In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: Turn in your Bibles this morning to 1 John. We've come as far as Chapter 4, verse 1. That's where we'll pick up this morning, but there's a theme that's running through Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 that is so important. I think it's one of the things, as you look around at Christendom today, that is lacking.

I think a lot of people have become quite religious, and somehow in becoming quite religious, their relationship and intimacy with the Father has waned. We know as a result of that, your intimacy with one another is affected.

It's interesting. The Bible says in the last days the love of many will wax cold. Do you know he's addressing the church when he says that? So, we cannot ill-afford, as we're going to see this morning, to ever stop loving our Father with our whole heart and love one another as we love ourselves.

Father, we thank you this morning for this challenge. It's the most supernatural thing we'll ever do is love somebody, because you call us not just to love the people that like us; you call us to love the people that hate us, to do good unto them, to speak well of them. Even if our enemy were to ask us to go one mile, we go two. If they want our coat, we give them our shirt.

That's amazing. I don't know that I'm quite there yet. I'm going to teach it this morning. I'm still struggling sometimes in that because it is so supernatural. We're never more like Jesus than when we love the unlovable, because you loved us when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. When we were your enemy, you reconciled us back to the Father through your sacrifice.

May that just grab our hearts this morning. If there's somebody that we hate or we're holding unforgiveness toward, help us to understand this morning as we look at these things that we have no right to do that. The one who could have held a grudge against us didn't. The one who could have condemned us to death didn't. In fact, he allowed himself to be put to death for us.

That's incredible to me. In 48 years, almost 49, of being a believer, that's the thing that is the most difficult about being a Christian: that we are to love one another even as—that "even as" changes the whole thing, Lord—even as you have loved us. So speak to us this morning by your Spirit, we pray in Jesus' name. And all God's children would say, "Amen."

The theme of the book of 1 John, as we've told you before, is authentic Christianity. There's a lot of people around the globe today, and even in our community, that would say, if you asked them, "Are you a Christian?" they would say, "Yes, I'm a Christian because I attend this church," or "I go there," or "I've done this," or "One time 30 years ago I prayed a prayer."

And yet, we're going to find as we go through Chapter 3, as we already have and on into Chapter 4, because the thought still continues, that there are evidences that we are born of the Spirit. There is an evidence. It is measurable, it is palpable. You can see it, you can experience it if you truly are a born-again Christian.

We're going to see this morning the first of those evidences is that we love the Lord our God with our whole heart. It's not a religion for us. It's not going through certain motions or keeping certain commandments or doing the dos or the don'ts. It's not about that. It's not legalism. We're not an organization; we're an organism. We're the body of Christ.

We've been brought back into fellowship with the Father, the creator of heaven and earth, through the work of his son, the eternal Word who became flesh. We've been brought back into this intimate relationship with him. We were created for intimacy. We were created for fellowship. It's woven into our DNA. That's why we were made. He made us for fellowship.

When God would come down in the cool of the evening, there he would fellowship with Adam and they would—can you imagine that? Sin separated that. From Genesis on through to Revelation, God is fixing that. For you and I this morning, because we're born of the Spirit, because we're a new creature in Christ Jesus, because now we have a different mind and a different heart given to us by Christ, we think differently, act differently, feel differently.

Everything about us is different. We truly are a new creature. The most supernatural thing that's happened to us is we've taken on his divine nature. His divine nature, as we're going to see this morning, is love. God doesn't work at loving you. It's not work for him like it is for us to love each other. Sometimes it's work even in a marriage to love each other when you've made that covenant commitment.

But God loves you irregardless. It's unconditional. This is what John is laying out before us in this wonderful epistle. It's actually a third epistle that he writes. They're actually in reverse. He wrote 3 John first, then 2 John second, and then 1 John last, because he's expanding on this thought. He's expanding on this subject that the evidence that you are born of the Spirit, that you have fellowship with the Father, is that you love him and you love one another.

So we've got to back up just for a moment all the way back to Chapter 3, verse 1. There we enter into this section that is the evidence of authentic Christianity. But we need to understand this morning that we are responders. We love him, our Father, why? Because he first loved us.

After 49 years of being a Christian, I'm still trying to wrap my head around that because I know what I was when he found me. I know the struggles I still have. It literally blows my mind every day. It blew my mind this morning when I was up early praying that a perfect, pure, and holy God would love a wretch like me.

