Walking in the Light

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

OK, this is the first epistle we’re going to do. And before we start, Sean mentioned, I guess, a couple weeks ago, the thought that the young people in our church really have not had a heavy dose of epistolary teaching.

And it really hit me when I started thinking about it, because around our house, we’re always talking about Bible things and those subjects, but I did realize that maybe all those kids and all that life hadn’t heard what the parents and the grandparents had heard. I got saved at 37 and the guy that brought me the gospel only let me listen to two different preachers and he took me to Radio Shack and we set up a recording thing with a timer and the tapes in it and I could only record two radio programs and I had to listen to those tapes as I drove around LA. And by the time I made it out to Grace Community Church for the first time I had already listened to every sermon that MacArthur had preached because it just I got it all coming and then I joined their lending library and and all that kind of stuff.

That was an amazing thing to me that you could hear those people like that. We live in a day and age where all you got to do is open up your computer, get on the internet, and you can hear the greatest teachers of the past 50 years. You can hear Martin Lloyd Jones. His trust has given out all his stuff. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. So it really is a sign of neglect if you haven’t at least heard those things. The other thing that Sean mentions a lot, and it’s really interesting when you start thinking about it, is the Bible does not command you to read the Bible. It says to listen and to hear and that kind of thing.

We live in an age where you just, like we have the ESV version. All you need to do is subscribe to the thing, and on your phone or wherever you do it, right there, you know, you can listen to it, push the button, and the guy will read it for you. And thank goodness for that guy when we were going through Genesis, or I never would have known how to say most of those names. But anyway, it’s very out there for us. And as busy as we are, and as many of us as do things with earbuds in our ear, I really commend you to listen to these things quite a few times. John MacArthur says before he preaches anything, he at least reads it for a month every day.

And it is fascinating how on the 10th or 12th time, you think, I know everything about this I need to know. I don’t need to hear it again. And on that next time, you go, oh, I really didn’t notice that phrase or the way that puts that together. And that can cause you to be one of those preachers that the first word is a six sermon series. I’m not sure that’s the best way to teach the body. I really like the idea of teaching thought groups or paragraphs. You can teach subjects and go down those rabbit trails and build them out. But to get the flow of the letter that was written to people, you should at least teach a paragraph or maybe even a chapter.

We had a guy that taught through a book of the New Testament on Sundays, like Ephesians. He taught it. It was interesting because what you did, you came away with an outline and the key points to hang the thoughts on. And especially if you knew it well, you realized, huh, he sees that as the key thing. So I commend you guys to listen to these things because we don’t teach them a lot. And because we meet once, and I do think our liturgy is way more powerful than having Sunday schools and another teaching and another teaching and another teaching. And what we do here is ingraining the proper behavior way better than all the teaching I’ve experienced in my Christian life, just by our liturgy, having communion together, fellowship together, and the living it out.

And I think this epistle really talks about the living it out. I’ll start off by reading it, and we can go from there. So let’s read it right now. Now, this is just the first chapter of 1 John, only 10 verses. First John 1, 1 through 10. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which he have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testified to it, and proclaimed to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us.

And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be made complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. There’s an amazing collection of three paragraphs there that say a whole bunch of stuff. First thing, this epistle is not written to any individual church or an individual. John does not pick out, hey, Saul over in Pergamum or whatever, I’m sending these letters. None of that. It’s a general statement to the churches in Asia Minor.

Most historians and individuals that study this, John went to Ephesus in his later age. He was probably around 90 when he wrote this. At an advanced age in Ephesus. And he wrote this from Ephesus to the churches in Asia Minor. And the interesting thing is, we’re at 80, 90 to 95. And this is the last living apostle. And he is giving apostolic authority to all these words that he’s saying. And we’ll see that as we go through this. One church father, Papias, called John the living and abiding voice. All kinds of church fathers testify that this book was written by John, the same one who wrote the Gospel and the book of Revelation.

Revelation was not written by the time he wrote this book, but they credit John with writing this. And as you’re gonna see, I’m gonna show you other passages that John wrote in different parts of the Bible. And you’re going to see it’s like, whoa, he’s like repeating the same thing again. And we did study the Gospel of John already. That was our first go through in a book here. The other thing is that you need to know is that this is considered to be a polemic against Gnosticism, which was influenced as a thought that you worship your intellect. And it was influenced by Plato. And they basically advocated that a dualistic situation that everything in the flesh is evil and everything with the spirit is good.

