I'm shocked at times when people appear to walk with God for a time and then fall away. When people talk a good talk, and they appear to believe sound doctrine, and they're in church, and they're active, and then they disappear, and maybe they even start talking completely opposite of what they were talking before. And when that happens, it really shakes us up. It makes us wonder, you know? And I think that that part of what was happening Here, as John writes to these believers, there are people who have been with them, but they're not there anymore. In chapter 2 and verse 19, he says, they went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. So, there were people who'd been there, but now they're not there anymore. And I would imagine if they'd been, Some kind of fellowship with the body. They were talking like the body was talking, but they're not talking like that anymore. They're saying heretical things. I think that they're saying things like, in verse 6, when John says, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Why does John say, if we say? Because there are people who are saying that. Or in verse 8, if we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves. The truth's not in us. Or verse 10, if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us. We see it again in verse 4. The one who says, I've come to know Him and does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. And then, once again, in verse 9, the one who says, He is in the light and yet hates his brother. He is in the darkness until now. And so, I believe that the church here has been shaken up a little bit. There are people who are saying that they know God and they are in fellowship with God and their sins have been forgiven and yet they don't live righteous lives. And John pretty clearly says in chapter 3, Verse 7, little children, make sure no one deceives you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. The opposite is also true. The one who practices unrighteousness is not righteous. And it doesn't matter what they say. It doesn't matter if they say they're in fellowship with God or not. If they're not practicing righteousness, they're not righteous. And so, there are people who are talking like this, you know, they say they know God, they're in fellowship with God, they won't keep His commandments, they don't love their brothers, they've disappeared from the body, and this young church is bothering them. And so John writes to them, and he says, look, you can have fellowship with God. But to have fellowship with God, you have to understand something of the character of God. We've looked at this. Chapter 1, verse 5, God is light. There's no darkness in Him at all. This is the God you're having fellowship with. But you also need to know something about yourselves. You can't say that you can live any way you want to and you can hate the brothers, but you're okay with God. Because the truth is, we're sinful. And something must happen in us if we're going to have fellowship with this God. And it's the end of verse 7. The blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Verse 9 of chapter 1. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Or the end of verse 1 and verse 2 of chapter 2. If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father. So, there is something that happens. God has worked through His Son so that this fellowship is possible. By removing the guilt of our sin, but also by removing the power of that sin. And because that has happened, if that has indeed happened, there should be a change in us. Something has occurred that can't leave us the way we were. And so, as we see in other epistles, we see it again here, that what we believe does affect how we live. And if we have a profession that we know God, it must be seen in our practice. The two can't be removed from each other. You can't talk a good talk but not also live before God. Not that we live perfectly. Of course not. If we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But there still should be the reality of this new principle that's in us, working its way out so that I want to obey God and I want to love my brothers and sisters. And so, that's what John points us to tonight. He really moves to some moral test. I told you last week that in each of these cycles that he goes through, he gives us some doctrinal truth. Here's the truth you've got to believe. But then he puts it into practice and basically says, if you believe that, then here's what it looks like in real life. And that's what we're getting tonight. Now, as we covered chapter 1, we move... fairly slowly, not terribly slowly, but fairly slowly. I think Lloyd-Jones took 14 weeks to cover Chapter 1, and we only took 3 or 4, so we're breezing along pretty quickly, but we're going to take a pretty good chunk of Scripture tonight, not because this is unimportant, but as we were looking at the first chapter, we were looking at foundational issues, and all the rest of the book built on that foundation. So we wanted to make sure we had that down. Now that we've covered that to some degree, we will pick up a little bit and tonight we're going to look at, there are three pictures that John paints for us of what a believer looks like or what an unbeliever looks like. How do you know that you have fellowship with God? How do you know when people are saying they have fellowship with God that their lives don't really look like it? How do you know? John tells us. And in telling us this, he not only helps describe what the false professor looks like. He also