Harden interview with Matthew McConaughey the other day and he was talking about his dad his dad died suddenly at a pretty young age in his fifties and He died from a hard-tank complicated from years of smoking and And Matthew was shocked because his dad went to see the doctor every year Faithfully went in for a checkup every year and every year he would come home from the doctor and they said what do you say? What do you say and and every year is that would say doctor told me I have a young the lungs of a 25-year-old man I should just keep doing what I'm doing and so when his dad died Matthew was just furious and then the East Texas way That he went and found the doctor and he's a small town doctor's a dangerous job And and they were gonna he and his brother were gonna beat him up and and the doctor said what he goes Why didn't you tell my dad and he was sick and and the doctor said I've been telling your dad for 30 years if he didn't stop smoking he's gonna die and He didn't do it Doctors to just give you a diagnosis. That's all what you do with it is up to you How you respond to it is up to you? They're just reading objectively what's on the chart. It's not an insult, right? It is just telling you what is on the chart. It is telling you the objective truth John this letter that he's written to us is a lot like a doctor's diagnosis. It is an objective truth And sometimes it's hard met words and sometimes it's easy, but it is just truth and He writes it with a lot of passion and energy because he has He has too real kind of pastoral Just drives that they're pushing him on one hand He wants people to know he wants his children his spiritual children to know that they know the father that they are friends with God He doesn't want them struggling and wondering about their assurance of salvation. He doesn't want them doubting whether or not they were they are on good standing with God He doesn't want them going to bed at night terrified of dying in their sleep and possibly being cast into hell He wants them to know to know he says this at the beginning of the letter and again at the very last one of the very last Verses of the letter I've written these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life That you may know that you know the father And secondly he wants his people to know the difference between true teachers and false teachers He's concerned because there's there's these sharp people these people with with the right clothes and the right words and And they're they're drawing attention to themselves and they're drawing a following and he wants them to him his people to be able to To discern who to follow who to listen to and who not to listen to and so it gives them three tests There's three ways for you to know whether someone is in fellowship with the father or not There's three ways to know whether someone is in Jesus or not. First of all He says there's a holiness test God's people are like him people who are Connected to Jesus who are in Christ are growing increasingly like him. They become like Jesus. It's not that hard Secondly, there's a love test just as Jesus came Demonstrating his love pouring his love out for us. So those who are in Christ poor love out for each other and Thirdly, there's a truth test That anyone who denies that Jesus that God is coming to flesh anyone who denies that the true son of God is One and the same with Jesus Christ. They're not they're not someone to be should be followed You don't have to follow them. You don't have to listen to them anymore And so we're going to go through those three tests over the next this week in the next two weeks and I want those Same pastoral lessons to get into your heart. I want you to know I want you to have that assurance that joy that piece of conscience that comes from knowing that you are Safely within God's family and I want you to to be growing in these things And so today we're going to look at this very simple point That those who are in Christ look like Jesus If you are in Christ you were going to be growing in holiness Your character matters Your character matters please stand As you read from God's Word from 1 John chapter 2 And we see it to be true that what my mom always said your character is your destiny You're the Word of the Lord My little children I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin But if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for those sins of the whole world and by this We know that we've come to know him if we keep his commandments Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments as a liar and the truth is not in him But whoever keeps his word in him the love of God is perfected by this we may know that we are in him Whoever abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked And later in the same chapter he says do not love the world or the things in the world If anyone loves the world the love of the world is not the love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world The desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride and possessions They're not from the Father but from the world and the world is passing away along with all this desires But whoever does the will of God abides forever That's far the reading of God's word all men are like grass And all of our