GOD INFLESHED I JOHN - MARKS OF A BELIEVER SERIES

Transcription

1 As you know we have been going through the book of I John, and we have been looking at some of the different marks of a true believer. And today we are going to come across another mark of a true believer, and it is what C. S. Lewis referred to as The Grand Miracle. That is the incarnation, the infleshing of Jesus, God becoming flesh. The name Immanuel means God is with us. And while we are going through this whole idea of this grand miracle, we can know that this was a theme that was very dear to C. S. Lewis. In fact he talked about it in both his fiction and his non-fiction writings. And you will remember that C. S. Lewis was the atheist turned Christian, who was both an Oxford and Cambridge professor. He talked about the idea of the incarnation; in fact Aslan in his books, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Chronicles of Narnia Series, is a picture of the incarnation. He talks about the incarnation as well in his Mere Christianity and in his book, Miracles. It is in his book, Miracles that we learn about this idea of The Grand Miracle, which is the incarnation. Now the word incarnation means in the flesh. When you hear incarnation, we can think of God coming in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. On a radio program C. S. Lewis, during an interview, gave this example to help us understand the idea of incarnation: Lying at your feet is your dog. Imagine for the moment that your dog, and every dog, is in deep distress. Some of us love dogs very much. If it would help all the dogs in the world to become like men, would you be willing to become a dog? Would you put down your human nature, leave your loved ones, your job, your hobbies, your art, literature and music and choose, instead of the intimate communion with your beloved, the poor substitute of looking into the beloved s face and wagging your tail, unable to smile or speak? Christ by becoming man limited the very thing which to Him was the most precious thing in the world, His unhampered, unhindered communion with the Father. God becomes flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Now if you a guest with us today, or suppose you have been coming for the last several weeks, and you are exploring Christianity, maybe you are wondering what it is to be a Christian. The book of I John is a nice book that you can go to in the Bible. The Bible is a compilation of 66 books that make up the one book - the Bible. The word Bible just means books. There are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament, and John wrote five of them. He wrote the gospel of John, he wrote I John, II John, III John and the book of Revelations. Right now we are studying the book of I John. It is a book that is composed of five different chapters. And this is a book that can help us to understand how we can detect what a true Christian is. So if you are a non-christian here today, I would say to Page 1 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

2 you, Check this series out. Go back and listen to the Podcasts to learn some of the different marks of a true believer. And now if you are a Christian, this is also a book that can be very helpful for you to help you to look at some of the marks that can give you assurance of your salvation. You can ask yourself if you sort of meet these marks. What John provides for us today in I John Chapter 4 is sort of a Christological standard, or a Christological measurement whereby we can measure our life according to a certain standard to see whether or not our life is legit. Now Christological is just a fancy word that means the study of Christ. And so John then has been talking to us about the different marks of a true believer. He has talked about love, and he has talked about perseverance, and he has talked about not having unnecessary attachments in our life. And he has talked about the importance of walking in holiness. So there are these different qualities that we can look at, and instead of being led by our feelings of Well I think I am okay, or coming up with God in our own image, we can go and look at a book like this. You can read these five chapters of I John in twenty minutes. And you could go over it day after day after day. I think early on as a Christian I decided to read I John every day for a month. And I just sort of lived in the book of I John trying to get my head around what was happening there. Now if you are reading John for the first time, and really frankly even for the hundredth time, he might seem like he has an ADD disorder. Like he may seem like he needs some medication of some kind because he is sometimes all over the place. And what makes me say that? It is because when you read I John it is like he talks about love, then he goes off on a soap box about something else, and then he goes back and talks about love again. And if I would have turned something like I John into my editor, he would have sent it back and said, Bro, you need to group all these passages about love under one spot, because the way you have written this makes you look really erratic, and like you have ADD. But because it is in the Bible we just talk about how perfect this centralized theme is. And look God used human characters, so maybe John was a little ADD in writing this book. But the Spirit of God used him and the message is wonderful. So how do I understand it because skeptics can look at this and think, This looks like a bunch of fragments just pieced together here. What is going on? But I think John is so infatuated with the person of Jesus Christ, and so into this theme of love, that he can t get away from it. So he will talk about walking in the light, then he will talk about love, and then we need to persevere, and then he is back to love, and then we don t need attachments, but we need love. It is like he can t get away from this ultimate mark, this grand mark of what a Christian is. The Grand Miracle is the incarnation and the grand sign of a true believer is one who loves God, and loves others. Page 2 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

