Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

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)