How to Know I'm on the Right Track

Well good morning everybody and welcome to church. My name is René, another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. Buenos dias to everybody joining us for the simultaneous Spanish language translation. Jose Santillans up in the booth translating. In fact, let me give you kind of a little behind the scenes update on what's happening right now at Twin Lakes Church.

You just saw on video our worship team leading worship from last night's in-person service. They are now outside for our outdoor in-person service. And as soon as I'm done preaching to you here in the morning, I'm going to run outdoors to preach at our outdoors in-person service. It is very busy here at Twin Lakes Church and it's about to get busier. I'm going to talk more about that in the service. But right now I want to invite you to grab those message notes. You can access them at tlc.org/notes because that'll help you follow along with the message.

My name is René, as I might have mentioned another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. And I want to start with this. I just finished what is my favorite podcast I have ever listened to in my entire life. It's put out by the BBC. It's called 13 Minutes to the Moon, The Apollo Story. I highly recommend this. It is just an amazing podcast. And in season two, they tell the story of Apollo 13.

Apollo 13 was meant to be the third lunar landing and then something went terribly wrong. A sudden explosion in space cripples the spacecraft, endangering the crew, canceling the moon landing, and then things got bad. The explosion took out most of the ship's batteries. And so they only had enough electricity to run half a hairdryer if they'd been back at home. And that meant they had no power for the computers. That meant no navigation controls. So how were they going to get back home?

Well, at first the astronauts tried to navigate manually by sighting the stars through their window like ancient mariners on Earth. Big problem, the explosion has enshrouded the spacecraft with glittering debris. And so the astronauts cannot tell the stars from the metallic particles that are reflecting the sunlight swirling outside their window. And as they approach Earth, mission control warns them, "You're coming in too shallow. You're going to bounce off the Earth's atmosphere. You're going to ricochet right back into space." What are they going to do? How are they going to get on the right trajectory?

And then somebody says, "I have an idea. Why not use the Earth's terminator to steer toward this line separating day from night?" That is what is called the terminator. That's the line that separates light from darkness. And they said, "You can see this beyond the glittering, distracting debris." So the astronauts try to steer toward this manually by keeping this centered in their window. And this is enough to bring them home safely for splashdown.

You know what? I kind of feel like those Apollo 13 astronauts right now. Follow me here. I think it's safe to say that we just went through a bumpy flight in the last year and a half. First, it was the big explosion of COVID. And then there were all kinds of glittering debris, distractions. We've been kind of spinning in space. And now, in this moment, as the state of California prepares to reopen the economy with some big announcement on Tuesday, I believe it is crucial that we first recalibrate our direction and ask, "Are we really headed in the right direction?"

As individuals, as Christians, as a church, we've been in a series called "Living in Love" based on the book of the Bible called First John. And today, I want to talk about how to know if I'm on the right track. If you have your Bibles with you, open them to First John, chapter 3, verses 11 through 24 in this series. We're just going verse by verse through this fantastic book of the Bible.

A little historical recap. Three explosions were rocking the world of the first century Christians that John is writing to. The context is this. In 64 A.D., the city of Rome burns. And Caesar Nero scapegoats the Christians. And they're intensely persecuted by the Roman Empire for the first time in their history. Then in 70 A.D., Jerusalem is destroyed. Once the center of Judaism and Christianity, now it is ashes. And in the midst of all this, the original apostles are all dying off.

Suddenly, many are being killed by the Roman Empire. And at this point, when First John has been written, only one of the original 12 apostles who walked with Jesus when he was in the flesh on earth is alive. And that is the author of this book of the Bible, John. And so, are you feeling this? The original Christians are losing their stabilizing center. It used to be, you know, there was a dispute. They would go to Jerusalem, let the original apostles, you know, kind of decide. And everything would be settled and good and they'd be unified.

But now, no more Jerusalem, no more original apostles. But one, Rome, is a dangerous empire for them to suddenly live in. And into these crises, scream all sorts of glittering distractions, making it hard to get on the right trajectory. And specifically, John is talking about the distraction of these Gnostic teachers with their new alleged spiritual knowledge. You heard Adrian and Mark do such a great job pointing out in the last couple of weeks how the word Gnostic comes from the same word we get our English word "knowledge" from, because they were all about how you guys need to learn super secret spiritual truths.

You need to know these things so that you can like achieve enlightenment. And they were starting all these little sects, little cults. And so, what was happening because of these four things, are you still with me? What was happening was the original Jesus followers were fracturing. The Christians, instead of standing united, they're divided. Instead of focused on Jesus, they're distracted by all this stuff. Instead of loving one another, they are fighting one another.

