The right kind of confidence
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· 12 viewsBeing a child of God and abiding in Him leads to confidence in our life now and the life to come.
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When you and I read the Bible, there are a number of different topics and doctrines discussed, right? There are 66 books and while there is an overarching theme of God’s rescue plan for humanity, which is the main theme, there are a vast number of theological doctrines that are spelled out in God’s Word. This is the reason that people study the book for their whole lives to understand and comprehend all that is within. There is no other book like it! Here’s the thing though, this book is not meant for us to simply learn and just keep on living our lives the way that we want. Every word, every page is designed that you and I would soak up the message that God is giving us so that it would have a transformative effect on our lives. Transformation is the goal! As we read God’s word, while understanding and applying it, we will be transformed. As we have been reading in 1 John, we should not escape the fact that John wants our lives to change. He wants our habits to change, our patterns of living, our confidence in the Christian life. Last week we learned more about the second coming of Christ and this week we will also see how the second coming ties into 1 John. What John is going to tell us is that being a child of God and abiding in Him leads to confidence in our life now and the life to come.
Read 1 John 2:28-3:3
That first verse in verse 28 gives us the overview of 1 John and the specifics of how we have confidence in this life and the life to come. He uses the word abide, which has been used in multiple places in the book of 1 John. John is telling the church that will be reading his letter to abide, or to stay with Christ. He is reminding them that they should tie in their lives with the life of Christ, even though he is not physically among them. Distance does not hinder the abiding that we have with Christ because this abiding is primarily spiritual. This is an important encouragement because who we stick close with will have important consequences in the Christian life. We know that the people that we identify with will impact how we see ourselves and how we are seen by others. I was just watching Rocky this weekend, as we are having a Rocky marathon. There is a scene in which Rocky is talking to Marie, a neighborhood girl who is hanging around the wrong crowd and he tells Marie, “You hang around nice people, you get nice friends… you hang around yo-yo people you get yo-yo friends… simple mathematics.” “Hanging” with Christ will have profound impacts on the Christian life. John is telling his readers that abiding in Christ will give confidence, especially in the life to come. What does this confidence do? It gives us assurance so that when Christ returns, we will not shrink back in shame or weeping, which was also a similar idea found in Revelation 1:7. Think back to being a kid and you were caught doing something that you shouldn’t be doing. Didn’t you want to shrink back and disappear? John is using this language to magnify the importance of what he is saying and to show that continual abiding is essential because we don’t want to get caught with our hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. The more we remain in Christ, the more confidently and boldly we can live the Christian life. Confidence is an important aspect of the Christian life. So where does this confidence lead?
Confidence leads to righteous living
John is going to discuss righteous living from a unique perspective here while still showing why righteous living is so important. John is essentially going to say that righteous living is a response to knowing Christ. As we abide in Christ, which begins when we trust in Jesus Christ as our savior, we continue to grow in our knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is. As we grow in this knowledge we will begin to see the righteous life that Jesus lived and we will therefore desire to live like Christ. John is showing the right way to understand righteousness, not as a means of entering into a relationship with Christ but as a product of a relationship with Christ. As we live righteously, it is the outward evidence of what Christ has done in our hearts. John is going to emphasize the divine role of what it means to be a Christian when he says that we have been born of him. This is the point that salvation is driven by God, not by us. When I became a Christian, this was not my own doing but was God’s doing which resulted in my spiritual birth.
The question then is how do we know how to live righteously? We spend time with Christ andto understanding how he lived while on earth. A lot of the movies that we have come to love are movies that are based on true stories. Usually, it is a tale about a person’s heroism or extraordinary life that captures the minds and hearts of people and moviegoers. In order to have a genuine movie, an actor or actress will study and spend time with the person that they are trying to portray. They learn their mannerisms, their way of speaking, their thought process, how they live… anything that will give them a better idea of how to play this individual on the big screen. It takes time and study. It’s the same way with Christ, although we are not pretending. We want to conform our lives to Christ so that we will begin to live as he lived and model his life here on earth. This only comes from confident abiding.
