Knowing and Believing the Love of God: 1 John 4 and the Assurance of Salvation

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, you can join me in your Bibles this morning in first John chapter four, first John chapter four, first John four, we've, we've, we've, are in a series, a long lasting series on the Lord's Prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're kind of in micro-series throughout the extended series.

[SPEAKER_00]: And right now we're talking about the our father portion of the Lord's Prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so every week what we've been doing is we've been saying the Lord's Prayer together.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to do that again today.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're just trying to get it down into our spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we have it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if I can have the Lord's Prayer, here we go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody say this with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever a man Come on somebody give the Lord a praise right there

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what they do in other denominations when they get done saying it, but here we give the Lord a praise when we're done, amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we're an openly spirit-filled church, Holly Lue.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well in the first week of this series, we talked about how insight and revelation

[SPEAKER_00]: into the grace of God is going to determine what level of physical manifestation of grace you're going to experience in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: To get a physical manifestation of the grace of God, you're going to have to have a revelation and insight.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then last week, we talked about how obedience to the law of Moses does not produce.

[SPEAKER_00]: It does not produce, but we are beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the finished work of Jesus Christ, and with unveiled faces, we are being transformed into His image.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can I get a good amen in the house?

[SPEAKER_00]: Have you enjoyed just kind of walking through the Bible?

[SPEAKER_00]: In services hasn't that been good?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's a novel idea that we come and we just look at what the Bible says, but I will tell you a lot of this series once we get out of this initial portion.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be jumping around quite a bit, but I've been enjoying this so much that here once we're done with this series, I may come back to it and just open up the Bible and Matthew one and just see what happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: Praise the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well this week,

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about this, if you need a title for the message, you could call this doing flows from believing, doing flows from believing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I also want to say this today, if you take your phone and tap it on the seat back in front of you, we do have sermon notes that you can follow along with, just in case we're getting too involved and you want to follow along so you can do that there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're watching online, you got to come to church, I don't know what's on the seat

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't speak to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're limited to this scope here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So first John chapter four, we're going to jump in at verse seven.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to just say, I'm one of these guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel weird when I skip over something.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel strange about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let me just address the first couple of verses here before we get started.

[SPEAKER_00]: John, the last two weeks we've been reading from Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this week, we're reading from the Apostle John, and John is starting, it right, we're about to start reading, kind of the same place that Paul was starting last week in second Corinthians, and that he's making a defense of his ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's essentially saying, you guys need to listen to what I'm telling you, because we've seen some stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been, I happened to know somebody.

[SPEAKER_00]: John knew somebody, a man, that even Paul had not met in person, had a close personal relationship.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, so John is starting there just by saying, hey, you need to listen to what I'm telling you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is like I have some authority here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he jumps into verse 7.

[SPEAKER_00]: in this chapter and like we're getting go and pretty quick if you can't tell.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I just came out and just went and driving really fast.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I went 85 out of the driveway.

[SPEAKER_00]: I apologize.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll try to work in more funny stories for you guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: in the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: First John chapter 4, verse 7, I want to start here and then we're going to jump down to the end and I want you to see this, there is a bookmark or not bookmark but bookings on this passage we're going to look at today and I want you to see what the bookings are really quick.

1 John 4:7

[SPEAKER_00]: So verse 7 of first John chapter 4 says beloved, let us love one another for love is from God.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, let me just slam the 20, 26 breaks on this really quick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody in here has a paradigm for what love is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just need you to hear me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love is what the Bible says, love is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love isn't you and your sweetie?

[SPEAKER_00]: Love isn't you and your kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love isn't you and your mammal.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what love, love.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know this is going to throw some of y'all, but love isn't you and your football team.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though I see Kimberly Miller came in here trying to pick a fight this morning in her LSU gear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, when I get towards the altar call, Kimberly, I want to make sure you get home safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, love is what the Bible says it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is not whatever your paradigm is for.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not over what the world's paradigm is for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I want you to jump down to verse 20, that was just an aside.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 20 says, if anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar.

