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. 3d ago

    Recreating Eden

    This sermon explores how God designed his people to create communities of order, beauty, worship, and mutual care — and how the cross enables the church to resist division, extend grace, and become a welcoming spiritual home for others. Good morning. So good to be with you today. I’d like to draw your attention to Genesis chapter two, which was just read. You can keep that open if you’d like, and we’ll go through a bunch of different things in Genesis two and three. As we work toward that, one of the surprising things to me about relationships is how hard they can be sometimes. You might feel similarly, you think about family relationships or team, work relationships or church relationships, and sometimes you can have a relationship that’s very close. And then all of a sudden you find yourself in a conversation where there’s hurt feelings and somebody’s crying and stuff, and you’re like, how is it possible that this relationship got so tangled up? I’ve been thinking about that with famous bands. A couple of us were talking about this last night that bands like The Beatles or Pink Floyd or whatever, lots of different bands that at one time were like making great music together, and then they couldn’t get along with each other and they stopped. And you might have similar stories in your family. There might be some kind of an estrangement or a divorce. If you’ve been around church circles for a long time, then you’ve probably heard stories of church splits or a group of people that decide, oh, we don’t like this anymore, and they go start another church somewhere else or something like that. When relationships are close, I mean, it’s just the best thing in the world, isn’t it? You’re sitting around each other’s houses, and you get to that point in relationship where you don’t have to clean the house anymore when that person comes over. You can have some dirty laundry, this and there or whatever, and they’re there and it’s great. And you get your inside jokes and you feel seen and you feel cared for. And, marriage is intimate, you know, you’re holding each other’s faces in bed at night, talking sweetly to each other. And then all of a sudden, you know, something happens. It’s like, why did you why did you say that? Why was I excluded from that thing that was important to me. Why was this decision made? And nobody asked me about that. And this place of order and beauty and happiness, uh, becomes a place of pain. And people disappoint each other. And you might even get upset with God in scenarios like that. The Bible’s opening chapters explain both sides of this. Genesis shows us why sometimes we love being together, and why sometimes we have a hard time being together, and that matters. It matters for parents, as you’re raising kids, to figure out how to get along with each other and share and use nice words and things like that. Matters for business owners trying to get teams to get along and work with each other so that you can achieve some kind of goal. Matters in churches, elder boards, small groups and all that kind of thing. And those of us working on making disciples and establishing new churches in different places. Our team has an inside-out philosophy where we talk about how important it is that we as individuals are loving God and loving other people, and that our teams are taking care of each other so that when we’re drawing people into Christian community, that we’re drawing them into something good. I mean, if we’re not getting along, and if I’m all disheveled and can’t find contentment and all that kind of thing, what are we inviting people into? So the Bible, in its first few chapters, helps us understand this. It shows us our purposes in working together. So we’re going to go all the way back to Eden to see what God designed human beings to do. What were we made to do? In the beginning God created people and he put them in Eden. And Genesis tells us what these people were supposed to do in Eden. So Genesis chapter one, verse 26, Then God said, let us make mankind in our image and our likeness, so that…. So here we have some purpose statements that are about to follow. So that they may rule. So there’s a verb we should pay attention to. So that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock, and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them. God blessed them and said to them….Here comes some more purpose statements. Said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule. There’s that word again. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the ground. So let’s look at those words. These are not passive people that are just sitting around in Paradise, like they’re at a resort and grapes fall in their mouth and that kind of a thing. Sometimes you might think in the old Genesis stories or in old paintings, that Adam and Eve are just kind of lounging around this beautiful place. But that isn’t what happened. God gave them a job. And so first of all, be fruitful and increase in number. This implies multiplication. They were supposed to grow. Eden wasn’t made for two people. It was made for civilization. There were borders of Eden that were meant to be expanded at some point. Subdue the earth. Which implies wild forces being brought under control. And to rule over the creatures. Rule over the creatures. Some kind of domestication, some kind of let’s keep certain animals over there or whatever, so that babies playing on the playground don’t get eaten by lions and things like that. So that people are safe when they’re walking around this garden. And notice the kind of place that God created for them. God entered this dark, chaotic cosmos and he carved out a habitable space. A habitable space. And it was habitable because it was ordered, it was beautiful, and it was a place of communion with God. It was ordered in contrast to the chaos outside the garden. It was beautiful, which is a really important thing for us to know in terms of the symbolic beginning of mankind. It wasn’t, you know, it didn’t begin in a seminary classroom. And I’m not anti-seminary. Of course that’s important, but, the symbol that God used for how he wanted us to be ended up being a garden, a place of beauty. That’s really interesting. And then rule. Rule over the creatures and so forth. It was an ordered and beautiful place of communion with God. They walked with God in the cool of the day and this kind of thing. Kings all over the world, all through time, have constructed gardens with channeled waterways and cool trees and animals from all kinds of collection places and brought together and little paths along shaded, you know, waterways and stuff and pools. That’s what kings do. And so here you have the King of kings, and he created this amazing garden where he could live with his people. And again, God didn’t create Eden as just a beautiful place for them to be. Or like a Disney World where, you know, the biggest work you have to do is figure out where are we going to have lunch now? Or are we going to stand in this line for an hour or something like that. This wasn’t a vacation place of lounging around. And then we have a couple more words in Genesis two that give Adam and Eve responsibility over Eden. And you heard that in the scripture reading earlier. Verse 15 of chapter two, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. To work it and keep it. We know what work means. They’re supposed to work. This is the kind of thing where Adam and Eve are getting dirt under their fingernails and things like that. Let’s move this rock over there today and this kind of a thing. It’s work. They’re getting, you know, calluses on the hands and those kinds of things. Keep is an interesting word, and it implies a sort of protection. It’s kind of like you say, hey, can you, can you look after my kids for an hour so that I can go to the grocery store or something like that? It’s not just work, but it’s taking responsibility for it. It’s not just, okay, I’ll sweep this room or that kind of a thing, but it’s like I’m looking out and I’m making sure and I’m ready and taking care of stuff. So let’s put all of this together here. Human beings were designed to rule a well-ordered, beautiful sacred space. And in that place, we were designed to multiply and expand into the darkness and chaos outside. We were made to expand the borders of Eden into places that needed to be subdued. And bringing order and beauty and worship to new territory. And that required work. The kind of work that takes responsibility for managing and expanding and protecting a valuable space. And imagine if they had done that. Imagine if the first few chapters of the Bible were different. If the fall hadn’t happened, and what the next few chapters would have been as they had kids and as they added a desert or added this mountain range to Eden and so forth. And if they’d had done what they were designed to do what a different story it would be. Presumably Eden at this point would have at least encompassed the whole globe. And now this is a big job, what they’ve been asked to do. It’s hard work. This is the sort of thing where you kind of flop into bed tired, the good kind of tired, you know, at the end of the day. Work becomes toil after the fall where it’s just, you know, you get to the end and you’re like, man, I could never finish that. I can’t figure out what’s wrong with this spreadsheet or whatever. So work can become toil at some point. But you know, when you just worked and it’s a good kind of work and you flop into bed at the e

