[0:00] So tonight we'll be reading 1 John 5, verses 1-5. This is God's Word.
[0:13] Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God.
[0:26] By loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God, to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.
[0:41] This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
[0:54] Let's listen as this word is preached. Amen. Tonight we are now in 1 John 5.
[1:05] And just those five verses that we're going to look at together. And in those five verses, we are going to see four baffling truths.
[1:16] Four truths that are surprising. Four truths that don't make sense. Not to the Christian, but to the natural man.
[1:27] Four truths that leave the natural man scratching his head. So before we dive into this text, we need to consider first, what does the Bible teach us about the natural man?
[1:41] What does the Bible teach us about those who are unconverted? And how they then hear the word? And then after seeing that, we'll be able to better see how 1 John teaches these four truths that do confuse the natural man.
[1:57] These four truths that the natural man would want to resist. He lives according to his default spiritual nature. And that nature is one of sinful rebellion against God.
[2:11] Now John has already talked about the natural man in his letter to us, even though he didn't say that term. Back in chapter 4, John states his apostolic authority.
[2:23] He was given this authority to speak from God, specially commissioned by God. And he says this in verse 6. We are from God.
[2:35] Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. The natural man is not from God.
[2:47] The natural man has not been born of the Spirit. And so the natural man does not listen to God. The natural man doesn't listen to those who speak from God.
[3:00] Why would the natural man listen to God? He doesn't recognize God's authority to tell him what to do, to tell him how to live his life.
[3:11] If you were driving down the road, and a plainclothes person had traffic cones that were out blocking the road, and they had a sign up that said, road closed to through traffic, you would scoff that this plainclothes person thinks that they can shut down the street.
[3:31] If you were bold enough, you would go around the cones and continue on your merry way. But if instead, a construction crew, with all of their gear, and their vehicles, and their equipment, that's clearly visible, had done the same thing.
[3:50] They had put out their traffic cones. They had a sign that read, road closed to through traffic. You might not be super pleased with the situation, but you would understand.
[4:01] You would submit to their authority. You would recognize that they have your good in mind. They are seeking to maintain the road, improve the road, take care of something that has happened on the road.
[4:14] They're doing their job. You would listen. You would submit to their authority. To the natural man, he looks at the construction worker, and all he sees is the plainclothes person.
[4:29] Who is this that he should tell me what to do? Who is God that he should tell me what to do? God has no authority over my life.
[4:42] And instead of listening to God, and submitting to God, the natural man ignores God. The natural man goes on his own way. He scoffs.
[4:54] He doesn't live in reverent fear. He's annoyed by God. He's inconvenienced by Him. God has no right to exercise authority over my life, over how I live.
[5:06] Who does God think that He is? And so the natural man also doesn't listen to those writing under the inspiration of the Spirit, with the authority of God, like John does.
[5:20] John's words carry no weight. In fact, John's words are confusing. We just sang, blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan God's works in vain.
[5:34] The natural man gets it wrong. And so John's words here in 1 John 5, they're strange. They're foreign. It's not just though that the natural man refuses to listen.
[5:47] It's that he thinks it's crazy to listen. He thinks John's words here are nonsensical. It's folly. And so he does the opposite of what Proverbs 3, 5-7 tells us to do.
[6:01] He leans on his own understanding. He is wise in his own eyes. And all of us who are in Christ, were we not at one time that very person?
[6:14] One who looked to themselves. One who said, I am the final authority of my life. Isaiah 28, 28 describes the Lord as wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.
[6:32] But the unconverted person thinks just the opposite. He hears the wisdom of God. He stops up his ears as though he can't hear. He says like a stubborn child, la, la, la, I can't hear you.
[6:45] Because he doesn't want to. He thinks that he knows best. So why be so foolish? Why would you spurn the wisdom of God Almighty?
[6:57] Why would you spurn the wisdom who is wonderful in counsel, who's excellent in wisdom? Because the mind of that man is darkened in understanding, Ephesians 4 teaches us.
[7:11] Beginning in verse 17, we read this, Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
[7:24] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. So he's not thinking straight.
[7:37] His mind is spiritually sick. He is futile in his thinking. His foolish heart is darkened. What does Romans 3 say? No one understands.
[7:50] No one seeks after God in themselves. In Jeremiah 6, verse 10, God spoke these words about unbelieving Israel.
[8:02] To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised. They cannot listen. Behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn.
[8:15] They take no pleasure in it. God says they cannot listen. He's very clear in that cannot. It's not just that they choose not to.
[8:28] They are incapable of listening. It's not a willingness problem. It is an incapability problem. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, 2 Corinthians 2.14 says.
[8:46] For they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. And that leads us to also understand that the natural man is not born of God.
[9:00] And so he is incapable of spiritually discerning anything. He does not have the Spirit of God in him. The natural man needs to be born again.
[9:12] And that is something that he can't do himself, just like we can't bring about our own physical birth. Kids, can you choose to be born?
[9:23] Did you choose to come into this world? No, that's crazy. You can't choose to be physically born, and we don't choose to be spiritually born.
[9:36] That's a work that God does by his Spirit. We call this regeneration. The Holy Spirit is bringing us to life so that we might repent and believe.
[9:50] God must take away the heart of stone. He must give us a heart of flesh so that we might repent and believe. I love what Luke says of Lydia in Acts 16, 14.
[10:05] He says this, The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. The Lord opened her heart so that she then paid attention.
[10:16] She'd been given eyes to see. The one who is dead in their trespasses must be made alive. And unless that work of regeneration happens, the natural person will not repent and believe.
[10:31] They will stay dead in their sins. They will stay dead in their darkened, ignorant frame of mind. They won't do what Lydia did. They won't pay attention. They'll continue following the course of this world.
[10:45] They will continue following the prince of the power of the air who blinds the minds of unbelievers. So the natural man must be born again.
[10:56] He must be born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And at one time, all of us were in this natural state.
[11:09] We were living according to that default spiritual nature of sin. We all needed that direct divine intervention in our hearts. We needed God not to help us along.
[11:22] We needed God not to assist us in our efforts. We needed God to make our hearts beat while we lay cold on that table in the morgue.
[11:34] We needed to be brought to life. And that could only be done by the Spirit. So over and over again in the Gospel accounts, Jesus says these words, He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.
[11:50] And who gives that ability to spiritually hear? Who gives that? Deuteronomy 29.4 couldn't be any plainer. It says this, the Lord says, but to this day, the Lord has not given you a heart to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear.
[12:12] God gives us those eyes to see. God gives us those ears to hear. God gives us a heart that would believe. So for us who are in Christ, our eyes have been opened by the Lord.
[12:24] And so the four truths that we're going to see here in 1 John, they're presented to us, they make sense. They're not foolish. They don't baffle us.
[12:35] They don't confuse us. They make sense in that we embrace them. They make sense in that we seek to live by them.
[12:46] That we might rejoice in them. That we might gladly listen to and obey what God says because He has caused us to be born again. By the grace of God, these truths make sense.
[13:01] But if you're not in Christ this evening, if you are indeed still the natural man, you do indeed need to be born again.
[13:13] But you're thinking, I can't be born again. And so sometimes, especially for those of us who grow up in the church, we think God is going to zap me and I will be saved.
[13:26] And I am now waiting. I'm just passively waiting for God to zap me. Remember when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3?
[13:38] And John is teaching Nicodemus about how one enters the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus tells Nicodemus, you must be born again. But He doesn't command him to do that.
[13:51] He doesn't command Nicodemus, be born again, Nicodemus. But over and over in the Word of God, what we are told is to repent and believe.
[14:03] Don't sit and wait for God to make you to be born again as though you will feel it or as though you will realize it in the moment. No, repent and believe.
[14:13] Come to Christ. Even tonight, turn to Him that you might be saved. And in your repenting and believing, that is the evidence God has caused you to be born again.
[14:28] Now don't be mistaken. Your repentance is granted to you. Your faith is a gift to you. But in this mysterious way, the Bible teaches us that God is sovereign over our salvation.
[14:42] And it is in no way diminished even as we are called to act. We are responsible. Repent and believe. So don't sit by.
[14:54] Don't twiddle your thumbs. Do you see your sin? Are you grieved by your sin? Do you see the Savior, the only one who could save you from your sin?
[15:06] Come to Him tonight that you might be saved. Come to Christ. Turn from your sin and trust in Him. Now if you are in Christ, and we've said these truths in 1 John will make perfect sense, it's not that we will live out these truths perfectly.
[15:28] We just heard that truth told already, that we are not perfect this side of eternity. And it's not as though these truths are easy to live out. And we immediately do it well once we become a spiritual Christian.
[15:42] We live out these truths. Now we have to recognize remaining sin in our hearts. But where we see that remaining sin, it tempts us to resist God.
[15:53] It tempts us to disregard His truth. Where we see that sin, we seek by the strength that God provides to put that sin to death. So yes, these truths may not always be easy to live out, but for the spiritual person, the person who's been born again by the Spirit, we embrace God's truth.
[16:14] We agree with the truth of His Word. But even more than agreeing, we submit to it. We seek to live by it. And so whatever the spiritual person finds in the Spirit-inspired Scriptures, that person seeks by the grace of God to wholeheartedly live it out as imperfect as we may be.
[16:36] So don't slack off tonight if you're in Christ. Don't think this sermon is simply an opportunity for you to check off each truth that we walk through and say, yeah, I agree. God's opened my eyes to see these truths.
[16:48] That's right. I affirm them. Now there's work to be done. We live by these truths. So here's the first one. Baffling truth number one.
[17:01] If you love your Father, you will love His children. If you love your Father, you will love His children. Verse one. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.
[17:16] And everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. So this verse teaches us something of the corporate nature of the Christian life.
[17:29] This verse teaches us that we are saved in order that we might be gathered together. That we are saved to be joined to the universal church. John is telling us you can't have a relationship with God without having a relationship with His children.
[17:48] And the church is His people, His children. Now it's a sad reality. But many people, many Christians have been hurt in the church.
[18:02] Have been hurt by the church. The universal church is very imperfect. Grace Fellowship Church is very imperfect. Because the church is made up of people who are saved by grace and yet battling that indwelling sin still.
[18:20] And that remaining sin, it shows up in all sorts of ways. We are proud and puffed up. We are envious. We can be jealous. We can offend and be offended. We can lie.
[18:31] We can manipulate. We can say things that tear down instead of build up. All kinds of ways that our sin can still bubble up. All kinds of ways that we can hurt each other.
[18:44] Then we look to God. And we see God is perfect. God never fails us. His love never fails us. God never sins against us. He never hurts us as we can hurt each other.
[18:58] And it's not hard for us to understand the temptation, what feels natural, to preserve ourselves, to protect ourselves, to insulate ourselves against the possibility of getting hurt, especially if we've been hurt before.
[19:15] And so we're tempted to avoid. We're tempted to ignore the corporate nature of the Christian life.
[19:26] And we think, God doesn't hurt me, but people do. So I'll stick with God, but I'll avoid His church. It's a very natural way to think.
[19:38] I'll love the Father, but not so much the children. My children, He's loved me well, but my siblings haven't. Now I do want to say this.
[19:54] There are times, there are situations in local churches where great abuse happens, where grievous wrongs take place.
[20:06] There are times that removing yourself from a situation is absolutely necessary. where removing yourself even from particular relationships needs to happen.
[20:18] There is much wisdom that is needed for discerning when those times are. These verses show us, though, that those ought to be the exceptions and not the norm.
[20:29] For the Christian, our MO, for the Christian, our normal pattern of life should be living alongside one another. It should be loving the children of our Heavenly Father.
[20:43] And when sin does come between us, we should be seeking to reconcile with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our pattern shouldn't be one of isolation from other Christians.
[20:55] It shouldn't be, well, I've got God and He's all that I need. God has brought you into relationship with Himself, and that relationship is in the context of a family.
[21:09] The world says, go it alone. The Word says, you're in a family. You be with your family. You love your family.
[21:21] So John writes here to tell us that we can't claim we love the Father without loving His children. We can't love the Father without loving our siblings as messy as those sibling relationships can be.
[21:37] Those of us who are parents of young children, we know how messy those relationships can be. What's our desire for our children? Our desire is that they'll love one another.
