Love's Completed Work - Testing the Spirits - 1 John 4:17-21

1:19Now, from the very beginning, the scriptures have made it very clear about the kind of community God wants, kind of nation. That God wants. He's very clear how he wants people to relate to him and to relate to each other. In fact, remember in Deuteronomy 6:5, God lays out to the nation of Israel as they're about to enter into the promised land, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. So, in the community that God desires, there is to be this vertical component of loving God, not just loving God supremely, but totally with everything within a person. So, supremely and totally. He also says, Leviticus 19:18, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. It's a community where God is loved supremely and where each individual loves the others in the community sacrificially.

2:33And God goes on to warn Israel and say, In Deuteronomy 36:42, take to your heart all the words which I am warning you today, put them on your heart, take these to the heart, write them on your heart. Take these words which you shall command your sons and observe carefully, even all the words of this law. For it is not an idle word for. You, indeed, it is your life, and by this word you will prolong your days in the land. Israel was to go into the land and to love God supremely and love each other sacrificially. That was to be the community, and they were to, and all of the law and the prophets hang upon these two hinges. It's very clear that everything that God was written, that God wrote and had given to Moses, was geared to promoting love for God supremely and love for each other unselfishly and sacrificially. Israel's failure in the land was that they failed to love each other sacrificially and they failed to love God supremely. When idolatry was entered into the land, it shows up in the way they related to each other. Likewise, when we embrace idols, when we do not love God with our whole being, it shows up in the way we relate to one another.

4:07That's from the very beginning. It's no secret the kind of community that God expects among humanity and what he is going to accomplish on planet Earth and what the nature of people are going to be going forward into eternity. But as we come To 1 John chapter 4, it's very clear John is thinking along these same veins. What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean? Well, John has three characteristics, just where we've been the last few weeks, but just look back at verse 13 of chapter 4. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit. Fundamentally, what it means to be a Christian is to be in possession of the Holy Spirit, a union, an abiding presence in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit in you, and you in the Holy Spirit. That's one characteristic of what it means to be a Christian in John's mind. Second is a confession of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Look at verse 15. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So the presence of the Spirit and the confession of Jesus being the Son of God. That's what it means to be a Christian. There's a third characteristic of what being a Christian is in John's mind here in these verses. Verse 16, we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. So abiding in love, living life in the love of God and the love for each other is what it means to be a Christian. Christian, vertically, loving God supremely, horizontally, loving each other sacrificially. This is fundamental to being a Christian.

6:10Possession of the Spirit of God, His dwelling among us, confession that shows up, confession of who Jesus is, the beloved, confessing Him, and living life in the love of God. That is, a love for God, a love of God, knowing the love that God has for us, loving Him in return, and letting that love spill over into all of our relationships. This is the community that God expects His church to embody. That's what He has laid out from the very beginning. This is the community that God desires.

6:50The question: why is love so important? Why is it such a big deal in God's mind for us to know the love he has for us? He really wants us to get it. In fact, Genesis to Revelation is the testimony of God's great love for us. He's gone to great pains, personal, enduring pains, to establish in our hearts the fact that He loves us. Not just that. He loves us, but the depth in which he loves us. God wants us to get it, and it's very important to him that we get it. All of Revelation is about this: Him expressing His love for us. Why does God want us to know the love He has for us? What is it accomplishing?

7:53In other words, what's love's end goal? Love is doing something in us, He wants us to know His love for us because He wants that to accomplish something in us that only knowing His love can do. He wants you to know it, He wants me to know it. Question comes this morning: What is love's completed work? When we have fully understood the love that God has for us, where is that going to take us? What is it going to do in us? What is love's completed work?

8:38Well, there are two things that I want to speak to you about this morning in our text that love accomplishes in us, so that we will be a community that is maturing in love, so that we, Emmanuel Baptist Church, will be a church, a community that God desires. Not just individually, but corporately. It's what he had for Israel in mind. It's what he has for his church. And so let's look at these two things that God accomplishes in us, or that love, God's love, accomplishes in us. First, love instills confidence in God's people. It's the first thing it does. It instills a confidence, and I'll say a heavenly confidence in God's people. Look at verse 17.

9:38By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. By this, by what? Looking back to what he's just said, by this, verse 16, we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. That's it. That we have come to know and that we have experienced, that we believe deep-seated, we have understood the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, by this, coming to know, you want to know where Christian loses his burden? It's at the cross, coming into an understanding of God's great love.

