticus, in case you think it is new. In Leviticus 19, he says, Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart. You shall in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Wow. So love is not indifference. You say, well, I love my neighbor. We get along fine. He lives his life and I live mine. Of course, he's an idolater. He's going to hell, but. He does his thing and I do my thing. No, the Lord says, you can't get by with that. You shall love your neighbor if you see your neighbor in sin. Now, by the way, Proverbs says you don't rebuke a fool unless you're a fool. If you rebuke every sin you see around you, you're going to have a lot of enemies and you'll accomplish nothing. Speak not your wisdom in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your word. But if it's a brother, someone you know is on his way to Zion, and you see him or her doing something you know to be wrong, then out of love, you're gonna say to him or her, you know, the scripture says over here, I've been praying for you, this is not right you're doing. Now that's hard. How many of you have had to face that? Have you had to face that? You say to someone you love, You can't be doing that. You can't be watching that. You can't be reading that. This is sinful. That's hard. That seems to put your relationship at risk. But wouldn't you appreciate it if someone cared enough about you to correct you when you're wrong? You don't like it at first. Anybody that corrects me, I never like it. I get my little Banny Rooster back up generally. But later on, after I've had a chance to think about it, they become my best friends, the ones that cared enough to say, look, I've been praying for you, but I don't think you're getting the message, so I want to tell you something. I usually get angry, and then I go pout, and then I pray about it, and then I come back and thank them. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. By the way, I had a friend one time, he says, you know that pastor who just ran off with his secretary, he says, I could see that coming. And I looked at him, I said, you could? He said, yeah, I could see that coming. And I told him, I said, look, if you see me at the top of a cliff, getting ready to fall over, Don't wait till I hit the bottom and come say, I saw that coming, brother. Please tell me at the top of the cliff. If you see that coming, warn me at the top of the cliff, not when I'm a pile of broken bones at the bottom. That takes love. Well, he says this is not a new commandment, but an old commandment. And again, it goes back to the Old Testament. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Again, in Leviticus. Verse 18, 19, 18, thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Does that sound familiar? I am the Lord. This is not a new commandment. It goes all the way back to the Old Testament. Verse 34, but the stranger, the foreigner that dwells among you shall be to you like one born among you. You shall love him as thyself. What? Yeah, be concerned about his interests, your neighbors, their interests. Be concerned about them as you're concerned about your own things. For you were strangers or foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. So again, know this idea of loving your brother, everybody, but especially your brother is not new. But Jesus said, it is new in this sense, a new commandment I give to you, John 13, 34 and 35, that you love one another as I have loved you. That's what makes it new. That ratchets love up to a whole new meaning. Think of his love for Peter. Peter said, though all men forsake you, Not me, not me, I will never forsake you. Peter, Peter, before the cock crows, you'll deny me three times. Nevertheless, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Jesus knew Peter a lot better than Peter knew Peter. He knew he's a failure, he'll blow hard. But Jesus saw through all that to what Peter would become. Aren't you glad he sees through us and loves us anyway? He sees what we're going to become when he's burned the dross off of us. So it's a new kind of love. It's a self-sacrificing love. A love that costs something. When I was first saved back in Charleston way back in 1961, I remember one of the first things that really changed about me was I suddenly got very concerned about other people. Before that, frankly, I was only concerned about me. If they helped me, good, if they didn't. But I suddenly, if I saw someone with a need, one guy had to go home on emergency leave, and before I could even think about it, my wallet was out and I was putting money in his hand. And you know what? I thoroughly enjoyed it. I found joy in meeting someone else's need. That was something entirely different and had never been there before. And if you're saved, that will be in you too, a desire to really, if you see your brother have need and you shut up your bowels of compassion, how does the love of God dwell in you? Love gives, it gives of time, of talent, of help, of money, You don't feed problems, but if someone has a genuine need, you have to help because of love. And of course, it's a demonstrated love that makes a difference, as Christ hung on that cross and died for sinners. The second phase of this I want to talk about briefly is verses 9-11. And the question, do all professing Christians Love. What do you think? Do all professing Christians love? Yes or no? No. Good, Jacob. Notice the key word, professing. All Christian, true Christians, do love because that's a matter of obedience to Christ. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. So love is not optional for the believer. Love is the acid test. The core test of our obedience to God is our love for one another. Now we love all men, we do good unto all men, but especially those that are of the household of faith. The way God's message changed the whole Roman empire was they could not get over the way Christians loved each other. Titus chapter three, we ourselves were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. I heard a teenage girl recently say, I just hate her. Don't those words jolt you? I know a lot of people would say that, but they know better than to say it. I just hate her. What does he say here first, John? He that says he's in the light, verse 9, and hates his brother is in darkness. He's not saved. He that loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he goes because that darkness has blinded his eyes. I want to conclude with some practical observations about loving each other. What does Christian love look like? Does it mean you never have disputes? Yes or no? No. Remember, Paul had to rebuke Peter to his face in Galatians chapter one. They were eating all these Gentile foods with these new Gentile believers and the brethren from James from Jerusalem with the Jewish orientation came up and started eating kosher food. They separate wouldn't eat with the Gentiles. And Paul jumped up and told Peter right in front of everybody. You hypocrite. Did he love did he love Peter? Did he agree with Peter? No. Did he rebuke Peter? Yes, he did. Did Paul and Barnabas love each other? Yes, they did. Did they have a spat in falling out? Yes, they did. Barnabas took John Mark and sailed off to Cyprus and Paul and Silas took off in other direction. They later on reconciled, but Christian love does not necessarily mean you never have any disagreements or conflict. And everybody's married knows that's true. You love your wife, you love your husband. You agree on everything? Not hardly. Do you have words with each other? Yes, you do. Do you let the sun go down on your raft? that are not. I've done that. That is very expensive. Talk about a bad night's sleep. Go to bed mad at your spouse. But Christian love means basically that we desire the very best for each other. We want to help each other be all that we can be and should be in Christ. So we pray for each other, not for our success. I'm praying now for the success of Jacob, I'm praying for the success of Stephen, I've got Calvin, I've got all of you on my, you're all on my list. That you will be, it's not that I be all I can be for Christ. I wanna be that and I hope you're praying that for me. But the nature of the Christian church is that you be all you can be for Christ, that you discover your spiritual gifts, and that the church function as a body where everybody's fulfilled, everybody's exercising their gifts, and the whole thing is working together in such a supernatural way that the world says, wow, there's something really different in those people. That's love. So when another person has a problem in the church, like Chris Osborne, we all feel it. We pray for him. I don't think a day goes by I don't pray for Chris. Whenever it has a burden, it's not just that he's my son-in-law. It is part of that, but there's more than that. Ben Lupton now has COVID, and his wife has a baby. I think about that just about every day and pray for a bed. The world is hungry for something, they don't know what it is. But I can tell you what it is. It's the idea of people actually loving God and loving each other in ways that can be felt and understood. May God grant us the grace to be that. In the name of Jesus, amen.