1 John 5 — 1 John 5

0:02 Good morning. So barring any problems, we're going to try and get through first 13 verses of John chapter... First John chapter five. So I hope you'll bear with me. I feel like I have a lot to cover here today, but it's all important, so I'm going to try not to hurry too much.

0:21 You guys can help me out that if I start getting to rushing too much, you can kind of cock your head and squinch your eyes and that'll help me understand where I'm at and if we're still here at 12:30 you can lean back and snore a little bit and that'll help me know that I better wrap it up pretty quick so let's pray. Father, we are so thankful that you've given us this opportunity. Lord, we're thankful for your word. We pray that we might glean something from it today. Lord, we pray that that you might work through my voice and not me the other way.

0:52 Lord, we just are grateful and and can't thank you enough for this these truths that we see in your word. In your son's name we pray. Amen. So, first John chapter five, that that's a continuation, right? That we've been through John and now we're working on first John and and in much...

1:12 In in many ways, as we're we're working through this, I'm finding just how they work well together, right? How how John and then first John sorta have have correlations and and and work in a way that help each other. So when I'm thinking about first John and John, I'm thinking about, you know, a context. Let's let's consider the context in which they were written. Okay?

1:35 So if you will, let's consider the first one hundred years, not the first one hundred days, which we can't get away from in the news these days, but but the first one hundred years, right? The first one hundred years might look something like this, right? And and I hope you can read all these things. I'd be happy to give you a copy later if you needed one, but you know, we we sort of have some markers along the way and this is where all that turned out pretty good. I thought it was gonna be too light.

2:02 So at any rate, you know, we we look at that first section, say the first thirty years, and this is not intended to be a definitive defense of these exact dates, but but bear with me so you can hopefully understand the the thought process. But here we have, you know, the first thirty years, if you will, Christ's childhood and and and manhood. We know he was a carpenter. Others... There's a few years in there, say three years, where he's got his earthly ministry and and then there goes into some period of time from the resurrection till people start writing things down that we have recorded here for us today, okay?

2:40 There's a big section of writing, and then I'll talk a little bit more about that. Near the end of that, Peter, Paul die, the temple is is demolished, the destruction of the temple. And then this... This is not a doctrinal term, just mine, this quiet phase, right? Where nothing's really written until John starts writing out here in the last decade of his life, if you will.

3:04 Okay? And so, if we broke that that bulk of the New Testament writings, what I'm calling out or calling, down, it looks something like this. Again, not super definitive. For example, it's widely considered that James was the first book written. I didn't realize that until I started putting it on a timeline.

3:23 Right? And it was written sometime between '45 and '50. Now I stuck it in there '47, '46, somewhere in there, just so you understand about where it falls in the timeline. You can look at these blue items and see that these are Paul's writing, Peter's in red, the others are in yellow. But but, again, you sort of see this this timeline, if you will.

3:47 And and the the way it lays out there and shows you when things were written. You know, Paul starts here and and he sort of cruises along, gets real busy here towards the end of his life. Peter, again, near the end of his life starts writing things down, and then finally, way out here somewhere between 90 and a 100, right, the last ten years if you will of Paul... I'm sorry, of John's life, he is led and decides to start writing things down, and this is where we believe he wrote John, the three epistles of John, and finally Revelation. Okay?

5:04 In addition, they're wrestling with a few things, you know, Paul and Peter are having some some discussions about, no, you're not doing that right, and and things are are developing in the early church. And then, you know, after, you know, maybe twelve, fifteen years, somewhere in that category, they start writing these letters that are preserved for us today. And and and and and they keep doing that. It's almost as if they're sort of thinking, boy, maybe it's not in the time frame we thought it was, Maybe it's gonna be longer. Maybe...

5:34 We we don't know, but you know what? I wanna encourage this group over here, or the the the the writers of the gospels are saying, you know, we need to write this down. Right? It needs to be written down because it's gotta be used beyond what we've been using it for. Enter John.

5:52 John's here through this whole time, and and I like to think of John as a young man, the youngest, if you will, of the apostles when when he was with Jesus. Now, if you have any writing that proves otherwise or or sort of lays that out, I'd be happy to look at it and read it but but when you think of John, you you know, he's got this affection for the lord. He he he's he's shown his laying his head on his shoulder and and and he appears to be a little bit younger than the rest of them. So maybe because of that, maybe just because the Lord wanted it this way, probably more the the second than the first. John lasts a lot longer, maybe till about a 100 AD.

6:32 He's here. And and right... All these writings have been written down. Right? All these things are being circulated.

6:39 The letters and the the gospels and that are being circulated, and and John is aware of them. I'm sure. Okay? And John goes through this time, maybe, you know, how long is that? That's like twenty, twenty five years where John's like the the last man standing.

6:54 Right? He's the last one of the apostles, if you will, and and and he goes through this time of consideration, and thought, and wondering, and answering question after question after question, till the point he comes and he says, you know what, I need to write some of this down. And the Lord... Lord's part of that. Right?

7:20 He inspired them and we believe that, but that's the context in which we're reading today. And I think it's important because we're gonna end in this spot if we get there. So let's get started and jump right into the portion here. So on my page, I can't read it, so I'm just gonna read... I'll read like this.

7:40 Can you... You can hear me? I just hope you can hear me when I turn around, but first one of chapter five says, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who is begotten of him. Now, I I I have a trouble with John's writing. It's not that he did anything wrong, it's just that my mind works a little bit different, sort of along Paul's lines, you know, the more logical progression and sometimes belaborous writing that Paul writes.

8:11 So so when I look at John and I try to understand John's writing, it... To me, I gotta try and put it into some sort of pictures, right? I gotta get it in a way that I can understand it, and I hope you'll bear with me as I reveal that to you today, right? I mean, it's it's scary in some ways because I'm dependent on this to make my point, I think, today. At the same time, you're gonna get a view into my mind, and that's scary for me even to look at.

8:35 So hang in there. So let let me show you this picture, and we'll just concentrate on the second half. Can you see that okay? Should I turn this light off maybe? So there's there's a picture of three guys, right?

9:13 Okay? He and I probably don't hang much together, we probably... We definitely don't have the same type of belief systems, we we don't have, you know, what I have with some of you even, right? But I'll tell you what, say something about these two guys and we're gonna go to the floor, right? That's just the way it is.

9:34 It's just the way it is. And and it's it's to say things like, you know what, I know things about him that you will never know. And some of it's because I experienced it along with him. Much of it is because we're from that guy. Okay?

9:53 That man treats us differently than he would anybody else. Why? Because he's my father. Okay? He treated me differently.

10:03 He treats my brother much the same way. And we know things only because he's our father. Okay? So remember the text, I'm begotten of Doug, and so is Darren. Alright?

10:18 And because of that, I have this affinity for him and this love for him only because of that. If for no better reason he knows me better because of the guy who's our father. The same could be said for my dad with his dad. Okay? That was a picture at our wedding but...

10:38 So he has three or two sisters, they could say the same thing and you need to pray for these folks, right? So these ones are the ones that are begotten of me, right? Now I'm not belittling or or or in any way taking out the the labor and effort that would... My wife put into this this match as well. But for the sake of our discussion, this is the the the idea of begotten is is really one of the father's transition, right, to his children.

11:09 And so these are my four children, one of my favorite pictures, right? And I really enjoy it. Looking at this gives me a lot of memories. It was probably about ten years ago, maybe somewhere around that point, But a lot has changed since then. Now they know things about me only because they were born of me that you won't know, that you can't know.

11:31 And they share things amongst them selves, again, because they're begotten of me. But here's the best part, I have the high honor of having somebody else call me dad. Okay? That's... She's sitting right there.

11:49 I warned her a little bit ahead of time that she was gonna have to suffer a little bit today. But this young lady is the wife of my son. You all know that, right? Maybe if you don't, you do now. And we are so thankful that she has joined our family.

12:06 But here's the best part about that. What's really special is that she joined our family not because of some lucky circumstance. She made a choice. She made a choice to join our family. Now I wasn't the the winning draw there, right?

12:24 She didn't come because of me. She came because of him, right? And and that was good enough. And she came in spite of me. Right?

12:36 But... But still, in many ways, we can say that she believes. Right? She made a choice. Just as we have the opportunity to make a choice and become part of that family and to be a child of God, right?

12:55 We can make that choice the same way. And so that we can say that not taking anything away from... Jordan, I don't see your parents here, but not taking anything away from them because they they will never... They'll always be your mom and dad. But I'm so thankful that I'm your dad by choice.

