Transcript

Let’s go to 1 John 5. The early church was having a problem and we’ll find a lot of relation to this scenario that they faced and that is that there were many, at least a number of, professing Christians who were very unfaithful to the church, who were living lives of wanton sin and immorality. Now, we’re not talking about a brother that stumbles and struggles but is repentant and humble, we’re talking about an open, willful, indulging in sin and worldliness, even wickedness. These type of things were going on and these people were proclaiming they were Christian. That may not be as difficult to grasp if you understand the context and that is that in the Gentile regions especially and, of course, it was true everywhere in the Roman Empire at that day in some degree, and that is that those worshiped in that day most often worshiped in a pagan temple, and the pagan temples were thoroughly associated with immoralities, perverse sexual immoralities. To be a Corinthian, for example, meant to fornicate, it was so prominent. So in that culture where everything religious was just an indulgence in the base desires of your fallen nature, many would put on a cloak of cosmetic Christianity and not really be Christians. And the apostle here wants to straighten some of that out so he gives some thorough clarifications here on what a genuine Christian really is, and a great assurance for those who are saved and for those who are not saved, a real test to evaluate themselves.

Let’s look at it, 1 John 5, beginning in verse 1, he says, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born,” or begotten, “of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments,” boy, here’s a key phrase,” and His commandments are not burdensome.” They may be difficult but they’re not burdensome. Verse 4, “For whatever is born,” or begotten, “of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

I just simply call this “The Birthmarks of the Begotten.” The birthmarks, the marks that you are one of those who is born of God. He uses that phrase twice, being begotten, or born of God. Now, I. in our outline will be: one of the birthmarks is that you believe that Jesus is the Christ. You believe that Jesus is the Christ. Of course, the word “Christ” here means “the Messiah; the anointed one.” You believe that he is the one, the one and only promised Savior and Lord sent from God. He’s not one of many ways, he’s not just the best teacher of many good teachers, he’s not a philosopher who can guide us to a way, that he is the way sent from God to enable us to know God and know forgiveness of sins. He’s heaven’s only provision of salvation, therefore in embracing him, you deny all others.

Years ago, we worked with a seminary, a graduate school of theology in India, and we began to teach and train there, they actually gave me an honorary doctorate there, and there were some good men there and, by the way, some brilliant men, India has some exceptional schools, but they had so accepted, if you will, taken in the American view of conversion, just a quick hoop jump, you just, you know, in 30 seconds, get somebody to pray a prayer and then declare them saved. Now, we’ve been through all that here years ago and we realized that that was not a complete thing. By the way, we don’t put anybody down for encouraging people to pray and call on Christ. That’s just not enough to know you’re truly saved, amen? What I say to people is, “You need to look for more than just that.” But anyway, they would go into these villages after villages after villages throughout India and they would gather the people together, they would preach for 15 to 20 minutes and they would ask them to call on Christ and pray a prayer to ask Christ to be their Savior and Lord, and practically everybody in the village would do that, and they would declare it at church and they would go on to the next village. This went on hundreds if not thousands of times only to come back later and find out there is just no change at all. Well, if you understand Hindu culture, you understand that every man and woman in the village had dozens and dozens if not hundreds of gods and they weren’t going to upset any god so they just add Jesus on to the other dozens they worshiped.

Well, that’s not what this says here. When you believe that Jesus is the Christ, you’re not adding him on, he is absolutely and only your Lord and Savior. That means you forsake all others. Now, that’s not popular today. That means we believe that Mohammed is a liar. That means we believe that Buddhism is a lie. That means we believe that all sects of Christianity that teach salvation by something other than faith in Christ alone is a lie, and that’s tough in this day. That’s not popular anymore, but that’s what this means. You embrace him.

