Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Loves. US turn to John's John. This is the end of your last
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the whole things this morning, but
will be focusing on all right, let's
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give our attention to God's word.
Now the elder, to the elect lady
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and her children, whom I love
in truth, not only I, but
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also all who know the truth,
because of the truth that abides in us
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and will be with US forever.
Grace, mercy and peace will be with
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us from God, the Father,
and from Jesus Christ, the father's son.
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In Truth and love. I rejoiced
greatly to find some of your children
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walking, just as we were commanded
by the father. And now I ask
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you, Dear Lady, not as
though I were writing you a new commandment,
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but the one we have had from
the beginning, that we love one
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another, and this is love,
that we walk according to the Commandments.
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This is the commandment, just as
you've heard from the beginning, that you
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should walk in it, for many
deceivers have gone out into the world,
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those who do not confess the coming
of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such
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a one is the deceiver and the
antichrist. Watch yourselves so that you may
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not lose what we have worked for
but may win a full reward. Everyone
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who goes on ahead and does not
abide in the teaching of Christ does not
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have God. Whoever abides in the
teaching has both the father and the son.
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If anyone comes to you and does
not bring this teaching, do not
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receive him into your house or give
him any greeting. Forever greets him takes
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part in his wicked works. Though
I have much to write to you,
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I would rather not use paper and
ink. Instead, I hope to come
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to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.
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The children of your elect sister greet
you well, as we have heard
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in previous sermons to this one,
in second John here John Rice to the
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church, and he desires to encourage
her, to train her, to teach
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her and to warn her. He
is reminded them, and minded us as
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well, of how it is that
we come to be the church. We
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are those who are born of Christ, we are those who have the grace
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and mercy and peace of God.
But as we have that word, as
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we have Christ in truth and in
love, he comes today to give us
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a warning. He tells us in
verse seven, for many deceivers have gone
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out into the world those who do
not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in
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the flesh. Such a one is
a deceiver and the antichrist. I want
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to reflect with you this morning on
on this warning in verse seven and the
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Corresponding Command that's given in verse eight
to watch yourselves. This is how we
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are not fooled, how we are
not tricked, how we are not led
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astray. We are guarded by knowing
that there is a danger and by being
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careful against it. So, as
we begin to think about that, let's
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begin by thinking about what the church
is. The church this elect people that
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John is describing here as a body
that is born of the word of God.
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The church doesn't create the word of
God. The church is created by
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the word of God and we are
called to remain in that teaching. So,
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as he says in verse nine,
whoever abides in the teaching has both
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the father and the son. But
one of the things that require is required
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to remain in that teaching is guarding
ourselves from false words, lies, stories
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and peoples that would or people that
would set us on different paths. John
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has called us to be those who
walk in the truth, to walk in
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love, implicit in this letter is
a command to be generous, to show
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hospitality. But, as we see, there's also wisdom that is required in
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that we are alive, we have
everlasting life because of truth and love in
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Christ, and we are to live
in truuth and love, and that includes
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sharing it with others. But here
John is calling us to be watchful in
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this world, and one of the
reasons that is, and this is where
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I want to start. Why this
is the case, is because the word
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of Christ, the word that Jesus
Christ came in the flesh, is a
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combative word. It's a combative word
and therefore it has enemies. If you
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don't realize that are you don't understand
that, then you don't yet quite fully
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understand the Gospel, not that we
ever fully understand the Gospel, but there's
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something to be really focused on here, because if we think of the Gospel
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as truth and love that have know, that have nothing to do with combating
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evil things and even evil things in
us, then we don't really understand what
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this truth and love is and,
in particular, how it's revealed in Christ.
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The fact that Jesus Christ came in
the flesh, the fact that this
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is how we know truth and Love
in God, and the fact that it
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comes in the form of a cross
tells us something very particular. When God
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revealed himself in the world and revealed
himself through the Cross, he does so
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in such a way that it uncovers
a self focus. What do I mean
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by that? Well, love is, after all, an other focused thing
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and ultimately it ought to be grounded
and point it directed at God, right,
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because to deny God or to not
love God but then to love others
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is not really to love at all, since he's the source of all these
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things. The same with truth.