13:14 Okay? We all make that choice too, when we choose to be a child of God. So you can ask yourself, just as the the the verse here tells us, are you born of God? Do you have that spiritual life within you, the choice you made, and the faith you put in the God of the universe? Hopefully, we all could say yes.

13:40 And if you haven't said yes, I'd I'd encourage you to ask that question, why? But now, it's true that even though we are spiritual children of God, We have that special relationship, just as I have with my brother here, and and my children have between themselves. Because of who they're begotten of, we're begotten of God. And, therefore, the different children of God that we have, we share something in common. We understand that the Father treats us a little bit differently, doesn't He?

14:16 The Father, know, chooses to treat us specially. Just as I I I treat my daughter-in-law in a special way. Okay? Different than I do even my own children, not better, not worse, just different. If for no better reason, then again, she made a choice to join our family.

14:35 Okay? And that's why I affectionately refer to her as Mrs. Boss, because she made that choice to become there, and that's a very special thing. So, I hope that helps illustrate the point to you, but let's, for the sake of time, move on to the next couple verses. Verse two says, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments.

15:19 This is where we left off, right? Are you born of God? Yes, we're children of God, therefore, right? So, if we're a child of God, the question becomes, do we love the other child of God? Right?

15:35 Because, if you remember back just a few verses ago, it says, if you say you love the Lord, but you say you hate your brother, a fellow believer, another child of God, you're a liar. That's strong language, right? Well, so so you're moving along here, one might ask, well, how... I don't want to be a liar, how do I know? How can I know that I love a child of God, another child of God?

16:06 Well, he says, if you follow my commandments, and here they are, the 10 commandments, right? We've all seen these, you can go to Exodus chapter 20 and and probably summarize it a little bit better than I did, but there they are, they're 10 commandments. And if you break them down, you see that the first four, highlighted in blue here, really apply to our relationship towards God. Right? And the last six, more than the first four, apply to our relationship amongst us, amongst those children of God, amongst other people, our relationship to other men and women.

16:43 But Jesus takes it one step further, right? He comes in with Matthew chapter 22 and verse 34 and says, but when the Pharisees heard... This this is what these verses say, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together and one of them, a lawyer asked him a question, testing him and saying, teacher, which is the greatest command or the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, quote, you shall love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.

17:13 And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So, again, we can summarize it the same way, you shall love the Lord your God. Right, blue. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

17:31 So it says that this is what they hang on, this is what they're dependent on. I sort of built it like a foundational thing, this... If you boil it all down, this is what it's all based upon. This is what I want you to remember. These are the two most important points, in a sense, that he says.

17:48 So now we have this opportunity, right, to love. Remember chapter four when Ray was talking? We talked about love. Love that we can't express towards God, right, because of the fact that he loved us first. He's got that on us.

18:08 We can never get over it. It's always going to be that way. He loved us first. But we can express love towards our brother and sister first, when they don't deserve it. We can express that love towards them when they didn't earn it.

18:25 We can express that love to them when they most need it, before they've done anything different. So when I read those things or when I say that, it really scares me because there's this verse in there that says... In in Ephesians that says, husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. He loved us before we deserved it. He loved us when we needed it.

18:59 And that's the way, among other ways, we should be loving our wives. And how how... To what level should we do this love? Right? I mean, how how important is it?

19:13 How much should we really get into it? Well, here's how. That is not burdensome. Now these are synonyms, same kind of word, of burdensome. Onerous, heavy, taxing, troublesome, hard.

19:27 So so it's not like that. It's not hard. He says, you should not do that. Right? You should love as though there was no burden.

19:39 It's not burdensome. It's easy. One in which we are joyfully doing it. One in which we we we can't wait, in a sense, to do it. Moving on.

20:11 Yes. We made this decision that we believe there's a God. We we think, you know, he's got a plan for our life. And and there's this war in the world on the other side. So are you born of God or are you of the world?

20:25 Right? Now when when you say I'm born of God, you're basically saying that there is a God. Right? And John would say it this way. He would say that I believe that Jesus is the Christ, and I believe that he is the son of God.

20:39 That's one form of belief. One one constant that we can agree with or that that we should agree with according to the Bible. And and if we believe that, it leads towards, we'll hear later, an eternal life. One that is is with the Lord, one that he has chosen for us, right? This other side says there is no God, or maybe better, I am a God.