3 So last week I took a little bit of liberty while I was teaching. And you will remember what I did was I took the last part of Chapter 3 and the last part of Chapter 4, and I brought those two passages together and conflated them into one message to talk about love, because the last part of Chapter 3 and the last part of Chapter 4 are both talking about love. So if you were to read the last verses of Chapter 3 and the last verses of Chapter 4, you are going to be on the theme of love. And that means that I skipped over the first part of I John Chapter 4, which means I am going to return there today. I figured if John was ADD in writing I John then I would be ADD in the preaching of it. So I am simply mirroring what John did. So today we will be in I John Chapter 4 and then I John Chapter 5. And then next week we will also be in I John for our Christmas message, and then there will be just one message left to wrap it all up, as we have been making our way through this series - the Marks of a True Believer. So with that in mind, look with me in your Bibles in I John Chapter 4 and beginning in verse 1, where it says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit. When you hear that word spirit, what is John talking about? Do not believe every spirit. We have to read on to understand who it is that he is talking about, or we could go back in the context. In this instance let s just go forward. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. So who do you think the spirits are that need to be tested? The false prophets are the spirits that need to be tested. And what John is going to do is he is going to provide for his audience a test, a test of authenticity. How can you know if these teachers are from God or not? And before I get there I want us to know that it is critical that we do test claims. When people make a truth claim, we need to test it. We can t check our minds out at the door in the name of I have faith. I just believe. It doesn t really matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. John is going to provide a serious test for qualifying whether or not a false prophet, or a teacher I should say, is false or legit. And he is going to talk about the incarnation and whether or not they believe or affirm it. And if they do affirm the incarnation, then they pass that test. So it is not like there is only one test, but he is going to give a serious test that was an issue in that time in that context. Have you ever seen the bumper sticker that says co-exist? How many of you have seen that on cars? Page 3 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

4 I like it but I don t like it. I think it is cool in a lot of ways, and I think it is uncool in other ways. Now some of you are thinking I need to really qualify this if you think it is cool. I think it is very good for us to be able to relationally co-exist with others. If by that what you mean is all these different faiths should be able to love each other, relationally connect in a culture, and that we should be able to get along with each other even though we don t agree with each other, I am in. I want to be a part of that. But when you see certain Christians throwing their moral grenades at the culture, when you see certain Christians going off in the name of their self-righteous theological pet peeves, I don t want to be thrown in with them. Probably like you, I feel like a lot of Christianity is a big embarrassment to us. But there is so much stuff out there and it makes people think, What is the deal with you Christians. You beat people up if they don t agree with you on every little issue. And in the name of our separatism, we will do everything separate. We will home school. And I have no problem with home schooling as long as I don t have to grow my own garden. Homeschooling is great. If you want to homeschool your kids, that is beautiful. But if it means I have to be separate from the world, that I can only eat Christian food, and if it means that I can only play Christian video games, and if it means I can only watch Little House on the Prairie, and if it means I have to do all those things to be in, then I am out, because that means we are being separetistic. And I want to co-exist. I want to intermingle with people of different belief systems and faith systems. I like to be able to feel like I connect. Because when people just feel smug as Christians they lose the joy that should be in their lives. And sometimes people get so concerned being God s moral police, doctrinal police, that they lose their joy and they just look miserable. I am in if co-exist means we can relationally exist together. I don t freak out at every little different thing in the culture. We should be able to live in any kind of culture as Christians and still love God and love others. Our job is not to create the Republican Party. That is what people somethings think, that Christianity is just a bunch of white Republicans, and it is bigger it is love. Not I don t have a problem if you are Republican, and I will probably get an this week about that. Are you saying that I am not a Christian because I am a Republican? That is not what I am saying at all. I don t choose any party, I am just into Jesus. But there are some people that think it is Jesus and it is Republicans. And I think we are missing it. We don t read the Bible through the lens of Fox News or CNN for that matter. We need to read the Bible through the lens of Scripture. Now I am not into theological co-existing in the name of no truth claim trumps another. If you mean that all truth claims are equally valid, then I am out. So if you mean co-existing is to relate together, let s connect, let s love each other then I am in. Page 4 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