So spiritual things are only fuzzy thoughts and the fleshly things or real things are all bad. Basically, what does that do? That denies Jesus’ humanity. And he takes it full bore on in the first paragraph. So that’s kind of the background why it was written It’s a really straightforward and very easy. The Greek is simple. It’s the first book that you work on translating when you take Greek. Back in the day when I took it, it was before we had computers and we had our thick dictionaries, and you had to parse the words and all this stuff. And so the methodology was to make a photocopy of your Greek New Testament and then blow the thing up to like 300 percent and then you take scissors and trim the line out and get glue stick and glue it on a piece of paper line by line and then you had to translate by hand underneath it and then parse each word above the word.

And the notebooks for 1st John are, I think I have eight of them that are inch and a have notebooks with, you know, line paper with all these things stuck on there. But it really reinforced some of the things that I’m going to say about, you know, if we confess, if we say we have no sin, those things. When you see certain tenses, it answers a lot of the questions that people get really irritated about when they read First John or they get very convicted and say, how can I possibly be a Christian, you know? I think bad thoughts, what’s happening? Oh no. So John takes care of that, and it’s plain in the word here as we study it.

One of the other things I was going to do, I’m not going to sing it, but the people that argue about who wrote this book, I have a favorite blues song that was done by Sun House, and it’s called John the Revelator. And it’s just like a cotton field chant. And he says, who’s that writing John the Revelator? And he does that three times. And then he said, he wrote the book of the seven seals. And then he talks about the gospel of John and the other verses. It’s really a cool thing. And you can see it on YouTube and see him singing it. He’s an interesting dude back in the 1960s. He was probably 85 or 90 when he was doing it then.

So anyway, so we start off now in the first paragraph that says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we looked upon, and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. What’s the that? Is that a person, or is that a thing, Or is that a thought? It’s interesting, right? Because it says, that which was from the beginning, comma, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testified to it, and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and made manifest to us.

That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that your joy may be complete. So that that which was from the beginning, Most commentators say is the whole gospel package. All right? I don’t know how you can really separate the gospel package from Christ, right? He was the one from the beginning. In John 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And when you get to 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as the only son from the Father full of grace and truth.

So the gospel is there, but what John is saying, it was brought to us by a real person that we saw, that we touched, and then knew concerning the word of life, made manifest to us as he proclaimed it to you, the eternal life, which was with the Father and made manifest to us. So he’s proclaiming that Christ is that person and claiming he was fully human. It wasn’t some spiritual apparition that the apostles saw. This was a real person that was human and God together. And that’s clearly what starts him off. And he’s writing this again to these people just flat out. He just right into the middle of it right away. Jonathan mentioned this morning, what would happen if you lived in Corinth and you were a new Christian and all of a sudden you get this letter from Paul, 1 Corinthians, 16 chapters all written out, you know, and everybody’s going, what did Paul say? What did Paul say? You know, and you all get together and the guy starts reading and you go, oh man, he’s talking about me. I shouldn’t have moved in with, you know, that person. I shouldn’t have done this. Oh, no.

John is like talking to all the churches in Asia and declaring to them, don’t forget where the gospel comes from and that he was everything that was needed. So the thing that you see in 1 John 1, then you see in John 1, okay? So what I just read was 1 John 1, 1 through 4, But listen to 1 John 1, 1 through 14, and see how it’s so similar. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him there was not anything that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of the men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him and yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

him. But to all who did receive him, who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor will of the flesh, nor will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth.” The phrases and the wording and the Hebrewisms in John’s writing are amazing. When you study Hebrew, he phrases words and arranges them in the order that Hebrews thought. And he speaks very simple Greek, very straight ahead stuff. The writer of Hebrews can give you a headache. Peter can make you nuts trying to do the Greek there. But this stuff is just straight ahead, no real problems going on with it.

it. So right away we see John is really hammering home the humanity of Jesus. And the interesting thing in verse 4 where it says, and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Now here he is at 90, 95 AD. Christ was probably crucified around 30 AD. So were 60 years after the crucifixion, and after the time when John, in John 17, shows what Jesus prayed for in John 17. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all those, all to all whom you have given him.

And this is the eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. He is praying for this to happen and John shows that our joy is complete and Jesus’ prayer is answered. And in John 17, 13, after going through more praying, prays for the apostles first, then he prays for us and all of that. And in John 1713, he says, but now I’m coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. John repeating in 1 John 1.4, in the fourth verse, and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

That’s really incredible how all of it keeps tying together, it loops in. It’s kind of like the Bible does this all the time as you read it. You know, what’s the matter with these old people in the Old Testament? They do this and they keep doing it over. Don’t they get it? You know, and then you go, duh, that’s what I’m doing every day. And, but it is amazing how when it’s repeated, how the message gets further ingrained. I mean, it’s just, that’s part of learning, but it’s amazing how it connects in the Bible with documents that were spread all over Asia, written by these guys, and how it all ties together and loops together miraculously.