  2. Sep 27

    God’s Expectations

    God expects us as his servants to invest 100% of what he gives us into things that glorify God and fulfill the mission of Christ, and he expects a return on his investment. Well, the parable you just heard probably sounds familiar to you, but not quite the way you remember it. There’s a much more famous version of this story recorded in Matthew 25, often called The Parable of the talents. And as you probably know, teachers reuse illustrations and stories to teach similar points all the time. For example, if you compare Jesus sermon on the Mount that’s recorded in Matthew chapters five through seven, and you compare that with Jesus sermon on the plain that you have here in Luke, you have similar but not identical wording to make similar but not always identical points. And that’s why this sounds familiar to you. You probably remember Jesus illustrating the importance of good stewardship. But you don’t quite remember it ending with people being slaughtered. We’ll get to that in just a little bit. But for now, I’ll say about that, that what Jesus says didn’t really happen because this is a made up story. This is a parable. But what Jesus means is worse than it sounds. This parable and the stories that we’ve heard over the past few weeks of Jesus interactions with the ruler and the beggar and Zacchaeus have got me thinking a lot about limited resources and stewardship. What I mean is, the rich ruler had all this stuff, but he couldn’t follow Jesus. The blind beggar had nothing, but all he wanted to do was follow Jesus. And Zacchaeus had everything, but he stole it, and he had to get the money out of his heart. And he had to get the wrongs that he had committed, righted so that he could follow Jesus as his Lord. I’ve been thinking about that relationship between my commitment to following the Lord and the good things in my life that can either benefit my worship of Christ or prevent it. It can either be invested in the mission or it can be squandered. And on top of that, time is a resource. The length of our lives on earth is a resource. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to waste stuff. I don’t want to waste stuff. I like to get the most out of whatever I’m doing with whatever I’ve got. And if the last few weeks have got you thinking like that, thinking like me, just know I’m right there with you. I’m right there with you. Our passage today is a parable that helps to answer the question, what does God expect of us right now? What does he expect of us right now, here in this life, here on earth with growing blessings, dwindling time? What is God asking us to do so that we can faithfully follow him? So that this time and these resources are not wasted. Well, if we listen to Jesus carefully in this parable, he’s saying God expects us as his servants to invest 100% of what he gives us into things that glorify God and fulfill the mission of Christ. And he expects a return on that investment. If you left last week wondering what to do with your money after watching Zacchaeus rid himself of the worship of money, today’s parable is going to help you. But we’re not just talking about money this morning. Every resource, okay, every resource is in view here. Your vocation, your education, family, marriage, your free time, your health. God has given us so many resources for his glory. How do we use these resources in a way that matters? Because these resources do matter. What you’ve been given matters. These are Jesus investments in us, intended for reinvestment to produce things that glorify God. So keep your Bible open this morning. If you have it, open it up to Luke 19:11-27. You’re going to keep that in front of you today. You’ve heard it read, but you’ll want to refer back to it. And there are three groups of people in this story. There’s people, three types of people, people who reject the master’s reign, good servants and wicked servants. And I’m going to use the terms rejectors, investors and wasters. We meet these people in that order. So we’ll we’ll take them in that order. But first we need to understand why Jesus tells this story. It starts by saying that as they, the crowd, heard these things, Jesus tells them this parable. So right away we know that this story we’re about to read relates to what they just heard, which is they’ve heard Jesus saying things like, I’ve come to seek and to save the lost. They’re watching Zacchaeus heart change in real time right in front of them. And Jesus declares that salvation has come into his house. They’re seeing a blind man get up off the side of the road, receive his sight, and begin to follow Jesus, because Jesus said to him, receive your sight. They’re seeing words come out of Jesus mouth and immediately things are happening. They’re hearing Jesus speak miracles into existence. They’re watching the transformation happen right before their eyes. It’s all