1 John

Chapter 5 versus 1 to 5, but we're reading from 1 John chapter 4 versus 19 through to verse 5 with chapter 5. So if I turn your Bibles to Page one-two 28, as you can see on the screen, and I'm going to start reading. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates his brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen, cannot love god whom they have not seen.

And he who has given us this command, anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of god by loving god and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for god to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world even our faith. Who is it who overcomes the world? Only the 1 who believes that Jesus is the son of God. Let me pray.

Father help us as we look at this amazing passage, so full of good stuff and good for us to hear. We pray, please, that by your spirit, you would take this spirit word and apply it to our minds and our hearts and our actions, our beliefs, the things that we say and do amongst each other, help us, please, that this word would not be something that we hear and go away and forget quickly. By your spirit and press it upon us. Change us to be like it in Jesus' name. Men.

Now we we talk about people that are caught in a vicious cycle. I'm sure that you've heard that that phrase, a vicious cycle, a vicious cycle that people can't get out of. So what happens is 1 thing leads to another that leads back to the first thing and then round and round it goes, a vicious cycle. Someone, for instance, might feel depressed about their life circumstances, and so they turned to alcohol, which in itself is a depressant. And and because of that, they feel worse about their situation, and their circumstances get worse because they're not facing up to the the problems that they have in their life, and so they drink more alcohol, and they're more depressed and a vicious cycle.

You know you know how it goes. Or in relationship, 1 in the relationship wants more attention and more loved and they think they're getting from their partner, and so they go moody or they start arguing with their partner, which distances their partner from the more. And therefore, they feel more lack of love and because they feel more lack of love, they argue more and feel more moody more a vicious cycle. You've got it. You know how it works.

A vicious cycle. And these vicious cycles, they're they're like whirlpools, and they suck us under. And they'll drown us if we're not careful. Or they're like, whirlwinds, bent on destroying us if we're caught up in them. Now the amazing thing about 1 John, and I hope you've seen this, is that when you open 1 John, in fact when you open the Bible, there is really genuinely good news.

And John describes not a vicious cycle, but a virtuous cycle, something altogether very different. John has been showing us a gain and a gain and a gain. Like a cycle really, that what you believe affects how you live and how you live affects how you love and how you love makes you love truth. And that turns you back to what you believe, which turns you back into how you behave and how you love and There's this wonderful virtuous circle going on. And John's been doing that again and again and again.

He's been looking at genuine Christianity. What is an authentic Christian. And he's been dealing with these 3 truths, again and again and again. What we believe what we believe about the Lord Jesus Christ What do we actually believe, the doctrine, if you like? And and that really genuinely if we believe properly, has an effect on our moral behavior, how we live.

We're gonna live like a righteous life, a life that is pleasing to God. And that has an impact on how we love, who we're gonna love, and how we love, we love like God. Do you see it? It's going round and round again. Now, I've said this before about 1 John.

1 John is is like walking around a spiral staircase. So I'm rubbing the same thing in again, and those themes are like the pillar in in the in the middle of of the staircase, and we're walking around seeing those themes from different angles, slightly different heights again and again and again. It's what it's why it's sort of quite a difficult book to preach on as you go through. Because it's the same subject again. And you think, well, I've done that.

Oh, in fact, I've done that several times. And you might be sitting here thinking, heard that, Pete? And I'm thinking, I know you have, but John wants us to hear it again and again and again. As we go around the pillar from different points. What do you believe?

How that impacts how you live? How that impacts who and how you love? Spiral staircase. And you've probably noticed As you're going around this staircase with these 3 themes, it it's almost like it's a cone. And as you get into the end of the book, the cone sort of, you know, gathers us in, smaller and tighter.

And so the revolutions are quicker. And so we're going around these subjects more and more tightly and they're tightly spun. Let me just read you those verses that Steve read to us again. Let me read them again to you. And just see how tight these these these truths are spun.

Look look out for them. Are you ready? Chapter 4 verse 19 to chapter 5 verse 5. Just just listen. We love because he first loved us.

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar, For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command. Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God by loving God and carrying out his commands.

In fact, This is love for God to keep his commands, and his commands are not burdensome. For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only 1 who believes that Jesus is the son of God.