And that he would sacrifice his son. That's what we're going to see this morning. Sacrifice his son. We're entering that season where Jesus is going to be born into this world, the eternal Word become flesh as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world so that I could be brought back into fellowship with the Father.

I could sit alone with my Bible open and pray and hear his voice. This morning I woke up early, around four o'clock, and I was just saying, "Lord, just take my heart in your hands. I just need to feel loved." And I could feel it. Not that I walk by feelings, but there is a reality in the intimacy that we can have with the one who made us, who is our Father, through his son Jesus Christ and that work of the Spirit in our hearts.

He starts this section on authentic Christianity by saying, "Behold," be in awe of. We should always be in awe of the fact that the Father loves us. And the manner there is this unworldly, this love that we could never wrap our heads around. "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed." You didn't earn it. I didn't earn it. We certainly didn't earn it.

I agree with the Apostle Paul when he says that we don't deserve the least of his blessings. In fact, what we deserve is hell. We deserve to be separated from the Father. The wages of sin is death. That's what we deserve. If you have a question that the Father loves you because he didn't give you something, or something was taken from you, listen, you need to stop.

What you deserved was hell just like I did. What the Father has bestowed on us because of the work of his son is he gave us the right. The word "to be called" doesn't come from the Greek to the English as powerful as it should. It means that you have been given the right, the privilege, the honor to be entrusted with the title that you are a son and a daughter of God, that you've been brought back into fellowship with him.

"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." In response to that, he's going to tell us through Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 we ought to love one another. We ought to love one another as God has loved us. He says not as Cain loved his brother, because he slew his brother. He slaughtered him.

It's the same word used in Leviticus for the sacrificial slaughter of a lamb. Literally, Cain slit Abel's throat and his blood bled out on the ground and it cried unto the Father. He said to Cain, "What have you done?" Then he tells us, John tells us why he did it: because his own works were evil. When you criticize and slander and gossip about somebody else, you are slaughtering that person.

Their blood is being spilled out on the ground. It may not be physical blood, but it surely is emotional and spiritual blood. Why do you do that? Because your own works are evil. One of the things I hate about being a pastor is we have to deal with things and talk about things as the elders and the pastor of this church. I am a pastor's pastor, so there's a lot of pastors that call me on the phone and we have to deal with difficulty in the church.

I hate that part of the ministry because we have to talk about people that are in sin and what they're doing to the body of Christ, and how to discipline them and how to correct them. I just hate it. There is no pleasure in me about it. I wish we'd all just get along. I wish my only responsibility was to love you and you love me, and you really like my teaching.

And you like the worship and you don't criticize the songs or if they're fast or slow, because it ain't about you; it's for him. We wish we could just all get along. But the fact of the matter is that we don't. We should, but we don't. So John has to write this by saying, "First of all, you need to understand what the Father has bestowed upon you, who didn't deserve it."

This other-worldly love, this unconditional love he's bestowed upon you. So we should love one another not as Cain loved his brother, but like Jesus loved us. We ended Chapter 3 last week, and we'll just back up to verse 23, by him giving us the two commandments. He says, "And this is the commandment." If you want to know what God requires of you, here it is. It's pretty simple.

Jesus was asked the question one day, "What is the greatest of all the commandments?" Sometimes we want to simplify it, and I don't think it's a bad thing to simplify it. So this lawyer came to Jesus to trip him up and just asked the question, "What's the greatest of all the commandments?"

Jesus, without hesitating, said—and he's quoting from the Shema of the Old Testament—that you should love the Lord your God with all of your heart. It's intimate. Soul, mind, and spirit. But the second cannot be separated from the first: that you should love your neighbor as yourself. Tell the person sitting next to you you love them in Christ. Sometimes we need to hear that. Amen. It helps with marriage counseling because if you're sitting next to your wife or husband, it just helps out.

"This is the commandment, that we should believe on the name of his son Jesus the Christ," the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. What does that statement mean? That we are to believe that Jesus was the eternal Word. "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were created by him, and nothing was created without him."

This is Jesus. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." What does that mean? That Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death on Calvary's cross, nailed our sin to his cross, every ordinance written against us, died in our place, rose again the third day proving that he has eternal life, and ascended to the Father to offer his blood in the temple there for our sins.