So that’s the first paragraph, and the big thing is the humanity of Jesus. This is a real thing that we Apostles touched, lived with, saw.

This is our testimony that we were there, two people that there might have been some still alive at that time, but probably not many in that day and age. To live to 90 or so would be a big deal in the first century. Then in John 1, 5 through 7, the second paragraph, he says, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Now these are the kind of verses where immediately He tells us all how wonderful it is, our joy is complete, Jesus has done it all, I saw Him, He’s the real deal. And then the next thing, God is in the light, no darkness at all. And If we say we have fellowship and while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

Well, how many of you guys walked in darkness last week? Yeah, okay. All hands right. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus’ Son cleanses us from all sin. And here’s where the present active indicative comes in. All these walking things, living things, hearing, all of those things are present active and indicative where you are doing these things continually without ceasing. And did you walk in the darkness without ceasing all week? Probably not. If you’re here, I would doubt it. Now did you have a bad week and do maybe more than 50%? Maybe.

What happens? His blood cleanses you from that and as we’re gonna see later on Confess and get yourself right get up and walk again That’s the joy of this and as you do that more and more and more He will conform you to his image. That’s another part of this book. That’s why I chose it Maybe I’ll close with that story, but well we won’t go there right now, but But so the thing when you see this thing, you know, if you have any darkness, if you say you have no sin and all that, that’s continuous action that’s happening all the time. And while you are out of fellowship, you haven’t lost your salvation, but you are definitely out of fellowship and you need to be in fellowship with one another and his blood will cleanse you back into it.

John repeated the same message in John 3, the Gospel of John 3, 19-21. And this is the judgment, that the light came into the world and people loved darkness rather than light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God.” So there’s always that tagline in there, there is hope, turn from your sin, you know, turn or burn, you know, we like that, the Baptist like that. But the thing is, there’s always hope even for the most wicked.

That’s another thing to remember when you’re meeting people and all of that. Being a presuppositionalist, I don’t beat them over the head, but I do pray for that question that allows me to expose some of that. It is amazing that if God has chosen you, he will open your eyes and make that happen. Romans 13, 11 through 14 speaks about the same thing. Now we have a different writer, Paul. Interesting, huh? Gee, Paul might have known some of this stuff. Besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep, for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand.

So then, let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. let us walk properly, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality, in sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.” Talking to the Romans, the same thing, starts off, you know, Romans 1 is classic, right? I mean, you can’t get away from it if you’re reading it and paying attention. And yet now he’s talking deeper into the letter that the night is far gone, the day is at hand, so then let us cast off the work of darkness, put on the armor of light, let us walk properly in the daytime.

So the same kind of message being preached. In 1 John he just compresses it all down to just super simple stuff. Then in John 1, 8 through 10, which finishes the chapter, very short chapter, And I’m saving my time because there’s longer chapters in this book and then I may keep you here all night. But the first chapter is just straight ahead stuff. I mean, it’s pretty basic. It’s clear. I think a child can understand what’s being said. So in 1 John 1, I mean, 8 through 10, it says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves. How many people? I don’t sin. I’ve never done anything really bad. I never murdered anybody. Those are all the stupid examples. But you get people, I have actually talked with people, some Methodist sects, S-E-C-T-S, they actually believe in personal holiness, that you can reach a point where you don’t sin. As you mature in the faith, you’re going to get to a place where you don’t sin. I actually was in a Bible study with a guy back in the late 80s at a chemical plant that I serviced.

And he would every week bring it up that he didn’t sin. And it was a crazy Bible study. We had this Methodist guy, I had a Calvary Chapel guy that he was a Mexican gang member that got saved. He was a mechanic in this plant. And I mean, he really got saved. And he would go after this guy, what you gonna do with his verse right here? We say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And they’d really get up, they’d really go after it. And I would sit there just smiling, because I didn’t have to say anything. They just would go after it all the time. And it was fascinating. The guy finally quit the group, the Methodist guy.

You people just don’t understand because you haven’t been sanctified enough. I thought, oh my. So anyway, but the other guy, Johnny, he really understood. and he went after him. And I do need to go down a rabbit trail here. Johnny was part of Calvary Chapel, and we met probably, it was probably two and a half years, once a week, and it’s the classic story of when you first get saved. Well, of course I chose Jesus. I walked the aisle, you know, all of that. And then he started like about a year and three months into it. Man, I keep reading these verses where Jesus says, I chose you and God does this. And he says, I’m not so sure I really chose.