[21:50] Our desire is that they will get along together. Our desire is that they will build each other up, that they'll help one another, not hurt one another. What's sweeter to a parent than seeing their siblings setting the table together?
[22:05] We're seeing an older sibling letting a younger sibling tear down his tower he's built, and he's good with it because he's enjoying the time with his sibling. How sweet are those moments to us?
[22:18] And when that's not the case, when there's arguing, and there's bickering, when our children are ready to throttle each other, when they're angry and they're hurt, as a parent, what do we do?
[22:29] We intervene for their good. We don't just break up the fight. We don't just quiet the room. We exhort, and we encourage, we discipline where we need to because our desire isn't just that our children not hurt each other.
[22:45] our desire is that our children love each other. And when they don't act in ways in which they love each other, as parents, our relationship to our children is impacted.
[22:59] Now, we may not be directly involved in the conflict. I had no vested interest in the block tower that got destroyed, but we're grieved by how our children may treat each other when they don't love one another.
[23:14] And if we can see the ways in which those relationships on a human level are impacted, how much more so with our Heavenly Father. Our Father desires that we love one another, and that's an evidence of our great love for Him.
[23:29] Now, to the natural man, this kind of faithfulness to people, even people who let us down, who may offend us, who may hurt us, that kind of faithfulness doesn't make sense.
[23:44] How can you love those people? And the Christian's response is, because those are my brothers and sisters in Christ. That's my family. And I, too, bring my own sin into my family.
[23:58] I let those people down. I offend those people. I hurt those people. And I confess my sin. And they continue to love me as they love the Father.
[24:11] What a beautiful relationship of the family of God that we love each other as we love the Father. So that's the first baffling truth in our passage.
[24:22] Here's the second. The love of God and the law of God are friends. The love of God and the law of God are friends.
[24:33] Beginning in verse 2. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments.
[24:48] John likes to answer the question, how do you know? John loves to answer that. How do you know? Like at the end of chapter 4. You say you love God.
[24:59] How do you know? By this, John says, you love your brother in Christ. Your brother who has been born of God. Now John does the inverse.
[25:10] You say you love your brother in Christ. How do you know? By this. You love God. And then, John adds, and you keep His commandments.
[25:24] How we love God is so vitally important for us to understand. We love God by keeping His commandments. The love of God and the law of God, they are friends.
[25:37] A couple weeks back in chapter 4, we saw that love and fear repel each other.
[25:47] That the love of God and the fear of God are incompatible. They repel each other. Now this week, we see the love of God and the law of God attract.
[25:59] That is not how the natural man thinks. To the natural man, love and law are opposites. They should repel just like love and fear repel.
[26:12] Laws keep us from love. So thinks the person not born of the Spirit. Laws detract from our ability to love and be loved.
[26:23] Love is freedom. Freedom from laws. Freedom from commandments. Commandments only serve to bind us, to hinder us from fully living life.
[26:37] So the natural man thinks. And in a sense, they do hinder us. But they only hinder us from fully living life on our terms.
[26:51] And living life on our terms only leads us to destruction. So here, John teaches us that love and law, they go together. that we love God not by scrapping His commandments, but by keeping them.
[27:07] We don't love God however we like. We love God as God tells us to. We don't set the terms of our relationship to God. God, in His love, sets the terms of the relationship for us.
[27:21] and how loving of God is it that He gives us His commandments. To not leave us in the dark as to how to please Him.
[27:33] How to live in relationship to Him. He makes it plain. He says, here are my commandments. If you love me, obey these commandments and it will be for your good.
[27:45] Jesus says to us in John 15, verse 9, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
[27:56] 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 love.
[28:08] Time and again, Jesus demonstrates to us, here is how you are to live in relationship. relationship, perhaps in relationship to God, perhaps in relationship to one another. And He models it on the love between the Trinity.
[28:22] And there He did it. Once more, the love that He has with the Father, we too share with Him. And how do we share in that love? Not by disregarding His laws, but by keeping them.
[28:35] By living according to His laws. And so the unconverted person says, I want to be free of God's laws. The God-man, Jesus Christ, He submitted Himself to His Father's commandments.
[28:52] And those in Christ, we do the same. The spiritual man wants to keep God's laws and rejoices that God loves us so much that He gave us His laws.
