Sermon Tone Analysis

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/12 //Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

13 //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./

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The primary task I have as a minister is to prepare people to die.

I really don’t care about how you live if you do not live ready to die.

Death often comes unannounced and almost always it comes at inconvenient times.

Only the fool will try to ignore it, try to deny it.

How foolish we have become!

While many of us may fear death because of how unfamiliar we are with the experience of it, we do not have to fear what comes after it.

The Apostle John wanted his readers to live with the assurance that though they would one day die, they would nevertheless have life.

Eternal life.

The book of 1 John was written to give Christians an assurance that they really possess eternal life.

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Assurance, not Security

When we talk about assurance of salvation we mean the certainty that we possess eternal life.

We do not mean the certainty that God will make good on his promise.

That’s usually called /eternal security/.

Do not confuse the two issues.

Today’s passage is not focused on whether or not God will come through but whether or not you and I will inherit eternal life.

This distinction is quite necessary to keep in mind because we are not dealing today with questions about “once-saved-always-saved.”

We are dealing with the question of knowing whether or not you /are/ saved.

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The Need for Assurance

Many in John’s church must have wondered whether or not they truly possessed eternal life.

Many of us have struggled with such questions as well.

There are at least two reasons why those who wonder whether or not they have eternal life desperately need assurance.

!! When doubt is a mercy

It is possible that one would not possess an assurance of eternal life simply because he does not have eternal life.

In such cases, doubt is a mercy.

A troubled soul is a good thing for the soul that is in trouble.

It is my prayer that the words of this message today will trouble those who do not truly possess eternal life, and I pray that it will trouble them so much that they will be brought to repentance and faith.

I am convinced that many people sitting in our churches today need to be given the gracious gift of doubt.

!! When doubt is an enemy

It is also possible, however, that a person could be a true believer and therefore possess eternal life, but still be plagued by doubts about this.

Such was the case for many of John’s readers apparently.

The Christian needs assurance because unchecked doubt prevents one from experiencing the joy of the Christian life.

I say this because the joys of the Christian life are often experienced through the sufferings of this present life.

Without assurance, there will be no way to have joy when sickness and tragedy and death and pain are the realities we face today.

Christians need to have the firm assurance that God is for them when everything else has turned against them.

If that is you today, my prayer is that this message will quiet your soul and give you peace.

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Assurance by the Grace of God

Only God knows if your heart needs to be troubled or if your heart needs to be quieted.

Either way, assurance is not something we can work for.

Assurance comes by the grace of God.

That’s because assurance is part of the package of salvation.

It is not something extra but something that God aims to give us when he saves us.

That’s the argument Paul makes in Romans 5:9-10.

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/Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life./

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Paul’s argument is that if God has gone to such a great extent to justify us—through the sacrificial death of his Son—then surely God will complete the work of salvation by sparing us from the wrath of God that is yet to come.

Again we are reminded to find assurance through the reality of our salvation.

That means that we can never earn our assurance.

It is a gift of God to us who believe.

/So assurance is the treasured possession of believers.

But the fact remains that it is believers who often struggle with it.

So the BIG QUESTION is WHAT ARE THE WAYS BY WHICH GOD INTENDS TO GIVE BELIEVERS HIS ASSURANCE?/

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Assurance is to be found in the Scriptures and never apart from them.

“I write these things to you,” John writes, “that you may know that you have eternal life.”

The Apostle John says here that the reason why he has written this book is that he hopes his words will result in an assurance of salvation for those within the church.

That means that John believed that what he had written would have the effect of assuring his readers that they were not going to perish but would live eternally.

Here we find a very important truth: assurance of salvation is the aim of the Scriptures and without them, we have no basis for our assurance.

I say this because this is not the only place that we find the Scriptures at the center of our assurance.

Let’s look at a couple of others.

Consider Romans 15:1-4.

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/We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope./

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Paul is speaking here about the unity that ought to exist between strong and weak believers.

The unity is based upon Christian humility as we follow the example of Christ and seek to do good to one another.

In verse 3 Paul quotes from Psalm 69:9 and says that Christ fulfilled this Old Testament prophecy.

Then in verse 4 Paul makes this interesting comment: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Paul was telling his readers that as they read the Old Testament they were to receive encouragement from what they read, and this “encouragement of the Scriptures” would produce in them hope.

The Gentile believers in the church at Rome may have wondered if they would be accepted as part of the people of God.

Paul says they can increase in their hope of being accepted by God by seeing that the Old Testament was fulfilled by Christ.

Since they were now a part of Christ’s church, they could be assured that they would be accepted.

“By strengthening their ‘hope,’ therefore, the Scriptures help these “strong” believers become more secure about their place in the people of God.”[1]

It is in the Scriptures that our hope can be strengthened.

So what happens is that as we nourish our souls in the Scriptures, not just reading them as an academic interest, we gain encouragement through them.

We begin to see how we fit into God’s plan and we begin to comprehend something of his wisdom.

In short, through the Scriptures we are really able to know God and so our hope of being accepted by him grows.

Another passage that speaks about hope is Psalm 119:49-50.

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/Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.

This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life./

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I like this passage because it talks about assurance in the midst of “affliction.”

The Christian life is not always the easy path or the prosperous path.

Sometimes we are persecuted.

Sometimes things just don’t go as we plan.

If our assurance is based upon our circumstances, we would often have cause to be concerned.

But the Psalmist turned to God’s Word for hope in the midst of difficulty and came away with hope.

One of the deepest questions of life is why evil things happen, if there is a good God.

It is amazing how many Christians stumble over this question, too.

The Scriptures give us answers, answers that lead to hope and assurance.

One of the greatest things you can do to prepare for the tragedy you will one day face is to saturate your soul on the Word of God so that you will have a strong anchor to hold on to when you lose your job or your loved one suddenly dies or your house burns to the ground.

A third passage to consider is 1 Timothy 4:11-16.

Here’s what it says:

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/Command and teach these things.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.

Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.

Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers./