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Good morning everybody. Why you stand if you would? This is a good time to stretch out, make sure you're awake and say hello to someone around you, say good morning. Make each other feel welcome. And just stay standing and let's enjoy praising our God.
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Good morning. You know, speaking of that, first Peter, just read this the other day. First Peter one starting at verse 18 it says, for you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ.
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The sinless spotless lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began but he has now revealed him to you in these last days. Hear that friends? That's good news. Why you don't turn to your neighbor and say, Jesus loves you.
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This is great news. Good Say good morning.
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A thousand times I've failed, still your mercy remains. Should I stumble again, still I'm caught in your grace everlasting. Your light will shine when all else fades, never ending. Your glory goes beyond all fame. Your will above all else.
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My purpose remains the art of losing myself and bringing you praise everlasting. Your light will shine when all else faints, never ending. Your glory goes beyond all fame. My heart and my soul, I give you control. Consume it from the inside out, Lord.
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Let justice and grace become my embrace to love you from the inside out, everlasting. Your My heart and my soul, I give you control. Consume me from the inside out, Lord. Out, Lord, my soul. Rise out, Lord, from the inside out.
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Please pray with me. Lord God, we we give ourselves to you. God, let us leave differently than than how we came. Growing in you, becoming more like you, that all we do would honor you. God we love you and we praise you in the name of Christ.
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Amen. Please have a seat. Guys I trust you you got a bulletin. Take it with you, read it, check it out. There's a variety of announcements in here.
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Just just neat stuff. Neat stuff coming up. So so take note if you will and prayer requests inside. Just read your bulletin. I wanna ask the offering team to come forward.
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Come on up offering team. We're going to take offering and then after we do that, very exciting, have two baptisms today, which is just fantastic. And so let's give joyfully in praise and worship to our God. Then also this time of offering just allow a moment here to just to bow your heads in prayer and give thanks. So let's pray.
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God, we love you, we are grateful for who you are, we wanna give joyfully, just to follow your example. So be glorified through this offering and through the baptisms and we give you thanks in the name of Christ. Amen.
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What a beautiful beautiful morning already. What God is already doing in our hearts. I I love how God raises things up through music and through his word. Next week, Jan Hicks will be here and she'll be sharing her testimony. The reason why I bring it up now is because it's these kinds of special events when you have different people come.
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Often that the Lord uses that to open up hearts and minds of people when they find Christ as personal savior. At our Easter service at Snow King, Tiffany Cleveland and Tyler Blair raised their hand and asked that Jesus would come into their hearts. Week later, I'm in my office. I prayed with them and today, they want to be baptized and so, we're going to be able to enjoy that ceremony together today. When the Lord comes in a person's heart and he changes them from the inside out.
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I love that song, Scott, when you sing it. Inside out. He does that and in talking with Tyler and Tiffany earlier, he said, the reason why that we want to be baptized is to demonstrate and let people know the importance of Jesus Christ coming into a heart and and and the change that happens. One of the things that that gripped me about Tyler, Tyler said, I I don't wanna go back to my old ways. I don't wanna do the things I did before.
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I don't want to have the same thoughts, the same actions, the same deeds that I did before. So when Christ came into my heart, he changed all that. And so I want to be baptized and testified before everyone that changed in my life. So this morning as we baptize Tyler Blair and Tiffany Cleveland, when they go through that ceremony, I want you just to applaud and thank God for this beautiful time of being able to share testimony together. So, Tyler and Tiffany, let's go do that.
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Ain't that great? Ain't that great? Hallelujah. Go ahead, Scott.
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Let's let's thank him in prayer. God, praise you for these two wonderful young folks who wanna follow you and give their their life to you. God, thank you for evidence of you at work today. And God I pray now that they would know always that they would be assured of their salvation, of their hope in you. In the name of Christ, amen.
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So in a moment we're gonna open the word together and Ray is gonna preach for us. It's exciting. Ray's been here all summer, intern second summer in a row. We just love him. Great guy.
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And he and Tanya and Pascal, they'll be leaving a little later this week, but be a blessing to hear the word through him. I know one part of what Ray's touching on is the assurance of our salvation. And there's only one who brings that. And that is Jesus who proclaimed himself, I'm the way, the truth the life, and no one comes to the father except through me. That's what this song's about.
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You came back to that which you had created only to find we turned away from your ways, away from your truth, Lord, away from you. What can be done for us? We're broken and lost, all of us. Is there anyone who can lead us home? All our sins away.