10:31By this, by understanding, by you taking in, by your soul truly knowing the depth of God's love, and by believing that you truly are loved by God to this degree, by this, love is perfected with us. So that, before I go too far, with us, notice the with us. In this, it's made perfected with us. God's love is perfected. The idea is accomplished its purpose. The idea is matured. Love is perfected. Love has reached its goal. Love has matured by this. When we have come to know this truth in its entirety, in its depth, truly knowing and truly believing the love which God has for us, that God is love, and that we are abiding in Him, in His love, God's love is perfected with us corporately.

11:33It's here with us, and nowhere else is there a community of redeemed people where love is perfected. It's in us love is perfected, not in a nation, not anywhere else, not even Texas any. It's great as it is, right? Here and nowhere else. Else, love is perfected with us than the community of the redeemed. So that we may have confidence. Love accomplishes its goal among us. And what is the purpose of that? So that we may have confidence, confidence, boldness, joyfulness, fearlessness. That we may have confidence in the day of judgment. I like to translate the word confidence here. It carries the idea of joy. It carries the idea of fearlessness. It carries the idea of boldness, so that we may have joyful confidence in the day of judgment. Day of judgment.

12:45The day of judgment. What is the day of judgment? What is he referring to here? Unquestionably, he's referring to that final separation between the sheep and the goats. He's talking between light and darkness, God's final judgment, which Christ himself is going to be the judge. In fact, he says this, Jesus Himself spoke more about this than anyone else. Matthew 10, 15, truly, truly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. It's speaking of a city that would not repent. Day of judgment. Matthew 23, 33, you serpents, you brutes. Of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? That's the day of judgment. The day of judgment, separation, eternal punishment. Matthew 25:46, these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. That's the day of judgment that John has in mind here. And by this, love has accomplished its goal with us so that we may have joyful confidence in the day of judgment. There is not going to be any other people on planet Earth that are going to experience a boldness, a joyful confidence in Judgment Day other than the church, the believers in Him. What does that mean?

14:18Why is that? Because it's only those who understand God's immense love, the depth of His love, as displayed upon the cross, who have the right perspective to correctly understand what's happening on Judgment Day. His judgment is good, it is right. It is good for those who have rejected in this world, who have showed no like of Christ in this world. It's good for them to be separated forever. They don't want heaven. It's good to make this separation.

14:55It's good to stop humanity from death. Doing the things that it is doing. God has promised to put an end to evil permanently. And all those who do evil will be taken out of the land of the living. It's good. It's a good thing, we have a perspective. It is, and it is loving for him to do so. God is love. Everything he does is loving, including judgment. You can think of it this way: think of an unruly classroom. You ever been in an unruly classroom where things were getting out of hand? And all of a sudden, things getting kind of crazy, and then all of a sudden, the teacher comes in. Order is returned, right? There's something good about that.

15:50If you are, or just think about a police scene, or think about a situation, a riot, or chaos in the streets is running rampant. It's good when the police show up, isn't it? To bring order, when the right authority shows up to say, okay, this chaos is going to stop. It's good. Well, that's the same thing in Judgment Day as you understand what God is doing in humanity. He steps onto the scene. And those who Know the love of God have confidence in Judgment Day. And they and only, it's going to be a frightening day, a day of terror, except those who know the judge.

16:47Joyful confidence. What about you? Are you afraid of the day that you will stand before God? Does that terrorize you? I can tell you, if you're terrorized by that day, what you will do, you will blame others for your sin instead of confessing it. You will redefine God. You'll redefine sin. All of these are expressions of your terror before God, the God revealed in Scripture. But John goes on in verses 17 and 19 to give us three reasons why those who know the love of God are confident. Confident. Love instills confidence. And there's three reasons. Look back at verse 17.

17:39First reason is because we share the same standing before God as Jesus. Look at verse 17. By this, the love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. Because, here it is, because as he is, so also are we in this world. Because as he is, so are we. Also, are we in this world? The statement is telling us we are already like Jesus. How? Good question. Clearly, the text is saying that we now, while in this world, are having something in common with Jesus as he is now while at the right hand of God. Because as he is now, right hand of God, so also are we now in this world. What is this? Well, we stand in the same relationship that Christ has. We have the same relationship to the world and the same relationship to God as Christ Himself. That's what He's saying. Because as He is in relation to God and in to the world, so also are we, even though in the world, we stand in the same relationship.