happening now. And Jesus can see that there are two factors that are about to come together that will bring this crowd to the wrong conclusion about what’s about to happen. The first factor is that he’s pretty close to Jerusalem. He’s very close now, a few miles away. The crowd knows that that’s where he’s going. They’re expecting him to establish his kingdom when he gets there, which he will, but not in the way that they expect. See, they’re expecting the removal of the Romans and the re-establishment of the nation of Israel. But Jesus is going to accomplish the removal of Satan and the establishment of his worldwide spiritual kingdom with all of God’s people. So his proximity to Jerusalem is in anticipation of this thing that’s about to happen. And the other factor is that the crowd thinks that Jesus kingdom is going to be fully established as soon as he gets there. They’re not thinking that the kingdom will start small and grow. Even though he’s been teaching them this, he’s been saying, look, the kingdom is like a mustard seed, okay? Really small. It’s going to go in the ground, it’s going to become really large in time. It’s going to grow to become big. He’s been saying that, but they’re not tracking with that. They think that they’re about to see in real time the culmination of the kingdom of God, that Jesus is simply going to speak and it’s going to happen like a blind man seeing again. What they’re actually going to see, though, is the beginning of the kingdom. What they’re going to experience is the start of the hard work of the mission to build the kingdom of God, not the end of it. So Jesus prepares them. He gives them a short story here to orient them to what’s really about to happen, so that they can get their understanding of the kingdom of God correct and all that that entails. The first thing is that not everyone is going to accept Jesus as King. A nobleman is about to go off and receive his kingdom, but before he goes, he calls his servants together to give them instructions. We’re going to get to those servants here in just a moment. As he’s leaving, there’s a group of people who live on this nobleman’s property. They call them his citizens, and they don’t want him to come back. So they put together a little team of people to send out after the nobleman, to let him know, we don’t want this man to reign over us. Essentially, we’re glad you’re leaving. Don’t come back. Don’t come back. We don’t need you here. We don’t want you here. Do you know what happens legally if the residents of a nobleman’s land request that he not be in charge anymore? Do you know what happens legally? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing happens. Nothing changes. See, the citizens who live under a king can believe however they want. They can act however they like while he’s away. But it doesn’t change their status. They’re still under his reign. The only thing that happens is that when the king returns, these rejectors will be under his judgment instead of receiving his approval. So what is Jesus getting at here? What is he saying? Well, he’s talking about unbelievers who reject Jesus reign over their lives. See, the nobleman here is clearly Jesus himself. Okay. He’s clearly talking about himself. He’s introducing the idea that the kingdom of God is about to get started. But there’s going to be a delay in its completion and its culmination. That’s what the traveling is about here. And that delay is what we’re in right now. We as a church. We’re in this delay now. We are between Jesus first coming 2000 years ago and his return. The kingdom is going to grow and it’s going to spread through the world as Christians take the gospel to the ends of the earth. I’m excited next week. You heard earlier in the service during the announcements that that Adam Talbot will be with us here from EFCA’s Reach Global. And he’s going to teach us. I’m excited to hear what he has to say about the spread of the gospel. He’s particularly focused on North Africa and the Middle East, which to me is fascinating. To take the gospel where it hasn’t yet gone. So be sure to come next week for that. This is why we engage in this work with people around the world. The kingdom is growing, right? And it’s spreading in anticipation of Jesus return. However, we are all aware that there are plenty of people who reject the kingship of Jesus Christ. These people are made in the image of God. They are. They are created by Jesus and they are created for Jesus, according to the Apostle Paul. They have no escape from that reality. They have no existence apart from God’s allowance. They can’t leave his creation. They are his creation. And nothing they think about Jesus changes any of those facts. But despite all of that, they reject Jesus as their King. They say to God, you don’t reign, I do. You don’t command me, I command me. And so their attitude toward Jesus is essentially, don’

