Well, you know, we don't really clap here because it's not a performance, it's praise. So just to let you know, we want to be careful to keep it from being a performance. But we do say amen. We do say praise the Lord. We can say hallelujah. You may even say, oh me, I don't know, but you could say, I mean, you can, it's all right to, you know, let the Lord know that that spoke to your heart, let people know that God blessed you with it. And we got to, on the other side of it, we don't want to be a bunch of deadbeat bump on the logs that don't have any emotion, don't have any feeling. And, you know, our theme song is, I shall not be moved. You know, that's not who we want to be. We want God to speak to our hearts, and I'll tell you, when you hear good music like that, it should minister to your soul. And I pray that it did, and I hope it was a blessing to you. I enjoyed hearing some of the amens, but don't be afraid to be engaged in the service, amen? Amen, a couple of you were ready for that. All right, we want to get into the Word of God tonight. I've got to move. We're gonna adjust our closing of the service just a little bit. We'll take our prayer request, and then I'm just gonna have Brother Hunt, when we take our prayer request, would you close us as a group in prayer? Pray for the few of those things, because I'm gonna have the ladies close us out with singing a couple more songs. Would that be all right? All right, so we're going to do that at the end. We'll have them sing a couple of more. So we're just our normal prayer time. And you take those prayer requests home and pray for him. But in order to do all that, I've got to get moving. So get into the Word of God this morning to this morning. See, my mind is really out there. Maybe I ought to stop and pray. Amen. We're in 1st John. Why don't we why don't we pause, pray, ask the Lord to help me get through this. Lord, we thank you for your love and your goodness to us. We praise you for the time to be in your house. Thank you for these ladies that have given of their summer to go around and minister and represent the school that you've chosen to train them through and prepare them for their ministry in the future. Lord, we pray you'd bless them, give them safety as they travel. Lord, help their music to honor and glorify you and to challenge Christians to be listening to the right thing and to be feeding their spirit, Lord, with good, sound, biblical song. And Lord, we just praise you for it. I pray that you would be with this service now, help my mind and voice to be able to work together to impart the thoughts that you've laid on my heart this evening as we close up this book of 1 John. And Lord, I just pray that you would take the service now in Jesus' name, amen. We're in the book of 1 John. We've been looking at 1 John. It's been a fun, fun study. We have been moving through. Actually, this is the 18th message I brought out of the book of 1 John. And we've seen the joyful life, the honest life, the satisfied life. the consistent life, shared life, sanctified life, rejected life, troubled life, privileged life, purified life, new life, confident life, the overcomer's life, the loved life, the obedient life, the saved life, the eternal life. Tonight, we're gonna close up, conclude 1 John with the prayer life. I'm sorry, we saw last week, how many of you guys were listening? Last week was the prayer life. Tonight, we're gonna close up with the known life. The known life, what is it that's known? We looked at the prayer life last week and Warren Wiersbe says, it has been well said that prayer is not always or a way of overcoming God's reluctance, but it is literally laying a hold of God's willingness. We know as God's people, we should be praying people. And we looked at that last week, just discussing and looking at the idea that we should be praying and what we should be praying for, and we come praying in boldness. Tonight, we see this, the known life. Now, I don't have time this evening to get into it. There are 13 things in the book of 1 John that says we know. This would be a great study for somebody. You could look those up. In the book of 1 John, we know. There's 13 of the things that John tells us very clearly, we know. And so that would be a fun study for you to know, learn, just what 13 things does John tell us that we know without question. And three of those are given to us in the verses that we're concluding with this evening as we finish this up. First of all, I want you to see the commitment of a Christian in verse number 18. He says, we know. So we see here the first one of these three that we're gonna look at tonight. We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. Now I'm gonna try and do these verse justice as well as move quickly through this tonight. So keep your minds engaged. You know, if you're keeping notes, that might help. But we see first of all this, the change that's brought in the life of a Christian. Why? Because he's been born again. "'cause he's been born again.' Jesus saith unto him, "'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, "'Except a man be born again, "'he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" We are born again of, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. We know that that being born again should bring a change in our life. It should be a great change. We're not the same person. We have been made new. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new, amen? That's a changed life, the changed life of the believer. And he says here, that we know, Beloved, it should not be the pattern or the habit of somebody that claims to be born again that they're living in sin. He says you're not going to be that person. You're not going to be living in sin. This being born again gives you and I the ability to live above sin. Now I'm not saying we have ever in this side of heaven are going to be able to reach sinless perfection. We're gonna talk about that and there's two sides of this coin. But the habit of the Christian, the pattern of his life should not be one of sin, it should be one of avoiding sin. It should be one of doing all that he can and when he falters and when he falls, he gets back up and moves again towards God and away from sin. This is the pattern. Why? Because we've been born again. because we have that new life in Jesus Christ, because we have the Holy Spirit living in us now working with us as we talked about on Sunday, that convicting power of the Holy Spirit that helps keep you from sin. That's what we're looking at tonight. It gives us the ability. You understand, beloved, that we're all and we're all guilty. Oh, we've all disbelieved. We've all disappointed God. We've all disobeyed God. But Jesus Christ paid the debt for all of that on the cross. He gives us a new life in Jesus Christ, and every sin that you've ever committed is under the blood. And so you and I, beloved, we are fighting in this battle against sin from the place of victory, not from the place of failure. We fight from victory, not just for victory. Let me illustrate the difference for you. It is like a person. You know, the natural man, he is defeated and he knows it. So he just gives in to that sinful nature. But illustrate it like this. A basketball player, you've been on a team. What sports do you ladies play? Volleyball. Man, too bad the net's not set up downstairs. Oh boy. It is set up at the other property. It's only 90 degrees out. Here's the thing. You have a team, and they're playing, and they know they've lost already. What happens? They are playing from a position of defeat. They know they've lost. They're playing out the rest of the game. They're doing what they have to do. They're going through the motions. But they know they've already lost. All their spirit's gone. All their drive is gone. All their focus is gone. They've given up already because they know they're defeated. That's the natural man. He's playing from a defeated position. But I want you to understand that the Christian, we're playing from a place of victory. Even though Satan comes and he may get a point here or a point there, we know that we're on the winning side. We know that our team is greater than his team. We know that in the end, we're going to be victorious. And so we keep pushing forward. We keep trying harder. We keep working and giving it all we got because we know in the end, we're going to win. Amen. We're fighting from a place of victory. We've got Jesus on our side, and John tells us, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And we ought to fight against sin, not just because Satan is there and we know that he's gonna attack us, and we've been studying that in Sunday school, that adversary, the devil, we know he's out there. But bless God, we can win and defeat him because God's on our side. We're fighting from a place of victory. Not that you never falter. But when you do, you stand up again and you go on with the fight. The begotten that's mentioned here in this verse, he says, We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not because he is begotten of God. He that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one touches him not. Now there's some controversy among people a lot wiser than me and that have invested a lot more time in the study of the scriptures than me as to who this begotten one is. Whether this is, we know in one sense we are all begotten of God, right? We also know that Jesus Christ is the one and only begotten son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only, what? begotten son. So we know that it is Jesus Christ, but in some senses it could be each of us because we know that Jesus Christ died in our place and he's covered our sin. And so we're begotten of God as well. One day we get to heaven, we'll know who was right and who was wrong. It doesn't really matter to me. Ultimately, you see in this verse that Jesus Christ, if it's Jesus Christ, we know he gives us a promise here that he's watching out for you, that he's over, he's watching over you and that wicked one is not going to be able to touch you. We know that follows in line with biblical truth. If you look at the life of Job, in order for Satan to do anything to Job, he had to come and ask God, what can I do? Hey, does he trust you for nothing? Does he praise you for nothing? I mean, I'll tell you, if you inflict some pain on him, he'll deny you. And Jesus said, or God said, go ahead. And we know he didn't. He did not in anything deny Christ that he was righteous and he is shoot evil. And so we know here this word toucheth actually means to lay hold of. And here's the neat thing, because you have been begotten of God, Satan cannot lay hold of you ever again. Oh, he may tempt you, you may fall, you may falter, but we know that your security is sure and that one day you're gonna be in heaven and Satan no longer can lay hold or claim on your life, amen? That's a promise we have from God from this verse. And so therefore, we see the characteristics of a Christian, not just the changed life that we have, but that characteristic, what is it? It's a characteristic of somebody that is not gonna be giving their life to sin. This is a