Now, the word “believe” here in verse 1, “whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ,” is a strong form of that “pistos,” the word that means “belief” in the original Greek, and it’s stronger than how it’s used in the earlier parts of 1 John which leads us to understand that he means more than an intellectual conviction. When you believe on Christ, it’s much more than, “Well, I believe the story of the Gospel. I believe that he died on the cross. And I believe that’s a beautiful love story of God taking man’s place at the judgment.” But it’s much more than intellectual assent. It means a belief that goes beyond the mind and has captured the heart to a full surrender to Christ as Savior and as Lord.

Now, we’re not proclaiming that you become a perfect follower of Jesus, but when you believe, one way that I’ve always liked to word it is this: the purpose and the pattern of your life changes. You have a new driving purpose. You fail at it often, but there is a new agenda. There’s a new modus operandi, if you will, of, “I want to please and honor Jesus Christ because I am so humbled and deeply grateful for what he has done to forgive me and save me.” And you believe that his wisdom revealed in the holy Scriptures is the only true wisdom that man must have and man must follow. So you begin to do things. You begin by being this believer that has gone beyond just the intellect and it’s captured your heart. You begin to believe that what the Bible teaches about raising children is the true wisdom I must follow. What the Bible teaches about how to love my wife is the true wisdom that I must follow. What the Bible teaches about how I am to submit to my husband is the true wisdom that I must follow. What the Bible teaches about finances is the true wisdom that I must follow. And on and on we could go.

So that’s an element of testing yourself. “Am I a believer like that?” You may stumble and you may fail. The old man in you, the old fallen flesh you are housed in may rise up and there be a moment, even a short season of disloyalty, of dishonoring, but listen, the child of God can’t walk in that unbelief. Quickly he catches himself. Quickly he is humbled. And quickly he gets back on track. Now, as has been said a million times over, it’s still a great statement: faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone. There is something to this believing that makes a difference in our lifestyle.

Now, here’s what we want to get at. This phrase “born of God” that occurs twice here, is an absolute key foundational truth and here’s what it means: that divine begetting comes before believing. The divine begetting or birthing of new life in one’s heart precedes believing on Jesus Christ. Now, perhaps we can argue that they are so close together it’s impossible to separate them, but if we believe what the Bible teaches and what our forefathers, our Baptist forefathers and theologians taught and believed back before we got so cool and clever and cute and relevant, but if we believe the old doctrines of the Bible, then we understand that our hearts are so black and depraved, sin has so thoroughly affected and polluted the totality of our beings, that we have not the virtue, we have not the capacity within ourselves, to choose Christ. So there must be a work of God first that enables us to see the weightiness of our sin and the wonder and the glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now, it’s a shame that those notions are foreign today because you don’t want to challenge me on this. I can bring you a stack of Baptist fathers who were brilliant and great preachers and theologians who taught this thoroughly, but we’ve just gotten away from it the last 50 or 70 years, at least, if not more, and gotten into a very simplistic hoop jump mentality that if we can just twist people’s arms, manipulate people, emotionally stir people to do a thing, whatever it is, we can call them saved. Well, twice here John uses the phrase, “You need to know that you’re born of God.” That is, that what is the differences in you that are evident now that you are one of those who is begotten or born of God. We understand that the divine begetting comes before believing. Begetting is not the consequence of believing, believing is the consequence of being begotten by God.

Let’s just look over there to the Gospel of John real quick and notice when John wrote his Gospel he started out with this same basic truth in his heart and he penned these words. John 1, and look at verses 12 and 13. “But as many as received Him,” by the way, we don’t back up on that either. All men should be commanded to receive Christ. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” Verse 13, “who were,” that’s past tense verb, by the way, they believed because they were “born, not of blood,” in other words, it’s not because you were born of the line of Abraham, it’s not because you come from good Baptist stock. No, not of blood, “nor of the will of the flesh.” That means your natural capacities: your natural mind, your natural will, your natural emotion, cannot desire, cannot will to turn to Christ. “Not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” Those born of God.

