A (0:00)

First John, chapter two. If you're just jumping in now, we're in a series of messages called Touch Grass. We're getting grounded in truth. And that's what First John is all about. It's an eight week long study and we hope you can come for as many of them as you can. Listen to as many of them as you can. And the title of this message is It Doesn't Get Better Than this. It doesn't. Have you ever said that get better than this? My wife and I had a moment this week where we just were sitting there. We had just finished, you know, whatever it was we were doing as a family, and then we were preparing for dinner and we both just kind of looked at each other because none of the kids were fighting and everyone was getting along and it was just this, it was. It's summer, you know, the light is so golden, right? You have to remind yourself, like when you're driving, when the window down and you're not getting frostbite, like how wonderful that feels. It's fleeting, it's precious, right? And just one of those moments where just the air was still, it was warm, it was beautiful, the kids were getting along and we just felt such a sense of content, you know, just such a sense of like, you could almost like deep sigh out of just happy. And in those moments, it's human nature just to feel like a sense of like, hey, don't get any better than this, like, short of like falling into like a beer commercial, you know, like just where you just feel like, can it just be like this all the time? And the answer, of course, is yes. And that's called heaven. But John, in this passage of First John, Chapter two, is literally trying to get his readers, and by extension us, to know it doesn't. Where we are positionally in Christ, it doesn't get better than this. Have you ever fallen for an upgrade only to realize it was not an upgrade, that what you upgraded to was more expensive, had less features, but fortunately it came with a monthly subscription that you'll pay for the rest of your life, right? And you realize, oh, you took away the headphone jack you now make. All the accessories cost money, including a charger, there's worse battery life, and the best feature is now hidden behind a paywall, right? This is not an upgrade. Or maybe you updated an app only to regret it because the version you had before actually was better. Maybe something you really depended on inside the app had been taken away in the update. That happened to me once I have this app I use to keep all my ideas together for sermons, all my ideas together for books or for talks or for leadership messages. Literally, it's like at this point, it's all there. If you took that away from me, I don't even know it's Evernote in my Bible, you know what I'm saying? And they updated it at one point, so I updated it. Cause I was assuming it was gonna get better. And they took away tabs. Now, I don't know if you are Internet junkie like me, but tabs are everything. To have multiple things open tabs in the same. It took tabs away. And so the only way you can have multiple things going on is to open external windows for each file you're working on. And so then it just makes everything messy. I just want my tabs back. If anyone from Evernote is listening. Why'd you take my tabs away? That's. That's messed up. The upgrade made my life more complex. It made my life worse. What we're going to discover in this text this week is that anything we would turn to following Jesus, that would be purported purporting to be an upgrade, or it would be trying to tell us it's an upgrade for us is actually the exact opposite. And John is going to say about any potential upgrade from following Jesus, there's no future in it. Come on, turn to your neighbor and say, there's no future in it. Right? Like someone who's dating the wrong person. And you just would say to them, there's no future in this. Come on. This is not a good decision. This is not where you want to go. First John, chapter 2, verse 12. I write to you. One of his favorite phrases where he just keeps telling us why he wrote and he's using this again, but he uses it in a ton of different ways. And that's because he has several different reasons. And he keeps coming back to them again and again and again. And then he uses this phrase, dear little children, or dear children, or loved ones, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write to you fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write to you, little children, because you have known the father. I've written to you fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I have written to you young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. I was hiking with a friend this week and we were talking about all the different mountains that he's hiked and climbed and successfully been to the top of. And in the area that that we were hiking, it pretty much was all of them. I was like, have you climbed that one? He's like, yep. You climb that one? He's like, 50 times. You know, you climb that one? Nah, 20 times. Like, just all of, like. So pretty much just all of the mountains. You've been on all of them. You are. You are the mountain climbing person, right? And he's like, yeah, but I never really thought about it, like, that. I never really had this, like, list. And I'm, like, checking them off, right? He says those who climb a lot of mountains call that peak bagging, where you just have this bag and you're just trying to put all the peaks into the bag, right? You're just like, ooh, here's my bag, and I'm gonna go grab the peak and I'm gonna bag it. And the moment it's over, you're onto the next one. And it might be all the mountains over 10,000ft or all the mountains in Colorado over 12,000ft or four. All the tallest mountains in the world. There are people who literally are just peak baggers, and all they want to do is bag all the peaks. And he said, the problem with that kind of thinking is how much you miss out in the midst of what you're doing. How easy it is to live life bagging peaks, but miss out on some of the best, most spectacular journeys. And to maybe miss out on. On what might not be spectacular, but might actually be the most significant, which doesn't even end up on a list of the most successful, most impressive, most. I get to flex that. I did all the trails and I did all the things, and I get to, you know, put it on Instagram that it was all done. And he said. And honestly, he said, a lot of people I know who have gotten hurt or gotten killed is because they went for the peak when they shouldn't have, because they were trying to bag the peak and they didn't realize that, hey, there might be a point when you're in the saddle and you just need to stop. And it might not be the best time, the most advantageous time. But if your mentality is all or nothing must accomplish, must, must be, you know, one man living rei kind of a human being. And don't worry, the people who need to hear this the most are not here at church. They're peak bagging somewhere, right? They're out doing it right now. They'll be convicted on Tuesday when the podcast drops right. Eugene Peterson has a book. The title is Every Step an Arrival. Every step's an Arrival. And now, look, go climb all the peaks. That's great. But don't forget that every step you take is in and of itself an arrival. So it's not just that now. We're not talking about just the peaks of mountains anymore. It's the peaks of my kids getting out of high school, the peak of me graduating college, or the peak of me getting this job. Or you can live like a peak bagger, where it's always I just rushing to get to this and rushing to get to that. And you can miss out on the best moments that are right there in between. And you might not climb some of the tallest things, but some of the lowest hills might have some of the most important lessons to teach you. And maybe in pursuit of the thing that you built up in your head is the ultimate thing, and life has no meaning if you don't do this thing. You might not hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit while you're on this house say, hey, today's no day to peak. Today's no day to be on the top. This is more exposure than is necessary. Weather might indeed be coming in every step. It's a better way to live is present in the moment where every step in and of itself is an arrival and not just the last step that takes you to the top. So you can place your pebble on top of the other stones in the cairn and say, I did it, and write your name in the logbook or whatever it is that you're going to do there. Right? Instead, to view every step in life arrival, the first of three potential alternatives to the simplicity and safety of just following Jesus that John is going to point us to in the text that we are going to cover. Today is being derailed by doing. Being derailed by doing. Because what John is trying to get us to see is, hey, guys, little children, loved ones, class, hey. Your attention, please. There is simplicity and safety and supremacy in knowing God, and it doesn't get better than this. And so to warn us about what might try and sell itself to us as an upgrade, John lays out three different perishable alternatives. You're like, perishable? Yeah. Have you ever had food in your fridge that was perished? It was good. Now it's not good, but it's still there, right? We grabbed some food this week. I said we could eat this for dinner. And I was like, oh, nope. And then I kind of was like, well, it's only been two or three days, you know, it only died three days ago, you know, it's like, perishable. It's dead. It's gone. Don't eat it. Right, Right. John is saying, these other things that you would think are going to give you life and give you meaning, they're perishable. Only doing the will of God causes you to live forever. Everything else is passing away. So you'll count on it. You'll sink your teeth into it. Only it has no staying power. It has no healing power for you. And the first he says that you could be tricked by. Is what I said, being derailed by doing. What does he mean when he says this series of lines? To your children, I write to you that you would know that your sins have been forgiven because of his name. Dear fathers, I write to you so that you remind yourselves that you know him who's from the beginning. Young ones, I write to you because you overcome the devil. Then he circles back to where he began. Little kids, I write to you because you know God. Fathers, I write to you because you know God. Young men, you're in a fight, the enemy. And you're going to overcome. Because of Jesus, you have the power to overcome. What are we to make of this? Well, here's what we're to make of it. John is artistic, and so this is sort of like a poem. This is like a song lyric. But you'll notice he intentionally. Excuse me. He intentionally breaks the pattern that we're expecting. Right. It's like a discordant tone that gets your attention. You're like, what's going on here? Because if we go with John on his journey and he's going to sing a song about children, fathers. Right. We would expect in the middle to be the young man. Anybody agree on that? The theme. The pattern would be, you're a child, you're a young man, you're an old man. Right? That's how life goes. So something. And if you read it again this week and again this week, you realize it kind of hits you weirdly. Kind of like frustrates the OCD among us. They're like, we don't go child to old man then come back to young man. It's just, this is not John, please. And I think that's what he's trying to do. He's trying to intentionally focus on this middle season of life where there is the most power, there's the most fire in the belly. There's the most drive, there's the most something to prove. There's the most perhaps risk of the peak bagging kind of living, right? Because if you think about again, it's the children. You know him, children, his name forgave you, right? You're forgiven of your sins because of the blood. Like amazing children. That's fantastic. And fathers, you know him from the beginning and then he goes back and deals with some other stuff. And when he comes back to the fathers, he literally says the exact same thing. Fathers, you're good. You know him who's from the beginning. But then each time with the young men, he says, you got to fight in your hands. You got to overcome the power of the evil one who's coming against you, right? Why in this middle season of life? Now, many commentaries will point out that these three unique phases are kind of a picture of the stages of the stages of development in the Christian life. Jesus said in John 3 that when we come to know God, we are born again. And Nicodemus was confused by that. He said, how can an old man get back inside of his mother's womb? First of all, yuck. And second of all, how? And Jesus is like, bro, no, come on. The metaphor must not be stretched to breaking, right? This is something that can happen only by the spirit of God. Because Nicodemus is like, good. Cause my mom died, you know, I don't know what I'm. What am I going to tell you, right? And Jesus is like, stop it with your mom's womb, okay? It's about the Holy Ghost. It's about new birth. It's about regeneration. It's about a constitutional change inside of you that happens. That can only be compared to birth because of how it changes you from one state to another. It's like think caterpillar to butterfly. I mean, it's. Something different has happened to you. You are born again. There is brand new life that happens. And when that happens, you are a baby again. You have returned back to the beginning. And so, dear children, little children, this isn't John being condescending because he's 90. This is not him patronizing. This is him accurately describing what happens when you come alive in Christ, come to life in Christ. You are born again. You start again as a little baby. You're a dear children. You're his dear children as his part of his flock. Why? Why? Why? Why? Here's why. Because you did nothing to earn it. You did nothing to deserve it. How did you get forgiven his name? How'd you get saved. He did it. So a child can't boast like you. A baby's like, I got here cause I did awesome things, right? No, they only got here cause their parents did things that they thought were awesome that you don't want to know about. You did nothing to get here? Nothing. I pushed on the way out, maybe, but you can't boast in being born. And that's why when he comes back to the child, he just goes, you know him who's from the beginning. You know him. You know God. How'd you get here? How are you in the family of God? How are you alive and not headed to hell? I know him. Friends in high places. What can I tell you? He did it. He loved me. It wasn't anything I did. It was his own purposes and his own grace. And he sought me and he called me. I can't even say I loved him first. I only loved him because he first love me. So the child's like, I got forgiven because of his name. I know him. And the father, what hopefully we can end with is I know him from the beginning. And the mark of a father is what? The ability to duplicate, the ability to multiply. Right. And. And, and the only power you have to multiply anything of what you got at new birth is if you stay with I know him. So twice to the father, it's just you know him who's from the beginning and that you've almost returned to the childlike simplicity of I can't believe I get to know God in the middle. In between, I'm a newborn baby just desiring the father's love and I'm a father looking back going, nothing matters more than the love of God is the complexity of youth, adolescence, the developmental shift period where you're most tempted to make it about you, where you have the most potential power for kingdom building. Good. Because you have the fires and you have the passions and you have the zeal and you're asking the hard questions and you're not taking anyone's answers at face value. You want to know, you want to look into things. You. You wanna struggle, you wanna fight, you wanna earn. All of the fires that can be misplaced on youth are there to potentially catapult you into the fatherhood of being at a place where you just go, I just know him. Or to kick you out in the wrong direction and derail you by mistakenly living a life where you're just bagging all the peaks and you think you're doing all the things and now you start to think that God's lucky to have you. Why is it that only the young men are the ones in this text, specifically told us, being targeted by the enemy, trying to chew them up, trying to spit them out. Because he knows there's power in youth. He knows there's power in strength. He knows there's. There's power for. For prophetic dreams and follow a calling and to build something and to give your life and to give your all. And so he wants to chew up the young people who have come to faith in Christ so they can't become the fathers who are simply pointing to I know him because he knows that's where the power rests. He's saying, don't be derailed by doing. It's the word of God that abides in you. That's the only way your strength is going to be harnessed in the right direction and not become a double weakness in the middle. In between. Now I know Him. How do I develop in Him? Is where it's most easy to go wrong, where you are most in need of guidance. But you're least likely to want the guidance because it is the mark and characteristic of youth to think you don't need anyone's wisdom, anyone's help, anyone's advice. But you need to listen to the fathers who. The only reason they're fathers is because they're saying, I just know him who's from the beginning. I don't think I have anything to give. I know God. I know him who's from the beginning. They're doubling down now on what was true of them when they were spiritual babies. It's the same as Jeremiah 9:23, where God says, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Nor let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me. What is John saying that the young men desperately need to know? There's no higher level than where you started in Christ. There's no next step. There's no new upgrade. There's no let's get these features. It's simply more of knowing and following Jesus. You don't graduate past God and anything God calls you to do. The risk is you'll be defined by the doing and let it go to your head and let you think you're a big deal. And then you'll go out with swagger and onto the next thing and you'll think, that scares the devil. No, it doesn't scare the devil, it pleases the devil. You're playing right into his hands, which is what you see in the disciples when they go out on a ministry trip and they cast out demons and they're preaching and everyone's listening, and they come back to Jesus and. And Jesus can just tell they're riding a little high in the saddle. And he goes, how'd it go, guys? He goes, oh, man, it went great. Jesus, you should have been there. You really should. We were really something. It was really good. I don't want to toot my own horn, but toot, toot, right? And Jesus says. Jesus says, guys, come on. I was there when Satan fell from heaven like lightning. I was there at the beginning. I was there before the beginning. I sent you out with the power. With my power in you, you were able to do what you do. So he told them this. This is so important. He says, Luke 10:20. He says, do not rejoice in the doing. Rejoice that the spirit. Do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you. Here we go. Rather, rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Rejoice that you know me. Rejoice that you know him who is from the beginning. Rejoice that your sins are forgiven because of my name. Rejoice that you know me. Don't rejoice in the doing. Don't get derailed. Don't be defined. Don't think that what you do makes you you. My love for you is what you can rest in and that you will continue to be able to do as a young man, as a young woman, as an older man, as an older woman, as the oldest man, as the oldest woman, you. You can do it in a wheelchair. You can do it in a retirement home. You can do it in hospice, you can do it in the intensive care. You can do it gasping and rattling for your last breath before you go see him with your own eyes. If you make the mistake of building your life on what you can do, you'll only be as good as your last victory. He says, children, you know him. Fathers, you know them. Young men just know this. You've already overcome. You've already overcome. And the word is in the Greek, the aorist, which means a past tense accomplishment with present tense benefits, okay? In effect, every single one of the verbs in this little poem is in the aorist, meaning something that was done in the past with effects ongoing to the future. And so what John says is, young men, don't strive. Don't think. This is what you gotta do that'll just cause you to be easy pickings for the devil. Just know this, you've already overcome. How? How, How? How did they already overcome young men? They overcame already because you are strong and the word of God abides in you. So the best thing you'll ever do has nothing to do with you. And the revelation of that is what's going to cause you to be able to grow up without growing out of Jesus and staying amazed by grace all along the way. All right? So there's no future in it is what I'm trying to say. Being defined and being derailed by doing is to go down a road that's a dead end. There's no future in it. Secondly, being distracted by the classic dangers, okay? There's no future in it because where you already are, where you started, this is as good as it's ever going to be. To be then derailed or distracted by the classic dangers is to head down a road that has no future. Look at verse 15. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And look at this, the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he or she who does the will of God abides forever. I had a friend growing up who had a really impressive Beanie Baby collection. Did anybody else know any Beanie Baby collectors? And he told me what a great investment it was, how they were in mint condition with the tags on. And one day, the way he described it to me, he was already planning on retiring on the Beanie money that was surely going to come pouring in when he would get to collect on these Beanie Babies. I don't think that wherever he is, he's living large on the Beanie money today. I think there was no future in it. You know, I think we can get all excited about whatever new NFT or whatever thing's going on and make the mistake of getting lured into what is a bad investment. And that is essentially what John is saying here. He's saying there's things in this world that are going to try and lure you into them. And the classic dangers, the classic trio, like, you know, you go to Chili's, you know, it's a classic trio. It's like, I want the buffalo wings and the boneless buffalo wings and the shrimp covered buffalo wings, whatever the classic trio is. I don't remember. I've been in Chili's in a minute. But the classic trio, according to John, is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, or as I like to call them, the ego, the libido, and the dinero. Okay? These are the classic trio that. That are coming for you, right? And it's so funny because when Satan opens up his tackle box, we're expecting something novel. And literally, it's just sex and money and pride. And we're like, how could you possibly think you'd catch fish with this? And he's like, just watch. And he dangles it over us. I'm like, you know, he's like, that's why I don't mess with it. I just keep using the same bait because they keep biting on it. The devil would use different bait if you would quit putting hooks in your mouth in the meantime. Why does he need to get fancy with the spices when what is already working is going to continue work and has worked for all of human history? My dad used to talk about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, of pride, of life as monies, honeys and ponies, right? It's just so, so funny. Like, and these are the things. The enemy gets us and trips us up with it. And literally, it's this ministry fell, this pastor turned out to be not authentic. And you're like, what happened? It's like, it's one of the classic trio. It's one of. It's. It was his libido, it was his ego, or it was the dinero. And these are the things that the world hangs in front of us. So we were following Christ, and these are the things that we can easily and quickly go running after. And John is saying, there's no future in it. Where do these things lead? The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, all of these things will pull you away from God's best. Because remember last week, the whole thing about s hiding itself, that's how it is. A little bit of sin, a little bit of justification, a little bit of compromise. Now, of course, we do have to acknowledge the complicated relationship that we are to have with the world. Because as verse 15 reads, all of us are thinking that feels at odds with John 3:16. He starts out first, John 2:15 with, do not love the world. And we're like, what gives? Because John 3:16 says, God so loved the world. Which is it? Make up your mind, please. Well, it's complicated. That's why Jesus prayed for us in John 17. I pray, Father, that they would understand they are in the world, but not of the world. Right? So when we talk about the world, we have to acknowledge there's a. There's a distinction from a. The created world. God's not saying don't love the Milky Way. God's not saying don't love, you know, the Grand Canyon or the Great Barrier Reef. God's not saying don't love beloved Belize or the Bahamas. Right? Certainly God loves the world in the way he created it. It brings him glory day in and day out. And we are to enjoy loving the world that he gave to us. He's also not saying don't love the people of the world, because that would be John 3:16. God so loved the world, it means he loves the people of the world. He wants all to be saved and brought into the knowledge of the truth. The text we read last week says he's the propitiation for our sins. And not just our sins, but also for the sins of the entire world. Anybody can be saved. And if they come to Christ for salvation, they will find that all of their sins were already paid for. But a sin can be paid for. A price can be paid without you receiving the benefit of it if you don't receive that payment into your life. Right? So the sins are paid for because God loves the world, the people that live in this world that gives him glory. So what does he mean when he tells us do not love the world? What he's talking about is the system of this world. He's talking about the worldview of a fallen humanity. He's talking about a worldview that's hostile to the Gospel, that doesn't want to acknowledge a creator, that doesn't want to acknowledge that there is a God who made us. Because if I acknowledge there is a God, then I have to be subservient to that God. I have to listen to that God. I have to choose to say thy will be done. And CS Lewis said there are only two kinds of people in the end. Those who say thy will be done, or at the last day when they're being judged. God says, thy will be done. And he gives us the right to not worship him, to not love him. Because we were made in his image and we have the power and choice of free will. We're not robots. God does not go seal team 6 and kick the door of your heart in. I'm coming in, like it or not. He knocks. The Bible says and gives us the space and the grace to respond. You can go to hell. You will have to crawl over the cross of Jesus Christ to get there, which God planted in your path. But if you're bound and determined, you can't make me believe I wouldn't try. You have to choose what you're going to do with Jesus and the worldview of this world that loves to exalt other things into his rightful place in our hearts and lives. Thus, the last verse of 1 John is little kids keep yourself from idols. Because the worldview of this world is to put anything and everything into God's place in our hearts. So when we're told to not love the world, he's warning us from the classic dangers of something else usurping God's throne in our hearts. And that love is a love that God hates. That love is at odds with God's love. Therefore, if we embrace it, the love of the Father is not in us. It can't be cold and hot at the same time, for cold is just absence of heat. It can't be dark and light at the same time, for darkness is just the absence of light. You cannot love something other than God or, and love God at the same time. That's why Jesus said, you got to love me or hate me, right? If you don't love me, you're not worthy of me. If you don't love me more than your mom, if you don't love me more than your dad, if you don't love me more than your job, if you don't, you're not worthy of me. That's hard words. It's intense. In fact, John 6, the reason a bunch of people walked away from him is because he said hard stuff like, hey, if you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can't even follow me. And people were like, that's cannibalism. I'm out. No, no, no, no. They understood what he was saying. He's saying, you have to look to me like sustenance. You have to look to me like I'm the difference between life and death. And they said, I'm willing to go with you for a free meal, but I'm not about looking to you and usurping every other food source in my life. Either you love him and put him as Lord overall, or you don't love him at all, is what he's saying here. If you don't love the Father in an all consuming way, you don't love the Father. You're Then following after the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. It's a classic trio. You're going for the buffalo wings. Now we can look to the things of this world to take God's place just as much as we can take sinful decisions and put them into God's place. Meaning if the application for this message is don't do meth because meth will become God in your heart, you're missing it. Your parenting can become an idol idol. Your home can become an idol. Your ministry can become an idol. In fact, anything in this world can become a source of sinful desire even and especially if it's a good thing. The problem then isn't we lack love. But we love something too much and we're looking for it to do to us and for us what it can never do. Now you're like Levi. How can I figure out what potentially is my go to of the classic tree? Is it my ego? Is it my libido? Is it my dinero? All you have to do is follow the thread of your anxiety which is soaring in this world. For as Augustine put it, anxiety is the result of over love for good things. So anything you're anxious about shows your you've put it into an all consuming category and it now has the power or the lack thereof to be your God. You're trying to look to something to do what only God can do. And anxiousness is a result of putting something that's not God in the place of God in your heart. So if you would say, I can't live without my child, I can't live without if this marriage, if I, I could, I, I'm nothing without this, right? Anything that, that's language that betrays allegiance. And John's trying to help us to see that is you getting distracted by the classic dangers. In the book of Genesis, there's an individual named Lot. And Lot ends up in Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day when fire and brimstone falls and consumes the city. How did he get there? Because he's Abraham's nephew who starts out like on Team Yahweh, you know, he's a compromising believer, he's a Christian. But the Bible says at one point, while Abraham's following God and living for the city and builder whose maker is God and he's living in tents because he's focused on heaven. The Bible says Lot looked longingly at Sodom. He looked at it and then his heart spoke and said, it's the garden of the Lord. Meaning? Meaning I feel like what's missing in my life could be completed if I. If I had what was in that city. Why does it say the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes? Because a lot of times we look at them, we fixate on what we wish we had. The Bible says Eve saw the fruit was good for knowledge, and then she took it. She saw it first. David saw Bathsheba Basing, took a second look and gazed at her. Then he took her and had to have her. So the eyes, really, there's some truth to the eyes being the window of the soul, what we let into our eyes. Lot started looking and gazing at Sodom. Then the Bible says he moved his tent to be just a little bit closer towards Sodom. And then the next chapter. Lot's living in the middle of Sodom. It's like, want to write me mail? I'm like, lot one, Sodom and Gomorrah Avenue. You know what I'm saying? Like, but how did he get there? Slowly, the same way you will. One compromising, shadowy decision at a time. So again, the question isn't how close can I get to sin and not sin, but how close to Jesus can I walk? This is the question we must ask. Look. Look at verse 16 again in the message translation. Practically everything that goes on in the world, wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important, has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him, the