Who Do You Resemble — 1 John 2-3

0:00 Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for the opportunity that we have, the blessing that we have, the honor that we have to open up our word and open up your word and learn more about you. What a joy it is that you have given us the opportunity to know you step by step, day by day, to grow in our knowledge and our love and our understanding and just appreciation for who you are. And today as we consider these things, just pray that you'll help us to not just be hearers of the word, but to be doers, that we would be affected, that we would be changed, transformed by the incredible things that you have for us in your word. We just pray these things in your name, amen. Okay.

0:48 I won't throw Kip out of the bus like I did Connor, I won't do that. Hey, first of all, want to welcome Owen. Owen comes to the bible study. Speaking of small groups, Owen comes to our Bible study as a coach at Olmsted Falls with Kyle. And so he's been joining us, when he can, to be with us and enjoy talking with him.

1:06 And, he has some great insights. So I'll be curious what he thinks after today, and feel free, one of the things that we do here is to make sure that we keep each other in check, that we are in accordance to the word of God and that we are staying true to that, and that's a good and healthy thing. So I've had many people that have come up and helped me out in those times of need. And sometimes I'm very honest and open about what those are. Let me get my notes out and get my transparencies out.

1:39 Oh, I'm so excited. You have no idea how much I hate PowerPoint. I took that class and I thought it would be a shame if I didn't use that class. I have to use it. And it's not helped me at school or here.

1:55 I still fumble through it and just not as comfortable with it yet. I was born a couple of decades too late in my estimation. Maybe a couple of centuries, I'm not sure, sometimes. Anyways, let's do a little question and answer business. Let's get some audience participation to start out.

2:18 And mainly looking at the younger ones here, but it doesn't have to be the younger ones. There's not too many younger ones here, so we might have to consider that age. Come on up here, ladies. Let's go. Yeah, you ladies too.

2:37 Anybody else that's kinda in that Sunday? Girls, come on up here, have papers for you. Okay, come on. See as a teacher, I feel very comfortable telling other people's kids what to do. I won't say anything to Abby and Emily though.

2:55 And Zach, I'll leave them alone. There's a back to that too. So... Okay. Well, question and answer first.

3:11 The Gospel of John, also written by the Apostle John, right? And first John was written by the Apostle John. The Gospel of John has a key verse that Ray Gonzales in his first, his opening message, told us about, and first I want to see if anybody knows what that key verse was in the Gospel of John that told readers, the audience, what the purpose of Gospel of John was. Can anybody remember what that verse is? And if you do, please raise your hand and say the reference, and then I'm gonna ask someone to read it.

3:45 Okay? I know you know it, Bingham. Alright, let's go under 40. Under 40. 31.

3:58 Yes, John 20 verse 31. Would you read that for us, Mason? I know. I'm coming. Woah.

4:21 Hold on. John 20 verse 31.

4:27 For these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

4:33 Okay. So who was the audience for the Gospel of John? Based on that, who was the audience? The unbelievers, the non believers, those who did not believe in Christ or did not know, that was the audience in John the Gospel. Let's contrast that to what I think is the same thing.

5:01 John's very consistent. This is his verse in first John chapter five verse 13, and he says, these things I have written to you that you may believe... Or to you who believe in the name of Jesus, the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the son of God. So these things I've written to you who believe. So now we have a different audience, don't we?

5:30 The audience now is to the believer. And and so before it was, we... I want you to believe that he's the son of God, and now to those people that are believers, he's saying, I want you continue to believe in the son of God, and this is where the whole gnosticism, and I so desperately wanted to say gnosticism, but I said I wouldn't do it this week. But gnosticism came into play, and and this this movement that was trying to pervert the the message of the gospel, the the apostles were fighting against this, and and and particularly John in this case was reaching out to fellow believers to let them know to stay true in their faith, to believe those things that they had been taught and to not stray from it. And this is where first John, this is where first John is, it's really leading us, and it's a very intimate book.

