1st John 2 20 to 28 the title of the message today is anointing to abide the word of the Lord But you have an anointing from the Holy One And all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because No lie comes from the truth Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the Antichrist. He denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what He promised us, even eternal life. I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you receive from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things, and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit, just as it has taught you, remain in him and now dear children continue in him so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming the word of the lord let us look to him in prayer god our father thank you for the wisdom and compassion of the apostle john in expressing and bringing to our minds uh the comfort we have in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. May we draw near to him today, and may you, Lord God, draw near to us through him. And we pray these things in the name of our Savior. Amen. Well, what do you do with verses like what we find in our text, particularly verse 27? Follow along. As for you, The anointing you receive from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit, just as it has taught you, remain in him. What do you do with a verse like that? You don't need anybody to teach you. Kind of makes you wonder, what are we doing here? What do you need a preacher for? Or Sunday school, or Bible school, or catechism, all these things that we have such high regard for. We're kind of known as a teaching church as we teach and preach God's word and its truth. But what's the point if you have verses like this from the lips of the Apostle John, the pastor? You do not need anyone to teach you since you already have an anointing from the Holy One. And this is where our text starts out in verse 20. You have an anointing from the Holy One and all of you know the truth. Anointing to abide, that's where we're gonna go today. We're gonna talk about this anointing that ours, we're so blessed to be anointed by the Lord and it leads us to abide in Him. Now, what do you think of when you think of the word anointing? What does it mean for you to be anointed in your Christian life? It's a pretty important thing, isn't it? John puts a lot of emphasis on it here, doesn't he? It's something that should be significant to every single one of us in our walk with the Lord, in our relationship with the Lord, in our life in the Lord. It's where our salvation really begins as far as our relationship with the Lord is concerned. You know, if I go back to your Sunday school stories, and think of the different anointings in the Old Testament. There were different men that were raised up for certain offices of profit, and priest, and king, and so each of these persons were anointed for their calling, for their mission. We think especially of David and how Samuel was led by God to go and seek out David, and he was the last of the sons, and he was set apart and was anointed to become king over Israel as a man after God's own heart. An anointing, what does it mean? It means that you're set apart for service. You're set apart for a certain calling, for a certain mission. And most of all, by its very nature, it is an anointing that comes from God. Now here's another simple question to ask when you think about an anointing. Who does the anointing? Could you anoint yourself? Kind of an obvious question, isn't it? We know the answer to that. What if David had grabbed that flask of oil and poured it out on himself? What kind of anointing would that be? You know, how would that look? What kind of authority could a person wield if he took that oil and applied it to himself? Where would his power come from? You know, that's what Napoleon apparently did. he grabbed the crown and crowned himself. We even have questions today in our own political life right now about how certain persons got to the position as a candidate and was that a legitimate process that was carried out in terms of nominations. And so anointing by its very nature is something that is done to you. It is one thing that you cannot do, that you cannot take on for yourself. And when you think about it, we really wouldn't want to anoint ourselves, would we? especially in terms of our faith, especially in terms of our relationship with the Lord, because if we grab that blessing and try to anoint ourselves and try to bless ourselves, there'd always be a question, right? We'd always be wondering, is my authority, is my foundation legitimate or not? What is, what is my sure foundation? What is my certainty of promise? In a way, I think this is a question, we were talking about this at Men's Life a little bit yesterday, in terms of people really emphasizing your conversion experience and RUC. Certainly that's an important question, and emphasizing the choice that we have to make. And there's certainly a way in which we are called to make that commitment to the Lord. But if that's all we focus on, if all we're focusing on is my decision, And there's always some uncertainty there, isn't there? Because it's so dependent on my will, on my