[SPEAKER_00]: For he who does not love his brother, whom he is seen, can not love God, whom he has not seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 21, in this commandment, I have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: These bookings of what we're gonna read right here and you'll actually find this throughout first John.

[SPEAKER_00]: These bookings are what I'm calling the should do of the text.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the instruction.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what you ought to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is how you ought to behave.

[SPEAKER_00]: As you go through the beginning of First John, you find out that there's quite a few moments where John says, hey, if you don't love other people, you don't love God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to be honest, we, it sounds a lot like the law.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I hear that, if you don't do this, you're not okay with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that puts me in a position where I'm trying to figure out what exactly is going on in the text.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because it sounds like it's driving in another direction from the last several weeks that we've been talking.

[SPEAKER_00]: The last several weeks of things that we've been discussing where we've said openly that the things you do are not what matters.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's what Jesus has done on your behalf that matters.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can I get a good amen in the house?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and so from there, now we got to kind of investigate the text a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, these bookings happen to be bookings on the section of first John that's going to tell you exactly how that love flows out of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say this, what Paul calls grace, John often calls love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so we're gonna see the way John talks about love is the way that Paul talks about grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here's what we're gonna do.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna jump in right at verse nine, and we're gonna start to look at what's inside of these bookings.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and I want you to remember that doing flows from believing, doing flows from believing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Keep that in your mind this morning as I teach.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse nine, in this is love, I'm sorry, in this the love of God was made manifest among us.

[SPEAKER_00]: that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me pause right there.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we were looking at a moment ago, it said, beloved, let's love one another for love.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God, anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what does it define as God being love and God loving us?

[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 9 it says that this is the love of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is how it was manifest that God sent His only son so that we might live through Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is the love of God?

[SPEAKER_00]: The love of God is that He sent Jesus Christ for you and for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, hallelujah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 10 says, in this is love, in this is love, not that we have loved God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to get that in your spirit, and this is love, not that we have loved God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about love and God all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, if you go to most churches, their mission statement is love God and love people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I could give you a whole treatment on that, but I only have one more week to preach on this stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I got to move on.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you go to most places, love God, love people.

[SPEAKER_00]: What says right here, it says, in this is love, not that you have loved God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not that you have loved God, but that he has loved us.

[SPEAKER_00]: and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that word propitiation there is just it's really a pagan term that the author borrows basically to say that everything that God needs to be satisfied with you, he's got.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't need anything else.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you are in Jesus Christ, God is fully satisfied with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: God loves you, He receives you, He accepts you, and He's working on you in His own time in Jesus mighty name.

[SPEAKER_00]: God loves you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that we love God, but that He has loved us, and given us us His Son as perpetuation for our sins, He's fully satisfied.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what I want you to hear.

[SPEAKER_00]: You will never muster up enough of a godly walk to be godly enough to get God's approval.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're never going to do it, you're never going to love God enough, you're never going to love people enough, you're never going to do good enough, you're never going to be there.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we judge everybody in the room based on the standard, none of us are nailing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: None of us are even close.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is why we have to really understand the idea of grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about our Father grace up on

[SPEAKER_00]: Grace, the reason you need grace is not because you almost got it and you just need to get over the line.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reason you need grace is because you didn't even close to get it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You aren't even near getting it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are some messed up people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hate to tell you that this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: You all do some crazy stuff that I know sometimes y'all do stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: This had no, you're crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this had no.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes y'all do stuff and then y'all sit at home and go, why did I do that?

