Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Coming up today on Hope from the Word.

Bill Luebkemann: I've been with people who said, no, no, this is okay. God told us we should split up with our spouse and marry this other person. And I read them all the scriptures and they say, well, we know all that. But this is what God's leading us to do. Wrong, wrong, wrong. You're not being led by God to do that. You're not in fellowship with God. You're hearing that from someone else. Maybe you want to hear that. You lie if you say you're walking with God and you're not living in the truth.

Guest (Male): How much do you love your family, your friends? I'd bet that there are people in your life you'd be willing to die for. Well, understand this. As much as you love anyone, it can't compare with how much God loves us. His love is a love that is so amazing, powerful, and perfect. It's overwhelming. Currently on Hope from the Word, we're in the process of going through the Bible. And today's stop is once again in the book of 1 John. This wonderful epistle contains great hope of things present and things to come. The underlying theme here is love, the wonderful love God has for us.

Join us in 1 John chapter 1. Here's pastor Bill Lubkeman.

Bill Luebkemann: Joy is because of what God has done. Happiness is because of your circumstances, right? You know, you win a million bucks, you're happy. You get sick the next day, you're not happy. You take a nice vacation, you're happy. You come home from your nice vacation, you're not happy. Friday afternoon, you're happy. Sunday night, Monday morning, you're not happy. You know, they surveyed people during the week randomly, asked people, what day is it? And they time, you know, how quickly can they answer what day is it and how often do they get it right? And people are able to answer faster and they know what day it is on Monday and Friday than they do on Wednesday when they're in the middle of the work week.

Happiness is fleeting. It comes and goes based on your circumstances. Joy is different. It's because of who he is and what he has done. And those things never change. Who he is never changes. He's the same on Monday as he is on Friday as he is on Wednesday as he is on Sunday morning. He's going to be He was the same when you were born as he is today as he'll be when you die, as when your grandkids come. Things in the world change, governments change, leaders change, countries come and go, whole nations come and go.

What will this country be like if the Lord tarries 100 years from now? Would you even want to live here? Would you want to be alive? Those guys were looking for that fountain of youth a few hundred years ago. I forget who it was, but they were galloping on their horse looking for the fountain of youth. I don't think they ever found it. If they did, they must be hiding somewhere and they never told anyone. But um you know, if if you could find that fountain of youth, would you want to live forever with what's going on in the world, with the way it's headed, and what have you?

Joy is different than happiness. It never changes. And your joy can be complete and lasting because of what he has done for you. And who he is never changes. What he's done for you never changes. And he's never going to change his mind and say, you know what I decided that whole cross thing, I just you know, it was a bad idea. I wish I hadn't done that and I'm just going to pretend like it never happened. And you know, you all can just forget it. You know, just, just, just you know, get lost. He He's not going to do that.

He's not going to change his mind. He's good for his word. He stays the same. This is what Jesus said in John 15:11. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. John 16:24. Until now, you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete. John 17 verse 13. I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world so that they may have the full measure of joy within them.

It's not a new idea that John was introducing back here in 1 John. You can see that it was Jesus himself that whole brought this whole idea of joy in, brought it up previously. He wanted us to have joy. And so in this sense also John is just passing along what he knows to be true. He's the bearer of good news. He's the messenger passing along the good news that we can have joy in the Lord because of what the Lord has done. Joy, no matter what's going on around us, irrelevant. We may not be happy, but we can have joy because of what he has done if we truly have fellowship with God.

This is the message we have heard. Now, he gets into the message. Look, he says, I've heard and seen and looked at and touched and I know these things to be true. And I'm telling you this so you can have joy. But he 's also got a message. I've got this message that I found out from this guy who's the word of God, the ultimate reason behind the whole universe. I 've got a message from him. What is it? This is the message we have heard from him and declared to you. God is light. In him there is no darkness at all.

If we claim to have fellowship with him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin. This is the message. And again, it's a reminder that John knows what he's talking about. He didn't make this stuff up. Physical light. He says here, God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. We all know what physical light is, right?

Comes from light bulbs, it comes from the sun, it comes from fire, it comes from other sources perhaps. We know what physical light is. It's good. We need light because without light our eyes don't work, one of our five senses. We can't see in the dark. We We can't can't do anything in the dark practically. Try to drive your car in the dark. You need headlights. Even then it 's difficult on a dark road in the middle of the night to see where you're going. Try to read a book in the dark. Can't be done.

Walk down the street in the dark, you'll walk into a tree. We need to have light. And here when it says God is light, well, he created the light that we have around us here. But beyond that, beyond physical light, God is also light in the spiritual sense, in the sense of right versus wrong or true versus falsehood or pure versus impure. Right in the sense of, you know, the knowledge of God and God's word. God is pure. He is clean. He is good. There's not a speck of anything wrong or bad or dirty or improper or impure in him, not a speck.