mark of somebody that's truly a believer that has been born again, is they are trying to sin less and less. We're never going to be sinless, but we want to sin less and less. And that ought to be your goal and your ambition. And when you sin, it ought to just grieve your spirit. It ought to hurt you and say, man, this is not what I want to be doing. I want to quit that. I want to give up on that. I want to stop that. I want to honor and please God. It ought to hurt your spirit when you sin. That's the life of a Christian. He says he's not gonna sin. You're gonna stay away from sin. How are we gonna do that? Well, we see in verse number 16 that we looked at last week that we're to be praying for those that sin, especially those that we see that are sinning blatantly, openly, presumptuously against God that ultimately is gonna be a sin unto death. He says, hey, pray for them. Well, how many of you think somebody that's involved in sin is gonna be praying for somebody else? Probably not. I've been running a mile a minute, and I feel like I gotta slow down because you guys are gonna just put it in neutral and miss it all. I got a lot of ground to cover. But you understand, somebody that's living in sin's probably not gonna be praying for somebody else living in sin. They're not gonna be on their knees saying, God, help them to give that sin up, when the whole time the Holy Spirit's saying, what about this sin? What about that sin? You gotta give up that sin. He tells us in verse 17, he reminds us that all unrighteousness is sin. All unrighteousness is sin. You know, we tend to think too lightly about some of our own sins. We tend to feel that our sin's not that bad. Oh, my little problem. We think our sin's permissible and every other person's sin is prohibited. We can get away with what we do. I mean, my little bit of laziness is okay. I mean, compared to so-and-so, or compared to this, or looking out in the world, boy, the gossip that I'm doing's not that bad. All unrighteousness is sin. You know, Satan will use a loose tongue to destroy a church. And I wanna tell you something, Christian, this is something that we've gotta fight against. Man, woman, boy, girl, young lady, adult, doesn't matter who you are, you've gotta be careful about this little member. You see, we tend to spiritualize it and say whatever we want, but you need to beg God to put a watch before your mouth. Because we are given to gossip. We're given to tail bearing. We're given to mentioning this or mentioning that. Listen, if you're not part of the solution or part of the problem, you shouldn't be talking about it at all. You gotta be very careful. with what you're communicating and what you're saying about somebody else. You need to beg the Holy Spirit to be very conscious in your heart and mind to help you notice when you begin to speak about somebody. Because without the power of the Holy Spirit, you'll do it and not even think about it, and you'll go on your way. And you just were a part of gossiping and spreading. Even if it is truth, it always hurts. It's not helping the situation. You're not part of the solution or part of the problem, but you're spreading it. Satan's using that. They say, oh, well, I'm not out on drugs, or I'm not out partying, or I'm not out doing this. I'm a pretty spiritual person. All unrighteousness is sin. All unrighteousness is sin, that's what he says. My bad attitude is acceptable. It's all right if I'm a little critical of this or of that. I know you don't have any college students that are critical of the program at the church there. They're all 100% behind what you're doing and the program that you have and whatever work responsibilities they have. When they're asked to play the piano right off the cuff and didn't have any knowledge ahead of time. They're not complaining about that later. No, they're too spiritual for that. Hey, I know that we're all just sinners saved by grace. And as one guy in our church in Kansas, he was just one pile of dirt looking at another pile of dirt. You know, that's all we are. And we're all given to sin. And we gotta be careful. Or we'll let that bad attitude creep in. We'll let that critical spirit creep in. We gotta be all unrighteousness to sin. Romans 118 says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. The wrath of God is against all. We tend to think of the wrath of God falling on the world. The wrath of God, yes, God judged that wicked nation and all of the filth that's out there. He says the wrath of God falls on all unrighteousness, all of it. Romans 6.13 says, neither yields your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God. We need to keep ourselves from evil. We see secondly here in verse number 19, the confidence of the Christian. He says, and we know that we are of God and the world lieth in wickedness. Two things he tells us there, we know. In my 13, it's only one, but there's two listed in this verse here. He says, and we know that we are of God. Can I ask you, do you have that certainty tonight? Do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt? Do you know that you know that you've been born again? Amen. That's the certainty every believer should have. That's the confidence you should have in your heart. There should never be a question or you shouldn't have to wonder or think, oh, I'm not really sure if I'm saved. It should be settled in your heart. Amen, Hunter? Have it settled. Know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you've been born again, that Jesus Christ has forgiven you of your sin, and that you're on your way to heaven. Are you perfect? No, but you're forgiven, amen? Forgiven. Well, if we know that we've been born again, then it shouldn't shock us to know that we're at odds with the world. He says, you know that we're of God and the world lieth in wickedness. We know that John 15, 19 says, if he were of the world, the world would love his own. But because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. It shouldn't surprise you. If you know you're of God, and you know that Satan is the prince and the power of the air, he is the ruler of this whole world, it shouldn't surprise us that there's a conflict there, that there's a problem there. We saw in 1 John chapter two verse 15 and 16 under the rejected life, that life that we're supposed to reject, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. See, the Christian is not supposed to have part to do with that world, why? Because Satan is the ruler of the world. And we're not of the world, we're of God. So we have that certainty. And so we consider Satan's domain. As the prince and power of the air, his corruption is seen in every area of society. He has infected every part of society with his lustful passions, with the pride of life, and his rebellious ways. The world is wicked. We know that. We understand that. And it's because it's in Satan's domain. And here's the thing, beloved, if we really understand that, then why do we hold on to this world so hard? We know ultimately the world's gonna be destroyed, it's gonna be burned up. All the things that this world has to offer, all this world, this life has to offer, it's gonna be burned up, it's gonna be gone. And yet we're holding on to it like somehow we're gonna be able to save it, we're gonna be able to keep it. This world and all its possessions is gonna burn up. We don't want to be ignorant of Satan's devices. And this book teaches us about our enemy and how to deal with him. I want you to see thirdly here in verses 20 and 21, we see the consistency of the Christian. Beginning, first of all, with his comprehension, he has an understanding in verse number 20. He says, and we know that the Son of God has come and hath given us an understanding. So we know that God has come and he's given to us an understanding that we may know him that is true. And we are in him that is true, even in his son, Jesus Christ, that is the true God and eternal life. There's a lot in that verse. I don't know that we have time to unpack all of it. There's a lot in that verse there, but he said this understanding that we have, you know, God gives us understanding. This world doesn't understand God. You know, he came into his own and his own received him not. Light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. The natural man doesn't understand the things of God. But Christian, when you have God, you have understanding. God gives you understanding. We are not delivered from sin. Hear me. Are you ready? We are not delivered from sin. or given the ability to overcome sin by understanding psychology, or sociology, or Scientology, it's only through theology. That is an understanding of God. In Jeremiah 9, 24, he says, but let him that glory glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me. This world glories in their knowledge and their understanding and their science and their education, whatever those things are, but you understand none of those things give you the ability to overcome sin. None of those things give you the ability to live victoriously. Not only that, none of those things answer for you the questions that are of most importance in this world. None of them will give you peace in your heart or confidence in your knowledge, the things that you need to know. God has given us understanding. To know God, to know who is true. He lists three things here that he gives us understanding of. We know John 8, 32 says, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. This understanding, knowing the truth of God, he tells us there's three things that you understand to know God who is true, to know Jesus that he saves, and to know you have eternal life. Those three things are listed in this verse. But can I remind you this evening that apart from God, there is, Very little to nothing in this world that you know. That you know. You see the rest is just a guess. But when you know, when you know God is no longer guessing, is no longer wondering, you're no longer theorizing, you're no longer supposing, you know. And I'm talking about the things that are of most importance in this world. Those that are out there in the world, you go to somebody on the street and ask them the most important questions, like how do you answer where did man come from? What is my purpose here on earth? Why is man here on earth at all? What are we doing here? Why am I alive? What am I supposed to do with my days? What is truth? What is right and wrong? What I'm saying, beloved, is outside of God, all of that is just a guess. Evolution is just a guess. People just have theories or ideas about what is right or wrong, or what is truth and what is not truth, about why they're here, about where they came from, about what's gonna happen after they die. It's just a guess. I don't know if I've said too many profound things in this lesson on 1 John, but this right here is pretty powerful. With God, you know, you can have confidence about the things that are of the utmost importance in this world. There's a lot of things that by and by aren't gonna amount to a hill of beans, they're really not gonna matter at all. But those questions that truly, when you get down to the heart of it, We can have confidence and know because we know God. He says here that you know him. And thereby, when you get understanding of God, you can have answers and knowledge and understanding of many other areas of your life. The rest of things, people are just guessing. Your guess is as good as mine. What makes your opinion more important than mine? Why can't I just do what I want? Who are you to tell me I can't live this way? Listen, it's all one guy against another. But when you have God, you know. And you have an authority on it. That is truth, friend. And that motivates consistency in the Christian's life. He closes this letter with a compassionate call to consistency. He says, little children, He says, kids, it's time. Because of what God's done for you and because of the things that you know, keep yourself from idols. Keep yourself from idols. I believe many times fundamental independent Baptists have found our acceptable idols. We have our own holy cows. Holy cows. And I ain't talking about purple soda with ice cream in it. You know, I've been in India. And in India, the cows have free reign. They're walking down the interstate, walking right in the middle of the highway. I mean, you can't do anything about it. They're holy cows. You can't kill them. unless you want to commit suicide. They'll kill you for killing a cow. But we have our holy cows. We have things that we set up as idols. You know, beloved, an idol is anything that we allow to have first place in our life. Anything. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. But what are you seeking first? What is it that you've given first priority in your life? What is it that consumes your focus? What is it that eats up your time? What is it that is stealing your finances? If you look closely at those three things, you will find what your idol is. I don't have to tell you what it is. I don't have to preach on it. You look at where you're spending your time, where your money is going, and what is eating up your focus. You'll see what your idols are. Idols. You know, idolatry is mentioned in several lists in the Word of God that are, that is right in with some of the most gross sins that we would imagine. Things that in our heart and mind we would say, man, I'm so glad that I'm not involved in any of that. And I don't mean in a pious, hypocritical, fair-sake way that, oh, I'm better than, no, I'm just saying you look at that and you say, by God's grace, he's kept me from these things, and except for him, that could be me. But in that list is idolatry. And idolatry is anything we put in front of God. So I wonder how many times we look at that list and we think, man, I'm so glad that God has kept me from these. But what about that one? What about idolatry? John is writing this letter. It's believed from Ephesus. You know, in Ephesus is where the temple of Diana was. This temple was considered one of the wonders of the ancient world. Was a place of extreme moral corruption. It was a place where they would offer asylum to criminals. If a criminal that was fleeing from authority could make it to the temple, Diana, they could be given asylum there and kept from their due punishment. You talk about a place filled with corruption, with wickedness. And John says, hey, you need to keep yourself from idols, because it'll destroy you. Even that small idol that you set up, you know, young men, as you begin to find that lady, that wins your heart, and you start chasing after trying to win her heart. Danza, I mean, any of you ladies stating anybody? Nobody's going to put their, they aren't going to say nothing. You start to think, man, that person is the most important person in the world. And if you're not careful, that person will replace your relationship with God and will become first. God should be first. God says that in comparison to your love for that young man, your love for God should be so great that it looks like you don't even like that guy. He actually uses the word hate. It should look like you hate that guy compared to your love for God. What I'm saying is it happens very subtly. Satan lets that small thing creep in and we set up that little idol and it pushes God out of the place where he should be. In Deuteronomy 11, verse 16, he says, take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods. He was telling his people, you gotta be careful. because your heart can be turned aside and you'll serve other gods. They'll take the position that God should have in your heart. These are three things that he tells us that we know. I love it. That because we know him, we can say we know. 1 John 5, 13. Yeah. I've stood and talked to many, many people, saying, do you know that if you died right now, you'd go to heaven? They say, you can't know that. Well, Bible tells you you can. These things have been written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that you have eternal life. Because we know him, we can know a lot of things. What a privilege is ours. Would you stand with your heads bowed and your eyes closed? I'm going to ask the pianist to come. and play a moment of imitation. Listen, I don't know how God might have spoken to you this evening. I don't know if there's an idol maybe that's gotten set up in your heart somewhere. Is there a lack of consistency following through and being what God wants you to be? Have you been avoiding sin? Do you have that mark of a Christian, that mark that people would look at and say, not that you're perfect, but it's evident that you're doing all you can to avoid a life of sin. If God spoke to your heart, you come. You do what God wants you to do.