1-3 John - 1st John 3:23-24 Union with Christ

Well today we start, actually we're on the last two verses of chapter 3. So can I have someone read, actually you can read it from the overhead or read it from your Bible, 22 through 24, 1 John chapter 3. And whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do good things so we're keeping the new sight. This is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and we know this fact, that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He has given.

Great, thanks Marilyn. Okay, what's interesting is these two verses are going to kind of answer a question that may have appeared. I listened to the tape from last week and he did a great job. He has so much information. He's so enthusiastic. He's the professor. Yes, exactly.

So anyway, I noticed he didn't really, and actually I was kind of thankful in a way, he didn't really get into, well, what's this, because we keep his commandments and what's all that about? So actually, Scripture many times answers its own questions. We're going to answer the question about His commandments and what are they. We're going to spend quite a bit of time on that. So if you notice, it talks about His commandments in verse 22 and then it kind of gives basically, it's going to define what those commandments are.

There's a difference between singular and plural, I noticed in here. And actually, I searched on both singular and plural. And it seems like actually 23 is actually, in my mind, there are two statements there. So anyway, I don't know. I didn't actually come to any great conclusions about singular commandments and plural commandments. There's obviously more than one as stated in 23. Anyway, so I wasn't really.

And we go down basically in 24, and it talks about the results of his commandments and it's actually I think you're going to find that it's kind of surprising, maybe not surprising but maybe encouraging that you know under grace he's telling us not to be not to be upset by commandments because commandments are really Christ's very nature and it took me a while as I look through this and I've gone through this verse before In some ways, when we think commandments, we think of the Mosaic Law. And we're going to talk about that a lot today. But I think we should be comfortable when it's His or my commandments. That's really a statement of undergrace. And hopefully we can show that.

So I kind of like to go through and just identify the subject verb and whatever other parts of speech. And actually, there are aides to do this. mean necessarily going to the Greek. Hal would do this. Hal would go through, look at the Greek, and he would identify by himself the subject verb. But there are great aides out there, so I'd make use of the aides. And so anyway. So it helps sometimes. In this case, to me, it's not super helpful. This is the first little clause here. This is his commandment. So I'm not going to spend much time on that. And it's in the present tense. So the first question is, what does his commandment mean?

And we actually kind of touched on this a little bit earlier. I think Bob actually had gone to class. I know we had some dialogue on the email. What's he talking about here? I want to kind of give you a few little hints here. He's talking about Christians.

Okay, okay. His commandments. Okay, so would you identify? Well, if you call yourself a Christian and you don't believe nor Jesus Christ, who he says he is. That's commandment one. And then whether you love the brethren. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Love one another. And that's what we're going to see. When he starts talking about his commandments or my commandments, it's a personal relationship.

And it's totally different than the Law of Moses, for example. Because if you look at Romans 614, for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. And Verne's been spending, how long has he been, we start in the Old Testament, he's been spending the last six months, I don't know, it's been a long time, going over this very, very issue, law versus grace. So John is going to present Christ's commandments, and we've already kind of been down this path a little bit, and he's going to show that they're really a gracious commandment, and that they're a relationship. And it's not something being held over our head, it's describing a relationship. I say the word commandments and I kind of get, well I know I'm not under law, I get a little uptight when I say the word commandment. But the more you look at this, the more you see what it is. It's to show us that's really Christ's very character. And because we have Christ in us, it's actually no issue. If we have Christ's very life, we can live Christ's life. He obeyed his father's commandments. That's what was kind of neat. You go through that and you say, well Christ obeyed his father's commandments.

Did he? Did he get his list out? Let's see. Okay, the father says, you've got to do this and do that. No, he didn't do that. He and the father are one. And who are we one with? So it's the same picture. And that's just so refreshing and so freeing. So the commandments don't make us uptight with the my and the he in front of it. We're to relax and say that's his plan, his purpose. What made it neater was that he didn't use his own willpower to make it possible.

The Holy Spirit was abiding in him just as it is in the believer. And that's exactly where we're heading today. It's exactly that picture. So we're going to see that picture it's going to be exactly true to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The power of the Spirit is going to be the mechanism which gives us confidence that His commandments are not burdensome. It's His life, so we don't sweat it, so to speak. We trust Him. We rely upon Him.