thinking through. but the work of God's grace in our lives always emphasizes the work of God, his anointing us, his initiating things with us, just like he initiated the process with David and put him in that place of honor and authority by his sovereign choice. And so this is a crucial thing, that anointing, and especially in our faith and our relationship with the Lord. And what John is saying here in the opening verse of our text, you have an anointing from the Holy One. So what is that anointing? How are you anointed? Where and when did that anointing happen? Can you tell me? Well, there are many people that would suggest, well, I was anointed at my baptism. even as an infant. And they're resting in that. And so many funeral services emphasize that's the first thing they mention about, oh, this person was baptized and that's a great encouragement for them. We don't want to take away from that so much because baptism, like the Lord's Supper, is a means of grace that God uses to confirm and to bless our faith. but they look at it as if the ceremony itself makes all the difference. And that's what people are counting on. And if we had the opportunity, it's good to be able to gently try and get them to think about that and what they're really relying on, what they're really thinking about. Because I hope as we all realize that We've been blessed to be baptized, but as we think about it, the blessing comes as we receive the significance, the blessing of baptism by faith. Maybe we were baptized as little children, didn't realize what was going on, but as we grew, as we were taught, The Lord used that to help us to understand. And so it gradually dawned on us what that baptism represented and what it means for us to be anointed by Jesus Christ, to be anointed in the Holy One and to understand that and to come to a realization of that. And that's all part of God's blessing on us. And so let's get back to this. not just the outward evidence of that, but what does the anointing mean? You have an anointing from the Holy One. I'd like to suggest that one of the clearest passages about this anointing comes to us from John 3. I'm sure you're all familiar with the words, of course, we have John 3.16, but that verse is set in the context of Jesus' discussion to be born again, right? And you look at those verses in John chapter 3 and he describes that born-again work of God's grace. Or it can also be translated, born from above. And he talks about the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit is like the wind and it blows where it wants to. And you hear it sound, but you don't know where it's coming from. And the thing about the wind, we cannot control it, right? It has a mind of its own. It is directed by the Lord. And so the Spirit of the Lord sovereignly works in those that He wants and causes us to be born again, to have our eyes open, to believe, to respond in faith to the hope that is found in Christ. Now for some of us, Growing up in the church, we may not have been aware of when that actually happened, when the Spirit was at work in us. We hope and have the hope that it was from an early time, but God gradually has bringing you and drawing you closer to himself by his work of grace. And as a result, what's going on? You're growing in the Lord. You look back and you see God's hand breathing in your life and you want to love Him and walk with Him more and more to love Him more dearly day by day. What we're talking about here is another word of regeneration or effectual calling, the renewal of God's Holy Spirit. As Paul puts it, the Lord saved us, not because of righteous things that we have done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. That's the anointing. That's what it means to be born again. It's all a work of God's grace by His Holy Spirit working in us to bring us to Himself, to acknowledge our desperate need of Him, and to come and trust in Him alone as our Savior and Lord. This is what it means to be saved. This is what it means to be converted. It's all the work of God's amazing grace. It's nothing that I have done, because all of my righteousness is as filthy rags. And so it's gotta be him. A total renewal, a total rebirth in me. And this is what leads to my justification. This is what leads to my right standing with God by grace through faith as I respond to his work of grace in me. It's a rebirth. It's being born again. Now, as you know, I visit a lot of nursing homes. And maybe you've seen this. You go to a nursing home sometime and there'll be little ladies sitting out in the hall and they'll be cuddling a baby doll. Have you seen that? And of course, it's there to bring them comfort. And it's a simple thing, but it's a way of comforting them get through the day. But it's just a doll, right? They don't realize that. But there's no life in that little plastic figure. What a difference between a doll and a baby. There's no comparison, right? A baby is alive. It's growing. It's squirming. You've got to change the diapers. And it's growing. And as we all know, they grow up fast. That's what it means to be born again. That's what it means to be anointed by God. There's new life in you and me. We're not just a physical specimen anymore. We're alive. You