Good afternoon, everybody. It's great to see our crowd and
I'm excited to study with you. I think the only thing better
than listening and studying God's Word is talking about
yourself. And I know I get a lot out of
this. So thank you for being patient
with me as I develop as a teacher and as I go through the
process of explaining the word to you.
Maybe it's helpful for you, maybe it's not, but it's, it's
sure helpful for me. So thank you for being such a
good audience all the time. And I'm looking forward to our
study and 1st John, as we continue on into Chapter 3.
And I've given the the title assured checking for a pulse.
And that is checking for a spiritual pulse.
That is the theme of this book or this letter is assurance.
It's giving people assurance who are facing disagreement or
facing controversy from others outside maybe having doubts
within. And he's giving them insurance
and He's showing them ways they can know and have joy and have
full joy and do not be dissuaded by other people in their faith.
And this letter is as a whole about assurance.
But I think today we're especially going to focus on
assurance. We've been through the purposes
several Times Now, so I don't think I need to rehash those.
We're just going to start reading in a couple verses
before chapter 3 and 1st John 2 where we left off last week or
two weeks ago. It says there in first John 2
verse 24. Therefore let that abide in you
what you heard from the beginning.
If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you
also will abide in the Son and in the Father.
And this is the promise that He has promised us eternal life.
These things I've written to you concerning those who tried to
deceive you. But as the same anointing
teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a
lie, and just at His, just as it has taught you, you will abide
in Him. And now little children abide in
Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be
ashamed before Him at His coming.
If you know that He is righteous, you know that
everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
That's where we left off, and we're going to start in verse 1
of chapter 3. Now He goes on to say behold or
check this out, look at this, admire this, what manner of love
the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called
children of God. Therefore the world does not
know us because it did not know him.
As I understand this word in manner, other people translate
it and it's translated a little bit more aggressively and a
little bit more. He's it's like he's reaching out
to find where does this come from?
Where is this manner of love? What kind of love is this?
One translation said? What kind of foreign love are we
witnessing? It's a foreign out of this world
love that we would see and learn from the things that God has
given to us. What kind of love is this?
The writers say in amazement, in awe of the kind of love that we
would be called his children and the world does not know us
because it doesn't know because it did not know him.
Verse 2 beloved, now we are children of God.
He starts this next stop by stating a fact and as we get
into these, these considerations of assurance, He's stating it
like it's a fact. He's stating it assuredly and
not like if we are of him, he's saying we are children of God.
And he says it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.
But we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him
for we shall see him as he is. So he's kind of recalibrating
and reminding us of the reality we're in.
Remember, we say that pretty often our our spiritual minds
are always a focus issue. So we study.
Even if you know something, even if I know something, it's a
matter of focus. And he says it has not been
revealed what we shall be. Sometimes we get so used to
being in our lives, in the mundane or in the regular or in
our limitations that that's all we see.
But he's reminding us that we're in a stage right now and it's in
a stage of not yet. It's in a stage of not yet being
revealed. But there's going to be a time,
he says, that we are going to be something else.
It has not yet been revealed or opened up to us, but we know
that when he is revealed, on that day when Jesus comes out
and greets us and where we go to meet him in the air, we're going
to be like him. He always, the gospel writers
always leave a sense of we don't know yet.
They do not seek to fully explain every detail.
And I find that to be, you know, sometimes it's kind of off
putting. Like I just wish God told us
more about and often it's something along the lines of
heaven because you try to describe heaven and it's like,
well, there's not that much that we're that we have to say about
it. There's, there's kind of hits
dropped here and there, but we don't have the full picture.
And that's what he says here. He leaves kind of a carrot
hanging out there. We don't even know what it's
going to be yet. And that's what hope is.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for.
But another scripture says that we don't hope for what we
already have. And so we've always got this
thing in our minds that says we don't even know how good it's
going to be yet, but we know we're going to be like him.
