Scott Brown's sermon 'How the Love of God Is Perfected in You' focuses on the passage from 1 John 2:3-8, exploring themes of knowing God through obedience to His commandments. Brown explains that true knowledge of God is not merely intellectual but experiential, involving a deep, personal relationship. He emphasizes two types of people: those genuinely being perfected by God's love and those pretending. Brown discusses the importance of keeping God's commandments as a sign of genuine faith and contrasts this with the modern societal value of tolerance, which often contradicts Christian principles. He highlights the significance of abiding in Christ as a transformative relationship that changes one's behavior and attitudes, leading to a life that reflects Jesus Christ. The sermon also outlines the importance of self-examination to ensure one's actions align with God's will and commandments, as this demonstrates true love for God and confirms one's Christian identity.

1 John chapter 2 verses 3 through 8. That's what I'll be reading. Now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk, just as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment to you but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The Old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Our Father, we do thank you for this word. We know you've given it to us and it's true. Lord, help the reality sink in today. Please help Pastor Brown deliver this message, not with his own words, but with your words, Lord. Amen.

You may be seated. One of the great joys of being in this church, and really, as I look back, probably in any church I've ever been part of you can always tell where the people are from and because of the way they talk you know and in our church you know you can find these cold-hearted people from the Northeast who speak in their tongue. You can go all the way down and find somebody that sounds like they're from South America, somebody from California, somebody else who is pretty clear. Maybe they were in India and they picked up the accent of British colonialism. But in our church, you have people from all over the place, and it's a blessing.

And what John is explaining to us here in this passage among many things is that you can you can tell where people are from by the way they talk. And he's making the point that the Lord Jesus Christ makes a certain kind of a person. It's a transformed person. It's a person that's becoming less and less like himself. And more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

And so what you have in this passage is this beautiful picture of a people who they walk through a different drummer. They take their cues from somewhere else, not themselves. And it's a picture of how God teaches his children to think differently, to talk differently, to walk differently, and to react differently. I think that's why this text is so practical for us. Because it shows the tangible effect of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And when you talk and when you walk and how you react, a lot of times it's pretty easy to tell where you're from and where that talk came from and where that walk came from and where those actions came from and and I think this also leads us to consider what is the greatest earthly blessing that a human being can experience, and that is to be delivered from yourself. And to become a person who is quite unlike you, to be transformed, to have your mind renewed, To get your cues from somewhere else. To walk in a way that's not your own, but to be actually delivered from yourself. And this is what happens with God and His Word in the heart of a person. And I've titled this sermon, How the Love of God is Perfected in You.

And the whole matter before us is that there are two kinds of people in this world. There are those who are being perfected, and then there are those who are pretending to be perfected. Now, there probably is another kind of person, and that's the person that doesn't want to be perfected at all. But John is really speaking of these first two kinds of people and how God brings His people to a very superior life. There are better promises, it's a better covenant, and he calls us to better commands.

And this way of living arises out of his commands, not our own impulses. And to exist in a state like this is to abide in Him. And to find yourself where the love of God is perfected in you, so that you know that you are in Him. Now what John makes very clear here is that this can be faked. A mask can be worn.

And the Christian life can be fabricated on the outside. And he makes that very plain in this section here. Now there are several key words that are critical to understand the contour of this passage of Scripture. Notice the word knowing Him or to know Him. That's a critical matter.

Secondly, keeping. Keeping His command. So you have knowing and keeping and then you have perfected that's a critical matter maybe it might be the central matter of this text knowing and keeping and being perfected is sort of the logic abiding in him John brings up this word abiding that he'll repeat over and over again in his letter. And then finally walking. Walking as he walks.

So John brings us these vivid words to help us grasp the glory of Jesus Christ at work in the life of a person who longs to be perfected by Jesus Christ and by Him alone. To leave your own life, to quit being so much like yourself and even the people around you, but to be like Him, to be guided by His commandments. So that's the matter that is before us. So as you can see, I have this divided into four sections that we'll be working through. And the first is found in verse 3, how to know if you know him.