have new life in Jesus Christ. And a sure sign of that is that Christ lives in you. You are growing in him. and you're making progress every day. We're growing in the Lord as he works in us what is well pleasing in his sight. And as more and more we've come to realize and be able to say in every area of our lives, whether it's our children or our family or our work or our health, or our church, or our country, whatever area of our lives it is, or the inner struggles of our hearts, we can say honestly, sincerely before the Lord, thy will, not mine, be done. That is a sign of Christian maturity and growth. As we pray and pray for God to answer our prayers, as we long for those that need the Lord, that we finally, at the end of the day, can say, Thy will and not mine be done, and leave it with the Lord. Now, I'm going to shift gears a little bit here if you're following the outline. Verse 22 again mentions the Antichrist. Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the Antichrist. He denies the Father and the Son. Well, we took a stab at trying to explain the Antichrist last week, and we're gonna try again sometime. But you remember, there's other titles for the Antichrist in the Bible. Paul talks about the man of lawlessness. Daniel prophesies the little, as I'm gonna say, the little bighorn that grows up and Rex Tower on the world. And then in Revelation 13, John has this vision of the beast. Now, have you ever heard of the mark of the beast? We hear different little tidbits about that. The mark of the beast is mentioned in Revelation chapter 13, verses 16 to 18. And there's much that's been written about the mark of the beast. John tells us right there, it's a number six, six, six. Well, what does that mean? Well, it's pretty obvious when you think about it. What's the number for perfection? Seven, right? Six is just shy of seven. Six is one less than seven. That means it's less than perfect. And John goes on to tell us that number six is the number for man. As he puts it there in verse 18, six is man's number. Six is always something less than perfect. And when you think about the desires of humanity, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, how did Satan get at Eve? What did he say to her? How did he tempt her? He says, you shall be like God, knowing good and evil, right? And that's what got her. She wanted to be like God. And that's what gets us every time. That's the striving of the human heart. We want that perfection, but we want it on our own terms. We want to be on the throne instead of God. We want to do it our way instead of saying from our heart of hearts, thy will and not mine be done. And that points to the sixth of the mark of the beast. It's less than perfection. That's the arithmetic that John is giving us in Revelation 13. So the question is, is the mark of the beast a literal mark? And many would say so. They talk about things that are put into your skin. They talk about everything going to credit cards, all those things. And maybe some of you can rattle off all those details. But here's another question for you to think about. Here's another way to look at the mark of the beast. What's the counterpoint to the mark of the beast? You have marks for those that follow the beast, the Antichrist. What's the mark for those that follow the Christ? You know, as far as being anointed, this is what we're getting at, getting back to this anointing. As far as being anointed by the Holy One is concerned. There's always a contrast, right? So what is your mark? What is my mark as followers of Christ? Well, if you claim to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, the mark that is upon you is the seal of the Holy Spirit, isn't it? What is his seal on your life? What is this seal on your heart? It's that anointing that John is talking about right here. As you've been born again, as you've been born from above by His Holy Spirit, you are sealed in the Spirit. That's what Paul gets at in Ephesians chapter 4. Now, we can't see that seal. Okay? It's not a mark, but what can we see? We can see fruit, right? Galatians chapter 5, all the fruit of the Spirit, plenty of fruit, it ought to be evident, it ought to be pouring out of our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, against such there is no law. That ought to be pouring out of our lives, growing, growing, and that, again, gets back to our point. Your life in the Spirit, your life in Christ is alive, it's growing, it's happening right now. As you're not being overcome by evil, but you're overcoming evil with good as you're putting off the old and putting on the new. And the point is not so that you and I can just be better people, although that's certainly a good thing. But the ultimate is that you and I might be more like our Savior, that Christ might be seen in us, Christ the hope of glory, that Christ might be formed in us, that his love might flow through us and his joy would control our lives no matter what. After all, it's none other than Jesus himself who is this Holy One who anoints us, as John says. In fact, Christ is the Anointed One, isn't He? He's the Anointed One, that's how the prophets predict Him. And as the Anointed One, Christ is the prophet, He is the priest, He is