Confident Words

As we've looked at 1 John, let me give a brief recap of the purpose of the book. John writes so that we will have fellowship in the Father and the Son, and we will also have fellowship with one another. The purpose is for us to find fellowship in each other and fellowship in the Father and the Son. Paul says it a different way, that we would be a body united under the head, Jesus Christ. Paul also says that we would all be built upon the same foundation being stones fitting together with the other stones of the church on the one foundation being built up to be a holy temple, the worship of God. The purpose is to establish the fellowship of the church and to give assurance to the believers, to give assurance to God's people that they can have absolute confidence in Christ, what He's done for them, and what they have committed to Him. See, as I've thought about the different ways that our assurance is attacked, there's only two basic ways that Satan, our conscience, our sinfulness attacks our assurance. There's two ways in which we lose confidence in God. The first is questioning the reality of God and what He has done. This is the objective doubt. This is questioning God. This is asking, is God trustworthy in what He promises? These are questions like, is God really there? Does God really love me? Does God love me? Did Jesus really die on the cross? Did Jesus really rise from the grave? These are questions where you're asking, is this the reality? Have I put my faith in the proper truth? The second one follows from it, but is different. You may actually believe God is triune. You actually believe Jesus has died on the cross and risen again. But the doubt you have is, have I experienced this salvation? Am I truly a believer? Have I experienced the full salvation of the God who is there and the God who has died for me and risen again? These are the two different kinds of doubt. And the first one is it there's a more of an intellectual capacity. Sin is behind both of these doubts. Sin drives both of these doubts. The first one is oftentimes is asking intellectual questions. Is this historically true? The second one. It's really the hardest one. Because it's wrestling with what's going on inside, it's wrestling with the truth that you confess and asking yourself, is it alive in me? Has it bore certain fruit in me? Is it clear in me? Well, as we conclude our service, our sermon series on 1 John, we're going to hear some words of confidence for us. Words that we can believe with absolute confidence and help us think through the kind of doubts we have. Is God there? Does God love me? And really getting to the question of, have I experienced the salvation of God? Turn with me to 1 John 5. We'll be looking at the entire chapter as we conclude. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. Not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. And there are three that testify. The Spirit, and the water, and the blood. And these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God that he has born concerning the son. Whoever believes in the son of God has a testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning his son. And this is a testimony that God gave us eternal life and this life is in his son. Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have towards him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have a request that we have asked of him. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, He shall last, and God will give him life. To those who commit sins that do not lead to death, there is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true and we are in him who is true in his son, Jesus Christ. He is a true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Now, we look at how to have confidence. The first thing we want to do is look at this first section, verses one through five, and here we're really going to get a review of everything we've heard already. Again, there is repetition and redundancy, which is repetitious in itself. There is repetition and redundancy, and John, we continue to circle over and over again the same important themes and the same important topics, and it's because we must know these things. So our first point. How to have confidence in Christ's salvation. Verses 1 through 5. And there are really four marks of assurance. The first mark is that we believe in Jesus Christ. The second mark is that we love our brothers and sisters. The third mark is that we love God, which means we obey His commandments. And the fourth mark is that we overcome the world. We believe in Jesus. We love our brothers and sisters. We love God. We overcome the world. And these four aren't separated from one another. They are necessarily connected and related to one another. John will continue to cycle through these throughout his letter or sermon because they're all so important to one another. They put together the four legs of the stool of your assurance. These are our foundation for that. That personal questioning that we have of God. So first, we believe in Jesus Christ. This is coming from verse 1a. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Again, it's so important to make sure that we have assurance that we have been born of God. We've been born from above. We have new life that only comes from the Father giving it to us in Jesus Christ. And as we've seen, we have to make sure we're confessing the true Christ. The one who is fully divine. The one who is fully human. Do I expect you to have your head wrapped around how one person who walked this earth is fully divine and fully human? No. Do I expect you to confess it because Scripture teaches it? Yes. Do you have to have absolute understanding of how there can be one who is fully divine and fully human at the same time? No. Do you accept it by faith? Yes. This one who is fully divine and fully human, the Son of God who took upon our likeness in every way. He came and lived in perfect obedience. Because we did not. He came and lived a perfect human life because we live in absolute rebellion and disobedience. And he was obedient to the cross. Where he died in our place. You see, our disobedience deserves the wrath of God. And the love of God sought to protect us from that wrath. The love of God sought to replace us from being underneath that wrath. So, Jesus Christ, who's a perfect human, perfectly obedient, He dies in place of our disobedience. He takes our wrath in our place. We confess that He died for us. We confess that He rose again. We confess that He has risen gloriously, victoriously from the grave so that we have real hope. We have true hope. And He is at the right hand of the Father and He will return again. For us to believe in Jesus Christ is to believe that He has died for us. He has risen from the grave and He has given us victory from our greatest enemies, sin and death. The second mark of assurance is that we love our brothers and sisters. Look at verse 1b, and everyone who loves the father loves whoever has been born of him. And we can look at verse 2 here as well. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. Now, this is the fourth time we've talked about loving one another. It's not a matter of how often we've heard it, it's a matter of how often we do it. But let us give a short review from a couple different sermons. What does it mean to love one another? It means that we love sacrificially. It means that we love correctively. It means that we love uncomfortably. It means that we love humbly. We see others as more important than ourselves. We are willing to give up our lives for others because we must love one another as Christ has loved us. You see, what's taking place is our desires are transformed. If we love the Father, our hearts are going to be changed to be like His. And if a father loves all of you, my heart needs to be like my father's heart. And I must persevere and I must seek to be changed in my heart and love all of you. And you must love each other. Now, as I've talked about loving the brothers and sisters, I've gotten some good questions back, especially in our discipleship groups. And let me correct, well, let me just clarify what it means to love one another. That doesn't mean everybody in this church is going to be your best friend. That's impossible. Jesus himself only had 12 disciples. We only have so much relational capacity. Even with those 12 disciples, Jesus had a hierarchy of the ones that he was closest to. So as I'm giving a strong high calling of what it means to love one another, I'm not saying everyone in the church needs to be your best friend. That necessarily would mean no one's really your best friend. What I'm saying is that you need to find some, a small group who's going to hold you accountable. You need to find some friends who are going to ask you the hard spiritual questions. There need to be some that have a unique opportunity to love you sacrificially. and correctively. But that doesn't mean you don't love everyone else. That's really what I'm trying to avoid. That we just become a clique and then we find our unique group of friends and then we forget about everyone else. So what do you do with everyone else? Let's make it very simple. If there's somebody you don't know, the best way for you to fulfill your calling to love them is to take them out and ask them their testimony. It doesn't make you best friends. It doesn't give you a commitment that you have to spend the rest of your life with them. You hear their testimony. That's the best way to begin loving one another, because what you're going to do is experience Christ in them. And you're going to share your testimony. They're going to get to experience Christ in you. See, loving one another is humbling yourself before them and letting them tell you about themselves. And most importantly, that really needs to be driven to tell you about what Christ has done for them. So, no, you don't need to be best friends with the whole church, but you are called to love the whole church. Another concrete, practical way of doing that is finding out the needs in the church and meeting those needs. Well, verse two really has loving one another and loving God connected together. Let's look at verse two. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. This is different from everything we've seen in John so far. Because John has always argued, if God has loved you, love one another. Right. The proper order really has been emphasized over and over again in John. If God has loved you, love one another. Or if God loves you, then love one another. If you receive such great love, you must now love one another. He said it a number of ways. But here, It's different. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God. He's put loving one another first. What's he doing? Well, the first thing we do not think is that he's contradicted himself because the Spirit has been leading him to write this and everything else he's written. There's one author who I greatly respect. And he says that we need to read this differently than the way our English translation has it, in the ESV at least. And the English translation he promotes is something on the lines of, by this we know that we ought to love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. That's a possible reading from the Greek, but it's not the probable reading. I think there's a better solution. I think we read it by this. We know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments is because it's so it's important to recognize that there's the head and there's the body. There's a foundation. Then there's a stone properly fit together. You see, it's circular. It's a great triangle. There's me. There's my love for God. There's my love for you. I cannot love you if I'm not loving God. I am not loving you if I'm not loving God. I have to be loving you as part of my love for God. See, I can't pretend to have fellowship with you when I'm thick in sin and not loving God. I'm going to properly only properly love you when I'm loving God. You see, it's connected. Now, loving God begins the process, but if I receive the love of God, and then I stop loving God in response, I'm going to break up the fellowship. I'm going to break up the unity. So you look at verse two, it it needs to be read in its most probable reading, and that is that our love for one, we know we love one another when we love God. Because my love for God is truly expressed most clearly and faithfully in my love for you. As we've explained verse 2, now let's go on to our third mark of assurance, and that is that we love God and keep His commandments. And this is obviously verse 2, by this we know that we love the children of God and we love God and obey His commandments. And verse 3, for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. How is His commandments not burdensome? Something I've shared with a few. I try to preach a high bar. This is the way I've always taught in school. This is the way I desire to preach. And something that really convicts me is that I'm preaching a level of love that I know I don't meet. Let me just go ahead and make that very clear. I'm preaching the highest calling I can think of. The highest calling of holy living. The highest calling of holy love. The highest calling of loving God. And I'm not there. But my philosophy is raise the bar as high as possible. And well, you're going to accomplish more than you're going. If the goal is higher, you're going to reach higher. So what does it mean to love God and not be burdensome? Because obeying God's commandments can be burdensome. Obeying God's commandments can be difficult, at least, because we see desires forming in our hearts. We see that desire that is Perverse. We see that desire that loves sin. We see that desire that's selfish. We see that desire that is opposed to God. And if we're believers in Jesus Christ, we also experience a desire that is opposed to that other desire. We see a desire that the Spirit builds within us. We see a desire to love God and to love one another and to promote peace and unity. You see, these two desires are always waging war within us. And it makes life difficult. But the way to make loving God and keeping His commandments from not being burdensome is to go to battle. Is to go to battle with those desires. Let the desire of love conquer the desire for evil. Let the desire for self-love be conquered by The desire for God. You will go through difficult times, you will have to actually choose what may seem counterintuitive early on in your Christian life. But you cannot let sin rule over you. This is really the difficulty with someone who's converted at 18, 19, 20 or so forth. You have had a master for so many years. You have had someone rule over you and control the way you make decisions. And now you must learn to obey a new master. You must put that old master to death that still speaks loudly inside of you and listen to a new one. Obeying his commandments are not burdensome when behind them is a desire to love God. When we love God, we desire to do His will. But there's a lot of work that takes place to get us to the point where we truly love Him in a way that doing His will is always, always a response initially. The fourth mark of assurance is overcoming the world. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Now, there's one way to overcome the world, and that is to persevere in the midst of its suffering. There's health problems. There's fear of death. There's fear of man. There's suffering that is taking place within this church right now. Members are under particular kinds of suffering, worrying about death, their health, their well-being, their children. There's a certain way to overcome the world by remaining faithful in the midst of persecution. There's a certain way of overcoming the world by not cursing God when you don't get everything you think you expect. There's a way of overcoming the world by praising God when you are wrongly accused, wrongly persecuted. There's an older Gentleman who is a retired pastor who I have grown to be fond of. One of the things that stands out most about him to me. Is that he was fired for preaching the gospel faithfully. He was fired for being faithful to God and what God had put before him to proclaim. And he never cursed God. He lost his well, he lost his well-being, he lost his livelihood. He lost his pulpit, he lost his calling. Because the church decided that he was proclaiming the gospel too faithfully. What