5 But if you mean that co-existing means all truth claims are equal, then I am out. Why? Because all truth claims cannot be equal. Why can t they? Because when you look at that bumper sticker that says Coexist, they have opposing contradictory claims. Hinduism and Islam might both be wrong but they both cannot be correct. Why? Because Hinduism believes in millions of gods and Islam believes in one god. So there is either one of the two that is right or they are both wrong. Now Christianity and Atheism could both be wrong, but they both cannot be right. Some of you are thinking, Did he just say that both of them could be wrong? Please just follow the logic here. Don t get tripped up here. Christianity believes in one God, but Atheism believes in no god, so they aren t both right. They are contradictory claims. So what we do if we say, let s just co-exist, all truth claims are equal, we are exposing our ignorance. We need to have the integrity, the logical integrity to be able to say, Maybe I don t know what truth is, but there is such a thing as truth. Maybe I don t know how I got here, but I know that I got here somehow. That would be more truth than saying, It doesn t matter what your claim is. Now what does John say? Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits. So test is a word that means to scrutinize to look over carefully, to investigate, to be thorough. That is what God wants us to do. He wants us to be very evaluative. He wants us to keep a discerning ability when we listen. And so, even when you listen to me, you need to listen with discernment. Now that doesn t mean because you listen with discernment that you are always right. You could be off. We all can be off at times. I have had beliefs that I held at one time that I thought were right, and then as I read more and learned more and grew more I no longer looked at it in the same way. We have to continue to discern and continue to grow. If you were to test the genuineness of a diamond, there would be certain tests that you could run that diamond through to test its genuineness. For example, you could take that diamond and blow on it, and if the fog on it from your breath goes away quickly that is a good sign. And ladies if the fog sort of stays on that diamond you might not have such a nice diamond. So if you get proposed to and you take that five caret diamond and drop it in a bucket of water and it just sort of floats there, or goes only about half way down, you may see that it not the real deal. Because if a real diamond is dropped into a bucket of water it is going to go down to the bottom, because there is a certain density to a real diamond. Another thing you could do to test a diamond s legitimacy is to heat it up, get it really hot, and then drop it into some cold water. So if your fiancé gets you a nice diamond, after he leaves you can go heat up the diamond and then drop it into a nice cold glass of water to test it. And if the diamond explodes you can just tell him you decided Page 5 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

6 you don t want to marry him after all. But if that diamond passes the test, that is a good sign, because a good diamond can handle the expansion that the heat would bring and then the contraction that the cold water would bring. So there are tests that we can use to determine the genuineness of a diamond. And in the same way I John is sort of like a diamond test. It lets us run our faith through a certain grid to help us to know whether or not our faith is genuine. And today we are going to look at a Christological test. But before we do, let me read to you II Timothy Chapter 2 and verse 15. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the Word of truth. Paul is writing this to Timothy who was a pastor in Ephesus. Paul wanted Timothy to be able to rightly utilize the Word of God. I don t know all of the writings Timothy might have received from Paul, but I do know he would have had the Old Testament. And John is writing to this audience and he is telling them to test the spirits. Now what were they to use to test the spirits? Do they have the Old Testament? Do they have any of the New Testament writings? They certainly don t have the entire canon of the New Testament, but I would say for sure that they had apostolic teaching. And John was one of the apostles; therefore one of the barometers they were to utilize to test the legitimacy of truth was the claims of the apostles. Now look at verse 6 in Chapter 4 where it says, We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So the apostles were teachers they could listen to, trust in and believe in. But anyone who contradicts their claims, like these false prophets, they needed to be leery of. Are you with me? Great. Now let s look at verse 2 still in Chapter 4 because this is where we see that one such test of a true believer is they will believe in the incarnation and a false prophet will teach that He didn t come in the flesh. By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is from God. Now look at the contrast in verse 3. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and is now in the world already. Now you know what the antichrist means, right? It is a word that means anti- Christ, one who is opposed to Christ. It is someone who represents the spirit of the antichrist, and there are many lower case antichrists. It is those who oppose Christ, those who don t believe in the message of Christ. That is what I want us to see at this stage, that there is a spirit of an antichrist, and that is the person who does not believe that God became flesh. Page 6 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

7 Now what I want to do is ask you to put on your mental seatbelts. I am going to do my best to explain this as simply as possible. Professor Hendricks at seminary stressed to us that we need to put the cookies down on the shelf where people could reach them. Sometimes my wife tells me that my cookies are out of reach. I want you to know that I am truly trying to put the cookies down on the shelf, but guess what? There are some things that we have to stand on our tiptoes and really, really reach for. Jesus would teach sometimes, and obviously He would be flying a little bit high, because the disciples would come up to Him and say, What did you mean by that? They still needed clarification. So I want you to get into the context of what is going on here. Let s just think about this first century world where Jesus has come in the flesh. He has died on the cross for our sins and He has risen from the dead. And the Spirit of God has come in Acts Chapter 2. The church has begun and the gospel is spreading. People are being transformed, but now there are these false teachers that are coming on the scene. And some of these false teachers were people that rejected the fact that God became flesh in the person of Jesus. These would be people who were known as believing in Docetism. It comes from the Greek word dokein, meaning to think, to appear. These were people that believed that Jesus only appeared to be flesh, but He really wasn t; He only appeared to be material, but He really wasn t. They believed that it just seemed that way. This was a group of people saying and teaching that Jesus was not God in the flesh; He only appeared to be in the flesh. Do you note the distinction that I am making right here? It is critical. Now what was going on? Obviously these people were influenced by Greek thoughts. Those of you that have studied any Greek philosophy, and are familiar with Platonism or Neoplatonism, you would understand that even certain forms of Gnosticism taught that material is bad, that material is evil. And what ended up happening was people could not believe that God became flesh. Why? Because flesh is evil; it is material. And that is what the Gnostics believe, and certain forms of Platonism taught, that material was evil. And what that did meant that people had to figure out a way to believe in Jesus but not to believe that He became flesh, because all flesh, all material, was evil. And that was what they believed we needed to be rescued from. How could Jesus become flesh when flesh was evil? Do you follow this? Let me stop for just a moment in case you don t. We have to be able to talk about these things together in church, folks, because John was writing to people who were being confused by other people about who Jesus was. And that has not stopped since Jesus was on the scene. Still today there is lots of confusion about who Jesus is. I am Page 7 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

8 going to talk more about this next week. But all many people want is a spiritual buzz at church, or all they want is to hear five application points at church. And if we are not willing to think, then those of you that are maybe high school students, when you go off to college your philosophy professors are going to eat your lunch. They are going to tell you that Augustine was simply a neo-platonist, and you are going to wonder what he means by that. And you are going to get confused by some of this stuff. They will be telling you that Christianity is just basically incorporating the mystery religions. And you will not know what they are talking about. We have to think about this stuff. So here is a recap of what I have been saying. What I am saying is that John was writing to his audience letting them know that God became flesh in the person of Jesus. And if people deny that, then they are not legit. John knew that there were false teachers who were saying that Jesus did not come in the flesh; rather they were Docetists who said that He only appeared to be fleshly. Now what I am going to do is help you to understand then who is Jesus? I mean you have people like Richard Carrier who is a contemporary Atheist who said that Jesus never even existed. You have the Jesus Seminar that goes through and strips down all things supernatural about Jesus. He would say maybe He was a good person but remove all the miracles. You have New Age people that believe that you can experience Christ consciousness and they separate Christ from Jesus. And they believe that you can be a Christ. There is the Jesus of history and you can become sort of this Christ-like figure. You have others who rejected the fact that Jesus came in the flesh the Docetists. You have others that reject the fact that Jesus was even divine and they were known as the Ebonites. So you have all this stuff going on. So how do we reconcile who Jesus is? As Christians, we are Trinitarian. That means that we believe in three gods, right? No, we don t believe in three gods. Now Muslims will tell you that you do. And so will Jehovah s Witnesses. We believe in one God revealed in three persons. One God in three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now I want you to picture this. You have one God, eternally existing in three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the Son comes into the world. He breaks into our existence and He takes on another nature, namely a human nature. So now Jesus has two natures. He has a divine nature that He has always had, and He has assumed a human nature. This is the Savior whom we believe in. This is Jesus. He is part of the Trinity. One God Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus comes into our world and with His divine nature He assumed a human nature. And Jesus walked amongst us in His earthly ministry as one person, not two persons. He was one person with two natures. He didn t need to become another person because He created us in His image, which means that we are personal beings; therefore Page 8 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

