A Message on Holiness - 1 Jo..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. I'm going to invite you to please open up your Bibles to the first letter of John. Very good.

First letter of John, my dear brother, my dear sister, my dear soul. We're going to continue with our studies with the first letter of the Apostle John to the church and to us, to each believer. The Spirit of God has given us this letter that we have in the first letter of John. Today, by God's grace, we are going to be addressing the exposition or the message that the Apostle John has for us in verses 5 in chapter 1 through chapter 2, verse 2. So in the past, we have addressed different concepts or different topics from this portion of the Scriptures.

And today we're going to focus our attention on the message that the Apostle John wants to communicate to the church. And of course, we believe by faith that this is also for us, for every single Christian. So we're going to be addressing that message there that starts in verse 5 in chapter 1, goes into chapter 2, into verse 2. Brethren, as I said to you, we are going to be addressing the person of the Scripture that is found in 1st John from verse 5 in chapter 1 through verse 2 in chapter 2. And if there's going to be a simple summary of what I want to generally do this afternoon is just to speak to you or the message better of the apostle, which I'm going to try to communicate to you is a message of holiness.

The apostle is calling the church, the recipients of this letter, and the saints who, in consequent generations, will read these words. The message here, starting in verse 5, is a message of holiness, and holiness before God, and more particularly, God the Father. That is the message that we are going to be trying to see and understand from these verses, the 5 verses there in chapter 1 and the first 2 verses in chapter 2. And I want us to read carefully the first chapter and the first 2 verses of the second chapter, thinking about that. that the apostle and the Holy Spirit is exhorting not only the church who received initially this letter, but also us.

Your soul, my dear brother and sister and friend, is exhorting you to holiness. That is to put sin to death. And in fact, the emphasis of the apostle is going to be unseen. As you can see that you're going to be reading many times the word, seen in that portion of Scripture, a message of holiness and holiness before God, and more specifically, God the Father. So let us please read together chapter 1 and the first 2 verses.

of chapter 2, and Lord Jesus, give us freedom to speak, please. This is the word of the Lord. that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you, also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us.

And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Verse 4, And we are writing these things, so that your or our joy may be complete. Verse 5, This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you. The God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, We lie and do not practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses 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 sins, He, that is God, is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him, that is God, a liar, and his word, God's word, is not in us.

Chapter 2, 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, God the Father. Who is that? Jesus Christ, the righteous. And in verse 2, he changes to Christ now.

He, Christ, is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Amen. My dear brother and my dear sister, and as I said to you, my desire for the desire from my heart to speak and to deal with this portion of the scripture in the context of Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church is that we will meditate together around the message that the apostle is trying to communicate to the early church and also to us. And as I said to you, that is a message very clearly stated there of Holiness, and that is more particularly in our battle, in our war to sin.

It's holiness that He is calling us to, and holiness before God the Father. That is a general summary of the message of the Apostle. And if I was going to give you a little bit more detail on the summary of the message of the Apostle John to the church, I would say that this message of holiness is going to be an exhortation, an instruction. This message that John wants to communicate in these verses here is an exhortation and instruction to holiness before God the Father. The desire of John the Apostle for your soul is to both exhort you and to instruct you unto your personal holiness.

Holiness that you are to have before God the Father. And when I say holiness, what I mean generally is that process, this ongoing process into which every single genuine believer is put in upon regeneration and sanctification. There's absolutely no genuine believer who is not in the pilgrimage, in the path of sanctification. A person who has been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, is sprinkled once for all with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, is positionally sanctified, set apart, so that from that moment onwards, they will start a process of progressive sanctification. There's no Christian under heaven and on earth who has been genuinely saved by the power of the gospel, who is not in the progressive process of sanctification.

This is going to look different from believer to believer. But Jesus Christ is going to complete the work that he has started in each one of the believers. And that is a work of conformity to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that when he comes or when he takes up to glory, We will be the end, the finished work of the hand of the Savior, and glory will come and take us to be with our Savior. As we live this life and as we take each one of our steps in this pilgrimage that we call Christianity, the Bible and the Holy Spirit, through the Scripture, exhort us continually to holiness. And the apostle John, of course, is not going to be the exception.

The message of this apostle in this whole letter is a message of Christ's likeness, and his emphasis is going to be different from stage of the letter to stage of the letter, addressing different points of unrighteousness that abide, not only outside of us, to which we are very good at assessing at times, but more importantly, inside of us, of which at times we're slow to identify. This letter is a letter that seeks to point the Christian to the reality that genuine salvation is not something that happens in the head, but is. knowing God intimately, not with the head, but with the heart, moved naturally in the paths and in the ways of Christ, led by the Spirit. And that requires a process of sanctification. None of that is what I had planned to say, but please, Let me just focus your attention once again to this passage.

As I said to you, my dear brother, my dear sister, the message of this apostle in these verses here is to give you, first of all, an exhortation. Please pay attention to which one of the words that I say. An exhortation, first, and second, an instruction. And this exhortation and this instruction is to holiness. And this holiness is primarily in this version of Scripture, which does not speak of the whole counsel of God, but this version of Scripture before God the Father.

First, exhortation. Second, instruction to holiness before God the Father. And this exhortation, my dear brother, my dear sister, my dear friend, my dear soul, whatever your spiritual condition is, my dear person seated here in front of me, that exhortation of the Apostle John is a prophetic warning to the Christian. It's an exhortation to avoid sin. Did you read the words in the first verse of chapter 2?