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even know what you're doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're not even in the driver's seat most of the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah, but you're not going to be able to muster up enough, but we need grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need grace, not because we got to just get over the line of make up the little bit we didn't get no because we need someone to make up for the whole thing that we didn't get right.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need grace to cover the whole thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not about us loving God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's about God's loving us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to focus on God's love for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Several years ago, man, this had been in the late 2000s.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was in a church service leading worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: The worship pastor was gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: The senior pastor was gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a Wednesday night.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might remember this service.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was in San Antonio.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we got in the worship service.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't even know why I did it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had never done it before.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really never did it since, but we got into a worship flow.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I told the whole room, I said,

[SPEAKER_00]: Point your finger towards heaven and say, God, you love me.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm gonna tell you, these people did that.

[SPEAKER_00]: and you'd have thought somebody set firecrackers off in the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: The glory broke out, the power of God started to move.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably one of the single-handed, most powerful moments in worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have ever experienced.

[SPEAKER_00]: All because we got our attention on the love of God for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even have a revelation any of this stuff back then.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's something about hitting the brakes, putting your attention on God's love for you, and something begins to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something begins to change.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something begins to flow.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to know this, that God's love is love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your love is me, but God's love is love.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the full definition of love.

[SPEAKER_00]: It defines love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's keep going, first John chapter four, verse 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: Says, beloved, if God so loved us,

[SPEAKER_00]: No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to bring this back, this brings us back to the bookends that says, as you experience the love of God, there ought to be some flow of love for other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to experience some love for other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something ought to be flowing out of you that is loving other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to, you ought to, you ought to, you ought to come to church every Sunday.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to give 10% of your income to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to drive the speed limit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to let football have a little less of a hold on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You, you, you ought, there's a lot of ought.

[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to do a lot of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thank you ought to bring me some lasagna.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of, there's a lot of oughts.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't do the lasagna.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're saying no.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually said salmon patties will do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, there's a lot of stuff we ought to do, that's something that we should see, doesn't mean that it's something that you will see.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it draws back to the bookings of you ought to be loving people.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to be loving people, love people, love people.

[SPEAKER_00]: But remember, you're incapable of doing a lot of stuff because doing flows from believing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to muster up strength that's why we have to work on our belief system around the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 13, by this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit and we have seen and testified that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him and He in God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to take a minute here and I want to talk through this little

[SPEAKER_00]: It opens up with a by this, by this is looking forward.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you always want to be mindful of what the text is doing, and what the text is saying.

[SPEAKER_00]: This by this is looking forward.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's about to tell you some things.

[SPEAKER_00]: This by this is telling you that how you know that you abide in the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what this is telling us.

[SPEAKER_00]: By this, you know that you are in God, you are in God's approval, that God has accepted you.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is how you know it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it breaks a few things down.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 14, I just want to draw your attention, it's just some technical stuff in the text.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 14 is just John establishing his authority.

[SPEAKER_00]: Both John and Peter do this, not all the time, but on occasion throughout their writings, where they bring attention back to the fact that they like new Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: They know Him now, but the way you know Him and the way they know Him ain't the same know Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: They know how he eats, they've seen at what pace he physically puts food in his mouth.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know that stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've seen what his hair looks like at six a.m. in the morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know that.

[SPEAKER_00]: They know him.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's just establishing his authority that he's an eyewitness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right there it's said that whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you confess that Jesus is the Son of God, you are safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: His heart comes back to Romans chapter 10, verse 9, which says, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:9

[SPEAKER_00]: You know there's been some attack on this idea over the last

[SPEAKER_00]: 20, 30 years or so about the Salvation Prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll say the Salvation Prayer as a prayer, that prayer we pray at the end of the service, it is relatively new in the way that we do that, the way that we actually close the service and have people respond to an invitation and pray what we call the sinners prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's been some controversy over that amongst preachers over the last,

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a few decades because they go, that ain't in the Bible, that's not a prayer that's in the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're nowhere in the Bible as it's say to do the sinner's prayer, not your right, but both John and Paul are in agreement that if you confess that Jesus is Lord, you're in God, you will be saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you confess Jesus is Lord and you believe it, if you confess it with your mouth and you like, have faith, you actually believe it, then you're safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't really care if it comes through, a whisper while you're laying in the bed at night, while you're laying in a hospital bed with your last few breaths, or whether it happens through a sinner's prayer and a Billy Graham style alter call.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't care.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you confess that Jesus is Lord, God abides in you and you abide in him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the reason that I say that that way is because we have to understand why John is writing what he's writing here.

