Abide In Him — 1 John 1-4

0:00 Good morning. Good morning. Let's open with a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for this time that we have to gather together this morning, in your name and worship you. And we thank you so much for the time we had to remember the death of your son in Lord's Supper this morning and how precious that was to us.

0:19 Pray that you would help the words of my mouth to be from you, Lord. Pray that they would be applicable to lives of those here and that they would be edified by it and that they would come from you, Lord. Pray this in your name. Amen. For those who were here at the Lord's Supper and as it often happens, was a great introduction and honestly, most of my message that I had this morning, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and being with Him and what it looks like for Him as our Savior when He comes back.

0:48 And then this idea of resting in Him that Wayne brought up as well. Or Mr. Doinger brought up as well. But I'm gonna also say that that's not the only thing we're taking from. I mean, there's a quote out there that's attributed to Pablo Picasso.

1:02 It says, good artists create, great artists steal. That is gonna happen a lot today as I will be stealing thoughts from different people in the past, different ideas that I've heard. The first of which is one that was brought to my attention by elder Andy. Over the last month or so there has been kind of a theme talking about the pictures being painted of Christ and our relationship with him. We saw in John's message about remembering him in the sermon in Luke about the Lord's Supper.

1:34 We saw in David Hollingsworth's message this idea of beholding him that we see in John chapter one. We saw in the messages from John Clifford talking about loving him, specifically his message on John chapter 21 with Peter. And then we also saw last week, Andy Morris, this idea of being restored by him that we saw with Peter's denial of the Lord and his eventual restoration. I don't know if you've picked up by it... On it by now, but I will not be in Luke today.

2:03 The passage I will be covering today is in first John chapter two, specifically starting in verse 28, but we will also read verses three, one through two. And it says, and now little children, abide in him that when he appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of him. Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on the world... Or bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.

2:38 Therefore, the world does not know us because it does not know him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not 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. And the concept we're looking at this morning is this idea of abiding with him or having a relationship with him. Dealer's Choice for those who are titling the message, relationship with him or abide in him.

3:04 But this first, this first phrase, and we're mostly going to be looking at verse 28 of chapter two today. The verse that says, And now little children abide in him that when he appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. And this first phrase that shows up are the little children. And if you remember back to Jeremy's message, he talked about the little children earlier on in one John chapter two. And it's spiritually, it references all of us as believers.

3:28 And we're all at different maturity levels, but it's a term of affection. In this case, it would be specifically from the Apostle John to the disciples that he had originally witnessed to, declared to, and now he's encouraging me. He says, And now little children, pay attention to what I'm about to say. This is important and I want you to hear it. Jesus also, very dear reference to the little children.

3:49 We see this in the Gospels of, let the little children come to me. Do not hinder them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such of these. The Apostle John was writing this as an encouragement to those who are young in the faith, who are being distracted by false teachings, and showing them the correct teachings and the true spirit of love that is in Christ. And then the next concept is this idea of abiding. What does it mean to abide in him?

4:33 That intimacy with him, that relationship with him. When you're stopping, you're resting with him, you're abiding with him, and you're continuing in that. And the Greek word here for abide is in the present, active, and imperious sense. I saw that. I also had to Google it to figure out what that meant.

4:50 But it's a very interesting concept here because it is very specific, those tenses. The present tense indicates that it's an ongoing activity. It's not a one time abiding with him that happens when we're saved. It's an ongoing sanctification process that takes place in our life. The imperative tense or the active tense means that we are the subject of this and we require action from our lives, that we have something to do.

5:18 It's not just a one-sided relationship from the Lord. And then the imperative tense denotes it as a command or request. It's not a suggestion. It's not something like, oh, if you do this. No, this is something as Christians you are supposed to be doing and you should be doing this.

5:34 And this is the crux of our Christian walk, is having relationship with Christ. All other aspect of the Christian walk stems from that. All other facets of it come from having relationship with Christ. This is the core foundation of what we believe. And this is also, if I can leave you with one thing today, it's that abiding in Him requires relationship.