6:22 It refers to the believers as children of God. Paul often talked about sons of God, refers to sons of God, is more positional, but in first John, they're called children. There's something very intimate about it. They they are are born of God, they are begotten of God, and so therefore, there was an intimacy to this thing, and he's explaining if we want to maintain that intimacy, we have to stay, we have to abide in him, and how can we know that we're abiding in him? And that's kind of the direction we're gonna go today as we talk about this, is how do we know that we're abiding in him?

6:58 And chapter three brings out some very sharp contrast, and John is great with contrast, he loved contrast. Life and death, light and darkness, all these things, he contrasts a lot of things, and one of the contrasts he's gonna bring up in this is, it's sin versus righteousness. Sin versus righteousness. And I happened to get the first half of chapter one John chapter three, which is focusing on, of course, a of the sin. And, so we're going to try to clear the air on some of the ideas that came in, come through that chapter because there are some things that could be confusing depending on where your knowledge of the rest of scripture is.

7:35 And that's why all scripture, we know is great for reproof and direction, all those things that we talk about. But we also have to take the full scope of scripture in mind as we look at individual verses, because whether it's in chapter three, and it's funny because when Abe spoke, he said, well, I'm just glad I don't have to do chapter three, and I thought, yeah, me too. And then here I am, right? But as I was doing chapter three, thought, you know what, thank goodness I don't have to do chapter five, the second half to five, let somebody else gets to have that one. That is the case.

8:24 So actually the first one that he mentions is actually my last one in the order that I put them in, but in chapter two verse one, John says that the purpose of writing this, he either says that I have written these things or we have written these things or these things have been written so that, right? But in chapter two verse one, and if you're right there in John, can flip back and forth these things, I'm not necessarily gonna read it. But he says that he wrote these things so we wouldn't sin. And we're gonna talk about that because as you know, we sit in this room all sinners, some of us saved by grace, but nonetheless, even though we don't hold that penalty for sin and it doesn't have power over us anymore, we still do fight that old nature versus the new nature, still battles on. You have a pot lid, that's great.

9:20 Yeah, I know, I know. But we still battle on fighting that old nature. We fight that old nature, and that is part of the challenge that we have, and certainly a lot of what John focuses on in the epistle. So, but he also says that he wrote this, he wrote this because we know the truth, and I took some time to really kind of mull that over, because we know the truth. He says in chapter two verse 21, that I didn't write this because you don't know the truth, but because you do know it.

9:57 You already have it. And and you know, when you consider what what the what the people at that time are hearing and all these different gospels that were coming around and really the perversions of the gospel, it was about reassuring them. You already have the truth, relax, you got it. You got to ignore that stuff, you got to shut that stuff out. And we see that today, there's a lot of perversion of the gospel, and a lot of perversion of God's word out there today.

10:26 And they do it in the guise of, you know, we're making society better, and we're helping people, and they make it look really pretty, but really, they've taken the word of God and they've said it means something different than it does. And we have to be aware of that still. And that's why these things, I put we, these things are written to us. They had an audience at the time, but we are... We continue to be that audience.

10:48 So it was also written so we would continue in Christ, so that we would continue in Christ. And we're gonna talk more about that later. But that we would stay steadfast in what we know about Jesus Christ and stay consistently true to what we are given, the information that we're given and what we believe in that regard. And then finally, so that we would have eternal life. And that's where I put in this, John chapter, or one John is a response to Gnosticism, but I think it's also a response to some of the doubt that was out there among Christians and whether or not some of these things, because sometimes earthly wisdom can sound awfully good to us.

11:32 It can sound like it makes a lot of sense. You can get caught up in that pretty easily, and so you have to be aware of that. Paul reminds us to be aware of that. Don't get caught up in earthly wisdom. It doesn't measure up.

11:47 But he's making sure that they're aware that their eternal security is sure in Christ, and that they don't have to vent, they don't have to move from that. Some of these ideas of NASA were pretty, you know, that Jesus was for a time the Christ, but that when he died, it was just Jesus and the Christ had left him. I mean, were some really bizarre ideas that were going around. So, and that would be contrary to everything that we believe. And then finally, and I put this last because I think that ultimately, yes, if we are sure of our place in eternity, if we are sure of our position in Christ, if we can be sure that we know the truth, if we can live a life that is according to the will of God and avoids sin, that there would be joy, you know.