21:10 I am my own God. Right? And I reject Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. Right? Now, you do that one of two ways.

21:17 You openly say, I reject, or you openly don't say anything and don't accept. That's the same as rejecting. Okay? We'll talk about that a little bit more as we go forward. So that's the choice.

21:30 And in this choice, one side or the other, leads to a different direction, right? If you make this choice, that's in the separation from God, right? A separation from what he would have for us. And how do we how do we make a change in this? How can you get from this side, if you will, over to that side?

21:49 It says you have to believe and and and John is saying we have to have faith. We don't see... Chapter four again, we don't see God, We see evidence of him. We we hear about him... We we we saw him in the Lord Jesus Christ when he was on earth and people wrote about him, but we have to have faith.

22:08 We have to believe in a faithful way. And when we do that, what happens? Well, this result that would have happened, right, if we take this choice and we have this unfortunate result, is overcome. And we have the result that leads us to an eternal life with our Lord, right? That is faith.

22:34 Overcoming or defeating the results of this other choice. Okay, next verses. Verse six, this is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. Not only by water, but water and blood... But by water and blood.

22:53 And it is the spirit who bears witness because the spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the father, the word, and the holy spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth, the spirit, the water, the blood, and these three agree as one. Now, I'm gonna pause here for just a moment. If you look at your Bible, most of them will have a footnote in here about these words here, these phrase here, that I've gotten crossed off.

23:21 Okay? I read from the New King James Version, which, for many reasons, but one of them is because it kind of footnotes some of these things and says there's some differences here, somebody has some changes. And this one is this, okay? It's widely believed by many of the scholars that that this phrase was not included in the original text because of the fact that the King James people had texts available to them, and since then they found texts that were earlier or maybe were copied earlier than the ones they were using. And so they're saying, you know what, this isn't in the later text, or isn't in the earlier text, it's only in the later one, and so therefore maybe it shouldn't be there.

24:05 That's the point they're trying to make. And you know, for our purposes, I don't think it's important, okay? We can we can still make the point that we're trying to make with these verses, okay? So so let's just move on from there, happy to talk about that later if you like. But have you ever felt like this guy?

24:25 Sorry, went too fast. You ever felt like that guy? What's life all about? You ever feel like you're standing over in the corner of the page all by yourself with a little question mark hanging over your head and says, what's this all about? What's life all about?

24:40 And you know what? All of us come to the same conclusion first, that you know what? It's all about me. This life is all about me. And there's a spirit in the world that Paul illuminates quite a bit in his writings in chapter four that says, you know what, this is an evil spirit, one that tells you lies.

24:58 Okay? He says, yes, you're right, it's all about you. And and the more you can think that, the better off we're all gonna be. On the other hand, he says there's this other spirit that's influenced in our lives too. And he's constantly sending a message to you to say, hey, hey, hey, there's a truth out here.

25:19 The truth is the truth is that there is a God. Now if there is a God, that's the truth. Right? And this spirit is saying that there is. I believe there is, okay?

25:30 And that's the Holy Spirit, right? He's the one of truth. I don't know, this is this is where I get into trouble when I'm painting pictures. This night might not be exactly the picture that you have in mind, okay? When I say a spirit, it looks kind of blue in a cloud but but the word says that he he came down like a dove, right?

25:50 So, I put the dove in there too. Maybe that helps the matter a little bit But but it gets even worse when I say, you know what, God is not just the Holy Spirit, He's a three in one God. There's a Trinity out there and this is probably not like any of your thoughts, but there's three, the Father, the Holy Spirit, the Son... Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, right? And this is the way I've chosen to depict it so that we can talk about it today.

26:15 It's in no way doctrinal, it's not a way that it has to be done, but this is the way I'm trying to help make the point. Now the word says... The Bible says that that son came down from heaven. He walked on the earth. Okay?

26:31 This is him right here, an actual replication. But he came and you see him walking, right? He came down as a man, he inhabited a human body and he walked on this earth. As a matter of fact, he discipled many people. Three of them are these guys here, Paul, Peter, and John, the one who's writing this letter to us today.

26:55 There's there's many others, others that wrote and that sort of thing. So this is the portion that this verse where I really had to try and picture going to my mind or I couldn't help... I couldn't understand it. And so, you know, he said that... Can you see the blue there?