Did you see it? It's so tightly spinning together, all of those subjects It's almost as if we actually have stepped off the spiral staircase at the top and fallen into a whirlpool. And that's what's going on. John is showing us that all these truths are spinning together because what he wants us to know is you can't have 1 truth and not the others, because 1 truth leads to the other. So you can't have those super sound people that have their doctrine right.

But they hate people. He's saying this all goes together. It's spinning together and and like in a whirlpool, these 3 things are energizing each other. And as we fall into the pool, actually the big theme that comes out of all of the 3 themes whirling together is love is love. This is a whirlpool of love.

That we've fallen into. It's extraordinary, and John is showing us that Many years ago, when I was in Australia, I went to 1 of those water park things where you get on the flumes and you go round. I I love those things, don't you? I'm susceptible to them. And I quite quite enjoy them.

But this 1 had you went down this flume, it fell down, and then you whizzed around, and then you came to this huge whirlpool thing. It was massive. You came out of the flume and you went round, whoa, like that, and down down a hole. Like a plug hole. It was called the plug hole.

It was fantastic, but really scary. And when you're doing it, you're thinking why how did I do this? Only to show off in front of my wife and my daughter that I could do it, and I'm whizzing around these things. I'm too old for this. This is mad.

But there's no hope now. I'm down the hole and down the hole I go. And then you plunge into and it goes it was a dark. They had this big dark box full of water. You plunge into this whole wondering where you are.

I don't know whether they do things like that anymore, but it was it was well, that's what John's saying. Get down the flume. Here we go. It's getting faster. Now we're in the whirlpool, but it's a whirlpool of not fear but love.

So let's jump in. Let's have a go. Let's look at these points. First of all, the first thing I want you to see in this whirlpool is born of God. Do you see it in verse 1?

Born of God. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God, we're told. We're born of God if we put our trust in who Jesus is. Now we've seen all of this before, of course. John has shown us that before.

This is not just an intellectual ascent into certain doctrines about who Jesus is. This is trust. This is reliance. This is a belief that impresses itself on your very mind and soul and action. Chapter 4 verse 15, if you look back at that, John has said, if anyone acknowledges or confesses that Jesus is the son of God.

God lives in them and they in God. So you've got the son of God, you've got the Christ or the Messiah. They're the same words. It's a phrase that sums up that we've seen already. All of the old testament teaching about this person He's altogether different, altogether more beautiful, altogether more staggeringly wonderful than anyone you could ever meet or know in any of the histories.

He is all what history is about, all what God is about, the old testament expressions of the son of God, the Messiah, or the Christ. They're the same thing. This 1 that actually is the 1 that can, if you know the Bible, can open the seals up, he's that grand. He can open up the balls of wrath he's the 1 that is in control of all the diseases in the world and pours them out for a reason He's grand. He has time in his hand.

He is above time and bigger than time. It's a belief and an acknowledgement, and a confession, and a trusting. He is the sovereign lord of history. It is believing that Jesus is the Christ, the king of kings, and the lord of lords, and the judge of the living and the dead. But even more than that, it's believing that Jesus is the crucified 1.

The savior the servant who came to give his life in order to deal with our real disease and that is the thing that separates us from the purity of a living God. This is the king, this is the crucified 1, who takes our poison, who takes our iniquity, who takes our sin, the crucified 1, who is the Christ, who is the king of kings and the lord of lords, and the judge of the living and the dead but who rose again and ascended to heaven and is now ruling. It's to give your life to him. And you're born of God when you do that. It's a work of God in your heart and evidence that God is in your very heart when you trust in that 1.

The very phrase born of God is like a world world pool itself. Just have a look. Take 1 John, look at chapter 2 verse 29. We're gonna just whiz through this. Look, chapter 2 verse 29.

Because this is where he mentions being born of God. 2 29. If you know that he is righteous, that's God. He is the righteous God. You know that everyone who does what is right is born of him.

Righteousness and being born of him are go together. See, that's the life. That's the moral life. Or look at chapter 3 verse 9. Flick over to that.

No 1 who is born of God will continue to sin. Sin won't be the thing that we live for. We've seen that. We're not going to continue just to carry on and treat sin as if it doesn't matter. There's the moral dimension there or look at chapter 4 verse 7.

Dear friends. Let us love 1 another. For love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. And then chapter 5 verse 1, in our reading today, Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

Do you see the themes? Rights living, dealing with sin, loving the family, doctrinally believing that Jesus is the Christ, There's this whirlpool and everything means that we're born of God. And to be born of God shows that there is evidence of God in your life. When you believe that Jesus is the Christ, when you want to live a righteous life and deal with sin, and when you want to love others. John, also wrote the the gospel of John, he also wrote the book of Revelation, and he wrote the gospel of John, and right at the beginning of the gospel of John, he says this about Jesus.

Yet to all who did receive him, as a receiving of Jesus. It's not just sort of I know he exists, but a receiving of it. To all who received him, To those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Listen, children born. Not of natural descent or or human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The evidence that you're born of God and not just born physically that this is actually a god work in you because you can't make yourself born of god. The evidence is that you've received Jesus as lord and king. You acknowledge him. You live for him. The king of kings and lord of lords.

The judge of the living and the dead. You're born of God. You're a child of God. God isn't now just God He's your father. You're his child.

And that leads me to my second point. This whirlpool, I hope that we're in. We're sucked in. We're going round. If we believe the truth of Jesus, he's saying, then it's evidence that we're born of God.

And if we're born of God, then and we go, we're born to love. We're born to love. If you're born to God, you're born to love because God is love. Look at verse 1. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.

And everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. Verse 2: This is how we know we love the children of God. By loving God and carrying out his commands. You see the whirlpool again? It's it's like whirlpools within whirlpools.

So how do we know that we love God? See, we're going around. How do we know we love God? Well, you love God's children. How do we know we love God's children?

Well, you love God. And you obey his commands. It's whoosh. What? I heard that before somewhere and we're whizzing round.

You love. Jerome was a fourth century, so it was only a few hundred years after John wrote this book. So Jerome is a fourth century Christian, and Jerome had a tradition that we don't know whether this is true, Jerome, you know, said said it was, he said that when John, the apostle John here, wrote this letter, was really, really old. He couldn't preach anymore. His voice had gone.

But He had this annoying habit apparently to the church in Ephesus, where he constantly stood up or constantly said to people if he was at the door, I guess, little children love 1 another. He had enough voice to say that. And he said it over and over again. Little children love 1 another. Yeah?

I think that's a great old line for an old man to have. If that's the only line I have when I'm as old as John, who was in his nineties, little children. Corona Corona Corona. Love 1 another. Love 1 another.

Yeah? Anyway, some of the young people got fed up with this. That old bloke, what's he just saying that all the time for? And said, why do you keep saying that? And this was his reply?

I say what I say because it is the Lord's command, and if this is all you do, it is enough. That's a brilliant sentence. The Beatles's like that. All you need is love. Love is all you need, and guess what they're right, and they're agreeing with John.

I say what I say, little children love 1 another, because it is the Lord's command and if this is all you do, it is enough. And if you understand love as defined like we're seeing it here, that is true. That's all you need to do. All you need is love. But how do we love?

All we need is love, but what sped it out a little bit more? Well, look at verse 2. Look, this is love. This is how we know that we love the children of God. So you want to know whether you love, because all you need is love, Do you want to know whether you love the children of God?

Because we're born to love because we're born of God. This is how we know that we love the children of God. It's very simple, ready. Look at it. By loving God and carrying out his commands, That's how you know.

You know you love the children of God if you love God and you carry out his commands. Now he surely got the words of Jesus in his mind, who said if you love me, you keep my commandments. If we love God, Or if we love the children of God, we will love God. And if we love God, we'll carry out his commandments. Do you see that?

He said this stuff this this this is the moral life, isn't it? He's challenged us before in in in chapter 1. You know, those who are walking in darkness and claiming to walk with the God of light, he says that's you're a liar. You can't walk in darkness and walk us with the God of light. There'll be a liar.

And so he's challenging us here. This is how we know that we love the children of God. Okay. Do you? By loving God and carrying out his commandments.

Jesus himself said that all the commandments and all of the prophets are all about love. He says basically there's only really 2 commandments. You can sum up everything that said in the scriptures under these 2 headings. Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And that is summary he says.