  3. Sep 20

    To Seek and Save the Lost

    Jesus came to seek and save lost people from all walks of life; everyone who will surrender everything to know and follow him. Well, last week I spent time telling you about two men, and today I’m going to share with you the story of a third. The first man was a rich ruler, a man who had everything. He was moral. He was God fearing. He had success in his career. He’s like the vast majority of people who call Calvary home, actually. We have very successful people in this church. Some of you are pioneers in your field. Most of you are soaring. We have very bright futures or very solid legacies or both. And that’s what the rich ruler was. He came to Jesus and asked how he could be sure that he would have eternal life. And that’s a fine question. And it’s the sort of question that we fully expect from a person who has been carefully planning his steps and achieving success throughout his life. The problem that he had was Jesus answer. See, Jesus could see that this man’s wealth and his success were the thing that would keep him from following Jesus. Why? Well, it’s because following Jesus requires getting rid of or subduing all of the things in your life that you prize more than Jesus. The idols. It requires bringing everything that you have under the rule of Jesus so that it can be used for his glory. And this guy, this guy just couldn’t do that. He was honest with himself. He knew he loved his wealth far more than he could ever love Jesus. And so he walked away. The second man was a blind beggar, a man who had nothing. He sat on the on the roadside, completely dependent on the kindness of the people who walked by. We don’t have the same level of connection with this man that we do with the rich ruler. I feel fairly confident in saying that none of us have ever been physically and economically hopeless, with no chance of any help coming to us. And yet, at the same time, if we could see somehow a picture of our own spiritual state prior to knowing Christ, we’d see that we were this man. We were blind in the darkness of our sins. We were without hope in pulling ourselves out of condemnation. We were desperately in need of the mercy of God to come to us when we could not go to him. And for those of us who have cried out for God’s mercy and when Jesus came near to us, our spiritual eyes were open, and we rose up and we became worshippers and followers of Jesus. And life has never been the same for us. If you follow Jesus, you know that you’ve experienced that. Two men. Two men. Luke gives us two men who could not be more opposite from each other in every way, to show us what it means to inherit eternal life. But there’s a danger here. There’s a danger in these stories. There’s a very subtle error that we could make when reading these accounts side by side. We could make the error of thinking that no person with any wealth at all can follow Jesus. Now, after the rich ruler walked away, Jesus did say to his disciples that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into heaven. There is an advantage to the poor in understanding and receiving the kingdom of God. If you don’t have wealth, it is easier not to worship wealth. An eternal kingdom with God forever is more easily received if you do not have the means to make this world your Paradise. But we can easily take these stories and come to the conclusion that wealth is bad, that poverty is good, that anyone with any wealth better get rid of it, because it’s bad to be wealthy. And that would absolutely be an error. That would be a biblical error. And it’s a common error to make today. To prevent this error and to give us a magnificent picture of salvation among the wealthy, Luke gives us a third man. And this guy, he splits the difference between the first two. He has some remarkable things going for him and going against him. He’s wealthy, but he’s not honorable. He’s physically limited, but it’s not impossible for him to move. We’re going to see a guy today who could have made other choices, unlike the blind beggar, but whose heart is no longer gripped by his wealth, unlike the rich ruler. But here’s the thing about this guy. Okay, church, here’s the thing about this guy, and it’s unavoidable. And I feel like we should just go ahead and address the elephant in the room right from the very start this morning. This guy has a very famous name, and he also has a very famous physical limitation, we’ll call it. And because he has this very famous name and this limitation, a very famous song was written about him that has echoed through the minds of the church, young and old, from something like 1950 forward. That man’s name is Zacchaeus. You’re already singing it in your head right now, aren’t you? You’re just, you’re singing in the head. I say the word Zacchaeus, and you’re already like, you