Lovely. Seeing lots of familiar faces
and some new ones. I I turn my back and there's two
babies arrived, apparently. Isn't that right?
Yeah. Shagen looking quite tired
today. The third one.
Yeah. Beautiful.
Yeah. Mavis.
Yeah, I did see Mavis. Lovely, isn't she?
Since last. Oh, yeah.
But she was about a few months. She's there like, is she quiet?
Is she asleep? Oh, well, most of the
congregation will be asleep in about 10 minutes will be
preaching. Is that right, dear?
It's amazing. God adds to us, isn't it?
In the next chapter 2, it says, you know, they, they broke bread
together, they they prayed together, etcetera.
So I listened to the teaching and so on.
And he said, and God, God added to their number day by day.
And we don't have to go force people, we just do what we're
asked to do, love him, worship him, be of practical use and God
will add to us for the mission. And suddenly you realise we've
got a bigger mission abroad and therefore people adds to us,
some who can actually help get on with that.
And then he adds to us new Christians, doesn't he?
And I think that's been wonderful to see those getting
saved here. So it's great to be part of you.
Whether I get through all this, I don't know.
What time do we finish? Half an hour.
Well, it's 2525 to 7. That says I don't.
That's quite right. Is it?
Right. Let's see if we can keep.
See if we can do that in half an hour.
OK. I've got my glasses.
I want to look intelligent, so I've got my glasses on.
Good to see you, Lizzie. Good to see you.
Great. Joel.
I here got into the semi finals. Your injury.
We want to get you faster, don't we?
Please. Yeah, good.
Still enjoying the relationship with that.
Joe, there is now estate agent. So you want to want to buy a
house? Go see Joe anyway.
Not with that. Come on, let's get going.
Right. We're going to look at 1 John 1
today and I want to just talk about walking with the gods.
You'll see where we go with this.
I might have to skip over some things.
We'll see. So this is John chapter one, 1
John chapter 1, and starting in verse 5.
This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to
you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in the
darkness, we lie, we don't practise the truth.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have
fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son
cleanses us, or it's the continuous present.
Continuous it means goes on cleansing us from all sin.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth
is not in us. If we confess our sin, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. Wow.
If we say we're not sinned, we make Him a liar.
His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing
these things to you so that you may not sin.
But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation that
means atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world.
By this we may know that we are in him.
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in
which he walked. Paul, John is writing this.
He said, my little children are writing these things to you so
that you may not sin. So his intention was, I want to
help you not sin, not give in to your fallen nature.
You say, well, hold on John, I try to be good, but I do fail.
It's God expected me to live a perfect life.
Well, obviously it's not because he's already just said if we say
we have no sin, So I'll go back to that.
If we say we have no sin, then we deceive ourselves.
But the truth is Jesus says this, that nobody's good except
God alone. And the guy he said that to was
a rich young ruler who who lived a pretty religiously good life.
Paul says we've all seen them fall short of the glory of God.
Children amazing with kids, aren't they?
You know, you for for two years you, you teach them to talk and
to walk. And the next 16 years you tell
them to sit down and shut up. I mean, someone said children
are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every
effort to teach them good manners.
Someone said the main purpose of holding children's parties is to
remind yourself that there are children more bad mannered than
your own. I read an article the other day
written by a parent of three kids about what he had observed
in the hearts and the lives of the children as they grew up.
He loved them, and though he loved them dearly, he found that
they were by nature infected with something.
This is what he noticed. Three chick kids.
Temper tantrums, sometimes violent slamming of doors.
I suppose self will. Pride, envy, self pity.
It's not fair. Irritability, idleness, and
ladies in US selfishness, deceit, cunning, lying,
hypocrisy. A terrible aptitude to learn
what is bad, a painful slowness to learn what is good, a
readiness to pretend anything in order to get their own way or to
gain their own ends, Stubbornness, unwillingness to
own up, hate, to say sorry, et cetera.
He said this nobody had taught his children these traits, where
they come from, and he concluded obviously that they were born
with them. Now these fallen human traits
which we observe in children, we observe in one another, and we
observe them in world leaders too, don't we?
And that ones we have to deal with throughout our whole
Christian life. Someone once said, it's not the
things I do that make me a Sinner.
It's because I'm a Sinner. I do the things I do.
We're all infected with it. Yes, Jesus said very truly,
everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
But oh, I'm not a master of of these things that are wrong.
You try taking them away from them.
Oh, help. And so we have to live with a
fallen nature. But praise be to our wonderful,
merciful God. He's not prepared to leave us
like that. Paul writes at just the right
time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the
ungodly. That means you've been Very
rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a
good person, someone might possibly dare to die.
But God demonstrates his own love resists why we were still
sinners. Christ died for us.
And as we put our trust in Jesus, put our faith in him,
suddenly we're forgiven, we're cleansed, we're justified.
In fact, we know the famous verse, John 316.
Where are we? Yeah.
Oh, that's why I think, Yeah. Famous verse about God so loved
the world. Notice there is not just
forgiveness. Whoever believes in him puts
their trust in him, relies upon him, not upon their own works.
Who banks upon him actually are given eternal life.
We're born again. Jesus says that was his term.
In other words, what was dead in us because of our sin has been
made alive anew. So into our natural fallen
selves. God life has been birthed.
We're many temples of the Holy Spirit now and all because we
put our faith in Jesus. Wow.
And since we've been justly by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want us to understand
tonight that today, sorry, you have peace with God because of
Jesus. He's not going to die again for
you. And he knows what you're like.
He knows the fault of nature, which you're battled with every
day, but you're his now. And the blood covers you as
we're here, as we saw it. It just goes on cleansing you
from all sin, peace with God. Wow.
Do you know you're on his team, You're on his team yes.
Some of you go around with your headache looking I don't know
I'm not very good. You're good or bad.
You're on his team and in Micah we we realise that what John's
talking about here. Walking is what God has always
wanted in Micah 6 verse 8, he says this he has told you, O
man, what is good? What does the law require of
you? Notice three things.
Got to do justice, to love, kindness and to walk humbly with
your God. And John is saying in his
reading, look, God wants to walk with you.
He's inviting you to walk with him.
It will be in the light as we'll see.
But you not understand God desires friendship with you.
How many of you are Christians here, right?
OK, God desires friendship with you.
He wants friendship with you. He likes you.
I don't know why, but he does because you're 1.
I, I had a, a picture the other day of of this glorious
daffodils. Oh, meta world of them.
I thought, wow, are they all the same?
But I just looked at one. I thought that is amazing
engineering, amazing artwork. I, you know, just this one and
it's one of, I don't know, millions.
And I, I felt the Lord saying, yeah, I've got millions of
children, but there's only one of you.
Some would say, thankfully he doesn't.
He says, no, no, no, no. I made you for my pleasure and
I've started to work in you. And one day, you know, when you
see me face to face, you're gonna be, you'll say, wow, I'm
glorious, wow. But he loves me now when I'm in
the mess I'm in. See, God has always wanted to
walk with his people. We've got to Adam and Eve.
They heard the sound of the God of the Lord as they walked in
the garden. He not walked with I could go
through them all, all these great men.
It says in the scriptures, it says they walked with God.
They weren't perfect. Are you perfect?
But he's saying come on, walk with me.
What did Jesus do? He called his disciples to say
come and follow me. He said come on, walk with me,
sit with me. Let's let's get knife together.
They were a motley bunch of people, weren't they?
Bit like this church. There's some something special
about walking with friends, isn't it?
I remember I I was with a youth group years ago.
We're going back a long time, probably in the 76, eight, 60s,
Yeah, late 60s. And there's this young, lovely
young lady I'm walking with. There's a youth group and we're
out in the middle of Surrey Hills somewhere getting lost.
You always got lost. And she started to sing a
Beatles song. So I slugged it in and started
harmonising. She loves you.
Yeah. Yeah.
And we start to chat to each other and we will sing a few
songs. Badly.
I got to know her. She ended up my wife, OK, right?
My next door neighbour Liz is a member of the Wellington
Walkers. Because I live in a place near
Wellington and I've looked on the website and they have these
kind of comments. Walking allows for shared
laughter, support during tough times and a chance to celebrate
each other's victories, big and small.
The act of walking fosters connection, both physically in
emotionally. Think about God like this, would
you? Thanks for helping me remember
where I'm going in life, says one of the walkers.
I'm sure you've noticed I have a tendency to get lost sometimes.
You're very patient with me. I hope I can show you the same
love in return. The walk is not always easy, but
it's better with you, my friend. Don't you feel that, God?
It's not always easy, is it? Life's tough, isn't it?
Unless you've got a charm. Life got another one somewhere
here. Oh, as we walk together as
friends on the road of life, I get a feeling in my heart there
everything's OK. I'm so happy that I have your
friendship. It helps me let go of so many
fears when you're by my side. And then another common only
your old friends will tell you when your face is dirty.
Do you know God loves to walk with you?
And he will tell you when your face is dirty not to have a go
because it makes you look ugly. The truth is, when we begin this
walk with God in our new life, we sometimes become aware of the
battle going on with the old one.
Yes, we're now disposed to follow Jesus and allow the Holy
Spirit and his new life to work. So our natural selfish nature is
not very happy about that. But it can no longer have the
last say because Jesus say, I will keep forgiven you, and I'm
going to change you if you let me.
And therefore we know that God actually walks in the light.
So he says if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we
have fellowship with one other friendship and the blood of
Jesus Son goes on cleansing balls.
And so if you want to walk with God, where have you got to walk
in the light? OK.
And it's a fact that as you become a Christian, you're
filled with the joy of being forgiven.
You have a new life. But then you begin to mature and
say I'm not happy with some of the things I do, the things that
are in my natural selfish nature.
Sometimes people think crumbs am IA Christian at all.
But the very fact that you're not enjoying that is evidence
you are a Christian. Did you hear that some
Christians think they can never make God happy?
They've got this perfection idea.
They they can't keep up with their Bible reading and prayer
or living a perfect life. Oh, he can't be happy with me.
Might as well give up. Look, God knows what we're like.
He's not looking for us to perform, but to relate to him,
Yes. He's not asking you to be who
you're not. He's saying I'm going to change
you, to be who I'm going to make you.
It's a process. He wants us to come.
Guess what? Just as we are not as we should
be, as we could be, as we wish we were.
This is me, waltz and all. Here I am, Lord, he said.
Lovely, I'll have you. When you got saved you were a
mess and you're still lots of stuff to clean up.
But my blood will go on. Oh, Linds, if you walk in the
light, my blood will keep cleansing you.
Wow, what a privilege that is. That's why in the reading it
says he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only,
but also the sins of the whole world.
That word propitiation means a turning away of the wrath of
God. So every time you feel you
failing. Oh, you just look to the blood
and oh, instead of wrath, oh Jesus, blood has pushed it away.
Wow, that's rather good, isn't it?
That doesn't mean I just go on being sinning as Paul said, you
know, do I sin that grace may have bound?
No, we don't want to be like that.
Sin makes us ugly. Sin makes us feel yuck.
It's like eating. What is it, Lionel with a
wardrobe? The Turkish delight goes in
sweet and it tastes horrible in the stomach and it's a horrible
feeling. But we know the blood of Jesus
keeps working, and look how intimate God wants to be with
us. If anyone loves me, he says,
he'll keep my word and my Father will love him.
We'll come to him and make our home with him.
You can't be more intimate than that, can you?
Perhaps he wants to be in me with this, this kind of fallen
nature. But he's come in now and become
a St. And it's the opposite to the
wolf sheep's clothing. There's a beautiful sheep in
here. There's something lovely and
beautiful in this old, old body of mine with all its problems at
times, and it's aches and pains. And rather than withdrawing from
us when we sin, he will convict us.
He will say there's dirt in your face, it's not good for you.
It looks, it's horrible, it affects those around you.
You look ugly and, and I'm not condemning you, but let's deal
with it. If you want to walk in the
light, I've got to be honest with you, but come in the light
because I'm full of grace and love to forgive you.
He will convict us when we've sinned, but then they'll be
ready to rush to us to forgive and cleanses.
Don't understand. This is your God.
You just wait until you say. Oh, I shouldn't have said that.
Oh, dear. I'm sorry about that thought.
OK, Confess it. I've.
I'm with you. Come on.
I come to forgive you. He's easy to please.
You don't think that some of you.
You don't think God's easy to please you?
Well, I don't read my Bible. Of course.
It's stuck with that performance.
I want a relationship with you. And if you're lazy, you're lazy.
But I'll take that. I'll help you not to be so lazy.
Amen. Yeah, we're getting this.
So many Christians are living second rate lives because they
think God's always. I'll never make him happy.
We're his forever. When Jesus took that cup on the
Last Supper, he said this. This is the new covenant in my
blood, which is poured out for you.
Do you know that God is committed to you in an
unbreakable covenant? Have you got that?
Yes, you can't break that covenant.
He's covenant to you in his blood.
You can be awful and terrible. He won't break his covenant with
you. You say that's another way to
carry on. I love you the bits I'm
committed to you for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and health. I'm committed to you.
It's an unbreakable covenant and it's in that environment you can
change. And what is this God like when
Moses said, I want to see your glory, so well, if you see my
glory, you die. So he gets Moses and says, hide
in that, that cleft in a rock, hide there and I'll pass by and
I'll let you get a glimpse of the back of me.
And that's Moses does that. He hears God describing himself.
So this isn't somebody else's idea of God.
This is God saying who is? Look you look what he says, the
Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger,
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast
love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions that
should be and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.
They need the blood of Jesus. But for us, look at that.
That's the God that we'll we'll want want to walk with.
He's saying, will you walk with me?
Who wouldn't want to walk with a God like this?
That's why I said why ever backslide?
What a waste of time. Where you going if you
backslide? You've got a God there.
He's not against you. And not saying you've got to
live up to certain standards. No, I'll take you as you are.
You said, well, I I don't pray very often.
I got it. I'll take 5 minutes.
Do you hear me? He will take 5 minutes.
Is that all? You can pray for him today.
I know. 5 minutes and I'll use that and bless you.
Give me 10 minutes thought stuff the time.
What I want is your heart. We've got this wrong idea of how
God is his, his steadfast love and faithfulness.
It's abounding. It says here just nice and good,
cold and calculated. It's abounding.
Give me steadfast love for thousands, Iniquity,
transgressions and sin covers things, accidental, covers
things that are part of who you are that need changing, but also
part of things that we deliberately do.
He's a loving God who has to be provoked and then provoked again
before he has to come in with judgement.
He's not a judgemental God. It's not part of his nature.
His nature is this man, this sorry, this God.
And when you look at this God, you think, wow, I wouldn't want
to mess with him. But actually it's so easy to
please if I just walk in the light and be honest with who I
am and how I am. Yes, I love that my blood would
just cleanse you. And at the cross, God satisfied
both His justice and His love. He was so just and desire to
judge those who do wrong to others and wrong to Him that
Jesus had to die in our place. But he was so loving and
desirous of our salvation that Jesus was pleased to die, glad
to die for you. It's full of love for you.
What is he? It comes naturally to him.
Judgement doesn't come naturally to him.
Judgement is something he has to done Where there where, where
there is sin in his universe, where there's evil and no one
gets away with anything. Of course, on Judgement Day
sometimes. Can't you deal with them now?
And I said, no, no, there will be a day when I will bring A
reckoning. And you and I say, oh, thank
God, I've asked bring, bring judgement day Now, please, Lord,
I'm guilty. That's why the blood cleanses
you. Hallelujah.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
Yes. So he saved us so we might have
fellowship with him. Walk with him forever.
He doesn't want a cordial, polite relationship with you.
He wants you to walk in the light.
He wants you to be very, very honest with him.
When you look at the psalmist, they weren't backward in sharing
how they felt, were they? I've read Psalm 88 the other
day. I've shared it with Julian.
I mean, he's so he's really fed up, isn't he?
He says, the only friend I've got around is darkness and God's
saying thank you very much. You know, God's almost saying,
look, I know what you're feeling, so get out there.
Say it. Don't need to be rude, but say
how you're feeling. I was looking at Job chapter
after chapter of complaints to God for the state he's in and
his three friends, so-called friends and another one joins
them start to say, well, you must have done something wrong.
You got this. And they start really saying
this. Well, no, no.
And in the climates of the book, God actually starts to question
Job this time because Job's been questioning God, why is this
happening? What's he doing?
And then God says, OK, Joe, where were you when I made the
mountains? Where were you when I created
that deer that that's over there and the deep sea.
And he starts to give Joe also questions and cause Joe repents
of ever thinking that he can know the mind of God.
Some Christians are like that. They want to know what's
happening, why it's happening. And until I know that I'm not
going to trust you. Joe never once stops trusting
God. His wife said slay him.
No, that's right. Go and kill yourself.
They said she's it's lovely, isn't it?
She's such a helpful wife there guys, didn't you think she she
says just just get just kill yourself.
You know, curse God and die is the old version.
But he never does. And at the end, quite
interesting. They've got these 3-4 friends
now and Jonah and and Job and they want to bring an offering
to God and God says my anger burns against you.
He's talking about these friends of his.
For you have not spoken of me. What is right as my servant has
now therefore offer a burnt offering for yourselves and my
servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not
to deal with you according to your folly.
And you're thinking, well hold on.
You're saying what God has said is right.
What he means is that all his suffering and confusion, because
we know why he went through it. He doesn't and he's complaining.
Joe never once stopped believing in God.
He never once turned away from God, but honestly poured out his
confusion and his pain to God. That's walking in the light of
God, John says. If we walk in the light as he is
in the light, we have fellowship with each other and the blood of
Jesus Son goes on cleansing us. That lovely.
So that means I'm walking. I shouldn't have thought that or
said that. Sorry, Father, That's right.
I know. Come on, we can do better.
I cleanse you, but Jesus goes on cleanses you.
Come on, you're my son. Come on.
I know what you were like when I took you on.
I'll work, but I love you. Are you expecting to live a
perfect life this week? You weren't deliberately sin,
were you? You don't deliberately want to
be selfish and nasty or Moody. You don't want your mood to
affect the person you know you love nearby.
Yeah, because that is what you don't want to do.
God is going to help you change. Now.
Skip and I play golf badly. Just saw our plays with us, and
he's doing too well for me, actually.
Although the other day he drove the golf cart into a bunker,
which I thought was classic. Where's he gone?
But he he can half hit the ball when he goes, he can hit it
further than I can, which is not greatly.
But one of our favourite stars is, is Rory McIlroy.
OK, sorry, those who don't know golf, but just and he was
struggling a bit and the top golf coach called Bob Rotella
came and saw him and he just said this.
Listen, golf is a game of mistakes.
You're hitting a little ball and you're hitting it and it could
be too high, too low, wet, slippery.
If you hit it slightly out, it won't just go there, it'll go
over there. So Skip spends a lot of time in
the mud and the the grass. Where's that ball gone?
He's looking for a ball.
He says, oh, found it. No, no, he doesn't cheat really.
But I found that good. What you're saying, look, you
will make mistakes all the time when you're playing golf.
It's just, it's just the name of the game.
And he said the player, the winning player is not the one
who avoids the mistakes, it's the one who best manages them.
And I just smiled. I thought, well, I suppose in a
way of Christian life is 1 of continual repentance,
forgiveness and joyful acceptance.
Yes. He doesn't want us to get
modelling and miserable. Oh, terrible.
No, I'm sorry, Lord. Yeah.
OK. Come on.
Let's let's change you, make you more loving.
I don't want you to be a slave of that sin anymore.
Would you? Would you be a slave for the
habit? Come on.
I want to get you free. His whole heart is for us that
wants us. When we fall, the blood will
forgive us. He wants to get us something.
Go again. Oh, it's not my self pity.
Some people are perfectionists, you know, they, they really
think like I've failed myself. But the, they're more judgmental
than God. They couldn't be really.
He's, he's just wants the best for us.
He wants to be the best we can be for Jesus.
Yes, he wants to change us, wants us to throw off those
selfish, unhealthy patterns. And so for for us to change, for
him to change us, he has to lovingly and precisely show us
what's need to be changed. OK, Now we know this first,
clearly because so many Christians get down by this,
they they don't believe what he's saying.
Where is it? Yeah.
Therefore there is no condemnation for those in Christ
Jesus. But do you, do you get this?
Do you feel condemned at times? Yes.
In other words, my fallen nature.
Oh, I'll never please God. Listen, if you pray for 10
minutes today. So, yeah, the enemy would say it
should be 15 minutes. Oh, rats.
So I do 50. Yeah, but if you're really
spiritual, it'll be half an hour.
Stop playing the silly game. See, you don't read the Bible to
Marx. You earn the Bible because of
it's blooming. Good advice.
And it's a love letter from God to you.
I've got to read it in a year. Well, fine too.
If it blesses you, you can do that.
That's not the issue. The issue is God is speaks.
It's one of those books or 66 books that actually God speaks
to you through. It's strange.
The truth will come off the page.
So we don't read the Bible to mop up ours.
We're reading the Bible because it's life.
It puts us back together again. It, you know, we've been that
wobbly clay, clay on the wheel and it just puts us back in the
centre again. Amen.
Now what we know is about condemnation.
It's, it's, it's normally to do with our past or our or the
enemy. It could be two with our
temperament in our past condemnation is a just a general
feeling of unworthiness. I just feel rude and we feel
like anyways, sometimes, don't we yes, I won't go into ladies.
They have to trust all this more than we do every month.
Glad I don't know that ladies. I mean it's not nice because
sometimes some of you can feel rude.
There must be a reason why I'm, I failed God, or it's his fault
or it's whatever, you know, I, I, we get off light blokes,
fellas. We are very fortunate here.
But content nature is a general feeling unworthiness.
You don't quite, you can't put your finger on it.
And we tend to turn inwards. Where am I failing?
And we can go for all sorts of thoughts so that it's something
inward. We feel like giving up or we
have self pity or we blame, we blame other people.
When you're walking with God, that doesn't come into it.
If that comes into it, it's not from God.
It's from the enemy or your perfectionism or your past
conviction is very different. I'll put it there for you.
It's from the Holy Spirit. It's awareness of a specific
sin, you know. Oh, yeah, I shouldn't have said
that or I should have done that or.
But what is wonderful notice we are then encouraged to look up
and repent. Not maudling.
Oh, I've just failed, aren't I? Terrible Got.
So that's what you like without me, aren't you?
Oh, yes. Well, stop yourself pitying.
I've died for you. I'm coming here with the blood
to cleanse you. I want you to look up and get
up. You've repented and said no.
I'm sorry at all. It's not right.
I forgive you. And then next is we receive
immediate forgiveness. So I'm not waiting to the end of
the day. I better get rid of my sins of
the day. What have I said?
What have I done today? We know as we're walking with
him, we think, oh, that was that order.
Oh, dear. Sometimes it hits us a bit
later. They're, oh, crumbs.
Yeah. That was not right, Lord.
And then we walk in victory. See, they all want you to walk
in victory every day. Whatever you're going through,
the enemy wants you limping. Now, some of us are not walking
the light. We've got like a stone in our
shoe as we try to walk. It's a stone that you know what
it is. I am going to say, can you guess
what? It is not like condemnation.
You don't know what it's all about.
God will say, you know, that's out of order the way you are,
your attitude, it could be anything.
And you're kind of, Oh well, I'll put up with it, But you're
never a victorious Christian. And God says, stop, let me well,
take your shoe off. Empty that stone out of your
shoe. Come on, confess it, repent of
it, put your shoe on. Don't let it get back in there
again. Amen.
Now of course there is that discipline as we walk with God,
that discipline. He says here, this is the writer
of Hebrews. Endure hardship as discipline.
Thanks. God is treating you as sons,
children. God disciplines us for our good
in order that we may share in His Holiness.
No discipline seemed present at the time, but painful.
It is painful when I'm coming through a discipline that I
realise I've got to change my ways.
Sometimes we say I want to change Lord, and we don't change
anything, so we'll never change. It's insanity.
If I want to change, then I've got to change something, haven't
I? Somebody said, oh, I'd like to
read the Bible a bit more. Well, if you want to, not
legalism, but you're very wise, What are you going to change in
your lifestyle? So you're going to read the
Bible? It's not going to suddenly
happen. Oh, I can't read my book.
Yeah. Later on, however, it produces a
harvest of righteousness, of peace for those who've been
trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your
feeble arms and weak knees, make level paths through your feet.
So we're walking again and he's saying, God's saying, look, I am
going to at times discipline you and help you to become like my
son Jesus. It's the best privilege I can
give you. The best gift I can give you is
actually to make you like Jesus. You think, Oh, no.
And it's true, those discipline times later on, it provides us a
harvest of righteousness and peace.
I like Terry Virgo's comment here.
Satan will accuse you because he's against you and he wants to
destroy you. God will correct you because he
delights in you and he aims to transform you.
Dane Alton says whom do you perceive God to be in your sin
and your suffering? You think God is not just on
paper. Being the kind of person you
believe he is when hearing you pray, how does he feel about
you? His saving of us is not cool and
calculating. It's a matter of yearning.
Not yearning for the face of you, the you that you project to
everyone around you. Not the you that you wish you
were yearning. But He's yearning for the real
you, the you underneath everything that you present to
others. You see we're the call and
calculating ones and think he won't accept us.
He's warm hearted, just wants to love us.
He said oh come on to me. Oh you're wearing heavy laden
come heavy laden with all sorts of things.
I'd stand at the door and knock. I want friendship with you.
Can I come on in? He is enthusiastic.
We're indifferent and sluggish. His arms are open for us.
Ours are hanging by our sides. He's passionate about wanting
the best for us. We hold back thinking we're so
undeserving. But of course you're unserving
for deserving. Your weight will be.
You forget the blood, it's for you.
You forget that we're totally accepted through the death of
Jesus. Often we just don't get it.
God's heart for us confounds our intuition who we think He is.
Surely He can't be like that. With all my fallenness and my
away, I behave at times. Lord, forgive us for thinking
badly about you. Course we will fail in sin,
sometimes sadly, deliberately. Sin is like a leprosy of the
soul for a Christian. God hates the disease.
He won't tolerate it. Walking with him means walking
in the light. God's loved us too much to for
us to carry on spoiling our lives and those around us.
So if you want to know God, and if you want to walk with God,
you must be walking in the light.
And as Jesus was drawn in love to lepers, would even hug them
and roll on the ground with them.
I think he had such pity for them.
So Jesus has drawn to us even in our sin, even when we fail, He's
not. He said I'm going to come to
you. I'm going to deal with this.
Come on. Yes, good.
I forgive you. Come on.
Let's get on with it. Grace of God has appeared that
offers salvation to all people is grace.
It's a gift. It can't be earned.
This grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness and wealthy
passion and to live self controlled, upright, ungodly
lives in this present age. So the the more we know of this
love and they'll never let you go.
He's committed to you on his side.
He loves you and the blood will cleanse you and cleanse you
actually. So you want to change.
You suddenly realise that rather than that, when you do something
wrong, rather than trampling on some law or rule some of you put
in your own head, actually you've grieved a dear friend.
When I muck up, I say, oh Lord, I'm sorry, you don't deserve
that and I don't deserve to be like that, do I?
Shouldn't be like that. Lord, thank you, you forgive me.
I should say to Jane, when she was naughty I said May God
forgive you. She said he does.
Couldn't win then could I really let God search you out?
Don't walk around with those stones in your shoe, but also
don't hide who you are. Confess it straight away.
You know what it is. You know where you've failed.
You'll know where you failed later on today.
Oh, so of course not like a big policeman is saying, come on,
let's deal with that. Oh, OK, I want you like Jesus.
I want to. And that's why Paul says walk by
the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the
flesh. Sorry.
Second one, where are we? Where are we at?
Oh yeah, I say walk by the Spirit.
We're walking again by the Holy Spirit.
And you will not clarify the desires of the flesh, for the
desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desire of the
Spirit against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.
Should be if we live by the Spirit, that's all.
Like keep in step with the Spirit.
So it gets to keep walking with you.
Let the Holy Spirit who lives in you walk with him, and if you
walk with him, you won't do those other things.
Keep in step with the Spirit. In other words, it's not that
you cannot sin, but you can not sin.
Now I went too far, did I? Yes.
It's not that you cannot sin. It's you can not sin.
I couldn't help it. Yes, you can, but it was too
much. No, it wasn't.
You can not sin. That's what a Christian has the
power to do. I don't do things now that I
used to do, and I do certain things that I negatively didn't
do before because I'm walking with him and I'm not condemned
anymore. I don't condemn when I muck up.
I'm not thrown by that. I just think, Oh dear, that
wasn't very good. John Newton says this.
Our sins are many, but his mercies are more.
That's lovely, isn't it? Your sins are many, His mercies
are more. You can't out beat Him, out
mercy Him. Our sins are great, but his
righteousness is greater. Just keeps cleansing me.
Wow. We are weak, but He is all
powerful. Most of our complaints are owing
to unbelief and the remainder of a legal spirit.
And that's the way if you're miserable to that in your
Christian life this week, most of that will be to do with.
And you're not doing what the Bible's saying to do here.
You're thinking, well, I don't know if I can believe you.
Forgive me. What an insult.
I'm too bad. I don't know.
It's all right for him to say that.
No. The blood of Jesus cleansing you
and he gives you a gift of righteousness.
Yeah, he is. Yes.
Well, if you don't, if not you're doubting that's unbelief
or he says the remainder of a legal spirit and legalism is
trying to earn God's approval by being very good girl today, a
very good boy today and he's saying that shouldn't remain.
But you said, well, many Christians do.
They've forgiven thee. No die.
But then they think, oh, I don't think I quite live up to those.
What standards? God said, oh, what about you
performing start. I want a relationship with you.
Yes, I'm, I've been getting this.
I'm really egging it. But you get the message.
It's by faith. You've been saved through faith.
And this is not yourselves. It is what?
Yes, we've been saved as a gift. You're never going to earn it.
Forget it. Otherwise you.
Oh, I'm better than you. No, you're not.
You're a Sinner. You have failings like we all
do. That's why people said all rely
on works of the law doing things or under a curse.
Get off that curse. You don't want to start saying
God, you're my father. You're easy to please.
I often in my prayer times do this.
I say this. I love you too.
My kids will come and say Dad,
yeah, but I love you. I say I love you too.
I said, Emma, Emma, I love you. I love you too, Dad.
When we start saying things that I, I love you, that I love you
too, we're demonstrating that he has already said I love you to
me. Yes.
And for some people in my church, they've heard that and
it's helping them realise, oh, I am loved.
I love you too, Lord. Oh, just don't keep saying that
and I'm going to believe that. Sam Storm says this grace ceases
to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of
human merit. It's not grace if you've earned
anything. Grace is not grace if God is
compelled to withdraw it in the presence of human demerit.
In other words, you've been so bad I'm not going to have give
my grace. No grace is treating a person
without the slightest reference to desert whatsoever, but solely
according to the infinite goodness and sovereign purpose
of God. We sing only you are worthy.
He is the only one that's worthy.
I want to be like Him. You don't want to sin, do you?
But you will. Sorry if you say you haven't
sinned. You deceive yourselves, it says
in our reading. But if we confess our sin, what
is He? He's faithful and just to
forgive us and mourn that to cleanse us straight away, not in
the evening or later on. Why is He just to forgive us?
Yes, because Jesus has paid the price.
What? Of course he's going to forgive
us because Jesus has said I've paid the price for him and her.
I've paid that price. So it's just that he forgives
you that amazing, wonderful. Finally, there's a passage.
Jesus is talking about Judgement Day and he's saying people will
come to him. Let's see what he says.
This is the Master talking, He says, on that day, judgement
day, many will say, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name
and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your
name? And I will declare to them, I
never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
Can I ask, does he know you? He said, what do you mean I
never knew? I thought God knows everything.
This knowing is in Adam and Eve. It's when they knew each other
intimately and had a baby. Of course, this knowing means
you actually have opened your heart to God honestly and
openly. Do you know you can work with a
person for many years and never know them?
Listen, this is important comment here.
You only know a person as much as they let you know them.
Yeah, got that? That's how God is.
I don't know you unless you open your heart to me and you share
everything about you with me. Biggest compliment I gave, ever
gave Jane, or ever give constantly gave her, was having
the courage to forget my male ego and tell her what I felt,
what I thought, my aspirations, my concerns, my worries, my
fears, all those. Yes, for us blokes to do, it
takes a lot. Sometimes we're not in touch
with our feelings anyway. But for me to share who I am
openly with another human being is vulnerable, she could say.
That's why us blokes, we talk about the weather of football or
sport, we talk about political views.
When we talk about who I am, we're very wary.
Perhaps one or two friends we might do now.
God wants us all to be like that, open with him.
I don't want him. That's the worst thing you could
say on Judgement Day. Can you imagine?
You know, we did things for Jesus.
We healed the sick. We cast out demons.
We prophesied. Yep.
I never knew you. You did a lot of good things.
You said you had a belief, but I never knew you.
You never opened your heart to me.
You never were honest with me. Go.
Can you imagine that? The rejection on that final day,
You're never coming back. They have cast out the doors
shut. They can't come back in to be
with God and enjoy the heaven and the new heaven and new earth
and God doesn't want you like that.
He wants you as a as his child. He says I want to walk with you
in the light. I want to love you.
I want you to be honest with me. Yes.
Do you get this? That means be honest with him,
complain, moan, joy, say thank you, not our rudeness, but of
honesty. Be all you are with him and then
saying all I could do with that. Would you help me with this?
Be honest with him. Amen.
Because those people walking humbly with their God, he will
bless. And so as I finish, I would say
this, come today as we close this meeting, come forward, let
us pray with you. Some of you might never said
I've, I've never given my life to Jesus.
I've believed certain things, but I need to come.
Others might say I'm fed up with that stone in my shoe.
I could do with a a friend's prayer to help me into that.
I'd love to introduce you to the friend of sinners.
That's what Jesus called himself, a friend of sinners.
That's a friend of you and me. You might need a special
cleansing today. Don't waste it.
Don't leave it, you know, just come and let's pray together.
Come to this God who knows you and still loves you.
He still wants you. He died to save you.
You remember? Let's pray Lord Jesus.
Well we are, we are gobsmacked. We, we are stunned, Lord that
you would want fellowship with us.
And that was the whole point. Lord, we know that in eternity
past, Father, Son, Holy Spirit loved each other too much, so
loved each other. They said let's share our love
and make men and women. Let's share our love with them.
And we know it went wrong, Lord, and we've seen this sinful
nature that we know we have. But we thank you, we're born
again. We have God, life within us.
We thank you. That's going to live forever
with you. And Lord, we don't want to be
mastered by anything of our old nature.
And I asked all that today there might be a cleansing around this
room. As brothers and sisters here,
just say, Lord, I'll be honest with how I am.
Thank you Lord, as I'm honest. So you come and forgive and I
pray that about your cleansing here.
I also pray in equipment. I pray a change in our attitude
to you. Forgive us for thinking that
you're a hard God that is so difficult to please, that is so
far from the truth. You are easy to please.
We're on your side. You love us and you want to keep
changing us. And I say Lord, today we want to
love you even more. May you you add people to this
church you might come in. Know the cleansing and the love
of God here in Jesus name, Amen.