helps us to grab hold of assurance. John says in the third verse of chapter 2, by this we have come to know. By this we know, rather, that we have come to know Him. So we know that we know. And we see something of this repetition throughout the book. By this we know in verse 3. Again, it shows itself again and again. And then it culminates in verse 13 of chapter 5, and He says, these things I have written to you, who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. And so, He wants these believers who've been bothered by the fact that some people have disappeared, and they're not talking like they used to talk, the fact that they're saying contrary to everything they've heard from the apostles, He wants them to have assurance, and He wants to calm their hearts, and so He paints these pictures for them. Now, even With that, even with the pictures and paints, we can look at them and say, well, this is a Christian. Who can be a Christian? We can look at the pictures and throw up our hands and just say, I quit. I don't look like that completely. I give up. And so, sandwiched between these three pictures we're going to look at tonight in verses 12 through 14 is a parenthesis. We're going to look at it first. It's a word of encouragement. It's as if John is saying, I know you might say that if that's a Christian, no one could be a Christian. So let me go ahead and encourage you. Before you just give up, let me encourage you a little bit. And so we're going to start there with that word of encouragement in verses 12 through 14. Let's read that again. I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning, I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one." Now, these three verses, a little bit odd, in that John says almost the same thing twice within three verses. You're also a little bit odd in that his order has people scratching their heads wondering what he's talking about. He starts with children or young children, and then he goes to the fathers, then he goes to the young men. You would think that he would go in some chronological order, you know? Children, young men, fathers, or father, young men, children, but he doesn't. And if you look at five commentaries, you'll get five different answers. So I'm not going to try to explain it to you either, because no one explained it to me to my satisfaction. But let me tell you what we can see. I think there are a few things we can note. First, six different times John says either, I am writing or I have written to you. And each time he is pointing out his audience. And who is his audience in this little letter? It's believers. John's not writing to an unbelieving world. He's not even writing to the heretical people who've left. John's writing to the church. And so if you are a believer tonight, this letter's for you. That's his audience. He says it again and again. We saw it in chapter 2, verse 1, my little children. These are his children in the faith. These are people that he loves. It's a term of endearment. It's scattered throughout the letter, both that and in verse 7 of chapter 2 we see beloved. And that shows up again and again throughout the little letter. And I pointed these out the first night when we looked at 1 John, so I'm not going to point them out again. flip through and see very quickly the beginning of several sentences, beloved, beloved, beloved, or little children, little children, little children. And so he's clearly writing to a Christian audience or to people that he, his desire is to address believers. And that is emphasized here by these six statements, I am writing to you. I have written to you. Second, why would John almost repeat himself in three verses. I think, most likely, for emphasis. Other than that, I don't know. So I think probably for emphasis. He's emphasizing the fact. I'm trying to encourage you here, even as I'm painting these pictures, that you might look at and think, ooh, I don't know if I match that exactly or not. And so, he says it twice, back to back. I'm writing to you. Third, as he addresses them, In verse 12, He says, I'm writing to you little children. And then at the end of verse 13, He says, I have written to you children. Leave out the word little there in our English Bibles. And they are two different words. And they're exactly opposite of what you think. The first one, in verse 12, I'm writing to you little children. The term there does mean offspring, your child. But it doesn't have any reference to age. When Bambi, who I saw come in, I think, looks at Neil and talks about her child, that is her child, without any reference to age. When I look at Malachi and say, my child, still true, without any reference to age. Or when Mr. Laney looks at Amy, you know, there's no reference to age, but still my child. The second one, in verse 13, children really does have reference to age, and it talks about little children, young children. It seems opposite to us because he uses the word little, or the English translations put it in the word little, in the first one. Exactly opposite. The first one, little children, is a term of endearment. It is, as I've mentioned already, he uses it again and again, talking about these children in the faith. So, the point I'm making with this is this. This first statement he makes in verse 12 is a general statement that's true of every believer. The different terms that he uses here, Children, fathers, young men are not in reference to age physically, but to spiritual age, I believe, to maturity in the faith. And so you might have, you know, a person in their 