Let's go ahead and think about beginning here this morning. We've seen, yes, go ahead and hand those out, please. Good morning, Jessica. We've seen the Lord do some wonderful things so far this week. And that's only the beginning. The temptations that you will face after you finish up Lesson 3 and you rejoice in all the wonderful benefits of having gone through Lesson 3 and taking someone through Lesson 3, they're going to have this amazing assurance of salvation that's finally not a false assurance but a real one. because they're going to know Jesus. And the joy and the happiness that comes from that is pretty amazing. So you're going to be tempted to be so glad that you've seen that happen, you just want to quit. But do not quit. You have just been used as the midwife to bring a brand new child into being with a spiritual birth. And it's up to you to make sure that they don't get left on the street as an orphan, but that are brought into the father's table where they can feed, feast, and feed, and grow, and be nourished in the Lord. And that's what these next two lessons are all about. Lesson six takes place at the church every Sunday morning for the rest of their lives. That's where it goes to from there, of course. So don't be tempted to be satisfied with seeing somebody saved because it's just the beginning of life, not the end of the goal. The goal is not reached when we see somebody trust Christ. the goal is reached when that person is in church as a part of the body, productive. We have a saying here in the book that is our mission. I'll read it to you one more time. Our mission is to reach the lost, to baptize the saved, and teach the baptized. to reach the lost and baptize the saved and teach the baptized. Amen. It's a circle that does not ever end. And the productivity and the glory to our Lord Jesus Christ never ends as well. So we're all about making sure that we continue doing our job once somebody puts their trust in Jesus Christ. It's a critical time. Kariana trusted Jesus last night, and she's going to heaven, and there's nothing on this planet, in this universe, or in any other universe that can keep her out, because the Son has paid her debt. And regardless of what she ever does or does not do, Jesus has already taken care of what she couldn't do a thing about herself. And that's good, and that's wonderful. But the Lord didn't save her just to leave her go and be unproductive and useless and fruitless for the kingdom. The Lord saves her for much greater things. And salvation is the beginning. I keep stressing that, and I don't think I can stress it too much. It's the beginning, not the end goal. So the thing that happens when a person gets saved is that the spirit which was dead in trespasses and sins is quickened. That word means made alive. Jesus said it in John 5, 24, passed from death unto life. He did with her spirit what he did with Lazarus' body at the tomb. He said, Lazarus come forth. Only in Torriana's case, according to the scriptures, he said, I declare you righteous. And her spirit became alive. There's only one word that describes what the feeling basically is. People do a lot of different things whenever they put their trust in Christ. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes it's gonna make you cry. Sometimes they're solemn. Sometimes they laugh out loud. Not at, but it's just pure joy. Every kind of reaction that you can think of, except anger and negative reactions, it shows up sometime or another when various people trust Christ. And there are no bad reactions to genuine faith in Jesus. It really doesn't matter. Her having trusted him, and she has a witness. She knows what she did. She knows she trusted the Lord. And no one can ever, ever, ever take that from her. It's just, but now the war begins. She is more vulnerable right now than she's ever going to be to the attacks and the devastation that Satan can unleash and will unleash on a new belief. She needs us, White House. It's not just that we need her. She needs us. It's a mutual thing. We do need her. We are a team now. We're a family now. We're more than a family. We're an actual body. You realize that a body is a much closer relationship than a family? I mean, you're talking about the hand on your arm here. That's pretty close. And that's what we are once we become one body in Christ. And that happens through baptism. We're gonna teach that in our final lesson here as we go. So do not be tempted, do not be tempted to be satisfied that they're saved and wanna go on to the next one. John John made an off-the-cuff remark, which is a little bit normal for John sometimes About he told Joseph that I was Billy Graham jr. When we came in on our first lesson remember that remember here to say that well Let me tell you something about Billy Graham If the people and I'm And I'm thankful to God for Billy Graham, I don't want you to think that this is a negative thing. But if the people that got saved in the Billy Graham crusades, first of all, if they all got saved, which they didn't, because I was one of them that didn't. And I'm thankful for all who do. But if all the people that got saved in the Billy Graham crusades that have been over the last month, my lifetime, we're doing what God told them to do. We couldn't build enough church