In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: For Sean with me, we have come as far as chapter 3. We will pick up there in verse 1. As you are turning there, I just want to make a statement. I want to encourage you that what you saw last Tuesday, what we did last Tuesday, was not an election. It was not election day. Last Tuesday was judgment day. I believe that with all my heart. Because the popular vote, not just Electoral College, stood for what was right and rejected the woke, transgender, abortion, gay, absolute, insane Antichrist spirit, I think God has given us a reprieve.

You do not have to agree with me, but I just want to make this statement. I think God gave us a reprieve. But you need to be careful, and I need to be careful. I want to read you something from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. You know that this is the first letter that Paul wrote. It is the first of his Pauline Epistles as he wrote back to the church at Thessalonica. He was only there for four weeks, three Sabbath days. Not only did he plant a church and give them the basics of Christianity, but he also left them a clear eschatology.

As he writes back to them because they are a little confused—false teachers came in and they can confuse you—he writes back to them this letter. It is interesting. There are five chapters, but every one of these chapters ends with a reminder of the coming of the Lord. It is the blessed hope. The church should always be with this anticipation that at any moment the Lord could return. In fact, Jesus told us we need to be those who are sober, vigilant, watching, and waiting, because we really do not know the day, the very day or the hour. We will see it by the times and the seasons.

Certainly, as we have been doing our prophecy update on Wednesday nights, we are living in that time. But he says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, and I just want to read the first few verses, "But of the times and of the seasons, brethren, ye need not that I should write unto you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night." It will come suddenly and it will come unexpectedly. All the warnings are in place. If you do not believe so, go back and look at our prophecy updates. You can go to our website and you can look up the doctrines class we taught. You can study eschatology.

We are living in those final moments. But then he goes on to say this, and this is the point I want to make: "For when they shall say..." Now notice, whenever Paul or any of the apostles write, they make a definite distinction between saved and unsaved. You can see it as you read through the New Testament. It is they, them, and us and we. I am hoping all of you are the us and we this morning sitting in the church, not the them and they. The them and they are those that are in the world, who are unregenerate, not born again.

He says, "For when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction shall come upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief. You are the children of light. You are the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as others, but let us watch and be sober." Here is what I want to warn you. So many Christians today are too political. I am apolitical. We are going to see why I am apolitical this morning, because my citizenship is not here.

Do I vote? Absolutely. People just stood up who went and joined the military, who stood up for me and gave me that right. I am going to exercise it. But I am going to vote morally. I am not going to vote economically or politically or any of those reasons. I am looking at the candidate who is pro-Israel, number one, because I know what my Bible says: they that are against Israel, God is against them; those who bless Israel, God blesses. That is the first thing I look for: who is for Israel?

Then I want to see the candidates who are for the things that God blesses and are against the things that God calls an abomination. It was an easy choice this election cycle for me. It was very easy. It was last time too, but this time was even more clear and easy. But you need to be careful that you do not go, "Okay." Already we are seeing around the world some of these people come in line. Putin calling Trump and saying, "Okay, whatever you want to do, we will do it. We will end the war in Ukraine."

Iran is already starting to calm down. It is looking like, and they are saying on the news, peace and safety. Some of you think because Trump got in we got a four-year reprieve. We might not get a four-day reprieve. That is why we need to be ready at any moment because we do not know the day or the hour. I just want to caution you. Do not lean back on your ease because you dodged a bullet. The spirit of Antichrist, as we have been studying in 1 John, is already at work. Deception is already afoot.

Jesus said the first thing, when he was explaining to his disciples what it would look like in the last days, is deception. But we are not of the night that that day should overtake us. That is why we study the Bible. So, just a cautionary note this morning: be careful. We have a lot of people missing, but they are not missing because they are not on their ease. Again, you want to be careful because we are in the flu and cold season. There is a lot of sickness going around. Some are back; some are gone. It is like we swap seats. Just make sure you use the hand sanitizer.

Let us take a look at 1 John this morning. It is incredible. If you are a follower of Christ, if you are a believer in Jesus, if you are born of the spirit and saved, if you know that your citizenship belongs in heaven and it is not here, then what John is going to tell us as he moves into chapter 3 is remarkable. It is incredible. So, let us just pray and we will ask the Lord to speak to us. Father, speak to us this morning because we can be dull of hearing. We can become a complacent people.

