Impossible Pursuits

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Transcript:

Turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to 1 John chapter 5. 1 John chapter 5. We’re getting close to the end of this series on the book of 1 John.

Well, really on John’s letters that he wrote. As he looked around himself and saw that he was the last of the apostles, the last of this group of men who walked with Jesus and ministered with Jesus every day, looks around and sees that he’s surrounded by successive generations of Christians who weren’t there during Jesus’ ministry and says, what do they need to know before I’m gone? Before we’re all gone, what is it they need to know?

And he wrote these letters to them and to us. And as I’ve been leading you through this study, it’s taught me a lot to think about it in those kinds of terms. These are the things that John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, thought were the most important things that we needed to remember. We’ve learned a lot going through here about love and about obedience and about a relationship toward God.

And we’re going to talk a little bit more about relationships and how God has set it up today as we turn to 1 John chapter 5. But I want to ask you first of all, if any of you have ever tried to do anything that was impossible. Have you ever tried to do anything that turned out to be impossible?

It’s frustrating, isn’t it? You know why? Because it’s impossible.

You know, a while back, my tractor stopped working. I love riding my tractor. I love calling it a tractor.

It’s just a lawn tractor, but it’s a John Deere, and tractor sounds manlier, so I’m going to call it a tractor. It’s got the word tractor in it, so I can’t. And even over the loudness of the engine, it’s some of the quietest time I get during the week.

There are no phone calls. There are no children screaming, Daddy, look at this. I’m just out there on the tractor.

And anyway, now they do come scream at me still sometimes. But I love being out there, but a while back it quit running, and I had to put a new fuel pump on it, and then that one didn’t work, so I had to put an electric fuel pump on it and finally got that working. It still wouldn’t start.

And so I called Brother Ken, and I said, I’m at a loss. Can you come help me? Can you come look at this and maybe give me some idea of what I need to do?

And so he came over, and he brought voltage testers and all sorts of things. And he’d stick the voltage testers on two different pieces of metal, and he’d say, okay, crank it, and I’d climb up, and I’d put my foot on the brake and turn the key, and he’d say, okay, you’ve got fire there, and he’d put it somewhere else, and I’d climb up, and I’d put my foot on the brake and crank the key, and he’d say, well, you’ve got fire there. And I’d do that over and over and over until he finally said, okay, you need to replace the coil.

So I went and got a new coil. or ordered it and waited forever for it to come. And I put it on there and got it going.

And I was so excited, I took video of it with my phone. I did. I took video of it with my phone, sent it to, because it took a month for me to get this thing running.

It was a triumph of Southern engineering, I tell you. And it doesn’t look like it did when it started, but it ran. And I took this video and I sent it to Brother Ken.

I sent it to Charlie. I sent it to everybody in my family because I was just so excited. It was finally running.

I turned it off because it was late in the day. That was a Saturday. It didn’t mow on Sunday.

Went out later, early the next week, to try to mow. And I climbed on and I cranked the key and the thing wouldn’t start. And I thought, what in the world?

I have replaced everything on this tractor. There is nothing that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But the entire fuel system is new.

Half of the electrical system is new. What now? Seriously, what now?

And I picked at that thing for an hour, and I struggled at that thing for an hour, and I kicked that thing for an hour. I didn’t really kick it, but in my mind I did, so it’s the same thing, right? For an hour, until I realized, wait a minute, I’m missing something.

You’ve got to push down on the brake to start it. See, the way they are built, some of you all might have things like this, the way they are built, it is impossible. It is impossible to start the thing without having your foot on the brake.

Some kind of safety mechanism. I don’t know. The brake doesn’t work.

It doesn’t actually really stop it. But you have to have your foot pushed down on the brake for it to start. It’s impossible to do it otherwise.

And it didn’t matter how hard I tried to make it work otherwise. It didn’t matter how much I wanted it to work that way. It was impossible, so it just wasn’t going to happen.

And the longer I spent out there trying to crank the key and trying to mess with the electrical connectors and all that, and was not doing the thing that made it possible, the more frustrating it was going to get. And I think we’ve probably all done things. See, y’all didn’t want to shake your heads and admit you’d been as dumb as I had, but I know you’ve done things like that because we’re human.

We’ve all done things, maybe not, I’m going to do the impossible today, but we’ve all started something, and then it didn’t work, and then come to find out it was impossible to do it that way. See, I was, years ago, I started preaching in children’s church when I was 15 years old. I felt like God was calling me to preach.

The pastors at my church said, fine, we’ll put you in children’s church. If you can preach to first through third graders, you can preach to anybody. And one day I was trying to get them to understand this concept of some things being impossible.

And so I, beforehand, I duct taped a Hershey bar to the ceiling and then called up the smallest one in there to try to jump up and grab it. And you know what? They couldn’t.

And they saw that Hershey bar and wanted it, and they tried and they tried, but it didn’t matter how much they tried and how much they wanted because it was impossible. at least for them to reach it from the ground, it was impossible. And the Bible does say that with God, nothing is impossible.

Meaning, if you’re following God and you’re obeying him and doing things in his power, nothing that God wants to happen is impossible. But there are some things that are impossible because of the way God has set them up. In other words, there are some things that because of the way God has set it up, it’s impossible to do this other than through God’s plan.

There’s no other possible way to make this work other than the one way God says for it to happen. And that’s where we find ourselves in 1 John chapter 5 this morning, starting in verse 1. We see John gives an account to the early Christians and to us by extension that some things are just impossible, and it doesn’t matter how much we want them to work.

It doesn’t matter how much we try. It doesn’t matter how hard we work. Some things are impossible if you don’t meet the right conditions.

And so he says, starting in verse 1, 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. So he says, anybody that believes that Jesus is the Christ, meaning that Jesus is the Messiah, if you believe that Jesus Christ was the one that God promised all throughout the Old Testament, if you believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, the Son of God, God in human flesh, and that he came to die for our sins, that he came as God’s provision for our forgiveness, that he came as the anointed one who would take away the sins of the world. If you believe that, if you believe that Jesus is exactly who he claimed to be and that he and he alone has the power to forgive your sins, he says you’re born of God.

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah is born of God. And everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. He said if you love him that begat, everyone that loves him that begat, everyone who loves God the Father loves him that’s begotten of him.

In other words, if you love God the Father, if you really love God the Father, you’re going to love the Son. And I talked a little about this last week, that our society is relatively okay with the idea of God. You can talk about God bless you, and God loves you, and well, you know, I thank God for this Grammy or whatever it is.

And people are basically okay with that. For the most part, people are okay with that. You start bringing Jesus into it, however, and the world loses its ever-loving mind.

And I know this to be true because of the stories of our chaplains, who a few years ago were getting, and it may still be going on, but a few years ago our military chaplains, our Christian military chaplains, men who had been called into ministry, and the U. S. military said, we need some guys who’ve been called into ministry to do Christian ministry to our Christian troops.

They were called for that purpose, hired for that purpose. The U. S.

military was, they were getting in trouble for praying in the name of Jesus Christ. I’m sorry, who else’s name is a Christian supposed to pray to? It was okay for them to pray to God. It was okay for them to pray and talk about God.

Bringing Jesus into it was a totally different situation. I’ve heard the same things with, you know, different public meetings, city council, this, school board, that. Not here, but people pray to God.

It’s okay. You pray to Jesus, and World War III breaks out. The Bible says you can’t love God without loving Jesus.

He says if you love the Father, you’re going to love the one the Father sent. And this was a message to the Jews early on in Jesus’ day. They were still professing we love God, but Jesus we think is a false prophet.

And John says no, you love one, you love the other. Verse 2, by this know we that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. He said if you want to know that you’re really loving other people, If you’re really loving God’s children, if you’re really doing right by them, the way that you’re going to do that is by keeping God’s commandments.

And verse 3 says, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. If you want to show that you love God, keep His commandments. It’s that simple.

And I have this conversation with my children all the time, and I don’t say that to pick on them, because I’m sure my parents have said the same thing to me. You’ve probably said the same thing to your children. My children tell me, I love you, I love you, I love you.

And I love hearing that. I don’t love hearing it as much though on those days where they just wouldn’t listen to me if I was screaming because I was on fire. Any of you ever had those days with your children?

Like I must have lapsed into Japanese for all that you’re hearing and understanding what I’m telling you to do. And I tell them routinely at those times, Daddy, I love you, I love you, I love you. I appreciate that you love me.

I love you too, but show me. And I tell them all the time, I’m not expecting you to be perfect, just do your best. But those days that I know I’m not getting their best, those days that they act like they could not care less about me if they tried. If there was a contest to see who could care the least about what daddy says, that everybody would be a winner on those days, I don’t feel very loved.

You’re not showing me. It’s the same thing with God. If we want to demonstrate our love for God, we do it through obedience to what he said.

Think about how much sense it makes to say, oh God, I love you, I love you. I don’t care a thing about doing anything you said, though. That doesn’t make sense.

We wouldn’t put up with that from our children, and yet we expect God to be okay with that. And he says in verse 4, For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. Now, I love this.

I love this because there are all sorts of verses in the New Testament about overcoming. And as we look through the book of Revelation, either as I’ve preached on the seven churches, or Brother Terry’s been going through the book of Revelation on Sunday nights, As we’ve talked through that, there are promises that are made to overcomers. To those who overcome, I will give this, I will give that.

To those who overcome. And it’s repeated throughout in there. When you go back and see what John, who wrote the book of Revelation, what he says about what does it mean to overcome?

Because I read that and the question in my mind is overcome what? Overcome how? Who is the overcomer?

You go back and see what John wrote here. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. He says the victory is certain here.

If you’re born of God, you’re going to be an overcomer. If you’re born of God, you will overcome the world. Does that mean we win every battle?

No. There are lots of things. I am not a name it, claim it preacher.

I hope you’ve understood that by now. There are plenty of things that have happened to me in life that I would just as soon have not had happened. And you’re probably the same way.

I have not won victory in every single battle I’ve ever faced in my life. But what we are promised is victory in the war. Victory in the war.

The war over sin, over death, over hell, the war with Satan, he promises us victory in the war, if not in every single battle. Because when you get right down to it, when you’re born of God, when you belong to Jesus Christ, there’s only so much that the world can throw at you. And again, I know I’ve repeated this several of the last few weeks, but it’s in line with Paul’s attitude, and I love this.

What’s the world going to do to me? If they let me free, I get to go tell everybody about Jesus. if they lock me up in prison I have a captive audience to tell people about Jesus if they kill me I get to go be with Jesus when that’s your attitude what can anybody do to you and so when we look at it from a standpoint of I’ve I’ve been born of God and I belong to him and and what happens is for his glory and that’s what matters well then at that point we’re guaranteed victory because it doesn’t matter what the world throws at us it’s nothing that God can’t handle whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Our faith is the victory. I don’t know if we’ve sung that song here, but I’ve heard that hymn for years. Faith is the victory.

Faith is the victory. Oh, glorious victory that overcomes the world. It’s taken from this passage right here.

This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Faith in anything? No.

Faith in Jesus Christ, because he goes on to say in verse 5, Who is he that overcometh the world, that he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? So we overcome the world through faith. We have victory over everything that the world throws at us.

We have victory in the big picture in the war. We have victory through faith, but not just faith in anything. It matters what our faith is in.

Because there are a lot of people in the world who have a lot of faith in a lot of things, aren’t they? Aren’t there? There are people all over the world today who have so much faith that they are willing to kill other people because of what they believe in.

But I contend their faith is misplaced. And their faith is placed in a works-based system that offers no assurance of salvation and offers nothing but eternal separation from God in a place called hell. There are people today who firmly believe, well, if I just make sure that the amount of good I do outweighs the bad, then God will love me and accept me.

And they firmly believe that. They have faith in that. But they put their faith in the wrong thing.

They’re putting faith in themselves and their own works, which again leaves them no assurance of anything except separation from God and hell. We can put our faith in the wrong thing. You know, anytime I sit down in a chair, I’m putting my faith in that chair that it’s going to hold me up.

I have had misplaced faith about that at times. We saw a video this week online, Charlie showed me that reminded me of a time that it had rained a lot in Oklahoma. And we were sitting out in the backyard at my parents’ house, and I had these chairs that sloped back at the end, I guess, to brace your weight better.

And I took it out in the backyard, off the patio, out into the yard next to the fire pit, because we were out there. Kids were roasting marshmallows and all that. And I start noticing everything’s looking different.

Am I leaning back? Maybe I’m just not used to this chair leaning back that much. And before I realize that I’m going further and further back, those legs are sinking in the mud.

I put my faith in the fact that that chair would hold me up, but apparently that chair couldn’t contend with my weight in the soggy ground, and I ended up at ground level. See, it was misplaced faith. I had all the faith in the world that chair was going to hold me up, and it did not.

Listen to this. Hear me in this. Your faith is only as valuable as the object of that faith.

It doesn’t matter how strongly you believe if you put your faith in the wrong place. Your faith is only as valuable and only as effective as what you place that faith in. So he says, this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith, and then ties that in immediately into Jesus Christ. He said, who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

He said, that’s the faith that overcomes the world. You want victory over the world? That’s the faith that does it.

The firm assurance that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and all that comes with it. We’re not talking just about agreeing with the idea that Jesus is the Son of God. Even the demons understand that, James says.

Even they believe in God. Even they believe in God and know that Jesus is His Son. This is not revolutionary.