[SPEAKER_00]: John is a great Bible author because he really tells you why he does things.

[SPEAKER_00]: John gives you some insight to why he writes the stuff he writes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in the gospel of John, John says that he writes these things so that you will believe.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, we've got John 21 here.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says, John 21, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that by believing, you may have life in His name.

[SPEAKER_00]: When John writes the gospel of John,

[SPEAKER_00]: who need to get saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: John is an evangelistic book.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why years ago, I don't know if y'all remember, they had the gospel of John that they would just publish and send it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was going all over the place.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think they made a movie called The Gospel of John and they were sending the video tapes everywhere and you could order a free video tape and they were getting John, well why were they using John?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't they use Matthew?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't they use Mark?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't they use Luke?

[SPEAKER_00]: They use John because John is written for the express purpose

[SPEAKER_00]: may believe and be saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why John is written.

[SPEAKER_00]: First John is written for a different purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: First John is written for the people who responded to the gospel of John.

[SPEAKER_00]: So John is written so that you would

[SPEAKER_00]: Become a Christian, first John is written, so that you would have confidence in your salvation.

[SPEAKER_00]: First John chapter five, verse 13 says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know you have eternal life.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's writing it, so you'll know.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there won't be any doubt.

[SPEAKER_00]: He already told you how to be a Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to make sure that you don't think that it's slipping away on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to make sure you know that you're safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: John wants the readers to know that they are, in fact, born again, there's no change in status for the person who's put their faith in Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the pinnick hospital church, and I think in the early church,

[SPEAKER_00]: It's weird because the Pentecostal church has a lot of similarities to the early church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can a good an amen in this weird, filled church?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the Pentecostal church, we have a tendency to live in this, he loves me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me not.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went to church.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I cust my neighbor out.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me not.

[SPEAKER_00]: I gave in the offering.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had a thought about someone that probably was inappropriate.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me not.

[SPEAKER_00]: and you hope the way we teach it is we're hoping that we don't land on a he's loves me not right before we die or right before the rapture happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you get these silly little theology's going around, where people are asking this question, this is a real question, this isn't something I'm making up or some preacher items that I've got, this is a real question, it's a disease, Pastor John, preacher items, if you know about that, that's where the preacher say a bunch of stuff that doesn't mean anything to you because they don't live a normal life, I'll leave you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this isn't me just, this is real stuff, people ask questions, if I say a cuss word, if I'm in a car wreck, will I go to heaven or will I go to hell?

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me, he loves me not, and we're worried that, well, what if I'm some real stuff here?

[SPEAKER_00]: What if I'm cheating on my spouse and the rapture happens?

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me, he loves me not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where am I, if I happen to be on the wrong side of behavior when eternity calls, where am I gonna be?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's gonna happen with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's gonna, how's it gonna go down?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, right here, John writes this to say, you are saved, you abide in God and he abides in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a change in status.

[SPEAKER_00]: These people haven't sinned their way out.

[SPEAKER_00]: They haven't selfished their way out.

[SPEAKER_00]: They haven't stumbled accidentally their way out.

[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 13, again, it's assuring the reader that they can know that they are saved for one really

[SPEAKER_00]: direct reason it's that you've got the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody say you've got the Holy Ghost.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, say it like you mean it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got the Holy Ghost.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you've got the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you've got the Holy Spirit, you should know that you're safe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians chapter one says this, that in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, at that moment, you were sealed with the promise Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may not be spirit-led.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may not be spirit-field.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may not be tongue-talking, devil casting out.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may not be healing the sick.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may not even be bold.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the moment that you made a confession that Jesus is Lord and you put your faith in Him, there was a seal that went on you and invisible stamp.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a black light stamp.