And the Apostle John is writing this epistle to bring back unity, to bring back focus, to bring back love. And don't you think we need these three things right now too? This is what makes this epistle so relevant. This is why we chose to talk about in this moment, because does it seem to you like there's like about a million bloggers and podcasters and YouTube preachers right now, starting all these little divisions within the Christian world, dividing and distracting and fighting, saying things like, "If you don't believe exactly the way I believe about politics, or about this or that controversial social topic, or about this precise theology even on minor points of Scripture, well, if you don't agree with me, then you are not a true Christian."

I've watched some of these internet pastors and late night TV pastors and heard this message myself, and maybe, maybe, you've even thought at some points in the last several months, "You know, I don't agree with those politics, and I'm not sure I agree with that exact theology on some minor biblical point, and so maybe I'm not a true Christian. Maybe I don't belong in church, and maybe I should just withdraw." I see that happening. I hear friends of mine saying things like this, "What a tragedy!" And this is what was happening. This is nothing new. This was happening in the first century.

So in this passage that we're going to look at today, John says, "People, let's stick together, and let's focus on what really matters, what Jesus focused on." And he starts us out with this big idea in verse 11. He says, "This is the message you have heard from the beginning." He's like, "Dudes, I walked with Jesus, and from day one, this is what he was all about. We should love one another."

Now, some of you are going, "Love one another again?" Man, John is a broken record. He keeps talking about love, love, love all the time. Somebody once said that reading and studying the epistle of 1 John is like ascending a spiral staircase, right? Because John just keeps circling back to the same themes. Really, he just circles back to two themes over and over in this book of the Bible. Love truth, love truth, love truth, love truth.

But even though he circles back to these themes, he's ascending. He keeps taking us higher with his concepts of love and truth as you'll continue to see. For example, watch where he goes in this passage. Three times in the next 12 verses, John uses the phrase, "We know." Remember this was the favorite phrase of those Gnostic preachers. And so John's like, "You guys impressed when people talk about knowledge? Those Gnostic teachers talking about knowledge all the time? I can talk about knowledge too."

He's saying, "Here are three things that you need to know to know that you're in the truth, to know you're really following Jesus the way Jesus intended." And he says, "You need to know that you're a true Christian. These are three simple things. You put these things in the window. You navigate toward these things and it's going to bring you safely home." And on the other hand, he says, "If you are not lined up with these three things, then you're on the wrong track. No matter how spiritual or righteous you think you are, you're on the wrong track. If you're not lined up with these three things, you're going to go spinning off into space somewhere. Don't you want to know what these three things are?"

He says, "Number one, the point of our faith is love. The whole point of our faith is love." Look at his argument as he builds it. Verse 12, "Do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother." And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were righteous. He's talking about the first recorded murder in the Bible way back in the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 4. Cain murders his brother Abel, by the way, over religious differences.

First murder in the Bible and it's inspired by religion. It's interesting that people sometimes are critical of religion and they think the Bible is uncritical. The Bible is the most critical book about religion of any ancient book. The Bible has its eyes wide open to the fact that religion can be toxic. And John deliberately uses this story to illustrate that. He's saying, "I'm seeing toxic religion here, people. I'm seeing brother against brother." And he's speaking out against that.

Now he says, "Don't be surprised by brothers and sisters that the world hates you. The world out there, it's going to hate you sometimes. Caesar wants you dead. That shouldn't surprise you." John's not telling the world out there, "You need to love us Christians more." No, he's talking to the Christians and he's saying, "You need to love one another more." And then here's the first of those three times in the passage that he uses the phrase, "We know." He says, "We know that we have passed from death to life." In other words, this is how you know that you're saved. This is how you know you're a true follower of Jesus. This is it. Because we love each other.

Anyone who does not have love remains in death. He's saying, "Let me make this very plain here, very clear. How can you tell a true follower of Jesus? It's not about their politics. It's not about their opinion on COVID restrictions. It's not about some ultra-specific details of, say, end times eschatology. It's not about speaking in tongues. It's not about being on the socially correct or socially incorrect side of some controversial topic. It's not about agreeing with some Christian blogger. It's not about what cable news channel you watch, all secondary issues at best, debris swirling and distracting us."

John says, "Here's the bottom line. Are you growing in love or are you growing in hate?" Next verse, "Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer." That's where murder starts. "And you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. You can't hate each other and call yourself a follower of Jesus. That's not what he was about." Really, what John is saying is this. If your theology does not lead you to love, then there's something wrong with your theology.

