Marks of a True Christian | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

It is always a joy to sing to the Lord with you. Always. And it is always an honor and a privilege to open God's word with you. And so meet me in the book of second Timothy as we have been in the past few weeks in chapter three in your bibles. And as pleasing as the sound of worship and song is, can I tell you another sound that I love?

The rustling of the leaves of the scriptures. I'm thankful for technology, but I'm a book guy. And I'm sure you understand what I'm saying by that. Second Timothy chapter three. And let's pray one more time, shall we?

Heavenly father, we thank you for gathering us as your people. We thank you that we have freedom still. We thank you that we have access to the full revelation of your counsel and your mind and your will. We ask, oh, lord, that as we expound these verses that they would not come through a a vessel that thinks he is strong in himself. Lord, we are weak, I am weak, and we ask for your help.

Apart from the help of the holy spirit, this meeting will be futile. It will be void of your power and the transforming grace that is necessary to build our faith. Lord, help us demolish every distraction. Anything that would hinder the reception of your word, Lord, we pray that you would cancel the assignments of Satan. And that, Lord, instead, we would know your presence and your power in your house.

We ask these things in the precious name of the master. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. That we can spend the next few weeks dissecting and expounding upon each of the characteristics that Paul lists here when he speaks about the marks of mankind in the last days. Today we're going to be concluding our time in this portion of scripture, and prayerfully, we're going to move forward in this pastoral epistle.

Nonetheless, before we do that, we're going to be looking at the final warning that the holy spirit of God provides us in this section. And this final point is extremely crucial for the believers' understanding, and dare I say this afternoon that it might even be the means by which some would be truly saved. Truly saved. And I say truly saved because what Paul is about to disclose is one of the most damning deceptions known to mankind. The apostle is going to conclude this index of godlessness not by pointing to another component of those who are described by being alienated from Christendom.

What do I mean by that? Paul is not about to speak about something that deals necessarily with those who are separated from Christian households, separated from faith based schools, disconnected from even churches. When you look at something like in verse four where he speaks about lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, that that's obvious. We know that this is speaking about those who want nothing to do with Christ, who want nothing to do with God. God is not in their plans, he's not in their trust, he's not in their thoughts, he's not in their conversation, he's not in their affections.

Why? Because they are slaves to their pleasures and they are self declared masters of their own fate. Instead, what Paul is about to write to us is not the obvious corruption of outsiders, but a frame of mind that is actually found within the walls of Christendom. It's in verse five. We read, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power, avoid such people.

Having an appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Paul writes in this context that as we approach the final days, as we come to the culmination of the age, there will be an increase, there will be a growth of those who will wear the costume of piety, who will wear the appearance of godliness but will be void of the true power. We might think that the appearance of godliness is a good thing. But God here tells us that it is to be listed among. It is a custom that should be named with the most despicable and deplorable practices that are condemned by his holiness and by the God fearing.

What does he mean here by having the appearance of godliness? The idea of appearance speaks of an outline. It speaks of a form of something or someone that is attempting to present itself as something or someone. It's an attempt to convince that its substance is true when in fact it lacks the very qualities that would make it legitimate. The appearance that Paul reports is so tricky that it can even falsely convince those who are undiscerning and careless with their examination.

It's a cloak. It's something that can be put on and put off, but it's something that can also be so realistic that it can deceive. It can deceive others, and it can even deceive the one who is trying to display something. My brother recently brought bought a furniture piece in his living room, and it was, an olive tree. And the thing looked so real.

I remember when he brought it to the living room that, at first, I didn't know he bought it, he talked about buying it, but I saw it and I thought, there's an exotic plant in this place, and it has olives. The way that the the leaves are are colored, and the branches, the way the texture is set out, it it can actually convince somebody, a passerby, that there is this beautiful plant in this house. But upon closer examination, when you know what a a real leaf feels like and you have an awareness of what authentic animation is, the lifelessness of the object becomes apparent. And what Paul is trying to say is that there will be a growing breed of professing Christians who will adorn themselves with the sight and sounds of religiosity. But upon examination, they lack the life giving power that truly makes someone godly.

And that's why he says here that they will deny its power. Denial here is not speaking about a verbal rejection of God. This is speaking about a way of life that testifies that that individual has never truly met him in the first place. This denial of the power of God does not dismiss the fact that those who have the appearance of godliness can recite doctrine, that they know biblical stories, or that they they even come into sacred settings such as this and and come to events that have a spiritual focus. This denial of power speaks of someone who does not have the evidence of communion with God and is barren of the conviction for the things of God that can only be inspired in the soul by God himself.