20s who's walked with God for so many years now, and you might have someone who's 50 or 60 who is a brand new believer. And spiritually speaking, they're children. So he's talking about spiritual maturity. These little children, he's addressing everybody here, this is terms of endearment to all believers. And what he's saying of them is something that's true of every believer. He says, I am writing to you little children because your sins have been forgiven you for His name's sake. And that's true, every believer. If you were in Christ Jesus, your sins have been forgiven you for His name's sake. If your sins haven't been forgiven you, you're not in Christ Jesus. At the end of verse 13 now, he turns to A group of people though, young in the faith, children, and he says, I have written to you because you know the Father. When you think of little children, and I'm talking about age, physical age now, little, little children, getting confused and already in it, young children, even just past newborn, it doesn't take long, they know who Mama is. Doesn't take very long for them to figure it out. They don't reason out, this is mom and that one's not, but somehow they know that's mama, don't they? And you can have a baby cry and pass it from woman to woman or even throw some in there and the baby not be settled until you give the baby to mama. And the baby knows that's mama. And the baby will settle down sometimes. They may know daddy like that a little bit, but typically mama more. I won't tell you my Hannah story. I guess I could, she's not in here. But when she was little... I was in seminary, and not home much, and I don't think she knew me from anybody else, because when I would come in the door and pick her up, she would scream until mama got her. She was definitely a mama's girl when she was little. I guess she probably still is to some degree. John says that children may be ignorant of a lot of things, They don't know a lot, they haven't reasoned out a lot, there's a lot still to learn, but they know who the Father is. They know who the Father is. They have been given the Spirit by which they can cry, Abba, Father. The second group of people that He addresses, and I'm going to go out of order, I'm going to go to the young men next, and He says of them at the end of, in the middle of verse 12, I am writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one, And then He addresses them again at the end of verse 14, and He again says, you've overcome the evil one, but He gives a little bit more information here, and He says, because you're strong and the Word of God abides in you. Young men who've got a few more years, past infants and toddlers, they have lived for a little while. And spiritually speaking, they should be a people who are growing strong in the Word of God. The Word of God is in them, it abides in them, they are feasting upon it, they have strength because of that, and they have by it overcome the evil one. And then the fathers, He says the exact same thing to them twice, which is this, I am writing to you fathers, or I have written to you fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. Now, how does that differ from the children who know the Father? I think that the emphasis here is on an experiential knowledge. Little children know their father, but not in the same way that a person who's walked with the Lord for a while knows their father. If you take both, and they're both faced with the exact set of circumstances, trial comes on both exactly the same kind of trial. The one who's young in the faith knows the Father, but they perhaps are more shaken in their faith, shaken in their faith more quickly than the older believer who's walked with God and knows God experimentally, experientially. Because they've walked with God, they've seen God, take care of Him time and time again. They've lived by faith. They've seen, you know, experienced. And so, He gives them Even four, if we want to say, little children, is to everybody. And it's encouragement to them. I'm writing to you. You know who God is. Your sins have been forgiven. You've fought with God for a while. You know Him experimentally or experientially. You're strong in the Word of God. You've overcome the evil one. So don't be shaken by all this. I'm writing to encourage you and help you to see what real faith looks like. In fact, we might say it like this, that John is describing what a life looks like that's in love with God. So, with that background, that encouragement, let's look at these three pictures and not get bogged down with them now. They are meant to be encouraging. We don't want to... I don't want to look at these three things and you for the next three weeks loaf around looking at yourself. It's not what you need to do. Look at the pictures. Look at Christ. Yeah. Alright. The first, in verses 3 through 6. By this, we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. The one who says, I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word and him, the love of God has truly been perfected. By this, we know that we are in him. The one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he will. So the first description or picture that John gives us of a life that loves God is someone who obeys God. And obedience is necessary because of the nature of our relationship with the God who is life. We must obey Him because of who He is. Just think with me. He is the Lord. And how can we call Him Lord, Lord and not do what He says? He is our Creator. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before Him that we should walk in Him. He is the Father. We are His children. And so, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy. Now, set that in contrast to the unregenerate, who in Ephesians 2-7 are called the sons of disobedience. This relationship that we have with God is a relationship based on faith. We're told that without faith it's impossible to please Him. And yet James says in chapter 2 verse 17, Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. And again in verse 26, For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. And so this faith relationship is one also that will show itself in obedience. God is a covenant-keeping God and the terms of the new covenant necessitate our obedience. Jeremiah 31, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. And so He is our Lord, He's our Creator, He's our Father. All of these different things, they're all reasons that we should obey Him. This relationship we have is all tied up with us obeying Him. Now, we're not obeying Him to get into the relationship, but because we have the relationship, obedience must flow out of it. But those aren't the best reasons. Those are all real reasons, but they're not the best reasons. The best reason is that we have a relationship of love with Him. Jesus said in John 14, verse 15, If you love Me, you will keep My command. You know, the Father has poured out His love on us, and what's the response of a heart that had the love of God poured out on it? It's got to be love in return. And the best evidence that we love God is that we obey Him. If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. Again in verse 21, He who has My commandments and keeps them, He it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him. Verse 23, Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. John 15, 10, If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my law, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His law. So, my abiding in His love, my love to Him, all of it. It shows itself in obedience. We might say it like this, the perfect response to the love of God in us is love in return, but perfected love demonstrates itself in obedience. In fact, John did say it kind of like that in verse 5. He said, but whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected. Now, there's a question about the use of the word love of God there. Is the love of God there? God's love to me, or is it my love to God? So, we can read it like this. But whoever keeps His word, in Him, God's love has truly been perfected. Or, we could read it like this. But whoever keeps His word, in Him, the love for God has truly been perfected. Which one? John uses it in other places here in the same epistle, both ways. I don't know. Maybe he leaves it ambiguous on purpose. Because both are true. I mean, God's love is not incomplete, you understand. But God's love, perfected, brings a response from us. And our love, perfected, results in obedience to God. Our love is imperfect if it's not showing obedience. And so, love perfected demonstrates itself in my willingness to obey Him. In fact, in verses 4 and 6, John basically says that my refusal to obey God is completely incompatible with the claim that I'm walking in fellowship with God. In verse 4 he says, the one who says, I have come to know Him and does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. How many times do you have an apostle calling you a liar? But John does so several times in this little letter. We've already seen it in chapter 1, here it is again. If you say you love God, you won't obey Him, you're a liar. Or verse 6, the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. And so obedience, but also imitation, there should be an imitating of Christ, the way He walked, His conduct of life should be demonstrated in my life. And if it's not, then I can't really say I know Him. We talked sometime back, I think it's been this year, John preached about partial obedience. You remember? I believe we used the example of Saul when he was sent by God to the Amalekites. God told him to destroy everything, don't bring back anything. And so Saul goes out and he fights the Amalekites and he comes back And Samuel comes out to meet him, and Saul runs to him and says, I have kept the command of the Lord. And Samuel says, sheep I hear? Cows? Oh, well, we kept some of the best of the sheep and the cows to offer a sacrifice to God. And by the way, we kept Agag also. But I've kept God's command. And you remember God's response to that. Samuel saw that obedience was better than sacrifice. Rebellion was like the sin of witchcraft. And it was on that occasion that the kingdom was taken from Saul. Partial obedience is disobedience. It's not obedience at all. So let's not dare tell God that I've done part of what you require, and so I am obeying you. We could also talk about delayed obedience. God says do something and I won't do it. Later I decide I will do it. Is it still obedience? In Numbers, and I wrote the scripture down but I guess I didn't. Numbers, I think maybe 13, 13 and 14. The children of Israel come out of Egypt and they get to the border of the promised land. They send out the spies. You remember the 10 of the spies come and say, it's just what God said. Land's full of milk and honey, but there's giants in the land and we can't take the land. And two of them said, we can't take it. But the hearts of the people are turned with the 10 and they refuse to enter. And so God tells them, fine, you can go wander for 40 years. You will not enter the land. When they hear they're going