Know that you Know!
Notes
Transcript
I’ve enjoyed sitting and looking out the window in the family room at the parsonage watching spring transform the little strip of woods behind the house. I’ve been amazed since I was a child how something that looks so dead after a long winter can burst forth in growth in the spring time.
I’ve watched the wildlife come around the house this spring as well. We have a groundhog that I think lives under the garage. There are a couple of bunnies hanging out in the backyard. There are all sorts of birds, several red-tail hawks, the robins, blue jays and cardinals, black birds and crows and some tiny little birds that I don’t know what it is.
Spring as I said simply amazes me because it represents new life in our physical world. It always seems appropriate that Jesus was raised from the dead in the spring of the year during this time of new life to symbolize that new life that is available to everyone through Jesus.
Today in the Christian calendar we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus. The ascension was when Jesus returned to heaven following his resurrection. On that day J:esus gave this command to the disciples “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 1:4).
When we come into that New Life through Jesus that promise of the Holy Spirit is ours to receive as well. Jesus completed his work here and returned to the Father and the Holy Spirit was then poured out on those first disciples. Next Sunday we’ll celebrate Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit.
To understand what John is about to tell us we have to have a little bit of a history lesson about witnesses in the Jewish law. John is writing as a Jew to mainly other Jews. In the Jewish law you couldn’t just have one witness which I believe was because it would be your word against the other person. The strength of the witness was greatly increased by having two or three witnesses.
In Deuteronomy 19 we read:
15 A solitary witness against someone in any crime, wrongdoing, or in any sort of misdeed that might be done is not sufficient. The decision must stand by two or three witnesses.
If a person was going to receive the death penalty for a crime the law required two or three witnesses as well.
6 Capital punishment must be decided by two or three witnesses. No one may be executed on the basis of only one testimony.
Witnesses to a crime or an event were very important because the strength of the testimony about the event was increased with more witnesses. Jesus spoke about having witnesses when he gave instructions on what to do when you see a brother or sister sin. Jesus said:
15 “If your brother or sister sins against you, go and correct them when you are alone together. If they listen to you, then you’ve won over your brother or sister. 16 But if they won’t listen, take with you one or two others so that every word may be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses.17 But if they still won’t pay attention, report it to the church. If they won’t pay attention even to the church, treat them as you would a Gentile and tax collector.
Jesus is in this passage reinforcing a principle from the law and sets a plan for how to handle discipline in the church. That little bit of history is important for understanding what John is writing for us this morning. I believe that John had in mind the worlds of Jesus and the words of the law in mind as he wrote this.
John wrote beginning there in verse 6:
6 This is the one who came by water and blood: Jesus Christ. Not by water only but by water and blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 The three are testifying—8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and the three are united in agreement.
I spoke to you last week about the victorious faith that is ours through Jesus. It is only possible because of what Jesus did for us that we can be reconciled to God and receive this new life.
Back up in verse 4 when John tells us that “everyone born of God overcomes the world” he is talking about us, the Church. The same Church that Jesus spoke about. We overcome the world because of Jesus. Jesus guaranteed it for us.
John in the previous chapter wrote:
4 You are from God, little children, and you have defeated these people because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
You can’t do it on your own. You won’t live a victorious Christian life by just trying harder. It’s only going to happen when you yield your life to God.
John is now telling us that Jesus is God incarnate. That word incarnate is a fancy way of saying God in human flesh. We are first presented with this concept in John’s Gospel when he wrote:
1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. 2 The Word was with God in the beginning. 3 Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being. What came into being 4 through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.
If you skip down to verse 14 in that first chapter of John you read these words:
The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. (John 1:14 The Message).
I read that from the Message paraphrase because it captures the idea of the incarnation so readily for us. The Word, Jesus became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. How God did that we don’t know.
Paul captured idea of the incarnation in his letter to the Philippians when he wrote in chapter 2:
5 Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: 6 Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. 7 But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore, God highly honored him and gave him a name above all names, 10 so that at the name of Jesus everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Why is knowing about the incarnation important to us? In John’s day there was a group called the Gnostics who claimed to have a special knowledge about God and they claimed that Jesus only became divine when he was baptized and the divine left the man Jesus prior to his death on the cross. There are people today that claim that Jesus is not truly God. The incarnation reminds us that Jesus is God, God in human flesh and blood who “moved into the neighborhood.”
John tells us there in verse 8:
8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and the three are united in agreement.
This is linking us back to the concept from the law requiring more than one witness and here we have three testifying to the fact that Jesus is God. The Spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit. The water and many Bible scholars believe that John is writing about the water of baptism and in this case, Jesus’ baptism. The blood refers to Jesus death on the cross. These three testify or are witnesses that Jesus is God incarnate.
John goes then a step further and states that we have God’s testimony because it’s greater than man’s testimony. We can have that assurance in our hearts, we can have that testimony in our hearts and it comes from God the Father himself.