Basically, the phrase, His commandments and my commandments, they first appeared, and Bob covered this a little bit back earlier, in what's called the Upper Room Discourse. In 13 through 17 and actually there's some there's some verses I'd like to kind of we should look read here just kind of get our feet on the ground here So let's look at let's turn to John 14 John 14 can I get someone to read verse 15? How about 15 and 21 in John 14? If you love me keep my commandments And then 21 right he that hath my commandments and keepeth them He is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.

Thank you. That's great. So you see that he talks about, in this case, his commandments, he talks about in the context of love, in the context of relating to his Father. And what we're going to find is that as we walk in the Lord, as we abide in Christ, His commandments come out as a natural response to that, a natural aspect of that. If we're not abiding, and we've seen verses talk about that earlier, then we'll walk contrary to that and won't be following, quote, His commandments. Let's also look at, how about John 15, and actually cross out 21, and 21, it's just verse 10. John 15, 10. Did someone read that one?

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. Right. So here's the thing. The Lord Jesus, was it burdensome for Him to abide in His Father's commandments? No. Because He and the Father are one. They have the same essence. In the same way, is it burdensome for us to follow His commandments as we walk with Him?

We have the very life of Christ. It should not be. And that's kind of the message that comes through here. So this is one of freedom. These two verses are one of great freedom because of his commandments and the implication of that. All right, so let's go on. And actually, we're going to kind of expand on that. So basically, this is the one we just read, 1510. And so just some observations. In the verses that we read, in the other verses, there's no reference here to the Law of Moses. And you know, when Christ, and Verne's talked about that, when Christ spoke to the Jewish people, he always told them to obey the law of Moses.

He said, and for example, you look in Matthew, this is just one example, Matthew 12, five, or have you not read in the law? He would refer them constantly back. The nation of Israel, when he talked to the Jewish people, he would say, have you not read? Did not Moses say? He would constantly point them back to the law of Moses.

So that's a different dispensation. When he talked in the upper room, he talked to his disciples looking forward to the church age, the ballgame changed. He never said, look to the law of Moses. He said, these are my commandments. So the picture is different between the church and Israel. So basically, no reference to the law of Moses.

Keeping Christ's commandments speaks of a relationship with Christ. Those commandments come out of this relationship. Christ obeyed his father's commandments, came out of the relationship with his father, because they're one, we have the same picture for us. Isn't the same word for commandments in the Greek?

Well, now remember, if we talk about the law, and law wouldn't be the same word. Commandments, what you're asking is... Well, because they, I mean, I don't think, does the Bible necessarily call it... And actually, it's a different phraseology. They use the word law.

The word law, if you're talking about the law of Moses, but I didn't do that, and that would be interesting, so I didn't do a search on that to see. would I be able to find some times where it talks about commandments referring to the Law of Moses. And I didn't really do that. I didn't look up that aspect. But most of the cases, most of the time, it talks about the law. Are you under the law? And it said in that verse, we're not under the law. So the Law of Moses is referred to as the Law most times. I'm not sure it's commandments. Commandments is intolay, and law is nomos, or whatever it is. Go ahead. This whole situation, the context is everything. It's got to be this, it can't be that.

Basically, you know that Christ says he kept his father's commandments, and we kind of covered that a little bit. Let's see, anything else I want? Any thoughts here before we move on? Another thing I think we're going to see here, there's a connection. You can't have, the connection I saw as we go through these verses here, it talks about abiding in Christ, abiding in the Lord, abiding in Christ and keeping commandments. You can't separate those two.

If you do, then you're back under law. If you try to separate and say, well, I'll just keep my commandment. I'll do what he says. I'll love my neighbor. And you do that without abiding in him, you miss the whole boat. The connection between a fellowship relationship, which abiding is, that fellowship relationship with the Lord, and my commandments and his commandments, you can't separate those two. And that kind of hit me as I kind of went through here.

So Roger, if you look back at John 14, which you turned to a little bit earlier, I mean, in context, his commandments relate to the promise of the Comforter. Exactly. So, in fact, in the absence of the Holy Spirit, his commandments are under law, are they not? That's a good point, because you have no mechanism to execute them.