Whosoever would confess him as Lord and Savior would be forgiven. That's what Hebrews Chapter 10, verse 14 is all about. "By one sacrifice he has perfected." Turn to your neighbor and tell them they're perfect. Because you are. This is going to be the incredible message for us in Chapter 4, because this is how God sees you.

Do you realize this morning there's two things that's going to come to the fore this morning, and I'll just tell you ahead of time so you can be thinking about it while we're teaching through it. Number one is that God views you as perfect and as holy, and you can't improve upon it. Because he's going to tell us in this chapter, we in this world are as Christ, and Christ is as us.

When God sees you this morning through the blood of Jesus Christ, he sees you as pure as Jesus is. We have become the righteousness of God through faith. You can't improve on that. Faith in Christ Jesus. This morning, the work of Christ—we who put our faith in that work, who trust in that work—we have been perfected. "By one sacrifice he has perfected forever those that he made." Notice carefully: you didn't make yourself, I didn't make myself. He made us holy.

Then he says in verse 17 of that same chapter, "Your sins and your iniquities I remember no more." He doesn't remember those things; he refuses to. In fact, in Romans Chapter 4, he says he refuses to put sin on your account because of what Jesus has done. That's what we are this morning.

But the second thing he's going to tell us is that he loves us the same way he loves Jesus. God the Father loves you with the same love that he loved his own son. In fact, I think it's more. John is going to tell us again in Chapter 4 that he became the propitiation for our sins. Not expiation. You might have a footnote in your Bible that says "expiation." It's not expiation.

Expiation is just paying a debt. He did more than pay a debt. He satisfied the wrath of God that was against us because of our sin. So in Romans Chapter 5, he could say, "Having been justified by faith, we now have peace with God." God will never be angry with you again. Unimaginable, that he loves you so much that his anger was poured out upon his son.

God the Father had to send his son to be beaten and spat upon, his beard plucked out, a crown of thorns drove into his scalp, beaten beyond human recognition where the entrails were literally hanging out as they ripped the flesh and the muscle all the way to the bone, and made him carry a 200-pound cross to Golgotha's hill. They drove those nine-inch spikes through his wrists and through his feet and they hung him in shame between heaven and earth.

All the while he said, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." Because the Father's eyes were too pure, as Habakkuk said, to look upon sin, he had to turn his back upon his son for the first time in eternity past and for the last time in eternity future. Jesus was separated from the Father.

He cried out in agony, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It's a rhetorical question; Jesus knew why: because he was bearing the wrath of God against the sin of the world for you and me. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us. We should be in awe of that. We should be given the entitlement to be called the Father's sons and the Father's daughters.

So this is the commandment: that you should believe, because that's the only way. With the heart man believes, with the mouth he confesses unto salvation. That you believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and that you love one another as he gave us commandments. These are the two: love God, love each other.

He that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. Hereby we know that he abides in us. How do we know that? By the Spirit which he hath given us. What is the outworking of the Spirit that's in us? What does Galatians Chapter 5, verse 22 tell us? The fruit, the out-flowing of being born of the Spirit, is that we love one another. "The fruit of the Spirit is love." There should be a period there, because the rest of those verses that follow describe this kind of love, this agape love, this unconditional love, this self-sacrificing love.

That kind of love brings joy to people. It's full of joy, it brings peace, it's long-suffering, it's gentle, it's kind. It doesn't think ill. It has self-control to it. It's crucified its own flesh. It's other-centered, not self-centered any longer. That's the kind of love that the Spirit brings into our hearts.

There's two things, when I got saved back in 1975, that night I felt them—and I'd never felt them before—which was hope and love. It flooded my heart. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I knew something was changing. I didn't know anything, but I accepted Jesus when I heard that message.

So he says this: that's how we're to act. Love one another, love God. But here's the problem: sometimes people can come into the body and take advantage of that. Have you ever had that happen to you? Where someone who claims to be a Christian, that doesn't live like a Christian, doesn't love like a Christian, can take advantage of you.

That's why in the middle of this dissertation on loving God and loving each other, he does give us a warning that we should be discerning. We should test things, and there's a way to test things. He says this, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try," or test, "the spirits to see whether they be of God."