12:41 And so that's why I thought it was a fitting, even though it came first in the book, to put it last on my list here. So I'm going take a look at my notes here. Okay. And that really relates, that whole idea that our joy will be full relates to the things as we open up Chapter three that we're going to talk about as far as the confidence that we can have. It's kind of an amazing thing that we can have confidence in Christ.

13:10 Without any further ado, I wanna make sure I've asked all my questions here for background. Yes, got that one. Yeah. Okay. I think we're good.

13:22 Connor, come on up here for a second. Dad, would you come up for a minute? Yeah. Let's remember we're kind of on a tight time schedule here. Alright, what we have here before you is three generations of Bingham.

14:18 Who do you resemble? Who do you look like? And if you look at us, okay, if you look at us, there are certain characteristics that you could probably pick out that let you know that is the obvious one. You know what I mean? I knew there was zero doubt if I had $100 which I don't, but if I had $100 I would have put it on ears is gonna be the first thing, right?

14:41 If there's one thing that distinguishes us as Bingham's, it's that we all have these and they are pronounced, you know, like satellite dishes on the side of our heads, right? So that we have. Thank you, dad, for that. Now, are there other characteristics, and remember, I don't want this young man to be in therapy someday, so be kind, but are there other characteristics that you could say we have? What's that?

15:05 Blue blue eyes, and that's why I brought Conner up instead of Mason, because he too has the ears, but not the eyes. We have the blue eyes in common, right? And you could probably, and I'm not going go any further because it starts to get real bad after this, like flat feet and bad knees and joint issues, but there are lots of other things that as Bingham's, we have in common and that Conor resembles me, because he is begotten of me, and I resemble my dad because I was begotten of him. And John, what he's gonna talk about is who do you resemble? Who are you begotten of?

15:39 And that is gonna be, it's gonna be determined by what is visible in your life to other people, but more importantly, what you know about your own life, okay? So thank you gentlemen. Appreciate that. Yes, they did great. Ears and blue eyes, they did great, Alright?

15:58 Okay. Alright. So as we go into chapter three, we're gonna we're gonna keep looking at this idea of of what it means to abide in Christ, and and it was very important to John that the people that he was addressing, and that being us as well, understood, first of all, what a wondrous thing it is that we can be called children of God. Right? What an amazing thing, behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on us to be able to, that we could be called the sons of the children of God, the children of God.

16:33 Very intimate. And so we wanna, as we look at that, we wanna look at what it really means to be a child of God and how we can truly know that we're abiding in him and be sure of our faith. So first of all, and I have all these notes of things that I wanted to hit, and I already looked at the clock and realized that that's probably not gonna happen. So I do wanna look at, before we go there, look at chapter two verse six. Chapter two verse six, going back a little bit.

17:04 Says, he who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. So he, meaning any of us, who says that he abides in him, capital h being Christ, ought himself to walk just as he walked. This is our goal, this is our quest, this is our journey the Christian walk, to be more like Christ, is it not? And so as we look at chapter three, we're gonna start to see the contrast between what it means to walk as Christ walked and what it means to walk as the world would have us do, or walking in the shadow of Satan. Okay.

17:46 So let's read through it. First part. We're gonna start at verse 28 of chapter two. So if you look there with me, please. Verse 28.

17:59 Okay. And now little children, abide in him that when he appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. Now I'm gonna make just a little quick comments as we go here a little bit, not with everything, but really wanna get to the main points. But, this idea of when someone could speak to this at another time, the exact point at which we will be perfected, that we will be like him is curious to me, Because we know two things, we know that John has said that there's this potential of shame at the coming of Christ. Now, William McDonald suggested that this was just only for the apostles, that only the apostles would be ashamed based the rest of the people.

18:46 But I don't know how that would be the case, because if we're before Christ, and there is any possibility of shame at what done with our life, that I would think that we're all susceptible to that. Also, know from second Corinthians five that we are all gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ, are we not? To hear what's been done good and bad in the flesh, and to answer for that. And so I don't know at what point we are exactly like Christ because shame is not part of what it is to be like Christ. And so we're going to talk about that later.

