07 - Walking In Faithfulness (Not Worldliness)

1 John 2:15-17

July 24, 2022 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • 1 John 2:15–17

Few things are more devastating than watching someone walk away from the faith because they love the world and the things of the world more than they do Jesus Christ. John implies in 1 John 2:15-17 that if you are not abiding in Christ then you are abiding in the world. And unlike Christ who reigns eternally, the world will not. It is going to pass away one day and along with it all its desires, lusts, hedonism, and secularism. And when that day comes, in whom or in what will you be found connected to? Will you be found connected to the world by your love for it or will you be found abiding in Christ by your love for him? John pleads with all men everywhere: Don’t love the world. Instead, love Christ and hate what he hates.

01 - Introduction: Walking In Truth & Love

May 29, 2022 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann

The three small letters written by the apostle John—1-3 JOHN—were written to the third-generation church in around Asia minor who had lost the conviction of the first-generation church (and even struggled to maintain the beliefs of the second-generation church). John saw flagrant deceptions accepted as gospel truth and a lazy church that was slow to correct and quick to capitulate. Out of his remarkably retentive memory—no doubt quickened, inspired, and energized by the Holy Spirit—John wrote 1-3 JOHN to remind his readers about what it means to walk worthily in the manner of Christ.

02 - The Word Of Life

June 5, 2022 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • 1 John 1:1–4

In the person of Jesus Christ there appears to be a living dichotomy, where two contrasting things exist in one man at the same time. That is, Jesus has both a divine nature and human nature. As such, he is the God-man who, as the 'word of life', brings life everlasting to those who believe in him as the Word of God made flesh. But how, exactly, does this wonderful truth affect and effect believers? In 1 John 1:1-4, the apostle John reminds us that the 'word of life' allows us to be in fellowship and communion with God whereby the life and likeness of Christ in us becomes more evident to those around us.

03 - Walking In The Light

June 19, 2022 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • 1 John 1:5–10

To have genuine fellowship with a holy God, we must walk in the light, as God Himself is in the light. It’s easy to claim to have fellowship with God—as so many self-deceived people do—but it’s another thing altogether for it to be true. And so, in 1 John 1:5-10, the apostle John provides a litmus test that, to his inspired way of thinking, was sure to separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares, the straw from the chaff, and the authentic from the inauthentic. Let he who has ear to hear, let him hear!