Warning: The following content is an automated transcript and may not be correct.
Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you, Lord, for this season. We thank you, Lord, for what we just celebrated that you stepped into humanity and bore our sins to Calvary.
So, Father, we are very joyful, and we do say how marvelous is your love for us. Father, I pray as we go into study, into this message tonight, that your spirit will speak to us, that it will transform us, that it will convict us, and that you will be glorified. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Well, good evening, everyone. Welcome back. I hope that you all had a great Christmas. I hope that everything was safe for everyone and that I just hope you had a great season. My mind is not all here today.
I apologize. So, with that said, we're gonna pick back up where we started here last week. We're in the book of First John, and we're going to be going through all of the Epistles of John. So we got First John, Second John, and Third John that we'll be going through. As we are going through First John, we're going to look at some topics that John has here.
He talks about Fellowship with God, knowing God, obeying God's commands, and loving one another. Just remember that last week as we went through that, that John told us how we know, that we know God, right? That we have the fruits of the Spirit inside of us, that we obey, that we do what he says. He also taught us that if we say we have no sin, then we not only are liars, but we make God to be a liar. And also he says that if we continue to walk in sin and say that we belong to God, that we make ourselves to be liars and do not know God, but walk in darkness.
He also promised us that there was a way at the end of the first chapter, a way that when we do sin for forgiveness, that if we would confess our sins, that God is faithful and just to forgive us of those sins. And then as we enter the second chapter, where we will pick up today, just remember that he taught us just because God will forgive our sins is not a license, not permission to continue to sin or to sin more. And we referenced Romans 6 with that. So we're going to pick up today right where we left off. We are.
In verse 18, John writes, Do not love the world or the things in the world. For if anyone does love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of one's possessions is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world with its lust, is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.
Sorry, guys. Okay, so do not love the world that Jesus taught that in the Gospels. The world and God, the kingdom of heaven, are incompatible with each other. You cannot love the world and love God. You cannot love money and love God.
You can't love your sin and love God. They are incompatible with each other. Other and the things of the world. What are the things of the world? Besides, he lists some things, or he the lust of the flesh, right?
Lust of the flesh can be sexual desires, monetary desires, desires of possessions. He even specifically says here in verse 16, right? The pride in your possessions. I know people, we all know people who they boast about how big their house is or how nice their car is or how big their boat is, or how much money they make or how many things they have, right? Pride in that stuff shows us and shows you that your heart is in the wrong place.
Jesus told, tells us, he says, do not treasure up the things that moth and rust and the earth can corrupt, and that can be stolen, but to treasure up that which cannot be stolen, which is the things in heaven. And he says he'll add to us the things that we need. So do not love the world. That includes your sin. Do not love your sin.
Verse 17. He tells us that the world and the lust of the world is passing away. He says this in the active, right? In the present tense, is passing away. He doesn't say that the world and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the world will pass away, but is passing away.
Why does he say it that way? Way. I think it's important that we remember, and I say this a lot. Jesus can return and take us before the end of the sermon. He can return and take us right now or tomorrow or next week or next month.
We don't know. What we do know is it is approaching it soon. So we're not looking at verse 17, right? The world with its lust is passing away as some future event. But this is an event that is happening.
It can happen right now and is guaranteed to happen when Jesus wraps up everything we talked about the book of Revelation and going through it, it's going to happen. So if the world and its lust is going to pass away, that includes all of the people who are of the world, world. So it says, the one who does the will of God remains forever. Now, I should have added this in here, and I just barely thought of it, but in the book of John, we went through John last. We were in John at the beginning of this year.
He answers, what is the will of God? And the will of God is that you would know and trust Jesus. That's the will of God. That you would give your life to him and know him, believe in him, right? And if you do those things, then we talked about what the fruits of the Spirit are last week, right?
Things such as love, self control, patience, peace, joy, walking in obedience to the commands of Christ. Those things will come if you just do the will of God, which is to trust in him and rely on him to know Him. We're going to look here at the next passage, children. It is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming even now, many Antichrists have come by this.
We know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However they went out, so that it might be made clear that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy and all of you know the truth.
I have not written to you because you don't know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father as well.
Okay. It is the Last hour, verse 18. The last hour.