buildings to house that kind of membership. We could, I mean, there would be this place, we'd have to build a 10,000 seat auditorium, and the mega churches would be 100,000 instead of 10. I mean, there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people who have been brought to Christ, or at least brought to the door. And yet they're out there being kicked around by Satan and being fruitless in the world. Jesus receiving pretty much no glory at all from their lives. And that's just a cry in shame. And by the grace of God, we may not reach thousands and thousands, but the ones we reach, by God's grace, we're going to do everything we can to teach them how to bring glory to the Lord with the rest of their lives. Does that make sense? Because this is what we're told to do. I know that you who are in business and you who have been in education and all these different wonderful careers, you know that success and benefit comes from doing things the way you're told to do them. If you're working for somebody, you do things the way they want it done. You don't get to pick and choose what you're going to do. It's if Jesus is the master and we're the servants, our job is to do it the way he told us to do it. Not just pick and choose the parts we feel like we want to do. And so I just really cannot stress enough to you. Do not let down your energy, do not back off, do not get lazy, whatever the case, once lesson three's over and that wonderful celebration of joy takes place. Because you've got, you now, you've got real work to do. Everybody on board with that? Okay, shall we begin lesson number four? I did not get a sheet. Whoever handed them out didn't bring me back one. Okay. And so we're always going to start our first, our lesson, no matter which lesson it is, we're going to start it except for the first one that is. With what? Review. Review. Review. I'm going to go over here and look up lessons Now you've heard me say that it is not a problem to lay the book on the table and just basically follow through it and share what's in it. Have you seen any lack of, and I've done that through this whole class, have you seen anything missing or anything lacking because I've just laid the book on the table and looked over here and gone through it? Nope. You've done this enough, I'm pretty sure it's all in your head. Well it is, but I'm, I purposefully am sitting here following the book to prove to you that it's not about my many years of skill, it's simply about delivering these truths. And you can deliver these truths just like I can. Yeah, I can do it without the book, and I don't ever really use the book when I normally teach, because I don't need to anymore. And you won't either after a long enough time. But it's not a problem. You can be just as effective. Who can tell me why that is? I mean, most places that are teaching you how to teach a course or something, they're going to want you to be able to do it and not use the book or whatever and that sort of thing. But why is it? that the effectiveness is still there. Doesn't seem to matter. People like to see it also, you know. I mean, I still have a listing presentation that they look at. I know it by heart. But because I have this, I can show them. Yeah. Well, this is what you're showing them. Exactly. But this is just for you. I just want to remind you that the power to save results for the kingdom is not in us. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, not the power of our persuasion unto salvation, you see. It is Jesus that opens their understanding as we properly present the principles of God's word in the order that he has ordained that they be presented. This book, Receiving the Bible as the Word of God in Lesson 1 is exactly the equivalent that you read about in John Chapter 1 when it says, as many as received Him gave the power to become the sons of God. See, when Lesson 1 was finished, Kariana had been given the power to become a child of God. She wasn't yet, but she now has the power to get there because she has received the Word. And once we got to that part where the believing really takes place and is clearly understood, just like John chapter one described it, here it is. It is such a blessing to see results that match what you read in the scriptures. I did not see those results for a long time after I got saved. I started trying to win people to the Lord probably about an hour after I got saved. I mean, that's how long it took me for that fire to be burning inside of me. And I alienated my whole family. My brother quit coming over to play cards after about two weeks. How Lindsay said that when someone gets saved, you need to lock them up for three years. Well, I don't think you could have put a lock on a door that would have kept me in for three years. I was so grateful for what Jesus had done for me, I was going to tell pretty much anybody and everybody whether they liked it or not. That's not actually the right way to do it. It took me a little while to do that, but even when Even when I first began to reach a few people for the Lord, I was not seeing the kind of results I've read about in the Bible. And that upset me tremendously. I, I would not, I would not blame it on the God because I knew that it could not be his fault. I mean, he's God, he doesn't make mistakes, has