If we are not careful, we can be lulled to sleep by the melody of this world. We can even, as your people, fall into compromise. But Lord, this morning, we want you to redirect our hearts, as it were, once again to the things of the Lord. Redirect them toward our future, to our destiny, that we would think more of heaven than we would of earth. That we would be more eternally minded than we are temporally minded and that, Lord, we would use the time around us that you have given us. We would use it wisely because the days are evil.

Father, stir in our hearts this morning. Father, give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand that we are kingdom people. We are a spiritual people. This is not our home; we are just passing through. I think that our journey is closer now than it has ever been. Of course, you would say that, but I think we are that generation. So Father, speak to us this morning, we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. And all God's kids—I am glad to be one of your kids—would say, amen.

Chapter 3 opens up with an incredible statement. Again, as we have been going through 1 John, we told you in the beginning as we started this study that the theme of this book is authentic Christianity. It is not religion, not lip service, not saying one thing and living something different. He is writing to those who are born of the spirit, who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. They have been given the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ. He is writing to a people who have put off the old man and put on the new man.

He is writing to a people who have a different worldview now and they do understand that they are just passing through this life. They are to touch this life just as lightly as possible, seeing that the present scheme of things is rapidly passing away. So, it is an adjustment, as it were. But I love how he starts chapter 3. I really struggled trying to get through the first verse this morning, but I want to get through the first 10 verses. So, here we go. Chapter 3: "Behold." What an interesting way to start this chapter.

That word behold is an interesting word in the Greek. It means to pay attention to. He is drawing our attention to something. So, when he starts this section, he starts it by saying you need to pay attention. Secondly, it has the sense of not only paying attention, behold, but paying attention. He is drawing your attention to something, but understand. Do not just pay attention, but understand and learn about what is about to be said. So, he begins this section, chapter 3 as it were, with saying, "Behold, pay attention to, understand and learn what is about to be said," because it is remarkable.

I have been a Christian almost 49 years and I am going to tell you, when we talk about this first verse, it is the thing that my mind goes to the most. When I am up in the mountains and I am just up there praying on the weekends, alone with the Lord, fasting and praying, this is the thing that comes to my mind: that one of these days we are going to step out of this life into eternity. What is that going to look like? What are we going to experience?

So he says, "Behold, pay attention to, take note of, learn, understand what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us." That word for manner is an interesting word in the Greek. It means otherworldly. Can you even wrap your hands around this morning? I have tried. Again, I have taught through the Bible multiple times. I have written doctrine courses and I have taught them in Bible college, but there is something that is still just beyond my grasp. I mean, I understand it theologically.

I understand it intellectually. The spirit bears witness, so there is an affirmation spiritually. But I cannot tell you that I have fully wrapped my hands around this unimaginable thing that is declared to us here this morning: that God loves you with an everlasting love. That God loved you so much that he was willing to sacrifice the second person of the Godhead, the eternal Word: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. That he would send his Son to take on human form. That he would send his Son to be conceived by the Holy Spirit in a virgin womb, sinless as it were.

Conceived of the Spirit, born of a virgin, he lived a sinless life because if by one man's sin can come into the world, then by one man's sin can be taken out of the world. He would live a sinless life, and he would die a substitutionary death. This is the part that blows my mind: that he would die a substitutionary death on Calvary's cross for you and me. Because the Bible declares that the absolute justice of God demands that the scales balance. The wages of sin is death. And who in this building has not sinned?

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Jesus literally took our sin and nailed it to his cross and gave us his righteousness. He suffered a most horrible death, was buried, rose again the third day, and is ascended to the Father. Now he is there making intercession for you and me so that when we sin as Christians, Jesus stands up as our defense attorney and says, "Not applicable, already taken care of. No double jeopardy."

When we get to heaven and we are no longer in this carnal mindset so that we can actually see and hear and understand in a very deep way, it is going to blow our minds when we get there. The love of the Father, in fact, John tells us in the eons of time to come, whatever eternity looks like, we are still going to be learning about this love. Paul said that I want you to know something that is unknowable. Can you imagine someone saying that to you? I want you to learn something, but you cannot learn it. You can work at it.

But he is talking about the love of God—the height, the depth, the length, the breadth. This morning, God loves you. He loves you so much that he sacrificed his Son to bring you back into relationship with him. Then he sent the Holy Spirit into this world for the convictment of sin, to bring you to Christ. Once you are in Christ, he leads and guides and helps you in righteousness and in truth. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed. You did not earn it; I did not earn it. We could not earn it.

