Calvary Evangelical Free Church

Calvary Evangelical Free Church
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Listen to our latest weekly messages from Calvary Evangelical Free Church located in Rochester Minnesota. Find and watch the corresponding sermon video in our Calvary Sermon Archive, https://www.calvaryefree.church/sermons/ or on our YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@calvaryefcrochester Calvary’s Mission is to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus who live out passion for Christ and compassion for people. Learn more about Calvary at https://www.calvaryefree.church/im-new/ and view what we believe at https://www.calvaryefree.church/about/mission-values-beliefs/

  1. 6d ago

    Believe and Live

    Josh Laack explores why the Christian life must be lived out by believing what God has revealed, and obeying His commands for our lives. Good morning, Calvary. My name is Josh Laack, and I have the joy and honor of serving as your elder board chair. And I also have the joy of being a part of the preaching team here at Calvary. And over the last little bit here this summer, we’ve been going through together this series in First John called Walk in the Light. When you hear the phrase walk in the light, what comes to your mind? For me, I think of the long journey that I took in my own life, toward becoming a born-again believer in Jesus, one who walks in the light. And I’ll be honest with you, this has not been a straight path in my life, nor an easy one. I see times in my life where I was trying to do one or the other of these pieces, either trying to be in the light or trying to walk, but I did not know how to put them together. What do I mean by that? Well, as a teen and into my early 20s, I spent a great deal of time walking all over the place. And by that I don’t mean getting exercise. I was trying to do a lot of things for and with people, but I was not motivated by the right things. I felt this powerful need to be seen and recognized and desired by those around me. But some of the people that I put around me were not people that I should want to be praised and recognized as doing what they wanted me to be doing. I wanted to be thought of as cool, accepted, part of the in-crowd. And so I behaved, I walked, in the way that I thought that they would want me to. This resulted in me joining in and swearing and watching movies and TV shows and listening to music, things that did not increase the light of Christ in my heart and my life. But I did these things because I wanted these people to think that I was somebody worth something, that I was somebody good. In fact, I even went so far as to do nice things for people, to do good things for people, but again, not for the right reasons. I would hold open doors or say nice things because I wanted the other person to recognize me, to say thank you, or to say, wow, that’s a really good guy, that Joshua. Unfortunately, this wasn’t just in the secular world that this played out. It happened for me at church too. Because at this point, even though I went to church on Sundays, I wasn’t even a Sunday Christian. I went to church, and I did it, and I said the things that I knew would get the recognition of Christians around me that I wanted to impress. I knew the right words. I knew what to say and how to say it. I knew when to pray. But it wasn’t something that was coming from my heart. It was something that was coming from my desire to be thought well of, to be recognized. During this time, I actually came to know many true things about Christianity, including even the knowledge that Jesus was probably who he claimed to be. I allowed that knowledge, that light, to enter my mind, but it did not affect my walk. Instead, I used the knowledge to continue to seek my own personal gain by having better things to share with those Christians around me. Better things to say. It took the Holy Spirit, a lot of trials and a lot of time for God to finally bring my heart around to a real desire to let that knowledge change how I walked. To become a Christian who genuinely served and walked in the light. This series, Walk in the Light, is John describing something genuine, something that begins with the light, the knowledge and truth of who Jesus is and what he’s done. And that light shining into the darkness of our lives. But it continues. It continues with that light altering who we are, what we know and believe, and then how we live our lives. We cannot just have knowledge, and we cannot just stand still or walk in our own strength. My point for us today is this: the Christian life must be lived out by believing what God has revealed and obeying his commands for our lives. You know, it actually makes a great deal of sense why it took me so long to get to that point in my life. Because the light does something that most of us don’t like at first. It reveals the hidden truths about who we really are. Things that we would much rather keep hidden from those around us. And it’s why Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:20 that was read for us everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. You know, I was avoiding truly living in the light because I thought I wanted to have both. I thought I wanted to keep the things of my old life, the things that felt good in the moment. I thought I wanted those things, too. And so I tried to have the light, but I tried to keep it at a distance so that I could keep on the other side these things that I wanted in the shadows. And I tried to hide those things even from my Lord, only really fooling myself. Of course, it never works that way. The way we deceive ourselves into believing that it might. And thankfully, it’s not the only option for us. We can become part of a new group, a second group of people who live out my purpose statement for us today. And Jesus describes those in verse 21, but whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Jesus was calling Nicodemus out of his old life of works for human approval, and he was calling him into the light of a new true life in Christ. And John has been doing much the same thing for us all throughout the letter of First John. Now, over the last several messages, the topic of love has come up over and over again the needing to love as a believer. And if you haven’t already, I recommend you check out those messages. Steve Ansell last week did a great job of setting us up for this message today where we will be in First John 5, verses one through five. Now here, John in these verses gives us a summary of what he has been teaching the whole time so far, which does include this idea of love. But he focuses on three main points that build upon what has come before. And we’re going to explore together today as three questions. By the end of our time, I hope to show us that John’s point on the fact that we must love, but we must focus on how this is practically done in our lives so that we know how to how to actually live this out. How can it change our lives today? In order to get to this practical application, we’re going to go through these three questions. Who is this for? What do we do? And why does it matter? Looking at the first question, who is this for? Let’s go to First John five, verse one and see how John approaches the answer. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. What we see here is John describing a clear definition of a person who walks in the light. This is someone who trusts, who believes what has been revealed to them about Christ. And that belief results in genuine love for the Father and love for others. Steve read this verse for us last week, and he really touched on the family nature of this verse. Belief in Christ as the Son of God results in a relationship in us being born again into the family of God. And if this is genuine, it will result in love lived out for our Father and for our brother Christ and for others in our lives. I notice here, though, that John does not describe many categories or many paths to this kind of love. Rather, he emphatically lists only two options. Either you are walking in the light of Christ or you are not. We’ll get into why this matters more with the last question, but we can clearly see here that John doesn’t see multiple paths to God, and this has been woven all throughout the letter so far, with John going so far as to say, if you claim you have love for the Father, but you don’t live out that love for him and for others, then you are a liar, and the truth is not in you. Anyone who tries to live this way is still in darkness. And that’s what Jesus was describing to Nicodemus. If your actions are not done in the light, then you will continue to hide in the darkness. So we see here only two options: either believe and trust in Jesus and be born again into his family, or reject him and still live in darkness. Now many people struggle with this, and Nicodemus does as well in John three, Jesus explains to him that he must be born again and how to enter the kingdom of God, not by his own power, but through the Holy Spirit. And Nicodemus doesn’t get it. How can these things be? He asks Jesus. And for all his study as a Pharisee, for all of the knowledge that he had as a teacher among the Jews, Nicodemus doesn’t understand. So Jesus explains to him who he is and what he has come to do. John 3:16-18. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. In First John, John is explaining to us what Jesus has already taught. Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world because the whole world is already condemned in their own sin. Jesus instead came to save us as the light. For the whole world then there are two options. Believe in Jesus, who died and rose again on our behalf, and be saved from the just result of the darkness that we used to live in. Or option two reject him and remain in darkness. Remain condemned in our sin. Jesus didn’t come to put people in hell or to put them into judgment. He came to offer a way out to the whole world that was already there. Believe in who Jesus is and what he has done for you and you will be saved. Th