5:56 And in our Christian walk our focus should be relationship with Christ and all other things are downstream from that. And so that's the focus of what we should be talking about and that should be our motivation. There's this idea that abiding also requires unity. I don't know if you guys live with people in your life. Some of you do.

6:15 Either you're married, you have kids, you have parents, or you live in your grandmother's basement, whatever it might be. When you're living with somebody it requires unity. You have to be on the same page. You have to have the same goals and if you're at tension with each other it's impossible to accomplish things. You're constantly working against each other instead of with each other.

6:35 And so it's so important that when we're abiding with Christ we have the same vision, the same goals. And what a blessing it is for us that this is what we have to work on. We never have to worry about Christ not holding up his end of the bargain. He always will want to work with us. He always wants to see the vision.

6:52 We see this in second Timothy chapter two where it says, If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. And what a blessing it is, but an encouragement that we should need to be focusing on living in unity with him. And the initial abiding in Him does happen when we are saved. It is that idea of salvation.

7:12 You cannot abide in Christ unless you are saved. And we see this in chapter two of one John. We'll be in mostly one John today. A lot of the references will be there. Any alternative ones, don't feel like you have to go there because we're coming right back to first John.

7:28 But this happens in first John chapter two verses twenty four and twenty five where it says, therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he has promised us, eternal life. And so we hear this concept of that, let that abide in you which you have heard from the beginning. And what is that which they have heard from the beginning?

7:55 And coincidentally, can see this also again in first John, this time in chapter one verses one through four where it says, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. So the things that are from the beginning is the truth of the gospel in Jesus Christ.

8:34 We see this also in John chapter one where it says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. So we see that the beginning, that which was from the beginning was the Lord Jesus Christ with God. And we see in this first couple of verses how the apostles, specifically John in this instance, saw these things firsthand. They witnessed it with their eyes. They felt it with their hands.

8:55 They heard it with their own ears. And now they are declaring it to all the world. And what is the purpose of this declaration? It's that you have made fellowship with us and with the Father and with the Son. And again, we see this relational idea of the primary focus of the Christian relationship is fellowship with the Father and with the Son.

9:13 And what's the result of that? That we may be full of joy. And this is truly a beautiful emotion as well. And we saw how the disciples were relating first hand this gospel that they saw the fact that Jesus lived his earthly ministry, that he lived a sinless life, that he willingly chose to go to the cross to die for our sins. And then John saw the empty tomb, the beautiful empty tomb the third day where Christ had risen from the dead.

9:34 And he just wanted to say this to the whole world at how much it impacted his life. Now the next thing we're gonna be talking about, and this is really the main portion of this passage, is how do we abide? Because there's this idea of relationship with Christ, but there's also some practical aspects of it as well. The first practical aspect, and all of these will be taken from first John as well, so you're locked in. And the first one is from John chapter two, or first John chapter two, verse six where it says, he who says he abides in him also ought himself to walk just as he walked.

10:38 But he doesn't just want blind obedience. He doesn't want just a legalistic following of his commands. You saw the Pharisees try to do this. You saw how they perfectly followed the law down to the letter, but there was no relationship. There was no relationship with the Son and that is what he's really looking for.

10:53 You have to have that spirit of humility to walk as he walked. He was humble. He was a servant. And that's one of the things to walk as he walked is to do the things that he did. And in our pride it's easy to bit distracted.

11:07 It's easy to look at other people and say, hey, this other person is doing something wrong. At least I'm not doing that. And that is completely antithetical to what Christ believed. It's you have to have that love for one another and that humility. Now the next one that we're gonna look at is in chapter two verses 17 where it says, and the world is passing away and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever.

11:31 So we have this idea of doing the will of God. The world is temporary and is gonna pass away. Everything we see now is gonna turn into dust. It does not last. It is just for a time.

11:44 We know it's going to disappear. How many of us, with the information that we have now, would go back a hundred and twenty years and invest into the Titanic? Probably none of us. We know for a fact it ends up at the bottom of the ocean. It would be a waste of our money, so why would we spend our resources on that that we worked hard for to accomplish when we know for a fact it's all disappearing going away?