So secondly, I mean, you're going to get to this in verse 23, that's plural, is all about His life in us. It's everything. That's empowered by the Spirit and the new creation we all are. In the absence of the Holy Spirit, we're under law. But Christ promised us the comfort Right.

And that's going to be, and we're going to see at the end, that's going to be evidence that he's abiding in you by the spirit he gave you. Donna? So is there an aspect there of Christ keeping his father's commandment because he was now a man? Because he came as a man? That's interesting. I see what you're saying. He's a man. He's a God-man. But he's still fully God. And he's empowered by... Go ahead. Before he became man, he was the son of God, did he keep his father's commandments?

I don't know. I know. Your head starts hurting here a little bit after lightning, let's see. I don't know. I kind of see where you're headed, but I know where to go with it, to tell you the truth. I don't know. I mean, he retained his, you know, he was fully God and fully man. So that's the part that's sticking in my head. So, how do we, and he depended upon the spirit of God. We know that. So, I don't know. Go ahead. Well, I have another comment that's kind of along those lines, and then we'll answer it. But I just keep thinking about curse that says that Jesus learned obedience through suffering. So did he ever not obey? He did not obey. But he learned his father's rules.

He is on the same topic. You guys have written really interesting things. I can write you a song about rabbit trails. It's brief. I'm Freddy the forest ranger. Come on in and take howdy. Would you like to interpret that for us? You've got to go back to Philippians in terms of his being equal to God. The trine God is not keeping, Christ is not keeping God's commandments. In fact, it's made equal to God, but then, you know, sacrificed his heavenly position to come here and have the God nature be enacted in this human life. I don't think Christ thought, as you pointed out earlier, looking at the...

He effectively lived in the flesh. This deity, you know, persuaded him, after a minute. He was not working at it. No he wasn't working at it. By faith that oneness with God transformed him. in a human existence. He had no sin nature, so he didn't have the struggle that we have in the sense that between the sin nature and the new nature. He had only his divine nature. But he depended upon, you know, scripture talks about that, he depended upon that.

He had his father's commandments. It's a tough thing. But he humbled himself. And he learned obedience. You think, well, it sounds like he's learned something he didn't know. But I don't know. To my mind, they're tough. Because you dare not degrade the deity of God to fill in some fleshly thing. Well, he's learning obedience. Oh, I can learn like he learned.

But he still had the world, even though he didn't have a sin nature. the world system he was part of, which is one of the things we also, in addition to the sin nature, deal with the world system. So that was certainly there. And sinful mints were all abounded around him, obviously. Not that he was tempted to sin, but it was just that that was surrounding him and those influences were there. But see, that's where the identification by faith to be created.

We better move on. We only got his commandment so far. So the first part is this is his commandment and now he's going to talk about the commandment. That we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ. And believe is a word for pustuo, which is to believe. Faith sometimes is used for that word. It's trust, placing confidence in. And we surrenders this. We should believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ. Something I found as I looked, so we're going to look at the fact of believing in his name. That's kind of a cool thing.

But the verb tense here of this believe is eris, subjunctive. And in looking at this, this isn't my observation, but... And actually what I found was some people... Would you say, is this talking about salvation? Is this saying that we believe in the name... Is that talking about our salvation, do you think? Abiding in Christ. That's not the same thing. It's moving another step. Okay. Alright. I like that. That's better. So actually some commentators said that they thought this was... salvation. And I didn't agree with that. And actually, in looking at it, spending a little time with it, there's various forms of the Aorist tense. And this is one which is called Aorist Constative.

And it looks at the whole picture of the believer's life as a singular picture of an event. So it's basically saying that this is picturing The whole life of a believer, this is the commandment, that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ, or better, the name represents all that Christ is.

We believe in the very person of Christ, and that is talking about, that's our Christian life. That's what we're to be about. So that's kind of what, and that's why we surrenders it that we should believe. Because we may not, you know, as we walk our Christian life, we may not do that. We may look to self. So the admonition here is that we look at Christ for our entire Christian life viewed, that's the goal of our Christian life, to Christ.

So that's the one that seemed to be more to the point and made more sense for this is my commandment. Tom? Hanging out with Jesus. Hanging out with Jesus, right. I like that. Okay, so let's go on here. Let's just move on here quickly. Okay, now I know the name.

