Redeemer Weekend Sermons

Teacher: Leanne Benton

1 The elder, to the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— 2 because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:

3 Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.

4 It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 5 And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

“Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws." - Tim Keller

The great “truth” unveiled in the gospel is that the powerful, redeeming love of God is the motor that drives the cosmos. - N. T. Wright

3 Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.

4 It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 

Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world. - Francis Schaeffer

Behavior is a reflection of belief.

5 And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

When other’s look at us, will they see a life shaped by the truth of the Kingdom of God and the love of Jesus?

Teacher: Adam Barnett

Dear children, keep yourself from idols. – 1 John 5:21

Exodus 20:3 – You shall have no other gods before me.

1. An idol is anything or anyone more important to you than God.

   “Idolatry is robbery and perversion. It’s robbery because we take what is due to God and give it to something else. And it’s perversion because we give the devotion God rightly deserves to other things.” - Erik Raymond

2. Idols interfere with our identity.

3. Is there anything or anyone more important to you than God?

   Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. – Psalm 139:23-24 (NLT)

   More anything else, I love / want / need / trust / desire / fear ___________________.

   Don’t just remove idols – replace them.

   Idols can kill your worship; worship can kill your idols.

Teacher: Dave Brown

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
— 1 John 4:7-12

“The English word love is trying to do so many different jobs at the same time that someone really ought to sit down with it and teach it how to delegate.”
— N.T. Wright

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…
— John 3:16

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
— 1 John 4:10

Love is not just something God does. It is who God is.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
— 1 John 4:8

Love is the language they speak in God’s world, and we are summoned to learn it against the day when God’s world and ours will be brought together forever. It is the music they make in God’s courts, and we are invited to learn it and practice it in advance. Love is not a 'duty,' even our highest duty. It is our destiny.
— N.T. Wright, After You Believe

Love is a disciple, a practice, an act of the will.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
— 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

The great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Teacher: Adam Barnett

1 John 2:28-29; 3:1a
And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

John 1:12-13
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

To be “born of God” specifies the origin of our identities, impulses, motivations, and attitudes.

1 - God’s children do not live in sin

1 John 3:6, 9
No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.

6 No one who lives (Greek: menōn = to remain, abide, stay) in him keeps on sinning.

2 - God’s children love one another

1 John 3:11
For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

"A failure to love others is symptomatic of a failure to love God."
-Karen Jobes

1 John 3:16-18
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 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? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

To lay down your life is to express love through sacrificial and compassionate actions.

3 - God’s children are confident before the Father

1 John 3:19-24
This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

“John says that we can set our hearts at rest whenever they condemn us… for God understands us better than our own hearts know us, and in his omniscience, he knows that our often weak attempts to obey his commands spring from true allegiance to him.”
-Howard Marshall

Teacher: Adam Barnett

If you know God, you must obey Him and live as Jesus did.

We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. - 1 John 2:3-6

Do I take God’s commands seriously and do I repent when I fall short?

1 - You must not hate your brother.

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them. – 1 John 2:9-11

2 - You must not love the world.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.
For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from
the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives
forever. – 1 John 2:15-17

Worldliness – an affection for that which is unlike God and contrary to his will.

Is there anything you possess or desire that interferes with your devotion to God?

3 - You must not listen to false teaching.

As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—eternal life. I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. – 1 John 2:24-26

Teacher: Dave Brown

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no
darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and
do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with
one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without
sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not
sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. My dear children, I write this to
you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—
Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours
but also for the sins of the whole world. —1 John 1:5-2:2

1. Fellowship

2. Light versus Dark

3. Truth versus Lie

4. Sin, Confession, Forgiveness

5. Atonement

1. Consumerism/Materialism

2. Nationalism

3. Stewardship/Ecology

4. Sexuality

5. Security

The people stood in the holy place and spoke the current religious cliche and supposed that
everything was just fine. They were in the right place, and they said the right words—but they
were not right…Religion is not a matter of arrangements or places or words, but of life and
love, of mercy and obedience, of persons in a passion of faith. —Eugene Peterson

God of grace and truth, in Jesus Christ you came among us as light shining in darkness. We
confess that we have not welcomed the light, or trusted good news to be good. We have
closed our eyes to glory in our midst, expecting little and hoping for less. Forgive our doubt
and renew our hope, so that we may receive the fullness of your grace and live in the truth of
Christ the Lord. Amen.

Teacher: Adam Barnett

Who?
The Apostle John

What?
A pastoral exhortation on truth, obedience, and love.

When?
AD 90-95.

Where?
Ephesus (and surrounding churches)

Why?
The truth was under attack.

1 John 1:5 (NIV)

1 John 1:5 (AMP)

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.” - St. Francis

Teacher: Leanne Benton

Jeremiah 29:11

Proverbs 15:22

Psalm 33:11

The Infinite Infant Entered Our Timeline

What Will We Do When God Disrupts The Plan?

Proverbs 16:9

Proverbs 19:21

The Story of Christmas is Not About What We Want But What We Need

What Will We Do When God Changes Our Plan, A Holy Disruption?

Philippians 1:6

What Will We Do When Our Plans Come to a Place of Disruptive Disappointment?

James 1:2-4

Psalm 23:?

John 1:?

Philippians 3:13-14

John 16:33

Teacher: Adam Barnett

Isaiah 9:6

Isaiah 7:14

Matthew 1:22-23

1 - God was with us (past event).

Matthew 1:18-21

2 - God is with us (present reality).

God is ALWAYS with you and will NEVER leave you.

Galatians 2:20

3 - God will be with us (future hope).

Teacher: Adam Barnett

Isaiah 9:6

Peace is not the absence of conflict.

Luke 2:12-14

Luke 2:14

1 - Peace with God.

Romans 5:10

“Our sin has put wrath between us and God, and a mere ceasefire will never suffice—we are not meant to live under the cloud of an uneasy standoff with God. Instead, Jesus became incarnate, died, and rose so that believers might be adopted into God’s own family and eat at the table with him in unbroken fellowship forever.” – R.T. France

2 - Peace within.

Philippians 4:6-7

3 - Peace with others.

Romans 12:18

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.” – St. Francis

Can we agree to disagree, and focus on being loving instead of being right?