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Only one, only son. Jesus, the way the truth is life.
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Can y'all hear me now? Yep. It's still no? The Don asked me if I wanted to lead communion this morning and I said, no. The last time, I knocked off the tops off of the plates during the prayer and I forgot to turn my microphone on and now I've dropped all my papers all over the place.
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But I should always put page numbers because that happens a lot. I think that y'all are gonna have some verses up here that we're gonna be going by, but I just wanted to start off and tell you a little bit about what's going on with us. Tanya and Pascal and I have been out here for I think this is the ninth week maybe in a row and we're heading home on Thursday. I will start back up in seminary on August 23. Pascal starts school on August 23 and Tanya will start teaching Spanish in school on August 23.
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So, that's what's coming up in the short term for us but we have 2,255 miles between us and that. And we're gonna go by and visit family on the way home. But we're leaving out Thursday morning. That's the plan. So just so you know, this is kind of a farewell.
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It's a fairly well until we meet again. But I've been out here and have an opportunity to minister in lots of different ways, whether it's hospital visits or through lots of different stuff since we've been here. Some of it, you know, I preached at the beginning of the summer, And I've had a chance to do a Bible study. That Bible study is a New Testament puzzle book and it's 258 pages long. And in that 258 pages, doctor Jones, the the author of that book, asked people to read scripture before reading the chapter and so the scripture almost equals the book.
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So, what I've asked for people to read is 258 pages of a book in four weeks. Which is ridiculous. And probably about 250 pages worth of scripture to go with that. You know, the book's trying to help explain that. And people have done it.
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There've been about 20 people, 25 people and all that have come and that have done that on Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings. And I want to say thank you to those folks because they put up with a lot. I planned on teaching it over nine weeks. But that's one thing. Another week in the middle of the summer, had a chance to go to a middle school camp.
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And at that middle school camp, the main verse, the one on the t shirt is first John two fifteen. Don't love the world or the things that are of the world. If you love the world, you're not of the father. Father is not in you. Love of the father is not in you.
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And that one on a T shirt looks like it is condemning. It does not look happy. It does not look good. And when I saw that that was going to be the verse of the week, I thought, wow. We're in a community that looks at outward appearance.
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In fact, some of the surrounding areas, the predominant religion here really looks at the outward appearance, and it is about that. And I thought, how am I going to teach this to a bunch of middle schoolers from Idaho and do it justice? So I thought the best thing that you can do always is take the verse and put it into context. If I've learned anything in seminary, context is king. Where it is in the Bible and what the guy is trying to say is the most important thing that we can go to.
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So if y'all wanna turn to first John, I'm gonna be teaching about first John, actually, to begin with. John that wrote this was John the apostle. We also call him John the disciple obviously and John the eyewitness and we call him that because he is one of the first of Jesus's disciples. He followed with him along through his whole ministry and then at the end of his ministry, he is the only one. He's the only one of the disciples that that remained at the cross.
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He is the one that Jesus looked down from the cross and behold your mother. He turned over Mary to John's care. So, this is John, the beloved. And he writes to us for two primary reasons, to encourage and to instruct. And what Scott was saying about the assurance of salvation salvation is all over this book.
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There are isolated verses taken out of context that looks scary and I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church in Georgia, small church and I heard first John preached and I could hear condemnation. That was what was coming through and I don't want for that to be what you take away from this message. This is a letter written by one of Christ's closest friends about Jesus and about you, about Christians, and he wants you to take assurance that Jesus has done the work. That what he has done is what we can rest in. So, first John one, he's talking about the reality of this.
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All of these this is ridiculous. When I when I printed out the handout so I could see these slides, I know that it's black and white and there's a bunch of it. I'm going to read through these and I'll stop at places along and and and go through and break things down, but I'm going to hit it at a pretty good clip this morning. Diane told me in the class on Wednesday night, she said, you do very well, but you cannot speak any faster than you than you do. So first John one one says, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we've looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, that's Jesus.
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And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and was manifested to us. What we've seen and heard, we proclaim to you also. And then in the bold print, so that he screams out at us through the so that. If you pay attention in this letter, that's what he's, that's what he's pointing to. So that why?
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So that you too may have fellowship with us. John has written by this point, John's gospel, has a universal appeal. This is the same man who wrote, whosoever and whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. That's John. So, he says, so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ.