And this this mention of such people, again, might have references in their mind in the Bible. They might know some ideas concerning Jesus and his work, but let me tell you straightforward, they know nothing of true worship. There is no sense of delight in God. In fact, their delight is directed towards everything but God. The measure of their love for the world and the love for the things of the world is no different than one who blasphemes God.

If we need an illustration for this, no look no further than Judas the apostle who committed suicide just after he denied Christ. This is an example of a of one who had the appearance of godliness, who blended in so well, so well that he camouflage himself that even in a setting when a woman came with an alabaster flask and broke it at the feet of the Christ and began to worship the Lord from head to toe. This Judas criticized this woman publicly, and he gave the impression to those in that same room that he was righteously indignant because such a thing could have been sold and we could have given to the needy, and nobody questioned him. But John tells us by the spirit that this man did not care about the needy. He was upset that a opportunity was wasted where he could've he could've taken more money from the ministry's treasury.

So camouflage was Judas that even in the night in which Jesus declared that one of them would betray him, nobody suspected Judas. Nobody said, we knew it. This guy's been off these past three years. He's so worldly. Nothing of the sort.

Nothing of the sort. But this man was damned to hell. Judas is a testament that one can be closely associated with Jesus and even busy himself with ministerial work and still be a son of destruction. How do we make sense of this? We'll figure out in a moment.

But I find it quite fascinating that by the spirit, we are told that there will be forms of godliness as we approach the return of Christ, as we approach the great tribulation. There will be manifestations of spirituality. Oh, you thought that as we come nearer to Christ's return that anything spiritual would be extinct. No. In fact, it will increase.

It will actually multiply. You will have different people who have some expression of spirituality, some formality, and they will have forms of godliness. And that's not so hard to believe. We're already seeing it now. All you have to do is peek over into persecuted countries like China, who are persecuting Christians this Sunday and other faiths, and their governments didn't liquidate their lands from religious buildings and religious texts.

No. No. No. They have churches there. They have religious and sacred texts there, but what they have is state compliant churches.

They have people who have a form of godliness that will obey with a cruel government, an antichrist government, we'll say, and they will submit, not to God, but to Caesar. Forms of godliness will not disappear as Christ appears. No. They will increase, but they'll be void of the true saving power of the gospel. And I believe it's worth exploring a couple of things.

One of them is this, how is this possible? How is it that it will be that people will arrive to this appearance of godliness while being emptied of this power? How how will they arrive there? How will this thing be discipled? How does this thing even occur?

Well, let me ask it for now. How is it that there are people today who claim to profess Christ, but when you look at their lives closely, you realize that they they haven't really met him. They haven't really been saved by him. I believe there are a couple of considerations, and I wanna present them to you today. Because the goal of this message, if you haven't realized it already, is to make sure that everybody in here does not just have an appearance of godliness, but has truly met god.

One of the ways I believe according to the scriptures that some arrive to this appearance of godliness but deny the power, the true saving power, the holy spirit's power in a man or woman's heart is found in an example found in the book of Acts chapter 19. In verse 11, I would like to read this as an illustration to you to drive a point home of how this appearance, how phony false Christians are in existence today and will be in the days to come. In Acts nineteen eleven to 13, we read Acts nineteen eleven to 13. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that even the handkerchiefs or aprons that he touched that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.

I love this text. While Paul was in Ephesus, you've heard me say this before, but I'll say it again. Wherever this man went, there was either revival or riots. And here in this case, there was a revival. God had released an unusual source of power upon him and through him, and so great was this power that even the materials that touched his skin was used to bring deliverance from disease and demons.

And news spread fast, and the news of this man and the success of his ministry reached the ears of certain exorcists, Jewish exorcists, who apparently had some kind of profession in providing spiritual services to those who are bound. I don't know how they did it. We can have strong confidence that it was superstitious and that their solutions were not concrete because we read here something more interesting than the fact that there are some Jews who believe they can cast out demons. And it is this, they believe that they can borrow the name of Jesus. They undertook upon themselves to declare the name of our Lord.

And so they saw a recipe. They saw a formula that they thought that they can just replicate easily and copy. They saw that Jesus proclaimed this name. This name had power. He had a certain method.

And they said, well, if it worked for him, surely it can work for us. And this is so sad because they indirectly even admit while trying to perform a deliverance that this Jesus they did not know, but it was a guy that Paul knew, that Paul proclaimed, And these preachers got beat up by the demon and they run off naked because those demons said something that I wish a demon would say of you. Jesus I know and Paul we know. Who are you? Demons are so busy that they don't even consider people that are not threats to them.

But Paul was a threat. This man was so filled with the Holy Spirit, he made demons nervous when he woke up. And in this case, I read something that teaches me something about what we're trying to understand here. These sons of Sceva prove that there are those who can adopt biblical vocabulary and even engage in Christian activity, but don't know the Lord. They don't know Christ.

