Christopher: What defines someone as antichrist? What defines an idea, a world, a culture as antichrist? Very simply, it's the denial that Jesus is the Christ. Antichrist is not some figure with horns on his head. It's not some world leader who's got this army of demons.
Antichrist is denying that Jesus is the Christ. That is what scripture means by antichrist.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher: We are going to be turning to first John once again. We're going to be in first John chapter two all the way toward the end of your bibles. So last week, if you recall, last week John warned his readers not to love the world or the things in the world. That's what we spent our time looking at last week. And we said that the world is, you can understand the world as the system of human life, the whole system of how humans live, as that system is based upon something other than God declared in Jesus Christ.
Or you could say as it is rooted in rebellion against who God is in Christ. The system of the world as it is in rebellion against who God is in Christ. That's what John says. Don't love that. Don't be enamored by that.
Don't be drawn off by that and don't love the things that it loves. Don't love the things that it loves. And John said, we cannot be loving, be looking for our satisfaction, looking for our treasures in the system of this world and loving God our father at the same time. Those are incompatible loves because they have different origins and different ends. The world comes from the world and is passing away.
And the father is from himself and persists till eternity. So we can't love the world and God at the same time. Now this week, John's gonna continue in that vein, press it a little bit further by clarifying the nature of the world by giving us this term Antichrist. So you maybe have heard the term before Antichrist. It comes from John's writings.
That's where it comes from. And it specifically comes from his epistles. Antichrist. Now when you hear that, it may conjure things in your mind. When you hear somebody say, Antichrist, you may think of rituals, satanic things.
Or maybe a charismatic world leader who's kind of over everyone. Maybe secret societies where things are going on under the radar as it were. And antichrist can feel a little bit disconnected. It can feel kinda like almost the fantastical element of Christianity or the sometime down the road, I don't have to worry about it element of Christianity. It can feel disconnected.
But what we're going to see today is that John shows us that Antichrist is actually an immediate and present reality that we face every single day. This concept of Antichrist, it's not just some strange, wild, exotic thing for people down in the future. Antichrist is a pressing reality that we face every day. And that is not to diminish the weightiness of the idea of antichrist. Rather that's to increase our recognition of the weightiness of life itself, of just the life that we live.
Because this life, the life we live Christians, the life humans live, is a radically high stakes thing. It's it's a big deal. So raising kids, getting groceries, putting in time at the office, mowing the lawn, meeting with friends, trying to figure out sickness and loss and sorrow and all these things that we do as we live, rejoicing in fellowship. All of this human life is lived as it were on the fault line of God and the world. Light and darkness, life and death, Christ and antichrist.
So this is the stakes don't rise sometime down the road when things get bad. The stakes are high now. To live in this world is to live on those fault lines. To live with eternity as it were hanging in the balance, not even as it were. To live with eternity hanging in the balance.
So that's that's what I want us to feel today is, okay, this life, the life we're living is is a life that matters. A life with stakes and a life where we as those who hold fast to Christ are faced with this concept of anti Christ every day. So look with me at the text. It's a longer passage. We're gonna be in it for two weeks.
So this week we're gonna focus just on this idea of anti Christ. And then next week pastor Sean's preaching. The week after that we'll return and look at another dimension of this text. But look with me at chapter two verses 18 through 23. John writes this, children, it is the last hour.
And as you have heard the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
But you have been anointed by the holy one and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist. He who denies the father and the son.
No one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. So that's the passage I want us to consider this morning. Again, today we're just focusing on this idea of Antichrist in this passage. We'll come back to it to look at the idea of abiding and the anointing that we have from the Lord.
But let me pray for us as we get into it this morning. Father, as we come to you this morning, Lord, we all of us are in great need. We're in great need of your mercy. We're in great need of the gracious presence of your spirit as you are for us in Jesus Christ. And so, father, I pray that you would grant now that your word would be faithfully unfolded by the power of the Holy Spirit so that your intents here, your intentions in this word would be brought home to your people by the working of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, I pray that Jesus Christ would be lifted up before us as as the truth, as the way, as the life, as the one upon our upon whom our whole being is built and the one from whom our whole life flows out. So father, I pray that Christ be exalted now as we look at what it is to be anti Christ, that Jesus himself would stand forth as the light, as the positive, as the truth that we're to be seeking and seeing and savoring. Father, grant me clarity. Grant me dependence upon you. Grant your people receptivity.
