Good evening everyone. Welcome to Set Fast Baptist Church. We are going to go ahead and get started.
Go ahead and grab a hymnal and we're going to start in Psalm number 384 in the service of the King.
384.
Great singing everybody. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for steadfast Baptist Church and
everyone that's gathered. We ask, Lord, that you fill Pastor Shelley with your holy spirits. We
can preach a netifying sermon unto us. We can walk out better Christians when we came in
and serve you to the best of our ability. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, next up we have song number 188. Song 188.
This one's a little bit slower.
Song 188, The Love of God.
Thanks for coming to St. Baptist Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin,
you would like one, just lift your hand real quick.
One of us just can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
Bible Mary passage, we're on Jude 1 verse 13.
If you can quote that after the service,
you can get a special treat if you're 18 and under.
On the inside, we have our service and soul winning times.
All sorts of church stats,
keep up the good work on soul winning.
On the right, we have a list of expecting ladies.
Please be in prayer for all those who are expecting.
We also have upcoming events.
We have the Lancaster soul winning marathon this Saturday and for the lunch
It's it's where we're going soul winning
surprisingly doesn't really have much food and it's about 30 minutes from here
26 to 20 26 minutes or so so if we came back here for lunch or just kind of like
lose about an hour or so so we're gonna just try and meet some some locations in
DeSoto so there's some like lunch spots at DeSoto that are pretty close to where
Lancaster is but
I'm kind of nervous about showing up with like 100 people.
I don't know that they could accommodate.
So we kind of just gave like three options.
And there was a message put in the group chat
that you could respond to,
or you could put it on the sign-up sheet over here.
But basically you can sign up for a Luby, CeCe's, or in and out.
So we got three different options for lunch.
Of course lunch will be free.
It's just let us know which one you would like to do.
And we'll take care of that.
But we'll be meeting here at 9 a.m. for soul winning.
and then we'll be heading out around 10.
Go soul-winning for a couple hours,
have lunch out there and then go back.
Whatever you can participate in,
you're welcome to join us
if it's just the morning or the afternoon.
But you probably have to message one of us about.
where we're going to meet up for the afternoon because we're probably just going to get people
maps for the whole day. But it's a very receptive looking area. I anticipate that if we put in a
lot of hours soul winning out there, we should have some pretty good results. So I'm really excited
about this opportunity. It's just they don't have food out there. You know, I don't know,
I don't want to tell you, it's a food desert, but it's also probably a spiritual desert. So we
got to go out there and we got to bring the gospel with us, right? Just a reminder. So if you have it,
Picked lunch you can put it in the group chat or you can put it out here. Libya is not an option for lunch
Okay, just just in case
but I don't know some people got confused
Teen summer event is July 26th, and we have that venue and stuff
Decided I put it in the group chat. I apologize. There had been a typo in our bulletin
It had said July 29th on accident
but it is July 26th, and so that's a Saturday.
I think the sign-up sheet should be accurate,
and I did post it in our group with the accurate date.
I apologize for any confusion about that date,
but it is July 26th, and it's gonna be
that Saturday evening from 5 to 9 p.m.,
and we have a lot of kids signed up already.
It looks like it's gonna be a really fun event.
Also, there's a joint baby shower August 9th.
There's another adventure park.
teen summer event August 9th.
That date is correct.
That is that Saturday.
Men's Retreat is August 14th to the 16th.
And really looking forward to the Men's Retreat this year.
We're going to the same place we've gone in the past
and it's always a lot of fun.
We're thinking about mixing up the Mighty Men's Competition,
making it a lot different this year,
but still a lot of fun.
So I'm pretty excited about that.
Also, FBBF Conference.
This is going to be a lot, a lot of fun.
preaching every night and we have cool stuff we're making some cool shirts for
this and some other free giveaways and we've got a lot of activities and events
so pray for that missions trip Mexico City September 8th through the 12th for
the Diego's helping leaders so if you have any questions please talk to him
isn't there still a little bit of space in some of our booking how much space do
you think there is already
Yeah, there's like at least three or four spots open and then we could even make room for more if we had to but there's at
least three or four spots that are just ready for some Spanish-speaking zealous person to go down there with them so
Really looking forward to that opportunity because it's gonna be I believe it's gonna be a big success
Make sure you're doing your soul winning stats reporting put the first name and at least last initial
Just because we have a lot of people with the same name
It's like the Bible where everybody's merry, except for, you know, here it's a little bit different.
On the back, that baby shower is for the Aldermans and the Carlson's.
It's going to be from 12 to 2.
If you want to RSVP, please see Ms. Milstead.
Please RSVP, they'd really help.
They are registered online at Amazon and Baby List.
It is nursing's only preferred.
Even if you don't really know those ladies very well,
all ladies are welcome to attend our baby showers.
And that's just a great way to make more friends
or get to know some of the ladies a little bit better.
So don't feel shy if you'd like to participate.
All ladies are welcome to attend
any of the baby showers that we have.
Prayer list down below.
We'll go over that quickly.
Continuing to pray for the Carlson's
for their parents' health.
Also the Miller's friend, her mother,
for their cancer, we're praying for the Scots,
both brother Horace and Miss Grace,
and then also Miss Olivia.
We've been praying for brother Garcia's health.
If you pray for Miss Marionette's dad,
who has kidney disease,
we're continuing to pray for their Bannocks
for their grandmother.
And is she still in the hospital?
Heart surgery on the 13th. Okay, so update a little bit of an update to that prayer request
And then if you'd pray for also brother Ryan's friend who's been recovering from heart surgery
Let's get we'll continue to pray for brother Goodwin's brother-in-law
Who's also recovering from surgery?
the illies asked for prayer for their dad who is suffering from kidney stones and
Then if you pray for the brother Gabe's mother who also has a foot issue and then
pray for brother Miller's recovery I think I think he you're you're good but you're still
recovering a little bit maybe I don't know maybe mentally maybe just mentally I don't know my
wife had kidney stone one time and it was it was intense to watch she even told me that it was
worse pain than giving birth so I don't know what it's like other than just watching it looks
horrific so I'll just just pray for me that I never get it all right no it's okay but we'll
go ahead and pray for our church family on that
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church.
Thank you for the ladies that are expecting.
I pray that you please help their pregnancies.
Please help their children's development.
Please give them as easy a pregnancy as possible
and a good delivery.
I pray that you bless those who have recently delivered
that you'd please just help them to continue to recover
and that their children will continue to grow.
I pray that you would also just bless those
who really need help or a miracle
or their...
their health. They have an issue that you could just give them recovery. Those who are recovering from
surgery that they would have a speedy recovery. I pray that you'd also help those that are out and
miss church right now from sickness, that you could just help them to also regain their health.
I pray that you'd also just bless our church family that needs favor, whether that be with their work
or with their job. I pray that you'd also bless our upcoming soul-winning events and conferences.
I pray that you would help them to be fruitful. Please be with our evangelists and the Philippines
give us wisdom for that. And I pray that you continue to bless our church, that all
the things will be done in honor and glory of your son. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
We'll go ahead and sing our third song of the evening. It's going to be Where the Spirit
Blows. And it's in our Psalm and hymn binders. Where the Spirit Blows.
where the spirit blows.
Thank you everyone!
As the offering plates are going around would you please turn your Bibles to 1st John chapter
number one, 1st John chapter number one.
First John chapter number one the Bible reads that which was from the beginning which we have heard
Which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life
For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life
Which was with the father and was manifested unto us that which we have seen and heard declared we unto you
that ye also may have fellowship with us,
and truly our fellowship is with the Father
and with the Son, Jesus Christ.
And these things write we unto you
that your joy may be full.
This then is the message which we have to hear it of him
and declare unto you that God is light
and in him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ's Son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this chapter of the Bible.
Thank you for set fast back to church.
And Pastor Shelley, thank you for all the salvations we've had.
I just pray that you bless Pastor Shelley,
fill him with your Holy Spirit to preach your word unto us,
help us to receive into our hearts
and make applicable changes to our lives.
And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Starting a new Bible study in first John.
And first John is a little bit more
of a difficult book of the Bible.
And I kind of want to,
I want to go through chapter one,
we're going to go through all these verses,
but I also want to give a lot of big picture ideas
when I talk about this particular chapter,
just kind of where it is in the Bible.
And then I kind of want to talk about like,
what does the first John book look like?
What's kind of its message?
And then kind of digging into the actual text itself here.
But
One thing we have to understand is just,
what is the point of 1st John?
I think verse three is really kind of encapsulating
that particular thought.
It says in verse three,
that which we have seen and heard to clarify to you,
that you also may have fellowship with us,
and truly our fellowship is with the father
and with his son.
Jesus Christ. And so there's kind of three elements here of fellowship. One is with us.
The second is with the father and the third is with the Lord Jesus Christ with his son.
The us here, it's pretty clear from the text,
it's kind of giving the idea of those who are the apostles,
those who actually witnessed the Lord Jesus Christ,
because that's what the first two verses say.
If you notice in verse number two specifically,
it says, we've seen it in bear witness
and show unto you eternal life,
that was which of the Father was manifested unto us.
So to them, this was made obvious, and what did they do?
Well, in verse one, it says,
we which have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon and our hands have handled.
talking about how they had a physical relationship with Jesus Christ.
Now that's unique, that's special to history because not everybody got to actually handle
Jesus Christ, got to actually see them with their eyes.
