Church of The Redeemer - Sermons

The fullness of the Christian life is seen when truth, love, and obedience combine. For John, the life of the Christian is marked by walking in love out of obedience to God.

Continuing his themes from 1 John, the apostle writes that truth and love are the foundation of the Christian life. We'll see the importance, permanence, and outworking of this foundation in the lives of God's people.

Idolatry is not something that our ancient forefathers struggled with, it is a very real and present struggle today. An idol is anything that we give our attention and affection to over Jesus Christ. The invitation in our final message from 1 John is that we find complete joy when we look to Jesus above all else.

Prayer can be a hard thing to have confidence in. Sometimes we feel like our prayers hit a ceiling, other times we see them getting answered. But in the final part of John's letter, he writes that Christians can pray with confidence knowing that God hears them.

Who you put your trust in matters. It can be a choice between adventure and destruction. Now all throughout 1 John, John has made the case for the whole Jesus. We learned last week in verse 5 that those who believe in Jesus overcome the world. But now he wants us to know who the object of our belief really is. He wants you to have assurance, not in your ability to believe, but in the object of you...

As John begins to close his letter, he has a few final admonishments for us. Having just declared the confident hope and compelling purpose of Christians, John now turns to our transformed life. In this text, John lays out that a life transformed by Jesus is a life transformed by faith.

There are many things to be afraid of in this world, but there is no room for fear in the Christian life because God's love gives us confident hope and a compelling purpose.

After discussing the call to love each other because of God's love for them, John wants to assure the church they are, indeed, in God and God is in them. For Christians today, we can be assured that we are in God and that we know His love for us through the Holy Spirit and the testimonies that lead to our confession.

As we ring in the new year, we hear this simple but profound word: Christians are able to love each other because they know the love of God.

Waiting can be incredibly hard, but it is a part and parcel of the Christian life. Christians are a waiting people. For thousands of years, God's people waited for a Messiah. Now, we live in the tension of waiting for Him to return while presently hoping in Him. The story of Simeon is a beautiful reminder that even in our waiting, we can hope in Christ because He's already come.

Luke 2 may be a familiar passage during the Christmas season, but it is a story that we must come back to time and time again. In it, we see that the birth of Jesus declares peace into the world and our lives. A timely story for an anxious world.

Having reminded us of the Holy Spirit's role in providing assurance to our hearts, John wants to remind us that there are two spirits at work within the world. One is the Holy Spirit and the other is Satan. One works through true teachers and the other works through false teachers. But how will we know which spirit is which? We will know true and false teachers through their confession and their m...

Over the past few weeks, John has called us to practice righteousness and love another as Christ loved us. But we may look at our lives and feel as though we don't measure up to that standard, which leads us to feel condemned. But the biggest lie we can believe as Christians is that in Christ we are condemned. We'll see in this week's text that our Father has empowered us to overcome condemnation...

John sets up the problem: on our own, we can’t love one another. In fact, John says we actually commit murder by how we think about each other. But in the midst of the bad news shines the greatest news in the world: Because Jesus loved us by laying down his life for us, Christians are called to love one another in the same way.

Because we are God’s children, Christians seek to live righteous lives over sinful ones. We live from our new identity in Jesus, not for it. We do this by recognizing the seriousness of sin, remembering the saving work of Jesus, and rehearsing righteous living.

Having helped us recognize those who deny Jesus, John now helps us see that beholding who we are as God’s children motivates our pursuit of Jesus and prepares us for His return.

We now arrive at why John wrote 1 John: false teachers were attempting to divide God's people by dividing God's Son from His title of Christ. To combat these false teachers, John reminds us that Jesus has given us everything we need to abide in Him and recognize those who deny Him.

The life of a Christian is one of walking in the light, but it also means staying in the light as well. Staying in the light means we actively pursue Jesus through repentance. The beauty of repentance is that we get to repent because of God's kindness.

There is one reality, Jesus is Lord over all things; but there are two people, those who surrender to that reality and those who rebel against it. Those who surrender to that reality are called to walk in the light because God is light. Walking in the light means maintaining fellowship with God and His people as we set our attention, affections, and actions on Jesus Christ.

We are all made to love. In our lives, we have two ways to satisfy this love: the world or God. John's warning is clear: love of the world will always let us down. That's why John proclaims that in Jesus, we have the indwelling, satisfying, and eternal love of God.

In addressing three types of followers, John wants to remind us that simple truths sustain us as we follow God.

If our assurance of salvation is evident through our obedience to God's commands, then what are God's commands? In this week's text, we see that a true Christian's life in Christ is evident in obeying God's command to love each other.

Oftentimes throughout our lives, we need assurance, especially in our relationship with God. The Apostle John is keenly aware of this need as we uncover in this week's text that we can have assurance that we know God.

In these two verses, John summarizes what came before in 1:5-10, but adds new insight to the work of Jesus. In it, we see that we turn to Jesus because He is our advocate and propitiation.

Beginning his first major theme, John declares that God is light. Anyone who claims to know Jesus but lives contrary to this is in darkness, but anyone who confesses their sins will be forgiven because of the blood of Jesus and have fellowship with the church. Therefore, true belief in God is evident by walking in holiness and confessing our sins.