And Lord, where there is hardness of heart, I pray you'd open that heart by your spirit and give life through your word, which only you can do. We look to you, Lord, for these and infinitely more good things that your heart knows and we couldn't think to ask. So we pray it all, Father, in Jesus name, amen. So having just in the passage previously, just unmasked the world, said that the world is opposed to God. Having said, do not love the world.
John now goes deeper and he says, let me tell you what the motivating power behind the world is. Let me tell you what the the the source of the world is. It is Antichrist. The Antichrist. That's what he's talking about.
Now the first thing to see when we look at how John presents Antichrist to us, not how popular culture might present it. How does John present the Antichrist? It has to do with the last hour or what we might call the end times, the last things. Look in verse 18. Children, it is the last hour.
As you have heard the Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. So the Antichrist is particularly related here to the idea of the last hour. And again, when we hear that last hour, end times, maybe you think of all these you think of apocalyptic flames kind of consuming New York City. Or you think of, you know, powers and authorities kind of ruling the world around us. You think of demons in human form ruling over humanity, whatever it might be.
But for John, when he's talking about the end times or the last hour, and this is the same thing for all the writers of the New Testament, What they most immediately mean is all the time that comes after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Everything that follows the resurrection of Christ is the last hour. The resurrection of Jesus is the turning of the page onto the final chapter of human history. And so we are in the last hour from the resurrection of Christ. And I've said this before here that when Jesus is raised from the dead, it is not just a man coming back to life.
That's happened before. For us that'd be amazing. It's it's not that it's not that big of a deal if a man just comes back to life. The resurrection of Jesus is the in breaking of the new creation. When Jesus rises from the dead, something new has come.
Something completely new has broken in. Jesus is the beginning of the new heavens and the new earth. In himself, breaking in to our time and our place. And so with the resurrection of Christ and the coming of the new heavens and the new earth in him, the spearhead of the new creation, we are in the last times. We're in the last times from that point on.
And one of the ways John points to that, one of the ways John says, you know this has happened, is he says, look, you heard Antichrist was coming in the last hour, and many Antichrists are here. So he one of the ways he points to the fact that the last hour begins with Christ is look around you. Antichrist is here. Antichrist is here. Now, to understand what John's saying and to kind of get the center of today's sermon is to make the shift in our mind to see that when John is speaking of Antichrist, he isn't primarily talking about a single figure at the end of time.
He's primarily talking about a spirit or mindset or worldview at work in the world and in people right now. Let me show you where I get that from. First John chapter four, verse three. He says, he says, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the anti Christ, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Then he says, little children, you are from God and have overcome them for he who is greater than you. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. In the world. So when John talks about Antichrist, he's he it it he's not denying that there that there is a final individual figure in whom the spirit of Antichrist is is kind of perfectly consummately present. He's not saying there won't be an individual figure, a man of lawlessness.
He's not talking about that and he's not denying that. Rather, he's saying right now that same spirit is working in the world and is manifest in many different ways. There are many anti Christs working and present in the world around John's readers and around us as those who receive his word. One way to think about this, it's not perfect, but it's help it's a helpful analogy, is a mirror The idea of Antichrist is almost like a diabolical mirror of Christ and the church. Now the reason I say it's not one to one is because I don't want you to start thinking of Jesus and the Antichrist is like ying and yang, light and dark, back and forth.
They're they're, you know, on the same level. Paul tells us in first second Thessalonians that the man of lawlessness, which is this kind of last figure of of evil, will be destroyed by the breath of Jesus's mouth. So so we're not talking about a evenly paired dual duality here. However, it is helpful to to get a sense of antichrist by comparing Jesus and his church. So just as there is one Christ and then all those who belong to him are called Christians, little Christs, and he's our head and we're little Christ to the the extent that his spirit is in us and we live according to his ways so that when people see us they say him.
