What Do You Know?
Rev. Res Spears
Walking in Truth and Love • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Let’s start this morning’s message with a short quiz.
How many senses does a person have?
If you want to improve your eyesight, what should you eat?
How long should you wait to go swimming after you’ve eaten a meal?
How long does it take your body to process a piece of gum if you swallow it?
Do you all feel confident about your answers? OK, so let’s see how you did on this quiz, then.
Experts still debate the number of senses a person has, but there’s general agreement now that humans have at least 10 and as many as 22 senses.
The Harvard School of Medicine says there are at least six others — in addition to sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. They include the sense of pain, the perception of time, and the sense of balance.
Vitamin A helps improve eyesight, but carrots don’t have it. Wanna know what’s good for your eyes? Pumpkin pie. I’ll bet your parents never told you that, did they?
And once you’ve eaten all that pumpkin pie, guess what you can do. You can go right ahead and jump into the pool. No need to wait an hour. The Mayo Clinic has confirmed there’s no basis at all to this thing we all were told as kids.
But what about that gum you swallowed seven years ago? It’s long gone. Your body processed it within a week, at the very longest. So swallow your gum if you want to; just don’t spit it on the sidewalk.
It’s surprising how many things we all “learned” as children that just aren’t true.
Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis? Nope. Sitting too close to the television will ruin your eyes? Nope. Dogs see only black and white? Nope; they see the world in yellows, blues, and grays. You only use 10 percent of your brain? I’ve met people for whom this seems to be true, but most of us are using all of our brain all the time.
Most of you seemed pretty comfortable that you KNEW all these things that turned out to be false. So, let me ask you: What DO you know?
Well, the Apostle John, in the conclusion of his message to the churches of Asia Minor, addressed this subject.
Remember that the church in that region had been dealing with false teachers who denied the reality of Jesus Christ. The false teachers denied either the divinity of Jesus or His humanity, and they claimed to have knowledge the believers lacked concerning eternal life.
And so, John wrote this first letter to remind them of what they DID know and how that knowledge should affect them.
And in the three verses we’ll look at near the end of chapter 5 today, we see John discussing some of the most fundamental points of Christianity.
They were good reminders for the people in the churches that originally read them, and they’re good reminders for us today, too.
Let’s look at the passage together, beginning in verse 18 of chapter 5. And as we do, I want you to notice the number of times John uses the words “know” and “true.”
18 We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
The word “know” appears four times in these three verses. And depending on how you work out the grammar, there are at least four different truth statements associated with those words. And that’s before you even get to the first appearance of the word, “true.”
Look at the things here that John says we know — and remember that he’s writing to a group of Christ-followers, to believers:
No one who is born of God sins. We are of God. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. The Son of God has come.
I want you to mark those statements of truth in your Bibles or on your handouts today.
John has been talking about the assurances that people who have turned to Jesus in faith can have.
We have the assurance of eternal life — in other words, life in the presence of and in fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, both in eternity and right here, right now.
We have the assurance of answered prayer as we pray according to God’s will and FOR His glory.
And the assurance of these things is ours primarily because of the character of God. Because He is good. Because He is gracious. Because He keeps His promises.
But in today’s passage, John reminds us that our assurance is also a function of the things we KNOW.
So, let’s take a look at these four statements of truth — these four things we KNOW as followers of Jesus — that should give us assurance, no matter what the world might claim.
“We know that no one who is born of God sins,” John says in verse 18.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the born-again believer doesn’t ever sin. After all, John said earlier in this letter that “if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Every one of us who has turned to Jesus in faith has two natures at war within us. We still have the sin nature we inherited from Adam and Eve, the first sinners.
But we also have the righteousness of Jesus in the person of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.
What John is saying here is that born-again believers in Jesus do not go on sinning. We don’t allow ourselves to be characterized by sin. We don’t allow ourselves to be comfortable with sin.
John Stott puts it this way: “Sin and the child of God are incompatible. They may occasionally meet; they cannot live together in harmony.” John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 19, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 192.
John has written at great length in this letter about righteousness as one of the characteristics that identify a believer as belonging to God in Christ.
But he also knows we still have that sin nature within us and that we’ll sometimes give in to that nature and be disobedient to God.
If you have given your life to Jesus, then you should never be comfortable with the sin in your life. It should cause you to be ashamed and uncomfortable, as if something is out of harmony, because it IS.
But the good news is that your sins as a believer — just as your sins before you came to faith — are already covered by the blood of Jesus. The good news is that “there is, therefore, now NO condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus.”
And that’s because, as John puts it here, we are KEPT by Him.
Now, some translations don’t read this way. Some translations say that he who has been born of God keeps himself.
But those translations rely on ancient Greek manuscripts of this letter that are far less reliable. Furthermore, translating it that way leads to an unbiblical conclusion: that we somehow can save ourselves.
Listen, friends: We who’ve turned to Jesus in faith are kept by the only begotten — the unique and eternal Son of God.
He watches over us and guards us against the grasping of the evil one, Satan.
This is what Jesus Himself said He would do. Look at John 6:39.
39 “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.
Look what He says about His sheep in John, chapter 10:
27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
Look at what He prayed in His High Priestly Prayer in John, chapter 17:
12 “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.
Look at what He says in John, chapter 18, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when the mob had come to arrest Him:
7 Therefore He again asked them, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am He; so if you seek Me, let these go their way,” 9 to fulfill the word which He spoke, “Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one.”
If you’ve placed your faith for salvation in Jesus Christ, then HE keeps you — He retains you in His custody, as it were — and there’s nothing that can separate you from the love of God, which is IN Christ Jesus.