19:02Jesus, now think about this to the world. Jesus died and rose again. He died to this world and was raised to life. So have we. So have we. If you are in Christ, guess what? God's day of wrath against you is over. God's day of wrath against me is over. Over. God's day of wrath against Christ and me is over. It's a fact of history. It's a matter of history. He poured out his wrath upon the cross and all those in Christ.

19:44The day of wrath is over. Just as Jesus is not of the world, so we are not of this world. Therefore, we will not be judged along with this world. Already been judged. And so we're not awaiting a future judgment. Our judgment is a matter of history. And just as he died to the world and was raised anew, so we also. So we stand in the same relationship as Jesus to the world, but we also stand in the same relationship as Jesus before God. As he is, so we are. We share that same favored status before God. Now we do, as Jesus does now.

20:37Ephesians 1:6 speaks of that great love and grace which was freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved. There's the Beloved at the right hand of the Father. That's the one all of heaven is excited about. That's the one the Father is excited about. That's the one the Spirit testifies to. He is the beloved, and we share that same standing before God because we are in the beloved. And guess what? God does not condemn his beloved, right?

21:15Just as Jesus will not be judged along with this world, neither will we. So, love instills a confidence in God's people. First of all, because we share the same standing before God as Jesus does. Second reason, because love casts out the terror of punishment. Love casts out that terror of punishment. Look back at verse 18. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment. And the one who fears is not perfected in love. Those who know the love of God are confident before God.

22:04There is no fear in love. Now, the idea of fear here is better translated, or certainly in a modern term, we would associate it with the idea of terror. There is a kind of fear that the Bible speaks a lot about, and that is reverence, revering, reverence. This isn't the fear that John has in mind here. It's more of the terror, a terror that causes a person to. Run away, flee. It's not talking about reverence. And there's a difference because reverence is consistent with love.

22:42You love somebody, you revere who they are. There's a certain personal reverence, and certainly as true with God, we can love God and we can revere Him at the same time. In fact, we must. It's when we want to redefine God that we're showing we don't revere Him at all. We are to revere Him, we are to come to Him as He is. In fact, love is built upon who He is. So love and reverence are compatible. In fact, think about it. You know, even in any relationship, we really have to revere who a person is if we're going to have a loving relationship, right? And I don't mean accepting sin, sin excluded, right? But we must revere a person for who they are if we're going to have a relationship with them, right?

23:40I said it like this in the first sermon. Wives, if you're married to a bloodhound, don't try to turn him into a poodle. Don't try to make somebody into something they are not. And that goes for all relationships. Don't try to make them in to be something that they are not. Now, that doesn't mean challenge him to greater levels of sanctification and all of that, but fundamentally, you're not, you can't have a relationship with a person unless you respect that person for who they are, right? It's fundamental. Try to redefine a person, you're more in love with your definition of what that person should be instead of that person. Well, same is true with God. We must revere God and love Him for who He is, and that's a work of the Spirit. Perfect love drives out terror. What is inconsistent is that we cannot love God and run away from Him at the same time. Terror, terror causes a person to run, causes a person to flee, causes a person to get away from. That's what terror does.

24:58If God is a terror to you, your desire is to get away from Him. And we do that spiritually by redefining Him, by excusing, by blaming others. That's the whole ailments of our society, and it shows up in basically a fundamental disposition of people running away from God and coming up with reasons or excuses. It's a beautiful wedding. Those of you who were there a couple days ago, Cooper and Haley last Friday, I noticed something about both of them. They were both smiling. And I think if you saw that, they were smiling big, right?

25:44When Haley was coming down the aisle, I didn't see a note of terror that she was afraid of, terrorized by being in a relationship with Cooper, nor did I see any terror in Cooper's eyes, right? Faith. None of us did, right? They wouldn't have had that day. The goal was to come together, right? That's what love does. It comes together. Terror flees, right? And so you cannot be terrified of God and loving Him at the same time. Those are two totally different trajectories.

26:26Perfect love drives out terror. Where there is a mature relationship of love between two people, there is no room for terror. So when love has matured, when it has had its effect in you, your relationship to God is not one of terror, of judgment day, because that has to do with punishment, right? Punishment. You don't punish those you love. God's not, we're in the beloved. But love instills confidence in God's people. Because we shared the same standing before God as Jesus does, because love casts out the terror of punishment, and third, because we know we have been loved like Jesus. Look back at verse 19. We love because he first loved us. We are loving God because he first set his love upon us. You know, back to the wedding, as Haley journeyed down the aisle, it was a response to Cooper's love for her, right?

