A Humbled Sinner’s Testimony

I do love God’s Word, but there’s
some things in the Bible that scare me. The most frightening
verse that I have read so far is in Matthew 7. You know this
well. Not everyone who says to me, this is Jesus speaking, Lord,
Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the
will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to
me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?
And in your name cast out demons? And in your name perform many
miracles? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice
lawlessness. And it’s a scary proposition.
These people called him Lord. They prophesied. They cast out
demons. They even did miracles all in
the name of Jesus. They thought they knew Jesus.
And I bet you it looked like they did. The problem was Jesus
did not know them. He says, I never knew you. Does
Jesus know you? That’s the question we’re going
to ask this morning. Are you sure you’re saved? Why? How do you know? What makes you
so sure? Do you believe in Jesus? Good
job. Even the demons believe. Think you’re saved because you
went forward, said some tears, gave a testimony and got baptized?
So did Simon the magician in Acts chapter 8. Think you’re
saved because you said a prayer? Judas prayed, served for three
years along with Jesus, was sent out with the 70 to do miracles,
and he wasn’t. So how do we know that our faith
is genuine? There’s some necessary requirements
to be saved for sure, the right proclamation of a true gospel,
responding to the call of God in true faith and true repentance,
but the question remains, how do you know that your faith is
real, that it’s genuine? Do you think these folks in Matthew
7 thought their faith was genuine? I do. I do. This might shock you, but the
Bible encourages us to question whether or not our salvation
is real. You’ve heard Pastor Ron say this before. 2 Corinthians
13, Paul writes, test yourselves to see if you’re in the faith.
Examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this
about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed
you fail the test. John Piper once said, the second
worst thing a preacher can do to someone is to take away a
person’s assurance of their salvation. But the worst thing he could
do is give it. Because it’s not his to give. It’s the testimony
of the Holy Spirit within the heart of a believer and the evidence
of the life of Christ in that believer. That’s where we get
assurance of our salvation. That’s how we know our faith
is genuine. I’m not talking about eternal
security. God knows those who are His.
He will lose not one. I’m talking about how do we know
that we have genuine faith that Christ will save us. Ezekiel 36, God gives us some
things He does when He saves someone. I’ll just read this
quickly. Then I will spray clean water on you, and you will be
clean. I will cleanse you of all your filthiness from all
your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new
heart and put a new spirit within you. and I will remove the heart
of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I
will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes
and you will be careful to observe my ordinances.” Just listing
something here. God will purify his people, clean
them up for himself, end their idolatry, set them apart, give
them a new heart. How’s this? Did you give your
heart to Jesus? He doesn’t want it. He gives you a new heart
and takes your heart of stone. He gives them a new spirit or
a new nature. gives them the Holy Spirit, God Himself, to
indwell them. He causes them to walk in His
statutes, which is just a fancy word saying you’re gonna obey
all of His commandments, and He will make them observe all
of His ordinances. The New Testament goes on and
gives us some more. He gives His children a new nature with
new desires, a cleansed conscience, a hunger for the Word, submission
to the Word, love for other Christians, victory over sin. He will discipline
His children so that they cannot live in unrepentant sin as a
lifestyle of their life. because he’s a perfect father.
He will grow and nurture his children, conforming them to
the character of Christ throughout their life. The main point, if
God does this internally, you expect to see an external evidence
of it. And that’s where we look when
we want to see if our faith is genuine, to find assurance that
our salvation is real. We are not saved by works or
externals, we know that. We’re saved by grace alone, but
the grace that’s saved will always be accompanied by the spiritual
heartbeat of God. Ephesians chapter 2 starts out,
you were dead in your trespasses and sins, and Paul goes on to
say, but God, being rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ.
Now, if there was a dead guy right here in front of church,
died three days ago, what would he look like? He’d be white,
pale, cold, no breath, no heartbeat, rigor mortis, like Lazarus, if
God said, come forth, you would expect to see color, warmth,
breathing, a heartbeat. He would get up, start walking
and talking. If we’re dead in our trespasses
and sins and God raises us up to new spiritual life, we expect
to see a spiritual heartbeat. We expect to see a spiritual
life. Love for the brethren, others,
his word, prayer, singing, Obedience. 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, Therefore
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things
have passed away. Behold, new things have come.