All of this letter is centered around unity with the Father and
closeness with the Father and being sons of the Father and
daughters of the Father. And we have assurance and
comfort in the fact that however this turns out, we're going to
be one with him, not just in our location, but even in our
presence, in our state of being. He will always be Lord of the
Lords over us to where we're not in the same level as him, but we
are going to be in state and a glorified body, and we will see
Him just as he is. You know, I think we all have a
great longing inside of us that is to be seen and to be
understood. You know, we see that most often
in children. I think most obviously like they
always want attention. They want to be seen.
They want to be they, they even step out and do something
outlandish in order to get attention.
Sometimes we want to be seen at a core level and understood.
The problem with us as adults, as we understand that as our
sense of being seen increases, our risk increases and we are
vulnerable. And when more people see more of
us, that's risky because we know what we are and we know our
faults and we know our shortcomings and we know the
deep secrets and we know the dark and we know the weaknesses.
So it's hard sometimes to have full vulnerability with other
people and to feel comfortable in that.
We feel our greatest sense of comfort in our spouses maybe,
and that's where you were meant to find that sense of they're
going to they see everything you are and they see everything that
you all your warts and all. And yet you find comfort in the
closeness that they understand you deeply and that they
continue to love you anyway. In theory, we know that's what
God is for us, right? We know that at the core of it
all, God sees everything we do from the time we go wake up to
the time we go to bed, and we know that He still loves us and
that is so comforting to us. But there's going to be a day
where it's not just A1 sided knowing, where it's not just God
knows me, I know God knows me, but I have kind of a hard time
seeing him all the time. There's going to come a day
where we are going to see Him for who and what and everything
that He really is. And I don't know about you, but
that encourages me that if I'm going to see that one day, and
that's going to be the climax of my earthly existence and the
climax of my exaltation is to see Him as He is, that makes me
want to see Him more now. That makes me want to look into
Him. I don't know my Bible up here.
I was going to pat my Bible. I want to look into Him more,
and I want to know Him more, and I want to see Him more clearly
and to show love for Him. Just like that day when I'm
looking forward to, I'm supposed to be looking forward to this
day when I see Him just as He is, I want to see every bit of
it I can. Now when we are raised
incorruptible, we're going to see Him just as He is.
Verse 3. And everyone who has this hope
in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.
So we should all be living with this hope of seeing the
glorified Jesus and being next to him in a glorified state
ourselves. And that hope should be living
in US. And if it is, it causes us to
purify ourselves. And any faith that does not
respond with a self reflection and purification because of it
is not as he's going to say, it's not a real faith.
And this is what happens when it's really inside of you.
He purifies himself just as he is pure.
You see Jesus and you see that hope of Jesus and say, hey, if
I'm going to him, I better start purifying myself.
Because God cannot have evil in his presence.
It has an action. Don't let go of the hope, this
hope. Don't let go of the hope amidst
the mundane, amidst the grind, amidst the hard against the
lonely, amidst all the things you deal with.
Don't let go of this hope. Whoever commits sin also commits
lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
And you know that he was manifested, He was made evident
to take away our sins. And in him there is no sin.
You know, sometimes we think of it like, I'm not lawless like so
and so is lawless. I I just committed a sin and I
have sin in this area. But he says sin itself is
lawlessness. I am lawless in a regard when I
sin. And it doesn't matter if it
wasn't 15 things, if it was one thing, it was lawless on my part
to commit a sin, to have a heart that was wrong.
He says that sin is lawlessness and sin is just that.
And you know that He was manifested to take away our
sins. So he is separate from this
lawlessness and does not want to be in the presence of it.
Verse 6, Whoever abides in him does not sin.
Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him.
This is one of the most re explained verses I think maybe
in the New Testament. And it's often times to try to
assure people who are new in the faith who read this and go,
wait, what if if I sin, he says I have no clue who he is.
Well, that's not really what the verbiage means.
These verbs are in present tense action, active oriented.
The NIV words it a little bit more clearly.
It says no one who lives in him keeps on sinning.
No one who continues to sin has neither seen him or known him.
The the key here is it's a pattern of behavior and it's a
pattern of life. And it is a decision you're
currently making to do one thing or another.
It's really pretty straightforward.
We know, and we can corroborate that with plenty of other
scriptures we've already read in First John that says whoever
says he has no sin is a liar. So we know that this is not
saying that we've never sinned before, clearly, because there's
other scriptures to make that clear.
He's saying a pattern of life. Now I do want to give that
comfort, but I also don't want to get away from the the point
that he's making. So the point is direction, not
perfection. But we do need to, to look into
this a little bit more. I think for our own honesty.
Only you and only I know what our direction is.
You might think you know somebody, but only you really
know only oneself. Like the scripture says, only
man knows the heart hearts within him unless he reveals it
to someone else. Only you know where your heart
is and where your direction is. And if we are living in sin,
then it doesn't matter what the past was.
We are not living for him now. I think we have to look at this.
If you're going to, if you're going to actually evaluate
yourself, take a situation, think about a temptation you had
recently and think about how you responded to it.
Maybe there's fifteen other things that you just cruise
right through and have no problem with those temptations.
But maybe there's one or maybe 2 where you notice that there's a
temptation happening. Think about how you respond to
it. If you respond to that thing
that gets you and you disregarded what you know is
right and you shirked off what you know what to be right, and
you just went on doing what you felt like doing, then you could
find a place in your heart where there is habitual sin that
you're choosing to live in. So maybe take stock and I'm
going to just throw this in there and this next part you can
completely ignore if it doesn't work for you.
But I find that I sometimes need a tough love.
I was talking to my brother this week and he was himself working
through the stages of he's becoming a mature enough
Christian to where he's trying to counsel somebody else who is
working through sin. And so you have these kind of
double layers of people who are working through sin.
The person who was talking to me was saying I'm trying to help
them, but I myself still struggle with sin and, and he
was trying to help him. Maybe it was some of the same
things that the other person was trying to get help overcoming.
And he's like, I, I can't really do all this.
I can't have all my burdens and, and continue to help someone out
with with their burdens. And I, I, you know, I, I try to
give as much consolation because there's always a phase of
affirming people giving consolation.
You're trying. That's what matters.
And if you need to hear that, if you need to hear you're trying,
keep up, that's great and trying and doing your best is all God
asks of you. But there comes a time where our
mindset can say I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying and pretty
soon is it really true? Is it really true that just
because I feel some sort of angst that I'm really putting
effort into my faith, just because I feel that
cognitiveness dissonance, like negativity when I'm trying to
fight against sin, it doesn't necessarily mean you're fleeing
sin. That's what the apostles tell
us, flee from sin. And so I told him something that
I need to hear, and maybe someone in here needs to hear
it. If you don't like the way this
is worded, please disregard it because it's, it's not for
everybody. Sometimes you have to suck it up
and move on from a sin. We can tell ourselves, I'm
struggling with that. I'm struggling with this, but
something makes it click one day and says you can't anymore.
You can't afford. There's people who need you.
There's people who who need your guidance, who need your
leadership, who need your example.
And you can't continue to struggle with this.
You can't continue to just kind of say, oh, I'm trying to get
rid of this sin. I'm pushing it away as hard as I
can. Sometimes you need to draw a
line for yourself and say no. And somebody needs to tell us to
suck it up and move on. Get rid of that thing, get rid
of it completely. I had in sports, this was, I
know the sports really helps me understand this concept because
I was a hard worker in sports and and I tried to lead the team
I was on with my work ethic. You know, we would always have
weight training in addition to our practices.
And so I tried to do my best in there, but I had days where I
was being a Sissy and we all have that where you're just,
you're just, I'm trying and I'm feeling weak.
And one day I was supposed to be the one leading the other group
and I was having that, that mental whining going on, you
know, like you're, you feel like I'm dragging today.
And the coach who does not normally have to say anything to
me, called me some things that I'm not going to repeat in here
and lit my fire. He called me out for being a
Sissy, in other words. And I needed that because after
he said that I had all the motivation in the world.
And I started working harder then and every day after that.
Then I started to feel a sense of like, I don't feel like it
today. I thought of that and it made me
work hard. Now, I didn't live in fear of
his criticism. It wasn't a negative thing.