Biblical prophecy doesn't work the way that we in the modern day tend to think it works, right? The Bible often speaks of future events, events as active, current, present events. We especially see that in Revelation. We see it in Isaiah, we see it in Jeremiah.
But the last hour here is literal, not in. In the sense of the last 60 minutes of time, but as in the last age, Right? Age is meaning. There was the pre flood age, then there was the post flood age. There was the Abrahamic age and the Old Testament age that led up to the coming of Christ.
And with the coming of Christ, the kingdom of God has come. And we are now in the final age before he wraps things up. And this final age is the age of the Gentiles, right? Where the Spirit of God has gone out and we can know him, we can, we can be saved by him, but this is it. When this age ends, which will be at a time in which we don't know, the Bible says no one knows the time or the hour.
So when this age ends, beginning the events of the book of Revelation, So it is the last hour literally, for anyone who is hearing this and does not trust in Jesus, does not have the promises of our Lord, the promises of eternal life. This is the final hour.
Tomorrow may not come whether you die or the rapture happens, and the events of Revelation, the only time that you have to accept Jesus is now that this is the only guaranteed time and moment that you have.
And then he says something interesting. By this we know it's the last act. I don't know the mind of John and where he was thinking with this, for this has happened throughout all of human time. But he says something interesting. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us.
Who they are is not specified, but it teaches a very fundamental truth that we believe in and that I preach, and that is eternal security. Once you are saved, you are always saved. You are always saved. You can't become unsaved. You cannot lose your salvation.
And there are a lot of biblical passages that almost speak as if you're losing your Salvation. And it seems contradictory. And you say, well, how do I reconcile eternal security with these? And John tells us that they, whoever they were, we can use they today as well, who go out from us, who leave the church, never really belonged to the church. And we see that, we see people who come, they make a profession of Christ, they go to church for two weeks, two months, maybe two years.
They disappear, never to be seen again. You don't know what happened to them, right? They just went out from us. Christ was never in them.
That is how you reconcile that if Christ is in you, you will persevere. Not because you will choose to persevere, not because you can persevere, but because Christ in you will cause you to persevere. His Spirit will get you through. His Spirit will keep you with us, however they go out, so that it will be made clear that they did not belong to us. And then he tells us, have an anointing from the Holy One.
And you all know the truth. So if you are saved, if Christ is in you, you have the anointing, like the Holy Spirit. I hate saying, I'm going to go on a tangent here for 30 seconds. I hate saying the Holy Spirit because when you speak of God the Father, we don't refer to him as some abstract being. We refer to him literally as a person, right?
God the Father. When we refer to Jesus Christ, we don't say the Jesus Christ, we call him Jesus Christ. And then the Holy Spirit is equally God, right? He's equally God in every way and every being. And we refer to him as kind of this abstract thing, right?
The Spirit, Holy Spirit. But He's God. And that is something that is critical for us to remember. When we refer to him, we refer to him reverently. We refer to him with the same respect and deservance of our Father and Jesus Christ.
So when you have the anointing of the Holy One. My tangent is over.
And I still don't have any better way to say the Holy Spirit other than the Holy Spirit. You have the anointing of God's Holy Spirit, His Spirit in you. And because His Spirit is in you, you can decipher, determine truth from non truth. You can determine because he is in you. When something is taught, whether or not it comes from God or not.
Now John says in verse 21, I have not written to you because you don't know the truth, but because you do know it. Remember last week, he, he is, he said, in fact, I'm going to just pull this up so that we can read it again. What he says right before we picked up where we are today, he says why he is writing to them.
So in First John, chapter two, look what he says. He says, I'm writing because your sins have been forgiven. Given I'm right in. Because you've come to know the One who is from the beginning. I'm right in because you know the Father, I'm right and because God's word remains in you.
So we're in the same chapter here where he says I'm right and not because you don't know the truth, but because you do know the truth, which is critical. In my reminder what I said last week, John is not right into unbelievers, right? He's not writing to condemn us. He's not writing to say, you wicked sinner, I apparently got rid of the Scriptures. There we go.
He's not writing to say that you are in darkness or that you don't know Christ. But he is right. And like I said last week, to remind us of these things and to cause us to self examine, right? He is right into the church and he is right. And because no lie comes from the truth, so there are obviously things going on.
Remember, I can't remember if it was last week or a few weeks ago when we were still in Corinth. I mentioned that to fully understand some things written in the Bible, you have to look to events happening outside of the Bible, right? So there are things referenced here that are referenced in the Bible that are external. He says, they went out from us. Who are they?
We don't know. So there's things happening that when John writes, like referring to they who are who have left us, he assumes that the audience knows and we do not know. So there's also historical background here as well. When he says, I'm not right, and because you don't know the truth, but because you do, he adds this clarification here, because no lie comes from the truth. John's concern, and he shares the same concern that Paul had.
Remember as we were ending 2 Corinthians, he Paul said, I fear that you will be snared away the same way that Eve was with the serpent in the garden. This is John's. What John's concern is, there are people in the church who are not of the church, who are not of us, who are teaching lies, who they use religion, they use God, they use church as a means of power, as a means of getting money, of getting fame.
They're charismatic and they draw you in. So John is writing to remind them, you know, the truth. And no lie can come from the truth. Right? So if there is a lie, it is not of the truth.
That. And this is interesting the way. If we understand truth, what is truth? I've talked about this a few times. This truth, this abstract.
Yeah. This abstract thing, right? That what's true for me is not for you or me. You know, is it?
Well. Well, truth and facts don't always line up. Is it subjective? And the answer is no. Truth is not subjective.
Right. It's objective. Murder is wrong regardless of who you are. It's not subjective to whether or not you view murder as wrong or not. But we tend to understand the truth.
Someone here in the room just said factual. Right. And we tend to. That's how we understand truth. Right.
Is as facts.
But facts change. Facts change all the time. It used to be believed that the earth was a certain size and that was a fact. And then as we were able to take more accurate measurements, the fact changed. That's just an example of facts changing.
The distance from the earth to the sun used to be believed to be different than it is now. And it was listed as a fact. Right. Facts change as our knowledge changes. So just because we call something a fact does not make it true.
So our understanding of truth needs to be realigned. So what is truth? Jesus says, I am the truth. So every time that you see the truth in the Bible, you need to remember, no lie. Look what he says.
No lie comes from the truth. No lie comes from Jesus.
Right? No lie comes from God.
So here's what he says. Who is the liar if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?
Right. There are people in religions, Judaism. Not to say that Judaism in and of itself is wrong. Judaism was founded by God. The Mosaic covenant.
However, those who practice Judaism are liars. Why? Because they deny that Jesus is the Christ. What about Islam? Islam?
Same thing. They believe that Jesus existed. They actually believe that he was a prophet. But they deny that he is God or the Messiah.
There are also those within the Christian church at the time that this was written who, though they claimed to be Christians or part of the church, the term Christian had not yet come around. Denied that Jesus was the Christ. Just like there were those in Corinth who denied that he had resurrected. And here is what John is saying. If God is in you, you cannot deny that Jesus is the Christ.
You can't do it.
No one can say who has the spirit of God dwelling within them, that Jesus is not the Christ.
That person who can say that is a liar. Then he says this. This one is also the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. This is really interesting because we, again, in modern Christianity, we think of the Antichrist as a single person, person. And we think of the Antichrist in reference to the Book of Revelation.
But there's the Antichrist and the Antichrist. Whereas Antichrist can be used in the plural sense that anyone who is against Christ is Antichrist, right? For or against the one who says that Jesus is not the Christ is an Antichrist, he is against Christ. This person not only denies Christ, but the Father. Jesus teaches us, especially in the Book of John, that you cannot know the Father without knowing the Son.
And if you know the Son, you know the Father. Why? Because Jesus is the image of the Father. So to deny Christ is also to deny the Father, he says. Then he continues, and he says, no one who denies the Son has the Father, but he who confesses the Son has the Father.
If you confess Christ as Lord, as God, as King, you have the Father, right? You have a relationship with the Father, and that relationship is you become his son or his daughter.
Let's read the next passage here. What you have heard from the beginning.
Sorry.
Okay, I'm gonna go back a little bit. I just realized there was something I wanted to comment on, and I didn't comment on it. And I was like, that's weird. And I somehow missed it. So we're gonna go all the way back to 18, where I got carried away with it being the last hour.
I said, I'm not gonna cover it being the last hour again. But he says this. You have heard that the Antichrist is coming. Even now, many Antichrists have come. The reason I realized I didn't say that is this next slide that we are on says that this person, the one who denies Christ, is the Antichrist.