  2. Aug 9

    You’ve Got to Love Both

    The same God who demands our love, commands us to love our brothers and sisters. Good morning everybody. Thank you very much for being here. Those that don’t know me, my name is Steve Ansell, and I’m part of the preaching team through the summer this year. Now, if you’ve been coming in the last few weeks, you know that we’re going through the book of First John. And today we’ve gotten to chapter four and we have two verses, verse 20 and 21. And if you see, the title is You’ve Got to Love Both. So you might be sitting there and going, love, I think we’ve done love a few times already this summer. And you’d be right. I will say that as I was preparing for this, I was impressed and really challenged by the fact that John talks about love over and over and over again. And then as I was looking at some of the ways in which he had quoted, I saw that Jesus spoke about love over and over and over again. So I think as I was then challenging myself. If Jesus and John thought this was an important topic. Well, clearly it’s an important topic and we’re going to happily look into what he has to say, John has to say about it today. So here’s the scripture that we’re going to be looking at. It’s First John chapter four, verses 20 and 21, and it says, if anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And this is the commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. So I was thinking a little bit about this. The whole thing about loving both God and my brother, God and others around me, others in the church, others that I have intersection with. I thought of an illustration that I thought was very helpful to me. I hope it is to you too. When I was a kid I had, I guess it was a toy. Probably wasn’t really a toy, but I enjoyed it a lot. I had a set of magnets, not just kind of wimpy little magnets. I had really good magnets. These ones were super powerful and they would stick to each other. That if you, as a little kid, pulling them apart was actually quite hard. And putting them down, if I took the negative pole and put it with a negative pole, you know how those repel each other, I could push that magnet around the kitchen table. There was really clear evidence of a significant force that was going on. You couldn’t see it, but you definitely knew it was there. So if you wanted to see the power and the force, if you took some iron filings and you just sprinkled them around, you’d get that. You could see the magnetic field and the positive and negative poles. You could see how, again, the magnetism was kind of moving between the poles. If you turned a positive pole and put it next to a positive pole, you could see what’s on the right, and that’s the forces repelling each other. So two things that I wanted us to take away from that. The first is that sometimes it isn’t clearly evident, but that magnetic field is definitely there. You can see evidence of it all around. So as we’re going to be challenging ourselves, people will know that we love God by the love we show to them, and it will be evident by the love field, if you like, that’s around us. But probably even more important is the fact that you cannot have a magnetic field without a positive and a negative pole. If you only have a positive pole, all you have is a block of iron. It’s nothing. Magnets have to have a positive and a negative charge. So John is going to tell us that if we want to be followers of Christ, we have to love God and we have to love others. A positive charge and a negative charge. Love for God. Love for others. Without the one, the other doesn’t exist. So here’s the proposition that we’re going to talk about today. The same God who we love commands us to love our brothers and sisters. You have to love both. Like two poles. Positive and negative of a magnet. One without the other doesn’t exist. Let’s open with a word of prayer before we get into the Scripture. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you so much that you loved us so much that you sent Jesus. You gave up your son who died for us. Thank you Lord, by Your Holy Spirit that we can have that love of Jesus in our lives. And I pray that as I’ve been challenged, that others that are hearing this today will be challenged to have the love of Jesus emulate from us, ooze out from us because of the love that you, Father, are putting in our hearts and how this is demonstrated around us. May we be like a magnet. May we have both a positive and a negative pole. May we love God and may we love others. If you’ve been with us through the summer, you’ll know that John was writing this letter to a church that had some issues, and he was addressing some of the things that were lies or falsehoods in the church. And over the last number of weeks, you’ll know that Pastor Kyle and then Pastor John and others have been addressing some of these lies. So the first lie we wanted to just reflect on is the lie that says, I can walk with God, but live in disobedience. And this is a lie that Pastor Kyle actually preached about twice. It’s a moral lie, if you like. The first time he preached about it was First John, chapter one, verse six, and it says, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. And then we had a second sermon on this Frst John, chapter two, verse four, which again says, whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. So the lie that he was being challenged there is, I can say, I’m following God. I can say I walk with God, I can say God is my Father, but I can still misbehave and live in disobedience. The second lie that we went, and this was actually, the lie that says, I can know the Father and deny the Son. So what does that mean? Well, I can say God is my Father. I can say I believe in God, but I allow myself to ignore the claims that Jesus has on my life. And this is a sermon that Pastor James Lowe preached about. It comes from First John chapter two, verses 22 to 23. It says, who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. Saying that I follow God. God is someone that I want to be in a relationship with. But Jesus claims on my life I can ignore. Now we get to the third lie. And this is the lie that says I can love God without loving other believers. And again, this is a relational lie. And we’re going to look at it in the context of written to other Christians, because John is writing this to the church. So this applies to the people sitting around us in the pew. It applies clearly more beyond that, but I think the challenge is often if we say we love God without loving other believers, that’s a lie. So let’s go back for a minute to the scripture. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. So three points I hope you’ll be able to take away from today. These are the things that I was challenged by. Loving God has to be authentic. We need to look into our hearts and to say, is it real? Number two, loving God needs to be visible just like that magnetic field. Other people around us need to know it’s there. Need to make sure it’s obvious. And then finally, number three, knowing God must be obedient. So let’s jump right in. Point number one, loving God must be authentic. Well, where do I get that? That’s right in the first part of the scripture here, it says, anyone who says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. So the obvious main point here is our claim to love God is a lie if we don’t love others. Now, I don’t know about you, but there are a few words in that sentence that really bother me. The first one is what does hate mean? I mean, that seems like a really strong word, right in the Bible. Well, Pastor Kyle, actually a number of weeks ago gave us some instruction about this. John has really used this word, and when he uses it, he’s talking about an ongoing attitude, a choice, a choice of rejection, of hostility, of refusal to love. It’s not just merely a moment of irritation or disagreement. It’s when I actually choose to say, I will hold something against you. I will disagree with you and so I won’t love you. Well, I was thinking, now that you put it that way, if I look at my own life, I can see that I do that too. I don’t know about you, but if you look at your heart and your life, do you see people where you kind of hold a spirit of disagreement and a spirit of unwillingness to really kind of want the best for them? As I was thinking back, I remember a time when I was a kid. I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up, sometimes exams and homework all seemed to collide on the same day when I was in high school, and it was a particularly busy time and there was exams coming up on Monday, there was homework that was not yet done. My brothers and I all felt like it was all coming together, and Sunday we seemed to be at church for a very long time. And I needed a little time to get my homework and studying done, So we asked my dad if it would be okay if we went to Sunday school, but during the church service, could we use one of the classrooms to do some of the homework and the studying that we needed to get done? And he relented and said that would be fine. So we were up in the classroom, my two brothers and myself. But we worked out that if you opened the window of the classroom, you could get out onto the roof of the church. So needless to say, not a lot of homework and studying was going on, but a lot of exploring was happening. The thing we didn’t realize, though,