Love is all you need, but love defined like this. Just go over let's turn to some passages. Go over to the book of Romans or go back to the book of Romans. If you're in 1 John, you need to go back a bit, and you'll find the book of Romans, and chapter 13, and verses 8 to 10. Chapter 13 of the book of Romans, 8 to 10.

Look at this and listen to Paul. He's saying the same thing as John. Romans chapter 13 in verse 8, Listen carefully. Let no debt remain outstanding. Except the continuing debt of love to love 1 another.

For whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, You shall not steal, you shall not covet. And whatever the other command there may be, are summed up in this 1 command, love your neighbor as yourself, love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Back to 1, John.

You see? If you love, you obey the commandments. It's very simple, actually. It's it's not hard. How can I love you if I'm stealing from you?

It's a definition that I'm breaking the commandment and I'm not loving you. Yeah? See, the world's love is eros. It's an Eros love, which is a desiring love. It desires and it lusts off the thing.

The world takes what it sees and pays as little as possible for what it takes. That's how the world's principle is. A gapay love, which is God's love, this giving love, is paying the price that benefits others at great cost to myself. It's the exact opposite, isn't it? Eros love is to go down an aisle and grab as many toilet rolls as you possibly can do.

Eros love is I need gel and therefore I'll get I mean, what are we talking about? In the last 2 weeks, 65000000 toilet rolls have been sold. Yeah? I mean, gosh, Dave laws. You've got a lot of clearing up to do.

I mean, it's masses of stuff, isn't it? 65000000 toilet rolls. Amazing. Eros love grabs. A gapay love gives.

Look at verse 3. We're going round again. I hope you see this that we're born to love. This is World Paul of love again verse 3. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

See, our love comes from God It's inspired by God. It's informed by God. It's fed by God. It's born of God. And that love is not immoral or amoral, the trouble is with the love of this world, it's amoral.

So you can hear people saying, I've fallen in love with another man's wife, which is adultery. Well according to agape love, that is not love. Aymmoral worldly love is all about me. 1 Corinthians 13, which is a whole chapter on love says this, love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It's about truth.

It's about living the commands of God. That's the loving life. You see? So we're spinning around. Born of God, borne to love.

The third thing you see here is born with a new heart. He doesn't use that word, but you'll see it in a minute. Born with a new heart. We've been given a new heart. We've been given a heart where the law of God, the commands of God, have been written on that heart.

And so our response to God's love is that he loved me so I will love him. Our hearts have been changed to beat with God's heart so that we want to please him, that it's our delight to please him. The Old Testament, Jeremiah says, I will put my law in their minds and write the law on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. That's what's happened to us.

We are born of God. We're born to love because we're born with a new heart and we're born with a heart where the commandments are written on them. It's a heartbeat thing. It's not we're under the law and oh, I've gotta do it. It's actually This is my new nature.

This is my born of God stuff. God is love. I'm like God. Love is defined very clearly in the commandments, and so I'm going to live out those commandments. See before you were born of God, I knew you were born to love and had a new heart, you saw the commandments as restrictive and narrow and judgmental and difficult and annoying.

God's rules and commands, he's like a tyrant over me, and he's restricting my freedom. This is my life we want to shout out. We? My life, my time, my body, and I will do with it what I want. That's always the problem with people that don't know God.

They don't like the laws of God. They're burdensome. They're ugly. But with a new heart, these laws are not burdensome. Did you notice that?

They're not burdensome. Look at verse 3 again. For this is the love of God. That we keep his commands and his commands are not burdensome. The word burdensome means heavy It's a heavy load.

You see, because they're written in the heart, it's a heartbeat life thing. If they're not written in the heart and they're just rules you have to follow, then they're like a like something on your back and oh, I better love someone. Oh, I better not steal. Oh, I better not commit adultery. It's all just sort of I've mentioned this before, but is that there's a lovely song by the old sixties group called The Holly.

You may know the song. And it's about a bloke carrying his brother. The the quote actually comes from a Christian man that set up in a very poor area to help young men that were were poor. And he was asked why he was doing this. Isn't this some kind of burden that you're doing to help the poor?

And he said, It ain't heavy. He's my brother. And they turned that into a song. He ain't heavy. He's my brother.

