The Best Of 123John Vol. 2 S26e4

Our allegiance to God should result in evidence. The Children resemble the family. We should be in a new relationship with sin: NOT making a practice of it. NOT being in the habit of it. Agreeing with God by being horrified by it.

Then, we take this internal transformation outside.  We love the sisterhood. We love the knuckleheads God has placed around us in the church. Our behavior should leave a trail of the breadcrumbs. This trail of tenderness acts as a witness to ourselves, to our brothers and those not yet in the family. It probably will be sacrificial, inconvenient, and frustrating.

The way we are going to pull all of this off is by ABIDING in God: staying with Him, remaining, lodging with and relying on Him. This is the engine He's provided to empower the love of the brotherhood. bewithme.us for more BEST OF tomorrow. I so appreciate your ear and your soul.

Transcript

Michael Smith: 0:00

Good morning, my brothers and sisters Welcome to episode number four and season 26 of be with me where we're reviewing the books of first second, third job today we're primarily going to do chapters three and chapter four, a First John, it talks in chapter three, that no one who abides in Him keeps on sinning No, of course, everybody's sin but our relationship changes with sin after we become a believer and belief should be demonstrated by external behavior. So Chris, big sound bite for First John is Christian is as Christian does. And it's not that there's no sin, but it's different relationship with sin. It's not making a habit of it not practicing it as the way it's it said that it means to be horrified by it. Why? Because we're swallowed by the love of God. So this inconsistent behavior of sinning is going to be so offensive to ourselves. And it's inconsistent with the family life of being in the family of God. So making a practice of sinning is not going to be abiding. And we're going to talk about that a little bit later. One of the big keys of first John's mentioned 16 times in the book. So if you're, if your ongoing practice of Sin means you're not abiding in the Lord. So the big point is that allegiance results in evidence, and his children are the children of God are supposed to resemble the family is supposed to resemble the Father, father. So not practicing sin, not making it habit and continuance in this process in the family of God in the process of wrestling with sin, and being horrified by it. continuance is the test of reality. So God's transformation to all these people is going to give evidentiary behave behavior, and not the least of which is going to be what we do with sin, and then what we do with love for the Brotherhood love for the knucklehead, if you will. Alright, so So why would we be doing business with sin? Well, it's worth it in, it allows us access to the real precious things that the Lord has for us. And that is two things, the person of God and the people of God, so we should be loving one another and loves going to be a fruit that we are after. So God is, is after evidences to ourselves, and the world, that the Brotherhood loves one another. Now, ironically, this love for God and love for the Brotherhood is going to result of something from the world, which is hostility. And chapter three talks about hate that the world is going to hate the Brotherhood. So the funny thing is, is that the love of the Brotherhood love of the Lord, His love for us is going to end up with the world kind of getting this wrong and hating us. So why, why are we supposed to be bathed in love? Well, is because Jesus first resembled loved, or Jesus loved first, and we resemble him in it. So first John 316. By this we know love that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. So by this we know that love. So true transformation is going to leave a trail of tenderness, a trail of behaviors, and it's going to probably be sacrificial, and physical and emotional, and fatiguing. Inconvenience our interior, you know, theoretical love for God is going to be known by the exterior love for the Brotherhood. And if one follows the breadcrumbs, of the trail of tenderness that we exhibit by her life, it should lead that person back to our love for God. So it should be rooted in my relationship with him and therefore be a witness. So our interior love is proven by exterior action. Now who is approved to? Well, first of all, to it's proven to me, so my capacity and our capacity for self deception is relatively infinite. Now God's capacity for deception is zero. He knows what's up. 320 says, For whenever our heart condemns us, so let's listen as the Lord may convict us, let's embrace conviction, let's run to it. You know, there's something worse than the Lord's, you know, uncomfortable conviction and that is his indifference. Don't let's let's not go there. And then 323 And this is the commandment that we believe in the name of his son in Jesus, His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He has commanded us, whoever keeps His commandments abides in God and God in him. And by this we know he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us. So that's from 323, then it's this miracle of fellowship that these knuckleheads are my people, because why do I get the church? Well, that because God, they're God's people. And then we get this miracle of indwelling, which is help, conviction, illumination, bringing to knowledge, all these things, and then we get the Lord's advocacy and his interceding and he basically gives us His presence. Alright, chapter four, Chapter Four opens up with no rainbows, that is that spirits need to be tested. So Jesus is not optional. He is essential in every spirit that does not confess the real Jesus is not from God, that's from four three, so we shouldn't be afraid, because of these other spirits. Because greater is he was in you than he was in the world. That's four, four. And we have the mega god, that's the word graders, he, we have the mega spirit. And you know, the, in the podcast, I said that this was my dad's bigger than your dad. So he's bigger in size and volume and significance and strength. And our response should also be large, large of worship. For eight says that anyone who does not let anyone who's not loved does not know God, because God is love. So God's love is his primary. It's in his DNA. It's from God, it spills out of him. And it's best seen in Jesus and then it's best seen in us for our love for the people that God love first. So the primary way we demonstrate that we've gotten the love message from God is if we are that we're really family is we should be loving his people and loving the visible Prusa proves loving the invisible. And this will obviously require interesting, the invisible because loving the visible, it's kind of difficult, sometimes we're going to need to abide with him abiding is a word that's used 16 times in First John, it means to remain and stay and live with enlarge with and reside with, and wait for him. So, first, John is about showing me how can I love God by loving his people? And how am I going to do that? I'm going to do that by abiding in him relying on him, so loving the people he has for you. And Christianity. Here in first, John is for lovers, first that were loved by God, and then that we are loving the people of God with a mechanism of help that he has given us which is to abide with him. Thanks for listening.