Here’s an analogy for you. Think of a fish. What does a
fish do within its nature? It swims. So God takes that fish,
changes it to a bird. What does a bird do within its
nature? It flies. So what do you call an animal
that comes to you and says, I’m a bird, but he looks like a fish,
smells like a fish, has scales like a fish, he’s holding his
breath because he can’t breathe out of water, he can’t fly, and
he swims really good? You call it a liar. You’d have
to say that animal’s lying, or God is incapable of doing what
he said he’s going to do. So you either call God a liar,
you can’t do it, or this guy’s lying. And that’s the whole principle
here that we’re going to look at this morning. 2 Corinthians
5.17, again, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away,
behold new things have come. Fish becomes a bird and they
fly because they’re a bird. I’ll be preaching from the book
of 1 John this morning if you want to open to it. I’m going
to be all over and through the book so it would be helpful if
you do have a Bible in front of you. John, the book of 1st John, this
is really the book you go to to find out if your faith is
genuine. It’s the quintessential book
for this and there have been a lot of pastors that have written
wonderful articles and summarized these tests. That’s where we’re
going this morning. Personally, this letter is very
near and dear to me. For a good portion of my life,
I was those guys in Matthew 7. Lord, Lord, did we not? Away
from me, I never knew you, worker of lawlessness. And it was through
the preaching of a feisty Calvary Chapel pastor, preaching in the
book of 1 John, going through all these tests, that the Lord
shook me and opened my eyes and called me to himself. I can still
hear this guy preaching. You go to church, big deal. Do
you want to go? Do you love it? No, I didn’t.
You hang out after the service and chat with the people in your
church? Big deal. Do you love them? Do you pray for them? Do
you serve them? Nope. I thought they were kind
of weird. You listen to the sermon? Big deal. Do you love God’s Word? Do you want to obey it? Do you
share it with others? Nope. You try to be a good Christian? Big deal. Do you hate sin, wage
war against it, do you love righteousness? Those things didn’t characterize
me. It was a chilling moment for me. And I stopped and wondered,
am I truly saved? I didn’t know. I didn’t think
so, but I wanted to know. So I went straight home, went
in my office, locked the door, hit my knees, and I cried out
for mercy. And I said, save me and make me like that guy in
1 John. And so I love this book. I love
it because God used it and a fiery pastor to open my eyes to behold
wonderful things in his law as we’ve prayed. So, I picked this
topic because it’s the first time I’m preaching here and I
kind of want to give you guys my testimony and where I came from and how
God saved me, but I end up in the book of 1 John where I’m
challenging your salvation, sort of, and so I apologize for that.
I didn’t really think about that and didn’t want that to be the
first sermon I preach here, but that’s just the way it goes.
So, let’s get started. The book of 1 John. Later in
the Apostle John’s life, he was a sort of a bishop over the area
of Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey, and one of the churches
in his care was struggling with heretical doctrine. And apparently,
that apparently came from within. Paul had warned that this would
happen 30 years earlier. Acts 20, Paul says, I know that
after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing
the flock, and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking
perverse things to draw away the disciples after him. And
this is what happened. False doctrine started within the leadership.
There was heretical theology, some loose living, and there
was a church split. If you look at chapter 2, verse
19, John is writing, telling about what happened with this
congregation, the portion that left. This was a hurting people. He says, they went out from us,
that’s the people who left, but they were not really of us. For
if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.
But they went out so that it would be shown that they are not of
us. And so, you get the feeling that
this church asked John, after this church split, how do we
know we’re right? They’re wrong. How do we know we’re in the faith?
They’re claiming to have the truth. How do we know we have
the truth? So John writes this letter, and
he doesn’t just tell them, ah, you’re fine. You’re good. He gives them tests. I actually
counted. Fifty tests. If, then. By this, you know. And they’re
repeated in repetition, but fifty different things. He doesn’t
say, you’re good, and pat them on the back and say, you were
baptized. Look at your life. This is where you get assurance
of salvation. And it’s applicable to them back then, it’s applicable
to us today, especially in the United States. Especially in
the United States. The purpose for writing the letter,
look at chapter 5. Verse 13. These things I have
written to you. So, the preceding four and a
half chapters. to you who believe in the name
of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. You want to know that you’re
saved? Read everything before. See if it describes you. See
if you see yourself there. So that’s what we’re going to
do this morning, and I’m not going to go over all 50 tests. Most pastors summarize
them in 10 and 12 different categories. I’m going to for sure do two.
If we have time, I’ll do three. And I’m going to put them in
the major sub-themes of the book. Light, love, and life. Do you walk in the light? Do
you love God and the brethren? And do you pursue holiness within
your life? So, shall we get started? Chapter 1. Starting at verse 5. Do you walk
in the light? Statement of fact, verse 5 is
just statement of fact, and 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 is just using
that to see if this person’s truly saved. This is the message
we have heard from him. John was an apostle. He heard
directly from Christ, and announced to you, he was God’s witness,
that God is light. Now God is light. It could be
his glory, it’s used that way in scripture. It could be his
radiance, his purity, his holiness. Here, I think it’s holiness and
his self-revelation about that holiness and how we are to walk.
It’s the manner of life. It’s how we are to live in light
of that life. God is light and in Him there is no darkness at
all. Ephesians 5 helps us understand
the difference between light and darkness. Paul writes, For
you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light consists of
goodness and righteousness and truth.” Well, if that’s the fruit
of light, then the fruit of darkness is badness, unrighteousness,
and lies. So, God is light, and in His
holiness and purity, He shines forth on how to live holy and
pure. God is perfectly holy, and His
light shines in holiness, showing the path, exposing sin, chasing
away darkness. Here’s the test, verse 6. If,
and if you read the book of 1 John, there’s a lot of ifs. And I like
the way John writes. He’s a black and white guy. If
we say, so here’s someone who professes to be a Christian.
