EVENING SERMON FOR 8/23/2024 11:08 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-9 “The
Nature of God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 1:5
Message of the
verse: This
is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light,
and in Him there is no darkness at all.
What I have decided to do as I look at this verse is
to quote from a sermon that John MacArthur gave in this section in 2002. The important thing that I am trying to talk
about is that God is Light. I know that
in the past that I looked at this subject, perhaps when I was studying the
Gospel of John and remember that this is a very important truth for us to
understand and that is why I chose to quote from this sermon mentioned
above. It will take us a number of days to look at it as I do not want
to put so much on these SD’s that will take a long time to read and may
discourage people from reading it.
“John is then saying if I look at your life and
the truth isn’t there and I look at your life and the righteousness isn’t
there, then you’re lying when you say you have the life because you don’t
because this life of God is a life that cannot be divorced from the truth of
God, who cannot lie, or from the holiness of God, who cannot sin. In Him there
is no darkness at all, no death, no deceit, and no iniquity. God is absolutely
perfect in knowledge and perfect in holiness. That’s His life, that’s the
essence of His life, and when He imparts it to you, it is that very life.
“Now, obviously, we fall short of being like God
because that wonderful life is incarcerated in our fallen flesh, but the
evidences of that life are manifest in our devotion to the truth and holiness.
And as God has nothing to do with the darkness, so we long to have nothing to
do with the darkness, nothing to do with the darkness of deception, nothing to
do with the darkness of transgression. So this is where John’s going to take
us.
“It’s not what you say, it’s not what you claim,
it’s what we see, the truth and virtue. And it starts right here. If you say
you have the life of God but you don’t have God’s attitude toward sin, if you
don’t have God’s truthful and holy hatred of sin, you’re lying - you’re
lying. You don’t have His life because His life is consistent with Him. He’s
the source. And that brings us to where we need to be.
“One of the reasons that we come to the Lord’s
Table is to confess our sin. If you’re reluctant to do that, if you don’t see
sin for what it is, if you don’t render the same verdict on sin that God does,
if you don’t homologeĊ, say the same thing about sin that God says, then you
don’t have the life of God because if the life of God were in you, your inner
being would be saying the same thing about sin that God says, as well as saying
the same thing about truth that He says.
“But if you are a true believer and you are a
possessor of the light, then you’re going to acknowledge your sin, you’re going
to see it the way God sees it, and eagerly you’re going to do what it says,
you’re going to confess your sin. And in the confessing of your sin, you’re
going to be agreeing with God, and that faithful and righteous God will forgive
you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Let’s bow together in prayer.
8/23/2024 11:13 PM
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