Name implies authority, character, rank, majesty. So when we say we believe in the name, now let me just read a little quote here I thought was good. The word name stands for all that the Son of God is in this wonderful person So basically, this is focusing on the person of Christ. When we say, in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, it's focusing on Christ Himself. Now, I have a couple of verses here, and some, after looking at them, the first one, in 1 John, this is way back in chapter 1, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believed in His name. That one seems like that's identifying salvation.

1 John 5.13 we'll get to here in a while. These things I've written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This one I haven't studied it out and I don't know whether it's, well there's another point here I'm kind of apologize. The idea of the word in here Actually, in our verse, it might be better translated, believe in, believe the name.

In fact, let me see, do I have that here? Let me just go back here. Under waste, you had that. Yeah, I had that. Where did I have it? Where the word in is not there. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, right here, right. So actually, there's some There is not a definite Greek word for in.

It's assumed as part of the definite article. So we translate, we should believe the name. And that actually fits more, again, in the context of we're believing in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and this talking about the whole picture of the believer's life in Christ. So, okay. So that's, I kind of zoomed through that. So basically, Part one of this commandment is believe the name of his son Jesus Christ. And then part two is to love one another. And we saw this in various, we read through this in other passages. So we're to believe, we love one another, and one another is one another, mutual each other.

And there's a bunch of verses for that, which we're not going to have time to really go through. Actually, what I do want to look at is, let's look at Gospel of John, chapter 13. And let's look at, I'm going to read verse 34. So it's Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 34.

It says, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." So it says a new commandment and then Bob, this is another case we've been through this before, but Bob went through this a little bit earlier and I did a new commandment which isn't really a new commandment, it's an old commandment and so on. The new commandment is a new and quality commandment and it's really this new relationship between the believer and the Lord Jesus Christ. In the sense that they have the Holy Spirit, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Okay. So, I know we're kind of going here quickly. Let's see here.

And then lastly, the last part of that verse is just as he commanded us. And it seemed like he was just referring back again to, he starts off, and I'll read the Weiss translations at the bottom here again. and this is the commandment namely we should believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and be habitually loving one another even as he commanded us and it seemed like it was referring back to when possibly back to upper room discourse, the fact that he gave out that commandment in the upper room. He got this new commandment that we just read in John 13. So it seemed like he states that this is his commandment, and he states the commandment, and they said, even as he gave this commandment to us. And what's interesting is, if you look in, this is kind of the parallel to the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's look at chapter 12. of the Gospel of John chapter 12 and verse 49 and it says here's another statement about Christ's relationship to his father verse 49 of chapter 12 for I did not speak on my own initiative but as a father who sent me gave me commandment what to say and what to speak. So, once again, he says, even as he gave us commandment, the Father gave the Lord Jesus commandment.

So the picture seems to be kind of complete. We're in this relationship with the Son, which is a picture-like relationship with the Father. So, we have a relationship with the Son that pictures a relationship with the Father, which I thought was kind of neat. Okay. Yeah, that's true. Absolutely, right. Okay, so here's the second verse.

The one who keeps his commandments abides in him. So now we're going to kind of move into the idea of talking about his commandments and how that relates to abiding in him. So the subject here is kind of this long phrase, the one keeping his commandments, and this word abides is minnow, to continue, dwell, endure, be present, Hang out.

Hal used the word hang out for this one. And actually, I think you could also put the word fellowship in here. Because in the context of 1 John, we're talking about fellowship so much of the time. So when the word abide kind of shows up, I think it kind of is focusing on our conditional abiding in the Lord Jesus. So he's going to talk about the relationship between his commandments and our abiding in him.

The word keep is to observe, to watch, to keep your eyes fixed on, and it's in the present tense, so it's continual action. It reminded me of this verse in Hebrews, fixing our eyes upon Jesus. This is another cool thing. This lessens the burdens of commandments. So what's keeping? I've got to keep it, I've got to keep it. It says that keeping, that word means looking to Jesus. focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, it fits in so wonderfully. It's not this burdensome thing he's laying on our backs. It's looking to Jesus, observing what he's doing, looking at his commandments, which ultimately is looking at him. And so there's a bunch of verses for that.