So we understand that we're not talking about seeing Jesus from an ethereal perspective
First, John is talking about seeing Jesus literally,
seeing Jesus with their eyes.
They physically saw Jesus.
They physically handled Jesus.
And this is special to the apostles.
The Bible talks about John as being the disciple
in whom Jesus loved.
And the Bible often refers to him actually leaning
upon Jesus' breast.
And so he got to physically handle Jesus Christ.
Even post resurrection, the Bible tells us
that they were able to handle the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so this is unique to them.
And at that time in human history,
if you wanted to be close to Jesus,
if you wanted to know who Jesus is,
if you want to hear his voice,
you could literally go and see him.
You could go to where he is,
you could follow him around,
you could touch him,
you could be with him,
you could have that fellowship.
And so there wasn't really necessarily a mystery
in the sense that you could literally
be having that fellowship with him.
But, since Jesus Christ has ascended unto heaven, we don't have an opportunity to physically
hang out with Jesus.
We can't go and just look at Him with our eyes.
We can't go and put hands on Him.
We can't be eating in His presence.
We can't hear Him preach to us audibly, which is a special thing in the New Testament.
But yet, we can still have those things through the Bible, through the Word of God.
The author here, John, is trying to communicate the true fellowship with Jesus Christ that
one can have versus the fake fellowship, false religion, the imposters and the bozos of this
world. That's really, I believe, what's kind of the core essence of 1 John. Now, as we talk about
and then first John is the most important lesson after that.
This is a more advanced part of Christianity.
This is about trying to get as close to Jesus as humanly possible.
And this is for those that are the most serious and most dedicated Christians.
This is really the core and the essence of what first John is getting to.
And just to kind of give you an idea...
Because I've said this in prior times that I just kind of want to reiterate it, is I
believe that if you kind of look at the New Testament as a whole, you'll kind of notice
that there's almost like making a progression or a journey through the text of different
layers of Christianity.
And you kind of have the first layers being laid out in the early Gospels.
or kind of at the very beginning of your Bible,
you kind of can see just the chapters or whatever.
But kind of at the beginning of my Bible,
I have a contents, a table of contents here.
I used the wrong words when I was talking about glossary,
but if you have a table of contents here,
the beginning, a lot of times you have like a New Testament.
And if you just kind of look at that,
well, if you look at Matthew, Mark and Luke.
It seems like, just from a really big picture,
what is Matthew, Mark, and Luke really emphasizing?
It's emphasizing the facts of the Gospel.
And really, that's kind of the first step to the Christian life is just being associated
and familiar with the facts of the Gospel.
And then when you get to the Gospel of John, what is the Bible really doing?
It's really emphasizing salvation.
It's like taking the facts of the Gospel and really emphasizing believing the Gospel.
And the Bible even explicitly tells us in the Gospel, John, that it was written that
you would believe and that by believing you might have life in his name.
And so you kind of have the fact,
you're introduced to the facts of the Gospels,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Then you really hit in what it takes to be saved
in the Gospel of John.
And of course, John's probably one of the most
influential books in the world
as far as getting people saved.
If you're gonna say like,
what's the most influential verse, John 3.16,
emphasize and salvation by faith.
Then when you kind of transition into acts,
you really emphasize three different things.
You emphasize evangelism, baptism, and church.
specifically like church planting and the formations of churches and churches getting started,
which is really kind of the next step after salvation, right?
You realize the importance of getting baptized, getting into church,
and the evangelistic process that's going through.
Then you get into Romans, and what is Romans?
Well, it's really emphasizing the most core and basic doctrines of the faith.
In fact, it spends almost the first six to seven chapters just really laying down
just salvation by faith and just explaining that whole process,
doctor and that you're kind of being introduced to, understanding in a little bit more deep
manner is just what does salvation look like, what are the processes of salvation?
After you kind of get past the book of Romans, you go into 1 Corinthians, which is really
addressing just the most basic church issues.
If you were to look at 1 Corinthians, it's basically just every...
Churches you can think of, just all the really basic, simple,
carnal things that are going on in a church.
These are just like the low level,
most simplistic, basic church problems.
Second Corinthians is more advanced church problems.
These are a little bit more advanced,
more mature churches can go through these type of issues.
You get into Galatians and, well, you see a whole church
could actually be turned away to an entire heresy.
First Corinthians and second Corinthians
is kind of dealing with microscopic issues,
is dealing with the whole church has been leavened.
You're not gonna have a whole church leavened overnight.
You start with those basic issues
and the more advanced and then eventually you can see it.
Well, a whole church could be turned aside
and who have bewitched you, right?
After Galatians have Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, they're kind of emphasizing the
attitudes of Christianity, an attitude of love.
And you see them dealing a lot of with love.
You have Ephesians 5 is a lot about love and the love of the church and the love of a husband
and a wife.
And you have these things reiterated in Colossians as well, and Philippians, right mindset, having
the mind of Christ.
Then you get into 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, which is really the persecution.
Again, the persecution isn't going to really necessarily start at first.
We're kind of going through this journey, right?
You hear the facts of the Gospel.
You get saved.
You get baptized.
You realize about church.
You start getting plugged into the church.
Then you see the first baby Christian issues, you know, the carnal issues and kind of cleaning
those things up.
Then you have bigger issues.
Then you see, hey, there's churches we should be careful of that turn all the way to heresy,
but also we need to have the right attitudes.
Once you start getting into church and the church is doing the right thing and has right
Then, of course, you get into the pastoral epistles and the leadership epistles, in a
sense.
1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus and Philemon, and they're really emphasizing what leadership
is supposed to be like, how they're supposed to really rule over the church, guard the
church, take care of the church, all the different aspects of church leadership.
We make a pretty big transition then into Hebrews, and Hebrews is what?
Really advanced doctrine.
Hebrews is just really advanced doctrine.
the New Testament of Christ,
and all the transitions that have happened.
After Hebrews, you have James,
and you kind of, I would even glump in this,
first and second Peter.
And really, when you look at James
in first and second Peter,
it's really emphasizing perfection,
really emphasizing the works,
really emphasizing charity.
And then we kind of fall into where we're at now.
First John.
Okay, and so if you think about it,
we've gone past like a lot of the perfection
and the works and a lot of the advanced topics.
So now we're in First John.
What is First John?
It's emphasizing getting as close to Jesus as possible,
having that close, super-knit fellowship
where you're gonna be like John,
who's the disciple in whom Jesus loved
and you're leaning on Jesus' breast.
How do you get to that place?
How do you get to that stage?
How do you get to that level?
You know, and I'm not a martial artist.
I've never done that at all.
I wouldn't know what to do.
I've only seen things on TV, right?
So if it's wax on, wax off,
that's about my martial arts knowledge.
But I understand that at least in martial arts,
you get different belts.
And it's a lot of it's based on your skills
and your competency.
So you start out with a certain color belt
and it's to basically determine
that you're capable, a certain level of capability.
And as you progress, as you get more skill,
as you keep adding to your martial arts,
you keep getting a little bit level up.
You get a different belt, and of course, black belt is theoretically the highest.
Sometimes they put degrees on this, like what kind of degree black belt you are.
If there's something above that, I'm ignorant. That's my basic understanding.
But I'm just saying, this is kind of like what we're doing with Christianity,
is we're like progressing through belts here.
And when you're getting into 1st John, it's like, let's get the black belt now.
How do we become like the closest to the Lord Jesus Christ?
How do we get that really, that close, neat fellowship, relationship with Jesus Christ?
And again, that's carrying through in 2nd and 3rd John.
Jude is dealing with a little bit different issue.
What is that?
The most sneaky, deceptive, evil infiltrators.
Which, again, who can handle that?
The guy that just got the Christian black belt, right?
You want to get the guy that has the Christian black belt,
he's the one that's going to really be contending
earnestly for the faith, dealing with these super sneaky,
awful infiltrators.
And then Revelation, it's the most...
It's the most difficult, end-times type of prophecy understanding,
and the Bible even literally says in Revelation,
be thou faithful in the death,
which is pretty much the conclusion.
There's nothing past that.
After you die, it's over.
So it's just saying, like, hey,
we're trying to drag you through this Christian progression,
and we want you to get really close to Jesus
so that you can do the really hard things.
What?
and even being faithful unto death.
And the person that's not really going through
that progression is never gonna be the person
that's faithful unto death.
The person that's not going through this progression
is not, you're not gonna really elevate
to those next layers when you haven't gotten
through those other ones, right?
And look, 1 Corinthians chapter number five,
it's like throwing out drunkards and railers and whatever.
The drunkards and the railers
aren't gonna be faithful unto death, folks.
Okay, that was like, you're way over here.
Like if you're stuck being carnal and bitter and whatever,
just realize there's a lot more Christianity to go.
There's a lot more belts on the table for you.
And then isn't it interesting
if you listen to people that are not saved,
whether this be Catholic, Orthodox, Presbyterian,
whatever, any of these people,
and they do all these debates and they go online
and they're always talking about salvation,
what chapters or what books of the Bible are they going to?
James, Hebrews, Peter, they're always going to those books
that are not talking about the salvation emphasis.
Salvation emphasis was John, Acts, and Romans.
And if you go there, you can't even teach work salvation
because it's not there.
Like, there's nothing there.
So they go to a book that's emphasizing works
and the later parts of the Christian faith.