In a similar way there's there's this one antichrist figure that John doesn't deny is somewhere in the future, but there are many who live by that same spirit, who think with that same mind, who act with that same way now, who are little as it were, little antichrists that we see all around us. So this is you have Christ shown in his church. You also can say you could have antichrist shown in those who have the same mindset, those who live by the same spirit, those who act in the same way. So in this passage, John is saying, look, you know Antichrist is coming in the last hour? Guess what?
Antichrist is already here. All around us. Around us, there are many Antichrists. That was true for John's day, and it remains true for ours. We're still in that same chapter.
We're in that same final hour. We're in the same time between Christ's resurrection and Christ's return. And as I often say, for every one of us, you know, when is when is the end coming? When is Jesus returning? That's that's a significant question to think about.
But the more pressing question perhaps is every one of us will stand before his judgment seat within eighty years. Because when you die, that's the end of the world for you. That's the end of the line for you. That's when you stand before Christ. That's when the heavens melt away and you see the face of the God who is and you give an account to him.
So when he's coming back for all the cosmos, yes, that matters. But ask yourself, when when is the end of my world? When am I going to stand before him? I am certainly in my last chapter. Eighty years is nothing.
Ninety years is nothing. We will see him soon. We will see him soon as he said we would. So right now is the last hour. Right now, King's Tree Church for us, many antichrists surround us right now.
I'm not saying in this room, I'm not pointing you out. I'm just saying in this life, in this life, right now we are called to hold to and live out Christ in the midst of a world system that is built on opposition to him. That's what we're called to do right now. Now, so that gives the basic idea. There's not just a single Antichrist, but the spirit of Antichrist manifest in many Antichrists all around us in this world.
Now we have to ask, okay, well what does it mean? You've used this phrase Antichrist, Antichrist. What does that mean though? What how is someone identified as an anti Christ? Is there like some kind of mark?
Is there some kind of special sin? Is there some kind of like dark ritual they go through? How does somebody be identified as anti Christ? Well, what's John say? Look at verse 22.
Who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist. He who denies the father and the son. So track with what John's saying here. Who is the liar?
And by the way that's a phrase John uses for Satan in his gospel. But here he just says, look, who is the liar? Who is the person who lies except for the person who denies that Jesus is the Christ. And then he says that one, that person, that that person who denies that Jesus is the Christ, that is the antichrist. And that denial of Jesus as Christ is ultimately a denial of the father and of the son.
That's what he says. So what what defines someone as antichrist? What defines an idea, a world, a culture as antichrist? Very simply, it's the denial that Jesus is the Christ. And you might say, well, that's that's not terribly profound.
Well, we're gonna press into that further. But see that now. Antichrist is not some figure with horns on his head. It's not some world leader who's got this army of demons. Antichrist is denying that Jesus is the Christ.
That is what scripture means by anti Christ. And it's no less evil than someone leading an army of demons. Okay? But the point is, if you think about it in this fantastical way, you we will miss the fact that anti Christ is that commercial I just watched. Antichrist is that world view I just swallowed in the news story I I I read.
Antichrist is what my kids just drank up in that cartoon that said, follow your heart because that's your God. That's antichrist. It's it doesn't have to be this this vision of terror. It's it's here. And John says, aware of that.
Be aware of that. To deny Jesus is the Christ is anti Christ. Now, to understand this further, we need to press into the idea of what does it mean to confess Jesus is the Christ. Okay? If being anti Christ means saying, no, Jesus is not the Christ.
We need to know what does it mean that Jesus is the Christ. What does it mean to say that? That's what the antichrist is denying. What does it mean for us to confess Jesus is the Christ? Because that's the division between antichrist and Christ.
Now the term, the title Christ, you may know this, derives from the old testament, derives from the old the term Messiah which means anointed one. So Christ just means by itself the anointed one. But in the old testament this comes to mean the anointed, the uniquely anointed king who will rule the world in the name of Yahweh God. The the not just a king who's anointed with oil, the uniquely anointed king who will rule the world in the name of God. And as the Old Testament grows and develops, these this vision of the king who's coming and Yahweh himself begin to overlap each other.
So that you get the question of is there gonna be a human king coming to bring the rule of Yahweh or is Yahweh himself coming to rule us? And scripture would increasingly say, yes. And in John's gospel, that's pushed to its furthest point. So what does John mean? Because remember that's what we're asking.