Not even a little bit. There's no sin, there's no impure motives. God is light and him there is no darkness at all. He doesn't have any impure thoughts. He's never wrong. If we think he 's wrong, we're wrong. If we think we're without sin, we just sinned. If we have impure motives, impure thoughts, whatever, we need to recognize it's our problem, not his. When we say, why did God allow that to happen? Whatever it is that happened in your life, one thing we know for sure, God didn't make a mistake. We might have, but he didn't.

He's absolutely, completely, totally perfect with 100 %, not 99 and 44 100 % like that soap. It's 99 and 44 100 % pure. I wonder a lot when I'm taking a shower, what's in the other 56 100 of 1 % that I'm getting on me. If it's only 99 and 44, God is completely pure, completely light, completely true, honest, everything else. There's no darkness, no sin, no impure motives, nothing else in him that's wrong, nothing of that at all. So therefore, because of that, if we claim to have fellowship with him, but yet we are walking in the darkness, then what?

We're lying. We're lying. Now, it doesn't say we're not saved, you know, but what this means is it's possible to be fooling yourself. And it's even more possible to be fooling others. It's easy to fool other people. It 's harder to fool yourself, but it can be done. But you can be saved and not be in fellowship with God. We call that being backslidden. That's what it's addressing, being saved and not walking with God. And maybe you're aware of it and maybe you're not aware of it. If you're aware of it, then maybe you're fooling others.

And if you're not aware of it, then maybe you're fooling yourself. And maybe you don't want to be aware of it. There's If you If you say I'm a Christian, I'm living with my girlfriend or boyfriend, well, I'm not saying you're not a Christian here, but you're not You don't have fellowship with God when you're walking in darkness. It says here, if we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie. Not, you know, we might be lying or you know, one of the you know, we lie. There's no room here for anything else.

You have a relationship with the Lord. You're walking with him. It doesn't say if you walk with God you can never sin, by the way here. It's talking about a consistent walk in darkness. And I've been with people who said, no, no, this is okay. God God told us we should uh uh split up with our spouse and marry this other person. I mean, I've heard that with my own ears from their mouth to my ears. Well, I looked at their lips move, so I know it was coming from them. And I read them all the scriptures and they say, well, we know all that.

But but we This is what God's leading us to do. Wrong, wrong, wrong. You're not being led by God to do that. You're not in fellowship with God. You're hearing that from someone else maybe or somewhere else maybe or maybe you've just maybe you've just convinced yourself of that. Maybe you want to hear that. You lie if you say you're walking with God and you're not living in the truth. You're not living by the truth. But he says in verse seven, but if we walk in the light as he is in the we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin.

We can. It is possible therefore to walk in the light. In other words, it is possible to have a right relationship with him. We're walking with him, we're having a right relationship with him. Doesn't mean you're never going to sin, but it you're walking in the light generally speaking. And you need to have fellowship with God and with one another. And if we do that, if we're walking in the light and he's in the light, then we can see him and he can see us and we can see each other cuz we're all in the light.

And you have fellowship with the other believers as well. Hey, if you don't have fellowship with other believers, then you should recheck how you're walking with the Lord because if if you know, you're a believer and you're walking in the light and I'm a believer and I 'm walking in the light and we're walking with the Lord, then we should be able to have fellowship of relationship with one another. And it says the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin. There's no application for him here, no approval process. His blood paid the price for all sin.

His blood was shed when he died on the cross. His death on that cross, his shed blood purifies us. It forgives us. It doesn't mean we never sin. It doesn't mean It doesn't say here, you don't get the idea that yeah, don't don't think from reading this, gee, if I'm walking in the light I can never sin because that's impossible. But if you are walking in the light in relationship with God and you do sin, his blood purifies on a continuous basis. You're covered. You slip up, you fall, you sin. His blood paid the price for it.

It's covered. And by the way, it says his blood covers all sin, everything, not just most of it, all of it, every single bit. I mean, I hate it when you get those coupons and it says, you know, good for $10 off, but you read the fine print. Not good for this department, not good in that department. Not doesn't cover tax, doesn't cover this, doesn't cover that. And then you finally wonder, can I really buy anything with it? No, his blood he takes care of the whole check when he buys. He takes care of the tax and tip.

Hey, can I leave the tip? Nope, that's covered also. He takes care of everything. His blood purifies us from all sin if we're walking in a relationship with him. If we claim to be Now, okay, so now we have the we we have this idea of a relationship with God and he's told us this message here about God being in the light so that we can have fellowship with him. And uh now he's saying that we can also be purified of our sin. And you can almost hear the people say, well, what if we don't have any sin?

What if we don't have any I don't have any sin. I need to be purified of. So he covers that here in the last three verses of this chapter. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we have We make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. Look, with regard to sin, there's only two choices here.

You can acknowledge that you have sin or you can claim that you don't have any sin. So that's the first You just have to decide now, do you agree that you 're a sinner or do you not believe that you're a sinner? He takes up both both possible angles here in verse eight, one of them, and in verse the other one. If you say you don't have sin in verse eight, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. In other words, I'll paraphrase that. If you say you're not a sinner, you're wrong.