Here’s your profession. If we say that we have fellowship
with Him, and yet walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practice the
truth. You say you’re a bird, but you
swim, you’re a liar. That’s basically it. If we say that we have fellowship
with Him, and this fellowship is the Greek word koinonia, it’s
this mutual participation in a common cause, common interest,
common desires. So if I have fellowship with
God, that means that what God loves, I love. What He desires,
I desire. Where He wants to go, I go. What
He wants to do, I do. That’s fellowship with Him. If
I say that I have fellowship with Him, but yet I walk in darkness
and I do what I want to do, and I love the things that he hates,
and I don’t love the people that he loves. I’m a liar. I’m walking
in darkness. And that’s the whole thing. You
don’t have fellowship. It’s a false profession. This is someone who
claims to be a believer. They walk in darkness. They’re
a liar. They’re a hypocrite. They do not practice the truth.
And this practice, if you think like cultural practices, we go
back to Holland to visit our family, and everybody kisses
three times. Each cheek. That’s just the practice of the
culture. Well, if you think of practice
It’s the custom, our habits, the way we live life. This person’s
custom and the habits of his life have nothing to do with
walking in the light of God. You can go ahead and claim he
wants to be a Christian all he wants. John says he’s a liar.
And that’s a strong word, calling someone a liar. Verse seven,
we have a different guy here. But if we walk in the light,
as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.
Now notice, walking in the light, it’s where? to location. Where
are you walking? In the light, in Christ. Psalm
36 verse 9 says, For with you is the fountain of life, and
in your light we see light. We’re walking in Christ, in His
light, and it’s shining forth on our path. And it’s in this
way that we have fellowship one with another. It’s not my agenda
and your agenda, it’s God’s agenda, and if I’m in fellowship with
God, and you’re in fellowship with God, guess what? Now we’re
in fellowship. And this isn’t patting each other
on the back at a potluck, talking about the weather. This is fellowship
around the things of God. What’s God doing in your life?
What can I pray for you about? What have you been learning?
How’s it going with your family and your kids? This is spiritual
life here. It’s not a club within a church,
which kind of can tend to happen, especially in big churches. This
is living life together in fellowship with one another through our
fellowship with God. And that’s how this works. And
this guy in verse 7, Blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from
all sin. To walk in the light is to believe
the truth. The truth tells you you need a Savior and you have
sin, and it tells you what to do with that sin. You go to your
Savior and He cleanses you from all sin. That’s what it means
to walk in the light. We have a different guy again.
Verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves
and the truth is not in us. So if I deceive you, it means
I tell you to believe a lie. You think it’s true, but I made
you believe a falsehood. I’ve deceived you into something.
This guy did that to himself. He deceived himself. He believes
his own lie. If we say that we have no sin,
we’re deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. Meaning,
he’s going to say, I don’t walk in darkness. It’s just a little
mistake. It’s not a sin. What are other ways we deny sin?
There’s no God, no moral law, or take God’s grace and mercy,
because we like those, without His justice and holiness and
requirements on our life. Right? This guy is deceived. Deceived himself, he believes
his own lie. But if you walk in the light, God’s light shows
sin. What does a true believer do?
Look at the next verse. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful
and righteous to forgive us. our sins and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. Truth and light reveals the path,
how to live. It also reveals our sin as believers. The other night, a couple weeks
ago, we were watching a movie as a family and at some point
during the movie my youngest daughter, Danielle, got a ring
pop, a blue ring pop. She was just loving on that thing
for 45 minutes and when the movie was over we turned on the light
and we looked at her and she had blue teeth, blue tongue,
blue lips, blue cheeks, and she’s like, what? We saw it, because
the light turned on. A true believer, walking in the
light, sees his sin, and what does he do? He takes it to Christ,
because he wants to have fellowship, and when we confess our sins,
he is faithful and righteous. He will do it, and he’s right
to do it, to forgive us and cleanse us, and we stay in the light.
That’s how we stay in fellowship, with him. It’s an ongoing mark
of one’s life, Actually, a mark of a true believer is continued
repentance. You repent to be saved, and you keep repenting
your whole life. You have the example of David and Saul, right?
David sinned. His life was one marked by repentance.
Saul sinned, and when Samuel came to him, he says, well, just
come with me to the elders so that at least I look good. He
was more worried about man than God. David actually wrote a song
about his adultery. Everyone sang it. Did you believe
that? That’s true confession. Verse 10. If we say that we have
not sinned, what does the Bible say about us? You read it in
Romans 3. All men have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. If we say we’ve not sinned, who’s right?