It was I don't have to stay in a mindset that allows myself to
perpetually whine and gripe about what I'm doing, even if
it's hard. And I learned a different
mindset because of that. And I think spiritually I need
that sometimes. And certain people have told me
certain things where you're like, you're right, I don't have
to stay in the sin. I have a choice whether I walk
away from it or not. And I have a choice whether I
draw boundaries for myself and further increments away from
that so that I do not go near that.
So maybe you need that, maybe you don't.
But whatever the case is the, the always the answer moving
forward is you need to focus on right now.
What are you going to do now? If you struggle with habitual
sin that's past, what are you going to do now and make your
decision now to follow God And if you have things maybe that
you're dealing with things that make it a call like that just
feel overwhelming. You're like, I I'm just stuck.
That's often times where you need help.
You need somebody's help and that's OK.
Talk to somebody, say I need you to help me bear these burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ.
The Bible says carry, have someone else help you carry your
burdens. That's fine.
That is doing your best. Soliciting the help of other
believers is just fine. OK, so no one who lives in him
keeps on sinning. We make a pattern.
We make a new path to not continue in sin.
Verse 7. Little children, let no one
deceive you. He who practices righteousness
is righteous just as he is righteous.
He's don't, don't make it overcomplicated.
People can make it about everything that it's not.
If you listen to some religious discussions, it's all about
everything except for what are you doing?
And he says don't let anybody deceive you.
Don't deceive yourself. Don't deceive anybody else.
Don't perpetuate this lie. That is against the fact that if
you are practicing righteousness, you are
righteous. It's sometimes that simple.
But he who sins, verse 8, is of the devil, for the devil has
sinned from the beginning. The line is clear.
But remember, this doesn't just mean, oh, if you practice
righteous and you do all the right things, then then you're
holy and better than everybody. But remember, righteousness,
true righteousness, is the right heart too.
So no one could criticize this sentence and say, well, that's
how you get a bunch of high haughty people.
Well, no, because the right heart is absolutely at the
center of righteousness. So there's no room for criticism
of the Scripture there. There is no righteousness
without righteous motive. The brass tacks.
Maybe there's people who had the anointing we studied last time
and they said, no, it's this, it's that about the anointing.
No, it's who practices it for this purpose.
The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works
of the devil. Whoever has been born of God
does not sin, for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin
because he has been born of God. There's another concerning
phrase. Wait, it says you can't sin.
See, they said it's impossible. It's a generalized statement.
If you have God's Spirit living in you, it counteracts the evil.
And so it's a very general, you don't have to make this as as
specific as it's impossible to sin.
It's that sin is going against the new life, the new heart, the
new everything that God is putting inside of you and
working in you. So you can't continue to live in
sin because of that. God's working in you in a way
that you can't. Two things don't go together.
It's like oil and water. Oil and water don't mix.
It's kind of like a general statement he's making because
those two things do not go together.
Those who are born of God have a totally different approach to
life. Verse 10 In this, the children
of God and the children of the devil are manifest.
This is a pretty big deal. He just drew a hard line in the
sand. Whoever, whoever does not
practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love
his brother. There's a lot of social media
these days and there's a lot of media that connects people in
Word from a long way apart. And one of the hard things about
that is people. You, you can hear people from
all over saying different things and you have no idea who they
really are. So I encourage all of us to try
to live more closely in the circles where you actually
communicate and not live in these far off circles where you
don't really see people's actions because it can be really
confusing. And you by the Bible says by
their fruits, you shall know them.
So when you're listening to somebody, you're talking to them
and you're trying to better understand them and, and, and
God's plan and everything, it can be confusing if you don't
see the whole life, But when you see their fruits, it's going to
make certain things. You're going to understand God's
plan. You're going to understand how
to understand people, how to, how to hear people, because
there's people all over the world who claim one thing.
There's how many mega preachers have we heard about who mega
church preachers who were living double lives the entire time.
Focus on our circles and we can have relationships that prove
the law of God and that maybe disprove other things and make
it more clear for us God's plan and God's ways when we focus on
the people who are around us. Nor is he righteous who does not
love his brother. He's given us more tests.
Remember throughout this letter he say this is how you know.
This is how you know, and this is one of the tests.