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John has no problem what ever saying with confidence. I am a believer. I am saved. It's not any kind of a false humility or anything that's that he's afraid to say. Yes, I'll be there.
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One glad and I'll fly away. He's not, he don't have any problem saying, I'm a Christian. I'm standing with the right guy and God is my father. Now, I'm a co heir with Jesus. So that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the father and his son, Jesus Christ.
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Christ. These things we write, why? So that our joy may be made complete. Now, our in that sense is our, meaning his, and other people with him, but the people to whom he is writing. Writing.
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So, who's he writing it to? Originally, he was writing it to the church and the churches surrounding Ephesus in the nineties after Jesus' crucifixion in '33, John had had a chance to see what had developed in the sixty, fifty something years since and he saw that people were concentrating less and less and less on the price that Jesus paid.
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Sorry.
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They're paying less and less attention to the precious blood. First Peter talks about. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. So, so that our joy may be made complete, he writes this letter.
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The next slide. Just a couple of verses down. I couldn't do it all. When I actually put when Judy Judy Wells got in touch with me and told me to send her the verses for this morning to put up on the screen. And I thought, what's the text for this morning?
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And I put down on a piece of yellow paper, text. First John one one through five twenty one. So, that probably was not going to fly. So, I have skipped some verses. They are nuggets.
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They are all gold. I promise. Everything that's in there is good and my challenge to you at the end of the sermon, I'm going tell you what it is now. Read it. It's three pages long.
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It's not 258. It's not two fifty eight additional verses in a book to explain it. It's three pages long and I'm going to tell you the primary causes and if you read it in that context, it will be very very good to you. I promise, it'll be something you come back to when you start to doubt. You'll come back to it and say, nope, this is it.
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This is it right here. So, if we say that we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous or faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. And it goes straight on into the the little numbers, you know, we added for clarification to help us.
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But this letter was just a letter when he wrote it. And it flows right into my little children. I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. So, the so that so far, so that you can have fellowship with us and the father and Jesus, so that our joy may be complete, all of us together, our joy, and so that we may not sin. But next verse, if any or next part of the verse, if it and if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
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And he himself is the propitiation for our sins. Not for ours only but also for those of the whole world. So, he is focusing on Christians and he's bringing us into knowing where it is that our strength lies, knowing where it is, that our forgiveness lies but he's also, he's the one that put the whosoever and whosoever believes in him should have everlasting life. He doesn't want you to forget about those who are still in the world. So, not just an inward focus and encouragement, but you have the the opportunity and the obligation to extend this kingdom too.
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So but also for those of the whole world. Next slide. And I'm writing to you. This is almost poetic. Probably might have been from a hymn.
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It might have been from another piece of poetry, a Christian poetry. But in some Bibles, you'll see it set apart. It's like an indention sort of. And because it has a hymnic quality, because it has a refrain. But this is another one of those so that.
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You see the because or therefores or so that's in scripture and they they should really call out your attention. And 12 through 14 do that. This is like I said, probably a hymn. May well have been. Scott wrote that last song.
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I think we ought to be writing new songs to the Lord. There's plenty left to be said about him. John and his gospel said, if we wrote everything that there was to say about him, the Earth could contain it all. So verse twelve, one twelve says, I'm writing to you little children because your sins have been forgiven you for his name's sake. I'm writing to you fathers because you know him who has been from the beginning.
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I'm writing to you young men because you've overcome the evil one. I'm writing to you children because you know the father. I'm writing to you fathers because you know him who has been from the beginning and I have written to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. When I started looking at this, the first thing that I I do digging in scripture, I try to go back and I get all the verbs and I get all the verbs together in one place and I start looking at tenses of verbs and that right there, you know, you know, you know. This is something that you know.
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But if you go to the Greek and you look at it, it says, you are knowing. There's a a sense of progressive action involved. It is something that you are knowing. Where it says abides, we use the word abides there in English because of that progressive action. It's something that you continually are doing.
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That's very important in this verse. Those verses that I told you that I used to read and they would condemn me or I felt like they condemned me, a lot of that was not understanding exactly what it was that John was trying to say. I didn't understand from the context as a whole that his letter was supposed to be encouraging and I didn't understand that it was instruction. He understood very well what Paul calls the spirit at war with the flesh. John's talking about abiding and you can only abide to dwell to stay in one place.
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You can only abide in one place at a time. So, right after this twelve, thirteen, 14, he sets up 15 and that's the T shirt verse. I told you about at the beginning of the sermon here. And that verse is, do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.