[29:03] As strange as it may sound to some, the love of God and the law of God are friends. God's laws. Let's consider the third baffling truth together.
[29:18] The law of God brings freedom, not oppression. The law of God brings freedom, not oppression. And it's just the very end of verse 3.
[29:29] And His commandments are not burdensome. The natural man thinks that God's laws are a heavy load. He thinks that God's commandments are burdensome.
[29:43] So we read this text and that doesn't make sense. No. God's laws, they're burdensome. But the reality is sin is burdensome.
[29:55] That's what God's Word teaches us. That's what experience has also revealed to us. There is a heavy load in life that weighs man down.
[30:06] And it is our sin. It weighs us down with guilt and shame. It steals the life from us. In the moment, sin may be pleasant.
[30:18] That is why it's tempting. Because in the moment, there is something enjoyable that I am getting and gratifying from it. Putting someone in their place. Puffing myself up.
[30:30] Reveling in the praise of man. Greedily gaining money and possessions. But the one who would gain the whole world will lose his soul.
[30:42] This is the picture that's painted by Solomon in Proverbs 1. In Proverbs 1, he warns his son against going along with the evil schemes of sinners.
[30:54] And this is how Solomon couches his warning. My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. Sin is enticing.
[31:07] And those who embrace it, Proverbs 1 goes on to say, this is what they're like. Come with us. Let us lie and wait for blood. Let us ambush the innocent without reason.
[31:19] Like Sheol, let us swallow them alive and whole like those who go down to the pit. We shall find all precious goods. We shall fill our houses with plunder.
[31:31] Throw in your lot among us. We will all have one purse. That is enticing. There is pleasure that sin offers. But it is one massive lie.
[31:44] It is the great deception. Because those who run after their sin, they have no idea that they are running to their ruin.
[31:56] Solomon goes on to say, my son, do not walk in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their paths. For their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood.
[32:08] For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird. But these men lie in wait for their own blood. They set an ambush for their own lives.
[32:20] Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. It takes away the life of its possessors. Sin kills. Sin destroys.
[32:31] The very thing that one pursues and thinks that they will enjoy and be gratified with, that is the very thing that leads to their destruction. But the commandments of God give life.
[32:46] But how our own flesh and the world and the devil wants us to think and to believe otherwise, how wonderful sin seems, how cruel and harsh God is, how he burdens his people with his commandments.
[33:04] The natural man thinks of commandments and laws as being restrictive. Do you think that's what David thought of God's laws? Does this sound like the words of a man who found God's commandments to be burdensome in Psalm 19?
[33:19] The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
[33:31] The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
[33:42] More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward.
[33:58] David says, God's laws aren't burdensome. There's great reward in keeping his commandments. Or how about Psalm 1, the righteous man of Psalm 1?
[34:10] What does he think of God's laws? He delights in God's law. He meditates on God's law day and night. If God's commandments were burdensome, what a torturous experience that would be, to have to meditate on those commandments day and night.
[34:32] That would be a terrible, terrible experience. And yet, the psalmist clearly is portrayed as one who delights in those laws. And what's the end result for the righteous man of Psalm 1?
[34:46] is his life brought to utter ruin by these burdensome commandments? No! He flourishes like a tree planted by streams of water. Its leaf never withers and all that he does, he prospers.
[35:01] The natural man thinks God's laws are burdensome. God says, no, my laws lead to life. My laws are not oppressive. My laws give freedom.
[35:15] We studied the life of John Bunyan last month. And in his famous allegorical book, The Pilgrim's Progress, Christian is weighed down by that heavy load upon his back.
[35:27] And he says, this burden torments me and grows and weighs so heavily upon me. And he realizes that this load will lead to his condemnation in hell.
[35:39] And where is that load released? It's only at the cross. Bunyan did not portray Christian as one who had no burden, arrived at the cross, and then suddenly had a burden upon his back until he reached the celestial city.
[35:56] Why did Bunyan do that? Because he was representing the truth of Scripture. That the load is taken off at the cross, not put on upon the cross.