I'm trying to think. Let's just look at, let's go back to 1 John. We'll just look at one of those. Look at the middle one, 1 John 2 verses 3 and 4. And if someone gets there, could they read that please? I'm sorry. I'm looking through here. 1 John 2 verses 3 through 5. I'm sorry.

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his command. The man who says, I know him, but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him. So this talks about, again, keeping or obeying His commandments. Fixing our eyes on His commandments. And the more I looked at this, the more I thought, well, you know, just like it says, fixing our eyes on Jesus, when we look at His commandments, we're looking at Him. And that's great freedom. Because, once again, commandments makes me uptight. Go ahead, Donna.

What's wrenching in my mind is that with the sin nature that we have, what happened is that we don't understand Christ and the Father and the Spirit. This oneness where you maintain your individuality and yet Christ could say I do nothing of myself but only what I see my Father doing. We have to study this because we don't understand that concept. It's totally selfish.

How can I be totally in Christ and still maintain who I am? Unless you're reading about who Christ is and what He's about, right? That's good though, I like that, I like that. So the focus, when we focus on His commandments, we're focusing on Christ. And that's what kind of came, wow, wait a minute, I'm not to get uptight about this, I'm focusing, as I abide in Christ, I abide in Him, I'm focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Which is not law, it's grace. So anyway, I hope this is, I keep having the same point about 20 times, I hope this is making sense. But if you think about it, Roger, that's the only way anything that we do, we can't love our neighbor, we can't love our spouse, our children, everything that is that unconditional kind of grace, the only way we can do that is by focusing on the Lord, and then that life lives through us. I mean, that's the only way any of it. Right, exactly, exactly. If we go back to a list of, quote, commandments, and Christ never did that. He never pulled out of his pocket, here are my commandments.

He and the Father are one, and we and the Son are one, and we have the same relationship, our new nature. So what's cool about this is, here's this duality statement, which we see quite a bit in scripture. The believer, the one, abides in Him, Christ, and he, the believer abides in him, Christ, and he, Christ, abides in him.

So we see that, especially like, and this is continuous action, a very familiar verse in John 15.4, abide in me and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. So this states, essentially this states that the one who keeps his commandments, or focuses on him, abides in him, and he in him. So it makes sense, it hangs together.

So let's look at this 1 John 4.16 here for a second. This is going to introduce, what I found is that It talks about our abiding relationship with Christ and it has other comments in relation to that. In our verse here, it talks about keeping His commandments as we abide in Him and He abides in us. Well, this verse in 4, 15, and 16 has a little bit different statement. Let me just read that.

It says, Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God. And he who comes to know, and we have come to know, and have believed the love which God has for us, God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. So we see that, we'll get to these verses down the road, but it's in addition to, these are other parameters about this abiding relationship that happen. And you know, they make sense in the context of the life of Christ. of basically confessing who Christ is and having God's love, basically.

He's asking the question, how do we know that How can we trust that God is really abiding in us? He's trying to answer that question. He says, we know by this that he abides in us. And this know is gnosko, the know of experience. He abides in us. And we have it, and in this we know experientially that he is abiding in us. And what's the this? By the spirit whom he has given us. So the fact that we know that God is guaranteed to abide in us is by the Spirit who has given us. So let's just look at a couple verses about the Spirit being given to us. So I have a positional verse and a conditional verse here. So if someone could read James chapter 4 verse 5. That would be the first verse. James chapter 4 verse 5.

Or do you think that the scripture says in vain, the spirit whose wealth in us yearns jealously? Or to no purpose? Right. I have been in that. There's another part to it, I hope. Is it four or five didn't have a little bit more? I hope it has a little more. No. Mine doesn't. Maybe it's six. I must have been at something. Sorry. But he gives us more grace, therefore he says, God resists a crowd, but gives grace to the humble. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say James chapter 5? James 4, 5. Okay, James 4, 5. Or do you not think that the Scriptures speak to no purpose?

He jealously desires the Spirit. Which he has made to dwell in us. Is that what you said? Okay, I was looking for I was looking for the very last part of that which which is you know, it says he has made Speaking of the spirit the spirit which he has made to dwell on us so God by his has made the Spirit of God dwellness or other other translations have it take up permanent residence in it. So the Spirit of God has taken up, when you believe, has taken up permanent residence in the believer. So that's the positional aspect.

Now the conditional aspect is in Romans 8.16.

