Will you turn with me in your Bibles
to 1 John, chapter 4, and I would
like to read at this point verses 7
and 8 only.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love
is of God, and every one that loveth
is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for
God is love.
Now, our text says, Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God, and
every one that loveth him that begat, loveth
him also that is begotten of him.
By this we know that we love the
children of God when we love God, and
keep his commandments.
For this is the love of God, that
we keep his commandments.
And his commandments are not grievous, for whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world.
And this is the victory that overcometh the
world, even our faith.
Who is he that overcometh the world, but
he that believeth that Jesus is the Son
of God.
Christians have been variously represented during the last
2,000 years.
Various appellations and designations of Christian people have
been given from time to time.
Some of them quite accurate as far as
they go, some a little misleading.
Early in New Testament times, the Christian people
were called Nazarenes.
And we know, of course, the reason for
that.
Jesus came from Nazareth, and those who were
his disciples followed him, and so they called
them the Nazarenes.
Later on in our Lord's ministry, Christian people
were called the people of the way.
Jesus said, I am the way.
And those who followed him walked his way.
They went in his direction.
They went in company with him.
They were on the way with him who
is the way.
And there are very many appellations given to
Christian people from time to time.
In post-New Testament times, I suppose the
first and the most popular for a long
period of time was the holy man.
Christians were known as holy men.
The holy man.
The separated man.
The sanctified man.
The holy man.
Or the holy person.
Then we've had a number of others.
In recent times, we've heard the people speak
of Christians as the men or the people
for others.
I rather like that.
A Christian is a man for others.
He looks away from himself to his God
and his Savior.
And as sure as we look away from
ourselves to God and the Savior, we have
to look at other men and begin to
live for them.
Christians have been called Puritans and Methodists and
what have you.
Some of them are accurate.
Some of them are not.
But I want to turn with you tonight
to three designations of the Christian man which
are absolutely fundamental.
And it's not a question of choosing the
one or the other.
The Apostle John has chosen in these five
verses to bind these three together.
He refers to these three concepts in a
particular grammatical way.
We have participles here.
And he wants to call attention in this
particular little passage to three phases or facets
of a Christian person presenting us with three
characteristics of the portrait of a Christian man
or a Christian woman.
Now, here they are.
First of all, the Christian is a believer.
You have the words to believe or faith
occurring in verses 1, 4, and 5.
We'll refer to them in a moment.
A Christian man is essentially a believer.
The second thing that we have here is
this.
It's the reference to the Christian man as
a lover.
Again, in verses 1, 2, and 3.
Three references.
The Christian is a lover.
There is something romantic about the Christian life.
There is something warm.
It's not just a matter of head, knowledge,
and believing with the intellect.
There is something warm.
There is something that involves the whole of
the man, including his emotions.
He's a lover.
But then, along with that, he's a lover
of a special kind.
He's not a lover who has divorced himself
from the law of God.
He is a lover who keeps the commandments.
And these two things are brought together in
this particular part of the epistle.
They're bound together.
They're not looked upon now separately, but they
belong together.
He loves God, and he loves God's people,
and he keeps God's commandments.
Those two come together now, then, in this
particular passage.
The Christian is a believer, then he's a
lover who obeys the law of God.
And finally, he is an overcomer.
I want to stay with these three concepts
of the Christian man tonight.
And I trust that as we do so,
you and I will see what God expects
of us.
You and I will see what is required
of us if we are to be assured
of our faith.
And what is more, if other men are
to be assured of us that we are
really men and women of God.
Let's take them one by one.
First, the Christian is a believer.
Look at verse one.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ.
Then, verse five, the first verse and the
last in the passage, he who believes that
Jesus is the Son of God.
And in between you have the word faith,
which is exactly the same word, albeit a
noun, not a verb, as the word to
believe in verses one and five.
Who is he that overcometh the world?
Or what is it that overcomes the world
but our faith?
A Christian, then, is a believer.
He's no longer a skeptic, neither is he
sitting on the fence as an agnostic.
But the Christian is essentially one who believes
in the central things of our faith, particularly
those things that relate to Jesus Christ.
Are you a believer?
Have you a suspicion in your heart that
the Lord Jesus Christ is not what the
New Testament makes him out to be, and
what the Christian church testifies concerning him?
A Christian is a believer.
Two things are involved in believing according to
the New Testament, and I think they are
reflected right here, though we shall not go
into the details tonight.
