[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a Bible, turn to 1st John, chapter 2, and we'll be in the verses that Mr. Robin just read for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are new to Citizens Church, if you're visiting us, we are really honored that you're here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's our joy to worship with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Jamen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am one of the pastors here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are, I don't know, four or five weeks into our series in first John now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're living in a time when it's really hard to know what's real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to know what's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shared this with the men's class a few weeks ago, we were in these passages, but I'm really bad at knowing what's AI and what's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like whoever their target audiences, who they're trying to fool, I'm in that target audience because I'm always fooled.
[SPEAKER_00]: My feed is full of these nature videos and I watched one the other day.
[SPEAKER_00]: This man had raised a lion cup from birth,
[SPEAKER_00]: and then had released it back into the wild.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a few years later, he's walking through the safari and the lion recognizes him and comes in like embraces him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I watch that and I was like, man, that is so cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: That that happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a community note underneath it that says, this video is AI-generated.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's a comment, lions are very dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a text a few weeks ago, it was an unknown number, a text and said, hey, is this Jordan, the golf instructor I met?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I text back, no, I'm actually really bad at golf, but if you need help with craft coffee or knowing Jesus, I'm your guide.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they text back, are you a Christian?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we start texting about faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sent a screenshot of it to my friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, hey, this is cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pray for this conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of them sends back, are you sure it's a real person?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I don't know if it is or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really bad at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I might be sharing the gospel with a computer.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just kept talking because if it is a human, then they need the gospel, and if it's computer, I want to be kind just in case it becomes sentient one day, you know, like Terminator.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was sitting with some friends at church a few weeks ago, and they were talking about current events and things going on in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I asked a question, it was not a loaded question at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just asked, where do you get your news?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like how do you consume news about current events?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I have a hard time knowing what to trust, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a hard time.
[SPEAKER_00]: News is not objective anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very much so subjective.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure the first person who said it, but it's worth repeating.
[SPEAKER_00]: It used to be that something would happen in the world, and people would...
[SPEAKER_00]: consume that information, and then people might have two different responses to the same event, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what happens is people have two different reactions to two different events, because depending on their algorithm or the news they consume, the events of the details of the event are communicated so wildly different that they're not even reacting to the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just hard to know what to trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to know it's real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to know what voices should carry weight in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we experience this in all kinds of things, AI videos, and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we also experience this with the more mattering things of life, like what we believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of people saying a lot of things about God and morality and spirituality and religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's true?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're a generation of people unlike any other who are hyper-ameline over-informed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our attention is a commodity that people make money off of.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all have supercomputers in our pockets.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in all of that, we're just inundated with all kinds of voices.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of its more consequential than others.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, John offers something that we need in our moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I could use one word, the word is discernment.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a first-gen commentator named Mary Ann Thompson, and she just defines it this way, discernment is the ability to distinguish truth from error.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether that truth is manifested in doctrine or in practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: John writes this letter, if you remember, as an 80-year-old pastor who loves his church, he loves his church so much, that his favorite thing to call them when he addresses them is my dear children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are in a bit of a crisis, if you remember the backstory behind this letter, people who were leaders in the church, left to start a new church, and they're saying things about Jesus that contradict what this church originally heard about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're teaching things about Christianity that they opposite of what John preached.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so think about how disorienting,
[SPEAKER_00]: and discouraging this must have been.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are people that, you know, you worshiped with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you look over in a service and they've got their hands raised and they let a home group and you take communion together and you volunteer to city camp together and all of that's happening and all of a sudden they leave and not only do they leave but they start teaching things about Jesus that are opposite of what you've heard and not only that but they're saying if you don't join us then you're also not a true follower of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so many in the church are left wondering, well what's real?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's real?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which one's fake?
