Speaker 1: We're actually going to start in 1 John 3, verse 24, the verse right before chapter 4, and it says this Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him.
Speaker 1: And by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us.
Speaker 1: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world To see whether they are from God.
Speaker 1: For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Speaker 1: By this you know the spirit of God.
Speaker 1: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
Speaker 1: This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Speaker 1: Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Speaker 1: They are from the world.
Speaker 1: Therefore, they speak from the world and the world listens to them.
Speaker 1: We are from God.
Speaker 1: Whoever knows God listens to us.
Speaker 1: Whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
Speaker 1: By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Speaker 1: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Speaker 1: Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Speaker 1: In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
Speaker 1: In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins Beloved.
Speaker 1: If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Speaker 1: No one has ever seen God.
Speaker 1: If we love one another, god abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Speaker 1: By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit.
Speaker 1: You may be seated, has given us of his spirit.
Speaker 1: You may be seated.
Speaker 1: And so 1 John, chapter 4, I would argue, actually starts a verse beforehand.
Speaker 1: Now, if you're going, man, that's sacrilegious, just remember the verse numbers and the chapters were added much, much later.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that the apostles were writing with chapters and verse markers, those were added by a guy in, I believe, the 15th century.
Speaker 1: I couldn't swear to you what date that actually is, but I would argue that 1 John 4, that section starts with the sentence before it.
Speaker 1: It says and by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us.
Speaker 1: Now, why do I say that?
Speaker 1: If you look at verse 13, you're going to hear the very, almost the very same words.
Speaker 1: It says by this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit.
Speaker 1: And so what we see is we have two bookends of a section and if it weren't for those bookends, I'll tell you, I actually would have preached a shorter passage today.
Speaker 1: So blame scripture.
Speaker 1: Those two bookends actually are.
Speaker 1: There's this I wasn't going to get into this, but I'll just give you a brief little thing are actually what's called a chiasm.
Speaker 1: A chiasm is a thing in scripture where you have two bookends and actually what comes in the middle of the chiasm is the most important part of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Now, in case you don't know, scripture is not written in English and so the middle of the chiasm for us does not look like it's in the middle for a Greek reader.
Speaker 1: The middle of this chiasm actually comes.
Speaker 1: The most important part of the whole thing actually comes in chapter three.
Speaker 1: In chapter four it says actually that is.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I was looking at chapter five.
Speaker 1: Let me try that again.
Speaker 1: Chapter four, verse three, says every spirit that does not confess jesus is not from god.
Speaker 1: This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Speaker 1: Little children, you are from god and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Speaker 1: He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Speaker 1: That is the main part of this whole passage, and today, if you were taking notes, my title is he who is in you.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, the main point of this whole thing, if you look at everything that we're going to be talking about today, the main point is that if you're truly filled with God's Spirit, you will be unrecognizable by worldly standards.
Speaker 1: Let me say that again If you're truly filled with God's Spirit, you will be unrecognizable by worldly standards.
Speaker 1: You see, 1 John 4 wants us to know.
Speaker 1: The author, john, wants us to know.
Speaker 1: The most important thing that he can write today is that we are totally different from the world.
Speaker 1: We with the Spirit of God are totally different from the ones who have the Spirit of the Antichrist.
Speaker 1: And so you may be saying, pastor Ben, how do we know if we have the Spirit of the Antichrist or the spirit of the Lord?
Speaker 1: Well, john's going to tell us.
Speaker 1: And so John, chapter 4, verse 1, says Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
Speaker 1: So we have to test the spirits.
Speaker 1: Now, how do we do so?
Speaker 1: Well, it says by this you know the spirit of God.
Speaker 1: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
Speaker 1: So it starts off, and if you have the Spirit of God, you will confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.
Speaker 1: Now you may be saying, pastor Ben, that's all I have to do.
Speaker 1: I just have to say that Jesus came in the flesh and I have the Spirit of God.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny, that word confess isn't just what we would think of confession.
Speaker 1: You know, I can confess that Dina's my wife all day long, but if I didn't actually stand up and do the ceremony, put the ring on her finger and have the piece of paper from the government that says you know that marriage license thing, right?
Speaker 1: That government that says you know that marriage license thing, right?
Speaker 1: That really important piece of paper.
Speaker 1: If I don't have that, I can say she's my wife all day long, but she may not actually be my wife.