To say that I believe in truth,
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I believe in being reasonable, but
I'm going to deny the source of truth,
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the foundation of truth, the thing
that makes truth meaningful and gives it
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its shape and its form and makes
it what it is, is, of
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course, to deny truth, the
Cross of Christ. Then, when God
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reveals himself in the world through this
son and reveals his truth and his love,
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it has this way of uncovering idolatry
in us. If this is where
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truth and love is, and we
don't really want to have a pardon it.
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In other words, it shows us
where our hearts really is, really
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are. It shows us what we
really do believe. We might talk a
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good game about loving and and believing
rightly, but if we don't connect that
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to who Jesus is, as the
one come in the flesh, as the
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one who died on the cross,
then that's really all it is, a
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game, a charade pretending. If, ultimately we are not about receiving the
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things that God gives us, but
controlling God and exercising our power and our
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strength and building our kingdoms, then
the cross confronts that. It opens up
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and reveals our idolatry. It reveals
our desire to obtain great ideals like truth
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and love, but on our own
and for our glory. That's what our
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real desire is. The Cross exposes
that our powerful reasoning, our great works
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of art, are heroic, selfishness. These things really mean nothing because,
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when given the chance, we nailed
truth and love to a cross. What
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does it mean to establish a magnificent
kingdom, to make beautiful gardens, to
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right great works of art and then
to take truth and love incarnate and nail
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him to a cross? It shows
where our hearts really are. It shows
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what we're really about. We're not
about truth. We're not about love,
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we're about idolatry, we're about selfrighteousness, we're about chasing after power and pleasure,
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when the one who came to save
us from our sin was rejected.
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This shows us the heart of mankind. And so that's why I say the
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cross is a combative thing. It
reveals, it uncovers, it exposes and
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people hate it. The Cross is
not a nice thing. It's a form
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of execution. It's not a polite
thing. The Cross was an instrument that
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use used to kill Jesus, and
then God uses it, to put it
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in a very strong way, God
uses it to kill us. And is
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that bad? Only if you think
you're good. But it's a good thing
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if you realize how bad you are, if you realize that it wasn't just
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people out there who murdered Jesus,
but it is people and what's in all
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of us, by the nature,
the fallen nature that we are born into.
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And so God, in the preaching
of the Cross and the preaching of
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Christ, come in the flesh.
He puts these things to death. He
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puts that old sinful fleshly self to
death. He crucifies the sinful flesh and
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its desires through this message, through
this message of truth and love, which
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means you can't come to the cross
and not get uncovered. You can't come
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to the cross and not get exposed, which means that coming to the Cross
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has a measure of embarrassment to it, pain, shame, there's a kind
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of wretch, wretchedness, as our
sins is brought to lie, as they
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are exposed for what they are.
But of course it is also a free
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of ourselves, as the old man
is put to death and the new man
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is brought to life in the resurrection
of Christ, because we share in his
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death that we might share in his
resurrection. This is what God does when
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he works his what we call his
effectual calling, when he calls US under
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the authority, in the power of
the Cross. He combats us, he
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he puts us to death, he
conquers us, but he does so to
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raise us up in life. You
can't come into the knowledge of Jesus,
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who came in the flesh, who
died on the cross, and remain distant,
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not truly. You can't come to
the knowledge of Christ and just sort
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of observe it and reason your way
through it. Not if it's going to
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truly affect you, it has to
kill you, it has to put you
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to death. We have to let
our old selves die so that we might
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be raised by God. But of
course not all come to die, not
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all come to pick up their cross
and follow after him. Many fight the
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cross even as it exposes them.
It exposes them and they hate it and
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they do not want to accept they
do not want to accept that they need
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God covered in weakness because they can't
are because they can't, and they want
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to control God in their strength.