[SPEAKER_00]: And which one's real?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which one's a lion?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which one is the truth?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what John does is he doesn't simply tell them what's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't just write a very short letter that says, I'm right and they're wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives them the resources they need to discern what's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't use that word, but the argument that he makes throughout the letter he's trying to build a foundation of truth that they can stand on so that they can then look out and know what else is true and what else is not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I like, I think illustriently, if I were to offer an image of what John's doing, it's like if life for this church is like a boat that's being tossed by a storm and all that is happening in their church are like the waves that are beating against the sight of their faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: He comes along and he gives them an anchor that they can drop in the water and these truth that he gives are that anchor and they'll keep them steady and stable when they're being tossed by the waves and they'll anchor them in what's real so they don't cap size and I'm not entirely sure that's actually how anchors work I live in Plano but the point is this he offers big anchoring truths of the Christian life says believe these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you believe these things, it'll help you know how to sort out everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to name two truths and then offer the invitation that the passage offers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here are the two truths.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the last hour, and that's an anchoring truth that God this morning, God wants to sink deep into your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's an anchoring truth that God wants to sing deep in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the invitation is to abide in those truths.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the last hour, Jesus is the Christ, abide.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse 18, children, it is the last hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you've heard, that anti-Christ is coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now, many anti-Christ have come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, we know that it is the last hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: The part of the passage that gets a lot of attention is the idea of the anti-Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get there, John's making a different point, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, the presence of the false teachers tells us what time it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the last hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: The last hour of what?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about when we live in redemptive history.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is so important for us to understand what's happening in the world around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's March.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so here's what's happening in my yard right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have oak trees in our front yard, and they are filling with this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like a caterpillar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's Paul and I might be wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it fills with this caterpillar looking things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those things fall to the ground, and it gets everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: The dog tracks it into the house, and everybody just has a sinus infection for a month because of these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also it's happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have these perennial plants around our trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they die in the winter, and they come back in the spring.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will bloom late in spring and that's my daughter's favorite color and so when they bloom She'll go and she'll sit in the yard and she'll just look at these flowers and it's really sweet Well those plants right now are starting to to come back So there's pollen that falls everywhere and it's really annoying and it makes a sick and then there are flowers that come back and and beautify our yard And those two things happening right now says something about the season that we're in
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the beginning of spring.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's allergies and mosquitoes and it's flowers and it's sun.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whatever you'd say you'd love about spring, if you love spring.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a time of year that's a mixture.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a season of the year and it's a mixture of bad things and beautiful things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And John is making that kind of point when he says the last hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is helpful to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a slide I want to show.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first generation of disciples saw the world in this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they believed that they lived in this age, and there is an age to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the age they live in now is this present evil age.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's marked by sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: and death, and unbelief, and suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an age to come, a kingdom that is coming, heaven that is coming, and it's life, and by life we mean resurrection, and it's heaven, and by heaven we mean heaven and earth we united of physical, God present existence, and there's worship, and there's peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here was the expectation, the expectation was the present evil age would come to a close when the Messiah came, when the Christ came.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that would be marked by an outpouring of the Spirit of God, and that would be marked by resurrection.
[SPEAKER_00]: People would come back to life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus is having a conversation with Martha in John 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lazarus has just died.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Martha says, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus starts talking about resurrection.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Martha says, I believe that he'll be raised in the resurrection on the last day.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's talking about this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the Christ comes, the Old Testament calls at the day of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, here's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: everything changes when Jesus rose from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you go to the next slide for me, now what happens is you have this age, you have to age to come, but when Jesus comes, it is the first coming of the Christ, the Spirit of God falls on Pinnacles, Jesus raises again from the dead, and when He raises again from the dead, what happens is, age to come realities start to break into this present evil age.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have mercy, you have forgiveness.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what Jesus is healing in His ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Point two, it's Him waging war against the kingdom of darkness as a sign that the kingdom of God is breaking into the present evil age, and so you have this mix.
[SPEAKER_00]: The author of Hebrews calls this time the last days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter, when he preaches an Acts chapter two, he calls it the last days.
[SPEAKER_00]: John talks about this season.
[SPEAKER_00]: He calls it the last hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an overlap of the ages, where we live in the present evil age and the age to come at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a season where there's a mixture of both broken and beautiful things.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is still sin and death.
[SPEAKER_00]: in suffering, in cancer, and there's forgiveness, and there's worship, and there's peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those things are not fully here like they will be when Jesus returns, but they are here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so John leans into this understanding of the time of Christianity, where we live, when we live in redemptive history, he leans into that, and he says, when you see these false teachers,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not an oh-no, how can I live in a world where false teachers or what does that mean about the validity of my faith?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says when you see these false teachers, you know it's the last hour, meaning it doesn't undermine the truth of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus actually told us to expect these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how does that help us discern the world around us?
[SPEAKER_00]: We live, we live in the last hour of Christianity.
[SPEAKER_00]: People get really weird about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some political event will happen, and someone will say, oh, we are now in the end times.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be clear, we have been in the end times since Jesus wrote from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every generation of Christians has thought that their generation would see the end of the end, eventually one generation will be right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know what Jesus said?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus himself said, it is not for you to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're told it's the last hour, not so that we can try and discover what we don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're told it's the last hour so that we as Christians can be faithful in what we do know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So living in this season, this is, this is all you've ever known.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spoiler alert, you were born after Jesus rose from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So last hour Christianity is the only kind of Christianity you've ever known.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very long hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how it helps us discern our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should expect of your life and of this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should expect blessing and grace and beauty that you do not deserve.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you experience it, you should give thanks to God for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you should expect pain and suffering and difficulty
[SPEAKER_00]: that will not be healed until Jesus returns.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you experience it, you should pray for the return of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it's spring, there's both pollen and flowers.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last hour of Christianity is both beauty and brokenness.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the hour of a painless life.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the problems with the prosperity gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come to God and you give God your obedience and God will give you a life free of pain and God will give you all the money you want And God will give you the house you want and God will give you all the leisure you want and life with Jesus will be like this never-ending vacation Even though Jesus said if they persecuted me, they'll persecute you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not the hour of a painless life And so when you experience suffering and pain in your life, it's not that God's promise has failed
[SPEAKER_00]: This is also not the hour of despair.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're loved by God, you're loved by God.
[SPEAKER_00]: This future, on the age to come, there is a pledge of God on your life, sealed in heaven that you will live forever in that age.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the hour of despair.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is also not the hour of ease.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will not, without grace-driven effort, you will not coast towards a Christ-like, consequential, high-character life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to fight for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to contend for it, not to earn it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a grace-driven effort towards a long obedience in the same direction that there's false teachers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will not just naturally contend for the truth in your life without knowing your Bible, without prayers, of contending for God's presence in your life and in your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is also not the hour of defeat, Christ is risen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of the people are anxious about the world because they're insecure about the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian should not be anxious cynical about the kingdom of God or naive about the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in the overlap of the ages as you're trying to make sense of your life with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you're trying to make sense of the blessing in your life and the brokenness in your life,
[SPEAKER_00]: Where there's salvation and grace and worship and justice, we give thanks to God for those things and where there's cancer, in division and false teaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: We long for the return of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do both of those things tonight in our night of worship at five o'clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to pray for things going on in the world that break the heart of God and contend for Christ to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to give thanks for all that God is doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let that last hour understanding of your relationship with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let that sink deep into your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse 19.
[SPEAKER_00]: They went out from us, but they were not of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: For if they'd been of us, they would have continued with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they went out that it might become plain that they are all not of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you've been anointed by the Holy One.
[SPEAKER_00]: and you have all knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I write to you not because you don't know the truth but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is the liar?
[SPEAKER_00]: But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Antichrist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He who denies the Father and the Son.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one who denies the Son has the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot understand it unless we're clear together on what it means that Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a foundational truth that shapes our faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I ever stood on this stage and said something like this, Jesus was awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: He taught great things.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did cool things.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's spirit was with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was led by God, but he was not God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was just a man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was really special, moral, powerful, human, servant of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I ever taught that, you should start bullying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I know you don't usually make a lot of noise while I preach.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that would be the time to make some noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the time to yell, like get off the stage, or throw some cabbage, or email the elders, or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that is not Christianity.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, that's John 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of our all creation for by Him, all things are made, both visible and invisible.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Colossians 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have this mind in you which was yours in Christ, who although he existed in the form of God, didn't consider equality that God is saying to exploit.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Philippians 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sun is the radiance of God's glory, the exact imprint of His nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Hebrews 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: The true story of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: is the story of the Bible tells.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the story of the Bible tells is that God, a good God, made a good world, and that good world has been fractured by sinful, corrupt, broken humanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that same God, who made that good world entered into that world as part of the world, as a human being, Jesus of Nazareth, very God, wrapped in very real human flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it had to be that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had to be that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: If Jesus was human,
[SPEAKER_00]: but not really God, he'd be too weak to save.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would be beset by his own sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the point the book of Hebrews makes.
