1 John
Calvary Chapel Cherry Creek
1 John 4 vs 17-21
April 28, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 4:17–21
1 John Chapter 4 Verse 17 · So as He is, so are we in the eyes of the Father. Completely true, isn’t it? That because of what Jesus has done for me, stood in my place and paid the price for my sin, I now stand in his place, I am now a son of God, made perfect in the eyes of God, forgiven of my sin. Entirely true. And I think that’s just great! As thankful as I am for that today, when I meet my Maker, I will be far more thankful!! And, that’s interestingly not what John said here. He said, so as He is, so are we (supposed to be) in this world. Check this out, I want to be like Jesus before the Father, but I don’t want to be like Jesus before my brother? I am a hypocrite! Doesn’t make sense…. Sort of a wake-up call! · This whole verse is an incredibly important verse! Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” For the one that has rejected Jesus Christ, that judgment is unto condemnation, that is the consequence, the outcome, of presenting sin to God when it is your time. It wasn’t dealt with, the sin, my debt of righteousness remains, and so there remains no other option but to repay the debt yourself… · For the one that has received the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the payment for their own debt of sin, there is a judgment that awaits that person as well however that is a judgment unto eternal rewards and eternal identity. Who you will be and what will be your role in the coming Kingdom of God. Your sin was dealt with 2,000 years ago, no sin to present in the presence of God… · We see this in John 5:24, 28-29, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” · So, for you, (this question for you has nothing to do with me, and this question for me has nothing to do with you), for you, when the day comes as it will come for all, Jesus accepters and Jesus rejecters alike, when the day comes for you to stand in judgment face to face with God, what will be your confidence? · John uses the word boldness. It means wide-openness. Complete voluntary and comfortable transparency. Free and fearless and full of assurance… You arrive at the moment where you are to be judged by God and you are like YESSSSS! I’ve been waiting for this!!!! · To be quite clear, that is the highest goal. Forget the money you made in life, the position you achieved, the successful business, the solid marriage, the faithful ministry, the fruitful investments…, this is the most important goal and its one that so few are living for… Isn’t that nutso!?!? · And oh my my my my MY! John, tell me, Lord show me, God teach me, what is it, what’s the strategy, what’s the vision, mission, goals, and values, what is the method, procedure, policy and program for having this greatest day of excitement, this most important day in all my existence, this boldness and confidence when I stand in my own eternal judgment? · Perfect attendance at church? Memorization of the Bible? Strict legalistic living in accordance with the Word of God? A life of serving in the church? Should I be sure to drink my Ovaltine!? HA! NO! Revelation! The mission, vision, strategy, values to achieve the highest goal… Its. All. Love… Agape. The one thing this world lacks the most, needs the most, understands the least! To love and to serve those that are living, doing, saying and thinking not how I want them to! Deploying care and light and love into the world, one way, because as He is, so are we in this world… · When you are loving and caring for someone who is living and doing and saying things you yourself would never say! In fact, what they are doing is horrific to you personally and yet you are willing to lay down your life for them…, your rights, your emotions, your own convictions, to love them…, at that moment you are more like Jesus than you could be in any other scenario! · And when I show up face to face with Jesus, we won’t first talk about all the things, we will talk about love. And honestly, I’m saying this for me and this has nothing to do with you, honestly, I cannot wait for that moment! I am SO excited for that moment! Emotions aside, affections aside, to love through being used or rejected or hated or misunderstood or taken for granted, I fortunately and unfortunately am well acquainted… And I will be more acquainted the more God allows me to live because I am living for that goal. · Not saying I’ve been perfect in this… Certainly haven’t. But this is between Him and I…, and God sees it all, and nothing is lost, He knows… And because He knows, I cannot wait for the day when the accounting is called due and I have what I have to offer Him! Boldness!!!!! · Jesus, you forgave my sin and so I approach you without fear… That’s the next verse…, AND the more I was able to learn agape, the more I applied it and it was horrible….! HA! But it was for You. And it was because of the horrible you endured for Me…. That’s how its going to go and I can’t wait for that moment!! How about you? 1 John Chapter 4 Verses 18 – 19 · Receiving and registering what has been done for you in Jesus Christ erases the fear of standing face to face with God the Father. In other places in scripture, we are told to fear God but that is an entirely different fear. That is reverence, respect, dignification toward God that He is God and I am not! And we know that because John describes this fear in 1 John 4 as involving torment. This is fear that invites and incites hopelessness… · So, because of what Jesus has done, accepting that, understanding that, grasping that, I know that I am going to stand in front of God justified by the blood of Jesus. Just as if I’d never sinned… AND, this is also a present fear of understanding that God loves me…, so I can rest in hope about tomorrow, even when the season is rough. · Check this out, God corrects, chastens, disciplines those that are His children. And that discipline isn’t pleasant (you’ll find all of this in the book of Hebrews), but knowing that His love for me is perfect, fear fails… God, I trust you because You love me! And His integrity and promises comfort me… · And the completing, John uses the word perfecting, of that love in us, this boldness in us is when we do stop and realize that we love the Lord for all that He is and all that He is done and what He has done for us and yet there’s an epiphany that rolls in…, the only reason I even love Him is because He initiated it all… What manner of amazing grace, stunning love is this!? And a settling takes place… Because God’s love for me predates my faithfulness, my obedience, my religion! 1 John Chapter 4 Verses 20 – 21 · It certainly isn’t what we say, is it? Its what I do that expresses the reality of my experience. In Luke 18 the rich young ruler (everything going for him) came to Jesus and yet he went away sorrowful and he himself was lacking in his heart of hearts, why? Because it came down to he didn’t love others… Or maybe that’s not fair, maybe he did love others, he just loved what he had more… · And so, this thing about love isn’t just a commandment for religious purposes…, to please and appease God…, all of the commandments of God (of which this one is primary) is truly to set us free, to complete us and to prepare us for the most important day in all of our lives…, when we pass from this very very very temporary very difficult very unfair very fallen ridiculous version of reality into life that is eternally what it will be…
1 John 4 vs 12-16
April 21, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 4:12–16
The entire reason for human creation is to deploy love into the world. This is why you and I are here… to do this one thing. To love God and to love others. When you step into that/your purpose, your heart of hearts illuminates with life. Galatians 5:22-25, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” And from love, deploying this love of God into the world through your life, your choice, not an emotion but an action, a disciplined decision, through love comes, “joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is not law.” Why? Because this is actually the eternal purpose of life! “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” so lust has taken a back- seat to love, “If we live in the Spirit,” revelation that is where life is…, living in the Spirit, “let us also walk in the Spirit…” Verse 9 of 1 John 4, defines love for us. Every heart on every chocolate wrapper, movie label, fashion article, none of those things are love…, they are all something else… We use the word lust as lust is desire for someone or something else and in the terms of relationship, it is entirely reciprocal. I love you because you love me. I serve you because you make me happy. Make me feel a certain way. I want you, I need you, I yearn for you…, all of that the world calls love and its not. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, its just self-centered…, its not love. Love was painted for us that while we were yet against God, Christ died for us. Verse 10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and (action) sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation is a big word but it essentially means that while we were without, Jesus went and gained us favor in the righteousness and holiness of God. Propitiation explains that I did not win the heart of God, but the Jesus won the heart of God for man! Another big word used in some scholarly circles is expiation. Same thought, that while we were yet terrible (not you, not me specifically, creation as a whole), God Himself made atonement for all of the wrongs ever committed… It means literally that Jesus has “robbed all sin of their validities and significance!” So, love was painted. It was defined. Love is not to demand that you affirm me. Love is not to take something from you so that I can have something. Love is not to reciprocate affection. Love is to care for another when they care nothing about you… The world knows nothing of this love, and that is why Jesus has filled you with His Spirit so that you and I can deploy this kind of love into this dark and tortured world. And remember, when you decide to do this, this is when you take all of the control back of and over yourself from the world, the enemy and the flesh (exiting the law of reciprocal affection – because with the life in the spirit, there is no law, only freedom)! 1 John Chapter 4 Verses 12 Is that right? What about Moses who saw God face to face? Exodus 33:11 says, “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” What about Jacob who saw God? Genesis 32 tells us that Jacob wrestled with God, like physical wrestling match, all night until the breaking of day. What about Job who said in Job 42:5, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You?” There are others as well including Elijah, Gideon, Manoah and his wife (the parents of Samson). So, what’s going on here…? Because it is clear in 1 John and in Exodus 33:20 God says Himself, “No man shall see Me, and live.” First of all, why? I could preach for the next 5 hours and not be able to do anything more than this next statement in terms of explanation. God is infinite. The human eyeball is flesh and it is finite. God, Yahweh, is spirit and He is infinite. My eye could no more contain the vision of God than a thimble could contain the oceans… God’s glory is so beyond all things that simply looking upon Him would melt me in my moccasins! And, all these folks in the Bible saw God…, what’s going on? John tells us the answer… John 1:18, “No one has seen God at any time,” written after Moses, Gideon, Elijah…, “The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” That word means “interpreted.” Colossians 1:15 says of Jesus, “He is the image of the invisible God.” And so, who did Moses speak with? God? Yes… the preincarnate Person of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune God. You see, the Bible, if you can’t perceive the triune fact of the Almighty God, the Bible really itself falls apart. To be a biblical Christian you must be a trinitarian because no one can see God and live and yet we see Jesus who was from the beginning, was God AND was with God, and interpreted all things, revealed all things about God when He stepped into His own creation. AND, there’s a dig here from John. This in context is a defense against false teachers. Yea the bible says this, yea Paul says that, but I HAVE SEEN God…, and so I have the real story. Wolf. That person is trying to make you follow them…, where as someone pointing you to the Word of God is pointing you to Jesus. 1 John Chapter 4 Verse 12 (Again) In context, these two sentences together, this is what we just read. The world is to see God in and through how we love one another. The single purpose for my life at its simplest signification is to deploy love into this fallen and loveless world. Love is our greatest commandment and also it is each of ours and everyone’s greatest need. And ALL sin is a result of me not loving God or me not knowing that I am loved by God. 1 John Chapter 4 Verse 13 A couple of things here. John uses the phrase “we know” over and over again in his letters. We are to know that we have eternal life. Settled, secured, absolute. Many groups and religions out there and even Christians, ask them if they are going to heaven, and the response you get is, “I hope so.” Stop hoping. Read your Bible. Know… And one of the ways to know that you are truly saved is that you have a heart, a desire and hopefully mature into actions this act of loving one another. Fulfilling your purpose in life. What you were created to do… John says that loving one another, he links it to being filled with the Holy Spirit…, which is having God Himself abiding in you… 1 John Chapter 4 Verses 14 – 16 Just for a moment, lets talk about the Holy Spirit. Is the Holy Spirit a He or is He an it? A force or a Person? As you study and learn and observe what we can know from the Bible about the Holy Spirit, it is impossible to conclude anything other than the Holy Spirit is not a force but must be a He. Why? Because He exhibits the characteristics of a Person. The Holy Spirit Himself speaks. 1 Timothy 4:1, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” Hebrews 3:7, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice…” The Holy Spirit can be lied to. Acts 5:3, Peter says to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit experiences personal grief as we read in Ephesians 4:30, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” He speaks, He acts, He works, He reveals, He teaches, He convicts, He helps, He gives, none of those things describe a force or an it… AND, countless scriptures cast Him equal in all ways to the Father and to the Son…. Just one example, back to Acts 5:3-4, “But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”” So, is the Holy Spirit a Person? Absolutely. And John says that God has given us of His Spirit and that Spirit is love and he who abides in love abides in God. Abide means mixed, we are both on the title to the house, it’s a done deal. So, as we close, one more thought? Can a Christian be possessed? Absolutely! Possessed by the Spirit of God! In fact, that’s what the Bible says being Christian even IS! And just think what a demon possessed person, how they act…, how much more a Christian possessed by the Spirit of God Himself!? John’s entire point! So, look at your heart. Survey your life. Check your attitude. Are you possessed!? HA! This is the only real proof of being born again, saved, a citizen of heaven. Are you deploying love straight from God, through you, into the world. Satan knows the bible better than any educated human ever. He has spoken to God, been in the presence of God, believes in Jesus and even must obey Him. And yet hell is where he belongs. Love is to care for another when they care nothing for you… That is to be possessed by God, filled with the Holy Spirit, both of y’all on the title…
1 John 4 vs 7-11
April 14, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 4:7–11
Before we get into this verse set, let me just say, John is making statements that are very final and very conclusive. There is very little about our Christian experience in life that is final and conclusive other than the position we have in Jesus Christ. So, as we go through this, its not that we will or perhaps can even fully attain, but this is (or should be) the heart cry of every Christian. 1 John Chapter 4 Verses 7 – 11 · Wow! Ten times in five verses John talks about love and direction given is to love one another, the why is given, the how is given…, and in the midst of all this love, it is super challenging! Why? Because he is using the word agape. Which doesn’t mean necessarily things are good or they are good or I am feeling it…, agape is to love and to serve and to put them first even when they are not lovable. · “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also out to love one another.” How did God love us? While we were yet against Him, Romans 5:8 tells us that Christ made the decision to give Himself up for us… Challenging! AND, John gives us the subtlest of sequencing, the key, the passkey, the blueprint, the secret to how this is to all work as he began this set of challenging commanding scriptures… · He says there in verse 7 and he starts this section of sharing with the word, “Beloved.” This is for those that have received the love of God. Have registered that love and grace and mercy and acceptance of God the Father through the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son…, NO merit of my own. No goodness of my own. No catalyst on my part. The love of God has just been given to me simply because God is good and God is love and I am wholly undeserving and He is just holy… · For one that has not received and registered the love of God it is intensely challenging and difficult to then turn and give the same love to others… And interestingly, maturity in the Lord is not what you know or what you’ve memorized or how much you’ve served or how many years you’ve walked, maturity in the Lord is measured solely by the depth of your personal receipt of the love of God in your own heart of hearts… · A rule of life is hidden here… you ultimately become like that which you worship. Romans 12:1-2, Paul said, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service (worship). And (then) do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” · If you have a major issue loving one another, the issue is not them, the issue is your own registration within the love of God towards you! It’s a true maturity issue. It doesn’t mean you aren’t feisty, aggressive, impatient, all of those things. You are still human! It means that all of those things are less of your identity (or you want them to be less of your identity) than the desire to simply love like God loves… · The Bible commands that we ought to love one another. This is agape love. Entirely unselfish, giving/gift love. It’s a sacrificial love that unites. It’s love as a choice, not an emotion. Agape love is charity. It’s undeserved, unmerited, and yet it is what they need in order to be ok, or more ok than a moment ago… This is the love we are commanded to consider, learn, apply and give… · And John gives us this truth that agape loves flows from someone who has known God, for God is love. It’s not what He does, its not what He teaches, its not what He talks about, it’s what He is Himself. Love is not God. God is love… (He defines it!) Perhaps examining the word “know” is helpful. This is not know about or know of or understand or having learned about, this is an entirely different thought and it is the Greek word, “ginosko.” · This word means to become so close to someone that there is almost no separation between the