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That do not love the world is do not be loving the world. That is that progressive action. Progressively, you cannot be loving the world and loving God at the same time. I can't do that thing like that. You can't do both of those at the same time.
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Do not be loving the world nor the things in the world. If anyone is loving the world, the love of the father is not abiding in him. It's not being in him at that point. So, that's not condemnation. That is instruction.
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John has given us encouragement, and now he's given us instruction. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from the father, but is from the world. And this world is passing away, and also its lust. But the one who does the will of God lives forever. Ever.
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So that used to confuse me pretty badly too, and it confused a lot of those middle schoolers at that camp. Lust of the flesh, we understand. I think all of us honestly can understand that. Lust of the eyes, we can understand. Eyes never filled up, Solomon says.
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That's something that guys especially probably can understand, but gals too. And looking around and seeing things that we want is that. The lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh. It's carnal stuff. But the proud of life is the one that always bothered me.
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Should we not be proud? Should we not be proud that we have life within us? And that, again, when I get confused, I go back to Greek. Greek usually confuses people, but that's that's what seminary does, I guess. The boastful pride of life.
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If you look at that word, that's the same word that's used when the widow's might, you remember the story of of the widow's mite where Jesus says, that this woman who had given two little mites, two little coins, she drops it in the coffers and he said, she's given more than anyone else because she put in her life, her livelihood, her BS. She put in her livelihood. So that is what that's about. Do not trust in your possessions. That's John's instruction right there.
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But he goes right back to encouragement. The whole book is like that. It's encouragement. You're a child of the king. He's done what's necessary.
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He's made a mechanism. If you should slip up and fall into sin, he's made a mechanism. That's the first John one nine. If you confess. If you actually, in Greek, if you are confessing.
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There's always when I don't want to undermine anybody's confidence in the scriptures. If you can understand the English translation that you have in your hand, that's the one for you. The the thing when you're translating is always fidelity to the original text and readability in whatever language you're going for. You understand broken English. When people speak to you in broken English, you understand it.
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Usually what they have wrong is verb tenses. It's like because a lot of language use that progressive action versus static action. English, we don't use that so much. So, that's one of those things. If you are confessing, he is cleansing and forgiving.
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What that instruction from John is saying is there is a mechanism for getting rid of sin in your life and there is a way that you can have that direct, joyful, loving relationship between you and your heavenly father and the way is to keep short accounts with him. Always be confessing. Paul says, remain or abide or stay in a continual state of prayer. Always be open with what's going on. John says it this way.
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He says, confessing. Always confessing. So we'll go to the next slide and we'll hit some encouragement. See how great a love the father has bestowed on us. This is a new new American standard version is what I'm reading from.
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That's the behold. Low. Behold is the see part right there. Look at it. Take note of this.
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How great a love that the father has bestowed on us that we would be called the children of God and then right there, it's great. It's a little aside. It's not when you when you have a plan thing that you're going to say and you just have that little moment where you oh and such we are. He is caught up. This is still, he's an old man now but he's still the beloved disciple of Jesus and he knows it and he's including you with him in that.
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He's including those of you who have trusted in Jesus and in his blood. He's including you with that. He says, see how great a love the father has bestowed on us. He planned to say that. That we would be called the children of God and such we are.
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That's huge. That's why I put it in bold. Now, next slide. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness. This and sin is lawlessness.
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And you know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins. No one who sins has seen him or knows him. Little children, make sure no one you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous.
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Just as he is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil. For the devil has sinned from the beginning but the son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus said, to seek and to save that which was lost. This is one of those hard sections.
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This is one of those things that I look at it and go, that makes me feel like if I've ever done anything wrong, then I must not be a child of God but that is not what John is saying. He's saying, if you're a child of God, you have a choice. You can live by the spirit. You can live by the flesh. You can't do both of em at the same time.
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Keep short accounts with God. When you realize that you have screwed up, admit it and he will cleanse you from all unrighteousness unrighteousness. And you have the option right there to keep on going. I think this is a great sermon actually or book to study. Something to have in your in your backpack.
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If today is your day that you're being baptized, I think this is a great one to start out on. It's assurance of your salvation, of what has been done on your behalf by Christ and looking back on that. First John three twenty four, the next slide says, the one who keeps his commandments abides in him and he in him and we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us. Don's been speaking on the Holy Spirit for the past four or five weeks and it was been fantastic for me. It's been right along with everything that I've been studying and it's just great to hear John come back and say, this is how we can know.
