[0:00] of John, and tonight we're looking at the passage, verses 3 to 6 of chapter 2. So that's 1 John, chapter 2, and verses 3 to 6.
[0:13] We'll just read from the beginning of the chapter to take in what we looked at last time. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
[0:25] But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
[0:39] And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
[0:50] But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
[1:06] Now if you look at the back of your bulletin sheet, if you have it with you, there's a diagram there, or a graphic, that has three circles, conjoined and meeting together, and with an overlap of the three of them in the middle.
[1:28] And you can see that these are entitled, obedience, belief, which means essentially doctrine, or what we believe, and love. Obedience, belief, or doctrine, and love.
[1:42] Remember back at the beginning, or near the beginning of when we started studying the letter of John, this letter of John that we saw, we mentioned at least how much of the letter is taken up with, what we can call three assessments, or three tests.
[1:59] These tests are doctrinal, moral, and social. A doctrinal test in terms of what it is we believe. A moral test in terms of how it is we live, what is our conduct.
[2:14] And the third one, the social test, very much in terms of loving one another, which you find throughout this letter as well. So these three important topics really make up the bulk of this first letter of John.
[2:31] So that you find in each of these cases, they're important elements in their own right, but you notice also in the diagram that there is an overlap. And there needs to be an overlap.
[2:44] And as we go through this first letter of John, you can see that sometimes he actually talks about one of these topics mostly. Other times he combines them so that they interflow or overlap, which is what we're trying to capture in that diagram.
[3:00] And it would be useful if we keep that diagram in mind as we go through, God willing, this letter of John. For example, if we were to look at the overlap there between obedience and belief or doctrine, but leave out any overlap with love, what you end up with basically is legalism.
[3:20] Just a living by certain rules, but not taking in the importance of loving fellowship and loving one another. Or another example, if you were to take out, for example, love itself out of that triad of topics, and if you just take love and just extract it all together and leave the other two behind, so that it's not connected in any way with obedience or with belief or doctrine, what you end up largely with is hedonism, living for the sheer pleasures of life, usually physical pleasures or sexual pleasures.
[3:59] That's what much of the world is characterized by today, as you know. And that's why it's so important for us that in terms of a Christian life, in terms of what John is doing in assessing what a Christian life is about, then this really is pretty much the summary of it.
[4:17] And you can see that the three circles actually overlap in the middle so that each of them is related to the other in that middle part of the diagram. We need the obedience and the belief and the love if we are to be the kind of Christian people that the Lord calls upon us to be.
[4:39] We cannot afford to leave any one of these three out, or else in some way or other our life will be askew. It will not be the kind of thing that is described in 1 John.
[4:51] Now remember this is all against the false teaching of John's day, and we'll see something of that this evening as well. The false teaching of John's day emphasized certain of these characteristics at the expense of others.
[5:05] And it seems that this early form of Gnosticism, which most scholars take it to be what surfaces here in John's first epistle, John coming towards the end of his apostolic life, that what came later to be known as Gnosticism was beginning to arise even in the church of John's day, and it certainly looks like something like that, because John here is referring to a number of things that obviously the false teachers are setting out.
[5:35] So out of these three tonight, we're looking at this circle that's entitled obedience in our diagram. And this is what he says, By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
[5:50] Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected, and so on.
[6:05] In other words, this is the moral assessment. This is one out of three very important, essential elements of the Christian life. Let's explore it just in these verses.
[6:16] Later on in the epistle, he comes to actually cover it in different ways, sometimes more fully than he is in these three verses. I want you to notice, first of all, in this passage, the emphasis John places on assurance.
[6:32] By this, we know that we have come to know him. You see, he's not just saying, by this we know God. What he's dealing with is an assurance that we know God.
[6:45] Because what the false teachers have been doing is shaking the assurance of some Christians, as false teaching always does. Whenever there's a disjointed teaching, whenever there's Christian elements mixed up with other elements, from other philosophies, or from a worldly perspective, you'll always find that some Christians will have their faith shaken up, or will have their assurance at least shaken up.
[7:11] And John is addressing that particular issue here with an emphasis on assurance. You see what he's saying here? The same in verse 5, where he's saying that, whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected.
[7:25] By this we may be sure that we are in him. So for John, assurance is important. Christian assurance is not something that's incidental, or on the peripheries of a Christian life.
[7:38] Something that's relatively unimportant. For John, assurance is important. Assurance belongs to, and what he's teaching here is part of what he's teaching, because he knows that in order to bring a certain robustness and confidence properly into our Christian lives, we need to have that assurance that we know God.
[7:58] Not just to know him, but to know that we know him. And you can see, if you cast your mind forward to chapter 5, and look at verse 13 of chapter 5, he's saying that that's actually the purpose for why he's written this letter.
[8:11] I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. You see, he's not just saying, I'm writing these things to you so that you may have eternal life through this, but so that you will know that you have eternal life, that you may be assured that you have eternal life.
[8:33] We tend to, we belong to a culture that tends to, perhaps historically, in our Christian way of thinking, has not perhaps given the place to assurance that we really rightly should in accordance with Scripture.
[8:48] In fact, we belong to an island culture, or if you like, a church culture in the island, and has historically had some suspicions about being too sure of your salvation.
[9:00] In fact, some people have come across them who will tell you that it's not a good thing to be too sure of your salvation, that you really ought to live with certain doubts, and that it's a good thing to have doubts.
[9:13] Well, that's not what the Bible teaches us. That's not in accordance with our classic Reformed Christian theology. Let me just read to you from the Westminster Confession of Faith. If assurance was really other than John says it is, if it wasn't all that important that we actually give it the attention we need, the Confession of Faith would not have given the whole chapter to it.
[9:34] But when you go to the Westminster Confession, chapter 18 is really entitled Of Assurance of Grace and Salvation. And here is a third paragraph in that chapter.
[9:48] I won't read it all, but this is what it says. This assurance, they call it an infallible assurance, which means a certainty of assurance or certainty about salvation. This infallible assurance does not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be a partaker of it.
[10:11] Now that's really saying we mustn't think of assurance as something that you really need to have in terms of a full assurance, of an infallible assurance as it says there, or else we should conclude that we're not Christians at all.
[10:24] That's really the point that the Confession is, and the Confession is a superbly pastoral document. That's why every minister really has to know or should know the Westminster Confession of Faith inside out because every single section of it virtually has something or other to do with pastoral concerns, pastoral ministry, counseling, whatever it is we think of on that level.
[10:50] This is what it says. Don't think that assurance or this infallible assurance belongs to the essence of faith. In other words, if you don't have it, it's not because you don't have faith.
[11:04] It could be that, but don't conclude that. It need not be that. And it says, we may conflict with many difficulties before we come to be a partaker of that assurance.
[11:16] Yet, it says, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given whom of God, we may, without extraordinary revelation, this person may know, that a believer may know, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereto.
[11:38] I'll just read that again because I put it there in italics in my own notes there. This person, this believer, this genuine believer, who may be struggling, who may not have that full assurance that they want to have, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereto.
[12:00] In other words, this is saying to us, you don't actually have to have something spectacular before you actually achieve or reach that level of assurance. You don't have to listen to charismatic theology that tells you, you must have an upper stratum of Christian experience, you must be able to speak in tongues, you must be able to have all of these extraordinary gifts, if you really want to reach assurance, you have to have that extraordinariness about your life.
[12:27] The confession says no. In the right use of ordinary means, what are they? The word, sacraments, and prayer.
[12:38] Being here together, being under the word of God, reading the Bible for yourself, praying together at prayer meetings, praying for yourself individually, between yourself and God, that's how we come to greater assurance.
[12:53] That's how we come to have our assurance increased, if it needs to be increased, as most, if not all of us, actually need. So, we must not be over-troubled if we lack assurance tonight of our salvation.
[13:12] We must not be over-troubled about that. Many people have that lack of assurance. many genuine Christians have that lack of assurance. But what the confession tells us, what the Bible teaches, what this is setting before us in John, is that we actually can come to know that we know God in the right use of ordinary means, without any extraordinary revelation.
[13:38] We must not be over-troubled. But on the other hand, we must not be un-troubled by it. Because if we lack assurance, it's not in itself a good thing.
[13:50] And we have to work at getting an increase of our assurance, and growing in assurance, just like any other aspect of the Christian life. So, the emphasis on assurance is important, even if it's not the main aspect of these verses.
[14:07] It is an important aspect. By this we know that we have come to know Him. To know God is to have eternal life.
[14:19] That's what Jesus said in John 17, that prayer that He uttered in the upper room. This is life eternal. He's praying to the Father, remember.
[14:31] This is life eternal, to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. That's life eternal. Well, life eternal doesn't begin in heaven.
[14:43] It's enjoyed in His fullness in heaven. But it begins here on earth. It begins in the knowledge of God. It begins when God brings about a change in our relationship with Him that has come to be so broken by our sin against Him.
[14:58] And when God reverses that, when God gives us renewal, when God changes us and converts us and brings us to know Himself as our friend, as our companion, as our Savior, well, then He's placing you within eternal life.
[15:13] And here is John saying, that's where eternal life is, to know God. This is another word to go to the other side of it. The other side of the coin is, this is our biggest problem of all, that we do not know God.
[15:28] And our relationship broken by sin means we don't know Him as we should. But that's what God fixes, what God mends. That's what rebirth brings about.
[15:39] And when we are born again and have come to know God and come to appreciate Him and to love Him and to respect Him, then we apply ourselves to a greater assurance of that relationship.
[15:53] Hereby, He says, we know that we have come to know. That's the first thing, the emphasis on assurance. Second thing is the basis of that assurance, which in this passage is obedience to God.
[16:05] God. Now, there are other aspects of what belongs to the basis of assurance elsewhere in the Bible. I suppose you could say ultimately, the basis of assurance is Christ Himself and the work of God in Christ.
[16:19] That's the foundation of assurance, just as it is of faith and of salvation. But here, the basis is the keeping of His commandments.
[16:30] By this we know if we keep His commandments. And the same later on. Whoever says, I know Him, but does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in Him.
[16:45] Now, you notice something interesting here as well. It's going from plural we to an individual I or he. And that too is very suggestive at least within the passage when He's dealing with assurance.
[17:01] it's not just simply an individual matter. It's not something that you can tend to entirely on your own. In other words, our personal assurance develops within the fellowship that God has placed us in.
[17:19] As we saw at the beginning of our studies, the fellowship that we have with one another and with God, that sharing of eternal life, that sharing together of things of salvation, well here He's saying assurance comes to us not by isolating ourselves from the fellowship, not by thinking that the best thing for us really is to be done with the church and just to work on this at home and reading the Bible and so on.
[17:45] I did mention last week the meetings taking place in the Calhoun Inn over the next few months it seems, where the church is really being denounced and where belonging to the church is something that's not at all commended, it's something that's actually frowned upon, the church is seen as a bad thing, belonging to the church, the organized church is a bad thing, churchless Christianity, John doesn't know such a thing, the Bible doesn't recognize such a thing, yes people may have difficulties fitting into a church, fitting into a congregation, we all have that, we don't have a perfect church, we don't have a perfect fellowship, there is no such thing in this life, anywhere, in any denomination, in any place in the world, we are where God has placed us, we are providentially where God has situated us, and we are providentially where we are within an access of a church thankfully here in our island and certainly here in the town, church that preaches the gospel, that lives, seeks to live the gospel, that values the word of God as the word of God,
[18:52] God has placed us there, and he has placed us here so that together we might help each other with such things as assurance of salvation, you see he's saying here, by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments, then he says whoever individually says, but whoever in verse 5 again individually keeps his word, treasure the fact tonight friends, that you belong to a fellowship, that you belong to the church, this congregation of the church, treasure the fact that you're able to share with others a common concern to grow spiritually, treasure the fact that you are here gathered regularly under the teaching of the word of God, many thousands in the world if not millions who would give their right hand to be where you are tonight, who cannot be in a situation like you are in tonight, we treasure the whole idea of biblical fellowship because one of the things that helps is our
[19:56] Christian growth and our Christian growth in assurance as much as other things, but you see he's saying here that that comes to an individual obligation as well as being situated in a fellowship, then he comes to speak about the commands, by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments, and he widens that out then in verse 5 because it goes from commands to word, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.
[20:33] You see, that movement again is important from command, which is more narrow, to word, which brings in the whole of God's word. We are under obligation not just to comply with God's commands, God's instruction in his commandments, we are under obligation to God to comply with the whole of his truth, with the promises that he gives, with the other instructions that he gives that may not in themselves be commandments, but nevertheless God has given us the whole, the entirety of his word so that our life will be placed under its authority, under its teaching, under its instruction.
[21:13] That's where obedience is actually seen, not just in terms of saying, well, there are ten commandments, commands, and that's where my obedience actually is confined to. The limits of my obedience are where I keep these commands.
[21:27] You can't keep these commands or seek to keep them without taking in everything else pretty much that's in God's word. So you've got that movement from commands to word, and that fits in really with John's gospel, the bit that we read, the portion that we read in chapter 14 from verse 21 there to 24 especially, where Jesus is instructing the disciples about his departure and the way that he's now leaving them things that they need to comply with.
[21:58] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And overlap there with the circle of love that we're looking at in this passage of 1 John.
[22:11] That's by the way, he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. And then verse 23, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word.
[22:24] You see the same process as in 1 John, keeping his commandments. If we love him, we'll keep his commandments. And then he moves to saying keeping his word, putting his word in our hearts so as to keep it, so as to live our lives by it.
[22:39] That's what John is here saying in the first letter as well. Whoever keeps his word in him truly, the love of God is perfected. How do we prove, if you like, our love for God?
[22:53] Well, one of the ways is in loyalty to God. And loyalty to God is very much in terms of our obedience. Not a bare obedience, not an obedience without love, not an obedience without belief, but nevertheless an obedience in its own right.
[23:11] by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Because it's not natural, as you know yourself and as I know very well, it's not natural to ourselves or to our affections or to how our mind works as sinners until God comes to change us from within.
[23:31] The commandments of God are not palatable. There are not things that you're going to say, I absolutely love the moral law. law. You're not going to say that until God has opened your eyes to sin and to salvation, to Jesus, to everything that he opens our eyes to.
[23:50] And then we come, as we were singing in Psalm 119, to be able to say, oh, how I love your law. Did you say, before you were converted, that you really, sincerely, and honestly, and fully loved the law of God?
[24:07] The commandments of God that called upon you to comply with all that's set out in these commandments? Of course not. But now that you've come to know God, part of coming to know that you know him, the basis of that in this passage is that you keep his commandments, that your heart is set upon obedience to God.
[24:32] Not perfect obedience. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect in obedience. obedience. But you're still striving after obedience. You're still attending to obedience on a daily basis as God himself claims your life.
[24:47] Well, he says, whoever claims to know God but lives in disobedience is a liar. And the truth is not in him. Because you cannot claim really genuinely to be a Christian without obedience to God, without your life coming to be given to God in obedience with his set out revelation in his word.
[25:14] Now that's what the false teachers were actually guilty of in John's day it seems as well. Because these false teachers, we mentioned that they came later on, years after this, to be known as Gnostics.
[25:25] And the Gnostic way of looking at things made a very clear separation between God and material things. In other words, they despised the body pretty well, the physical part of man's being.
[25:38] But they also claimed to have a higher level of knowledge, to have attained such a high level of knowledge that things like obedience, things like mundane things as they saw it like that, well, that was completely beneath them, they were above that.
[25:53] The word Gnostic comes from a Greek word meaning knowledge, gnosis or knowledge. That's why it came to be known as Gnosticism and that's one of the things they claimed. We're actually above you ordinary Christians.
[26:06] That's why we've left the church, John says, that they went out from us, they were not of us. They began seeing themselves as on an entirely higher level than these ordinary Christians.
[26:17] They had access to knowledge that these other Christians, these other ordinary Christians didn't. And so, that's why they set themselves up as people really in that category of ability and of knowledge.
[26:31] that ordinary Christians couldn't reach. And that sort of Gnostic view of life has actually made its way into the church of our day as well.
[26:42] It's here in John's day having made its way or manifested itself in the church of his day. But it's there in the world of today as well and one of our concerns is always to apply teaching of God's word to the situation that we face, that we're placed in.
[26:57] And when you look out at the world, this is exactly what you come across. You have the emphasis, for example, that the real you, the real you, if I can put it that way, is not what you are biologically or in terms of your birth gender.
[27:18] the real you is how you feel inside about yourself, how you think about yourself, how do you think your life should be, how you think what sort of gender you should have.
[27:32] That's Gnosticism, essentially, how you see your body, how you view your gender. Whether you were born male or female, in that kind of philosophy, it doesn't really matter.
[27:48] It's not the important thing. The important thing is how you feel about yourself and how you're going to fulfill that in the way you go about leading your life. Never mind if you were born male or came to be raised as a boy.
[28:02] You're a girl. Put that away. Don't actually go by that. Don't make that in any way influential in your thinking. Just do it how it feels right to you.
[28:15] And that's why, sadly, there are in certain places such a lot of toxic teaching given to children. Five and six-year-olds and seven-year-olds taught to look at themselves and ask themselves, what gender am I?
[28:32] What do I want to be? Do I want to be a boy or do I want to be a girl? Am I a boy or am I a girl? That sort of toxic teaching is contrary to the word of God, but it comes from this kind of philosophy that you find in John's day, confronted by this teaching, where he's saying, this is really what we need to keep to is the truth of God, the commands of God, the instructions of God, the revelation of God.
[28:59] God. You see, that comes to affect other things, too, in our society. And sadly, this is seen within the church as well. You don't have to go very far within the church of today, if you use the word church in its widest sense, to come across ideas that actually gender is what you make it.
[29:20] And you just accept people like that. You don't try and change them. You don't try and preach in such a way that wants to convert them or see their lives changed from what they make themselves out to be. It affects marriage.
[29:32] Marriage is what you make it, even if it's biologically two males or two females, or even more than two. It feels right to you, so that's how it should be. So let's legislate for this.
[29:44] Let's just do it because there are so many people of that view. Isn't it only right that we should give a proper place and an equality to such thinking? That's the world of our day.
[29:55] That's what you're facing as a Christian. That's the challenge of the world we're in. That's the challenge of making God's word applicable and relevant to the life that we face in that world, the lives that we face in that world, seeking to present this gospel message to them.
[30:11] Not just from pulpits, because they never come to hear it from a pulpit, sadly, but they hear it and they read about it and they measure it in your life and my life as church people. I was to McGrath in one of his books, a book called Heresy, A History of Defending the Truth.
[30:31] He says about these Gnostic themes, this is what he says about them, these chime in with contemporary ideals of self-discovery, self-awareness, self-actualization, self-salvation.
[30:47] Not to mention, he says, a dislike of any kind of authority, especially ecclesiastical. Doesn't that sound familiar?
[31:01] It should, because that's the world of our day. And sadly, that's in some parts the church of our day. What did Jesus say about self? What did Jesus say about following him?
[31:14] What is a disciple of Christ? Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself. Let him put away his own thoughts about right and wrong.
[31:27] Let him put away his own rights as insisting upon them against the rights of God. Let him put away the definitions of gender or of marriage if they're in contrast with what God's revelation is about.
[31:41] Let him deny himself. Let him not put himself up as God. That's really what self does. If you follow yourself, you're making a God of yourself.
[31:54] To be a Christian is to deny yourself. Let him deny himself and come after me. Friends, we live in difficult times.
[32:06] That's why we need the gospel for ourselves, firstly, so that we can disseminate it to the world and it's teaching. But we need to understand what it's actually saying about these issues and about human life and about God and about obedience and about his commandments.
[32:24] Now he says, he goes on to say, whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. And that means, I'm taking that to be a difference of opinion in commentators, but the love of God there is surely the love that God has for his people, not our love for him.
[32:44] If you go forward to chapter 4 and verse 12, you'll find a similar emphasis there, where you find no one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
[33:01] In other words, his love is made complete in us. You see, God's love has objectives. God in his love has things in loving his people that he himself has determined or purpose to bring about.
[33:16] In other words, his love reaches its own urge and fulfillment in the things that he brings about in his love. And there are two there that we've just mentioned, obedience and our love for one another.
[33:29] God's love is perfected in us. How do you come to know that God's love has come to be perfected in us, that it's achieved one of its ends or purposes?
[33:41] Well, it's when we obey his commandments. He's been at work to bring that about. And love and God's love has purpose, objectives, things that need to be achieved by God himself, and he does achieve them.
[34:01] And it's as the God of love that he achieves them. Then he gives us, we conclude with this, he gives us an example of obedience.
[34:13] As if the teaching wasn't enough up to now, he says, verse 6, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Now, sometimes it's difficult in these verses to know, is it God the Father that's spoken of, or is it God the Son, is it Jesus?
[34:29] And sometimes it's obviously God the Father, but Jesus also is taken in to the relationship that we have with God. It's through Jesus we come to know God.
[34:41] It seems very clear in verse 6 that it's Jesus that's referred to. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
[34:53] In other words, the way that Jesus lived, as you find that described in the Gospels and the Word of God, that's our prime example, that is our great example. That's the supreme example of life as it should be lived by human beings.
[35:11] And you might say that's a bit too high for me. I would find that hugely discouraging if you're going to make Jesus the example and ask me to try and fit my life into the pattern of his life.
[35:28] Surely that's just setting the bar too high. Well, in one sense, of course, it is because Christ was always perfect. The Gospel record shows that very clearly.
[35:40] But it's not too high when you think of it this way. In terms of his obedience to the Father and to the will of the Father, it was as a human being, yes, conjoined to his deity.
[35:54] But Jesus did not borrow the power of his deity in order to fill up, you like, if you like, the human side of his person.
[36:11] For example, when he came to Gethsemane and he fell on his face and he prayed to the Father, he prayed to the Father that this cup might pass from him if it were possible.
[36:24] He prayed and his sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground. He prayed in an agony. That's the real human Jesus you're seeing in that. And what you need to understand, and I need to understand, is that Jesus, as he walked in this life, was dependent not on his own divine power, but on the Holy Spirit, on the Father's command, on the Father's instruction, so that as he went through this life, he met the tests in the power of the Spirit.
[36:54] That's how you meet the tests. The same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, with which Christ's life was filled as a human being, is the Spirit that lives in the life of his people in the hearts and the souls of his people too.
[37:11] So in that sense, it's not any different, although of course Jesus is God and man. What I'm saying is that as you look at his temptations, as you look at how he lived his life in relation to the Father and his mission in this world, it's always compliant with the Father's command.
[37:29] That's his concern. This command I have received of my Father, he says, to lay down my life. When he came out of the Garden of Gethsemane, and when the testing there was over, this is what he said, wasn't it?
[37:43] When Peter tried to intervene, again trying his best to stop the movement of Jesus towards the cross, Jesus said, put away your sword, the cup which my Father has given me to drink.
[38:02] Shall I not drink it? What's he saying? How am I going to be anything other than obedient and compliant with this great command that my Father has given me to finish this cup of suffering for my people?
[38:16] That's the Jesus. That's our great example. The one who fills you with strength through his Spirit. The one who has given you this record of his own life, so that we would endeavor to walk in the same way in which he walked.
[38:33] We will never achieve perfection in this life. But we nevertheless have the Spirit of God, the Word of God, the example of the Son of God, as we seek to live in obedience with the commands of our God.
[38:51] When you go to the end of the Bible, you find that these two walks are brought together, the walk of Jesus and the walk of his people in this life. This is his great promise in Revelation 3.21.
[39:06] To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne.
[39:20] There is Jesus linking the overcoming of his own life with the overcoming in the Christian's life. The two walks are inseparably connected.
[39:33] And in his being your great example, he is also your source of strength and power. So that we go on to show that we know that we know him by keeping his commandments.
[39:49] May God bless these thoughts to us. Let's conclude now by singing. Singing this time from Psalm 119.
[40:01] This time in the Scottish Psalter, page 409. We're singing verses 108 to 112, the tune of St. Columba. The freewill offerings of my mouth, except I thee beseech.
[40:18] And unto me, thy servant, Lord, thy judgments clearly teach. Though still my soul be in my hand, thy laws I'll not forget. I erred not from them, though for me the wicked snares did get.
[40:31] So that's page 409, verses 108 to 112, the freewill offerings of my mouth. The freewill offerings of my mouth, except I thee beseech.
[40:59] And unto me, thy servant, Lord, thy judgments clearly teach.
[41:15] Though still my soul be in my hand, thy law has I'll not forget.
[41:32] I erred not from them, who for me the wicked's limited sin.
[41:50] I hope thy testimonies have. I hope thy testimonies have.
[42:01] Above all things make choice to be my heritage.
[42:15] I care fully, for they my heart rejoice. I care fully, for they my heart still to attend.
[42:28] I care fully, incline it how, my heart still to attend.
[42:44] that I, thy statutes may perform. I'll go to the door to my right this evening.
[43:05] Amen. Amen. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you now and evermore. Amen. Amen.
[43:16] Thank you.