But for us to believe that Jesus is God’s Son means to understand all that I talked about before about Him being the Messiah. Him being the one that God sent to deal with our sins. To believe that Jesus is God’s son here means not only to believe that he’s God’s son, but accept him as God’s son and our Savior.

And that’s the faith that overcomes the world. Because when you’re bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, there’s not much the world can do to you. Yeah, they can kick us around, they can persecute us, but we have more that they can’t take away than what they can.

And so after reminding them about all these things, about their love and their faith and their obedience, reading through this, I realized there are some things points out here that are impossible. There are some things that John really is identifying and saying these things are impossible because he says this is the only way it works. Anything else is impossible.

So I’m going to give you four things this morning that are impossible that we need to make sure we understand are impossible because if we keep trying to do impossible things, if we keep trying to reach some kind of spiritual achievement or some kind of spiritual level or some kind of spiritual place in our relationship with God, and we try to do it outside of the conditions that God has set up, it is impossible, and we’re going to end up frustrated, and we’re going to end up angry with God when it’s really our fault for not doing it the way he said. So four things this morning that are impossible. The big one, number one, you cannot have a relationship with the Father apart from the Son.

You cannot have a relationship with the Father apart from the Son. That’s not me saying that. I mean, why would you listen to me about that?

I’m just another man. That’s Jesus who said that. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes unto the Father but by me. Well, what about the really good people? No, he says no man.

What about the religious people? No, he says no man. What about the good looking or the wealthy?

He says no man. And to the thought that, well, if I’m just good enough, God will let me in. I’ve told you all before, I was raised in church.

I was in church from the womb. And my mother was the church secretary. My dad was a deacon and a Sunday school teacher.

We were there every time the doors were open. And even sometimes when they weren’t, my parents would be the ones to open them. So we were there all the time.

And I was raised in a fairly strict household. And I didn’t get in much trouble because I was scared of my parents. And I was taught in church the right things to do.

And for the most part, I did them. But even at that, I had to come to the realization that whatever goodness I thought I had was not enough. Because no matter how much good I did, it could not erase the wrong that I had done.

And we’ve all sinned against God. We’ve all done wrong. And there’s no amount of good that we can do.

I mean, as great as that is, it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve sinned against God. And that sin separates us from God. Y’all are probably tired of hearing this, but it’s become my favorite illustration of this.

Because I’ve heard people say, well, why can’t God just calm down? I got so mad a few years ago when Christianity Today ran an article by its editor called The Divine Drama Queen, basically saying, why can’t God calm down and stop throwing dishes like an angry Italian woman at her husband just because we sin? Why can’t God?

I thought, this is an evangelical Christian publication. Why can’t God calm down? Because some things are supposed to be kept pure and clean.

And this is where I say this has become my favorite illustration of that fact. Months ago, visiting my parents in the city, had Benjamin with me, and we stopped in at on cue to get a hot dog, because unlike my wife, I like gas station hot dogs, as long as they’re clean, and they keep their area clean. I went over there to get a gas station hot dog.

That doesn’t sound appetizing when I say it that way. I went over to get a hot dog off the little rolly thing, and I’m getting my hot dog, and I go up there to pay, and we got Benjamin a snack, and as we’re paying, I was horrified to see people walk in with a dog in their arms over by the hot dog stand. And if you know me very well at all, I’m kind of a germaphobe a little bit.

And I have no words. And I was so glad when the employees saw it and told the people to get their nasty dog away from the food, because some things are supposed to be kept pure. Some things are supposed to be pure, and they’re being kept away from impure things.

That’s not a hard concept to understand. None of us want the workers at KFC to have cats running around in the kitchen. I mean, we’re not okay with that, right?

If we’re going to eat there. See, we understand some things are supposed to be kept clean and pure, and impure things have no business being back there. God and His heaven are the same way.

By His nature, He is pure and sinless and holy. And the corruption of sin, the nastiness, the filth of sin, has no place in God, with God in His perfect heaven. We are separated from God because of our sin.

Because of that, we cannot have a relationship with God. Our sin gets in the way. And it doesn’t matter how good we try to be, our sin still gets in the way until it’s dealt with.

And that’s exactly why Jesus Christ came to earth was to pay for our sins. Yes, He taught love and He taught compassion. He taught us to do right and be nice to each other.

And all those things are important. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t have spent, what was it, 18 weeks teaching on the Sermon on the Mount?

That was a long time. I could have moved through it a little faster, but y’all like to talk too. I wouldn’t have spent 18 weeks on Wednesday nights talking about the Sermon on the Mount if I didn’t think those things were important.

But the biggest reason why he came was to deal with the problem of sin because we could not live up to those things. And so only through Jesus can our sins be forgiven. Only through Jesus and the blood that he shed on the cross do we have access to God the Father.

And that’s why he says in verse 1, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Messiah. In other words, whoever has come to that point of realizing that Jesus is the Messiah, sent to be my Savior for my sins because my sins separated me from a holy God, that person has been born again of God.

And when we’re born again of God, we are adopted into God’s family. We now have a relationship with God the Father, whereas before we were just enemies because of our sin. So we need to understand, and we need to be clear on it, because then we can speak with one voice to a world that needs to hear it, that you cannot have a relationship with the Father apart from the Son.

Second of all, you can’t love God without loving His people. If you love God, you’re going to love His people. Verse 2 tells us, By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments.

When we’re in a right relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, we’ve been born again through Jesus Christ, and now we love God, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we’re doing our best to obey Him. When we are in a right relationship with God, we are going to love His people. That’s why it’s so frustrating to see church fights and church splits, and I’m so thankful I haven’t seen any of that here.

But also, I get so frustrated when I see billboards and advertisements for churches, and it’ll say things like, Love God but hate the church? Really? If you love God, you’re going to love His people.

That’s like coming up to me and saying, I want to be your best friend. I want us to hang out every day and have lunch. But by the way, I hate your wife and kids.

Yet we’re probably not going to lunch. Probably not going to be best friends. See, my wife and kids are very important to me.

You know what? The church is the bride of Christ. God’s people are His children adopted into His family. God loves us.

God cares about His people. And so I find it personally troublesome to hear churches advertising that way. I get what they’re saying.

And sometimes we’re not lovable and we should work on that. But part of love is loving each other even when we’re not lovable. And we as believers should be able to love each other.

If we love God, it will show in our relationships with other people. But to say, well, I love God but not His people makes no sense because God says, if you love me and you’re being obedient to me, you’re going to love my people as well. And back in chapter 4, he said, it’s impossible to say, I hate my brother who I have seen, but I love God who I haven’t.

God’s word says that makes no sense. Folks, if we really love God, we need to work on loving his people. We need to work on loving each other.

That doesn’t mean we don’t need to love people outside. Of course we do. But why in the world would the world want to consider the claims of Jesus Christ?

Why in the world would they want to consider our message that Jesus can change us, that Jesus can cleanse us from the inside out and make us new and make us whole if we can’t even get along amongst ourselves? By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments. And by the way, if we’re being obedient to God, we’ll be treating each other the right way.

Number three, you can’t love God without obeying Him. And I’ve already talked about this a little bit. But he says in verse three, for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not grievous.

You can’t love God without obeying Him. Just like I said, those days that my children are just, they could not care less if they tried what I said. I don’t feel very loved by them.

They’re not showing it. Well, so it doesn’t make sense for us to do that with God. Love is always backed up by action.

One of the most important things I was taught as a teenager in church is that love is not a feeling. Love is an action and love is a commitment. If we love God, we’re going to follow it up with obedience.

Does that mean we’re going to be perfect? No. No, sadly it does not.

And there are going to be those times when we all feel like, why did I just do that? Why did I just say that? I feel like I’ve disappointed God.

And if you’re a believer, that’s the way you should feel about it. Not, oh, well, it wasn’t a big deal because this, or I’ve had a hard week and it was okay. No, I should feel like I’ve let him down.

I should feel like I’ve disappointed him. And then I should deal with him about it. But that shouldn’t define our lives either.

There are going to be times that we slip and fall into disobedience, But overall, our life should be about trying to obey God and trying to please Him. Not because we’re afraid He’s going to zap us if we don’t. Not because we’re afraid we’re going to lose our salvation or go to hell.

But because we love Him and we’re thankful for all that He’s done for us. So this is the love of God that we keep His commandments. And the commandments are not grievous, He says.

They’re not a heavy burden. When we think about the commandments of God, we’re not really talking about the Ten Commandments. We’re not really talking about the 613 commandments of the Old Testament law.

What we’re really talking about is the commandments given in the New Testament, the first and greatest commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and strength. And the second is likened to it, love your neighbor as yourself. That’s basically it.

You do those, it takes care of the whole rest of it. He said that’s where the law and the commandments hinged, was on those two things. So yeah, they may be hard to do sometimes, because they’re not only matters of the external, but they’re matters of the heart.

They may be hard at times, but they’re not a huge burden. It’s not like we’ve got to memorize 600 laws and follow them and go through all these ritual washings. Love God and love people.

It’s that simple. And number four, you can’t overcome the world without faith in Jesus. You can’t overcome the world without faith in Jesus.

Verses four and