Why, because they're trying to twist that and teach
some kind of a workspace salvation.
that quick little journey through the New Testament
because I'm trying to get a mindset
when we approach 1 John.
The mindset is to those that are the most serious
about Christ, they've gone through a lot of these stages,
they've grown up and they're really trying to dial it in.
They're really trying to understand who Jesus Christ is
and having that close relationship
and that close fellowship with him.
And there's another thought though
that I think is important when identifying
and when we're going through the book of 1 John
is Christianity is a jungle.
I mean, and not even just Christianity,
just religion is a jungle out there.
And I want you to look at the last verse
of 1st John chapter five,
because this is kind of an interesting verse to me.
But look at verse 21, the Bible says,
little children, keep yourselves from idols, amen.
And what I think is interesting is this verse always just felt like a tag on, like just like randomly added to that chapter.
But I think we have to understand this big picture again.
Jesus Christ was here.
John is leaning on Jesus Christ's breast.
Jesus is a disciple in whom, you know, Jesus loved.
They got to talk with them.
They're fellowshiping and they're eating with them.
If you want to be a disciple of Jesus,
you went to where Jesus was, and you followed Him,
and you heard Him preach, and you worked with Him.
There's no mystery.
But Jesus ascended.
Who is the real fellowship? Who is the real
Disciples of Jesus who are the people that are really serving God and where is that real religion because now it's ascended
Where is it at and they all got scattered?
So now we have to figure out like where is real Christianity?
Where is the real disciples? Where are the real people fellow shaping with Jesus Christ?
And what's something that's gonna creep in really quickly after Jesus Christ ascends?
graven images and of course when we see that rampant in well it's rampant in the catholic church isn't it?
It's rampant in all that spin-offs to whether that be the orthodox or all their other variations
There's just rampant idolatry and he's kind of giving us that that reminder. Hey
Wherever idolatry is, that's not where Jesus is,
and that's not the real religion of Christianity,
and that's not the real fellowship of Jesus Christ
when there's idols.
Because even when Jesus was here, we didn't have idols,
they were just there,
and they're talking with a real person,
and Jesus is a real person,
but we fellowship with him through the Bible.
The word of God, not an idol, not a graven image,
and there's a lot of false religion today
that's built all around the idol.
It's built around a graven image,
and this is just so barbaric.
Plus, a lot of people that get saved
in the early parts of Christianity
are coming from a pagan background.
and they are used to worshiping a God
with some kind of a graven image or some kind of idolatry
and he's trying to remind them, hey, real religion,
the true Jesus, the true God of the universe,
idolatry has nothing to do with it.
Keep yourselves away from this.
If you're finding people that are worshiping Jesus,
there won't be idols.
And you know what, praise God, you walk in here
and there's not a bunch of statues
and a lot of graven images and icons all over the wall
effeminate looking dude with long hair back here on the background or something
like that
you know because that's not jesus and jesus is not worship through graven
images or idols or anything like that
he never has been and he never will be
so so we're kind of getting this this big picture
We want to know where the true religion is versus the false religion.
And the true religion has nothing to do with idolatry.
And yet so many people today in America are getting sucked into the Roman Catholic Church.
So many people today are getting sucked into Orthodox and all kinds of other stuff.
And you know what? It's false religion. It's not of God.
God is not there. That is not what we should ever have anything to do with.
And you should stay far away from idolatry.
Go, go if you would to back, and I'm not going to dig into these verses just yet.
I want to give another high level.
We kind of just have a high level with the New Testament.
Now, I just want to do a high level of 1 John,
and then we're going to dig into these verses.
And it's a short chapter, so don't get too nervous, all right?
Somebody's already nervous, I know.
But if you look at verses one through four,
you'll notice again, I'm emphasizing,
what is the point?
Well, the point is us having fellowship with the Apostles,
with the Father and the Son, right?
That's what it said in verse number three,
and truly our fellowship is with the Father
and with the Son Jesus Christ.
Now, here's the thing.
How do you have fellowship with the Apostles, though,
because they're all dead in heaven?
You know, Greg Locke's not an apostle.
You know, we don't have apostles today that we can go.
The Pentecostal Church is not filled with apostles.
But this is what I believe that we can,
of course, at that time you could have had
a little bit of fellowship.
Some of them still existed.
And of course you could have fellowship
with some of them.
There's a little application there.
But I think what the big application
is just the New Testament.
Is the New Testament.
And we get to, we kind of get a little bit
of just hanging out with.
Peter and John and Paul, when we read the New Testament,
we get to live through their lives.
We go through the book of Acts and we get to kind of see
who they are and what they were like.
And we would get some of Paul's opinions
and things like that.
So we're getting to have fellowship.
We're having fellowship with Peter.
And when we go to heaven,
we're gonna be able to have some things to talk about.
Gonna be like, hey, remember when you did this?
It's like, hey, remember Peter was slain eat?
Did you have some bacon or not?
We have fellowship with Peter and we have fellowship with John and we have fellowship
with Paul and we have fellowship with these men a little bit because we get to read who
they are and what they were like and we get a little bit of their personalities.
So we get that little bit of fellowship with the apostles.
And those who don't use the New Testament or don't read the Bible, they don't have fellowship
with the apostles at all.
You know, you go to these Catholic churches, they're like St. so-and-so, St. Peter Church,
They don't actually have fellowship with Peter.
Even though they may go and pray to Peter
and pray to some graven image called Peter,
they actually have no fellowship with Peter.
We have fellowship with Peter when we read First Peter.
And when we read Second Peter.
And when we read the book of Acts,
and we read the New Testament epistles,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
and we read about Peter,
and we're like, man, how much faster was John than you?
You know, we want to know, like, what was going on?
He's like, I pulled a hammy or something.
You know, he's probably got some excuse or something.
He's like, oh, he got a head start or whatever, you know?
But that's that's what I think is kind of being alluded to so we have fellowship with the apostles
And of course with the father and son is the Bible because the Bible is the word of God
And that's the father's word and Jesus Christ is the word so when we read the Bible
We have fellowship with the father and with the son
Verses five through seven is emphasizing others no darkness in
God or in Jesus Christ and the true God he's light. So if we were to find a group of people
That are claiming to have the true religion and being of God yet. They're walking in darkness
Then we realize it's not right and and to me. This is what you see with a lot of churches
Where they just rampant fornication
rampant divorce and adultery and these are things that are open,
all kinds of crazy things are happening in their congregation.
These people are not having true fellowship with the Father and with the Son.
There's something off there.
Versus 8 through 10 is talking about people that are saying they've never sinned
or they don't have sin.
And I think this could be looking at a couple different ways.
The Bible can be applied in many ways.
So even when I make application,
don't feel like your application is necessarily not true either.
Many times there's multiple applications.
But I think, of course, one obvious one would just be,
when people just say, I've never sinned.
Or they could be like Donald Trump and asked if, hey,
you know, have you ever asked for forgiveness?
And he's like, well, if I did anything wrong,
then, you know, then I'd ask for forgiveness.
And it's just like, yeah, if you've ever done anything wrong, right?
But obviously, that's a pretty easy application.
I think a secondary way to look at this would be what's kind of known as this hyper grace mentality
and this hyper grace attitude that basically justifies,
well, since I've already been saved, even if I sin again, there's no consequence.
God's not even mad at me. There's no punishment.
And it's just almost like I didn't even sin anymore.
And it's like a twisting of Romans chapter number seven.
And it's just kind of this like...
There's no consequence to sin, and again, that's wrong.
We need to constantly confess our sins and get right with God.
And so when you're going into a church and they just act like God's not mad at you,
Joyce Meyer's book, it's not of God, because God can still be mad at you,
God can still be disappointed in your actions, and God still wants us to confess our sins.
So we're kind of just like, as we go through the book of 1st John, what you're doing is you're
kind of just identifying who's right and who's wrong and what all the bozos look like.
Bozos, when there's lots of darkness in this group, is not of God.
When they're claiming that they're not sinning, it's just not of God.
And here's another way you can look at this, not sinning.
If you go to a church of Christ or a Nazarene church, they actually believe that they're
not sinning.
You talk to these really hardcore works, salvationists, these groups, they think they don't sin.
They think that they're actually keeping all the commandments and all the law and you'll talk to them and they're like
Yeah, I don't sin really because you know, I'm going to church. I'm doing all this stuff
So so they like thinking their mind that they really have no sin or something and again
It's just these people are not of God you go to a church of Christ not of God
You go to the church of Nazarene not of God you go to the Mormons not of God
And many of them think that they don't have sin
or they're not sinning, or they don't sin daily.
They think that they're right.
It's really a bizarre attitude.
It's hard for some people to believe,
but it's out there, I'm telling you.
If you look at chapter two verses one through five,
it's really emphasizing keeping his commandments,
which again, kind of is double hitting that hyper grace.
There's no consequence.
This idea of a lot of liberal Christianity.
Six through 11 is talking about not hating your brother.
A group of people that truly love God and are truly worshiping God and serving God will love their brother and
And what I was thinking about
It's almost like you sometimes go into a congregation and the congregation is known and
And kind of rallied around either a love of something or a hate of something
And it's like, hey, I would rather go to church where we're the fans of something, not the haters of something.
You know, it's like, oh, if my accusation is that I'm a, quote, fan club, well, that's way better than being a hater trash can.