19:21 But I think that would be great for someone to touch on maybe and someone who knows a lot more than I do. So verse 29, if you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of him. And so this is once again a clue into what it looks like to be a child of God. What does this look like? And if and if we were...

19:42 If we recognize his righteousness, well, puts us in a unique place, doesn't it? Think about this for a minute. If we recognize that Jesus is righteous, it's the same concept we talked about before, that if we recognize that Jesus rose from the dead, that means he's the only person in and of his own power that's ever risen from the dead. That puts us in a unique position, doesn't it? If we recognize and believe that, we are saying he is God, he is the Lord.

20:07 Right? If we recognize he is righteous, then he's also the only person that's ever lived on the earth that was righteous, that spent thirty three years here and never sinned. And a very important concept, isn't it? That we to recognize it. If we recognize that, then that puts us in a unique position.

20:24 And if we do recognize that he was without sin, then what should we be doing? Intimate group process. Yeah, following that example. We should be walking just like it said in verse six of chapter two, we should be walking as he walked. That's what we're supposed to be doing.

21:28 Now number one, I would say that John is not as fluid as Paul to begin with. Would that be agreed, like those who read? I don't find John to be as fluid. I have to think a lot more about what he's saying, where Paul is, you know, it's much more, I don't know, orderly, at least in the way my mind works, it's much more orderly for me. But those verses seem to be there in the middle of kind of break it up, and they break up the flow a little bit.

21:55 And so I wondered, why why is this there? Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know him. Well, and I think that goes back to the fact that if we are abiding in God... In Christ, and we are children of God, that we shouldn't be surprised that the world doesn't recognize us, in fact that the world hates us. Because it hated him from the beginning.

22:16 It hated him. Imagine the message that Jesus Christ brought to the earth. We talked about this in Bible study the other day, and it still, it makes, it boggles the mind. The message of Jesus Christ was, you are sinners separated from God, but I love you so much. I'm gonna give my life for you.

22:32 I'm gonna raise from the dead because I have the power to do that. I am God. I'm gonna raise from the dead. I've gone to prepare a place for you. I want you to be with me.

22:40 I want you to have intimate fellowship with me, and the world rejects it, and they hate him for it. Can you imagine hating him for that? You know, it's like if I wanted to give you 100 right? I said, you know, I really want you to have this, and you go, ugh, you disgust me. And say, take that $100 and go, yeah, alright.

22:59 Right? Imagine the gift that Jesus Christ offers, and the world hates him for it. And then because we, knowing Christ as savior, we already are in the family of God, but the the... And I'm finding this in my own life, and as I've gone through this process, I've been thinking of the ways that I've been transformed by the renewing of my mind, chapter 12 of Romans, right? Transformed by the renewing of my mind because I am in the family of God, because I am a child of God.

23:28 It is not of my own power or my own good worth, because it's not. There's not much there. There's nothing there. But God has chosen to transform me anyways despite my best efforts to prevent it. Because I believe it.

23:43 I'm a challenge. Not for God. He could do anything. But you understand what I'm saying. I don't give in easily.

23:49 I wanna hold on to grasp on to those things of the world. But I know that he's transforming me. And so if I'm being transformed to be more like him, then guess what? I'm not gonna be more comfortable in the world, I'm gonna be less comfortable in the world. Right?

24:05 If I'm being transformed to be more like him, I'm not gonna be more pleasing to other people. I'm probably gonna be less pleasing. It doesn't mean that my love shouldn't be demonstrated to them in a beautiful way that represents what Christ is. Absolutely it should. And they're gonna hate me anyways.

24:21 I can give, I can love, I can share, I can give my life. It doesn't matter. They're gonna hate us because they hate Christ, and they've rejected what he had to offer. How blessed are we? Folks, I mean, we're not anything special or wonderful in this room, but if you know Christ as savior, how blessed are you?

24:42 How blessed are you? I mean, that's that's the thing I can't escape when I when I think through that, when I really dwell on that. How blessed am I that somehow I'm in this position? Anyways, so what is one of the identifying characteristics of those who abide in Christ? We know in verse 29 that they practice righteousness, right?