Does someone want to read that, Romans 8.16?

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. So back to our verse here, it says that the way we know that we abide in him and he in us is by the spirit whom he has given us. And then there's a very, so basically, Orwise has it, from the spirit of the source whom he gave us. And there's a parallel verse here that we'll cover down the road here in a few months or so. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit.

And let me just mention one thing, in going through this, and you know, when I think of abide, let me just ask a question, when you hear the word abide, we talk about the meaning of it, hang out, be at home, do you think of position or condition when you hear that verse? I mean when you hear that word abide, as it's used quite a few times in scripture.

And maybe this is not a problem for some of you, maybe it's just me, Okay, so you would say that's a conditional that you may not abide, right? You may not walk with the Lord, you may not fellowship with the Lord. Well, what I found in some statements, it seems like that abide could be positional. But I haven't really nailed that down, so I'm not going to. Anyway, so here's the case here. This verse here is slightly different than our verse. Now our verse here that we have is just slightly different.

Verse 324, 324 reads, the one who keeps his commandments, abides in him, and he in him. And from God's side of the picture, he's always there, he's always waiting for us to respond, right? He's not holding back, right? He's waiting for us by faith to abide in him, to interact with him.

So, when it says both of them, I don't know, I'm just struggling with that. Maybe it's just me. Bob, go ahead. Roger, why don't we look at Colossians 3, 1 and 2 in terms of this abiding as to where our affections should be. I want you to go ahead and read that. If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. For Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Is that not abiding above?

I agree. I agree. Amen. Well, I guess I'm just talking about the fact that there's never any doubt about God's abiding. That is never a question. But some of the verses kind of tend to give that flavor, and I just haven't worked it all through. So that's just a little question mark. When I say through this, I said, oh wait a minute, from God's side, there's never a question. From our side, there is a question. So that's just what I'm struggling with. Okay, so I took my attempt at, I did a Vern here. I let Bonnie read it. She says, well, I don't know, Roger, you didn't. When you let your wife read it, you get the real deal here. No, she was she was right time. Yes, go ahead Sure. Okay.

I'm thinking back to after Stephen died and how terribly angry I was with so for so long with the Lord and I just argued and argued and fought him and fought him and Couldn't come to peace for so long and finally I don't know what happened, it was just very coarse.

And I was to the point where I didn't want to be that way anymore. And looking at myself, I said the words of, I guess it's Psalm 51, where David says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. And I just felt like that's really what I deserved. For God to take away his Holy Spirit, right. Because of my resentment, and because I had in effect left my faith in Him. I kept going to church and all that, but inside I was seething. And yet, even as I said that to Him in my prayer several different times, the witness of the Holy Spirit was, no, you belong to me, and I'm in you still.

I'm the one who is faithful, not you. Amen. No, I agree with that. And that's exactly why I struggle with the ones that, you know, where it says that from God's side there may be any doubt. There never can be a doubt about His Spirit in relationship to us. So I don't know. I mean, that's just a little thing I kind of came across.

And so anyway, that's just... We change, but He never changes, no matter what happens. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's good. Thanks, Theo. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Okay, so here's my attempt. So this doesn't include every part of the verse, but just a... This was helpful to me.

Christ's commandment is to place our confidence in him during our entire Christian life. That was the aorist tense I was trying to explain. This is the total picture. What's the total picture of Christian life? Christ is the focus. Which produces our loving one another as he commanded us. This is a new quality commandment under grace.

So that leaves a few things out. So I flip this around. Abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in us results in keeping His commandments. I think that helps me and that encourages me. Because I put the commandment first, I'm back. As much as I try to do it, I think that's law. It's not law, it's Christ. But this helps me. You cannot separate keeping his commandments from abiding in him. The Holy Spirit has been given to us as proof that Christ is abiding in us.

So that's not every aspect of those verses, but hopefully this is like a summary and high points. So any last thoughts or comments? You guys have been great. I appreciate your thoughts and comments. Okay, well let's close then. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your marvelous grace. Lord, we thank you for the spirit you've given us, Lord. I think of the verse, I will never, never, never leave you or forsake you, Lord. We thank you that that's the case. Time never comes when you stop caring for us or stop desiring that we fellowship with you. We thank you for that, in Christ's name, amen.