Me or God? God’s right. We make Him a liar. If I say I’m not sinning, I say
God’s lying. That’s blasphemous. Those are
nasty words to call God a liar. And His word is not in us. So
we have three types of unbelievers here. Lied, They’re liars, they’re
deceived, or they’re just flat-out blasphemers. And the interesting
thing is, all of them claim to be a Christian. All of them claim
to be a Christian. And all of them are shown forth
in what they are because they reject the light. They reject
the light. Now let’s talk about this a little
bit more, what the light looks like. Look in John chapter 2, starting at verse 3. We agree, walk in the light,
but what does it look like to walk in the light? This is what
it looks like, John chapter three, chapter two, sorry, starting
at verse three. By this we know, here’s a test. By this we know
that we have come to know him. Here’s a test to see if you have
fellowship, if you walk in the light, if you’ve truly been saved,
if we keep his commandments. Well, that sounds legalistic,
doesn’t it? Keep His commandments. That’s how we know. That’s legalism.
Isn’t it by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone,
through the glory of God alone? Yes. But if God makes a fish
into a bird, what’s the bird going to do? It’s going to fly.
When God gives you a new nature, a new heart, new desires in the
Holy Spirit, what’s that child of God going to do? Like father,
like son. We keep His commandments. And here’s an order here. We
have come to know Him past tense. What’s the present reality? Commandment
keeping. He explains, verse 4, the one
who says, I have come to know him, past tense, and does not
keep his commandments, present tense, is a liar. There it is
again. The truth is not in him. But
whoever keeps his word, present tense, in him the love of God
has truly been perfected, past tense. There’s an order here.
God saves you when you start your life in sanctification.
It’s not the other way around. And so it sounds legalistic,
but he truly is. He believes in the doctrines
of grace here. By this we know that we are in Him. The one who
says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as
He walked. We’re obligated to walk how Christ
walked. How would you describe Christ’s life here on earth?
Would you use the word obedience? Would you use the word submission?
And when He obeyed and submitted to His Father, would you say
He did it in joy? He loved to do it? John 4, 31,
the disciples were urging him, saying, Rabbi, eat. Then he said
to him, I have food to eat you do not know about. My food is
to do the will of him who sent me to accomplish his work. When
we obey God, does it nourish our souls? Did Christ. Many people today want to live
their lives in as similar a way as they can to the world and
unsaved people. And they call themselves Christians.
And I think that’s just the wrong question, wrong affections. We
don’t ask, can I do this or that? We should ask, what can I do
to please my Heavenly Father? And it shows the affections of
a heart, rather than just someone going through the motions. Do
you love Christ or not? Jesus wanted to please His Father.
And the last part on the light, look at 1 John chapter 4. We walk in the light, the light
looks like obedience, and we submit to the light. 1 John chapter
4, look at verse 5. They are from the world. This
they is false teachers. They were the people, they’re
actually denying that Christ had a human nature. They are
from the world. Therefore they speak as from
the world and the world listens to them. We, this is John, he
was an apostle. We, me and the other 11 apostles
are from God. He who knows God listens to us,
the apostles. He who is not from God does not
listen to us. By this we know the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. John here lists everything he
said and all the other Apostles taught. All the other Apostles
affirmed all the rest of Scripture. And Christ sent them out. So
let me paraphrase it this way. It’s all of the canon. It’s not
just what the Apostles said. The one who knows God listens
to God in His Word. The one who does not know God
does not listen to God in His Word. And we would say, duh.
But remember, these are people claiming to be Christians. These
are people in churches all over the place. Let me illustrate
what I mean by this. And it’s just a story I’ve taken
from someone else. Theologian John Gershner would
go around and he would do a lot of teaching throughout the United
States. And he shares the story of being asked to go to a church
somewhere and give a six-week lecture on the doctrines of grace
and Calvinism. And so the first week he was
there, he started by opening it up, telling them what he was
going to teach and giving them a syllabus of what he was going
to teach. And afterwards, a lady in the church came up to him
and said, you know what? I don’t believe in Calvinism. I don’t
think the Bible teaches it. And I don’t agree with you.” He says,
good. If you don’t think the Bible
teaches it, you better not believe it. But I’m going to spend the
next five weeks trying to show you that I think the Bible teaches
it. She said, okay, I’ll come. After the whole series was over,
she came up to him and said, you know, I can’t argue with
you. You’ve showed that the Bible
teaches the doctrines of grace, but I still don’t believe it
because I don’t like it. He says, hold on lady, now you
have a problem. Now you’re sitting on the throne
and you’re standing in judgment over what God has said. You’re
not walking in submission. You don’t have to agree with
me, but you have to agree with whatever you see in the word
and submit to it. And he went so far as to question
whether or not she was truly saved because she rejected what
she knew God said. We do this all the time. We have
to be careful not to do this out of just sentimentality, right?
I hear parents with kids who are maybe not walking with the
Lord and they want to justify them and try to open the door
or lower the bar of what God requires for evidence of true
salvation. I have family members who have brothers who are Jehovah
Witnesses. Really? Is it really that bad?
It’s the heart pulls, right? Because we love people. Don’t
do that. I’ve had friends of mine who wonder, you know, they
had a lot of friends who are homosexuals and they’re really
good people. Is it really a damnable sin if they don’t repent? Yes.
Don’t do that. Submit to the Word of God. And
that’s what he’s saying here. One of the marks, one of the
tests, do you truly submit even when you find something you don’t
like that’s really hard? I looked at a survey, it was
from 2010, surveyed just Christians. Of the Christians they surveyed,
72% made a commitment to follow Christ, 30% of that 72 believe
that God expected them to be holy, and 17% of that 30 felt
the local church was necessary for life. If you do the math,
that’s 3.6%. There’s a lot of people who profess
to follow Christ, and I think they have a faith that will not…
Christ saves them. They have a faith that is not
a saving faith, is the best way to put it. A true Christian receives
the whole counsel of God. Let’s move on to our next test.
The first one is light. Do you walk in the light? Do
you love the light? Do you submit to the light? Love
as proof. Look at 1 John chapter 2 again. Verses 9 through 11. to walk in the light is to exercise
love for the brethren and that’s the transition John’s gonna say
if you walk in the light you’re gonna love. So I’m gonna use
this to transition easily from light to love for ourselves.
The one who says he is in the light, this is again a claim
to be a Christian, I’m in the light, and yet hates his brother
is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother
abides in the light and there’s no cause for stumbling in him
but the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks
in the darkness and does not know where he is going because
the darkness has blinded his eyes. Basically, you want to
know if you walk in the light, do you love the brother? It’s
a proof test. So let’s look at love. Go to
chapter 4. Why is love a good test? And
I think love is probably one of the best tests that John lists
in this book, of all the 10 or 12. This one’s most clearly understood
for me. John chapter 4, starting at verse
7. Beloved, those are believers, here’s a command, let us love
one another. Why? For love is from God. And everyone who loves is born
of God. Everyone who loves is a child
of God and knows God. Knows Him. Knows what God is
like. He knows that God is love, and
He knows what that is like. Verse 8, here’s the test. The
one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By
this the love of God was manifested in us, so that us that God has
sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live
through Him. In this is love, and He uses Christ coming to
live and die for you as the perfect example of God’s love. Not that
we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. What’s our response? If you know
the Gospel, if you’ve heard the Gospel, if you believe the Gospel,
there’s only one response. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time.
If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected
in us. And I thought rather than try to explain this, I would
just show you, go to Luke 7. You don’t have to go there, I’ll
just read it to you. Just listen to the story, I suppose. If you
want to follow along, I’ll start reading at verse 36. Luke 7, 36. Now one of the Pharisees
was requesting him, that’s Jesus, to dine with him. And he entered
the Pharisee’s home and reclined at the table. And there was a
woman in the city who was a sinner, probably a prostitute. And when
she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s
house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing
behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with
her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and
kissing his feet, and anointing them with the perfume. Now when
the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself,
if this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort
of person this woman is who was touching him, that she is a sinner.
And Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to say to you.
And he replied, say it, teacher. And Jesus tells a short little
parable here. A money lender had two debtors.
One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. When they were unable
to pay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will
love him more? Simon answered and said, I suppose
the one whom he forgave more. And he said to him, you have
judged correctly. Turning toward the woman, he said to Simon,
do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave
me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her
tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but
she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet.
You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet
with perfume. For this reason I say to you,
her sins which are many have been forgiven, for she loved
much, but he who is forgiven little loves little.” Let’s go
back to 1 John 4. He who has been forgiven much
loves much. He who has been forgiven little loves little. The whole
point is here, your ability to love is in direct proportion
to your own estimation of your own sins. And this person in
this passage has no love for the brethren. She has no forgiveness. Never experienced the love of
God. Let me read it again so that you can see that. The one
who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this
the love of God was manifested in us that he has sent his only
begotten son into the world so that we might live through him.
And this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved
us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved,
if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has
seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides
in us and his love is perfected in us. If you’ve not been forgiven,
you won’t love. That’s the whole point here.
And that’s why I think love is a good test. And there’s an order
to it. Look at verse 19 of chapter 4. We love the external evidence
because He first loved us. The internal reality of being
God’s object of His love. Love is an external evidence
of an internal reality. Now, the whole world agrees that
all we need is love, right? John Lennon and Paul McCartney
and everybody else. So that’s all good and well.