I think God changed me and then I chose. So I think God did it. And I said, yeah, that’s right. But you realize you’re gonna have trouble in Calvary Chapel. And he said, oh no, man, Raul Reese is my pastor. I don’t know if you guys ever listen to Raul Reese on the radio, but he was a character. So I said, well, John, go ask him. So he asked him, and they had asked Johnny to become a deacon. And he went in and told him what he thought, that God chose him. And they said, if you believe that, you can’t be a deacon here.

They were really anti-Calvinists in those days. And he came back and he said, what am I going to do? And I told him, I said, find a good church. But he was such a character, and he was so strong, that he kept going back. And finally, Reese took him out to lunch and told him, he said, I understand what’s happening to you. You’re reading your Bible. You’re seeing all this. Same thing’s happening to me, but we can’t say it. Because the church’s doctrine is that we are Arminian in our doctrine in that thing. And he said, well, that’s no good. We need to go meet with Chuck. Chuck Smith at the time was still alive. He’s the guy that started Calvary Chapel.

And Raul told him, no, no, we’re not coming from East LA down to Laguna or wherever the headquarters was. And we’re not going to argue with Chuck. And so Johnny, he didn’t know what to do. And what happened? He then got transfer, or he had to work a night shift for like six months. Then I came back and when I came back, he found me. He said, Dave, I’m back. I’m back on the day shift. We need to meet some more. But he said, I quit going to that church, and I go to a church now that teaches the Bible. It’s really good. And it was interesting because a lot of people that I saw coming to Grace Community Church, they come after they go to different churches around, and they claim to teach the Bible.

And the people then start getting interested, and they read it, and they start studying it, and they come back and ask questions and stuff. And then they find out, oh, those people don’t want to get that deep into it. So they have to go find a place where they really teach the Bible and love it and want to talk about it. And the issue becomes, you can become very proudful and answer all those Bible questions and forget the part about the fellowship in 1 John. And that’s why I think 1 John is so good. There’s a lot of doctrine underneath it, but basically it’s relation. Our relation to God, our relation to each other, our relation to the world, which a lot of times back in the day when I was learning all this Bible stuff, I could fire off the answers and I have a unique gift to be able to tell people things that are insulting with a smile and they don’t punch me.

And, but the, it’s still you get in a situation where I know the answer to that. What’s the matter with these people? And this kind of book keeps bringing you back no stupid, it’s you, you’re doing the same thing they are. So even the little kid that doesn’t understand the doctrine, most of the time the little kids really get it and they’re broken and they will ask for forgiveness right away. And then I often tell new fathers, the time when your kid comes to you and has to ask you for forgiveness, or I mean you have to ask your three year old kid for forgiveness what you said to him, that’s the time when you really get this whole thing.

Because that relationship with that, if it’s not tight, you can’t move ahead. So anyway, that’s 1 John 8 through 10. And the famous verse, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, I would assume most of us have heard about confess. It means to say the same thing that God says about it. I just kind of did bad. I didn’t do whatever. You want to homologous say the same thing that God says about that sin. And at that point, now you’re on track. And the thing to always remember when you’re confessing your sin, let’s see, what are you doing? You’re talking to God.

Let me think about this. God created all of this, and he knows every thought before you even think it, like he doesn’t know what you’re doing, right? It really is, It’s very satisfying and relaxing and it just gives you a great peace to know God knows, right? And it’s just not a throwaway thing. So whatever it is that you’re not right, fumble it out. It doesn’t matter. He knows your heart. You’re trying to tell him your heart and get it right and walk on, you know, get back in the light. Matthew 19, 16 through 22, Jesus confronts a guy that just couldn’t get this. And behold, a man came to him saying, teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?

And he said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life and keep the commandments, he said to him, Which ones? And Jesus said, You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said to him, All these things I have kept, what do I still lack? Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And then the next thing is the camel, or put a camel through the eye of the needle.

So the deal is, does that tell us we all got to be communists to come to the Lord? No. Jesus knew exactly the guy’s sin was the covetousness that he held his possessions. Now, does everybody have that problem? No. Some people hold their possessions lightly, understand who gave it to him, and can give it away or whatever happens. So don’t be tricked by those things. It’s all very straightforward. Now comes a little more subtle point that I want to make, and this one is really aimed at our young people and those of us that are doing omnibus and collecting all this stuff that we’re doing in the school. You can collect a lot of wisdom and have a lot of funky facts in your almanac, and think that you’re pretty sharp, and you can create your own philosophy, And you can get trapped into thinking, hey, I’m really doing okay.