glories like the flowers the field the grass withers and the flowers fall but not God's word God's word stands forever. You may be seated if anyone is in Christ He's going to be growing more and more like Christ if anyone is in Jesus. He will walk as Jesus walked It's just an objective fact, right? It's not again to go back to the doctor illustration. He's not giving us an opinion You know, it's those of us who grew up watching he hall. Remember that the doctor skid on he hall Junior sampled walk in the doctor look at him say Junior you're overweight Junior would say I want a second opinion Okay, you're ugly too Right, that's not an opinion the doctor's not giving you an opinion He's looking at a chart and he's looking at the number on the scale and he's saying this is not healthy God a John is not trying to give us an opinion. He is just saying flatly Declareatively, he's not scolding you He's not trying to get you to act better He's not trying to to whip you into line He's just stating an objective declarative fact if you're in the grammar Everyone who is in Christ lives like Christ Everyone who is friends with God obeys God's law, of course If you are in Christ and all those things that seemed Boring and nonsensical and almost childish to you before you are in Christ now seem to be the words of life They they they're important their their vibrant. They're true. They're alive If you're in Christ, and of course you're growing in grace You're becoming more merciful You're becoming more compassionate You're becoming more loving You're seeing an increase in your soul of hope and joy and peace and kindness If you're in Christ, and of course you tell the truth of course truthfulness matters if you're in Christ of course you're sexually chased Of course you respect other people well enough to enough to be to respect their sexuality If you're in Christ, of course you're humble You've seen yourself as the the chief of sinners the one who is responsible for the death of God himself Of course you're growing in humility You don't need anybody to tell you to be humble if you're in Christ of course you're you're increasing in sobriety and you're you're moving forward in those things It got it saying that these things are just objective fact true of all Christians and It's important to him Because you see if you're not if you're not growing in holiness Let's put it like this if the spirit of God is unable to transform your heart Why in the world you would you believe you they able to transform the grave? If the spirit of God is not able to bring you out of your sin Why in the world would you think you was able to bring you out of death? If he's not able to resurrect your soul Why are you trusting him to resurrect your body if it's not true? If you're not changed if you're not transformed if you're not growing in holiness Then Jesus isn't real and that's important to John He says it right in the first few verses. This is real When I'm telling you I saw it I Touched it. It's real. I'm not making it up This is not a legend. It's not a Bible story. It's not a bedtime story It's real and if it's not transforming you then it's not real in you It's not in you because the stuff I'm telling you is real. I Can't tell you about your heart, but I can tell you that this stuff is real. It's true What's going on in your life should be a visible sign of this invisible truth if you're alive It should be obvious, you know when when people join our church We have them sit down with an elder and eat lunch and talk and tell their story and tell the story of And really what the elders trying to find out is are you alive and Christ are not and You know some people always kind of coach people a little bit and say You know if you want to go back and tell me the original story that's fine. I love testimony stories I will be interested. I won't even be faking interest. I am actually interested to know how you became a Christian But that's not the point of this lunch What I want to know is do you have a pulse? Are you alive? Is God in a alive in you today? Right if you were to walk into my office and find me laying on the ground not moving and you were wondering if I was dead or not You wouldn't go and look for my birth certificate You wouldn't go look for baby pictures and wonder if I was really born You would check for a pulse you check to see if I was breathing Do you want to say in the growth and righteousness is your pulse? If you're not increasing in the fruit of the spirit then you're not breathing It's just an objective statement now why why is he saying this is what what's his point? What why is he bothering to say this? I think there's three reasons he wants to say this to his one is to encourage us in the struggle All right, it's encourages in the struggle. It's hard growing in righteousness It's hard to struggle against sin every day I thought it would be easier by now. I'm 51 years old. I thought it'd be better than this. I Thought that the things that I've been struggling with since my teens would be don't gone by now and they're not it's hard And sometimes you just need to be encouraged about that just because something is hard doesn't mean it's wrong Sometimes we need to be encouraged that just because something is a struggle doesn't mean it's not worthwhile