He's a name that they sing. He's a name that they might even tell others about. But he's not the name that they adore and love. This is one of the ways that false Christians breed. The same way that the sons of Sceva were able to mirror Paul is the same way that many sons and daughters of Christian parents evolve over time.

Pay attention if you grew up in a Christian household. By way of observation and exposure to Christian culture, they substitute a true connection with the Lord by being able to mimic behavior and lingo that holds no true life. It's something that becomes second nature. It's all that they've known. And the fact that they remain in it in part deals with comfort more than conversion.

It's their familiarity. It's part of their heritage. It's something that they just know when they really don't know him. There was never true conversion. There was never a moment of declaring that Jesus Christ was Lord.

There is no evidence of private devotion to God. There is no hunger for holiness. There's no longing to explore him and to declare him. They're they're just there parroting things, and they're there familiar with things. And the best that they really have is a worldly life perfumed with Christianese and a long history of being involved within the church and in a Christian home that gives them a false sense of salvation.

Charles Spurgeon said, not generation, but regeneration that makes someone a Christian. And it is true. There are many things in in creation that fascinate me. Many things, I'm sure you as well. One of the things that blows my mind is those birds that can talk.

It's incredible to me. But upon looking into it, I realized that these parrots don't actually understand what they're saying. Maybe you knew that already, maybe you didn't and I disappointed you. They don't understand what they're saying. All they're doing is because of their amazing ability, was understand the sounds and then maneuver their vocal boxes to to take those words and make them sound like an actual human.

It's it's incredible. And when their owners rehearse certain phrases over them, they're not they're not learning how to speak. They're just able to put things together and then respond. And they can be so trained that certain context trigger certain ways of communication. And so, an owner can walk in and in in that one cage, you hear hello, hello, Because they've been trained over time that in certain settings you say certain things.

And I say all that to say that many Christians operate in the same way, professing Christians at least. Their knowledge of god is as deep as a parrot's understanding of the English language. It's impersonated, and if it's well trained enough, they know what to say and who to say it to and when to say it and when not to say it. Would anybody be crazy enough this afternoon to say that a parrot could be a human because from time to time they sound like one? Then why is it that we are so easy to say that those who have an appearance of godliness actually are godly?

And so it's inherited. It's it's a behavior that is learned. Christianity is not a matter of faith, it's a matter of culture. And you have heathens now who are proving that because they wear a cross around their neck, though they live like devils every day. A symbol that declares not only our salvation, but a lifestyle of dying to self.

And they can put those things around their neck and on their ears as they live for their father, the devil. It's a culture. And that's not just traditionalist, by the way. I'm not talking about those denominations that are extremely rigid in their church services. I'm even talking about those in the evangelical church.

Appearance of godliness. And they just coast through life thinking because they have the language down, they have some stories they understand, and because they come to a place like this while their life contradicts everything that this Christ tells us, what a true follower looks like, that they're safe. You're in for the shock of your life. But number two, this appearance of godliness is also the fruit of false teaching. And not just false teaching, but unfaithful teaching.

So this idea of those who have this appearance, this facade of following Christ, even though even though their feet have traveled through Christian homes and faithful Christian ministries, it's not just limited to that. There are those who will be discipled into this appearance of godliness because they sit under ungodly teaching. And the false teaching is an obvious truth. Jesus himself condemned a whole group of people who are known for their appearance of god godliness known as the Pharisees. He caused trouble for these guys.

In fact, one of the most scorching sermons from Jesus was against these religious folk. Oh, the way he spoke to prostitutes and the way he spoke to tax collectors could not even come close to the heat and to the sharpness when he when he faced Pharisees. Just read Matthew 23 when you have the time. And I want you to see something from the book of Matthew chapter 23. You don't have to turn there because by the end of this message, there's gonna be a lot of verses that I would love for you to know.

But in Matthew twenty three fifteen, in this series of woes against the Pharisees, he says at one point something that's actually kind of startling. In verse 15, he says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte. And when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. You know what he's saying?

They were already damned and then once you apparently converted them, they're now twice damned. Now, this isn't the context of condemnation, but there's something commendable about the Pharisees here. At this group of men, I I mean, you might have had the impression that they're just this separated, stoic man that just looked at everybody else and says, you'll never come here. No. No.

No. They were evangelists. They were missionaries. They would spend days and weeks to travel across just to see one person introduced to their belief system. That's convicting.

But they were false. They were bringing people into a legalistic understanding of the Jewish faith that would damn them as they were damned. You know what you're seeing here? The modern Jehovah's Witness, the modern Mormon. You've seen them and maybe you've been convicted by them as they've knocked on your door.