really makes me amazed by this man is that he never cursed God. He praised God for what he did. He praised God and trusted Him in his plan. This is the kind of testimony that we need to hear and model. The other way that we overcome the world is by fighting. Fighting our sin. We must show fruit. We must show growth. But that growth, we have to realize, is steady and slow. Spiritual growth doesn't happen overnight. Spiritual growth happens whenever we have little victory after little victory, after little victory, after little victory, after little victory. See, World War II, the Eastern Front, there were major battles that won that side of the war against Germany. There was D-Day. There was Battle of the Bulls. There were major, major battles that took place that ended that side of the war. But if you think about how we ended the Pacific side, it was island hopping. It was taking little piece after little piece, after little piece, after little piece. That's what our spiritual life is supposed to be like. There's not going to be a lot of great initial battles. It's not going to bed at night thinking, I didn't sin in a certain way today. I've won. No. It's waking up the next morning and praising God for the fact that you didn't sin in a certain way and asking for perseverance for that day and the next day and the next day. It's a long, hard battle that we must have a long term goal, a long term vision of and realize that the battles are small. So the four marks of assurance, the four lads to our stool of assurance, Faith in Jesus Christ. Love of our brothers and sisters, a love for God where we obey his commandments and overcoming the world. Our second point this morning is from verses six through 12. How to know the testimony of Christ is true. Now, this is getting at that objective part. The first point was really getting at how can I know that I have assurance? It's by looking at the fruit in your life. Do you believe? Do you love? Do you obey? Are you fighting? The second one is really getting more objective. How do we know the testimony of Christ is true? Let's look at verses 6-12. This is He, referring to the Son of God, who came by water and blood. Jesus Christ. Not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies. Because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that testify. The Spirit, and the water, and the blood. And these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God, that He is born concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar. Because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning His Son. And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life. And this life is in the son. Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life. Now, I'm aware that many are using the New King James and the King James version. So let me make a quick note on verses seven and eight. They have a verse referring to three heavenly witnesses, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, that the translation I just read from does not. Without getting too much into it, for the sake of time, even the majority text that the King James is built upon, translated from, a lot of them do not have that text. So, it's been fairly concluded by by most parties that this is a an addition, a later addition, and the purpose was it looks like was to give some kind of a testimony of the Holy Spirit, some kind of proof text of the Holy Spirit. And all this proves is that the King James Version isn't inspired. King James Version, New King James Version, fine translations. I'm glad we use them. I'm glad they've been around. But it just proves that they're not the only translation and they're not an infallible translation. So let's get to how to know the testimony of Christ is true. Let's look at this verse one. This is he who came by the water and the blood. Well, what does the water and the blood refer to? I think it must refer to Jesus's baptism and his cross, his death on the cross. Because if we look further, He came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by the water and the blood. We really get a viewpoint into the particular heresy going on in the church that John's addressing. You see, there were the Gnostics. They believed that God couldn't suffer. God couldn't experience things of this physical world. And so what they said was that Jesus' baptism, the divine spirit anointed him But then the divine spirit left him before he died. And so he was just a man before the baptism. And then he was just a man right at the death of the cross. And the purpose being is that Jesus couldn't suffer. The divine spirit at least couldn't suffer. And so here you see John is attacking this heresy head on because the water and the blood testify that Jesus is the son of God. It is the water in the blood. It is John's testimony that he himself is in the side, the spirit coming down to anoint him, who is already God. And in the blood is testimony. Because it has to be God who dies for sinners. Any old man who died for us, that isn't secure salvation for anybody. Any old man that dies for us isn't an infinite power that can cover an infinite amount of sin that we all produce. You see, this heresy attacks the central part of the gospel, and that is that God so loves sinners that God died for sinners. Or more particularly, the Father so loved us that He sent His Son to die for us, both fully divine in the cross. But here He adds another testimony, and the Spirit is the one who testifies Because the Spirit is truth. That's interesting how he phrases that. It's in the present tense. You see, the water and the blood are looking back to something that Jesus did. The Spirit testifying is the present ministry of the Spirit. And the Spirit is always doing one thing we've already discussed before. The Spirit is always pointing us to Christ. The Spirit is always pointing us to the one who can save us. The Spirit is giving testimony today in our hearts of what Christ accomplished. And the Spirit is truth. The Spirit always proclaims the truth, and these three testify, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. Now, if we think about how these three work together. We've got the Spirit who's testifying today. We've got the water and the blood. And if we look ahead to next week, let's think about this. We're going to have a baptism. We're going to have two confessing believers who are going to be immersed in the water. They're going to be buried and they're going to be risen again out of the water. They're going to be identifying with Jesus Christ and what he accomplished in his death and resurrection. That is one way in which the spirit testifies presently to our condition and our only hope. Also, in the Lord's Supper. The spirit testifies to us that when we take of the body, we take of the blood. The spirit is there. reminding us of what Christ has accomplished and reminding us of the great hope that we have. You see, friends, these three testify together. And they're testifying what Christ has accomplished and what the Spirit is now reminding us of His accomplishment so that we have confidence. See, I could give you a lot of apologetics. I could give you a lot of facts. I can give you the argument of how the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most historically proven event in all of ancient antiquity. It's the most, it's the event that has the most evidence for it. I can give you all kinds of apologetics, but that isn't going to matter. Facts aren't going to cure your hard heart. The spirit must cure your hard heart and illuminate that heart to see Jesus Christ and what he accomplished for us in His baptism, in His death on the cross, and in His resurrection. Look at verses 9 and following. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God, that He is born concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. That's the Spirit who's giving that testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar. Because he does not believe in the testimony that God has borne concerning his son. John 16 is one of the most amazing passages of scripture for me. Because Jesus says to his disciples, I'm leaving, but I'm going to send someone else. The disciples are shocked. What? How can you leave us? Our lives are built upon you. And Jesus says, no, it is to your advantage that I go. Think about the disciples. They were complete failures of faithfulness. They denied Christ. They never understood His teaching. They had the Savior right there in front of them. But because they were sinners, because they were dull of hearing, because they were hard-hearted, because they were stiff-necked, they never got it. Until after all the events took place, And Jesus sent the Helper. And the Helper, He helped them. He illuminated their eyes. He illuminated their minds and their hearts and reminded them of all the things they had seen and heard. And then they got it. So we can look back at the disciples and we can make fun of them, but we should know that we would be just like them. It's not worse. We could see Jesus. We could hear Him. We could hear Him make radical claims on our lives. Take up your cross. Deny your family. Those things would be too hard for us to hear. But whenever the Spirit comes, whose testimony is greater than any testimony of man, when the Spirit comes and speaks to us, then we get it. It's only after God changes us that we're truly able to follow Him. Let's go to our last point, how to enjoy the fruit of confidence. This is verses 13 through 20. I write these things to you, believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And here's the first fruit of confidence. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know He hears us and whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of Him. What an amazing promise. We don't have to try to control history. We don't have to try to control our lives or other people's lives. No, we have a request. When we have a desire, we can analyze that desire. Is this according to God's will and His Word? And then we get to go to God and we get to ask Him whatever our requests are. And when we pray according to His will, He hears us. Just try to imagine that for a second. The Father who created all the world There's six billion plus people in the world. He's sustaining, keeping, protecting all of them. He's keeping the tides at bay. He's sustaining everything about our life support system. And here we are, little old me, and when I pray to him, he bends his ear. The God of all this world, He listens to me. He listens to you. That's humbling. That's humbling that He loves you enough to hear you. He doesn't just hear you. He hears you as a child. He hears you as one of His sons or daughters. And when we make a request known to Him, Now, this doesn't mean that I get to ask him for a Lamborghini. I've tried. It doesn't happen. He hears us and he fulfills his request that we make according to his will. There's a huge qualification there. Now, the goal here is to make sure that whatever we pray is praying according to his will. There's a huge qualification here and a huge desire that we should have that we pray according to his word. that we be transformed by His Word and His will so that when we pray to Him, He hears us and He makes a request happen. The challenge, are we praying enough? Are we taking advantage of having the greatest ear in all the world? Always at our disposal. When we have a desire, do we envy others because we desire things that aren't proper to us, because this is actually a good way of correcting our wills and our desires. Because God isn't submitting Himself to us. Prayer is a great opportunity for us to submit ourselves to Him. We submit our hearts to His desires and then make our requests made known. But the challenge there is, are we actually taking advantage of that ear? The same God who created all. He desires to hear us and hear our request. Following from this, a particular kind of prayer in verse 16, if anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I don't say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. Now, obviously, the big question here is what is this sin that leads to death? And I really wish John were a little more precise with what that sin is. But if we look at the bigger picture of 1 John, we remember that there are antichrists. Antichrists have come into the church. They've denied Jesus Christ. And it's not just the denial that happens whenever someone witnesses someone. It's not just someone rejecting the gospel when they hear it. No, this is an outright blaspheming of God. This is a proactive desire to blaspheme the only Savior. This is someone who has made it their life work to go out and speak against Jesus Christ. These anti-Christ. And I believe that this must be what John is referring to. This is very similar to what Jesus refers to as blaspheming the Holy Spirit. It's giving Satan the credit for God's work. Here, what they're doing is denying God's work explicitly and intentionally. And it's scary. I do not say that one should pray for that. May God protect us all from ever falling into a sin such as this that leads to death. What we must realize is that we all do have deep sinful hearts. Without God's love, without God's grace, without God's mercy, we fight against God. I pray no one has ever. Desire to speak out against the Savior. We must realize that this kind of rebellion. The possibility is all is in all of us, it's only by God's grace and his love. That he has shown us to worship the Savior. And not reject him. Finally, versus 18 and following, we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sending. But he who was born of God protects him and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we know him who we may know him who is true. We are in him who is true and his son, Jesus Christ. He is a true God in eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Interesting, verse 18, we know that everyone who has been born of God, who has received new life from God, they do not keep on sinning. Now, we've discussed this once before, but this doesn't mean the sin nature is removed from you. This doesn't mean that you are now a perfect saint with a glorified body. No, it's the emphasis on keep on sinning. If you have consistent sin in your life and you never have the fruit of repentance, If you never have the fruit of guilt, if you never have the fruit of shame, if you never are moved by God's Spirit to hate that sin that keeps you from fellowshipping with the church and fellowshipping with God, then you should be afraid that you have never been born of God. We're all going to sin. We all sin regularly. But if we are led by the Holy Spirit, if we are communing with the saints, we will be drawn from loving that sin and remaining in it, we will repent. You know, what a beautiful promise. He who was born of God protects them. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten Son of the Father. He protects us. In my heart, there is a treason. Song we sang last week. In my heart there is a treason. And I realize that I need protection from that. I need a protection from what the evil one is doing. And praise be to God that he who is born of God is greater than he who is in the world. Friends, we live in an evil world. We live in a world that is rebellious against God. We live in a world that seeks to tempt us out of the will of God. Our only hope, our only salvation, is found in Jesus Christ. Little children, as we leave, let us leave with this very punchy ending of 1 John. Keep yourselves from idols. Idolatry is seeking to control your life. Idolatry, at its basic root, is trying to find some way of controlling the gods. It's trying to get what you want by giving these gods what you think they want. That's not the Christian religion. Christian religion is loving God because He first loved us. Let's pray. Almighty God, we praise You. We praise You, Lord, for Your protection. We praise You, Lord, for Your love. We praise You, Lord, that You have not left us to our own sinful desires, our rebellion, but You saved us. You've given us Your Spirit that testifies to us. May Your Spirit speak loudly and boldly and clearly in us as we hear Your Word, as we read Your Word, as we sing about Your Word, as we pray from Your Word. Give us great confidence. because it's only in confidence that we will be truly effective ministers of your kingdom, both in proclaiming your word to the world and proclaiming you to one another. In your name we pray. Amen.