12:05 Plus the insurance payout wasn't even enough to cover everybody's losses, so you weren't even covered there. But it's the same idea here. We know this world is passing away. We know the end result of where it ends. So why would we choose to invest our resources in the things of this world when we know that there's a new heaven and a new earth coming?

12:22 And we need to have that eternity mindset of not storing up treasures on earth but rather storing up treasures in heaven. We have eternity to spend with Christ in that new heaven and earth so let's work on starting to build that relationship now. I mean I look at different people like the Glovers. They've been married for over sixty years now. They've been continuing to build this relationship for longer than that even, and I don't think if you would ask them if they had wished they could, like, let me think of how to phrase this.

12:49 If you ask them, I don't think they would say that they wouldn't have wanted to start that relationship sooner. They would have wanted to spend that more time together. And it's the same thing with Christ. Let's start this relationship now. Yes, we have eternity, but now is the time to start building that relationship.

13:05 The next point that we have, and we kinda already talked about it a little bit, is in or verse twenty four and twenty seven of chapter two, whereas the idea of what is from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in Christ and already have eternal life. But it bears repeating because this is the foundational truths of our beliefs. We remember the Lord's death every Sunday in the Lord's Supper and it is a precious time to come together and you see the thoughts coming together from different people as we remember his death, death, burial and resurrection. And through him we have that eternal life that we can look forward to. The next one that we'll look at is in chapter three.

13:44 And this is verses 15 through 18. And I'm gonna go ahead and read these verses real quick. And it says, whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love because he laid down his life for us and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

14:03 But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. If we abide in God through salvation, he abides in us and so does his love. God did not turn his face away from us even though we deserved death, and we should not turn our face away from others. We see this in Romans five verses six through eight.

14:35 John referenced, or Justin referenced this as well this morning in the breaking of bread. This idea that God demonstrates like scarcely for a righteous man would one dare to die, but God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. I don't think any of us here is a murderer. Maybe there's something I don't know. I would assume not.

14:57 And I would say that none of us would even want to murder anybody here. I think you could ask all of us, and I don't think any of us would say we hate anybody here because that's not necessarily a good emotion, but that's what it's saying. It's whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. But oftentimes we stop there. We say, we met the bare minimum requirements.

15:18 We don't hate our brother. We're good. But that's not what Christ asked for. He asked for us to love our brothers. And how are we showing this love to each other?

15:27 Christ looks at us through the value lens of we are all his little children, and we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and we should treat each other as such. It is not that we are just not hating each other. We should be loving one another and encouraging one another. And the next thing we see is in verse 16, by this we know love because he laid down his life for us and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Laying down our lives for the brethren is not sacrificing our life.

15:59 It could look like that but that's not what it means. Again, we're going to look at the tenses here because it's a present active tense again where it's a continuous laying down of our lives for the brethren and it requires action on our part. It's a continuous outpouring of love and sacrifice on our behalf towards our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage them, exhort them, help them in any way that we can. So how are we going to continue to pour out our life for the brethren? It's something we should ask ourselves as we continue to meet as a church because we're here not just to receive, but we're here to give to others.

16:34 So how can we continuously lay down our life for the brethren? Verse 17 talks about the bare minimum standards we should have. It's not even that, hey, you need to go out and look and see what you can do to help others. It's if you're happening to go through life and you see somebody, do not turn away from them. You should look towards them and help them.

16:54 It's not asking a lot, but it is asking the minimum here. God chose to shed his love abroad for us, as it says again in Romans five. So how selfish of it is us, of it is it for us to not show that love to others around us when we see that they're in need? All of the resources we have are his. We're just temporary stewards.

17:14 So why would we think that holding onto them does anything? Again, they're all going to pass away and it's showing the love of God to others when we help those that we see are in need. And it's important that we give out of a good relationship with Christ because so often it's easy to give out of abundance or for personal accolades. You tell people how much you're giving every year, these charitable donations. Or you do it out of a legalistic mindset where I have to give a tenth.