to be me. And it was not till I discovered basic Bible truth. that I began to see the results that I read about in the scriptures. And I've been seeing them ever since. So I just really, I hope that you leave this class so sold out on teaching these that you'll do it the rest of your life. I have done that. I did not invent this. There's no glory to me. I've reworked a couple of things. You'll do the same thing in your ministry life. But this is what God teaches us that people need to know in the order that they need to know it. And this is why it's so effective, and it is. So that said, we're going to go ahead and get started. And if anyone else drags in here, well, they'll just have to pick up when they get here. It's good to see those of you who have been very faithful to it, and it's good to see you back here to finish today. Kariana, good morning. We started out our classes with how we know this book is God's work. And again, we've talked about this every lesson since, but isn't it amazing how the construction of the Bible literally shows us that perfect unity and harmony, truly not humanly possible, but it's there. probably just begun reading your Bible, but you're going to see that consistency over and over and over and reading through it year after year after year, it's going to become more and more and more evident to you. The prophecies of the Bible, there are hundreds of them in here. And some of them are one little sentence, and some of them are whole big paragraphs, and two to three pages of what's gonna happen, and all the details. And every detail of every prophecy that has been fulfilled, which most of them have been, except for just a few, is exactly, history's recorded, it is exactly like God said it was gonna happen. Just amazing things. And so you said that you were ready to trust what this says is coming from God. And I'm pretty sure that has not changed. If anything, it's gotten even stronger, hasn't it? Well, God showed us this business of how he looks at us, how he sees us. Two kinds of people in the whole world. All these different kind of categories that we want to put people in in our societies and our cultures. God just does not think that way and he doesn't do things that way. God sees two kinds, those that have a relationship with God and those that don't. And we all start out, of course, without one because we're sinners. We were born in sin and then we choose to sin after we grow up enough to know the difference. And we're accountable. And God said because of that we're lost and we're condemned and we're unforgiven, we're unrighteous, we're dead in our sins, children of the devil, headed to the lake of fire, with not a single solitary thing that any of our conduct whatsoever we'll do about it, because it's not at works, it's not by our works, because all our work compared to God's standard, which is Jesus, is filthy rags, isn't it? But Jesus loved us anyway, and he went to the cross, and he died for our sins, and he was buried, and he rose again the third day, and he is alive, and we get to experience his presence. The Holy Spirit, some people think of the Holy Spirit as Like a something or a force or this or that. Well, you have a spirit and your spirit is the real carry on. Well, the Holy Spirit is Jesus' spirit. It's the spirit of Christ. I teach my students on a regular basis to never forget that when you're talking about the Holy Spirit, you're talking about Christ. You're talking about the Father. They are one, you know. Just like you are. You're made like God. You're made in God's likeness and his image. And the image is a body, like Jesus is the image of the invisible God, but the likeness is the three in one. Your body, soul, and spirit, just like God is three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So it's the parallel that we get to understand how it is with the Lord. Well, when the Lord did this for us, he let us know that placing our trust in his work on the cross on our behalf, the one who'd never sinned, the one who never failed, but died for us, like he had failed, but didn't. So he took what he had accumulated in righteousness, which is enough for the whole world, and he put it on our account. And you got to become declared righteous because you placed your trust in Jesus. And in our last lesson, you really did put your trust in him, didn't you? Yeah. See, I couldn't see your heart, but I saw your face. And from where I was sitting, it looked pretty good. Okay. So now God says, Kariana, that you're saved. He says that you're justified. You have been forgiven. He has declared you righteous. And that's not just a, that's not just a, a term that That's like an application. That's real. Your spirit, which was dead in sin is now righteous. And the Bible goes on to actually tell us that that whosoever is born of God, which is the spirit, not in your who not a wife, do not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. Your spirit is never gonna go along with sin ever again. You're never gonna like it on the inside. You're never gonna be happy about it. Your flesh doesn't change, but the spirit does. And so thus that war we talked about has begun. You're a child of God, and you're going to heaven. And there's nothing that can prevent that forever. That's a pretty wonderful