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The official audio library of sermons preached at Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio.
We all have an idea of what Jesus is like. That we've gathered from good places and bad places. We've gathered from CS Lewis, we've gathered from Hallmark, we've gathered from The Chosen, we've gathered from Conversations with Friend, and there's this cobbled together idea of, well, that's what Jesus is like, that's the Jesus I'm gonna stand in front of. But that is going to be obliterated because Jesus is himself. He's no one's idea of him.
Christopher:He is himself. And you and I are going to meet not with a pliable wax Jesus that I can shape just the way I want based on my convictions. We're going to come before the flesh and blood living Jesus, who is himself unchangeable.
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:So we're in first John chapter two and we'll be looking this morning at verses twenty eight and twenty nine. Over the last few weeks, what we've been seeing John do is to labor to re stabilize the church to which he's writing. We don't know a lot about the specifics, but we do know that there has been some destabilization through inside problems, false teachers, people being drawn away, people claiming an authority apart from God in Christ, or at least claiming authority apart from the apostles, apart from John. So there's destabilization happening inside and then there's the destabilizing effects of opposition from the outside, the world from the outside pressing in. And into the midst of this, John is writing.
Christopher:And if we were to say, what's John calling them to in one word? It would be abide. That's the concept that we've seen over and over again. Abide. Abide.
Christopher:You abide in Christ. Christ abide in you. All of this through the abiding of the spirit or the anointing. So this concept of abiding has been at the very center of what we've been looking at the last few weeks. And it makes sense because think about to go back to the image of the branch in the vine, which is kind of the central abiding image.
Christopher:If there is a blight or a storm or something that is putting the putting the branch in danger, what does the branch do? Well, the only thing it can do and the most important thing for it to do is to abide in the vine. Be remain in the vine. There's all kinds of stuff going outside, and the branch essentially says, I don't know about all that. What I know is I need to stay here.
Christopher:This is where my life is coming from. This is where my nutrients is coming from. This is where everything is found. That's how a branch, if it were sentient, responds to dangers from the outside. And that's what John is calling his people too.
Christopher:And this isn't a put your head in the sand, pretend it doesn't matter. This is a go into the depths that you already have. Press into the it's like you're standing here at the door of a infinite castle with rooms and treasures and riches. Abide there. Go there.
Christopher:Live there rather than being dragged out into something else. Something that is shallow and toward death. So that's what we've been looking at. Now this week, John's going to take that idea of abiding and he's going to press it into two new directions. He's going to press it first from this idea of the present, abiding now in the present, and he's going to press it into the future and say, what does abiding now have to do with the future, with what's to come?
Christopher:So there's a future extension we're gonna see today. And the second one is a shift from the passive to the active. He's gonna move from emphasizing we're abiding now, letting Christ abide in you, you be in him, to emphasizing there's an active element. Abiding has an active element to it. So those are the two extensions we'll see, into the future and into the active.
Christopher:So look with me at chapter two verses twenty eight and twenty nine. 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. So that's what we're gonna look at this morning. Let me pray for us first and then we'll get into the text.
Christopher:Father, we come to you this morning, rejoicing in your riches, rejoicing in your mercy. Lord, whatever we're facing, and and of course, in a in in the number of people here, there are some who who are here in great joy. There are some who are here with great burden. There are some who are here with long swaths of grayness in their lives that are just wearisome. But Lord, you in Christ are the wellspring that every one of us needs.
Christopher:You in Christ received through the spirit. You are the answer. You are the help. You are the healing that every one of us is longing for. And so I pray as your word, first Lord that you'd give me grace now to faithfully unfold your word.
Christopher:Grace to be clear. Grace and the anointing of the spirit to speak with the specificity that's needed. And Lord, that you'd give your people that same grace to receive, to understand, to apply where needful your word. And in all of this, Lord, the one prayer is give us our daily bread. Give us Jesus Christ as the true food, the true drink, the true satisfaction of our souls.
Christopher:To the glory of your name, Father, we pray it in his name. Amen. So let's begin by looking at this extension John gives from the present emphasis to the future. He's been highlighting the fact that abiding is a present reality. Continually abide in Christ.
Christopher:Christ continually abiding in us. And that doesn't change here. It remains a continual thing. But what he does is he lifts our eyes to say, look toward the future. Look at the end result of your present abiding.
Christopher:So he's taking our eyes from the present, abide, abide, abide. And he's saying, and also look at the future and how you're abiding now has an impact on what is to come, what is set before you. Verse 28, And now little children, abide in him so that when he appears, talking about the return of Christ, the second coming, when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink with him in shame at his coming. So this is this move from the present to the future. And the first thing I want to show you here, I want us to see here, is John's absolute assurance that Jesus will appear.
Christopher:He takes it for granted. Abide in him so that when he appears, you all we will not shrink from him in shame, but we will have confidence at his coming when he appears. When he appears. So for John, there's no question, and John is speaking in the authority of the Holy Spirit. There's no question.
Christopher:Jesus will appear. Jesus will appear. The sky will dissolve, and the glory of the risen Christ will be seen by eyes, by physical eyes. Jesus Christ will appear. Now the return of Christ can have sort of an awkward place in certain Christian circles because we don't talk about it too much.
Christopher:Or if we do talk about it, it's kind of trying to chart out when it will be or it's as this like kind of comfortable happy ending that's pressed out there. You know, well, when Jesus comes back, well, when he returns, when it's almost like a when the cows come home sort of thing. It's just pushed out into the distance. And for many, not for all, but for many, the idea of Christ's appearing has little real impact today. Like if somebody say, why are you doing this?
Christopher:Many would not say, because Christ is coming. Because Jesus is is going to return, because there's a there's a timeline here that I'm on. And so there's there's a sense in which the appearing of Christ doesn't matter often in our own experience. We don't feel the weight of it in the present. But for John, it matters now.
Christopher:Abide in him now so that when he appears, you may have confidence. So for John, for the Holy Spirit, for the authors of the New Testament, and for the early Christians in general, the the return of Christ was a blazing, ever present, life shaping fact set before them. Christ is coming. Christ is returning. It was a little it's a little bit like what harvest is for the farmers.
Christopher:And I checked with with Andrew, one of our farmers here, and verified that this was the case. Ask a farmer, from the minute the seed goes in the ground, what is dictating everything that's done? The reality behind everything is harvest is coming. From the minute you put the seed in the ground, you know what's set before you as a farmer? I understand to be the case.
Christopher:Harvest is on its way. Harvest will be here. And because harvest is coming, that dictates what I'm doing. That dictates what I'm doing in the field today. What what the farmers are doing this week?
Christopher:Why? Because harvest is coming. That's why. That's why they're doing it. That's more of what the appearing of Christ was like for John, And that's what he was calling his audience to.
Christopher:To recognize that the appearing of Jesus Christ is an immediate, pressing reality that shapes life right now. And so that's the first thing I want us, I pray that we, that I would feel this morning. Not not just that we'd think about it. I know you heard it, but that we'd feel this morning, by the grace of God, the absolute reality of Christ's appearing. When we go out of here and go back into the regular pattern of life, and I'm not saying the pattern of life is easy, but what I am saying is is that it's it it puts blinders on.
Christopher:Okay. Another meal to prepare, another diaper to change, another car to fill up, another thing to do at work, another and that pattern is just so familiar. It's like these blinders that just go right down over our eyes and right over our heart. And the fact that, do you know this is all going to dissolve? Do you know there is a risen man who is God who is going to break in and deal with things?
Christopher:That can feel distant. It can feel cut off from us. And my prayer is that we'd feel that's a fact. That's a fact. And we are going to.
Christopher:We are going to. You and I are going to stand before the face of Jesus Christ. And the Jesus we stand before is not the Jesus I think of. You know, we all have and we we try to align our understanding of Christ with what we find in scripture. That's our desire.
Christopher:But we all have an idea of what Jesus is like. That we've gathered from good places and bad places. We've gathered from C. S. Lewis, we've gathered from Hallmark, we've gathered from The Chosen, we've gathered from Conversations with Friends, and there's this cobbled together idea of, well, that's what Jesus is like and that's the Jesus I'm gonna stand in front of.
Christopher:But that is going to be obliterated because Jesus is himself. He's no one's idea of him. He is himself. And you and I are going to meet not with a pliable wax Jesus that I can shape just the way I want based on my convictions. We're going to come before the flesh and blood living Jesus, who is himself unchangeable.