They spent a Saturday afternoon to go and declare people a false gospel. And they travel and they spend two years, a Mormon will spend two years, dedicate two years of his life to be a missionary. He will allow two years of his life. He'll put a hold on his dreams, on his plans as a young adult, and go to some foreign country and preach a false Christ, and damn those who would believe it. But the appearance, it's an appearance of godliness.

There's devotion. There's seriousness. And if people are not careful, that will be the very reason why they would be attracted to false teaching. I remember when I first got saved, I had a conversation with a couple on a missions trip. And this couple was sharing their testimony, and the wife had had shared something that just stuck with me and it still sticks with me.

That when she was in college and she had some vague Catholic background, She was hungry to know truth. She was hungry to know God, and she was moved. She was impressed. She was magnetized towards Muslims because she saw their fasting lifestyle and their willingness to pray in public, And she compared it to the slothfulness of professing Christians. And she was so close of believing a false God.

And this appearance of godliness, it's gonna convince people. There's gonna be a false sense of liberty, a false sense of piety that will be attractive. We're seeing it with the new age movement where people feel and they're expressing spiritual experiences. This is only gonna become more evident and prevalent. But notice I said not just false teaching that will produce appearances of godliness, I also said unfaithful teaching.

What do I mean by that? I mean that appearances of godliness will also become true because there'll be those who declare and profess and claim to be ministers of the true gospel in ministries that apparently preach the full gospel when in fact they are not giving the complete gospel. And because of this, this is what's gonna happen. It's already happening. It's gonna continue to happen.

We're gonna see half converted, semi saved, moralistic mannequins infecting the evangelical world. Why? For one reason among many, because the teaching, because the proclamation of the gospel is not complete. I'm more angry at such men than Mormons in Jehovah's Witnesses. And Jeremiah spoke of such men, and I wanna show you.

I wanna show you from this is where I'm gonna encourage you to turn. When God speaks about the prophets who were supposed to represent the truth and what they did and what it resulted to its hearers. Jeremiah 23. We looked at Matthew 23. Scroll in your sacred scripture to Jeremiah 23 verse 14.

Look what God says. Jeremiah twenty three fourteen, but in the prophets of Jerusalem, I've seen a horrible thing. That alone is just sobering. Not among the heathen, not among the apostate, among the prophets of Jerusalem, I've seen a horrible thing. They commit adultery and walk in lies.

They strengthen the hands of evildoers so that no one turns from his evil. Imagine that. That as a result of the ministry of these prophets, they didn't call people out of sin, they convinced them to remain in it. Their life and their preaching didn't admonish them to let go of their fleshly desires, but to have a stronger grip on them. It's a false security.

Remember in Jeremiah, these false prophets were saying peace, peace when there is no peace. There is no conviction. There is no rebuke. There is no call to repentance. And because there is no authority, never mind their message.

The message isn't even mentioned here. He's talking about their lifestyle. Because it doesn't matter even if you preach the truth that the life contradicts, it cancels the power of the message. And that's why God is highlighting this. There is no authority because there's no authenticity.

Why are they prophets then? For the same reason why preachers, some preachers, are preachers today. There's something attractive about that kind of authority. You get respect when you are pastor or an evangelist or a podcast preacher. You're a source of information that people can come to.

People rely on voices that declare truth or perhaps some are attracted to it because because they want that authority to control people, And they wanna manipulate people. And they wanna take advantage of the vulnerable and the naive. And there are even some who see this as a job. It's a job. And sometimes it's not just a paycheck to paycheck thing.

They will even twist their message to have greater gain from people who have simple faith. Regardless of the fact, these men here are told by the God that they apparently represent. This is horrible. This is absolutely atrocious. But it's later in the same chapter that you see God not just judging their practice, but it's condemning their proclamation.

And it's in verse 21 of the same chapter. Would you like to know how these prophets who can claim to be messengers of God came to be? Would you like to know? How is it that it happens? How is it that you have those who are apparently supposed to give the truth but don't give the truth?

Why does why are you even in that position? Why would you even dare to to walk in such a call? Jeremiah twenty three twenty one, look what God says about these same prophets. I did not send the prophets, yet they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.

Number one, they were never called by God to begin with. I didn't send them. They're self appointed ministries and ministers. They didn't have a call. They didn't have a conviction.

And whatever desire there wasn't a pure desire, it was an unholy desire. Could have been again that they saw something of personal gain by being a prophet. They saw the praise that they could receive if they just sued the religious consciousness of men, among other things. Nevertheless, God says, I never sent them. If you're entertaining ministry, but you don't have the pure desire for ministry, according to the bible, and you don't sense God calling you to ministry, can I say this enough?