The evil one wants to touch you. The devil wants to snatch you away, to harm you. The word “touch” there means to fasten oneself to something. The devil wants to fasten himself to you, to bring you under his control.
But those who have truly believed in Jesus are kept from the clutches of the devil by JESUS.
We are certainly called to holiness, and we are called to resist the devil and flee from sin. But in the end, it is Jesus who keeps us from sin and its punishment. Your salvation is entirely God’s work through Jesus, from beginning to end.
And because it’s GOD’S work, and not your own, you can be certain that you are KEPT.
So, we know that no one who is born of God sins, or continues in sin — that they’re not by their new spiritual nature comfortable or at peace with their sin.
And then, in verse 19, John says we know that we are of God. Remember, he’s writing to believers, to people who have turned to Jesus in true faith that only by His sacrificial death and supernatural resurrection can we be redeemed from the penalty we deserve for our sins against God.
But we also know that the whole world — in other words, all of “human society under the power of evil and at war with God and his people” [Daniel L. Akin, 1, 2, 3 John, vol. 38, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 213.] — lies in the power of the evil one.
Notice that there are only two options. You’re either OF GOD, or you’re part of the “whole world” that “lies in the power of the evil one.” You’re either of God or under the power of Satan. You belong either to God or to the devil.
Maybe that sounds harsh, but that’s exactly the dividing line that’s been drawn between ourselves and a perfectly righteous and holy God because of sin.
In his letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul says we were hostile to God. In chapter 5 of his letter to the Romans, he’s even more direct:
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Enemies of God. You either belong to God by His grace and through faith in Jesus Christ, or you are God’s enemy.
And so, every one of us that has been reconciled to God through faith in Jesus was once an enemy of God. We lay then in the power of Satan.
Not struggling against the power of Satan. Not contending with Satan. Not wrestling with Satan. But lying in his power.
What John says here is that the world is almost asleep under the control of the devil. And that’s where the devil wants the world to remain. Asleep.
Dozing and dreaming about all the things that take their attention away from the Savior who calls to them from the cross. Snoring through the sounds of the spiritual battle raging around them for their very souls.
And as followers of Christ, our job is to be sounding the alarm. Our job is to be shaking people awake and warning them that the house is aflame with the fires of hell. But salvation is at hand, because the Son of God has come to save us.
That’s the fourth thing John says we know. The Son of God has come.
When Jesus told the Pharisees in John, chapter 8, that their sins and their desire to kill Him were evidence that they were children of the devil, they became infuriated and insisted that they were children of God, because they descended from Abraham. And He said:
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.
Jesus was sent by His Father, and He was sent for a purpose, and part of that purpose was to give understanding that would lead to faith in Him.
Jesus, whom Paul describes as “the image of the invisible God,” came so that we can see and understand who God really is. So that we could know Him who is true. That word means “real.”
The Pharisees of Jesus’ time had the wrong idea about who God is. They thought He was keeping track of their offerings and their sacrifices. That He was impressed by their ability to keep the Law of Moses.
They thought He would see how righteous they were and welcome them into His kingdom and give them seats of honor at His table because of their merits.
And that’s the same kind of god lots of people today think they will meet some day. They figure if they can just keep the balance of good and bad in their lives tipped at least slightly toward the good side, that they’ll be fine when they stand before Him.
But what Jesus was telling the Pharisees in John, chapter 8, is the same thing that’s true today: What will matter when you stand before God is where you stand in relationship to Jesus.
Are you IN Him as one who has turned to Him in faith that ONLY His life, death, and resurrection can save you? Are you clothed in HIS righteousness? Or will you be standing before the perfectly righteous and holy God clothed in the filthy rags of your OWN righteousness?
That’s what the Pharisees of Jesus’ time expected to do, and Jesus called them sons of the devil.
Since they would not place their faith in Jesus the man, Christ the Messiah, God’s unique and eternal Son, they could never be in Him who is true — in Him who is REAL.
They didn’t know the REAL God, the one in whose Son can be found eternal life. The one whose Son IS eternal life.
But you — if you are a true follower of Jesus — YOU know these things.
You know that since you are born of God, your life shouldn’t be characterized by sin and that you’re kept by His Son from the punishment we all deserve for our sins.
You know you are OF God. And you know that your relationship with Him through Christ Jesus means you’re no longer under the control of Satan OR sin. You’ve moved from being enemies of God to being adopted sons and daughters of God.
You know that the Son of God has come and that in His life He showed us the very character of God Himself, so that when we come to know Jesus, we come to know the REAL God.
And when we come to know Jesus, we finally come to experience what we were made for: fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Do YOU know these things? If you’ve given your life to Jesus through faith in the power of His sacrificial death and supernatural resurrection to save you, then I hope you do.
And I hope you’ll remind yourself of these things when temptations come knocking.
I hope you’ll remind yourself of these things when doubt creeps in during the darkest nights. I hope you’ll remind yourself of these things when it seems that evil is winning.
But if you’ve never made the commitment to follow Jesus in faith, then you don’t really know the most important thing. You don’t know HIM.
Maybe you know ABOUT Him. But knowing ABOUT Jesus is a lot like knowing ABOUT food. Knowing about food won’t save you if you’re starving to death.
Or maybe what you know about Jesus is like some of those things you’ve known with such certainty since you were a kid. Maybe what you thought you knew about Jesus has been wrong all along.
I want to invite you this morning to meet the REAL Jesus, the TRUE Jesus. The man who is Jesus, the Messiah-Savior who is Christ, the One who is the unique and eternal Son of God.
THIS is the true God, the only one who can save you.
Will you come and meet Him today?