Christopher:And we're gonna stand face to face with him. We're going to be stripped of all excuses and hiding places and and statements about why I did it. And we're going to be in front of the face of Jesus Christ. I am. You are.
Christopher:We all are. That moment, as certain as the sun comes up tomorrow, more certain than that is the fact that you and I will be standing before this Christ. So may we not push that off into fantasy land. May we not envision it well when that happens it'll happen to somebody else, know. It'll happen to me.
Christopher:It'll happen to you. May we not pretend well because it feels far away, it's not really important. No. No. It it is important.
Christopher:And in fact, it's not even far away. It's not even that far away because as you've heard me say before, it Jesus is coming back within history. Absolutely. But ultimately, whenever his return for this world is, his return for you and me happens when our heart stops beating. So I'm not denying he's coming within time, but I'm just affirming that coming happens for you and me when our heart stops.
Christopher:You and I, it may feel, wow, it's so unreal, it's so far and distant. We are we are one heartbeat away from standing before the face of Jesus Christ. The veil between us and him is gossamer thin, and it ought to be taken seriously. Not as a fearful thing, but as a sobering thing, as a weight. And so when the sky dissolves and our excuses melt away, and our securities and our distractions and our defenses are mercifully stripped from us and we come face to face with the righteous one, what will be our response?
Christopher:John lays out two. Two. He gives us two options here. Shame and confidence. Shame and confidence.
Christopher:Those are the two. Let's look at the shame one. Verse 28. Now little children, abide in him so that when he appears we may have confidence before him and not shrink from him in shame. That's what we don't want.
Christopher:And the shame that Paul that John says here, the way he words it has the idea of, like it says here in the ESV, shrinking away from. It's not just shame in front of, it's it's like a going back from, like a hiding from, a shrinking back from. If you want to see an image of this, think about Adam and Eve. When when the Lord comes to see them in the garden, they're ashamed, but what do they do? They shrink away.
Christopher:They go and hide. They go and hide in the trees with, in fact, the serpent. So that's the kind of shame John wants us to avoid here. It's a shame that is not just the the typical I I have failed. I'm I'm I'm a sinner.
Christopher:I'm a there's shame, but there's the element of relational distance. I don't I don't know who this is. I'm I'm afraid of this. I'm shrinking back from this. I'm out of fellowship with this one.
Christopher:And John says, I want you to avoid that. And I say, I want to avoid that. And I want you to avoid that. We don't want our experience of seeing Christ's face to be the sudden, horrifying, irreparable realization. I never knew him.
Christopher:I actually did not know him. I've been out of sync with him my whole life. I've been out of step with him, and I don't know who this is. That's what we John John says, I don't want that to happen to you. Now, almost every Christian will assume, I'm good with Jesus.
Christopher:Yeah. I mean, we there's an understanding. There's an understanding. But John introduces the question here, but what if you aren't? What if you are fundamentally out of sync with him?
Christopher:And I don't mean to say this just to scare it, but this is what John is saying. Don't take for granted, oh, yeah, everything's fine. We ought to consider the possibility, I'm a sinner. I may be living utterly out of step with Christ. And when I see him, it may be that I don't run to him but shrink away from him in fear.
Christopher:May it not be the case for anyone here. May it not be the case for anyone who claims Christ's name. May we instead have not the response of those in Revelation six fifteen who it says, calling for the mountains fall on us, hide us from the face of God and from the wrath of the lamb. That's not what we want. We want rather the confidence that he talks about here.
Christopher:Children, abide in him so that when he appears, that shrinking away is not for you. You that's not the case. Rather, you have confidence before him at his appearing. That's what we want. That's what we want.
Christopher:And this confidence here is not a smug, boastful confidence like, yep, I'm ready. I'm ready for Jesus. I've got it all figured out. I've got all my theology right in a row. I've got all my doctrine.
Christopher:I know exactly I am confident. That guy probably will have the other experience. It's not that kind of confidence. If you want to see the kind of confidence that is on display here, look at a bride walking down the aisle toward her groom. Look at how she walks down the aisle.
Christopher:Look at how she lifts her eyes to look directly into his, wholly absorbed by his gaze, wholly brought in by his love. She's confident. But it's not this boastful, I've done so much confidence. It's a confidence that exists within an abiding of love. And John says that's the kind of when when he returns, I want it to be that moment.