I got a lot of information, I’m trucking right along, things are good, and I don’t really need to confess my stuff and really think about the basics of the gospel anymore. At that point, I think Colossians 2, 8 through 13 falls to you. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy an empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. If you’re not basing all the stuff in Christ, you’re going to get zinged off. And it really is fascinating, the articles. I haven’t read the one on philosophy, but the one on, oh, shoot, I can’t remember.

It was last year. But it was the same kind of thing. to guard against and have that Christian world view as you read these things and as you study your field. You can become a fascinating mechanical engineer and a really good one. But if you’re not seeing it with the right Christian view, you can get puffed up and think that you really got it all figured out. And you will fall. God will smack you up the side of the head if you’re one of his. For in him, Christ, who we’re supposed to be according to, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Remember, bodily dwelling? Remember the first part of 1 John chapter 1 was proving he was a real person with a real body, not some spirit, not some philosophy.

Dwells bodily. And you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having then buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead.

you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses.” So Paul says exactly what John says in 8 through 10. Paul needs, what have we got here, 8 through 13 verses, five verses, and John says it in two verses. But Paul then, he’s speaking to a more continental crowd maybe who is, you know, in Colossae thinking about Greek things or whatever. So bottom line, those are ten verses that start this off, I want to commend everybody to listen to the the epistles that we’re studying, listen to it a couple times between each one of us teaching it, because it is kind of bizarre the way we’re going to do this, because the next guy is going to do the first chapter is, and then we’re going to hear another one and another one, and then we’ll get back to chapter two.

And I don’t want us to be in the routine where then I have to reintroduce what I said this time, we want to move on to the next chapter because certain of these chapters are going to be much longer and it will be more talking about what does this verse say. I think it’s real clear once you understand the present act, even Dick and even John, that that’s a continuous action that most of the stuff that most people get all panicked about, well I sinned yesterday so therefore I lost my salvation, that goes away because you realize you’re not in a continuous habit of that. And if you are stuck in a sin, don’t let that drag you down either. How, if a guy sins against you, how often do we have to forgive him? Because this comes up in discipleship all the time. You’ve got some guy that’s lived like a major pagan for 20 years and you start to disciple him and you’re expecting, well he’s gonna give that up. Well he gives it up and then pretty soon he stumbles back again. What’s his problem? His problem is

he needs to confess his sin, ask for forgiveness, get up and move to the right, upwards and to the right, right? Another little ratchet up the ladder. Don’t worry about me coming perfect. It’s probably not going to happen. You’re just going to get closer and closer all the time. So don’t let those things drag you down. And the thing that I think that The other part to this, of going through the epistles like this and our congregation, like I said with the liturgy, is the fellowship we have is really sweet and I think supernatural. I think that as we get to know each other more and we live our lives together, you end up sanding off the rough edges and realizing, oh, the thing I want to argue about is not all that important and this is more important and we need to have fellowship before we can really even talk about things on a different plane.

So you need to live with your wife in an understanding way. You need to treat your children properly. And when you do, it’s amazing, that fellowship, how that little person can give you great wisdom sometimes, even though you might have been around for a lot longer than they have. And there are times when you can give them great wisdom. But you know, most of the time that, you know, eh, I’ve forgotten more about that than you’ll never know, probably doesn’t work, you know. But it’s fascinating to just live your life, confess up, walking in the spirit, and you will fulfill, I believe, what John wants you to do in John, First John.

And it really is amazing when you think that this guy, God allowed him to live that long, talk to all those people, and then end up by writing the book of Revelation as a prisoner on Patmos, most people think. And you think all of that he’s gone through knowing that all those other guys he lived with knowing about Paul being murdered in the 60s. Really, yeah, not 1960. I knew of Paul back in the 60s.

But it’s fascinating when you try to put yourself in their place and understand these are real people that God used to give us this book. And what an incredible testimony it is to give us the guidebook for our life and yet sometimes we can worship the book so strongly instead of doing what it says. And that’s when you get accused of the paper pope kind of thing. Don’t go down that trail because God is God and this is God’s word.

We don’t need any intermediary but that’s the criticism we have. So bottom line, live it, love it, and love one another. So let’s pray and we’re done. Father, we thank you for what you gave us in 1 John. We thank you what you gave us in the New Testament and in your word. And then I am continually reminded at this stage of my life to thank you for your spirit that continually can teach us things that we thought we knew and can teach us in a new and different way all the time and allow us to have new discoveries each day until you bring us to you and the great promise that you give us in chapter 3 of this epistle that you are conforming us to the image of your son is just mind-boggling. Help us not become proud of that but to strive for that in the proper way. And we thank you that you’re always there to listen to us and of course we thank you most of all for your Son Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.