What does John mean by the confession Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the anointed one. We get a very clear picture of that back in his gospel. At the very end, John I'll turn there and read it for you. It's in John 20 verses 28 to 31.
This is where the whole gospel is kind of being cinched together and John's telling us why he wrote the whole thing. Starting in verse 27, Jesus comes to Thomas and he says to Thomas, you know, because Thomas was saying, I don't believe he's really been raised from the dead. Jesus comes and he says, put your finger here and see my hands. Put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve but believe.
Look at my wounds. Don't disbelieve but believe. What is that belief that Jesus is calling for from Thomas? What is the belief that John wrote his gospel to bring about? Thomas responds, my Lord and my God.
He sees this and he says, my Lord and my God. And then verse 29, Jesus said to him, have you believed? So Jesus says, that's that's belief. To see me and say my Lord and my God, that's belief. Have you believed because you've seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. Now verse 30, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which were not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe. Now we just saw the content of belief is to confess Jesus is Lord and God. John says, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.
Now I'm not gonna get into the weeds on this. I'm I'm doing my doctoral work on John's gospel. If I get started talking on it, we'll go forever. But let me just say what's going on here is John is paralleling the confession, Lord and God with Christ the son of God. Which means to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, is to confess him to be Lord and God.
And Lord and God here is drawn from the Old Testament. This is Yahweh, my God. Thomas could not go higher in what he says. He is saying this man, this man is Yahweh my God. And John tells us that confession is summed up in the in saying Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.
Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. So for John, filled with the content that he gives the phrase, Christ means Yahweh God present with us. The Lord and God present and ruling on this earth. That's what Christ for John means. So notice that.
Secondly, see that Thomas, who does Thomas confess to be Lord and God or Christ? It's not an angel. It's not a disembodied spirit. It's not a religious idea. He confesses the flesh and blood man.
The crucified and risen man to be Lord and God. To be Christ. To be Christ. So for John, and that's what we're working with here, we're working in John's theological terminology. For John to confess Jesus is the Christ is to hold together the glory of Yahweh God and the crucified man who is raised, Jesus Christ.
Christ Christ confesses this one is the living presence of the one true God in our midst, and this one is the man who died and rose again. God and man bound together in the single confession, the Christ. You are the Christ. You are the Christ. So to confess Jesus is the Christ is to confess that the one true God is perfectly present and definitively declared in the man who is crucified on Golgotha and raised up on the third day.
That's what it means to confess Jesus is the Christ. And that's what the antichrist denies. That's what antichrist anywhere denies that. And really, this comes down to that question Jesus asked his disciples and he asks us. He's asking every single person in this room right now.
Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that he is? That question is being asked of you, everyone, everyone in this room right now. The spirit of God answers that question, he's the Christ, the son of God. Or with Thomas, he's my Lord and my God.
That's how the spirit of Christ answers the question, who do you say he is? He's my Lord and my God. He's he's the anointed king. He's the divine one in my presence. He is Lord and God.
That's how the spirit of God answers it. The crucified man who is raised up and reigning over all is king and Lord. He is the face and the name of God. That confession is what the church is built upon. That confession is what everything stands or falls upon.
The uncreated God present in the crucified man who is raised up again. That's that's where all your heresies and broken things and different religions, they they they spiral out from that confession. They can't hold those two things together. Who do you say he is? The spirit of antichrist would answer this way.
Well, he's a good man. He's a wise teacher. He's a social revolutionary. He's an angelic being. He's a powerful spirit.
He's a God. All those things fall flat. That is not the spirit of God. That is the spirit of anti Christ. The spirit of God says he is Lord and God.
He is the Christ. He is the one in whom dwells the name of Yahweh God. So I I press it upon us. Who do we say he is? Because I said a few moments ago, our world is gonna end in less than eighty years, probably far less.
And in a sense, that's the question. It's not like you're gonna be given a quiz, but in a sense, that's the question that's presented to us. Who do you say he is? I'm not asking what your mouth said once. I'm saying what did your life say he was?
Did my life say he's my Lord and my God? That means I'm sinless, but it means I fall on him, I cling to him, I run to him, I hide in him, he's everything. Or did my life say, he was a good man, he was a teacher, I took it early, left it, you know, as I could. What does what do we say he is? Who do we say he is?