know. Yeah, Right? You’re already. It’s already going in there. This story is so important, church. I can’t tell you how important this story is. This is a very theologically deep and important story for us. But thanks to VBS 1982, I cannot read this bit of scripture without this goofy soundtrack running through my head. By the way, if you are new to church and you don’t know what I’m talking about, blessings. God’s face has shined upon you. But for the rest of us, we will try to power through. Like when you’re trying to say the ABC’s without singing the ABCs. Okay. So what you’ll see is that the song,it ends before the most important part of the story. This very profound and transformational story that we all need to hear because Jesus is showing us what true salvation looks like. Jesus came to seek and save lost people from all walks of life. Everyone who will surrender everything to know and to follow him. So let’s get into this story. We’re in Luke chapter 19, verse one this morning. The story has a longer setup than some of the other accounts that we’ve seen in Luke. So we’ll work through that, and then we’ll get to the main point of the story in the later verses. So let’s meet the man. He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. So Jesus has now entered the city of Jericho. And here we meet Zacchaeus and we learn three things about him. The first thing we learn is that he is a chief tax collector. This means that he works for the Roman government to collect taxes from the people for the empire. The Romans called people like this the Publicani. They did more than just collect taxes. These publicans, they cared for public buildings, for instance. They also got supplies for the Roman armies, got the supplies out to the fields to care for them. So mostly what they did, though, was they collected taxes. They called their work tax farming. And it’s just like it sounds. What does a farmer do? A farmer tries to get the largest crop out of a field. Right? Well, that’s what these tax collectors did. These tax farmers worked the people to get the largest crop to get a job like this you had to bid for it. It was a type of contract work back then. So when there was an opening, you would go to the officials and you would pitch your plan for why you should be the one that would get the job. And the guy who gets the job is the guy who can extract the most money out of the people. So tax laws back then were a little bit more fluid. The Romans did set taxes, but the collection of those taxes left a lot of room for the publican to extort money from the people. So any money that he made above and beyond the amount of money that he had to pay to Rome, he was able to keep as pure profit. And so, as you can imagine, tax collectors were hated by the people. But Zacchaeus isn’t just a tax collector. He is a chief tax collector. This this probably means that he was in charge of a fleet of publicans. And he got a cut of everything that they made like a giant pyramid scheme. And Zacchaeus would have been hated even more than normal for the two other things that we know about him, that he’s rich and that he’s Jewish. And you say, well, why would they hate him for being Jewish? Everyone was Jewish, right? Yes, exactly, exactly. Imagine being occupied by foreign invaders and then having your taxes collected by one of your own people who now works for them. And you know that he’s incentivized to get the most out of you, so you know that you are a target of this man. His team’s job is to lie to you, to muscle you, to threaten you with punishment, to get every bit of money out of you. And we know Zacchaeus was really good at this because of the third thing. He’s rich. He’s a very good tax collector. When people pass his house, right, they look over, they see Zacchaeus house. They can see that their taxes have made Zacchaeus a great life while they struggle to get by. We probably can’t overstate how much this man was despised. See, tax collector back then was another way of saying sinner. They’d often put them together. Sinners and tax collectors. They were synonymous. And Zacchaeus is the captain of that team. So Jesus is passing through Jericho. Here’s what happens. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd, he could not because he was small in stature. Can we just all agree that this should read wee little man? A wee little man was he. For those of you who are not, Scottish wee means small. Okay. And we need to get. I think we need to get the translation changed, quite frankly. I mean, I think it’s worked its way into the Christian ethos enough, right. For us to get the. What does the message say? Does it have wee little man in there? Small in stature. Small in stature. Why is this included? Church? I don’t know. I don’t know why this is included. Maybe Luke thought it was kind of funny. I mean, he is about to