If it's your brother on your back, you're saving his life. That's what your life is about. I'm following these commands. I don't want to steal. It's not heavy.

He's my brother. I'm not going to steal from my brother. It's not a heavy burden. I'm not gonna commit adultery with my brother or sister. It's not a heavy burden.

He's He ain't heavy. He's my brother. That's not what my life is about. That's why I was put here. This is my purpose.

This is an opportunity for me to shine. He ain't heavy. He's my brother. And so they sang this song about this man carrying his brother. And you get that, don't you?

If you watch anything like the band of brothers or you watch anything like, you know, saving private, Ryan, and though we love those stories where a bloke is, you know, everybody's shooting at him and he's walking along. And, you know, and it's it's his life. It's what he's about. It's his purpose. It's an opportunity to shine.

He ain't heavy. He's my brother. These laws aren't heavy. They're the laws of the living God, they're my heartbeat, it's what I'm about. It's a Gapei love.

I'm born of God. I'm born to love. I have a new heart. Just turn over to to Psalm 19. Just go back now.

Told you, we'd move around a bit. Psalm 19. They aren't heavy? Says Psalm 19? Psalms are in the middle of the bible.

Psalm 19, verse 7 to 11. You know? 7 to 11. Should be open 7 to 11 with Psalm 19. The law of the lord is perfect refreshing my soul.

Oh, heavy burden, better do them. What? They refresh the soul. When that bloke's got his brother into a safe place. He's done his job.

He's refreshed. It's about life, not death. They're not a burden. I forgot where I am now. Yeah.

There you are. 7. The statutes of the law are trustworthy. The lord are trustworthy. Making wise, the simple.

These aren't heavy. They make me wise. The precepts of the lord. Are right, giving joy to the heart, the commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eye. The fear of the Lord is pure enduring forever.

The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold than much pure gold. They are sweeter than honey than honey from the honeycomb, and so he goes on. You see it? When you are born of God, you're born to love and he writes the law on your hearts, and they're not burdensome this.

Sweet, they're joyful, they rejoice. That that's what my life is about. We delight to serve our family, our brother and sister, and we're carry them. You got the world, Paul? We still got 2 things to go.

We haven't gone down the hole yet, whizzing round, Yeah? Now it's right at this point that this passage is even more extraordinary. So I do hope you're alive. We're born to overcome. Look at verses 3.

The second half of verse 3 and 4. We're born to overcome. And his commandments are not burdensome. For every 1 born of God overcomes the world, This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. We're born to overcome.

We're born of God, we're born to love, we're born with a new heart, and therefore we're born to overcome. Now the word overcome and the word victory are the same word. And some of you are wearing that word. It's the word Nike. Nike was a Greek goddess, God that was the god of victory, the goddess of victory, and could whiz along very speedily and have victory.

And the Nike tick is not just a tick, although it is a tick, It's it's victory, but it's it's it's the speed and the wing of of Nike, the god. It's victory. You'll win. You've won. So it's Christian John uses it a lot.

If you go to the book of Revelation, victory. Yeah? There's all these balls of wrath and these things that are affecting a third of the world with its disease and victory in Christ with the church. This is fantastic. And so that's the word that is used there.

And you have victory. If you're born of God, you'll have victory. Now what is it talking about? Well, The world that we're in is constantly emphasizing self love. Haven't you noticed that?

It's just a constant preach. Self love, self obsession, self fulfillment, find your true self, discover yourself, Go on journeys around the world to find yourself, all of that stuff. Now in a world that is preaching self self self, it's burdensome to say, stop thinking of yourself, think of others and obey the laws of God that will help you love others. The world says, how dare you say that? Who do you think you are?

Yeah? Because the world is is controlled by pursuits of pleasure and things and comfort and It's opposed to God. But what he's saying here is, when you're born of God, you're born to love, and you're born with a new heart with the laws written in your heart, you'll be able to overcome the world. Because you are living for Jesus, who gave his life for you your living like that. So you'll be able to overcome the world that says, live for self.

Here's another turn. It's it's probably my yeah. It's my last turn. So turn in your bible to 2 corinthians, if you can, You go back to 1 John and then go back a bit, not quite as far as Romans. Listen to Corinthians, chapter 5, because this is what happens.