God comes in his weakness, God comes
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in this Suffering Servant and a crucified
savior, and the world says, I
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don't want to have anything to do
with that. That's not about my beautiful
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gardens and my beautiful marbled statues and
my works and my politics. And it's
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the opposite of all those things.
It's not glorious, it's terrifying, it's
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suffering, it's painful, it's shameful, it's humiliating. That is the opposite
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direction that I want to go.
And the word of God says, but
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this is God coming to you to
save you, that you might die,
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that you might live in the world
says, I don't want to die.
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I like my self, I like
my sin, I like these things.
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I want to hang onto them.
Ultimately, they want to hang on.
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The world wants to hang onto its
idolatry, as I said at the beginning.
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It wants to hang on to its
control of God that it can access
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truth and goodness and beauty on its
own, in its own way and its
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own time, and God Says No. The world wants their will to remain
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at center, to remain in control. The Cross is about God's will being
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done and not ours. All this
to say the Cross has its enemies,
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Satan chief among them, and the
scripture is full of warnings about them.
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That those of us who are born
through the work of Christ, who came
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in the flesh, who died on
the cross and rose again from the dead,
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that we need to hold fast to
that teaching, hold fast to that
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Gospel, hold fast even to that
way of life, and part of what
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that means is coming to the realization
that there are people that don't like that,
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that there's even parts of ourselves that
don't like that, and we need
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to be on guard. And so
John says, many deceivers in verse seven
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have gone out into the world those
who do not confess the coming of Jesus
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Christ in the flesh. These deceivers
want nothing to do with God in the
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flesh, and this is referring to
his incarnation, his first coming, rather
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than a second, although of course
people deny that as well. But these
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people that John has in mind,
they want to they do not want to
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affirm, they want that Jesus Christ
to aim in the flesh, which is
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another way of saying they did not
want to affirm that God came in weakness,
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that God came on the Cross.
They want God by the power of
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their reason. They want God in
his Glorious Splendor and glory, apart from
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the revelation that we have it through
grace in Christ. And so they reject
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this and they want you to reject
it as well. And so they come
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to you with their idols or encourage
you to make your own, and they
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say sure of these. Instead,
chase after knowledge, experience, pleasure and
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wealth. But you don't need to
do that with Christ. In fact,
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if you identify yourself with Christ and
with Christians, you're probably going to suffer.
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Don't scriptures say that? You don't
need to worry about that. In
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fact, protect yourself against that,
guard against that. Instead, they say,
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instead, join my party, join
my philosophy, join my army,
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join my commune, join my movement, and we will achieve greatness. We
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will do the good things and the
true things and the beautiful things. We
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will do it because we have,
and then you have all kinds of fill
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in the blanks here. We have
achieved secret knowledge through this special profit.
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We will do it because we have
found out that when we tune ourselves into
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the nature around us, we can
find things in sink and vibrate with the
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world and live our lives in goodness
and truth and beauty. Or if we,
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if we, if we read this
special book, or if we follow
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this set of laws, if we
have these principles, then we can find
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our utopia. And then what do
they do? What do these deceivers do?
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What do we do when we face
not utopia but dystopias again and again
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and again and again? What do
we do when we face our sin and
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our misery and ourselves and in the
lives of others? Do we give ourselves
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by faith, over to God,
or do we continue our project of control?
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The flesh continues its project of Control, and it does that by trying
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to control other people or by isolating
ourselves from them. I'm going to keep
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you you, keep you under check. I'm going to make you do what
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I want you to do. I'm
going to make things happen the way I
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want them to happen, in the
when when I want them to happen,
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or ejack button out of here.
Enough with all of you. I'm going
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to go do my own thing.
I'm not going to suffer, I'm not
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gonna be patient, I'm not going
to be kind. You're ridiculous. I'm
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out of here if this is what
we do. Either way, it's all
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about keeping our own will central and
all things, controlling everything in our own
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way, in our own time,
so that we can get what we want.
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And this is what the world is
constantly telling us. It's not one
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person, he says. Many deceivers, he says, have gone out into
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the world. This is already happened
and of course it continues to happen.