9 human was the one thing He could become because humans are personal. He didn t need to become a person, He already was a person and He took on a human nature. Now, you may be thinking, Wait a second. He is a person? You can t think physically. You have to think of a person as mind, as will, as emotion. You have to see it on that level. Stick with me a little longer and then I will get you out of here. Fast forward with this understanding of Jesus, knowing that this is who He is, and you have the first early centuries of the church going on. And then you have some who are confusing the early church, and John is writing these letters to clarify who Jesus is. You have people saying that Jesus just appeared to be human, but He really wasn t, and that would be the Docetists. You have others who would be saying things like, He really wasn t even God, He was just all human, and that would be the Ebonites. And then you end up in the 4 th century, and you have a guy by the name of Arius who is a teacher. And Arius is going around and he saying that Jesus was a created being. He is talking about His divine nature as being created, that He was really not one in essence with the Father. Now we read the Nicene Creed at Life Fellowship, as well as the Apostles Creed. And in the Nicene Creed there is a statement that says that Jesus is one in substance with the Father. When you read that Creed I want you to understand what you are reading. When the Creed says that Jesus is one in substance with the Father, what it is saying is He is one in essence with the Father, that Jesus is God. It is a divine claim. Now Arius was on the one side and he is teaching that Jesus is a created being. And over here you have another teacher by the name of Athanasius. And Athanasius was the bishop at Alexandria and he taught that Jesus was divine. And then you had Constantine who knew that Arius was confusing the churches, but thankfully there was Athanasius who was teaching truth. And what happened was these bishops came together from the surrounding cultures in Nicene in 325 AD. I am really trying to help you to be doctrinally correct here. So the bishops came together in Nicene. And bishops are pastors. Did you know there was a time when the pastors were the scholars? Today it is kind of looked at like if someone has a great brain they should be a professor and if not they should be a pastor. That is a tragedy to me. But you had these bishops who were the pastors and church leaders and they knew their theology. They all came together. What if there were no professors? You would want to know there were pastors out there that could come together in a meeting and talk historically in context about the Bible, people who could deal with issues. Why? So that we can test, so that we can discern, so that we can scrutinize. Page 9 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