This is not the same as the gift of discernment. Jesus, in John Chapter 2, says he didn't commit himself to a lot of people because he knew what was in them. We don't know what's in each other. We're really good at putting on a good outward mask and hiding the inward parts. We can do that for a while.

But after a while, the true part of you, out of the abundance of the heart your mouth will speak. Your actions will prove. That's why he says in Matthew Chapter 7, "Here's the test." Watch what he says. We'll begin our reading in verse 21. "Not everyone that says unto me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven." There's a lot of people—there could be some in this building—they're saying, "Lord, Lord," but when you look at their lives and you watch their behavior, it doesn't line up.

That's what he's saying we should do. This whole thing with not judging—when you're witnessing, someone will say, "Don't judge me. The Bible says 'judge not.'" Well, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says judge righteously. Don't judge unrighteously. The Bible gives you permission to look at somebody's fruit.

If somebody walks in here and says they're a pear tree and there's persimmons on the branches, they're not a pear tree. Now, they could walk in here and say they're a pear tree and only have pear buds; they might not have fruit yet because they're still growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, but they're still a pear tree. I believe if you could be tempted with one thing, I don't believe that the fruit of forbidden tree in the garden was an apple tree. No, you can't tempt me with an apple, but you could tempt me with a pear. A nice pear.

"Not everyone that says 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." We just heard what that was: love the Lord your God, love one another. Jesus said, "On these two are all the law and the prophets fulfilled." Why would that be an indicator that we're born again? Because it's supernatural.

Before we were born again, we were hateful and bitter and critical. James would say wars and wars come from inside of you. You war, you fight, you kill, you cannot have, you're greedy, you strive, you try to obtain and you have not because you ask not. Then when you ask, you want to consume it to your own flesh.

In fact, James says, "Who's a wise man among you? Let him show out of his good conversation that his life has been changed in Christ." But if there's bitter envy, selfishness, gossip, don't lie against the truth. Don't say you're a Christian. This wisdom doesn't come from above; it's earthly, it's sensual, it's demonic.

The wisdom that comes from above is easy to be entreated. It's full of mercy. It makes peace. It really does prefer someone else over them. Then it says, "Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not cast out demons in your name and done wonderful works?' And then I will profess to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you worker of iniquity.'"

That's what he says because he tells us in the first part of this, going back to verse 15, "We can judge people, and this is how God's going to judge them." In verse 15, he says, "Beware false prophets, which come in sheep's clothing." The word for "hypocrite"—I don't know if you know that—comes from the Greek for "play-acting." In those days on the stage, you would wear different masks. You would put a different mask on if you wanted to be sad or happy or mad or whatever as you were on the stage as a play-actor.

Play-acting is you put a mask on, but it's not really who you are. Only the Spirit of God can change us from the inside. Only the Spirit of God can give us a new heart, a new mind, a new way to live. So he says, "Many false prophets will come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves," extortioners. You see it on TV all the time.

They want your money. They want to abuse you and use you. They live in mansions and they lie to people. They say stupid things like, "I need another jet because I can't fly..." Listen, when we flew to Africa all those times, we flew one grade above strapped to the wing because we were frugal. If we were any lower spot, they would have strapped us to the wing because it's not about—if you love people in Africa or India, we have two acres in India, we have five house churches there and orphanage that this church has built, we have a work in Uganda, property paid for, a church there, we still support our work in Belize. You do that because you love those people.

So he says this, "You shall know them by their fruits." This is what John is going to introduce. You should love one another unconditionally. You should always have this incurable disease to think the best of one another. That should be the attitude and the atmosphere in the body of Christ.

But you also need to be aware of the fact that there will be some that will come in and they'll look at you like sheep and put on a sheep cloth, being ravenous wolves, and they want to devour, they want to feed on you. Then he says, "Do men gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but corrupt trees bring forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them."

It doesn't mean that people can't make mistakes. It doesn't mean people can't fall into sin. It doesn't mean that good people can't get caught up in gossip. How many good people in here love the Lord and have got caught up in gossip? Yeah. And what do you do? You repent and you go ask the person to forgive you. But it's not the way we live.