So the Antichrist is coming. And this is the Antichrist who is spoken about in Revelation. And even now, many Antichrists have come. I'm going to talk about this from two different perspectives. First, as of now, there are thousands and millions, billions of people who have, from the time this is written until now, who have denied Christ, who have been Antichrist.
And so even now, many antichrists have come. But I want to talk about it from another perspective, right? That the Antichrist is coming, the one spoken of in Revelation. Here's the thing. What does Jesus tell us?
No one knows the day or the hour. He also says that he does not know the Day or the hour. Jesus, even though being all knowing as as God has chosen not to know the day or the hour, that is for the Father alone to know is the day and the hour. So God still knows everything, but Jesus and His personhood does not know that. So if only the Father knows the hour, not even Jesus.
Does Satan know the day or the hour that God is going to come and take us? He doesn't. So as of now, many Antichrists have come. If Satan doesn't know the day or the hour, then he must be ready for whenever that day and hour comes. Which means he must have a person who meets all of the characteristics of the Antichrist spoken about in Revelation on the earth at any given time.
Meaning that right now the Antichrist spoken about in Revelation is on the earth. Right now we don't know who he is, right? His identity is concealed, but he is here. We know characteristics about who he is and he is here. So now that I have gotten to that, sorry, I had to go back, we're going to Continue.
In verse 24 he says, what you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He Himself has made to us eternal life. I have written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing you receive from him remains in you.
And you don't need anyone to teach you. Instead, his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie, just as he taught you to remain in Him.
Okay, so what you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you. This is a slight change of the formula that was used by Christ. What does Christ say from the beginning? Christ has told us to abide in him, right? To be attached to him, that we receive life from him, and that if we remain in him, he will remain in us.
John flips the statement here and says, what you have heard is to remain in you. So what have you heard? You've heard to remain in Jesus. You've heard to read his word. You've heard that salvation is only of the Lord.
So if these things that you have heard remain inside of you, then you will have the Father and the Son remain inside of you, and you will remain in the Father and the Son. And he says, for those who remain in him, this is the promise. Eternal life.
I like how much the Bible tells us that the promise is Eternal life. And I will make a note after service and next week. I want to tell you because I don't know the exact number, but I know it's a lot and I didn't think about it till now. How many times does the Bible tell us where eternal life comes from? Just in the book of John alone, Jesus Christ tells us.
I'm going to guess because like I said, I haven't counted at least a dozen times, if not more, that he is the source of life, that eternal life comes from him. What about Matthew, Mark and Luke, the book of Acts, what we've seen even in the Old Testament, the Epistles of Paul? How many times does the Bible say where eternal life comes from?
I don't know. And so I will know by the time we meet next week. I will look it up or count if I have to.
But the reason I'm. I'm on this topic of how many times and going over it is because of this. How many people are out there searching for eternal life right now and they're not searching for it in Christ. You have scientists who are trying to find ways to regenerate organs, which is a great thing. If God wants to give us that ability to regenerate organs, then so be it.
God's given us the ability to rebuild hearts, right? To put heart valves in, to put stents in, to give us prosthetics, to do heart donations, liver donations, kidney donations. He's given us that ability. But there are people who sole objective is to find a way to make human, humanity, humans, immortal, right? It's that.
What's that movie?
Come on, which one? The. Is it Indiana Jones I'm thinking of. You're talking like Fountain of Youth types. Yes.
You know, it's like those Indiana Jones type movies, right? They're searching for the fountain of youth, for that golden cup, that water where if they drink it, they will age backwards or stay where they're at, remain forever. And they're all looking for it in the wrong place because they will never find it and science will never deliver it. There is only one way to have eternal life, and that is to remain in the Word and the Word you. He says, I've written this because there are people trying to deceive you.
I've talked about that. That's not unique to that time either. There's people trying to deceive you today. And guess what? Those people present themselves as pastors, preachers, evangelists, apostles, prophets, bishops.
Did I say pastors already? They present themselves in all forms of different titles. They present themselves as churches and denominations and they appear good, but they are not good. We talked about that. How can a church appear to be good if it's not good, if it's actually evil?
Well, Paul told us, we read about this in the last few chapters of Corinth, that Satan himself appears or can appear as an angel of light. So here's what he says, and we need to make sure we don't take this the wrong way. The anointing. You have the Holy Spirit of God inside of you teaches you, and you don't need to be taught by anyone. Well, wait a minute.