  3. Aug 2

    Confident Love

    We can confidently stand before the judgement seat of God because His perfect love paid in full the punishment we deserved. If you have your Bibles, you can open up to First John chapter four, First John four, verses 18 and 19. That’s what we’ll be in this morning. And as you turn there, I’d like to share a little story with you. Before we had cell phones where you would take videos and pictures of all your memories, this is what my parents used. This is an RCA camcorder. This was shoulder-mounted because it was so heavy. It’s like a rocket launcher, right? You would just, you carry this, and my parents actually let me use this. I thought it was a toy. And I recorded a lot of our vacations and our memories. And I would look through the scope and I remember being fatigued, like my shoulder was, it was worn out. We recorded on a VHS cassette, right. If you have one of those, you’re aging yourself right now with me, right? I loved this so much. One is because it usually because it was happiness and joy. We were doing something fun. We were playing games, acting goofy or on vacation. So I associate the camcorder with a lot of positive memories and emotions. So when I became a parent, I went into Best Buy and I bought a digital handheld handycam, right? No more shoulder pain. You could hold it in your hand. It was lightweight. You could flip the screen, right. So I’d record my kids. I’d say, hey, show me your funny faces. And they would do that. Hours of entertainment. I just would laugh with them. Right? And they liked watching themselves. It had this night vision option. You could record in the dark. So one night, Saturday evening, church is tomorrow. We put our kids down a little earlier. Sarah and I, we hear the kids monkeying around, right? They’re toddlers. You guys remember that show Cops, right? I was like, I’m going to do Cops right to Sarah. So I start telling, you know, as if it was an audience listening. What’s going on? There’s criminals in the room and they’re not. They’re supposed to be in bed right now, but they’re not doing it. And we’re going to go and bust them right now. Right. And so I cracked the door open. I hit the night shot first, right? Turns everything green. Right. So cool. And I cracked the door open. And there my daughters have taken this night light. It had a clamp, right. And it had this flexible arm. And so when we read the Bible or stories tonight, we would turn off all the lights. And then just so I could read the story to my girls so they can settle down, they took that off those little monsters. And then they started putting on themselves doing like interrogations. Right? So I just started filming. I’m laughing silently because I don’t want to give my, I don’t want to know that I’m watching. I lose it when one of my daughters, she had like a sippy cup full of some water and she chucked it my other daughter hit her in the face. And I laughed and they heard me laugh. And then I bust down the door. What’s going on in here? Right. And they scatter, right? The girl with the light takes the light and she tucks it under her. And then the light just flowing out behind her. Right? I start laughing more, and then the other girl, she’s like, where do I go? We’re busted. Right? This is her reaction. I have the actual photo here. I went back on my digital camera. You have to rewind it and watch it. Like you just don’t have these chapters in your phone where you can pull it up. Hey, find this photo of me. I had to do it old school. This was her face. Yeah, I laughed too, right? And she still makes this face. Sometimes I just make her angry so I can see this again, right? I don’t know what you see here. Maybe you see sassiness. All my kids are sassy. We call it sanctification for us, right? Like you grow in patience and kindness and joy and love for your kids. You may see some defiance, maybe some of that, but, you know, but she was like, she was looking and then she like, just like crossed her arms and clenched her fists and said, I’m not in trouble, you’re in trouble for breaking up my fun. Right? What are you gonna do about this? And this is a snapshot. Like she was laughing after this, like we were laughing together. I don’t want you to give this, I have permission, by the way, to show this. So in case she sees this. She said yes. In the face of judgment she wasn’t afraid. But I see here also is a confidence, not a confidence in what she had done. She knew she was busted. Right. That’s why she was like, where do I go? I can’t get anywhere. I’m just going to deny it. Right? Or but she had confidence in her father. Even though she was busted, he still loved her. Right? Like if I was if I had my dad’s voice on, if I was scarier, and, you know, dads can do this. Like she’d be cowering. She’d be running. Right after this, she was smiling with me and I was tickling her and saying, hey, we need to go to bed. When it comes to judgment, the feeling most associated with judgment isn’t confidence. Typically it’s fear. Webster’s dictionary defines fear as this fear is a strong, unpleasant emotion caused by the awareness or anticipation of danger, pain, or harm. You see, fear is amoral. Meaning it’s not inherently evil or wrong to fear something. In some ways, fear could be good. If you and I were swimming or surfing in the ocean and I saw a shark. I may tell you. Right. No, I would tell you, and I hope fear would kick in, because that means adrenaline is making me paddling faster. And I’m telling myself I just have to paddle faster than you, right? Fear can actually, we can think of a couple good reasons to fear when it’s actually beneficial. For example, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, Proverbs says. This is a reverential fear that keeps one less likely to fall into sin and temptation, which we all could use more of. But there is some fear that we should not entertain. There’s a kind of fear that is not beneficial or based in truth. Let me give you two examples of fears I’ve struggled with throughout my life and even into adulthood that I have to put down at times and know that’s not true. I have a fear, at times, that I am not loved. I have a fear sometimes that I’m alone. But for any believer, you cannot simultaneously be a Christian that is in Christ and have the indwelling Holy Spirit in you and simultaneously claim to be unloved and alone. Those realities are as mutually exclusive as oil and water, light and darkness. I can understand the sentiment that a Christian may feel alone and unloved at times in our broken world, but what is true does not always coincide with what we feel. There’s a lack of confidence in God’s perfect love for us. When it comes to judgment,the reason why many Christians may still be tormented by fear is because they have an incomplete or immature view of God’s love for them. As we go through our passage today, we’ll unpack how God wants his children to have assurance of faith instead of fear of judgment, a confidence even when they’re busted. That we can confidently stand before the judgment seat of God because his perfect love paid in full the punishment that we rightly deserve. But before I go any further, let me pray. Holy Spirit, we we invite you. You are already here and have been present, but we ask God that you would give us the means to which to understand that which is spiritual. For your Word of God is discerned by the Spirit. God, we want to have a mature understanding of your love, not a worldly one, not one that we experience in our lives, through our families and our histories, God as those may be good, but they also could be not quite the perfect representation of how you love us. There is such a love that is perfect that it casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And for every child of God there’s an assurance. There’s a confidence. Not in our faithfulness, but predicated on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross who died for us. Help us God, to walk in that grace and that truth. Help us, Lord, to repent, but also know that your grace is sufficient. We love you. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Let’s read our passage First John chapter 4 verse 18 and 19 says this. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. John gives us a purpose statement in this epistle, later in chapter five. He says this, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. John wrote this letter to reassure believers of their eternal salvation, which is a very present and future reality. Just one verse earlier in verse 17 of chapter four, he says this. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. The Greek word there for confidence, translated confidence, means not arrogance or self-confidence, but rather it speaks to a freedom of doubt. To have a boldness or assurance of your faith. But this boldness is not rooted in our own accomplishments, but in the finished work of Christ. John goes on to specify the secret to this confidence. He says this, as he is, speaking of Jesus, as he is, so are we in this world. As children of God, we share a likeness to Christ. Currently, right now, where you’re sitting in this world, not in divine perfection. You and I both know we’re not perfect, right? You can have a cup of coffee with me and you’ll find out soon. But in the spiritual identity and relationship that Jesus has to God the Father, we share in that. Positionally we are right now as he is. We are so closely identified with Christ as his adopted children, as members of his body. Our position in this world is like God’s exalted position in heaven. God sees you and I in Christ. That is a mind-blowing r

  4. Jul 26

    Mutual Indwelling

    The Christian life is a life of mutual indwelling – God in us, and us in God. Having a saving faith in Christ is something that radically transforms us because it changes us in two profound ways; it moves us into a position of abiding in the Triune God, and it results in God abiding in us. It’s great to be with you this morning. If you don’t know me, my name is Jamie Robinson. I’m the worship pastor here. Usually I’m leading worship, but this morning I just got to sit in the congregation and enjoy worshiping alongside you. I’m so grateful for the worship team that we have here, all the volunteers, the team this morning did a wonderful job. So thank you. Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever had the feeling that you’ve heard something already. Maybe you are in conversation with somebody and they start telling you a story and you’re thinking, I’ve heard this before. I know where they’re going, I know the ending, but you just don’t have the heart to tell them that you’ve heard it already. You just let them go on and on. Well, maybe you’re getting a sense of that somewhat this summer, as we’ve been walking through our summer sermon series, Walking in the Light. A lot of these themes that we’ve been looking at have been coming around again and again. And it’s because this letter, written by John, is written in a way that we call circular emphasis. What he’s been doing is he’s been circling around different themes, themes of love and light and truth, and he keeps circling around. He keeps coming back to them again and again. And it’s because these are important truths that we need to grasp and get hold of. And this is the way that he’s writing. This is his style so that we grasp these truths. It’s intentional. It can seem redundant at times. It can seem like we’ve covered this already, but each time he goes a little bit deeper into the theme and he builds on it a bit more, he’s building on these truths so that we can remain in the light, so that we can continue to walk in the light, so that we can be obedient to the Lord, and also so we don’t stray into falling for false teaching. So this morning, we’re coming around to one of these themes again, the theme of abiding. We’ve heard about abiding in the light. So far. We’ve heard about abiding in God. We’ve heard about the Word of God abiding in us. This is clearly something really important that John is wanting us to see and hear and understand. If you cast your mind back a couple of months ago, you’ll remember Pastor Kyle spoke. He preached on a passage earlier in First John on abiding. And Kyle gave us this wonderful, holy and righteous and tried and tested through the ages image of pickles in brine. That’s how he got us to visualize abiding. And it was a really helpful picture because as we saw the cucumbers there in the brine, it helped us to understand this idea of abiding, of saturation, of complete and utter immersion in something. Another way we could think about abiding would be through the lens of marriage. When two people get married, they become one flesh in the eyes of God. They unite together in desire and purpose. When I married my wife, Kate, when we got married all those years ago, we gave, we exchanged vows. We said that all that we had belonged to the other person. We came together in one purpose before the Lord. Now we didn’t become one physical person. We remained our identities. Obviously, we didn’t become one freakish, conjoined person with ginger hair and a beard. That would be weird. Although no offense to people with ginger hair and beards. That’s not what I was trying to get at. But you get the idea. We remain two people, but in the eyes of God, we become one. And in one sense, we abide in each other. Another way to think about it, another picture would be a song and a singer. Think about a song. It’s just lyrics on a page with notes. And think about the singer. Just an individual waiting to sing a song. But when those two things come together, when the song starts to be sung by the singer in a very real sense, they abide in the song and the song abides in them. You’ll know this if you’ve ever seen and heard a passionate performance at a concert, you’ll know that the very best singers completely embody the song. They embody it as they sing it, as they perform it. They dwell in the song. They live in it. Now I have to be careful that I don’t push these analogies too far. I don’t want to give you the sense that God needs us to become real. God doesn’t need us to abide in that sense. God is completely whole and perfect in his own being. He needs nothing outside of himself at all. He’s perfect in his wholeness. But these images and these pictures can help us get an image in our mind of what it means to abide. Or the way I want to put it this morning, mutual indwelling, two things dwelling together. This is what John is wanting us to see and understand here in our passage today. That the Christian life is a life of mutual indwelling. God in us and us in God. Having a saving faith in Christ is something that radically transforms us in two very profound ways. First of all, it moves us into a position of God dwelling in us. And it also moves us into the position of us dwelling in God. What I hope we’ll see this morning is this abiding. We’ll see how this mutual indwelling shapes our love for God and for each other, and how it gives us confidence and assurance for what lies ahead. So let’s turn to our passage. This is First John chapter four, starting at verse 13. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of His Spirit. John begins by telling us how we can be confident of this mutual indwelling, because God has given us of His Spirit. This is how God has chosen to dwell in us. This is how he’s able to abide in us. It’s made possible through the gift of His Holy Spirit. If we recall Jesus interaction with his disciples before his death, when he gathered them together. He promised. He told them that the Spirit would come. He said the Spirit would come to them, giving them power to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. In the book of Acts, we then see the Holy Spirit fall on that early church in power. The Spirit enabled the apostles and those gathered to speak in tongues, and they reached out and took the gospel to many people that day, and many people were added to the church. This is why John starts with this reminder. The gift of God’s Spirit is the assurance that God loves us. It’s the guarantee of our inheritance, as we’re told in Ephesians. The Holy Spirit is a down payment that assures us of our salvation and our inheritance. When you make a large purchase, if you buy a house or a boat or a piece of land or a car, often you have to make a down payment, a deposit. It’s a way of saying, yep, I’m in this transaction. I’m going to put my money where my mouth is. I’m going to complete this process. And in the same way, the Holy Spirit is very much like a down payment to us. It’s God’s way of guaranteeing that he is fully committed to us. We are his, and he intends to make it permanent by giving us his Spirit. Understanding the role of God’s Spirit is so crucial if we want to fully see and appreciate what the Christian life looks like. Unfortunately, some people have reduced the Holy Spirit down to a force or a power. They’re more likely to refer to the Holy Spirit as an IT or a thing rather than a person. And phrases or prayers like God, fill me with your spirit or give me more of your spirit can lead us down that path. We can kind of have this image of us as a glass, and God’s Spirit is a liquid flowing into us, and we can sometimes think of God’s Spirit as a thing. But he’s not a thing, he’s a personal being. He’s part of the Triune Godhead. And our passage here today, these five verses that we’re looking at, brings the Trinity into view. The Spirit, the Father, the son. John is intentionally bringing this triune nature of God into view to help us understand what it means to abide in God. If we’re able to catch a glimpse of the relationship that exists in the Godhead, it’ll help us understand our own relationship with God. Now, I’m not going to try and attempt to explain the Trinity this morning, you may be pleased to know. I don’t have time. Actually, even if I did have time, let’s be honest, I would not be able to do it. I know my own limitations. I know the pitfalls and the traps that we can fall into when we try and explain to deeper level how the Trinity works. I’m never going to fully grasp and understand the Triune nature of God. None of us are. There are people out there, theologians and authors, who have written wonderful books on the Trinity, but even they, and all their deep study and understanding, will never fully know the true nature of God. But he does give us glimpses in His Word of who he is. He has revealed things that are understandable to us, and that’s what I want us to see here this morning and understand is that the God is relational at the very core of his being, because he is 3 in 1. So although I’m not going to explain the Trinity here this morning too deeply, what I am going to do is try and bring out that interpersonal relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and that can go a little bit deeper. So I hope I’m able to, to, to do this in a way that relates to you. And I hope you’re able to stay with me for the next five minutes or so as we go into this part of the sermon. A few months ago, I was having a conversation with somebody, and they’d been having a conversation with somebody else, a young believer, somebody new in the faith. And this young believer had asked this person a question. And the question was this: what was God doing before he made the earth, before he brought creation into being? What was he d

