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[0:00] 1 John 2, would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word together.

[0:20] ! Getting in verse 12. I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning.

[0:35] I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning.

[0:47] I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. May God add a blessing to the reading of His Word.

[0:58] Would you please be seated? I don't know about you, but it's always irritated me when I'm watching a show, and it's interrupted by breaking news.

[1:12] Okay, amen. Because a lot of times, that breaking news isn't really all that important, is it? If we could have put this down at the bottom of the screen and continued on with the program, and that would have been fine.

[1:25] Especially as a kid, I hated it whenever I would be watching cartoons, and it would be interrupted by one of those tests of the emergency broadcast systems. You remember that? I don't know that they still do that.

[1:36] But I don't like unnecessary interruptions. And at first glance, 1 John chapter 2, verses 12 through 14, look like an unnecessary interruption.

[1:52] John has presented his readers to this point with a series of tests to examine whether or not they are truly saved. And prior to these verses, if you recall, a few weeks ago was the test of brotherly love.

[2:09] And in verse 15, he'll present us with another test about our relationship with the world.

[2:20] And sandwiched in between those texts are these verses that when you read it, they don't seem to fit. And not only do they not seem to fit, they are somewhat repetitive as well.

[2:36] So why did John write them? Why would the Holy Spirit direct him to pause here and jot down these lines of text that seem to interrupt the flow of his letter?

[2:53] Well, one thing that God has drilled into me and that I hope He's drilled into you is that every word of this book are His words.

[3:04] Not just the words written in red. Every word in this book is God's Word and every word in this book matters.

[3:18] And every word in this book is arranged by God with a purpose. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 through 17, So God has a purpose for these verses and their placement here.

[3:53] And so we ask, well, what's that purpose? I believe that it's this. John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, pauses to give encouragement to Christians to live their present, reassured of their eternal future.

[4:17] And so that's the main idea for this morning's message. Live in the present, reassured of your eternal future. Live in the present, reassured of your eternal future.

[4:31] John will say something like this again in chapter 5, verse 13 of this same letter. He says, There 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.

[4:48] And that theme runs throughout this letter. John's tests are meant to reassure believers of their salvation in Jesus and the Holy Spirit's ongoing work to sanctify them as He transforms them into the image and likeness of Jesus.

[5:11] As He causes them to mature from spiritual children or newborns to spiritual grown-ups, spiritual adults. And so I see these verses as a sort of progress report.

[5:27] Now I know students today, they have Chromebooks that they come home with in public schools, and they're able to check their progress in any class at any time.

[5:37] But that wasn't the case for me when I was going to school. At midterm or at mid-semester, you would receive a progress report from your teacher.

[5:48] And if you were a good student, those progress reports encouraged you to just continue to stay the course. If you're doing well, stay the course. But if you, like me, were not such a good student, progress reports could be discouraging.

[6:07] But at least you still knew and had the encouragement that there is time for me to do better and receive a better grade at the end of the semester. More recently, in one of my doctoral classes, this is one that D-Min and Ph.D. students take.

[6:26] It's one that they told us beforehand that a lot of students have to retake this class. I wrote my first 25-page research paper.

[6:37] And this was my first attempt. That was my first attempt at writing academically. And in Midwestern's doctoral program where I go, a B- is considered a failing grade.

[6:52] And so I wrote that paper. And at midterm, we had our seminar and our professors had a chance to read that and grade that.

[7:04] And they would meet with us individually to give us a progress report about how we did. And I remember in my meeting with him, the first things he said to me was, well, Mike, you're going to pass this class, but your next paper has to be a lot better than this one.

[7:28] And then he walked me through that paper and pointed out all of the adjustments that I needed to make in my writing style to produce a better paper and get a better grade.

[7:39] And I took those critiques and I applied his suggestions to my next paper and received a much better grade. And it probably helped me that in that paper, I quoted him in an article that he had written before.

[7:53] But here's my point. John is doing for these Christians in these verses what that professor did for me.