[SPEAKER_00]: If Jesus is just another human, the best he could do is offer sacrifices that he himself needs.
[SPEAKER_00]: If Jesus was God, but not really human, he wouldn't have a body.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wouldn't have been heaven, but no earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would have been spirit, but no flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we wouldn't get verses like he's been tempted in every way as we are yet without sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And John wouldn't start his letter and say what we have seen and heard and touched with our hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: We wouldn't have relationship with God the way we do through Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We wouldn't know God without Jesus the very image of the invisible God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the beautiful feature of the incarnation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means this because we could not get to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: God descended to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Athanasius, the church father says that this way, Christ became what we are, that he might make us what he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when John says Jesus is the Christ, it's this, it's this, theologically loaded term.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is fully God, Jesus is fully maim.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the anointed one, which means he's the one that we've been waiting for.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the one in whom salvation exists and only in him do we have salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the promises of God are fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are yes and amen in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Twice has whoever denies the Son, denies the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You missed a chance to amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to believe this to be a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what this helps us to learn.
[SPEAKER_00]: This foundational, this anchoring claim of Christianity helps us to learn who is and who is not a follower of Jesus, who is and who's not a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tease it out with a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Christianity exclusive or is it inclusive?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's both.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pay attention because we tend to emphasize one and neglect the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is both exclusive and its inclusive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to what John says, who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Antichrist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He who denies the Father and the Son.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this church, leaders are starting to teach that Jesus was not God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Likely, it's an early form of what became known as Nosticism that had this low view of the physical world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they're saying, God would never actually unite himself to human flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they began teaching the church that Jesus is not the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And John does not say, that's fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, tell me what you mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's create a special group of people in our church who believe that Jesus is the Christ and will have another group of people who believe that Jesus is not the Christ and will all just agree to disagree, but let's still get along.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, he says two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying this specifically about the false teachers who've left the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: They went out from us because they were never of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that they were Christians and stopped being Christians when they denied Christ, they revealed they were never truly Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they had been Christians, they would have remained as what he says.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, here this perseverance in the truth does not make us Christians, but all who are truly Christian will persevere in the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he gives them a title, he calls them the Antichrist.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to disappoint you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to answer about who the Antichrist is, you're going to be disappointed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about meeting right before the service starts with our worship team and one of the past who the Antichrist is and somebody said, I think the Antichrist is Daylight Savings Time, which I just appreciated.
[SPEAKER_00]: This word appears in 1st and 2nd John only and the title Antichrist is made it into all these books and movies and in my opinion a lot of that is just embellished.
[SPEAKER_00]: and fantasized.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other scriptures seem to talk about some sort of in-time figure named the Antichrist.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have more questions than I have answers for all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do not get a lot of details about who the Antichrist is.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get a ton of detail about who Jesus is, and our attention should follow that pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we just consider what's happening here, John is saying, anyone who teaches about Christ and denies the truth of Christ is literally against Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it means.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means there have been a lot of Antichrist and there will be a lot of Antichrist.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's those who teach about Jesus and disagree with what the Bible teaches about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sign of the last hour, which means you have known Antichrist or no of Antichrist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't say their names out loud.
[SPEAKER_00]: But people will try and deceive the church of Jesus about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So John says to his church, they were never truly Christians and they are against Christ, they're anti-Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: John's not worried about the numerical growth of his church in writing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's worried about something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: His church is actually shrinking in number, but growing in maturity because he's unwilling to compromise what's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you lose the exclusive claims of Christ, you no longer have a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's why some of us have a hard time with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an idea that's so prevalent around us, what matters is how people behave, not what people believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we moralize behavior while thinking beliefs are morally neutral.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the behavior of stealing is morally wrong, but what I believe about God is morally neutral, and this person over here might believe something about God, that's different than what I believe about God, and to each his own, that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: What matters is just how you live that you're kind to others or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or people go further than that, and they'll say to tell someone that their belief is wrong is itself morally wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: So who are you to tell someone that what they believe about God is wrong and what you believe about God is right, which is problematic because that's really so for feuding.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I tell you that it's wrong to tell others that what they believe is wrong, then I am telling you what you believe is wrong and you can't have it both ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we end up assigning morality to some beliefs but then not others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And John, hear me, John makes a moral claim about the people who left the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is the liar?