world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out. But whoever does what God wants, set for eternity. So don't be derailed by doing, don't be distracted by the classic dangers. And also, as we close, don't be duped by chasing deeper truths. Don't be duped. And we should have put deeper in quotes. Deeper truths. Don't be duped into chasing deeper Truths. Truths. Verse 18. Little children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come by which we know that it is the last hour. Then they went out from us, but were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar except he that denies that Jesus is the Christ. He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father also either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Therefore, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning translation, what saved you as a little kid that made you a baby in Christ, if that abides in you, if you stay there, if you don't get past Jesus, if you don't upgrade past Jesus, if you can become a father who still is only talking about I know him who's from the beginning, let that abide in you. If you do that, you will also abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he has promised us eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. But the anointing which you have received from him abides in you. And you do not need anyone to teach you. But as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. We took a sharp right turn when the Antichrist in the last times just was all of a sudden our conversation today, probably not what you thought you were going to get. You brought a friend and they're like, wait, what? There's an Antichrist, this shadowy figure from the Book of Revelation who's going to show up and make us all get 666tattoos? What's going on? Nikolai Carpathia is back again, right? It's actually a funny thing because the word Antichrist is never used in the Book of Revelation in all the Bible. The. The actual word Antichrist is only used in John's letters. And here, three of the five times the word Antichrist is used in the entire Bible shows up here. And it's the perfect time for John to bring the subject up. Now, that doesn't mean the Book of Revelation doesn't talk about the Antichrist. It just doesn't ever use that exact word. In Revelation, it's generally referred to as the beast. This charismatic world leader who launches a kingdom completely against Jesus Christ's kingdom. But here, John says, talking about the Antichrist, the beast, or the deceiver, as Jesus will call him, is brought up as, like, common knowledge. Right? You know, Antichrist is coming. Everyone's aware of the fact that there's this terrible thing that happens at the end where the world unites against Jesus before he comes and destroys them with the word of his Power. But John says, little children, I write to you something even scarier than the fact that the boogeyman is coming. Right? He's already here. Oh, dang, that got me a little chilly on the back of my neck. Right. I know you know Antichrist is coming, but guess what? He's already here. He's everywhere. Antichrist is already afoot. See, we love to push off some big terrible thing. Like, I would die for God, but would you live for him? Right? Right. If it ever came to it. Push came to shove, they have to pry my Bible from my cold, dead fingers. Right? Yeah. But do you read it and live it while you're. He's still here. You see, we love to make it some big ultimate thing. John says, I know you guys know, and you're up in arms. Like, if it ever came down to it, I'm on Team Jesus. I die for Jesus. Right? And he goes. He goes. But you, you do realize that what's going to be true in the world during that horrible time, the time of Jacob's troubles in the ultimate way, is also at play and afoot even right now. So, yeah, Antichrist with a capital A, totally coming eventually. What are you doing with the fact that little A Antichrist is afoot in our midst even now? Little children? It is the last time. It is the last days. They began the moment Jesus Christ came, and they culminate when he sets foot down physically back upon our planet, as the Bible says he will. We are living in the last days. I don't know. People have been saying that for 1900 years, haven't they? Yep. What does that mean? There are fewer of the last days today than there were then is what that means. And to argue that Jesus must not be coming because he's never come before is foolishness. Right? I don't believe I'll ever die. Why not? Well, I've never died before. Just wait. Keep eating them Big Macs. We'll see what happens. You see what I'm saying? The author of this book is saying, I know you're all up in arms about what the last days are going to be like, what the end times are going to be like, but you have to be aware of your life. It's not just about the peaks and bagging them. It's about every step being an arrival. And right now there's a spirit of Antichrist alive and well. What does that mean? Well, anti doesn't mean opposed to. Anti means instead of. And when we read Revelation, we read about this figure. The Antichrist Who? There have been many lower a Antichrist all throughout history. Antiochus, Epiphanies and Titus and so many others, you know, who are. Who are directly opposed to the kingdom of God. Nero. Right. But anti actually means instead of. And one way to be instead of something would be to oppose it directly. Another way would be just to try and take its place to impersonate identity theft. So Antichrist isn't just, you know, don't live for God, don't love God. Antichrist can mean live for this more than you live for God. So the spirit of Antichrist would be living for anything and. And everything other than the only thing. Even if the thing that you're being tricked and seduced by is a rebranded counterfeit version of him. Let's say you said to me, I believe you're Levi, just not lust go. To reject any of me is to reject all of me. I'm not up for reinterpretation. It's not a negotiation. You either are saying yes to me or you're saying no to me. This is who I am. In John's day, there were people saying, you could just be good with God but not good with Jesus. Or you could be good with Jesus, that he came, but not that he's come in the flesh. You see, to reject any of Jesus is to reject all of the Jesus. And to reject the Son is to reject the Father and vice versa. You can't say I'm good with Jesus but bad with Christ, right? Or to say I'm good with Jesus but not his church, not the fellowship he's in. The fellowship with the Father and with us. Try that on me. I love Levi, but hate Jenny. Ask me how our relationship's gonna go. I wanna be your friend. I hate Lennox. You see what I'm saying? We don't get to pick and choose what of Jesus, we pick. I like him as the friendly Jesus. I like him as the kind. I like to think of him as the baby Jesus I like, right? Like he says, if I'm not Lord, I'm not Lord. So John knows in the church there are people who are trying to seduce the church into a deeper truth, into initiation rights, into an anointing, into an unction, into a feeling. They're saying, that's good that you started with Jesus. But let me tell you how you can get to real truth, how you can get to real. How you can really level up. You got to get the upgrade. And the upgrade, of course, is a distortion of the simplicity of knowing Jesus. Why? What Incentive would there be for these who have started out in the church? And that's the most creepy part of it all, they started out going to church altogether, but some have, have kind of moved on from the simplicity of Jesus. What would be their motivation? Put my 3 points up 1 more time. What would be the motivation for anybody to start duping people into chasing deeper truth? Here we go. A failure to keep the first two in check. Because obviously you're not going to pull people away from Jesus into deeper truth, into secret knowledge, into exclusive understanding by following Jesus, right? If I pull away from the simple teaching of a Jesus who washed his feet and was slaughtered to save us and rose again and nothing we can do can earn us standing before him except for just being babes in Christ, little children, always, it's going to be for a financial motivation. It's going to be for a libido motivation. I can start my cult where I can get the money, where I can get the girls or get the guys, get the whatever, and then I get to have superiority because now I have deeper truth than even the Bible. I know something no one knows. I get to now have this standing of being the secret prophet, this epic teacher, the super guru. Everyone wants to come to me instead of me simply saying, go to him. Paul said, if anybody teaches you anything other than the gospel, even if I myself or an angel teaches you something, whack, throw it out. There's not, Listen to me, church. No matter where you go, no matter whatever happens to you, you don't ever graduate past knowing Jesus. Knowing Jesus, that's it. That's the epic. That's the next level. That's the boss at the end of the mini level and the boss at the end of the next level and the boss at the end of all the levels. It is the totality of it all. It is the top of the mountain. It is the pinnacle of human existence to know him who is from the beginning. And then we get to know him better. Now we get to know him better and then we get to be a father and tell others about knowing him better. And we get to be mothers and tell others about knowing him better. And then one day, guess what? You're going to wake up and see Him. Him who all your life you loved by faith, only then it will be by sight. So don't be duped, don't be tricked, don't be derailed. Walk with Jesus. Jim Elliot once said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. He was Martyred as a missionary by those he was preaching to. Killed by people he came to tell about Jesus. But he said he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. As we close, I want to tell you that's true backwards as well. He is a fool who gives what he cannot lose to gain what he cannot keep. So you what you have in your hands, knowing Jesus, it doesn't get better than this. Anything else, there's no future in it. Don't collect beanie babies. Walk with Jesus. Thank you Father, for your kindness. Thank you Father, for letting us know you. Thank you Lord, that we know you. It was from the beginning. May we keep unpacking that every day. And keep us from danger, we pray. If you're here and you've never trusted Christ, you're outside of him. You don't have the promise of heaven, the hope of eternal life. You can. Eternal life is knowing Jesus. So I'm going to invite you to trust him even now if you would say, I need to give my life to Christ. I need to trust him. I want to go to heaven. I want to be forgiven. Say this with me. Pray it to him. Hear. He will hear you, Church. Pray it with us. Dear God, I'm sorry for my sins. I ask for you to forgive them. Thank you for sending Jesus to love me and die for me. I turn my life over to you. You get to define who you are. I will follow you in Jesus name.