Applying Assurance: Living with gospel certainty in our pursuit of holiness
Assurance of Salvation • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John is convinced that salvation is by believing in Jesus
John frequently refers to Christians as people who are believing, that is trusting in Christ.
John wrote this gospel so that people would believe and thereby be saved.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
John wrote this epistle to provide assurance to those who have believed.
“these things” refers to the rest of the epistle
Heresy
gnosticism (not full blown): knowledge that was a kind of secret knowledge… esoteric
claimed to have special revelation and looked down upon people who were understood to be disciples of John… regarded as babes in the faith
that they only have the scriptures was a reason why the gnostics thought these Christians to be lacking in knowledge.
How we know
How we know
1 John 1:5-9.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We walk in the light (5-7)
We walk in the light (5-7)
verse 5 is often looked at from a moral perspective, but John is talking more about revelation than he is holiness.
John is speaking against the gnostics who propose that there is a knowledge that needs to be gained to have salvation. John is saying that the Light… the revelation of God is enough.
God has revealed Himself in His word
walk in v. 6 means to walk around… referring to every aspect of life… our style of life… the way we live. This is also in the present tense which means this term is meant to be understood as a continuous action.
If we live our lives out in darkness, that is, a style of life that contradicts what God has revealed about Himself and His will.
The mind of Christians have been renewed, so while Christians sin, their posture towards sin is different than those who are in darkness. They mourn their sin.
v. 7 makes clear that Christians continually need cleansing. We are not finished with our struggle against sin.
We mourn and confess our sin (8-9)
We mourn and confess our sin (8-9)
Verse 8 says that we live in deception if we dismiss or even marginalize our sin. If we fail to acknowledge that we contend with our sin as Christians, we lie.
Unbelievers are not concerned about their sin (or at least marginalize or seek to justify their sin). Believers are concerned to obey God and conform to His will, and when they fall short of this they mourn over their shortfall.
In response to succumbing to their sin, Christians are to confess their sins to God and receive His cleansing work (9).
Now, some of struggle with doubt because of our unhealthy introspection. We take deep looks at ourselves, and often we don’t like what we see. We’re sensitive to every variation or what we perceive as imperfections and we are left wondering about our relationship with God. We become consumed with ourselves, which really is a deceptive form of pride. A 19th century pastor from Scotland said this: “For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.”
We cannot look to ourselves and our performance for our assurance, but to Christ and His performance.
Confirming we know
Confirming we know
1 John 2:1-6.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
We trust in our advocate as we fight against our sin (1)
We trust in our advocate as we fight against our sin (1)
advocate is helper or an intercessor. It’s a representative of someone else… a spokesperson in a court of law. This is what Jesus is for His children before the Father.
John makes very plain that he wrote this epistle to strengthen the christians’ resolve against their sin and for righteousness.
But notice the second half of verse 2: But if anyone does sin. Christians sin, but their reaction to their sin is a way to confirm their salvation.
As you and I contend with our sin, we should react with sorrow when we sin, but not with a sense of defeat. Why? Because we have an advocate. We have hope in our battle against our sin, not because we have finally learned our lesson or have taken the necessary precautions, but because we have Jesus as our representative in God’s courtroom.
Our knowing Christ gives rise to obedience to Christ
Our knowing Christ gives rise to obedience to Christ
John is so certain that this particular kind of knowledge or knowing Christ will produce obedience in people that he calls anyone who claims to know Christ but who does not have a demonstrated concern to obey Christ a liar.
Lots of people claim to know Christ. Judas claimed to know Christ.
So, how are we to understand this knowledge of God that results in obedience?
Matt 11:27.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
This knowing is one that comes as a result of revelation. It’s a knowledge that is given to people.
But the know in v. 4: whoever says I know Him, is a knowledge that comes from experience. If a soldier comes back from war and says to the people back home, you don’t know what war is like, he is saying that unless you’ve experienced it, you know know it.
So the knowledge John has in view in 2:4 is an experience of Christ and God the Father in which they are taken into the depths of our life and change the way we live.
Now the certainty that John expresses regarding the capacity for this knowledge of Christ to produce obedience is significant. How does this work? How does this knowledge that is both given by God and gained through experience guarantee obedience?
1 John 4:16.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
So notice what John does here. He puts know and believe or trust together. Know is the same word from chapter 2.
John is saying that to know the love God has for you is to trust it. I think what John is saying is that no one can know the love of God (knowing in the way we described) and not trust the love of God.
So people who have been given this knowledge of Christ and have experienced HIs love which yields this knowledge, will obey God. John has made it clear that we will continue to sin, but even in that, this knowledge of Christ will result in our mournful posture towards our sin. And this knowledge will lead us to trust in our advocate as our hope in our battle against our sin.
Our knowing Christ gives rise to loving one another (5)
Our knowing Christ gives rise to loving one another (5)
It seems to me what John means by the love of God is the love God has for us. But what does he mean that God’s love is perfected in us? Another place where we see this idea is two chapters forward:
1 John 4:12.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
So here, the evidence that the love of God is being perfected in us and that people possess this kind of knowledge of Christ is expressing this same love for the people of God. Loving one another.
our faith in God, or love for God, is completed when that faith or love works itself out in obedient love to others.