two of you in terms of identity. This is to mix with someone. Finish their sentences. You have become so close that you look like them, act like them, dress like them, like the same things, do the same things, go the same places, have the same mannerism…, much like a best friend, or hopefully a spouse. · This is the knowledge of God that the Bible speaks about for me and for you, for the church, and it’s rather quite natural as you spend time with Him. Let’s say that I spent every meal with Bobby Flay. I can barely make mac n’ cheese! HA! But day after day, meal after meal, watching him, being there with him, learning, perceiving, understanding, talking with him, getting the secrets…, I will become someone who can whip up some fine dishes… · And just like that…, as you spend time with God whom is Love Himself…, you get the picture? And this is important because this is what Christianity is. In the end, Jesus didn’t say depart from Me you never came to church, or depart from Me you never knew the truth, or depart from Me you never gave or served at your church…, He said in Matthew 7:23, “Depart from Me, I never knew you…” Guess what word He uses? Ginosko. Crazy critically consequential crucial question here, “Do you know Jesus how I’ve just described?” John says if you do, you will love one another. · And through that love will come life! That’s verse 9…. And verse 9 also shows us what the definition of love actually is! It says there, “In this the love of God was manifested (painted for us) toward us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might LIVE through Him!” I don’t know…, this is probably an entire sermon series unto itself…, but when we love others as God loves us, there’s even an element of loving God the way He loves us…, that’s when we actually start to live… Our design, our purpose, our reason, our function is engaged…, activated…, finally things are right. The Bible would use the word righteousness to describe it… · I wonder if you know why you were created. It certainly wasn’t to start this ministry or work that job or marry that girl or have that child…, these are all parts of life for sure but your purpose and my purpose, the entire reason for human creation is to deploy love into the world. You can disagree with me on that and I know with every fiber of my heart that you are wrong… · This is why you and I are here… to do this one thing. To love God and to love others. And when you step into that purpose, your heart of hearts illuminates with life. Let me give you just one piece of that in terms of an illustration. This verse, verse 9, also defines love for us. Every heart on every chocolate wrapper, movie label, fashion article, none of those things are love…, they are all something else… · We use the word lust as lust is desire for someone or something else and in the terms of relationship, it is entirely reciprocal. I love you because you love me. I serve you because you make me happy. Make me feel a certain way. I want you, I need you, I yearn for you…, all of that the world calls love and its not. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, its just self-centered…, its not love. · Love was painted for us that while we were yet against God, Christ died for us. Verse 10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and (action) sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation is a big word but it essentially means that while we were without, Jesus went and gained us favor in the righteousness and holiness of God. Another big word used in some scholarly circles is expiation. Same thought, that while we were yet terrible (not you, not me specifically, creation as a whole), God Himself made atonement for all of the wrongs every committed… It means literally that Jesus has “robbed all sin of their validities and significance!” · So, love was painted. It was defined. Love is not to demand that you affirm me. Love is not to take something from you so that I can have something. Love is not to reciprocate affection. Love is to care for another when they care nothing about you… The world knows nothing of this love. And so how does that make me live…? Ready for this. Check this out! · Many or most or perhaps 99% of all humans, Christians included, live in a mental reality of what psychologists call the law of reciprocal affection. And it is a main if not THE contributor to depression, substance abuse, relationship problems and hopelessness. This is the human condition where you withhold love until you are loved and you only love if you are loved. What you are doing, and why this rips you off, takes you out of WHY you were created in the first place, what you are doing is allowing everyone and every circumstance to control who you are, how you act and ultimately how you feel. You are basically giving other people and the world complete control over your heart… · Jesus came to set the captive FREE. And freedom is that I get to control. I am the one that dictates who I will become. Jesus died to give me that right. To set me free from the power of sin which in many ways is to dull the mind, arrest the heart and suffer the life. So, through love, guess who is in complete control…? Absolutely ME. And that freedom is the ZAO life spoken of in verse 9 and defined for us in verse 10…, this is your purpose. · To actually not be controlled. But to control. To overcome as Jesus put it…, not through lording authority over the world and the people in it…, looking down on others and judging others, standing in the place of the accuser of the brethren…, Jesus said that is what actually entraps a mind and a heart, but that you would give of yourself, to love as Christ has loved you, and in that take 100% of your life back from the one who seeks to destroy you… “Beloved,” there it is again…, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also out to love one another…” And be like Him… We bear His name… · What are we known for? The church? Are we known in this world as the ones who love like this? My how we have failed… What are you known for…? Not how you make people feel…, stop centering your watermarks on feelings…, sometimes loving someone means correcting, rebuking, flipping some tables…., but are you in your heart of hearts concerned only with what is best for them? No one else is going to give an account of you…., you will give an account of you. What are you known for?
1 John 4 vs 1-6
March 17, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 4:1–6
1 John Chapter 4 Verses 1 – 3 · John is addressing a very specific issue happening at that time within the church which was the creeping in of Gnosticism and Gnostic-influenced teachers. I’m not interested in taking our time to develop and describe for you all that the Gnostics thought and believed, you can do that on your own if you are into that sort of thing. Essentially, the Gnostics believed and taught that everything in and of the flesh is evil and everything in and of the spirit is good, and since humans had both, there was an element that was only evil and an element that was only good. The evil couldn’t be redeemed, and the good couldn’t be defiled… · So, do whatever you want to do in the flesh, doesn’t matter…, because it was the spiritual side of humans, (enlightened by knowledge), that was saved. Ok, with that, they had to conclude and teach that Jesus, who was divine, could not have actually become a flesh and blood human being, or He Himself would have been part evil. So, their teaching was that Jesus was a spirit… And this was gaining in popularity. Why? Same reason why false teachings are still on the scene today…, the message serves our flesh… · For example. Why is the health, wealth and prosperity movement on the scene today? Um, because who doesn’t naturally want all of those things anyway? And what happens in the moment you realize that health, wealth and prosperity was everything Satan offered to Jesus if He would worship him instead of going to the cross? HA! · Ok, so pocket that… John does make a few key statements here that are not only for the very specific issue he was dealing with at the time he wrote this letter. John says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are out there.” A prophet is anyone that speaks on behalf of God. Has a word for you, a teaching for you, advice for you, guidance, counsel, encouragement or direction. Someone speaking authority into your situation or life… · And you want to and MUST test incoming information because the things of God will lead you to life, what you want and what God wants for you…, and the things that are false will leave you on a round-about in life…, just cycling back through the same things…, the exit is right there, moving on, progress, growth, profit, right there…, but here we go in a circle again!!! · So, be a bit skeptical, in a wise way, and test every spirit. Same word as in examining a diamond for authenticity… Ok, how? Not difficult at all… I could take you through the fruits of the Spirit and the fruits of the flesh… They are given to us in Galatians 5… Fruits of the spirit such as love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, and so on…, and fruits of the flesh such as uncleanness, lewdness, hatred, contentions, selfish ambitions, and so on… But here’s the problem. Fruits of the Spirit can be faked and fruits of the flesh can be present in the life of a true Christian! · However, Jesus pretty much gave us the answer in Matthew 7:15-20, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.” · Ok, I’m confused… I’ve met some of the nicest, most clean-minded, gentlest, most peaceful…, FALSE PROPHETS! HA! AND, I’ve ran across some of the most critical, mean, hateful, selfish Christians… HA! So, what’s this fruit that we are to know, test and discern by… · Have you ever been furniture shopping and the dinner tables and countertops are staged with decorations? And perhaps you’ve seen the fake bowl of fruit? How do you know its fake? Well, for one, you’re furniture shopping! HA! The environment reveals its authenticity…, but perhaps you’re rich and the furniture shops you’ve been in, maybe that fruit was real. The sure-fire way to know is to take a bite! Why don’t you do that the next time you’re in American Furniture Warehouse!? HA!!! · The point is, it’s the substance…, what is the substance, what’s it made out of, the composition behind surface level, of that beautiful fruit? According to the Word of God, true fruit comes from God. It is the “Fruit of the Spirit,” and God has fully revealed Himself within and as the Word of God (John Chapter 1 for example). And so, reconciling Galatians 5, 1 John 4 and Matthew 7, I give you the understanding that the fruit that Jesus was talking about, the discernment and testing that John says we must have, and the description of fruit given by Paul in Galatians 5 all converge solely upon the Word of God and that is how we are to test the spirits… · Is what we are seeing, what we are hearing, what we are experiencing, what we are feeling, does it align with the Word of God? If so, safe. LIFE ahead! If not, false. Trouble is coming! John gives us one example, and this was specific for his time and situation for this letter, that anyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, which means He was fully God AND fully man, they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a false prophet. Why? Because the Word of God has given us clear information that Jesus and the Father are One and that Jesus was born into the form of a human… · So, can we receive a truth, guiding authoritative advice, from someone who is so kind, so loving, so peaceful, so mature and yet will tell you that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer or that He was once a man that ascended to divinity and was given His own planet? NO. Why not? Because they deny the Jesus of the Word of God and that’s how we know they are not of God. The fruit is from another tree… Isn’t it interesting that Satan deceived Eve with fruit that was pleasant to the eyes? · So, can we receive a truth, guiding authoritative advice, from someone who is critical, mean, hateful, selfish and yet will tell you that Jesus is God Himself, fully God and fully man? Their advice aligns perfectly accurate to the Word of God? YES! Might not like them…, I get it, but if what they are saying aligns with the Word of God…, that spirit is of God. Their flesh is strong and I’m not hanging with them…, but the Spirit testifies through the Word of God that I need to heed what they have said… I don’t need to tell them that, give them that satisfaction though, HA!! · So that is how you test the spirits and we must test all the spirits because the spirit that comes forth from God is in alignment with God’s word and will lead us in the ways of life… Anything else is the spirit of Antichrist, no matter how perfect that fruit looks in that bowl on that furniture store dinner table…, or in the hands of the deceiver…., you’re going to end up choking! · The next verses conclude this discussion… 1 John Chapter 4 Verses 4 – 6 · Hear, hear, hear, hear…, do you hear the repetition of that word? Why? What do you hear? The spoken word… And this is how we know the spirit of error… and this is how you and I, we, overcome. What’s that mean? It means prevail… This is how we prevail… Another definition for prevail is to get control and become effective… That’s huge. That’s the opposite of the round-about… always moving, super-fast sometimes, powerful, just in a season of forward motion…, great? But going in circles and in the end accomplishing and becoming very little… That’s not what I want for myself and not what God wants for me either…
1 John 3 vs 18-24
March 10, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes
1 John Chapter 3 Verses 18 – 20 · I’m going to go on record and say that the last thing the enemy wants you to have is assurance in your heart of hearts towards God. Assurance is confidence, trust, faith, steadfastness, certainty, even determination… tenacity and poise. It means that you are fully convinced and sure of something to the point that you just move onto something else. · Dumb example. The chair you’re sitting on, by the laws of physics, you’re assured that you won’t fall through it. Can you imagine what this room would be like filled with people unassured of the chairs they are sitting on? Chaos! We wouldn’t get anything done. Dumb example but a caricature of a primary strategy of the enemy. · If you and I grow to assurance of God’s love for us, God’s forgiveness and acceptance of us entirely through the blood of Jesus Christ, assured of God’s integrity and completely confident in His Word just like you are in that chair you’re plunked in now…, then man, the mind games he plays on us become powerless. · “Oh, you are such a wretch…, and you call yourself a Christian!?” HA, for real! High Five! AND ITS HIM that calls me a Christian!? It’s incredible, isn’t it? But hey, He does it! “Has God really said? In the day you mess with that sin you won’t surely die!” HA! Great try, dork! You already did that one. I read about it and you’re right! I won’t die but I will DIE! And I get that, understand that, know that…, because God can’t lie… · And now what? You walk around, every day…, confident in the grace and forgiveness of God through the blood of Jesus Christ and confident of the word of God even over the circumstance of the day. NOT OF THIS WORLD for real for real! · Now, what’s the catalyst? Is it knowledge? Hearing enough sermons to convince you of all of this? Taking enough classes? Putting in enough study time? Seeing miraculous things every day? Actually no. Judas saw miracle after miracle. Heard the word of God day after day. Sat through obviously perfect sermons. Even himself hung out with Jesus and knew Him intimately… AND, the Bible calls him the son of perdition… the son of Satan. · So, what’s the catalyst? How is it that this assurance and confidence and courage and certainty and determination becomes the state of my heart of hearts? John says BY THIS we KNOW that we are of the truth and SHALL assure out hearts before Him…by what? By laying down ourselves for the sake of serving the Lord and serving others… · I’d rather just learn myself into this strength…, but the way up is down. For the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. If any of you desires to be great, let him become the servant of all. If any of you desires to come after Me let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me daily. Faith is action. Faith is living like and acting like God is telling the truth. This is was assured people do… And it is by faith that mountains move… · How strong a person does it take to move a mountain? It is by faith that we grow in strength. And faith always looks like agape… By this… Love is the catalyst. Living for self is the disease. The disease that destroys assurance… Exactly what the enemy desires for me… AND, check this out… 1 John Chapter 3 Verse 21 · John throws in this bonus point that if we are walking with the Lord, in alignment with our own conscience, then we in effect take away the opportunity of the enemy to strip away our confidence. · Even though we are to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, when we know to do right and we choose to do right, this has a strong effect on our minds. We know this right!? No cognitive dissonance to deal with. No internal war to deal with. This is why sin doesn’t affect our salvation but it certainly effects who we are. Our mood. Our attitude. Even our personality… · The more you cross yourself the weaker you become. This is why James 1:8 says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways… And let me tell you one more thing on this topic. Sin to you and sin to me is clear in the Bible but there are other sins for you and sins for me that are individual to us. What’s that mean? · For example. If God has told me to not waste two hours sitting through a movie, well, that’s not in the Bible…, but I better not do it…, or that is sin to me. But then if you do it, I also have no right to scoff at you…, because to you, that’s not sin…, your conscience is not defiled. Paul explained this perfectly in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13… 1 John Chapter 3 Verses 22 – 24 · These three verses have to be taken together and cannot be isolated to fit what we want. Verse 22 essentially has been used to say that if we keep the commandments of God then we are in the driver seat and we can name what we want and claim what we’ve named and with enough faith, God will give us anything we ask for. That is just ridiculous…. Here’s why… · To ascribe to any belief such as that is to say that God is not all knowing and perfect and good. If I have to name it for God to deliver it and that is the best thing for me then God is less than me. AND, if I have to think it up and the desire for whatever it is has to or even does originate from me for what I should have in my life, then God is not all knowing and He is not perfect and He is not good. So, all word faith movements are absolutely false because they all deny God for who He is! · Now, these verse together. The commandment, singular, of God is this…, believe, place your whole bet, on Jesus Christ and live like Him to each other. God has commanded you to do nothing else. Nothing else. And anything done in the name of faith apart from this is evil. Good intentions and all…, its is against the heart of God. This is everything. This is abiding in Christ. This is Christianity… · This is to abide in the power of the Holy Spirit, this is to abide in the blood of Jesus and this is to abide in relationship with the Father. Do you see “abide” three times in this final verse? And that abiding brings forth assurance, and assurance brings forth strength!