place to be. Well, we're going to look now at this business of fellowship. Today we're gonna learn about the first and most important thing you need to know as a Christian, how that you can walk daily in fellowship with the Lord. We're gonna spend much of our time today in the book of 1 John, which is written exclusively to save people. You're gonna be hard pressed to find anything said in 1 John that applies to lost people at all. So it's that principle we were talking about a couple of sessions ago, how the things that God promised to those with a relationship don't necessarily apply to the others. So we're going to start in 1 John 1, verses 3 and 4. Let me get over here to that. John says, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. Now, one of the things I want you to see in that passage is that God wants you to have a joyful, happy life. The sad part is most Christians, it seems like, think that God wants you kind of miserable, you know, just kind of not being, you know, you don't want to laugh much, you don't want to, you know, you just want to be solemn and go around like you're pious all the time and that sort of thing. Well, that's not what God says. God says he wants you to have joy, full joy. That joy depends on our being in fellowship with God and with us with God's people. Now, there's a lot of there's a lot of lot of Christians. And I'll tell you class, there's a lot of members of our church who do not tend to want to have much fellowship with other people that are the Lord's people. That's a big mistake. Yes, they are a mess. You ought to know you're part of it. Okay. Yes, they're going to do some stupid things. Yes, they're going to say the wrong thing. And, and that's why there's so much about forgiving one another in the Bible, and long suffering and putting up with one another in the Bible. But I want you to understand fellowship with God's people is essential. We can't get along without each other. So fellowship is partnership. It means participation together. You've heard of a fellowship, we call a dinner together as a fellowship. Well, we're participating together in a meal. Social interaction and communication. We're actually having fellowship right now. That's what's going on. This is it. This is the meaning of the word. First, we want to point out the difference between these two important Bible terms on our chart, and that is the difference between relationship and fellowship. Relationship is permanent. Relationship is about being a literal relative in the family, a literal child of God, and it's based solely upon what God has done for us, apart from any works that we might do, whether good or bad. Fellowship, on the other hand, which is that walking together, that participating together, that loving to be together type of thing, Fellowship is interrupted when we sin, as we will see in the scriptures. So fellowship comes and goes, relationship does not. Now, Kariana, in class, just to give you the clear understanding on this, if you understand this correctly, you're gonna not only be a lot wiser yourself, but you're gonna be able to help others. relationship and no relationship. If you open your Bible and you're reading a chapter, and God's talking to lost people, like Revelation 20, for example, toward the end. And you try to apply that to yourself as the same person, it's not going to fit. As a matter of fact, you're going to be you're gonna be thinking that you have to do works or something. You'll come up with weird ideas if you don't know who he's talking to and whether that includes you or not. The same thing happens when you're reading scriptures about fellowship versus relationship. How many of you ever heard a preacher use 1 John 1 9 to try to tell somebody how to be saved at the end of a sermon? That is ridiculous. First John 1.9 is only to save people. And it's not about relationship. It's not about salvation. It's about fellowship. And if you don't understand that, you see, fellowship comes and goes based on our conduct. And if you try to apply the principles of fellowship to relationship, you're gonna try to work your way to heaven pretty quick when you do that. And this is the reason that most people get so mixed up about thinking they can lose their salvation, or worse than that, depending on their own works to stay saved or get saved. And so this is absolutely an essential principle that you must have under your belt and in your consciousness all the time. You've got to understand this. Okay, back to the lesson. Lesson two, we learned a principle that single-handedly clears up most of the common confusion people encounter when trying to understand their Bible. The things that God has to say to those that have no relationship with him obviously do not all apply to those who are his children. Example, the lake of fire, that sort of thing. The things that God says specifically to his children obviously do not apply to those who are not his children. Example, I will never leave or forsake you. That doesn't apply to these people, does it? The context of scripture will tell you which group God is addressing. Much of the false teaching in the world that comes from those claiming to know Christ stems from a failure to understand or at least apply this simple principle. Another major area of