27:15 John says that he came by water. Okay? So he came by water and by blood. There's got to be something different between... What is the point he's trying to make here?

27:24 Now many commentators would say that he came by water means that that was the beginning of his ministry, right? His baptism. And I can go along with that. I I understand that. But he also came by water in in the birth from a woman.

27:36 Right? That includes or or includes quite a bit of water that the baby is, you know, sorta, do I want to say floating? Maybe I don't want to go there. The baby is is surviving in, and it's a big mess too, by the way. But, anyway, the baby is surviving in that once that baby leaves that water, he's able to take...

28:00 She's able to take a breath for the first time. And what a miracle that is. But he came by water. Suffice it to say, I believe this is his walk on earth. Okay?

28:10 Jesus as a man. Okay? That's what I think John's trying to point out, by water. He came by water. He was a real man.

28:20 He walked on this earth. He was baptized by John. Okay? He says he also came by blood. Now, what does that mean?

28:27 He came by blood. Well, blood means, you know, there's blood shed. Right? He... His blood was shed.

28:33 We know that on the cross. He suffered, he died, and he bled to the point where he died. We can't look over that. So this brought on a new part of the ministry, if you will. He was a man, and we could say up to that point, a great man.

28:55 He died. So now if we stop here, we have what? We have a great man dead. Well, there's a lot of those out there, right? I mean, you pick your favorite one.

29:05 The great man that you know, Churchill, Reagan, I don't know. You pick your poison, I don't know who's a great man in your eye. But they're all dead at some point or headed that way, right? Now this one didn't. This one rose again and eventually ascended back to heaven.

29:27 Okay? So now we have a great man dead, not here. How does a great man that's not here lead? He was... Let me back up.

29:41 Great man dead rose again and left. That's a better way of putting it. Great man dead is alive, but still not here. How does he teach? How does he lead?

29:53 How does he show us the way? Bible tells us that he sent the Holy Spirit. Okay? He sent a helper to us so that we had the opportunity, just like these three guys did, right, to hear and to understand, to know things that they hadn't known before. Sure, the Lord was here.

30:15 He taught them many things. We know clearly they didn't understand all of them. Okay? He came back and he taught some more things. But clearly, they still needed more.

30:25 Okay? And you can see this develop through the book of Acts, as they learn even more through the influence of the Holy Spirit. That's what I think he's trying to say here. I want to use the picture. By water, He was really a man.

30:42 By blood, He really did die. But He rose again, He ascended back to heaven, and He sent the Spirit to continue to witness of Him on His behalf. All three of those are important. All three of those are used to help us make sense out of what we know. How can we say our leader...

31:09 We talked about it at the the first meeting. Excuse me for a second. He's dead. He died. Where were these folks when they knew that?

31:23 He rose again. Imagine the confusion, but we have to make sense of all these. Okay? We can't say that he was just a great man and stop there. Many religions in the world would say Jesus is a great man, was a great man.

31:41 We can't say that he just died in a sacrificial death. We have to say that it was approved and that he rose again. The Lord of the universe, the Father agreed with what happened. But then we also know that the Holy Spirit came as a helper and lives to teach us, just as He lived to teach these guys here. Okay?

32:06 Now, these guys talked to... Or took that direction from the Holy Spirit, right? Learned from it, understood more, and recorded these things as we started off with, right? They recorded much of the New Testament, these three guys, among others, right? And that lives with us today, okay?

32:27 We believe these words are special, okay? They're special because they were written by guys that were here when the Lord was here, was directly influenced by him, right, or know the people that were directly influenced by him here on earth, right, and have had the direction of the Holy Spirit. So this collection, as it was put together many years after this, but but many years ago, was done by devout men, holy men of God, who looked at these these writings and said, these are special. We know these came from these guys. These are special.

33:04 Not to say that other writings weren't special, these are special and were inspired by god. That's led people like me and others to understand through the scriptures, through the leading of the holy spirit because if if you're here today and you haven't taken that step, he's got you here for a reason. He's tapping on your shoulder. He's... Hey, he's saying, hey, he did that to me for much of my life before I finally committed my life and said, lord, I believe.

33:34 I believe that Jesus is the Christ. I believe Jesus is the Son of God. The Scriptures, the leading of the Holy Spirit, involvement of others who are being led by the Holy Spirit brought me to that conclusion, okay? So here's the problem that chapter four illustrates, right? That evil spirit still wants part of my mind, still wants to lead me in a direction that's wrong.

33:59 I have to discern between those, and a lot of that revolves around the person of Jesus Christ, and that's the point John is making to us. We need to handle that carefully. We talked about how do you love these other ones? Well, it's because they have a little bit of the Holy Spirit in each one of them, that's why we love them. Isn't it a great truth that we can go directly to the Father, and we have an advocate there that says that we can pray to him, or pray to the Lord, and we're so thankful for it.

34:55 Some people might decide to give us a little advice, right? We've to be careful about that advice because it might be coming from a heart that's not in the right place, Okay? We know that people that aren't influenced by the Holy Spirit are influencing us. People are influenced by evil spirits, right? But that testimony is one testimony.

35:20 Let's compare it to another testimony is John's point. That other testimony is this, that it's the witness of God. If for no better reason, we know that audibly twice in the scriptures it's recorded. This is my son in whom I'm well pleased. This is my son.

35:38 Hear him. Okay? We also can know that the resurrection speaks to the the witness of God, if you will. I accept what he's done. There was prophecy in the Old Testament, right?

35:52 We we can we can look through that. History of Israel as recorded in the Bible leads us to believe that there is a god, that he cares for us, that he wants to he has a a plan for our lives, etcetera. The holy spirit nature, the the testimony of god is much greater and is said, this is my son. I'm in him. I'm well pleased.

36:15 This is my son. Hear him. Verse 11, and this is the testimony. Now, I I accused John of being obscure and confused. This is not.

36:27 This is right down the pipe. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He who has the son has life, he who does not have the son of God does not have life. Now I'm sorry for the picture here, couldn't get better, but it's like this gift, right? Eternal life.

36:46 God has given it. It's ours. He's done all the work that's necessary, but we have to accept it, and that acceptance comes through his son. Accepting Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the son of god.

37:03 Believe it in faith because the contrary is not true. He who does not have the son does not have life. Can it be more clear than that? Have the son, accept the son, accept the work of the son, eternal life. Don't have the son, don't accept the son, reject him, don't have eternal life.

38:00 We can't we can't divorce him from that. Having this experience of having been asked, you can you can imagine many questions, people coming to John. You know, you're the next one? No, it's not me. It's about him.

38:11 Right? What do I... What... He's saying, what do I want to tell them? What do they need to know?

38:18 Here we are ninety years, however long it is, here I am, an old man, 75, 80, 90 years old. What do I want to tell these people? Well, we can understand why he did it. Okay? Not just from this verse, but remember back in John, we had this verse too.

38:40 Right? He told us why he did it. So we can get an idea of what he was trying to accomplish. When he said in in chapter 20 verse 31 of John, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. So let's just summarize it.

38:59 There's John chapter 20 verse 31. In my way of summarizing it, it's written to seekers, right? People that are looking, got that question mark over their head standing in the corner of the page, not wondering or not knowing. Non believers, so that they might believe. Believe what?

39:15 That Jesus is the Christ, the son of god. That you may have, by doing that, that you may have eternal life. So so let's summarize first John five thirteen. Right? It's written to believers, those that do believe, right, that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.

39:40 So that you know... Don't skip over that first. So that you may know without a shadow of doubt that you have eternal life. You were seeking it, now you can know that you have eternal life. And by knowing that, you can have faith, you can trust, you can believe, you can have confidence to continue to believe.

40:08 Not that they didn't... They stopped believing, but that they... I think it's that we can continue to believe. We can take confidence in it. We can have strength.

40:17 We can go forward. So let's summarize it all together. Right? Seek and you can find. You find it, we believe.

40:30 You believe it, you have eternal life. We're seeking answers to the questions of life. We can find it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Son of God.

40:45 That's what John wants us to to believe. And we know that by believing that, we can have eternal life. And once you've done that, we can know, we can have confidence, we can say without a shadow of doubt to go forward from today, to continue on, that we believe, we can believe, we do believe, we will believe, he's given us reason to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Let's pray. Father, we are so so grateful that we can claim these truths.

41:25 We're thankful that John was led by you and considered these things carefully as he wrote them down and and can give us so much comfort and and hope and strength because of them. So as we go forward from here, Lord, we pray that we all might have this confidence, that we all might believe, and that we can walk every day in that truth. We pray these things in your son's name.