1 John 3 vs 10-18
March 3, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 3:10–18
1 John Chapter 3 Verse 10 · Practicing righteousness is to be prioritizing your relationship with the Lord in your life. That’s really all it is, simply. And Jesus said that is the first commandment above all others, which is tied to, connected to, the same as and hand in hand with the second commandment, which is to love each other as we are loved by God. · And John says, this is it… this is http://ancestry.com in the spirit! The holy paternity test! How each one can tell of which family they come from. It’s not scripture knowledge, worldly or ministerial success, it’s not even knowledge of righteousness, (what is knowing right and wrong)…, It’s practicing righteousness. The desire, ability and reality of living unto Jesus which means, ultimately…, living more and more like Him… 1 John Chapter 3 Verses 11 – 12 · Did Cain love Abel? The crazy answer is yes. He was his brother. Grew up together. Kicked the wheat-ball together (not sure what kind of toys they had, ha!). And John says here, love one another, but not with the kind of love Cain had for his brother. Which was what? A love that took second place to his love for himself… proof that God was NOT his Father. (Channeling my internal Maury Povitchawitz!) 1 John Chapter 3 Verses 13 – 15 · In a world that thrives on “likes,” God calls us to thrive on and stake our personal value on not how others treat us but how we treat others. Not how we are loved and cared for but how we love and take responsibility for the people around us! And that’s a tough one!!!!! Reminds me of Jesus… · God Himself, perfect love, perfect man, perfect friend, perfect citizen, perfect perfect…, and yet He had (and still does have) a stack of enemies and people that hate him! · The opposite of sin is love. The world is trying it’s best to create and encourage a love that is sin… But this is family talk. Family of God talk. While the whole world lulls into a deeper sleep with every generation that gets closer to the Lord’s return, the righteous will live by faith. This really is what sets apart the family of God on this earth. The holy… And it’s the sure mark of one who has passed from death to eternal life! · Folks can know tons about Jesus. Be active in the faith. Wear all the “Not of this World” merch. Have all the MDIVs and ordinations, but if they don’t have a desire to live and love like Jesus…, has there really even been any heart transformation at all? It’s like a big ole pig. You can take a pig out of the mud, clean him up really well, make him smell good, put some pig lotions on him, (Oink of Oley! Vasoswine! Ha)! Bring him into the house out of the pig pen…, and it will soon look for a way back to the mud because that is its nature. The work of salvation is not reformation or cleaning you up or making you behave better…, it has to be a nature-change. A family change… from the family tree of Cain to the family tree of Christ… 1 John Chapter 3 Verse 16 · I want to give you a thought and hopefully it’s a helpful one… The proof of God’s love for us, for God’s love for me, for God’s love for you…, is not our circumstances but rather it is the cross! The world has gone all-in in trying to define love but love was defined indefinitely and ultimately long ago. Love is not to do what I want, get what I want, live however I want…, that’s lust. Its incredible to me that we can put a “love” nametag on what is obviously lust and everyone falls for it! Love is to lay down our lives for others… That is what agape love is. It’s not eros, it’s not phileo, and it never will be! It’s agape. · Why does it matter? Why does it all matter anyway? I can argue that it matters and also, that I don’t care! I know what love is and because of that I have a real relationship with God, I am saved by grace through faith, AND I am able to in a way ascend to a higher form of human existence. I know that sounds boastful but whatever. It’s true… AND, if someone else can’t get it, understand it, just stuck on self…, what has that to do with me!? · Peter all confused at one point after having an intense interaction with the resurrected Jesus, he looked over at John and asked Jesus in John 21:21-22, “But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? YOU follow Me.” We get so so upset, angry, frustrated, discouraged and distracted by what others do wrong…, when all that truly matters to me is what I do wrong! It’s like this slimy strategy of the enemy and my flesh. You call lust love and I get so angry about that that I call love hate as I despise you in my heart! He got us both!! Look, I’d rather the enemy get neither of us but if I can’t help that then I better make sure the enemy at least doesn’t get me! · Now, with that being said, here’s the danger… Someone says they love and you hear it differently than they mean it. And now you react like they said agape, but what they said is eros. Here’s where you have to be careful because this is where you can get hurt. You meant agape, they meant phileo…, big problem. For Christians, if you’re a Christian, you should feel phileo, you should understand eros, but to your brothers and sisters in Christ, it should always be (you should always do) agape… And I love this, look at this example of agape that John gives to us… 1 John Chapter 3 Verse 17 · How do you feel about the illegal immigration issue, the open border issue we have in this country? Don’t answer that. If you were there, would you feed, clothe and house those that have illegally come into this country? It’s a good thing Jesus checked citizenship before feeding the five thousand… Agape doesn’t look at condition or situation, agape looks at need alone… I’m not being political; I’m just using that as an example because it’s an easy target. · I think about what I consider to be one of the most pure if not the most pure ministries we have here at this church which is Silo Storehouse. Feeding unhoused children. I don’t need to know anything more. It does not matter why, how, who, no details of the situation are righteously relevant. All that matters is that there are people that are suffering and we have the means to serve them… What’s the priority? Them being perfect or them being in need? If your heart leans towards, “I don’t care about anything else…, they are hurting…,” that is the love of God flowing through you and proof of you lineage... 1 John Chapter 3 Verse 18 · In terms of the things of God, what we say doesn’t really matter. What we profess to believe, well, that doesn’t really matter either. What we actually do, that reveals what is true about us. And we unfortunately listen to ourselves far too much and judge ourselves far too less… Because in self-observance, rather than self-service, that’s where we face the truth. Which is the only way anyone ever will grow up! · Here’s what this directs me towards in the Spirit. Loving someone by telling them you love them isn’t love. Setting out to accomplish the action of taking care of someone, that is what love is… This is the love that Jesus expressed with His Word (and still does today) and yet also carried out in His life and sacrifice. So, a word…, love. We hear it everyday and all the time. From relationships, to advertisements to overheard conversations…, movies, music and books…, and I wonder, have you ever even loved anyone…, and has anyone ever loved you. Well, maybe today you know that there is One that did, and He today does…
1 John 3 vs 6-15
February 25, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 3:6–15
1 John Chapter 3 Verses 6 – 9 • Before we talk about what this means lets first address what this does not, cannot mean. In the context of the entirety of scripture, this cannot mean that if I ever sin again then I must not be born of God. I know that’s how it sounds when you read through this section of scripture, however, that cannot be what John is saying as that would entirely contradict not only the Gospel message itself but even what John himself said earlier in this book. • We’ve already heard from John in 1 John 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” And 1 John 2:1, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The fact is that Jesus Christ, by dying in my place, has provided for forgiveness of all sin in my life…, past, present and future. And the one condition of my salvation, being born of God, is not that I now live sinless but that I accept the finished work of the cross, receive the grace of God through faith in Jesus, and anything more than that, anything more, is not only anti-biblical but it demeans and truly counts worthless the price Jesus did pay. Anything but salvation by grace through faith is an offense to the Father! • Jesus said to Nicodemus in John Chapter 3 Verse 3, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus then asks Jesus what that means, and Jesus responds in John 3:16, “For God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life!” The gospel is salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, in Jesus alone. Not of works lest any man should boast… • Remember what I said on Wednesday!? Some groups, people, movements and religions push “cross-plus” way but God’s way is CROSS-FIT! HA! The cross fits! Ok, that’s dumb but its easy to remember (hopefully)! • So, what on earth is John saying here? Think back on the first five verses of this chapter. Receive and absorb the discussion we had last week concerning what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us…, that we should be called children of God! Receive and absorb the revelatory truth that sin is lawlessness and whoever commits sin commits lawlessness that erodes, destroys, ruins, poisons… Couldn’t see that before being a child of God… See it now…! • And this sin that is lawlessness has nothing to do with Jesus. So, any sin in my life in no way strengthens my connection and relationship with my Savior whom I not only appreciate, whom I not only desire because along with His presence comes fullness of joy, but in my heart of hearts, I love the Lord for all that He is, who He is, who is He to me, who He is for others, what He’s done for me and all that He does do for me! • Ok, take those three things. I am now a child of God, His Spirit abides within me constantly ministering to me. I know and discern and perceive and understand that sin damages and sabotages me. And, I love the Lord for all that He is… Take those three truths which will be and are present in the one who has believed on Jesus, these things will be present in one who is truly a Christian…, now, can I live in some sort of sin comfortably? With those three things present in my life…? NOT A CHANCE! • The word sin that John gives us here in verse 6 is in a tense meaning there is a continuation… It’s happening, and happening again, and happening again and happening again…, and for the child of God, if you are going on and on and on and on in the same sin, yes you can do that and still be saved but it’s eating you alive from the inside out! Whoever abides in Him does not continue in sin. Does not live a life unto sin. You simply cannot! Why? Because the love of God abides in you. Because you can’t believe how moronic you’re being hurting not only yourself but knowingly counting worthless the sacrifice of your Savior! Hurting not only you because ultimately that’s what sin does but knowingly hurting Jesus whom you love? • Don’t be comparably concerned if you find yourself sinning (compare to the next statement because we should always be concerned when we are sinning). Be comparably concerned if you find yourself able to continue and practice sin with no conviction or desire to change/stop! Whoever is able to do that has neither seen Him nor known Him! Scary words! • John says, “let no one deceive you.” I’m a “one” too and today we have the oddest scenario where the Word of God calls it sin, has called it sin for thousands of years, and yet some (professing believing) people are convincing themselves through group-think and self-service that what the Bible calls sin is not sin… Careful that we don’t fall into the same thing. • Paul said in Galatians 5:19-21, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” • Got any hatred? Are you contentious? Live in jealousy? Outbursts of wrath? Selfish ambitions? Dissension? Getting drunk and high as a matter of habit? There are a ton of self-deceived people in the church today and have no desire to even see these things about themselves and yet raise their hands during worship…! It’s just the oddest thing… • Watch out for self-deception because if you can live in these conditions without wanting to be changed, conformed more into the image of Christ, willing to go to war against your flesh and the works of the flesh…, well think of it this way, just as the enemy can whisper in your ear that you’re terrible and God doesn’t love you, he can also whisper in your ear that you’re good with God and God loves you just the way you are… • How do you know? How do you know if you’re self-deceived? If you take pride in your flesh…, yea I’m contentious, deal with it. Yea I’m hateful, deal with it. Yea I’m a jealous person, deal with it. Be warned! Children of God don’t think like that! Christians cannot live like that! The Lord within them simply does not allow that! For the Christian its, “Yea I’m contentious, God change me! Yea I’m hateful, God change me! Yea I’m a jealous person, but I’m dealing with it and give me some time! I will change!!” See the difference? • Whoever has been born of God cannot continue in sin, John says, “does not sin,” in the perfect tense… We cannot! Not because we have rules, not because we have religion, not because God hasn’t forgiven us already of all sin past, present and future… We cannot continue in sin with hard-hearts simply and only because we have been born of God! Just like Jesus said in John Chapter 3… 1 John Chapter 3 Verse 10 • Practicing righteousness is to be prioritizing your relationship with the Lord in your life. That’s really all it is, simply. And Jesus said that is the first commandment above all others, which is tied to, connected to, the same as and hand in hand with the second commandment, which is to love each other as we are loved by God. • And John says, this is it… this is http://ancestry.com in the spirit! The holy paternity test! How each one can tell of which family they come from. It’s not scripture knowledge, worldly or ministerial success, it’s not even knowledge of righteousness, (what is knowing right and wrong)… It’s exactly as John says is… The desire, ability and reality of living unto Jesus which means, ultimately…, living more and more like Him… 1 John Chapter 3 Verses 11 – 12 • Did Cain love Abel? The crazy answer is yes. He was his brother. Grew up together. Kicked the wheat-ball together (not sure what kind of toys they had, ha!). And John says here, love one another, but not with the kind of love Cain had for his brother. Which was what? A love that took second place to his love for himself… proof that God was NOT his Father. 1 John Chapter 3 Verses 13 – 15 • In a world that thrives on “likes,” God calls us to thrive on and stake our personal value on not how others treat us but how we treat others. And that’s a tough one. Reminds me of Jesus… God Himself, perfect love, perfect man, perfect friend, perfect citizen, perfect perfect…, and yet He had (and still does have) a stack of enemies and people that hate him! • The opposite of sin is love. The world is trying it’s best to create and encourage a love that is sin… But this is family talk. Family of God talk. While the whole world lulls into a deeper sleep with every generation that gets closer to the Lord’s return, the righteous will live by faith. • It’s like a big ole pig. You can take a pig out of the mud, clean him up really well, make him smell good, put some pig lotions on him, ha! Bring him into the house out of the pig pen…, and it will soon look for a way back to the mud because that is its nature. The work of salvation is not reformation or cleaning you up or making you behave better…, it has to be a nature-change. A family change… from the family tree of Cain to the family tree of Christ…
1 John 3 vs 1-5
February 18, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 3:1–5
1 John Chapter 3 Verse 1 · The construction of this sentence is not familiar to me, perhaps it is to you. But I don’t typically use the word “bestow.” This word is intricate. It is explosive in meaning. It doesn’t just mean that God has given us His agape love. It means that God has given us His heart. The word is scandalous. It’s a word that I ask myself if I’m even worthy to handle, thinking, have I ever done something like this. This word means that God has given Himself up, disregarding entirely His private interests, and in terms of unconditional love has (and I love this part of the definition) given as much as He ever can, at all times. · That is how God loves you! That is how much God loves me. No matter my good days or bad. Good seasons or bad. Victories or failures. That is how much, this is what He has bestowed on us, which makes us equal to and indeed that we SHOULD be called children of God! Why does He love her that much? What does He love him that much? Oh, because they are His children…, that helps it makes sense! · AND, as Christians, this is our unearned merit because of Jesus, AND our task because of Jesus. This is the way we are to mature to love one another. I mean just imagine, just imagine if wives resolved and committed to this is how they will love their husbands? Husbands are so moved by respect and care that they will alter their habits and behaviors just to get more of it. Exactly why Paul said in 1 Peter 3:1, “Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives.” · Imagine, if just alone in the home, let alone in the church, workplace or marketplace, if just in the home the husband would bestow this kind of agape on their wife? It would begin to heal every part of her… This is why Paul says in Ephesians 5:25-27, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” · This is not only what we enjoy in Christ void of any merit on my part but just because God is so so good, this is not only what I have received, but in order to grasp it fully, I also must grow to give as well. That’s also wrapped in this explosive word, “Bestow.” The thought that it is only fully received by the recipient when it is requested… Reached for. There’s no forcing here. And the way to request God’s love, grace, embrace, giftings, talents, power and blessings…, is yourself to lean forward in giving God’s love, grace, embrace, giftings, talents, power and blessings… · John says know this, think about this, ruminate, percolate and deliberate on this until you grasp it! That’s why he starts this phrase with, “Behold.” You really can’t fully go on to the next verse until you get this one… 1 John Chapter 3 Verses 2 - 3 · John makes an assuring statement to you and to me and to anyone who has received Jesus Christ that, “Now we are children of God.” Interesting and important to note, is everyone a child of God? Well, in terms of creation, yes…, however in terms of relationship, no. Jesus in John 8:44 said to the Pharisees that were accusing and rejecting Him, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” Wild, right!? · And, check this out, we are given in John 1:12-13, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born (family term), not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” · And so, we have a situation going on in humanity today. That some are relationally children of God and some are children of the enemy. No wonder there is conflict… And since the enemy is described in 2 Corinthians 4:4 as, “the god of this age/world,” we are in someone else’s front yard… And he wants us off his lawn! · But to you and to me, to those who have received Jesus and believe on His name, you can be assured that you are a child of the Most-High. One of the greatest biblical illustrations of justification, salvation by faith alone was the salvation of the thief on the cross. No baptism, no communion, no confirmation, no speaking in tongues, no mission trips, no volunteerism, no church clothes, no bent knee repetitious prayers, no good works, no memorized scriptures, no demonstrated lifestyle change! He simply received Jesus and believed on His name! We can and God wants us to be assured that by grace we have been saved, through faith, and it is of no works lest any man should profess they themselves qualify! · And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. What’s that mean? Everyone of us is a work in progress and limited entirely by our flesh… So, we live and we groan and we live and we fail and we live and we succeed, rinse and repeat. Which is a tough cycle and leaves some questioning their own salvation…, BUT, your perfection is not what has made you a child of God, it’s His… · Interesting, do you know who can see you as the finished perfect product? God can. God’s perspective of me is far beyond my own! It was said that a block of granite was brought one day to Michealangelo. And he marveled. Just a big block of granite. He walked around it, admiring it with depth and emotion in his eyes. The courier asked him what he was doing and he replied, “Magnificent, this is David!” The courier looked amazed, bewildered, and replied, “David? This is just granite…” But Michealangelo responded, “Beautiful,” because he could see what it would become… · Do you know what God says when He sees you? BEAUTIFUL! 1 Corinthians 13:12 says, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know JUST AS I ALSO AM KNOWN.” That’s mirror talk… And that truth settling within you, that you are seen and known by God and the entire host of heaven as exquisite, lovely, elegant and excellent, anyone who begins to believe that about themselves in Christ (as God would have you to do), leans more towards acting like it…, the purifying affect… 1 John Chapter 3 Verses 4 – 5 · Ok, I want to give you what I believe is so very helpful in terms of understanding of sin in what John has written. He calls sin, “lawlessness.” Now, lawlessness is not freedom. It sounds like it and our nature leans towards that thought as well. But that thought is an error. · James 1:15 says that sin brings forth death. And John says that sin is lawlessness. Listen, you almost have to take this by wisdom and by faith, lawlessness brings forth death if it is sin. Therefore, to desire lawlessness is not to desire freedom but rather to be deceived into desiring subjugation. It’s like a kite soaring in the heights of the sky on a breezy day. Majestic, fun, awesome as you hold it tight against the wind with the string. Not controlling it, just enabling it to soar. Then you cut the line, give it freedom... It immediately loses everything and is doomed to hit the ground. · Ephesians 4:14 Paul warns us against being tossed in the wind… David said in Psalm 19:7-11, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statues of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward.” · You have to take this on faith unless you’ve endured the hardship of striving against your flesh and had it paid off, then you’ve learned it by experience… Lawlessness brings the opposite of freedom. Obeying the Lord and trusting in Him and even living unto Jesus, this is what brings freedom into a heart, mind and life. And it looks like discipline… You must understand, subjugation doesn’t start out feeling like prison. Lawlessness, sin, (Hebrews 11:25) is pleasurable for a season but the end of it is control, constraint, limitation, incarceration and repression. AND you must understand that freedom doesn’t start out feeling like pleasure and prosperity. Freedom is sacrificial, hard, arduous and afflictive for a season…, honestly freedom starts out rather awful, but the end of it is liberty, opportunity, unrestraint and open doors. · Sin when it is fully grown, brings forth death and confinement; and discipline when it is fully grown, brings forth life and freedom! Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage…”
1 John 2 vs 26-29
February 11, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 2:26–29
1 John Chapter 2 Verses 26 – 27 · John tells us exactly why he has written this portion of scripture. These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you… Is it possible for a Christian to become deceived? Absolutely! Not deceived unto condemnation, but deceived unto error and all that can come with error. Division, strife, contentions, agitation…, joy killers! And the word for deceive is actually, “seduce.” That’s far more of a subtle thought because deception we can defended against (to me this makes sense) far more effectively than seduction… · Seduction is the “thought meaning” that no matter how mature you are or how much you know, seduction is going to work… That’s why its seduction… So how do you overcome seduction? Well, in the flesh, good luck! Situational, momentary, impulse…, you have no chance! To overcome and win against seduction, you have to love something more, be committed to something that is allowed even to cause you pain, than to be carried away by the emotion and draw and desire of something else… (OR, set up DEFENSIVE STRONGHOLDS!) · It’s really a commitment to something greater than the pleasure of the predicament you find yourself in… To not be playing the “short game” all the time, but having a mind that understands the “long game.” Knowledge gives you insight to the immediate, wisdom applies that knowledge towards a purpose. And so, the seduction of the moment, that fiery dart, hits the breastplate of righteousness (which all righteousness really happens to be is a synonym for wisdom) and the shield of faith prevails… (picture) · And John gives us a solid statement of that commitment as protection against being carried away, protection against setting aside truth, (Wisdom Himself), the anointing of God on your life! God will do the things, He will do the protecting and the guiding and the securing and the opposing and the preventing because it is His anointing of His strength within YOU, our play alone is to abide in Him! What’s that mean? LISTEN TO HIM! · And I love the fact that he says, “You do not need anyone to teach you!” It’s true! You have the greatest resource in all of eternity within you! The truth is not me, its not any teacher no matter how convincing they are or how great of an orator they are. The truth is the Word of God! Jeremiah 31:33-34 even tells us, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” · So, what am I doing up here!? Why are you listening to me!? First of all, not to reveal anything new to you that you couldn’t know on your own! It is the height of arrogance for anyone to say that they have the inside scoop on the scriptures! So called prophets, deconstructionists, apostles, and the like. That is the height of arrogance! We need teachers and I’ll tell you why/how, that are skilled in confirming the Word of God. When you walk away from a teaching, the Holy Spirit should be confirming what you heard. If not, watch out…! Remember this, if its new its not true and if it’s true, it’s not new! · Paul said something extremely important and revealing in 1 Corinthians 4:15. He said, “For every father we have they are worth 10,000 teachers.” So, one reason we still need teachers today is because teachers that are called care more about you than they do about teaching you. Sorry if you don’t like that. That’s Biblical. AND, I am saying this not to be praised but for myself, having a teacher, a mentor, someone who watches over my soul and calls to mind for me the heart and Word of God, is a gift from God Himself beyond priceless!! Jeremiah 3:15, God said, “I will give you shepherds according to My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding!” · AND, just because you can know it, doesn’t mean you do! The only thing common about common sense, right…!? So, my job, and any teacher’s job, is first to care about each and every one of you. If I don’t, I have no biblical business teaching you. Second, is to confirm the scriptures through the power of the Holy Spirit, and third, to prod you towards truth and away from error – which we all need, HOWEVER, truth is personally accessible to every Christian in its highest form! (Remember common sense – give the traffic story) 1 John Chapter 2 Verses 28 – 29 · Ok, some folks take these verses one way and others take them another… When the Lord returns for His church, when He appears in the clouds at the time of the deportation of Christians before the judgement of God, the Great Tribulation, comes upon the earth, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” And at that moment, Paul explains in 2 Thessalonians 4:16-17, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” · AND 1 John 3:2 tells us that, “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is…” So, these three truths together, when we are taken into the presence of Jesus at the rapture of the church, John calls it, “His coming,” in our scripture set, we will be changed, perfected and become like Jesus. Without the constraints and burden of our fleshly nature any longer. And so, shame at that moment… I can’t get there. So, what must John mean? · Not sure. But some translations give this as, “We may have confidence and not be ashamed before His coming.” This may be a statement of eternal life, that quality of life where shame is defeated and confidence calls the shots. However, I’m flexible, perhaps there will be tears of shame when I stand in front of Jesus, although I know that no shame can be in His presence…, He defeated shame…, however perhaps this is a sort of righteous shame…, Godly sorrow if you will, which we do see in the scriptures… · With that being said, Paul does tell us of an accounting of sorts, a judgement that all believers will enter into with Jesus Himself, and many believe, at His coming. A very personal thing. Something just between you and Him, in which you have a discussion with Him concerning what you did with your life. You find this in 1 Corinthians Chapter 3. · We read in 1 Corinthians 3 and because its such an important chapter, I want to read verses 1 – 15, although we will concentrate on verses 9 – 15. “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal (not yet free is a way to look at this, not yet walking in the freedom of Christ and the rest of Christ) and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. (And now the accounting…) For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire (recall Jesus’ eyes of fire in Revelation Chapter 1); and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” · That phrase, “suffer loss,” is one word in the Greek. The word “zemioo,” and it literally means, “to receive damage,” or, “to lose.” It’s the same word used in Matthew 16:26 when Jesus said, “What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” That’s wild! So, the Bible appears to perhaps offer that there will be a moment with Jesus where we will give an account for our lives and its possible, for that moment only perhaps in all of our heavenly lives, that we sense and feel sad and sorry for having a lack of faith in this life. Wasting our times or seasons and even refusing to submit our hearts to the Lord… That perhaps is what John is talking about here in this chapter and that certainly is a sobering thought. · And, John gives us this last thought of this chapter…, if you know the Lord, you can see the Lord in those that know the Lord. The kids today say it this way, real recognizes real. The one that practices, the word in the Greek is “commits to and brings forth” righteousness… The one that is close to the Lord, abiding in Him, in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, we light up when we see others who love the Lord also. We enjoy love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…, force multiplying each other unto the glory of God!