27:36She was coming down in response to his love. Likewise, true love, the kind of sacrificial love that is displayed in Christ for one another, true love is a response to God's initiative for us. We love him because he first loved us. We can love him sacrificially with all of our hearts, soul, mind, and be because that's what we see displayed on the cross for us. We can love each other like that because that is how he loved us. So we can, our love for him is a response to his initiative for us. Listen, we did not wake up one morning and decide to love God. We didn't even know what love was. We didn't know what love is.

28:27We didn't really know what it was until. Christ revealed it on the cross. That's what love is. Kind of God love. So we didn't even know what love was like. So there's no way we could love him like that until he revealed what love was, and he certainly reveals it to us. And we certainly cannot give away love unless we have received such love like that. No, we didn't wake up one morning just to decide to love God. Any love that you have for God is a response to the love that he has for you. It predates you.

29:04So we have confidence because we didn't start this whole thing. He did. And as he advanced towards us with his love, it enabled, it awakened, it empowered us to respond to him. Luke 7:47, Jesus says, he who's forgiven little loves little, but the one who's been forgiven much loves much, right? Why does God make so much of our sin? Why does he take our sin and he doesn't let us just redefine it or push it aside? Why does he convict us of sin? Why?

29:51Why does he do this? Because he makes much of his love for us. And it is our unlovableness. It is your unlovableness that highlights God's great love for us and for you. And so he's careful to bring our sin to our mind so that we will look to him. If he loves us even when we are so unlovable, how much more will he give us all things? Now that he's cleaned us up a little bit, made us a little more lovable, give us a covering for our sin. Do you see why he brings our sin before us to expose our unlovableness, to highlight his great love for us, and how much more you can expect? If he loved, if he poured himself out when we were dirty, rotten, stinking, filthy, and all that, and he loved us to that degree, he's going to complete what he started.

31:08How do we show gratitude for this love? We love. That's how you show gratitude. For love, you love. Abiding in love is the expression that God is looking for. Abiding in love to him and to one another. This is the community. This is what he desires. And this is how you see. Say, thank you, God, for loving me. You love others. And this is the drawing power of God revealed in scripture. He draws us by his love. It's the fact of his love that draws us to him.

31:53John makes it very clear: we are a people who are known by whom we love rather than by what we are afraid of. So many times we get that backwards as Christians. Sometimes I think the world looks around, looks at us, and even we look at ourselves and we start seeing the things that we are afraid of. And that kind of defines us oftentimes. But John's saying, not so with the community that God desires. We are to be a people who are known by whom we love, not by what we're afraid of. There's a lot of things going on in the world that we can be afraid of. A lot of things politically, a lot of things just all over the map, things going on that we can be afraid of. We could become afraid of people. We could become afraid of losing our life. All kinds of stuff.

32:44But all that, if you're really terrorized by those things, it comes down that you've got some lingering fear of judgment or some kind of lingering unbelief that Jesus really is in control of everything. Now, we are to be a people who are known by whom we love. Listen, if you are afraid of dying, you really haven't completely believed in Jesus Christ. Either you're afraid of punishment or you don't trust his sovereignty. But if you're afraid, if you're terrorized, you've not completely believed in Christ. And that's what John's saying. These are the confidence. Love, when you understand God's love, when you understand that the Son of God, the highest in heaven, has loved you to the highest degree, this instills a confidence, a heavenly confidence.

33:46That's the first thing that love accomplishes, or love's completed work in us does. It instills confidence in God's people. Second, it exposes the liars among us. It exposes the liars among us. First, it does so by exposing their inconsistency, exposing their inconsistency. Look back at verse 20. If someone says, or someone should be saying among you, someone should say, I love God, or I am loving God. If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

34:31Someone should come among us and say, or maybe you yourself say, I, you know, I love God, I am a lover of God, and yet you are despising, you are detesting, you are hating, you are content with separating your brother from yourself. You're a liar. John's very strong with this. It's one way to tell who the true teachers are. John's, we're in a chapter of testing the spirits. Chapter 4, test the spirits, whether they are from God or whether they're not from God. And as John is laying out a means to test the spirits to see the ones coming in and teaching among us are truly from God, he's saying you will know them specifically with this test by the way they love. But he's also challenging us to test ourselves, right?