17:42 A 10%, that's it. You see cultures today where they'll give that 10% no more, no less. They do it only out of a legalistic mindset. We should give out of a relationship with Christ, our love for him. Giving is an act of worship and we need to consider that and understand that as we continue to lay out our lives for brothers in Christ and to give.

18:00 And then verse 18 is this great verse where it says, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And I'm pretty sure this phrase isn't original, but I haven't heard it from anybody else, so I'm gonna claim it. And it's this idea that love indeed is love indeed because if you just say that you love somebody and don't ever act on it, that's, doesn't show the love of Christ. It's not, it's easy to do. You gotta walk the walk, not not just talk the talk.

18:29 And the first person that comes to my mind when I think about this is Jave Nicholson, who was the preacher. He works with Uplook Ministries. Many of us are familiar with him. And he chose to move down to Starkville, Mississippi into some of the poorest communities in the country. And what does he do there?

18:46 He's one of the best preachers I've ever heard. Incredible wealth of knowledge about the Bible. What he does is he goes to these schools, to these homes, to these churches and he says, How can I serve you today? How can I help you? And he says that people don't care what you know until they know that you care.

19:03 And so with no alternative motive, he goes in, he helps them, he shows the genuine love of Christ, and they can see something that's different about them. So they invariably ask him, why are you doing this? What is it that drives you to do this? You don't have to do this. You're retired, you're older, there's nothing that compels you to do this.

19:20 And he says, it's the love I have for you and the love that I want to show you from my Savior Jesus Christ, and it's a beautiful opportunity that he has to witness to them. But it's only because he's loving in deed, not just in word. If he just went to them and preached to them, would probably walk away and not hear him, but they know that he cares so he can witness to them effectively through that. The next thing we are going to look at is in verse 24 of chapter chapter three where it says that, let me just read it. Now we who keep his commandments abides in him and he in him.

20:14 And this means all of His commandments. It's very easy and very tempting when we read the Bible to pick and select the easy ones. Again, going back to what I said earlier, I think we could all agree that all of us more or less have followed the commandment, do not murder. But what about do not lie, do not steal, love your brother? All these different commandments, and it's so easy to just pick and choose the easy ones and ignore the ones that are harder.

20:37 But that's not what he says. He says to obey my commands and if you love me you will want to do this. And this again is why that relationship component is so necessary because it's the only thing that makes sense is the love being the motivation, not just legalistic obedience. The next one is in first John chapter four verse 12 and that says, No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us.

21:08 This is not easy, but it is another one of His commandments that requires a relationship with John, and to love our brothers. John chapter 15 verses nine through 13 says, as the Father loved me, I have also loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his loves. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and your joy may be full.

21:40 This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friend. And again in this passage we see this idea of of obeying his commandments, loving him, him dwelling in us, our joy being full because of this, and this idea of laying down your life for your friends. But he says not just to love your friends. In Matthew twenty two thirty eight through 40, it says, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and might.

22:11 And the second commandment is like this in reference to what is the greatest commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself. All the other commandments hang on these. It shows the importance of loving God and loving your neighbor and your brother. But it also says that we are supposed to love our enemies. In Matthew five verses 43 through 45.

22:29 Mr. Clifford had an interesting joke on this a couple weeks ago at the marriage conference for those who are here. Or not the marriage conference, relationship conference. But Matthew five verses 43 through 45 says, You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your father in heaven.

22:59 For he makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. So it's this idea of not just loving our brothers, the easy ones. It's loving our enemies, loving your neighbor. And this also raises the question of who is your neighbor? And this was very aptly answered by the Lord in the book of Luke with the story of the Good Samaritan.

23:18 Who this person who would characteristically have been his enemy showed the love of Christ and demonstrated what it means to love as a good neighbor. Another very interesting phrase that's in this verse is the first phrase where it says, No one has seen God at any time. This is the same expression that was used in John chapter one verses 18 where it says, No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. Jesus came to earth, declared the love of the Father, and now he's back in heaven.