1 John 2 vs 18-29
February 4, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 2:18–29
1 John Chapter 2 Verses 18 – 19 The authoritative direction on how to know who is or who is not truly in the faith… Over time, they will select the Word of God, thus overcome the spirit of anti-instead of-Christ, and they will remain… Not without bumps and bruises and not without failures for sure…, but in the end, here they are…, still walking with Jesus… so how can we know? Well, if we are honest, we won’t until the end! So, stop worrying about judging everyone else’s faith! Judge your own! I had this conversation with the Lord a long time ago! “God, how about I judge them and You love them!? I’ll make sure they’re on the straight and narrow so you can love them!” Well, that doesn’t work at all because that’s not what the Lord would have me to do. Over time, over failure after failure, guilt after guilt, broken relationship after broken relationship, his response to me, when I could finally hear Him say it, “How about you love them and leave the judging up to Me.” Ok, I can do that… Harder…, harder for me for sure, but I can do that… 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 20 Fourteen words this verse is and they are more than fourteen miles deep in meaning! Let’s take in the next verse and then talk about the importance of what John is saying… 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 21 You know all things and you know that no lie is of the truth and you KNOW the truth! And what is that source of truth? The mark of a Christian! The anointing from the Holy One! We throw this word “anointing” or “anointed” around like it is something that always is so special for specific people and times, like “he’s so anointed, or she’s so anointed, or that worship service was so anointed,” and that’s not wrong in and of itself but it can leave you with the wrong idea about anointing in general! The Word in the Greek is “chrisma” and it’s related to the word “christos.” All “Christo” or Christ in the Greek means, (the Messiah as it were in the Greek), all it means is, “the anointed!” And so, we could say that John says here, “You know all things because you have been Messiah’d!” The idea is oil or emersed into… When a priest was commissioned, he would be anointed with oil. When David was names a king, 1 Samuel 16:13 tells us, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.” So it is for the Christian that when you came into the faith, (or for the seeker, when you come into the faith), you essentially are Messiah’d, anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit and He Himself, God Himself, comes to abide within you and God within you indeed does know all things… You bunch of know-it-alls… HA! This is what we call discernment. And just like any ability, capability, intrinsic skill, it can be dulled and it can be sharpened… which leads me to ask… So, what’s my problem then?! If the Holy Spirit, God Himself abides within me and He knows all things and will lead me into all truth as Jesus said in John 16, what’s my problem then? Well, to quote the great prophet G.I. Joe, “Knowing is HALF the battle,” HA! The fact is that I possess the resource for knowing the truth AND hold that thought as John continues to warn us against the deception that was among the church then and has only increased in our time… 1 John Chapter 2 Verses 22 – 25 BIG statements there by John and HUMONGO road sign to give you notice of this very dangerous, but honestly quite obvious, potentially disastrous deception! There are tons of people out there that say that Jesus is the “Christ” as defined by them, or as defined by the man or the woman that began their movement, but John says we must define Jesus as the Christ as the Bible defines Jesus as the Christ which is fully God and fully man, One with the Father, God Himself, the Second Person of the Triune God, who was manifested, He came in the flesh, died on the cross in the flesh, was buried in the body and rose physically from the grave. John warns that anything else, anything else is not some sort of insignificant variation but is rooted (if not itself is) the spirit of antichrist! It’s like this. If you leave out of an airport in California flying to Hawaii, if that pilot sets his flight path 1 degree off, he will miss Hawaii by over 300 miles! “He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.” Define Jesus by anyone or anything other than the Son of God… AND, whoever denies the Son cannot, does not, have the Father. So, if you get Jesus wrong, and here is why it is so important and also dangerous, if you get Jesus wrong, you miss the Way to the Father. And in that, doesn’t matter how good you are, how sincere you are, how wonderful you are, how devoted you are, according to the authority of the Word of God, not only are you not saved and still in your sin (because only by the Son of God, the biblical Christ is the forgiveness of sin) but you are walking and living and being deceived by the spirit of antichrist! Heavy stuff, Marty! By the way, what is the definition of “eternal life?” It’s actually not only speaking of forever life but also about quality of life! In the Bible, eternal life is always associated with knowing God. John 17:3 says, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” God is the source of all goodness…, He is THE source! And so, to abide in Him, to know Him, is to continually increase/upgrade your quality of life and that is what is meant by eternal life when spoken of in the Bible. 1 John Chapter 2 Verses 26 – 27 John tells us exactly why he has written this portion of scripture. These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you… Is it possible for a Christian to become deceived? Absolutely! Peter talks about it, John talks about it, Jesus talks about it…, why would it be talked about so much if not!? Not deceived unto condemnation, but deceived unto error and all that can come with error. Division, strife, contentions, agitation…, joy killers! And the word for deceive is actually, “seduce.” That’s far more of a subtle thought because deception we can defended against (to me this makes sense) far more effectively than seduction… Seduction is the thought meaning that no matter how mature you are or how much you know, seduction is going to work… And guys, it really always does. That’s why its seduction… So how do you overcome seduction? Well, in the flesh, good luck! Situational, momentary, impulse? Following your heart as the modern music would indoctrinate you to do…, you have no chance! Just being real with you! To overcome and win against seduction, you have to love something more, be committed to something that is allowed even to cause you pain, than to be carried away by the emotion and draw and desire of something else… (Picture) And John gives us that statement of commitment as protection against being carried away, protection against setting aside truth, and that is the anointing of God on your life! God will do the things, He will do the protecting and the guiding and the securing and the opposing and the preventing because it is His anointing of His strength within YOU, our play alone is to abide in Him! And I love the fact that he says, “You do not need anyone to teach you!” It’s true! You have the greatest resource in all of eternity within you! The truth is not me, its not any teacher no matter how convincing they are or how great of an orator they are. The truth is the Word of God! Jeremiah 31:33-34 even tells us, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” So, what am I doing up here!? Why are you listening to me!? First of all, not to reveal anything new to you that you couldn’t know on your own! It is the height of arrogance for anyone to say that they have the inside scoop on the scriptures! So called prophets, deconstructionists, apostles, and the like. That is the height of arrogance! We need teachers and I’ll tell you why/how, that are skilled in confirming the Word of God. When you walk away from a teaching, the Holy Spirit should be confirming what you heard. If not, watch out…! Paul said it this way, for every father we have they are worth 10,000 (1 Corinthians 4) teachers. So, one reason we still need teachers today is because teachers that are called care more about you than they do about teaching you. Sorry if you don’t like that. That’s Biblical. AND, just because you can know it, doesn’t mean you do! The only thing common about common sense, right…!? So, my job, and any teacher’s job, is first to care about each and every one of you. If I don’t, I have no biblical business teaching you. Second, is to confirm the scriptures through the power of the Holy Spirit, and third, to prod you towards truth and away from error – which we all need! (Remember common sense – give the traffic story) 1 John 2 Verses 28 – 29 Ok, some folks take these verses one way and others take them another… When the Lord returns for His church, when He appears in the clouds at the time of the deportation of Christians before the judgement of God, the Great Tribulation, comes upon the earth, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” And at that moment, Paul explains in 2 Thessalonians 4:16-17, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” AND 1 John 3:2 tells us that, “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is…” So, these three truths together, when we are taken into the presence of Jesus at the rapture of the church, John calls it, “His coming,” in our scripture set, we will be changed, perfected and become like Jesus. Without the constraints and burden of our fleshly nature any longer. And so, shame at that moment… I can’t get there. So, what must John mean? Not sure. But some translations give this as, “We may have confidence and not be ashamed before His coming.” This may be a statement of eternal life, that quality of life where shame is defeated and confidence calls the shots. However, I’m flexible, perhaps there will be tears of shame when I stand in front of Jesus, although I know that no shame can be in His presence…, He defeated shame…, so do with this what you will… And, John gives us this last thought of this chapter, if you know the Lord, you can see the Lord in those that know the Lord. The kids today say it this way, real recognizes real. The one that is close to the Lord, abiding in Him, in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, we light up when we see others who love the Lord also. We enjoy love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self- control…, force multiplying each other unto the glory of God!
1 John 2 vs 18-19 - Antichrist
January 28, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 2:18–19
1 John Chapter 2 Verse 18 In the Bible, there are many antichrist’s (little “a”) such as Nero, Antiochus Epiphanes, Pharoah, Judas and Sennacherib. There is the “spirit of antichrist” which is anything “instead” of Jesus Christ and the Word of God, and there is The Antichrist, the coming one world leader who will openly deny and blaspheme God, refer to himself as God, and in the time of the Great Tribulation that will make war with Israel, the saints and ultimately with Jesus Himself at the Battle of Armageddon. Now, he goes by many titles in the Bible. The prince that shall come, the man of sin, the Beast, the son of perdition…, all refer to the one coming Antichrist. The question we will explore today is what can we actually know about this ominous apocalyptic figure in the Bible. So, let’s walk through the key passages on the Antichrist and explain exactly what the Bible says about what kind of person he will be and what he will do. Now a study on the Antichrist is more complicated than just performing a word search. In fact, the word “Antichrist” is only used in First and Sec-ond John and though John writes this word five times, only two of those uses are specifically talking about THE Antichrist. 1 John 2:18 he writes, “Little children it is the last time and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.” In chapter 4 verse 3 he speaks of the spirit of antichrist saying, “you have heard was coming and even now is already in the world.” John tells us that even though the Antichrist will be coming in the future, his spirit is already here now meaning that today people are already living in a condition of “instead of Christ,” they are living with the spirit of an-tichrist, but where we find far more specific information on the man and his dealings is in the books of Daniel, 2 Thessalonians and The Book of Revelation. Let's start with the Book of Daniel. In chapter 7 the prophet sees a vision of four beasts. The first one was like a lion with eagle’s wings which can be interpreted to be the kingdom of Babylon and their King Nebuchad-nezzar. The second was like a bear raised up on one side which can be in-terpreted as the Medo Persian Empire. The Medes and the Persians would conquer the Babylonians and their empire would be controlled mainly by the Persians represented by the one side of the Bear raised up. Then came a leopard with four wings. This can be interpreted to represent the Greek Empire which would eventually conquer the Medes and Persians and it would do so as a leopard with lightning speed. The leopard in Daniel's Vi-sion had four wings and four heads because after Alexander the Great es-tablished the Greek Empire he died (at 32 years old) and his Empire was split between four kings… Then after these (and here is the important part) Daniel saw a fourth Beast that he says was “dreadful and terrible” and had iron teeth. This we can reasonably assume refers to the Roman Empire which was the final world Empire in history and was the nation that conquered the Greeks. This beast Daniel says had 10 horns but in verse 8 (of Daniel 7) he tells us that he watched until there came up among them another “little horn” before whom there were three of the first horns plucked out by the roots and be-hold in this horn where eyes like the eyes of man and a mouth speaking pompous, self-centered words… Beginning in verse 15 of chapter 7, he is given the interpretation of what he saw. (Daniel 7:15-25) The 10 horns represent 10 Kings and the little horn that spoke great things would subdue three kings and would speak against God and would persecute the elect of God. (Interestingly, Daniel 11:37 tells us that “He shall not regard neither the God of his fathers nor the desire of women…,” which many speculate that the coming Antichrist will come from a predominantly religious culture such as Muslim, Jewish or even Catholic…, and that he will be a homosexual) Now, Rome never had 10 Kings at one time which has led many to speculate that this pas-sage predicts a future resurrection of the Roman Empire in some form which will be led by 10 different Kings until the Antichrist, that little horn, shows up and uproots three of those kings and rises to power in their place. Then what's very interesting to note is that verse 25 of Daniel 7 tells us that this man represented by the little horn will persecute the Saints “for a time and times and half a time,” which equals one plus two plus a half or three and a half times. What’s that mean? In Daniel chapter 9 verse 27 we read that this ruler will confirm a cove-nant with many for one week. Now because of the timeline that Daniel gives us of 69 of these weeks from the command to rebuild Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s