Christopher:I want judgment day for you to be wedding day, is essentially what John is saying. That's the kind of confidence he calls for in his people. That's what I want for myself. That's what I want for us here at Kingstree. So how does how is that experienced?
Christopher:Look at verse 28. And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears, you may have confidence. Very clear. How do we have that confidence on the last day? That humble wedding day confidence before him?
Christopher:We abide in him. Simply put, abiding now means confidence then. Abiding now means confidence then. That's the future element that I was talking about. Pressed forward.
Christopher:Abiding now means confidence then. Conversely, not abiding now. Arm's length now. No fellowship now means shame and shrinking away then. That's the that's the other side of the coin.
Christopher:But our present abiding in Christ are holding fast to him, are feeding upon him, are living in him, he in us and we in him by the spirit. That that life is preparing us for the judgment seat. It's preparing us to stand before him. Would we receive the appearing of Christ with open arms, with joyful heart, with eyes unashamed to look into the eyes of our Lord, then abide in him? That's how we that's how you prepare for the end of the world.
Christopher:That's how you prepare for the end of your life, to abide in him. And and we the last few sermons, we've been talking about this idea of abiding. So I'm not going into it specifically now. You can go back and listen if you'd like to. So that's how we prepare.
Christopher:But how how is this abiding worked? Well, again, we looked the last few weeks at it's it's as we believe in Christ, as we believe the message of Christ, as this as this becomes an intimate inner reality in our life by the spirit. Yes. But here, John is pressing into the active side of abiding. So we just looked at the movement to the future, abide now for confidence then.
Christopher:Now we ask, okay, what's this abiding? How do I do that abiding? And that's where he's gonna move to the active side of things. There is an action. There is an activeness to the abiding in Christ that he calls for here.
Christopher:Abiding demands action. And you see, we've already seen that from back in chapter two verses five through six. It said this, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. By this we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walks.
Christopher:So abiding is not just sitting, thinking, feeling things about Jesus. It's a life. It's an acted life. That's the way that's the way abiding works. So let's press into this and see what John says about it here.
Christopher:And to understand it, we need to follow a change in language that he's going to make. Look at verse 29. So in verse 28, he's talking about abiding, but then all of a sudden in verse 29, he shifts to talk about children. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. So he's moved.
Christopher:John has moved from this idea between abiding and being born or being a child of God. And that's I want us to see that change here. John's moving. We're in a transition point here. John's moving to talk about the necessity of lived righteousness in the life of the Christian.
Christopher:And we're gonna look at that over the next few weeks. But the hinge of that change is this move from abiding to children. And I want you to see how he makes that change here. The change is from the concept of abiding to the concept of being a child. And these are united in John's mind.
Christopher:Down in verse nine he says this, 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's been born of God. Now we'll get to that. I'm not I'm not gonna get into that text today. Just what I want you to see is that this idea of abiding and childhood being born, they're related in John's mind.
Christopher:They're united in John's mind. So for John, the idea of being God's children seems to communicate the same idea as Christ abiding in and we abiding in him. So he's essentially saying, take everything I just told you about Christ abiding in you, you abiding in him, the spirit abiding in you binding this all together. Take that idea and transpose it now to the concept of being born of God, being a child of God. The one in whom this abiding is happening, here's a name for them.
Christopher:Child. Child of God. Born of God. And why does he move then from abiding to children? It seems because he's emphasizing the relational element.
Christopher:He's saying this abiding, it's not just an impersonal thing. It makes you a child. It causes you to be born. It gives you a father. It brings you into a family.
Christopher:So I want us to see that change in language. Everything we've said about abiding, including that it's necessary for confidence on the last day, now is true about children. So you could also say, those born of God have confidence on the last day. The children of God have confidence on the last day. Just as you could say, those abiding in God have confidence on the last day.
Christopher:Okay. So with that transition in mind, let's look at John's logic here in verse 29. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. How's that how's that work? How's John's logic here work?
Christopher:Follow me on this. He seems to be saying, what abides in something is like what it abides in. Okay? What abides in something is like what it abides in. The branch is like the vine.
Christopher:Also, what is born from something is like what it is born from. A child is like her parents. Okay? So what abides in is like what it abides. What is born from is like what it is born from.
