I John, 3:23-24

This whole section is about His commandments, Christ's commandments. So, starting in verse 22. And whatever we ask, we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He has commanded us. The One who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in Him. We know by this that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He has given us.

OK. Great. You know, in the previous verse, this thing isn't very powerful. I have one from home, too, anyway. He starts talking about, and whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments. And now He's going to define what he's talking about here. In this verse, he's going to define what, and it's interesting, and Vani was asking me last night, and I'm not sure I have a super answer here, but he kind of goes between commandments plural, commandments singular, and then back to plural here again. And I think there's a reason why this is singular, and we're going to see why this is. It seems like, well, why didn't he say commit plural here?

So hopefully we can answer that possibly. OK, so the first starts off, this is his commandment. So let's look at that. The verb is ami, and it's present active. So this is his commandment. And the construction is, this is a subject complement, which is a noun which identifies the subject, which is this. So this is his commandment, and the rest of the verse is going to tell us what his commandment is. So I thought it would just be a good idea, we had done this before back when we did, I think the 1 John 2, 3 through 6. We kind of went through and looked at the phraseology, his command, actually it's plural, his commandments and my commandments. So the first question is, what does that mean? So I asked him again. I think, actually, that was the time we did this before. He had some questions, too. That was good. We'll probably get to answer those again.

Anyway, so what does it mean? Is it the law of Moses? When you think of commandments, that's kind of, you know, the first thing that comes to mind, you think of a list. You think of the tablets of stone, right? I mean, you think of commandments. There's a list, blah, blah, like that.

Well, I think by personalizing it, by putting it my, His that really as we're going to see that changes a whole tenor of what he's talking about So in Romans 6 14 it says For the believer for sin shall not be master over you for you. Not you're not under law, but under grace So our life is under grace. We're not under law and The law is our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. And the law is holy and righteous and just. There's nothing wrong with the law. It's just that the wonderful thing is we're not under the law anymore. We're under grace. That's a wonderful thing. So basically, as I had pointed out before, my commandments and his commandments appear in what's called the upper room discourse.

Something to think about, when Christ What did Christ do when he talked to the Pharisees? Did he talk about my commandments and his commandments to the Pharisees? What did he say to the Pharisees? What was his approach in terms of the commandments of the law in terms of the Pharisee? What did he tell the Pharisees to do?

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So let's look here just for a second. And the reason I want to do that, I'm going to kind of contrast, you know, that we're at work. This is the church age. This is the age of grace. And there's a difference. Israel nation of Israel.

So let's look at Matthew chapter 12. And this is one of many places where he addressed the Pharisees. And he told them something in terms of his commandments or the law. And if I get somebody to read, actually, let's just read Matthew 12, 1 through 5. Can I get a volunteer for that?

At that time, Jesus went through the green seal of the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry, and he began to cut through the grain to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do in the Sabbath. So he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests. or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple proclaim the sabbath and are blameless? Amen. Thanks.

So actually I can verse 5 which is really that little phrase or have you not read in the law he said you know look back to the law what did it say in the law he referred back to that many times there's many occasions where Christ would do that but when he came to the came to the upper room discourse with his disciples the tenor changed he talked about this whole new relationship of my commandments and his commandments, and it's going to be a whole new situation.

It's not like what he told the Pharisees. So there's a difference. You can look through the Gospels. That's one reason Gospels are actually difficult. It's interesting, when you become a believer, you're told to read the Gospels. Well, you start doing that, and there's two pictures there. There's a picture of Israel, and there's a picture of the church.

Very little of the church, actually. 13 through 17 gives us a glimpse of what the church is going to be like. So anyway, not to belabor the point. So let's just kind of continue on here. As I pointed out, the phrase, His commandments and my commandments appear in these verses. And we're actually, here's the verses that we're studying today. OK.

So if you look at one of these in John 15.10, it says, If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

And one thing to observe here, when he starts talking about my commandments or his commandments, He starts talking about a relationship. He links commandments and relationships together. It's always abide in my commandments, obey in my commandments. Not obey, but he has a word of a relationship that's in focus here. So here's some observations. There's no reference in these verses to the law of Moses.

Keeping Christ's commandments speaks of a relationship, like I mentioned. And his commandments express his very nature. And then, you know, Christ says many times, you know, I kept my father's commandments. I always do what I see my father doing. There's nothing I do that's contrary to what my father did.

OK, so that was kind of a review there. So now the second part of the verse is, and this word that is Hinnah. And as Josiah has pointed out many times, it's kind of a little flag. In fact, in the English, whenever you see that, you ought to kind of think, well, the rest of this verse is going to Explain something to me or tell me why in this case.

It's going to give us the commandment and It says that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and believe here is pistou and which is a normal word for believe, basically it's to be persuaded of, I got an errant quotation mark in there, and hence to place confidence and trust in. So belief is trust, we're trusting in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then this whole last part, in the name of his son, kind of modifies the verb there. And then Wyss renders this, we should believe the name of his son, Jesus Christ.

And actually, the the there, it's really believe the name. Actually, it's in, I'm sorry. I got to check that. I think it's just believe the name. believe the name, that we believe the name of his son. And what's interesting here is that there's the verb tense here. Does someone remember what the aorist tense implies? It doesn't have to be perfect. I mean, it was highest Josiah. Just, I mean, you know, is it present, future, past? Past. Okay, okay.

Typically, the typical, if it's like, and here, this gets a little bit more technical, you have aorist indicative, which is a statement of fact. If it's aorist indicative, it states a past point fact, Christ died for the sins of the world. Past point fact, and that has ramifications forever, right? But it's a past point fact, at a point in time, he died for the sins of the world.

Well, this has a subjunctive mood, which is a, what they call a mood of probability. It's not a for sure thing. So basically this is saying, and what's interesting, this is Aorist. So you start looking at that, and this gets a little bit over my head here, but after a little bit of study, it seems that this is kind of a special case Aorist. The Aorist looks at things as a whole. Christ died. The Aorist many times captures a whole idea in a whole. Christ died for the sins of the world.

So this is saying, that we believe, and this case is called Constantiverist. I didn't, you know, that's not my wording, but it views the entire course of the Christian life in one panoramic view. So the entire Christian life is believing Jesus Christ, is trusting Jesus Christ. That's a whole, that's a summary statement. The whole Christian life is trusting Christ, believing Christ.

We do that for salvation, and we continue to do that for our entire Christian life. It says, as I've received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. I received him by faith. I walk by faith. The whole Christian life is believing in his name. So this is saying that his commandment singular is that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ. There's another part to it, and. But that's a summary statement. That's the Christian life, that we believe in the name. So it's interesting. He's linking a commandment to us exercising faith.

Boy, that's a different ball game than to a wrist. You know, it's a different thing. We don't have a, you know, the quarterbacks have a wristband. We don't flip a wristband out and say, okay, let's see, what do I do today? No, we trust Christ. I mean, it's just, it's a different, Different picture. I mean, I'm hoping that we come through this and saying, hey, my commandments and his commandments, it's a different, it's a different situation, a different ballgame. It's not looking at a list. It's looking to him, looking to Christ, trusting, walking with him. Okay. Thoughts or questions at this point? Okay. I believe the aorist means point. It doesn't have to be, it's generally past tense, but it doesn't have to be past tense. The classical, there's about four or five different errors. And I did a little bit of and I didn't, I decided not to put it.

That's right. Very, very good. There's, it can be a past point fact, Christ died for the sins of the world. Then there can be, there can be successive points. And how I had a cool diagram, I did, you know, you have a past point fact, then you can have successive past point facts.

This one, And there was no picture of this kind of capture the whole idea in one thing. There's it's everything together. One panoramic view. It's a different. And looking at it, this is a different situation, and I can't defend it very well because I don't understand it better than what I told you.

Basically, it's what's called a constant of errors. I've used everything as in one picture that we believe our Christian life is believing in his name, believing Christ. Not necessarily pointing to salvation. This isn't pointing to salvation, even though it's included.

Right. The point is the whole Christian life. Exactly. That's the point. So it's not a point in time. It's it's encompassing everything. I hope that's I know. That's my attempt to explain the inconstant of errors. There's punctilious errors. There's a whole bunch of people taking notes and they're going to be checking. Where's Hal when I need him? All right, so let's go on here.

Okay, that we believe in the name. So it's interesting here, it says that we believe in the name, and the name in scripture stands for, implies the authority, character, rank, majesty. It describes the person. It describes the Lord Jesus Christ, who he is. And there's several verses here that Thanks, speak to that. Now these speak of, are these speaking of, are these constant of errors or are these speaking of salvation?

Well, let's read them first and you decide from here. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. And then 318, he who believes in him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So is salvation in view here or something else? Is this a Christian walk or salvation? What do you think? This should be pretty... Okay, cool. All right, so let's just carry on here.

His commandment is that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another. So these are packaged together. It's a package deal. And in the context, it's you could actually phrase it that way. The way is implied that we love one another with. We as the implied subject, we love a copy. Oh, one another. And this is present, active, subjunctive. We may not do that. It's possible we don't. And the direct object is one another. And one another, actually, in this case, when it when it's that ending, it refers to one another.

And birds are all about endings. I mean, and it may be obviously typically this is what's called the textbook or the sure. You know, if you look at if you look at Greek words, they'll have a novel textbook with the ending. And I've written how that works. But anyway, the endings tell us about the action of the verb. So or the word itself. OK, so let's look here a little bit at a couple of verses.

I talk about one another and see because someone reads 13, 30. Let's do 34 and 35. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have loved one to another.

And what's neat about this verse here is that this brings in this word, new. And this is one of these little things you kind of keep in the back of your head. When you always hear the word new, you kind of ask the question, what kind of new is it? I think we've talked to this before. This is a new in quality.

This is a new in quality commandment. a new commandment, not like the old commandment, a new and quality commandment I give to you. So here, and this is in our section 3-17 in the Gospel of John, he's talking about a new and quality commandment that I give to you. Not new in time. Nope. And that's a real key thing. It's a new and quality commandment.

And we see that the whole tenor of this commandment is different. It's a relationship commandment. And it's something that we're going to see that we can't do. It requires Christ to do it. And there probably is an aspect of that, but actually in this verse here it's saying, I'm giving to you a new and quality commandment, not new and time. I see your point. Actually, there's a point in time when Christ, he gathers his disciples together, they went to the inner room, and he told them about it.

But in this context... Yeah, because if it were just new in time, it would be like, okay, here's a new Mosaic Law commandment for you. A new one in time. Here's another one for you. That's good. Here's a new one. Years gone by, so here's a new one. We got the commandment for this year, right? Yeah, but it's not like a new one in time. Here's a commandment for you. That's good, Josiah. This is not like the old Mosaic commandments. It's new in quality.

And notice here that people will know, as this new in quality commandment that I give to you, to love one another, by this all men will know that you are my disciples. This will be what will distinguish you as walking with Christ. All men will know that you are my disciples by the love you have for one another.

Okay, let's turn over to John 15 and let's look at summary verse 12. This is my commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you. Great. Okay, so this is very similar. This is my commandment that you love one another just as I have And we see that too, that Christ refers to the fact that He has loved us, and that the way He has loved us should flow out of us to others. Okay, so here's several verses in addition to what I have.

In fact, these are all in 1 John, that have loved one another. And we saw back in 3.11, it said, For this is a message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. So this is a message that we heard from Christ when He first appeared on the scene, so to speak.

Then in 1 John 4.7, which we'll come to in a little bit, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. And everyone who loves is one of God and knows God.

So, what's interesting here, what's the source of this love? Where is this love coming from? The source is not in man, right? It can't be in man, so the source is from God. Love is from God. And it says, everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. So boy, that really narrows in the crowd, right? You're not going to see this love outside of people that know God. If they don't know God, they're not going to be able to express this love.

Then in 4.11, it says, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. So once again, God loves us, and that love flows to others. And then 12, it says, no one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. Now, we're not sure if all those verses, love is a God they love.

Yes, yes. Actually, that's the one. And I think he asked it before. If you're in doubt in the New Testament, It's usually agape. Very, very few. And actually, we probably could, with a little bit of work, we probably could find out how many fileo and yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not that many. It's not that many, really. It's very few. Yeah, actually, I think Josiah pointed out that it's not, it doesn't occur at all in First John. It's always agape. So we see several key words keep coming up again.

In this keeping his commandments, we see loving one another. We see abiding in God. It's all about this wonderful relationship that's established when we know Christ and as we walk with Christ. That's the context of keeping his commandments or his commandments. Okay, then it has a little kind of parenthetical at the end here. It says, this is his commandment that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he commanded us.

And actually, literally, the just has been added there for emphasis, I think. And it's really, literally, it's as he gave command to us. And he gave is, he is a subject, gave is a verb. It's didemai, to give. And this is aris indicative. So it's this thing. He gave, this command was given. basically back in the upper room, right? So this is Eris, past point, this is a classical Eris, I'll call it. Past point fact, right? He gave this command to us. Past point fact, this command was given to us.

And we have it recorded in the Gospel of John where he gave it to his disciples. So the question is, what does this phrase, in the Greek it makes it pretty straightforward, just as he commanded us, does this apply to both parts of this, that we believe in his name, we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another, or does it just apply to love one another?

So what do you think? If you look at the Greek, I think it's a little more obvious. What would you say from the English, I guess, might be better. In this way, the way it's... Both. Both, you think? I would say, I don't know, my thought in English, I'd say both.

It seems like it's just as he commanded us, you say, well, okay, his command is believe and love one another, right? It's a compound. And it says just as he commanded us, it seems that applies to both. Does that sound right? All right. But in the Greek, just as he commanded us, actually just modifies love. So it seems like this phraseology, his commandment that we believe in the name of the Son of God was not Love one another appeared a lot in the gospel. I mean, I can find a lot. I don't know. I haven't really traced it out, but it's interesting. In the Greek, it seems like it just modifies a love one another. I'm not sure that's a super significant point. Maybe that Aristindicative shows that it was a path.

Right. And that's why I thought it referred specifically back to when he said that, whereas his statement, the first part of that, that we believe in the name of his son wasn't explicitly commanded. That's about what I could think. OK. Hopefully that doesn't confuse you too much. So let's go on here. So verse 2.

The one who keeps his commandment abides in him. So here we're going to go back to kind of his theme again. We're going to link abiding with Christ and abiding or abide is meno, to continue to dwell, to be present, to remain. This wonderful abiding relationship the Lord desires us to have. And the whole subject of this participial phrase is the one keeping his commandments. So the person that's abiding in him is one that's keeping his commandments.

They're linked together. Scripture says you can't have one without the other. They go together. So it's not like under the mosaic system, look, I've kept these laws. A guy came to Christ and said that. Hey, I've kept these laws. See? Look at me. No, that's not what it's all about at all. It's about this wonderful relationship we have. A different situation. Abiding in him is not showing Christ a list and how well I've done today. No, it's the one keeping his commandments is in that relationship and he flows out, he keeps his commandments because he's abiding in him. And this is present active indicative. So let's look a little bit at this phrase. Sorry, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I would say that's true. It goes together. It just goes together. I mean, all I found is that when you say one, you say the other.

In the Christian life, if a person's abiding in Christ, well, that's what John keeps hammering at. He says, you say you're abiding in Christ, but look over here, you're not doing that. Then I have to question whether you're abiding in Christ. Are you walking in fellowship with him?

You ought to be doing this. John is just constantly doing that. If you say this, this ought to be true. And this is just another situation where he's pointing that out. Your actions need to match what you say. Okay, the word keep is tero. It's to observe. This is kind of interesting. To observe, to watch. to keep the eye fixed upon. And this is kind of the broader definition. I looked at Vine and his definition, and I looked at Zodiates, which he has a Greek dictionary. You can look up words. I have the hardbound version, I don't have the computer version.

So anyway, this phraseology, to keep the eye fixed upon, kind of, I said, wow, listen, how about this verse, and it's a participle, the participle keep is in the present tense, and in Hebrews, what does it mean? I'm like, wow, okay. Let's do the rest of the verse here. OK. What really struck me here was that we're kind of trying to study out, well, the one who keeps his commandments. We're trying to, what is it? Keeping his commandments. And what's interesting is, it's obviously to observe, to watch, to keep the eye fixed upon. Well, it's interesting is that, and the word is not that word there. Fixing our eyes is not this word. In fact, I didn't look it up, actually. I should have. But I just thought, wow.

Fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, for the joy set before him, endure the cross, and so on. You know, that's abiding with him. That's what it's all about. So it just kind of struck me that in this word, keep, was kind of some of the ideas about it's more than a mechanical, yes, I kept that command. Yes, I got that one today. You know, it's not that. It's watching, observing. And actually, there's a verse I want to turn to. This one I added to your notes. Let's look at the Acts passage. I kind of penciled it in there. Acts chapter 12. And this uses the word keep, tarot. Acts chapter 12 and verse 6. Actually, 5 and 6.

Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the faith of God. And on the very night when Paris was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains and guards in front of the door. And guards in front of the door were watching over the prison.

OK. So actually this word, tarot, appears twice. It appears in verse 5, and it's the word for kept. He was kept in prison. And then the same word is used down in verse 6, in front of the door were watching over the prison. So in the context, it has meanings of observing, watching.

So I thought it was really kind of interesting. And actually, the verse I referenced there in 2 Corinthians is about the letter of the law. Well, let's just look at that. 2 Corinthians 3.6. And this doesn't exactly apply, but I just kind of thought maybe the idea applies.

2 Corinthians 3.6.

"...who also made us his ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Right. So now obviously this is referring to the letter of the mosaic law, I believe, because the letter of the mosaic law says not the letter of the mosaic law, but of the spirit. For the letter of the mosaic law, I'm adding my kills, but the spirit gives life.

The Mosaic Law is not in view here, but we can do the same thing with His commandments. We can say, boy, I love one another today. No, it's Christ. We're fixing our eyes on Jesus, and that's why I put it in there. I think God's intent is that we're walking, abiding with Him, and His commandments are being executed as we do that. We're not keeping track, so to speak.

Okay, so once again I took that phrase and I said, okay, let's look at 1 John. What's nice at this point is we've come pretty far in 1 John. We can go back and we can see, well, where do these words appear? And we can go back and look at that. Some we've seen in the past, some we're going to see later. So basically back in chapter 2, verse 3, it says, By this we know we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. So keeping his commandments is a measure that we've come to know him.

We're walking in the Christian life. The one who says, I've come to know him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar. The truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected, or brought to maturity. By this we know that we are in him. And then, one come here in 1 John 5, 3. So now it's going to link love and his commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. So why aren't His commandments burdensome? He's doing it, right? I mean, it's just, you know, the thing is, it would be burdensome if we had the, like what the Jews did.

They took God's 10 commandments. They made 600. They made their version, 600 commandments. They found 600 things in the Old Testament. And these are all the, I think there's so many negative and so many positive. Here's all the, and they kept that list of 600. And they said, how am I dealing with that list of 600?

That's going to be burdensome. That's going to be a burden. He says, He says walking with me and abiding with me is not a burden. It's a relationship. We're in a relationship. We're not in this burdensome thing with carrying these things along saying, how'd I do today? We're not doing that. This is a relationship.

Continuing on, the one who keeps his commandments And this is this wonderful dual relationship we're going to see. Abides in him, and he in him. So, the one keeping his commandments is a believer. Abides in him, Christ. And then the second part is, and he, Christ, abides in him. And this is in the present tense. This is to go on, present indicative. This is to be a reality in the believer's life, in the present tense. Going on day by day, moment by moment.

As we abide in him, he abides in us. a wonderful picture of the Christian life. in your own nature, or for whatever reason, focusing on whatever it might be, think he's not there, but he is there. And that's one of the wonderful truths we have to assure us when we have difficult times, that he is there. He is abiding with us. He hasn't forgotten us. All right, so once again, I went through and looked at some verses in 1 John. The one who says he abides in him, ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked.

No one who abides in him sins. No one who sins has seen him or knows him. This is a supernatural life here, right? No one who abides in him sins. We're in Christ. We're abiding with him. Christ's life was perfect. Our life is perfect as we abide with him. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

Actually, and then 1 John 4.16, We have come to know and believe the love which God has for us. God is love. The one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. So his love, his commandments, all that are all wrapped up together.

And then the last part of the verse is, we know by this. This is how we're going to know that we're abiding in him. We know by this that he abides in us. And this is the know of experience, gnosko, present active, happening right now in the Christian life. And it could be better maybe in than by. He abides in us, and we surrender this. And this we know experientially. that he's abiding in us.

And now he's going to tell us in the next part, what's going to tell us that? By the spirit whom he has given us. That's what's going to tell us. And notice here, this is Eris, right? The spirit was given to us. Every believer When he trusted in Christ as his Savior, he was given the gift of the Holy Spirit. So that's a past point fact. He has given us, given to us.

It's a little bit hard to make that modifier make sense, but to us. And then I basically rearrange this to put it in subject verb modifier order. And then we surrenders this from the Spirit as a source whom he gave us. Similar kind of thing, looking at the, we know by this, or by this we know, similar phraseology in 1 John. By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. But whoever keeps his word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in him.

And all these words, in every case here, it's a know of experience, it's gnosko. So these are things that we can know experientially in our Christian life. And this is the one that we did last week. We will know by this. I believe that's speaking of the loving in deed and in truth. We will know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our hearts before Him. And then two to come here. By this we know that He abides, that we abide in Him and He in us because He's given us of His Spirit. And actually, this is a parallel verse to our verse 24, right? Very similar statement.

At least the last part. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And then lastly, by this we know that we love the children of God, and when we love and observe His commandments. We love God and observe His commandments. Lastly here, I made an attempt here.

This is my expanded version. I didn't say explained because maybe this didn't explain it all. It's expanded. Okay, so I just try to capture some of the things. And this is difficult going because you think, well, we could put this part in. Okay, I'm just going to read it here.

So for verse 23, Christ's commandment is to place our confidence in Him during our entire Christian life. I try to capture that This is how I built it. I said, well, what's that Aorist telling us? That constant Aorist is putting it all in one big thing. So Christ's commandment is to place our confidence in him during our entire Christian life, which produces our loving one another as he commanded us.

This is a new in quality commandment under grace. So going back to gospel and saying, well, that's a new... You probably could add more to it. I mean, I stopped at some point. And then verse 24, abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in us results in keeping his commandments. You cannot separate keeping his commandments from abiding in him. The Holy Spirit has been given to us as proof that Christ is abiding in us. So hopefully that's somewhat helpful. So any other thoughts? So Ben, this is my expanded but not explained because I wasn't sure he explained everything. So questions or thoughts?

Hopefully you came away with that his commandments is not burdensome. It's a relationship. As we walk in that relationship, as we walk with him and fellowship with him, his commandments will be carried out. We don't have to have the list in our hip pocket. But also, 1 John points out, here are some things to look at. If you say you're abiding, you may not be. People were doing that in John's time. They were saying, hey, I know Christ. I'm abiding with Him. And He's saying, no, you're not. I don't see that life in there.

Well, let's close in prayer then. Dear Father, we thank You so much, Lord. We thank You for this day, Father. We thank You for Your Word, for the blessings we have, Lord. that we can walk with you simply and abide and rest and trust in you, Lord, and that it's your life. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And we thank you for that. We ask it in his name. Amen.