23:49 So who's declaring the love of God on earth now? It's us. We are the ones that are declaring his love to those who are around us. And it's a wonderful but awesome responsibility. His love has been perfected in us, Not just our salvation, but in how we live.

24:05 When He pours His love into us when we become Christians, we're not supposed to act as terminals where it pours into us and then it stops. We're just full of His love. We're supposed to act as conduits where we take that love and pass it on to others. And this is what it means to show the love of God on earth and that is an important responsibility we must consider. And the question we must ask ourselves is how is the love of God pouring out from us?

24:30 If somebody looked at us, would they notice something different about us? Would they see something different about us? And would they feel the love of God through our actions? The next one we're going to look at is chapter four and this time in verse 15. And we're kind of going through 17, starting in verse...

25:19 That sponge is so full of water that you can't imagine every last drop getting wrung out of that sponge. There's still going to be water in it no matter what. And like the sponge is in that... Like the water in the sponge cannot fully separate at that time. And it's do we treat our relationship with the Son of God like this or do we treat it as a transactional relationship where we say, hey, I only want to be intertwined with you when I want something.

25:41 Or do we introduce him into every aspect of our life? Do we let him take control in every situation? Do we look to him for help in every situation? And this is what it should be. It's we should be abiding in him.

25:56 We should be one with him, resting with him and he should be abiding with us. And we should be allowing that relationship to affect every aspect of our lives, not just the ones that we want to give to him. Verse 16 says that we have known and believed the love that God has for us and God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. If I'm to be in fellowship with God, then I must love those that he loves and I must love his son. And then the last one here is in verses 17 through 19.

26:30 And this isn't as much where it mentions a specific thing to do to abide with him, but it's kind of the climax of all these abiding statements and the result of it. And we see this in verses 17 through 19 where it says, love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us.

27:11 It is not our love that is made perfect, but God's love is made perfect in us. And this is a crazy phrase in here that I didn't notice the first time, but the second time I did. Where it says, because as he is, so are we in this world. As Christ is in heaven now, perfect, sitting at the right hand of God, we are so in this world. Our sins have been wiped away.

27:34 Our debt has been made clean, And we can have boldness in the day of judgment because of this. We can approach the throne and know that our sin has been forgiven and that as children of God we have nothing to fear. The flip side of this is that as children of God there is a real day coming where the Lord will judge those who, all who are on the earth and see what remains of their actions after the stubble has been burned away. And this is why it is so important to continue to obey his commands, to love one another, to witness to others, and to continue to show his love to the world and to show others how to build that relationship with him. Now moving back to our main verse for today, chapter two verse 28.

28:16 We've seen what it looks like, who we are as little children. We've seen what it means to abide in him, and now this next phrase, that when he appears. Very simple phrase, very subtle, but it holds a lot of weight behind it because it's a when, not if statement. We know for a fact he's coming back, when he appears again. But this time he's coming back with a different purpose.

28:42 Originally he came to save the people from their sins, but now he's coming back to set up a kingdom with his children. He is coming as a bridegroom looking for His bride. And this is the joy that we should look forward to on that day. We should be expecting it and that's what we should be looking forward to. The last point that we're kinda talking about is we see what is abiding.

29:21 And this comes from John chapter 15 verses four through eight where it says, Abide in me and I in you, As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them in the fire and they are burned.

29:50 If you abide in me and my words in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. Jesus is the source of all spiritual life. He is the vine. We are the branches.

30:07 We draw our strength from him and it is only through him that we bear fruit. And this is why that relationship, again, is so important because if we don't have that love relationship, then we will be cut off from the vine. When we do bear fruit, this is what brings glory to God. And this is one relationship where it's okay to be over dependent and clingy. It's actually recommended to be over dependent and clingy in this relationship because it is only through this that we are able to bear the fruit of God and bring glory to Him.