Christopher:Therefore, and here's the here's the logical turn. Therefore, if we know that Jesus is righteous and we abide in him, then we know that those who are abiding in him are practicing righteousness. If we know that Jesus is righteous and we are born from him, then we know that those who are born from him are practicing righteousness. That's that's the mind's that's the logic that John lays out for us here. So in other words, what it all comes down to here is abiding is active.
Christopher:Abiding does something. Abiding lives in a certain way. So just as the way you balance on a bike is by pedaling, moving forward is how you balance. So too, in a particular kind of life, living practicing righteousness is how you abide. Moving forward is how you balance on a bike.
Christopher:Practicing righteousness is how you abide. So the the abiding that gives us bridal confidence in the presence of Christ on the last day is an abiding that acts. It's an abiding that practices righteousness. It's a it's an abiding that lives in a certain kind of way. That's what John's pressing home onto us and onto his readers, and that's what we need to receive this morning.
Christopher:And in order to understand that, let's look at what this righteousness is. If you know that he is righteous, if you know that Christ is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him or is is abiding in him. So now we ask, okay, what's that righteousness of Christ? Because when you hear the word righteous, you can tend to think good just goodness. General goodness.
Christopher:It's like this light shining in your eyes and you think, okay, good. What what does that mean? What does that mean? Well, righteousness in scripture doesn't just mean good. It means like God.
Christopher:Okay. Righteousness is determined by what God is like. It's determined by his character. So when it says if you know that Jesus is righteous, essentially it's saying if you know that Jesus is like God, then everyone who lives righteousness, everyone who lives like God is born of him. So you hear that again and you might say, yeah, know.
Christopher:I know. Jesus is like God. That's very basic. I I get that. I get that Jesus is like God.
Christopher:But hear this. Hear this awesome truth at the center of our faith. Jesus is perfectly like God. If God's essential being and character is a seal, and he stamps that seal into the wax of a human life. The imprint of that seal is Jesus.
Christopher:Jesus is the, as it says in Hebrews, the exact imprint of who God is, pressed into the wax of a human of human existence. Jesus is the revelation to us of what God is like. And that's his righteousness. His his being like God is his righteousness. And John is saying, if you're born of that one, if you're abiding in that one, that same righteousness, that same like God ness is going to be working out in your life.
Christopher:It's going to be showing itself in your life. That's what he's calling us to. And we see this like Godness of Christ most clearly at the cross. And I don't say that just because, well, that's that's always what you say. I say that because that is where John goes.
Christopher:First John four eight, anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. So righteousness is to be like God. God is love. So righteousness, this righteousness we're talking about here, is is this love. This particular love that God is.
Christopher:Well, what is this particular love? Next verse. In this, the love of God, the love who God is. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love.
Christopher:Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation. The the wrath bearing, death bearing, curse bearing sacrifice for our sin. God is love, And the love that God is appears at the cross, where the love of God swallows up the wrath of God toward the enemies of God, so that they might know the beauty of God and be made children of God. That's that love is who God is. That love is what righteousness is.
Christopher:And when John says that Jesus is righteous, what he most essentially has in mind is that work. That work that displays the blazing core of who God is. That work of supreme righteousness, which is the work of supreme love, which is the work that supremely says, here is who God is. Here is who God is. And John's point in all of this is to say, if Jesus is righteous like that, righteous as displayed on the cross, then the one abiding in him will the one who is born of him will truly and increasingly be living that way.
Christopher:Not perfectly. Okay? Don't hear me say sinful, sinless perfection. John has already said if you say you have no sin, you're a liar. So this is not perfect righteousness on our part that we're acting it out perfectly.
Christopher:This is not earning salvation as if we're working our way up to get saved. What this is is the absolutely necessary outworking in our lives of likeness to Christ if we truly are united to Christ. That's what John is saying. So let's be very clear. The Christian life demands that we change.
Christopher:The Christian life demands that we change, not as a ground of our salvation, but as a necessary fruit of our salvation. It the Christian life, John is saying, those belonging to, those united to, those found in Christ will and must begin to have a life that looks like him. Okay? Not perfectly, not completely, but it needs to start happening. It needs to start happening.
Christopher:If we know he's righteous, we know that those born of him will live righteously. They will act out his righteousness. If we know that he's the one displayed in the love of the cross, then those abiding in him will display that love in their lives. That's the concept John is pressing upon us here. Union to Christ will and must look like my ego being progressively dethroned.