So John would say, "Beloved, believe not every spirit. You are to love one another, but don't just be naive. Try the spirits. Howbeit know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." This statement talks about the pre-existence of God: that Jesus, who was eternal, in the beginning was the Word, pre-existed. He is God come in human form to become the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

There's a lot of religious systems that don't believe that. The Muslims in Islam do not believe that. Their statement is that God does not beget nor was he begotten; he has no son. Thus they attribute to Jesus—I've read the Quran; I have a copy in my office—Jesus is a good prophet in many ways when you read the Quran. They elevate him above Muhammad, but he's still just a man. He's not God in human form.

The Mormons say that he is the brother of Lucifer. So he's a created being. He's a created angel like Lucifer is a created angel. The Jehovah's Witnesses say that he is Michael the Archangel in disguise, which would still make him a created being. And yet in Hebrews Chapter 1, it tells us, "Who at any time have I said, 'Sit at my right hand and called my son?'" I never did that to an angel.

So we have to understand that if Jesus was not God, he did not have the authority to remove sin. One of the ways we know that people are born again is they can confess that. I confess that, and I confess that he removed my sin. Verse 3: "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of Antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come and even now already is in the world."

If you don't mind marking up your Bible or putting a footnote, "Antichrist" is not "anti" as "against Christ." That's not the Greek understanding of this. John is one of the ones that uses this word several times. This is who he calls the Son of Perdition: Antichrist. It is literally interpreted "instead of" Christ.

Every religious system that's based on some other thing other than the work of Jesus Christ—salvation through the grace that Jesus Christ purchased, eternal life through the gift that Jesus Christ purchased for us on Calvary's cross and has given to us as a gift, has been bestowed upon us—is a false religious system. There are 4,200 religious systems in the world today. But only one says that Jesus is the way, he is the truth, he is the life; no man can go to the Father, whether you call him Jehovah or Allah or whatever you want to call him, no man can go to the Father but by Christ.

He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Whosoever puts their faith in him will not be condemned. "And whosoever comes to me," he says, "I won't turn you away either." So it doesn't matter what you've done. John is explaining to us the love that the Father has for us. But there are many false prophets and false teachers out there that want to bring you into a religious system.

Satan doesn't care if you're religious. Satan doesn't care if you go to a large church that has everything looking like a nightclub with the smoke machines and the light show and all the theatrics and talks about self-help—how to spend your money better, how to have a better marriage. In fact, he would prefer you to be in one of those churches because then he can deceive you into thinking you're okay when you're not.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, who was a very religious man, "You must be born again. You can't see or enter the kingdom. You won't understand it, you won't see it, you can't enter it unless you're born again." Nicodemus said, "What are you talking about? Go back into the womb a second time and come back out again?" He said, "No, you already had the natural birth; you need a spiritual birth."

When you have that spiritual birth, guess what? You take on his divine nature, which is love. That's the evidence. All of a sudden, you love God. You're so grateful, you're so appreciative. You love him so much you're willing to sacrifice your life to serve him. But then this incredible thing also happens: you look around and you start loving other people.

It's a phenomenal thing that takes place. "Don't buy into religion. That's the 'instead of' Christ. Buy into Christ and he'll transform you. You can be born again and he will put in you—it's not you have to work at being loving—he puts that in you." Now, you can allow the flesh to take over. Sometimes in traffic, I do.

Quickly the Spirit reminds me, "What are you thinking?" And I'm convicted, and then I have to repent and I have to pray. The Lord has told me, "Now you need to pray for that person and pray a blessing on them." But Lord, they just cut me out in traffic and they waved at me and they only had one finger up. "Bless them." Well, I don't want to bless them. I want to ram them; I wish I had a Dodge Ram. That's the flesh; that's not the Spirit. Should I have rammed you? I have these conversations. No, I forgave you when you hated me. Now you forgive them. And I don't want you just to forgive them; I want you to pray a blessing on them. That's hard. Amen.

That's where the Spirit has to take over the flesh. In verse 4, he says, "You are of God, little children." "Teknion," you're the born-again ones. You've overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. The Spirit of the living God is now in us. It's cooking in us, it's working in us. It's constantly circumcising our heart. It's constantly having us desire to reach out in fellowship.