30:41 And it's important to consider what does this fruit look like in our lives? How can we, how can people see our fruits? And then this last one here is that we may have confidence and not be ashamed. And that's also in verse 28 of first John chapter two. That we may be confident and not ashamed before him at his coming.

31:04 I'm gonna use this analogy here. It's not a perfect analogy, but I think it does a good job kind of describing the picture a little bit. Some of us are still kids, but all of us were kids at some point. And there was this thing that happened with somewhat frequent occurrence where your parents would leave and they would go for a certain amount of time whether it was for the day, a weekend or a couple hours and they would say, while I'm gone I want you to accomplish these tasks. They said, you should do this.

31:26 And invariably as all kids, not all kids, most kids do, I would procrastinate. I would leave it to the last minute, I would say I can do that later, and I would goof off, do other things, whatever it might be. And then eventually there came that time of realization for me when I thought, oh man, it's time to get serious. I gotta dial in and get this done so that when they come back I will not be ashamed at their coming and that I will have confidence in seeing them again. Different kids had different approaches to this.

31:52 I'm gonna leave their names nameless to protect the innocent. Some people crafted this idea of a super bullet, And what it means is that you would dial in and sprint at the last second to get everything done and try to get it done as quickly as you can. But this is not what Christ asked for us. The Christian life is not a sprint at the very end. It is it is a journey and it requires different ups and downs.

32:16 It is trials and tribulations. But if we live a life that's pleasing to Christ, if we're abiding in him and is doing his will, then we can have confidence and joy at his appearance. I really liked the verse that Mr. Clifford used last week, two weeks ago, in the Saturday night hanging out with the young people talking about, he was doing a question and answer. And he closed it with this verse, Isaiah 4zero 31, where he said, They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strengths.

32:43 They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. And it's this idea that in the Christian life there are going to be times of great blessing where you'll be flying on wings as an eagle. There's gonna be times where things are going well.

32:55 Maybe there's a couple bumps and bruises here and there, but you're gonna be running, going along quickly. But then there's gonna be other times, and this is the majority of the Christian life, you're walking. But the important thing is that you keep on walking and you don't stop moving as you go on this journey. We see this example in the New Testament several times. We see this in Philippians two verses 16 through 18.

34:00 He was being poured out as a drink offering. But it's cool because the drink offering symbolizes several different things. It symbolizes the joy that we find in Christ. It symbolizes the dedication of the worshiper to God. Paul dedicated his life to God.

34:15 It symbolizes the covenant relationship with God and it symbolizes the fruits of our labor with God. The outpouring of the excess of our labor that we can give to God. And this is another reason that we can look forward to his coming and rejoice in it, not just have confidence in it. Another one that, I'll be honest, I added this morning because I heard it and I thought this needs to be in here was the verse that Mr. Horseman shared in the first meeting.

34:39 Titus two, specifically verse 13, but I'm gonna read 11 through 14 where it says, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. And there, that's basically the summary of the message where it's we're looking forward to the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us, that we might abide with him, and that we may do good works for him, or that he might purify us as his own special people zealous for good works for him. And then the last one where I'm not going to read it, but again we see this idea of being poured out as a drink offering in two Timothy four verses six where Paul is talking to Timothy and says, The time of my departure is at hand.

35:48 I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. Finally there is laid out for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day and not to me only but also to all who have loved his appearance and long for his appearance. So this idea that we are not only going to rejoice at his coming, we're not going to have confidence at his coming, but we should be longing for His coming. Because as Christians, that is the day that we will finally be reunited with our Savior and this relationship that we've been building here on earth will come to fruition and we will be able to grow it more and more as we spend eternity with Him.

36:56 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. We have seen what the will of the Lord is. It is that we should abide with Him, we should have a relationship with his son, that we should love others, and do this for him. Let's close in prayer. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for the love that you had toward us, this idea that you sent your son to sacrifice for us, and this this amazing concept that behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God and have this close relationship with you.

37:28 Thank you so much, for the sacrifice of your son and pray that you would help us to look forward with longing and confidence and joy to the day that you come back and we can be reunited with you. We pray this in your name. Amen.