One day not too long ago I woke up and I was convinced I had to flew my body was just sore I Just had this this body soreness that was odd. I never had experienced it before and I couldn't figure out what was wrong So I thought my flu is going around. I probably got to flew and I took my temperature and I didn't have a fever and I didn't have a headache I didn't have a call for anything It's like this doesn't seem like the flu and I went to find my wife It's like I feel just sick. I feel terrible, but I don't have any symptoms other than that my body's just aching as you said Well you went to the gym yesterday for the first time in years. Oh Yeah Muscle soreness. That's what that feels like Using my body I Needed to be encouraged just because I was soared. It didn't mean I was sick Just trying to encourage us. I Want to encourage you The only way you're going to lose this struggle with sin is If you quit fighting It's if you quit trying You'll keep fighting You'll win because you're in Christ You're in Christ I think the second reason is John wants to He wants to protect us from false teachers. That's throughout the book He's concerned about false teachers even says my my children You've heard that false Messiah that false Christ are coming. I'm telling you they are already here They're everywhere That they're all around us And you want us to know how to to Protect ourselves from them and who to listen to and who not to and it's hard to just listen to all the words that somebody can say And these people are eloquent. They were eloquent two thousand years ago. They're eloquent today And you listen to them and you start kind of going in circles and John says don't worry about that. Just look at their life How are they living What what kind of life where are they producing? This happened I use this several years ago and it was interesting when I was a young guy at a seminary young guy That's a seminary love to read and love new ideas love new things and so there's this kind of new New way of thinking about justification how we're saved in Christ And and everybody just love to talk about and they love to talk about it And I was at a meeting of campus ministers and they were all just talking about talking about They asked me what I thought and I said, you know, I haven't read much on it But I'll tell you this. I know several churches that teach this doctrine and they are the most divisive Self-righteous churches have ever been and I don't want anything to do with them These churches are all splitting their divisive. They the men are arrogant and terrible to their wives And and I don't want to be part of that and they looked at me and they said well that's an ad hominem argument We're not talking about the people We're talking about their doctrine And then I asked well when Jesus said you'll know a false prophet by his fruit Was that ad hominem Look at what their life is like. Do you want to be like this person? If you don't want to be like this person Why are you listening to them? That's the scary thing to say when I'm the person you're listening to But I'm willing to be I'm willing to live under that standard I'm no choice John is telling them that if you're in Christ you are living like Christ live You're walking like Christ walked so that they'll be encouraged as they struggle for holiness so that they will that will be protected from false teachers and so And so if you're not You'll know Right it that's important It's important that you know why well he tells us right here in the beginning He says my children. I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin but If you do you have Jesus He's there praying for you. He's advocating for you. He has already made the sacrifice for you God's not angry at you anymore He's not angry at you anymore If you're if you look at this the standard and you say no, there's no standard at which you would say I'm growing in honesty or Inchacity or in graciousness or in mercy or in charity I'm not growing in those things. I'm I'm growing more covetous not more generous. I'm growing more More angry not kinder Then come back to Jesus come to him who's a propitiation who is the sacrifice for our sins come to him who's the sacrifice for the sins of the world and Know that your father's not angry Your father's not angry His anger has been Set aside his wrath has been satisfied Okay, I'm gonna have a pastoral heart to heart with you for a second. I know that I'm easy to fool. I Kind of think it's my job to be naive It's a little weird way to say it, but I think it's true I know there's always been and always will people and be be people in this church and in every church Who make an absolute mockery of the word of God and make a mockery of the Lord suffer and Come and take it without an ounce of faith and I want you to know that I'm gonna leave that up to you weekend and week out and if you tell me that you are Prepare to take the Lord suffer. I'm not gonna send a private investigator out after you Now I'm gonna do that. I'm not gonna tell you at night. I'm not gonna try to figure out what time you get home It's not my job. I just want you to know it makes me sad It makes me sad because I believe that your soul is a real thing And I want you to know that you're destroying it and it makes me sad that you're not raised up with Christ in this life and that you won't be in death And it makes me sad that you're showing that you're revealing Every day of your life that you've not been born again in God and you're still a slave to the evil one And I'm asking you the same way I would ask any addict see yourself as you are see yourself as you are Confess your weakness Confess your loss of control Confess your inability to make things better yourself Confess your inability to do anything about it and come to the Father. He's not mad Let him cleanse you let him put his arms around you let him put his coat around you let him throw you a party Come home Let him put a spirit in you you can stop Sinning you can stop growing worse you don't have to to give in to a future of bitterness and anger and and corruption You can have life a better one than you'd ever imagined Come on Come on and for those who are not Away from home John gives this encouragement, right? Those who listen to the doctor's diagnosis I went in one time and she said my doctor said you're a Diabetic time bomb ready to go off just ticking. I can hear it ticking and I chose not to ignore her Okay What do I do? And so we come to John and we say what do we do? Okay, we want to be in Christ We want to be growing in these things. What do we do? And he says guard your heart Guard your heart it's fascinating. You're straight for the heart he says No, I have my bulletin he says do not love the world or the things in the world if anyone loves the world The love of the father's not in him. It's fascinating. He goes there honestly and the reason why I'm fascinated by that is because Gee, what do you know? That's the same thing I used to see when I was a minister. I still have a minister Once somebody has hit their heart on something your brain and your body are useless to prevent it. You know that right Once you've set your heart on something All your brain is good for it to figure out ways to justify it. I Mean it goes for everything right goes for Boyfriends and girlfriends used to have girls come to me boys come to me and university settings and their eyes were glassed over I'm dating so and so I'm thinking about dating so I'm thinking about dating so and so what do you think? I'm just like I think it's whatever I say is worthless is what I think you've already decided That that ship is sailed You know, I've watched a I read an article once it said best things to eat when you're having insomnia And I struggled with insomnia sometimes and it said cereal Because of the milk that was in it. So for some reason it didn't say drink milk It's an eat cereal So for the next three years man 11 o'clock at night was cereal time Right, I'm just like I'm justifying this terrible terrible dietary habits because I found something to My heart was set on it. So my brain is reached back there. Oh, yeah, you read that article that time. Let's eat And he says watch your heart Don't set your heart on the pleasures of the world you will always justify it Don't set your heart on sexual immorality or drunkiness or gluttony or laziness You will always justify it. You'll always think you deserve it Don't don't set your heart on the on the beautiful things of the world the cars and the homes and the clothes and the bodies. Oh, the bodies How many millions of dollars are spent in Tulsa alone every year? Just trying to keep that beautiful body and it will always fail because it's withering away
Don't set your heart on the pride of life Pride of life. You know what that means? See there's two different reasons why you want an expensive car three reasons, right? You comfort that's flesh or You know beauty is pretty or if you're like me, I want an expensive car because I want you to know that I'm better than you That's pride of life. I Don't really care about having a big house. It's just more room. I just almost there for my wife to clean. Oh, that was mean Oh, can we take that out of the tape? I Don't really care about having a big house is more rude to clean, but I want a big house because I want you to know that I've won It's pride of life a one Don't set your heart on those things. You'll justify them You'll justify them And they're just destined to destroy you because all those things are passing away your body's going to wither and fall All those things are so proud of they're going to get rusty and dirty and they're going to pass away What does he say he says the world is passing away along with his desires But whoever does the will of God abides forever Watch your heart Watch your heart Setting your your your heart on those things is going to lead you to destruction It's going to lead you to shipwreck because because they're going to fail And God will do whatever necessary to bring you back home So it's so much easier just not to leave and to begin with Please pray with me Father in heaven, we confess that our hearts are prone to wander we feel it And we go after every little thing I feel like my heart is a dog chasing after squirrels It's constantly wanting what it can't have Did you forgive me and father would you convince me that the only thing I need I can't have I Can have you and you're the only savior out there this willing to the give his son for me Would you convince us all of that praying Jesus name? Amen