That's where that's where everything turns for our soul. So the spirit of antichrist is not ultimately found in secret societies or satanic rituals. It's ultimately found in the denial that Jesus is the Christ. It's ultimately found in the denial that the crucified and risen man is the revelation of Yahweh God in the flesh. So don't look for it in the secret dark places.
Like I said, look for it in the cartoons. Look for it in the news media. Look for it in the podcasts. Look for it in the commercials. Look for it all around us.
That's where we need to be aware of what we're taking in. Now, you might say, okay, this is interesting, but what does this matter? What does it matter what you're saying? How does this affect things? I wanna give us two ways as we're wrapping up.
Two ways that what we're seeing here, what John's laying out for us here matters deeply for us. The first way is what might be called a theological way. But theological does not mean impractical as I wanna try to show you. Theological is eminently practical. So look at verses twenty two and twenty three.
John says this, who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the father and the son. No one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also. So John says that denying Jesus as the Christ amounts to a denial of the father and the son.
Do you see that there? To deny he is the Christ is to deny the father and the son. Or in other words, if I deny that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the God man, that Jesus is the revelation of the one true God in the flesh, if I deny that, I have cut myself off from God. I have denied God. There is no coming to God apart from this one.
There is no approach to God, a saving approach to God apart from the man who is crucified and raised, who is himself our Lord and our God. And to confess that Jesus is Lord and God is not just this doctrinal thing, you know, like I've gotta have clean doctrine. I've got, oh, fully God, fully man, right. It's not just this doctrinal thing. It is a personal embrace.
It is a relational statement to say that. Let me show you what I mean. Imagine you live in a kingdom and you've never seen the king before in your life. But there is a life-sized self portrait of the king that the king himself has painted and it's set up in the main square of the town. And you have seen that.
You never seen the king, but you have seen his perfect self portrait. And this is a perfect portrait. It's flawless. He himself has done it. Now, if you see that portrait and you say, that is not what the king looks like.
That is not what the king looks like. Well then, you've not just denied that portrait, you've also denied the king. Because in fact that is what he looks like. And by saying, by seeing that portrait and saying, no, that's not the king, you've borne witness that you don't know the king. And that in fact if you saw him you wouldn't recognize him because that is exactly what he looks like.
That's his portrait. In a similar way, and so in doing that, you have revealed that relationally you don't know the king. That's the thing. You haven't just made a statement. You've said something about who you know.
In a similar way, Jesus, as the crucified one, and I emphasize that because it's not just Jesus as a teacher, Jesus as a glorious figure, it's Jesus as the man who bears through his hands the punishment of our hell. It's Jesus who bears in our heart the lifetime of bears in his heart the lifetime of our wickedness. It's Jesus who dies in your place and is raised up again. It's that Jesus who shows us who God is. But to see that Jesus and to say, he's not the Christ.
He is not Lord and God. He is not the revelation of God. To say that is to say, I don't know who God is. I've cut myself off from God. I do not have the father if I deny this one.
So God will be known nowhere other than in his son. He will be known nowhere other than in the crucified and risen Jesus. You can find truth about him in nature. You can find truth about him in philosophy and all these other things. Absolutely.
But we will not know his face. We will not come to him apart from the man Jesus Christ who says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And this matters not only for our our existence because we are made to know God, but it matters for the the whole purpose of reality because God all throughout scripture, all throughout scripture, God is not mainly concerned with making good people. Okay? Religion, Christ, it's not about making good people.
He's not mainly concerned about developing people who are righteous, more holy than other people. He's not mainly concerned with creating a just society. He's not mainly concerned even with salvation. He's mainly concerned that humanity knows who he is. That's what God cares about.
That mankind knows him and responds rightly to him. That's what God cares about. He says, I want you to know me. I made you to know me and respond rightly. Now, morality, a just society, salvation, it all comes from that.
He cares about that. But the thing that God cares about is know me in the marrow of your soul, know who I am. And John tells us that does not happen apart from the crucified man who is raised up again. Apart from the confession that Jesus is the Christ. There are not many ways to God.
