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Not Ashamed at His Coming, Part 3

February 13, 2013 • Pastor Star R. Scott

Hallelujah! Amen. Let's turn to 1 John, and also the Gospel of John. We'll look at a couple of passages and just continue our study. One of the great admonitions out of this first epistle of John is that if we have that hope of His soon coming, we'll purify ourselves even as He is pure. Amen? "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" (1 John 3:3). And so, as we really see the day that's upon us, the admonition for us is to allow this cleansing in our life. We know that the cleansing comes only by the Word of God and the blood of Jesus. Amen? As we go to the Word of God, the cleansing doesn't come from the study of the Word of God, but the obedience to the Word of God. Don't you want to be able to obey it more every day? Every aspect of the lordship of Jesus, the truth, the revelation truth, of the Word of God--we have a heart for that--and as we pursue, the Scripture says that one of the great things that will happen in our lives is that, as we work in obedience, as we submit our lives, it will begin to work in us a habitual strength that begins to be experienced, and that experience, as it works in us, is something that is allowing us, then, to become habitual doers. We begin to mature.

This is what many of us are striving for. Many are just looking for sanctification, and sanctification is that process. It's not just an individual work, where once we're sanctified we can begin to coast. Once we're sanctified, we begin to see how much we lack, how much more we need the grace of God, how much more we need to pursue, how much more we need to study and to pray. So we want to look at some of those factors as we go on in this study. In John's Gospel, the first chapter, we want to look at a few verses there, and, of course, over into the third chapter of John, and then we'll go right back to the epistle. We all know that John, that Apostle that was called the Beloved and the Scripture says Jesus loved this man. Isn't that quite a statement about him? There are not a lot of references to that, but this man was loved of Jesus. What do you think it was that caused that affection from the Master? Do you think it was his works, his outward works? It seems like Peter was more of a worker, doesn't it? Martha was a worker, but Mary chose the greater part, didn't she? I believe John was that man...