Speaker 1: A confession is something that changes literally who you are.
Speaker 1: In the terms of this Greek word, the word is homologio.
Speaker 1: I know I don't know if I said that right or not, but we'll just keep moving.
Speaker 1: Homologio means it is actually two words.
Speaker 1: It's homo, which is same, and logio or logos, if you know that word, which is literally the word word.
Speaker 1: So when it says a person who confesses, it means that they have the same words.
Speaker 1: So if you confess Jesus, what it literally means is that you'll have the same words as Jesus.
Speaker 1: But it's really not just that.
Speaker 1: It's really that you will confess Jesus in your everyday, everything.
Speaker 1: So proclaim him that.
Speaker 1: Everything that you do and everything that you say shows that you're a Christian.
Speaker 1: What you say shows that you're a Christian.
Speaker 1: It's to be such a Christian that there is no way that if you were accused in a court of law.
Speaker 1: People would not know that you're a Christian by your actions, by your words, by your attitudes, by everything so beloved.
Speaker 1: Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
Speaker 1: And then verse 2, by this you know the Spirit of God.
Speaker 1: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
Speaker 1: So every person who shows, every person who acts, every person who says, every person who does, and if you remember back to even chapter 1 and chapter 2 of John's letter, every person that believes in Jesus, that confesses Jesus, will walk just as he walked.
Speaker 1: That was the very last verse of chapter 1.
Speaker 1: So, number one, how do you know that somebody's from the Spirit of God?
Speaker 1: They act like Christ, they speak like Christ, they do like Christ would do.
Speaker 1: And if you have the spirit of the Antichrist, you do not confess Jesus.
Speaker 1: It is not a part of you, it goes on and it says every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
Speaker 1: This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Speaker 1: Little children, you are from God and have overcome them.
Speaker 1: Aren't you thankful that you don't have to be afraid of worldly things and worldly standards and worldly pride and worldly everythings, because the one who is in us is greater than the one who's in the world.
Speaker 1: Verse 5 says they are from the world, talking about the people with the spirit of the Antichrist.
Speaker 1: They are from the world, therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them.
Speaker 1: We are from God, and so there is a distinction.
Speaker 1: It is clear to see by how they act and by who follows them, that someone is from the world, from the spirit of the Antichrist or from the spirit of God.
Speaker 1: So I think, if I'm not mistaken, we have a chart.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 1: My people up there in the crow's nest?
Speaker 1: Do we have our chart?
Speaker 1: Yes, and so we have a chart of things that the scripture says we can tell if someone is from the spirit of God or the spirit of the Antichrist.
Speaker 1: So again, every spirit that confesses Jesus is Christ.
Speaker 1: Number two, it says we are from God.
Speaker 1: Number three whoever knows God listens to us.
Speaker 1: And then, number four, it says that the spirit of God is literally the spirit of truth, and so those who are of Jesus tell things that are truthful.
Speaker 1: The spirit of the antichrist, by comparison, every spirit that does not confess Jesus.
Speaker 1: They are from the world, they speak from the world.
Speaker 1: The world listens to them.
Speaker 1: It does not listen to us, and they have what is called the spirit of error.
Speaker 1: Verse six says we are from God.
Speaker 1: Whoever knows God listens to us.
Speaker 1: Whoever is not from God does not listen to us, and they have what is called the spirit of error.
Speaker 1: Verse 6 says we are from God.
Speaker 1: Whoever knows God listens to us.
Speaker 1: Whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
Speaker 1: By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Speaker 1: Now I told you there were two verses in this passage today that I believe are some of the most misquoted verses in all of scripture, and that is one of them.
Speaker 1: Verse 6, again, we are from God.
Speaker 1: Whoever knows God listens to us.
Speaker 1: Whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
Speaker 1: And beloved I think this one has probably been quoted by true and false teachers alike from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: False teachers especially because they would say well, we have the Spirit of God and therefore you should listen to us.
Speaker 1: And how do we know that someone doesn't have the Spirit of God?
Speaker 1: It's because they left us us.
Speaker 1: And how do we know that someone doesn't have the Spirit of God, it's because they left us.
Speaker 1: But the problem is, if you don't have the Spirit of God, sometimes you can still sound like it for a time.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it still seems like they may be a true believer, and so we have a list that tells us how we know those people.