If your theology does not lead you to love, to love your neighbor, to love your brother or sister, to love even your enemy, then there's something wrong with your theology, or at least you cannot call your theology Christian theology. You might say, "Okay, that's cool, but that begs the question, what is love, right? Because there's a lot of competing definitions of love out there." That's point to the picture of love is the gospel. When John says love, he's not talking about some vague idea of love. He specifically means the kind of love that we see in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I want you to watch this. A lot of people know John 3:16. Probably a lot of you could recite it, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son." But 1 John 3:16 is really just as important. In fact, if somebody ever asked you, "What's one single Bible verse that summarizes what the Christian life is supposed to be all about?" You could tell them 1 John 3:16 because John says, "This is how we know what love is." Here it is. This is how we know Jesus Christ laid his life down for us.

There is something so powerful when you hear stories of somebody laying down their life for somebody else. I was watching the news the other day, and I saw a story from a couple of years back about these three young men, three junior high-age boys in the UK, ages 13, 13, and 15 years old. I want to make sure I get their names right. Sean, Devontae, and Sammy. So here's their story. They're walking home from school one day, and they see a man sitting on the edge of a bridge. Get this. With a rope around his neck and the other end of the rope is tied to a strut on the bridge, he's about to jump off and hang himself.

And so these three boys, three young teenagers, run over there, and they try to talk him out of it, and he jumps anyway. And so they grab him in midair as he steps off, pull him back, and they don't let go, even though the man passes out. Now he's getting heavier by the second, leaning over, and still they will not let go, even though he outweighs them. His weight is about to drag them down. In the nick of time, another passerby, this woman, Joanne, stammers, steps in, takes over for one of the boys so he can go on and run for help, and she hangs on with them, even though Joanne is disabled.

She has a rare blood clotting disorder. She gets dangerous bruises if she touches anything or anything bumps into her, which result in blood clots throughout her body that are life-threatening, but she hangs on even though afterwards she has these bruises and blood clots all over her. Finally, police arrive. The man is saved. They're okay. The man has since visited each of these four to thank them profusely. But that story to me inspired me so much because these three young men and Joanne literally laid down their lives to save a guy they didn't even know.

And John is saying what he says here in 1 John 3:16. He's not just saying, "That's what you guys ought to do." He gets there. But the first thing he's saying is, "That's what was done for you guys." Biblically, we're all that guy at the edge of the bridge. We were lost. We were goners. And Jesus Christ is the one who grabbed us in midair. He grabbed you in midair. He saved you. And he will not let you go.

We all owed a debt we could not pay, a debt of sin. We were deserving of God's wrath from a biblical perspective. But Jesus Christ steps in and pays our sin debt on the cross to give us eternal life. And John's saying having experienced this, now we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. He's saying that's supposed to be our brand, not infighting. That's supposed to be our reputation, that kind of self-sacrificial love. When we see other people in need, we serve.

Now, John says, maybe that moment where you're literally jumping in front of somebody and taking a bullet for them, that's probably never going to happen. Where you literally have to lay down your life like those boys did. And Joanne, but he says, verse 17, there's a million other ways he can do it. He says, if anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need, but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?

Now, maybe you're going, well, I dodged a bullet on this one because I don't have any extra material possessions. I see people in need. It's a shame, but I really can't help in any way. Tell you a true story. Week after Mother's Day, these three kids are patiently waiting to talk to me after church, after our outdoor in-person service. The older one there in the middle is Gavin Alvarado, and his siblings on either side are his little sister Liliana and his brother Grayson.

Now, you might remember on Mother's Day, we distributed baby bottle banks, as Adrian said, and announcements to collect change for the Pregnancy Resource Center. We said, let's bring them all back on Father's Day, filled with change. That's next weekend, by the way. Well, Gavin already beat you all because he walks up to me with this baby bottle, as you can see, so full of change that he can hardly hold it up. In fact, Liliana and Grayson are helping him because for little kids, this is like they're carrying an anvil to church.

And he hands it to me, boom, and he tells me this, "I have three piggy banks at home, and I broke them all open and put in all my money." And I said, "Why'd you do that, Gavin?" And Gavin looks at me like, "What do you mean, why?" And he says, "Well, for the babies, like, duh, Pastor René, don't you understand? I think Gavin is eight years old." But John would say, "You know what? Gavin already gets it. Gavin gets what's supposed to be like our thing, our brand, our jam, however you want to put it, as believers, followers of Jesus Christ."

He says, "Dear children, let's not love with words or speech, but in actions and in truth." You might remember the fascinating experiment I told you about from the University of British Columbia. The more people like social media posts about social causes and sign online positions, the less likely they were to actually donate or volunteer for those exact same causes. We live in a culture where people think if they like to post or sign some online position, "My job is done here." Man, that's something that John's saying, you've got to guard against.

Frankly, he's saying, "Who cares what's on your posts? Who cares what's on your yard sign? Who cares what's on your car decal?" You want to know if you're on the right track, the point of our faith is love, and the picture of love is the gospel. And before I get to point three to wrap this up, let me talk to you about something that's going to happen this Tuesday here in the state of California that I think is very serious.

These two points here, they're going to get put to the test in your life and mine. You might be watching from another state, but as we reopen further here in California, it's expected that on Tuesday, mask requirements and social distancing requirements will be dropped or at least loosened up. We'll know more on Tuesday, so here is what will happen. Some people will gladly throw their masks away, especially those who are vaccinated, they feel safe.

Others will keep wearing masks. Maybe they're just more cautious as people, even if they are vaccinated, or maybe they have some medical condition that's prevented them from receiving the vaccine, or maybe they just prefer to wear a mask, or maybe they're taking care of somebody who prefers that they wear a mask. But I guarantee you, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, by Tuesday afternoon, but I believe that by Tuesday afternoon, there's going to be bloggers and influencers and internet pastors and television talk show hosts trying to get you to judge those groups, the masked and the unmasked.

There are going to be people saying, those people walking around without masks, they just don't care about you. They don't care about anybody's health. They are crazy. And they're going to try to tell you, those people who are still masked, those people are just living in fear. We should speak out against those masked people. Try to get us to judge one another. Try to get you to suspect that that unmasked person is really not vaccinated. They're lying to, or whatever it is, right?

So listen very carefully. The most important decision that you and I need to make in advance of Tuesday's announcement is this. Can we all please agree in advance not to judge? What do you mean not? I think someone once said, do not judge. Oh yeah, it was Jesus. Not to stigmatize, not to assume the worst when you see somebody, whether they're masked or unmasked. I think somebody said, love always assumes the best. Oh yeah, that was the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Can we agree to assume the best? Can we agree to love?

And can we agree that if we're around somebody who clearly is still ill at ease and prefers that we wear a mask, that we mask up for them? Because the point of our faith is love, and the picture of love is the gospel. That's our brand as Christians. That is what we do. We do not let the internet and TV merchants of anger and division mislead us, get us off our gospel trajectory. The point of our faith is love. The picture of love is the gospel. And the number three, and I love this one, the product of the gospel is confidence. Confidence about yourself, confidence before God.

Watch this. This is how we know that we belong to the truth. In other words, this is how we know that the gospel is really soaked, and this is how we know that the gospel kind of owns us, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence. If our hearts condemn us, let me just stop right there. Our hearts condemn us. How many of you know what John's talking about? I do. I've shared with some of you before, I in my life have really struggled with this. After we were married just a few months, my wife Lori told me, "René, you are the most guilt-oriented person I know because I struggle with self-condemnation."

Most of my life I've walked around kind of feeling guilty, like about everything. I shouldn't have said that to that person. I should have, "Oh, I was so awkward in that conversation. Oh, I think I might have hurt that person's feelings." And then on the days that I don't feel guilty, when I realize it, I feel guilty that I wasn't feeling guilty. Maybe some of you relate. Here's some symptoms of somebody who struggles with self-condemnation. You feel distant from God because you don't feel worthy of God's love. You are always tired because you can never rest from trying to prove your worth.

Whatever crowd you're in, you feel like you don't belong. Nobody must really like me because you know how bad you really are. You can't stop using negative self-talk. You're always saying things to yourself like, "I'm so stupid. All your prayers are, 'I'm so sorry, God, I'm so sorry, I'm so dumb.'" Does that sound familiar to some of you? It does to me. Well, John says, "Let me tell you how to set your heart at rest." And by the way, isn't that a beautiful phrase? God wants your heart to be set at rest. God doesn't want you to walk around feeling tortured all the time.

I honestly used to think that if I felt guilty all the time, it would make me a better Christian. No, it just makes me a miserable Christian. God wants your heart to be at rest. So how do I do it? John says, "You remember, first, God is greater than our hearts." Right? When your heart's voice whispers, "Guilty." God's voice booms, forgiven. God is greater than our hearts. Praise God. Okay, but you might be thinking, "René, you have no idea what I've done. Okay, I may not know what you've done, but I may know. I know a lot." Just kidding. But John says, "God knows everything. Everything about you. Even that, everything. And He still loves you."