If you do not practice righteousness and if you do not
love your brother, you are not of God.
Verse 11 For this is the message that you heard from the
beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was
of the wicked one and murdered his brother.
And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and
his brother's righteous. You know, if if you had cane
side, maybe you have a long list of reasons why that dynamic kind
of went sour. And it's kind of a toxic
relationship. Sometimes people do that kind of
stuff and they make it all complicated and muddy.
He says it's this simple. His works were evil and his
brothers were righteous. Now all he had to do was repent.
It would have been fine in God's sight, but that's what caused
him to lash out and anger. Verse 13 Do not marvel, my
brethren, if the world hates you, don't be surprised.
We know that we have passed from death to life because we love
the brethren. So he's going to talk for a
little bit about some things to do about loving the brothers.
And I do believe, yes, we have a responsibility to all the world.
We have a responsibility to anyone we might come in contact
with in the world. But the things he's going to say
are very specifically directed, I believe, at the brethren, the
brothers and sisters in the body.
And this is this is an intense call to action.
So I, when I read this, I found myself more challenged than I
have been in the past to honor you all and to honor my brothers
and sisters in a way that maybe I hadn't realized the level we
are called to. He says he who does not love his
brother abides in death. Whatever, whoever hates his
brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer
has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love because he
laid down his life for us. So he just said, love your
brother. So what does it look like to
love a brother? By this he laid down his life
for us. And we also ought to lay down
our lives for the brethren. That is a radical way of looking
at the world in every circumstance.
What is the best thing I can do for you?
What is the best thing I could do for you?
What is the best thing I can do for every person in my life is
particularly the brethren up to the point of dying for them.
Most people do not need you to die for them.
I don't know anyone in my life right now that would need me to
die for them. I don't know anyone that would
get anything out of that. So we know that that's not
required. It's kind of like when Jesus
said, you know, he said, you know, there he was washing their
feet and, and they said, well, they washed my whole body.
He's like, you don't need that. You don't need me to wash your
whole body because only your feet are dirty.
You don't need to go around and dying for people because that's
not what they need. People need you to lay down
their life for them in many ways, whatever that requires.
I heard an analogy given one time.
They said, imagine your whole life, everything you had to
give. Maybe that giving is physically
or maybe it's your effort. You have $100 to give in your
life. God does not give us $100 bill
because you'd walk out, hand them that person, maybe die for
them, and you'd check your bill and you walk right out and
you're done. But instead, God gives us a
whole lot of pennies. He gives us bags and bags and
bags of pennies and he says lay down your life for them.
If you're going to give everything you have to those
around you and to the world and to your brothers, that $100, you
got to do it 1 penny at a time. And that is exhausting just
thinking about that hand out a lot of pennies.
It's exhausting, but it's what's needed.
The one by one action of goodness and love is what Jesus
has called us to, and it's the example that he left because he
died at 3033. He died after living a lot of
life. He didn't just pop in and pop
out. He gave everything day after
day, exhaustion after exhaustion.
You know, that's why many extremist Muslims have died in
the world, because they have in the Quran, it says that if you
die for the holy war, the jihad, if you die in the middle of
that, you have a free pass to their heaven.
That is that mentality. Hey, give me one shot.
I'll do it. I'll be done and I get in, get
out. Three minutes of bravery can
give you an eternity in in your paradise, right?
Well, we know that that's, that's a human way of thinking.
It's easy way out, really. He calls us to every single day
give pennies of that $100 to the point that we have given all and
service to the people around us. And this, his picture I actually
got was, was actually a real picture.
They found this guy, his name was John Reyes and he was in LA.
He had, he had been going through his father's, his late
father's things. And he went into the crawl
space, into the house and found 1,000,000 pennies.
And that was about $10,000 worth of pennies.
So funny little, it doesn't really apply to the analogy
we're talking about right now, but it does take patience and
consistency to give what God has given us.
And in this sense, we lay down our lives for the brethren.