So John amplifies that great truth at the end of his epistle. He begins by amplifying that great truth at the beginning of his Gospel message. As Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3, “Unless one is born again,” has this new birth, “he cannot even see the kingdom of God,” much less believe and enter it, he can’t see what he needs. He can’t see what he lacks. He can’t see the superiority and the desirability of the kingdom of God. Isn’t it amazing in what so many call conversion in Christianity today, it really doesn’t change anything about your esteem of God and his kingdom, it just gets you a ticket into heaven so that you can live down here and get all your pleasures fulfilled in this world, but when you die you don’t want to go to hell. Who wants to go to hell? I mean, that’s, I mean, no one wants to go to hell, but, you see, real conversion isn’t just missing hell, as a matter of fact, that’s secondary. Real conversion is desiring heaven, desiring God, to be with him and to know his pleasures and his presence, and his love, and his grace, and his goodness. But unless you’re born again as John 3:8 says, born of the Spirit. As 1 Peter 1:23 says, “born of imperishable seed.”

Now, here’s the contrast, in Galatians 4:4, when you came into this world you were born of a woman. In Galatians again, when you came into this world, you were born under the law. That means you were answerable and obligated to all the dictates of perfect holy law. James says you violate one commandment in one spot and you’re guilty of all of it, and you’re born under that burden. Then thirdly, Galatian says in Galatians 4:24, you are born according to the flesh. But what John is talking about, there is another birth. There is a spiritual work in the heart that comes some time in your lifetime if you’re a true believer, and that believing is a result of that birthing of new life within you.

So, 1. He says one of the birthmarks of a true begotten son of God is he believes that Jesus is the Christ. 2, II. He shows his love for the Father by loving the Father’s children. He shows his love for the Father by loving the Father’s children. The last part of verse 1, it’s very interesting, he says, “and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” Listen to this cross-reference in Galatians 6:10, “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” Now, here Paul is writing to the church at Galatia and he says, “Now, Christians, whenever it’s possible, it’s not always possible because the needs of the world are legion, there are too many of them, but when you can, help anybody who has a need that you come across in life. But,” he says, Galatians 6:10, “especially you’ll want to do good to those who are of the household of the faith, those other Christians. There is a special love in your heart for them.” We’ve talked about that some already.

But in this day that John’s writing this epistle, so many people had begun believing false doctrine. They had begun neglecting fellowship and ministering to the saints and caring for each other and loving one another in the church. They were living outwardly, wantonly, immoral lives. They were haughty in spirit, very proud. And in so many other ways they showed really their disdain and their lack of attraction to and desire for the true people of God. Yet if you asked them, they would say, “Well, yes, we’re Christians.” And John says, “It can’t be. It can’t be.” I mean, if you’re with a church, a congregation that is striving to be spiritual and biblical and you’re not attracted to that, then you can know you’re likely not a child of God. I say likely because you may have a moment or a short season when you are just carnal and you need to repent, but it can’t last long. The child of God is born again and a part of that born again nature is he has an increasing, growing love for God and John said there is no way you can have that love and not have an attraction for and a love for the other saints of God.

Now, those who are not begotten of God yet hang with a true church, usually end up doing one of three things. As a matter of fact, I think they always end up doing one of three things, and most likely a combination of all three things. One of those three things that the, if you will, lost church member, the carnal church member ends up doing, 1. They end up forsaking the assembly. If you are purposing to preach the word and the church family is purposing to practice biblical ministry and Christianity one to another, a non-Christian can’t hang with that very long. They just can’t. It’s very difficult for them so they will begin, as Hebrews 10:24 and 25 warns us not to do, they begin to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

Secondly, not only forsake the assembly, they begin to foul the assembly. Foul envies and foul jealousies and foul pride, and an independent spirit. A foul and destructive tongue and unethical behavior, and immoral conduct, and on and on we could go. They bring that stuff into the church. Again, John was dealing with some of that and cautioning them about that.