That's a very important question. And the second is how to know if you are lying about yourself. That's very important. And then thirdly, the result of keeping His commandments in verses 5 and 6. And then finally, how the darkness is passing away.

And how it is that the true light can be shining. So There's the text here. So let's begin in verse 3. How to know if you know Him. Verse 3 reads this.

Now by this we know that we know Him if we keep his commandments. It's a very simple phrase here. Anyone can understand it. And he says, by this. Now, when you come to these words, now by this, those three words, you find another transitional phrase in the logic, in the argument that John is making in this epistle.

And he's indicating another subject and he's beginning another test of salvation. He has already communicated two tests of salvation. And the first was in verse 6. Do you walk in the darkness? If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

That's the first test. Do you walk in the darkness? Do you like the darkness? And the second test is in verse 8 in chapter 1. It's when you claim you don't have any sin, you can't see your sin, you can't relate to the fact that you're a sinner.

Where he says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us so if you're walking around and you just can't see how bad you are that's a problem for you because you're not seeing things clearly you do not understand what's going on in your life. And this is one of the marvelous things about a Christian, is that he has this humbling influence in his life. He's not so high-minded. He knows who he is. He sees his flaws.

He's not proud. He's not looking down his nose and pointing his bony finger at everyone. Because he knows every time he points his bony finger out there, there are always three pointing back to him. So a Christian knows that. And then, now I've identified 16 tests that are in John that are very much like this.

I'll just go forward with a few of them. The one that we're dealing with today is that, do you keep His commandments? But there are more tests. Do you hate your brother? We'll deal with that next week.

That's chapter 2 verse 9. Do you love the world? That's in chapter 2 verse 15. Do you deny Jesus Christ? That's in chapter 2 verse 23.

Do you purify yourself? That's chapter 3 verse 3. Are you cleansed from sin? That's chapter 3 verse 6. Do you practice righteousness?

That's chapter 3 verse 7. And are you a murderer? Do you hate your brother? That's chapter 3 verse 15. Well, there are many of them.

But we're here now camped on the third test, keeping his commandments. Now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. So look at the word no. That's a very important term here. To know.

What does it mean to know? And what we understand from the Bible is that to know is more than just intellectual assent. To know God, to know Jesus Christ, is far more than just knowing that he came in the flesh, that he walked, that he was crucified and rose from the dead. To know Jesus Christ is to know more than that. It's not intellectual assent to particular facts that are true about God and his kingdom.

But to know in this context is to know something by experience. It's a present tense verb that has to do with continually knowing and experiencing something that is real. And it's an indication of an experiential relationship. You have interaction with that person. And it happens in life.

You meet that person in the secret place. You meet that person in the midst of a conversation And his commands, his ways are calibrating and shaping the way that you're thinking about that and what you're going to say. You think about that person when you're driving. You meet that person everywhere. You know, some of you have recently had babies.

You meet that person when you have a baby, and you look at that baby, and what do you do? You can't help yourself. You give thanks to God. It's beyond amazing to you that this just happened. And so your eyes lift up to heaven.

You don't beat your chest and think of how good you are when you see the birth of a baby. You're absolutely stunned at someone else that has brought something about. You know, you give thanks to him, you cry out to him in a time of trial. You know, when you're in a time of trouble, you look to him. This is what you do in a relationship with someone.

It's not facts, it's not theology. While it includes facts and theology, that's not the heart of it. The facts and the theology always lead somewhere to a true experience. When you're afraid, you go to Him, you say, when I am afraid, I will trust in you. There's a person there.

You're connected to a person. There is a root. There's a life flow that connects you with someone who is real. And that's what he's speaking about. You know, it's a joy here to have our new interns with us.

They're going to read a book by J.I. Packer called Knowing God. And here's what J.I. Packer says in this book, What were we made for? To know God.

What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God. What is eternal life that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God. This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

That's John 17 verse 3. What is the best thing in life? Bringing more joy, delight, and contentment than anything else, knowledge of God. This is what the Lord says, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom or the strong man boast in his strength or the rich man boast in his riches but let him who boasts boast about this that he understands and he knows me." He's not just talking about knowing a few facts about the Bible, but about knowing a living person. And so this terminology of knowing is very important in scripture.

