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Hey guys, welcome back to the Way UK podcast.

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My name is Michelle and today I'm joined by my wonderful co-host, Jasper.

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And today we'll be diving into our last chapter of One John.

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If you haven't already, make sure to check out all the other chapters because it will make sense for, it'll contextualise the last chapter.

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But this has been a really fun book to get into.

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And as you guys know, our vision here over at The Way is to reach every young person with the good news of Jesus.

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And so if you're listening to this on YouTube, make sure to send to a friend, do this Bible study together.

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Or if you're listening to on Spotify, Apple podcast, make sure to give it a rate because it basically pushes out our podcast to more people.

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And so more people can hear about the good news of Jesus.

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But without further ado, let's get into this chapter.

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Okay, so before we dive in, pause it here, read it through yourselves because we're not going to read it through right now because we don't want to repeat ourselves.

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We're going to go section by section.

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But before we do that, yeah, just pause it and give it a read.

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Jasper, do you want to read the first section?

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I would love to do that.

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Right, we're going to read from verses one to five to start off with.

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Here we go.

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Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

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And everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

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This is how we know that we love the children of God, by loving God and carrying out his commands.

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In fact, this is love for God, to keep his commands.

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And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.

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This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

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Who is it that overcomes the world?

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Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Let's go.

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Gosh.

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Yeah, I mean, his heavy emphasis on love again, isn't it?

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I mean, it makes sense because the chapter before he's talking a lot about loving, loving our neighbours.

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God first loved us and so we should love from there too.

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Yeah.

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What stands out to you, Jasper?

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Yeah.

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It's interesting you say that because he kind of seems to go straight on from where he left off last time around in chapter four.

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Talking about, you know, the identity of God.

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God is love.

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And then kind of following on and being like, OK, now we've really got that settled.

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You need to understand how this is meant to affect your outworkings to other people as well.

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And it's interesting, isn't it?

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Because this is where then we start to see more of this idea of like, actually, as believers, we're a family.

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We are brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Mm hmm.

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And this sort of idea that, okay, well, if I'm born of God, which is what John says at the beginning here very clearly, that if I believe that Jesus is the Christ, I am born of God.

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There's therefore this almost expectation that I need to love others who are also born of God.

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Right.

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I mean, if I love the father, then it wouldn't make sense if I was then to turn around and say, oh, but I hate your son or your daughter.

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Because actually that's the way that I express my love for the father still is by continuing to love those who are also in this family.

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Yeah.

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It's almost like God, God doesn't want a dysfunctional family here.

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It's like we need to, we want to all be working together.

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We want to be a body, a family together in love.

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Yeah, that's such a funny point.

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Like God doesn't want a dysfunctional family.

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That's so fun.

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I'm reminded as I'm reading this is like, actually, no, like no matter what denomination you're from, no matter like what, like what race, what background, whatever, like, yeah, whatever it is, your differences doesn't really matter.

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Like you're meant to still love.

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For sure.

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And I think it's interesting kind of coming off of that, like John definitely seems to kind of try and explain a bit more like, OK, this is how you're going to grow in learning how to love your brothers and sisters.

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Like he kind of recognizes the church doesn't always get it right.

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Yeah, I don't.

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I certainly don't always get it right.

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Yeah.

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And he almost gives two clear ways.

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sort of how we can know that we love the children of God.

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So I'm reading from verse two.

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He says, By loving God and by carrying out his commands.

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And I was, I was, I read this quote earlier this morning, um, cause I was reading up some more on this kind of passage.

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Um, and, and it just said the best thing that a father can do for his children is learn how to love his wife.

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And, and so this idea that actually, if we want to, if we want to learn how to love God's children, actually it starts with learning how to love God.

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Mm hmm.

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Because the more we love God, the more we begin to rejoice in him and the more we begin to seek his face in all things, the more we'll see him in our churches, in our brothers and sisters.

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Yeah.

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And so, again, it kind of got me thinking some more, OK, well, then where am I perhaps facing those sort of maybe feelings of unforgiveness or unrighteousness?

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unresolved anger in my heart towards someone else who I know I need to be loving yeah I need I know I need to be displaying that more and actually that reminder of okay well if that's if that's me or maybe if that's you who's watching this like actually the response series turn to God learn to love God and then you naturally from a place of overflow learn to love other people as well yeah

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And in the following verse, it says, in fact, this is love for God to keep his commands and his commands are not burdensome.

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And like in order to learn how to love God, I mean, it's a clear instruction to keep his commands.

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I think often we can think of like, oh, commands can feel so, I guess, restricting.

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But actually, I think there's so much beauty in within boundaries.

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Like, I think God gives us instructions of how to live life on this earth.

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to the fullest, if that makes sense.

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And I think like, I remember there'll be times in my life where I, like when I was much younger, um, still figuring out my faith.

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And I would just think, oh, like why are they just so I would, I generally did think the Bible was just like full of rules.

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But now that I'm older, I'm like, oh wait, actually those rules are, those rules and those boundaries and those commands are actually there to safeguard me and to like, um,

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yeah, I don't know, like to teach me something, if that makes sense.

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Like for, I don't know, I think of like, the first thing that comes to my mind is like, I guess,

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of like no sex before marriage yeah i used to think oh that's so boring yeah but actually now i'm like oh wait on reflection i'm like actually that's so like it makes so much sense as to why god would give us that boundary because that that is much deeper than just a physical act um but yeah

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no for sure and also it like it isn't in the in the will of god in a way that's very strong to say but like yeah don't want to go down that rabbit hole but anyway uh no that's that's good and and i think there's a thing there of like actually god's love language is obedience yeah you know that's that's how we that's how we display our love to him you know jesus says elsewhere you know if you love me you'll keep my commands and um

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And his commands are not burdensome.

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It reminds me of that other scripture where it's like, my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

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I think we can often think, oh, like all these rules, like it just feels like more weight on me, like more things that I need to be mindful of.

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But actually like when you fix your gaze on Jesus, it's like all these other things generally do seem to...

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like fall in place.

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Cause like, of course, like out of your love for God, why would you want to sin against him?

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Why would you want to not keep his commandment?

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Because you want to learn, like you want to continue to love him because you've experienced his love.

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And so.

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And yeah, absolutely.

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But, but also we need to realize that actually we're only halfway through the sentence there when it says, and his commandments are not burdensome because he then continues.

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He finishes off the sentence by saying for everyone born of God overcomes the world.

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Wow.

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And so it's suddenly this realization that actually, you know, we're not doing this in our own strength.

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I was reminded when I was reading this of the story of the rich, gosh, the rich young ruler.

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Yeah.

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And the story there where Jesus tells him, you know, if you want to be perfect, go and sell everything you own.

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And his disciples turned to him like, Jesus, then who on earth can be saved?

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That seems impossible.

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And Jesus says, yeah, it is impossible.

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With man, this is impossible, but not with God.

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With God, all things are possible.

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And it's this kind of similar thing here.

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Like the reason why his commands are not burdensome is because he's already taken on that burden upon the cross when he was up there, when he died for us, for our sins.

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And so again, it's this beautiful reminder of, yeah, as we're saying, like actually the more we love God, it's not from a place of, oh, I need to obey in order to be loved.

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It's like, no, I'm already loved.

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Therefore, I'm just I want to obey.

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Like I want to express my love for him by by following what he has to say and trusting him when he says it.

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So good.

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And the next verse, it says, this is the victory that has come, that has overcome the world, even our faith.

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Like there's just like, again, just a wonderful reminder of the victory that we get to stand in because of the price that Jesus has paid for us.

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We get to just sort of freely stand in that victory because of his love.

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And I, yeah, I feel really just sort of touched by that.

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yeah yeah gosh and it's a reminder a little bit of john 16 33 where jesus says in this world you will have trouble but take heart for i have overcome the world and actually who's the one who overcomes the world the one who believes in him

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And so when we have faith in him and we part of trust in him, we are sharing, as you say, in his victory.

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We're sharing in the fact that he has overcome the world.

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And so therefore we don't need to live in fear or live in this kind of guilt or pressure of like, I need to reach this certain level.

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It's actually like, there's freedom in Christ.

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So good.

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I love that.

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Should we move on to the next section?

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Yeah, let's do it.

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Come on.

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Do you want to read that bit?

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I can read that bit.

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6 to 12.

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Hmm.

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This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.

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He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.

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And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

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For there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement.

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We accept human testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his son.

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Whoever believes in the son of God accepts this testimony.

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Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his son.

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And this is the testimony.

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God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

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Whoever has a Son has life.

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Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

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Wow.

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Wow.

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There's a lot in there.

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It's pretty full on.

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Okay, so the first couple of verses, so six to, well, it is mainly six, six, seven and eight.

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They are quite sort of contested.

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There's lots of different interpretations of these couple of verses.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, we noticed that, didn't we?

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We did notice that when we were talking about it.

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But what were your thoughts?

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Yeah.

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Interpretations of these verses?

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for sure so i mean you you've already said it this sort of bit of the passage well actually this whole chapter there's a couple of bits in this chapter which are said to be some of the most complex and confusing passages and the whole of the new testament um just because there's lots of different interpretations stuff like that so you know that's just something to be aware of you know if you're watching this and you want to check out some do some research for yourself highly recommend that's what we spent this morning doing it was great fun

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But let's just set the context a little bit more just so we're still on the same page.

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I think it's important to remember that John was writing to the church at the time who had been influenced with this idea of Gnosticism.

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And this is sort of this idea that like the flesh, the physical, the material was bad.

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And so when they tried to understand this concept of Jesus being this sort of spiritual being, being God himself, that they couldn't understand how actually he would be able to come down and be an actual fully human as well.

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That they just believed he appeared to be human.

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And this is what John is combating.

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We see he combats it a lot throughout the book of actually know, OK, Jesus is fully God and he is fully man as well.

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And I think this is important for us to know when we start to come to this sort of bit confusing part of the text.

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When he starts to speak about from verse six, this is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.

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He did not come by water only, but by water and by blood.

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And this is where when we talk about water and the blood, this is where there's some different interpretations of what that means.

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You might remember some others which you may want to come in on afterwards.

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I think the concept, which particularly maybe resonates with me based on what John has been speaking about, um, in, in earlier chapters is this idea that the water, uh, so we, we know from the old Testament and really throughout the Bible, water can kind of be symbolic for, uh, this sort of like purification, uh,

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Spirit, something spiritual, spiritual being.

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We can think of Jesus saying, I am the living water, you know, Jesus' baptism, the significance there.

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So this kind of divine aspect there with the water, which is what Gnosticism agreed on, that Jesus was this kind of higher spiritual being.

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But then when he says and blood, that's then where we can begin to consider things such as physically the blood that he shed on the cross.

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The fact that he was a real human who died a human's death.

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And so he's getting across there that Jesus didn't just come as a super spiritual being.

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by water, but also as fully man by blood.

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The fact that he suffered as well, that he experienced these things as well.

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And then this kind of understanding helps us go into what John continues to say in verses seven and eight, where he says, for there are three that testify, the spirit, the water and the blood.

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And the three are in agreement.

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Now, we've already spoken about the water and the blood, as I did just there.

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But now we have the spirit.

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And again, this is where there's some differences in interpretation of what specifically he's talking about.

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Again, for me, as I read this, as I understand it, he's referring to the Holy Spirit here.

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So you have the Holy Spirit testifying that Jesus is fully man, fully God.

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You know, we know elsewhere in the Bible, Paul says that no one can say that Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit living within them.

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You have the water testifying that Jesus was fully God and you have the blood testifying that Jesus was fully man as well.

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So you've got these three things that are working together to point towards the true identity of Christ.

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Yeah.

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Which again is what is what.

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John is once makes really really clear here that actually if you believe in Jesus this is the Jesus you need to believe in yeah does that make sense yeah that makes complete sense I mean the spirit and then the water part of like baptism when when obviously Jesus was baptized and then the clouds opened and obviously the father was then this is my son whom I'm well pleased and that was like a testament of you know Jesus starting his ministry but also like God's hand being on him and he's like a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son of a son

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Um, and then obviously the, the crucifixion where Jesus shed his blood and that is just like all, like it says here, testifies, um, to, to Jesus.

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Yes.

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And then, yeah, it goes to the next bit where we accept human testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it's the testimony of God.

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And basically says that the testimony of God is God gave us eternal life through his son, Jesus.

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Come on.

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Again, talking about, you know, the story of Jesus of how he took the sin of man and, yeah, basically died on the cross for our sins and resurrected again three days.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, yeah, and that is good news.

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And I guess it's sort of like faith in the incarnate son of God.

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Again, he's like hammering it in saying, oh no, this is, this is about Jesus and what he's done for us.

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That was my sort of thought briefly on that.

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Yeah, and I think that's really good.

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And I think it's interesting as well when we start to talk about kind of this idea of like the test of God's testimony here and how that is greater.

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It's interesting, isn't it?

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How kind of going back to the spirit, the water and the blood thing, how it lists three things there.

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And throughout, particularly in the New Testament, throughout the kind of early church at this time, it spoke a lot about a testimony being true will be kind of supported by two or three witnesses.

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Yeah, right.

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And so, again, it's just an interesting link there, how John is really doubling down and being like, this is true.

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OK, God's testimony is true.

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He's testifying about himself.

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I mean, how many times do we just believe whatever we hear on social media from a human?

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But actually, as John says here, you all believe human testimonies.

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Why don't you believe in God's?

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Yeah, this is what he did.

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He has come to give us eternal life.

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And I think this kind of final verse in this short section we're looking at here in verse 12 says,

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It is really powerful how we round it off.

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You know, whoever has the sun has life.

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And I think it's a challenge to some of us, well, to all of us, definitely.

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But, you know, particularly to those who may be watching who may have stumbled across this video.

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Actually, it's a question of are you actually living or are you just breathing?

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Yeah.

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You know, actually to know Jesus is to know life.

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This is what he's given us.

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He has given us eternal life.

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And, you know, we can go through life and it can throw all sorts of curveballs.

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But actually it is the security in Christ of who he is.

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The fact that he was fully man, that he was relatable, that actually he came to earth on our level and he was fully God.

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You know, he has that authority, that reliability, that testimony that is true.

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that we can trust in him and we can have life.

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Yeah.

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And the thing is like, he invites us to that.

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Jesus invites us to, to come and know him.

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You know, he says that whoever comes to me, I will never, I won't, I won't turn away.

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It's, it's sort of this promise that if you come to me and if you believe that, like with faith and by faith that I am the son of God and I am the Messiah, it's like,

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I won't reject you and he will make himself known to you.

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And I love that like one, John is saying this, but also Jesus has invited us to come and know him.

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Yeah.

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And in him there is life.

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Come on.

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Yeah, I love that.

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Do you want to do 13 to 15?

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Yeah, yeah, I can read that.

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Right.

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Verses 13 to 15.

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I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

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This is the confidence we have in approaching God.

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That if we ask anything according to his will, he will hear us.

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And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what he asked, what we asked of him.

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Do you know what I love about this?

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I stumbled across a video where somebody really deeped the scripture of Hebrews, which is sort of similar to verse 14 here, that there is confidence we have in approaching God.

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Basically, in Hebrews it says, Let us approach God's throne of grace with confidence.

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And they were basically saying, oh my gosh, can you actually deep it right now?

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God is sat on his throne and there's, you know, there's elders and elders who are all around him throwing their crowns down.

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And then there's these, you know...

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creatures around the around the throne and there's thunderings and all this all this is happening and yet he says he gives us the confidence to come and approach him in the throne i'm just like gosh thank you that is that is amazing yeah through the price that jesus has paid on the cross now we get to come and approach him um gosh who are we who are we and how great is he um that he would give us that sort of

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And that's what John is really wanting to make clear.

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He's wanting us to deep it, as you're saying.

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Yeah.

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The Greek word here for no kind of the word no relates more to this idea of like knowing beyond reasonable doubt.

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Yeah.

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That like this is true that you have eternal life.

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He wants us to know this.

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He wants us to know the confidence that we can come to his throne for and know that actually our cries reach his ears in his throne room, as Psalm 18 says.

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It's a beautiful reminder and one which actually you almost just want to sit in and rest in.

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Totally.

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It's beautiful.

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It's like the reminder that we are co-heirs with Christ and we have been given all the authority that now Jesus has, you know.

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and and like reminding ourselves that if like he i mean john says he and if we know that he hears us

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Like if you, it takes intentionality to really pray, knowing that God is listening to every word that you're saying.

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And when you actually recognize that and you pray, knowing that God is hearing your words, it's like, oh, like I'm speaking to my father.

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He knows, he knows me.

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And he like every good gift comes from him.

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And he's like, he's a kind father.

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Where is it where it says like, oh, you know, if a child asks his father for something.

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Yes.

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Like, yeah.

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asking for an egg and he gives him a scorpion yeah exactly um and how much more does your like heavenly father know your needs and stuff like that like it is just yeah god is god is a really good father and we can come with confidence knowing that he hears us and that

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We know that we have what we have asked of him, whether that's in our timing or not.

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I think we need to remind ourselves that like, gosh, just because I've asked for it doesn't mean that I'm going to get it instantly.

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Because he knows the best timing for when that thing should come in our lives, whether it's on this side of eternity or not.

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Yeah, that's really cool.

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And actually, we see in the next bit, which we're going to read in just a second about what John is really talking about.

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It gives us an example of the things we can pray for.

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So it's all right if I just read that quickly.

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So we'll go to the next section, verses 16 to 17.

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If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life.

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I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death.

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There is a sin that leads to death.

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I am not saying that you should pray about that.

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All wrongdoing is sin, and there is a sin that does not lead to death.

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What on earth is he saying that?

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Basically, I think the whole idea is that if you, you know, if you have a brother or sister that is caught up in sin, it's like a call to pray for them.

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And so I think that's what he's getting at in this.

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It's quite confusing.

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But the whole idea of like sin and stuff, I'm sure you had thoughts like, you know, the sins that do lead to death and the sin that doesn't kind of thing.

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What are your thoughts on it?

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Yeah, I mean, this is another passage in this chapter, which is a little bit contested, a little bit confusing.

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There's lots of different views.

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Again, you can read up on them if you want to.

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Yeah, there's lots of different ideas.

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One idea that I have, which some other people also agree with that I read up on.

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is that when it's talking about a sin that does not lead to death, it's referring to like a physical death rather than a spiritual death.

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So, for example, we know that Paul says in Romans, he says the wages of sin is death.

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And there we would say he's referring to a spiritual death.

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Yeah.

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Whereas here, the way I would understand it is he's talking, John is talking about physical death, something which literally will cause you to actually die and to leave this earth, so to speak.

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And actually what John is saying, as you say, we can go into the real specifics of what does this all mean?

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What's the theology behind it?

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What are the debates behind it?

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Which is really interesting to have.

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It is, yeah.

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But actually the main thing here is that we need to pray because no matter what, as he says in verse 17, all wrongdoing is sin.

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Yeah.

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Sin is still, it's still wrong no matter what, it's still unrighteous.

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But we need to pray.

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Therefore, we need to pray for our brothers and sisters who we've seen or may be caught up in sin.

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And we should pray that the Lord would reveal his life to them, that they wouldn't try and find it anywhere else.

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Yeah.

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But only in him.

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So good.

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Okay, let's hit this last section, 18 to 21.

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We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin.

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The one who is born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.

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We know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

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We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true by being in his Son, Jesus Christ.

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he is the true god and eternal life dear children keep yourselves from idols i like that little bit at the end just just add it in there the last bit is like completely kind of irrelevant from what he was like originally talking about still a great point but still just to see that letter guys i'm just gonna say dear children keep yourselves from idols um but yeah um

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Any thoughts on this last section?

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The first thought I had was, is John contradicting himself with what he said in chapter one?

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You might remember if you've been watching along, we read in chapter one that he says, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves.

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And then he starts off here by saying, we know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin.

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And I was a little bit confused by that.

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I was a little bit like, what is he?

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Has he got confused whilst he's writing this?

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Has he forgotten what he said?

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But actually, the word sin that he's using here is referring to actually the state, like being in the constant cycle, the lifestyle of sin.

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Not this kind of perfect state of perfection, like,

345
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absolutely sinless perfection right actually he's referring more to like if you are born of god you are no longer in this life of sin um so he's still acknowledging that yes we still need his forgiveness daily yeah um and that yes you know you you might still fall into sin right but actually when we become children of god we are transformed we're a new creation um so we're no longer stuck in this cycle of sin and of shame because we've been set free from it right it's just a beautiful reminder

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Yeah, it's that beautiful reminder of our dependence on God, our constant sort of need for him.

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No matter like, now you're in this new life, you can't continue doing stuff that you were doing before.

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The old has gone and the new has come.

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And it's like sort of that calling higher to, hey, if there's this sort of sin pattern in your life that you've grown complacent to, like reminder of, hey, no, you can't live like that anymore kind of thing, which is so good.

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I love how he's just sort of like...

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sealing this in that way.

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Yeah.

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Um,

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And I think it's, I think this whole final section is just a beautiful way to round off this whole book.

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Where he brings it back.

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This is who you are.

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You are children of God.

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You are not overcome by the evil one who he says is currently ruling the world.

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No, you have overcome that yourself because of your faith in Jesus.

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Because you now know the true God that Jesus has revealed to us through his life here on earth, through his death and through his resurrection.

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And I think it's a beautiful way that he's rounded off this, this chapter in this whole book to be like, this is your identity.

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This is, this is God.

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This is who you worship.

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This is who you serve.

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This is your father.

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And, uh, and interestingly, we've just had a chat off camera, just about this final verse here that seems quite random where John just throws in, you know, dear children, keep yourself from idols.

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And actually, again, how can we bring this back to what he's been talking about throughout this book about where the church that he's talking to have been really struggling with this idea of Jesus being fully man.

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And the point he's almost getting across is like, if you reduce Christ to being less than fully man, you make an idol of him.

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crazy that's a bother like and and actually the reason why it's an idol is because it's not the true perception of who he is yeah and so again i mean yes it's it's an application for us in terms of okay where else are we making idols of things but also where is our perception of jesus or of god of god as a whole in the trinity maybe slightly off that we need to come back to this what he's saying here remind ourselves he is love he is all these things fully god fully man come on it's crazy deep thought

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that's a deep thought deep thought to wrap up this book guys thank you so much for tuning in this has been challenging but in the really like in the best way gets you thinking it really does get you thinking and please do make sure to go away read things up for yourselves we obviously aren't experts but we're just giving our thoughts

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um but yeah thank you guys so much for tuning in make sure to send this to your friends and again give ratings if you're listening to spotify on spotify apple podcast um to help sort of with the with our vision but guys we'll love you and leave you here it's been a joy see you in the next episode see you soon bye guys