[8:05] He's saying, He's saying, And so,

[9:35] Now, if you're here this morning and you're an unbeliever, let me tell you that I'm glad that you're here and you can have these reassurances.

[9:46] And I hope by the end of this message that the Lord will save you and open your eyes to see those things and that you will know how great it is to know Him and to be forgiven by Him.

[9:58] And that's the first thing that John reassures believers of here in the present. This reassurance is going to help you as you focus on the Lord in your present, reassured of your future, and that's that you are forgiven.

[10:13] You're forgiven. And John says in verse 12, And in these verses, he mentions three groups of people in the church.

[10:30] There's children, there's young men, and there's fathers. Why does he do that? I think he does it because he understands that in the church, people are at different stages in their spiritual maturity.

[10:44] Some of them were recently born again. They were spiritual children, still learning the basics of what it means to follow Christ.

[10:55] Others were spiritually like young men. Their spiritual progress had reached a level of maturity where they were strong in their knowledge of God.

[11:06] And they could teach and they could serve in the church in that knowledge. Others were like fathers. They were more mature. They had been walking with the Lord for a long time.

[11:20] They had the knowledge and the experience that others in the church did not. And so they could provide instruction and teaching and counsel to the less spiritually mature.

[11:32] And one way that helped me kind of picture this was thinking about a modified t-ball game. If you've ever seen a modified t-ball game, it's interesting.

[11:43] You have some kids who the coach will go out and will throw them the ball and they can hit it. Other kids, they're just not quite there yet. So they'll put the ball on the tee and let them hit the ball.

[11:56] And I think of those kids that still need the tee as kind of the spiritual children in the church. Those who are able to swing away and hit the ball from the coach, those are ones who are further developed.

[12:06] They're more like the young men. And then the fathers are the parents, the coaches who are out in the field with the kids just trying to keep everything from falling apart, if you know what I'm saying.

[12:19] John has a better illustration, I think. The word that he uses in verse 12 for little children is technia. That's a different Greek word from the one that he'll use later on in verse 13 when he talks about a child.

[12:35] Technia is a term that John uses five other times in this letter to address all Christians, no matter where they are on the spiritual growth chart.

[12:47] They are all children of God. You know, when I was in my early 30s, it upset me when people from older generations would say something to me like this, Ah, you're just a kid.

[13:04] And I would think, well, when I was a kid, I didn't have bills. And I didn't pay taxes. And my kids are kids, not me.

[13:15] That's not the way John intends to use that phrase here towards the church. He uses it as a term of endearment. Because no matter how old you are, you are your parent's child.

[13:33] My father has children and his children have children. His mother is 95 years old. And if she called him and said to him, How's my boy?

[13:47] How's my child? I don't think my dad would say, Come on, Mom. I'm not a child anymore. I'm not a little boy. He'd know that she meant it affectionately.

[13:59] And at his age, it would probably make him feel good to have her say that. All Christians have been born again. They are the true offspring of God.

[14:13] They have turned from their sin. They have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And they have continued to have their lives transformed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as they follow Jesus.

[14:30] If God has saved you, He has adopted you into His family, you are His child. You will forever be His child because He's forgiven you of your sins.

[14:48] That's the first truth that John seeks to reassure all believers of in verse 12. And it's a truth that he's mentioned before. First of all, in 1 John 1, verse 9, He says there, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[15:12] Then in 1 John 2, verses 1 through 2, He says again, So listen, Christian, Your sins, Your sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven.

[15:44] They're forgiven. When you sin in the present, be reassured that the death Jesus died, that the blood He shed on the cross, has erased all of your sin.

[16:01] Again, your sin debt has been paid by Jesus in full. I love this quote by Charles Spurgeon.

[16:12] I posted it on Facebook. It's just a wonderful reminder that we can never forget. He said, You stand before God as if you were Christ because Christ stood before God as if He were you.

[16:25] Church, don't ever doubt this. Church, your heavenly Father, is not the type of God who takes your past sins and throws them in your face.

[16:37] Look at what He says in His words, Psalm 103, verse 11 through 12. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, and that is high, really, really, really high, so great is His steadfast love towards those who fear Him.

[16:53] As far as the east is from the west, and those two points never meet, so far does He remove our transgressions, our sins from us.

[17:05] In Micah 7, 19, we read about God. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You, God, will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

[17:22] When God forgives you, He casts all of your sins into the ocean of forgetfulness. As Corrie Ten Boom once said, when God casts our sins into the ocean, He also puts up a sign that says, no fishing.

[17:42] He doesn't rub them in your face, and He doesn't want you to do that to yourself either. So how does knowing you've been forgiven affect how you live in the presence and give you reassurance of your eternal future?

[17:58] Maybe this will help. This past week, I had lunch with Jeremy Norton. We met to talk about his deacon ordination, which will be the evening of October 1st at 6.30 right here.

[18:09] I hope that you can be here for that. And as we entered the restaurant, we were visited by another church member who was already there, and I'm not going to share that person's name because I don't want them to… I don't know.

[18:21] I didn't ask them beforehand. But anyhow, as we visited, you know, Jeremy and I eventually went over to our booth and finished eating, and this other church member finished eating their meal as well, got up, said goodbye, and walked out the door.

[18:34] And so, you know, as Jeremy and I finished and put out our plates, and our waitress came and took those away, she came back to our table, and she told us, we want you to know that the person that was sitting over in this pew paid for your meal.

[18:52] Now, how do you think Jeremy and I responded to that? Do you think we said, no, no, you give that person their money back, and you take ours.

[19:04] Do you think that that's what we did? Well, it's not what we did. We responded with gratitude. We owed a debt to the restaurant.

[19:15] Someone else paid that debt. And then our waitress came, and she had good news to share with us. Your bill has been paid.

[19:27] Christian Christ has paid your debt to God. The bill has been paid. And when I came home later in the day and I talked to Danny, I had good news to share with her.

[19:43] Hey, guess what happened to us at lunch today? And shouldn't the truth that you've been forgiven by Jesus make you full of gratitude in the present and give you good news that you can't wait to share with others?

[20:01] Jesus told His disciples in Luke chapter 24, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

[20:20] If you've been forgiven, you have great news to share, and the Lord expects you to share it. And here's another important fact that we can't forget about the forgiveness we've received.

[20:33] John says at the end of verse 12 that we've been forgiven for His name's sake. God forgives sinners because it pleases Him to glorify His name by manifesting through us the abundance of His grace and His mercy and His love and His power.

[20:55] If you haven't received this forgiveness yet, God offers this forgiveness to you today. But if you have received it, it ought to drastically change your life and the way that you are living right now in the present.

[21:14] Live assured that you, in Christ, have been totally forgiven. Live in gratitude, praising Him, following Him, and sharing the good news that sinners have a Savior, and that Savior's name is Jesus.

[21:35] John knows that none of us can overcome temptation and escape error if we feel that our sins are still unforgiven. And so what he's doing here is he's expressing his desire that Christians overcome the darkness, that they keep the Lord's commands, that they walk in the light, that they would be full of gratitude and joy as they do that, that they would love each other with a love so true that the world can't help but see it and give God glory for it.

[22:09] John's desire here for us, for the Christian soldier, lying somewhere in the foxhole by themselves or feeling like they are by themselves, is to reassure them in knowing the peace of God, that they would grab the machine gun of His Word and that they would use it to mow down the demons in their life.

[22:36] Yes, we are sinners, but we have a Savior who died to save sinners like you and me.

[22:46] And so don't waste your present thinking that there is still something that you need to do. Jesus has done it for you. Be assured of that.

[22:59] Next, John also wants Christians to be assured that they know Jesus. He says, you know Jesus here at verse 13 and in the beginning of verse 14.

[23:10] Now again, John addresses the spiritually mature fathers in the church. In verse 13, he says, I am writing to you fathers because you know Him who is from the beginning. But in the last part of these verses, he says, I write to you children because you know the Father.

[23:27] And sandwiched between those two statements is an address to young men. So I think that spiritual growth is an application to be made in this passage, but I don't think it's the central idea that John wants to communicate.

[23:45] He's saying if you're in Christ, whether you're newly born again or spiritually mature, you know Jesus.

[23:55] And that's the truth that he's reaffirming right here. And the Greek word for know is used to describe coming to know someone by experience.

[24:08] You know, in college, I had a job where I worked in a warehouse and eventually, we unloaded and loaded shipping containers and semi-truck trailers.

[24:20] Eventually, my boss taught me how to drive the forklift. And you would drive the forklift into this tight eight and a half foot space and you would pull product out and you would put product in.

[24:34] Now, the first time I did that, it took me a really long time because there's a lot of different levers, a lot of different controls. I didn't want to, you know, break something. And so I would go really slow. But the more and more I did it, the more I knew where the levers were without having to look.

[24:48] And I got to the point where I could zoom in and zoom out of those trailers and became a lot more productive. Maybe that analogy helps you, but John's terminology here in verse 13 will probably help more than that.

[25:02] So again, this is a different word for child that he uses. The Greek word here is pedia, which describes young children who are still very reliant on their parents for survival.

[25:17] And so you think of a toddler. A toddler knows who their mom and dad is. They recognize them. They know them. They might even know their names.

[25:28] Maybe not. Probably not their first names. They just know them as Mama and Dada. They don't know anything about their career, anything really about what they like or what they don't like.

[25:43] But they know that these are people, these two people, are people who love me and people who take care of me. And as they get older, they know their mother and their father better.

[25:59] They know their names. They know what they like. They know that one of those things like is when they obey them. Same thing with the Christian life.

[26:11] As a little Christian, you know Jesus. You know that He loves you. You know that He died for you.

[26:22] You know that He was raised victoriously for you. And you know that He wants you to obey Him because that is what is best for you. And as you continue to follow Him, and as that knowledge of Him increases and deepens, you know just how great that love is.

[26:45] You know just how wonderful that sacrifice was. You know how much hope that you have in Him no matter what might be going on in your life.

[26:55] And you know that obeying Him produces better things for you in your life. And all of that knowledge that you accumulate of God makes you want to know Him more.

[27:10] You never get to the point as a Christian where you think, well, God, I know you pretty well. I think I know everything that there is to know about you. I promise you that there's always more.

[27:21] God desires that you know Him. And He desires that you know Him better. Jeremiah 9, 23 through 24, we read, Thus says the Lord, Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.

[27:38] Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches. But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

[27:57] For in these things I delight, declares the Lord. God wants you to know Him and know Him better and better and more and more. And God uses His Word.

[28:08] He's given you His Word to do that. His Word to us is what water and sunlight are to a farmer's crop. He uses it to cause us to grow.

[28:18] It's through His life-giving, life-transforming Word word we apply to our lives and we grow spiritually. We become more like Jesus by reading and studying and memorizing and meditating on and adjusting our lives to the Bible's truth.

[28:42] In every situation, we are transformed more and more into the image of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you believe that?

[28:55] Do you desire that kind of growth? Do you order your life and prioritize your time so that your relationship with God results in greater knowledge of Him, that you will grow more in your relationship with Him?

[29:18] You know, I told you before about my attempts to have a conversation with my wife before we were dating and how I, as I wrote for the newspaper, I took the women's soccer team story because she played women's soccer.

[29:35] Well, this is sometime after that, I think. I knew that we had a, she had a class that led out in a building right before a class that I had started. And I made sure, and I was always that kid who, you know, the professor would shut the door five minutes after and sometimes lock it.

[29:54] And so I was there like four minutes after and sometimes had to knock on the door. But not for this class because I knew that our paths would cross. And so I sat in a place where I hoped that she would see me and guess what happened?

[30:09] She did. And she came over and she talked to me and I was so nervous and so afraid that I think I stuttered and said something. I don't remember what it was.

[30:20] But it worked. And I shared that story with you because when you put yourself in a situation, in places, when you are reading God's Word, He will speak to you.

[30:32] You want to hear God speak to you, you want to have greater knowledge of God, then you'll spend a lot of time with Him and His Word. And my promise to you is that when you do that, He will do that.

[30:46] He will speak to you. And here's just one thing that can help. If you want to spend time with the Lord, I think it's best to do it in the morning. Whatever you use for your alarm clock, put your Bible on top of it or underneath it.

[30:57] See if that helps. But listen, if He's saved you, you know Him. And as you continually follow Him, you'll get to know Him more and better until that day comes when you stand before Him in His presence.

[31:19] And then you'll know Him fully. What a day that will be. So live your present knowing that you know God. that problem has been solved for you.

[31:31] You're saved. But also looking forward to the time in eternity when you will know Him fully, face to face, when you will see Him with your own eyes. And when you spend time thinking about that, it makes whatever present struggle you're dealing with seem a whole lot smaller than it did before.

[31:52] And now the third reassurance John gives us here as we live our lives in the present looking forward to the future is that you have overcome the evil one. You've been forgiven.

[32:03] You know Jesus. And now you have overcome the evil one. And in the second half of verse 14, John repeats what he said in verse 13 to young men.

[32:14] He writes, I write to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you. You know you're forgiven. You have come to know Him, right? And you are knowing Him better.

[32:24] And you, he says, have overcome the evil one. Why does John repeat himself so much in these verses? Well, for the same reason why you repeat yourself.

[32:39] Especially when you have something really important that you want the person that you're speaking to, you want them to understand. You want them to remember it.

[32:50] Now I know all of you, you'll take your bulletin home, right? And you're going to read over all of those things and you're going to write everything in your calendars. Isn't that what you do? It's not what you do.

[33:01] It's not what I do. Maybe Heather does that because she's the one who writes it. But listen, that's why we have the announcement video afterwards. Just so that you will hear these things again.

[33:13] Hopefully read them and hear them and hear them again because we think these things are important for you and we want you to be more involved with our church because we're forgetful people. And important instructions are things that we need to be reminded of and that's what John does here.

[33:28] And again, I think he has all people in the church in mind here even though he singles out the young men in this case or young women who were in the faith.

[33:39] It's not like when you're a child in the faith or when you become a wise father or mother in the faith that you lose your ability to overcome the evil one. That doesn't make sense. In fact, that's what John will say later on in chapter 4 verse 4.

[33:53] Little children, you are from God and have overcome them for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. So all Christians in Christ have overcome the evil one.

[34:08] And as Christians, we know the end that awaits this world, don't we? We know how things are going to end for this world. We also know about the trials and tribulations that we are going to endure in this life as we follow Christ.

[34:25] We know that following Jesus means bearing a cross. But we know that it's all going to be worth it, don't we? Because nothing can separate us from the forgiveness and the love and the knowledge that God has given to us of himself.

[34:52] In Romans 8, 38-39, it says, I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[35:13] this is all truly amazing. But the thing to me that's most striking about this verse is when John says, you, you have overcome the evil one.

[35:37] You've done it. That's striking to me because I don't feel comfortable with that. I read that, it doesn't make me feel comfortable. You know, I think, yes, Jesus has overcome the evil one.

[35:49] Yes, God, you've overcome the evil one, but me? I've done nothing. And in a way, it also makes me feel, it just makes me feel wrong to take credit or to receive credit here for overcoming the evil one because I have it on my own.

[36:14] But this is the kind of Savior that Jesus is. This is the kind of God who we know. This is what it means to be in Christ.

[36:26] He shares his victory like that. He shares it with us. Yes, he's done the work, but he includes us in the celebration of that work.

[36:41] And he gives us all we need to avoid and to resist and to overcome Satan's attempts to cause us to stumble into error and falsehood in this life.

[36:53] And so, yes, in Jesus, you and I have overcome the outcome is sure. And Jesus is the kind of God, the kind of Savior, the kind of Lord who shares his victory with us and doesn't have a problem with John saying here to Christians, you have overcome the evil one.

[37:17] You know, we are alike, Christians, we are a lot like Adrian Clem. Adrian Clem. Raise your hand if you know who Adrian Clem is.

[37:31] I don't know if you do. It might be somebody else named Adrian Clem, but probably not this person. Adrian Clem was an offensive tackle for the New England Patriots and he won three Super Bowl rings as a member of the New England Patriots.

[37:50] He has one more Super Bowl ring than the greatest quarterback of all time, Patrick Mahomes, not Tom Brady. But listen, you're not supposed to laugh, you're supposed to say amen.

[38:04] But listen, Adrian Clem didn't play one snap in any one of those games.

[38:15] For the entire game, he was on the sideline. He did nothing on the field to contribute to his team winning the championship.

[38:28] But look, he's got three Super Bowl rings. Why? Because he was wearing a New England Patriots jersey.

[38:42] Yuck. But but listen, that's what we're like, isn't it? The Lord has done the victory, yet Adrian Clem, he got to touch the Super Bowl trophy, I'm sure, take pictures with it, and was able to say, I won this.

[39:02] I have these rings. I won three Super Bowls. Even though he'd done nothing, really, at least on the field, to deserve it. That's what it means to be a Christian.

[39:13] We're clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We've been forgiven. We know Jesus. We overcome evil in him.

[39:28] And he shares his victory with us. And it's a victory, brother, it's a victory, sister, it's a victory that you have now.

[39:42] You have it now. If you're an unbeliever here this morning, I tell you this with love and with warning.

[39:55] You don't have that now. We can look at all of these things that Christians can be reassured of, and you must understand that you don't have any of them. You aren't forgiven.

[40:10] If you don't know Christ, you aren't forgiven. You've sinned against the holy God, and he will hold you accountable for your sins.

[40:24] And the consequence of offending God's holiness is to spend an eternity apart from him in hell forever. forever. If you don't know Christ, well, then you don't know Jesus.

[40:40] Now, you might know some facts about him. You might be able to share some information about Jesus, but you don't know him personally. You don't know him.

[40:52] On that day when he returns, there's going to be those who he puts on his right and those who he puts on his left, and those people on their left are going to say, hey, we know you, Jesus. We know some things about you.

[41:02] In fact, we did stuff in your name. But Jesus knows the truth, and he's going to say to those on his left, depart from me, for I never knew you.

[41:21] And if you don't know Jesus, you have not overcome the evil one. you know, there's a book, you have a child of God, or you're a child of Satan.

[41:38] And it's only the children of God who have been forgiven, who know Jesus personally as Lord and Savior, who have overcome the evil one. And if you don't know him, you have not overcome the evil one.

[41:54] you know, there's a book that was written, Live Your Best Life Now. If you don't know Jesus, this is going to be the best life that you'll ever have, as bad as it is, because the one that's coming after it is incredibly and horribly worse.

[42:16] being a Christian isn't about being good enough. It's not about what you look like.

[42:28] It's not about where you live. It's that you know I'm a sinner. My sins have been committed against a holy God.

[42:43] And the only hope I have to be forgiven and saved is through Jesus Christ His Son, who came to this earth, adding a human nature, taking on flesh to His divine nature, living the sinless life that you and I are never capable of living.

[43:07] God's sacrifice to endure God's wrath for our sins and shed His blood in our place, that by believing and trusting in Him and what He's done, we're saved, we're cleansed, we're forgiven.

[43:38] And Jesus died. And on the third day He rose again as proof that He is the Son of God and that we are saved by faith in Him.

[43:51] And the moment we're saved, we're transformed and we're given the Holy Spirit and we become more and more like Jesus Christ until that day when we stand before Him in glory.

[44:09] Do you know Him? Have you been forgiven by Him? If not, I'll be down here after our time, come and find me.

