Anxiety, fear, insecurity, and failure.  Testing can bring out all these things.  But it can also reassure, bring relief, boost confidence, and create clarity.  As a child testing was a curious mix of anxiety and confidence.  I was a good test taker.  Both in having a solid grasp of the material and an effective strategy for test taking, I did well on most tests.  There were of course exceptions.

Typing was one of those.  I was a slow typist in a class where speed and accuracy were the metrics of success.  My father made me take typing because he foresaw that the keyboard would be the pen of my generation.  And he was exactly right!  But I was slow.  My motor memory and my hand-eye coordination were not great.  And this elective class threatened my GPA.  Graciously I could divide by 2 which in the day of the typewriter was necessary for centering and formatting.  My teacher made a deal.  If I would assist the other students with formatting, she would view my timed tests with a curved grace.

The other type of tests that tested me sorely were lab tests.  Academics were cut and dried, but lab work never seemed to produce the expected results in the expected quantities.  On paper, I knew the math and chemistry.  But lab tests tested me severely.  We all have some type of testing that tests us, that creates anxiety, fear and uncertainty.  But even those tests when successfully navigated and completed bring confidence, certainty and clarity.

The churches of Asia Minor were facing uncertainty, fear, and insecurity at the hands of false teachers who were testing their commitment to the teaching of the Apostles about the person and work of Christ and proper fellowship in the Church.  And so, to move them to confidence, assurance and clarity, the Apostle John writes them a series of tests to teach them how to grow the assurance of their faith as they learn to abide in Christ.  John’s tests were theological, moral, and social. 

The theological test was to trust in the Apostolic witness as the source of truth about the person and work of Christ.  The moral test was to live a transformed life in obedience to the commandments of Christ not the pattern of the world.  And the social test was to love our brothers, not just in word and talk, but in deed and in truth.  But in addition to the tests John applies to his “little flock” he challenges them to test the false teachers who have caused so much trouble.

John reminds the believers that God has caused his Holy Spirit to indwell them.  And that this Holy Spirit gives them discernment to test false teachers and grade their test with clarity and certainty.  They are not only to discern and avoid the false teaching of the antichrists, but they are to call them out and expose them by putting them to a simple set of tests.  Test that show that what they teach is not from the Holy Spirit but the spirit of the age.

Who are you listening to?  Who is speaking into your life? Are you testing the spirits of those whose counsel you seek and follow?  How do you know you can trust what you are hearing?  And who are you listening to?  John warns us not only to test our theology, our behavior and our love, but to test the spirits who speak into our lives. 

Join us as we examine 1 John 4:1-6 and consider how to test the spirits that seek to guide us.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

We all have it.  Even those that have it all have it too.  Everyone has anxiety.  Especially those we think should not have it.  We think we can make it go away by resolving the dilemma at its root.  But we never seem quite able to root it out.  King Solomon had it all from the world’s standards; riches, relationships, hobbies, success in his work, wisdom.  You name it, he had it, but there was still a nagging anxiety regarding purpose and permanence that kept him awake at night.

As an aging Solomon reflected on his accomplishments, he wrote in melancholy terms,

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
    vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?

And even more shocking and angsty.

Sorrow is better than laughter,
    for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
    but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

For all Solomon had, he still struggled with anxiety.  The ultimate anxiety.  What does life come to?  Where is its purpose and permanence?  What will it all amount to when it comes to its end?  Is there life after death? And what will it look like?  How will I ever explain my life and choices to a Holy Judge?  Solomon knew that nothing brought deep reflection and surfaced anxiety like sorrow and “the house of mourning.” 

How do I stand before God?  Have I believed enough?  Done enough? Been enough? Loved enough?  Grace, for all its gifts, sometimes makes us anxious.  It seems too free, too easy, too… gracious.  We know that the answers to all the questions above would always be ‘No.’  We will never believe, do, be, love enough to merit God’s favor apart from the work of the Spirit working faith in Christ in our heart.  But still, we are unsure if we are safe and sure in Christ.

The antichrists in the Apostle John’s Day said, “don’t sweat it.”  Live your life however you want.  Don’t worry too much about Jesus, after all he was just a teacher and example, nothing more.  You can know God through secret knowledge not through faith in Christ as taught by the Prophets and Apostles.  But those tempted by such false teaching found no assurance in it but also struggled with assurance as true followers of Christ.

So John writes to them to believe in the person and work of Christ as taught by the Apostles and to love one another as Christ has loved each of them.   But what if they have not believed enough?  Or loved enough?  What if they have fallen short in those things which are marks of Chrisitan assurance?  What relief is there from this anxiety?  How do I find assurance in the face of my doubts about myself and my faith?

Join us as we examine 1 John 3:19-24 and consider John’s comforting words to those struggling with doubt.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

To the outside world they may look alike, act alike and appear to think alike.  But nothing exhibits more diversity than siblings.   From the moment they are born they strive for diversity from their older brothers and sisters.  Whether it is due to birth order, family dynamics, personality convergence or divergence, or simply the Lord’s delight in all things different, there is nothing more diverse than a family. 

G. K. Chesterton, in his book Heretics, describes well the largeness of the diversity that exists within the family.  It is in that small village where large living is to be found.  It is a large quote, but worthy of your time and consideration.

It is not fashionable to say much nowadays of the advantages of the small community. We are told that we must go in for large empires and large ideas. There is one advantage, however, in the small state, the city, or the village, which only the willfully blind can overlook. The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of men.

The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us. Thus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come into existence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery.

There is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the clique. The men of the clan live together because they all wear the same tartan or are all descended from the same sacred cow; but in their souls, by the divine luck of things, there will always be more colours than in any tartan.

But the men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell. A big society exists in order to form cliques. A big society is a society for the promotion of narrowness. It is a machinery for the purpose of guarding the solitary and sensitive individual from all experience of the bitter and bracing human compromises. It is, in the most literal sense of the words, a society for the prevention of Christian knowledge. 

-G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, XIV. On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family.

We hear of sibling rivalry and that is easy to understand.  That competition for attention or the last piece of cake is fierce and persistent.  The need to be heard, seen, and known among the clamor of the family is a very real thing.  Sibling rivalry falls naturally out of our sinful pursuit of the ‘me’ rather than the ‘us.’  But sibling love and sibling loyalty is something quite divine.  In the tumult of family conflict, the cultivation of love for one another causes the family to truly become a society for the promotion of Christian knowledge.

The Church is such a family.  Made up of the chosen not the chooser.  For Jesus taught,

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. -John 15:16

And Paul noted that “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.”  (1 Cor. 12:18)

The Church is the ultimate family.  To a critical, hostile world Christians all look alike, act alike, and appear to think alike.  But we know by experience, this is hardly the truth.  Sibling rivalry is nowhere more fierce than at Church.  We contend over important theological truths and the color of the carpet with equal intensity.  Like calves at the feeding trough, we are apt to jostle and push for position and preference, sinfully pursue the ‘me’ rather than the ‘us.’

But nothing reveals our identity as disciples and believers like our love for one another.  Jesus declared,

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” -John 13:34-35

Notice that Jesus commands love.  Rivalry and self-serving come naturally.  Our new nature as believers enables us to love, but to love our brothers and sisters who are so different from us, act so differently, think so differently, and prefer things so different from us.  That is a work of God’s sanctifying free grace. 

As John writes to his beloved flock in Asia Minor to show them how to grow in their assurance of the faith they profess, he points to their love for one another as a non-negotiable.  False teachers, the Antichrists, were wreaking havoc in the church by denying the person and work of Christ, rejecting the apostolic authority of the scriptures and encouraging an individualistic Christianity that calls men out of fellowship in the church.  But John reminds the flock that God has called them to abide in Christ and in the Church and to love one another.

Join us as we examine John 3:11-18 and consider what this commandment to love one another as Christians entails.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

We all know that “practice makes perfect.”  But how many of us know what makes perfect practice?  Too often practice can turn into simply goofing around, or improvising with our favorite piece, or focusing only on what we already do well.  But perfect practice involves focusing on the fundamentals, endless repetition to improve motor memory, drilling on the things we do poorly, and slowing everything down, all the while keeping tempo by counting. 

Perfect practice involves immense intentionality, commitment, and hard work to shape a goal into a way of life.  This is true for specific talents or skills, as well as for habits or lifestyles. Development in any of these areas requires practice.  And this is no less true for our spiritual lives.  While our sanctification is a work of God’s grace that provides a continual supply of strength from the Holy Spirit, it is a work that involves the diligent use of the outward and ordinary means of grace on the part of the believer. 

The young churches in Asia Minor had been disturbed by false teachers and antichrists who introduced a false gospel that claims peace with God while living worldly lives.  And so, the Apostle John writes to them to point back to the person and work of Christ, to the sanctifying, transformative work of the gospel in their lives, and their love for one another as indicators for authentic faith and fellowship.

John notes, however, that abiding in Christ involves to practicing righteousness while carefully guarding against practicing sin.  While John acknowledges that sin, repentance, and confession are part of the Christian life, he also points out that one who makes a habit of practicing sin is not born again.  In no uncertain terms John encourages assurance through the practice of righteousness while guarding against practicing sin, as he writes.

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. – 1 John 3:7-10

John is not advocating sinless perfection as the basis of Christian assurance, but he is pointing out that the believer is marked by practicing righteousness and not sin as a way of life.  The one who claims to be a believer but has little concern over their sin shows little regard for the one who came to take away sin and to destroy the works of the devil.  The true believer delights in the works of Christ and cherishes them.  John reminds believers  that “whoever practices righteousness is righteous as He is righteous.”

Join us this week as we examine 1 John 3:4-11 and consider the difference between practicing righteousness and practicing lawlessness.   We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.