  4. Sep 6

    This is What We Know

    God has given us each other, and he has given us himself, to ensure that we will not succumb to evil, but are secure in our eternal life. Well, we are pulling into the station this morning, ending our journey in First John. Next week we’ll resume our study of the Gospel of Luke. John has written this letter to the church. And by being part of the church ourselves, he has written this letter to us. Now, that might seem like a stretch to you. You might even think that that sounds incorrect. After all, John wrote 2000 years ago to other churches on the other side of the world. Did he really have us in mind? It was the practice of the early church, the first century church, to share letters written by the apostles so a church would receive a letter and they would read it aloud to the congregation, and then they would send the letter on to the next church. In fact, the letters were written with that intention in mind that they would be circulated. Paul tells us in the letter he wrote to the Colossians, in Colossians chapter four, verse 16, he says, make sure the Laodiceans get this letter. Make sure you get it over to them. Oh, and by the way, read the letter that I wrote to the Laodiceans. So change letters as you exchange them and read them to your congregations. Now, we actually don’t know what that letter was coming over from Laodicea. It’s either lost to history or it might have been the letter Ephesians. We’re just not sure. But we know that they changed letters. Peter is even clearer. He addresses his first letter this way. He says to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. So he just says, look, this letter is for everybody. Everybody in the entire region. The early church took this distribution of apostolic instruction to the church so seriously that they made copies. They made copy after copy of these letters. It’s the reason we have such a well preserved, reliable New Testament today. And the gospel. As the gospel spread across the world, the church knew that they were going to need sound doctrine in their churches to have healthy churches. And so they work diligently to make sure the words of the apostles who testified to Jesus and to the kingdom of God would be preserved for generations to come. So it’s true. First John was not sent by messenger by foot to Calvary Evangelical Free Church; that did not happen. But the intention in John’s heart was that when the gospel reaches the ends of the earth, which to John certainly would have included Rochester, Minnesota, this letter would be here to give us confidence. That’s how John ends this letter. He wants us to have confidence in our faith, knowing full well that we have eternal life in the Son of God. Last week we looked at how we can have confident approach to God in our prayer. We can be sure that when we pray for things that align with holiness and righteousness, that we will be heard. Prayer is a powerful tool, and it’s a privilege that God has given us. It’s why we take everything to God in prayer. This morning, John’s going to give a final summary of what it means for us to be the church in this evil world, to be a light that shines in darkness. He wants us to do that with the utmost confidence. God has given us each other, and he’s given us himself to ensure that we will not succumb to evil, but are secure in our eternal life. We’re starting in First John chapter five, verse 16 this morning. John first gives us an example of what it looks like to pray confidently for each other. And it’s one of the ways that we lift each other up as a church. And then he gives us three things that we can know for sure that give us confidence. Let’s start with how we pray for each other. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. Now, I know at first glance that looks complicated, doesn’t it? Does that seem complicated to everybody? I can see confused faces. It’s complicated. It’s complicated to me. He’s been so clear throughout this letter, hasn’t he? And then we got to chapter five, and suddenly blood and water are testifying, and some sins lead to death and others don’t, and ahh! I mentioned this passage to my wife, Rachel this week. She asked me what I was preaching on and I told her about this and she said what we were all thinking. She said, don’t all sins lead to death? Isn’t that pretty clear in the Bible? Paul said, the wages of sin is death. I don’t need an elaborate, logical syllogism to understand the relationship between these two things. Our sin causes eternal death. Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf gives us eternal life. By taking that death for us, that’s the gospel. That’s the good news. That’s the center of the entire Christian message. And it’s what John has been saying over and over again throughout this letter. So why now on the goal line of completing the drive of his entire argument, does he make a distinction between some sins that lead to death and other sins that don’t lead to death? Well, there is good news here for us. What he is saying here isn’t complicated. He just says it in a way that sounds complicated to us. Probably the original readers wouldn’t have been as confused by this, but we are because we don’t speak this way. But what he’s saying is actually pretty, pretty clear. Let’s walk through it. The question of whether the sin leads to death or not has to do with the person who’s committing it. Okay? If a Christian sees a fellow Christian, a brother or sister, you see that word there? If we’re talking about a brother or a sister here in Christ, if a Christian sees a fellow Christian committing a sin, that sin does not lead to death. Why? Because Jesus already paid for it. That’s why. That sin does not lead to death, because Jesus already took the death. When a person who is truly transformed in Christ commits a sin, that sin does not condemn him eternally. It’s terrible. It’s an awful thing. It angers God. It grieves the Holy Spirit. It damages our minds. It hurts the people around us. But it does not eternally condemn the Christian because Jesus has already paid the price for that sin. What will happen in the Christian’s heart then is conviction. That’s what’s going to happen. Conviction, which will turn you to repentance and restoration with the people that we’ve hurt. And it’ll lead you eventually to a rededication, to kill that sin and pursue hard after Christ. That will happen inside of you for sure. If you have been made new by Christ. So John says, here’s what’s going to happen in your churches. You’re going to see a fellow believer committing a sin. And your job is to go to God in prayer for your fellow believer. It’s not the only thing that we’re that we’re supposed to do, but it is one of the things that we’re supposed to do. We go to God and we intercede on behalf of our fellow Christian who is caught in sin. And God will respond to that prayer by restoring that wayward friend back to life. It says literally here, he will give him life. This can’t mean for the first time eternal life. Because this is a brother already. We already know this is a Christian we’re talking about. So I take it to mean that God will convict our friend of his sin and restore his mind and heart to the truth, and back to the practice of the gospel. God will get his life back on track. God says, this is how you as a church, pray for each other and help each other along the path of Christ. You pray for each other’s sin and God does the work of correcting, keeping us going. I’m going to talk a little bit more on that here in just a second. But then in the second half of verse 16, John clarifies who this prayer is for. It is for Christians who sin. It is not for non-Christians whose sins are leading them to death. There is sin that leads to death, he says. That’s the sin that Paul talked about when he said that the wages of sin is death. Death is the result. Eternal separation from God is the result of sin. The sin of a non-believer is sin that will result in eternal separation from God forever. It results in a guilty judgment. It results in condemnation before the Lord. Now, here’s where it gets a little bit confusing because in verse 17, John says, I do not say that one should pray for that. Is he saying that we should not pray for non-believers? Is that what he’s saying? We should discern and only pray for Christians and not pray for the sins of non-believers. Is he instructing us not to intercede for people outside the church? No. That is not what he’s saying here. What he’s saying is that’s not my topic here. Okay. He’s not telling us not to pray for non-Christians. He’s clarifying the kind of prayer he’s describing now, which is for believers. Okay. It helps to remember there’s a group of heretics on their way to mislead the church when John originally wrote this, and they’re going to come and they’re going to say things like, well, you know what? Sin is no big deal. You can walk in darkness and you can practice sin. You can still be a Christian. And John’s been telling us over and over again, no, you can’t. If you act that way, it’s a sign that you don’t have Jesus at all. What we need to be doing for each other is praying for God to convict and restore his people, not encouraging them to go on in their sin. So sin outside the church is not what John is concerned about right now. Sin inside the church is squarely in his sights. He wants to be sure that we are praying for our fellow believers like we should. That’s why he backs out and says, look, all wrongdoing is sin. We kno