to wander for 40 years and this generation die off, they say, oh no, no, we'll go take the land, we'll go now. And God tells them, don't you do it. Moses tells them, you better not go because God's not going to go with you. They go anyway. And they're met by the Canaanites and, I believe, the Amalekites. And they're defeated and pushed back. Why? Is it because the ten spies were right and they couldn't take the land because of the giants? No. It's because the God who would have given them the victory was not with them now. They had disobeyed God. Their delayed obedience was disobedience. They didn't go when God said to go and now they can't go. They've got to go wander in the wilderness until they die. So we can't have partial obedience. We can't have delayed obedience. We must give complete and quick obedience to this King of love who has come and poured out His life for us. Obedience in what? Obedience in big things is sometimes easier than little things, isn't it? I mean, if God came and told us, you know, go take those giants, we might jump on the chance to go take the giants. That sounds kind of romantic maybe, or even, you know, challenging, or there might be a good pat on the back and some praise at the end of that. We went and took the giants. But what about obedience in the little, mundane, everyday stuff? Obedience at work. Obedience to children with parents. Obedience to parents as you are teaching and instructing your children. Obedience in the everyday grind of stuff. Martin Luther says that we are not called to imitate Christ walking on the sea, but in His ordinary, everyday walk. It sounds much more thrilling to walk on the sea. So if we're to imitate Christ, if we're to walk, even as He walked, how did He walk? In Luke chapter 2, after His parents had taken Him to the temple in Jerusalem, and they leave and they don't realize He's not with them. You remember they figure it out, they go back and they find Him, and He's discussing things with the teachers there. As they leave, in verse 51 at the end of that chapter, it says, And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them. How did Jesus walk? Even as a child He walked in subjection to His parents. So, young Christians, how do you walk like Jesus walked? You walk in obedience to your parents. But what about when you get older and you get out of the house and you're not under them anymore, and you can do what you want to do, right? I mean, can't wait to get out and not have to answer to them anymore, right? But then, does Jesus do what He wants to do then? John 6, 38, He says, For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. John 8, 29, And He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him." We can see it again and again. And we might be tempted to think, well, Jesus was about big things. You know, He was casting out demons and healing the sick and turning water into wine. All kinds of miracles. Well, from age about 30 to 33, there are some big things, but enters first among those big things, don't you think there was probably some mundane days of walking from town to town? And what about those first 30 years of obscurity when he knows that he has a mission and God's called him to that mission, but it's not time to do that mission? Does he not obey the Father then? Is he not still pleasing to the Father as he helps his dad in the carpenter shop? Maybe he wants to be out and about the Father's business? But he walks in subjection to his parents when it's time to do that. And after it's not time to do that anymore, he still walks in subjection to the Father, even if that means obscurity. But how are you and I going to do that? I mean, really, I look at this picture and I think, ooh, is there any hope for me? The only way we can do that is by abiding in Him. Verse 6, the one who says he abides in Him, off Himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. This is what Jesus told us in John 15. Abide in Me. Apart from Me you can do nothing. Abide in Me. Only hope. That's the first picture. The second is verse 7-11. And basically it's this, obedience. There is this command. Or rather, we're to obey, alright? But now here we have obedience to a particular command. And it's not just any command, but it is one of the great commandments. Obey by loving your brother, loving your sister. He says it like this in chapter 5 and verse 2, By this we know that we love the children of God, and we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome." How do I know that I love God, and how do I know I'm keeping His commandments? I'm loving my brothers and sisters. His commandments aren't burdensome. All it really requires is that I love Him, and I love my brothers and my sisters. John writes here, and he says in verse 7 and 8, he says, I'm writing to you something new, but it's not really new, it's old, but it is new. Look at verse 7 and 8. Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard. On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. How many of you look at that and think, which is it, John? Old or new? Well, it's a little bit of both. It is an old commandment, because it's not anything new information-wise. It's been around from the beginning. Certainly, we can say from the beginning of our Christian walk when we come to Christ. It doesn't take us long to figure out part of walking with God is loving my brothers and sisters. He surrounded me with a body. And there's something about them that I like. There's some common ground there that I never knew before. It also is old in that it is all throughout the Bible, from Old Testament to New Testament, this message of love, this command to love is there. You remember in Matthew 22 when the Pharisees came to Christ and one of the lawyers asked Christ, which is the great commandment? What's the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus answers in Matthew 22, 37, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. That lawyer answered and said, you answered well. But Jesus didn't give any revolutionary new information when He said that. He's quoting the Old Testament. When He commanded, the great commandment is this, to love the Lord your God, He's quoting Deuteronomy 6-5. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind." When he says, here's the second great commandment, love your neighbor as yourself, he's quoting Leviticus 19, 18. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. And so, these aren't, this isn't new information, they're not new commandments that Jesus has dreamed up, you know, in those 30 years of obscurity waiting to get out and tell somebody something. It's old commandments. It's all the way from the Pentateuch. It's stuff that the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all these guys should have already known. It's old. And yet, Jesus says of it in John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. So it's old and it's been around for a long time, but it's also new. Not in time, but in demonstration or manifestation, the way it's shown. We've seen it now, they had never seen it before. John 13, 34 again, Jesus said, one more time, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you. They had never seen love to God or love to another person like they saw love in Jesus Christ. And so there was a newness about the command, a freshness about the command, because they see it displayed to perfection in Jesus. How did Jesus love? John 13, 1, as He's preparing for the cross, we read that He turns to His... comes together for the Last Supper, the Feast of the Passover. And the Bible says that Jesus, knowing that His hour had come, that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. In John 15, 13, He turns to them and says, Greater love has no one than this, than one lay down his life for his friends. But it wasn't just for those immediate disciples. In Mark chapter 10, when the rich young ruler comes to Christ and he says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. You remember, he says, Peter, I've done this from my youth up. I've kept the commandments. The Bible says that Jesus looked at him and loved him. Or how can we forget when Jesus stands above Jerusalem and says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have. gathered you together like a hand gathers together chicks under a wing. You would not. Amazing love. We see the love demonstrated in John 14 as Christ prepares for the cross. As concerned as He must be about that, we see Him in the garden, sweating the great drops of blood, praying to the Father, Let this cup pass from you, be your will, but nevertheless, I'm always with yours." Obviously on his mind. How do you get it off your mind? Yet in John 14, he turns to his disciples and he says, I'm going to give you my peace. And I am going away, but I'm going to prepare a place for you and I will come again. And I'm going to send you another comforter. It's to your advantage that I go, so that He can come. But even before that, in John 13, After they've eaten the Passover meal, and before Judas goes out, do you remember what Jesus does? The Bible says that He took up a towel and He girded Himself, poured water in a basin, and He watched the disciples speak. What love! What humility! You want to imitate Christ? We should! Here is love, fast as the ocean. Here's love. Here's wonderful humility. And so, John points us to that kind of love. And in verse 10, he says that the one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. That is, we're not causing others to stumble. We're not causing others to sin because we're abiding in the light. We're loving our brothers and our sisters. But, verse 9, verse 11, the one who says, He is in the light and yet hates his brothers in the darkness until now. It's inconsistent with this fellowship, the fellowship with this God who's light, to not love your brothers and sisters. Verse 11, the one who hates his brothers in darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he's going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. I'm sure there are a lot of applications to this We don't have time to cover them because I'm really running out of time pretty quickly. Unless I just keep you all night. But let me give you one. If we would walk in humility and we would walk in love, we must be willing to forgive our brothers and sisters. If you aren't willing to forgive a brother or a sister, then how can you talk about loving God and walking in fellowship with God? You can think of it from a number of different ways. The Lord's Prayer, the model prayer. Do you really want to pray, God forgive me with the same measure that I forgive others, when you're not willing to forgive? But better yet, think of it, we've just talked about it. The example of Christ Jesus, this One who humbles Himself and takes on flesh and submits Himself to the Father, and because of submission to the Father, submits Himself to us, to be hung on a cross. Think about the humility of Jesus, who washes the feet of the disciples, and then He turns to them and says, the servant is not greater than the master. Will you then be full of pride