Speaker 1: But, moreover, we can look in other parts of Scripture as well and find just a little more information.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, if you look at 1 Timothy 6, 1 Timothy 6 gives us just a little more information about false teachers.
Speaker 1: It says in verse 3, it says If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord, jesus Christ and the teaching, that accords with godliness.
Speaker 1: It says Dissensions, slander, evil, suspicions and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain Beloved.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, not every person who claims to be a believer is a believer, but every person who teaches is necessarily a Christian.
Speaker 1: And so John wants to warn us In his day it was just as prevalent then as it is now.
Speaker 1: He wants to warn us that there are things that we need to look for.
Speaker 1: And then Paul in the letter to Timothy gives us a little more detail.
Speaker 1: If you have someone who their followers act in the way that Paul just described, you probably have someone who's not a in the way that Paul just described.
Speaker 1: You probably have someone who's not a true teacher of Christ.
Speaker 1: If you have someone who has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels, or the followers that they produce, do you may have somebody who isn't really a believer?
Speaker 1: If you have someone who constantly produces envy, dissension, slander and evil, suspicions, or their followers, do you may not necessarily be following someone who's truly godly?
Speaker 1: If you have someone who produces constant friction among people or their followers, do that may not necessarily have the Spirit of Christ in them?
Speaker 1: See, you have to look not only at the person and what they say, but Jesus would also say that we will know them by their fruits, and Jesus warns us about this in Matthew, chapter 7.
Speaker 1: I won't take the time to turn over there, but Jesus would even say you will know them by their fruits, these false teachers.
Speaker 1: And so you have to be careful.
Speaker 1: You have to be careful what you allow into your household.
Speaker 1: You have to be careful what you allow, because Jesus would also say things like the eye is the lamp of the body.
Speaker 1: You see what you see.
Speaker 1: What you take in matters, what you listen to music and radio, and all of those things matter, music and radio, and all of those things matter.
Speaker 1: What you not only bring in on social media but then may like and repost matters.
Speaker 1: And so we must confess Christ in all that we do, because we are the believer, the one who has the Spirit of God, and it should be so evident that we are the believer that there's no way that one could confuse us.
Speaker 1: Amen, amen.
Speaker 1: And so, moving on, it says in verse 7, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.
Speaker 1: Now this next section is going to talk all about love, like I had let you know earlier.
Speaker 1: And if you look at this section talking about love, you would say well, ben John's talked about love a whole bunch.
Speaker 1: I have literally, I think, heard about love every single sermon, except for maybe the first one.
Speaker 1: Love is everywhere throughout the book of John, and it is.
Speaker 1: But John's going to hopefully give us a little more information about that love.
Speaker 1: And so what we are going to be looking at in this next section is how a real believer should act.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about what a person who has the spirit of the Antichrist does.
Speaker 1: What does a person with the spirit of God do?
Speaker 1: And then again, verse 7 says Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Speaker 1: Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Speaker 1: In this the love of God was made manifest among us.
Speaker 1: That God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
Speaker 1: In this is love.
Speaker 1: Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be, excuse me, the propitiation for our sins.
Speaker 1: Beloved.
Speaker 1: If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Speaker 1: No one has ever seen God.
Speaker 1: If we love one another, god abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Speaker 1: You see, the person who has the spirit of God will love.
Speaker 1: And yet the probably, in my opinion, the most misquoted verse in all of scripture probably comes from here.
Speaker 1: At least, it's the one that it seems like is the most misquoted in our day and age today.
Speaker 1: God is love, is something that we see all over the place right now.
Speaker 1: It's something that has invaded the Christian church.
Speaker 1: And you say, ben, it's Scripture.
Speaker 1: It should invade the Christian church, and I'm not disagreeing with you there.
Speaker 1: But Scripture must be taken in context with Scripture, and Scripture must be rightly divided, or it's not?
Speaker 1: Well, how do you say it?
Speaker 1: It's not the thing necessarily.
Speaker 1: That is right.
Speaker 1: If you take scripture out of context, you can make it say almost anything that you want it to say, and so scripture in context must be followed.
Speaker 1: Scripture that I use and twist to promote whatever agenda or whatever thing that I want to promote is not what we should follow, because it's really not Scripture at all.
Speaker 1: It is man's words that look like Scripture.
Speaker 1: So you remember how John talked about the Spirit of the Lord versus the Spirit of the Antichrist?
