Amen. Hey church, let me do this. Let me just read over us today's text. If you just kind of find yourself in a still spot,

if you want to close your eyes and just receive the word, we fully believe here that the word of God is powerful and active and sharper than a double-edged sword.

So let me just read this over us before we dig into it. 1 John chapter 5.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.

And everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him.

And by this we know that the love of the, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God

and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments

are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the

victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God?

Hey, we're going to dig in this week to 1 John chapter 5.

We are in the middle of a series called Give Love a Try. And we've been kind of hammering through 1 John chapter 5 we are in the middle of a series called give love a try and we've been kind of

hammering through 1st John for so long that in all honesty as we do the welcome we're not even sure

which week to tell you we're in right if you've been tracking along with us we go hey welcome to 1st john

it's week it's this week right it's like a 15 week. We are digging in verse by verse through the book of 1 John.

And I just think in God's sovereignty and his grace and his goodness to us, it's really quite interesting that the weekend that we celebrate our victory and independence as a great nation is the same weekend that we end up at the text where John is going to hammer home

what it means to really be a victor in the eternal perspective. So we're going to dig in today.

I hope if you came in this morning, you came in with all of your digits. Did everybody make

it in with all 10 fingers? Anybody lose one last night? All right. We just wanted to know we're

going to pray for you and see if we can attach it back on. I don't know if I can do that, but we'll try, right?

And so I hope that last night we had a great celebration of our nation and our country. And I hope this

morning as we walk out of here, that we will walk out celebrating and walking in victory in which

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