In fact, I love that verse in Titus chapter 3, verses 4 through 7. Paul is writing these young pastors because he knows that his time is coming to an end, that he is going to be poured out like a drink offering. He writes second Timothy—that is his last will and testament—and he writes this young pastor, Titus, as well. He says this, "But after the kindness..." We do not deserve the least of his blessings. Paul got that for sure. "But after the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward men appeared."

How did it appear? It appeared in the body of Jesus. We are going to talk about that next week as we get into the latter parts of 1 John chapter 3. But he goes on to say, "Not by works of righteousness which you have done." God did not give this love to you because you were good. You see, religion tries to impose that on you. If you are just good enough, if you just do it right enough, if you are just religious enough, if you join the church and you are in church attendance and you pay your tithe and you do good things, if you do things good enough, maybe God will love you.

Well, I want you to know it is not based on anything you have done. His love toward you is from his character because he does not work at being loving; he is love. He loved you and me when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. He loved you and me when we were going the opposite direction from him. He loved us so much that he committed to sacrificing his own Son to bring us back into fellowship with him. I do not know about you, but I am blown away by that, because I did not even like me before I was saved.

For me to hear words like "God loves you," that did not mean anything to me. I thought you were maybe smoking the same stuff I was smoking. I was not really sure, but why would you say that to me? Do you know who I am? You do not know me. If you knew me, you would not like me either. I had the person tell me one time, "It is not that God likes you, he loves you. It is not based on you; it is based on him."

So we read there in Titus, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, his mercy, he saved us because he is merciful. By the washing and regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." It was his work. God the Father sent his Son to remove the power and penalty of sin and then he sent the Holy Spirit to regenerate us. See, religion wants to reform you. We are not into reformation. A reformed person, a good person—Jesus did not come, this is the point that John is making—Jesus did not come to make bad people good. Religion does that. That is called reformation.

Jesus came to make dead people live. We have had some people ask over the years, "Well, do you believe in deliverance ministry?" Absolutely. But we believe that Jesus does that, that he sets us free. He so loved us that he came and he set us free. Which he—listen to this next verse—"which he shed on us meagerly." Does it say meagerly? Sometimes you act like that, you talk like that, you think like that. Well, even though I know God loves me and I am saved by grace and I am regenerated by the Holy Spirit and I am born again, I have to still be very careful.

No, you need to be very careful for other reasons. But listen to what he said: "He shed this love, this grace, this work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, he shed it on us abundantly." His mercies are new every morning, his grace is sufficient, his love is unending, it is unconditional, it is agape love, which means it does not matter how you behave, he will still love you. When you are unfaithful, he remains what? Faithful. Yes, you get it. You got it.

"Shed upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. That being justified..." Listen again, I am going to tell you: circle that word. It is such a powerful word. It does not mean just as though you never sinned. I know Pastor Chuck used to say that a lot. Justified means just as though you never sinned. It is deeper than that. It is much more profound than that. Do you understand what justified means? That is why when Paul wrote to the church at Rome and he comes to chapter 5, he said, "Having been..." It is in the past tense. It is a once and for all thing.

Once you have had it, you still remain with it for the rest of your entire life. "Having been justified by faith, you now have peace with God." God will never be angry with you again, because that word justified means just as though you never were a sinner. You say, wait, wait a minute. That is exactly what it means. This morning, if you are in Christ Jesus, if you are born of the spirit, if you have received the mercy of God abundantly poured out upon you, God made you through his Son because the standard to stand before a holy God is perfection.

It is not sins covered, it has to be sins removed. It has to be perfection because he is a perfect God. You have to be completely holy because he is a holy God. We read in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14, "For by one sacrifice he has perfected for..." until the next time you sin? "Perfected forever those that he made holy." Then it says in verse 17, "And your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more." Behold. I am still beholding after 49 years what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.

And that word shall be called, again in the Greek, a kind of hard translation into the English, but it literally means to be named. That God named you. He renamed you is actually what it means. He named you his children, his sons, his daughters. He named you the bride of his Son, Jesus Christ. He named you that. That is what you are currently, presently. Let me finish out Titus before I move on. I get excited about God's grace. "That being justified by grace, we should be made heirs, heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying."

Paul writes to Titus, "This is a faithful saying. This is a true statement. This is absolutely right. And these things I will that you should affirm constantly." Again, preaching the gospel is not telling people they are sinners and are going to hell. That is not good news. In fact, I knew that before I was saved. I joked about it. The good news is you do not have to. That God has made a way through Jesus Christ and what you hear on your heart right now is the Holy Spirit saying, "Come on in."

Open the door and I will come in. This is what he says: "This is a faithful saying and these things that I will that you affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God..." Put their faith there, "...might be careful now to maintain good works, that these things are good and profitable for all men." You see, works follow salvation. They are not the prelude to salvation. Works do not save you. But when you are born again, when you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, when you are given a new mind and a new heart and your spirit is now awakened again to who you are in Christ Jesus and what Christ has done for you and that God your Father loves you, then there is a difference in motivation.

There is a difference in desire. There is a difference in ambition and aspiration. There is a difference. At that moment, we take up our cross, we deny self, and we follow him because he is worthy of us following him. Because we understand that here is a God that loves us, that his will toward us is right, that his word toward us is perfect, that his desires toward us, listen, are based on his love for us, that he wants the best for us.

So John, as he comes now and it is almost the crescendo of this epistle when he is talking about authentic Christianity: first, he wants us to know what our desires, what our worship should be motivated on. He begins this chapter in verse 1 by saying, "Behold." Man, you just—you need to pay attention. You need to understand. You need to learn about this. I will tell you this: Peter ended his epistle by saying grow in grace, because it is something that is like for me. 49 years is like, wow. Wow. I know that I am thick-headed, maybe like you guys aren't.

But it has taken a while, because there are times when I mess up that I think, "Well, Lord, do you hate me?" No, no, I do not hate you. "Well, man, I hate me for doing that." But I do not hate you. He will say things like to me that, "You have bold access to me to receive help and mercy in a time of need." What is he talking about? When you fail. The door will never be shut to you. Having been made just as though you never sinned by faith in Christ, you now have peace, not the peace of God, we get that too, but peace with God. God will never be angry with you again. Ever.

We are going to be studying on Wednesday nights—one of the things as we are leaving our prophecy update is that some people want me to lay out the timeline, the rapture, and what the resurrection will look like. We are going to do that over the next several Wednesdays. But what you need to know is you already are an eternal being. This is what John is going to tell us. "Behold what manner," this otherworldly love, "the Father hath bestowed upon us so much so that he should—that we should be named, that our title should be, that for all time and eternity we should be identified as sons of God."

Ladies, do not get upset. It can be children. It is still the same word, teknon, born-again ones, should be named the sons of God. "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew not him." When I was saved, I told you the story, I went home and told my parents, "I am saved." And they thought I was on some other trip. Have you ever witnessed to somebody and they are going like, "Really? Seriously? Are you a lunatic? Are you telling me that one of these days you are going to be beamed up to heaven?"

Yes, that is what I am telling you. In a moment and in a twinkling of an eye, this mortal is going to put on immortality, this corruption, incorruption, and I am going to be caught up. That is our word for rapture, harpazo, snatched away with great force to meet the Lord in the air. I am going home. So, in the near future, if you are still here, we have pamphlets for you out there in the back. We have packets, so it tells you how to get to heaven if you miss the rapture. But know this: when there are a billion people missing on this planet, the aliens did not come for us.

Just know that Jesus came for his bride. Because the church is no longer in place. The church has fulfilled its function. And now that last 70th week vision of Daniel goes back to Israel and we are home at the marriage supper of the Lamb, having dinner with Dad. Amen. Are you not looking forward to that? You will not have to even worry about the calories. But they know us not. Here is what it says in John chapter 12. So, when you are witnessing to people and they look at you like you have three eyes and six arms, understand something.

That is why we should be praying for them. In John chapter 12—John, the same John that wrote first John chapter 3 that we are in—he says that the god of this world, he has blinded their eyes. There is a deception going on in this world today. Every man is given a measure of faith. So, in every man there is a conflict when you share the gospel, because the Spirit of God is bearing witness with that measure of faith in them that what you are saying is true.

But then you have the god of this world has blinded their eyes, and he has hardened their hearts that they should not see with their eyes, understand with their heart, and be converted, be transformed by that work of the Spirit, and I should heal them. Hey, nothing is more evident than to see the lefties melting down. I do not laugh at them. I know there are some of you—I will not mention any names, Carl—that told me that he was watching them and just melting down.

The god of this world has blinded their eyes. Are you not glad this morning he opened yours? Should you not pray that he opens theirs? This is what John is saying. Listen, but they do not know. They do not know. They do not understand you. You are an enigma to them because they do not know him. If they knew him, you would not be an enigma. And then he says this, "Beloved." Oh, do you not like that? "Beloved, now we are, now are we the sons of God." Not future.

Again, when Paul writes to the church at Ephesus in his short little epistle there of six chapters, there are two prayers contained. The first one is in chapter 1. In chapter 1, he prays for them. He says, "When I heard of your faith, I pray that God would open your eyes to understand, your hearts to conceive what it is God has done for you, that you are his inheritance and that the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, he put in you."

You and I are never going to die. We are going to move one of these days, but we are never going to die. Our hope is heaven. Paul had been there when he was stoned outside of Lystra and he writes 14 years later. He said, "I knew a man some 14 years ago, in the spirit—in the body, out of the body, I am not really sure—but he was caught up into the third heaven and he saw things that were so remarkable, so incredible, so undescribable."

He said that eye has never seen anything like this. Your ear has never heard anything like this. In fact, you have never in your wildest imaginations ever thought anything like this. And God has prepared this for them that love him. Why do we love him? Because he first, what? Loved us. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed, placed on, given to us, that we should be named the sons of God. He says that is why the world does not understand us; they do not know us.

I did not understand Christians before I was a Christian. I thought they were crazy. I thought it was just a crutch because they were weak-minded people. I thought they were wimps. I thought they were to be made fun of and I did every opportunity I got until I became one. And I realized how and why they did the things they did. Because he says, "Beloved, now, this very moment, we are the sons of God. And it does not yet appear what we shall be."

Now, we are going to talk about that out of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 on Wednesday night about the resurrection. And listen, we look through a glass dimly, but Paul does a very good job, I think he does a masterful job of describing to us what the resurrection is going to look like. So, we will take an evening, a Wednesday evening. We are going to do the timeline first and then we are going to do the rapture and then—because I think this goes in this flow—the timeline that we are living in, when the rapture happens, what the rapture is, and then what it looks like in our resurrected bodies.

But let me leave you with a little tickler. Can I leave you with a little tickler? I want to leave you with a little tickler so you will come out on Wednesday nights. In Philippians chapter 3, I want to read you verse 20 and 21. Listen to what it says, "For our," and the word for conversation there again, old King James, if you have got like a new King James it probably says citizenship. Does it say citizenship in one of your translations? That is what it should say. That your citizenship, and the idea in the Greek is it already exists in heaven.

You are not a Republican and you are not a Democrat and you are not an independent. You are not a libertarian, although if there ever was such a thing as a libertarian you are it, because Jesus set you free. Our citizenship already exists in heaven. That is why we vote our morals down here. But whatever happens, it does not matter. So he says, "Our citizenship already exists in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."

That is why we are always looking up. That is why we are always looking up. That is why everything is measured by the coming of the Lord. That is why we are not afraid of anything. That is why we do not get caught up in all this stuff. Then he says this, "Who shall change our vile bodies." Amen. Listen, vile, it is decay. I was just talking to one of the sisters this morning that I am having to come to the grips at 68, I will be 68 this month, that my body does not want to cooperate.

I still think I am 18 years old. I go and shave like this morning, I look in the mirror and say, "Who are you and where is the other guy that used to show up?" And I have to pace myself around the house, the things I do, because I used to could work all day into the night, get up the next morning just as refreshed as can be. Now I get to about 3:00 and my wife and I, we look at each other and say, "This is about it." And that is about it. Time to go in and take a hot bath and some ibuprofen and sit down.

But he said one of these days he is going to change—metamorphosis. We shall not all sleep but we shall be changed. We are going back to the original, clothed in the glory of God like Adam and Eve experienced. "Who shall change, metamorphosize our vile bodies, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." We are not sure about all of the details, but we know this: when Jesus comes for us, we are going to be like him. That is why it says according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.

Now, a few things we see about Jesus in the resurrected state: that he said to doubting Thomas, "Touch me. Does a spirit have flesh and bone?" He did not say flesh and blood because I think what drives our new body is spirit, not blood. He walked through walls. He flew. He ascended. He could appear at will and disappear at will. I do not know about you and never any deterioration because when we get into heaven the second law of thermodynamics is done away with.

Things do not go from a better state to a worse state. Are you not glad about that? Look around. I have been here for 30 years and I can tell you what, you look at me, you know I have gone from a better state to a worse state. And I am watching you too. Don't laugh, Gary, I watched. We on the other side, he is going to wipe every tear from our eyes and there will be no more pain or death or disease or having to say goodbye to a loved one.

Never will we ever have to say again, "Lord, I am sorry. What was I thinking? I broke your heart and it breaks my heart that I broke your heart." Never again will I have to repent. I am going to look into the absolute eyes of love as he wipes every tear from my eyes and he is going to look at me and say, "Behold, I make all things new." In fact, Isaiah said we will not even remember the former things. Some of you said, "Well, what about the people left behind, the people I cared about?" I think he wipes that from us too.