And this word is used in the Old and the New Testament to communicate very similar things. It speaks of how a man knows his wife intimately. It speaks of how a subject knows his king. It's spoken of how sheep know the shepherd, and how the shepherd knows the sheep. It's spoken of how a father knows a son.

And it's not simply the memorizing of facts about that person. But it's actually finding yourself in the place that David said when he said taste and see that the Lord is good. It's actually experiencing his goodness too. To know it not just in your brain but also in your heart. To feel it and to act upon it to be affected by it.

That's the kind of knowing that he's speaking of. Let me give you just another illustration of this. You know, there are a lot of people in this world today who think that they know sports celebrities. They think they know them because they've memorized some of the statistics that they've produced. They know certain things about their lives, but they really don't know them.

They just know facts. They just know external shells. They only see the outside. They don't really know that person at all. And so there's a vast difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone.

And that's what John is driving at in this third verse. But he's speaking to people who do know him. He's really affirming Those who know Him. And knowing God is always two ways. It's knowing and being known.

And the Bible speaks about this in many different places. God says to Moses in Exodus chapter 33 verse 17, God says to Moses, I know you by name. And then Moses responds and he says, Lord, show me your glory. Please show me your glory. That's that two-way fellowship with God.

We've been speaking quite a bit about this phrase in the first part of 1 John. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. It's a fellowship that's two-way. By the way, the Bible speaks far more about His way to us than our way to Him. What He does for us, how he pours out his grace, how he teaches, how he anoints, how he sanctifies, how he glorifies, how he speaks.

He speaks so much about his fellowship with us. That's really the primary matter in life, is to have his fellowship with you. Now, as a result you respond and you say, Lord show me your glory. This is this matter of knowing. And there are many, many ways that we know God, the wisdom of God, the majesty of God, the love of God, the wrath of God, the grace of God, the jealousy of God, the judgment of God.

This is the God that you know. And so when he says this here in this verse, Now by this we know that we know Him. He's speaking about people who do know Him and who keep His commandments. And the word to keep is very important in the phrase. You know him and you keep his commandments.

And it's a word that indicates watchfulness and observation. A Christian is looking for his commandments. He's not looking for loopholes around his commandments. He wants his commandments, and he finds his commandments pleasing. Now, there are a lot of commandments in the Bible.

The Jews said that there are 613 commands in the Old Testament. There are actually more than that, but the Jews named 613. In the New Testament there are at least 684 commands. In the New Testament, in other words, It's not the Old Testament is full of commands. The mean God who gives you commands in the New Testament is the sweet God who doesn't tell you about what you have to do.

No, it's just not true. God has given his commands in the days of both of his covenants that he's made with his people. It is said that there are 49 commands of Christ by some, some say it's 50. You can find over 300 really if you look at it in a different way, and even Jesus Christ with all the commands that he gave, one of his commands was, keep my commandments in John 14 verse 21. And so the keeping of the commandments of God is really one of the central matters before the Church of Jesus Christ that we are an obedient people.

That's why in the Great Commission the People of God are supposed to go out through all the earth and they're to teach and they're to baptize. But what do they do? They're supposed to teach the church how to obey everything that Jesus said. So it's, you want to have an obedient church. You don't have a church that's been affected by the Great Commission unless you have an obedient church.

Obedience is a critical matter in the Church of Jesus Christ. It's so important for us that we are obedient, that we have a set of guiding principles for us. We have commands that lead us in a particular direction. We keep the commandments. You know, the ancient navigators, the way I understand it, as they were trying to make their way across the seas, most of the time not having any idea where they were going.

They had a phrase that they used, keep the stars, keep the stars, so that you know where you're going. And so the ancient navigators would look at the constellations, they would look at the Pleiades and they'd look at Orion and they would look at the stars and their proximity to the horizon and other constellations to know where they were, to keep the stars. And John says, keep the commandments so that you know where you're going. Keep the commandments so that you don't drift out onto the reef and be gobbled up in the waves and destroyed. And so this whole matter of keeping the commands of Jesus is part of this navigational system that God has given to his people.