[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta have the black light of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he sees that stamp on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says, Holy Spirit guaranteed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah, you've got the seal of the Holy Ghost on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: The moment you were saved, you were sealed.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, if you've ever read the gospel, this is in the Apocrypha, but if you've ever read the gospel of Stevie Wonder, it says, you're signed, sealed, delivered.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, somebody give the Lord a praise right there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody's going yell at me, they're like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, who is this devil worshiper?

[SPEAKER_00]: in here preaching today.

[SPEAKER_00]: My God, first John chapter 4 verse 16, we're gonna continue moving on.

1 John 4:16

[SPEAKER_00]: So we have come to know and to believe the love God has for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will spend a little time on this section right here.

[SPEAKER_00]: this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could probably spend the whole morning here, but I was reading a book this week and it made the statement in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was clever.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just said, people are not spreadsheets.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what it meant by that is it doesn't matter what information a person holds.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is more involved with how people make decisions and how people behave.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just

[SPEAKER_00]: The data is not enough for most people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your relationship with information, knowledge, truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Frankly, it is very biased, depending on what you have experienced and believe.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, when it comes to experiences, most of your experiences do not shape your belief, but most of your beliefs shape your experiences.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, whatever you believe, you will ultimately find.

[SPEAKER_00]: I won't do to remember in our country, there are a group of people who have come to find out that Republicans are true patriots and Democrats operate under a demon possessed ideology.

[SPEAKER_00]: Coincidentally, shockingly, there are a group of people who believe that Republicans

[SPEAKER_00]: racist and that Democrats are the ones that hold the standard of how you should treat people and welcome people and build a great nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two people coming to decisions that if we were to put all of it out on the table none of that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: None of that seems if we really look at it none of that seems true and yet it's our beliefs that get us there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want to know

[SPEAKER_00]: It's because you believed you should be conservative.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's really not the positions.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let's be honest, how many of us have sat down and gone?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me read seven or eight books and come to a decisional how I'm going to vote.

[SPEAKER_00]: You grew up in a house that did it a certain way.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of just the, that's how things go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's your belief determining your experience is rather than your experience determining your belief.

[SPEAKER_00]: What you believe is going to play a bigger role in what you have access to, not because of what's available to you, but because of what you believe is available to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: For instance, those of you who want to find a job, if you believe that there's no jobs available, you probably never go find a job.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because you believe there's not available.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are there jobs available?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, do you understand that that's all the news would talk about if all the jobs had

[SPEAKER_00]: If all the jobs were full in America, that's every day on the news.

[SPEAKER_00]: Guys, the jobs, they're done, we're good.

[SPEAKER_00]: The economy, it's great, it's like a thousand percent what it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, so yeah, jobs are, but if you believe there's no jobs available, you're not going to go for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me give you an example, in 1927, a man named Julius Wagner-Yurick.

[SPEAKER_00]: who is an Austrian, he or he was an Austrian psychiatrist.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was the first man who ever won the Nobel Prize for medicine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was, or not the first man, the first psychiatrist, I'm sorry, that won the Nobel Prize for medicine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was, like I said, he was a psychiatrist, and he was working with patients who were suffering for neurocyphalus, which is exactly what you think it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a neurological version.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's when the syphilis infection, which is an STD, the syphilis infection would get into the brainstem or into the brain fluid, and it'd get in there, and then what it would do is it would resemble dementia or schizophrenia.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so people would suffer from hallucinations and memory loss.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why they were coming to a psychiatrist.

[SPEAKER_00]: So people would think it was a psychiatric thing before they realized it was a medical thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, because Wagner was working with these people, he started to do some research to see what doctors had found about the syphilis disease, to see if he could cure it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he found out that syphilis has a hard time surviving

[SPEAKER_00]: when the person has a fever.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, fever would kill the syphilis.