And we will be home. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God. That is why the world does not understand us because they do not know him. But beloved, now are you the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we are going to look like on the other side of this thing, but we know this: when he comes, we are going to be like him and we shall see him as he is.

We will be able to stand in the presence of God with this new holy body and not be consumed. We will be able to so stand in his presence, we will be able to gaze into his eyes as he wipes—what will it feel like when the hand of God wipes the tears from your eyes? Says, "It is okay. You are home now. All that other stuff, not even a distant memory because I am going to wipe that memory from you and we will be in his presence forever."

Now, listen to what John says. Is that what you desire? Is that who you are? Are you born again this morning? Have you been regenerated by the Holy Spirit? Has the Father bestowed upon you so much love that he calls you his sons, his daughters? Is that you? Are you the beloved now that are the sons of God, born of the spirit? Then here is what he says in response. Now notice, we are responders, please. We do not do to get God's response. That is religion.

People will tell you this all the time: "You need to do this or God will not like you, God will hate you." No, no, no. You are past judgment. You will never be judged. Listen to me this morning. You as a believer and follower of Jesus Christ—in fact, Paul says the same thing in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 9—that you will never experience the wrath of God because you have peace with him now.

Will he correct you? Yes. I watch Cody walk in with Martina and their three little young kids and, man, I am going to tell you, I know they have halos. They look like little angels this morning, but I know that there are horns that hold those halos up. I know from time to time Cody has to discipline them. He disciplines them not because he is angry with them, not because he does not love them; he does it because he does love them.

Does God discipline us? Absolutely. How many have been disciplined this week? Those are love taps. In fact, he says he only disciplines those that he loves and he only disciplines those that are his. Yeah, we get disciplined. But we will never face the wrath of God. He is not angry with us. Because we have this relationship, because we are born of the spirit, here is our response: "And every man that hath this hope in him, he purifieth himself even as he is pure."

Now, that word for purify in the Greek is a verb that describes something that we do. It is interesting because in the Greek language, it is in the present perfect active tense, which means it is an ongoing process. It does not mean one moment you are purified and you are that way the rest of your life. It is an ongoing process. How many find that you might have had a good day yesterday but you are still challenged today?

Yeah. Yeah. So, listen, every person that has this hope, the hope of heaven in them, the Holy Spirit working and cooking in them, that understands that God stooped down and gave us his Son to pay for our sins and that we have now been brought back into relationship with the Father through the Son and what the Son has done for us is so perfect that we are named his children again. Every man, every woman, every person that has this hope in them, listen, there is something about us that we want to be perfect.

We purify ourselves and when we fall short, we repent. We go back to 1 John chapter 1. If you say that you do not have a tendency to sin, you deceive yourself. How many know they have a tendency to sin? How many know there is still a deceiver that lives in you, a traitor? But listen, when that traitor gets his way, he says, "But if you will confess it..." Homolegeo means agree with God that he was right, you were wrong.

If you will confess it, he is faithful and justified through his Son to not only forgive you of it but to cleanse you from it. Katharizo is our word for cleanse; it is to cauterize, to bleed that out of you so it is not even in you anymore. Then he goes on to say, but if you say what you are doing—which is again scripture—is not sin, then you are just a liar and the truth is not in you. No, we live, we live a life of brokenness, contriteness, and repentance, do we not?

We live a life of great struggle. Read Romans chapter 7, the great struggle of Paul. Paul wrote that 30 years after his conversion: that the things I should not do, sometimes I find myself doing; the things I should, sometimes I do not. Oh wretched man, who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death? He makes a remarkable statement. It was a statement for years I struggled with trying to understand it because Paul was an educated man.

When he says that "I myself serve the Lord in the inner man, but the flesh sin." The I myself? I mean, I can slaughter the King's English, all my family came from Arkansas. I am educated, so I can slaughter. But "the I myself," what are you talking about, Paul? Then it dawned on me one day when I was just asking the Holy Spirit—I know that every word is inspired, so there is a reason why that phrase is there—so what is the deal? The real me.

The real you is not this flesh. You leave this suit behind and then God changes it as we are going to study about the resurrection. What you plant is not what comes out of the ground. The real you serves the Lord with your whole heart, but you still have this other guy, this other woman who still wants to do sin. So, the great battle. Paul said, "I beat my body daily in the submission."