The Lord Jesus Christ gave so many commands. In Matthew 4 verse 17, he commanded, Repent, For the kingdom of heaven is at hand in Matthew 14 verse 4 verse 19 He said follow me and I will make you fishers of men in Matthew 5 16 he said let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven In Matthew 5 23 and 24 he said therefore if you're presenting your offering to the altar there remember that your brother has something against you leave your gift there before the altar and go your way first be reconciled to your brother and then present your offering now there are many many commands of Jesus Christ that are so life-giving, they're so helpful to us. He says, do not commit adultery. He says, you know, do not lust in your heart. He says, do not resist evil with evil in Matthew 5, 39 through 42.

He commands us to pray for our enemies to be perfected in love to seek first the kingdom of heaven he he commands us not to give what is holy to dogs He commands us to enter through the narrow gate to beware of false prophets and to not fear those who kill the body, but rather to fear those who can kill the body, Him who can kill the soul and the body so there are many commands and what John is saying here is that You know you know if you're a Christian When you keep the commands now. He's not he's not speaking of perfection here We already know that from John he and he will say these She has say things this way many times. He'll say that, you know, if you're Christian you do not sin. What he means is you're not perpetually sinning. You don't have a hunger and a desire for sin.

You hate your sin and you want to turn from it, but you do sin. And this is the same matter here before us regarding obedience, but that the Christian wants to obey God and he does He does obey God, yet not absolutely perfectly. And what springs from true fellowship with God is a heart that says, oh, how I love your law. And what we learn from Jesus is that this obedience to his commandments starts with love. He says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

The love always comes first. And so that's how a person can know if they love Him. And as a result of their love for him, not to put on a show, not to be fake, but because they want to follow him, because they love him, then they'll find themselves in this place. So in this verse John is speaking of the people who want him. They want to obey his commandments.

Now, as we consider this matter of Christians who desire to obey, yet they see through a glass darkly and they sin they sin against one another husbands and wives parents and their children children and their parents church members and church members employees and employers we struggle with sin And so we should always be asking this question. Is there anything in your life that would cause God's blessing to be withdrawn because of your disobedience now. Is there anything there? You're a Christian, you do love God, and God's revealing his He's revealing your sins to you over time. He does it very very patiently and longsufferingly and very kindly.

He doesn't show you everything at one time. Anybody who's been a Christian more than a few weeks knows that. That He leads you along the way. But a Christian always asks that question, is there anything in my life right now that is causing his blessing to be withdrawn? So this is all about the love of God being perfected in us through his commandments.

Now then John turns to the person who does not keep his commandments and he presents a terrifying situation in verse 4. He who says I know Him and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him." Now again, we run into this word, know Him, again, but we run into a new word, liar, that's connected with that word. And he's just speaking of this truth that everybody understands. There's some people associated with Jesus Christ on the outside. They make professions, but their actions contradict their profession.

And again, I like how J.I. Packer explains it in his book. One can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of it. And John says that this person is a liar. Now he says there are actually two problems.

One is he's a liar. That's one problem. And we're not told whether he's Lying to himself or just lying to others, probably both. But there's another problem. It's really, it's a terrible problem.

The truth is not in him. Now that is a problem. Not to have the truth in you not to have the light shining in the darkness to reveal the Poisons and the threats the things that will destroy your soul not Not to have that truth in you Because Jesus Christ is the way the truth in the light The truth is a marvelous blessing in the heart of a person. But this is a person that is a liar and he doesn't have the truth. As we've come off of Isaiah, we've seen this in Isaiah many, many times.

In Isaiah chapter 1, you had people there called children, but they don't walk like children. The Lord says, I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled. The ox knows his owner, the donkey his master's crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not consider. They are corruptors, they have forsaken the Lord, and they've turned away.

So it's a picture of people gathered, they're hanging around the people of God, but they are actual liars and the truth is not in them. Anytime you gather a group of people together, you always have that. It's like in the days of the judges where everyone's doing what's right in his own eyes. Now, this brings us to something that's very, very real and contemporary right now in our society. And I want to use a word to describe it.

Tolerance. Tolerance. Now, researchers tell us that the number one value of baby boomers is hard work. Hard work. Baby boomers have a value that lives in their system and that they want to work hard.

And I'm pretty sure that's true. I've known a few of them and they at least have that living in their system somehow, some more than others. But what is the number one value of millennials? It's tolerance. Tolerance.

Now, when you talk about obedience to God's commands, you have something that is in direct contradiction with tolerance. Because walking as Jesus walked is intolerance. It's intolerance toward your own behavior. It's intolerance toward evil. There's a kind of holy intolerance that a Christian has in his life.

He doesn't tolerate everything that's going on in his life. He can't tolerate it. He doesn't want to tolerate it. He looks around in the world and he sees this world, you know running toward evil and he doesn't want to tolerate that either And that's why the Apostle Paul when he was instructing That church in that great pagan city Ephesus, he said that they should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. That's intolerance.

Intolerance to the ways of the Gentiles. This is a critical matter in the life of a true Christian. The non-Christian is tolerant toward the futility of the way that the Gentiles walk. And so Paul says to that church, he says, put them off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. So Christianity has in it, in its DNA, intolerance.

It's intolerant toward the ways of the world. And there's a renewal. You want to abandon those ways. You want to become less and less tolerant of your sins. The problem with sin is we like to make friends with our sins and then they always betray us.

But there are many ways that people become tolerant towards sin. Perhaps you've been reading in the Christian press over the last few years about the hyper-grace movement. The hyper-grace movement basically says the following, that we are all sinners. We are all just desperately sinful. Well, that's true.

They've got that right and Then they say that God's grace is greater than our sin and and a Christian should recognize how massively comprehensive the grace of God is. That there is grace greater than your sin. So it acknowledges that. That's true. But what this hyper-grace movement doesn't recognize is that grace of God is designed to change your life and you can't stay like you are.

The hyper grace movement wants you to... It's just it's okay that you stay as you are. Come as you are and don't worry about it if you stay as you are Well, that's not Christianity Christianity is the life of Jesus Christ that makes you intolerant to the evil that's there and you're transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's true Christianity. And so that's what John is getting at here.

And he's saying we should put more stock in our intolerance for our sin and We should put more stock in our intolerance for our sin, and we should put more stock in what we do rather than what we say. And that our words don't mean that much when our deeds declare the opposite. It's a lot easier to say things than it is to do things. But the sign of the unregenerate in verse 4 is that they do not keep God's commands. They are sons of disobedience as Paul said.

They have faith without works as James said in James 2 verse 17. Now Paul gives the perfect balance to this in Ephesians chapter 2. He says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. But then he says that that faith and that grace doesn't leave you alone in your sin.

He says, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So grace, you're saved by grace alone, but grace never leaves you alone in your sin. It's the grace of God that transforms. And this is why, you know, there's so many people in the church today, or they say they are part of the church, and they wake up some day and they realize, you know, my life has never really changed. And sometimes they ask, am I really a Christian?

And they might actually end up sitting with someone who understands the Bible just a little bit and That person won't say oh, were you sincere that person won't say do you believe the facts, but that person will say? Has your life been changed do you obey the commandments rather than to flatter that person in their sincerity or in their intellectual knowledge because it's the life of God The word of God transforms you when you've received it into your heart. It changes you. And you are awoken out of your sleep. So if you love your sin so much, says John, and you can't conceive of turning away from it, then you should feel the sting of the condemnation of the coming wrath of God.

Because your relationship with his commandments is a telltale sign of whether you're headed for heaven or hell. And then after giving this terrifying warning in verse 4, in verses 5 and 6, he speaks of the results of actually keeping his commandments. And here we find this beautiful explanation of how good his commandments are and how they they deliver us. But whoever keeps his word truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him.

He who says he abides in him, ought himself also to walk as he walked. Now in this in these verses are four really helpful words I'd like you to dial in on. There's the word keeping, there's the word perfected, there's the word abiding, and there's the word walking. And I'd like to just take a couple of a few moments to deal with each one of these words because again we are speaking about life and death matters on an on an eternal proportion and So this first word keeping, to keep means to love and to follow, to keep them. It's a word that has to do with direction, where you get your direction in life.

Now, I would just encourage you to read Psalm 119 today, if you can, the longest chapter in the Bible, the longest Psalm in the Bible. And this word keep and that word walk appear over and over again. 65 times The word keep occurs in Psalm 119. Verse 2 of Psalm 119. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the whole heart.

Verse 3, they walk in his ways. Verse 4, you have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently. Verse 5, oh that my ways were directed to keep your statutes. Verse 8, I will keep your statutes. Verse 9, how can a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed, and by the way that's the same Hebrew word for keep, by keeping it according to your word. In verse 17, deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. He says in verse 34, give me understanding and I shall keep your law verse 35 make me walk in the path of your commandments for I delight in it Psalm 119 is is so helpful to understand what it means to keep and how to walk and But then we encounter this other word, perfected. We keep, and something happens. We are perfected.

Whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him." And the word that John uses is a word of accomplishment. It's a word that has to do with bringing something to its final manifestation, to make it visible, to make it whole. And, you know, this same word is used of Jesus on the cross. When Jesus Christ was on the cross, he said, it is finished. And he uses the same word, perfected.

It is perfected. He's speaking of something that has come to its final manifestation, it needs nothing else and it's something that you cannot improve upon. And he's saying that what keeping the commandments of God are so improving, they are so abundantly improving that they are actually perfecting you. This is the beauty of the commandments of God you are being perfected by the commandments of God you're being brought to To the greatest manifestation of goodness and truth and happiness and love and everything you can imagine that's good. That's what keeping the commandments does.

Keeping the commandments is good. We should never undervalue it in our church. Now, in chapter four, we encounter this word again. But then in chapter 4, the word is associated with love, being perfected in love. In 1 John 4, 11, beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.

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. In chapter 4 and verse 17, love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. So he's speaking about love being perfected, and it has various manifestations. The primary manifestation of obedience to God is love.

It's always that way. The Bible makes it very clear that every law of God is a law of love. You can go from the beginning to the end and every single command is designed to produce love or to manifest love somehow. That's why David said, oh how I love thy law. I don't hate thy law.

I love thy law. Because every commandment comes down to one final manifestation of love, which is the summary of everything that God is. And John, he tells us, God is love. That's what God is. And so, this is why in Deuteronomy, Moses instructs the fathers of Israel.

He says, these commands, these statutes and judgments and ordinances shall be in your heart. And so they're in your heart. And they're in your heart because you love them. And then he says, and you shall teach them diligently to your children. And you shall talk of them when you sit in the house when you walk by the way when you lie down and when you rise up and he's he's talking about the man how a father manifests the love of god and his family it's in his heart first he loves it he says oh how I love thy law And then He can't help Himself and He speaks of it.

And this is how a father manifests the love of God to his children, is by speaking the word of God or the fruits of the word of God in his family life. This is the manifestation of the beauty of the Lord in the world. The keeping of the commandments of God is the most loving thing you can ever do. And we should never be afraid of keeping the commandments of God. And then he uses the word walking.

By this we know that we are in him. He ought himself also to walk just as he walked. Now walking is a metaphor for for your whole life. It's you know in walking what do you get? You have time and you have distance, and you have movement.

And he's talking about walking as Christ walked. You're experiencing the things you're experiencing, the people you're with, the things that are happening around you, and you're walking through those situations with the commands of God. And as a result, Christ is manifested in it. You know, in the early church, the people were called Christians. It was a slanderous word, little Christ.

Oh, there go the little Christ's. Those fools, the little Christ's. It was a slanderous term. But it's an endearing term for us because we love Christ. Because we see how marvelous He is.

To be a little Christ, is there anything better? No, there's nothing better than that. But you think about having the commands of Jesus Christ in the middle of everything that you experience. You know, some of you are going through some very difficult trials right now. And you're tempted to be angry, you're tempted to be resentful, You're tempted to say whatever you want to say.

You want to get with that person and you want to give them a piece of your mind. And Jesus Christ is here to rescue from that. To rescue the people of this world from a piece of your mind. From your ways, from your thoughts, but that what they would get is Christ's ways and Christ's thoughts. That there would be a person in the world who would face a terrible trial and What would the world see?

Jesus Christ Less of you more of him This is how you get through anything in life whether it's a casual impromptu conversation or the greatest trial and difficulty you've ever been through it all comes down to the same thing that your speech your attitude is drawn from somewhere. From Jesus Christ. From his commands. Because we're not our own. You know, we're so tempted to give people a piece of our mind.

How ridiculous is that? But how wonderful it is when you know you're not your own, and you're drawing from somewhere else, you're pulling from heaven, your mind is being renewed, you're being transformed. You're not more and more like yourself anymore. You're more like Him. And that's why when you're in a time of crisis, you should immerse yourself in the Word of God.

And That's why when you're not in a time of crisis, and you're just, life is kind of normal, and you're working, and you're with your family, the greatest thing that you need is the command of God. It works in times of trial, It works in times of smooth peace that we often experience. So that's what he's saying. Then there's the word abiding. And he's speaking of abiding in him do you see those words abiding in him and now this takes us into a whole other realm of what it means to know God.

There is a person and you are abiding in him and he is abiding in you. So now we do have his commands, but we don't just have his commands. We have Him. We have a person who lives within us. It is no longer I who live, but it's Christ who lives in me.

That's the whole idea. And again, this just continues to instruct us. Christianity is not about a theology or a doctrine primarily. It's a person who lives in you. A word that is alive in you and changing you and making you talk a certain way.

Because people always know where you're from when you talk But here he's saying if there's no abiding there's no salvation By this we know that we are in him. Now this matter of being in Christ and he and us is developed all over the New Testament. Read the first two chapters of Ephesians and count how many times you read the words in him. This is the sweetest thing that can happen. That Jesus Christ is in you because you love him and you desire to keep his commandments.

And you walk as he walks. And he is the life-giving source that creates your accent so that you know and everyone else knows who you're from, where you're from, and where you're getting your words, and where you're getting your life. Jesus said, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit. He says, abide in me and I in you.

As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me." And then he says something that should help us put everything together in life, everything in life. He says, apart from me you can do nothing. Apart from me you can do nothing so then John after speaking of the the results of keeping his commandments the the things that he these these words that he uses to describe it. Then he turns in verse seven and eight into what is kind of a parenthesis. And it was hard for us on Tuesday morning to try to discern whether verses 7 and 8 belong with the previous verses or the following.

And I think we ended up concluding that they probably belong to both. And they're kind of a parenthesis. And so he's been reminding them how he's connecting The things before and the things that are coming he says brethren I write No new commandment to you, but an old commandment Which you've had from the beginning the old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning Again a new commandment. I write to you which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining now He has been speaking of this test of keeping the commandments. But this is a transition to the next test, to loving your brother.

Because if you say you love God but hate your brother, you're also a liar. So these words, I think, stand to connect the two here. And he says, he speaks of this old commandment, new commandment terminology. It can be kind of confusing when you look at it. But I think, you know, as you read it carefully, he's really talking about one commandment.

The old, and the new commandment has new dimensions to the old commandment. This is the same old commandment, but God is constantly making things new. He always brings out the best wine last. God is always improving on everything. And this new commandment is, it really is the old commandment, but it's newer and more beautiful.

I think he's talking about the new covenant and the superiority of the power of God working in the heart of people through the Holy Spirit to create a superior love through his spirit where the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, where God is going to do more in the New Covenant than He did in the Old Covenant. That's the way I take this transitional portion here. But I want to draw our attention to something at the end of verse 8. He says, the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. And I think he's talking about what it looks like in a Christian when the power of God is at work.

That the darkness is passing away and Jesus Christ who is the true light begins to shine in your heart and the darkness begins to recede from your life. And last week I said it like this, sin is dying in you. And now I will say it using a different word, Darkness is dying in you. Jesus Christ causes the darkness to pass away. And this is the great value of His commandments.

They relieve you from your darkness. They relieve you from yourself so that you would walk in a way that is truly profitable because it is truly from the truth of Jesus Christ and His word. You know Jesus said he who loves his life will lose it and he who loses his life for my sake shall find it. And that's what this whole section is about. Losing your life and finding Jesus Christ.

And what it does to you and how it makes your darkness pass away and the true light is already shining. And so in this passage there are two things. There's a threat and there's a promise. The promise is that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. Can you give thanks for that?

Do you see how he's working? Do you see how he's glorifying himself in you? You you look at it and you think it's so slow, but you still see it and it's such a blessing because Jesus Christ is the light of the world and Because he's the light of the world, he can say, you are the light of the world. Now let me just try to bring this together with some applications. And the first is this, God has given this to us to help us know whether we are Christians or not.

He is writing to terrify the comfortable and to comfort those who fear God. And He's writing to comfort those who keep His commandments, but He's writing to terrify those who do not love His commandments and do not want to keep them. So I pray that you are either comforted or terrified today. And only God by His Holy Spirit can let you know who that is. Who are you?

Who are you today? Are you comforted or are you terrified? Do you love His commandments or do you hate Him? Are you trying to dodge Him? Are you putting on a fake outside?

Maybe you grew up in this church and you're a very nice young person, but it's all a show. It's all on the outside. And you know who you really are flee from the wrath to come turn to Jesus Christ he is such a good shepherd his commandments are not burdensome and they are the sweetest things you will ever experience and then also I think we can't pass this text without recognizing that the word of God is designed to change the way you talk, because you can always tell where people are from by the way they talk and You know particularly in times of difficulty we're just tempted to be our so much ourselves and I'm praying that somehow What we've encountered in first John and all the matter of what it means to have fellowship with God, that it would drive us to a place that we know how to go through times of crisis like we never knew before. That when we enter into those times, we enter into the secret place of His tabernacle. We meditate upon him day and night.

We fill our minds with the Word of God so that our words and our thoughts, our emotions are not from us. That in those times we are not living out of our own resources, but out of His. You know, as we've gone through a time of crisis, I think that we've seen both in one another, our own resources and the resources of God. But this is the Christian life of seeking to know what is pleasing to the Lord. But the Word of God is designed to change us and we put off the old and we put on the new.

And then finally just to say the Word of God is designed to reform all of life. Everything in your life. Your family life, your thought life, every part of your life. The way you raise your children, the way you work, everything. God has designed that His Word would change everything.

The way that church life is constructed. You know, in our church we want somehow to try as best we know how to have God regulate our times together, not ourselves. Not to come up with all kinds of creative new ways, but to trust in God and his ways. That's why we sing, that's why we pray, that's why we read the Bible, that's why we preach, that's why we have the Lord's Supper, that's why we baptize. We're not here to do our own thing.

We want to do the things that God has said are good and to be satisfied in that. And this is where the blessing is. You know, in the midst of all this talk of keeping commandments and breaking commandments and being a liar, it should always bring us back to the same place. Jesus Christ and His righteousness. Jesus Christ kept every law.

Jesus Christ never violated a single law of God. He kept every law perfectly. And so, every discussion about commandments always should find its end in Jesus Christ alone. The only one who kept all the commandments. And why did he do that?

He did that because you and I cannot you and I have never kept his commandments the Bible says if you break one you've broken them all all of us are lawbreakers before God And our only comfort in life and in death is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died and was crucified, and He was raised on the third day. That He bore your sins, He took your sorrows, that the chastisement that you deserve was laid upon him. And so this morning we find ourselves before Jesus Christ and him alone and his call that says, come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Would you pray with me? Lord we we know that we we need you our commandments that we have made up on our own or the word what the world has taught us are bankrupt, unprofitable, destructive, poison.

Oh Lord I pray that you would deliver us from ourselves, giving us a greater love for your commandments, finding all of our delight in your commandments and all the ones that you kept for our benefit, so that we might be saved. Amen.