Christopher:Not in one fell swoop. I wish it was just one uprising of grace that dethroned ego forever. But it is a progressive dethroning that has to be happening if I'm in Christ. If I'm united to Christ, my anger will and must be progressively leashed by love. If I'm united to Christ, if I'm abiding in him, if I've been born of him, my lust must be strangled, strangled by the death grip of God's grace, Increasingly strangled to death.
Christopher:If I'm united to Christ, my envy, my pettiness, my selfishness, my disbelieving anxieties, my wallowing in fear, my cowardice and lovelessness, these things will and must be progressively, I'm not saying immediately and completely, they must be progressively uprooted by the weight of divine mercy, plunging the spade of the cross into the soil of our soul again and again. Plunging it in digging these things up and out. That needs to be happening if we're in Christ. It will union to Christ will and must look like these things being cut out and something new being put in. The the love of God in Christ displayed at the cross being put in.
Christopher:Because ultimately, I've I've tried to make this point already, but I'll make it one more time. All righteousness, all likeness to God, whether it's fighting sin, humbling pride, standing courageously for the truth, holding fast to sexual purity, serving those in need, curbing our temper, all righteousness is in one way or another an expression of the love shown at the cross of Christ. It's just that white light hitting the spectrum of everyday life and hitting the prism of everyday life and shining out in all these different acts that we're called to do. And you'll see that. We see that in John because here John says, we must be practicing righteousness and the only thing he commands is love.
Christopher:So John it's not that John forgot about the others. He's just agreeing with Paul who says, love is the fulfilling of the whole law. The cross is the fulfilling of the whole law. So let me close this way. John is calling us Christian.
Christopher:John is calling those who claim to abide in Christ to a pursuit of righteousness. He is. He's calling us to live differently. Okay. So abide in Christ so that when he appears you'll have confidence, not shame.
Christopher:And the way that happens is by as we are abiding Christ, an actual life that looks like Christ. Our our our works do not save us, but our life that is changed shows that we belong to him, shows that we've been united to him. And it must be. It must happen. That's why we can be judged.
Christopher:Our works will be brought to bear against us, not as the basis of our life, but as a sign. Were they in Christ? Were was I in Christ? Did you preach and preach and preach, but your life looked nothing like him? Your life was stagnant where it was when you were 18 years old and it never changed.
Christopher:It would that be the witness? If we're in Christ, righteousness is working itself out. Just like if you're alive, your your fingernails are growing, your lungs are breathing, your heart is beating. That stuff doesn't earn you life. It happens if you're alive.
Christopher:And if it's not happening, don't tell me that thing's alive. It's dead. And so then in the same way, if righteousness, that is to say, the love of God in Christ at the cross, if that's not working itself into my mind, and my heart, and my hands and my feet and my mouth, don't tell me, God says, you're in me. Don't say you're abiding in me. Don't say you're my child.
Christopher:If that's not happening, that doesn't earn us a place with him, but it is the evidence that we're in him. And it's incremental. Okay? I'm not saying you better be a different person tomorrow. It's an incremental growth.
Christopher:Just like a human. Right? When I first got Wicklow's two year old onesie, I thought there's no way he's ever gonna fit into this. There's absolutely no way. This is for a giant.
Christopher:And now, you know, he's far beyond that. And I didn't see that growth happening. It was incremental, but it was happening. Same for the Christian. Increment you look you look at where we'll be when we're brought to Christ and you think there's no way.
Christopher:There's no way. Incremental as we hold fast to him. It's working itself out. And that incrementality is why ultimately don't look to yourself for confidence here. Don't look to yourself to say, yeah, I am actually doing really well.
Christopher:Sometimes that we need to look at ourselves and see how we're doing. But the main place you're looking during this growth is the cross. Is the cross where all your sin is born, all your righteousness is achieved, and the love of God your father is opened like an ocean to pour into your life. Live there. Live there.
Christopher:Now let me wrap up with these two statements. The first thing, because I don't want to leave you with an overwhelming burden to go out and say, I gotta do all this stuff now. I want you to see the goal and the source of the righteousness to which we're called to. First, what's the reason we're doing this? Why practice Christ likeness?
Christopher:Why practice righteousness? Why try to grow in selfless love? Why? Because I want to be better? Because I want to get to heaven?