[SPEAKER_00]: But the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, beliefs are not morally neutral.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are beliefs about God and Jesus in life that are not just wrong, but their lies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe you don't need to hear it, but to say it plainly, it matters what we believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it matters that what we believe is right, doctrine matters, holding on, preserving that the ancient Orthodox Christianity that's been handed down for 2,000 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I have met people,
[SPEAKER_00]: who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ and they are generous and they're kind and easier to be around than some Christians I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that does not mean their life is okay and it doesn't mean they're right with God just because they're likable and that's not me trying to be judgmental.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want more for their life than just that they're easy to be around.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to know the freedom of the sin-canceling death defeating love of Jesus and that's only for those who trust that Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, in that if I don't believe that Jesus is the Christ and if I don't define that the way God does in his word that I'm not a Christian, which is the same wrong about God and I'm wrong about me and I'm wrong about wife and I'm wrong about eternity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Christian is exclusive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christianity is inclusive.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it take to who gets to believe that Jesus is the Christ?
[SPEAKER_00]: What prerequisite do you have to meet to believe that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's only for a certain ethnicity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only for Middle Eastern Jewish people because that's what Jesus was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or it's only for white people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or it's only for Americans.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: The story ends with every tribe and tongue and people and nation declaring in every language that Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christianity is the most ethnically diverse religion in the world because God entered into humanity for all of humanity, every class, every color.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only for people who have a certain story, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only for people who've never had affairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only for people who've never hated God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only for people who've never had racism in their heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only for people who've never hidden their sins from others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christianity is for those who mostly have their life together and they just need a little religion to help them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the really messy, the really broken people, the like, they're out of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Luke 5, Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the worst of the worst, according to the religious people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they complain about Jesus and Jesus says to them, it is not those who are healthy who need a doctor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But those who are sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the message, everyone's sick, except for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the only doctor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the only truly healthy human.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's two kinds of sick people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're the ones who are sick and they know they're sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're the ones who are sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they think they're healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, I came to call sinners to repentance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only ones who will miss out on that are the ones who think they don't need it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not a story in the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not a sin in the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not a lifetime of failure in the room that is outside the reach of God's gracious hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the Christ and He is a strong Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is more mercy in Him than there is sin in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Christianity is inclusive of all kinds of stories, inclusive of all kinds of backgrounds, inclusive of all kinds of sin struggles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says it this way, I am the way, the truth in the life.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one comes to the Father except through me and no one who comes through Jesus is turned away from the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's exclusive and that's only through Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's inclusive and that all who come in repentance and faith are met by this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that some people get a stronger version of grace and salvation than others.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are the two anchors.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the last hour, living in between the resurrection and return of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the foundational confession that makes us Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then listen to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, let what you heard from the beginning, this verse 24, abide in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the sun and in the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the promise that he made to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He turned a life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you, but the anointing that you receive from him abides in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have no need that anyone should teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you abide in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: A bite is residential language.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means make your home in this truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carina and our 18 years of marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have lived in two apartments and four houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the house that we're in now is the longest we've lived anywhere since we've been married.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the first house that we've had this thought about.
[SPEAKER_00]: This might be our last house.
[SPEAKER_00]: This might be the forever home for us, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We think about that home differently because of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we think this might be the house that we grow old and we may never leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: We think of it differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what John is saying when he uses this word of God, he's saying what you've heard about Jesus, don't rent it, don't sell it, don't move on from it, grow old in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: make this truth, the last truth you ever live in, remain and let it make its home in your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a heart time with this because we think old is bad and new is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are things in our life that spoil as they age and need to be thrown out.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are things that wear and tear and need to be replaced.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are things that require an update over time.
[SPEAKER_00]: John says the gospel of Jesus is not one of
[SPEAKER_00]: the original message, the original handed down from someone who handed it down to someone who handed it down to someone about Christ is enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like wedding vows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever a husband promises to a wife and a wife promises to a husband on their wedding day and sickness and in hell, if I will love you like Christ for better or for worse, those vows don't need enough date over time.