  5. Jul 19

    Love Embodied

    Because God embodied love by sending His son, we must love others. Good morning, Calvary. Christ is risen. Amen. Some of you might be looking up here saying, you know, I thought it was hazy this morning, but that does not look like Pastor Kyle. And you would be correct. I’m Jason O’Grady. I’m one of the elders here at Calvary. I also have the privilege of being on the teaching team. You see, Pastor Kyle, in addition to his fantastic preaching and being able to divide the word of truth, he also loves to train up others to preach as well. And so I’m grateful to be able to do that. I have to be honest with you, though, that just because I’m up here preaching to you does not mean that I have arrived. Doesn’t mean that I’ve attained to all these truths of Scripture that we’re going to be looking at today, that I’m a local sojourner with you, a fellow servant. And so what the Lord is teaching me is what I’m sharing with you. I first preached from First John over 25 years ago, and the Lord continues to show fantastic and sometimes hard truths from these scriptures to me. So he’s teaching me before I’m teaching others. Last week, Pastor Kyle talked about testing the spirits and that how we might know the spirit of truth. And this week, in First John, we are going to return to a common theme of love. This, in fact, is the third passage in First John that explicitly tells us to love one another. And if you’ve been following along with this summer series, this is actually the fourth sermon you likely have heard on loving one another. In fact, the words love, loved, loves, loving is used 46 times in this small epistle and in this chapter alone, First John four, it is used 27 times. So it’s obviously a theme that John wants to impress upon us. Maybe you’re like my youngest and you just love love. But you know what? There’s going to be some hard truths here as well as we look into this together. If you take nothing else from the sermon today, I want you to take this away because God embodied love by sending His Son, we must love others. I’ll say that one more time because God embodied love by sending His Son, we must love others. Would you pray with me? Father, I praise you and I thank you that we could come here and worship you. I thank you for your word that we can dig into together. I thank you, Lord for how you continue to grow this local body. It’s really exciting to hear about that land purchase, Lord, but we pray for wisdom, direction, and guidance for where you would like us to go from here. Lord, we want to pray for those in the northern of the state that are dealing with the wildfires. I pray, Lord, that you would protect life and that you would also be with the firefighters that are there. Lord, I pray for peace in this world. I think of the brothers and sisters right now that are facing persecution or in war. Lord, I pray for peace in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, in Iran and South Sudan. Lord, as we look into your word right now, I pray, Father, that it would not be my words, but that it would be yours, that you would use my weakness to show your truth. Father, thank you so much for your goodness and thank you for your love. It’s in Jesus name we pray. Amen. So we’re going to be in First John four today. That is in page 1023 in your pew Bibles. But I’ll also have it on the screen for you as well. And in typical Baptist fashion, I’m going to give you four points to remember today. So first let’s look at love commanded. Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. So he starts this passage with beloved. This is actually the fifth time that he’s used this word. It basically is showing that he truly loves his hearers. It’s kind of like a pastoral concern. He’s actually showing his hearers, hey, I am loving you and you must love others. Beloved, let us love one another. It sounds so repetitive here in First John, let us love one another. Do you think it’s just something that John cooked up on its own? Maybe it’s his own pet doctrine of love. Why did he continue to harp on this? And I would say that it was because this is exactly what he received from our Lord Jesus. You already heard it read in John 15, but I think it’s so powerful. I want to hear those words from the Lord again. John 15 and verse 12, he says this, John 15, verse 12, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants. For the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another. So you see, John is again returning to this theme because it is what he heard throughout the ministry of Jesus as three years he walked with him on this earth. Even when Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees and they said, what is the number one commandment? The first commandment? Jesus responded in Matthew 22, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, and your strength. And he says, and secondly, you should love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another was something that Jesus preached again and again. And it’s something that John wants us to do. And here in this passage, when he commands love, we see three reasons why we should love one another. First, love is from God. Love is from God. It is a gift. Love is out of by means of God. To paraphrase John Piper, this from here, love is from God, isn’t like the letter I would get from a mailman, or even letter I would get from a loved one. Think of it more like light I get from the sun because of what the sun is. It gives light or heat that I get from the fire. The same type of love is here, that love is from God. But some of you might say, well, wait a minute. There’s this one person and it might be a co-worker, it might be a neighbor, it might be a family member that I just can’t love. They are just so annoying. Or more commonly, they’ve hurt me so bad in the past. How can I love? There’s no way. And God is saying exactly. You can’t love on your own. It is only through the new spirit that I put in you that you are truly able to love others. So when he commands us to love one another first, it’s because love is from God. Then next, see, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Did you have a question there as you read that? Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. You see, I know many people that don’t profess Christ that seem to love. It could be an atheist, it could be a Sikh, it could be a Muslim, it could be a Hindu that seems like they love. Well, does that mean that they know God, that they show that love. Well, that’s where we have to actually return to context here because we see in First John 4:2, we heard about this last week. By this, you know, the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. So we see that we might have that right, that truth, that right belief to be able to actually be from God. And I also think that that love that I’ve seen exhibited in others that are non-believers is not truly that deep, abiding, self-sacrificial biblical love that is talked about here. So whoever loves has been born of God. Born of God, does that spark anything in your mind? I’m sure John was thinking back to that time with Nicodemus that he talks about in John three, where Nicodemus comes and said, how must I be saved? And Jesus said, you must be born again. Nicodemus says, well, how can I be born again if I’ve already been born? And that’s where Jesus then talks about being born in the spirit. He says, for that which was born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So if we have that new life, if we are born again in Christ, then we must love. But what does it mean then to know God? If whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. What does it mean to know God? Many of you know that I’m an Orioles fan. In fact, when I was growing up, my favorite player was probably Cal Ripken Jr. He was fantastic. In fact, I probably I, I do, I have his Wheaties box. I have a few signed balls. I have a picture of him in my bedroom. I mean, this guy I really enjoyed. Okay. And I could even go on some stats probably for you. I mean, he won the World Series in 1983. He had 2,632 consecutive games. He was a 19-time All-Star. In fact, his last All-Star Game, he hit a home run in the third inning that put the American League up one. Nothing and I could go on and on. Probably my son could give you more stats than me, but does that actually mean that I know Cal Ripken or that Cal Ripken knows me? No, because I haven’t really experienced him. I haven’t walked with him. I don’t know what he loves and what motivates him. Conversely, as I’ve walked with my wife and gotten to know her, I know her because we have experienced life together. I know what brings her joy. I’ve found out now that she absolutely loves trees. So that means that if it’s Mother’s Day or her birthday or some other holiday, I’m probably going to be getting her a tree because that brings her joy. If I’m planning a vacation, well, you better hope that there’s trees there because that brings her joy. Even my kids are picking up on the fact that their mother loves trees so much that they started to call her The Lorax. So we know that I experience love with my wife because I’ve walked with her. And

