Hi, and welcome to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.
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Thanks for listening.
So I just encourage you, go to PrayForPlanners.com.
It's an opportunity for you to go through, and what's really cool is when you pull up
the website, you can not only see the planner to pray for that day, but you can also see
all the different planners that are scattered all over North America, and all the work that's
happening, and what God is doing.
And it's not just generically how you can pray for them, but each planner has shared specific
prayer requests for them.
And so just a wonderful opportunity for us to continue to engage and pray for missionaries
all over the world, but especially when we think of planning churches in North America,
we often think of, well, North America, I mean, that's where the church is thriving.
That's where the church exists.
Everybody in North America has an opportunity for the gospel, but we know that not to be
true.
Like with us planted with, or partnered, I'm sorry, with the Stockmans at Hope Valley Church
outside of Salt Lake City in Utah to know that they're in an area where it's less than
2% evangelical.
And so we begin to see and understand the importance of doing that.
And so in fact, we're going to take a moment before we dive into God's word this morning,
and let's go to the Lord in prayer.
And while I pray, I would like to ask that you join me in praying as we pray for all of
our church planners, and we pray for all of our missionaries.
So would you go to the Lord with me?
God, I thank you for today, and I thank you for this time that we could gather here together.
Lord, I thank you for this church and for this congregation, Lord, and the work that you
are doing here in us, amongst us, and through us to reach those in our community, those in
our state, those across this country, and those all over this world.
Lord, I specifically pray for Dustin and Sarah Stockman and their girls this morning.
I pray as they are waking up and preparing to gather in their church with their congregation
to celebrate you and who you are.
Lord, I pray for those who may show up this morning who have never heard the gospel before.
And Lord, I pray through the power of your spirit, the gospel will be clear and presented
to them.
Lord, and I pray for their response.
Lord, I pray for those who are planning all over North America.
Lord, I pray for those who are planning in rural cities and those who are planning in urban
cities as well.
Lord, I pray that they would not find their value in how many people showed up on this day,
but instead, Lord, in their faithfulness to the gospel as they proclaim it.
Lord, give them confidence in who they are, who you've called them to be, and Lord, who you've
equipped them to be.
Because who they are is found in Christ and in Christ alone.
God, I pray that we would be a church of prayer, praying for those that we know, praying for
those that we don't, understanding that the battle that this world faces is a spiritual
battle and we need to attack it in the spiritual realm.
And that, Lord, we would be those who do that.
Lord, I thank you for the ministry of the North American Mission Board, and thank you for
the churches that are being planted, and Lord, I thank you for the privilege of what we have
to have the opportunity to be a part of that.
And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Well, good morning again.
I'd like to ask you if you've got your Bibles with you, and I hope you do, to open them up
to 1 John chapter 2.
In just a moment, we're going to start looking in verse 28.
As we get there, as you turn there, I want to just kind of recap a little bit that John's
been talking about this walk in the light, do not walk in darkness.
And he says, we walk in the light as he is in the light, right?
Talking about God, talking about Christ, that God is light is what he says.
And what we know from that is God is light, which means God is truth.
And so for us to begin to understand and process this, what does it mean that God is truth?
It means this, that God doesn't simply know truth, God doesn't simply have truth, is that
God is truth, and that truth is defined in who God is, just as God is love and just as
God is holy.
Now, we just sang the song, right?
I am who you say I am.
Not I am who I feel like I am, or I am who I want to be, but I am in who you say I am.
So the truth in who we are, the truth in what God has called us to, the truth in what God
is doing us and demanding for our lives is found in him and in who he is.
And this is what John is laying this foundation before the church that he writes to, in pleading
with our hearts today.
Rest, know, be confident in who Jesus is, and then you can rest and know and be confident
in who you are.
So with that in mind, let's look at verse 28 and 29.
He says,
And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and
not shrink from him in shame at his coming.
If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness
has been born of him.
Now, these are two powerful verses that I want us to look at before we jump into chapter 3.
And so what John is imploring for the people who are reading this and imploring for us who
read this today is this, being confident in the return of Jesus.
Now, all of us who are followers of Christ can say yes and amen to the fact that Jesus will
return.
And oftentimes, that's where it kind of leaves our brain.
Do you think Jesus is going to come?
We would all say, all followers of Christ, everyone who knows who he is, we know the story.
We've seen it in Revelation.
Yes, Jesus is going to return.
I am confident in that truth.
But the question of what John is appealing to is this, in who you are, are you confident
in the return of Christ?
