In our day of seeker sensitivity and easy believism, there are questions that we should be asking. We may be at a time in church history where we've come back around to an era in which the average churchgoer is not a regenerate person. They have not been born of the Spirit. They are not reconciled with God the Father through the finished work of Jesus Christ. They have just succumbed and even conceded to some seeker-sensitive invitation to either join the church and become a Christian at their leisure, or they've had some form of frothy appeal made to them that they can open the door of their heart and let Jesus in, and etc., etc., etc. It creates a problem. It always has. It certainly created a problem in the apostolic era. It created a problem in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. He knew that there were those who claimed to be Jews and were not. Then there were those of the Gentiles who actually put their faith in Him and showed themselves to be Jews inwardly, even though those who were Jews outwardly were rejecting Him. And then, of course, during the Apostolic Era, there was always the false teachers encouraging people to adopt some form of the Gospel, or some perversion of the Gospel, that would leave righteousness in their hands. Leave righteousness, the righteousness that God requires, that would be something that they could perform and they could achieve. Some kind of Gospel of human achievement. as opposed to the true gospel of divine accomplishment in Jesus Christ. So we have this facing us today, that after 12 or 14 years of pretty aggressive ongoing counseling, Christian counseling, pastoral counseling. The awareness of false Christians and false Gospels and certainly false conversions has become glaringly apparent to me. I don't say this with any glee, it's with grief, even, I must say, a twinge of exhaustion. to be contending with people for their soul in a gracious, I believe, kind, I believe, gentle way, as the Spirit would lead, and to be able to yet stand firm that this is a real problem, that you would blaspheme the Lord, that you would reject His word and still claim to be a Christian, that you'd be engaging in wicked behavior, and then claim to be a Christian because of some false notion that going to church makes you a Christian, or that you own a Bible that makes you a Christian, or you were baptized at some point in your youth. All these things that make you a Christian, and the Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that the primary way we know that we are a Christian is because of the ever-increasing growth and progress in Christ-likeness. Let me just remind you of a few texts on that point. Texts that, you know, in the 50 years that I've been in Christ, I don't know that I've ever heard a sermon on any of these. If I have, it was only an allusion to these texts. They weren't actually expounded. now let me it's a first John 2 verses 3 through 6 now by this we know that we know him by what if we keep his commandments that's it Faith and obedience, they go together. In fact, you can't have true obedience apart from saving faith, and so we want to be careful that we don't get those two things reversed. The very nature of the new birth is to produce new life and to produce the gift of faith in the Lord Jesus in us. And so that new life will, by necessity, show itself in how we live, how we think, how we respond in our affections, as Jonathan Edwards so profoundly declared in his book, Religious Affections. So, now by this we know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. This is so simple. I'm a great fan and reader of Jonathan Edwards and A.W. Pink and John Owen and other great men that I don't wholly agree with, but I certainly agree with him on this point. that if you are a true Christian, it's gonna show up in your conduct, it's gonna show up in your worldview, it's gonna show up in how you speak and think and treat others, especially those of the household of faith. And so, let's go on here, verse four. He who says, I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. I don't know how John can be any more clear. If you claim to be a Christian, if you profess faith in Christ and live out of self-will run riot, bringing harm to yourself and to others, betraying and denying and any other form of illicit behavior and thinking that you can come up with, indulging the flesh, hating people, using curse language, being controlling and manipulative of others, and still think that you're a Christian, I can't even imagine a greater deception. Let me ask you this question. What do you think is the greatest or the worst state that you can be in? Is it to be unconverted? Or is it to be thinking that you are converted when you're not? That's a very important question for today. So let me ask it again. What do you think is the worst state? To be a person who's unconverted, knowing they're unconverted, they're fine with being unconverted, have no interest at all in the triune God or Jesus Christ or the Bible or anything having to do with Christianity, and they're just okay with it. Or someone who thinks they are converted because they go to church, they own a Bible, they're a little familiar with some of the things that are in the Bible, They've been baptized. They give to the church. They are active in certain programs at the church. Perhaps they are second or third generation churchgoers. Perhaps they've been married in the church. They send their children to Sunday school. But they're not converted. They have not been born of the Spirit. They have yet to hear the call of Christ, the internal call of Christ to repentance. He who says, I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. That isn't a harsh statement. It's a harsh reality that he's conveying. But John is saying this out of a heart compassion an apostolic plea for the goodness of souls for the good of their souls verse 5 but whoever keeps this word truly the love of God is perfected in him isn't that an interesting word perfected We hate that word in the evangelical world. We don't want to think about perfection. No, we want to think that God in Christ lowered his standard of righteousness to the point we could finally keep it. We want to think that God threw out the law, threw out His eternal rule of righteousness, His standard of righteousness, and then just sent His Son into the world to pay for our sins, so that He could ramp down that level of righteousness, where we could either meet it with some kind of an imperfect obedience, or we could just forget about obedience, forget about genuine godliness and holiness and righteousness. But that's not what John says. He says, but whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this, we know that we are in him. We know that we are in him because we keep his commandments, and we know that we are in him because the love of God is perfected in him who keeps his word. see it's love that produces obedience jesus said if you love me what keep my commandments there's this wonderful moment that Jesus has in the upper room with his disciples is recorded for us in John chapter 14 verse 31. He says, but that the world may know that I love the Father and as the Father gave me commandments so I do. Arise, let us go from here. Think of that. But that the world may know that I love the Father And as the Father gave me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here. That's our model. I do exactly, says the New American Standard. Let me read that again. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do. Another translation would be, so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father has commanded me. See, Jesus models this for us. And that brings us back to our 1 John text nicely. It's a nice segue, as they say. So, get back there real quick 1st John 2 6 says this he who abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked there you go there's the model Jesus walked in obedience He longed and joyfully obeyed his father, kept his father's command to him, because he wanted the world to know he loved the father. And he displayed his love for the father in his unconditional obedience. And we are called to do the same thing. out of love. This is the highest calling, folks, that we could ever imagine. To think of you and I who start out life as lost sinners, dead in trespasses and sins, hopelessly in bondage to sin, and then discover the gospel and God's mercy. He draws us to his Son. He makes us alive. He regenerates us in Christ. by the Spirit unites us to His Son. And then this miraculous work continues into being conformed into the image of His Son in thought, word, and deed, so that we too say we want the world to know our love for God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, so that I do exactly as He commanded. 1 John 2, 6 again, he who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. 1 John 4, 17 is another great reference. He says, love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. How do we have boldness? On what basis will we have boldness? Because as he is, so are we in this world. Because as he is, we are like Jesus, in essence. We can have boldness. Love has been perfected among us in this, that we have boldness in the day of judgment. We don't fear judgment. We don't tremble judgment. Why? Because as Jesus is, so are we in this world. John goes on to say, 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. We love him because he first loved us. So let's reconsider some of these things. Let's lose this notion that somehow God has lowered his standard of righteousness. That we couldn't keep the law. God had a standard of righteousness and he gave us the law, he gave us the prophets, he gave us his own self-revelation. And we just, you know, well, man, that's pretty tough, God. And God said, ah, okay, okay. I'll send my Son into the world, pay for your sins, and then I'll ramp down my requirement for righteousness so that you don't have to fret about it anymore. You can just come to me and enjoy my love for you. Just live by grace. See, that was what the apostolic preachers, that was the slander that was given against them. Are you saying that we should just live by grace and not have any, that we should sin because we're under grace? But it was the apostles' response, God forbid, may it never be. Of course not, that's not the point. Grace is a transforming power in our life. No, the truth is, is that Jesus Christ came and lived in perfect obedience, and it was his perfect righteousness that took him to the cross to pay for your sins, to reconcile you to the Father, to bring justification by his resurrection, And by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, the Spirit then applied what Christ had accomplished at the cross in his resurrection to those who believe. To you, who are in the sound of my voice, who are now in Christ. It's a finished Trinitarian work. And it is so you not only have the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to you, but that you have the perfect righteousness of Christ also being worked out in you. You have new life, you have a new birth, a new heart. God's law is no longer written on tablets of stone, but on their hearts and minds. So that we share with our Lord in saying that the world may know that I love the Father, do exactly as he commanded me so give that some thought we are in a perilous point right now in church history primarily because people have bought this notion that somehow to be a Christian is to have a get out of jail free card and it has nothing to do with growth in Christ likeness That we simply need to believe the gospel, get baptized, and we're in. And then go about our life any way we want. Self will run riot, be embraced. That is not the gospel. That is a false gospel and it will send you to hell. But it is the prevalent view of the gospel today. I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, I know I cheat on my wife and I kick my dog and I embezzle from my employer and I you know, I I betray my friends and I Cheat on my taxes, but you know what and we're under grace No big deal God the God doesn't mind because because Jesus died for me That's a false gospel The good news is on the positive side. I is that God sent his son into the world indeed to die for you, to rise again on your behalf, and that we were in him both at his cross and at his resurrection. That the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon us and takes up residence within us. So that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit live within us and within His purpose. That purpose being conforming you now into His image, into Christ's image. Let me close with one last reading from the letter, Paul's letter to the Ephesians, because it really sums up my appeal to you today. He says this, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, see, they don't even have the ability to feel human emotion, they've just been shut down, they've become hard, have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness. There are people who live that way still. And Paul is saying to these newcomers in Ephesus, I am testifying to you today to don't live like that anymore. Because you can't do that, really. If you are in Christ, if you have the Spirit within you, you can't live that way anymore. It isn't you. It's not the true you. You are now in Christ. Verse 20, but you have not so learned Christ. There you go. if indeed you have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." Those are things we put off, we lay aside like an old set of clothes. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind, not just some surface way, not just some shallow approach, but in this very spirit, the very depths of your mind, be renewed. And listen to verse 24. And that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. That you put on the new man, the new humanity that you are in Jesus Christ, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness." End quote. That's who you are. You are a member of a new humanity in Jesus Christ. And it's a great privilege, a great honor, a great miracle of grace that not only are you called to believe in Jesus Christ, that you were called to be like him, not in some cheap imitation or silly way, but in a substantive, concrete way so that his character dwells within you and you are committed to working that out. Make it the longing of your heart today to be like Him, to know Him, and to follow His model of obedience. That, dear friend, is life and life abundant. Amen.