Christian believing involves, first of all, the acceptance
of the testimony that God has given concerning
his Son.
You heard from our reading tonight, which goes
on beyond the passage we are occupied with
now, that God has borne testimony concerning his
Son.
Christian believing means, first of all, that we
believe what God has said about his Son.
God has said, in various ways, that his
Son is not the child of his age,
that Jesus of Nazareth was not simply born
of a woman, but he was conceived of
the Holy Ghost.
God has borne testimony concerning Jesus Christ that
he is one who is outwith the human
race, the one of us, sharing flesh of
our flesh, bone of our bone, entering into
our temptations.
But he is more than we are, he
is bigger than we are, he is greater
than we are, he is different than we
are in this, that he is the incarnate
Son of the living God.
He is God become man.
Not only has God borne testimony to him
in that sense, he bore testimony to himself.
In one way or another, the question is
constantly being asked him in the Gospels, what
do you say about yourself, who are you,
where did you come from, what is your
authority?
Invariably, Lord Jesus Christ refers to the signs
of his Sonship, to the implications of the
fact that his relationship with God is absolutely
distinct and unique.
He comes in the line of the prophets,
but he is greater than the prophets.
He opens the way for the apostles, but
he is greater than the apostles.
He commissions them to go in his name,
and at last he says to them, all
authority has been given in the heavens and
on the earth, and because of that I
send you out into all the world to
make disciples for me.
Those are either the words of a megalomaniac
or of a monarch.
Jesus bore testimony concerning himself, the Holy Spirit
bore testimony to him, and his apostles bore
testimony of what they saw in his life,
heard from his lips, came to know as
they sat at his feet.
Now, all this testimony you have in the
words of Scripture, so that from the men
to come this, the acceptance of the testimony
to Christ that we have in the Scriptures.
You cannot be a Christian man or a
Christian woman unless you believe the testimony, because
Jesus is what the Scriptures say he is,
and who the Scriptures say he is, and
the Christian is a believer.
Therefore, the first question is this.
Do you and I believe the testimony born
to the Son of God?
But Christian believing goes beyond that.
In one sense, that is almost entirely an
intellectual exercise, reading what is said, listening to
the testimony of one and another which we
have in the Scriptures.
But Christian believing goes beyond that.
It is not only receiving what has been
said concerning him, but it is a trusting
of oneself to him, and a trusting him
with oneself.
Now, you see, this goes beyond the past.
This is a matter of accepting the testimony
born to him, and of now coming to
him and saying, Jesus, I will trust you,
trust you with my soul.
Guilty, lost, and helpless, thou canst make me
whole.
The testimony concerning you is such.
It says that you can save, and you
can keep, and you give life eternal, and
you transform the sinner to become like yourself.
I believe you are that, and in consequence,
I trust you for that.
A believer.
I suppose that one of the saddest things
in the world of today is that so
many segments of the supposedly Christian church are
better known for their unbelief and denials than
for their affirmations of faith and of belief.
It is a veritable contradiction in itself when
sometimes we hear people in high places propagating
their doubts rather than proclaiming the faith.
A Christian is a believer.
Believest thou what the Scriptures say?
Believest thou that Jesus is the Christ?
Do you believe?
Let us be honest and frank about it.
If the Scriptures are true, you and I
have no right to claim the title Christian
unless we believe that Jesus is the Christ
and the Son of the living God.
That's what my text says.
Now, mark what happens.
John is concerned in this area of his
epistle to prove who are genuine Christians.
And this is what he says.
He who has a settled and a genuine
confidence or trust in Jesus Christ in this
twofold way proves that he has been born
of God.
Let me read.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ
has been begotten of God.
That's the literal translation.
I wonder whether this takes somebody by surprise.
Jesus did not say, and John does not
say, if you believe you will be born
again What he says is this.
The fact that you believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God means that you
have been born again.
You know, the mystery of the rebirth is
such that the Bible doesn't try really to
explain it to us in detail.
But what the Bible does is this.
It tells us how we may recognize whether
or not we have been born again.
And it tells us this.
If you are a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ and you believe that he is
the Christ, the Son of the living God,
then you have already been born again because
you could not believe.
For you are not born again of the
Spirit.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ
is a child of God or has been
begotten of God.
You will note how believing here, therefore, is
the consequence, not the cause of the rebirth.
The evidence that a person has been born
again is to be seen in this.
That I come to the Lord Jesus and
see what the Scriptures say of him, believe
that, and then entrust myself to him and
never draw myself back.
I am content to trust.
My friend, does that describe you tonight?
Have you a contentment in trusting the Christ
of God, the Son of God?
If not, may I ask you another question?
Is there a yearning in your heart so
to do?
Do you find some strange impulse in your
soul, some desire, some yearning, or some sense
of conviction, I ought and I want to,
but how?
Then, my friend, obey that impulse.
A Christian is a believer, a believer, one
whose confidence is settled upon God in Christ,
God the Son and God the Saviour, the
Messiah.
Let us turn to the second.
Will you notice that John does not stop
there?
If he would, he would only give us
one solitary aspect, albeit a most important aspect,
of the Christian life and of the Christian
profession.
But John goes beyond that.
A Christian is a lover.
Verses 1 to 3, the end of verse
1 right through to verse 3.
And everyone who loves the parent loves the
child.
By this we know that we love the
children of God when we love God and
obey his commandments.
For this is the love of God, that
we keep his commandments, and his commandments are
not burdensome.
Now, it is assumed there, and it's taken
as axiomatic in the whole passage, that every
believer, every true believer, loves the Father.
It isn't said here, it is assumed.
It is assumed that every man who believes,
every woman who believes in the Lord Jesus,
in the sense that we have been discussing
now, of necessity feels a sense of affection
for God the Father, who sent the Son
to be our Savior.
That's been taken for granted.
It is then stated that everyone who loves
the Father who begat us, who gave us
the new birth, everyone who loves the Father
who begat, will love the children begotten of
him.
And along with this love, will you notice
in this passage, as I've already indicated, John
insists that not only do we love God
and love his children, but our love for
God is of a special kind.
It's not simply an affection, but it is
an obedience to his law.
Now, let's look at one or two things
that are central to this concept of the
Christian as a lover.
The Christian loves his heavenly Father.
This is the basis of everything else.
This, of course, is true on the human
level, in normal circumstances.
It is normally true to say that a
child will have an affection for those who
have brought it into the world, who nurture
it, care, protect, provide, and so forth.
Generally speaking, and normally speaking, there is an
almost automatic sense of gratitude and of affection
in the heart of a child for those
who are responsible for its nurture and its
care.
Now, occasionally, far too occasionally, not sufficiently occasional,
far too often for us to be complacent
about it, children do not thus love the
parents that begot them and feel no sense
of gratitude and no sense and no bond
of affection.
Now, this is sad.
But whenever that happens, you can ascribe it
to one or other of two causes, two
sources.
A child has no affection for its parent,
either when the parent concerned has done something
to dishonor himself or the child, or herself.
The parent who doesn't gain the respect and
the confidence and the affection of a child
is a parent that has done something which
has grieved the person concerned.
And he or she has lost the right
to affection.
Or, on the other hand, the child concerned
has become perverted.
And something has laid hold upon that natural
propensity of gratitude and of respect, has twisted
it and perverted it so that what is
normal and what is natural is no longer
there.
And so we have the phenomenon of children
who are brought up by parents, lovingly cared
for and provided for, who know nothing of
what it is to be grateful and who
know nothing of genuine affection.
Now, this is perversion.
This is sin.
This is part of the fall.
This is evidence of the tyranny of Satan
in life.
In man's relation Godward, the father can never
be a disappointment.
The child of God will never be able
to say to his father, Look, you've done
something wrong, and I can't respect you, and
I can't love you.
Never.
His wisdom and his understanding are matched by
his compassion and his power.
So that he not only knows what his
children need, but he is able and will
provide that which his children need, not necessarily
what they want, but what his children need
at any given time.
Forgiven of our sins, then, born anew of
his Spirit, now sharing in the new nature,
the nature of our Heavenly Father, what happens
to a Christian is this.
He instinctively senses a flush of affection for
the God that made him, and the God
that redeemed him.
Do you know that?
Do you love Him that begat you?
The Father whom you can't fault, the God
whom you can't criticize, in whose hand your
life is, and from whose heart your salvation
comes.
But now notice, it doesn't end there.
And I suppose I would have to say
that the way this next point comes out
has been the great discovery for me, the
great discovery of the last year or two
in reading and studying this epistle of John.
Oh, one knew it before, but there is
knowing and knowing.
This has hit me between the eye.
He who loves, says John, he who loves
the Father who begat, not may love, but
will love, those that are begotten of him.
This is a most challenging word, and I'm
sure it will find you out as it
finds me out tonight.
If you love the Father who begat you
and has begotten others and brought others to
new life, you will also love all those,
says John, that are begotten of him.
Now, whereas we know of exceptions on the
human plane, that is, exceptions in this sense,
there are brothers who do not love brothers
and sisters who do not love sisters and
sisters who do not love brothers and brothers
who do not love their sisters.
In the Christian life, says John, there are
no exceptions, or there ought to be no
exceptions, because this is what the life does
in our souls as it comes to itself.
If we love the Father, we must love
him who is begotten of the same Father.
Now, why should this be so?
Because it's very challenging.
Why should a Christian man love other Christians?
How is it true to say, why is
it true to say, if God is my
Father and has begotten me again to newness
of life, then I love my fellow Christians.
Why is that so?
John tells us.
There's no need for guesswork here.
This is the kind of text I like.
It leaves the preacher nothing to do but
to say what's here.
And I'm a young preacher here.
I suggest to you that you always look
for a text like this.
You don't need to go far for your
sermon.
It's all here.
There's no guesswork.
Why must a Christian man who has been
born again love not only the God who
begat him, but everybody else begotten of the
same God?
Now look at what John says.
First of all, Christian people should love one
another because it is the appointed way to
show our love for God.
Look at verse three.
This is the love of God that we
keep as commandments.
Now, I don't know how that takes you,
but it takes me by storm.
What is the love of God?
Well, that we join together and sing and
have a jolly good time.
Not at all, says John.
Oh, they sang in these days.
Sang with gusto.
Paul and Silas sang in prison.
And I'm sure that was expressive of some
love for God.
But that's not how you really show your
love for God.
This is the love of God.
This is it.
Now notice that.
It's as clear as that.
John doesn't say this is one way you
may express the love of God.
This is it.
Well, what is it?
That we keep as commandments.
You see, love for God is a moral
obligation rather than an affection.
Love for God has to be shown fundamentally
in my behavior, in my service, in the
way I react to people and especially to
God's children.
In vain do I say, Lord, I love
you with all my heart.
In vain do I make the professions of
my lips and sing from my heart.
In vain, in vain, in vain, unless I
love my brother.
This is the love of God that we
keep as commandments.
And His commandments include these.
This is His commandment that we should believe
on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another.
Chapter 3, verse 23.
This commandment have we from Him that he
who loves God should love his brother also.
Chapter 4 and verse 21.
And those of you who have been with
us on Sunday mornings don't need me to
go back and recapitulate any further.
It is written into the fabric of this
epistle that it is impossible for us to
love God in the way that God spells
out that love by keeping His commandments without
looking into the face of every Christian man
and woman we know and say, that's my
brother, that's my sister, and I love him
and I love her in Christ.
You know, it's as rigid as that.
It's as challenging as that.
Therefore, let me repeat.
If we love the God that begat us
and begat them, whoever they are, we shall
love them because the nature of the Father
is in us and in them.
That's the first reason we should love our
fellow Christians.
The second is this.
Christian people should love one another because they
are born of God and share His nature.
That's implicit in what we've said.
Let's make it explicit.
In verse 2, By this we know that
we love the children of God when we
love God and keep His commandments.
By this we know that we love the
children of God when we love God.
You know, says John, it's as clear and
as absolute and as unmistakable as this.
By this we know that when we love
God we love His children also.
By what?
By the very fact that we have been
begotten of Him.
He's the begetter of us and He's the
begetter of our brethren.
And because His nature is in me and
His nature is in the other Christian, nature
will call to nature.
The Spirit of God in me will respond
to the Spirit of God in that person.
Now, that's what John is saying.
But if you want me to put it
in a way in which I think we
may have put it once before, God loved
His people in eternity.
He so loved the whole church as yet
unborn, unseen, that He sent His only begotten
Son into the world to die for our
sins and to become our Saviour.
God Himself loved us in eternity.
Right.
God came in the person of His Son,
Jesus Christ.
And in Christ He loved the same wide
world as He loved Himself in eternity.
So God Himself loved us in eternity.
The same God loved the same people in
Christ His Son.
Now, that same God by the Spirit comes
to live in you and in me.
Is He going to act inconsistently?
Impossible.
God is not inconsistent.
If that God is living in you and
living in me, He will love whom He
loved in Christ.
He will love whom He loved in eternity.
And He will choose whom He chose in
eternity.
And His elect will become our elect.
We shall choose to love whom God chose
to love because God by the Spirit is
living in us.
My friends, we can talk about being Christians.
We can sing about being Christians.
Tell me, is the Spirit of God binding
you to your fellow believers?
Is there something about your kinship with other
Christian men and women that you don't find
in the club, that you don't find on
the golf course, that you don't find amongst
your professionals?
Is there something that binds you to the
people of God and you have to say
to every one of them, you belong to
me and I belong to you.
You may vote liberal, I may vote conservative,
but my word, we are brothers and sisters
in the Christ.
We love one another.
You know that.
When you meet a brother whose skin is
of a different order, a different color, can
you see beneath the skin and beyond the
skin the heart of a child of God
whom you love?
Because God is living in you.
You know, it's a serious thing to be
a Christian or to take this name upon
myself.
That's the second reason then.
The nature of the begetter is in the
begotten.
The third is this.
Not only should we love one another for
the reasons we've given, but also because of
this amazing thing that takes place when we
are begotten of God.
John can say to every Christian man that
the commandments of the Lord are not grievous,
not burdensome.
Now, this is a major difference between the
Christian and the non-Christian.
Will you permit me to be very personal
at this point?
You want to know whether you're a real
Christian or not.
This is the question to put to yourself.
Do I find the law of God something
that I just can't get on with and
I don't like?
Now, mark the question.
I'm not asking you to ask yourself the
question whether the law of God is difficult.
Of course it's difficult.
It means fighting with the world, the flesh,
and the devil.
Of course it's difficult.
I'm not asking that.
What I'm asking is this.
The test to put to oneself is this.
Do I sense something within me which says
that the law of God is right and
I want to do it because it represents
the will of my God?
Now, the unbeliever, the man who is not
a Christian, will always be against the will
of God and against the law of God.
He'll want to get rid of it.
It irks him.
It makes him uncomfortable.
It brings out his ego.
He wants to fight against it.
He just can't be curbed by the divine
law.
It's heavy.
That's the word that John used.
It's too heavy for him.
And he wants to get rid of it.
It's a burden.
He wants to shrug it off his shoulders.
But not so the Christian.
A Christian like the Lord Jesus in whom
the Spirit of God dwelt without measure will
in some measure want to say, as he
said, I delight to do thy will, O
my God.
My meat is to do the will of
Him that sent me and to finish His
work.
Now, we may have to struggle to say
that, but we'll want to say it.
And we'll know that it's the right thing
to do.
And we'll know it's the kind of place
we should always be at where we can
say, Thy will, not mine, be done.
Do you know that?
To use Paul's words, the Christian man, properly
so-called as a man, who will discover
that God's will is always good, acceptable, and
perfect.
Or to use the words of Jesus, which
are better still, Take my yoke upon you.
My yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.
Yoke?
Easy?
No, no, not as you look at it
from out there.
But Jesus says, come on, be my partner
under the yoke.
Come near to me.
Come into partnership with me.
And in partnership with me, you'll find that
my yoke is easy.
Not out of partnership.
Not out of step.
Not aloof from Him.
And it may be there are men and
women here tonight who are aloof from Jesus
Christ.
And as you read the law, it's a
terrible thing.
You don't like it.
You kick against the bricks.
You don't want to keep it.
You hate it.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and
are heavy laden.
Take my yoke upon you.
Join yourself to me.
Enter into partnership with me.
Let me put my arms around you, and
lay hold upon you, and make you mine.
Then, my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light.
With Christ as our Saviour, you see.
With Christ by our side.
With Christ in our hearts.
The law is all so very different.
I was reminded in coming down to church
tonight of a hymn.
We used to sing the other side of
the Atlantic.
I don't know whether it's in the hymnary.
I had chosen the hymns before.
I remembered it.
Two of the stanzas go like this.
Blessed are the eyes that see him.
Blessed the ears that hear his voice.
Blessed are the souls that trust him, and
in him alone rejoice.
His commandments then become their happy choice.
Did you get that?
His commandments then become their happy choice.
And here's the second stanza.
Take his easy yoke and wear it.
Love will make obedience sweet.
Christ will give you strength to bear it,
while his wisdom guide your feet, safe to
glory where his ransomed captives meet.
Take his easy yoke upon you.
Love will make obedience sweet.
You love the father who begat you?
Then you love the brothers whom he's begotten
along with you into the family.
And you become a lover overnight.
The Christian is a believer.
The Christian is a lover.
My time is gone.
I can only mention this.
The Christian is an overcomer.
In what I have said already, John has
summarized his three main tests.
And he's brought them together.
And he said these three belong to one
another.
But the keeping of the law is fundamentally
not something on its own, but something that
springs out of love.
And he's linked them together.
Now he sums the whole thing up.
And he says what characterizes the Christian man
is this.
He's an overcomer.
He overcomes the world.
And he puts it in two tenses.
One in the past.
He has overcome the world.
Two in the present.
He does overcome the world.
What he's saying is this.
A Christian man has overcome the world when
he becomes a Christian.
That's why he puts it in the past
tense, in verse four.
This is the victory that overcame the world.
Even our faith overcame.
That's in the past.
What's he referring to?
Well, this.
In becoming a Christian, in trusting Jesus Christ,
and in believing on him, we had to
wrestle with the whole world.
With sin in our hearts, with Satan's rule
and dominion over us, and with society's influence
around us.
Every man and woman who becomes a Christian
has to overcome sin within, Satan outside, and
the society around us.
The way of society, the spirit of society,
is always away from God and away from
his Son.
And you have to overcome the whole cosmos
within and without.
It's the rule of Satan as well, in
order to become a believer.
That's why it is a miracle when a
man becomes a Christian.
God has been at work.
We are his workmanship, says Paul.
We can't make ourselves Christians.
So every Christian has already overcome the world
when he came out of the darkness of
death into life which is eternal.
But the Christian continues to overcome.
This is the feature.
He has the same battle to rage all
along the way.
He's overcome his own self.
Ah, but there are still old desires of
the self that lurk on and he's got
to overcome them every day.
Satan is still there.
He's given so much rope until the end
of the time.
And we have to wrestle and fight and
pray.
And the society in which we live is
still sinful.
And it's the domain of the prince of
this world.
And we still have to encounter all the
temptations that society brings along our way.
But the Christian is an overcomer.
Who is he that overcometh?
He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ.
In other words, by our faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, we draw our resources.
We receive our daily provisions for battle.
And we are made stronger than the strong
in order to prove our identity in this
world, proving that we are citizens of the
next.
A Christian is a believer.
A Christian is a lover.
A Christian is an overcomer.
Oh, he may fall, but he'll rise again.
He'll wander, he'll come back again.
He'll do that which is wrong, he'll be
penitent, and he'll cry his way back to
the cross.
When Galileo developed his revolutionary ideas about the
solar system, he invited the professors of the
University of Padua to come and look through
his telescope.
You see, they wouldn't believe what he was
saying, what he was preaching.
That the sun was the center of the
whole system.
The professor of philosophy refused.
And he wouldn't go.
And he continued to the end of his
life to believe that the earth was the
center of the solar system, and the heavenly
bodies all moved around the earth.
He and others in the university were convinced
to their dying day.
In each invitation they received, they turned down.
They wouldn't look through Galileo's telescope.
My friend, if you're not a Christian tonight,
I ask you, come and look at my
Lord through the telescope of scripture.
Come and see him in the gospels living
his life, dying his death, rising from the
grave, ascending to the Father's right hand, sending
forth the Holy Spirit, harnessing the energies of
his church and empowering the weakest among them,
so that for two thousand years of time,
weak men and women like yourself and myself
have been made strong in the grace of
the Savior to overcome themselves, and overcome Satan,
and overcome the world, and pass on the
torch.
And even tonight, on a holiday, summer's evening,
men are summoned from darkness to light and
from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom
of our God.
And I'm as sure as I stand in
this pulpit that however feeble I preach the
gospel of my God tonight, there will be
men and women who will hear the word
and come to life.
Come and see him through the telescope of
scripture.
I dare you to.
For if you look at him long through
the telescope of scripture, you'll come to believe
that he is the Christ, the Son of
God, and believing, you too, will have the
life that loves and overcome.
What then will you do with Jesus which
is called the Christ?
Let us pray.