35:34Are we liars? Because, see, the same love that casts out the terror of God also casts out all unloving thoughts and actions towards people. The same love, same abiding presence will cast out terror of punishment, terror of God, but also will cast out unloving thoughts toward people. You see, and this makes sense. You're intoxicated with unloving thoughts towards people, guess what? You cannot be loving God. It clouds you. It takes, there are two opposing trajectories. If you are loving God, you will be loving people. You'll be growing in your love for people.

36:18And here's John's logic. Look back. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. You see, God cannot be seen directly. That's what he has already said. God cannot be seen. He is spirit. You do not see God. No one at any time has seen God, as John said earlier. Therefore, there is no way of directly seeing if a person really loves God. Suppose I, okay, kids, suppose I have a parakeet, okay, in my house, and I say, I love my parakeet, okay, and I've got this parakeet in a cage. You could come over and you could see and measure if I really love it. Suppose you come over to my house, and all of a sudden you see this parakeet hadn't been watered, hasn't been fed, his cage hasn't been cleaned, and that his name is number 106.

37:20Now, if his name was 106, what does that tell you? There is probably 105 before him, right? And probably 107. And after him, but you get the idea. You'd look and say, I can tell by the way you treat your parakeet that you don't love the parakeet at all, right? Well, that's the way that God cannot be seen directly. So you can't just go out and say, okay, the way you love God can be seen directly. Even overt actions, religious ceremony, religious ordinances, and sacrifices or appearing great sacrifices or even great sermons, even what all these things may be, may not necessarily communicate or reveal: do I really love God or not?

38:14The way, but John does say you can see God, by the way, a person, you can see, you may not be able to see God, but you can see the love of God. The way one relates to God's image or a person is an indication of whether or not they truly love God, right? Think about our flag. The way a person relates to the flag is a good indication of the way they relate to the country that the flag represents, right?

38:45If you burn the flag, you're showing contempt for the country. If you don't salute the flag, you're showing honor to the country, right? Well, the same is true about people. People bear the image of God, and especially those who are born of God. For John, anyone who claims to love God but does not practically love God's people by unselfish and kind acts is an overt liar. If you hear me say a lot of things and you do not see a real sacrificial kind of love for God's people, I'm a liar.

39:23No matter how zealous my efforts are, in fact, Jesus is the one who called attention to this in Matthew 15:7, speaking to those who did all these external religious actions and feats, he called them, you hypocrites. Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Love for God is seen indirectly by the way we relate to God's redeemed image-bearer, specifically Christians. You want to know how a person relates to God? Look at how they respond to a true Christian. There's something, God's persona is present with his people. God's persona is evident in the image-bearing of all people. But God's persona is even more so present with his people. And the reason people do not love genuine Christians is because they do not love God.

40:32And so, what John is saying, his logic is that if you cannot bring yourself to love God's people, that are true Christians, or love people in general, for sure, specifically true Christians, even more so. But if one cannot bring himself or herself to love people, you are void of any ability to love the unseen God. You cannot love God. It's contradiction. You cannot love God if you don't love his persona that's evident in humanity. So, love's completed work exposes the liars among us by exposing their inconsistencies, but also by exposing their disobedience. Look back at verse 21. And this commandment we have from him: that the one who loves God should love his brother also. It was Jesus who said in John 14:15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. So, if you love Jesus, you'll do what he says. John 14:23, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. If you love me, you're going to keep my word. He says it again. John 14:24, he who does not love me does not keep my word. Do you see how very simple? If you love me, you keep my commandments. You keep my word. If you don't love me, you won't. And then he says, Let me tell you something about the word. And the word which you hear. Is not mine, but the Father who sent me. So, the one who does not keep Christ's commandment does not love the God who sent him.

42:11And then he says this in John 15:12, this is my commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you. Powerful words, right? Love each other just as I loved you, sacrificially, kindly, wholeheartedly, pouring myself out for your well-being. That's the community wants. But you cannot love God and not love each other without violating His commandment, right? You say you love God and yet you do not love someone else, you violate His commandment. So, the way you love people is the way you love God. In fact, it is the way you say thank you to God.