There are not many ways into his presence. There's one way, and that's through the pierced flesh, by the sprinkled blood, and in the texturally mediated face of Jesus Christ as we meet him here in his word, as we meet him together with his people, as we meet him in the ordinances that he's given to his church, that's the one place we know who God is and so come to him. So the world around us says, the anti Christ says, oh there's lots of ways to God. All these ways are legitimate. All these ways are good.
And that sounds loving, but it's anti Christ. It's satanic. We Christian must hold to the confession that Jesus is the Christ. There is one God and he's known in the one son crucified and risen, Jesus Christ. But here's the problem.
So many times we hold to that like stones. We hold to that confession like sharp pieces of flint that cut anyone who touched them. We hold to that confession lovelessly. And to confess that means to be made loving. To confess we the way we hold to that confession in the midst of a world that opposes him is by being marked by love, by bleeding love, by living the love that we know in Jesus Christ.
And that leads then to the second and final way that John's teaching here is practically significant for us. It alters morality. What what John says here about who Jesus is changes or has an impact in the sphere of morality. What do I mean by that? What do I mean by that?
Well, again, look down in verse 22 of chapter four chapter two. Who is the liar? Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? Now I would love to go on here about how every lie is ultimately an expression of denying that Jesus is the Christ. Every time I deny the truth at all, it's just like I'm denying the one who is the truth.
These these things are related. So any lie is a little fragment and expression of the lie, which is the denial that Jesus is the Christ. We could we could really run with that and see some interesting things, but I won't right now. I'll keep it where John takes it, which is here. If he says, okay, the liar is the one who denies Jesus is the Christ.
We should remember, wait a second, he said something else about a liar earlier on in this gospel, didn't he? Let's go back or in this epistle. Back in chapter one verse six, we read this. If we say we have fellowship with him, fellowship with God, while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Or again in verse four of chapter two, whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.
So John says, here's the liar to deny that Jesus is the Christ. And then he says earlier, if I say I know God, but I'm not living a life marked by his love, I'm a liar. Now put those two things together. The liar is the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. If I say I know God but do not live a life marked by love, I'm a liar.
What does that mean when you put them together? It means that a life that says I know him but does not live his love is denying that Jesus is the Christ. If I say, I know God, but my life is not marked by his love, what's really happening there, what's down at the roots of that is that is I am denying, whether I know it or not, I'm denying that Jesus is the Christ. I'm denying that God is the one made manifest in the slain and risen Jesus Christ. That's what's happening there.
That's what's happening. The division between what I say and what I do is an outworking of the deeper division that I'm not really deeply right now believing with my life that the one who dies on the cross is God, is Lord and God. That's where this break is happening. And so if I want to address, if I want to address the breakdown between what I say and what I do, and we all have that. If I wanna address the breakdown between my confession of Christ, of God, and my life that doesn't reflect his love, the way that that is addressed is by holding, holding to the union.
The crucified man is the glorified God, Lord and God in this man. Jesus is the Christ. This this unity leads to a unity of what I say and what I do. Now if you say, I don't think so, because you know what? You're saying this like theological statement is going to affect how I live.
If we say that, we are bearing witness to a wrong understanding of theology. We we've got these two categories of theology is over here as doctrinal stuff and life is here as practical stuff. And that is not the case. That's not the case. The confession that God is the one we know in Jesus is not disconnected theology.
It is the lifeblood of a truly human existence. I I mean that completely and I mean that from scripture. To confess God is the one I know in Jesus is the lifeblood of what it means to live as a human being. All of it comes from that. This is not disconnected.
A few examples. If I believe that God is the one I meet in Jesus, that's going to change how I think about the unknowns in my life. How much pain have we gone through because of the unknowns in our life? How many times do the unknowns in our life devour weeks of time in anxiety, or make us short with other people, or drive us to do foolish things? If I am believing God is the one I meet in Jesus, then I know, I know the heart of the one who rules all my unknowns is the one I see in Christ, and I can trust him.
God help me. I can trust him. If if if Jesus, if God is the one I meet in Jesus, this changes the way we think about the unexpected things in our life. If I had time to prepare, I could have dealt with it, but it just hit me. It just came out of nowhere.