Our faith in the character of God is the doorway that opens up our lives toward God.
When we reject the testimony John says that we make God out to be a liar. A lot of people look at Jesus as a great teacher, a good moral philosopher but not as God himself. C. S. Lewis the great Christian writer said this in his book Mere Christianity:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. – Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.
John says this is the testimony, the testimony from God the Father:
11 And this is the testimony: God gave eternal life to us, and this life is in his Son. 12 The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn’t have God’s Son does not have life.
One thing I think we miss out is this fact “God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son.” So many people think that eternal life begins when we die that somehow we’ve purchased fire insurance to keep us out of hell. If you think that let me politely but boldly tell you that you may be sincere about that but you are sincerely wrong!
Can I tell you one thing about hell? Even if you say no, I’m going to tell you anyways.
God did not create hell for man. It wasn’t created as a place of eternal punishment for mankind. It was created for Satan and all the fallen angels. As a result of man’s choice to disobey God and sin people will end up in hell. I know people who’ve told me that what they are experiencing here and now is Hell. But let me tell you that no matter what we go through here will ever compare to being eternally separated from God.
There is no such thing as fire insurance to keep you out of hell. Either you are a Christian or you are not. You’re not just going to squeak into heaven by the skin of your teeth. If you have the Son then you have eternal life.
Some people say to me that they don’t see how a loving God could send anyone to hell. I tell them it’s not that God sends them to Hell, it’s that they choose to go there because they refuse to accept the free gift of salvation that God offers to them.
The eternal life we have from God comes through our faith in His Son. This positive affirmation is followed in the tradition of Old Testament parallelism with the statement stated negatively. There is no eternal life apart from the Son of God. Jesus Christ is not one of several possible saviors, or a shepherd among the shepherds; Jesus Christ is the Savior, the true shepherd. God has spoken in His Son, and we must listen to that speech. Karl Barth says:
When we pronounce the name of Jesus Christ, we are not speaking of an idea. The name Jesus Christ is not the transparent shell, through which we glimpse something higher—no room for platonism here! What is involved is this actual name and this title; this person is involved … so we confront God. God really encompasses us in Jesus Christ “on every side.” Here there is no escape. But there is also no drop into nothingness. In pronouncing the name of Jesus Christ we are on the way. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” That is the way through time, the center of which He is … .1
John does not make the Christian church the center nor is the life a reward for the mastery of secrets. Eternal life is in Jesus Christ. That is the Good News—not a burden but an adventure.
John says that God has given us eternal life. He doesn’t say that God will give, but that he has given, it’s a done deal. He’s already done it.
When we come to saving faith in Jesus Christ we are made citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are given eternal life. We don’t get eternal life when we die physically; we receive it when we put our faith in Jesus.
Jesus talked about that in that great passage from John 3:16, Jesus said “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That eternal life begins that very day that we believe in Jesus.
The Apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthian church these words of encouragement:
54 And when the rotting body has been clothed in what can’t decay, and the dying body has been clothed in what can’t die, then this statement in scripture will happen: Death has been swallowed up by a victory. 55 Where is your victory, Death? Where is your sting, Death? 56 Death’s sting is sin, and the power of sin is the Law.) 57 Thanks be to God, who gives us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Paul says “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” That eternal life, that victory of sin and death is ours through Jesus.
I want to draw to a close this look at John’s letter with his words from verses 14 and 15. John wrote:
14 This is the confidence that we have in our relationship with God: If we ask for anything in agreement with his will, he listens to us. 15 If we know that he listens to whatever we ask, we know that we have received what we asked from him.
This is the confidence we have he says in approaching God. What is that confidence based on? It’s based on what Jesus has done for us. Do you recall how John described love a few weeks ago?
John says it’s not about us, it’s not about you and it’s not about me. He said, “this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” It’s not about what we do, but rather about what God has done. God has loved us, He has sent Jesus, that is love.
I said a few weeks ago that today we can know that we are in Christ, we can know fully this love that God has for us because of what Jesus has done. We can today be made perfect in love.
Today we can love God with our entire being. We can love our neighbor just as we love ourselves. Not because we try hard, not because we keep a check list of things we must do and things that we must avoid, but because of what God has done and what He is doing as we surrender ourselves to Him today.
It’s because of what God has done through Jesus that we have to confidence, to “boldly approach the throne of Grace”. We can do that because of what He has done.
Our lives work better when we live from the true center, Jesus Christ.
Look at the promise there. John wrote: “if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him”
If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. What is it that we need today? Have we asked the Father for it or have we just sat around and complained that we don’t have it? Ask, ask according to his will. When we pray for the unsaved we pray because we know that it is not God’s will that any should perish.
Ask and God will provide. Why? He’s already done it through Jesus. Why did he write this? So that we might know why we believe in Jesus.