time until the Messiah will be cut off, we know that this prophecy refers not to a week of seven days but rather to a week of seven years. According to Daniel, in the middle of that Covenant week, the Antichrist will do something within the temple in Jerusalem that will be an abomina-tion to the people of Israel making the temple desolate. So, we can gather from this that the Antichrist will make a seven-year peace treaty with Is-rael allowing them to worship in their rebuilt Temple again for the first time since 70AD when the last temple in Israel was destroyed. However, though he will promise them seven years of peace, after only three and a half years of that treaty, this man will do something in the temple that is so abominable that the sacrifices there will have to cease and the temple will be made empty. Interestingly enough, in Daniel chapter 8 and 11 we see another prophecy of a Greek king who does something very similar to this abomination of desolation that chapter 9 says that the Antichrist will perform. Chapters 8 and 11 prophesy about a tyrant king of the Seleucid Greek Empire named Antiochus Epiphanies. This man considered himself to be God and in 168BC, he forced the Jewish people to eat pork which is forbidden for them, he sacrificed a pig (an unclean animal) on the altar, and he even set up an idol to Zeus inside the temple of God. This at that time caused the sacrifices to cease in the temple until the Maccabean Revolt at which time the Jews regained control of Jerusalem and cleansed the temple so that it could be used once again. But we know that this was only a type, a shadow of what was and is yet to come and was not a fulfillment of the prophecies of the Antichrist in chap-ters 7 and 9. In Daniel 7, we are told that the Antichrist is connected to the Roman Empire but Antiochus Epiphanes was a Greek king. And Daniel 9 tells us that the abomination of the Antichrist will happen after making a seven-year peace treaty with Israel which Antiochus never did. Also, Daniel 9 tells us that the final week of 7 years (that seven-year peace treaty) would come after 69 weeks of years and those 69 weeks of years were a countdown until the Messiah would be cut off. So, the Abomination spoken of in Daniel 9 had to come after Jesus the Messiah died on the cross for our sins. Jesus died on the cross more than 200 years after the abomination of Antiochus Epiphanies in 168 BC, so we know that Daniel 8 and 11 speak of an abomination in the temple by a wicked man who pictured the Antichrist but Daniel chapters 7 and 9 actually speak of the coming Antichrist himself. We find support of this in Matthew 24:15-16 and 21 when Jesus spoke of the end times to his disciples. He told them when they see the abomina-tion of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet stand in the holy place then let them in Judea flee into the mountain for then shall be Great Tribu-lation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time no nor ever shall be. So, even though Jesus was living 200 years after Antiochus Epiphanies had desecrated the temple, He said that the abomination spoken of by Daniel was still in the future and that it would be followed by a period of great persecution against the people of God and a Great Tribulation upon the world. This fits perfectly with what Daniel says in chapter 7 about the little horn who goes after the elect for three and a half times! Now in Mat-thew, Jesus is confirming that when this man commits this abomination of desolation in the middle of that seven-year peace treaty he will begin per-secuting the elect for the remaining time in that seven years which is three and a half years. Jesus then continues specifically about the tribulation of those days using the phrase “those days” four different times in reference to Daniel's prophecy. Ok, lets run some numbers which might make your head spin… Daniel chapter 12:11-12 tells us from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away and the Abomination takes place, there shall be one thou-sand two hundred and ninety days AND blessed is he who waits, and comes to the one thousand three hundred and thirty five days… These two sets of days seem to mark out the exact (to the day) timeline from this abomination of the Antichrist until the Second Coming of Jesus. Ok so seven years before Jesus returns to the Earth (Revelation 19 Second Coming), the Antichrist will make a peace treaty with Israel. Then in the middle of those seven years he will claim himself to be God and will des-ecrate the temple. Based on Daniel 12 this desecration takes place after 1,290 days or three and a half years and then after another 1,335 days or roughly another 3 and a half years plus 45 days, a blessed event happens which we can as-sume is the coming of Christ! Make sense!? There’s more that we can learn about the Antichrist in the prophecy of the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2. We’re told by Paul (2 Thes 2:3-4), “that before the day of the Lord there will be a falling away and the man of sin or the Son of Perdition will be revealed. This man Paul says will oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped so that he as God sits in the temple of God showing himself that he is God.” Paul goes on to say that something is currently holding back the Antichrist preventing him from being released upon the world but once it is the right time, that withholding thing will be removed (2 Thess 2:7-10) and Paul writes, “Then shall that the lawless one be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall de-stroy with the brightness of his coming even him who's coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not re-ceive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” According to 2 Thessalonians this man of sin will not only set up an idol in the temple but he will literally sit in the temple and declare himself to be God and he will do so with power and signs and wonders. Essentially demonic miracles to convince the world that he is god! So, let's recap the key elements that we found in Daniel, Matthew and 2 Thessalonians. The man we call the Antichrist seems to rise to power by supplanting three other kings of an Empire that in some way is connected with the ancient Romans. He will gain his power with the skill of his mouth speaking great things and he will make a peace treaty with Israel for 7 years. In the middle of that treaty, he will sit in the temple declaring himself as god, and will be empowered by Satan to do lying miracles in an attempt to prove himself. At the end of the seven years, 1335 days after his abomination in the temple he will be destroyed in the brightness of the coming of the Lord! With that in mind let's consider the Book of Revelation. In Revelation 11:3 we see two witnesses who John writes will prophesy on the earth for three and a half years. It seems now that this passage is describing the middle of that 7-year week. And John tells us in Revelation 11:7 that the beast ascends out of the bottomless pit, makes war with these witnesses, and kills them though they will rise from the dead three and a half days later and ascend into heaven. Now this Beast sounds a lot like the prince who brings the abomination of desolation in Daniel's prophecy. According to Daniel 12, he commits the Abomination 1335 days before Jesus comes which could mean that he goes into the temple and claims to be God at the three-and-a-half-year mark which then prompts him to kill the two witnesses. The witnesses no doubt preach against this evil desecration of the temple and show that he is not the true God so he in turn makes war with them and kills them! Then remember that Jesus said that believers should flee to the mountains if they're in Jerusalem when they see the abomination of desolation be-cause afterward there would be a great persecution, and remember that Daniel says that the little horn speaking of the Antichrist would drive out the elect. Revelation 11 gives us what may be the catalyst for this great persecution. It may be a result of the two witnesses rising from the dead and putting the Antichrist to shame! Here he is claiming to be God yet when he kills his enemies, they rise from the dead and ascend into heaven! So, the Anti-christ in rage turns his anger against the rest of the believers who refuse to worship him as God. And this kicks off the second half of the Great Tribu-lation, the seventieth week of Daniel, or persecution that Jesus foretold! This is described in Revelation 12 when a dragon which is the devil who is the power behind the Antichrist makes war with a woman who is Israel. In this passage the woman flees from the dragon and finds refuge in the wilderness for three and a half times exactly as Jesus described would take place after the Abomination. Then in Revelation 13, we see a detailed de-scription of what the Antichrist will do during this time after the abomina-tion of desolation. Revelation 13:5 tells us that he will speak great things and blasphemies for 42 months or three and a half years this is exactly what we know from 2 Thessalonians 2 and Daniel 7. Then in verse 7 of Revelation 13, (after he receives some sort of mortal head wound but is miraculously healed, that’s verse 3) he is said to make war with the Saints just as we're told by Jesus in Matthew 24 and also by Daniel in chapter 7. And in Revelation 13:8 we read that all that dwell upon the Earth shall worship Him whose names are not written in the Book of Life. This again perfectly coincides with 2 Thessalonians… But Revelation goes on giving us further information about what this will look like in detail. John writes that the Antichrist, the Beast will have a helper, described as a second beast and we know as the false prophet. This false prophet will do great wonders, make fire come down from heaven, and deceive them that dwell on the Earth by the means of those miracles. He works the Miracles that Paul spoke of and 2 Thessalonians 2 and calls men to worship the Antichrist. Not only that but this false prophet actually has power to give life unto the image of the Beast that the image of the Beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the Beast should be killed. So this begins to make the picture more clear when Daniel said that the abomination of desolation would be set up in the temple because it seems what was meant was that not only would the Antichrist himself sit in the temple at a certain moment and claim to be God as we're told in 2 Thessalonians, but also an image or an idol of the Antichrist will be placed in the temple and the false prophet will give that idol the demonic power to speak and he kills those that won't worship the Antichrist! Revelation 13 goes on to tell us that this is why the mark of the beast comes as the false prophet (in order to force the worship of the Antichrist) makes this mark. This Mark must be displayed either on a person's head or hand to prove that they worship the Antichrist or else they are banned from buying and selling anything in the world economy. This tyranny goes on for three and a half years, and many believe that it is in this time, just as Jesus descried in Matthew 24, the seven vial judg-ments are released as described in Revelation 16. Specifically, in the fifth vial judgment there is a miserable darkness on the entire Kingdom of the Antichrist and in chapter 18 we see more detail on the destruction of his capital city which is typified by the ancient city of Babylon. This probably cripples his persecution efforts against the people of God and he must re-group and gather his forces to make one final massive assault on God's people in what we know as the battle of Armageddon. In vial judgment number 6, the river Euphrates is dried up to make way for the Kings to gather together to war against the Saints. Apparently after the destruction of this Capital City, the persecuted Believers on the earth have some respite and they need only wait as Daniel prophesies 45 more days until the 1335 days are completed and Jesus returns to set up his throne. And though the Antichrist will amass a giant force to attack the believers and wipe them off the face of the earth once and for all, Revela-tion 19 tells us that as they gather for war Jesus appears in the sky de-scends to the Earth and slaughters the armies of the evil one! Revelation 19:15 says, “He treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of all Mighty God,” and he comes to prove and declare that He is the only true King of kings and Lord of lords! Revelation 20 tells us that the Antichrist and the false prophet are taken and cast alive into a lake of burning fire and brimstone where they will be tormented day and night forever! And that is everything we know about the Antichrist. He comes on the scene with deception and calls for peace! He seeks to claim the title of God and to be worshiped as God! He is empowered by Satan and makes war with the Saints! But his days are incredibly short and his defeat is imminent! I want to end with what else is imminent. In light of all of that, all that we can know from the pages of scripture, we are not looking for or waiting for the Antichrist. We are looking for and waiting for Jesus! Why? Be-cause before the Antichrist even ever comes on to the scene and is re-vealed, before the Great Tribulation begins, the seventieth week of Daniel, the church is taken out of the way as prophesied in 2 Thessalonians Chap-ter 2 and put on clear display in Revelation Chapter 4. Why? How can I be so sure!? Well, let alone the fact that the time of the Great Tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble, the seventieth week of Dan-iel, let alone that is a period of time described in the Bible as the time of God’s wrath and judgement upon the earth, which for the church, for the Christian was fully satisfied at the cross of Jesus Christ…, and therefore for any Christian to enter into the wrath of God and God’s judgement not only negates the work of the cross but also brings God’s integrity and jus-tice into question, leave that 500lb elephant alone for just a minute…, Paul says to the church in 2 Thessalonians that what he has told them ought to be used to comfort them, to encourage them… Why? If a Christian sees the Antichrist, according to all of scripture, the clock has begun! Comfort from others? Not needed. I know the time is short, in fact I can count the days. Comfort is needed because what is be-ing said is troubling and the church would be comforted knowing that the gathering of believers in the rapture would save them out of this time of intense tribulation on earth! Being in the Great Tribulation would itself be a comfort for the church as we would know exactly what is ahead and when it all would end! AND, there must be a rapture, a coming of the Lord in the clouds that Je-sus said of the day and of the hour no one knows except the Father Him-self. Why? Because from the day the Antichrist is revealed and from the day he commits the abomination that causes desolation, you can count to the day when Jesus returns in Revelation 19. So, Jesus could not have been talking about the Second Coming…, He was talking about the rap-ture! SO, THAT is what we can know of the Antichrist in the pages of the Bible and anything more is interesting but simply just a bunch of talking. And what we know from scripture is not scary at all but exciting indeed!!