Not in the fact that Jesus is going to return, but that when he returns, you're like, oh yeah,
here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.
This may be a silly illustration, but I have no problem sharing those from time to time,
right?
So I've talked about this before.
You guys know this.
I was a difficult child, right?
Are some of you difficult children or were difficult children, right?
Yeah, I see some hands.
I didn't even ask you to raise hands, but I really appreciate those of you who just raised
your hand because you're like, yeah, I'm difficult, right?
Yeah, yeah, I still am.
There's still those parts of me.
I was a difficult child, right?
And so here's the illustration that came to my mind of being a difficult child, right?
Against their better judgment from time to time, my parents, when I was growing up, would
leave me home alone, right?
Just they had more confidence in me than they should have in those moments, which by the
way, my parents listen to the messages every week, right?
So these are all things that we've confessed and worked through.
No surprises as they listen, I hope, right?
And so here's what would happen.
My parents would leave me home alone, and whether it was spoken to rules of this is what you're
to do or not to do while we're gone, or whether it was implied rules, like you know better than
that, right?
Did you ever hear that conversation, right?
I didn't tell you, but you know better than that.
There was a set of rules that were there.
Now, oftentimes when my parents would leave, it would be like simple things like, do you
have homework?
Yes, I have homework.
Okay, we're going to be gone for two hours.
While we're gone, make sure you get your homework done.
Well, here's the deal.
Me and homework, we didn't really get along, you know, right?
My kids are here, don't do this, right?
Do as your mother did, not as your father did, all right?
So me and homework didn't get along very well at all, and I didn't really like to do homework.
And so my parents would say, no TV, get your homework done.
Now, here's what I would do.
I would cut on the TV, right?
If my parents said, get your homework done, no one comes over, I'd call my buddy Joe.
Hey, you want to come over, right?
Like, this is what we did.
Like, never anything super criminal, but never the right thing either.
And then I would ask that question, hey, well, when are you guys going to be, when are you guys going to be home?
I'm just, just curious.
Just, you know, just want to be ready.
We'll be home about 730.
Okay.
So at 7, Joe's got to go home.
And at 7, the TV's got to get cut off.
Because here's something about tube TVs.
They got hot, right?
And your parents could bust you if they walked in and just touched the TV, right?
Because the TV was hot.
So at 7, the TV had to be off.
At 7, Joe had to head home.
And it's from 7 to 730, I'm sitting there and like, I hope I'm not in trouble.
I hope I'm not in trouble.
And then mostly I got caught, right?
Right?
That's it.
Here's the silly illustration.
Or the point of the silly illustration.
I feel like that's how most of us are when it comes to the return of Jesus.
I hope I'm not caught.
We're sitting there in those moments.
We proclaim, I am who you say I am.
But yet there's in those moments in the return of Christ where we're sitting there because of the evidence and the fruit and the things that are in our lives.
With saying, I hope I'm not caught.
I hope I'm not caught.
My first overseas mission trip that I took after Emma and Grayson were born, I didn't know this, but Aaron met me at the airport on my return.
And they had signs made.
And when they saw me, they came running up to me.
And what John wants is for us to be like that when Jesus comes home.
When Jesus returns.
Yes, you're here.
Yes, we've been waiting for you.
Yes, we're prepared for you.
Yes, we can't wait.
This is the best day because you are here.
You've come for us.
You've returned.
So that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.
And so as we look at what we're going to look at today, which I'm going to tell you, it's hard stuff for us today.
It's always hard.
But it just feels like this morning, this week, as we just journeyed through this together.
Man, it's some tough stuff that John's going to call us out on within this.
I just want to ask this question.
Are you ready for Jesus?
If he returned today, are you standing in confidence or shrinking in shame?
So let's look at what he says, starting, we're going to read verses 1 through 10.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us.
That we should be called children of God.
And so we are.
The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now.
And what will be has not yet appeared.
But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him.
Because we shall see him as he is.
And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.
Sin is lawlessness.
You know that he appeared in order to take away sins.
And in him there is no sin.
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning.
No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
Little children, let no one deceive you.
Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil.
For the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.
For God's seed abides in him.
And he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.
Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
There's a lot in this.
There's a lot that's hard in this.
And in these 10 verses, what we're going to get to that I feel like kind of help us unpack everything that's around is we're going to specifically look at verse 7 and we're going to look at verse 9.
And we're going to pull these together.
And what this passage is doing is it deals with a very difficult question.
And it is this, as you read this this morning, as I hope that you'll take from this and go from here, there should begin to be a little bit of conflict that is working in your heart.
There should be a little bit of conflict within you and your actions and your thoughts and your deeds, just like there was in me and for me.
And it is this, how do people who have experienced the miracle of new birth, life with Christ, deal with their own sinfulness as they try to live in the full assurance of their salvation?
How do you and I, if we declare that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, what does it mean that we have identified in his death, the dying of our old self, and in the resurrection of Christ, the new birth or the new life that is found in him.
But yet within us rages this battle of the old self trying to come back and overtake the new you of who we are in Christ.
How do you and I work through, I am who you say I am, but there's still these parts and pieces of us that want to wander back to who we were before.
And here's what John is dealing with.
When this happens, it becomes very difficult to live in the assurance and the confidence of your salvation.
It becomes a difficult journey to say, here I am.
Yes, Jesus, come.
And so how can you and I live and enjoy and thrive in the assurance of being born again and not take lightly the sinfulness of our lives?
Right?
I've talked about this term before, and so the term is grace abuse.
And so I just want to ask this question.
How can we live in grace and not abuse grace?
How can we journey through this?
And what I love of what John is pointing us to, it is this.
It's what we see in James, it's what we see in the Gospels, it's what we see in the Epistles, it is this, that doing confirms being.
Now, doing does not create being, but doing confirms being.
And here's what I mean.
Jesus doesn't say, hey, here's this list of rules, go do these, and you'll become part of the family.
That's not how it works.
But what does happen is when we become part of the family, what God does in his grace and his kindness is he gives us the person of the Holy Spirit who resides in us.
And now who we are is saved, redeemed, purchased, bought children of God.
What resides in us is the living spirit of God.
And so what we do flows from who we are.
And that's what the work of the Gospel does.
And so look back at verse 7.
He says,
So here's what's going on in John's audience.
And this has been kind of a theme, I think, that we've almost hit every single week where we have the realization that things aren't that much different from first century as it is today.
John's audience is dealing with false teachers.
And one of the teachings that was shared amongst these false teachers was this disconnection between the spirit of a person and the physical being of a person.
And we're not going to overly get into what all they were teaching, but here's how this would play out.
They would falsely teach that if your spirit was saved, that this was all God was concerned with.
And then it didn't matter what their body did because the body and the spirit are separate, right?
This is crazy.
This is crazy talk.
Nobody would ever believe this now, right?
No one would ever affirm this message, right?
Wrong.
Here's how we say this.
You know, the Bible says you shouldn't judge.
Hey, hold your finger on 1 John.
Let's flip over to Matthew 7.
And this passage isn't on the screen.
So I just encourage you, bring your Bible.
All right.
Have you ever heard someone say, don't judge me?
They're in sin.
They know it's sin.
You know it's sin.
They claim faith.
Don't judge me.
You ever heard somebody say that to you?
Or maybe a better question.
Have you ever said that?
I have.
So let's deal with that with us.
All right.
Not a good moment.
Matthew 7, 1.
The words of Jesus, judge not that you be not judged.
And what we like to do is say, see, Jesus said judge not.
Yeah, but Jesus kept talking.
So let's look at verse 2.
For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged.
And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Okay.
So let's pause, not stop.
Let's pause for a moment.
So Jesus says judge not that you be not judged because he says for the judgment you pronounce.
So for the standard of judgment that you pronounce, that will be the standard and the judgment pronounced onto you.
Okay.
All right.
We can work with this now.
Verse 3.
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log in your own eye?
Well, let's pause there.
So here's what Jesus says.
They have a small piece of dust in their eye.
And you got a two by four hanging out of there.
How can you go, hey, let me help you get that out of here while this is protruding from here?
Verse 5.
You hypocrite.
First, take the log out of your own eye, and then ignore the speck out of your brother's.
Nope.
You hypocrite.
First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
So a hypocrite is this.
I'm going to ignore this that's here because I'm only going to focus on you.
And Jesus says you don't do that.
Jesus says what you do is you go through the process of what you need to do to remove this out of your eye,
and then your approach moving forward is, no, no, no, you know, I used to struggle with that,
so I'm just going to pray it away for him.
Nope, nope, nope.
That's not it either.
You remove that, and then in kindness, then in grace, then in love, then in truth,
you go to them, and you say, hey, I've got this out.
I know what this is.
I know what this feels like.
I know what this causes.
