Family at It's Best...Proponents or Adversaries

10/25  Series: Family at its Best    Proponents or Adversaries   1 John 2:18-29
 
Proponents or Adversaries, are they for you or against you?  Hopefully in whatever family setting you are in: the family you live with, church family, sport family, club, or organization, that they are for you.  They want your best and the best for the ‘family’. They are proponents.  On the other side are adversaries, those who are against you, wanting you to fail, fall short of the goal. Not only you but the team, family, group that you belong to.  How do we know that they are wanting our best?  Basically, it’s Doing the Right Thing that Pastor George talked about with our young people.  To do for the group and each other what’s right, good, and true. 
 
Jesus want’s that for his family, the family of God.  This week’s Bible passage in 1 John 2:18-29  begins with the section of verses 18-27 giving a Warning Concerning Antichrist. That’s a 10-verse warning.  The remaining 2, verses 28-29 are to us Children of God and what we are to do regarding the coming of the antichrist. I do believe that John wants to get our attention regarding times of the antichrist.   We all agree that antichrists are the adversaries.  As Pastor George said anti means against.  They are against Christ.   John is our proponent as we read from 1 John where he wrote in verse 28 “And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.”  To have confidence even when the going is going to get tough, we are to abide in Christ.   Pastor George told that we are to get to know Him, this Jesus in the Gospels.  Is He growing stronger in you? Are you maturing in your faith? The more you know the more confidence you have to stand strong. The scripture says abide in him.  Abiding, until the end of the age, until his coming again.  Pastor George reminds us that the living God now living in you, in the temple, is in each of us.  We are God’s temple. The living God, now living in you, living through you.  We are to be light, living daily with the joy and happiness from abiding in him, to shine for our Lord, being a proponent of Christ makes family at its best.
 
In Right Now Media this week we listened to Doug Sherman at a conference where he talked on the subject of Trading Up. A Different Way to Do Life with God where he said, a life centered around Him daily; the relationships and the work we do, doing it for His glory and our joy is how we are to live.  He made this statement, “The trajectory of your whole life is determined by one single thing, the image of God that you live your life by”.  He says most have an image of a small God.  That he only cares about spiritual things, that God is not interested outside the Church.  Another RNM video this week addressed Talking with God by Adam Weber.  Adam begins with saying that we’re all living in crazy town with more to do than what fits into the day, which we all can agree to.  He then states prayer shouldn’t feel like a daily chore.  That something changes when prayer is no longer just another thing in the day.  Doug Sherman also addressed this thought in saying, you’re not too busy, your God is too small.  Doug goes on to say, God is a real person, and he is always present.  It’s no value to know God is always present if you don’t live God is always present.  Adam Weber stated that the longer we talk with God the more we fall in love with him.  When we talk with God, we find a friendship that God wants with us.  Adam says God enjoys short, simple, honest, spur of the moment prayers.  Say what you mean and mean what you say.  A quick hello is better than nothing at all. There is no need to impress in our prayers, he just wants to be with the real us, he wants a relationship with us.  How can we get to know God better?  The Bible is a conversation starter where God speaks personally to us, says Sherman,  we learn of him and where we learn to want to live our life knowing a passionate Holy Father.  Jesus says, I invite you to see me clearly, I stand at the door and knock, hear my voice, know it, open the door and I will come in.  This is Jesus’ desire.
 
Another video that is very worth your while in watching from this week is Daniel: Things to Come, by Tommy Nelson.  He is referencing the book of Daniel, doing a study on living with the end in mind, finding our place in the journey, all the while living for today on purpose and in peace.  Antichrist, the end times, the time when Christ will come again to make all things right with God, and what needs to occur before that happens, is a study that should interest everyone.  It’s prophecy. Things foretold, future.  Tommy says that prophecy is given for a moral reason, a life change.  Prophecy of the end times is revealed knowledge given to John who wrote Revelation, and to Daniel as written in the Book of Daniel.  He explains the antichrists, those adversaries, who are against Christ.  To begin Tommy Nelson gives nine reasons on living the Christian life, on purpose and in peace even in knowing of this prophecy of the end times. What we already know is  *Comfort*  in death or in life, when the end times come, we will all see Jesus.  Believers will be caught up (raptured) together with Him in the clouds  *Reverence* a fear of the Lord. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ.  We are not judged for our sins, but if we did good for God’s glory and pleasures or light doing for my glory and my pleasures  *Privilege* we know where history is going, prophecy; our lives are for God, his glory, his purposes  *Hope* the hope of the believer is the coming of Christ, always be looking for it.  *Purity*  we will be like Him, our moral code.  *Preaching*  there will be a judgement for all men.  There is a heaven.  There is a hell.  We should be preaching this.  *Purpose* we are fellow workers with Him, to be about His purposes.  *Perseverance*  Keep on keeping on.  One day the bad guys are gonna show up, but we know the last word is God’s. Always remember a vision of the other side that radically affects us. 
 
Claiming these purposes and living them out as proponents, so that when the antichrists come, the adversaries come, even in our daily living, we can stand firm, stand secure, stand on the promises we know are true.   As Pastor George prayed, Life’s best for us is to pursue Him, love as he loved us, to live by that and share the same encouraging love with the others in our lives.  To see clearly, to pursue what we know to be right, good, and true.  We are to share the Good News throughout our ‘families’ that brought us together.  To be a proponent of all He is, shown throughout our whole life.
 
Larry and Darlene