Right and and really you should go to a church or you should be a part of a group. They are fans
They are lovers. They they have things that they're rallied around that are good things that they like
We want to be rally around things that we like not rally around things that we hate
And you know what? I'm a fan of church
I'm just a fan of church and you know what I want to be in a church where the people there are fans of church
Where they want to come on Wednesday night because they just like church. They just a fan of church
I just really like church and you know what church is. It's people
You know people say like I don't like church. You know what they're saying. I don't like people
They're saying I don't like saved people and of course, they'll be like well people are hypocrites and it's like yep
You're a hypocrite
Oh, well, they're not loving.
Well, you're obviously not loving
because you're not willing to go there
and show us how loving you are.
Right?
Why don't you just be the example
since you're just so loving.
Why don't you just show us how loving you are?
Yeah, we go to church because we love people.
Hey, we're coming to church
because we're praying for people
and we're singing praise to God.
It's a love of God and it's a love of people.
That's what church is.
To say you don't love church
is to say you don't love God
and it's to say you don't love people.
And those are the two commandments
that the whole law hangs upon.
I mean what is the whole law about it's about loving God and it's about loving your neighbor as yourself
And you know what loving church is loving people people that don't love church. Well, that's a bad attitude
I want to be around people that are a fan of church and I want to be around people that are fans of the King James Bible
I love people that love this book and want to actually read it and like movies about it and don't say that they're boring
Man, think about that.
Think about like a whole movie dedicated to the King James Bible, the Word of God,
and like how it's been preserved through the ages and say it's boring.
It's like you have a bad attitude.
I mean like, that's not a person I want to be around.
I want to be around people that like the Bible,
that are fans of the things of God.
Oh, I don't want to read Leviticus, it's boring.
Well, you're boring.
I like Leviticus, I like First John, I like church.
I wanna be in a church as a fan of the Bible
and not saying like, oh, they're gonna read
the whole chapter before the service starts.
Yeah, because we like it.
You know how many I mean I have so many people come up to me and they just say like hey
I really liked how so-and-so read the Bible today, or you know
So-and-so did a great job reading the whole chapter and I just it's one of my favorite parts of the service
Or I really liked hearing the Bible in this section, or I really got something out of the Bible
We're not just doing it just because it's like yeah, I guess we've got to read the Bible today
You know got to check the list or something no
I want to be in a church where we want the Bible to be read
Where if we took it away everybody would freak out
Everybody get mad at it they wouldn't be like finally when we got rid of that
That's what special musics for okay special musics for when you get rid of it and people like thank God
We got rid of that. No, I'm just kidding sometimes special music can be good. It's really special, okay?
Usually it's like man. When is this gonna be over? But you know what?
Hey, I want to be at a church where we're fans of the Bible reading we're fans of soul winning
Where people aren't like, oh man, they're talking about soul winning again. It's like hey, we're gonna emphasize soul winning
I want to be I heard some people say oh people just want a soul winning club, and I'm thinking like that sounds cool. I
Do want a soul winning club, and if I can't have it at church, where would I get it? Is it at Sam's Club?
Is it at the YMCA?
Is it at the college?
Is there a course that I can take at some universities?
The University of Dallas offering a soul-winning club?
Is the public school?
Is the Cedar Hill High School offering
some kind of a soul-winning club somewhere?
Is my neighborhood, the neighborhood watch,
or the H-O-A gonna put a soul-winning club?
I mean, if someone's gonna have a soul-winning club,
shouldn't it be the church?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, praise God, I wanna go to a church
that has a soul-winning club and is a soul-winning club,
and we're fans of soul-winning.
Someone needs to be I want to be in a church where they like hard preaching and their fans of hard preaching
Or they love hard preaching and they love they just love the truth
At the end of the day, they say hey, I don't sometimes the truth might not be comfortable
Sometimes the truth might be a little bit
Revealing it might even expose me a little bit, but I just I just like the truth
I just want the truth and I'm just a fan of the truth
And then I want to be around people that just like people that like those things that are the leaders of those things the pastors
That want those things and it's like oh, you're a new IFB fan club guilty as charged man
Because you know what I love pastors that love church and love the King James Bible and love soul-winning and love hard preaching
And love the truth and want to keep doing that. How could I not want to be a part of that?
That's like the whole emphasis of what the Bible is emphasizing. I should want to love those people
I would rather be in a group that says, you know, I love people that love that as opposed to being a church where we say
I hate people that love that I
Hate the people that are trying to make that happen. I hate the people that are doing these kind of things
You know what that is not where the true fellowship of Jesus Christ is at
There's something off there, there's something wrong there.
The people that are really close to Jesus
and the people that are really dialing it in,
love those things and love the brethren
and love people that do that.
You know, show me, show me the church
that is like this that I hate.
Show me the church that loves church, loves King JV,
loves soul winning, loves heart preaching,
loves the truth and is leading the front on that
and I just hate that church.
Riddle me that, show me that.
Show me the church that's like that
that I don't even wanna be their friend.
Yet isn't there so many people that could say hey, I don't want to be those people's friend
I don't want to be like that. You know what? That's a bad attitude and they're not drawing close to the Lord Jesus Christ
You know if you look at chapter 2 verses 12 through 17
The Bible is emphasizing not loving the world if you go to a church, and they're just loving the world
They have movies for their entire summer season
They're not of God. I don't know if that's a shock to you
But I'm surprised how many churches get away with this like most of the big non-the-nom churches in the United States
Have Hollywood movies for their summer season
I watched one like it was some videos like a guy like riding a dragon
Like through the air, you know for the church service or whatever and I mean it looked cool
But I was like what does this have to do with church? I
Saw another I saw another church service
the main pastor plays basketball on stage for about two minutes not saying anything and
Then finally talks and it's just so awkward. You keep thinking like isn't he eventually say something
And I mean he's like he's just walking up misses a layup
Walks around choose he makes it once
Misses another layup shoot. I mean he's like taking two minutes just playing basketball. I'm just thinking like what in the world is going on
I mean, this is not
the real fellowship of God.
This is loving the world and thinking about the world.
It's insane what church has turned into
for so many people today.
And of course, this is why I think it's funny.
People are like, oh, there's just so many options out there.
How do you know it's the real religion?
It's not the guy playing basketball.
It's not the guy riding on a roller coaster in the service.
It's not the guy riding on a magical dragon
flying through the sky.
Right like is it really that hard? It's it's not the child the church where their pastor got caught being a pedophile
Robert Morris, okay? It's not wow. That's a shot. It's not the guy wearing a dress bowing down to a woman statue named Mary
I mean, oh, it's so hard to figure out. What's the real world? It's like no, you're not even trying
And again, first, John is trying to help us,
really, hey, there's no darkness there.
That's obviously not where real church would be.
There's obviously not the people saying they never sin.
These people are insane and reality deniers.
It's not the church where they hate their brother
and they hate people that are actually trying to serve God.
It's not the place where they just love the world.
This is even more obvious verse 18 to 25. It's not where the antichrists are the ones who deny the father and son
It's if there's a church where they're bringing Jews on the stage. They're bringing rabbi so-and-so on the stage
It's not the real church. I
Mean this is just be obvious and they have flags promoting this kind of nonsense
And of course, what does verse 26 say?
It says, these things have I written on you concerning them with that seduce you.
So, of course, the Roman Catholic Church is always trying to seduce people.
Judaism is trying to seduce people.
These mega churches are constantly seducing Christians.
And look, they are.
A lot of saved people are getting sucked into these fake churches
and this nonsense that's going on in our world today, aren't they?
A lot of false religion.
Verses 27 through 29 are emphasizing that the people that do righteousness, those are the real ones.
The ones that are doing righteousness.
Now, he's going to go on in chapter 3, kind of an explanation of this because
obviously our righteousness is found in Christ.
And when we get saved in our new man, we can't do anything wrong.
We can only do righteousness.
And in our old man, we're a sinner.
And some people get confused on the identity aspects of Chapter 3
because in our identity in Christ we're saved, we're born again,
there's a new man, we can't do anything wrong.
But this is kind of what helps me understand Chapter 3 a little bit better
is we're not just talking about every Christian, really.
I believe that we're kind of thinking about, again, the context of
I go into a church where people are claiming to serve God.
And I'm not talking just the pastor.
I'm talking about the whole congregation.
The people that actually save an active ministry
in a congregation trying to serve God,
they're gonna be doing righteousness.
They're not gonna be preaching false gospels
and involved in all kinds of crazy sin in that moment.
They're gonna be doing right.
So when you go into a congregation
and they've got the wrong gospel
and they're doing weird stuff,
it's because they're just not saved.
Now here when we get outside of the church and we're just going up and down the street
Saves and unsaved are involved in all kinds of crazy stuff and backslidden Christians do all kinds of craziness
But when we're talking about the people are active in ministry all the people in the church like they're doing righteousness
And if they're not doing righteousness, it's just because they're not of God
He's trying to help you realize someone that's dedicating their life to the Bible and studying the Bible and
Memorizing the Bible and going out and doing it if they have the wrong gospel and they're doing these other weird stuff
It's just because they're not saved
Because anybody that was saved would preach the right things would do the right things would be on the right course
Because that's who we are and we were walking in the spirit
So therefore you should see the evidences of that spirit. So when someone is in that
capacity in that situation, and something's not working,
it's because they're not saved.
And that's kind of what he gets into with chapter four,
is us like testing the spirits and trying the spirits
and figuring that out.
Obviously, in chapter 3 again it also emphasizes those that do righteousness.
It says, hey, in verses 11 through 15, the world is going to hate you.
And then it talks about those of us that are saved we should love in word, not just in
word, but indeed in truth.
So chapter 4, we got to test people.
When we test people, they're going to hear us.
Look, when people are just saying that we're wrong and everything and all of our doctrines
off and they can't stand any of the things that we're saying, it's because they're not
of God.
Because when you're of God, you're going to like the truth.
Now, you might not like everything.
Obviously, some people could just like,
I just don't like that one particular sermon
or this exact illustration
or this is a little bit off.
But just generally speaking,
if they get a large quantity of the preaching
and they just totally hate it and disregard it,
it's because they're not of God.
Because he that is of God, heareth God's voice.
And you know what?
Notice in chapter 4,
This is what's interesting in verse 6 we are of God he that know of God here with us
He that is not of God here with not us
Hereby know we the spirit is true the spirit of her. Oh, well, you know, that's your interpretation
Yeah, but my interpretation is right because I have the Holy Ghost
And if you don't hear me, it's because you're not hearing the Holy Ghost
You're not hearing God and you're not of God. Oh who made you the judge God because he gave me a brain and salvation
It's like someone online got mad at me and they said,
how dare you determine who's saved or not saved?
How did you decide, how did you figure that out?
And I said, why have a brain and a Bible?
That's how I figured it out.
I mean, God gave me a brain.
Am I not allowed to use it?
I should be able to use my brain
and the Bible says the judge righteous judgment
and the Bible says out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh.
And if I couldn't even determine
if someone's saved or unsafe, what are we even doing here?
Why do we even do soul winning?
Why do we present the gospel to some and not to others?
Well, obviously we can tell.
And they're just mad because they're not saved
and they don't know why and they can't figure it out
and they're just lashing out at people.
And they're not of God because they don't hear us.
Look, he that is of God is gonna hear us,
he that is not of God, heareth not us.
And they'll eventually manifest themselves
of where they're going and who they're listening to
and what they actually like.
It's scary when someone's saying a bunch of lies,
and someone in church really resonates with it.
And I'm just telling you, in the last seven years
or six years or whatever of me being pastor,
I've just seen this over and over again.
Someone will say something and it's just like,
you have two sides saying the exact opposite
as far as interpreting what was said.
It's like someone gets up and says something
and one group is just like, that was awesome
and other group is like that's trash.
And it's always, it's like the good people on one side
It's almost never mixed it's basically for some reason the good people all seem to have the same opinion and all the bad people all
Seem to have the other opinion and here's the thing when you and your little crowd have the exact same opinion as a bunch of faggots
You're on the wrong side
When you have the same opinion as a bunch of Roman Catholics. You're on the wrong side
When you have the same opinion as much as unsaved people realize who's around you and say wow
I'm on the wrong side of things because I keep noticing those people that are right
All seem to have the same opinion and the people that are wrong all seem to have the same opinion
And then this is what they say. Well, y'all are a cult. We're a cult of truth
We're a cult of being right
But you know, the only reason they say that is because they don't realize, hey, yeah,
I guess we're in a cult in the sense that we're only around people that also agree
with us.
But you know what?
I'm not sitting over here in a group with a bunch of sodomites, fags, and protesters
and weirdos.
Oh, well look, we have a bunch of people over here.
Yeah, have you looked at them?
Have you noticed who you're siding with?
Okay.
And look, a cult can still be large.
I mean, the Roman Catholic Church, I believe it's a cult, and it's like a billion people.
But they follow whatever the pope says or whatever their leader says and not the Bible.
That's really the cult.
Show me where my opinion is trumping what this book says.
And then I'll agree with you.
I'll say, yeah, there's a little bit of a cult issue there.
Obviously, anybody could be off from the Bible a little bit, and that's where that creeps
in a little bit.
I think that throwing out the label cult is harsh.
when somebody is just a little off,
but at the end of the day, obviously any man
could try to exert his opinions over the text,
and we need to correct that.
But at the end of the day, what prevents things
from being a cult is having a document
that we all adhere to.
We say, hey, this is what we all believe,
and we're gonna hear to this,
and this is the head of the church, which is Christ.
But it's interesting how those that are of God
hear the same things, and those that are not of God,
well, it doesn't make sense to them, does it?
7 through 21 talks about loving your brother versus 1 through 3 of chapter 5 says the way
that we love God is by keeping his commandments and loving his brother.
It's kind of like a summary if you think about it because at the core of everything we've
been saying when we're identifying true religion and true fellowship with God the Father, it's
by keeping God's commandments and it's by loving his brother.
And the people that are saying that they don't sin, it's because they're not keeping his
commandments.
And the people that are walking in darkness are not keeping his commandments.
And then of course all the people hating their brothers in Christ and hating the word of God,
they're obviously breaking the commandments and they don't have the love of God.
So if we were going to find true religion...
What does true religion look like? What does the true fellowship with God look like?
Well, it looks like a group of people that are really working hard to keep God's commandments, and they love the brotherhood.
They love Christians, and they realize salvation is a free gift by faith. And that's what a real church would look like.
That's what the real fellowship of God would look like, is people that are saved by faith,
but they're striving really hard to keep the commandments, and they actually love their brother, and not in word and
deed and in truth.
because a lot of people love their brother in word.
A lot of people say like, oh, we're so loving
while they hate everybody around them
and do nothing for them.
While they're a bunch of moochies
and they actually don't contribute to anything
and they don't actually bless anybody,
whereas you go to a real church,
they'll give you the shirt off their back,
they'll give you a ride somewhere,
they'll talk to you when you're down,
they'll encourage you,
they'll try to tell you like,
Things that are positive like hey work harder, you know, love your spouse. Don't talk negative be good
They'll be trying to tell you to do good things
Whereas you go around the bad people like get out of church
You know you need to get you a hero and not a zero that he shouldn't talk to you like that
and you know put on the pants and tell him what to do like all their advice is to just basically trash church
trash your husband trash your boss trash work trash your friends trash everything it's just a hate cult
and then god's people are telling you to oh no love your church love your bible love your pastor love
your friends love your spouse love your kids do right honor your parents it's like i wonder which one's right
I wonder which one's the right one is telling you to honor people and respect people and
do good and follow the commandments and then the other group's just like, no, we should
trash them, hate them, attack them, lie about them, say whatever and anything goes.
Well, it starts to become pretty obvious who's on the right track and who's not on the right
track.
And those of us that have been here for a while, we realize, man, there's applications everywhere.
I mean, we could think of just applications every year of these type of things that we've seen.
And this is just helping us wade through the jungle of Christianity and keep realizing, yeah,
Catholics wrong, Orthodox wrong, Presbyterians wrong, Southern Baptist wrong,
all of these different niches wrong, Missionary Baptist wrong, and then even within the IFB world,
yeah, there's some rotten apples in the bunch.
And, you know, at the end of the day, I can only go to church one place and I can only worship God somewhere and I want to go to where I feel like I'm going to do the best.
First, John's emphasizing getting really close,
really dialing in who's having the real fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you know what, if you can find that somewhere else,
I will not fight you because who am I to stand in the way
of you getting close to Lord Jesus Christ?
But while we're here, that's what we're aiming for.
That's what we're going for is we're trying to draw close.
And we do that through loving our brother
and keeping the commandments.
Of course, the rest of chapter five
deals with our identity again.
Versus 14 through 19 loving our brother and then of course we end with the idolatry and we want to keep ourselves from idol
So obviously we're gonna still go through the entire book of 1st John and the nitty gritty
What I want you to do is have that mindset as we walk through this
so that you don't get confused when we get to a particular verse.
Because what false prophets love to do and what modern Bible translations will even do
is they'll take one verse and they'll completely twist this and change this,
rip it out of its context and then just teach like work salvation or something
or teach something bizarre.
You look at chapter three, it's butchered in modern versions today.
It'll talk about like, you know, he that doesn't practice sin or whatever.
Who practices sin anyways?
You know, it's kind of, it's such a goofy sentence
that I like to make fun of it.
Because I'm like, people aren't over here like,
I'm gonna practice stealing, you know?
I don't wanna actually steal, I just wanna practice it.
So, you know, I'm gonna go home tonight,
and I'm gonna try and practice
what it would be like to steal.
And then, you know, then I'm gonna go home
and I'm gonna practice lying, you know?
And then I'm gonna practice, no, no, no, people just lie.
People just steal. People just sin. People aren't going home practicing it. You're you're already a professional. All right
You've already made it. You've arrived. You don't need to practice anymore
It's just it's just a weird concept, but the Bible didn't say that it says you can't send and so we'll get to that when we get to chapter 3
Let's dig in here to verse one.
We still have a little bit of time here,
and we're going to go through these verses.
But the Bible says that which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen of their eyes,
which we have looked upon, or our hands have handled,
of the word of life, for the life was manifested,
and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you
that eternal life, which was with the Father,
and was manifested unto us.
Now, verse two is a parenthetical statement,
but we're still driving in just the identity
of Christ Himself.
And we notice some different things here in verse number one that which was from the beginning that Christ is from the beginning now
This author is interesting John and how he constructs most of his books because you'll notice this phrase
The beginning okay keep your finger here go to John 1 1 go to John 1 1
And this is the opening statement that which was from the beginning
from the beginning.
What is this? This is the concept of time,
which we are time-bound creation.
It's almost impossible for us to truly think outside of the limits of time.
We're kind of, time dictates every one of our thoughts and ideas and our logic.
So it's really hard to understand things outside of time.
We have to realize somehow God outside of time created the beginning.
The beginning is a point in which something starts.
And at the same time, it's like, while these things are not possible to be understood,
it makes sense that there was a beginning
and that it doesn't eternally
always go back in time,
because that seems even harder to understand.
It makes more sense that there was a point in time
when God created everything,
rather than just everything always existing,
which atheists and humanists
at some point thought that the universe was eternal.
It always existed and of course Hinduism probably has some similar overlap with that
And we're just always being reincarnated or something like this, but the Bible teaches there was a beginning
There was a creation point
Modern science today is kind of evolved. It doesn't believe in eternal universe. It believes in a creation point quote the big bang theory
Right where essentially nothing exploded and it created everything
And it's a little bit closer to what's true.
There was a creation event.
Now, it's still off in the sense that they point to 14 billion,
or it could be more, I don't know,
they change the date all the time.
Maybe it's 17 now, 18.
Forgive me if I'm wrong,
but it used to be about 14 billion at some point
is when they said it was this quote,
big bang and everything came into existence suddenly,
which is true in the sense that the Bible says
everything did come into existence suddenly.
It's just that it wasn't nothing, it was God.
the beginning God created which makes way more sense than nothing created
everything your God is nothing somehow nothing created everything how does that
make sense you know it makes way more sense to think that something created
everything and of course that is God John 1 1 in the beginning was the word
notice the same author same structure and opening in the beginning and we have
Interestingly enough, go to Revelation chapter one, go to Revelation chapter number one.
We'll notice that he keeps referencing this idea or concept of the beginning.
It's important because we're understanding who Christ is and the identity of Christ and
the identity of Christ is wrapped up in the fact that he is the Creator and he is from
the beginning.
And the ending. Isn't it interesting that in John's epistles, whether it be John 1, John 1, or Revelation 1,
they all give reverence, or they talk about how Jesus is from the beginning, because that's really emphasized,
and that's a major component of who Jesus Christ is.
So that which is from the beginning, we go back to chapter 1 verse 1, that which is from the beginning,
which we have heard,
which we have seen of their eyes, which we have looked upon in our hands of hand of the word of life.
So we understand that Jesus Christ was not an apparition, a spirit, a ghost, an idea,
some abstract concept. He was a real person that could be really heard. You could hear his voice
audibly. He was someone that could be seen upon. They looked on him with their eyes,
they could see him. And not only that, they could actually touch him. He was physical
and tangible. This is also brought up in 1 John chapter number five.
You'll notice that it says, in verse number eight,
I'm sorry, not in verse eight, what is it?
Verse six, this is he that came by water and blood.
Even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood and it is the spirit that beareth witness because the spirit is truth.
So the Bible emphasizes again that Jesus Christ is born into this world, he had blood, he went through the same human experiences that we did.
And these apostles, they saw Jesus, they handled him.
And it says in verse 2, giving a parenthetical, giving more explanation here, for the life was manifested.
Manifest can be made obvious to appear, to be physical.
So we see Jesus, he's been made obvious.
And notice something that he's described as here,
just life itself, for the life was manifested.
We are alive because God has life.
The reason why we have life is because God gave us life.
The only way to have life is to come from life.
You know, this is just, this is a scientific fact.
You cannot get life from non-life.
Non-living material, non-living organic material does not have life in it.
And even we are in creation dust.
I want to go to some of these verses maybe.
Go to Genesis chapter 2 if you would.
We're going to come back, we'll go to Genesis chapter 2.
We are dust, no doubt.
The Bible tells us that we're dust.
So in a sense, we're just a physical combination of elements,
just like everything else in this universe.
Everything else in this universe is just some kind of a mixture of elements.
And in the laboratory, scientists are thinking,
well, as long as we get the materials, as long as we get the ingredients,
and we shake it up enough,
and give enough time and maybe strike with lightning or whatever,
that it'll eventually come to life.
But the problem is you can't shake non-living material into life.
You can't just take elements.
This is the big problem for the big bang theory and evolutionary theory
whenever they talk about macroevolution or they talk about just abogenesis.
Abbot Genesis, I think is what it's called.
It's like the study of the beginning of life,
like where did it come from?
Cause they'll say like, in some textbooks,
they would say like the, you know,
rained on the rocks and the rocks turned into soup.
And then the soup came alive.
Well, that's a big step is like that.
How did it come alive?
And the Bible makes it clear
that the only way to have life is from life.
And God is the one with life.
And then God gave us that life.
Look at Genesis chapter two, verse seven.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. So
you could you could form a man but he's not alive unless something living gives
him life and that was God that gave him life. And again this is a difference
between us and God in a sense is that we cannot take some non-organic material
and give it life.
Now, because we are alive, we can go through God's reproductive process and generate life
in a sense through the seed, but at the end of the day, we can't take non-organic material
and we can't give it life.
There's two things that man can't do.
We can't give something life that's non-organic, like non-living, and we can't give it free
will, which at the end of the day is almost the same thing.
You could almost argue it's actually not two, it's just one.
because why is a AI?
Like, AI is not free will and it's not living.
It doesn't have its own consciousness.
It doesn't have its own state of understanding.
All it can do is follow the instructions it's given.
And in fact, AI cannot usurp its creator.
Some people have this strange, I worked with a lot of developers and they're really into
like Star Trek and Pokemon, all kinds of weird stuff, but like they got these ideas in their
head that like AI will actually become better than us and smarter than us and all this stuff.
And it's just like, in fact, they said, yeah, it can have free will and it'll come alive
and whatever.
And it's just like, you've been watching too much Star Trek and stuff, you know, like
AI can never usurp its creation.
Now, this is what some people don't understand, though.
Obviously, a creation can usurp its creator
in a particular task, but it can't necessarily usurp its creation.
And so, when it comes to AI, AI has got some level of intelligence,
but AI is limited to the intelligence it's been given.
So, it could be as smart as its creator.
So we take a really, really smart person.
There could be someone that's way smarter than you that could create an AI model and
that AI model smarter than you, but it's not because the AI model smarter than you, it's
because that person was smarter than you.
But then not only that, what AI really does is it doesn't leverage one person, it leverages
multiple people.
10 people or a hundred people or a thousand people and it's the cumulative
Knowledge, but again that
Cumulation is still less than the human counterparts if you took the human counterparts
It would still be less than and it's not as intelligent as its human counterpart
And so it'll never it'll never eclipse that
AI will be
It'll be incredible. I mean there's gonna be things that happen in the next ten years that are unimaginable
Things that you and I can't even really dream up right now
But at the end of the day, there's still limits, and just like there's limits on us in the sense that we can't give free will, we can't create life and unlife, God is the one that had the life, and He gave it to us, and Him was life, and the life was manifested.
And so there's something special about God. He's the one where really life is. He is life. Gov. John 1, and we'll see this again.
Now the Bible also says about animals that they were living soul, and they had life too.
But they don't have a I'm sorry. They don't have a living soul. Let me rephrase this
They're alive, but they don't have the living soul that we have so
While the animal has consciousness and is alive in a sense and it has free will
And it doesn't have that same living soul component that a man does, so we're unique
and special in a sense that God breathed into us a special idea.
Now some people call this like the divine spark or something, and most of the ideas
about this is just wrong, it's weird stuff, but at the same time there is something special
about man though.
Some people twist the divine spark into saying like we're all inherently good. It's not true or that we're all the children of God
That's also not true. We're all his creation, but to become a child of God. You have to be born again
So we're all his creation, but we have to believe on Lord Jesus Christ and we have to be born again
But we do have life and that was a gift that was given to us and what do we do with that life?
Well, he sets before us an opportunity for eternal life
And right now, we've been given temporary life.
But when we believe in Lord Jesus Christ,
we're given eternal life,
and that's what everybody has to choose for themselves.
The Bible even says, who's so fine as me?
Fine as life.
When you find Jesus Christ,
you find that true life, that eternal life.
The Bible talks about keeping God's commandments
and doing right and finding wisdom,
and it tends to life.
John 14-6, I'm the Way, the Truth,
Look at John chapter one, verse number three.
The Bible says, all things were made by him,
and without him was not anything made that was made,
and him was life, and the life was the light of men.
It's interesting how John and John, first John have like so much similarity.
They bring up a lot of the same concepts and the same attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ
and we're describing the same person and we realize that life comes from Jesus Christ.
He gave us that first life and He's also the same one that gives you that eternal life.
So we have to go back to our Creator.
Go over to 1 John chapter 1 and of course why the separation?
And I believe that's just, we just have to understand the essence of free will.
That God ordained those who would believe in Jesus to get eternal life,
and not just all of His creation.
It's not through race, it's through grace.
And if it was through race, then everybody would be saved,
but it's through grace.
Because we're all Adam's seed, we're all human,
we're all of the same blood,
but at the end of the day, God didn't choose to redeem
all mankind in the sense of that we're all going to accept it
and receive eternal life.
He did pay for it.
He is the redeemer of all mankind,
but only those who believe in Him get that eternal life.
And why?