If we don't need to be taught, why do we have teachers and pastors? Well, what he means is this. You do not need for me to interpret for you the truth.
My job is not to interpret the truth for you. I can't do that. You need to be able to do that on your own. You have to be able to do that on your own. I can explain the scriptures to you, I can break it down.
I can tell you what it means, but I cannot teach you if it's true or not. The Holy Spirit of God inside of you, he has to tell you if it's true or not. And there's a reason why this is important.
I know that there's people who hate when I bring up particular denominations, but I'm going to do it because of the truth. And an example, the Mormon Church, in their Articles of Faith, they have one article of faith that says, we believe in the Bible to be the word of God as long as it's translated correctly. When you add in the as long as it's translated correctly, you add in doubt as to the word of God. But then you also have a question that you have to then ask. How do you determine if it's translated correctly?
Or more so, who determines if it's translated correctly? And the reason I word it that way is in the Mormon Church, they will tell you in their doctrine. That is why we have a prophet, is to tell you what is and isn't translated correctly, what is and isn't the word of God. In other words, in the Mormon Church, they tell you that you do not have the ability to know truth for yourself. But you need an interpreter, right, the prophet, to tell you what is true.
But John writes here in the Bible that you do not need a prophet or a pastor or a preacher or a rabbi or a bishop to tell you what is true. The Holy Spirit is the one that tells you what is true. I Teach what? It means the Holy Spirit tells you if what I'm teaching you is true or not. Not me.
Let's move on. He says, so now, my little children, remain in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and upon be ashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know this as well. Everyone who does what is right has been born of him. See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God's children.
And we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it didn't know Him. Dear friends, we are God's children now. And what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.
And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. Okay, so now he changes the formula back to the way it was. Instead of saying what you have heard from the beginning, let it remain in you. He now says, remain in him, walk in Jesus, remain in him, abide in him, so that when he appears, you will not be ashamed.
In the last couple chapters of Second Corinthians, we read about that, right? He will appear as a thief. He will come unexpected.
Our last Bible study in Luke, remember, we talked. Ms. Rotten to ask me about why people have to be cut to pieces, right? We were in that portion of Luke where it talked about that and I explained it. Remain in him so that you are not ashamed, so that you are not caught off guard doing what you are not to do.
He also says, if you do what is right, if you practice righteousness, then you have been born again for no one outside of God. It says that without faith you cannot please God. You cannot do that. What is righteous. Then he says, look at the great love that the Father has given us.
Such great love that we are called his children. He sent His Son to die for us to pay our debt so that we would be his children, so that we would be adopted into his family. And then, very important, the world does not know us because the world does not know God. Jesus said it a little bit differently. He says, the world will hate you, will persecute you, will despise you, will reject you, because it's rejected me.
And the servant is not greater than the Master. So because the world hates God, hates Jesus, rejects him, mocks him, does not receive him. The world will not receive us. And then he tells us a little bit about what heaven will be like. He says, what heaven will be like we do not know but what will come.
John has said it another way, Paul, what no eyes have seen and no ears of heard. But we do know this, that we will be glorified. We'll be like him in that sense, and we will see him that way. And if you have this hope, if you have Jesus in you, if you hope to be this way, he says, you will purify yourself as he is pure. In other words, there's an active part in this.
Not that you have to do good to be saved, but if you are saved, you will do good. But Jesus cannot simply just cleanse you. You have to be willing to be cleansed. You have to be willing to do, to go through that purification process. You have to be.
You have to allow him to do it. Let's look at what's next. Everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness.
And sin is lawless. You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins. And there is no sin in Him. Everyone who remains in him does not sin. Everyone who sins has not seen or known him.
Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the devil's works. Everyone who has been born of God does not sin because his seed remains in him.
He is not able to sin because he has been born of God. This is how God's children and the devil's children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister. Okay, very difficult passage. And the reason it's difficult is the large amount of room to misinterpret what it says.
So first, everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness. Okay? That's just. No explanation needed, right? We have a law.
The law says you can only drive 65 if you're driving 75. You have broken the law, right? So you're a lawbreaker. God has a law. He says you should not covet what your neighbor has.
And so if you covet what your neighbor has, you have violated the law. So you have practiced lawlessness. But it's for this reason that Jesus came. It says, you know that he was revealed, right? So Jesus was revealed in that he took on the form of humanity, that he died upon the cross, that he rose again, and that we even can know that.
And he did it so that he can take away sin. He did it so that he can pay our debt.
And here is what's great about that. He says, if you remain in him, you do not sin. And if you do sin, you have not seen or known him. As we look at the next passage, this is where I say this is a very difficult passage in terms of interpretation and room to misinterpret. For how many of us today have sinned?
I have, I'm pretty positive that all of us have today have sinned. So because we have all sinned, does that mean that we have not seen a known God?
But that's what it says, right? So we need to interpret what it means. He then says that no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, as he is righteous and the one who commits sin is of the devil. And the devil has sinned from the beginning.
So here, and because this passage has so much room for interpretation, whether I interpret it or you interpret it, or you read a commentary that interprets it, or listen to another pastor that interprets it, I'm going to just tell you this is my basic interpretation. There's sin and there's sin, right? There's sin in the sense of I have my preferred sins, my preferred addictions, my preferred things that I want to do and love to do and have always done. And after I say that I'm in Christ, I continue to do. And then there's sin where it's the spur of the moment, you didn't even think about it and a cuss word came out of your mouth, right?
Or without even thinking about it, a thought popped into your mind that was sinful. And with right, there's sin and there's sin. They're the sin that's habitual, that's continual, that, that you do because you love, you've always had, you cannot continue in that if you are in God.
So he's not talking about the random slip ups, the random, the random sin that does manifest in our lives, but he's talking about that habitual sin. And now that is not to excuse sin in any sense, even the, even the random pop up sin. But we need to understand that he's not saying that if you sin today that you do not know Christ, Christ. But what he is saying is that there is no change in your life from before you came to know Christ and after, or before you claim to have come to know Christ and after that you have not known him. If your life has not changed, if you're still walking exactly the same way you were before.
You do not know Christ. And he ends this particular passage by saying, especially those who do not love his brother or sister. You cannot love. You cannot hate and have God in you. He's going to give us a comparison.
Let's look at the comparison. For this is the message you heard from the beginning. We shall love one another. Unlike Cain, who was the evil one and murdered his brother. Why did he murder him?
Because his deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous.
To just talk about this real quick. We have heard from the beginning, all from Genesis 2 to Revelation, we have heard to love, to love one another, to love our brother, to love our sister, to love God, to love people as you love yourself. And he gives a comparison. Cain, the very first person to murder someone, murdered Abel. And why he murdered Abel?
Because when Abel gave an offering to God, God accepted it. And when Cain gave an offer unto God, God rejected it. Why? Because Abel gave his heart. He gave a free will.
He gave of his best. Cain gave because he wanted the acceptance that Abel had. And he gave as an afterthought. And he gave of what was his leftovers, not his right. He.
He was evil. His intent was not the worship of God. And so he murdered his brother. Jealousy.
Our final passage here. I see that we're running late. So we'll get through this final passage and be done. Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters.
The one who does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer. And ye know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. This is how we have come to know love. He has laid down his life for us.
We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world's goods and sees a fellow believer in need, but withholds compassion from him, how does God's love reside in Him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts and he knows all things.
Dear friends, if God. Dear friends, if our hearts don't condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive whatever we ask from him. Because we can keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight. No, this is his command that we believe. In the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, love one another as he commanded us.
The one who keeps his commands remains in him and he in him. And the way we go, the way we know that he remains in us, is from the spirit he has given us. Well, let's see if I cannot read today, okay? So don't be surprised if the world hates you. I'm not going to comment on this much more because we've already talked about it.
The world hated Christ. The world will hate us. Then he says, we know this. This is a common theme from John, specifically the one who we have passed from death into life. We tend as humans to think that we have gone from life to death, right?
We're alive now, we die. We go to the grave. That's the end. But what John says, and he is taught through what Jesus has taught in the Gospel of John, is that even though we are alive as humans, we're actually dead. We're spiritually dead.
And when we come to know Jesus, we are born. We are born of the Spirit. So we actually go from death to life.
Then he says, the one who does not love is still dead, right? So if you have hatred in your heart, you're still dead. You don't have God yet, right? You need to know God and have him remove that hatred. And if you have hatred in your heart, you are a murderer.