[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, if you're looking for a little more modern, it's very similar to meningitis, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I learn all this during the week.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't just walk around with this wealth of information.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this guy knows a lot about syphilis.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows, I'm saying it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I realize, like, I sound like I'm next for syphilis, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: But we're going to cut that, put that clip on the internet right there, hey, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: But so he realized that syphilis couldn't survive when there was a fever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and sometimes it could, but there was dramatic improvements.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what he did is he started to inject his patients with malaria.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the thought process was that they could cure the malaria with a little bit of quarantine.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they couldn't cure the syphilis, the neurosyphilis.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was going to keep going.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they got in deep.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was in the brainstem.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so they just found that the fever was healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what's funny about that is we know we know that a fever actually helps us heal.

[SPEAKER_00]: from certain infections and certain sicknesses.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know that, like this is John Hopkins website.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think says that you can run a fever up to about 104 degrees for three days, and it's just clearing out the infection.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, as much as we know that, the minute you get a fever, you're knocking back Tylenol like you got a problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?

[SPEAKER_00]: You're trying to get that fever under control because it's one thing to know that the fever can help.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's another thing to try to reconcile that knowledge with the experience of, I've got chills and I'm shivering and I'm hot and I'm cold and I'm sore and I'm aching and I don't feel good.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you wanna relieve the symptoms.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know that the fever helps and yet you're trying to fight the fever because you don't believe the fever helps.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is one thing to know the love of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can talk about it, we can look to it, we can point to it, most famous verse in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: John 3 16 for God so loved the world that He gave is only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him would have eternal life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, do you believe that God loves you?

[SPEAKER_00]: And those are two different experiences.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe it?

[SPEAKER_00]: And the reality is, is if you know that God loves you,

[SPEAKER_00]: But you think that every time you misbehaved, you take a misstep, you make a mistake, that suddenly you're outside of God's pleasure, you're outside of your own salvation.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me, he loves me, not.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to believe that God really loves you.

[SPEAKER_00]: When He'll be done with you, as soon as you mess up, it's hard to believe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine the dysfunction in my home, if Ashley believed that every time she irritated me, I'm calling the divorce attorney.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think she's going to operate in her life like she has a loving husband?

[SPEAKER_00]: That may not even be true, but if she believes it's true, things are going to be a dysfunction that we have to deal with.

[SPEAKER_00]: And because I love her, the way that I do, if she thinks I'm always running off to the divorce attorney, I'm gonna wonder why she acts the way she acts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you get weird all the time?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you act this?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you acting bizarre every time something happens because she doesn't believe the love that I have for?

[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell her all day long, but if she doesn't believe that I love her, our house is gonna be a mess.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the same way, if we look towards God and we think, I just got to keep him happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just got to keep him satisfied.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I read that word earlier, perpetuation, a good word that goes along with that is satisfaction.

[SPEAKER_00]: It satisfies the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to keep God satisfied.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's plenty satisfied and is only begotten son.

[SPEAKER_00]: And just so happens that when he sees you,

[SPEAKER_00]: and he sees the seal of the Holy Ghost.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the reality is, you may struggle to believe that God loves you, but when we go back to first John chapter 4 verse 10, it says just that, and this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He has given His Son as the perpetuation for our sins.

1 John 4:10

[SPEAKER_00]: How do we believe that God loves us?

[SPEAKER_00]: Look to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look to Jesus, look to Jesus, look to Jesus, look to Jesus, look to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I call knowing and believing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because one thing to know, it's another thing to believe but when you put them together, you know what I call that a revelation of grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we've been talking about these last several weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a revelation of grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: The more you get a revelation of His grace, the more love you realize that God has towards you, something begins to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something begins to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna see that in first John chapter four, verse 17.