confusion is created when people try to apply scripture that deals with fellowship to the subject of relationship and vice versa. Understanding these two principles places you miles ahead in being able to understand the scriptures for yourself. Now, that wasn't hard to read, and you can get that across. You can teach it. Fellowship between us and our Heavenly Father is broken when we sin. It is interrupted when we sin. We're going to go back to Isaiah 59 now. Here in Isaiah 59 in verses 1 and 2. It says, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities which is basically willful sins, have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear. This being as it is, even though we are saved, we still live in sinful flesh and have to face our sinful nature every day. Thus we have a problem. And this problem is outlined for us in 1 John chapter 5, Let's go back over here to 1 John and verse number 8. Let's get to it. I'm sorry, 1 John chapter 1, verse 5 through verse 8. It says, this then is the message we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. All right, so we know that God is holy and righteous and good and in Him is no sin, no darkness at all. He obviously does not participate in sin. Okay, verse six. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. Okay, verse six tells us that if we say we're having fellowship with God and we're sinning, then We're not telling the truth, we're actually lying. We all sin on a regular basis, either by doing what we should not do or by failing to do what we should do. Now that's two kinds of sin there, and one of them is usually going on pretty much most of the time in some manner or another. Based on our conduct alone, we have no hope whatsoever of walking in fellowship with God. Now that's a sad thing, when we know that fellowship is based on conduct. Well, look what it says now. Verse 7, God tells us what conduct is required in order to have fellowship with Him. You ready for this one? This one's a little depressing now. You may want to watch this real close. This is what God says is gonna be required of you in order for you to walk in fellowship with God based on your ability. There it is. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. People say, okay, I can do that. All right, let's do that. Then we can walk in fellowship with God. But wait a minute. Has anyone ever walked in the light as Jesus is in the light? Oh, maybe that's not such a solution after all, is it? Think about what that actually says. You know, we, we will just preach that and go right on like anybody could do it. But the fact is, nobody could possibly do that. No one ever has done that. So not only See, our works will not only save us, they won't even let us walk in fellowship with the Lord after we're saved. Our works are pretty useless. It comes down to it. Just in case we miss the truth, God threw it again here in verse number eight. He said, if we say that we have no sin, do you have sin? Okay, just checking. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves in the truth, is not in us. Most people teach and read chapter one, verse five through eight as a means of walking in with God or getting saved or some other thing, but it's not that at all. It is a point by point dissertation that tells us that we have no hope whatsoever of even being able to walk in fellowship with God, let alone do anything about saving ourselves. It's amazing that people can read the Bible and still come away thinking that they can do something to save themselves. It just is. Now, just like God made a way for us to know that the Bible is true, and he did that, lesson one, right? He gave us a way. He gave us evidence so we could look at it and know for sure. Just like God made a way for us to know where we stand, and he laid it out again and again and again and again, didn't he? If you're paying attention, you could not possibly miss it as you're guided through this. Just like he made a way for us to know who the real savior is, he's given us those evidences so we couldn't miss it. Just like he made a way for us to know for sure that we really are saved. God says that if you trusted Jesus, that you'd have everlasting life, and it's in writing. It's pretty solid, isn't it? Just like He made a way for us to know that we're saved, God has also made a way for us who are saved, but are still lowly sinners, to walk in fellowship with Him. Verse number nine is the most important principle you're ever going to learn and practice as a Christian, right here. But if we confess our sins, he, God, is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now God's already done that for our spirit, and nothing changes with that, but our flesh is a different story. And God is willing to cleanse us completely so that the whole person can be in fellowship, walking with God. Now God says, if we acknowledge our sins to the Lord, that he promises to cleanse us and give us a fresh new start the very moment that we do. I live on that verse, survive by that verse every single day of my life. Psalm 32. People say, well, wasn't it different in the Old Testament? Actually, there wasn't all that much that was different in the Old Testament. Not in reality. If you read Psalm 32, you would think you're talking about somebody that's right out of the New Testament, because it really is no different. David is a man that's definitely a child of God. And he's a man that was definitely also a sinner. And he had, even though God has cleansed his spirit, he didn't have the spirit of God dwelling in him as a comforter like we do in the New Testament time. But the issue of the flesh versus the spirit's still been the same. It's never changed with God's people. Psalm 32, verse number five. Actually, I'm gonna go back and read this from verse number one. David says, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Now, since Jesus came, our sin is not covered now, it's washed away. Which is better than this. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Now that's what Jesus just accomplished in you. When I kept silence, David said, basically, when I got my back up and quit talking to God, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. It's poetic language talking about how miserable he got, and how he was whining and moaning all the time. For day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah, which is a pause. And then David came to his senses, and here's what he said. He said, I acknowledge my sin unto thee. That's exactly what we just read in 1 John 1 9. And mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. And thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. Just exactly like God promises for us. If we will confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin. Now, God tells us not to wait like David did. David was, he got I don't know, I guess he got in a bad mood or something. I don't know, but he wouldn't talk to God. He wouldn't go to God and confess his sin, and he went for a long period of time here out of fellowship with God. And it got worse and worse and worse, and more and more miserable. God tells us that we're not to wait, that we're to come immediately to Him and confess our sins. In Hebrews chapter 4, the Lord talks about this in great detail here. Hebrews 4, verses 14-16. Here's what he says. He says, Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not in high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. That really, that really affects me to know that Jesus knows what I go through and went through everything I went through and do go through. But he did it without failing, which is something I can't even imagine. He says, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. God says that He understands what we're going through, and He will forgive us on the spot and provide grace to help as we go on. I want you to, Kariana, I want you to notice back in 1 John, I want you to notice this term, faithful. It says here, if we confess our sins, that he is, what's that word? Faithful and just to forgive us our sins. The reason he's just is because he's already paid for it. But he's faithful to do this. Let's say that about 30 years from now, that you meet a handsome young fella and decide to get married, that you're now old enough to get married. You catch that? About 30 years from now. It may come a little sooner than that, okay? And this guy is just, this guy is just, I mean, you just love him so much, it's just a dream come true. And he loves you, and one day, He gets down on one knee out in the park where the grass is all green and pretty and sunshine. And he says, he says, carry on. He says, I want you to be my wife. He says, if you'll be my wife, I will be faithful to you 364 days a year for the rest of our lives. Will you be okay with that? No. This is a nice guy, Kariana. What's the problem? There's 365 days in a year. Oh. Well, most people think two out of three is pretty good. Okay. But you're not going to be faithful or okay with that lack of, it's not faithful, is it? So what's faithful mean? Every day, every time. Always, no matter what. So faithful means every time, no matter what. This is very important for you to remember. Because this is God's promise. It's important because of something called, the Bible calls, our besetting sin. Let's go over here to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews 12.1 says this, he says, we're foreseeing we are also compassed, that word means surrounded, about, with so great a cloud of witnesses. Means there's gonna be a lot of people watching your life now. See how you do now that you claim Jesus. Said, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. We all have sins, Kariana, that don't bother us much. I haven't had hardly any trouble at all murdering people this week. Murder's a sin, right? Well, it just hasn't come up. I just haven't been bothered all that much with that particular sin this past week. And see, look, see the cue right here on the book? Ha ha. They did, they were right on time, they weren't they? But Kariana, there are other sins that I can't say that about. You see, we all have certain sins that give us more trouble than all the rest. And everybody has at least something that pretty much just drives them crazy. You're gonna find yourself coming to the Lord And you're going to feel like, Lord, this is the 987th time now that I have confessed this same sin to you. And you're going to feel like giving up. You're going to feel like that God could not possibly ever want to talk to you again because he's just sick and tired of you. How