the King, par excellence. And as your priest, He gave His life for you, He prays for you. As your King, He has drawn you to Himself, even if it's kicking and screaming. And as your prophet, he teaches you by his word and by his spirit. And here's where we get back to the original question that we asked at the beginning of the service. You know, if we're anointed, you don't need anybody to teach you. Why do we need the church? Why do we need preaching? Well, what does Paul tell us? How can they hear without a preacher, right? Because, you see, the Spirit of God always works through the Word of God. The Spirit of God always points to Jesus Christ. And that's what Jesus tells us in John, he instructs his disciples, the Spirit is always going to tell you about me. And if the Spirit ever takes the focus off Christ, if the Spirit ever puts its focus on itself or something else, then there's a reason to question it. because the Spirit of Christ has been poured out by Christ and he's going to point to Jesus and the hope that we have in his life and death and resurrection. And so we find that as you're anointed by the Spirit, the Spirit works in you. He works in you through the Word of the Lord. And clear passages about this are Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. We've come back to these passages many times In Ephesians chapter 5, we're told, be filled with the Spirit. Paul was writing Colossians about the same time, and in Colossians 3.16, he says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And to see that he's on the same mindset, the very next verses, he says, in both contexts, as you speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Now where do we do that? Where do we speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs? Huh? I heard somebody. In church. Right. What we're doing right now, we're speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Now some can do that a little better than others, but still, we're doing it from the heart, right? And that's what matters. Now of course we do it at other times as we try to encourage one another and remind one another. What we're doing now, what we're a part of right now, what has so blessed us is this abiding fellowship that we enjoy together as we are brothers in Jesus Christ, as we are one in the Spirit and we are one in the Lord, as the Lord is building his church through us and in us. and as we abide in one another, but then also as we abide in Him. So this is my close here. It's an anointing by the Holy Spirit in order that we might abide and go on abiding in Jesus Christ. This is what your Christian life is all about. It's not just about focusing on that anointing whenever that happened, but it's about moving forward in your life And where are you at with the Lord right now? Are you growing in him? After all, that's what he tells us in John. I am the vine. You are the branches. If a man abides in me, he will bear much fruit. Is that true? Are you seeing that? Are you growing in your love for the Lord, our desire to turn to him, to abide in him? because you've been anointed by none other than the Sovereign Spirit of God. He's gotten a hold of your life and it's made all the difference. Well, do you like to travel? I know some of you do. Some of you traveled all over the world. And where would you like to go? Suppose someone gave you tickets to go on a cruise. wherever you'd like. And it's something that would just be a great blessing. It's something you would look forward to. But you had the tickets in hand, but then you didn't sign up. You didn't go. And you show up and somebody asks you, oh, how was your trip? Oh, I didn't go. You didn't go? Here you have free tickets. You know, it's one thing to be given tickets for a trip that have been purchased for you, but you still have to book the reservation, don't you? You still have to board the ship. You still have to travel wherever it is you want to go. and you haven't finished your trip until you've arrived at your destination and then come home. And so it is one thing to be anointed by the Sovereign Spirit of God, but that's only the beginning of the journey, isn't it? As wonderful as that is, you have to be on your way. You have to follow Him wherever He leads you in your life. And knowing that once you board and while you are aboard, the captain of the ship is going to keep you safe. And there's going to be storms on that ship. That's guaranteed. The ship's never going to capsize. And there may be times when you are going to slip and fall down on that deck. This is what Spurgeon suggests. But never, never are you going to be swept off the ship because you are abiding in him and he is abiding in you. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for your amazing grace to us that you have sought us out, you have called us to yourself, you have enabled us to believe, and you are continuing to uphold us and to keep us close. Oh Lord, continue to keep us close. May we never take your grace for granted. May we love you more and more and long to draw near to you and that you Almighty gracious God, our Creator and Lord, withdraw near to us. Through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Let's sing that song, Abide With Me, 402.