43:05The question comes down as we're testing our own spirits. We have to ask ourselves and get very personal, not be afraid to diagnose our heart according to what Scripture has before us. But are you one of the liars in our midst? Test yourself. We're in a chapter about testing the spirits. Test yourself. Remember, we spent the whole semester. Looking at what love is, 1 Corinthians 13:4, and how Jesus embodied all this. Love is patient, kind, not jealous, not bragging, not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it's not provoked, does not take into account a wrong, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

43:55So, let me ask you: if I just ask you, do you love God? Are you loving God? Are you a lover of God? How do you answer that? Let me ask you this: Do you tell yourself you love God but are chronically an impatient person? Then you're a liar. Do you tell yourself you love God but are characteristically unkind? Do you act unbecoming? Are you easily offended? Do the people of God easily offend you? Do other people easily offend you? Do you keep records of wrongs? Can you forgive?

44:42Or do you not forgive? Do you hold on to grudges? Then you're a liar. You don't love God. If you say you love God and you hold on to grudges, you're a liar. The Spirit of God is not in you. You do not know him. He doesn't. Not know you, and you have every reason to be terrorized of judgment, and you probably are. And by the way, unloving actions are easily detected by people who know and who are maturing in love. By the way, it's unloving actions are easily seen, especially by those who know what love is and have been tutored in love and are growing in love. They can, unloving actions are easy to see.

45:37But John just isn't writing to expose liars. That he does. That he does wonderfully. But at the same time, John's purpose for writing this letter is to affirm real Christians, not just expose false Christians, not just to expose the liars, but to affirm real ones. Are you a real Christian? How do you know? Well, when you see real acts that involve personal sacrifices for others, it's evidence that God is at work. If you see real thoughts involving personal sacrifices for the benefit of God's people, there's no other explanation. It's a They come from God.

46:33When you physically exert yourself for the benefit of the spiritual family, for the benefit of the church, when you physically can look and you can say, I see physical exertion, that's a sacrifice. Be assured, it's born out of heaven. If you see yourself making spiritual sacrifices, such as laboring in prayer, routinely in prayer for others, mourning that which is to be mourned, rejoicing over that which is to be rejoiced, if you see your spiritual energies given out, being poured out for the well-being of God's family, it is because God is in you.

47:16When you expend yourself emotionally for the well-being of others' relationship with God and for the well-being of his true church, that same love is accomplishing something in your life, which indicates that you do belong to him. There is no other explanation why you would sacrifice yourself for the well-being of this church, for the well-being of his people, for the spiritual building up of the kind of community he wants. There is no other explanation except that God is in you.

47:57That produces. Confidence, doesn't it? Because it says you really do understand the love that God has for you. And it's evident it's flowing out. It's showing up in the way you relate to others. You are born of Him. You do stand in the same relationship to the world and to God as Christ Himself does. You are in the beloved. God's Spirit is among you and in you. And that produces this joyful confidence in your relationship with God that shows up in answered prayer now and in your relationship now and also on the day of judgment in the future.

48:46Well, love instills confidence in God's people. Love exposes the liars among us. Love affirms those who are truly in the faith. And love shows us this true community that God desires and how He wrote it upon our hearts. Deuteronomy 6:5, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. Leviticus 19:18, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. How is he going to write this upon our hearts? Jeremiah 31:33, this is the covenant which I will make with them after those days, speaking of the house of Israel. I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. One of the aspects of the new covenant is that God will write his law upon the hearts of his people, and he has upon us first fruits, if you will, of what God is doing.

49:47He puts his law within us. Ezekiel 36:27: God says, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. What Scripture declares is how God wrote his law upon our hearts and put his spirit within us to carry out the things that he wants and establish that community. So, what does it mean to be a Christian? It's a relationship with God based upon the new covenant, possession of his spirit, confession that Jesus is the Son of God, and living life in the love of God.

50:34So, I hope that we will be a church that matures in this love. And we get there by believing God that he sent his son. He sent his son, he sent his spirit, he sent his son, and he's given us an external witness in scripture that records the eye. Witnesses accounts of him. His son is the historic Jesus. That's the external witness. He has also sent his Spirit as the internal witness who confirms the apostolic witness to our hearts. And when you receive the witness of Scripture about scripture, about who Jesus is, when you accept his testimony, you accept him. And that is how one becomes a Christian. Look to the cross. Your Creator loves you to that degree. You don't have to excuse your sin. You can come confess it because His sacrifice is adequate to cover it.

51:50Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you, recognizing your goodness to us, recognizing these truths that are designed to give your people assurance, that are designed to call out the liar among us, so that the liar may get honest with you and look to you and be saved by you. Father, we desire to grow in your likeness. Thank you. We look to your cross. Help us imbibe all that that says about our relationship with you now, our past, and what we can look forward to in the future, and how that can spill over into the way we can give ourselves away right now for the well-being of others.