I like that picture. As you think about someone
coming and bringing something and laying it down in front of
somebody else humbly, maybe with a head bowed down, imagine doing
that to the person you're sitting across from or next to
or down the road from you. That is the mentality he calls
us to specifically to our brothers and sisters that you
would maybe to the person in here that you don't even know
very well. Your responsibility is to bring
your life and to lay it down in front of them, whatever that
means, whatever they would need. And that takes intentionality
that I have maybe not devoted as I should.
That takes a level of focus and looking into needs, not being
nosy but but looking out for others that I have not done
before. But whoever has this world's
goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from
him. How does the love of God abide
in him? He asked a rhetorical question
like how is that you We've been talking about the the what
manner of love verse one that the father has bestowed on us
that we would be called children of God.
We look at that and we say wow, and and he says, how could that
love be in us if we don't respond to the needs of our
brethren with this kind of love and sacrifice and love for
others? That is a shocking level of
responsibility and love. Verse 18 my little children, let
us not love in Word or in tongue, but in deed and in
truth. He specifies how this love
happens. He says put it into action.
He's not implying that words themselves don't have value.
He is elevating how important it is that our love take tangible
action for the people around us that we say we love.
Sometimes what is needed is emotional support and maybe you
talk a little bit, maybe you don't talk much at all and but
communication, that's what they need.
Maybe so he's not devaluing that, but the core of it is the
deed. What is the deed that I'm going
to do and what's the problem? Why is this such a big deal?
Words deceive, actions reveal. Have you ever seen somebody
doing something and been been been confused by it?
Not really. I when I see somebody doing
something, I feel like I understand exactly what they're
doing. But I've been, I've been
confused many times or deceived when someone says one thing and
I don't get the same picture somewhere else.
Words deceive and actions reveal, but you know who?
You know what they really deceive and you know who they
really reveal to. It's not as big of a deal maybe
as other people, but the people that they really reveal and
deceive to is us. Verse 19, He says, and by this,
by the deeds that he just referenced, we know that we are
of the truth in this conversation of assurance.
If we are not doing deeds of good love, they would reflect
laying down our lives to others. If we don't do that, he says,
well, he says the counter. He says by doing this, by laying
down your life for the brethren, you know that you're of the
truth. That's how you draw confidence.
That's how you start to realize, man, I, I'm doing this thing.
When I first started my Christian walk, I wasn't really
confident, You know, am I really cut up for this?
Am I too far gone? Am I, am I too sinful for God to
save? But now that I'm making some
progress and I'm active and I'm doing the love of God, I'm
starting to feel like God's right.
I am doing it. I am impossible to save and I am
doing this. Not that you're earning your
salvation in any way, but he says by this kind of active love
we know that we're of the truth and shall assure our hearts
before him. God has a great role in teaching
us, as we're going to see in a minute, and assuring our hearts.
But the very clear distinction here is when you do good, you
develop more assurance. And I know for sure myself
that's the case. There have been times where when
I did something for someone, I walked away feeling peace in my
heart. Not, not glory for me, not pride
in me, but peace. And the more I've gotten older,
I've realized that peace is because I'm having confidence
that hey, I am a biblical Christian.
I don't have to wonder if this guy 2000 years ago really has an
influence on me because I see it and I can see it in actions that
are becoming tangible and that assures our hearts.
Now I will add this. It may not be a quick fix.
People have said it before and you've heard it.
Doing, doing, doing, doing, doing more doesn't always solve
every problem in your life. And I'm not implying that.
I'm not saying if you just run yourself ragged doing good deeds
that you're just going to all of a sudden be this frazzled at
peace human. You're you're not you're you may
still have other things that you're dealing with internally
that need to get settled down and worked out to where you're
at peace. But this is the general recipe.
James too has some things to say about this.
He says, what does it profit, my brethren?
If someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked
and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, depart
in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the
things that they're needed for the body, what does it profit?
That's also faith by itself. If it does not have works, is
dead. You see that the saying did
nothing, as he already told us in first John.
But someone will say you have faith and I have works.
Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my
faith by my works. There it is.
There's that note of confidence. The Christian draws confidence
by knowing that their works reflect who they really are.
So much of the religious world, if I listen to a commentator,
it's like they beat works completely out the door and and
it's just discouraging. It's like, well, how do you know
then? Well, it's just in your heart.
