1 John Chapter 5 Verses 18 – 19

· This is a (one) a positional statement that in Jesus Christ my sins are forgiven, forgotten, withdrawn from my account before God and therefore I stand before God sinless, just as Jesus is in heaven, because Jesus stood in my place on the cross, representing and in the place of mankind/me on earth…

· That’s the gospel! And the gospel is not whoever figures it out, whoever decides that they ought to act right, whoever becomes a good person…, the gospel of the Bible, and the true work of salvation is whoever is born of God! The word in the Greek is “gennao” and it literally means, whoever is fathered by God…

· Jesus said in John 8:42-47, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore, you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

· Strong words about to whom someone truly is born of…, who is their father. The gospel of salvation, the watermark of the Christian, Jesus said, “If God were your Father,” first off you love Jesus. Now here’s the shocker. The word Jesus uses is agapeo! Not phileo! I love Jesus for who He is, for what He’s done for me…, because He is good and He is Truth…, and that is not the love Jesus says will be the sign that I am born of God. I love Jesus over my distress. Over my inconvenience. Over my emotions. Over my pride. So therefore, I will trust Him and comply with His wishes, even to my own detriment. That is agapeo. And that is the sure sign for anyone that they are born of God, saved by grace through faith, and a Christian.

· This, what I just described, is not something you can set out to do. This is not a decision or a resolution. This is not you saying, yep, that makes sense, I need to do that. I need to obey Jesus even if its hard. You aren’t boot-camped into Christianity, you’re born into it. If this isn’t what you now naturally do, more and more as you walk with the Lord… Well, let me put it this way…, Madison doesn’t get up everyday and decide to be my daughter…, she just is…

· The first work of the gospel, being born of God, is that you WILL (not you will set out to, not you will discipline yourself into this, not you will study yourself into this, not I will ever be able to preach you into this) you will love Jesus. And those that love Jesus, He continues there in John 8, will listen to His Word. That word for listen means to harken…, to be endowed with understanding unto operation and result.

· Jesus said, “Why do you call me Lord Lord and do not what I tell you to do…?” Why? Because Jesus, my love for You…, that’s the problem. No, that’s the symptom. The problem perhaps is that you need to come into the home and authority and provision of God through the Gospel of grace by faith! The desires of God you will want to do if you are born of God. Just as Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father, you want to do.” What are the desires of the devil?

· Well, number one is to unseat God. That’s what Lucifer created of himself in the first place. God says this, wants this, directs this…, I’m going to do my own thing. What is the desire of your heart? To do what God desires or to do your own thing? No need to think about that answer…, just survey your last season of behaviors, actions and attitudes. We think so much and think our way right into justification for ourselves…, when the truth is what actually happens. You know that right? You live in reality, right?

· Is that all of the desires of Satan? Paul helps us out 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.” Why? Revelation, folks that are fathered by Satan….

· What are the desires of God? Jesus said, “If God were your Father, the desires of your Father you would want to do…” Paul is very clear…, take all of the Bible, all of the directs of God, all of the truth of God’s character, and find His heart here…, Galatians 5:22, “But the fruit of the Spirit,” the life result of the circumstance of God being your Father, “is love.” Agape. First for Jesus and second for each other. Nothing you have to do, set out to do, purpose to do, resolve to do…, you just wake up…, and Madison is my daughter everyday…

· And what does love look like? Doing right, being right, acting right, knowing right, and making sure everyone around me knows too. WHOA. Sounds a ton like another father… The fruit of the Spirit is love, and that looks like joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. So, are you born of God? Stop thinking so much. Is this YOUR character or at least the desire revealed in your character! Perhaps convicting. Perhaps worrisome. Maybe today, you need to really give your heart to God and experience the love for Jesus that transfers your soul into a kingdom citizen. Perhaps 30-year Christian, perhaps you need to get saved… Drop the critical heart, abandon the judgmental tone, leave behind the unkind, harsh, callous, tyrannical agape-less-ness, and be born again unto a child of God…

· Doesn’t mean you will be sinless, it means your desires will change…, maybe let me put it this way…, your pains will change. What vexes your spirit will begin to change…, because also in this statement of John (two) back in our text is implied one does not continue in sin. Whoever is born of God ultimately finds great difficulty, even impossibility, to continue on in habitual lifestyle sin. Why? Because the Spirit of God within convicts and corrects.

· You love Jesus. Agapeo, not fondness, and as the Spirit reveals and corrects and redirects, you listen. Not because you have to or because its right or because its beneficial personally for you to obey but because YOU LOVE JESUS! If you can go on in some sort of offensive heart or lifestyle to the Holy Spirit then you’re either miserable (that’s that new pain) or you’re just simply not born of God.

· Check this out. God doesn’t want to only lead you with His voice. The Bible tells us God’s desire is to lead us with His eye. Psalm 32:8, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.” That’s Father talk…, you know I can LOOK commands to my kids! A secret to hearing and seeing more and more of God in your life, His blessings, His truth, His provision, His awesomeness and His results…, check this out, here’s a secret to that…, say YES before He asks!

· And by the way, God speaking to us over and over again and confirming and man that must be a sign is not a signal of our spiritual maturity…, it’s actually the opposite!! The enemy always attacks the last thing God said to you…!

· But he who has been born of God keeps himself, total personal radical accountability…, not waiting on God to deliver you…, God has already provided everything you need for every struggle you’ll ever face…, it’s up to me to walk by faith… In the light of truth, we aren’t really struggling, what we’re doing is delaying obedience…. And honestly, if someone else has to point out my critical harsh judgmental nature then I am not listening to the Holy Spirit! We ought to need no one to ever tell us what it is that is against God in our hearts! We ought to know ourselves…, or, are you even saved, born of God as YOUR Father?

· Keeping myself, walking by faith over feelings, understand there is a promise here, a truth of God’s word, that in that state, the enemy can’t cling to me. As a Christian, understand, for the enemy to attach to me at all that has to go through God…, because I am His. And if I am walking in the flesh, perhaps the best thing for me is to get a glimpse of hell to set me straight…

· And the promise is that as I walk with the Lord, hey, the environment might stack against me, Satan is the swayer of the whole world, but he himself…, or better said, me, I’m off limits… Now the inverse of that reveals a truth. For those that are not God’s, unsaved, rejecting of God, there’s a hint here that there is essentially no protection upon them from the wicked one… And just like Star Trek, Satan loves to be a Klingon! HA!

1 John Chapter 5 Verses 20 – 21

· Understanding comes from God. Understanding of the truth is not something to be achieved or attained, it is given only by and through relationship with Jesus by faith…, (that means by “YES”). And after a great revelation of who Jesus was and is, John gives us the simplest and most complete exhortation, “Be little, be simple, be humble, be grateful, be receivers…, little children, and keep yourselves from idols. Stick with only and close to the single Truth of and in Jesus Christ!” Jesus truly is all you need. You know why? Back to Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit, the proof of the one born of God, the mark of God being your father, Galatians 5:23, “Against such there is no law.”

· You can live out no truth of the Word of God if you do not love the Lord. Agapeo. AND, if you love the Lord, by nature, just waking up into your day, if you are born of God and God is your Father and it is in His house you dwell, you live, if you love the Lord, then by nature, without even knowing it, you will fulfill the entirety of the rest of the ordinances and directives found in the Word and will and desire of God. Jesus said on these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets. Why. Because those two commandments truly are all of what is revealed and directed in the law and the prophets. Everything else, everything else, is just some sort of idol…