10 We minimize the work of a pastor if we think it is just about their ability to relate to others. That is just part of it. But there is a doctrinal role that a teaching pastor in particular must assume that is very, very weighty. And so when these bishops came together in Nicene, everything rises and falls on one letter in the Greek alphabet. And it is the letter iota. Have you ever heard anyone say, I don t give an iota? Look at this contrast here. Here is your Greek lesson for the day. One word is homoousios and the other word is homoiousios. The word homo means same and homoi means similar. So homo is same and homoi is similar. Now ousios means substance or essence. So now let s go to Nicene where we are in a room and I have just walked in to tell you what is happening. You are the audience. Good afternoon, folks. Welcome to Nicene. My name is Bobby and I want to tell you what is going on here. Arius is over here and he is saying that Jesus is a created being. He believes that Jesus was similar in substance to the Father homoiousios. Over here we have Athanasius from Alexandria. He believes that Jesus is the same in essence, the same in substance homoousios. He is divine, true God from true God. And we have a group of bishops who have come to meet to hammer out this issue and we just wanted to let you know that the votes are now in and the church continues to affirm that Jesus is homoousios with the Father. That He is the same in essence, not person, as the Father. Now it is not like it was in the 4 th century that they finally figured this out. What were they doing? How were these bishops even contending that Jesus was the same in essence or the same in substance as the Father? They were looking at the patristic fathers, the early church fathers. They were looking at the early writings, and they were also looking at the gospels. Jesus said, I and the Father are one. Thomas said, My lord and my God. They had the Scriptures and they were looking at them. So they knew that the early church fathers and the Scriptures showed that Jesus was more than a man. So now then that should help us all to see who Jesus is. Do you believe that about Jesus, that God was infleshed in the person of Jesus? So for those of you that may look at Christianity and think, Man, these guys don t want to think. Or they don t care about this stuff, I hope you have realized that is not the case. And I want to believe in what s true. We have now made it through three verses so far. Great. Let s look at verse 4. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. So who is in us as believers? Obviously John is referring to the Spirit of God. Now again, we have to be careful here. If you were to go and get an MRI, it wouldn t be like the doctor would say, Oh look, this is a Christian Page 10 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

11 here. You can see if someone is a Christian by just sticking them in an MRI and you can see the Holy Spirit. No, that is not the way it works. The Holy Spirit does indwell us, but He is non-physical. The Holy Spirit is Spirit. So in the same way that the incarnation is a mystery, and I don t understand it all how God can become flesh, God wants us to know that we are indwelled by the Spirit as believers. It is part of what happens in our lives where God invisibly begins to work through our lives but we can t see the Spirit. It is a mystery like the incarnation. Verse 5, They are from the world, therefore they speak from the world, (referring to the false teachers), and the world listens to them. So there were people that were being influenced and did not believe that Jesus was God anymore. They didn t believe that He came in the flesh anymore; they bought into the false teachings. Verse 6 says, We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth (greater is He that is in you, the Spirit that tells us the truth and is in us) and the spirit of error, (the false teachers). So this is a little exposition of six verses for you from I John Chapter 4. Remember we already went through the last part of Chapter 4 last week as we looked at that with the last part of Chapter 3. Now let s look at I John Chapter 5. What I want to share with you are some of the great things that happen when you believe in Jesus, when you believe that God was infleshed in the person of Jesus Christ. What are some of the great things that happen? First of all, belief in Jesus produces new birth. So let s read Chapter 5 and verse 1 where it says, Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Now what do we mean to be born of God? We shared a few weeks ago this idea of born again Christians. Our spirits are dead when we are born. We are born into a world physically and immaterially. We are material and immaterial. We have a soul and a body. Our soul, or our spirit, is dead to God. We are separated from God. But when we believe in Jesus, our souls become animated. They are awakened. They come alive to God in relationship and it produces new birth. So notice, Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. So the object of our belief is Jesus. There is another great benefit that happens in your life when you believe in Jesus. First this new birth is where your spirit comes alive and you enter into a relationship with Jesus. And now this new birth results in a love for God and for people. Why do we end up loving God and people? It is because God loves us, and when we consider the great things of the gospel, when we fall in love with God we realize He loves us. And then we realize that love that He has for us like in I John Chapter 4 and verse 19 where it says, We love because He first loved us. So we begin to grasp God s gospel saving love that Page 11 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