  5. Aug 31

    Confident Prayer

    When we know and trust in Jesus Christ, we can pray confidently, expecting that God both hears us and will meet all of our needs if we pray according to his will. Well, we are in our final two weeks of our study of First John. Ordinarily, I might say I hope you’ve enjoyed it, but, enjoy doesn’t seem quite the right word for First John. When we started this series back in April, I called this letter one of the most transformational documents in the biblical library. And I stand by that. I stand by it. You can’t read this letter thoughtfully and be the same person when you’re done. There are just too many challenging assertions, too many sobering statements about the nature of faith and the call of God. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Whoever says he abides in Jesus ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. For the devil has been sinning from the beginning. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 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. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. So throughout this letter John has been sculpting, sometimes painfully, Christians. That’s what he’s doing. He’s sculpting Christians. He will not let us create a sort of false Christianity that doesn’t take seriously who Jesus is and what he did on the cross, and what His Spirit does in our hearts and how we are now to walk in righteousness. John saying the inauthentic, hypocritical, false, so-called Christian life is out there. It is available to you and I don’t want you to live it. I don’t want you to go that way. This morning, we have the beginning of the conclusion of this letter, and we know because it starts by saying why he’s written this letter. And that’s usually a pretty good indication as to the end is near in letters like this. And he wraps things up, John does, he wraps things up very confidently, despite the fact that he has presented so many challenges in this letter, it is not John’s intention to leave us in a place of fear or in a place of doubt. And that can happen with challenges sometimes. If you stack up phrases from the letter like I just did here a moment ago, you can get the impression that John wants us to be walking around constantly questioning our relationship with God. And I’ve known Christians. Maybe you are. You have this low-level, nagging discomfort about your own faith because you’re not sure if your faith is strong enough or if it’s real at all. I know people like this. They don’t rest with confidence in the grace of God and live with confidence that God is at work in them and is firmly in control of their lives. John’s challenges are meant to weed out false faith, okay? That’s what those challenges are. They’re meant to weed out false faith so we don’t fall for it, but then leave true faith with confidence. And that’s how this letter ends. Next week, we’re going to look at how to deal with sin and three very encouraging things that we know that give us confidence in our eternal life. But this morning, we’re going to look at what it means to engage in confident prayer. When we know and we trust in Jesus Christ, we can pray confidently, expecting that God both hears us and will meet all of our needs if we pray according to his will. Let me begin with a little bit of a confession here this morning, church. I find prayer to be one of the more mysterious aspects of the Christian faith. When I, when I put together the different ways that Scripture describes prayer, I am left with some ambiguity on how it exactly works. And I put works in quotes because I’m not exactly sure how prayer accomplishes what it accomplishes. It is an essential part of Christian life. Okay. We are told that prayer is powerful. James tells us the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. I don’t question at all for a moment that God accomplishes great things through prayer, but it is mysterious. And some of that ambiguity is probably going to come through as I work to describe what John says about prayer this morning. So if you have your Bibles, you can open them to First John chapter five. We’re going to begin in verse 13 this morning. John starts by sharing the confidence that he wants us to have. And then he describes how prayer is part of that confidence. And once we look at that, I want to spend some time this morning considering one of the most difficult questions that comes up when we think about prayer. Let’s start in verse 13. 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. So as he has throughout this letter, John once again identifies his audience. He says his version of Little Children, right? He’s talking to believers, those who. Those who already know the Son of God. This letter is like your driver’s ed instructor. Okay. Remember. Remember that. Remember your driver’s ed instructor? Remember that weird little car you had to drive around for your driver’s ed test, right? My instructor was named Mr. Raymond, and Mr. Raymond was also my history teacher. It was a very small town. And I got into the car and I looked over at Mr. Raymond, and I saw that Mr. Raymond also had a brake on his side of the car. In the passenger side there was a brake. My son told me that they still have this. That’s still the kind of car they drive around. And, I had full control of the car the entire time when I was riding in that car, I drove the car. But apparently, apparently, if at any point, Mr. Raymond thought that I was going to put us in the ditch or drive us off a cliff, he could put a stop to it. He could jam on the brakes and we would come to a stop. It never happened to me. I never had him brake at all. But knowing that he was also watching where I was going and could intervene at any time made me feel a bit more confident in what I was doing. That’s what this letter is to us. Okay, that’s what the letter is for. John is looking at the direction that the church could go. He’s watching them go. And these things that he’s written are that second brake that is meant to stop us from veering off the path and going the wrong way. He says, I’m writing these things to you who believe in Jesus so that you may know you have eternal life. His goal is that we would have confidence in our belief in Jesus. That he has secured eternal life for us. It is not God’s aim that his people would move through this world with reservations and doubts about our own eternity. It’s not how he wants us to live. We should not be wringing our hands, wondering what happens when we die. That is certainly what non-believers do. That’s what happens for people who don’t know Christ. But it is not meant to be how we live our lives. Now, if your approach to God is based on your good works, let the hand wringing commence. Go ahead, because I have no idea how you could ever stand before God with confidence if you think your acceptance is based on your performance. I just don’t know how that would be for anyone. But because eternal life with God is not received through our performance, but through Christ’s performance for us, his sinless life, his substitute sacrifice for us, then there is no reason to lack confidence. See, your performance will change, his will not. His is the same. So going back to the letter, then, John says that he’s written this message to secure our confidence in our eternal life. So how exactly does the letter do that? How does this letter that we’ve been given help secure and give us confidence? Because it’s full of challenges. It’s full of spiritual diagnostic type assertions. How do those words make us more secure? Well, let’s take just one example. Okay, so this is from First John chapter three, verse ten. You might remember when we went through this portion. 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. So what are we supposed to do with that verse to get to a place of confidence before God and have security in our eternal life? So John wrote this so that we would have confidence. How do we get there? You see what I’m doing here? Well, first of all, John is making a distinction between lifestyles. You can see that he’s making a distinction between patterns for life. One pursues righteousness, the other doesn’t. One wants to please God, the other doesn’t. One builds up love in us for other people. The other doesn’t care about other people. It holds on to grudges and bitterness and unforgiveness. And here’s what the believer does with that, okay? Because remember, he’s writing to Christians. He’s writing to believers. If your Christianity moves you to righteousness, okay, if your faith moves you to righteousness and to adopt a pattern of life that pleases God because of his incredible grace to you in Christ, that is evidence that you truly believe. Which should give you confidence in your eternal life. If you have a pattern of sin in your life that’s ongoing and you know it, it’s there, it’s dragging you down, you struggle with it. It’s there. John said earlier in this letter, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us