Then not only forsaking the assembly and fouling the assembly, but thirdly, they fracture the assembly. These are the kind of folks that end up splitting churches. They end up finding them a group and often they kind of have the personality that they can get a following and they’ll start being critical of this or critical of that, and they’ll get them a party together. The Bible calls it a faction and they’ll lead them to go and do something different. They’ll get them some families and, “Hey, to be really spiritual, to really serve God, to really reach people, we’ve got to break off and do this.” They don’t come to the elders, they don’t bow in humility and seek the blessings and the guidance of the church family and the elders to go and do something different, no, that’s not what a factious man does. They are independent and proud and not humble.

It would do those well who have that kind of spirit to examine the lifestyle of the Apostle Paul. Before the Apostle Paul went out and served in any type of ministry, before he planted any church, he prayed with the leadership of Antioch and got their approval and their blessing to be sent out by them. You don’t just go out and do your thing as this Lone Ranger, you go out as an extension of a sound church. That’s what the word of God teaches. When there were problems in the Gentile churches, Paul didn’t say, “Well, wait a minute, I’m an apostle.” By the way, there are no more apostles. Apostles had unique authority and power more than any pastor today has, yet, with his apostolic power and authority, Paul still goes back to the church in Jerusalem and submits to the elders of the church to help work through how they should handle these problems among the churches.

So any time you hear somebody, listen, I don’t care how charismatic they are, I don’t care how self-denying they are, I don’t care how devoted to Christ they seem to be, if they are not willing to do their ministry under the authority of the elders and in harmony with the local church family they’ve joined, they are not right with God. Don’t listen to anything else. Listen, honoring biblical authority is the foundation stone in true spirituality. If a young person wants to be godly, I don’t care how many verses they memorize, I don’t care how many people they witness to, I don’t care how many beautiful songs they sing in the church, I don’t care if they’re here every time the door is open, if they have as a pattern of their life to dishonor and reject their parents’ authority, they’re not spiritual. They’re playing a game. So with a wife honoring her husband’s authority. So with the church member dishonoring the church’s authority. God has ordained these means.

When I was a very young Christian, I did not grow up in church and I had more than a little bit of pride problems. We all have pride, I think I might have had a double dose. And I remember being taught these very principles and it revolutionized my life. I thought, “This is great. I just go to God-ordained authority and I know God’s will. It just makes things super easy.” And I remember Bob Pittman, my pastor back in those days said, “Now, when you graduate from the University of North Alabama, you’re going to seminary in Memphis.” I said, “I am?” He said, “You are.” Well, I didn’t know anything about graduate school. I didn’t know graduate schools of theology. I knew a lot of them were very, very bad in that day, that’s, what, 30 some years ago. But he said, “You’re going to go over there and you’re going to be trained and you’re going to be a disciple. God has called you to preach. You need that kind of training.” So I submitted to authority and I went over there. To make a long story short, I tried to work in, I think, three different churches over there and I don’t know if this will bless you or not, but none of them would have me. So finally Brother Bob said, “Well, just come back here. God’s using you here. Just drive back and forth.” And I began to drive back and forth. But I yielded to the authority of my elders. Moms and dads, listen to your pastor, whatever else we want to teach our young people, we want to teach them that God will guide you through biblical authority, and this independent spirit is not of God.

Now, that’s what was happening in this church. There were those who claimed to be Christians, had corrupt lives, had open immorality, were not honoring the fellowship, were not loving the children of the Father because they were not born of him. Now, thirdly, III. A third birthmark of the begotten is that they have joy in obeying God’s word. As they grow, they will have an increasing joy in obeying God’s word. It doesn’t mean they’ll obey it perfectly all the time. It doesn’t mean there are no struggles, but there’s a new heart that is drawn to that. Now, in my life, that is so radically clear to see because I went from never attending church, being a quasi-gnostic, to being invaded by God in my car one night and being wonderfully born again, and immediately had a deep desire for the word of God. I wish I could tell you immediately I obeyed it perfectly. By the way, I’m still struggling there. Do you still struggle there? Am I by myself on this? But my heart desire is, “God, I love your word and I want to honor your word, even though I struggle and even though I stumble.”