[44:24] Please come and find me at some time. And you know what? You don't even have to find me. It's you being found by Christ and you acknowledging your sins and you seeking and asking for His forgiveness and you'll receive it and you'll be completely different.

[44:42] Now for a believer, speaking about the future resurrection, that you and I are going to be a part of, resurrection to life, to eternal life, Paul says in Philippians 3, 12-14, and he's speaking of that, not that I have already obtained this, or I am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Jesus Christ has made me His own.

[45:09] Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

[45:27] And so, this is what we need to take this passage, this is how we need to make an adjustment. So, after Andy's sermon last week, instead of having a main application, we have an adjustment. This is the adjustment that God is calling you to make through His Word in your life today.

[45:43] Forget what lies behind. Forget what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead. Your sins have been forgiven.

[45:56] That part is done. Yes, you'll continue to sin, and yes, you'll continue to go to the Lord for forgiveness, and you'll receive it. And sometimes there's consequences in this life that you'll have to endure for it, but look, when it comes to your salvation and whether or not you're going to be in heaven, that part is done.

[46:15] you've been forgiven. So press on. Go forward. Live your life for Christ now in ways that you never have before, and keep doing it and doing it and doing it until that day when you stand before Him.

[46:34] And guess what? If you do that, I promise you, you will not regretted any of it. Live your life right now well for Jesus and be reassured that you will not be disappointed, not even a little bit, not at all.

[46:54] Four application questions, I'm still calling them application questions, not adjustment questions, but that could change next week. For you to look at today, I hope for you to discuss tonight in your community groups, first of all, which reassurance mentioned in these verses do you need to be reminded of the most?

[47:15] that you're forgiven, that you know Jesus, that you've overcome the evil one? Which one did you need, do you need to be most assured of?

[47:26] Question number two, how do Satan, our sinful flesh, and the world try to discourage Christians from the truths John reassures them of in this text?

[47:39] Now, Satan's always working to try to convince us that we're not forgiven, or that there's more that we need to do, and he's always trying to work to convince us that, you know, you don't really know Jesus like other people do, or you haven't really overcome me like you think, and those are all lies.

[47:59] Question number three, in what ways should our forgiveness, knowledge, and victory in Christ affect our relationship with the world? That's where we'll be at next week in 1 John 2, verse 15.

[48:11] How should it influence our spiritual growth? How should it influence our spiritual growth? And then finally, read Romans 8, 15-17, and Philippians 1, 6.

[48:24] How do these passages relate to 1 John 2, verses 12-14? So a little Bible study in there, using Scripture to interpret Scripture. I hope that you do that, and if you do, you'll be blessed.

[48:37] Let's pray. Father, we thank you for who you are, that you're a God who graciously, willingly, lovingly, has chosen to forgive sinners.

[48:57] Lord, you've made the way, and that way is through Jesus Christ, your Son, and He's the only way. Father, I pray that for all of us, if we've forgotten or if we've been tempted to doubt any of these things that your Word has reassured us of this morning, that Holy Spirit, you would call them to our attention.

[49:19] When Satan attacks, when he, along with the world, are used to try to convince us of the lies that they tried to pass off as the truth, that we would be rooted and grounded in your Word and these reassurances and these promises and who we know you to be, who you have revealed yourself to be.

[49:39] And God, these promises, this knowledge that we have been forgiven, that we know you personally through Jesus Christ, your Son, that, Lord, we would know that we've overcome the evil one and that that would give us courage to go out into this world overcoming the evil one, sharing the gospel, righting wrongs, speaking the truth boldly and passionately and lovingly that those who have been deceived would hear the gospel in our hopes that you would use us to save them.

[50:15] God, the present that we have in life is a gift from you. And God, I pray that we would use our days to bring you glory and honor, to obey you, and to look forward to that day when we stand before you.

[50:33] Knowing that whatever you called us to do, whatever you called us to endure, it was worth it. It was worth it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.