25:07 And then as a child of God, we know that the world doesn't know us because they don't understand him. Jesus said it himself, I have a note here because I... References are, you know, John fifteen eighteen through 19. If the world hates you, guess what? It hated me first.

25:23 Don't be surprised. Our hope, our reward doesn't come from this world, but from the promise that we'll be with him and like him. Let's continue reading in verse two. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has it has yet been revealed it has yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

26:14 It should make us want to abide in him in a much more meaningful way and to be like him in how we are going through our lives. Now, dad and I had this conversation, I don't know, was it a week and a half ago or so, when you were over? I think it was like a week and a half ago, and we were talking about what is it, you know, it's hard for us to imagine, first of all, it's hard for us to imagine the splendor of heaven, much less to imagine what we are going to be like. It's hard for us to imagine us not exactly being us. Right?

26:46 What is my consciousness going to be in heaven? Well I believe, and I think you made a good point, that we are going to be who we are, in a sense, just without the capacity to sin. Well that's not, I'm not gonna feel like me very much then, right? I mean my mind obviously isn't gonna work the way it works now because so much of my life is either sinning or trying not to sin or fighting sin, you know what I mean? Like so much of my thought process is being careful about my testimony, you know, all those things, right, that we do that occupy our minds, it's gonna be cleared to do something much better.

27:26 Right? All that garbage is gonna be cleared out of the way so we can do something better, which is to worship God in spirit and truth. Thank goodness. Right? Thank goodness that that...

27:36 All that clutter is gonna be out of the way. Can you imagine what it's like? And this is what... This... To be like Christ?

27:41 Jesus lived on this earth with sin and filth around him and was never tempted to do anything wrong, because he couldn't. I mean the temptations were there, Satan tempted him, all those things, but he was tempted without sin, we know. So he was able to do that, he was able to be around it, he was able to be in the midst of it unaffected. Unaffected in terms of sin, right? We're gonna be like that.

28:09 I don't know what that... Did Jesus have free will? Yes? Did Jesus have free will? He made choices, he chose to obey the Father, the will of the Father, right?

28:22 Scott, he did it perfectly. We're gonna be able to be like that. That's a pretty cool thing. That's a very cool thing. I'm sick of being me.

28:37 Point taken. So if you have this hope, this is what we need to do. If we have this hope, it says see number two above, right? If you have this hope, then guess what? One of the identifying characteristics of you should be the righteous living that you're doing, that you are trying to be more like him.

28:56 Ladies and gentlemen, you have no idea how many notes I've already skipped. You have no idea, but we're keep going moving because, yes, it's amazing. So I want to talk about this next section a little bit. We're going to read it, and I was going to have one of the young men do it, but we don't have as many young men as I thought we did or would. So I'm going to go ahead and read it, and we're going start at verse four.

29:20 Verse four, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. Any controversy there? Sin is lawlessness. Any controversy? Anything to be concerned about?

29:32 I don't think so. I think we could all agree on that. And you know that he was manifested, he was shown, he was demonstrated, he was born to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. Any controversy there? Well, for those of us that know the Lord, no, not at all.

29:51 Right? For those people that don't look at Jesus Christ as Lord, there's a lot of controversy there because he says, John says, without sin. I want you to consider this. How long... Think about the people that you know in your life that you spend time with.

30:04 I want you to consider how long does it take before you know that they're sinners. Think about the time that you've spent with people, I don't care who it is, how long has it taken you before you recognize that they're sinners? Oh, Connor's gonna answer. Okay, go ahead Connor. Yeah, you're young.

30:20 You've only had nine years here, right? So how long does it take you? How long? You spend a lot of time with your brothers, though. That's not really a very good, right?

30:28 That's not a very good measuring stick. But it doesn't take very long, does it? It doesn't take very long before you recognize in people that you know that they're sin, and that they're sinners. It doesn't, because that's... We can't help but manifest that at some point.

30:43 And so... And if you're married, you know better, I'm throwing it back at you, I'm just saying in general, if you're married, you know better than anyone, right? Those faults and those things that we see in each other. I want you to imagine that John, both John and Peter make the statement that Jesus was without sin, right? Paul makes it too, or no, I say it's Paul, in Hebrews he says that he was without sin.