I know the destruction that this is, and what I see in you is what I saw in me.
And let me tell you about what God did in me as he pulled that big two-by-four out of my eye,
and I give him all the praise and honor and glory for it.
And what I'm here to do, brother, what I'm here to do, sister, is help you get this tiny little speck out of your eye
before it becomes a log that's protruding from yours.
And so when we look back in this, we see this dynamic of what is there that John is pushing toward.
John, little children, let no one deceive you.
Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.
John's saying, like, look, it matters.
Who you are in the spirit does play out in who you are in the physical.
And this matters, and we're here to address it.
Look at verse 9.
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.
For God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
And so John presses into no one, no one who's born of God.
We've said this so many times.
We'll say it again.
You either believe all of it or none of it.
But no one, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning.
Why?
Because God's seed and who he is abides in him.
And he cannot keep on sinning because of who he is.
Because he has been born of God.
John doesn't say that there is no sin.
John doesn't say that there is no practice of pursuing the process of sanctification in your life.
But he says what is evident in the life of someone who knows who Jesus is, that there's this battle that's raging of who they are and what they are doing.
And there's not this practice.
There's not this pattern.
There's not this pursuant.
There's not this not willing to listen.
There's not this pattern of not being willing to repent.
That there's not this practice of, nah, I'm just good enough.
There's not this practice of, nope, this is just who I am.
You're going to have to love me anyways.
There's not this practice of, nope, nope, nope.
I disagree with God's word, and this is who I want to be.
No, no, no, there's not that at all.
If the spirit of God abides in him, do we sin?
Yes.
But what we see, what is evident, what is here, is we need to begin to see victory.
We see change.
We see growth.
We see conviction.
We see repentance.
Because this is what the goodness of God draws us to and brings us to.
And in his holiness, as he loves us and welcomes us and receives us.
I've heard it from a thousand places and bring it as a reminder again.
God loves you too much to save you where you were and then simply leave you there.
And in the glory and the goodness of God, he brings us along, and he brings us along, and he brings us along.
And the goodness of God is found not in ignoring the two by four that sticks out of our eye, but the goodness of God is found in the removal of it for his name and for his glory.
All right?
And John's going to point to some evidence of this.
Look at verse, start looking at verse 11.
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning.
We should love one another.
We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
And why did he murder him?
Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.
Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.
Whoever does not love abides in death.
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.
And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
By this we know love.
But he laid down his life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him,
how does God's love abide in him?
Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.
By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before him.
For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart.
And he knows everything.
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.
And whatever we ask, we receive from him.
Because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he has commanded us.
And so, John's going to draw this back to an example for us.
He says, he begins by saying, you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.
Now, this is what we've seen.
This is what God's standard has been.
This isn't a New Testament thought.
We see this in the Old Testament.
We see this in the New Testament.
We understand that God is love.
We understand what this looks like.
But then what John does for us is he defines that for us.
He says, don't be like Cain.
The story of Cain and Abel found in Genesis 4.
He murders his brother and who, what resided in him was hatred and not love.
What resided in him was evil and not love.
Who he was was a child of the devil and not a child of God.
He says, don't be like that.
And don't be surprised when you are found in me and who you are when others hate you.
Don't be surprised by this.
Don't be surprised by the standard of the world.
And then, don't let that be your standard.
We're to be different.
We're to be born of God.
And here, a question that gets asked a lot, a question that I wrestle with a lot, is how do we love?
How do we love?
How do we love the people that we love?
How do we love the people that we don't love?
How do we love the people that we like?
How do we love the people we don't like?
How do we love the people that we know?
How do we not love the people that we, how do we love the people we don't know?
How do we love the people that wish good for us?
How do we love people that wish bad for us?
How do we love people that support us?
How do we love people who persecute us?
And what John does here is he holds no punches back and he gives us the standard of love.
This is what it's going to be.
This is the filter that we're going to run this through.
If God is truth and God is love, then we're going to apply the truth of the love of God
and allow that to be our truth of what it means like to love others.
So he says in verse 16, by this we know love, we know love, that he laid down his life for us.
And it would be so okay to our flesh if there was a period there, but there's not.
And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
That's love.
That's it.
It's a model of sacrifice.
It's a model of thinking lesser of yourself to think of for more or for others.
It's a model for saying, I can take, but I choose not so that others.
It's that Jesus laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
And so there's some things that we can draw from this definition of love.
I've got that song in my head.
I'm hooked on a feeling, right?
I'm believing that you're in love with me.