12 is unconditional, that He forgives us for everything and that He cares passionately about us. When we start to understand that kind of love, then we love Him too. And we begin to love those whom He loves. So the gospel should work as a vertical love Godward toward Him, and as a horizontal love toward others. And so when we believe in Jesus that is the first part of it. Do you notice that you now have a desire to love God? Do you notice that you want to love others? This is where you begin to see God at work in your life. Verse 1 continues, And everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. So now you may be thinking it says whoever has been born of Him so we only have to love other Christians. Obviously John is working on them keeping this church unified, making sure that they love each other. But of course we are to love everyone because the Bible is clear about that in many places. Verse 2 says, By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. And this leads me to the third great thing that happens when you believe in Jesus. Our love for God becomes evident through our desire to honor God s Word. There is a desire that happens to us to honor His word. Look at verse 3. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. Now I read that and I think that sometimes God s commandments feel a little bit burdensome to me. Like with forgiveness, that can feel like a burden sometimes. Right? Or like the rich young ruler being told to go sell all that he had. You might feel like that commandment feels burdensome when Life Fellowship does a capital campaign. All of a sudden that can feel a little burdensome right there. Or witnessing to others can sometimes feel burdensome. So we have to kind of think a little about that or otherwise we will wonder what is wrong with us. Religion can be burdensome like a white knuckled alcoholic who is having a hard time resisting drink. Jesus said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. So there is a connection between our relationship to God and lifting the burden. Sometimes when certain things feel hard, like at a giving campaign, perhaps the reason it feels hard is because there is something that needs to get right in our relationship with Him. Maybe it is a surrender type thing, and when we do that it can become a joy. Perhaps the reason that witnessing can feel hard for us at times is because we have to grow in areas of fear. So when we love God and we connect with Him, in a perfect world His commands aren t burdensome. There are many things that won t feel burdensome, but there are things like suffering that can feel like a burden. Page 12 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

13 Fourth, born again believers eventually overcome the world s ways by confident trust in Jesus. Verse 4, For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world our faith. So by overcoming the world, we are not saying that we should become separatists. We overcome the world by faith. In other words our modus operandi in the world is we are to walk by faith in the promises of God s Word, penetrating the world with the light of the gospel. We live in our workplace. We live in our neighborhood. We live everywhere daily overcoming things by faith in God s Word. Verse 5 and finally, Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? So belief and trust in Jesus gives us the strength to live and keep His word, to obey Him, to honor Him, to love Him and to love others. Now let me give you in wrap-up some questions for reflection. In light of today s message, do you believe that God became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to offer us new life? Do you believe that this Christmas season? If you don t believe it, would you consider exploring some of the questions that you have? Would you consider thinking through what it is that you believe? If you don t believe in Christianity, at least know why you don t. So you can be able to explain why you don t. And don t give up one belief unless you have good reasons. Know what you believe. If you will just think about what it is that you believe and know why you believe it. Do you know why you are an Atheist? Do you know why you are a Muslim? Do you know why you are a Buddhist? It should be because you believe that the evidence for Jesus resurrection is true. You should believe that Christ is who He says He is. Secondly, do you partake of a steady diet of God s Word to heighten your ability to test, to discern, to scrutinize? I want to encourage you to begin studying. Like what we talked about today. Would you be able to help someone in your workplace around some of these issues that we talked about today if they were struggling? We need to heighten our ability to discern by reading and studying the Word of God. Third, how are you doing in the love department? Is there some deep work needed there? Are you someone that feels like you really need to love others by learning to love God more? Do you need to grow in that area? We all probably need to grow and improve in all of these areas. Fourth, is there a hunger in your life to apply God s life shaping word to every arena of your life? Not just to have a belief in Jesus so that you can say, Oh I believe in Jesus, but so that you can live out the truth of the gospel every day. So that you can watch movies and listen to music and enjoy the arts and appreciate culture, but do it all through the lens of being one who has been bought by God. Page 13 of 14 pages 12/13/2015

14 Finally, does life feel like a beat down? Do you need to re-negotiate your faith stance by re-directing your trust in Jesus? God was infleshed in the person of Jesus on a rescue mission. He came to die for us. And a mark of a true believer is one who believes in Christmas that God is with us. Let s pray. Lord, I thank you for your Word this morning and I pray that you will use it to change our lives. If anyone does not know you may they in the quietness of their hearts cry out, Jesus, I believe that you became flesh to die on a cross for my sins. And that you rose from the grave. I surrender my life to you now. In Jesus name. Amen. The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases. Page 14 of 14 pages 12/13/2015