31:06 I say it's Paul. But they make that statement that Peter and John are the ones I'm thinking about mostly, But Peter and John make the statement that Jesus was without sin. They spent three years with him day and night. You know, like they lived communally together for three years. It wasn't just, you know, hey, I'll pick you up at noon and we're gonna...

31:26 No. It was walking around together all the time, sleeping in the same places. You know, everything they did, they did it together. And they were still able to walk away and say, that guy never sinned. And not only were they able to say that, they were willing to give their lives based on that.

31:43 Can you imagine giving your life, if you know that person had even a single fault, if there was one time that that guy messed up, would you give your life saying that he was the son of God? Would you give your life for it? Absolutely not. And so one of the reassurances we have, that John and Peter, they walked with that guy for three years, and they did not find one fault in him, they couldn't find a fault with him at any point. He was perfect, he was holy, he was righteous, Right?

32:20 Right? Now we have a problem. Whoever sins has neither seen him or known him. Oh, boy. Little children, let no one deceive you.

32:32 He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil. For the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the son of man was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Well, got a problem here.

32:52 Because I still sin, does that mean I'm of the devil? We'll come back to that. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

33:18 Okay, so let's take a look because some people, this is one of those times where someone could take a verse, right, and use it for their own ends to say that every time you sin, you need to go back and ask for forgiveness and be forgiven again and go through that process. And so the process of salvation is something that's ongoing instead of a moment in time. And I can imagine that this verse has been used for that purpose, has it not? So I want to go back to verse six and let's knock that out. And I'm gonna have to just paraphrase some things for the sake of time.

33:52 But we know that, and those of us, of course, who have been around for a little while, a little longer in the tooth, we know first of all, what John's referring to is this, a pattern of sin, habitual sin, a life lived in sin, where the will is for the things of the earth, right? It's not saying that your individual sin, if you sin once, you're done, you have to go read through the process again, right? That's not what he's saying, and we know that to be true. How are some of the things? Well, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you references to look at, and most of them familiar to us.

34:34 But in Romans six, we know that Paul talks about when we were when we were dead in our sins, right, that Christ's death, with Christ's death, died with him. If we've accepted Christ, we've died with him. And that sin was canceled out. So do we live in sin anymore because of it? No, we don't live in sin.

34:57 We don't practice the life of sin. It doesn't imply perfection, we know. And as John said earlier in the chapter in verse two, he says, has been revealed, what we shall be, but we, I'm sorry, but we shall know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him. We're not gonna be perfected until when? Right.

35:24 Until we're in heaven. So John recognizes. So even with John's own statement, it doesn't fit. But when Paul talks about, when Paul talks about our being dead to sin, why would we live anymore in it? He's saying why would you live in sin?

35:39 So there's a difference between we sin because we're human and we are not perfected yet. Paul talks about that in Philippians three, right? I'm not perfected yet. I haven't attained it yet. But I press on for that goal, to be more like Christ, to be what Christ wants me to be, to be like him.

35:56 I want to be that. So we know that this is not something that happens immediately. Look at verse 12 of Romans. I'll move it up so you can see it. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body.

36:12 It doesn't say do not let sin exist in your body, it says do not let it rain. This isn't, don't let this be your goal in life. Don't look towards those things, the fleshly lusts of the world, as what you are about. So are you defined by that? Do you resemble that in the way that you live your life?

36:35 That is what John is talking about. When he's talking about do not sin, he's saying do not live a life that is committed and dedicated for the purposes of fulfilling the lust of the flesh. Don't be that guy. You don't wanna be him. Because if you are, and I say this because I don't think this is so much about whether or not we can judge one another in these things, because it's not supposed to be about that, right?

37:18 It's not a judgment, it's a discernment, okay? I think these things are written for us to look and examine ourselves and say, what are we about? What am I about? Who do I resemble? When I look in the mirror, do I resemble Christ, do I resemble the world by the way that I conduct myself?