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This is how we can know. By the spirit whom he has given us. What's also great about that and Don has mentioned this a couple of times is that spirit is available in infinite measure. It is the same spirit. Paul could say in Ephesians that we have one body, one spirit, one baptism.
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We're all baptized into this. John is saying, fellowship with us, with the father, with Jesus Christ. We're a big family and we know this by the spirit whom he's given us. I'd say trust in the Holy Spirit. If he tells you what to do, test by the word.
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Make sure it's from him but know that that that can be trusted. Four fifteen, next verse, next slide says, whoever confesses, this is how you can know too. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he and God and then right on down to five one, it sounds like it's repeating the same thing. This is encouragement and instruction, encouragement and instruction. Instruction.
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The people John was writing to lived in a day where the society around them were depreciating the value of the blood of Christ. They were trusting in intellectual blah blah blah. That's the best I can put that. Blah blah blah. Gnostic philosophy was all about the knowing.
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It was not about the being. It was not about the doing. It was knowing the right things. If you know the right things and you don't do anything about it, John is saying, if you're not doing anything about it in some of the verses that I've skipped, if you're not doing anything about it, it's probably not something that you're knowing and believing and trusting in your heart. Word and deed go together.
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Don't just do lip service. Don't just play with this. It's not about gnostic thought. It's not about knowledge knowing. It's about knowing Jesus.
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It's about doing his will. It's about being linked with him, with the father through him. So whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Whoever loves the father and loves the child born of him loves the child born of him. By this, we know that we're children of God.
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When we love God and observe his commandments. That's what Jesus said. Do you love me? Feed my sheep. Do you love me?
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Feed my sheep. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And then John goes on to this. This is the love of God and we that we keep his commandments and he adds another one of those little asides after the semicolon. It is and his commandments are not burdensome.
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I can tell you right now that since we have and I I don't think everybody needs to surrender their life to foreign missions but since the the day that we decided that or accepted that this was what God wanted us to do. It has been a wild ride but it has been wonderful and it has not been burdensome. It's been fantastic to be living in the love of Jesus and knowing that we're doing what he's asked us to do and we we're committed to doing whatever that is. So, his commandments are not burdensome. Just a couple more slides and I'll be wrapping up.
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These things I've written to you who believe in the name of son of God. Why? So that you may know that you have eternal life. It's not about knowing, it's about knowing Jesus. Know that you have eternal life.
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And then the very last verse of the thing of the whole book is five twenty one. It's the next slide. Little children. Guard yourselves from idols. Now in the first big block of lots of words up there, he had done the little children.
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I'm writing to you because your sins have been forgiven for your name's sake. So is this talking about sinless perfectionism as it has been preached? No. It is not talking about a sinless perfectionism. Like Scott sung this morning, we are all broken.
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We have all started out that way. Even after we're saved, we're still broken people. We're being made more and more in the image of Jesus every day as we will yield our life to him. But John's instruction here, little children guard yourselves from idols. It's because it's possible for us to be tempted by almost anything.
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In the middle school camp, it surprised me the things that were had become idols for people. I didn't know volleyball could become an idol. Volleyball came up with one of the gals. She said, I I was devoting my life to this thing. I thought volleyball.
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Anything can be an idol. Absolutely anything that that steals your love, affection, time, talent, resources from devotion towards God can become an idol. So I'd say, little children, guard yourselves from idols. And I'm going to go back to a quote here and end with this. Landing is always my difficulty in the sermon.
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I feel like I can go through a book and and fairly well represent what it says but I kind of leave it up to you to decide what it means in your life and to apply it to your life. I'm asking you today outright if you would read these three pages. It's five chapters but it's just three pages long and it's encouraging and it'll be something that you go back to. So, read it, you know, this afternoon or this week. If you wake up and you read it every single morning, it's still three pages.
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And it's good for you. I read it this week in English and Spanish and Greek and trying to get it all together. But I want to come back to, if you'll find the slide if you don't mind on three one, the behold or it says see, I think that slide. See, how great a love the father has bestowed on us. That's chapter three one.
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See how great a love the father has bestowed on us that we would be called the children of God. And such we are, he he says. This sonship, this is Andrew McLaren says. This sonship which is no mere empty name is the aim and purpose of all of God's dealings, of all the revelation of his love, and most especially of the great gift of his love in Christ. Has that purpose been accomplished in you?