The unexpected things. Well, if I'm believing God is the one I meet in Jesus, then I know that the heart who ordains all that comes across my path, expected or unexpected, is the one, is the heart I meet in Christ. If Jesus came to you in the morning and sat you down and said, this is this is what is happening today, and you're not gonna understand it, but trust me. Okay? Trust me.
Would you be able to say, okay, Lord, I I can get through this. That's what's happening. And he's able to say that because he's God. If I don't hold those together, Jesus saying a good teacher saying that means nothing to me. Great.
Okay. No. He's able to say that because he's God. I need to continue on though. It changes also the way we deal with our needs and our lacks and our fears, and our disappointments in this life.
Because if I have seen God give all that he is in the giving of his son, then I know I have what I need right now. I'm I have what I need. There is no lack. If I feel like there's a lack, let me fall into him because I have what I need. If the one I meet on the cross is truly revealing to me who God is.
If Jesus is truly the Christ. And all of this is freeing us up to love as he loves. To lay down our lives as he laid down his life. All of it is setting us free from the bonds of worldly cares, and believe me, I've got them on. I'm not standing here as this free person who said, I do anything.
I have no cares. Trusting this though breaks those bonds so that we can love as he calls us to love. Because in Christ, if if the one on the cross is Lord and God, then what I see on the cross is the shape of reality. That's the truth. The truth.
The the grain along which reality goes. And think about what that means. I'm I'm wrapping up, but I want you to hear this. If there's a rough piece of wood, if you know the grain of the wood and you slide your hand along it, you're gonna feel the strength and the smoothness of the wood. If you see the grain of the wood and you slide your hand against it, you're going to get pierced through your flesh again and again and again.
On the cross, despite what the world tells you, on the cross you see the grain of the universe. That's the way it goes. That's the truth. He's God. He's showing us what it looks like.
And if I believe that and I live my life along that grain, then I'm living my life. I'm living. I'm actually living. And to live my life against that grain is ultimately to live toward death. So if we hold together in our mind, this man is God.
Jesus is the Christ. It changes how I live and it frees me to love. So Christian, so King's Tree Church. As we live in a world that opposes the truth of who God is in Christ. I'm my prayer for me and you is that we would hold to this truth in faith, in hope, and we would live this truth in love.
Not just say it intensely in theological conversations, but live it in love around us. May it be true. Let me end just the way John ends by saying to his his readers, you know the truth. Okay? Christian, you know the truth.
I'm not saying this because you don't know. I'm saying you do know. You, as you go out from here, you know the truth. The truth. Hear this.
The truth is not finally the what the doctors have said, what your body is saying, what the situation around you is saying, what the finances are saying. Those things have a degree of truth. The truth is that the man who lays down his life in almighty love is right now king of kings and lord of lords. The truth is that the heart that pours itself out to wash you clean, opens itself to swallow your perversion, and pours itself out to wash you pure. That is the heart that orders your every step.
The truth is that the hands that open themselves in love to be run through by our hell are the hands that pick up the pen and author our everyday. Author our every experience ultimately in himself and by his blood. The truth is that the head that was bowed down under the thorns of our sorrow is now raised up and anointed with glory, with honor, with joy beyond all his companions. And where he is, we will be. And the truth is that the voice that called Mary by name when she was weeping with her eyes upon the tomb and called her to turn around with wondering joy to set her eyes upon his face is the voice that you will hear speaking, not just for you in the moment, but for your whole life, for all of its moments, for all of its experience to turn and look at him and be illumined and turn to joy in his presence.
That's the truth. The truth is Jesus is the Christ in whom we know our Lord and our God. May we hold fast to him. Let me pray. Father, thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for Jesus Christ. Thank you that you are who you are and that you have declared yourself in your beloved son who is truly man, truly human, truly flesh. And he proves that when he dies, dies for us. And he is truly father, your face, your revelation fully fully himself God.
Grant Lord that we'd hold these two things together, not as disembodied, disconnected theological statements, but as our life, as our hope, as the heartbeat of our faith. Father, we praise you for Jesus Christ. And I pray now that how this word needs to land upon and work within all those who are here, you would figure out, you would work out, and you would cause to come to pass now. Lord, we look to you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.