37:37 And that's where I really think that John is going with this, and we have to really keep that in mind. Now, I was also going to go to in John, John chapter three, where Jesus talks about, get my overheads mixed up. Most people don't have that problem anymore, right? John chapter three, but he talks about everyone who practices evil hates the light and does not come to the light, right? Lest his deeds should be exposed.

38:06 People who practice evil, this is what they're about. And I just want to make sure that clarification is there so that we don't have this impression that somehow based on that verse that I have to be, you know, every time I sin, I have to somehow recommit myself to God. Now should we confess our sins, and yes, he's faithful and just to forgive us. Those are things, we certainly go to him and to, but we don't do that for salvation. I'm already saved.

38:32 I sin, I will sin today. I guarantee it, on the drive home, someone will cut me off. You know what mean? Like, I will sin today, but I'm but God has already forgiven me for those. I'm in heaven, I'm done.

38:45 I'm done on that regard. But but if... But I wanna be more like him. You know what I mean? I wanna be more like him, and I can't do that if I accept sin as part of who I am.

38:57 Don't accept it. Fight the good fight, right, as they say. Fight the good fight. And there is some fight to that, isn't there? And then the other thing I was going to bring up was Romans seven, because this is my reassurance.

39:09 I love Paul. I love Paul because Paul tells it like it is, like nobody else. And he says, hey, and I'm paraphrasing once again, he goes, those things I wanna do, in chapter seven, for those things I wanna do, I don't do, and the things I don't wanna do, that's what I do. I have this battle going on between the old nature and new. I am forgiven, am reborn, I am rejuvenated, I'm reformed, all those things are absolutely, positively true, but I still fight with my old nature.

39:38 Because that had a pretty good grip on me, right? I mean, if I grew up in a closet, and then it came to old Christ, and I'd never really done much and hadn't, didn't create bad habits and all that, it wouldn't be so hard to fight the old nature maybe. But guess what? We don't do that. And so we do have to fight the old nature.

39:53 We do have to fight it. Okay. Anyways, if you want to refer to those, please do. Please do. And I'm still navigating this much better than a PowerPoint, just for the record, okay?

40:14 Alright, so it's who do I resemble? Do I resemble Jesus Christ or do I resemble Satan? Right? Am I righteous without, Jesus who's righteous and without sin, am I resembling him? Does Conner look exactly like me?

40:26 No, thank goodness for him, no, he doesn't look exactly like me. But he looks, he has similar features. And as he grows, might he develop features that make him look even more like I do? The nose, the Bingham nose didn't come into play. I was in my 20s, right?

40:41 Probably close to 20 when the Bingham nose kind of came into effect. I had a much smaller nose before that. But I grew into it, right? So here's what we know, that children of God, and boy I can't believe how much I prayed, I thought I was gonna have no trouble with time today. Children of God practice righteousness, right?

41:01 They practice it. It is part of their lifestyle. It is part of what they want to do in order to please God and to grow in their relationship with him. They purpose to obey his will. Children of Satan, they deny Jesus as Lord, first of all, right?

41:15 You know you're of the family of Satan, that's pointed out in first John, that if you say that Jesus is not the Christ, guess what? You're already done. You are of Satan. But if purpose to practice evil, if you purpose to ignore God's will and to ignore his commandments and ignore his direction for you, then guess what? You're probably not of Christ, are you?

41:39 You're not of Christ. So I'm gonna do it. Can't believe how much I'm cutting out, but I'm gonna do it. These are the things I went through throughout the book of First John, and as I was reading about this, and this idea of what it meant to live righteously, to forsake sin, and to try to drive sin out of our lives, what does it really mean to abide in Him, and how can we have assurance and the comfort in knowing that we are abiding in Him? Because that's part of what John, yes, it's a test, we should test ourselves, we should look at ourselves, examine ourselves, but there's also a lot of assurance in this too.

42:39 At least it wasn't grape juice this time. What was the world's condemnation? Yes. They loved darkness rather than light. They loved darkness rather than light and that God's son came into the world and was rejected by men, right?

42:55 That was the condemnation of the world. Well, we got that one checked off. If you believe in Christ that he's Lord, you got that one checked, you're abiding in him. We have the Holy Spirit working in us. Well you know that, sometimes that happens, it's subtle.