  6. Jul 12

    Spiritual Leading and Misleading

    As careful Christians, we must assess the information we hear about God by comparing it to God’s revealed word, so that we know whether the source is reliable. Well, I was talking to a friend one time about spiritual matters. She was an actress alongside me in a play that I was in. And this was many years ago. And she was telling me about how she was part of the Unitarian Universalist group that was in town. If you’re not familiar, Unitarian means that God is a single entity. They chose this word to directly oppose the Trinitarian view of God as the Bible teaches. Universalist means that every view and belief about God is legitimate. There are many, many ways to know and approach God. Whatever you believe is just fine by them. And their view of Jesus was that he was greatly influenced by God and was therefore a deeply spiritual person, as we should all strive to be, but that he was not God incarnate. Now, since I knew this was where my friend was coming from, I knew our conversation on spiritual matters would not last long. Not because I was unwilling to kindly talk to her about her beliefs, but because I knew the moment that I began to steer the conversation toward any kind of true false statements about God, she would become uncomfortable and skeptical of me. You see, the only way that universalism works is if no one is wrong about any belief they hold. Okay. That’s how it works. And they have to be able to hold that belief without making a case for it, without arguing for it. And the moment someone says, I hear you, but where do you get your information? I don’t think that’s what God is like at all. As soon as you say that, universalism crumbles, can’t stand up to scrutiny. And just as I thought, my friend made some statements about God’s love and how Jesus is the perfect example of how God loves all people without agenda, regardless of what we believe, and I simply asked her where she got her information about Jesus and she said, it’s complicated and quickly shut the whole conversation down. Now, I mentioned this brief conversation as a tiny example of a pattern that you will find in every corner of the world and throughout all of human history, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. There are plenty of people who will gladly teach you their understanding of God. Lots of people will teach you their understanding of God. Now, that’s not a bad thing. I’m doing that right now. Okay. It’s not a bad thing. Discipleship is built on sharing about God. God’s word instructs us to pass truth about God onto other people. But it is very, very important for all of us to understand that the messages we hear about the character and nature of God are not always true facts from trusted sources. There are plenty of people who would gladly share information with you about God, information that they will present as true, but may not be accurate at all. And I feel comfortable saying that thanks to technology, this has never been a bigger problem in human history than it is right now. Okay. This is bigger than probably it’s ever been. I mean, from the Garden of Eden all the way to like 1992. Okay. You could read some misleading books, or you could listen to a misleading teacher, you could have some bad influences in your life. But as soon as the internet became a thing, everyone who has ever had something to say to you about God now has the ability to say it directly to you. Who are these people? Who knows? Right? They’re just out there. Where do they get their information? Probably from other people on the internet. Right. And it’s only gotten worse. Right now, every single one of us has a machine in our pockets that we will spend hours staring at this week, that is filled with people who will gladly tell you who God is, how life works, and what you should value. Now, I’m not anti-technology, I’m not anti-internet or anything like that. We just need to be aware that false teaching and spiritual misleading has unprecedented access to our minds and hearts. And today in our passage, John is going to teach us how to test the spirits. That’s his phrase. Test the spirits. He’s going to help us discern between true information about God and falsehood that leads us away from God. And he’s going to do that by showing us how to listen for the spiritual source that is behind the information. As careful Christians, we must assess the information that we hear about God by comparing it to what God has revealed about himself so that we know whether the source is reliable. There’s a lot in our passage today. So let’s get started here. We’re in First John chapter four, verse one. I’m going to frame our time this morning around three questions. What does it mean to test the spirits? What do we listen for? And who do we listen to? Let’s start with that first question. What does it mean to test the spirits? Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. So you’ll remember at the end of chapter three, John said that the spirit that God has given us, the Holy Spirit’s presence within us, is the way we know that we abide. It’s the sign to know that we abide with God or that we are connected to God. So the Holy Spirit’s work in your heart that leads to conviction of your sin and trust in the in the saving power of Jesus, that is evidence of your relationship with God. And that evident relationship should lead you to confidence. You shouldn’t be walking around worried about your life or scared of what God thinks. You shouldn’t be afraid of what’s out there in the world that might harm you. Christians are not built to shrink in fear. Okay. That confidence is rooted in the objective spiritual reality that the Holy Spirit now resides in you. But the Holy Spirit is not the only spiritual entity. We’re told throughout Scripture that there is a demonic force that inhabits our world. It’s led by Satan, our enemy. It’s filled with demons who act as soldiers in an army designed to attack God’s creation, particularly people. And this army’s goal is to try to take worship away from God and redirect it to Satan, who acts as a kind of false god for this world. God has allowed Satan, with his sovereign plan to exercise some power and influence over humanity. Now, why God allows this is a very big question, and it is beyond the scope of our passage this morning. But I will just say very briefly that in God’s plan to redeem his church and bring us all under the kingship of Christ, he uses evil for his greater purposes. God uses or allows it and uses it for his greater purposes. This is why Peter can preach in the streets of Jerusalem after the resurrection of Jesus, and they are filled with the Holy Spirit. He can stand in the streets and preach this. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. See, God used it. This is why God can allow Satan to test Job in the Old Testament, taking everything from him to prove that his faith will last. That’s why Paul can say that God gave him a messenger of Satan to harass him, to keep him from becoming conceited. Now God is not battling Satan in a war as if there equals. God has already defeated Satan. He defeated him on the cross. But God is allowing demonic forces of this world to have some influence. Because through those influences, God is bringing about the greater good of those who trust in Christ. In a whole section on the power of the Holy Spirit sustaining us through suffering, in Romans chapter eight, Paul says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. So, when Jesus came, he defeated Satan. And he described his ministry as coming to bind the strong man and plunder his house. So Jesus came into the world to tie up Satan, to throw him into the front yard, and then to go into the house and take back all of God’s stuff, specifically us. People. Jesus says Satan will no longer have you. He’s not going to influence you anymore. Your mine. I’m filling you with my spirit so that those evil spirits can no longer reside in you and have power over you. And that’s what’s been happening for 2000 years now. That’s what’s been happening as the gospel has spread across the world through faith in Christ, human hearts and minds are set free, and they’re filled with the Holy Spirit who unites us with God. So what we have now in the world are two types of people. Despite all of our differences in culture and location and skin color and language, there’s only one distinction that really matters. Those who are set free by Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, and those who are in bondage to Satan and influenced by demonic spirits. And this is the context, okay? This is the context in which John this morning tells us as believers, to test the spirits. He’s telling us to remember the spiritual reality of the world around us, and recognize that Satan has been given some of this permission. Some authority to move and act. And so we have to test the spirit so that we can discern between those things that are coming from the Holy Spirit and those things that are evil. Now, what does this test look like? Okay. What do you actually do? How do you test? I mean, it sounds very Halloween, doesn’t it? You know, is there a seance involved? Is this the plot of The Exorcist. Like those are the things that come to mind, a lot of times, when we think about spiritual engagement, right? Testing the spirits. It’s mostly Hollywood. It’s actually far more simple than that. But before I show you, let me just encourage you to avoid all the nonsense that often gets packed into phrases like test the spirits. The only instruction that we are given in Scripture anywhere for engagi