I love it like last night, four o'clock. I wake up at four o'clock and I can do nothing but pray. From 5:30, when I had to get up, it was rich. For an hour and a half, it went like that, just time with my Father. If I wasn't saved, if I was just religious, I would have rolled over and said, "Talk to me about it in the morning." But I want to spend time with him.

I've had people ask me, "How is it that you've been there for almost 30 years?" It will be 30 years in February. Because I actually love you people. In fact, it goes further than that: I actually like you guys. I really don't want to go—I've been offered plenty of other churches over the years. We had a pulpit committee come up from Perris, California—not Paris, France; spelled differently, P-E-R-R-I-S—and offer me a very large church.

I was speaking out at the Bluegrass Festival; I had the chapel service there. They sent their committee up and I said, "I already have a church." He goes, "But this little podunk town? How big can your church be?" Doesn't matter. This is where God sent me. I'm going to be here until he sends me some place else. But I've already told him I don't want to go any place else. "Well, you only have to teach. That's all you have to do. We got pastors that take care of everything else." So what? I'm leaving here and I'm going to my church and I'm teaching this morning. I don't want to go anywhere else.

There's times when we can grind on each other. Where you have a body, you have body odor. Where you have a family, you can grind on each other. Can we grind on each other? Yes. But we don't give up. We don't give up. Love causes us to look deep within ourselves and see, "Am I part of that problem that I'm grinding on that person, or is God using the two of us to knock the rough edges off of both of us?" Incredible.

"You are of God, little children. You've overcome, because greater is he that's in you. They are of the world, therefore they speak of the world." Criticism, gossip, envy, strife. "I don't like that song. I don't like that he speaks for an hour. I don't like the way he wears his hair. I don't like the cross covering part of the words up there."

I'm telling you, you can't believe how critical—Don said, "We ought to move that cross because it's blocking..." Listen, we love one another. Yes, we are going to move it. We will move it because it does need to be moved. Don wasn't being critical. I'm just saying we can become critical when we have no reason to be critical.

Somebody comes in here with piercings and weird hair? I love it. I wish it was sprinkled through this whole church. I've had some of you—that you aren't here anymore because you don't stay long if you've got that attitude—say, "Did you just see that person that came into church?" Go, "Yeah, isn't that cool? God's reaching them."

I had one guy come one time and he said, "Man, there was someone out in the parking lot smoking." I said, "So?" He goes, "That's a sin." Show me. "Well, God can't live in a smoke-filled temple." I said, "Isn't it amazing in Revelation it said God entered a temple and smoke filled it?" "Well, I have a problem with it." I said, "Well, then you have a problem with it. Go out and pick up the butts. Go out and pick them up and pray for that person." It's a dirty, filthy habit. It'll shorten your life. But it's not a sin. Who are you to judge another man's servant? Because what you don't know about that person that I know is earlier they were doing drugs, they were smoking dope and popping pills, and now they're just down to cigarettes as God is cleaning up their life. Who are you to judge another man's servant? Before his Lord, he stands or falls, and the Lord is even able to make him stand. Be careful, Christian. Love one another even as I have loved you.

"They are of the world, and so when the world speaks, they listen. We are of God." There's a difference. "He that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth us not. Hereby we know that we are of the Spirit of truth and not the spirit of error, because we love each other like Christ loved us."

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. Everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. There's the evidence. He that loveth not knoweth not God. Here's the statement: because God is love. If you're born of the Spirit, you've been given his divine nature. Guess what happens? You love people. You love God, you love each other. When something comes out of your mouth that shouldn't, you go fix it.

In this was manifested the love of God toward us: because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God—we were going as fast and as far as we could away from him. We were his enemy. We were alienated from him. And yet he still loved us. He loved the very people that were crucifying him. I'm not there yet.

But God the Father allowed his son, sent his son—Jesus was willing to do it—that unimaginable descent that we read about in Philippians Chapter 2, where he takes on human form and becomes obedient even to the death of the cross. Because the wages of sin is death and somebody had to pay for it, and God loved you so much he didn't want you to pay for it; he paid for it himself. Amazing.

Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that God loved us and sent his son to become the propitiation for our sins. Not just to pay the debt, but to satisfy any emotion that the Father had against us, any ill-will, satisfied in Christ Jesus. Beloved, if God so loved us, here it is: so ought we—we are obligated. That word "ought" means you are obligated if you're born this Spirit—to love one another. We're obligated. You can get mad at me, but you still gotta love me. I can get mad at you, and we can knock some rough edges off each other, but I still gotta love you at the end of the day. Because if you don't love, you don't know God, because God is love. Amen.

Can I just jump ahead and give you a little preview for next week? Because we have communion. I turn to John Chapter 17. There is an incredible verse there. It is a verse that rips my heart out every time I read it. Verse 21: this blows my mind. I was thinking about that this morning.

"That they all may be one." One mind, one heart, one desire. The idea of "one" means there's no division. One is the lowest denomination that can no longer be divided. In other words, nothing can separate me from you or you from me or us from the Father. If we're truly born again, he's saying, "That they may be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, and they also may be one in us." There's a unity between God the Father, God the Son, the Holy Spirit cooking in us and us in the Father.

"That the world may believe that thou hast sent me." What is the evidence? What did Jesus say? By this sign all men will know that you're my disciples, because you have what? Love. By the way, don't misquote that verse. It doesn't say "love one for another." I can have something "for" you and it won't profit you until I give it "to" you. The verse is "love one to another." It's something I demonstrate toward you.

The glory which thou gavest me I have given them. When I come into my rightful place and I'm seated on the throne with my Father, they will be seated with me on my throne as I'm seated on the throne with my Father. The glory you gave me, I gave them. That they may be one even as we are one. No division.

I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect—come to perfection in this unity is the idea—that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. What? Listen this morning: as God the Father loved his only begotten son, to the same degree he loves you. He loves you.

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon you that you should be entitled to be called the sons and daughters of God. So ought you to love one another as I have loved you. This is so supernatural you can't do this in the flesh. You can't fake this. Religion knows nothing about this. You have to be born again to experience this. As I have loved you, so love one another because I want them to walk in unity as you and I are in unity, Father, that they may know that as you have loved me, you love them. You love them.

I see them right now presently. They need to know that the Father sees you in me, us, this morning, just like he sees Jesus his son. Now it does not yet appear what we will be, but when he comes we're going to be like him, the Bible says. But here's the deal: God calls those things that are not as though they already were. He already sees you perfected in Christ Jesus and he loves you the same as he loves the Father. Now here's the point he's trying to make: that's hard to wrap your heads around, but God loves you like he loves the son. He sees you perfect like he sees his son perfect because of what Jesus did. Then he says, "You should love one another even as I have loved you." What does that mean? That you love one another to extent where there's nothing that can separate you. You love as the Father loves, but you see each other perfect.

What? Yeah, the little blue-haired lady that pulled out in front of you. I'll write on myself; I just got a minute. When we first started the church, I'm coming up from Auburn. That's before they put in the passing lanes. This was almost 30 years ago. This little lady—I could barely see her head above the seat—is doing like 30 miles an hour, and I've got places to be and people to see. I'm fuming, and I'm waving like, "Pull over, pull over, pull over!" And I'm confessing. I'm not that anymore. I'm not what I should be either, but I'm in process. But as I went by, I shook my fist.

And she's waving. Got her finger up in the air because she goes to this church and I could read her lips: "Love you Pastor Mike!" I felt so—and so my hand went from—what a hypocrite. I just put the mask on. I was so convicted. The next Sunday she came to church and she goes, "Oh, I saw you and you waved to me. You recognized me! I recognized you, Pastor Mike! How cool was that?"

I said, "Sister, I gotta confess something. I was mad at you." "Well, why were you mad at me?" "You were doing 30 in a 55." She goes, "I don't see so well anymore. Pray for me." Oh sister, I was in tears. Forgive me. Forgive me.

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be entitled to be called the sons and daughters of God. So ought you to love one another as I have loved you. Not like Cain, who slew his brother, because the commandment is that you love me with your whole heart and you love one another. Now don't be naive; there'll be people that try to take advantage of that, so test the spirits. But at the end of the day, let's just read that one more time, that last verse we stopped at so I can remember where we stopped. What verse was that we stopped at? It was verse 11. "Beloved, if"—and it's in a class condition in the Greek—"since God so loved us, we are obligated also to love one another." Amen. Let's get the worship team up. Let's go ahead and stand if you can. We'll get the—