many times have you failed in this one thing? That's when you had better remember what God said in 1 John 1.9. When God says He's faithful, He means it. There will never be a time when God will refuse to forgive you when you confess your sin. Now some would conclude from this that it really doesn't matter if we just continue on in our sins or not because God's just going to forgive us, right? And preachers hate to preach this because they're afraid that they're going to just encourage people to go sin more, and like it's their responsibility or something. But one should remember that all sin has something that comes later, and that something is consequences. Forgiveness puts us back in fellowship with God, but it does not remove the consequences of our sin. Proverbs 28 and 13 addresses this reality for us Let me take you over here to Proverbs 28 13 here we go This is this principle has been around a long time It says he that covers his or her sins shall not prosper but whoso confesses mercy. When you act like that, you're not really saying it, you just kind of ignore it, put it in the background and just don't talk about it. You know, guys are like that a lot. They just want to ignore things and not talk about them like it, you know, don't talk about it. It's not really there, you know, but it is. You see, It's through confessing and forsaking our sins, which is taking the necessary steps to replace the evil with the good. You know, the Bible teaches us that nobody can just quit sinning. You have to literally replace that part of your life with a righteous activity to get it done. To overcome and turn from sins in our life is necessary in order to receive mercy from the consequences. I have here in our lesson an all too typical story, and I've been pastor long enough that I could give you names for several stories very similar to this, of a Christian girl. And since you're a Christian girl, this is gonna relate to you, I'm sure, who against her better judgment goes out with the wrong kind of guy. She winds up in the back seat, and some weeks later she discovers that she's pregnant. Not a fun time in life, but it happens a lot. One Christian girl says, Lord, I've sinned, and I'm sorry. And she fills her life with good things. She starts serving the Lord, sings in the praise team, works in the nursery. literally fills her life with godly activity. And refusing to ever go out like that again, because she's busy those nights now doing something for God. Another saved girl in the same situation says, God, I know I sinned, but how could you let this happen to me? Well, babies only come from God. There's a lot of people that have sex, don't get pregnant. So she's angry because she knows that God did this. And God did do that, by the way. And so she, with no repentance at all, rebels and she's angry and she refuses to talk to God and she refuses to get it fixed. And one girl ends up with a string of fatherless children on welfare and a life of misery. And I guarantee you, you know those people. You know people just like that. And the other gets a whole church family to help her raise her baby. And often, quite often actually, God will send a godly man into her life to love her and to love that child like he's her, his very own. You see, it's not enough just to confess our sins and ask God's forgiveness over and over and over. Although, you definitely wanna do that. but it's not enough. We must learn to replace those things that are wrong with the good things that are right and things that honor the Lord. That's talking about the people that we have our fellowship with. That's talking about the places we go. It's talking about the things we put into our bodies. It's talking about every aspect of life. You see, there's no reason for any believer to spend even five minutes out of fellowship with God. Now, next week we're gonna look at what God says to do with your life now that you know you're saved. Everything we've talked about up to now is basically what God is willing and has done for us. But next week, we're gonna turn the page on that and we're gonna see what God expects us to do now that we've been born again. Now, all those things that you've wanted to know about church, about baptism, about worship, about serving the Lord, and why you need to be an active member in God's house, that's what we're going to address in our next lesson. Actually, we'll see you next week, but actually, in this case, we'll see you right after a break. And we're gonna do that. me this Sunday in church, okay? All right, there's lesson number four in the book. It's a little shorter, not very long, because you're probably going to need to discuss some of these things. There's going to be questions, and you'll have the time for that. And amazingly enough, there's a very high possibility, probability you're gonna be able to answer all the questions. Imagine that. That's a pretty neat thing to be able to do. All right, so any questions on this particular lesson that you'd like to ask? What is the most common thing that you've ever heard preached about 1 John 1 9th? What? That it's about a relationship with God instead of fellowship. Yeah, unfortunately that's very commonly taught. But I think you understand clearly the difference, right? So one of the things that you're