It's like, well, I mean, there's there's nothing wrong with the
idea that faith is working in you, but you don't beat works
out the door to where people have no idea where they stand.
If you do it, you know it and you have peace.
It's simple in that sense. You believe that there's one
God, you do well, good for you. Even the demons believe and
tremble. He goes on the same verse 26 For
as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works
is dead. Also.
We talked about the beginning, finding a Christian pulse, the
assurance of our spiritual life. Works are your pulse.
Works do not earn you salvation, but it is indicator of whether
you are alive or not. And you can't live without life
and without action. So he goes on to say after we've
kind of taken a tangent, but on the note verse 19 said, let's
get our flow again. And by this we know that we are
of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.
For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart
and knows all things. There are kind of two sides of
this coin. I think there's a maybe a more
clear emphasis here. And I think the clear emphasis
he's making is God is sure, even if you aren't, God is sure about
your salvation and about your standing with Him.
Even if you don't have confidence all the time in it,
that is a great assurance. That is a wonderful piece that
God knows you even when your heart may condemn you.
Jeremiah 17 says this, but blessed is the one who trusts in
the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
They'll be like a tree planted by the water that send out its
roots by the stream. It does not fear when the heat
comes. Its leaves are always green.
It has no worries and a year of drought and never fails to bear
fruit. This is the NIV.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Your heart can deceive you against truth and what's right,
but it can also deceive you about your right standing with
God. There are plenty of people, and
I've experienced this, where my heart was condemning me when it
shouldn't have and it made me lose peace.
The writer Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful.
Don't look at your heart like it's the gold standard.
Sometimes you have to. And I've had to in my life by
experience, pry away from the idea that my heart is really the
guide, even if it would be more critical than Scripture.
Sometimes we think, well, as long as my heart's more critical
than God's Word, then I'm good, right?
Well, not necessarily because you can live a tormented life.
He says it is beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Sometimes that's the way our minds work.
Who can understand the way my mind is working?
But God is greater than our hearts.
First John says, verse 10 said I, the Lord, search the heart
and examine the mind. That's the consolation from
Jeremiah is that God really sees.
And if you don't know where you stand, don't worry.
God knows perfectly well where you stand.
He searches your heart and he will know you.
That's the greater reality. Something else to remember in
the same conversation is personality follows you into
your faith. So maybe you're somebody who's
overly conscious as a general person.
Maybe it's school. Maybe everything you do, you're
like very conscientious about it.
Some people fly right through the day and they don't.
They're not too worried. They're I'm doing my best, but I
don't need to get too hung up on anything.
It's not a bad thing. It's just maybe they're more
personality, your personality and who you are as a person is
going to follow you in your faith.
They're not separate. That's who you are.
Just like we understand Peter was a kind of an audacious
person and when he became in the Kingdom, he was audacious in the
Kingdom, and sometimes for good and sometimes not so good, his
faith followed him. Thomas, that's another one I
thought of just off the top of my head where he was called
doubting Thomas or Thomas. Why did you doubt?
Maybe he was a skeptical person as it was.
We we read about some of the more prominent figures, but
there's all kinds of personalities below that
threshold of audacious that exists that influence your
perspective spiritually. So we have to learn to navigate
our own personality. So how do we see reality?
Here's how we see reality. James 1 is not really focusing
on this topic, but it's a clue in there that I found really
helpful in this study. James one verse 23 says for if
anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man
observing his natural face in a mirror.
For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets
what kind of man he was. I'm not focusing so much on what
James is talking about in context, but there he makes a
reference about what scripture does.
Get this. If anyone is a hearer of the
word, hearing the word of God allows you to observe the
natural face in the mirror. What's he saying?
He says when you see God's word and when you study it, it shows
you who you really are. It shows you reality, it shows
you truth. Now he's saying, unfortunately,
often times we walk away from it and forget reality about who we
are. But I, I like that thought that
we, we can stick with that, that if I want to see me, if I want
to grow and seeing myself for what I really AM and what
everything really is. Instead of being unconfident
and, and, and whatever you might say over conscientious, continue
to look into the word of God and stay with it because it will
give you a clear pers, a clearer perspective on who you really
are and how everything else really is like a mirror in front
of your face. Don't let go of that, even when
it's confusing. You know, no matter how long it
takes, it took me a long time for some of these things.