You know, everything in nature obeys God but man. Listen to Psalm 148:8, “Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling His word.” Nature just obeys God. Remember Jonah? Jonah gets in the boat, he’s running from the assignment God had given him, and God told the wind to blow, the wind blew, God told the waves to crash against the boat, the waves crashed against the boat. God tells the fish to swallow Jonah, the fish swallows Jonah. Everything obeyed God but Jonah, but he ended up at the right place in the end because God’s power can’t be overcome.

But look at verse 3, an interesting phrase here in verse 3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments,” here’s the phrase, “and His commandments are not burdensome.” They’re not burdensome. Now, there is a sense in which, and this was my pilgrimage, so very often when I read the word of God I read it out of context, and I read it out of harmony with the balancing truths of Scripture. As you’ll understand, there’s balance all in the word of God. Balance all in the word of God. You get on one side of the balance, you can make the word of God look like an awful burdensome thing, but as you mature and as you grow and as you sit under sound and thorough preaching and teaching and study on your own, of course, and in small groups, then you begin to grasp, God grows you and you begin to do what the Bible calls rightly dividing the word of truth, and in so many ways where you made the word of God a rigid, harsh, burdensome law, you begin to understand, “I was not interpreting that right,” and it becomes a joy to you, and the more you grow in the word, the more of a blessing it becomes and more of a joy it comes to you.

Romans 8:15 says, “we have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again.” You see, that’s what we have when we’re lost. We have this slavish kind of woeful abhorrence toward God because we know his law is perfect and we know he’s just and we know we fail miserably. Now, when you’re converted, you don’t immediately get over that. You have a new capacity to begin another path but you’ve got to grow. You’ve got to get on that path and keep going. So you begin to grow, you begin to mature, you begin to learn, and you begin to realize, “I’m not a slave under the judgment of law, I’m a son fully accepted in the glories of grace.” And all of a sudden the word of God, the joy of it grows and grows and grows. Are you with me tonight? It grows and grows. The Psalmist said in Psalm 119, “O how I love thy law, how I rejoice in the law, how I delight in the law. The law is honey to my taste.” And he said, “It’s my song in the night.” Now why is that? Because he began to rightly divide the word and grasp the truths and being a born again one. That was one of the marks, the word of God increasingly becomes a joy and that old fleshly lost concept of this is a dry, cold, burdensome thing, starts fading away in your heart and mind. Someone said: love makes the load light. Because we love the author of this book, we love his book, love makes the load light. Jacob worked seven years to win the woman that he loved and Genesis 29:20 tells us they seemed to him but a few days for the love that he had for her. Well, that’s the picture we’re talking about.

You know, I often tell you when it comes to the teaching of tithing, tithing is not, we’re not under law. You’re not under a law to tithe, but you’re under love, and under love you want to at least tithe. It’s almost like a, and I’ve used this illustration before, I don’t know why I picked out tithing, I don’t know, I guess it’s on my mind today. But let’s picture the government authorities coming to your house and sitting you down and saying, “I need to understand how you’re taking care of your children. Do you buy your children appropriate clothing for school or are you feeding your children the appropriate food? Are you clothing your children right when it turns winter? Do your children live in a clean and secure and warm environment? We want to check you out.” Do you know what you’re going to say? “Who do you think you are? I love my children. You don’t have to bring me the cold austere law, I do what the law says and a thousand fold more because I love my babies. Amen?

That’s what the word of God is teaching. When you love God, the truths of his word are not burdensome. There is a growing joy in your heart to wanting to keep. What was required under law becomes the minimal standard for you under grace. Why? Because you will love the God whose wisdom and beauty and glory is seen in the truths of his word. You can’t love him and begrudge his truth because the truth is the expression of the very person. You can’t separate the two.