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Have you ever looked at that great gift of love that God has given you on purpose to make you his child? If you have, has it made you one? Are you trusting Jesus Christ whom God has sent forth that we might receive the standing of sons of children in him and are you a child of God because a brother of that savior? Have you received the gift of a divine love in life through him? Because my friend, remember, there is a grim alternative.
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A child of God, as John says, or a child of the devil. There are only two options. No one is neutral. We don't don't start off neutral. We start off as children of the devil.
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And we accept a free gift of God's grace to become, to be, to have the right to be called, as John says in his gospel, children of God. These are bitter words I know. They're not popular. They're not something that's convenient in contemporary society, but that that's the truth. That's the Bible.
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And on, you know, with Martin Luther, here I stand. That's that's just the way it is. So they're words. So, I'm going to pray and then we're going to do communion. For those of you who are who have accepted that and you are a child of the king.
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We're going to have fellowship one with another with Jesus Christ. We're going to identify ourselves with him and so the communion team, if you would come down front, I'd appreciate it. Don, would you come up and lead in the communion? So, don't knock the cap off of the plates again. Thank you all for your attentive listening and I pray that you'd read that over and just be encouraged by it this week.
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Thank you, Ray. Don't don't you love the words and such we are? And this morning, if you know Jesus and such, you are. You're a child of God. Yes.
50:27
Doesn't it make you feel good? I love that because it does. It does. When you know Jesus as your personal savior And communion is a beautiful opportunity for us as his children to remember what Jesus did for us. I love that.
50:40
To me, the most important part of of of a service was when you're able to have communion together. And be able to with people who know Jesus to be able to take the bread and the cup and understand what that means together. So we're gonna do that. And so it's not about being a member of First Baptist. It's not about it's about being a member of the family of God.
50:57
And so if you are a member of the family of God, we invite you to be a part of communion with us this morning. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for this great message, for the beautiful opportunity for us to see in your word that because you loved us so much. How great is that love? That the father bestowed upon us And And to so so
51:26
we're
51:30
the And broken bread that that reminds us of the broken body of Jesus. And the cup that reminds us of the blood that was shed for our sins. As we take these elements together, we we do that lord in remembrance of you. As you started the church with that very premise, we Lord Jesus continue today to remember you, remember what you did, and to be so grateful and so thankful and we give you praise as we do that today in Jesus name. Amen.
52:16
We'll take it together. The night he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread and he broke it and he said, this is my body broken for you. And every time you take this bread, remember me. Let's do it together. Some of the most beautiful words Jesus said when he said, this cup is a new beginning and that's the way it is for all of us.
58:14
When we remember what Jesus did for us, it is for us a new beginning. And so let's enjoy that together, shall we? Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you for the shed blood on the cross for our sins. You who knew no sin took sin upon your life.
58:34
That day on the cross, our sin. So that we might be forgiven because of the shed blood of Jesus. And so we receive that today again and we thank you for the remembrance and we praise your wonderful and holy name. We thank you that we are forgiven. We thank you lord for the power of the Holy Spirit.
58:50
We can live day after day in the glory that you provide for us. And we give you praise for this beautiful day to day in Jesus name. Amen. As we stand together and sing, I want to remind you that there may be some of you that just want to pray this morning for physical needs and there'll be a number of elders in the pastor's office afterwards and we'd love to be able to meet with you and pray with you and answer any questions that you may have this morning. Let's just stand together and sing together as we pray.
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Let no one caught in sin remain inside the lie of inward shame but fix our eyes upon the cross and run to him who showed great love. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death. Come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the from the dead, trampling over death by death. Come awake. Come awake, come and rise up from the give him a praise offering.
1:03:17
Give him praise.
1:03:18
Come on. Come on. He's alive. Hallelujah. Come on.
1:03:24
Hallelujah. Ray, will you go back? People wanna hug up on you today. This is this is a raise last Sunday. So, and you two go back too because you get baptized and they're hug on you as well.
1:03:33
There's a hugging group here, you know? Everybody loves hugging and that's part of the celebration. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you again. How powerful you are.
1:03:44
What truth we have heard today. May the truth set us free as we apply it to our life. We move from head knowledge to heart knowledge, heart acceptance, and allowing you to work in our lives today. We do that with all great Thanksgiving in Jesus name. Amen.
1:03:57
God bless you. Have a great great day.