You're If you say you're not a sinner, you're confused, you're a liar, uh you don't understand it, what have you? If you say you're not a sinner, you're deceived by the devil. And therefore the truth is not in you. On the other hand, the other choice is to confess your sin. And if you do that, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Confessing means we are going to agree with God about our sinful condition. We don't ask him to agree with us. By the way, you know, I'm praying really praying for this one thing and I'm just praying God will change his mind.

God ain't never going to change his mind. He don't do that. He never changes his mind. You change your mind to agree with God. And you can pray for something for 10 years. And when you finally change your mind to agree with God, that's when your prayer will be answered here. We don't ask him to agree with us. When we confess our sins, we're going to God and we're agreeing with God about our sinful condition. We're saying God, I'm a sinner. You remember that story in Luke about the two guys that were standing there at the altar, Luke 18.

Uh one of them was a Pharisee. One of them was a the poor guy, Luke 18 verse nine. Well, a tax who's a tax collector, so maybe he wasn't poor. Probably had a whole lot of money that he stole from other people, but two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers, evil doers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.

You know, he was saying, God, thank you that I'm so great. Thank you that I'm so wonderful. Look at me. Aren't I something else? Why, I'm a legend in my own mind. I'm outstanding in my field. But the tax collector stood at a distance. The tax collector didn't even approach the altar as close as this Pharisee did. He would not even look up to heaven. What does that mean? He was humble. But beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. That's all this guy said. He didn't have some long, flowery prayer.

Oh God of heaven and earth, thank you so much, thee and thou. You know, he doesn't have a You don't need that long King James prayer. Oh God, we bless thee for all thee has done for us and we thank thee and thou has No. All he said was one sentence. God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And what did Jesus say? I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Look, confessing your sins is agreeing with God on your sinful condition.

That's what this tax collector did here and verse in Luke 18:13 when he said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. He wasn't asking God to agree with him, you know. He didn't say, God, if I'm if I have sinned, I'm sorry. If you're praying that, you're praying the wrong prayer. You have sinned. You don't need to say if I've sinned, I'm sorry. Get over that right now. Just get onto the meat and potatoes part of it. Have mercy on me, a sinner. If we confess our sins, we know what they are. You know what your sins are.

You don't need to be told. Get real. He is faithful and just and will forgive him and he'll purify us from all unrighteousness. He's always right there when we agree with him in prayer. You can spend years disagreeing with him and never get anywhere. When you agree with him, there he is, right where he was. He didn't move. He's in the same spot there all long. If we claim we have not sinned, so we see we see verse eight. If we claim that If we say we don't have sin, we're deceived. Verse nine. We confess our sins.

Here's what'll happen. He'll forgive us and purify us. Verse 10, back to saying that we're not sinning, that we're not sinners. On the other hand, if we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar. And his word has no place in our lives. If If we say we're not a sinner, if we say we don't need to confess, then Well, since he said we are a sinner, he says you're a sinner. If you say you're not a sinner, then you're saying he's lying. And if he's lying, then then you're saying he's a liar.

Here's what one guy wrote a long time ago. He said this, no man was ever kept out of God's kingdom for his confessed badness, but many are kept out for their supposed goodness. Think they're good, supposedly good, but they didn't repent of their sins. If you say you're not a sinner, you make God out to be a liar. And if that's the case, his word has no place in your life. That leaves us with this question. Are you in or out of God's kingdom today? And it's a very, very important question. And your eternal destiny is at stake on how you answer that question.

Mine is on how I answered that question. Fortunately, the whole matter is within your own control. He did all the work, but you you don't have to rely on anyone else except yourself to accept what he has done. All you have to do is confess your sins, rely on the Lord, put your faith in him for the forgiveness of sins. That guy beat his breast and said he was a sinner. He agreed with God that he was a sinner. That's all he did. That's all he did. He didn't join a church there. He didn't join some committee, go overseas to become a missionary, feed the poor, give away all his money or anything.

He just agreed with God he was a sinner. And Jesus said that guy went home justified. That's all he did. That guy on the cross hanging next to Jesus said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. That's all he did. He put his faith in Jesus. It's not complicated. You don't need to go to college for a year or two or three or four to understand this. All you have to do is rely on him and put your faith in him for the forgiveness of your sins. And you can only do that when you admit and understand that you're a sinner.

If you don't, you're making him out to be a liar. It's one of two choices here. You admit you're a sinner or you call God a liar.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in a Through the Bible series. You can hear this message or more Hope from the Word with pastor Bill Lubkeman by going to ccmarlton.org or wherever you find your podcasts. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. And finally, if you'd like a CD copy of the message, please call 856 983 1662. Again, that's 856 983 1662. We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 a.m.

And there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org. And if you take a moment to write to pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives and we want to pray for you, too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856 983 1662. We'll continue our Through the Bible series next time on Hope from the Word with pastor Bill Lubkeman, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.