Speaker 1: That's why this is really important.
Speaker 1: This is really important because the context of John tells us really beautiful truths and really hard truths all in the same letter.
Speaker 1: If you remember the first message that I preached, we laughed about it because we're like, oh, that's easy, it'll be short and it's you know, follow the Lord and it's going to be great.
Speaker 1: And then John says things like if you don't follow the commandments of God, you're a liar and the truth is not in you.
Speaker 1: Remember that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and remember when I preached that when you're, all's faces were exactly the same then as they were when I said that verse.
Speaker 1: You're all like, but it's true.
Speaker 1: John gives us truth.
Speaker 1: That is hard and yet wonderful, because we need to know that someone who follows Jesus must do his commands, or we end up with the things that we see on the news right now in various churches all across the board, not just in the Methodist church, so that's the one that is the most recent one, right, we have seen across the board that, for instance, the Catholic church is now blessing same-sex couples, and I think it's the Episcopal Church of the US I don't even know, can't even say the words.
Speaker 1: They are in this whole thing of ordaining homosexual clergy.
Speaker 1: And there's the Methodist Church that has kind of gone off the rails in the last, and really people say it's recently, but even when I was a college student, I went to the Wesley Foundation, which, gasp, gasp was a United Methodist congregation.
Speaker 1: It was, and I had a great pastor who did not believe that you could live in any open sin, no matter what it was, and still be, a member of clergy.
Speaker 1: And he told me back then and that was more years ago than I want to admit now he talked about back then hey, there's a schism coming and they're kicking the can down the road and this general council coming up and this was when I was in college y'all they're talking about whether or not we can ordain homosexual clergy and oh well, now they're going to push that can down the road to the next general counsel, and on and on it goes, and what we've seen is they push the can down the road until they no longer would, and they recently had a vote to allow that.
Speaker 1: Had a vote to allow that Y'all.
Speaker 1: The issue with allowing a clergy to have open and unrepentant sin in their life is that John tells us that that person does not have the Spirit of God, that if they do not follow the commands of God, they are a liar.
Speaker 1: And what happens is the leader produces followers that do the same things.
Speaker 1: The leader produces followers that follow the same paths.
Speaker 1: So the question is who will you follow?
Speaker 1: Will you follow the Spirit of the Lord or the Spirit of the Antichrist?
Speaker 1: We at this church value the Scripture.
Speaker 1: One of our biggest values is expository preaching, where you get exactly what you've gotten for the past six weeks.
Speaker 1: We take a passage of Scripture and we don't hide from it.
Speaker 1: We read through every verse of it and we try to be as faithful to the text as possible.
Speaker 1: And so when we get a passage like 1 John that talks about love over and over and over again, we read every one of those verses.
Speaker 1: And when it has hard truths, like the person who doesn't follow the commandments of the Lord is a liar, we read every one of those words, because the Scripture is very, very important.
Speaker 1: If you remember, I talked about 4, verse 6 and I said one of the most misquoted passages in Scripture is we are from God.
Speaker 1: Whoever knows God listens to us.
Speaker 1: Whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
Speaker 1: That is important because the person that we listen to should be as faithful to Scripture as possible.
Speaker 1: If you think back to the person who wrote that sentence, that wrote this book, he's a guy who followed Jesus in person.
Speaker 1: If you go back and you read 1 John 1, one of the very first things he says is that he was an eyewitness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: He touched him, he was there with him, and so it makes sense that we should follow someone who was with him.
Speaker 1: We should follow someone who wrote the Holy Scriptures and, yes, if we depart from that, we have a problem.
Speaker 1: But if we depart from a congregation that says they have the Spirit of God but doesn't follow the Word of God, that is something we should do, because the Word of God tells us who God really is, tells us what he's really like and, yes, tells us how we should be as well.
Speaker 1: The Word of God is important because it corrects and it rebukes and it teaches and it strengthens that which could get weak over time.
Speaker 1: The church that follows the Word of God, that preaches it every week, is important because it strengthens you when you may feel weakened by the attacks of the world.
Speaker 1: The church that preaches the word of God is important because it shows you how to live a life that looks like Jesus.
Speaker 1: And so let's look and see what this passage really is saying.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 1: It says Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Speaker 1: Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Speaker 1: In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live in his sacrifice for us.
Speaker 1: We might live the way he lived Beloved.