These things I write to you so that you may not sin. Everything that he has said before, from verse 5 to the end of the chapter, corresponds to those things that the apostle has written so that you will not sin. That is the exhortation. But then in verse 1 of chapter 2, he says, But if you do sin, he's going to instruct you on how to be holy before the Father, exhorting you not to sin and giving you an instruction what to do or what to know by faith. When you do sin, an exhortation, my dear brother, that I hope that you can hear the urgency of the apostle.

And not only the urgency of the apostle, but the urgency of the Holy Spirit. An urgency that when you read those things between verse 5 and verse 10 of chapter 1, that when you read those things, these things have been written by the Holy Spirit that you will not sin. A prophetic urgency and utterance from the Spirit of God through John, so that you will read those things and then you will see the importance of not giving yourself to sin, because sin happens to be deceitful. And if you say that you have fellowship with God while you're walking in darkness, you deceive yourself. You are a liar and you're not practicing the truth.

And guess what? Your heart is going to naturally take you to be a spiritual liar. The nature that we have inside of us is going to naturally take us to try to pretend something that we are not, and to deviate us from the ways of the Lord. So, the apostle says, if you say that you have fellowship with God, While you're walking in darkness, you are a liar, and the truth is not in us. If you say that you have not seen, you deceive yourself, and the truth is not in you.

Even if you say that you have not committed any sin before God, you make God a liar, and His word is not in us. That is the urgency of the apostle. That is the urgency of the scriptures, that you will see the rottenness, the power of sin, and how sin can easily take your conscience, and how easily it can take you to walk in darkness, and to justify yourself when you're walking in darkness. So the apostle says, I have written these things. that you may not sin.

And if a person is not afraid with the possibility of giving themselves over darkness and to walk in darkness, and if a person considers themselves so strong and firm and so mature that this Scripture does not apply to them, let me tell you that that demonstrates already your spiritual immaturity. That already demonstrates your spiritual infancy. If your heart is so hard, so hardened, that the words of the apostle simply pass through your ears, and the warnings of this prophet are unheard by your heart, let me tell you once again, that that already demonstrates that you are in a very dark spiritual condition, perhaps even lost, when if you're generally in Christ walking already in darkness. Because in a sense, when a person is genuinely saved, that person starts two new relationships. The first and most important relationship is with God, the God that once they hated, now by virtue of the Holy Spirit coming to their heart, now they love.

But the second and very important relationship for those Christians is that now they have a new relationship to sin. The sin in which they were in bondage and they were taken captive and it was natural for them to commit, now they hate. And their Christianity is a path and is a pilgrimage of these two relationships, growing in love for the Lord, and growing in hatred and separation from sin. And if a person does not experience, if a person has not tasted the blackness, the thickness of the wickedness, the thickness of the blackness of sin, and if a person is unaware to the dangers of it, That person has already been taken by the deceitfulness of sin. And that person will be...

What is the word that you have for the person that cannot hear? Theft? Death? Death? That will not be able to hear the words of the Lord.

And our faith comes by hearing. Brethren, exhortation not to sin. Connected with those words in verse 1 of chapter 2. that you may not sin. But the apostle is not only coming with this warning, this urgency, as a prophet, as Jeremiah, as Isaiah, as Zechariah, coming here to prophesy and to speak to the people of God with the urgency that they will not give themselves unto unrighteousness.

He also comes with a pastoral heart, with a shepherd's heart, to say that if anyone sins, if anyone sins, he says, All of these things I'm writing to urgently call you not to give yourself to sin. All of these things that I have written so far, please don't give yourself unto darkness. Don't give yourself unto spiritual hypocrisy. Don't give yourself. But if anyone sins, Christ comes.

The great shepherd comes through John to say, if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation, not only for your sins, but for the sins of the world. Brethren, this is the whole counsel of the Lord in this version of Scripture. This is sound doctrine. This is the balance of it.

That your holiness depends upon the divine exhortations of God that calls you constantly. Do not take the path of unrighteousness. Hear the voice. Do not take the path of blackness. Do not take the path of hypocrisy.

Do not follow your flesh. But then if the genuine believer sins, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous and with the Father. The advocate that we have is with the Father. The forgiveness of our sins is before the Father, the Father who poured his wrath upon Jesus Christ to save the church.

The one who sent his son as a propitiation for the sins of the church, of the bride of Christ. The one who judged the sins of the church upon the cross, so that we will be completely forgiven. We are told by the Apostle here, that we have an advocate with the Father. My dear brother, my dear sister, I hope and I pray that we will grow in Christ likeness and in holiness, because there's absolutely nothing more detrimental for the growth of the Christian than to be walking in darkness and to be so deceived by the presence of sin in our heart that we think or that person believes that they are walking in light when they are walking in darkness. When sin is increasing, when sin is just simply spreading through every single area of their lives and they profess with their mouth that I have fellowship with God.

This is the exhortation that the apostle is going to give us and the way that he's going to give us this exhortation is very simple. In a sense, I could just simply finish there and then just get you to read the verses there in light of that message that John is giving us an exhortation and an instruction to holiness before God the Father. But the way that he's going to do it is, of course, very important for us to see and go through the text, so that we will go deeper from it. So let us see how he starts, because the way that he starts is going to be very important. He's going to give us a very important statement in verse 5.

He says, And this is the message that we have heard from him and declared to you, that God is light, and in him that is God, the Father of God, is no darkness at all. The way that this apostle is going to start the exhortation and the instruction to holiness before God the Father specifically, is by pointing us and telling us to the character of God himself. He says that God is light, And in him is no darkness at all. But pay attention to the words that the apostle uses, because the apostle does not say that God is righteous and that everything that he does is righteous, but rather the apostle speaks of the being of God. It says God is light.

And when he puts it in the opposite, it says, and in him is no darkness at all. Speaking of the being of God. And this is a glorious reality, my dear brother and dear sister, because if the Christian is going to understand personal, practical holiness, then the believer has to first First of all, to put the eyes in the one who is holy and the apostle calls him light, that he is light and in him is no darkness at all. Now, my dear brother, my dear brother, sister and friend, think about all the darkness and all the unrighteousness and all the blackness and all the wickedness that we see outside of us and that we have experienced in our hearts. All the corruption, all the lies, all the problems, all the envy, all the hatred between humans and even the hatred or problems that we will have inside of us.

All of that is blackness and darkness. And the Bible does not only tell us through John in this verse, that God is not that, but that God is contrary to that. The experience of all unrighteousness and blackness that we observe and see outside of us, and even within our hearts, is not a good point of comparison for us to understand holiness, because God is contrary to that, the opposite to that. God is light. But the reason for why that statement is so important to this text is not only because of the glorious reality of what we have seen there in the fact that God is holy, but also, my dear brother and sister, is because from that statement, the exhortation and the instruction is going to be derived or rooted.

Pay attention carefully to the structure, the grammatical structure to the text, if that will make sense, perhaps. If you pay attention to the grammatical structure or to the structure of the text, you will see that verse 5 says, this is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is not darkness at all. From that point onwards, Every single verse is going to be a potential scenario or a possibility of the Christian life that is stated with the word, if. That is that what comes after this statement in verse 5, that God is light and in Him is not darkness at all, is related and is connected to, in the text, with each one of these verses with the word, if, in which we can see a potential scenario of the Christian life. That is, those scenarios of the Christian life are to be understood in light of that statement that the apostle has given in verse 5, that God is light and in Him is not darkness at all.

You can clearly see that in each one of the verses. From that statement about God, then each verse is going to speak about the practical life of the Christian. It says, verse 6, if we say that we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie or we deceive ourselves and we do not practice the truth. It says in verse 7, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, We have fellowship one with the other, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. Then we have in verse 8, if we say that we have no sin inside of us, then we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

Then we say in verse 9, if we confess our sins, he's just and faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. And even It continues into chapter 2 when it says, and if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. All of those potential scenarios in the Christian life come from the mind of the apostle as he has stated that God is holy. And of course, he is not saying with the words God is holy.

But when you see the use of the word light and darkness, and that's why I preached the topical message on light and darkness like three or four months ago, is speaking about practical holiness for the Christian that is derived from God. My dear brother, my dear sister, please pay attention to me. My words are coming out like bricks in my brain, at least, but please pay attention to me. Our holiness depends completely on the holiness of God. Our light, according to the words of John, walking in the light, practicing the truth, all of that is practical holiness.

Our practical holiness, your practical holiness depends upon the holiness of God, that God is light. That means that there is absolutely nothing that I can do in and of myself to make me holy. There is absolutely nothing that I can know, or learn, or to push, or just to grow to be strong, to make myself holy or more sanctified. And that is because I cannot produce holiness from myself. The one who is light, and in whom is not darkness at all, is God himself.

And all holiness that a person can have is just the result of the relationship that that person has with that holy God. Nothing can be done. No moralistic principle, no rules that we apply, no path that we take can produce in and of themselves, we will need rules, we will need things to do, we will need things to learn, we will need things to push. But none of those things in and of themselves can produce in us the light that we are called to have. Now, is the holiness of the light of God the one that produces light and holiness in us as believers?

And I don't know about you, but the question that follows is, how does that holiness of God, which is true and is a fact, how does His holiness Make me holy, because His holiness was, is, and it will continue to be, and it will never change. And even though that is true and it's a fact, what we're asking ourselves here is practically for the believer, how does that true make me holy? Because the exhortation of the apostle here is not just simply to tell that God is holy. He has said it and the scriptures testify of it. The burden of the apostle is that you will be holy.

Because without holiness, no one shall see the Lord. And because without holiness, nobody will enter into the presence of the Lord. The burden of the apostle and the burden of the Spirit of Christ is that the Christian will be holy. So then the question is, how does the holiness of God, which is true and is unchanging, there is no variation or shadow of turning with the Father of light. Nothing changes with him.

He is holy. He was, he is, and he will continue to be holy. How does that make me holy? And in order, brothers and sisters, to answer that very important question, in order to create the connection between holiness, the holiness of God, and the practical holiness of the believer, I need to point you, before we ever get into the substance of this text, to the correct definition and understanding of practical holiness. Because at times, my dear brother and my dear sister, we are just used to this oversimplified version or definition of holiness that we hear from preachers and theologians that say, what is holiness?

To be set apart. to be separated unto, that is to be holy. And while my dear brother and sister, there is much true that being holy is to be set apart, it is to be separated, biblically speaking, Being holy and holiness for the believer is much more than being separated or being set apart. It comprises, it has a whole reality that if we are just taken by the fact that being holy is just to be set apart, we can easily be tempted to think about that from which I am supposed to be separated from. And that can take the mind and the heart of the believer to think about holiness only in terms of sin.

So then the Christian will come and in order to be holy and to walk uprightly, they will say, what are the things that I know I'm not supposed to do? What are the things that I'm not supposed to say? What are the things that I'm not supposed to watch? And I'm just going to create all of these parameters and this list of practices and things that I will not do. And by not doing them, I am separating myself from that which is unrighteous.

being holy. While there is a lot of truth, according to the scriptures, to remove ourselves from sin and to the practices of sins, holiness, my dear brother and sister, is much more than that. There is a verse in the scriptures that always illustrates this in my mind. And that is the way that I understand it and is the easiest way for me to explain to you because that's the way that I understand it. It is in First Timothy chapter six.

If you come to First Timothy chapter six, my dear brother and sister, I want to show you a verse there that illustrates what I consider to understand with my current understanding of the Scriptures, what the whole meaning of holiness is, that it's not only to be set apart or separated. Are you understanding what I'm saying, brethren? I feel that I'm speaking like a very broken language. In 1 Timothy chapter 6, Now here, Paul, and I think that I've shared this with some of you. Brethren, please pay attention.

If the Lord speaks to you, what I'm trying to communicate to you, a thing that is going to help you a lot, not only in your practical life, but also in your theology. And even though I cannot go into what this could prevent, the errors that theologically or the errors that this could prevent in a theological sense, because we're speaking about a different matter. If you see it, if you see it, what I'm going to try to show you, you will see how many theological errors, perhaps you've heard antinomianism or legalism or things like that, can be avoided by understanding properly the concept of holiness, practical holiness for the believer. I think I said 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 6. Now here, The apostle is given instructions to Timothy as a pastor, right?

You remember, first Timothy is for Timothy as a pastor. And he's speaking about these particular matters, instructions that pertain to the role of Timothy. But the holiness and the sanctification of an elder, of a pastor, is not substantially different to the holiness of the believer. It's not that because you're a pastor or a shepherd, your holiness is categorically different. It's the same.

We are all Christians and our holiness comes from the Lord. And the workings of the spirit in conformity to Christ are exactly the same. So I'm just saying that because here the words apply primarily to Timothy as an elder, as a pastor, but this applies to all Christians. In chapter 6, it's in verse 11, verse 11, it says, But as for you, O men of God, flee these things. And the things are the previous things that false teachers were giving themselves unto.

You can read that in your own time in from verse three onwards. He had spoken about all the unrighteous things that false teachers were doing, and that were liking the sins and the unrighteousness. So he calls and he says to Timothy, as for you, O men of God, flee these things, in other words, separate yourself, right? Set yourself apart from these unrighteous things. So in order to be holy, you are to flee, to set apart from those things.

But the apostle does not leave it there. He does not say just holiness or practical righteousness is to flee from those things because he continues and says, pursue Righteousness, that is flee from those things that are unrighteous and pursue or go after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. What is the good fight of the faith? Fleeing from all of that unrighteousness and going or pursuing all of these virtues, which are going to be qualified now in the next statement, it says, Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.

And brethren, if you remember the second sermon, perhaps you may not. But if you do, the second sermon that I preach on 1 John, I said to you that eternal life is not a concept. Eternal life is a person. And that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is that holiness is not only fleeing those things that are wrong and unrighteous, and all of these things that are wicked, but genuine, practical, individual holiness comes with a fleeing with a direction.

I can flee from unrighteousness without direction. And I can find myself just trying to point and find things that are not holy, unrighteous and wicked in my life and fleeing and separating myself from them without direction. And that is not make a person holy. That is going to make a person bearing a very heavy load or burden. of righteousness that they cannot carry on their own, and ultimately is going to make them hypocrites.

Because if there is no pursuing of righteousness in the person of Jesus Christ, holiness will never take place. Brethren, brethren, even though I feel that I'm just not being very clear with the things that I say, but practical holiness is the active pursuing of righteousness in Christ, active pursuing of righteousness of Christ, as you flee from the things that are wicked and unrighteous. Now, that which leads holiness is not the fleeing, That which leads holiness is the pursuing. Because that is the direction that the person has to take is Jesus Christ. We set our eyes on the things that are righteous.

That is the person of Jesus Christ. And the more that we actively pursue the things that are righteous, the more aware that I'm going to be of those things that I have to generally flee from, not in the flesh. So that is what is called, according to the scriptures, conformity to Christ. Sanctification is not simply cutting my practices that I thought that they were wrong and that they were unrighteous and wicked. Sanctification is becoming like the person of Jesus Christ.

And in Jesus Christ, there's no unrighteousness. Unrighteousness is in the world and in my heart. And hence, when I pursue him, I'm able to flee from that which is unrighteous. And the balance has to be understood very clearly, my dear brother and my dear sister, because the burden of the Christian or the intention of the Christian should always be to pursue the Lord Jesus Christ above every single thing. And that is going to enable and empower him to deal with a sin from which they have to flee.

The reason why I'm emphasizing that is because different portions of the scriptures will take those aspects of holiness with different weights. Now, the Apostle John is going to point us to Christ very clearly through the letter, but the portion of the scripture that we are trying to or I'm trying to explain to you deals primarily with fleeing from sin. Now, you will see that when you are genuinely pursuing Jesus Christ, that when the heart of the believer is genuinely pursuing righteousness in Him, their fleeing and their battle and their work against sin is going to be Christ-centered. When a person is not pursuing Christ, when a person is not pursuing the righteousness that is found only in Him, their battle against sin and unrighteousness is going to be a fleshly battle and it's going to be Christ-less. And Christ is not going to be commanding the heart of that person that is trying to fight against sin.

That's why when we read here, these verses here that I'm not being able to explain very clearly, but these verses that we have in 1 John 1, you can see that the emphasis is, of course, on fleeing from darkness and sin, but it's all Christ-centered. It is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. It is Christ, the one that is an advocate, that helps us and empowers us and strengthens us. It's Christ. Because when the mind and the heart of the Christian are pointed to the person of Jesus Christ in that process of holiness, then our dealings with sin are going to be proper and as they should be.

So let us return, please, to 1 John 1. All of those things I have said, my dear brother, as the same apostle was saying in the ending of 2 John, having said those things in my case, not with ink, but with words, and having you in front of me, not like the apostle John who did not have the church in front of him. Having said all of those things, I think that it's sufficient for us to see the burden of the apostle here exhorting us and instructing us to be holy before God the Father. A Christ-centered holiness. Christ-centered holiness.

And as I said to you from verse 5, we can see here that your holiness depends upon the holiness of God. God who is light. You cannot have light in and of yourself if you don't have communion with the Lord. Your holiness depends upon Him. And as I said to you, how then are we going to connect the holiness of God with the practical holiness of the believer?

What is the connection? How is this holiness of God that is true and is a fact? How does that impact or change my life? Because my dear brother and my dear sister, there have been many preachers, there have been many Christians, there have been many people through church history who have uttered words about holiness. There have been many people who have written words about the depths and how profound the holiness of God is.

Many people who are very bold to speak of the holiness of God and to dissect the Hebrew and the Greek and to speak about the holiness of God. There are so many people who are so good at teaching and explaining what the holiness of God is. And many people who have lofty and high reputation because of the things that they have said about the holiness of God and the many books that they have written about holiness of God and none of those writings and none of those sermons and none of those intellectual efforts and none of those teachings or whatever they have done or any human can do will ever bring the reality of holiness or the holiness of God into that person. It is not what we know about the holiness of God, what makes us holy. It is not about understanding the right definition of the word and having the proper systematic theology and having just collected the verses that speak about the holiness of God and having memorized them and then just simply speak about them.

It's not about the things that we can say or think or even know of the holiness of God. It requires more than that. And I think that this is a very important question, because it's not only about knowing the holiness of God, my dear brother and sister, it's about experiencing, as the old preachers would say, the imparted righteousness of Christ, the imparted holiness of Christ. It's experiencing the hand of God upon you so clearly that you say, Oh, Lord, depart from me, I'm a sinner. Depart from me, Lord, how do you dare to speak to me?

How do you dare to show me that? How do you dare, O Lord, to even save me? Is it even wrong that you have saved me? Because the unrighteousness that is now clearly manifested, and that, my dear brother and sister, no sermon, no word that has been written, no book will bring that reality into your heart. And the question that the genuine believer should ask him and herself is not so much what am I going to say about holiness, but it's how am I going to experience?

How am I going to receive the imparted holiness of Christ, the imparted righteousness of Christ? How am I going to die to self? How am I going to die to these thoughts? How am I going to die to these practices? How am I going to die to these ways?

How am I going to have victory upon this? How am I going to remove myself from this path of unrighteousness? That is the question that has to be answered. Because when we do church, we all look good and we are all seated and all do things correctly. but it's in the secret place of the heart that reality and life takes place, my dear brother and my dear sister.

And I think that that question is answered by the apostle in this section of the scriptures with two words. Two words that I'm just simply using as a method of teaching you what the passage teaches there so that you will remember. How do we connect the fact and the truth of the holiness of God with the experience of the believer? And I think that the puzzle answers that with two words. The first one is belief.

And the second one depends from that word is depend or is derived from that word is depend. We are to believe, and we are to depend. And the first word that is answered there, or the first word that I'm using to answer that question, belief, is implicitly stated there in verse 5. I don't know if you pay attention there to how the holiness of God, or the fact that God is light is given to us. It says, this is the message that we have heard.

And this message they heard from? Him, and that Him happens to be the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Apostle John, who in the previous verses, verses one through four, has spoken about his witnessing and his fellowship with the eternal life, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he says, and this is the message, speaking of the gospel, this is the message that we have heard from Him, from the Lord Jesus Christ. And having now received this message from the Lord Jesus Christ, we proclaim to you.

And what is that message? That God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Nothing that comes after this, nothing of the practical life, none of those potential scenarios that we see in verses 6 and onwards with the if, if, if, if. will ever make sense if the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is not only heard by the apostles, but also proclaimed by the Spirit, but more importantly, received by faith. My dear brother and sister, faith is the initial requirement and element, if you allow me to use that word in a Calvinistic environment, to not only be saved initially, but also to grow in conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. For the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed, and that is revealed from faith to faith. If the Christian is going to experience the holiness of God, then that person is supposed to live in the power of God that is meant and is supposed to be the power of the gospel. That's why many people in the 17th and in the 16th century believed and defined sanctification as the continual and ongoing assessment and meditation upon your justification.

Many people, brethren, in the 17th and 16th century, define sanctification or holiness as the ongoing, devoted process of the Christian's meditation and thankfulness upon the fact that they have been justified. Because they said, if a person continually and ongoingly meditates and gives themselves to think upon the justification that they experienced when they first were first saved through the power of the gospel, this is going to come and give them greater realization of that state, thankfulness and move them into holiness and into sanctification. While there is elements of truth in that, there's also many other things, because our sanctification is the person of Jesus Christ. It's not only about a mental thought, that we have on our justification. Sanctification, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 1, in the end of that, I think it's verse 30, says that Jesus Christ is our sanctification.

But my dear brother and my dear sister, without believing the gospel and that in the gospel is the necessity that God is light and in him is not darkness at all, then we're not going to be satisfied and sanctified. And you see there, my dear brother and my dear sister, how the holiness of God is a key element to our understanding of the message that Jesus Christ gave to the apostles. We cannot understand the fullness of the message of the gospel in salvation if we don't hear these words that God is light and in Him is not darkness at all. Because we are forgiven, because He is light and we are darkness. And Him being light, He decided to condescend in the person of Christ, that even though we are darkness, He died for us and He forgave us.

And my dear brother and sister, that message is powerful. And that message is supposed to be apprehended by faith. It is faith that is necessary first. And that happens in your heart, maybe your brother, maybe your sister. It's not something that happens in your mind.

Please, let me call you in much love and in grace to examine yourself and to see where your faith abides. Is your faith abiding in your head? Have you been instructed with these certain ideas that you agree and you confirm with your head? Or is your faith fully and completely deposited in your heart, so that when you open the Word of God, you believe? You are instructed, you hear the voice of the shepherd, you hear the voice of your Savior, you're moved, you're led, you're taken, you're captivated by the beauty of Christ, just purely by this faith in this Jesus Christ who saved you and redeemed you, because it is necessary.

That if we are going to be sanctified initially, that we will hear the message that John heard from the Lord Jesus Christ, and proclaim to us that God is light, and in Him is not darkness at all, as a central, vital element of the gospel. Because without faith, it's impossible to please the Lord. Faith. That faith is going to be manifested, my dear brother and sister, on dependence. And the way that the Apostle is going to present the dependence is with fellowship.

Apostle, after he has said that this is the message that we have heard from him and we've declared to you that God is light and in him is not darkness at all, then he's going to apply this to the practical life of the believer in light of the expected fellowship that the Christian is to have with God. And in this case, God, the Father. Fellowship with the Triune God. The way that we have fellowship with God the Father is in the power of the Holy Spirit and through the person of Jesus Christ, because no one comes to the Father except through the Lord Jesus Christ. But we are called to have fellowship with God.

And that fellowship does not happen to be only with the Lord Jesus Christ. Fellowship we have with each one of the persons of the Trinity, with the Holy Spirit that leads us, moves us and direct us to Christ. And it's through Christ and his propitiatory work and his condescending life and his triumphant kingdom that we enter into the presence of the throne of grace in time of need to be in the presence of the Father. And in this context here, the Apostle John has in his mind the Father and Faith, my dear brother and my dear sister, is going to unnecessarily move to fellowship and dependence. What does it need?

If I was going to ask one of my kids to be holy, what does it need? What do you need in order to be holy? Once the Lord has saved you, what do you need to be holy? You need genuine, powerful faith and power through the gospel. Second, dependence.

Dependence, and that is manifested, my dear brother and sister, in fellowship. That's why he says, if we say that we have fellowship with him, and we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Why? Because implicitly, the apostle says, if you have fellowship with Him, you're walking in the light. And by walking in the light, you are practicing the truth.

And having fellowship is to have communion with the Triune God, in this case, with the Father. Now, my dear brethren, pay attention to this. Our lives depend not only upon faith, which happens inside of us, but our lives depend upon our fellowship with God. There's no Christian that is going to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit who does not have fellowship and communion with God. In this case, God the Father, in the power of the Spirit, through Jesus Christ approaching the Father, there is absolutely no one who is going to practice the truth of walking the light, who is not in the presence of the light itself.

That is what I said in the beginning, that nothing can be done by a human to sanctify or to be holy in and of themselves. All holiness and all light comes from the presence of God. And in order for me to be light and to be salt into the world, I had to be touched by the one who is light, by the one who is power and spend time in his presence. A person knows when a man has been in the presence of God, just in the same way that a person knows when a man has not been in the presence of God. My dear brother, there's absolutely nothing that the power of the flesh and the efforts of the mind and the efforts of the heart can just simply disguise and pretend.

Holiness is not bought and holiness is not disguised and holiness is not pretended. It is only acquired or received. from communion with faithful communion with the Lord. And there are many things that I'm going to say, and because of my lack of ability to say the things that I wanted to say with you, I'm just simply going to say the most important thing that I wanted to share with you. Because the question is, my dear brother and sister, how do I have genuine fellowship with the Lord?

How do I have this type of fellowship communion with God? that will move me to holiness, that will move me to die to this sin, that will move me to die to these thoughts, that will move me and take me to be victorious upon these words that I shouldn't have said, or this place, or this person that I shouldn't have looked at, or this thought that I shouldn't have had, or this place that I shouldn't have visited, or this thing that I shouldn't have done. Who, how, what is needed? What is the process? Let me just simply tell you something very important.

In Hebrews chapter 11, the Bible answers that question as clear as the waters or as clear as it could be. Hebrews chapter 11 says to us how we are to have communion with the Lord. Verses that you have read and verses that you have seen many times. But brethren, let us see them together here. Hebrews chapter 11.

You know which verse I'm going to refer you to? That's it, verse 6. Pay attention, right brethren? This is just simply the truth. It says, "...

and without faith, it is impossible to please Him." That is one thing, but it continues, "...for whoever would draw near to God must believe that it is faith that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him." Communion and fellowship with God summarized. Remember what I said to you?

Faith. And that is implicitly what John says in the first verse. This is the message that we heard from Jesus Christ and now we proclaim to you. And that from that message that God is light and in him is not darkness at all. All the other potential practices of the Christian life are derived.

Faith is needed. Genuine faith will move you to depend. have fellowship with the Lord. That's why I said, brethren, brethren, examine yourself. Examine yourself.

What are the fruits of your faith? And I ask this in much grace and love. How much did you pray today? How much? You said I had a busy day.

How much did you pray yesterday? You said I have had a couple of busy days. How much have you prayed in the last three days? I had a very difficult week. How much have you prayed in the last week?

How much have you prayed in the last month? Brethren, how much have you prayed in the last year? Because it's very easy for me just to come and speak words. And it's very easy for you just to receive words. And it's very easy just simply for us just to tick boxes of Christianity and appease our conscience and just go through it.

My dear brethren, Be very careful with your spiritual life. Be very careful with your spiritual life and with the words that you say, and the authority that you give unto yourself, having a disconnection between the things that you say and the things that are in your heart. Be very careful with that, because the Lord is going to judge you by every word that comes out of your mouth, every thought that comes and crosses your mind, absolutely everything, the Lord is going to expose it. And we are very religious and very good people when we are in the context of the church. Faith.

that draws near to God. And now, my dear brethren, let me just simply take it, and I completely failed in communicating what I wanted to communicate with you, but let me just simply take it to a deeper level here, and please bear, keep your attention with me. It says here, and without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to Him or to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. The requirement for drawing near to God and to please the Lord is faith. Now, what is the practice of the virtue that according to the Scriptures is the source of faith?

The Word of God. Come to Romans, please. And I wanted you to see the connection there between because, dear brethren, when I was in Mexico, you know that I was in Mexico, I would spend, dear sisters and brothers, 13 hours per day praying, fasting and studying. Not one, not two, not three, not four, 13 hours per day for many days. And I was in sin.

All of the time I was in sin. to the church had to confront me about my sin. Because I had the diligence to pray for 13 hours. No, I'm not to 13 hours per day. Yet, I was in sin.

The only reason why I say that is because in the flesh, anyone can make themselves diligent in praying or make themselves diligent in reading the scriptures or making themselves diligent in religious duties. And that is not the point. The point is what is in the heart. It comes to Romans chapter 10. That is very correct what brother G said.

The source of genuine faith is the Word of God. Chapter 10, verse 17 says, So faith comes by or from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. If you have the ESV or if you have a different translation, the word of God. So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of God. Now, let me just ask this question, having failed completely to communicate my message.

But let me just ask this question, my dear brother and my dear sister. What is the source of genuine faith that is the requirement for you to draw near in fellowship with God? What is it? It's not a tricky question. It is the Word of God, but more than the Word of God, to hear the Word of God.

Faith comes from hearing and hearing the Word of Christ. Genuine fellowship with the Lord. is rooted by a genuine love to the words that he has spoken, the things that he has done, that he's doing, and that he will do. That requires initial childlike faith. It is faith what draws me close to this book, and it's faith what draws me close to the words.

And by coming close to the words, to the scriptures, I feel my heart, my mind, my soul, this word dwelling richly within me, because it's through the Word of God that I can see Jesus Christ. And it's the Holy Spirit through the Word of God that leads me to the Father in the person of Jesus Christ. And it's through the Word of God that I'm going to fill my mouth to pray. As the Puritans will say, to pray your prayers. Because when you pray in the flesh, after one month or two months, you find yourself repeating the same words that you're taking from your mind.

Because your heart is empty from the power. Your heart is empty from the words. Your heart is empty from the presence of Christ. Your heart is empty from the touch of the Savior. Your heart is empty.

Your soul has not experienced community with the Savior. You're not given a new song. You're not given a new word. You're not given a new prayer. You're not given a new thought.

Because you have not spent time with the one that is the fountain of water, the fountain of life, the fountain of power. in the flesh, nothing can be accomplished. It is only by faith, my dear brother, it is only by genuine faith, childlike faith, that we have communion with the Savior, fellowship with the Savior, coming to the Word of God and desiring to treasure up this Word, not the words of men, as I was doing for 13 hours in Mexico, reading the books that you will never read. The books that nobody knows and nobody cares about is about this glorious book. It is taking the words of God into the heart, transforming completely the mind and the heart of a person.

Because when the abundance of the heart of a person is the person of Jesus Christ and the words of Christ and the mouth speaks. No hidden repetitions, no hidden practices, no Gentile repetitions. But the words of Christ, the hint of the Savior has been upon that person transforming that person. Fellowship with God, my dear brother and sister. Genuine faith that moves a person to dependence with God.

Fellowship with God. And that moves us to walk in the light as He is in the light. Because, my dear brethren, when a person has been in genuine fellowship with God, according to 1 John, if I can perhaps rescue this message, if you come back to 1 John. Dear brethren, dear brethren, Let me just name them, you know, like name the benefits, the genuine benefits of genuine fellowship with God. Faithful, faithful.

And when I say faithful, I'm referring to faith filled, faithful fellowship with God. That is, that you are filled with faith, a faith that is the result of hearing the words of God, that you have heard the words of God because it's the same faith that is drawing you to Him, that you are fully convinced. That are the two elements by the way of genuine prayer. Brethren, two elements of genuine prayer, that your prayers are always with the presence of faith, that you're not faithless when you're praying and that you're conscious of God's presence. That is that you're praying with faith, that you're praying filled with faith of the things that you're uttering before the Lord.

Faith, faithful, and also that you're aware of His presence, because that is what the Scripture says, that He hears you and that He is there and He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Because who is going to answer your prayers? If you're just simply grabbing elements and thoughts from your mind and not from your heart? If you're praying without faith, and you're praying without the consciousness of the presence of the Lord, as if He's just simply somewhere there, and I'm just speaking to this God that happens to hear me, because He's God who hears it all. But rather, it's much different when the one who prays, prays with faith, as if He was just there next to you.

Now, my dear brethren, I continue to keep going outside of what I want to say here. Benefits of having fellowship with God, brethren. The first one is that you're going to leave the truth implicitly given to us in verse six. If we say that we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Did you know that the truth is not to be known, but it's to be practiced?

That's what it says, right? The truth is not to be known alone or only, but it's also to be practiced. Because the person who knows the truth and does not know and does not do what they're supposed to do is not only a sinner, but it's also a person that is walking in darkness. Because if we say that we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we deceive ourselves. We are liars.

Brethren, genuine fellowship with God will make a person, move a person to live the truth, not believe, but live out, to practice the truth. And that's what Brother Bernie was saying, is that the external thing is a response of what is happening in the heart. And having fellowship, brethren, having fellowship with God, you know what it's going to give you? consistency in your life. consistency in your life.

When you try to have external answers to the matters of life, you're going to find yourself that you have the answers for this particular matter. And you don't have the answers for this particular matter. But when the substance of truth is in your heart, that is going to make you consistent through your life. Sometimes you may not know the external answer to a particular question, but you will have the Spirit of God leading you to know how to act even in the midst of your ignorance. But when you are trying to have the answers only to external matters, not in the heart, it's going to make you a hypocrite.

Having your heart lacking the power of the presence of God, yet having the courage to open your mouth and to be the teacher and the leader of the one that is blind, a blind leading a blind person. And remember that when a person is blind, spiritually speaking, are they aware that they are blind? No, they don't know. They think that they see, they think that they are opening their mouth to speak truth. They are blind spiritually speaking, they don't know, deceived, delusion.

Fellowship, God will protect you from that and will make you live the truth. Not only that, my dear brother and sister, but there in verse 7 also says, because if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another. Genuine fellowship in the context of the church is only the result of individual fellowship with God. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And it seems that the Apostle knows that the fellowship of the saints is going to produce sin.

So then he says, "...and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." That is glorious fellowship of the community. It's not the result of having a barbecue, having a love feast, or just simply coming together. He is walking in the light as He is in the light.

Third, He gives you poverty of the spirit. By the way, that was my sermon, but I just completely failed to give all of that. Third, my dear brother and sister, He gives you poverty of spirit, which is found there in verse 8. Poverty of spirit. That is, that by having genuine fellowship with God, you realize of the holiness and the light of God and also of your unrighteousness so much that the chasm and the separation that exists between the two is so clearly manifested that you will never dare to say, I have no sin.

Because the truth is in you and you know how feeble and how unrighteous you are. And you say, Lord, even though I have sinned, you have condescended to be with me. Poverty of spirit, you are poor in spirit. And then you say, oh Lord, who am I to be in your presence? Who am I to be instructed and led and touched by your hand?

Who am I to have received forgiveness? Who am I? that you gave your only begotten Son to die upon the cross for my soul, poverty of spirit, yet the prideful, the self-righteous is the one that says, I have no sin. And there's absolute certainty that I have no sin. I have not sinned.

Not only, brethren, gives you all of this, but finally, it gives you obedience to the Spirit. Finally, it gives you obedience to the Spirit, and that is found there in verse 9. It says, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Confession of sin, as I defined it when we were in the other building. Biblical confession of sin, you remember?

It is the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit coming to tell you of the sins that you have committed. And confession of sin is agreeing with the light that the Spirit has revealed to you. In other words, it's obeying to the Holy Spirit that is convicting you of the unrighteousness that you have committed and say, I agree with you. I have sinned against the Lord. Not only that, but also the full assurance that He is just and faithful to forgive your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Brethren, that is the exhortation of the Apostle John, but he does not only leave us with an exhortation, he also gives us the instruction. He says, if you sin... Imagine, all of those things have been written that we may not sin. And if anyone sins, he says. Why?

Because your holiness is not only about preventing and removing yourself from the possibility of sinning by having faith in all of these things that he has said, but it's also dealing with your sin according to the gospel. But if anyone sins, he says, not if anyone sins, just a little sin, he says, if anyone sins, generic, every single sin, every single sin that the Christian commits, if anyone sins, and not only the high reputable Christian, if anyone sins, and he says we may, no, he says we have. and advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Sanctification, my dear brother and sister, it is looking to Christ, it is pursuing righteousness as you flee and righteousness is having communion with God by faith that is rooted in the power of the Word of God that transforms your vessel, your earthen vessel, the contents that are within you. So that everything that comes outside is a genuine manifestation of the presence of God in you.

And it's a manifestation of the power of God in you, in every aspect of your life. So then you hear the exhortations of the Apostle and say, Oh, Lord, Thank you for having written those things so that I might not sin, but even if I sin, I have the faith to know that I have an advocate with the Father who is interceding for me, who cares for my soul, who is on my side, and that is the propitiation for my sins, so that even if I sin, I can have the confidence that forgiveness is completely given to me, and I can continue to move through the path of holiness. Sins are forgiven, sins are cleansed, the person is empowered in the person of Jesus Christ, and that is holiness. Amen.