[SPEAKER_00]: When marriage gets hard, we don't need to change the vows, we need
[SPEAKER_00]: It's even more true with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 2000-year-old message does not need to evolve.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't need to change it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need it to change us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So John just says, a bite, stay there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't look for something new.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't look for something unique.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't look for an edit to it or an update to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: A bite in this old truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means we need to pay attention to the voices that we pay attention to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever has your ear controls your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: When John says, you have no need of anyone to teach you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not trying to take my job away.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, you don't need someone who comes in and teaches something new.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing insufficient or deficient about the gospel that you heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so any voice online around you, wherever, any voice that teaches,
[SPEAKER_00]: Something different about Christ than what the Bible teaches, or any voice that changes the moral commands of Christ, because often what we do is we change our beliefs to justify our behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I just believe Jesus is so loving that I can do what I want to do with my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've misunderstood love.
[SPEAKER_00]: His love is found in his grace and in his commands, because his commands are for our good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any voice that teaches something different about Christ,
[SPEAKER_00]: or any voice that changes the moral commands of Christ is lying, they're lying, do not be deceived, abide in this truth, what you've heard is enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the points of highest tension in the book of First John.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for some of us, what happens when we get to these places in the Bible of high tension is in the heart of a Christian, it creates doubt,
[SPEAKER_00]: where it was intended to create confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: The village church is preaching through the book of first John right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not planned.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just God's plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've listened to a bit of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matt is just one of my favorite preachers and he has been since I was in high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before this series started, I was talking to Matt about first John and he says, man, I'm so excited to preach the book of first John.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the first John will punch you in the mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're calling our series Blessed Assurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: We laughed about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both are true.
[SPEAKER_00]: At these points of high tension like this one, they left us because they weren't truly Christians.
[SPEAKER_00]: their liars, they are anti-Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's punchy, it's brutally honest, it's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we've said is the book will not comfort those who need to be confronted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it invites us to look out and discern what's true and false not to be a bully, but also not to be a coward, but to be humble and conventional, and hold on to what we believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at these points of highest tension, you get these verses.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have been anointed by the Holy One.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have all knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I write to you not because you don't know the truth but because you do know it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The annoying thing that you've received from him abides in you, do you hear how confident Pastor John is on behalf of his church?
[SPEAKER_00]: He is as sure of their salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a sure that their salvation is true as he is sure the false teaching is a lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's this beautiful play on words here.
[SPEAKER_00]: A nointing comes from the same word as Christ, that's the same root word, it's Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Christ literally means the anointed one, the chosen one, the set of part one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what he's saying is the same anointing given to Jesus has been placed on us by the Spirit of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means the chosen one has chosen you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not beloved, you are not anti-Christ, you are literally in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you live in the last hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus has come and He will come again and you believe that Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Salvation is in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the God-man, the only one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remain in that truth, abide in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let it sink deep in your life and know this, know this, that you believe all of that, because the anointed one has set His mark of love on your life and that will never fail.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are kept safely and securely in the Father's hands because of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's my prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Use your word.
[SPEAKER_00]: to help us discern what's true, around us, and about us, God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, friend, would you just spend some time in prayer before the Lord?
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, we are living in an hour of brokenness and beauty,
[SPEAKER_00]: long for the return of Christ, give thanks for all that is good and beautiful and true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think there's just something so simple and grounding about praying to God in this moment and just confessing, Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe Jesus that you are the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you believe that, would you just pray that to God, even now?
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God,
[SPEAKER_00]: entered into humanity, fully God, and fully man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is no salvation apart from Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot see God clearly without Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing will heal this world, but Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe, that's a new belief for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe you believe that for a really long time, and it would just do your heart good to say to God, I still believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still believe, after all these years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Lord, we love you, we want to make our home in these truths.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to make our home in the false promises of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to be constantly searching but never finding.
[SPEAKER_00]: A sermon like this, verses like these, just have a way of increasing doubt in our soul, just pray that we could receive.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not the source of our own salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the source of our salvation, Lord Jesus, and our security is as strong as the source.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just help us believe that
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not against you, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've shared in your choosing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us Lord God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.