Speaker 1: If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Speaker 1: No one has ever seen God.
Speaker 1: If we love one another, god abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Speaker 1: Who is the one another that 1 John's talking about?
Speaker 1: You ever thought about that?
Speaker 1: I've heard people quote this passage and they talk about loving the unbeliever and they say well, my brother is the unbeliever.
Speaker 1: Haven't you ever heard the parable of the Good Samaritan Another, my brother is anyone in the world.
Speaker 1: And it's actually not the case.
Speaker 1: Do you know that?
Speaker 1: Now, the parable of the Good Samaritan does talk about my neighbor.
Speaker 1: And who is my neighbor?
Speaker 1: Whoever's next to me?
Speaker 1: But my brother is who?
Speaker 1: The one with the Spirit of God?
Speaker 1: And so who should I love more than anyone else?
Speaker 1: Those with the Spirit of God, first and foremost.
Speaker 1: Who should I help more than anyone else?
Speaker 1: Those with the Spirit of God, first and foremost.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about why that is?
Speaker 1: Why should we love the believer more than we should love the world.
Speaker 1: Well, john 13, 34, and 35 says something that gives us great clarity on this matter.
Speaker 1: John 13, 34, and 35 tells us the words of Jesus, and 35 tells us the words of Jesus.
Speaker 1: And it says now Jesus said this a new commandment I give to you that you love one another Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Speaker 1: Jerry talked about this.
Speaker 1: And then verse 35,.
Speaker 1: By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
Speaker 1: Why should we love the believer?
Speaker 1: Because they will know that you are disciples of Jesus by your love for those in the church.
Speaker 1: You see, the church really has no place for backbiting and division and dissension.
Speaker 1: The church has no place for envy.
Speaker 1: Church has no place for evil suspicions.
Speaker 1: As 1 Timothy said, the church only has room for love for one believer and another.
Speaker 1: 1 Corinthians.
Speaker 1: You know the famous love chapter that we all like to quote at weddings.
Speaker 1: It says love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast.
Speaker 1: It also says that love believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things, which means that in the church we, of all people, should endure all things from someone who is a believer.
Speaker 1: We should love one another most, and above all as believers, because that is how the world knows that we love Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's not surprisingly.
Speaker 1: It's not by our love for them, it's by our love for the brethren.
Speaker 1: You may say well, pastor Ben, that sounds really odd.
Speaker 1: It is, but it's true.
Speaker 1: Now, should we also love the world enough to bring them to Jesus Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And I would argue that that is what the parable of the Good Samaritan really shows us.
Speaker 1: Now, should we also love the world enough to bring them to Jesus Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And I would argue that that is what the parable of the Good Samaritan really shows us, that we should bandage up the wounds of someone.
Speaker 1: And how many know that?
Speaker 1: We see spiritual wounds literally every moment of every day in the church and outside the church.
Speaker 1: Our job is to take people who are spiritually wounded to the one who can take care of them, and that one who can take care of them is Christ.
Speaker 1: Our job is to care for the spiritually wounded in and out of the church, and I believe it starts with the body of Christ.
Speaker 1: We should bind up each other's wounds and take care of those who profess Christ.
Speaker 1: And then verse 13 says by this, we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit and we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
Speaker 1: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, god abides in him and he in God.
Speaker 1: So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
Speaker 1: God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in love, abides in God and God abides in him.
Speaker 1: By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because, as he is, so also are we in this world.
Speaker 1: Did you hear that by this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment?
Speaker 1: So there's a new command, and it's also an old command, right, jerry, that we should love God and love people.
Speaker 1: John tells us over and over again that to love God is to follow his commands and to love our brothers.
Speaker 1: There's a well, it says it.
Speaker 1: It says whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, god abides in him.
Speaker 1: And it says that by this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.
Speaker 1: What is our confidence on the day of judgment?
Speaker 1: You ever thought about that?
Speaker 1: Our confidence on the day of judgment is that our sins will not be counted against us, that, though we have sinned, the blood of Jesus covers our sin.
Speaker 1: The blood of Jesus was shed so that the wrath of God poured out on a sinful, christ-rejecting world could be paid for, could be propitiated for.
Speaker 1: If you ever heard that word in this passage or elsewhere, propitiation is the idea that the wrath of God was appeased through a sacrifice, and that's what Jesus did for us.