[SPEAKER_00]: By this, okay, earlier we talked about a by this that was looking forward, this by this is looking backward, this by this is looking in the other direction, by this, well what is the by this, by this is that we've come to know and to believe the love that God has for us, we've come by this by what, by knowing and believing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll make sure you get this because this is like the key to the whole message here by this by what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing and believing the love that God has for us not just knowing But believing and let me tell you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am feel the inspiration of the Holy Ghost right now Not only do you need to know it and believe it.

[SPEAKER_00]: See I deal with people who know it But don't believe it because I'm in a church because you hear about it So you know it, but you might struggle to believe it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me also say this

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't just need to believe it, you need to know it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, early, you can walk around your whole life, just believing, well, God is just happy with me, because God is just cool with everybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, God's not just cool with everybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: God's real cool with his son.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't line that thing up right and get your faith in line with Jesus Christ, you can believe God loves you all day long.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can, I mean, when I was a little kid, Teddy Rupskin was big.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody remember, Teddy Rupskin?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, they made one little movie with him and there was a bad guy and the bad guy he was green and he had a purple robe, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when I was a little kid, that's what I believe God looked like.

[SPEAKER_00]: Me believe it, don't make it true, but when we get to heaven and he's green with a purple robe, y'all can all bring your offering.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, no, but that doesn't just because I believe it doesn't make it true, we walk around with all kinds of beliefs.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you got to know and believe by this, by this knowing and believing, the love that God has for us, love is perfected with us, love is perfected with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to say this.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not perfected in us, multiple times in John.

[SPEAKER_00]: He talks about the love of God being perfected in us.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I need you to know, it's not just going to get right inside of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need external help to get the love of God perfected with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not holding on to Jesus Christ, if you're not holding on to the Holy Ghost, if you're not holding on to His Word, if you're not holding on to preaching that point starts, the finished work of Jesus, you need help.

[SPEAKER_00]: The love of God is perfected with us when we know and believe the love that God has for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now continuing on in verse 17, I want you to see this.

[SPEAKER_00]: By this love is perfected with us so that, everybody say so that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that we may have confidence on the day of judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't want you standing in line for the pearly gates.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, I can't remember what happened right before I got here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got a feeling we are actually going to feel that when we get there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember what I was doing right before I got here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty sure I was making a grilled cheese.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope my family called that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Turn that off.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He loves me not.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can have this white John writes this so that you would know.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can have confidence in the day of judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because you've known and believed the love that God has for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you believe the love that God has for you, you're going to have confidence, confidence in what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Confidence that you belong to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Confidence that God is pleased with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Confidence that you're blessed in the finished work you're going to have confidence.

[SPEAKER_00]: Talking about having confidence.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in this is love, not that we've loved God.

[SPEAKER_00]: but that he loved us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not looking at our own love for God, but by being enamored with God's love for us, by keeping our and knowing and believing the love that God has for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what second Corinthians told us last week.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, first John chapter four says this that we're gonna focus on the love that God has for us and we're gonna have confidence in the day of judgment

[SPEAKER_00]: because as he is, so also are we in this world.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, the moment you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you got the same status that he has.

[SPEAKER_00]: You got the same access that he has.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians says that you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who's in the heavenly places?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ is in the heavenly places, seated at the right hand of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Ephesians goes on to say that in fact,

[SPEAKER_00]: have been seated in heavenly places because as he is, so also are we in this world.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're focusing on the love that God has for us, that cast out all fear, that cast out it gives us confidence that as he is blessed, healed, hold, sanctified, righteous, holy,

[SPEAKER_00]: As he is, so also are we in this world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Second Corinthians said it this way last week in verse chapter 3 verse 18, it said, and we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that word, catsopreso, beholding, beholding, looking as in a mirror are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to the number where we're looking in the mirror,

[SPEAKER_00]: and we're seeing the finished work of God in and on our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: The finished work of Christ in and on our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: As he is, so also are we in this world.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I look in the mirror, I don't see Jason Maveon.