and unwilling to forgive someone who offends you? Pride, that unforgiveness, is inconsistent with love. Third picture. Verses 15 through 17. Where the first two really were positive pictures. Here's what a believer looks like. Here's what they should love. They should love God, which results in obedience. They should love their neighbors, their brothers and sisters. don't love the world, do not love the world, nor do the things in the world. In fact, there's great, great danger here. As you read through the New Testament, there are a number of people who are mentioned that worked with the apostles at various times. And there are various times when we read that they left. But perhaps none is as clear-cut or startling as Demas. If you look at the New Testament, he's only mentioned a handful of verses, but over several different places. And you look, it's obvious he was with Paul for a while. He was in good company, not only Paul, but a number of other eminent believers. He heard sound doctrine. And then one day, Paul writes to Timothy and says, Demons, having loved this present world, is deserted. Great danger here. Don't be shipwrecked. on the rocks of this world. When John says, don't love the world, what exactly is he talking about? Is he talking about this creation? I don't think so. God made this. He looks at it and says it's good. And even marred by sin, the heavens are still telling the glory of God, and the front of Him displays as anywhere. And we can't look, can't we? And we see the wonders of God, and we think, what a God we serve. So I don't think he's talking about, you know, the grass and the trees. They don't worship them, but you're not supposed to hate them. What about people? Is he talking about, is creationism people? That's inconsistent too, isn't it? God so loved the world, so are you going to hate the world? No, but it is this world system we talked about a little bit. There's a kingdom of light, there is a kingdom of darkness, and we Have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. It's inconsistent then to love that old kingdom. To want to go back to that old kingdom and live that old life. Basically it's loving everything this world offers without God. I think it's a good way to sum it up. God has given us many good things through His creation. Things necessary to us. Some things that aren't necessary but are just good. And they're ours through the joy, within proper boundaries. But when we go outside of those boundaries, when we take those things without God, then we are loving the world. The love of the Father is not in us. This, again, is inconsistent with the claim to fellowship with God. And so, He gives us, I think, maybe three reasons why this is inconsistent or why we're not to love the world. At the end of verse 15, if anyone loves the world, the love of their father is not in him. The love of the world and the love of their father are polar opposites. They are completely incompatible. God does not love this world of sin and idolatry. And how can the believer who loves God love this world of sin and idolatry? James writes in chapter 4, verse 4, and says, you adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. We cannot love God and love the world. You cannot serve God and serve mammon. In fact, if we would love God, we must love the things God loves. And love to God also demands we hate the things God hates. And in Psalm 97, 10, God says, hate evil, you who love the Lord. So love of God and love of the world are completely incompatible. They're opposites. The second reason, though, in verse 16 is that everything that this world can provide apart from the Father is just that. It's apart from the Father. It's outside of the good provision of God. It's trying to make an end run around God and get what He's not giving you. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life, inordinate desires for things that God is not giving us, or in measures that God has not allotted to us, we are asking, we're grasping at that which God has not provided. And for that reason, it is sin. And then third, in verse 17, all of this stuff is passing away. It's not lasting, it's temporal. It's not of real value. So why would you forfeit what you could have in the Father? Fellowship with God, who's eternal, to grab hold of this, the bibles of this world, the trinkets that will not last. Well, to wrap this up, we've been given these three pictures of what a life in love with God looks like. This life is one that obeys God. This life loves brothers and sisters in Christ. All that that entails. And this life does not cling to this world. How will we do any of that, really? I mean, how will you fix your heart, prone to wonders it is, on God, and obey Him? How will you love brothers and sisters who sometimes rub you the wrong way? What the ones, some of them are easy to love maybe, their personalities match up with yours, but some don't. How are you going to deal with them? How will we not attach ourselves to this world when it constantly, these distracting voices, you know, they're ringing in our ears and clamoring for our attention and everything around us is hollering, hey, look at this, look at this, don't you want this? Our only hope really is what I mentioned earlier. It is to abide in Him. And so day by day, morning by morning, we must come to God and with the means of grace in our hand, cry out to Him and ask Him to fix our hearts, to seal them above, to ask Him to let us be sold in love Him and His Son, that these things hold no attraction for us. I pray to be so. Father,