This is victory. So we're not constrained by what the world says. We have victory of the world. How? Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.

Listen to this, are you ready? For the love of Christ compels us. Because we are convinced that 1 died for all and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on, we regard no 1 from a worldly point of view.

Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we know we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The new creation has come, and the old is gone, the new is here. See that love compels us, controls us, pushes us into a world about self. This is a world about dying to self and living for Christ.

When I was Eastern living in Tasmania, I went out into sort of the wilderness area, and there were a lot of Tasmania is wilderness. It's very dangerous, actually. I was out there walking along. And there was a a big river. I mean, we we tend to think the Tems is big, but it's a tiny little river, really.

It's more like a stream. And this was a huge thundering river, all the water coming down from the mountains of Tasmania. But it came to a huge rock. I mean, really, like a sort of mountain, really. And what they've done is they had cut a very, very narrow channel.

It wasn't large at all. A narrow channel through this rock. So this big river was pushed into this narrow channel, and it was very, very deep the channel of rock, the sort of canal of rock, but very narrow. And so you had this big Miranda sort of river, and then it came to this where it was constrained and it was pushed through this rock, and the power that was going through this this canal of rock was just extraordinary. The speed it went.

If you fell in there, you would have it. That's the word. That Paul is using for compel. It's like all of God's power and love, compels us, and pushes us and is is drawn into this canal where we're pushed out and we love. And therefore, because we love the world.

We don't look at people like we used to look at them. But we go in the name of God with the message of God. And we preach this message, and this love of God is pushing us and constraining us that we're not under law in 1 sense, but our heart has got the law on it, and we beat it out. But we're under this comp compulsion to live for others. That's what he's saying.

And because of that, we've overcome the world that just wants to Miranda around and just be nice. It doesn't mean that we withdraw from the world. Overcoming the world is not withdrawing like a monk or some weird religious lot. A soldier doesn't withdraw, that's desertion. A soldier overcomes the enemy by going into the battle.

We think rightly about what the world is, and it's staggeringly wonderful that people in this room are having victory over a lying world to live for self. That's power. That's Nike. That's victory, which leads me to my fifth point, it's the last 1. We're back again.

We've whirled around. Yeah? It was believing in Jesus, wasn't it? Yeah? That makes me born of God.

Therefore, I'm born to love. Therefore, you know, I've got a new heart. But these laws aren't burdensome. And therefore, I overcome the world. And now, I'm back again to faith.

We're born through faith. Do you see verse 4 and 5? This is the victory that has come that has overcome the world, even our faith. In verse 5, who is it that overcomes the world? Only the 1 that believes in Jesus, the son of god.

It's trusting in him again. We're there. That's the first point. We're round again in this whirlpool of love. You see that?

It's our faith in Jesus that causes us to be born again. The causes us to mourn to love people, a new heart, not burdensome laws, that we're out there overcoming selfishness that brings us stronger into faith and starts the process spinning again. It's faith. If you read the history of Christianity, it is extraordinary. This is a book that I read a couple of years ago called The Rise of Christianity.

This bloke, who I don't think we would call an evangelical Christian, don't think he is that, that may be unfair, but I don't think he is, has looked at why Christianity grew in the first few centuries like it did. He says there's there has to be some reason, and so he he goes through The the growth of Christianity from 12 men, and 1 of them was a traitor, to, in the first 300 years, how how the things just exploded. And he gives he gives 1 of the reasons. Guess what 1 of the reasons is? Disease and plague and viruses.

They didn't know they were viruses in those days. It's 1 of the reasons why Christianity grew. Back in 260, There was the plague. The Black Death, it was it was in in Rome. Guess what most of the pagans and the false God priests did when the plague came to Rome.

They ran to their little temples that were in the countryside, and guess what most Christians did. They stayed, and they ministered. Dionesus wrote this in 6 in 2 20 sorry, in 2 60. Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of 1 another. Heedless of danger.

They took charge of the sick attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ. And with them departed this life sincerely happy. He goes on. I mean, it's a long letter. He says, the heathen behaved in the very opposite way.