1 John 2 vs 15-19
January 21, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 2:15–19
1 John Chapter 2 Verse 15 As mentioned last week, I want you to see and I want to make very clear that John makes no mention about and is not talking about loving, caring for or serving other people. If we don’t care for and love others then we are denying the faith and the love of the Father is not in us! Jesus said all of the law and the prophets, all of His will and commandments, wrapped up into this that we should love others as Jesus has loved us! Consider His crowd. Were any of His disciples Christians? Not as we know that term today! It wasn’t until after His resurrection that Jesus came to them in John Chapter 20 and it says in verse 22, “He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” That was the moment the disciples and everyone with them became Christians because that is what it is to be a Christian. Receiving the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit… And so, when Jesus said “love one another even as I have loved you,” at that time, His audience was unsaved… So, are we to love the brethren more than we love the unsaved? Agape doesn’t work like that and that’s the point that I’m making! The unsaved of the world are not what John is talking about in verse 15… Paul confirms this in Romans 5:8 saying that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us… This love was put on display as Jesus essentially allowed Himself to be destroyed for whom? The lost world! Saying even from the cross, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing…” And, for God so loved…, the WORLD, that He gave His only Son that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life! So, who are we, as Christians today, who are we to love and serve and care for? EVERYONE! Luke 6:32 even says, “But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them!” Fast-forwarding to verse 35, “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most-High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil!” WHOA! SOOOOO, all that to say and to make very clear that John is not talking about people in this statement in verse 15. So, what is he talking about!? Having a god higher in your heart than the Most-High… Look at the next two verses…. 1 John Chapter 2 Verses 16 – 17 This is what has become of this world in its fallen state. John says ALL that is in the world, (the Kosmos in the Greek), the spiritual Babylon as we have studied and talked about before, is the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Lust of the eyes? But I am to walk by faith and not by sight! The righteous, right with God, right in alignment with heaven, this is what they do. I get it, I can see what is right in front of me, but God told me to trust Him… and I know the outcome of trusting God… So, with whatever I am seeing, facing, who gets the position of honor in what I decide to do? My finite momentary immediate perception, my eyes…, or the Word of God, the Word of the infinite eternal, perfect, holy and all-knowing God!? But I want that instant gratification. That instant momentary satisfaction of aligning my actions with my emotions…, it’s like a drug fix! Lust of the flesh! Who gets the position of honor in what I decide to do? My finite momentary immediate emotions, my flesh…, or the Word of God, the Word of the infinite, eternal, holy and all-knowing God!? But what will they say, and won’t I feel like a fool!? I’ll be missing out if I don’t go for it now… The pride of Life! Who gets the position of honor in what I decide to do? ME or JESUS? Am I really a Christian filled with the love of the Father or am I just a believer set on serving and protecting and providing for me, filled with the love of myself!? You see you can’t be filled with two things… That doesn’t even make sense… AND you’ll answer that question with what your life becomes! This and these are the singular strategy of the enemy to destroy your soul and if he can’t do that, to destroy your life. These are his three plays and every sin and element of darkness stems back to, originates from and is one, two, or three of these things. And this is the Kosmos. This is the fallen. Genesis 3:4, “Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened (lust of the eyes), and you will be like God (lust of the flesh), knowing good and evil (pride of life).” Then…, they became their own gods… and ruined everything… 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 18 This was written nearly two thousand years ago and John says that it is the last hour, why? This could be a very long discussion but let me just give you a few thoughts. First, upon the cross, according to John 19:30 we read, “When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” Jesus’ death on the cross for the sins of the world effectively ended the time of the law upon the earth. Fulfilled by His sinless life and ultimate sacrifice! Thus, beginning something…, the time of grace, the time of the New Covenant, all yes. AND, thus beginning the last days. From the time Jesus ascended unto the Father until now, we are essentially in overtime…, because the soteriological plan of the Father has been fulfilled! And so, John, the disciples, Paul, church fathers, all through the church age, the time of the New Covenant, the time of grace, those that know the Word of God know that the return of Jesus and the culmination of all things is eminent. Survey the way even Jesus spoke to His disciples and there was an urgency and expectancy that He was installing in them of all things completing! So, I believe that every generation should live expecting to see all things come to pass! And that does several things! It makes you ready! It makes you serious! It makes you watchful! John will write later in the third chapter, 1 John 3:2-3, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies Himself, just as He is pure!” AND, Jesus said in Matthew 24:48, “It is the wicked servant that says in his heart, ‘My Master is delaying His coming.’” So, John was living in the last days and WE are living in the last days! And he mentions the coming Antichrist but also speaks of many antichrists having come which is one way we KNOW it is the last hour. What does that mean? What is an antichrist? Ok we know THE Antichrist, but what about an antichrist? Simple. The word broken down in the Greek and really also in the English is simply “instead of Christ.” Check this out, this is almost intuitive. The Christian knows, the Bible teaches and the reality is that Jesus is THE Way, The Truth, and The life. SO, anything that is instead of Jesus, is the wrong way, not the truth and doesn’t activate (lead to) life. Anything instead of Jesus or any antichrist! Super simple, right!? Now, one more chip deeper into the Pringles canister…, Jesus identifies Himself as the Logos…, the Word. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…, and the Word (Logos) became flesh… Check this out, the single way to identify an antichrist and to overcome the enemy is the sword of the spirit, the Word of God. Anything activated, trusted, followed, served instead of or in the place of the Word of God is this idea of antichrist! Having the Word of God in your heart is your greatest defense against sin! Jesus said in John 15:6-7, “Abide in Me…, if anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.” The world will overcome you, burn you up. “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you!” Boom! David prayed, “I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I may not sin against You!” Bruh, sin brings forth death, defeat, loss…, David’s prayer is that He has hidden the Word of God in his heart so that he is not overcome by this world! Jesus (and we are talking about how we not only deal with antichrist’s but avoid the traps of them throughout our lives) when tempted by the devil, the Bible tells us he had fasted for 40 days. After about 15 days of fasting, you lose your appetite. (Of that I don’t know, HA). But then after another time of days, it will come back as that is when you are essentially out of reserves and dying. This is where Jesus was… And Satan said to Him, turn this rock into bread and have at it! And oh, how Jesus wanted bread! You don’t have to take the path of the cross! The plan of God is not the best plan for you! You can be delivered now! In a way, all of that was true! But it was all antichrist! What would the outcome, the result of Jesus’ life be if He had of taken that instead of? Jesus came to do the will of the Father. He said in the garden that night, “Not by will be done but Your will!” He didn’t want the cross! He despised the shame of it all…, but the spirit of Christ is to fulfill the Word of God, the will of the Father, and the spirit of all antichrists is to do anything but… Jesus said if anyone desires to come after Me let him deny Himself, take up your cross, and follow Me…, but you don’t have to do that, and if you don’t, that is the spirit of antichrist… the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, can never be satisfied and the more you feed it the more formidable opponent it becomes. All you can do with lust is starve it! But the temptation to give in to these things is the spirit of antichrist, anything instead of Jesus and therefore anything other than trusting and selecting the Word of God!!! How do you know? How do you know who has been overcome by the spirit of antichrist or who has truly selected Jesus and been born again by the Spirit of God… Time. Time will tell… And that’s it… Fruit can be faked, but not forever… 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 19 The authoritative direction on how to know who is or who is not truly with the Lord… Over time, they will select the Word of God, thus overcome the spirit of anti-instead of-Christ, and they will remain… Not without bumps and bruises and not without failures for sure…, but in the end, here they are…, still walking with Jesus… and that will yield a certain result of the kind of life they have and person they are…
1 John 2 vs 12-15
January 14, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 2:12–17
1 John Chapter 2 Verse 12 · I call these verses, spiritual state identification. This is where you start. You have received Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven, that’s where you start… And John calls this step one, “little children.” 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 13a · A bit of spiritual maturity sets in…, and that only comes by growing in the knowledge AND grace of Jesus Christ. Which means, you are learning and applying and that application causes changes…, there has been a serving of the flesh since even before being saved, just like a freshly born baby, but in some circumstances, you are making the cognitive deliberate decision to heed what you have learned from the Word (knowledge) and from the Lord Himself (grace) rather than a childish reliance upon physical senses, emotion and experience… · And so, the title flips from “little child” to “father” and that is NOT a title of age. There are plenty of so-called fathers that are little children even at 30, 40 or 50 years old… The difference between a baby and a father is accountability and responsibility. A father cares for another before himself. And any Christian who has any amount, even a smidge of Christian maturity, will at least desire to serve others over themselves… · Another thought on a father. Fathers drive, children ride. My kids get in the car, settle in, and have no clue where they are going sometimes! HA! I’m driving! OF COURSE I know where I’m going! I have the whole plan! I know the reason. I am responsible for the safety of ALL of us getting there…, SEE the difference? · Also, there’s a bit of spiritual maturity that has arrived because there begins to be a dawning in the mind of the Word of God. What happened in the beginning, how did we get to where we are today…, and knowledge is being accepted as well… It’s like hard drives being overwritten… 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 13b · State #3. Level #3! You are saved and forgiven of your sin. Level #1. You are growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ evidenced by your sincere care for one another. Level #2. And now you are in the battle!! Not only for the souls of others, AND against the stumbling of others…, but also just the daily battle against your own flesh! Awake and aware and walking in the light. It’s here and now that you become a walking testimony of Jesus Christ!! 1 John Chapter 2 Verses 13 – 14 · It seems like John is repeating himself but he is not. This is level up, level up, level up…, because the spiritual maturity pattern we just went through repeats! Why? For a few reasons. First, the more you walk with the Lord, the more you grow in humility and essentially are cycling back to square one…, and I’ll say more and more frequently the more mature you get! · Living for the Lord and walking with Jesus and growing in the grace and knowledge of Him and understanding more and more and loving Him and others and caring about others more and more and BOOM, the cross of Christ just levels/flattens you emotionally and spiritually again! This is perhaps where the church in Ephesus got stuck as detailed in Revelation Chapter 2…, they left their FIRST love! And you return for a season to just being a little child in the hands of the Father… · You learn something, God shows you something, you experience some new amplitude of God’s grace as you trust and obey Him through something like never before…, and you are just back to square one…, and, in a way, weeping in joy at the feet of YOUR Savior… And your bond strengthens, deepens, and you continue on through the spiritual progression but with all of the wisdom, tools and power you have gained along the way… · The New commandment is continually making YOU new…, in fact, even all things new, day to day, season to season, glory to glory as you in humble obedience grow up in the college of Christ! Which ONLY looks like agape… 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 15 · Notice not a peep about people. John says love for the world and the things in the world is incompatible with love for God and the things of God. What’s going on here? Does this mean that if I love baseball, or if I love my church, or if I love my home or my job, does this mean that I’m in the wrong? Not at all… Really what we are talking about here is priority in a sense. · You see love is a supreme affection and in that it allows no rivals…, or its not love. God has said from the very beginning, have no other gods before Me. Love…, which implies loyalty, which implies fidelity, love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind was given in Deuteronomy 6 and then restated by Jesus in the Gospels. So what? How does this work? What is John saying…? · My love for the Lord is first place. No rivals. If there are any, there’s the problem. And this priority continues. Next is my love for my wife. No rivals…, but before I love her, I love the Lord. That’s the way it is. I will not deny my Lord to love my wife. Third, my children. I love my children. No rivals, but before them is my wife, and before her is the Lord. I will not deny Jesus nor April to love my children. Fourth is my calling, my ministry. I love the ministry. No rivals. But I will not deny my Lord, my wife, or my children to love the ministry. Fifth is my profession. I love my profession, very thankful for it. But I will not deny Jesus, nor April, nor my children, nor church (my ministry) for work… This is the way it is…, and in the end, I don’t care who likes it or who doesn’t like it…, this is what it means to be a Christian, to fear the Lord and to obey His Word! · AND I want you to see and I want to make very clear that John makes no mention about and is not talking about loving, caring for or serving other people. If we don’t care for and love others then we are denying the faith and the love of the Father is not in us! · Jesus said all of the law and the prophets, all of His will and commandments, wrapped up into this that we should love others as Jesus has loved us! And consider His crowd. Were any of His disciples Christians? Not as we know that term today! · It wasn’t until after His resurrection that Jesus came to them in John Chapter 20 and it says in verse 22, “He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” That was the moment the disciples and everyone with them became Christians because that is what it is to be a Christian. Receiving the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit… And so, when Jesus said “love one another even as I have loved you,” at that time, His audience was unsaved… So, are we to love the brethren more than we love the unsaved? Agape doesn’t work like that and that’s the point that I’m making! The unsaved of the world are not what John is talking about in verse 15… · Paul confirms this in Romans 5:8 saying that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us… This love was put on display as Jesus essentially allowed Himself to be destroyed for whom? The lost world! Saying even from the cross, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing…” And, for God so loved…, the WORLD, that He gave His only Son that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life! · So, who are we, as Christians today, who are we to love and serve and care for? EVERYONE! Luke 6:32 even says, “But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them!” Fast-forwarding to verse 35, “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil!” WHOA! SOOOOO, all that to say and to make very clear that John is not talking about people in this statement in verse 15. · So, what is he talking about!? Having a god higher in your heart than the Most-High… Look at the next two verses…. 1 John Chapter 2 Verses 16 – 17 · This is what has become of this world in its fallen state. John says ALL that is in the world, the kosmos in the Greek, the spiritual Babylon as we have studied and talked about before, is the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Lust of the eyes? But I am to walk by faith and not by sight! The righteous, right with God, right in alignment with heaven, this is what they do. I get it, I can see what is right in front of me, but God told me to trust Him… · So, with whatever I am seeing, facing, who gets the position of honor in what I decide to do? My finite momentary immediate perception, my eyes…, or the Word of God, the Word of the infinite eternal, perfect, holy and all-knowing God!? But I want that instant gratification. That instant momentary satisfaction of aligning my actions with my emotions…, it’s like a drug fix! Lust of the flesh! Who gets the position of honor in what I decide to do? My finite momentary immediate emotions, my flesh…, or the Word of God, the Word of the infinite, eternal, holy and all-knowing God!? · But what will they say, and won’t I feel like a fool!? I’ll be missing out if I don’t go for it now… The pride of Life! Who gets the position of honor in what I decide to do? ME or JESUS? Am I really a Christian filled with the love of the Father or am I just a believer set on serving and protecting and providing for me, filled with the love of myself!? You see you can’t be filled with two things… That doesn’t even make sense… · This and these are the singular strategy of the enemy to destroy your soul and if he can’t do that, to destroy your life. These are his three plays and every sin and element of darkness stems back to, originates from and is one, two, or three of these things. And this is the kosmos. This is the fallen. Genesis 3:4, “Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened (lust of the eyes), and you will be like God (lust of the flesh), knowing good and evil (pride of life)…” Then…, they became their own gods… and ruined everything…