Stay away from ministry. Just stay away. Go go go join the Mormons. Go go join the Jehovah's Witnesses or go do something else. But do not come into this if your desires are not in line with the word of God and if you do not have the conviction that the Lord himself has called you to this ministry.

Because such men strengthen the hands of evildoers, and no one turns from his evil. But that's not the only thing. Look at verse 22. Jeremiah twenty three twenty two. But if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.

So number one, they weren't even sent, but even if they did start from a right place, there was a failure along the way, and the failure along the way if it wasn't from the beginning was this, they did not know me and spend time in my presence. That's what it means here. If they had stood in my counsel, if they were in that inner circle of intimacy with me, if they sat at my feet and sought me, if they came to my word and allowed it to burn in their hearts, if they had come to me, then they would have spoken my words. Because you cannot fellowship with the holy one and not have that impress you to see the evil in the world and remain silent about it. There is no way that you can actually come in contact with this god on a daily basis and not be moved to be faithful to his message.

I can tell you something boldly that many of these people that will not declare a message of repentance unto salvation or a call to holiness for those who are saved by faith, they don't know God. I don't care how smart they are. I don't care how impressive they are. I don't care how philosophical they are. If they do not preach the complete truth, they don't fellowship with the person who is truth because God said it.

If they would have stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my word. They don't commune with me. They don't know me. They don't hear from me. But if you stand in the counsel of God, you will never bend your knee before man.

No matter what kind of faces they might show you while you preach. And would you know it, preachers are encouraged not to look at the faces of people, not in some seminary text in the book of Ezekiel. Do not look at their faces. You preach the truth and let my words reach their hearts. And look at the result.

They would have turned from their evil way. They would have. There would have been a chance for repentance. There would have been a chance for true conformity to my holiness, to my will, but because you didn't preach it, you've raised a generation that had the appearance of godlessness. This is what we're seeing today on a vast level.

This is what we will continue to say see as well. And I can go on about different reasons why people will clothe themselves with a false false sense of relationship with God, a false sense of faith, but I wanna end this message on a different note. I wanna conclude with something that will directly deal with all of us. I wanna offer to you a series of marks. In the past few weeks, and we could have done it with every single one of these things.

In the past few weeks, you've been hearing about the marks of the of the men and women who will be plagued by their own sin in the last days. But I wanna conclude this section on this on this exclamation point that Paul gives us in verse five with a series of marks of somebody who is truly born again. Now this part is gonna do two things, at least two things. As you hear these different marks of what it means to truly be saved, the spirit of God will bear witness in your spirit that you are a child of God and you will be able to say confidently, amen, amen, amen that is true of me. And to others, it may cause you to say, if you are honest with yourself and if you love your soul, to think, I hear these things, but I I do not know if I can say that this is true of me.

I've grown up in the church. I've done the ordinances. I even have been involved in in some ministries, but these marks, I'm afraid, are not evident in my life. And I'm also gonna give this disclaimer that I am aware of people who are truly born again, that when they hear such things, all it does is cause more doubt, though they have no reason to doubt because they are just prone to introspection. And one of their weaknesses is that they they they struggle with understanding the love of God and and the salvation that he offers freely.

I'm not I'm not trying to cause more doubt to you. I'm trying to make sure that every person here, though imperfect and though striving onto maturity in Jesus, would fall along the way. They could say on a foundational level in my being. And the Holy Spirit who is in me, though I may grieve him sometimes, I can sense the testimony that I've truly been brought from death to life. But how can we do this?

Are we just gonna pull some verses here and there? We can, but I wanna tell you something. There's an entire book in the bible that has the ambition, the main goal of its writings for this very purpose. And whenever I've had conversations with people whether they doubt their salvation or whether I think they should question their salvation, is go to the book of first John and read it through and through. And as you see what John says about those who are truly born again, if you can say amen, amen, amen, then you are safe.

But if you cannot testify in your heart that these things speak of you, then fall on your face and call to him who is ready to save you. And so I wanna prove this to you in first John five verse 13. Now look. For those in here who are like, yes. I may I even know where you're going, preacher.

Maybe you don't know where this is going. Equip yourselves with these verses so that you can help another. So that you can pass this along to somebody else so that you can use this when you might be facing somebody that you're trying to evangelize who is churchanized, but not truly born again. Look what John says in first John five thirteen. 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.

What's amazing is this is the same John who wrote the gospel account in the gospel of John, and you know what he says near the end of that book. Right? In John twenty thirty one, he says, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ. So that it's an evangelistic text. Look at the deity of this man.

He's the God man, Jesus Christ. But then he comes to first John, and he's speaking to Christians primarily. And he's not saying I'm writing these things to you so that you may believe. I am writing to you who do believe. For what purpose?