Speaker 1: And so you may say, pastor Ben, you've talked about love and you've talked about all these things, and I don't know if that's how love really is.
Speaker 1: Is love really one of those things that loves Christ above everything?
Speaker 1: And the answer is yes, because Christ loved us first.
Speaker 1: This passage says that, and we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
Speaker 1: That is important, because without that we have no propitiation for sins and we are dead in our trespasses.
Speaker 1: Ephesians, chapter 2, hunter's favorite verse.
Speaker 1: Verse 18 says there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfect fear in love.
Speaker 1: But perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love, we love because he first loved us.
Speaker 1: If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
Speaker 1: And this commandment we have from him whoever loves God must also love his brother Beloved.
Speaker 1: If you're here today and you live in this constant state of fear, if you've been listening to these words about love and you go, you know I've never known true love like what the bible talks about.
Speaker 1: That true love is for you today.
Speaker 1: That true love was given on your behalf, with the sacrifice of jesus christ, and it is available for you today, just like it was available for me so many years ago.
Speaker 1: You see, I was a sinner and I did not know God, and I was rebellious against him and everything that I ever did was rebellious against the one who made me.
Speaker 1: The question that I would ask you today is if you were to appear before a holy God, one who is perfect in all his ways.
Speaker 1: And he says why would I allow you into my heaven?
Speaker 1: What would you say?
Speaker 1: You may say well, pastor Ben, I tell him I'm a good person and never killed anyone.
Speaker 1: And that may be true, but can I read you a short passage about judgment, revelation, chapter 21.
Speaker 1: Revelation, chapter 21 talks about judgment in verse 6.
Speaker 1: It says, and he said to me it is done, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
Speaker 1: To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life, without payment.
Speaker 1: The one who conquers will have this heritage and I will be his God and he will be my son.
Speaker 1: But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral sorcerers, idolaters and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
Speaker 1: If a holy God were to ask you why would I let you into my heaven?
Speaker 1: Have you been cowardly and faithless?
Speaker 1: Have you told a lie?
Speaker 1: Have you lived in sexual immorality?
Speaker 1: You may say well, pastor Ben, I'm not a murderer.
Speaker 1: Jesus said that if you've hated someone in your heart, you've committed murder.
Speaker 1: The question is do any of us stand up to the holy and awesome law of god?
Speaker 1: And the answer is no.
Speaker 1: That law of god is meant to show us that god is so much more perfect than we are that we could never be perfect like him.
Speaker 1: And yet that law of God is not for the believer, because Jesus is the one who paid the price for us on the cross.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the one who made a way for us to enter that heaven when there was no way we could have done it on our own.
Speaker 1: So if you're here today and you need Jesus, we're going to give you an opportunity in just a moment.
Speaker 1: If you're here today and you need Jesus, the Bible is very clear you don't need a pastor, but we are more than happy to come and pray with you.
Speaker 1: But the Bible does say that we should profess him before men and that we should ask him that if we call on the name of the Lord, we will be saved.
Speaker 1: And so if you need that in just a moment, come find us.
Speaker 1: If you, as the believer, are sitting out there today and you're going, man, I've never known true love like that.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you're sitting out there as the believer and you're going.
Speaker 1: You know I don't love like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time to forgive someone in your heart.
Speaker 1: This altar is open for you.
Speaker 1: Wherever you fall, may you fall into the arms of the one who saves you and who died for you.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: Let's pray.
Speaker 1: Heavenly Father, we come in the name of Jesus, the name that is above every name, the name that is greater than the world and has overcome the world, the name that is the propitiation for our sins, that died so that we could have life.
Speaker 1: So, heavenly Father, we come and we pray this day that you would take this word and that you would plant it deep in us that, as the believer, if there is forgiveness that needs to happen in us, if there is bitterness in our heart, if we have been those who have caused division and dissension, god, we ask that you would help us this day to repent of those things and draw us.
Speaker 1: We pray to repentance if we don't realize.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 1: For those who are sitting here today and they don't know you, lord, we pray that you would draw their heart.
Speaker 1: Lord, the Bible says that no one can come to you unless you draw them.
Speaker 1: Father, if there's someone under the sound of my voice today that believes they should come.
Speaker 1: It's because you're drawing them right now, lord.
Speaker 1: Pull them, cultivate their heart.
Speaker 1: We pray that they might come to the saving faith of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: It's in your holy name that we pray, amen.