He doesn't have slaves and robots, but he has people that actually chose to believe in him
Just like most young single guys in here, you know
While they want their wife to do everything they say
They don't really want a slave wife
They don't really want just some woman that's just obligated to get married them
They don't want to just pay put money in a slot machine and just a wife pop up
No, some people are skeptical that they might actually want this but I'm saying like you know us men we don't want that
I didn't want that
That's why we ask our wives to marry us, you know, we want them to say yes, we want them to come down the aisle
We want them to freely and deliberately choose us for life
And in the same way God wants us to have chosen to believe in Jesus Christ
And and the Calvinist acts like that somehow prideful or something, but I'm like you can call it whatever you want
It's called the Bible
I don't think it's prideful to say,
I chose to believe in Jesus Christ.
It's just a fact.
I accepted a free gift.
How much pride can I even have in that?
I mean, the Bible says,
where is boasting,
it is excluded.
So, according to the Bible, I can't boast in the fact that I believed in Jesus Christ,
but I can also recognize the fact that it takes faith in Jesus Christ to be saved.
And the gift wasn't the faith, the gift was eternal life.
And I got eternal life by believing in Jesus Christ.
Now, in 1 John, chapter number one, we keep reading here.
It says, the life was manifest and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you
which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.
That, which we have seen and heard,
declare we unto you.
So he's saying, hey, we saw eternal life,
we were with eternal life, we had it, we heard it,
we fellowship with it, and we want you
to also partake in the same.
And truly, who is that?
It's the Father who's with his son, Jesus Christ.
And notice that it says in verse number two,
showing you that eternal life, which was with the Father.
Eternal life was with the Father. Why? Because Jesus Christ is with the Father.
There's always been the Father and the Son. There's never been a time where there wasn't the Father and the Son.
In fact, think about it. How could the Father even be the Father if there was no Son?
The father is the father because he has a son and the son's a son because he has a father and they're both eternal
And they're both before beginning because Jesus Christ is that which is from beginning. He's from the beginning
He was in the beginning. I'm the alpha and the omega the beginning and the ending
And of course all things are created by him and for him and he's before all things and in him dwell all things and all
Things that are made were made by him. I mean the Bible is emphasizing who Jesus really is
Why? Because you have Mormon cults and Jehovah's Witnesses and all kinds of people discrediting
that Jesus Christ is eternal.
If you've never seen that Jesus Christ has always been a person, he's always been with
the Father, he's always been the Son, and our true fellowship with the God of the universe
is a Father and Son.
You can't and you can't worship just one without the other
It was always the father and it was always the son and that's just who the true God is
Some people get mad and they say like well, I don't think you know God can have be multiple persons or something
Well, sorry, you have the wrong God
The only God there is, is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And of course, first John has the most famous verse about it,
first John 5-7,
for there are three that bear record in heaven,
the Father of the Word and the Holy Ghost.
And these three are one.
There's one God, and they're all unified together,
and they have the same gospel, the same testimony,
the same love, the same character, the same attributes,
the same essence, but they're three divine persons
that have always existed.
And that's the only God there is.
So if you don't have that God, you don't have God.
And you want to have fellowship with him?
Well, you've got to have fellowship with us,
because we have fellowship with him.
And if you think, well, I don't have fellowship with him,
but I have fellowship with God, well, probably not.
You've got to have fellowship with us
and with the Father and with the Son.
And he's saying, I'm writing these things unto you
that your joy may be full.
You get the most joy by being the closest you can to God.
You say, I'm not very happy.
Well, maybe you're just not very close to God.
Some ways to get more happy in your life
is just drawing closer to the things of God,
drawing closer to the people of God.
And look.
I know I say this, but it's just true like people that really get plugged in at a church like ours
They get really happy like they really like it. They're like man. This is a lot of fun
I like these people and I like church and I like soul winning and I'm and I actually have some joy in my life
And I see I purpose in my life and I value in my life and I'm helping people
You know helping people actually gives you joy
Serving people actually gives you joy helping someone in church that you know is another good person say person makes you feel good
And you know what being around other good people makes you feel good and going and giving someone the gospel makes you feel good
And going on a missions trip and reaching the loss makes you feel good
And you know what hearing good preaching and learning about Jesus makes you feel good
And you know what getting sin out of your life makes you feel good
You know, there's a special there's a special feeling when you're right with God
There's a special confidence when you're right with God
There's a special joy to life when you're right with God and there's a little bit of disappointment and anxiety and stress and woe
and worry when you're not and
God wants us to have that joy
Verse 5 this is the message which we have heard of him of who of Jesus and
Declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. There's no sin in God
God has never sinned God knows there isn't anything wrong. He's perfect. He's righteous everything. He does is always right
And it says in verse 6 if we say that we have fellowship with them and walk in
darkness we lie and do not the truth but if we walk in the light as he is in the
light we have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ's
Son cleanseth us from all sin. Now I sometimes use this verse in context of
salvation when I go out soul-winning only to prove the fact that the blood of
Jesus Christ pays for all sin but this isn't really emphasizing salvation again
that's not where we're at in the context of this chapter but what we are in the
God is perfect, and there's no darkness in him, and we have to walk in the light.
We're just never going to actually arrive.
We're never going to be perfect.
We're going to still make mistakes.
But the blood of Jesus Christ still cleanses all sin.
Now, we get this from verse 9,
if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So, the rest of this passage is really emphasizing
what are we talking about?
Because if he's unpacking a lot of different things here, it's important to understand.
If I said, God never sins, and the only way to fellowship with him is to not sin.
Well, that's scary for us because we're over here and we sin, land.
Right, but here's the thing the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin
So we can stay over here and we can keep fellowship in them and then how do we get over here?
Well, if we confess our sins
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and it cleanses from all unrighteousness
Whereas the person that says they have no sin well, they're way over there, you know
And the person that says they've not sinned well, they're a liar
Okay, so we're balancing the idea of Christianity that, yeah, we're saved by faith and of course
to have fellowship we don't sin, but at the same time we're going to sin, so then how
do we ease this tension?
We confess our sins and he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and it cleans
us from all unrighteousness.
redeemed in the sense that our body, we get that new body,
we get the glorified body.
And this is the way we call the process of sanctification.
Sanctify is to set yourself apart.
It's to be holy.
And we become holy by sanctifying ourselves.
And we're sanctifying ourselves by keeping his commandments.
And when we keep his commandments,
we're gonna have close fellowship with him.
Someone that's not keeping his commandments,
walking in darkness, or saying they don't sin,
they don't have fellowship with him.
It's us over here saying, yeah, I do sin.
I do sin.
But you know what I confess my sins and he's faithful and just forgive me of my sins
So what is the right church look like the right church looks like I'm gonna really try to keep all those commandments
I want to keep all those commandments, and I'm not gonna do it
I'm gonna fail I sin a lot
But you know what?
I'm going to keep confessing and forsaking them and turning towards them and just try
to keep walking in the light.
That's what the real church is going to look like.
The real church is a bunch of sinners saved by grace that are going to keep screwing up.
But you know what?
They're over here keeping trying to, you know, adjust may and fall seven times, it rises
up again.
Let's go to a few more passages on this
because you've got the essence of this chapter.
I don't need to go through the rest of these verses that much.
Go to Hebrews chapter 4.
Here's the main essence.
We need to realize that we have a faithful high priest that...
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.
And then what does it say in verse 16?
Hebrews 4 verse 16,
let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace
that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help
in time of need.
So we need to constantly confess our sins
and forsake our sins and try to cleanse ourselves
because if we want to have fellowship with Jesus,
we can't sin, but we're going to sin.
So then what do we do?
We constantly confess and we forsake
and we keep trying to work at it
and we keep trying to fight
and it's just a daily fight.
The Bible says we have to crucify the flesh daily.
And you know what?
Don't get discouraged when you screw up.
Don't get discouraged when you have sin.
Don't stop serving God because you made a mistake.
Don't, you know, I've had people say this
and luckily it hasn't been recently.
It's like times past, I think, under bad leadership.
But people say like, I feel too sinful
And I'm thinking like what what that's a bad attitude like hey, just just say you're tell God you're sorry and
Come soul-winning with me. You know, I don't need to know what you did tell it to Jesus
But hey tell it to Jesus and then let's go soul-winning
That's a bad attitude like there's no such thing as cult too sinful to go soul-winning
Okay, if you're saved you can go soul-winning
I mean, just fact, I mean, I don't care what you did.
If you're saved, there's always a time
to get someone saved, okay?
And, you know, when it comes to this attitude,
I've heard people, they feel like,
oh, I'm too sinful to go to church,
or I'm too sinful to do the, and it's like,
well, okay, maybe you are on First Corinthians five lists,
or maybe you did do something bad,
and we need to work on it.
But you know, I'm not so much worried
about the guy that screwed up.
It's more if you really study 1 Corinthians 5 and these passages it's not the guy that screwed up
It's the guy that wants to be bad. It's like hey, I did something. I shouldn't have
Well, okay, but do you think you should have done it? No. Do you want to keep doing it? No, okay?
We'll get back in the light
Get back in a church start doing right again
Okay, whereas the guy that's like hey, you you're not allowed to do that. I don't care. I'm gonna do it anyways
It's like, okay, well, then you can't hang out with us.
You know, we don't want people to get this attitude
or mindset to think that it's okay to do those things.
Like, there isn't a consequence,
or God doesn't get mad at that.
That's the real problem.
So that's why we exercise church discipline,
is when we say, hey, you're doing this,
you can't do that.
And they're like, I don't care, I'm gonna do it anyways.
Then you're like, okay, well, then bye.
Like, you have to fix this
before we can let you back in.
It's not so much like, hey, someone did something wrong,
let's crucify him.
You know, like, that's not really the point of church discipline.
The point of church discipline is getting the leaven out, which is the bad attitude.
It's the mindset that's saying, hey, I don't care what the Bible says, I'm just going to
do whatever I want.
And, of course, we have to realize our flesh kind of has that attitude, anyways, you know,
our flesh is always going to want to do whatever it wants and sin, but we have to constantly
seek the Lord and confess our sins.
Go over here to Proverbs 28, this is the last place I would go.
You can go to Romans 8, it really emphasized this.
I thought about going to Ezekiel 18 and 33 because it also emphasized this, but what's
interesting in Ezekiel is it really talks about the concept of someone doing right their
whole life and then they start doing bad.
And then it's like God kills them and then you got this other guy that's doing bad for like a really long time
And then starts doing right and then God's just totally merciful to all the bad he did
Because it's it's with God for some reason. It's just it's more about like what are you doing right now?
That's really the most important thing with God. And you know what? That's a great I
Love God's judgment because he's constantly saying that we're getting mad at that like and he's like well you your ways are unequal
My ways are right
And from God's perspective it's like it doesn't really matter what you did yesterday
It matters more about like what you're doing right now
And you know that's the cool thing about God is you just always you get like unlimited fresh starts
It's like you play that video game and as soon as you die you just respawn
You know now here's the thing if you die you won't respawn
Don't hear me wrong what I am saying is like you said it's like you sin and as soon as you confess and get right with God
It's like you kind of you you're back and right standing almost again with God and kind of like get that refresh start
You're just kind of like hey
I'm back on the right track again and God allows you to do this and he's like how many times until you really die
I mean he really does kind of just let you have unlimited attempts at
Get back up, get back in the light, and let's go.
And you know, that should be our attitude with Christians.
We just keep giving people chances
until they're not breathing anymore, right?
As long as they have the right attitude.
And the Bible says this in Proverbs chapter 28,
kind of the success in the Christian life
talks about confessing your sins.
Proverbs 28, look at verse 13.
He that cover this sin shall not prosper but who so confess it and forsake of them shall have mercy and so we need to
Realize if we want to be in the true
Fellowship with the father and with the son and we want to draw really close to Jesus Christ
We're gonna have this attitude. We're constantly confessing our sins and we're forsaking our sins
And you know what that's how we get that's how we get mercy
One other one other quick thought that I had while while I made this point
It's not necessarily related to what I'm talking about, but let's let's just take this concept and apply it
Just our personal lives for a second
All of what I just said also applies in human relationships in many ways that
In your human relationships, you're gonna screw up too. You're gonna disappoint each other
You're gonna cause problems. This can be in a marriage. This can be friendship. It can be whatever but
If I want to keep a healthy relationship with you as a person,
what do I have to do?
Every time I screw up or every time there's a problem,
I need to come to you and I say, I'm sorry,
I don't want to do that, and I'm not going to do that anymore
so that we can have restored fellowship,
we can have restored relationship.
And that's how God is.
That's why all of our relationships are understood
through the same way as we work with God.
We relate to God so that we can understand how to relate to one another.
And God works this way and humans work this way in a lot of ways.
So, you know, if I do something to you and you get mad or whatever,
or vice versa or whatever, you just need to talk to the person.
And forgiveness is the first step to restoration in all relationships.
Why do people have bad marriages?
It's because there's unforgiveness that hasn't been resolved.
Why do you have friendships that break apart?
Like, why is a friendship dissolved?
Because there's unforgiveness that's been unresolved.
There's tension that's unresolved in the situation.
And it workplace, why do people get fired?
There's unresolved tension or whatever.
So like if you want to have a relationship that keeps going,
you have to have this cycle where you
constantly are going through the cycle of forgiveness.
Where you talk to the person,
you address what the problem is,
you have to say, hey,
this is what happened, this is what's going on.
Seek for forgiveness.
and then once the forgiveness is given, then you move on.
But if you don't do this step, you cannot heal.
You cannot heal and you cannot draw close in the same way.
If I say to God, I didn't sin,
well, then I'm outside of fellowship with Him.
If I say I have not sinned, well, I make him a liar and I'm not gonna have fellowship with him
I have to say yep, I sinned I did wrong and then it's like, okay
And then you can get back in the relationship and you went into marriage
It works the same way a lot of times you can't sit over and be like I didn't do wrong
I didn't do this or whatever you'd say. Yeah, I did wrong. You're right. This is what I did
I'm sorry. Will you forgive me before you can even have a chance to heal
And again, obviously, if it's a big transgression, the healing might take a little time and we get that,
but you cannot heal in relationships with a friendship, marriage, anything until you have that forgiveness step.
And the same is with God. You want to draw close to God, you want to have a close relationship with God,
well, you need to confess your sins and forsake them.
And you know, it's a really, really, really important point.
And you know in a marriage this needs to happen just immediately, you know and on a daily basis and I'll tell I
Could just tell you just it doesn't matter before I was a pastor
I could have told you this when I talk to people and they're like man, you know
They're they're fighting in their marriage or they have this problem in the marriage. It's like
There here's here's what they did and here's where they're wrong and it's like well did you talk to them? No
Did you deal with it? No, it's you have a problem in your relationship. It goes unresolved. The next day it turns into bitterness
and then it's not resolved turns in bigger business bitterness and then bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and
Sometimes it's just this big ball of bitterness and you can't heal because there's a big ball of bitterness in between you
You have to squash it and you have to seek forgiveness and you have to actually let it go
But you know in order to let it go you have to sometimes confess and and again as a man
I'm the leader of my home.
I'm the man of the marriage.
I'm the one that, you know, whatever I say goes,
but that does not mean that I can't be wrong.
That does not mean that I don't screw up.
That does not mean that I don't hurt my wife's feelings.
It does not mean that I don't do things that are bad.
And so in a healthy marriage, you know what?
I'm gonna often apologize to my wife and I'm gonna tell her,
hey, sorry, I did this.
Hey, sorry, I screwed up.
Hey, sorry, I said that.
Hey, sorry, I did this.
And you know what?
That'll help keep the relationship going
and it'll help it be healthy.
Just because you, I mean, think about it.
Is any man here gonna say that it's impossible for your boss to screw up because he's the boss?
Or would you say, no, if my boss screwed up,
it would make me feel better if he came to me and said,
hey, sorry, I did this or sorry, I said this or whatever.
It doesn't change the authority structure.
The authority structure doesn't change.
No, obviously God never has to do that to us
because he never screws up.
But we do fail as human leaders.
And you know what?
Even if I screwed up as the pastor of the church,
I needed to just say, hey, guys, sorry,
I made the mistake, I was wrong, please forgive me.
It doesn't change my authority structure at all.
And so in a healthy marriage you men sometimes need to swallow your own pride a little bit swallow your own
You know macho ego and just say hey, honey. I'm sorry
and you know what often
That'll help encourage her to follow and like suit and maybe say sorry to or let go. I don't know women are never wrong
so it'd be a miracle, but I'm just saying like
Sometimes you just got to be the bigger person and you just got to say hey, I'm sorry for what I did
your situation with your steps.
And of course, you know, the right attitude
is when someone comes to you and they're confessing
and they're saying sorry, we give them the benefit out,
we need to let it go, we need to restore them.
And you know, I'm so glad that God does that with us.
That when we go to God and we say we're sorry
and we mean it, he's not just like, man,
I don't care anymore, I'm done with you
or I don't want it anymore.
No, no, he just always receives us.
He always brings us back.
He likes to restore that relationship, and that's the attitude we should try to have.
We should have an attitude that says, hey, I'm willing to restore, I'm willing to rectify,
I'm willing to let it go, I'm willing to move on.
And you know, this is an important step for every one of us to always get with God and our relationships.
And this is where the true, you know, we're going to see the true religion of Christianity as people that are seeking God's forgiveness.
We're not perfect and I hear that accusation like some people say like oh
I don't like those kind of churches everything's they're perfect or you know
They're holier than owls or something, but I'm not a hole. I'm not that holy
So I don't even know how I could be older than now. I mean I send just as much as the next guy
But you know what I do I try to say sorry, and I try to get back in the light, and I just keep trying to do what's right
You know if you follow me around you'll realize I'm not that great, but at the end of the day
Follow me as I follow Christ and we're all here and no one's perfect
But praise God that he he works with us. Anyways, and you know, I think that God's spirit is here
I think this church is special and I think we are on the right track and it's lining up with first John
But you know make sure that you keep these things in your minds and your hearts
And you never allow someone to lead you astray and one of these hater
Groups or hater decisions or idols or whatever. Okay, let's go some prayer
They give only father so much for giving us your son and giving us that gift of eternal life
Thank you for allowing us to draw close to you and for us to understand who you are through your word
I pray that we would have a better understanding of who you are that we continue to draw closer to you
I pray that you would help us to have an attitude that's humble and willing to
Confess our sins and forsake our sins and strive to be better people
knowing that we'll always come short,
but that we'll have the confidence and the boldness
to come under the throne of grace
through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
And we thank you so much for what you have given us,
not just salvation, but also restoration and fellowship.
And I pray that we would do these things
as we draw closer to you to give you more honor
and you more glory.
In this Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Alright, for our last song, we're going to go to song number 227, song 227, Save by the Blood.
and everybody, you're all dismissed.