  6. Aug 23

    God’s Testimony

    It is God’s argument, based on the facts of history and the confirming work of the Holy Spirit, that faith in Jesus Christ alone secures for us eternal life. Well, it’s good to be back with you, church. My family and I had a wonderful time away in Michigan over the last few weeks. I had an opportunity to teach middle school kids for a week at camp. So that was interesting. That was fun. Our kids had a chance to serve at camp, which was fun. They taught handcrafts and washed dishes and things like that. We parasailed for the first time. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that before, but that weird. It was fun. If you’ve never done that, it looks terrifying, but it’s actually quite peaceful up there. We just had a good time all around. Except for the part where my son for the second vacation in a row got us all sick again. He got sick, and then we all got sick. So if you if you see him, look at him disapprovingly for me. I appreciate that. Yeah. I want to thank our preaching team for doing such a great job faithfully walking us through the verses of First John. Didn’t they do a good job? They did a great job. Some of these guys were handed two verses to preach. Two verses. When your passage is small, it’s very easy to launch off into all sorts of different directions and not stay focused on what John is teaching in those two verses. But they did a fantastic job showing us exactly what John wants to teach us from his letter with his apostolic authority. But those guys sure am glad that I’m back, because my return this morning coincides with what is, without a doubt, the oddest and most difficult passage to interpret in this entire letter. I would even put it in the top 20 weirdest passages in the Bible. It’s one of those passages that when you come to it in your private reading time at home, you just immediately look to the study notes at the bottom. You don’t even think about it for a second. You’re just like, what does that say? What are they saying that says right. But not to worry. With some careful reading and some cross-referencing and even some process of elimination, we can get a pretty good idea of what John means in this passage. And really, the tough part is only a small portion of a larger passage that is clear and it’s profound, and it’s encouraging for the believer. And it’s challenging. It’s an offer to the non-believer. This sermon will be a bit more complex than the average week here at Calvary. So settle in because this morning God puts forward his argument for why you should trust in Jesus. And if you already trust in Jesus, why your trust and your confidence is secure. You know, I love listening to people make an argument for what they believe. Let me be clear. I do not like arguing. Okay. I love hearing arguments. There’s a big difference between those two things. We use the word arguing for fighting, right? We use those interchangeably. So what the Bible calls quarreling, getting heated, yelling, things like that. That is a product of sinful anger. That is not what I’m talking about. An argument is a defense of a position based on evidence. Think about a courtroom where a lawyer presents a closing argument, right? It’s a set of facts laid out in an orderly way to try to persuade. And I appreciate it very much when someone lays out the reasons and facts that serve as the foundation for what he or she believes. I want to know what you believe, but I also want to know why you believe it. And everything has an argument. Everything. Everything you can think of right now has an argument behind it. Everything from your philosophy for life, right down to your preferred way to barbecue has an argument behind it. And the more important the belief is, the more sound the argument must be. The importance of our topic today cannot be overstated. It’s literally life and death, or more precisely, eternal life and eternal death. It’s an argument that eternal life can be acquired exclusively through Jesus Christ. The facts in support of this argument are the ministry of Jesus Himself, and the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, and the one making his argument today is God. In our passage today, John is going to lay out what he calls the testimony of God. It’s God’s argument based on the facts of history and the confirming work of the Holy Spirit, that faith in Jesus Christ alone secures for us eternal life. Now, it might seem odd to you that God would argue for his position. You say, why? Why would God have to make a case for his position? But consider this. God has made us, and he has made us reasonable creatures, hasn’t he? He’s given us a brain that is capable of thinking through facts and weighing arguments and coming to conclusions. So it’s not really surprising at all that in a sinful world that’s full of misleading ideas and temptations and bad arguments, that God’s gospel, his good news would come to us with external facts and internal experiences that confirm those facts. So let’s get into this. If you have your Bible, you can open it to First John chapter five. We’re going to begin in verse six today. I would encourage you to keep your Bible open so you can keep referring back to it. The argument has three stages to it. So first, John lays out God’s witnesses, and then he lays out the main reason for believing these witnesses. And finally, he challenges us to consider how we respond to this whole argument. Our passage last week, you’ll remember, ended with a rhetorical question who is it that overcomes the world, except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? And the answer to the rhetorical question is no one. No one overcomes the judgment and destruction of this sinful world except the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, here’s the argument to back that up. This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify; the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. So clearly this is the weird part, right? You can see that, right? No one on the preaching team was clamoring for this one, including me, by the way. I’ve not been looking forward to this. Church I can tell you what this says. I can tell you what it says. John writes actually in a very plain Greek. So this is a good translation of the words. The apostle John is clear here, but he hasn’t talked like this throughout the letter. And now suddenly Jesus is coming by water and blood, not just the water, he clarifies, but by blood too. If there are ever times when you are in your personal Bible reading and you come across a passage that you aren’t sure how to understand because it’s so obscure. I want you to be encouraged this morning. That’s all of us. All of us come to passages like this and say, what is going on here? Me too. Me included here. Scholars are divided on exactly what John is referring to here. And when I say scholars, I’m not just talking about modern commentary writers. I’m talking about people like Calvin and Luther disagreed with Augustine on this. But don’t lose heart. We have a pretty good idea of what this means, and I’m going to take some time this morning to wrestle through this with you, as opposed to just telling you my conclusion. Because I think this is a great opportunity to learn some biblical reasoning here. First, it’s important for us to remember that the original recipients of this letter would have known exactly what John is talking about. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have written it. So we need to think in first-century ideas. And we also need to remember that John is combating a particular heresy that said that Jesus wasn’t truly a man. They said that he was God, but he was not human. And that’s the reason that John wrote this letter. Okay. So keeping that in mind, let’s untangle this. Jesus Christ, the object of our belief is the Son of God through whom we have eternal life. And we know this because he came by water and by blood. And John clarifies here, not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. So the error that he’s correcting here is that someone would say that Jesus came by water, but not by blood. Now, I know I haven’t described what those things are yet, but to understand what the water and blood are, it helps to know what John is correcting. And that’s what he’s correcting here. So again, the people coming with this false gospel, they believe that Jesus was God but not man, and that he came by water but not blood. By the way, if this is your first week here at Calvary, I just want you to know that our sermons don’t usually sound like a Sherlock Holmes case, okay? It’s not how we usually do it. It’s pretty rare that we would do this like this, but we do take the Bible very seriously. So we want to get this right. Okay. All right. So what do these symbols mean? Let’s start with the blood because that’s the easier of the two. The word blood is used throughout the New Testament as a stand-in for the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Okay? It’s a word that means the whole event. The apostle Peter in First Peter chapter one says that we are ransomed with the precious blood of Christ. He’s referring to the whole event of Jesus death on the cross that ransoms us, it redeems us. I am 99% certain church that that is what John is using when he uses the word here. That’s what he’s referring to. He’s using it in the same way. He’s referring to the historically verified event of Jesus going to the cross and dying for our sins. And the best piece of evidence that that is how John is using it here in this verse, is that he has already used this word in this way in the letter. If you remember back in chapter one verse seven, he wrote, if we walk in the light, as he is in the li

  7. Aug 16

    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

  8. 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,

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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/

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