Every man who has this hope in him, that is in him, born of the spirit, he purifieth, he is always at work trying to bring this flesh under control even as he is pure. Now, let me just do one more verse. I know it is late. Let me do—I wanted to get to verse 10. Let me get through verse 10. I can go kind of quickly because the point has already been made. Whosoever—now he is going to tell us: this is how we can determine saved from unsaved and even those that are religious from those that are born again.

Because a lot of religious people just live a life of sin. They try to placate their sin by coming to church and acting like something they are not. Jesus said they are hypocrites. This is how we determine the difference. This is the measuring stick of those born of the spirit, those who have relationship with the Father through the Son and through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and those who do not. He says this, "Whosoever committeth..."

Please circle that word. It is an interesting word in the Greek. It is poieo in the Greek. Again, it has this sense of practicing; it has the sense of a position or constant behavior. Actually, it should read lifestyle. Those, whosoever as a lifestyle habitually practices sin—that is their lifestyle, habitually practices sin—they transgress also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And you know that he was manifest—that is Jesus—to take away our sins and in him there is no sin.

So, that is what the Holy Spirit is for, that we are regenerated. Then he says, whosoever abideth—and this is one of John's favorite terms, to abide. You go back to John 15 in the Gospel, he is talking about abiding in Christ: if you abide in him, you will bear fruit, and if you are bearing fruit, then the Lord will come and he will prune you and he will help you to bear more fruit. But the whole idea is that we have our life in Christ and he in us.

"Whosoever abideth in him, they do not habitually practice sin as a way of life. Whosoever sinneth, practices sin as a way of life, has not seen him, neither does he know him. Little children," little born-again ones, there is our word again, teknon, "let no man deceive you. He that does righteous is righteous, he even as he is righteous." One of the ways we know we are born again is we have a different worldview.

We may sin, but we do not—it is not our lifestyle. It is not where we live anymore. You may visit it from time to time and realize, "Why did I come back to the old neighborhood?" But you do not live there anymore. He is going to tell us why you do not live there anymore and it has nothing to do with you. We are going to read it. Let us read it. "He that habitually practices sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning."

For this purpose, this cause, this reason, the Son of God, Jesus, was made manifest. He came to this planet that he might destroy—the word destroy there is to obliterate, to absolutely obliterate the power and the penalty of sin and to obliterate the god of this world and the control that he once had over our life. It has been obliterated. I like that word better than destroyed. Obliterated. He came to obliterate the works of the devil.

So, whosoever is born of God, and see, not religious but born again, watch this: "Whosoever is born of God does not habitually practice sin. Why? Because his seed remains in you." When you were born again, something happened. Jesus came into your life and one of his great promises to us this morning is, "I will never leave you nor forsake you. I am in you for the long haul." And because I am in you, you cannot habitually practice sin because sin will become to you as exceedingly sinful.

You can make some road trips back to the old neighborhood. How many made road trips back to the old neighborhood? But you are not in the old neighborhood anymore, are you? You make those road trips and you go, "Why in the world would I ever come back here?" I knew the night I got saved that I was forever ruined for this world. I knew it the night I got saved on my way down the hill from that Bible study. I was throwing the alcohol and drugs out the window.

The next day, I broke up with my girlfriend because I knew I could not live there anymore. I knew it the very night that I was different. Have I struggled with sin? Absolutely. Have I been faithful to the Lord? No. Has he been faithful to me? Yes. Have I grown in grace? You bet, but also in knowledge. I am not ignorant of his devices. He cannot catch me like he used to catch me. I have gotten wiser and stronger. It is a process from glory to glory, he is changing us.

But you cannot live there anymore. If you can go out and party and get drunk and fornicate and commit adultery Friday night and Saturday night and show up in church on Sunday morning, all you are doing is showing up on church on Sunday morning. You are not a follower of Christ. You are not born of the spirit. You are not regenerated by the spirit because if you are born of the spirit and regenerated by the spirit, he put his seed in you.

The same power that raised Christ from the dead, Paul talks about in Ephesians 1:16-20, is in you. You already have eternal life; it is abiding in you. You are not getting it later; it is already in you. That is why you feel so convicted. I had a lady, and I will have to end with this, I had a lady come into my office when I was assistant pastor—all this is about 40 years ago—long time ago. I could hear her wailing in the parking lot. I heard her come into the foyer and our offices—the pastor's office and then my office and then there was a secretary's office, the first office that you got to.

I could hear the secretary trying to comfort her. This—and I do not like crying women. I just—I do not know what it is about them, it just freaks me out. I knew the pastor was out of the office; he had to go take care of something. I knew I could hear them coming down the hallway and I was just saying, "Lord, may they just pass by my office. Maybe she is going to one of the classrooms to pray with her or something, but do not let her come in here."

But they came in there. They knocked on the door. Oh man. And this lady was crying so hard her mascara, makeup was running, snot was coming out of her nose. We just had a brand new building; we were only in the building a couple of years. It was a beautiful building, brand new carpet, everything smelled like new. And then she falls on the floor and her mascara is getting on the carpet and her snot is running onto my carpet.

I said, "Lord, I do not even know what to do." Finally, I said, "You have to settle down." And she would not. You know when you tell a woman to calm down, you know what that really means: amp it up. So, finally, I got on the floor with her and made her look me in the face and said, "What is the problem?" She goes, "I have committed the unpardonable sin." I said, "No, you have not." Another five minutes: "Yes, I have!"

I looked at the secretary, "Get her up in the seat. I have got something I need to say to her." Finally, she got her up and wiped her down. I said, "You have not committed the unpardonable sin." "Yes, I have!" When she finally told me what it was, I started to laugh. I will not even tell you what it is because I would not betray a confidence, but she was convinced that God was done with her. What I had to tell her is, "Listen, the way I know you have not is because you are broken because of it. Only saved people are broken for their sin. Unsaved people could care less. God's seed is still in you, sister, and you are being convicted."

And then when she finally told me what it was, I thought, "Wow, there is a sister in the faith for sure, if she is thinking that that was the unpardonable sin." I wanted to look at her and say, "Lightweight! If you knew what God forgave me of, you would not think you committed the unpardonable sin." But here is what we need to know: the way we can make distinction between saved and unsaved, even if you come across a Christian that is backslidden, they are miserable.

They may be away from home but they are headed home because God is not done with them. When you are unfaithful, he remains faithful. You cannot run away. You can run, but you cannot hide. Like David said, "Where can I go that you are not there?" Because he will send that work of the Spirit when you are all alone. He will deal with you. You cannot habitually practice sin as a way of life if you are born again. Why? Because his seed remains in you.

One last verse, verse 10: "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil." Because the children of God, even though they do sin, it disturbs them. It convicts them. They are broken and contrite over it. They do not live there; they may visit but they do not live there. "In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God, neither him..." and we will pick up this next week, "...he that loveth not his brother."

I will say this: you can fake a lot of things. You can fake a lot of things. You can fake speaking in tongues. Our Pentecostal brothers believe that that is the evidence of the baptism of the Spirit. I do not. Is it a gift? Absolutely. Do I have it? Yes. But that is not the evidence in my life that I am born again. The evidence in my life that I am born again is that I love. I hated the world. I hated myself. I hated everybody around me before I was saved.

I did not want anybody touching me or talking to me. When I got saved, I started looking forward to the old ladies hugging me in church. I had them all picked out, the ones that really—the ones that smelled good. And I just—I was different. I actually wanted to be around people. What you guys do not know about me is that I am an introvert. I really am. If Jesus had not saved me, I would have spent my life in my garage away from all you weirdos.

Many times my friends would come over and I could hear them coming down the driveway and I would shut the garage door. I just did not want to do—and they would bang on it, "Just go away! Do not have time for you today." Now I am banging on their door, saying, "Jesus loves you!" Are you kidding me? Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us through his Son, Jesus Christ, that we should be named the children of the Most High. That is why the world does not know you, does not understand you, because they do not know him. But beloved, now are you the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we are going to look like on the other side of this thing, but we know this: when he comes, we are going to be like him. And everyone who has this hope purifies himself, even as he is pure. The reason why we struggle with sin is because his seed is in us and we are born of the spirit and we cannot live there anymore. How many are struggling with sin? How many daily are beating yourself up? Good! That means you are in and you are growing. Amen. That means that you are born of the spirit. It means God is working to mature you. You know what? Before you were saved, you got away with a lot of stuff. Now, you do not get away with anything. I once had this conversation with the Lord. I said, "Why is it I do not get away with anything?" Because I thought other Christians got away with stuff. And the Lord just reminded me: none of you are getting away with anything, because I love you and I want the best for you and you cannot run and you cannot hide because my spirit remains in you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. You can be a joyful Christian or you can be a miserable Christian. You can be an obedient Christian or you can be a disobedient Christian being disciplined back into obedience. You choose. I just want to go the easy way anymore. Satan tries to tempt me and I say I have not got time for that stuff. It is just too long a process of being corrected and repenting. Forget it. It is not worth it. Amen. Let us stand; let us get the worship team up here.