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Articles from Pastor Jon's Blog

1 John 4:19 2007-12-06 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love 5. (19) The reason for our love to Jesus. We love Him because He first loved us. a. We love Him: In this great statement, John begins by declaring the heart of every true follower of Jesus Christ.  Simply, and boldly put, we love Him. i. This is a fact for every true follower of Jesus. “There is no exception to this rule; if a man loves not God, neither is he born of God.  Show me a fire without heat, then show me regeneration that does not produce love to God.” (Spurgeon) ii. It is something that every Christian should be unafraid to proclaim: I love Him; I love Jesus.  Can you say that?  Are you embarrassed to say it?  Can you say, “I love Jesus”? iii. “I cannot imagine a true man saying, ‘I love Christ, but I do not want others to know that I love him, lest they should laugh at me.’  That is a reason to be laughed at, or rather, to be wept over.  Afraid of being laughed at?  Oh sir, ...

1 John 4:17-18 2007-12-05 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love 4. (17-18) The perfecting of love, both now and in eternity. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. a. Love has been perfected: For perfected, John doesn’t just use the Greek word teleioo (which has the idea of “maturity” and “completeness); he writes teleioo teleioo – speaking of love that is “perfectly perfected” or “completely complete”! b. The completeness of love’s work in us will be demonstrated in the day of judgment.  As much as we can know the completeness of God’s love now, we will know it all the more in the day of judgment. i. You may “know” you are a sinner now; you will know it in the day of judgment! ii. You may “know” now you are not better in yourself than ...

1 John 4:16 2007-12-04 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love 3. (16) The Christian’s response to God and His love. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. a. The Christian’s proper response to who God is, and how He loves us is to have known and believed the love God has for us.  We are called to take the love and grace God has given, to know it by experience and to believe it - this is what fellowship with God is all about. i. How do you respond to the love of God?  Some respond with a sense of self-superiority (“I’m so great, even God loves me!”).  Some respond with doubt (“Can God really love even me?”).  Some respond with wickedness (“God loves me, so I can do what I want”).  God wants us to respond by knowing (by experience) and believing the love God has for us. ii. Do you know and believe the love God has for us?  What would it take to make you stop believi ...

1 John 4:13-15 2007-12-03 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love 2. (13-15) Assurance of the work of the Triune God in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. a. We know we abide in Him: By beginning with the words by this, John ties the thought of this verse directly to the previous verse.  We can know by experience that we live in God, if His love has been perfected in us.  And we know that His love has been perfected in us if we love one another. i. Plainly, a Christian can say we know. One doesn’t have to merely “hope” one is saved, and “hope” they will make it to heaven, and have no assurance of salvation before they pass from this world to the next.  No!  We can know, and we can know now, on this side of eternity! b. We abide in Him, and He in us: O ...

Sunday Quotes 12.02.07 2007-12-02 00:30:00 If you take your problems to the Lord, that is natural; if you give your problems to the Lord, that is spiritual. -- Unknown God has a solution planned before we even know we have a problem. -- Unknown God will hold it together until you get it together. -- Unknown The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, peace of mind, or even your happiness. It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born BY His purpose and FOR His purpose. -- Rick Warren A real Christian is an odd number anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest, a ...

1 John 4:12 2007-12-02 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love C. The nature of a love relationship with God. 1. (12) Seeing God through the evidence of love. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. a. No one has seen God at any time: John relates a basic principle about God the Father – that no one, no one, has seen God at any time.  Anyone claiming to have seen God the Father is speaking – at best – from their own imagination, because as John plainly states, no one has see God at any time. i. In speaking of God the Father, Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1:17: Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible; Jesus declared of God the Father, God is Spirit, (John 4:24) meaning that God the Father has no tangible body which may be seen.  ii. Knowing God the Father is invisible should make us more humble in our relationship with Him.  God the Father is not completely knowable by us; we can’t completely figure out ...

1 John 4:9-11 2007-12-01 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love 2. (9-11) The meaning of love and its application. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. a. What is love?  What does love mean?  In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God sent His only begotten Son.  Love is not only defined by the sacrifice of Jesus (as stated in 1 John 3:16); it is also defined by the giving of the Father.  It was a sacrifice for the Father to send the Second Person of the Trinity, and a sacrifice to pour out the judgment we deserved upon God the Son.  i. We need to appreciate this fully, and receive the Fatherly love God has to give us.  Some of us, for whatever reason, have come to think of God the ...

1 John 4:7-8 2007-11-30 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love B. Love perfected among us. 1. (7-8) The call to love. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. a. Beloved, let us love: The Greek sentence begins in a striking way: agapetoi agapomen; “those who are loved, let us love.”  We are not commanded to love one another to earn or become worthy of God’s love.  We love one another because we are loved by God, and have received that love, and live in light of it. b. John’s emphasis on love among the people of God (shown in passages like 1 John 2:9-11 and 3:10-18) is powerful.  Here, he shows why it is so important.  If love is of God, then we who claim to be born of God, and claim to know God, must be able to love one another in the body of Christ.  i. Again, John insists that there is something that is given to the believer when they are born ...

Abiding In God And In His Love 2007-11-29 14:48:15 The audio is up from Sunday's service is available at the Springfield Calvary site. We are continuing in our series, "Keepin' It Real" a study of 1 John. This week's lesson is from 1 John 4:1-11. <:))))><< ...

1 John 4:5-6 2007-11-29 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love 4. (5-6) The contrast between those in the world and those who are of God. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. a. Those who are of the world are evident because they speak as of the world; the influence of the world in evident in their speech.  As Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:34) b. Those who are of the world are also evident because the world hears them.  They face none of the rejection the child of God will face from the world (1 John 3:1), because they are friends with the world. i. The world hears them: The Christian always wants to speak to the world, and to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.  It is exciting when the world will listen to the gospel, but we must take ca ...

1 John 4:4 2007-11-28 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love 3. (4) The protection of the child of God. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. a. The child of God need not fear the spirit of Antichrist, even though they should be warned of it, because they have the indwelling Spirit of God (1 John 3:24), and that indwelling Spirit is greater than he who is in the world - Satan and all of his allies. b. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world!  The believer has a resource for victory, a vital presence of the indwelling Jesus, which makes victory always possible – if we will rely on He who is in you instead of in ourselves! i. What confidence and spiritual power come from understanding who the believer is in Jesus Christ!  For those walking in this truth, victory is assured - they have overcome them.  It is a positive statement, not a wishful hope. c. He who is in you is greater than he ...

1 John 4:2-3 2007-11-27 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love 2. (2-3) How to know when a false prophet is speaking. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. a. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God: True prophecy, and true teaching, will present a true Jesus.  In John’s day, the issue was about if Jesus had truly come in a real body of flesh and blood. Many Gnostic-influenced teachers said that Jesus, being God, could not have actually become a flesh and blood human, because God could have no partnership with “impure” material stuff. i. “This statement would be directed against some form of Docetism, the view that Christ was a spirit who only seemed to be a true man.” (Boice) ...

Tuan Change 2007-11-26 23:30:00       Earnest Presswood was born on the Canadian prairie in 1908 and came to Christ in a Sunday school class at age 11. Later, under the preaching of “Gipsy” Smith, he surrendered to Christian service. He enrolled in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Institute at Nyack, New York, and by 1930 he was in Borneo.  Rumors soon flew across the island of the young, white man whose message could turn evil men into good ones, drunken men into sober ones, violent men into men of God. Islanders called him Tuan Change, because his message changed lives. “When I heard,” said one man, “I could not sleep for desire. We all went to meet him. He preached the Resurrection. Right from the beginning it hit me. I was drinking it in. When I first heard I believed.” Ernie, 25, crisscrossed mountain trails to remote villages. His feet became ulcerated by leech bites, but his passion was relentless. “What a time I have had,” he wrote after one tour. “Physica ...

1 John 4:1 2007-11-26 00:00:00 1 John 4 - Abiding in God and His Love A. Protection against the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 1. (1) The fact of false prophets and the need to test the spirits. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. a. John warns against believing every spirit; that is, we are never to assume every spiritual experience or every demonstration of spiritual power is from God.  We must test spiritual experiences and spiritual phenomenon to see if they are, in fact, from God. i. Many, when first encountering the reality of the spiritual world, are too impressed and amazed to ask whether they are of God.  This leads to easy deception. b. It is important to test the spirits, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  Even though the early church had a strong life, and a large measure of purity, John still knew the danger false prophets and their message wa ...

Sunday Quotes 11.25.07 2007-11-25 00:30:00 Blessed is he who forgives without remembering and who receives forgiveness without forgetting. -- Unknown If you are going through hell, keep going. -- Winston Churchill The world can never be evangelized by Christians who compromise. -- Unknown If Paul and Silas would have complained while in prison, would the Philippian jailer have accepted Christ? -- Unknown If you fear that God has no great plans for you and you are looking for signs and wonders to confirm His presence, just stop and look in the mirror and you will see one of His greatest miracles! -- Bob PerksIn the Bible, faith is not something you possess but rather something you practice. You have to put it into action or it really doesn't mean anything. Faith changes things. It's the energy of transformation, both for individuals and for society. -- Jim Wallis Life is a mixture of successes and failures.  May you be encouraged by your successes and strengthened by your failures.  As long as you never lose fa ...