Well, IV. Another birthmark of one who is born-again or begotten of God is that he knows the victory of overcoming the world. Knows the victory of overcoming the world. Look there in verses 4 and 5. This is another one that you can construe into a harsh, burdensome legalism, but that’s not what the text is saying. He says in verse 4, “For whatever is born of God,” that’s our phrase, has the new birth in him, “overcomes the world.” Now, this is why his commandments are not heavy, because there is a new power within us that came from him and rejoices in him. So that, in itself, is overcoming the world. Here’s my point: before you’re born again, before you’re saved, everything about Christianity, at least true Christianity, I’m not talking about the gimmicky, gamy, worldly stuff going on in the church, I’m talking about true Christianity, everything about it is dull, boring, burdensome, unattractive. Do you know why? Because you are fully worldly. You are in the world, of the world, drawn by the world, the appetites of the world. I mean, the world is what you are, man. But then you are born again and all of a sudden something in you has changed and no longer are you enslaved in blindness to being worldly and loving the world, a new component exists within you that loves God and the God whose of another world and his word. So the very fact that there is a new purpose and pattern, there’s a new change in you toward God, means you’ve overcome the world. That doesn’t mean you’re never, ever worldly, but it means the world doesn’t lay claim to you any longer. You’re not one of them anymore. You’re in the progressive sanctifying process to becoming less worldly and more otherworldly. Are you with me? So the very fact that the change has happened is an overcoming, is a victory over the world. You’re no longer blinded by this fallen world system. You see this fallen world and the fallen world system for what it is, a temporal, Satanically controlled, judged entity that you don’t belong to any longer. That mentality itself, though your performance doesn’t match it perfectly, but the very mentality means you have overcome the world.

Now, that phrase “overcomes the world” is a present active verb which means this is a continual process, and I think it includes that it is a continual struggle. Why? Because you’re still in the world. You’re still housed in fallen flesh that is worldly like, and so the new you, the new man, is driving in a different direction but the old man, the old you, keeps pulling in the other direction. But you need to walk continuously in the victory that is in your heart and that is true before the throne of God.

Now, when he says the phrase, let me look there in verse 4, whoever is born of God overcomes the world, “and this is the victory that has,” that’s the next phrase, “that has overcome the world,” that’s an aorist tense verb and the aorist tense means “finished action in the past with continuing results.” So there’s a finished work in you. You are now God’s, you’re not a worldling in your core, true nature anymore. You are now God’s with new desires and new appetites and a new perspective, and now you have the continuing results of that, and combined with the earlier phrase in the present tense it means there is a continuum that you are on until the day you get to glorification in heaven. And that’s why, now, your graph may look something like this, but if you look at it over a long period of time, it has still gone up. There is increasing sanctification in your life.

Now, he gives us the vehicle that is used, utilized, if you will, in being one who has overcome the world. “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” That’s faith. His faith is the truth or is the vehicle, the conduit, if you will. Now, Spurgeon used to say and it’s a powerful and true truth: your faith does not save you, it is Christ who saves you. And some of you need to hear that over and over again. You need to hear it tonight. It is not your faith that saves you, it is Christ that saves you, because you’ll make faith a hoop jump or a work. You’ll think, “Well, did I say the prayer right? Did I understand it right when I walked to the front? Did I repeat?” And you’ll start analyzing all of the works of your faith and all of a sudden you make faith a non-faith because you make it a work.

So you just cast yourself wholly on Christ with the heart attitude that says, “Lord, I can’t even believe in you right, but I believe that you can save even one like me.” Are you with me on that, church? It is not your faith that saves you, it is Christ. That is victory, folks. I mean, our faith is weak and our faith is faltering and our faith is small like the grain of a mustard seed. Our faith is a lot of things but it’s the object of the faith, not the element of faith that saves us. The greatest faith is the one who doesn’t focus on faith but focuses on Christ. Learn of Christ. Grow in Christ. Learn the glorious, unbelievable, unsearchable riches of all the elements contained in what Christ has done to save us and keep us saved. I mean, there’s so much in the word of God. I preached 5 1/2 years through Hebrews, 2 1/2 years through Ephesians, another two years in Hosea, all those books are jam packed full of Christ and the glories of salvation and I have untold numbers of hours digging through those wonderful books, verse by verse, line by line, sometimes word by word, amen? And I didn’t get close to the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. You learn the glories of Christ, your faith takes care of itself. Are you hearing me? Don’t focus on your faith, focus on Christ. Faith is the vehicle but faith is not the power of salvation. Christ is the power of salvation.