  7. Jul 5

    God is Greater Than Our Heart

    For those of us who have had our hearts transformed by the grace of Christ, God’s Spirit must and will break our resistance to his commands. Well, we’re about halfway through our series in First John. How’s everybody doing? You doing okay? As I said at the beginning, First John is near the top of the list of the most personally challenging books of the Bible. Spiritual challenge is found throughout this book. And that’s because from beginning to end, John relentlessly stays on the topic of how to know your own heart. The reason he’s writing to the church is to prevent them from falling prey to false teachers who are coming to try to mislead them. But the way he equips them, the way he gets them ready for those false teachers who are coming, and teaches them how to spot this false teacher, is by assessing their own spiritual state. So, for example, he says, watch out for people who say they walk in the light but encourage you to sin and to then say that that sin is no big deal. And the way he teaches them to see this is first he asks the question, are you walking in the light? Do you walk in the light? Are you genuinely waging war against your sin because your heart has been made new in Christ? If so, you will know what to look for. You’ll be able to spot what I’m talking about. And if not, you’re not going to spot false teaching because you’ve already embraced false teaching. So quite unsurprisingly, our passage today is yet one more description of the inner workings of our hearts and minds. And this is an interesting passage because it’s slightly confusing, but once you untangle it and you follow what John is saying, he describes a condition of our hearts that we don’t talk about very much. And that’s resistance. He talks about resistance. This what do we do when we sense inside of us resistance to the clear commands of the Lord? Some use the phrase hardening, the hardening of our hearts. What do I do when God is giving me ‘yes’ and my heart wants to tell God ‘no’. God says go, I say stay. God says give, I say keep. I harden myself to God’s directions. What do I do in that case as a Christian? For the non-Christian, that’s just life. That’s just all the time. But for me as a Christian, what is happening inside of me and how do I then overcome it? I’m going to show you this morning that for those of us who have had our hearts transformed by the grace of Christ, God’s Spirit must and will break the resistance in our hearts to his commands. For the true Christian, the resistance won’t last. It won’t. It’ll be there for a time, but it will fade away. The hardness will break. And that’s because the Holy Spirit will conform us to obedience. And if that doesn’t happen and the hardness persists, that’s a sure sign that you don’t have the Holy Spirit and you don’t know Christ at all. We’re in First John chapter three, verse 19 this morning. First, John is going to describe this resistant heart and what God does about it. Then he’s going to describe the restored heart. And then finally he introduces for the first time in this letter the Holy Spirit’s role in all of this. So let’s start with the problem of the resistant heart. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Now you’ll remember in our passage last week, John framed our Christian life in terms of loving our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. He said that since Jesus laid down his life for us, we should then lay down our lives for others. He’s saying that a heart that has been transformed by the gospel will result in a life that is shaped like the gospel. And he gave a very specific example of this. He says, if you see a brother or a sister in need and you have what they need, you’re going to jump in. You’re going to help. You’re going to be you’re going to go into that situation. The phrase John uses is ‘you will not close your heart against him’. That’s what resistance is. See, gospel shaped love will act in gospel ways. It will compel us to just not just stand there or to look the other way, or to make excuses as to why we don’t need to be involved. We will not close our hearts against him. That’s the hardness, right? That’s resistance. You see the need. You know what God commands. You don’t do it. You refuse to do it. That’s hardness. John has been pleading with us over and over again not to fool ourselves into believing that we can live that way and still claim that Jesus is our Savior and our King. And here in verses 19 and 20, John is not leaving the topic of loving people. He’s not saying, okay, I’m going to talk about something else now. He’s not leaving the topic altogether, but he is broadening it out. He says, don’t just love with words and talk, love with deed and truth. So we’re challenged to ask then, is that true of me? Is that how I love? And to answer that, John turns away from the specific example and he says, okay, let’s talk about what’s happening inside of you. Let’s talk about what the inner workings, the machinations of your heart. By this, he says, we will know that we are of the truth. Truth here ties back to verse 18. So he’s saying, here’s how you know that you are in fact living an authentic, a truthful Christian life. And then discovering that you are in the truth will then do what? It’s going to reassure you. It’s going to reassure your heart. You see that there in verse 19? And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Don’t we all want reassurance? Don’t we all want to be sure of who we are? Don’t you love it when you’re in a potentially dangerous situation and then you receive some information, some bit of truth, and that then reassures you that you’re fine, that you’re not in danger at all. You know, it’s why we say to a loved one who leaves our house and drives home, we say text when you get home, right? Text me when you get home. Why? Because we want that little bit of information, that little bit of knowledge that settles your heart and assures you that everything is going to be okay. John wants us to have that assurance in our heart that we are, in fact, new creations in Christ who have received God’s grace. We are, as he says, of the truth. Now, how he gets to that assurance is the part that’s a little twisty this morning, but it’s interesting, and it’s not usually how I assure people of anything. This is not how I assure people. If you’re anything like me, the way you usually assure people of something is to assume the positive. That’s what I do, right? So I start with the assumption that the person is probably doing all right until I hear otherwise. So somebody says, I say, how are you doing? They say, fine. I say, great, right? I said, okay, you said fine. I assume fine is how you are, right? They tell me their plans. Sounds good. I assume those plans will be fine, right? They tell me that things are going well. Glad to hear it, right? We don’t really. I don’t really need to dive in too much more to that. John starts his assurance with this, ‘whenever our hearts condemn us’, that’s his start. You get the sense that John’s not really into small talk too much? Like he wouldn’t be great at parties, you know, he’d just go really deep right away. He just got done telling us how tangible and sacrificial Christian love is supposed to be. And then he goes directly to our hearts. And what does he do? He assumes that there is going to be resistance to that. He assumes resistance. That there will be times when we’re not going to want the thing that he just told us. He knows that God’s command to love in a gospel-shaped way is going, at times, to pass through our ears and bounce off of our stubborn hearts. If you have ever been thrilled with the benefits of God’s grace, but then challenged to accept the high call of living in obedience, showing grace to others, forgiving people, loving your enemies, sacrificing your time and money for the sake of the mission of Christ. If you’ve ever had any of that resistance, then you know why John starts with this. The believer in Jesus is no longer a slave to sin. Okay? If you trust in Jesus, you are no longer bound down to sin. You have been set free. The world, the flesh, and the devil have no actual power over you anymore. But the remnants of the sinful patterns of our old lives are hard to change. We are new creations, but we are living in weak bodies and we are surrounded by temptations. We are surrounded by foolishness. And this is why we have sections of Scripture like Ephesians six, where we are told to put on the full armor of God. It’s why Paul tells us to take every thought captive, to press on toward the goal of the upward call of Christ. See, God knows that sin is still going to influence our heart and harden us against obedience at times. Resistance to God’s commands comes from a gap. Okay? There’s a gap. There’s a gap between who we are, our new identity as new creations in Christ, and our current spiritual maturity. There’s a gap there. And the hope would be that when you experience the gap and the resistance that comes out of the gap, that you would feel God’s condemnation of your attitude. That would be the hope. And for the believer, you will. You will experience that. John assumes it here. That’s why he says, whenever. Not if. Okay. Whenever. Not if your heart condemns you. Whenever it happens, John knows not only is this going to happen, it’s probably going to happen regularly. Now, the condemnation that John describes here is not the final condemnation or judgment that Paul talks about in various places. But in Romans chapter eight, when he wrote ‘there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’. He’s thinking there of