[SPEAKER_00]: I see the righteousness of God in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't explain to how this power works other than the fact that I've just seen it work.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were in the hospital for those of y'all that don't know, our youngest daughter was born exceptionally premature.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was born at four months, and so she was 24 weeks, six months, so she was 24 weeks, and she was born.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's on the hospital for three months.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't think she was going to make it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The day she was born, once Ashley had gotten through the trauma of just leading into that was crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: But just once her body had kind of recovered enough to get into a wheelchair and let me wheel her over.

[SPEAKER_00]: We wheeled over there and there's alley in this little box.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've got her in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're looking at her and I don't know where it came from, but I just told Ashley, I said, we are the righteousness of God in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look, you're gonna go through stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna, it is just as easy for you to stand in a hospital looking at whatever your situation is and to think, what did I do?

[SPEAKER_00]: For God to do this to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He created you and you were born.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna go through stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stuff's gonna happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stuff's gonna happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where's your confidence gonna be the day it happens?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is your confidence going to be, hey, I've done enough, I think, Goddle!

[SPEAKER_00]: I had a lady come up to me, she came to the church to meet with me one day because she was going to have brain surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny, because these are the type of people who believe their works are going to do something for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: She comes up, she's going to have brain surgery, and she says, she says,

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why God would do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I go to church all the time and I said, way, and she goes, here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I've been here since August.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's December.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've only seen you one time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine having that much confidence in what you bring to the table to a holy God No, you you have nothing to offer all of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it sounds like when you try to It gets acceptance.

[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like why go to church all the time?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when's the last time you went 2014?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is my church, the amount of people I meet in the area that are like, hey, that's my, I'm a member there who I just need, if I ain't ever seen you here, you ain't a member here, I ain't to break that to you, but you're not.

[SPEAKER_00]: We think we've all, that's how silly, even if you go, we've got to pray every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I read my Bible every day, me and my kids act right, and you can actually have a good case.

[SPEAKER_00]: and it's still ain't nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not, but I have confidence in the day of judgment because as he is, so also are we in this world.

[SPEAKER_00]: It goes on to say them, perfect love cast out fear,

[SPEAKER_00]: which we don't have to be afraid.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to be afraid.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it ends in verse 19 by just saying this, it says, we love, we love, we love, we love, we love, whenever it happens, whenever it comes about, listen, I'll get attacked for this by somebody because the idea that you might not be perfect in a preacher acknowledge that is just so offensive to people.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when you stumble into it, and you get it right, because let's be honest, that's really what it's like most of the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you maybe said they're gonna, I don't know, preacher, I do pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now you know the stuff you wouldn't tell me about.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know the stuff you're not gonna bring up.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you stumble in to get it right, when you finally, and you kind of like love people, something bubbles up in you and you love in the happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not you, it's not because of how good you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not because you mustered up the strength to do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's because he first loved us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He first loved us by beholden.

[SPEAKER_00]: By beholding the finished work of Jesus Christ, there is something that begins to float out of us in an almost effortless, coming forth of behaviors that we really don't know where they came from, except that God is good and somehow, I'm changing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not by forcing myself to, not by saying not to do it, not by, somehow I'm changing.

[SPEAKER_00]: because I've looked and seen his glory and his love for me are doing flows from our knowing and believing that his great grace towards us is sufficient and it is enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next week,

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna take this idea of what we've been talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've kind of just preached you for the last three weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's been good, but I know you all walked out of here and gone awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do I do with it?

[SPEAKER_00]: And next week we're gonna put handlebars on the grace of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna teach you.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you'll be back next week, call your friends, your family.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you get spam calls, tell them we're here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just tell everybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: Be here because what I'm gonna do next week is I'm gonna teach you how to,

[SPEAKER_00]: Take your rope and get a lasso around the grace of God and get it to work for you in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna teach you how to actually get your hands on it and get that thing flowing in Jesus' body thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you've appreciated the gospel this morning once you give the Lord a great big hand plan.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah.