Grace Church exists to glorify our Heavenly Father by
 continually making more disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Spiritual Confidence 1 John 3:19-24 Get Real: A Study of 1 John Sermon #16 “God said it, I believe it…that settles it.” But does it? Not usually. As much as we want to believe, as much as we want to live by faith, all of us from time to time struggle with doubt. Lee Strobel suggests that there are three kinds of people in the church. Those who are struggling with doubt right now, those who have no doubts now but will struggle with them in the future. And those who have no doubts and will never have any doubts because they are basically brain dead.   If you’ve struggled with doubt, you’re not alone. Most of the heroes of Scripture struggled with doubt. Martin Luther battled constantly against doubt and depression. When D. L. Moody was first saved his church delayed his membership application because his beliefs seemed so uncertain. Billy Graham tells of a time of desperate prayer in which he wrestled with his doubts about the truth of the Bible. Christian author, Philip Yancey, when asked to sign Christianity Today magazine’s statement of faith “without doubt or equivocation” refused, writing “I can barely sign my own name without doubt or equivocation.” All of us periodically struggle with doubt.   In his book, Reaching for the Invisible God, Yancey writes, “Doubt is the skeleton in the closet of faith and I know no better way to treat a skeleton than to bring it into the open and expose it for what it is: not something to hide or fear, but a hard structure on which living tissue may grow.” Our friend, John, does that for us in 1 John 3:19-24 (p. 863). He pulls the skeleton out of the closet for us.   Our word doubt comes from the same root as the word “double.” To doubt is to be double-minded, to have a divided mind in which a person wavers between believing and disbelieving. Many a believer goes through a time wondering if they’ve truly been saved, if they’re truly born-again. Sometimes doubt is cultivated by a well-meaning preacher who will say something to the effect that “if you can’t remember a time and a place when you trusted Christ, then you’re not saved.” But that’s not what Scripture teaches. Wise are the words of John MacArthur, “Many Christians, especially those raised in a Christian environment, can't identify the exact moment they were saved. I can't. I don't look for a past event to make my salvation real to me. So don't worry if you can't relate a specific time or event to the moment of your salvation. Focus on your lifestyle and attitudes instead.”   That’s exactly what 1 John teaches. According to 1 John 3:19-24 our Spiritual Confidence is not based on that we said a prayer or can remember a time or place, our Spiritual Confidence is based on a changed life. These six verses break into two sections The Condemning Heart and our basis for assurance & The Confident Heart and the blessings of assurance. 1. The Condemning Heart: When our hearts condemn us, we must rest on our knowledge of God, vss. 19-20. September 2nd was the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death. Remember her famous quote, “I lead from the heart, not the head.” Ours is a world in which feelings and emotions are the yardstick of reality. We’ve been programmed to evaluate reality by our feelings. Our music echoes this. “I can’t stop this feeling, deep inside of me…what a feelin’, bein’s believin’…You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling…feelings, nuthin’ more than feelings…sweet emotion.”   Many couples get divorced because feelings changed? “I don’t feel like I love you anymore.” Our emotion driven culture has contaminated the church. The success of a church service is frequently evaluated by how you feel afterwards. Sadly, much of our contemporary Christian music and preaching engages the emotions but often fails to touch the will and the intellect. Biblical Christianity is counter-cultural. It’s not feeling driven.   Please mark this down, Biblical faith is based on fact, not feelings. Look at vs. 19 “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.” Faith’s facts are used to combat the fickleness and confusion of feelings.   Every child has a basic need to feel assured of his/her parents’ love. Even when a child disobeys and must be disciplined, it’s important that parents affirm their love for their child. Assurance of love is essential for close relationships and the same is true spiritually.   When it comes to the assurance of our salvation, R. C. Sproul points out four possibilities. First, there are those who are unsaved and they know that they are unsaved. They don't make any claim of salvation. Second, there are people who are saved but do not know they are saved. They doubt their salvation, perhaps due to a troubled conscience. Third, there are people who are saved and know that they are saved. Fourth, there are those who are not saved but confidently believe that they are saved. They have false assurance. The second group is whom John is addressing in 1 John 3 …those who are saved but have doubts because of their awareness of falling short of God's commandments. John wants them to know the basis and the blessings of true assurance.   This paragraph is directly linked with the preceding one, vss 10-18. Let’s read that again. The link between our passage and the previous one is the word “truth.” John has urged upon them the necessity of loving “in truth” (v. 18) and then he follows up with that this is the indication of how we may know that we “belong to the truth” (v. 19). Truth can only characterize the behavior of those whose very character originates in the “the way, the truth and the life.” It’s by our behavior, by our loving others in truth, that we know that we belong to the truth. Scripture teaches that assurance is based on knowing the truth, not on feelings. And it’s a critical lesson to learn. Those who learn it will be able to deal with life much more effectively than those who fail to learn this truth.   