gonna hear brought out, and part of it's correct and part of it's not, you're gonna hear, excuse me, You're gonna hear brought out that confess, although it means to acknowledge, and we've read a Bible definition of it from Psalm 32, by the way, so I'm gonna take Bible over dictionary any day, but one of the things that you'll find that's in the meaning of that confess is to say the same thing about. In other words, to agree with God about it. I'm gonna get over it. And it does mean that. However, there is a false conclusion drawn very often that you don't wanna go there and you don't wanna get into. So it means that you agree with God about this as being sin. Now if, all right, this is not me, this is what is common. Now if you agree with God about it, if you really do, then you're not gonna do that anymore, right? Now, that's a false conclusion. Besetting sins don't give you that kind of option. You're not going to quit doing a besetting sin because you agree with God about it that it's sin. The only way you're ever going to get rid of a besetting sin is to replace that thing with a righteous activity that fills that spot up in your life with something good. So we have to be very careful as preachers of the gospel and as Christian witnesses. You understand every member of this church is a minister. You may not be a pastor. You may not be a holdin' ministerial office, but you're a minister, which means a servant, a teacher. That's your job. And we have to be careful because we are accountable for what we say, and do not follow up with assumptions that God didn't say. God said if she confesses her sins, Lord, I did that. It doesn't even say if she's sorry, okay? She is, obviously, because her spirit's righteous. You don't have to manufacture some sorrow. It's already there. But if she confesses her sin, she will get up off her knees, if she happens to be on her knees, forgiven. And are you driving yet? Are you? Do you ever pray when you drive? Don't close your eyes when you pray when you drive. All right. All right. You're dismissed for break. Take about 10 minutes. All right, class. Welcome back from the break. Hope you didn't eat so much that you get sleepy. Stay with the coffee here Fellowship With us and with the father and with his son Jesus Christ Why do you think Why do you think John? in this book And of course, we obviously know it's not just John, although John was totally in agreement here. But why do you think John, in this wonderful book that's written exclusively to save people, right in the very beginning of it, he says, what I've seen, what we saw and what we heard, and he's talking about the time he spent with Jesus, we're telling you about that you may have fellowship with us. He didn't say first and fellowship with the father and with the son. He said, and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. But John says that he wrote this so that you could have fellowship with us. And who is us? Us as God's people. and more specifically, a local church. And he says, we're writing this to you that your joy may be full. Do you think that there are happy Christians who don't have fellowship with other happy Christians? No, they're not. And I've noticed around here, and I'll just tell you, there is a real lack of genuine fellowship with other believers. Now those that do fellowship regularly, and of course our home teams are built around fellowship, and that fellowship's around the word of God, but those that aren't involved in that are missing life within the Lord. So straighten up and fix it, amen? Amen. All right. Okay. Tariana, you ready for lesson number five? This is the last one. And so we're going to do a little bit of review. And since we've done that review, we have obviously all the way back to the Bible. And I am now pretty convinced that your opinion of this is that it's God's Word and that's never going to change. Is that right? Amen. Isn't it clear how God lays it out in these two categories for us? You know, when you see it laid out like this, you just can't miss it. There are people who belong to God and there are people who don't. Two days ago, you didn't. And now you do. And Jesus was responsible for that. Wasn't that awesome? The gospel is the power of God under salvation. Yeah. When you when you sin, if but when, what are you gonna do? You're gonna confess that to the Lord. And if you're driving and somebody cuts you off and you say something bad about them, and the Holy Spirit says, you shouldn't have said that, and you confess it to the Lord, you're gonna do it with your eyes open, right? But you see, there's just, you know, there's no reason to ever be out of fellowship with God for even five minutes. I mean, we know when we fall short. God reminds us, the Spirit convicts us. We simply know right from wrong. And there's just not a reason for us to just go on all day, all night, the next day. Sometimes people think that they ought to just, you know, they come to church and then that's when they get right with God and confess their sin and then everything's good. That just wastes a whole week, doesn't it? We don't want to ever be out of fellowship with the Lord. And we don't want to be out of fellowship with God's people either. It's just extremely important that we have fellowship with each other.