That's how we see reality. One last note on this idea,
they, there's a study done by these two men, Dunny and Kruger,
and, and they had, they coined this term the Dunning Kruger
effect, which is a cognitive bias that when you are
inexperienced at something, you overestimate your ability and
when you're experienced at something, you underestimate
your ability. That's pretty straightforward.
You see someone who's like done something a couple times, like
I'm feeling pretty good about it.
They've only had a couple of isolated circumstances and their
confidence levels may be higher than it should be.
It's inflated, whereas people who have been doing something
for a long time realize all the nuances of every skill and all
the details that go into making good plans.
If you're doing architectural drawings and figuring out design
attributes of a building, there's so much nuance to
someone who's really experienced, understands how
good some people are, and they underestimate themselves
sometimes. So there's a cognitive bias you
may have maybe that influences this.
Maybe the more you try, the more you realize your own weakness.
And that's echoed in Romans. I'm not going to read the whole
thing forsake of time, but Paul's basically saying when I
started, when I saw the law of God, it showed me all the wrong
inside of me and it showed me all my flaws and it it just made
it worse. It seemed like it made the fight
harder. It made it me feel like there's
so much more sin to take care of.
That's kind of what happens when God starts to work in me.
He sometimes those things become revealed.
Here's the assurance. When we have humble hearts,
God's word will cut, and that's a good thing.
But assurance is necessary. And that assurance comes from
God knowing our hearts and from him encouraging us to do good so
that our hearts fully see, hey, you're doing this thing.
Now the negative side of this, just real quick, it's short.
If even our hearts know if we're in the wrong, God says, trust
me, I know there's no getting away from God.
If even our hearts condemn us and we are truly and wrong, God
knows even better than our hearts.
So let's get the flow of what he said.
My little children, let us not love in Word or in tongue, but
in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are
of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.
For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart
and knows all things. New stuff, here it comes,
beloved. If our heart does not condemn
us, we have confidence toward God.
That is awesome. And whatever we receive from Him
because we keep His commandments and do those things that are
pleasing in His sight. So the flow of thought was, if
you do right, that assures your heart.
And when you assure your heart you have confidence before Him,
and when you have confidence before Him, you ask Him for
things and He gives them to you. That's awesome.
When we have confidence before God because we're doing right,
we ask things for Him and He and whatever we ask we receive
because of the good that we show that we are on his side, that we
are interested in his purposes and we want to we want his
commandments to be at the forefront.
We do those things that are pleasing in his sight and this
is his commandment that we should believe on the name of
his Son, Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us
commandment. You know what's funny is the
commandment that they're obeying the whole time was the action,
but he called it here. Believe on belief, on the name
of the Son of God and loving one another.
So if anyone wants to tell you, you know it's about belief and
love. Yes.
Well, how does he say you know you believe in you love by doing
these good things. It's really pretty simple.
The command to believe and to love is manifested in her
actions as Jesus commanded us and that pleases him.
Now He who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and
He and Him, there's the unity and the closeness that you don't
want to feel like Jesus was a long time ago.
He's moved on from you. We're together in Him by this.
We know that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He has given us.
When I read this, I feel the tide waters calmly wash over
reading this and we have great peace knowing that we can be in
Him and we can be assured of that.
And today you are not assured. He's given us a clear outline
for Howard. Remember, John is a book of
overview and and broad concepts. So we didn't flesh out every
detail of what it means to be a complete Christian.
That takes time, that takes understanding.
And but you can start the walk by believing and hearing the
word of God creates belief in US.
And because of that belief, we respond with a repentant heart
and we say, I'm going to change from doing my will and go to
God's will. And we confess that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God. There's no other name by which
we may be saved under heaven by than by him.
And we are baptized into Christ for the mission of our sins.
And if you've already done that and you need to make it right
and need to make something right with the brethren, we're happy
to help you if there's anything we can pray for while we stand
and while we sit.