[36:09] If you're not in Christ tonight, hear the words of Jesus from Matthew 11. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
[36:21] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[36:34] So for the Christian, the law of God brings freedom, not oppression. second, let's consider the fourth and final baffling truth. The world is overcome by faith in Jesus Christ.
[36:48] Verses 4 and 5. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.
[37:00] Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. The world esteems conquerors.
[37:12] The world loves those who overcome, who take over. You think of Napoleon. You think of Alexander the Great. You think of the Roman Empire.
[37:24] The world loves to overcome. The world loves to conquer. That is natural to the natural man. And so to say that the Christian overcomes, that is not all that shocking.
[37:40] But here is what is. The Christian overcomes the world. And the Christian overcomes the world by faith. The Christian overcomes the world by believing that Jesus is the Son of God.
[37:58] And so if you are in Christ, you are indeed a conqueror, but not by power, not by might, you overcome the world by faith. By faith in Jesus.
[38:10] Because it is Jesus who himself has overcome the world. He says in John 16 33, I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.
[38:25] In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. So you and I have no hope of overcoming the world in ourselves.
[38:36] If I just work hard enough, the natural person thinks. If I can just be stronger and more capable, if I can just prove myself, I can achieve my goals, I can reach my dreams, I can conquer the world, I can come out on top.
[38:52] But the spiritual person sees himself as he really is. Poor in spirit, impoverished spiritually, a weak, sinful, feeble creature.
[39:06] The spiritual person says, I have no hope of overcoming the world in myself. In fact, the world would overcome us in ourselves.
[39:18] It will tempt us, just as 1 John 2 says, with the desires of the flesh and of the eyes and the pride of life. Adam and Eve did not overcome the temptations of the evil one.
[39:33] They were deceived and they fell into the very temptations that now tempt us. Look at the desires of the flesh.
[39:45] Look at the desires of the eyes. Look at the pride of life. Look at how attractive the world is. In ourselves, we're going to be overcome. We're going to be seduced. We're going to be mastered.
[39:58] But here's the good news. Jesus has overcome the world. Jesus Christ lived a perfectly righteous life. Satan gave Jesus all that he could in the temptation in the wilderness and Jesus overcame.
[40:15] Then he went to the cross and he died. And the world looked on and said, perhaps he actually was conquered. Perhaps Jesus actually was overcome.
[40:27] overcome. Then Jesus rose from the grave, proving that he indeed had overcome the world just as he said in John 16 33.
[40:39] He rose victorious. And all of us who are in him, we who have been born of God, we who have now believed in Jesus as the Son of God, by faith in him, we too are victorious.
[40:53] glorious. We belong to a great God who has done a great work in us, who has caused us to be born again, who then enables us to live as those who are born again.
[41:09] We've been made new creations. The old has passed away and the new has come, scripture says. And so in the strength that God provides, let's live as those who have been made new.
[41:24] Let's live in the strength that God gives. Let's love the children as we love the Father. Let's keep the Father's commandments because the love of God and the law of God are friends.
[41:38] Let's see that the law of God brings freedom and not oppression. And let's remember, we overcome the world by faith in Jesus Christ. All truths that are spiritually discerned, and for those of us who have the Spirit, may we put those truths into practice.
[41:58] Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, oh how we need your help, how mindful we are even tonight of how much we indeed need your help.
[42:14] We can do nothing of the Christian life in our own strength. Just as John has said in his letter, your people are those who have been given the Spirit.
[42:26] We need the Spirit who gives us life. We need the Spirit who enables us to then live the Christian life. And we pray, Lord, that your Spirit would do that work in us.
[42:37] That we would live according to these truths that make no sense to the unbeliever. And Father, we pray for those who don't know you. We pray for those who are in our midst week in and week out Sunday services.
[42:51] We pray, Lord, that you would save them in your grace. That you would cause them to be born again. That they might repent and believe. And we pray that you would make us to be a people who are confident.
[43:03] To be a people who go out joyfully proclaiming the good news of the gospel to all of those in our lives. That they too might hear. That they too might believe.
[43:14] Because you have caused them to be born again. We thank you, Father, that you hear our requests. We thank you that you delight to answer them because we are your children. We pray that you would answer according to your will.
[43:28] For the sake of your Son, and it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen.