Love's Abiding Presence (message 7 of 10 on First John)

“Love's Abiding Presence!”

Sermon Series: Walk in Faith (part 7 of 10)

First Baptist Church Family Life Center

New Castle, Indiana

Pastor Jerry Ingalls

February 28, 2010

We are continuing in our sermon series "Walk in Faith". We are in our 7th teaching time on First John. Please open your Bibles, pull out your sermon notes, and grab a pen. Let's dive in!

1 John 3:24 - 4:6 (NIV)

²⁴Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. ¹Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. ⁴You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. [prayer]

This section of Scripture is a continuation of John's explanation of what it means that God has so lavished on us this great gift of love that we are called (and are!) Children of God (1 John 3:1).

We are Children (sons and daughters) of God because we have asked Jesus Christ into our lives and we each have received the Holy Spirit through faith. This was possible because the message that was from the beginning came to us and we believed the Truth about Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. And as Children of God, through the Holy Spirit living in us we strive to live a life of obedience to the commandment of love! We are adopted into love by the God who is love to be a part of the mission of God to love the lost (those who have not yet received life in Christ) who are still of the world.

Today's passage is focusing on the power source of this new life we have been adopted into. That power source is the 3rd person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit. Today we are talking about "Love’s Abiding Presence!"

Let me start with a modern day parable: A friend calls me up and tells me that he finally bought his dream car, a Porsche, and is now going to bring it over to show me. Personally, I don't care a whole lot about cars, but my friend has a car fetish so I indulge him. My friend only lives a mile away and he is on his way. The minutes go by and my friend doesn’t arrive.

After an hour goes by I give up and go back inside and leave a message of concern on his cell phone. Two hours go by and I am ready to call the police and put out an all points bulletin, when all of a sudden I look out the window and here comes my friend pushing the Porsche into my driveway. He’s covered with dirt; soaked with sweat; and he has this look of intense fatigue on his face.

Obviously, I think something happened to the car so I ask my friend, “Why are you pushing the Porsche; what’s wrong with it?” He replies that nothing is wrong and asks very seriously in return, ‘how else do you expect me to get the Porsche from my house to yours?’

I stand there with my mouth wide open and in disbelief I sarcastically burst, “You could start the Engine and drive it over here!” Get this, he says, “What engine?”

This sounds obvious and foolish; why would a person use their own limited energy to push a $90,000 car that an engine with over 400 horsepower? But that is exactly the point! How silly are we, as Children of God, trying to do the same in our lives!

We are going from day to day exhausted, drenched in sweat, weary from the heavy burden of our lives, only to realize that all we need to do is turn on the engine (the living presence of God abiding in us—the Holy Spirit) rather than try to push ourselves (with our own limited energy) from location to location, agenda item to agenda item, accomplishment to accomplishment.

When we live this way as Children of God, we either don’t know we have the Holy Spirit or we don’t know how to allow Him to live in and through us. Is this hitting home for you? [pause]

Let’s dive into our first point from 1 John 3:24.

AS CHILDREN OF GOD, THE HOLY SPIRIT LIVES IN US!

John states in verse 24, the first verse of our Scripture Lesson, "Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us."

As Children of God we need to realize that a fundamental change in our being (that is an ontological change) occurs when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The God who loved us, created us, and bought us with a price through the blood of Jesus Christ has given us the fullness of Himself by coming and living in us when we asked Jesus Christ into our lives. At the moment of conversion, we go from being dead in our sin without a living spirit; to being alive in Christ because our spirit is quickened to life by the abiding presence of God's Holy Spirit! We pass from death to life!

We go from being a lost child of the created order in rebellion against God to being a Child of God living in obedience to God. Our new life is now in God who lives in us through the Holy Spirit. This is the dynamic love affair which is God's perfect fellowship in us only made visible by our obedience to the commandments to love one another.

According to the Apostle Paul, that obedience is only possible by the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence in our lives! The Apostle Paul emphasizes this in Romans 8:13-16, "For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."

It is the Holy Spirit living in us who testifies that we are Children of God! He is the verification of our conversion!

Are you struggling to live the new life of obedience to Jesus Christ as a Child of God? [pause] Are you pushing the Porsche or have you turned the key and cranked up that engine with over 400 horsepower?

As disciples of Jesus Christ, the reality is that we do not need more of the Holy Spirit [pause]; rather, we need to surrender more and more of who we are to God so that the fullness of God's presence in our lives may fully live through us!

Only by giving God the title of ownership can we start to live according to the wise counsel of the Holy Spirit in our day to day lives. We must be obedient to God in all that we do! We have to stop compartmentalizing our lives thinking this is business and this is spiritual. Or this is secular and this profane! All is God’s! Spiritual Life and Obedience are 2 sides of the same coin! You cannot have one without the other and we cannot have either without the Holy Spirit living in us!