We need love, but we need to define this love. We need to
talk about what it looks like biblically, because there’s a
lot of people like me, before I was saved, that would have
thought I was pretty good so far. Love in action. Let’s look at John, 1 John chapter
3. Verse 14, sorry. We know, here’s
assurance again, this whole letter, I write these things to you so
that you may know that you have eternal life. We know that we
have passed out of death into life, that we’re a true believer,
because we love the brethren. Got it, we just saw that. He
who does not love the brethren abides in death. Yep, we saw
that. Verse 15, everyone who hates
his brother is a murderer. That’s an allusion to Matthew
5, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, you have heard it
said of old, if you murder your brother, you’re guilty, but I
say of you, if you hate your brother in your heart, you’re
guilty of murder. That’s what he’s alluding to. Everyone who hates
his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has
eternal life abiding in him. A child of God cannot harbor
hatred in his heart. We know love by this. He gives
the example of Christ, that He laid down His life for us, and
we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So the love
of God is not just a sentimental feeling of a grandpa sitting
up in heaven. He put it in action, and He did it, and it’s called
agape love. I know you guys have heard that before. It’s the self-sacrificial
love where you do something for the benefit of another with absolutely
no need or return. No quid pro quo. Not I scratch
my back, you scratch yours. You scratch my back, I scratch
yours. It’s God sent His Son. He didn’t need us. He was fine
by Himself in the councils of the eternity and eternity past.
As an expression of His love, He created and sent His Son into
the world to die for you, to buy you, to redeem you, It’s
self-sacrificial love, and he says this is the love that we
have. We ought to lay down our life for another. Now he’s not
saying that we need to go become martyrs for one another, but
we have to model this in self-sacrificial actions for one another. Verse 17, he shows that. Whoever has the world’s goods,
meaning you have the ability to help or sacrifice or serve,
or the time to serve, or the money to help, or the gifting
to teach, Whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in
need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God
abide in him? So love is not a sentiment. It is that which
expresses itself in action. Real love gets into action and
it costs you something. It will cost you time, it will
cost you energy, it will cost you money. No thought about being paid back.
Little children, let us not love with word or tongue, but in deed
and truth. And that little verse in James
chapter 2 should come to your mind about sharing with the brethren
in true faith, 2.14-17 if you want to look at it. I have the
clock chasing me here, so we’re going to keep moving on. We will know by this, by what? Your self-sacrificing for one
another that we are in the truth, and this will assure our heart
before Him. So love is an action love, not
a feeling. It’s a self-sacrificial love,
but let’s define it even a little bit farther. First John chapter
five. Starting at verse one. Whoever believes that Jesus is
the Christ is born of God. And whoever loves the father
loves the child born of him. By this we know that we love
the children of God when we love God and observe his commandments. If you look at verse two This
is how we know we love the children of God, when we love God and
observe His commandments. So when I love God by observing
His commandments, the effect of me observing His commandments
is loving His people. It’s not what I think it is.
It’s what God says it is. And when I obey God and His commands,
it’s actually the definition of how we love one another. God defines what love looks like.
Not the culture today. Not what you think it is. Not
what psychology thinks it is. Not how they tell you to raise
your children. It’s how God tells you to raise your children. We
heard from Ephesians chapter 6 about being children and parents
and fathers and masters and slaves. How you work. How you treat your
workers. When you do that in obedience
to God, you are actually loving them biblically. That is how
we love. That is why this is profound
and such a good test. By this we know we love the children
of God. and that God is love. We read that in 1 John chapter
4. God is love. If that’s part of who He is,
and part of His nature, and part of His being, and part of His character,
everything He says flows out of love. So when He gives us
the Ten Commandments, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t commit adultery,
we have the positive of that. Rather than stealing, be generous.
Rather than lying, be truthful. Rather than commit adultery,
be faithful to your spouse. All those things come from His
character of love. So, commandment-keeping isn’t
just to be in good standing with God. Commandment-keeping isn’t
just so that we can get rewards in heaven, and we can talk about
that another time. Commandment-keeping isn’t so you can be saved. If
you are saved, you love God, you love His people, and you
want to obey His commandments, because you love Him, and you
want your Father to be pleased with you, and you know that when you
do, that’s how you’re loving the brethren. You see that connection
there? Our cultures really mess this
up. And let me show you, it’s not just the Ten Commandments.
There are 59 one another commandments in Scripture. Warn with one another,
rejoice with one another, pray with one another. Let me show
you something. Actually, just sit and listen.
I’m going to read this to you. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. I’m going to read nine verses
and I just want you guys to sit and listen and count how many
commands there are. You’re going to need both hands and I think
a foot. We urge you, brethren, admonish
the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with
everyone, see that no one repays another with evil for evil, but
always seek after that which is good for one another and for
all people. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything
give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophetic utterances,
but examine everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good.
Abstain from every form of evil.” How many did you get? 14? I could have read a few more
verses and it’s like 17. It’s wild, right? There’s a whole
lot of commands there. And all these little commands, if we
do them, we’re walking in love. We’re walking in the light. Because
God is light and God is love. We saw both of those. Look at
verse 3. Here’s the hard part for me.
in my flesh, just saying. I’m thankful for Romans chapter
7. If you guys are familiar with that, I can sympathize with Paul’s
struggle between walking in the flesh and the spirit. For this
is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments
are not burdensome. That’s heavy. You think of the
beast of burden. A donkey stacked up with ten
foot of trunks on his back walking. Oh man, this is heavy. That’s the picture we see. Obeying
God can be hard, but it shouldn’t be a burden. I played soccer
in college. You probably don’t believe it.
It was about 95 pounds ago now. And I loved it. All of it. The practices, the hard practice
before the season. You had what they call Hell Week,
right? And it’s just miserable. It’s three times a day. I loved
it all. It was hard, but it was never a burden. There were some
guys there who were just athletic specimens. and they were there
for the scholarship, and they didn’t really love it, and they
were sick and tired of Hell Week, and they were ready for season
to be over. That’s not this. This is a labor of love. It’s
labor, and it’s a labor of love, and that’s what he’s getting
here. And you have to just take this test and ask yourself in
your heart, because I don’t know, this is John’s test, do I love
God, do I love His people, and do I love obeying Him? I didn’t
pass the test. when I was 28 years old. And
I’m thankful for this book, because otherwise I would have been standing
in Matthew chapter 7. But you have to ask yourself
this, the affections of your heart, are they there? Moving on. Let me draw a word
picture here to try to summarize what we’ve been going through
so far. Think of a triangle, God at the top, and me right
here, and we’ll put John right here. God shines forth His light
and salvation on me. And I respond to the light through
His gift of faith and repentance and I believe. And I reflect
His light back to Him in love. But I don’t have any light in
myself. God is light and God is love. So God’s light and love
comes down to me and I reflect light and love back to Him. But
guess what? I reflect His light and love to John. has received God’s light and
love, and he reflects it back to God in worship, but he also
reflects God’s light and love to me. And we’re in fellowship
with the Father and with one another. And that’s the picture
we get of walking in the light, and walking in love, and how
it works itself out from God back to Him in worship and praise,
and it works out to one another when we walk in obedience to
Him. So I don’t know if you find that
helpful. I did. Last one. We’ll go fast. Life. First one, do you walk in the
light? Second one, do you love the brethren? Third one, do you
pursue a holy life? Look at chapter 3. 1 John chapter
3. Actually, if you look at verse
29 of chapter 2, right before that, if you know that He is
righteous, God is holy, You know that everyone also who practices
righteousness, this is the trajectory of one’s life, is born of Him,
is born again. Let me show you why. Look at verse 8 of chapter 3. The Son of God appeared for this
purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. So the theology
that’s here is the fact that Christ didn’t just save you to
bring you to heaven, He saved you and He defeated sin and He
has empowered you now, here on earth, to wage war against sin
and have victory. And this is largely, probably
the best chapter for this is Romans chapter 6, but what it
says is believers are in Christ, we’ve been baptized with Him
in His death, we’re resurrected with Him into new life, our old
selves died, they’ve been redeemed from slavery of sin, we are freed
from slavery of sin, we are no longer slaves to sin. Our new selves are redeemed and
freed from the power of that sin. So believers died to sin
and are alive to God in Christ. But guess what? We are willing
slaves of righteousness now. Let me read a couple of verses
from Romans chapter 6 verse 14. For sin shall not be master over
you, for you are not under law but under grace. Verse 18, and
having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
Does a slave do his own will or the will of his master? So
if you’re slaves of righteousness, you do the will of your master,
and your master’s righteous be holy, for I am holy. So we have
new natures, new hearts, new desires, new affections, the
Holy Spirit indwelling us, cleansed consciences. We have the tools
to wage war with our old nature, and we still have this old sin
nature. I know I haven’t talked about that much. But we do. So
we can have victory. And so John here, one of the
tests on a Christian’s life is, are you progressing in holiness? It’s not that we’re all super
duper holy. It’s progressing. And I’ll describe
my life this way. You guys ever see like a five
year chart of fuel prices? It goes up and down. Sometimes
it’s down, sometimes it’s up. But over 10 years, it’s up a
little bit. And so if you look at this wild chart Over ten years,
if you draw a line, is it getting better? Or more expensive on
gas? But does your life generally
have a trajectory of holiness? So let’s look at this. Life, persevering, and holiness.
If you know that He is righteous, verse 29 of chapter 2, you know
that everyone who also practices righteousness is born of Him.
Chapter 3, see how great a love the Father has bestowed on us
that we would be called children of God. and such we are. For
this reason the world does not know us because it did not know
Him. Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not appeared
as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears
we will be like Him because we see Him just as He is. And everyone
who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself just as He is
pure. Do you believe in the return
of Christ? Do you believe He’s coming again?
Do you believe you’re going to be conformed to His image? Does that make
you pursue holiness now? Read that backwards. If you don’t
pursue holiness now, do you really believe that He’s coming? Do
you even care? Do you see how this is a test?