Y'all just heard me kind of sing, right?
Who sang that?
That's not love.
He didn't say by this we know love, that Jesus really felt like it every day.
He says, here's what he did.
So love is not a feeling.
Love is an action.
And it's an action that costs.
That's love.
Love is not figuring out who deserves it and who doesn't.
Love is not a rationale of the mind.
But love is an action toward.
Love is the denial of yourself for an other's gain.
That's what Jesus did.
Jesus came in obedience to the Father for the recipients of his action to be us.
So he came for the glory of the Father so that he can make a way for those who were in rebellion from him.
This is what Jesus did.
So how do we do this?
How do we have this love?
How does this permeate from us?
We'll look at verse 18.
We'll close on this.
He says,
He says this.
So what we get here is we get word and talk and deed and truth.
And if you do an original study of the language, here's what you find.
That word and deed are opposites.
Talk and truth are opposites.
So in word means to talk about it.
John says don't just be someone who talks about love.
He says, but be the type of love that's in deed.
Meaning this.
Do something about it.
Jesus didn't just walk around and say, I love you.
I love you.
But you're all going to die for your sins.
He said, I'm going to do something about it.
Indeed.
In talk means to speak about what you've heard.
Right?
To talk is like this piece of information has been given to me.
And that sounds really good.
Let me relay the piece of information that was given to me.
But in truth means to speak about what you know and what you've experienced.
So in order to speak in truth about the love of Jesus,
you've got to experience the love of Jesus.
You've got to experience grace.
You've got to experience forgiveness.
You've got to experience the goodness of God.
And this is what John is pleading.
This is what it's like.
To speak in deed and to speak in truth says this.
Man, I love you.
And here's how much I love you.
A long time ago, or yesterday, I noticed this sin that's in my life.
And man, through the power of God in prayer and in opening up his word, in the beauty of community and accountability,
man, I took this sin that's in my life and I surrendered it before the Lord.
And it's been hard.
It's been a battle.
It's been difficult.
And man, there's times when I want to run over to that sin and I want to put it back in my eye.
Because it's all I know and it's all I feel.
And it's what I was comfortable with.
But God, in his grace, in his kindness, in his compassion, removed it.
And he cast it aside.
And now, I'm not allowed to tell you, I struggle.
I have these times.
I face temptation.
But I live in the victory of new life with Christ every single day.
And this is what it means to be loved.
And brother, sister, here's what I notice in you.
What started out as a speck for me grew and grew and grew.
And I see in your life that as well.
And I love you too much to sit back idly and watch you pursue that which will destroy you.
So can I come alongside you and help take that out?
And brother, we can stand there in confidence and in the assurance of our salvation as Jesus returns.
Because we stand in victory.
And that's love.
It's willing to come along.
It's willing to deny.
It's willing to be vulnerable.
And this willing to stand for truth in a world that hates it.
I want to ask you a few questions as we wrap up this morning.
Number one, are you confident?
Are you confident in the return of Christ?
Not in are you confident that he will return?
But are you confident in who you are in his returning?
Is the pursuit of your heart the practice of sin?
Or the practice of righteousness?
Are you loving as the world says?
Or are you loving as Christ loves us?
Would you pray with me?
God, we echo the words of your truth.
That may every day be less of me and more of you.
God, your call and your demand from your word is not light and it's not shallow.
And God, it's incapable, incapable of being done in our own power, in our own ability, and in our own nature.
And so, God, we thank you that we can be people who live in victory.
We can be people who stand in confidence.
We can be those who say that there is a battle, an attack on sin.
And that what abides in me is the seed of God and not the seed of sin.
People of truth.
People who are working through the process, through the power of the Holy Spirit and with one another.
People who say, I am who you say I am.
I am chosen.
I am redeemed.
I am forgiven.
I am loved.
I am bought.
I am been purchased.
This is who I am in Christ.
My sin does not define me.
My sin is the battle that rages between the spirit and you, Lord.
The spirit and the sin, Lord.
And you are the victor in that.
And that the pursuit of who I am is the righteousness of the Lord.
May we not just be okay with being okay.
But may we desire, Lord, more of you.
More of you.
God, I ask that in those corners and areas of our heart, Lord, that your spirit would speak to us.
And show us the sin that is there.
And may we understand, Lord, that at the foot of the cross, it's not a place where we are made to feel shame.
But at the foot of the cross is where we lay down our shame.
And we find the hope of Christ and Christ alone.
And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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