Father God, we praise your name for the rich feast you've set before us. We are now, through Christ, partakers of the divine nature, brought into the filial love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. See what manner of love, what kind of love, from what country does the love come from that we should be called children of God. And indeed we are. We praise your name that our life is now, as Hemingway would say, a movable feast. That we live in the abundance of the eternal God. We pray for your help today, Father, through your Holy Spirit. Bring your word to land on our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.
You can be seated. I do think I'm going to need a beverage of some kind, if someone could get me. Ah! Langston to the rescue. Thank you so much, sir. I'll pay you back. I'll Venmo. Do you Venmo? I'll Venmo you later. I want to just take a moment to, as I try to do somewhat often, thank our worship team for leading us so well every week. This week it was an all-Luffman affair. It was a full sibling ensemble. One of the three is pregnant. I won't tell you which.
But we're in 1 John today, of course, and we have a big section to cover. Starting in verse 11 of chapter 3, going all the way through the end of chapter 4. Big chunk, in part because our baptism service took so long a few weeks ago. We're kind of playing catch-up. So, this big chunk of text that we'll cover today, I have two priorities for us. The first is, obviously, to expose the text, to show what God is telling us through the text. But I also want to make sure, as we're drawing near to the end of this series, that I have carefully given you the majority of the theological themes that exist in the book itself. And I don't know that I've covered the eschatological angle of 1 John yet, so I want to remind you or let you know that that's there in this letter. Eschatology just means the study of the end of things. It's typically referred to as something like the end times. And John has a lot of eschatological language in this letter. And I've listed that out for you in a slide. In John 2.8, the darkness is passing away. 2.17, the world is passing away. 2.18, children, it's the last hour. 2.28, and now little children abide in him so that when he appears. 1 John 3.2, beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears. And 1 John 4.17, by this love is perfected in us that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.
So these days, most Christians think about eschatology related to things like the rapture and the millennium. The millennium is what Doug Wilson calls 1,000 years of peace that Christians like to fight about. But of course, the most important issue in all things eschatological is this simple truth. You will stand before your maker.
One of the things you need to understand is that the return of Jesus, most fundamentally, is associated with the exposure of the nature of all things. We got a glimpse of this in the incarnation. Jesus appears and walks among us, and suddenly all the institutions and individuals that he encounters are shown to be what they really are. That's the word apocalypse, the revelation, the revealing of all things. When Jesus is present, the truth is exposed. That's how John begins his gospel. People run from the light because their deeds are evil. So when Jesus is present, the true nature of a person or a thing is fully revealed.
And we saw a glimpse of that in his incarnation when we read the gospels. But John also wrote this other book called The Revelation that ends it's at the end of your Bibles. And that's what that book is about. If you're wondering, most fundamentally, what is the book of Revelation about? It is about exposure. It is about seeing what is fundamental, what is fundamentally true. John sees Jesus as he really is and falls down as a man who is dead. And the book begins by Jesus giving us clarity about what Revelation is all about, and that is, I see you. I know your works. I know your works. The book of Revelation is fundamentally about this exposing kind of event that is associated with the presence of Christ.
6 · Applies the eschatological reality of exposure pastorally: the preacher's duty is to help the congregation prepare for the moment when self-deception, excuses, and secrets are stripped away and the truth about each person is fully revealed
And so when we talk about eschatology, I can't be a good friend or pastor to you if I don't first and foremost think, how can I help each person in this room to stand before their maker in this moment when all things will be stripped bare, even the lies you believe about yourself? How can I help you be prepared for this upcoming moment when all of the excuses, the bluffs, the secrets, it's all gone. And what you really are is exposed in a way that you've never known, let alone anybody else.
7 · Defends the pastoral move of pressing the congregation to face the coming judgment—it is an act of love, not cruelty, even though no one naturally wants to confront this reality
That is a kind thing to do, by the way. It's a kind thing to help people prepare to meet their maker, especially because no one wants to do that. No one wants to think about that. No one wants to talk about it. It's a kind thing to help people prepare for this upcoming exposure that's going to happen for all of us.