The Apostle Paul teaches us of this daily struggle of surrender and obedience in Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

We have to surrender control of our lives if we are to follow Jesus Christ as disciples and disciple-makers!

In faith through the lavish gift of salvation found in the the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ we were given the gift of God's Holy Spirit living in us. Paul teaches in Romans 5:5b, "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Our life we live is a gift from God! The eternal life we celebrate is a gift from God! And the Holy Spirit is a gift of God to each of us so that we can join God’s story and be a conduit of His love and a vehicle of His grace!

That is our 2nd teaching point from the next 3 verses, AS CHILDREN OF GOD, THE HOLY SPIRIT DECLARES THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS CHRIST THROUGH US!

John warns the house churches of Ephesus and us today in 4:1, “Dear friends [Beloved], do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see [discern] whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

This is where I get to teach a nuanced point from something I stated last week. Last week, I wholeheartedly declared that there is no spiritual life apart from knowing God through Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And that is right and true of a spiritual life with the God who created the universe.

But, today I must openly declare that you can have a spiritual life apart from a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ because there are evil spirits in this world who want to animate you and have their way in the world through you. There are spirits in this world who want to give you a “spiritual experience”, but let me exhort you that we must test every spirit to ensure whether we are dealing with the spirit of truth or the spirit of falsehood (as John delineates in 4:6).

John does not give us any spiritual wiggle room; there is no middle ground in the spiritual realm; unlike so many lukewarm humans in the world!

In 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, Paul speaks directly about the Spirit of the Antichrist that animates the false prophets and the evil spirits at work in the world, "Do not put out [quench] the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil."

Fellow followers of Christ and friends who are with us today seeking to know who this God is that we declare, please do not be deceived; there is good and evil! There are eternal destinies known as Heaven and Hell! There are spirits at work in this world--Angels and Demons!

We should not quench the Holy Spirit because there are real spiritual gifts given us to by the Spirit for the purpose of building up the Body of Christ and there are true prophecies spoken through the Spirit to the Church to edify, rebuke, and exhort the Body. But we must not be deceived.

There are also evil spirits that must be avoided and we need to know how to discern (test) what is of God and what is not. So, John gives us a very simple test in 4:2-3.

“This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

The Holy Spirit confirms His abiding presence not necessarily through a particular manifestation in regards to an ecstatic experience of the Spirit (though I believe that the Holy Spirit does manifest that way still today for the purpose of building up the body of Christ until we all reach unity), but always through the conviction of Truth declared through our faith in Jesus Christ.

This teaching is complimented by the Apostle Paul who was writing to a different community of churches, but made a similar point. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:2-3, "You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, 'Jesus be cursed,' and no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit."

Paul gave these believers, who lived in a very spiritual world, a simple test to know whether the spirit was of God or of the deceiver. If the spirit can declare “Jesus is Lord” it is only possible through the Holy Spirit. Once again, the reality is that the spirits cannot play the middle road. There KNOW the reality of God!

Evil spirits can say they believe in God, because they know that for a fact, but evil spirits (spirit of falsehood) cannot declare 'Jesus is Lord' because they are in rebellion against the God who made them.

Our Scripture lesson is clear this morning. The Greek word translated “acknowledges” can be translated “confessed” or “declared”. The only way that a person can declare or confess that 'Jesus Christ has come in the flesh' is from God through the Holy Spirit teaching them the Truth.

This is not a minor theological issue or a philosophical nuance, this reality known as the Incarnation means that the God who is Spirit, took on flesh by becoming a human being (fully human while fully God!). This is the Christmas’ miracle and the key to understanding how Jesus Christ was able to atone for all of our sins on the Cross. This reality is central to Christianity!

The Gospel of John 1:14 clearly defines the Incarnation, "The Word [Logos] became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

John is adding to the visible signs of what it looks like to be a Child of God; he is teaching us that false belief is as much a sin against God as selfish and destructive behavior or a lack of love for one another. To deny the bedrock truths of the apostolic witnesses passed down to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Bible is to be deceived.

John is teaching us that this is not just intellectual error, but the misleading by the spirit of falsehood.

We must test the spirits by the truths we hold as authoritative and sacred in our lives. That is why we are people of the Bible! The Truth planted in a person's heart is the power to bring eternal life! No wonder the Antichrist is trying to deceive us with half truths and water-downed gospel.

Let's get theological for a moment: Do you know why it is so very important that the Holy Spirit declare through each of us this very specific truth that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh”?

Jesus Christ is our perfect Passover lamb. He is the only person to ever walk on earth without sin; therefore, as the Son of God Jesus Christ is the only one whose sacrifice would then be able to appease the curses of the ancient covenant established by God between humanity and God. In the same way, the Living God, the Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ continues to intercede for us at the right hand of the Father and what a great God we have who knows the struggles we go through in this life.

In Hebrews 4:5 we read, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin."

God chose to join with us in the midst of the human struggle to redeem us back into His Perfect Fellowship—the dynamic love affair of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Let me explain a little bit deeper: The Atonement Theory states that only human beings can rightfully repay the debt which was incurred through our willful disobedience to God. But, no human being was able to do this because we all are corrupted by sin introduced at the Fall by Satan. That is why God had to do it for us and why He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human, begotten, not made, of the same substance as the Father to satisfy the conditions of the covenant. Jesus Christ was the sacrifice by God on behalf of humanity, taking humanity’s penalty for sin upon himself, and propitiating God’s wrath. In other words, God imputed (transferred) the guilt of our sins to Christ, and he, in our place, bore the punishment that we deserve. God transferred our guilt (because of sin) onto His Son and then justified us (made us right in God’s eyes) through the blood of Jesus Christ by putting His righteousness (to be right in God’s eyes) on us.

If Jesus Christ did not "come in the flesh" then He could not have atoned for all our sins because Jesus had to be fully human. If He was not fully human then we are NOT fully atoned for and there is no hope! There is eternal life solely because Jesus Christ came in the flesh, sent by the Father.

And NOW we become the incarnate witnesses of this eternal life as the Holy Spirit declares the Truth of Jesus Christ through our lives, in our words and deeds! Christ puts on flesh through us!

Are you a living witness of this Victory? [pause]

AS CHILDREN OF GOD, THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES US THE STRENGTH TO OVERCOME!

What do you do when times get rough and we feel beat down by this dark world that opposes the light and love of God?

Who do you turn to when tragedy, crisis, or disappointment happen?

John made it clear that there is an evil spirit (the spirit of the Antichrist) who has been loosened in the midst of these end times, but then he declares in verses 4-5, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.”

Dear Children, Beloved of God, fellow heirs of Jesus Christ, we do not need to fear the lies, the schemes, or the deceptions of the evil one because the God we serve has destroyed the power of the evil one and we have the Victory! This is a battle not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of this world. Here is the good news--God is greater than any evil spirit or any false truth being propagated by the spirit of the Antichrist that you find yourself coming up against in this world that crucified our Lord! Call out to Jesus and you will overcome! Call out to Jesus Christ and you can stand firm in your faith!

The Gospel of Luke 10:19-20 illumines this point. We see Jesus triumphantly instructing the faithful 72 disciples as they came back to Jesus after they went throughout the land preaching the good news defeating the evil spirits that came up against them. "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

The greatest victory is to come when we come face to face with Jesus Christ in Glory. Only then will we fully know God and be able to comprehend the lavish gift that He has bestowed upon us to be His Children.

We wait for the fullness of our inheritance, while in this life the victory we experience is seemingly challenged every corner we turn. As John has expressed in this letter already, the world in its corrupted state is not a friend to God nor to those who follow God. We do not see the world as the world sees itself, because the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes to the reality of our true state and the desperate state of the world around us.

Jesus taught His devoted followers in the Gospel of John 15:19, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."

We have a choice in how we hear this news. We can mourn the loss of a former lover (the world) and live in the shadow of counterfeit lies that life was better when were still in captivity. Just like the Israelites complained to Moses and wished they were back in Egypt as slaves!

Or we can realize that we have been adopted into Love by the God who is love and we now have a secure future because of Love’s abiding presence—the Holy Spirit living in and through us! The God who saved us and claimed us as His own children has promised us that we will overcome!

John finishes this section with verse 6, “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

It is our response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of Life, as proclaimed from the beginning and to us today that we can know who we are being directed by: whether the Spirit of Truth or the spirit of falsehood.

This response must start with a heart-felt prayer of confession and acceptance, but it then must continue through obedience! Remember, spirituality and obedience are two sides of the same coin. You cannot say you know God and then not love your brother! You cannot say Jesus is Lord and then disobey His commandments!

Jesus taught in the Gospel of Luke 6:46-48, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built."

God has built your new life in Him on the Rock who is Jesus Christ and the storms of this life cannot overcome you! God is greater than those storms and He will overcome them for you through your faith and your commitment to respond in faith, obedience, and love!

We must persevere in this life! There is an eternal reward for those who stand firm in their faith through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Jesus declared to His Church in Revelation 2:7, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."

Friends, it is hard to feel like you are overcoming when you are beat down and tired from life. It is hard to feel like you are living your life with the God of the universe living in your heart when you are pushing the Porsche instead of sitting down and turning the key and cranking up that 400 horsepower engine.

The truth is that we cannot do this on our own! That is the way God designed this life…it is impossible to overcome this world by yourself! Each of us need to ask God to live in us and through us and only then will we have the power to overcome one day at a time.

RESPONSE TIME: Pastor Ken and his team are now going to lead us in a time of response.

Let's pray together. [Pray]