I wish more people understood this, that the Bible says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I wish more people understood that Jesus Christ was crucified for you so you can stop crucifying yourself. Man, there's so many emotional problems among Christians, because in their minds, they're still trying to please an unpleasable God. God is always saying, "You should have done that, but I'm so disappointed in you." You may know that next weekend, next Saturday, is Juneteenth. What's that all about?

Here's the story. On January 1st, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln, took effect January 1st, 1863. And that meant that legally all enslaved people in the United States were declared free. However, it wasn't until June 19th, 1865, two and a half years later, that Union troops came into Galveston Bay, Texas, and General Gordon Granger got up and announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in Texas were free. And that day, June 19th, 1865, became known as Juneteenth.

Just imagine that. How tragic was it that people who'd been legally free for two and a half years were still living in chains? There's a lot there to unpack, but can you see the spiritual analogy? Jesus set us free at Calvary, but many Christians are still living like slaves. And so the gospel rolls in and announces the good news. You're free. And John says, "Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us," in other words, when we realize this, when we rejoice in this, we have confidence before God.

The product of the gospel is confidence. We can go boldly into the throne of grace before God in prayer. Why? John says, and this is kind of a crazy verse, "We receive from Him anything we ask, because we keep His commands and do what pleases Him." Now, pardon me, John is not saying that God is some kind of a genie. Pray for a Tesla. You're going to find one in your driveway. Sorry to disappoint some of you. He's saying, "When we live in love, when we're focused on the gospel, then what happens is we're going to be sort of tuned into God's frequency, and we are more likely to care about and pray about the things that line up with His will."

Now, let me just stop there, because maybe you're kind of caught up on this phrase, "because we keep His commands." And you're thinking, "But I don't keep His commands." Nobody does perfectly. What commands is John talking about? For this week, let's wrap up with this next verse. He says, "And this is His command." And John simplifies it as he always does. What's His command? There's an invitation here and a challenge. Here's His command. "To believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He has commanded us." An invitation to believe in Jesus and a challenge to love as you have been loved.

Will you receive the invitation and the challenge? John is just saying, let me summarize. There's a lot of distractions. So keep your eyes on that dividing line between light and darkness, the dividing line of human history, the cross of Christ. Yes, because of that, I'm not condemned. And because of that, I am free to love. Keep your eyes on that. You'll get home okay. Because the whole point of our faith is love. And the picture of love is the gospel. And the product of the gospel is confidence.

I'm going to close with a story that just happened with, just really to me an example of all three of these things. When schools switched to distance learning during the pandemic, many students in our county were left behind because many didn't have computers, many didn't have Wi-Fi, and many parents, especially in South County, are migrant workers who cannot stay home and help their kids with the distance learning.

Well, Miss Yolanda, our TL Kids director that you see every week on the live stream, she saw a way to serve these families. She set up support for them with FBC Watsonville, TLC provided tutors and computers and a space for kids to access internet and Wi-Fi and distance learning. And we were very clear with the parents and the families, this is a Christian program.

Well, I want you to listen to this letter from one of the students to one of our tutors. She says, "Dear Mr. Jason, when I first came to the program, I was shy and nervous, but you treated me like everybody else. The program helped my depression and all my problems. I also made lifelong friends because of you. Thanks for being a hard worker and a hero that I'll always remember. Thanks for teaching me about God and about kindness. It went by so fast that it felt like one week. It's hard to let go of somebody that felt like a dad. I wish we had one month more. This is the only person in the universe who wishes the lockdown would keep going."

She says, "Because you are the reason that I have friends and really know what a blessing is. You are a blessing from God. You're a hard worker, a role model, many things I can't describe. And a dad. Thanks, Mr. Jason." Do you see what was happening in that relationship? She felt and experienced love. She heard the gospel and she grew in confidence. What a great example. John is saying what Jason was to this student. Let's be to each other. Let's be known for living in love.

Would you pray with me? Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for setting us on the right track in a distracting world. And Lord, I pray that right now there would be many joining us on the live stream who would receive the invitation to believe in Jesus in this moment to trust Jesus for salvation. That they would say, "Lord, I don't understand all this, but I put my life in your hands." And God, may we all accept the challenge to love others sacrificially as we have been loved. Not to judge, but to love. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.