8 · Interprets John's pastoral purpose in 1 John: the letter itself is an act of love because it prepares the church for the coming exposure
And, you know, John's talking a lot about love, and we'll get into that today. But I also just want to point out that he's being loving, because one of the things he's doing with this little church as he writes them this letter is he is helping them to prepare for this moment when they will stand before their maker.
9 · Signals a structural observation: a specific section of 1 John is framed by statements about confidence at the coming judgment
There's a section in 1 John that is bracketed with this particular purpose.
10 · Identifies a literary bracket in 1 John: 2:28 and 4:17 both address confidence at the coming judgment
In chapter 2, verse 28, John says, And now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. And then we go all the way to the middle section of chapter 4. Well, kind of toward the end of chapter 4. And he repeats that slightly differently, but he repeats it. Verse 17 of chapter 4. By this love is 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. Everything in between those two brackets have to do with John preparing his beloved children for the inevitable exposure that will happen to each one of us, whether when we die or when Jesus returns.
11 · Synthesizes John's overarching pastoral goal: confidence before God at the day of exposure
He is really making this preparation work, the theme of his book in some respects. Everything kind of comes down to, I just want all of you to stand before the throne with confidence. I don't want you to fear this coming moment of exposure. And the only way I can do that is to commend you to do two things.
12 · Outlines John's two-part pastoral strategy: (1) believe the gospel and be born again, and (2) demonstrate transformation through holiness and love
So, really, all of John's letter is the commending of two particular things. Number one, believe the gospel and be born again. So much of 1 John is just as simple as a proclamation of the gospel, a call to believe it, a call to be born again. I've shown those texts here on the slides. And the second thing he's calling the people to is to show evidence of that transformation. Show evidence that you have been transformed. And he offers basically two pieces of evidence. You're holy and you're loving. You are pursuing righteousness and godliness, especially when it comes to loving others well. And there's a whole list of scriptures for that.
13 · Reiterates the sermon's governing frame: preparation for the coming exposure
So, we're going to talk about that today. Everything's going to be kind of clothed in this sense of preparation for the day that is coming when you and I will stand before God. And we can't lie to him. We can't hide from him. And even there's probably some things we believe about ourselves that aren't necessarily warranted. All that gets exposed.
14 · Distinguishes belief-as-entry-point (sufficient for salvation) from belief-as-assurance (insufficient without evidence)
So, how do we plan for that? How do we handle that impending reality in a way that is life-giving and fills us ultimately with confidence? The basic idea here is that belief is never placed in scripture as sufficient for assurance. Believing a set of things is never enough to give assurance. Belief is enough for salvation in the sense of you believe that Jesus died for you. You give your life to Jesus. You agree to follow him. That's what we would tell anyone who asks, what must I do to be saved? But, as we see throughout the scriptures, and as we talked about last week, you know, faith without works is dead.
15 · Uses archaeology as an analogy: just as belief structures leave artifacts that can be excavated, a person's life leaves artifacts that reveal what they truly believe
There's a sense in which belief structures always leave artifacts behind. If you think about it, if that were not true, archaeology would not work. What is archaeology most fundamentally? It's discovering belief structures by analyzing artifacts. Like, that's really—and the truth is, is that your life, your life is a belief structure leaving a trail of artifacts that can be inspected to reveal what you believe, what you prioritize, and so forth. If I walked into a house and there were labeled storage bins, a wall calendar, color-coded by the hour, neatly arranged vitamin tray for each day of the week, you would be able, by examining those artifacts, to make certain assertions about what this person is about, what they believe, their nature, and so forth.
16 · Applies the archaeology analogy: John calls his readers to inspect their lives for observable evidence of transformation
And so what John's doing is he's just saying, you should be able to see evidence in your life that you have actually been transformed. By the things you think you believe. You should be able to see evidence. And that's important, because he wants them, again, to be prepared for the coming day when you, each one of you, myself, we will stand before God. And so many of the defense mechanisms we have internalized since we were children of how to present ourselves. Some of which we wind up believing. Some of the projections that we employ when we're young become just absolutely our truth. They just seem like they're true to us. That's why Jesus says, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, and I will say, depart from me, I never knew you. There's a level of self-deception involved in a belief-forward, in a belief-only kind, in a doctrine-only kind of faith.