If you don’t pursue holiness, it just shows you don’t really
care what God has to say. I think the best description
of this, you’ve heard it before, practical atheists. You ever
heard that? Christian atheists is what they call them. Practical
Christian atheist is one who says he loves God, but lives
as if there is no God. And He hasn’t said anything,
and He hasn’t commanded anything, and He hasn’t required anything
upon your life. And that’s American Christianity,
I’ll just tell you. That’s a summation of most of
evangelicalism in general in America. Verse 4. Everyone who
practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
You hear Matthew 7 there? Depart from me, you who practice
lawlessness. Verse five, you know that he
appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No
one who abides in him sins, and no one who sins has seen him
or knows him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you,
for the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous.
The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has
sinned from the beginning, like father, like son. If you live
like the devil, it’s probably your dad, and that’s what Jesus
told the Pharisees, right? No one who is born of God practices
sin. No true Christian can continue
in unrepentant sin as a habitual lifestyle, period. That’s what
it says. Why not? Because his seed abides
in him. The Holy Spirit is indwelling
you. What does the Holy Spirit do? Convict the world of sin,
righteousness, judgment to come. points you to Christ. When you
hear truth preached, Holy Spirit says, Amen, believe that. And
my spirit says, Amen, I believe that. Holy Spirit tells me what
I’m saying and tells me to repent and grants me repentance and
helps me to walk in newness of life. No one who is born of sin
practices sin as a lifestyle because the seed abides in him.
And he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this the children
of God and the children of the devil are obvious. It’s like
you almost hear John saying, Duh? Really? It’s a fish or a
bird. Is it flying or swimming? Forget
what it says. Anyone who does not practice
righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love
his brother. So here he brings love right back into this holy
life. So John is a wild writer. If you’ve ever studied this book,
I think it is the most disorganized book in the New Testament. And
he’s all over the place, and every paragraph almost has its
own heading. But he just repeats these things,
and he comes back to them, and it’s kind of fun, actually, to
study it. I encourage you to study it. That is it. It’s good
for us to take an inventory of our lives from time to time.
The Bible says so. And today I just wanted to show
you and ask you, do you walk in the light? Do you love the
brethren? And do you pursue a holy life? And I started out with Matthew
7. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom
of heaven. But he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven
will enter. It doesn’t mean it’s works righteousness,
it means that’s one Christ new. Many will say to me on that day,
that’s scary, many, it doesn’t say just a few, many will say
to me on that day, Lord, Lord, and these guys are better than
I was, did we not prophesy in your name? Cast out demons in
your name and perform many miracles in your name? And I will declare
to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. And I’m thankful to the Lord
that he gave me fiery preacher and John, the apostle, in my
life to knock me upside the head. And I wonder if these fellows
in Matthew 7 don’t wish they had the same. How about you?
Do you see Christ in you? Don’t answer that, but just think
about it as we consider that. Hypocrites and other unsaved
men vainly deceive themselves with false hopes that they know
Christ. True believers, on the other hand, who stand and love
Jesus in sincerity will work out their salvation with fear
and trembling because God is working it in. They can and should
have assurance of salvation and take great joy in that fact.
Though God knows who are His, He wants us to know that we are
His. And it is our duty to give all diligence to make sure His
calling and election upon our hearts, which is 2 Peter. So,
shall we pray? Our Father in Heaven, we thank
You for Your Word. We thank You for the truth that
You give us. We thank You that we can read
it and see that you sent yourself to save us from yourself in Jesus
Christ. You sent him to live for us and
to die for us and to save us when we turn to repentance and
faith, and that you will complete the work you started. We thank
you for that truth, Lord, but we also thank you that you have
given us warnings, flashing lights that we would stop and make sure
that we are not deceived. I thank You, Lord, that You’ve
loved us enough, that You loved me enough, that You had John
write this book, and that You used it to save me. And I just
pray that You would bless this to the hearts of Your saints,
those that are Yours here, that know they’re Yours, that see
Christ living in their life. I thank You for that, Lord, and
I pray that You would have them press on, applying the means
of grace in their life and growing in the Lord. If there’s any here
that is a Christian, who may be as weak in their assurance.
Lord, I pray that they would use this to encourage them to
press on, apply the means of grace to make their calling and
election sure. If there’s any here, Lord, that
are like I was, deceived, they are near and dear to my heart,
Lord, because I know them. I pray that you would open their
eyes. I pray that you would open the eyes of their heart to see
Jesus. and to see them for who they truly are, that the light
would shine. I pray that you would grant them
repentance so that they wouldn’t flee from the light because they
love darkness. And if there’s any here who just flat out don’t
know you, Lord, I pray for them that in time you will save them. We cannot do it on our own. I
pray that those you have saved and granted new natures, that
you would grant us obedience and submission, that we might
love one another and love you Not just in word, but in deed.
In Jesus’ name, amen.