  8. Jun 21

    Love One Another

    Our love for fellow believers, or the lack of the same, has eternal consequences. Good morning. Forty-five years ago, on May 17th, those of you that are Norwegian know the significance of that date, I preached my first sermon at Calvary. Calvary was a lot smaller then. We met in southeast Rochester we had about 150 people who attended on a regular basis. And I was actually a pastor at the time, a small church in southeast Minnesota. And we did what was called a pulpit exchange, where the pastors went to a different church to preach for that particular Sunday. So, I was invited to preach here at Calvary. And I remember the passage that I preached on was Ephesians chapter five, verse one, be imitators of God as dearly loved children. And I talked about the fact that children love to imitate. And they learn, in spite of our efforts to teach them good manners. As part of my message, I asked the congregation, I’m going to ask you to do a couple of imitations. First, I’d like you to tell me, what does a cow say? (Moo.) That’s pretty good. Pretty good. Better than the first service. Here’s another easy one. What does a cat say? (Meow.) Okay, now here’s a little bit harder one. Imitate God. Imitate God. That’s a much harder challenge, isn’t it? Well, today we have a challenge placed in front of us from the book of First John. First John 3 verse 11, where he says we should love one another. When Linus told his sister Lucy that he wanted to become a doctor, she laughed and said, you a doctor? That’ll never happen. You know why? Because you don’t love mankind. Linus replied, I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand. First John 3:11 says, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. And as we look at these verses this morning, I would like to suggest that our love for one another or the lack of the same, has eternal consequences. Our love for one another, or the lack of the same has eternal consequences. Our passage is First John 3, verses 11 through 15. We’ve been preaching through First John since April, we’ll be going to the end of the summer. The verses will be on the screen as I share from the message. But if you don’t have a Bible with you, you can take one of the seatback Bibles. The passage is found on page 1022. Now, this passage builds on the one that Pastor Kyle preached on last week when John wrote these words in verse ten. By this it is evident, who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. And John in verse 11, contrasts that with what should be true of us as followers of Jesus. We should be known as those who love one another. Now note I always, when I’m studying the Bible, I like to look for words that are repeated or words that are used in contrast. And we have both in this passage, in these five short verses, he uses the word love three times, the word hate twice and the word murder or murderer four times. Another pair of words that are used in contrast, he uses the word life twice and the word death twice. Now, as we look at this passage this morning, I would like to observe three truths that should be true of every follower of Jesus. The first truth is that we should love one another. First John 3, verse 11, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Now John has referred to the message earlier in his book, in chapter one verse five. He talked about the message that we have heard from him, that God is light. And he also referred to that what you have heard from the beginning in chapter two, verse 24. It’s been suggested that what John is talking about here is when these people, John’s audience, first heard the gospel message. When they first heard the gospel message, it was emphasized to them that they should love one another. Now, I remember when I first heard the gospel message. I actually grew up in a family that went to church every week. I prided myself on knowing the Bible and knowing the stories from the Bible. But it really didn’t make a difference in my daily life. Life just went on. And yeah, something that we did once a week, but so what? Well, when I got to college, I had a friend from high school who went to the same college. We were going to a state university. And he shared with me that he had just written a 92-page paper on the deity of Christ. This is again, at a state university, and he had written this paper for one of his college classes. One, I could not believe that he had written a 92-page paper, and he had written on that subject matter. But he went on to share with me how I could know Christ personally. He shared with me what was called the four spiritual laws. I don’t know if Campus Crusade still uses those, but that’s what he used to share the gospel with me. And he said, you can know God personally through his Son, Jesus Christ. That’s the first thing that I remember when I first heard the gospel. Now, at that time, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. In fact, the next few months, every time I heard an invitation to receive Christ, I prayed that prayer and I thought, that’s what it means to be a believer. You ask Jesus to be your Savior, and I did it over and over and over again. Well, as I learned and as I am still learning, there’s more to being a follower of Jesus than that. As we have learned from our study of First John, to be a follower of God through His Son Jesus, means to obey His Word. To be aware of when we have sinned and to repent of those sins and to seek God’s forgiveness. And here in our passage this morning, we have another mark of followers of Jesus. They should be known as those who love one another. Now I love the one another commands that are in the New Testament. There are over 51 another commands in the New Testament as you have opportunity to read through the New Testament, look for them. They include commands like be devoted to one another, honor one another, accept one another, greet one another, encourage one another. And as we have here, in First John, love one another. There are also negative one another commands. Don’t judge one another. Don’t provoke one another. Don’t envy one another. Don’t lie to one another, and don’t hate one another. One of the scriptures that was just read for us from Colossians 3, did you catch the one another commands in that passage? Paul wrote these words bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. When John wrote in verse 11 that we should love one another, he was echoing the words of Jesus. John was one of Jesus’s disciples, and he wrote the Gospel of John to record Jesus’s earthly ministry and many of the things that he taught. The night before Jesus was betrayed and then went to the cross he shared many thoughts with his disciples. He knew that this was his last time to teach them, his last time to be with them before he died. And four times in that evening, Jesus told his disciples, love one another, love one another. If there was one thing that Jesus wanted his disciples to know is that they should love one another. This command is also found in the book of Romans, first and second Thessalonians, Hebrews, First Peter, and here in First John, and also in Second John. Are there any believers that you find it difficult to love? Perhaps you’re like Linus, you love mankind, but there are some people that you can’t stand. Well, John tells us that we should love one another. And in verse 12, he tells us an example that we should not follow. And so the second truth in this passage is that we should not be like Cain. Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Cain and Abel. It’s found in Genesis chapter four. But read what John says in verse 12. We should not be like Cain, who was the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous. Now again, John had just taught us, he had just written in verse ten, that it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. And so, as John was thinking of an example of someone who did not love his brother. The story of Cain and Abel came to mind. Again, it’s found in Genesis chapter four. We’re not going to take the time to read it right now, but I would encourage you to read it later. This is the first recorded murder in the Bible. Cain and Abel brought sacrifices to God, and presumably by that act of sacrifice, you would assume that they were both worshipers of God. But God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and he rejected Cain’s sacrifice. This led Cain, it made him furious. Furious to the point where he wanted to kill his brother. But before he did so, God warned Cain. God took the time to speak with Cain, and he warned him about the sin that was crouching at his door and how he needed to resist it. Cain turned a deaf ear to God. He went and spoke with his brother Abel, and then he murdered him. Now, after murdering his brother, God once again spoke with Cain. He asked him, where is Abel, your brother? And Cain said, I don’t know. And then he added those infamous words, am I my brother’s keeper? God then announced Cain’s punishment, and you can read the details as punishment, but one of the details was that he would be banished from God’s presence. And Cain said, this punishment is more than I can bear, and from your face I shall be hidden. He was also worried that someone would kill him because of what he had done, but God told him that wouldn’t happen. Cain

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About

Listen to our latest weekly messages from Calvary Evangelical Free Church located in Rochester Minnesota. Find and watch the corresponding sermon video in our Calvary Sermon Archive, https://www.calvaryefree.church/sermons/ or on our YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@calvaryefcrochester Calvary’s Mission is to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus who live out passion for Christ and compassion for people. Learn more about Calvary at https://www.calvaryefree.church/im-new/ and view what we believe at https://www.calvaryefree.church/about/mission-values-beliefs/

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    Calvary Evangelical Free Church
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    80
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    © Calvary Evangelical Free Church
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