17 · Introduces the sermon's organizing framework—four myths about love—and addresses the first: love and unrepentant sin cannot coexist
And, of course, there's a level of self-deception with a deed-only kind of faith. The goal is today is to prepare each one of us to be able to face that coming exposure with confidence. And that seems to be what John's doing as well. So, I think the way that I can get through a big chunk of this text is to talk about four myths associated with love. Because one of the big challenges that we've had to deal with in this series is just understanding, man, love. The concept of love has been so perverted and contaminated that even the call to love requires assessing out definitions and so forth. So, one way we can get through a big chunk of this text, I think, is just to consider four common myths about love. And the first myth would be this. That love and unrepentant sin can grow in the same soil. That love and unrepentant sin can grow in the same soil. Or that love and secret sin can grow in the same soil. We see that beginning in verse 11 of 1 John 3. For this is the message that you've heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Cain's life proves that cherished sin suffocates affection. You've got this bond, this brotherly bond, which is by its very nature a naturally affectionate thing that is utterly disrupted, perverted, and destroyed and turned into hate because Cain loves his sin.
18 · Direct application of myth #1: the pastor challenges the congregation to abandon the belief that secret sin can be compartmentalized from love
Friends, I just want to challenge you as directly as I can, since the coming exposure is imminent in one way or another. Friends, you can't be a loving person with hidden, secret, cherished, unrepentant sin in your life. You have probably at some point, just as I have believed, that you can keep this little indulgence free from affecting the way you relate to others, the way you view others, the way you love others. And I just want you to know it's just not true. Love and sin cannot grow in the same soil. Unrepentant sin.
19 · Concrete application: prioritize dealing with hidden sin now
And so if you've got stuff buried, hidden, stashed away, habits that you think like, well, I'll get to that eventually. Friends, prioritize holiness because what we see when we actually begin to dissect dysfunctional relationships is what John or what James tells us that we're going to see. In James chapter 4, he says, what is the cause of the fights and quarrels among you? It's just chocked full of sinful desires that are waging war both on you and within your relationship.
20 · Restates myth #1 and John's verdict: love and unrepentant sin are incompatible
So myth number one is that somehow you could continue in unrepentant secret sin and be a loving person. And John is letting us know, no, that's not actually possible.
21 · Introduces myth #2: love guarantees likability
Myth number two is that love guarantees likability. I see that in verse 13 of chapter 3. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. The world's hatred of you is not proof that you failed to love. Please remember that when you're interacting with people who are being more bold than you and attempting to fulfill the Great Commission and make disciples, if they have many enemies, it does not mean that they were bad at loving. Love does not guarantee likability. If you are an extraordinarily liked person, it could be that you've confused niceness with love. Those are not the same thing.
22 · Restates myth #2 as summary transition
So myth number two, love does not guarantee likability.
23 · Introduces myth #3: love is mostly a feeling
Myth number three, and this is probably the biggest idea in this section, and that is that love is mostly a feeling. That would be myth number three. Love is mostly a feeling. Both Jesus and John describe the presence of love as a litmus test for true belief. You see that in verses 14 and 15 of chapter 3. John writes, In order for the evidence of love, the existence of love to give you assurance that you're his, love has to be more than a sentiment. Just logically, in order for love to be a litmus test, it must be observable.
24 · Cites John 13:34-35 (Jesus's command to love) to establish that love must be externally observable—otherwise outsiders could not identify disciples by their love
In John 13, which Josh read earlier, John 13, Jesus says, I want you to love one another. And then he says, and by this love, all men will know that you're my disciples. That tells us that love is not merely a sentiment, right? Because it has to be observable from the outside.
25 · Signals return to primary text for further evidence
And we see that even more clearly as we continue into the passage.
26 · Reads 1 John 3:16-18 to show that love is defined by concrete action (laying down life, meeting needs) not sentiment or mere words
In John chapter 3, verse 16, 1 John chapter 3, verse 16, By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart in word or talk, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth. And that's just the message of love throughout the scriptures. Cross-reference there, it goes all the way back to Deuteronomy, where that exact phrase is mentioned in the book of Deuteronomy.
27 · Signals difficulty in the text—1 John 3:19-20 is grammatically complex—and previews two interpretive options
Now, we get into some of the more complicated grammar you'll find in the entire New Testament, I think, in the Greek, in this next couple of verses. These next couple of verses are really difficult to figure out. So I'm going to give you two possible interpretations.
28 · Reads 1 John 3:19-20 and introduces two interpretive options, both of which support the claim that love is not mere sentiment
Let's look at the verses 19 and 20. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. You have basically two options for what this means. And they both are true, and they both emphasize this main point I'm making, that love is not simply sentiment.
29 · First interpretive option: when your heart condemns you (doubts salvation), look at the evidence of love in your life as reassurance
So one option for what this means is that when you start doubting the reality of your salvation, you should be able to look at the evidence that proves you've been born again. That evidence being that you have loved people well. That would be in support of what Jesus says in John 13, and also be in support of what John wrote just a minute ago in verse 14. He says, We know that we have passed out of death into life because we have loved the brothers.
30 · Introduces the second (less common) interpretation, noting that it is actually well-supported in scholarly literature
So that's one possible interpretation. And the other one I guarantee you've never heard of, and yet it's the most supported in the majority of modern commentaries.
31 · Second interpretive option: when your heart tells you the cost of love is too high, God's word overrules
And that is, is that there will be times when your heart is telling you not to be loving toward a person. That the cost is too much. That the price is too high to pay. And your heart will tell you, Don't, this is too much. This is too hard. Don't do it. And in that interpretation, what John is saying is God is greater than that. God's word is greater than that. And he knows all things. And you need to listen to him, not what your heart says.
32 · Summarizes both interpretations and extracts the shared implication: in either reading, love is not sentimental—it is evidential, observable, and actionable
So in that case, it would be sort of a do not lean on your own understanding kind of explanation. So you've got these two explanations, but the point in either case is, you can't just let love be a sentimental thing. It's an evidential thing. It's an observable thing. It's an actionable thing.
33 · Continues through 1 John 3:23 showing that belief and love are both commanded—love is not optional or sentimental but imperative
And the rest of the text, you get more of the same. Like verse 23, this is the commandment that we believe in the name of the son of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he has commanded us. So love is observable.
34 · Recaps myths 1-3 as transition into myth 4
That's myth number three. Love is not mere sentiment. It's observable. Myth number one, love cannot coexist with unrepentant sin. It's just not going to work. Number two, love does not guarantee likability. And number three, love is not primarily sentiment. It's an observable phenomenon. It's actionable and so forth.
35 · Introduces myth #4: love requires doctrinal dilution
Myth number four. This one's very common in our world today. The myth is that loving others requires diluting doctrine. Loving others requires diluting doctrine, or that somehow the call to love is at odds with theological precision. And I get that from verses one through three of chapter four. 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. By this, you know, the spirit of God, 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. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming. And now is in the world already.
36 · Explains why John's doctrinal section (Antichrist, testing spirits) is not a digression from love—removing the incarnation removes the definition of love itself
At first you're looking at this. You're like, boy, you just took a hard left. Like we're talking about love and he's going to go back to talking about love in a minute. And now we have this extreme diversion into a discussion of the Antichrist. And in order to cover as much ground as I'm attempting today, I can't get too detailed into this, but I just want you to understand that one of the things he's saying here is, is that if you mess with the theology of Christianity, you don't wind up with any kind of functional definition of love. Here he's saying, if you take away the incarnation, you take away the action of God's love expressed. If you take away the simple truth of John 3 16, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. If you take away the incarnation, you take away the cost of love. You take away the cross. You take away our fundamental understanding of love as action, love as sacrifice, love as commitment.
37 · Synthesizes myth #4: sentimental 'acceptance' is not love
And so one of the things we could say for what John's doing there is he's saying, love is so not sentimental that even when certain spirits come with ooey gooey love, even when some spirits come with a, with a kind of mushy, let's just accept everyone. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you mess with the central doctrines of Christianity, you have basically disfigured the definition of love.