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The son of God has come into
the flesh, in the flesh, and
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that is an offense to the world. The Cross of Christ asks us to
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receive the glorious things we desire are
totally apart from anything that we can do
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and the glorious ways in which we
typically try to achieve them, and instead
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asks us only to receive them by
the will of another through the cross.
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We don't build up the city,
we go outside the city and find our
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savior there. The opposition of Jesus
Coming, opposition to Jesus Christ coming the
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flesh, is about all of these
things and it shows up in all of
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these ways and more. So what
do we do then, with this knowledge,
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knowing that there is a very real
danger, understanding the reason for it,
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how do we be careful? Well, John tells us in Verse Eight.
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He this is not the only instruction
we have in scripture, but it
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is one of them and we do
right to pay attention to it. John
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says in Verse Eight, Watch yourselves, watch yourselves. That's surprising to me.
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I would have thought that he would
have said be watchful for the deceivers.
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And but then I finally exposes my
own pride again. Right, there
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are many deceivers out there, right, so put up a guard and keep
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them out. But instead he says
watch yourselves. It would be maybe more
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comfortable if we could just say watch
out for those bad guys out there.
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But John says that the work of
guarding and protecting starts in our hearts,
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which, of course, most gloriously
takes us again back to Christ we again
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see that externals aren't going to fix
things, that a bunch of rules,
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a bunch of policies, it might
slow the enemy down, but he's already
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on the inside, and so the
best protection starts on the inside. And
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so there is this call to watchfulness
and it's one of God's ways of keeping
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US close to him. Watchfulness,
of course, is being aware, being
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awake, being perceptive to help us
see the lie so that we can hold
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fast to the truth. Bank tellers
are watchful, hopefully right it will wear
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blindfolds and just take whatever sort of
feels sort of like paper. It comes
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to them and they exchange it in
and out it goes right. We are
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watchful and all kinds of other ways
in our lives. I'm more and more
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people are putting cameras on their doorbells
and their cars, on their chests so
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that we can be watchful where,
see what's going on. We continue to
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develop, you know, artificial intelligence
and technologies to help us see these things,
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to be aware, to analyze quickly. Are we attending that same kind
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of care to the internal us?
Are we learning a watchfulness in our hearts?
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Are we learning to identify what is
true and what is false, what
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is legitimate what is pretend? Now
that, of course, is difficult and
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hard work, but John tells us
that the best way to do that,
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he goes on to say, is
by holding fast to the same truth and
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love that we received in the beginning, to abide in the teaching of God,
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to live in that house. It's
a good place to be. The
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hope that we have that he gives
to us as that there's a reward ahead,
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that the suffering and the guarding and
the watchfulness and the carefulness and all
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these things it's not for nothing.
The world will say, what's the purpose?
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But the scriptures say there's a full
reward and it is the complete giving
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of all the glorious things that we
could ever want. But imperfection, perfect
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fellowship, perfect peace, perfect holiness, perfect goodness and beauty love in every
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way. These are the things that
come to us through the cross. The
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Cross looks to the world like a
vanity, but it's not, and we
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know that from the resurrection of Jesus
a resurrection that is already begun. So
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how do we protect our how it
hearts? How do we be watchful over
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our hearts? How do we UN
CLING TO CHRIST? It's the same way,
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in which we begin by trusting in
him, by not trusting ourselves,
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by not trusting in our power,
not trusting in our strength, not trusting
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in our watchfulness, but trusting in
him. That's what watchfulness by faith looks
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like. That's what guarding according to
faith looks like. And when we guard
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and when we watch and we are
careful in these ways, God promises us
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his protection. He promises to spread
his wings over US and keep us safe
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and keep us warm, to keep
us in his house, to protect us
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against those who are anti Christ,
those who would deceive us and trick us.
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So let us trust him, let
us be patient to him, let
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us cling to the cross in every
way, confessing that Jesus Christ has come
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in the flesh. Let's pray our
heavenly