Jesus taught us that Sermon on the Mount. He said, you, you have heard, or it has been said, thou shalt not murder. But he says, if you have hatred in your heart for your brother, then you have murdered him in your heart. You are guilty of the crime of murder if you have hatred in your heart. And this is how we have come to know love.
This is important. How do we know what love is? How do we experience love? How do we even know how to express love? Long before Christ came and long after he came, there have been ways, but this is how we actually know what love is.
That Jesus himself, God himself, sinless, righteous person, died for us. That is love. That is how we have come to know love, and we don't. God doesn't love us because we loved him. He loved us first.
He loved us in our sin and died for us in our sin. And that is why we love God. And he says we also should then be willing to lay down our life for each other if we love each other. And then he talks about compassion, right? Last week I asked about, how do you know that you really have faith, right?
Faith is not just saying, yes, I believe in Christ, but faith is action. If you have faith, you will do stuff. You won't do it to prove that you have faith or to get the faith or to get saved. But because you have faith and you are saved and have salvation, it will manifest. John uses a same expression that James used.
How can you have love in your heart and walk by a naked person and not give him clothing? Or a starving person and not give him food? Jesus says that when you feed the hungry, when you clothe the naked, when you give water to the thirsty, when you give shelter to the homeless, that you have clothed him, fed him, given him water and housed him.
So if God's compassion is in you, how can you not do that? And he says that when you do not clothe the naked and feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty, that you have refused to feed him or give him water or give him clothing.
And he says, this is how we know that we are in him, right? That we have love in our heart and that our hearts no longer condemn us. Our hearts don't have to condemn us because we have confidence in God. We have confidence His Spirit is in us and is cleansing us and he has forgiven us. But that's not to say our conscience does not go away.
I because he also says this. He says, this is how we know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts before him when our hearts condemn us.
And then he says, if our hearts don't, we have confidence. But I'm going to tell you now, if you sin right now and your heart condemns you, your heart says, hey, that was wrong. That's a good sign. But when you get to a point that you can do something, that you can sin, that you can violate the perfect holy laws of God, and your heart doesn't condemn you at all. You have no conviction of wrongdoing.
That is a bad sign. And that's when you really need to worry, guys, Jesus, he loved us. He died for us. And we've read several times tonight that you have eternal life in Him.
You have peace and love and joy, acceptance in Him.
And he tells us he ends. He says, here is the command of God that you believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another. And whatever it is that you're going through, God can handle that. Whatever sin you have committed, God can forgive that.
If you can believe in his name, right? And believe here is more active than just saying, well, I believe that he died for me. But believe here is active in the sense that you believe he's your Lord, you confess him as your Lord, you trust him as your Lord, you trust him with your Life with your salvation.
Come to him as we read in the first chapter. Come before him with your sins, be honest with him, and he'll give you eternal life. If you're ready to do that tonight, as we go to our closing prayer, then we will verbally, and I invite you to do it with me verbally, admit before God that we are sinners. We will admit before God that we need him. We'll admit to him that we believe that Jesus is the God man who stepped into creation and died and rose again and will confess him.
And we'll make that profession that he is lord over our lives and he will give us eternal life. After that, when the broadcast ends, those who are with us will partake of the Lord's communion. I'll just give everyone a minute right after the closing prayer to grab what they're going to use for communion and we'll partake. Take. And then I'll see everyone Wednesday, 6:30, to continue our study in the book of Luke.
Let's pray. Father, I admit that I am a sinner, that I am guilty. I am a lawbreaker. I've practiced lawlessness. Father, I believe that the only solution to this is as you have proclaimed through your son, Jesus Christ.
And I believe that Jesus Christ, that you are Lord, that you are God, that you came into this earth, into this creation that you made. I believe that you died for me and my neighbor and my brother and everyone who would confess you. And I believe that you rose from the dead, that you did give us victory over death. And you have personally conquered death. And I confess you, Lord Jesus, as my Lord and God, as the king and ruler over my life.
And I ask you for eternal life. I ask you for the forgiveness of my sins. And I thank you for that. Father, I pray that you will be glorified as we walk, not just in you, but in your love. And that your love pours out of us to our brother, to our sister, to the homeless and the naked and the hungry and the thirsty, that you will be glorified both in heaven and on earth.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.