1 John 2 vs 7-11
January 7, 2024 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 2:7–11
1 John Chapter 2 Verses 7 – 8 This sounds confusing but its not. John is talking about keeping the commandments of Jesus Christ, the Righteous (as He is called in verse 1 of this chapter). And yet he says, “this is nothing new”, and it’s not. Leviticus 19:18, God gives the command, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” And yet this old commandment becomes a new commandment in Jesus. What? From the beginning of God revealing Himself to His creation, the commandment was love each other as yourself. Hold no grudges and take no vengeance. But there’s somewhat of a loophole there, actually a major loophole. Folks can lie and say/think, if I don’t take vengeance and do my best to not hold grudges, then I’m walking in this commandment… AND, folks can lie and say they hate themselves. If I hate myself well then I’m justified and in alignment with the Word of God as I hate my brother also. Loopholes… The issue is however that is at least partially untrue. Ephesians 5 tells us that there has never been a man that has hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherished it… We may dislike certain aspects of ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, but no person, saying this under the authority of the Word of God, no person has yet hated themselves. Just think of it…, you get up, look in the mirror and immediately start to tell yourself what it is about your face that you don’t like. Complaining on yourself. That’s not hating yourself at all. If you really hated yourself, you’d take all the mirrors out of your house! HA! So, this loophole fails although it’s there as the commandment that was from the beginning was that we must love each other, care for each other, serve each other even as we serve ourselves… And the first loophole fails as well…, because (and this is a bit aggressive and I know it, but true none-the-less), if we withhold agape, in truth, that is to not care, to not take care of the other and that is indeed a form of hate… The aggressive revelation of that statement is this, and I know few will receive and own it but the entire planet would be a better place if everyone did, if we don’t care about someone, no care in us to take care of them, what they need we withhold, then we are hateful. And there are a TON of HATEFUL Christians out there that no doubt would be stunned if they were called to the carpet BUT IT’s absolutely true… If you do not take care of each other, you are (and they feel it) hating them… Then Jesus comes along…, and He takes this old commandment and makes it new. John 13:34, Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” And now we see the full revelation of agape love and the commandment we have under the New Covenant. Full revelation in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one that this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends,” for each other. No more loopholes. The old commandment made new in Jesus that what God commands of us, expects of us, rewards with every fruit of the Spirit, is that we are to love our neighbor as we were and are loved by Jesus. And John says this is true in Him and in you…, so this is truly how and what it means to be a Christian. This is the convergence of God and man, this willingness to set self aside and take care of each other even sacrificially. This is maturity in the faith. This is strength in the spirit. Not what you know. Not how long you’ve been in church. Not how much money you’ve given or how much ministry you’ve done or how many times you’ve read the Bible and how much of it you have memorized. You’re only as mature, grown, as you are like the Lord and you’re only as much as you are like the Lord as much as you take care of…, agape, love and serve and even go without personally (emotionally, physically, all that), for each other… The darkness is passing away…, all of the loopholes and excuses and weaknesses even of the flesh are passing away because the true light is already shinning…, the mystery of holiness, God Himself within us… God in you ONLY looks like this. If you have perfect doctrine and all wisdom and yet you don’t have or do this, that doctrine and wisdom aren’t of God… Wild, right? Faith, hope and love…, but the primary, the greatest…, love… Hardest of all commandments, isn’t it? Come on out into the light, though… And grow up into the image of Jesus Christ! 1 John Chapter 2 Verses 9 – 11 Notice, John says here, “There is no CAUSE for stumbling in him.” Not that he himself may not at times stumble, that’s not what is meant/said here. But rather that as your heart is filled with light as Jesus Himself is the Light, you are caring for each other. You are your brother’s keeper! And what is it that they need, what is their communication pattern/habits, you learn them and Paul becomes all things to all people so they they’ll like him!? NO! Because he cares for everyone like Jesus does because HE IS LIKE JESUS! Mature in his faith! And therefore, causes for stumbling?! Absolutely not! He becomes a reason why they DON’T stumble and if they are in a stumbled state, he becomes the reason why they get back on their feet!! Welcome to the LIGHT OF THE WORLD! That word for blinded in the Greek is a fun one, it’s “typhloo,” pronounced, “toof-lo-o,” and it means that a mind has been darkened so that mental discernment is impaired! WOW! No wonder people argue with you over loving each other. No wonder folks state their case and plead their position and justify their cruelty…, it’s not that they are stupid or irrational or shortsighted or selfish or even insensitive…, although it makes you feel like they are all of that! The issue is spiritual! Somewhere along the way they have never learned or perhaps have rejected what it actually means to be a Christian and to serve and love the Lord…, somewhere along the way they made this inter-core decision to serve themselves (for all sorts of reasons maybe) protect themselves…, and that decision has darkened them spiritually. SO, what am I to do? Rationalize with them? SILLY! Foolish! I am to exemplify…, to not allow my own heart to be darkened reacting to their foolishness and I am to PRAY for them! That’s the only way!!! AND, if they never change…, MAKES NO DIFFERENCE! Agape love does not seek to possess, it seeks to bless! 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 12 I call these verses, spiritual state identification. This is where you start. You have received Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven, that’s where you start… And John calls this step one, “little children.” 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 13a A bit of spiritual maturity sets in…, and that only comes by growing in the knowledge AND grace of Jesus Christ. Which means, you are learning and applying and that application causes changes…, there has been a serving of the flesh since even before being saved, just like a freshly born baby, but in some circumstances, you are making the cognitive deliberate decision to heed what you have learned rather than a childish reliance upon physical senses, emotion and experience… And so, the title flips from “little child” to “father” and that is NOT a title of age. There are plenty of so-called fathers that are little children even at 30, 40 or 50 years old… The difference between a baby and a father is accountability and responsibility. A father cares for another before himself. And any Christian who has any amount, even a smidge of Christian maturity, will at least desire to serve others over themselves… Also, there’s a bit of spiritual maturity that has arrived because there begins to be a dawning in the mind of the Word of God. What happened in the beginning, how did we get to where we are today…, and knowledge is being accepted as well… 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 13b State #3. Level #3! You are saved and forgiven of your sin. Level #1. You are growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ evidenced by your sincere care for one another. Level #2. And now you are in the battle!! Not only for the souls of others, AND against the stumbling of others…, but also just the daily battle against your own flesh! Awake and aware and walking in the light. It’s here and now that you become a walking testimony of Jesus Christ!! 1 John Chapter 2 Verses 13 – 14 It seems like John is repeating himself but he is not. This is level up, level up, level up…, because the spiritual maturity pattern we just went through repeats! Why? For a few reasons. First, the more you walk with the Lord, the more you grow in humility and essentially are cycling back to square one…, and I’ll say more and more frequently the more mature you get! Living for the Lord and walking with Jesus and growing in the grace and knowledge of Him and understanding more and more and loving Him and others and caring about other more and more and BOOM, the cross of Christ just levels/flattens you emotionally and spiritually again! This is perhaps where the church in Ephesus got stuck as detailed in Revelation Chapter 2…, they left their FIRST love! And you return for a season to just being a little child in the hands of the Father… You learn something, God shows you something, you experience some new amplitude of God’s grace as you trust and obey Him through something like never before…, and you are just back to square one and, in a way, weeping in joy at the feet of YOUR Savior… And your bond strengthens, deepens, and you continue on through the spiritual progression but with all of the wisdom, tools and power you have gained along the way… The New commandment is continually making YOU new…, in fact, even all things new, day to day, season to season, glory to glory as you in humble obedience grow up in the college of Christ! Which ONLY looks like agape…
1 John 1 vs 1-4
December 10, 2023 • Pastor Matt Korniotes • 1 John 1:1–4
This is an incredible book in terms of content, applicability, education, encouragement, correction, inspiration, and just general usability! It contains superior theology (however not systematic theology) and yet almost the entirety of the book you can pick it up and install it into your daily life today and it’s exceedingly useful! It really is entirely incredible! It’s so universal and generally profitable that even though it was written some 2,000 years ago, it’s almost like it was written this year! John doesn’t date this book. He doesn’t identify himself within it. And we don’t have any indication within the letter itself where it was written. We do however have historians and scholars that have objectively concluded that the first epistle (letter) of John was written between 70 and 90AD, perhaps even 100AD. Most agree that this letter and his other two were written after he penned the Book of Revelation. None of these statements are without controversy but virtually all Bible scholars within the faith agree that this is the same John that gave us the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. (You will find ten identical verses in between The Gospel of John and 1 John) This letter was most likely written while John was in Ephesus as according to several historians, namely Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Eusebius, Polycrates, and even a Syriac work mentions the Apostle John returning to, settling in and living in Ephesus after his exile. John never identifies himself in this letter or to whom specifically he is writing this letter which is odd and folks have their own ideas as to why but he does reference himself in the other two epistles but not by name. He simply refers to himself as “the elder…” According to church history, when John was very old, they used to carry him to places where believers had gathered to have church. And once he was there, it was like, all eyes on him. This is the man whom Jesus loved. The man that was so close to the Lord that he laid his head on Jesus’ chest. Heard the power of the heartbeat of God…. At one point he was condemned to death and sentenced to be executed by boiling him in oil, (the Romans were a creative bunch…), but he just chilled in it like a hot tub… It didn’t harm or kill him because God wasn’t through with his earthly ministry as of yet… So, the Roman Emperor Titus Flavious Domitianus exiled him to the island of Patmos and while in exile, according to Revelation 1:9, God unlocked End Game for him from which we have, the Book of Revelation. Having been rescued from Patmos and taken to Ephesus, he was the last of the remaining Apostles of Jesus Christ. And so, they would bring him in and the room would go quiet. All eyes on him in astonishment and according to church history, in a soft voice, he would simply say to the crowd, “Clean your life up!” “Stop sinning!” “Vote Republican!” “Tithe 10%!” “Make sure you drink your Ovaltine!” HA, no…, All he would say, with all eyes on him and everyone hanging on every word, “Little children, love one another.” That’s it. Entire message. Five words…, what more is there to say? The reason for this letter is given to us thematically within the letter itself. First showing up in Chapter 1 verse 4, John says, “These things we write to you that your joy may be full!” And in Chapter 2 verse 1, “My little children, these things I write to you that you may not sin.” And also in Chapter 5 verse 13, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” Those three statements, although different in wording, are truly the same statement… 1 Peter 1:8, John 15:7, John 15:11, and John 16:23-24 all teach us that the fullness of joy comes from a closeness, and abiding in Jesus. The Psalmist writes in Psalm 16:11, “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is the fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore!” I truly believe and state with complete confidence that it is the will of God, the purpose of God, the plan of God and the mission of God for me and for you to have a life FULL of joy, and even more, to glimpse and perhaps even grasp the fullness of joy! Joy is a quality of the spirit. A fruit of the Spirit according to Galatians Chapter 5. It is a glow in the heart of a person that has been exposed to the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Happiness is a variable because it is related to outward circumstances which can change suddenly and drastically! Joy is a constant that is related to and a result of my relationship with God which does not change once it is established…, it is secure and therefore always present. Fullness of joy is walking in that reality and realization of His salvation imputed to me and secured for me by His grace through the blood of Jesus Christ! 1 John Chapter 1 Verses 1 - 4 · I love John’s credentials. I’ve heard Him, I have seen Him, I have observed/studied Him, I’ve even physically touched Him. He offers his proximity to Jesus, his exposure to Jesus, his personal intimacy with Jesus as his credentials and really as the factors that identify him as a man AND as someone worth listening too! I love those credentials. There are none higher. All the things we’ve done and accomplished and earned and achieved…, but how close are you to the heart of God? Does anything else matter!? I saw a post once that went like this, “It doesn’t matter if you have a GED, a BA, MBA, PHD, or MDIV if you aren’t sync’d in heart to G.O.D.!” · Reminds me of Acts Chapter 4. Peter and John had been open-air preaching and just talking with people about Jesus and His resurrection. And the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees were all upset because it tells us in Acts 4 that the crowd had grown to a number over 5,000 and all of them were giving their lives to Jesus…, so they were stopped, put into custody… · And we read in Acts 4:13, “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus….” John recalls that boldness and authority in this letter… · And his description of Jesus is also authoritative! He says he is speaking of Jesus who is “that which was from the beginning…” Which beginning? The Bible speaks of two. There is the Genesis 1:1 beginning, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And so, there was a beginning of creation. Is that the beginning John is talking about? Some cults will tell you yes but that would be an error… · John speaks of another beginning in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John uses a specific word in the Greek in John 1:1 and 1 John 1:1 that speaks of a beginning before Genesis 1:1…, before the beginning of creation. He uses the word, “arche.” It means the furthest… The before… “The extremity or corner of early…” It’s really, the eternal before… · Why is this important? Because Jesus is not part of creation as many cults and false religions will tell you. The Bible says that He Himself is the divine eternal and in fact He Himself is the Agent through which creation came. Colossians 1:16 says, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible,” (that tells you Jesus is the Actioner of Genesis 1:1), “whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.” · So, check this out, not only is Jesus the Agent of creation, this is all and was all and ever was, His! Why did Jesus come and not the Father? Why did Jesus come and not the Holy Spirit? Why did Jesus subject Himself to the form of a man and die for the sins of the earth? Because it and everything in it was His to redeem. He is and was and forever will be the Goel (kinsman Redeemer) of the earth and everything in it! · And John says we’ve heard Him, seen Him, been with Him, touched Him, that’s who I’m telling you about and these are my credentials to tell you what is the Word of life! In the Bible there are three forms of life. There is the “psyche,” or the soul. There is the “bios,” or the physical life. And then there is “zoe” or the fullness of life. This is the life that John is concerned with in describing Jesus as the Word of the FULLNESS OF LIFE! · And that is the flavor of this book! This is indeed, 1 John, is the letter of life and of love. Pound for pound, word for word, ounce for ounce, this short letter mentions the theme of life and love more than any other book in the Bible. Check this out, 45 times in only 5 short chapters John uses and mentions and instructs us on love. And always, every time, its agape. Why? · Because folks, that is what this life is for, about and from. God is love. Unconditional, unrestrained, unrestricted, unthwarted and undefeatable pure holy and perfect love. What’s life about? Agape… In the end that’s all that matters and in the beginning, that’s all there was. To discover, find, encounter, walk in and become part of agape love… Nothing is sweeter, nothing is more meaningful, nothing is worth anything compared to this cause… And so, John sits down and pens a letter saying, “I’m writing this that yours, you life, your joy, your agape…, might be full!”