At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest. He says this, that very basic, even in plague, just basic, giving people that had the plague, water, and food. Which may well mean that the Christians got it, which they many of them did. Actually, the recovery rate was quite big. Because what they did was, if you had the plague, they just locked you up in isolation and left you to die.

So just the very basic care of water and food, which the Christians brought to many meant many survived, and those people got converted because they saw the love of Christ in Christians. And that is 1 reason why the church grew because there were times in Rome that there were more because the Christians had loved the ones who had suffered, and everybody else had run away. It's quite extraordinary, isn't it? How how caring helped. I did have a lot more to read from that, but I won't.

You you get the you get the picture. So what are we gonna do? How are we going to love? How does this faith in Jesus, rub where we're at the at the moment. Well, we've already said, If you're elderly or vulnerable in the church, we want to love you.

Please allow us to do that. We're here certainly as staff to help you. We're gonna be careful, obviously, but we aren't carriers infecting you, but we wanna love you. Please let us know. If we need to do shopping for you, that's what we all will do.

When it comes to something like calling off meetings, we've got to listen, we've got to be careful. But actually what our world needs more than anything is the gospel, isn't it? So I don't want us to run away and say, let's shut down everything. What we might need to do is to change the way we do everything. We might need a lot smaller meetings and a lot more of them in order to reach people.

We'll have to think that through and take advice. So for instance, with the cream tea, There are elderly and vulnerable come to that. We're gonna say no outside food. We're gonna do all of that stuff. Don't bring outside food.

Don't come in the kitchen, we'll make sure all that's clean, we will serve rather than people picking up. We're gonna do all that we can there, but we want meetings where we can express that Jesus is lord. Because you see, no more people die of this virus that are going to die anyway. Death is the problem, isn't it? They may die at a time they didn't think they were going to.

But no more people die, everybody will die. So we need something that deals with that. Which is the gospel. What we want to do is, and we're going to meet up, we're going to get Laura Sweetman and Steve Connect, and we're gonna meet up and think about what we can do at the hub and what is right to do with with the latest advice and so forth. What we would love to do is to think about washing the hub down on a regular basis, but keeping that place open so that those that won't use public transport for work because of the difficulties of that, that we could be open for people to come and use their their laptops at the hub, we want to do that.

1 of the things that we could you could help us is that is that we need you know, that alcohol gel hand wash. We we just need that at the hub. So if you could order an 1 and donate that to the hub, it would be very, very helpful. And so that we can make sure that when people come in, they've got that, and we can wash down all of the stuff with Dettle and so hand wipes. If you could order some of them as well and donate some to the hub.

We can use the hub, can't we? To help people in this situation. We would be so wrong just to say, Great. It's a holiday. I don't need to write another sermon.

I can sit in my back garden and watch the bird, nesting. We might have to put on more meetings, smaller meetings, more regularly. Help us think this through. Our neighbors that are old or frail. Perhaps we've got to somehow contact them, leaflets through the door just to say or banners outside.

To say, hey, look, we'll help you in any way we can. So let's think about that. Rose, has written a poem on the coronavirus. That's brilliant and about being saved. And and the big virus that we have.

We're gonna put that up on the video. I think you don't know about it yet, but you will know. We're gonna video that put that. Spread that around like a virus. Let people hear that.

So they're the things that we're doing. We've got to do this if we have faith in Jesus. If we have faith in Jesus, we love and we love our neighbor, and we love our neighbor with the good news of the lord Jesus Christ. And maybe God is humbling us. Maybe God is humbling us.

And suddenly, people are thinking of death when they weren't before, even though they were always gonna die. And maybe the lord is being kind to our neighborhood. And for us to run away from preaching the gospel is not what it is to love God. So we wanna do that as a staff team. We wanna preach.

We wanna have more opportunities. Pay for that. Let's bow our heads and pray. Father God, we thank you for this whirlpool of love. That starts in being born of you as we trust in Jesus, as our savior and king.

Produces love in us and a heart to beat with your heart that we would obey the commands to love our neighbor as ourselves. Please, as we whirl around these things that new heart would be there, and we would overcome self and die to self and live for you. That our faith would grow and around we go again, cause us to be people that are in love with you, and are infectious with that love. Contagious with that love, spreading that love. To a lost world we pray in Jesus' name, amen.