43:09 One of the things that I was reading and I was gonna get into it was the idea that over time, over time I found that I am less capable of hate. It's a beautiful reassurance. I'm not saying this to me up, it has nothing to do with me being good. This is totally the work of the Holy Spirit, but that's one thing the Holy Spirit, he's worked on many things, my pride, all these other things he's been working on. But one of the things he's worked on, and somehow miraculously, I feel like almost, I don't know if someone killed one of my kids, would I be able to hate them?

43:36 Maybe I would. I don't, I certainly, I'm not sure of that. But I found that people have wronged me and like at work, sometimes you don't hate anybody like you do at work, right? But there are people at work that have wronged me, and I cannot bring myself to really hate them the way, sometimes I don't even want to, I'm like, oh, that guy, but I just, I don't want anything bad to happen to him. That's part of that transformation, that the Holy Spirit works on us, works on our hearts, softens us towards those things, helps us to love one another better, because we're not good at that naturally, are we?

44:10 Not at all. How else do we know? That we keep his commandments. These are all verses that if you look at it, if you go back to them, John referenced these things. If you abide in him, then this.

44:22 If you abide in him, if you abide in Christ, then this. Then we'll keep his commandments, right? If we're abiding in him, we will practice righteousness. We will do the right thing. Now what's the difference between keeping his commandments and practicing righteousness?

44:37 I look at it this way. If I if I want to lock myself into a closet, right, I can obey his commandments. I can avoid doing those things that are wrong if I lock myself in a closet. But I'm not practicing righteousness, am I? He wants us to practice righteousness.

44:54 He wants us to demonstrate his love and his righteousness to a world that needs to hear it and see it, right? So practice righteousness, do what is right, intent to do what is right, and then avoid habitual sin, right, to try to drive habitual sin through the power of the Holy Spirit, because we can't do it in and of ourselves, but when we yield to Him, and that's the trick, isn't it? Getting my will out of the way and yielding to His will. That's my, I'm gonna tell you that's, I have more trouble with that than anything. I can't get out of my own way sometimes.

45:25 It's not because He ain't powerful enough, it's because I'm so weak and pathetic that I don't yield the way that I could and let Him work in me the way that He could, right? But to avoid a virtual sin, and then if we're abiding in him, we stay with the truth, the message doesn't change, what we know about God doesn't change, he is immutable, right? He is not changing. We shouldn't change our knowledge of him. What we know of him, what we know of the gospel, what we know of salvation, it shouldn't change.

45:56 It doesn't matter what they say on TV, it doesn't matter what the news media says about Christians, it doesn't matter what, you know, if it's not here, folks, that's why we have this, this is why we rely on it, it is our only base of that and the Holy Spirit, that's all we have to know the truth of God. And the Holy Spirit always tells us the truth, right? It takes us right back to number one, it confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. And then number five, we love indeed and truth. This is how we demonstrate to each other, this is how we know with each other, we demonstrate indeed and truth our love for one another.

46:32 That should be, you know, we talk about the fruit of the spirit, right? What's the fruit of evil? What is the yield of evil? It's all that negative stuff that Paul talks about in Galatians five, right? All that terrible stuff that we see.

46:45 That's the yield of evil. If you're living for the world, if you're living for sin, that's what you get, adultery and murder and lying and all that stuff, right? What is the fruit of the spirit? What is the stuff that comes from us and flows from us hopefully, if we're living for Christ? Say it.

47:05 Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, right? Those are the things that should be just flowing from us. It was a cubby song. Yes, that's the fruit. Okay, folks I had so much more to say, but other people are gonna have an opportunity to say it because that's only the first half of chapter three, so I'm sure that I'll get to that.

47:53 Give us the strength, the courage, the fortitude to do it. Help us to be in your word, to be convicted, to be in your word, to spend time in prayer with you so we can fight the wiles of the devil, we can keep that out of our lives and just live a life that represents you well. We want to resemble you. We want to live lives that when people see us, they say, Wow, there's something different about that guy. There's something different about that young lady.

48:23 She must have something special. And Lord, we do. We have you. We thank you and praise you in your name. Amen.