Christopher:Because I want to spiritually win? No. The goal for this is intimate abiding fellowship with the father in the son by the spirit with his people now and confident, joy filled embrace of Christ on the last day. Relationship is why we practice righteousness. So think about it this way.
Christopher:Think about it like a like a learning the steps of a ballroom dance. You could try to learn these steps so that you can impress other people. Look at how I'm doing this. You could try to do it so that you can be the best dancer. You could try to do it for your own health or you could try to learn the steps of the dance so that as a bride you can dance with the groom on the wedding day.
Christopher:A bride learning the steps of a dance is not so hopefully, she can impress everybody. It's so that the steps, the actual steps of the dance become the context of fellowship. Like, me taking these exact steps is how I'm having fellowship with this person. In the same way, for us Christian, the obedience of faith, growing in Christ like love, righteousness lived out in our life is learning the steps of the wedding dance between the bridegroom and the bride so that we can have fellowship with him. It's it is the context that we have fellowship.
Christopher:One more quickly and then we'll be done. The source of this righteousness. When when John says, those who are in the righteous one must live righteously, to to summarize what he's saying. Those who are who are in the one who loves this way must love as he loved. What's the source of that?
Christopher:Well, what's the source of our love? John first John four nineteen. We love, we obey, we practice righteousness, we abide because he first loved us. That's where I want to leave you today. The command to love one another, which is indeed a command that must be followed by grace.
Christopher:The command to love one another is not a command, go out into the dry soil of your soul, dig a well of love, and start giving people water from that well. That's not what is being commanded here. Work harder, dig deeper, just keep digging and love people. No. No.
Christopher:That's a quick way to burn out. That's a quick way to go to despair. The kind of water running in my life is not the kind that can obey the command to love like Christ. The kind of radical abandoned Christ like love calls for from me. If I try to do that by my own efforts, I'm going to be pouring people cups of sandy, silty, rock filled water that I dug up out of the bitter wilderness of my own life, and I pour it out to them, and it's it's not going to help.
Christopher:It's not going to help. Rather, the command to love hear that. When you're commanded to love before anything, it's a command to be loved. The only way we can love is if we have been loved first. We love because he first loved us.
Christopher:And everything we're ever called to do, all obedience is love. So every command to obedience is first this, be loved. Be loved at the foot of the cross before anything. That's where it all begins. That's where it all continues.
Christopher:That's where it all pours from. So don't hear this today as a command. Go out there, dig a well of love, and start obeying. Hear this as a command to stand under the torrent of love, pouring from the open side of our Lord and our God on Calvary. Stand there.
Christopher:Live there. Deal with your sorrow there. Deal with the disappointments there. Deal with the confusion and the fear there. Live.
Christopher:Live, may it be so, at the foot of the cross of the crucified Christ who is risen and who is our Lord and our God. So if we're abiding in Christ Christian, we must be looking more like him. Absolutely. That's what we're called to. We his life must be formed in us.
Christopher:But this is not a call to bitter, white knuckled religious effort. It's a call to live our lives at the foot of the resurrection delumined cross. It's a call to bury our faces in the side of the risen Lord. It's a call to drink the love that is our life from his opened heart continually, continually, continually. And as we are filled there to overflow into the lives of others, our families, our neighborhoods, our world.
Christopher:May it be so. May it be so. Let me pray for us. Father, these are heavy things standing before Jesus Christ. How could anyone?
Christopher:Nothing we do nothing we do will prepare us to stand there apart from your grace. And so, Lord, we cast ourselves wholly and completely upon the grace secured for us in Christ. And thank you that your word is clear that if if that grace is present and active, if we're in Jesus, we will begin to change. We are called to a life that looks like him. And father, if you've commanded it, you stand ready to enable it.
Christopher:And so we ask now, according to your command, that we should begin to grow in likeness to our Lord. Work this out in us, Lord. Work it out in me And in my brothers and sisters here, may we truly begin to look like him to whom we belong. May we truly begin to look like the vine in whom we are branches to look like the elder brother of whom we are all siblings, to look like our Lord incrementally, part by part, step by step, piece by piece, as your spirit binds us to him, feeds us upon him, and satisfies us in him. May it be so for King's Tree, for the sake of our families, for
Caleb:the sake of our neighborhoods, for the sake of the world, and for the sake of the glory of your name. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.