Confidence leads to security in our relationship
There is one piece of advice that Jenn and I received in premarital counseling which has been important in my understanding of marriage and the advice that I give. It was this: never use the “D” word. The “D” word used in this context is divorce. The advice goes that you should never use this word in your marriage, especially casually or flippantly. When you have an argument or a disagreement, it is unhealthy and unwise to even mention the word divorce. Why is that? Well, divorce represents the breaking apart of marriage, and therefore to mention this word will lead to crumbling confidence in your marriage. This word will lead to great insecurity in a relationship and we know that insecurity leads to all sorts of ills and problems in any relationship. Therefore we strive in our marriage to have security so that each person can thrive, knowing that the other person loves and accepts them for who they are. This leads to marital flourishing. In the same way, the more we abide in Christ, seeking Him through the Word, we will begin to see the great truth about our relationship with Him. When we trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are showered with the love of God and we enter into a new type of relationship with Him: we are his children. To become a child of God is to represent the greatest type of security that anyone can have in this life. We are children of the living God. Think about this astounding truth: The God of the universe has adopted us into his family and God loves his family. I think about my own children and how much I love them and want the best for them, and how I love them despite all their struggles. I don’t kick my small child to the curb because they have a bad day. No, I nurture them and care for them and assure them that they will always be my child. Now, I know that many of you did not have this type of relationship with your earthly parent, which sometimes leads to insecurity in your spiritual life. Our God is a good, good father. He will never leave or forsake us. We can live the Christian life boldly with the assurance that comes from being a child of God. This type of living can only come from a deep abiding relationship with Jesus Christ. This relationship will lead to security and a thriving Christian life.
As we begin to grow in our understanding of our relationship with God, we will also begin to understand our relationship with the world in a better way. It may seem odd that we, as children of God, have such great difficulties in the world. Christians in the world have been persecuted ever since the early church began to exist in the ancient world. It may seem strange that children of the king could be treated so cruelly. John uses this as an opportunity to remind his reader that the reason the world does not treat them as children of the king, is because they do not know the King! They have no idea who they are, so how could they know us? Therefore, being persecuted because of Christ is not a mark against your status as a child of God, but rather a reflection of it. No matter how poorly you are treated here, how difficult your circumstances might be… keep pressing on because you are a child of God, who has experienced the overwhelming love that only He can give! Don’t ever forget how loved you are. You are loved by the King, your father. This is born out of the confidence of knowing who we are, which leads to more confidence.
Confidence leads to hope in the future
The longer that we live on this earth, we will recognize that our world, despite all the wonderful things that are here, this world is broken by sin. If we are honest, we see that this is not all that there is. One of the great aspects of Christianity is that there is hope beyond this world. The theological truth that represents this view is the return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Last week, we looked at Revelation 1:4-7 and we studied the return of Christ and how this is the glorious Hope of all time, that Christ will return in all his glory and power. This is the most wonderful news. This hope is one that is built into the Gospel message but is also nurtured and grows through our relationship with Christ. The reality is that when we become Christians, we don’t know a whole lot about the return of Christ, do we? This isn’t the first thing that we hear and understand, usually. Yet, in our walk with Christ, we begin to see what a prominent role the return of Christ plays in Christian theology. As you read the New Testament, it is apparent that the return of Christ was a central tenant in early Christian theology and was a topic that was expounded on in numerous letters in the Bible. Last week, we saw the glorious nature of the return of Christ, but I believe that John is telling us something else about our future with Christ: we will be conformed to His image. The hope is this, that we will be changed to be like Christ. No, we won’t be him in nature, but we will be fully conformed to who he is. We will truly be like Christ. We will be completed. No more sin. No more problems. No more addictions. No more trials. I believe that 1 Corinthians 13:12 gives us a different look at this as well, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Our knowledge and our lives will be completed! This gives us hope because it shows us the goal. Even though we are works in progress now, there is a beautiful picture that will be painted in the future. Each of us, with our uniqueness, will be conformed to be like Christ. We don’t lose our uniqueness but our uniqueness finds its perfection in Christ. This is also the message of Philippians 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Do you know what this confident hope does? It leads us to continue to strive after Christ and to be like him, purifying ourselves as he is pure. We seek to be pure and blameless, like Christ. Contrary to what critics might say, hope does not lead to spiritual laziness, but hope leads to spiritual vitality. I keep pressing on toward that Goal! This only comes through the confidence that we have through abiding with Christ.
I don’t know about you, but I want to live a confident Christian life. Why? Because that is the way that God wants us to live. He doesn’t want us to live in insecurity, or with wavering allegiances or a false hope… No, he wants us to live with great boldness! With great confidence. Church, this is only nurtured through continual abiding with Christ. The more we stay with Christ, and seek Him and align our lives with His life, we will experience all the abundant spiritual resources that are available to us. This should be the life of a Christian, the continual seeking and abiding with Christ. What often happens is that we become so distracted by this world and the things that are in it, our relationship with Christ suffers. I want to tell you this morning church, please invest in your relationship with Christ. Do not neglect your walk with Christ because this will only lead to spiritual insecurity that will render you ineffective in the kingdom of God. I don’t want to be useless in God’s Kingdom! I want to be used by the King for His glory. I want to always remember that being a child of God and abiding in Him leads to confidence in our life now and the life to come. I want that confidence. Do you?