Now, he uses that phrase “has overcome” in verse 4, has overcome the world, that means we have been brought into victory over the penalty of being a worldling, that’s hell. Then he uses the phrase that means to keep overcoming, that’s that present active verb, we are those who keep in this struggle. That means we have the capacity to walk in victory over the power of worldliness. Then he talks about the fact that we are now on the journey, heading to the arrival place, and that’s all contained in the word “overcome.” The arrival place of one day being absent and separate forever from even the presence of worldliness. What are all of these churches going to do that are bringing the world into the church to make it fun? When they get to heaven, there will be no worldliness. I guess all their converts will get to heaven and say, “This is boring. Where’s the shenanigans? Where is the rock music? Where’s the cool relevant stuff?” Well, I’m being facetious. Anybody who is drawn to that over Christ is not going to be there anyway. And see, that’s what marks a child of God.

Men, enjoy a good steak dinner, enjoy a ballgame with your kids, enjoy the smell of a new car. You say, “I would, pastor, if I had the money.” I understand that. I’ve got two with over 100,000 miles on them so just do what I did, I just put two new transmissions in in the last six weeks. But enjoy it. Enjoy it. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying those things, but if you’re a child of God, there is something that stirs in you that says, “This is nice. I’m thankful for it, but this isn’t my joy. This isn’t my final happiness. This isn’t what stirs my heart the deepest because that is Christ and I am his and he is mine and one day I will know him in the full.” Now, you listen to your pastor, for the one thousandth time, I want to say it again: you’ll get to heaven one day and you’ll be glorified, you’ll be completely over your worldliness and when you get to heaven and you’re perfectly glorified in heaven, you’ll have a perfect mind but not an infinite mind, but with a perfect mind, you will begin to take in the infinite things of God. The infinite, this is the one I like, beauties of God. Can you imagine for every moment for all eternity you will be increasingly overwhelmed with joy over the infinite beauties of Jesus Christ? Just imagine. You see, God wants you to have pleasure but the real pleasure is pleasure in him. For every moment for all eternity, it never ends, by the way, you will increasingly be enthralled with the wisdom of God. For every moment for all eternity with your perfect mind but though not infinite, you will be absolutely overwhelmed with joy and gladness over the great pleasures of God and power of God. And on and on and on we could go. Now, what’s happened? You are an overcomer of the world so right now you’re getting that. Now listen to me, you may be looking at it as though through a glass dimly, didn’t the Bible say that? But you’re getting it. You’re getting it, and the things of this earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

So John says, “Church, these guys, these cats that drift in and drift out; forsake the assembly and they want to live in wanton and open immorality and sin; if they’re confronted, they don’t repent, they try to justify their wickedness and sin; they’re not humble; they’re not devoted to love and care for one another in the body of Christ; they’re independent spirited; they’re prone to cause factions, get their little group and go off and do something else without the blessing of the family; on and on.” John says this, “Look, you know they’re not one of the true begotten ones of God.” Now, it is true a true Christian can get caught up in some things and do some dumb stuff, especially immature Christians, but long-term, Christians don’t act like what I just described. Those are not marks of a true begotten one of God.

John also said, “They went out from us that it might be shown that they all were not really of us because if they had been of us, they would have doubtlessly stayed with us. But they went out from us that it might be shown that all are not of us.” Just stay with the stuff. Preach the truth. Live in love for Christ and each other, and God will draw the right ones and repell the right ones. Now, we need to be loving to everybody, amen? We encourage an inclusion of every one but once God doesn’t give them the heart for the truth, we can’t change the truth, amen? I can’t invent a Jesus for you. He’s not a designer Jesus. He’s Jesus and we are going to proclaim him with all the passion and authority of our souls just like the Scriptures reveal him and let the chips fall where they may and watch God build his church.

Let’s stand in prayer.