38 · Restates myth #4 and concludes the four-myth framework
And so myth number four would be that you, you need to lower your doctrinal requirements in order to exhibit love. Like, well, that's, that's probably not true at all, but certainly not true of any of the major doctrines, the incarnation being one. So those are the four myths.
39 · Conducts a live poll asking the congregation to identify which myth is most culturally pervasive
Now let's do a quick poll here. I'm going to ask you to raise your hand for the one you think is the most problematic in our culture today. Okay. So the first, the first myth is that love and sin can coexist and not, not affect one another. How many of you believe that that is the most problematic in our culture? Two, three, four, five, six. Okay. The second one is that love ensures that you will be liked. If you love well, you'll be liked. How many of you think that's the main one that, that is the problem in our culture? Three or four, five of you. Okay. I think a couple of you are voting multiple times, but how many of you think that love as mere sentiment is the main problem in our culture? Okay. It seems like that's the majority opinion. And then how many of you think that like love and the dilution of doctrine, that that problem is the main problem? Almost equal.
40 · Reflects on the poll results: the same myths John addressed 2000 years ago remain culturally dominant
Okay. So that's really interesting that really, as we've named these four things that John's dealing with, we today, 2000 years after he wrote this, can still identify these as essential issues with which we much contend in order to understand love correctly. And you can imagine some poor person who doesn't know these things thinking that they are a loving person. And then standing before the Lord Jesus on the day of exposure. You can see how devastating that would be. Someone has bought into the culture's distorted definitions of love. They use those to evaluate themselves. They come to the conclusion that they are loving. And then they stand before Christ and they say, you're not loving according to the way I showed love. That's why it's so important that we handle these potential issues, not so that we can simply know how to judge one another, but so that we can know how to judge ourselves and know whether we indeed are, in fact, prepared to face our maker.
41 · Signals the literary structure of 1 John 4:4 onward: amplification/recapitulation
Now, everything, I think from verse four, all the way to the end of the chapter is John doing this thing I told you about when we started. He does a thing called amplification or recapitulation where he kind of lays out key concepts, and then he goes back and mentions them again, connecting them to one another in different ways.
42 · Previews rapid survey of 1 John 4:4-21 showing how themes recur
So I want to show you, I just want to read through these next several verses and just show you these key themes emerging from the rest of the chapter.
43 · Rapid survey of 1 John 4:4-17 showing how John amplifies key themes: new birth, love as evidence, doctrine, action, gospel, and confidence
Verse four, little children, you are from God. This is the new birth. Remember, we said that that's a key concept for John and have overcome them for he who is greater than, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Verse five, they are from the world. Therefore, they speak from the world and the world listens to them. Again, this is that likability and love tension thing. The world isn't going to love us or like us just because we're loving. Verse six, we are from God, new birth. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this, we know the spirit of truth and error. This is that doctrine matters component within love. Verse seven and eight, beloved, let us love one another for love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God, new birth. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. Love is evidence. Love is measurability. Love is not mere sentiment. Verses nine through 10. 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. 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. Believe the gospel. Be born again. Love is action. Doctrine matters. It's all, it's all just getting layered in how John's talking. Uh, verse 11 through 13, beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another action. Do it. Follow Jesus example. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this, we know confidence, evidence, measurability that we abide in him and him in us because he has given us his spirit. Verses 14 through 16. And we have seen and testified that the father has sent his son to be savior of the world. The gospel doctrine matters. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. Verse 17, which is the bracket of our eschatological section in some sense, 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.
44 · Direct pastoral plea: the preacher earnestly desires the congregation to have genuine confidence when they face God on the day when all self-deception is stripped away
To have, I really do want you, I really do want you, to have legitimate confidence. For the day that is coming, whether through death or through the return of Christ, you meet your maker and all of the typical papier-mâché projections that we've used throughout our lives, some of which we've believed ourselves, is stripped away. And what we really are is exposed. I want you to face that day with confidence. And that's what John wants.
45 · Reiterates the insufficiency of belief alone (even demons believe) and the insufficiency of works-based confidence
If I tell you, well, what do you believe? What's the problem with that? Even the devils believe and shudder. Theology is essential, but the evidence of what theology has done to you is really important. I'm not asking today, I can't prepare you to meet God by asking what you believe. I have to look, I have to help you to ask, have you been born again? Have you been made new? When you stand before God one day, it won't be a theological quiz. Neither will it be a works inspection as if you could somehow add up enough of the good works to outweigh your bad. These are terrible survival strategies for the coming judgment. The only one that works is, are you His? Did He transform you? Have you been born again?
46 · Answers the objection (how can I know if I'm born again?): Christ-like love is nearly impossible to counterfeit long-term, especially once the cultural myths are dismantled and real love is defined biblically
Well, that's a hard thing to figure out. Christ-like love is extremely difficult to counterfeit over an extended period of time. It just is. It's just not the kind of thing that you can fake forever. especially when we've talked about some of the myths and you begin to realize what this real love looks like.
47 · Urgent pastoral appeal: discovering now that you are not truly born again is a gift, not a disaster
And so what John is doing, what I'm hoping to do for you this morning is to just say, listen, it's way better to be honest with ourselves now than to wait for some future moment. It's way better just to suffer the temporary embarrassment of acknowledging my beliefs are not working out into my life. I don't appear to be a person who loves like Christ. Well, praise God that you see that because as Isaiah 57, 15 says, God dwells with the brokenhearted and the contrite. He is happy to save you today. He's happy to transform your life. It's absolutely no big deal ultimately that in this moment you find yourself exposed to be not really a Christian, but a person who has a set of beliefs that Christians have. It's not the end of the world today to say, I haven't been transformed and I need God to do that for me. It will one day be the end of the world. To discover that. When it's too late. When who you are is who you are, end of story. And there's two different trajectories. Right?
48 · Interprets John's pastoral method as love: helping people prepare for the coming judgment is the most loving act a pastor can perform
So one of the things John's doing is he's just really doing the most loving thing you can do for a person, which is, I want to help you be ready to meet your maker. He says in verse 17, by this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.
49 · Brief devotional quotation from a hymn reinforcing the centrality of redeeming love
There's a hymn where the hymn writer says, redeeming love has been my theme and will be till I die.
50 · Clarifies that love must be observable both vertically (toward God) and horizontally (toward others)
And that has to be flowing in both a horizontal and a vertical way. You have to be able to see that you love God and you love others well.
51 · Positive statement of assurance: if you can honestly see evidence of Christ's love at work in you, you can have confidence on the day of judgment
If you can say that, if you can say that you are not a perfectly loving person, but that the evidence of Christ's love inside of you, working through the Spirit, is real, you can have confidence that the day, when the day comes, you will be able to say, I have been made new, completely undeservedly so, by the work of the Holy Spirit, and you can have confidence.
52 · Pastoral appeal: if you cannot answer the question (is Christ-like love observable in my life?), you have no grounds for assurance
But I think you can also see now why, man, if you could not able, if you're not able to answer this question, it's, it really doesn't give you any grounds for assurance. It doesn't mean that you are or not something, we would talk about that individually, but I want you to understand why would you ever go another day toward that end of standing before your Maker without understanding this is the way that John, in sincere love for his people, is trying to help them sort all this out. I don't know how that lands on you today. I don't know how that lands on you. I just want you to understand that that day is coming and that the Bible has given us a means to measure whether or not we're ready. And it has to do with whether you can identify Christ-like love as a consistent theme in how you treat other people.
53 · Transitions into final exposition section by reiterating the eschatological reality: everyone will stand before God
I don't know what you think about that, but the Bible is very clear that every person will one day stand before God.
54 · Marshals multiple scriptural citations on the coming judgment: Hebrews 9:27, Romans 14:10-12, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Luke 8:17, 1 Corinthians 4:5
Hebrews tells us it's appointed once for a man to die and then face the judgment and that each of us will stand before the judgment seat of God and give an account of ourselves. We must all appear, the Bible says, before the judgment seat of Christ so that everything we have done may be evaluated. Nothing that is covered will remain hidden, every secret will be revealed and made known. That's the Bible, not me. And on that day, the Lord will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and expose the purposes of every heart, also in the Bible.
55 · Final restatement of the sermon's core claim: the judgment will not be a theological quiz but an exposure of what you are
A firm grasp of gospel concepts will not be enough on that day. You will not be questioned primarily about what you believe, you will be questioned primarily by what you are. Are you born again? Because as John has been telling us ever since he wrote his gospel all the way through the book of Revelation, as Jesus himself says in John 3, if you are not born again, you will not see the kingdom of God. So who are you most fundamentally? That's a question to ask today in preparation for that day.
56 · Pastoral reassurance: this church is a safe place to admit uncertainty about your salvation
and that's a question that you are safe to ask in this church. Nobody, nobody is secretly keeping score on this particular issue. Whether you chose to be in a church with a high view of grace or not, I don't know, but that's where you are and none of us keep that kind of score on this kind of thing. if you were to realize today, you know, I don't think I have been born again. I don't think I have been transformed. And you were to tell any of the long-time members at this church, we would praise God with you. Not, with not even the second of critical thought in our hearts. We would just be glad that God showed that to you.
57 · Direct application with concrete instruction: you cannot manufacture regeneration, but God has promised to respond to desperate, faith-filled prayer
I'm trying to get you to see that today is a wonderful day to ask that essential question so that you can have confidence when you meet him. Now, how do we have confidence? Well, ultimately, let's understand something. There is no way for you to choose to be born again. You can't make it happen. You can't bargain God into it. You can't force it. So you are utterly out of control here in some fundamental respect. And I would guess that if you have been walking around thinking you're saving or not, you have mistaken this particular piece in a special way. You thought that you had more control over all this than you did. Here's what you need to do. God has promised that if you will say, I am desperate for this to happen to me, Lord. I don't deserve it. I can't earn it. I can't trigger it. I am simply desperate for you to make me a new person. And that if you pray in faith the Lord Jesus, knowing that he died for your sins so that you could not just be forgiven but made his, if you pray a prayer of faith today and ask the Lord to make you new, he will do that.
58 · Concrete application: if you realize you are not born again, the first step is to confess that to others in the church
Probably the first evidence, if you are a person who has gone for an extended period of time not being born again but in the church, probably the first evidence of that, like the first step into that being real would be to acknowledge that to other people. Let's get this fear of man monkey offer back. And let's just own. I've been walking around with good ideas. I haven't been transformed. I pray that God would transform me. So we're going to do something we don't usually do at Providence and that's simply just take a moment to give you a moment to call out to the Lord and be saved.
59 · Extended pastoral prayer guiding the congregation to confess their lack of love, acknowledge their inability to save themselves, and cry out to God for transformation
So why don't we just bow our heads in prayer? Okay to just say, Lord, I see a lot of selfishness in my life. I see a lot of anger. I see a lot of me. I don't see satisfying evidence of the love of Christ manifesting itself in my life. And to just say that to God. Say, God, I don't know what to make of that. I am not so proud as to hold on to something that's not true. I want to cut the crap. I want you to reveal what's real. I ask the Lord to do that for you. Have I without one again? God, you do not leave us without a way of checking in on that reality. The evidence is all throughout John. Am I pursuing righteousness righteousness or am I practicing wickedness? Am I loving people and growing to love people as Christ loves people? This is what you've given us in your word to determine whether or not we have been born of God. And God, we are just at the very edge both as a preacher and as an audience. We're just at the very edge of anything else we can say or do. This is all you from here forward. Your Holy Spirit must do a work that we can't do. God, we pray that your word says that you exist and that you reward those who seek you and that all those who call on you you will by no means cast out. And so we ask God that you would perform a transforming work on anyone here today who was in need of it. That you would cause some even today, Lord, to be born again. We pray these things in Jesus mighty name. Amen.
60 · Transitions to communion
Well, this table that we will observe today is set to be a tangible expression of the fundamental gospel. That he who knew no sin became sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is a table that demonstrates our inability to save ourselves and the necessity of Christ to step in and offer himself for us. So I would pray that you if you know that you are born again would come today and observe this table. And I would pray that if you do not know that we not let time go very far until you and me or you and somebody have a conversation to help you sort this out in kindness and love and hope and confidence in the Lord. So why don't you come and get the elements and come and turn to your seat and I'll lead us. Amen. Amen. Thank you.