That you may know that you have eternal life. That you may have the assurance that you may be concrete. See, God is not satisfied with you, my precious brother, who might waver in your trust in the gospel. God does not want you to live in doubt of his love. He wants you to know that you have eternal life.

He wants you to not just believe theologically that you are secure. He wants you to be able to rejoice because you know that you're secure. And so he writes these things that you may know that you have eternal life. And if you hear these things and you don't know, then why would you play around with your soul? Because you don't wanna disappoint some people that thought you were a Christian?

That's not gonna matter if you go to hell. And so let's look at five marks in the book of first John. Put your seatbelts on, and some of you will rejoice and some of you, it may hurt, but if you respond appropriately, you will rejoice as well. In first John five one, we see the first mark of somebody who's truly been born again. And you'll notice something of these verses.

Every single verse will say, those who have been born of God. Those who have every single verse will have that phrase. So it's an evidence. It's a it's a mark of somebody who's been born of God, which is what Paul's talking about, that power within. Being born from above is the power of God unto salvation.

The Holy Spirit's work in a heart, not you clothing yourself in your righteousness. 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. Number one, faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Notice that it says whoever believes, everyone who believes.

Now I understand the conflict with this because those who might have an appearance of godliness might claim belief, but their lives contradict. As Titus tells us in chapter one that there are those who profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. But you have to read it so slowly to understand what John is trying to say because this faith does something to you. It's not intellectual assent. It's not an acknowledge acknowledgment of creeds.

No. No. No. No. It does something to your affections.

It does something to your direction. It does something to your devotion. Because right after he says, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and look how he correlates it, and everyone who loves the father. What's the connection? That if you believe in Jesus Christ, you're gonna love the person of God.

That there is gonna be an awakening to the reality of relationship with the one who saved you. That there's gonna be this newfound relationship with this God. Though you cannot see him, you love him, and you adore him, and you wanna worship him, and you wanna serve him. And as you grow in the knowledge of him, you wanna see him. You love the father.

It's a faith that actually causes you to be in relationship with God, to commune with God, not to get a ticket and then live how you want. No. No. No. No.

No. It's an understanding that this is deeply relational. That this is a salvation work that brings me to God himself. And so you understand that upon being born again, yes, the belief we can rehearse the truth that you come to the knowledge that you cannot save yourself and that you cannot work your way to heaven and that you cannot appease the wrath of God in this life. We can talk about that.

It's important justification by faith. Yes. But that kind of faith is not just a whisper of belief. It's not just a slot filled in your knowledge of something. It's a trust that causes you to rest.

It's a trust that produces an anchor in your soul that you are ready to meet death. That you are ready and confident to stand before a holy God. And that trust that causes that burden to roll off your back at the same time causes you to love the father and actually adore him and cherish him and worship him. And that is why when somebody comes from death to life, they are able to now sing. They are able now to to come and and and wash themselves with truth because they wanna know God.

They wanna know their savior. Do you? You believe, great. But do you love the father? You understand, great.

You can even preach the gospel to me probably. But do you love god? Because everyone who believes in the same breath, John says, everyone who loves the father. Belief in the personal work of Jesus Christ. You've surrendered your attempt to win your salvation.

You've surrendered the idea that you can actually be righteous before god. You fall at his feet, and at the same time, you want to know him. Mark number two in first John chapter three verse nine. This is where the ESV does us a service. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

That word seed in the Greek is the word sperma. And what's being implied here is that when you're born again, the very DNA of God gets inside of you, and you become his offspring spiritually. And one of the ways you know that you've you've been born of God, that the spiritual DNA has been imparted into your soul, is that you cannot go on living in habitual sin. In the King James, New King James, it would read, they do not sin, but that that would that would be kind of hard to understand because early on, he says, if we do sin, we have an advocate. So the idea here is is something continual, habitual.

And here's what I wanna tell you, that if you've really been born again, not only do you now enter into a relationship with God, but you actually have a new relationship with sin. You don't have the same attitude towards the things you once enjoyed and even maybe justified. In fact, now you have a white hot hatred for sin. You realize that it put the Christ on the cross. You realize that there was a bloody payment for your salvation because of your sin.

You realize that it will fracture your fellowship with God. You realize that it's ugly and it's horrific, and now you are understanding God's mind, though it is still polluted because we are still in this flesh. And that is not to say that you will not never know temptation or that you will never slip as you pursue maturity in Jesus Christ. What it does mean though is that you cannot be comfortable and willing to be in sin and claim to be born of God. Others might say it and they may not say it directly, but they remove it from their preaching.

So might as well take a pair of scissors, preacher, and cut it out of your bible. You cannot claim to be a child of God and still love your sin. People always wonder, but I'm not perfect. And it's been a while, and I still struggle and there's still a battle, and I always respond with this, do you want to be free from sin? I wish I could like that.

