1 JOHN 4:13-21 - Indelible Assurance

As I was preparing this message today, I kept thinking of an evangelistic invitation I had heard from some well-known public preacher—I think it was Jerry Falwell, but I can’t remember for sure. He would close his sermons with an invitation to repent and believe the Gospel by exhorting his listeners to “know that you know that you know you are born again!” It was an invitation to assurance, to certainty that you really are a Christian, that you are truly a born-again child of God.

It’s a good way to exhort people—because if what the Bible tells us about God and about our condition apart from His grace and the eternal consequences of dying apart from His salvation are all true (and they are!), then there really is nothing more important in this life than KNOWING that you really are a child of God.

The Apostle John clearly understood how important it is for us to know that we know that we know we are born again—to this point in our study, we have seen John use the word “know” twenty-five times:

1 John 2:3 (ESV)

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.

1 John 3:14 (ESV)

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

1 John 3:24 (ESV)

Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

...and he will use the word another nine times in the remaining verses of the book. John really wants his readers to know that they are saved!

Here in the first verse of our text this morning, John says it again:

1 John 4:13 (ESV)

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

We saw last week how love is the indispensable mark of the Christian—that whatever else might characterize the life of a believer, the one absolutely crucial attribute that defines a Christian is the same sacrificial, unconditional love that we see in Jesus’ life.

And in the verses before us today, John goes on to demonstrate that

SPIRIT - driven love is the INDELIBLE ASSURANCE of the Christian

I don’t know where you are today, what struggles you may be experiencing in your assurance of your salvation. To be sure, there are some people who should be unsure of whether they are saved or not—those who do not possess that indispensable mark of love:

1 John 4:8 (ESV)

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

But there are other believers who struggle with feelings of doubt over their salvation, who worry that perhaps they are not really Christians. If that’s you this morning, you need to see that John has absolutely crammed this letter with assurances that you really can KNOW that you are saved! The love that lives in you by the Holy Spirit who dwells in you is the indelible assurance that you are a Christian. That Spirit-driven love in you is

I. Your assurance of SALVATION (1 John 4:13-16)

Look again at verse 13:

1 John 4:13 (ESV)

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

John has said it earlier, but he revisits it again here—the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life is the way that you can know that you “abide in God” and that God abides in you. You can be assured that you are a Christian when

You DISPLAY the Spirit in your LOVE (v. 13)

When you think about it, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? If sacrificial, unconditional love is the indispensable mark of the Christian, then the display of that love in your life means that you are a Christian! Do you possess that indispensable mark? Do you display that love toward God and one another, that love that the world cannot comprehend and cannot copy? As one author puts it:

“The love that we now have for God and His children is a revelation of the Holy Spirit who is within us through our relationship with Jesus. Love is certified proof that God now resides in us...” (Akin, D. L., Platt, D., & Merida, T. (2014). Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) [E-book]. Holman Reference. loc 2146)

Can you point to specific situations where you have demonstrated that supernatural, sacrificial love for someone? A time when you returned real love toward someone who hated you? A time when you gladly laid down your own comfort, security or plans for the sake of someone else? A delight and joy in God and confident dependence on Him that carries you through whatever hardship this mess of a world throws at you? If so, then you are displaying the evidence of Spirit-driven love—the indelible assurance that you really are born again!

The Holy Spirit’s presence in you is displayed through your love for God and His people, and the Spirit’s presence in you is manifested when

You CONFESS the Son as your SAVIOR (v. 14-15, cp. 1 Cor. 12:3)

There it is, right in verses 14-15:

1 John 4:14–15 (ESV)

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

What is the second sign that you are abiding in God? You confess that you need a Savior! The Apostle Paul makes this same point in his first letter to the Corinthian church:

1 Corinthians 12:3 (ESV)

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in you draws you to affirm that Jesus Christ is the Savior—and draws you to affirm that you need a Savior! The Holy Spirit’s presence in your life convicts you of sin—when you are dragged away and enticed by sin, when you indulge your sinful passions and desires instead of walking in obedience to God, it is the Holy Spirit in you that brings you to conviction over your sin and drives you to confess that sin before God.

Have you seen God’s Spirit at work in you to do that? Not the generalized feeling that you are a terrible person and everything you do is horrible (that’s the Devil accusing you), but those moments when you are acutely aware of a specific sin that you need to repent of—a particular lie you told your spouse, a specific instance of bitterness you allowed to grow up toward a family member, a conversation where you succumbed to the temptation to gossip about an acquaintance. If God’s Spirit gets hold of you in those moments and causes you to mourn over those sins and rejoice over the fact that you have a Savior Whose blood cleanses you from every sin, that is an indication that He really does abide in you, and you really do abide in Him!

Evidence of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in you is your assurance of salvation—you display the Spirit in your love, you confess the Son as your Savior, and

You BELIEVE the Father’s LOVE for you (v. 16)

Look at verse 16:

1 John 4:16 (ESV)

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.

God’s Word is so incredibly insightful—John’s divinely-inspired choice of words here says something powerful about the way love is given and received in this broken, sinful world.

What I mean is this: It is one thing to “know” that someone loves you—you can know in your head that your spouse loves you, but if your past is full of sinful and destructive parodies of love—family members or others who said they loved you but that “love” was selfish or manipulative or even abusive—then you’re going to have a hard time believing someone when they say “I love you”, right?

And this is one of the precious promises for you, Christian, if your past has been filled with that kind of poisoned and twisted caricature of “love”—the presence of the Holy Spirit in you will enable you to really BELIEVE that God loves you! That you will not only “know” in your head that God loves you, but that you will come to believe it with all your heart! The beautiful work of God’s Spirit in a heart that has been betrayed or broken by false promises of “love” is that He renews that heart so that it can receive and believe in and rest in His love!

If you have suffered in such a way as to believe you could never again trust someone to say “I love you”—God promises that as His Spirit dwells in you, you will not only come to know the love He has for you, you will believe it! And when you really come to rest in His love, and you don’t doubt it or mistrust it, when you are fully convinced of His unconditional, eternal love for you that will never be shaken or altered or diminished—you have real, indelible assurance that you really are born again!

Holy Spirit-driven love is the indelible assurance of the Christian. It is your assurance of salvation, and it is

II. Your assurance in JUDGMENT (1 John 4:17-18)

If you are fully and completely and unshakably convinced of your Heavenly Father’s love for you, then the Day that is coming when you will stand before Him in judgment is not a terror to you. Look at verse 17:

1 John 4:17 (ESV)

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

When you are fully convinced of God’s love for you in Christ, that love being perfected in you enables you

To stand before GOD with CONFIDENCE (v. 17; cp. 1 Corinthians 4:2-5)

As believers, you and I will stand before God someday to be judged—not for our sins, which were judged on the Cross where Jesus died. But you and I will have an evaluation—we will stand before God to answer for the things that we have done in His Name and for His sake. You will answer to God for the way you taught Sunday School, you will answer to Him for the way you shared (or did not share) the Gospel, you will answer to Him for how you raised your children in the nurture and admonition of the LORD. Christian, you are a steward of the gifts, abilities and opportunities God has given you, and the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:2:

1 Corinthians 4:2 (ESV)

Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

At one time or another, everyone has some kind of “performance review”, don’t they? Whether it’s sitting down in your boss’s office to discuss how you did meeting your goals for the year or a supervisor casting a critical look over your shoulder at the work you’re doing or your teacher docking you points for your assignment (or even your mom sizing up how well you cleaned your room!)

Whatever the situation, we’ve all had the experience of wanting to contest our evaluation: “That’s not fair! The book told me to do the problem that way!” “You can’t blame me for the project coming in late, Smitty hasn’t shown up for a week!” “I did make my bed, but the dog pulled all my covers off!!” But on that Day, when you stand before God to have your work for Him evaluated, there will be no questioning the accuracy of His evaluation, will there?

1 Corinthians 4:5 (ESV)

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

Paul says that we must not “pronounce judgment… before the Lord comes”. In that context he is telling the church in Corinth not to judge his ministry. But I think you and I are just as liable to judge our own acts of service to God prematurely.

You may feel like those kids in your Sunday School or Junior Church class are not getting anything from your teaching, and it’s a waste of time. You may feel like all of the prayer and blood, sweat and tears you put into raising godly children has all gone for nothing. You may feel like giving up praying for that unsaved loved one because they just aren’t responding. You may tell yourself you’re a rotten parent, a rotten youth leader, a rotten pastor, a rotten parent, a rotten Christian because everything you have tried to do for Christ and His Kingdom seems like it has fallen apart.

But Paul says that he is confident to stand before God someday, because on that Day he will receive an absolutely true and accurate evaluation of his work! Truly, you will never know the full effects of your work for Christ down here until every seed you planted and every conversation you had and every lesson you taught and sermon you preached has had the opportunity to blossom and bear fruit in the light of eternity!

And never forget, Christian, that when you stand before God on that Day to have Him judge your works, you are being judged by a Father who loves you so much that He has to spend all of eternity showing you how much! The love of God for you and the love of God in you is the source of your confidence to stand before Him on that Day!

Not only so, but John says in verse 18 that this Spirit-driven love enables you

To walk through this WORLD with FEARLESSNESS (v. 18; cp. Hebrews 12:10)

1 John 4:18 (ESV)

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Christian, whatever happens to you in this world, whatever the future may hold for you in the coming days and weeks, the love of God being perfected in you as you come to know and believe in His love is your assurance that you are not being punished by God. Nothing that comes into you life—no sadness or hardship or loss or difficulty or pain—none of it is because God is punishing you! As God makes His love grow more and more in your life, the fear that He is angry with you or disappointed in you or frustrated with you or is inflicting hardship on you in punishment goes away!

You are loved by God! And that means that you don’t have to live your life before Him cowering and cringing like a whipped dog. Even if God does bring discipline into your life:

Hebrews 12:10 (ESV)

For (our earthly fathers0 disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.

—He does it because He is a loving Heavenly Father who will do anything to make you fit to share His holiness!

Spirit-driven love is your indelible assurance that you are a Christian—it is your assurance of your salvation, it is your assurance in judgment, and it is

III. Your assurance of GODLINESS (1 John 4:19-21)

1 John 4:19–20 (ESV)

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

John says that this love that lives in you is your proof that

You are not LIVING a LIE (vv. 19-20)

If you love your brother with Spirit-driven love, then it is a demonstration that you truly know God! As we have seen earlier, if you have experienced the sacrificial, unconditional love of God that saved you, it is impossible that you would refuse to love others in the same way—you will grow up to look like your Father, Who is Love! So this love growing in your life is your assurance that you really are a believer; you are not living a lie. And John goes on to say that the presence of this love in you means that

You are EMPOWERED to OBEY (v. 21)

1 John 4:21 (ESV)

And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

The world around us cannot produce the sacrificial, unconditional love that God commands here in this verse. Another way of saying this is that this is an impossible task apart from the Spirit of God that dwells in you! The only way that you can love your brother or sister the way God commands you to is to love them with the love that dwells in you through Him! You can be assured that you are growing in godliness, that you are becoming more and more like Jesus, when you love others the way God has loved you!

In verse 20 John uses a classic rabbinical argument—arguing from the lesser to the greater: If you do not love your brother, that means that you do not love God. And in verse 21 he ties it back the other way: “If you love your brother, that is a sign that you love God”. The Spirit He has given you dwells in you producing love for God and love for your brother—and as you see that Spirit-driven love for God and for others growing in your life, you have an indelible assurance that you belong to God!

And so let me close where we began—whoever that old preacher was, he had it right when he pleaded with his congregation to “know that you know that you know that you are born again!” John has written this entire book to make sure his readers had the absolute, settled assurance that they were “abiding in God”, that they were born of God and knew God.

Because this really is the most important piece of knowledge that you will ever need. You need to know that you have confidence to stand before God—because you will stand before Him someday.

The Scriptures tell us plainly that every one of us will someday stand before God in judgment. In the longest book John wrote, he describes a vision of the Last Day—

Revelation 20:11–12 (ESV)

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.

Revelation 20:15 (ESV)

And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

If you have been born of God by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, if you can see the indelible assurance of spirit-driven love growing in your life for God and His people, if you are confessing Jesus Christ as the Son of God sent to be the only Savior of the world, then that Day will be a Day when you will stand before that throne with pure, loving, blood-bought confidence.

But for those who will not repent and receive the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, that Day will be a Day of terror and horror as they are sentenced to everlasting death. The only confidence that you can have on that Day will be the confidence that comes from the love of God perfected in you, casting out all fear and apprehension as you stand before Him.

And so, if you look at the description of the kind of love that marks a Christian—if you realize that you do not live in that kind of love because you have never experienced that kind of love from God—then you need to take today to be sure that you “know that you know that you know” that you are saved! Come and talk to me down front after the service, talk to one of the elders, talk to one of the other church members here. Let us show you how to place your trust wholly and completely in Him for the forgiveness of your sin, so that that Day will be a Day of confidence for you—that on that Day God will see you with the same love and delight as His dear Son! Make this the day that you come to Him for the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of His Spirit, so that you will be able to confidently stand on that day, your sins completely wiped away, and nothing in your Father’s face that day but infinite love and joy and celebration that you belong to Him through your Savior Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Hebrews 13:20–21 (ESV)

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

Why is the mutual abiding between Christians and the Holy Spirit such a blessing? How can you know this is real in your own life?

How does abiding in the love of God give you confidence when you stand before Him in judgment? How does it reassure you for your future?

Why does love cast out fear? What does fear reveal about the nature of your relationship with God?

John inextricably links loving God with loving your brother in 1 John 4:20-21. Why does he combine these two loves in this way? Which of them would you say is more important?

Why is it impossible to love an invisible God if you do not love your brother? Take some time this week and ask God to show you places in your life where your claim to love Him might be contradicted by the way you treat others. Ask Him to give you grace to love others as He loves you!

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