Do you wanna be liberated from this thing? Yes. It hurts me, it hurts my my family, it hurts my brothers and sisters in Christ, it hurts my God primarily. And he says you have nothing to worry about. Because it's that attitude, it's not about instant perfection, it's about new heart direction.

He says here, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning. But we come to the third mark, and it's found in first John two twenty nine. If you know that he, being God, is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of him. So being born again is not a matter of you stopping or ceasing to do that which is wrong. But there is there is something that happens in your heart that changes your pursuits in life, your priorities, your affections.

And there is this towering goal now that cast a shadow on every other thing in this world. Every other thing in your plans, every other thing in your dreams. This thing is so mountainous in your heart, and it is this, I want to be like him. I want to be like the one who saved me. You see, we are all from different backgrounds.

We have different stories. And upon salvation, we do not share the same vocation. We do not have the same personality after we meet Christ. We might not even be living in the same place or going in the same direction, but one thing that we all share is that we have a desire to be like the savior. So no matter who you're married to, you wanna be like Jesus as the husband that you are to the wife that you have.

No matter what kind of occupation you have, it's not about primarily having more money or more promotion or more comfort. It's about wherever I am, I wanna be like Christ. No matter what kind of temperament, no matter how you look, no matter what kind of disease you might be riddled with, no matter what kind of chronic pain, no matter what kind of built you have, there's something towering over all of that and it is this, Lord, how would you live like me if you were me and do it through me? There is a thirst for the commands of God to be to be respected and to be obeyed. And there's a pain in the heart when you find yourself in disobedience.

And, yes, there are days where you will know great tides of temptation, and you will even know some falls that would hurt you and others, and you might stay there long enough. But let me say it again. When you come down to it, as you battle lukewarmness, as you battle temptations of this world, down deep inside, you know that your life means nothing apart from living for him and like him. That's why in first John five three, he says, for those who are in this category, born again, that the commands of God are not burdensome. They're a joy to you.

What you once despised and rejected and ignored and maybe even made fun of, you now want more than anything. And you seek God's power and help when you realize that you are blind to a certain aspect of your personality or about your habits or your decisions, and you say, god, would you deal with that? That's somebody who has been changed. You wanna live out in righteousness, and it's not a burden to you. It's a joy to you.

We come to the fourth mark in first John four seven. Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. So not only are you now awakened to loving the father because you realize the father so loved you that he sent his son to rescue you, But there's something else that's inspired and it's it's an inspiration for horizontal sacrificial love. And look at the language here. He says, beloved, let us love one another.

In other words, you who are loved, love one another, Which teaches us that the motivation to love one another comes from the stream of the knowledge of God's love for you and God's love for me. And from that place, because you're motivated by an experiential revelation of God's love towards you, the Holy Spirit comes into that once stony heart. He takes it out. He puts in a heart of flesh. And that heart of flesh, you know what he does throughout your life?

As you yield to him, as you submit to him, Christ comes and he carves in that heart a love, a love for people. And there is now this committed compassion that you have. Selflessness begins to evaporate, though it might be stronger on some days than others. And now there's a consideration. There's a willingness to serve.

There's a willingness to give. There's a willingness to reach out. Your life becomes reprioritized and and restructured. It's not about the funnel coming down to me. It's about me now funneling out.

And that's why you serve. Right? And that's why you're here. Right? And that's why you wanna know what God is requiring of you.

That's why you pray for your coworkers. That's why you you serve your family members so they don't know. They don't know Christ. But this love, though it is general, it is specifically targeted towards the bride of Jesus Christ. Because back in first John five one, what does he say?

It's so clear. He says that everyone who loves the father loves whoever has been born of him. This is amazing. And I'll tell you why. Show me your love for the church and I'll show you your love for God.

Though imperfect she may be, though annoying she may be, though inconsistent she may be, you love her. And the way you love her is that you are not afraid to be associated with her. And the way you love her is that you are willing to serve her. You're willing to link arms with those who are also children of God and walk this life with them. Very weary of those who claim to be lovers of God and lovers of doctrine and lovers of theology, but are isolated and continually live their Christian lives criticizing the church as though you were not a part of it.

If a person doesn't take church seriously, it's very hard for me to believe that they take God seriously. Because scripture says, let us love one another and you know that this love is not a talk love. Because John says earlier, let us not love in talk, but in word and in deed. Do you love the church? Or do you love sermons?

Big difference. You might like sermons, that doesn't mean that you love the bride. Because if you love the bride, it will show in word and deed. The final mark of somebody who's been born of God is found in first John five four. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Our faith. Here's the understanding. What does it mean to overcome the world? I believe it means many things.

But I can't help but think when I read this verse about the different soils that Jesus described, the different ways people receive the gospel, the seed of the message that saves a soul. And one of those soils is rocky soil. And the way Jesus describes that soil is that when that seed is implanted, when it is received by that heart, it is met with immediate joy. There's excitement. There's posting about it.

There's telling some people about it as well. And it says even that they endure for a while. But then when persecution comes, and tribulation, and challenge, and conflict from the world, and threats, when false teaching enters in, as John was dealing with, by the way, he was dealing with antichrists. As all these things begin to flood and reach the ankles of those who are professing Christians. Jesus speaks of those with rocky soil that they, as much as they immediately rejoice, they will also immediately fall away.

That is not an overcomer. But an overcomer who's been really born of God, nothing can snatch him out of his hand. And there is a willingness, though there might be fear at sometimes and weakness at other times, there may be concern for your family, there may be concern for yourself. You realize that in you is the Holy Spirit who makes you an overcomer. And this kind of reality, this mark can only be observed with time.

That as time goes on, there you are. You're still loving the Lord. Though Christians might hurt you, though though professing believers might disappoint you, might betray you, might try to scar you, there you are. You're still serving him. You're still loving him.

You're still loving the church. You're an overcomer because the one in you is overcoming through you. What about if they don't overcome? We'll go back to first John two. What does it say?

If they left us, they were not of us. They had a type of soil, and time told that it was not legitimate. Do you believe in him today? Yeah. Yeah.

No. No. No. Do you really believe in him today? Does your belief cause your soul to clutch at his mercy?

Will you say, I know. I know that I'm saved. Not I know Jesus died. I know that I'm saved. I know that I will stand before him clothed in his righteousness.

I know it. Do you hate sin? Or are you trying to justify and you're you're giving great energy and strength in trying to hide something because you love iniquity, but you also wanna hold on to your Christian culture. What's the hunger? What's the pursuit?

Come on. Is it for righteousness? Is it for the things of God? Is it to be conformed, molded, and melted into his image? What happens?

What kind of harpoon is thrust into your soul when you realize that even for a moment you misrepresented him? Do you love the church? Or do you love sermons? Do you love the people of God, though they are sometimes foolish, disobedient? But you you filter it through this, Jesus died for them.

And you also turn that filter and realize I'm not perfect either. And the last one, only you will know if you're really an overcomer, and I pray that you would be. But the only way you can be an overcomer is if you have this faith, true faith, living inside of you. I call you today if you are one who has had an appearance of godliness to repent and believe in the gospel. Don't fool yourself anymore.

Come into real life with Christ. No abundant life in Jesus. Believer, I hope that as you heard these verses, resounding within you was, thank you, Jesus. You've saved my soul. Thank you that I know that I have eternal life, because I know that I've been born of him.

Because I know that those things that have been said, though they are marred by my imperfections at times, they are true nonetheless. Hallelujah. If you feel like this was strong, know this, I wish somebody preached it to me when I was in high school. I wish somebody had the boldness to look at me before I went off to college, telling people I was a Christian while I was getting intoxicated at parties. I wasn't born again and had a rude awakening at the age of 20.

And I could tell you this, the revelation of the destination of my eternal state mattered more to me, more than what my parents would have thought when they found out that I was really saved at 20, even though I was baptized at 11. Let go of your pride. Let go of it and come into abundant life in Jesus Christ. Because in the days ahead, family of God, there will be many appearances of godliness, but denying the true power and may God by his mercy display true power from us as his church. Let's pray.

Lord, this morning, we rejoice that again, it has been confirmed that at a certain time, you have truly saved us and that we are born of the spirit. Lord, in this moment, we ask that you would deal with any false sense of doubt, that you would target it and you would destroy it and replace it with true joy. But at the same time, we ask that you would convict the heart, that you would cut through the costume, through the mask, and that the right hearts would be pricked. Lord, may this message not be interpreted as trying to make people feel unnecessarily convicted. Because, Lord, in the spirit of first John, you've given us these truths that we may be secure, and we may be able to bless you and thank you as we examine ourselves in light of your word that you have truly done a work in us.

Blessed be your name. And so, Lord, may this afternoon know true joy, a joy of confirmation and a joy of conviction that would lead to conversion. And Lord, may you be able to look into this congregation as you did a couple of churches in the book of Revelation and find nobody wanting but a group of people who have been changed. A corporate change. For your glory in the days where there will be great appearances of godliness, make us truly godly.

Thank you for salvation by faith. Thank you that we enter in by grace. Thank you that we do not impress you. You come to save us, and all we do is fall at your mercy. Repent of our sin and trust in that precious name.

Blessed be your name as we sing to you now in light of our salvation. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.