Someone has suggested that it’s like three people walking on a wall. Their names were Fact, Faith, and Feeling and they were walking along the wall in that order. Fact was first. Faith was walking behind Fact. Finally, Feeling came along last. Everything went along fine until Faith looked back to see where Feeling was. And every time Faith did this, he fell off the wall. As long as Faith kept his eyes on Fact, he did fine. The moral of the story is that we need to keep our eyes on Fact and let Feeling take care of himself. And that’s John’s point. That’s because…   a) Spiritual confidence is based on the knowledge of God’s work in our lives, vss. 19-20a, 23. “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us…And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.” The first evidence of our security with God is obedience to the command to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. When John says, “this…is how we know,” he’s referring back to the behavior he unpacked in verses 10-18. We do not love naturally, it’s supernatural because God is love. The fact that we love and care for those we would not naturally care for, gives us assurance that are part of the family of God.   Let me illustrate this in a way I believe we all can understand. Most of us have siblings. Think about your siblings for a moment…if they were not your sibling, your brother or your sister…if instead they just happened to move into your neighborhood or started working where you work, would you even like them? As it’s natural to love those in your own family, that blood is thicker than water, so it is supernatural to love your brothers and sisters in Christ. And just as it is shocking when someone hates a sibling, much like Cain and Abel, it’s evidence that someone is not a believer if they do not love their brothers and sisters in Christ. The fact that we love those who we would not love naturally is assurance that God has supernaturally made us part of His forever family. Verse 23 summarizes all of this, “this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.” True belief will always have an accompanying behavior.   If I were to ask, "Name five times you've failed," you wouldn't have any problem coming up with your list. But if I said, "Name five times you've experienced God's victory," you'd have to think harder. We tend to focus on our failures, John though is telling us to, "Look at the specific deeds of love that God has done through you, and be assured of your salvation."   But if you can't think of any such deeds of love, you need to examine whether or not you truly know Christ. If you’ve experienced God's love in Christ, you will love your spiritual siblings. Love for one another is the eternal, visible evidence that a person is of the truth. As R. E. Neighbor said, “We cannot do anything to become a Christian, but afterward we do the things that become a Christian.”   b) Spiritual confidence is based on God’s greater knowledge of us, vs. 20, “whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.” In what may have been the worst call in basketball history, the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team suffered its first loss in all of Olympic history when officials put time back on the clock twice in the final seconds, allowing the then Soviet Union to score a basket at the buzzer and win the gold medal with a 50-49 victory in the final of the 1972 Games. Referees make mistakes. They’re fallible. Our hearts or consciences act as our umpires but they’re fallible as well. “Letting your conscience be your guide” is not reliable. Our conscience is not the voice of God, as some people assume. Our conscience can be seared, silenced or can become oversensitized.   This second truth then by which we assure our hearts is that of God's greater knowledge of us. John is saying, “whatever our hearts may say, God knows us better than we even know ourselves and has already acquitted us. Therefore, we should reassure ourselves by His judgment, which alone is trustworthy, and refuse to trust our own.” Barclay writes, “The perfect knowledge which belongs to God is not our terror but our hope.” 2 Timothy 2:19 says, “The Lord knows those who are His.”   Sometimes the heart accuses us wrongly, because it’s “deceitful above all things” (Jer. 17:9), but God knows our hearts. Many a Christian has accused himself falsely or been harder on himself than necessary. God never makes that mistake.   Perhaps John had in mind when Peter wept bitterly after denying the Lord. Afterwards, he was filled with remorse and repentance for his sin. Jesus knew Peter had repented and after His resurrection the Lord sent a special message (Mark 16:7) to Peter that must have assured the hot-headed fisherman that he was forgiven. While Peter's heart may have condemned him, in that he knew he’d denied the Lord three times, God was greater than his heart. Jesus, knowing all things, gave Peter the assurance he needed.   When Jesus met Peter after the resurrection, after Peter's shameful denials that he knew Jesus, to restore him, Jesus asked Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” Peter replied, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." Jesus replied, "Feed my lambs" Then, Jesus repeated the question, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?” Peter answered, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep.” Peter had denied Jesus three times, so Jesus asks a third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me?" Peter was very grieved, recalling his awful sin. But note his reply, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said, " Feed my sheep."  In effect, Peter said, "Lord, as far as I know my own heart, I do love You. But, You know me better than I know myself, and I appeal to Your knowledge" (Jn 21:15-17).   While we must never treat sin lightly, a Christian must also not be harder on himself than God is. There’s a morbid kind of self-examination and self-condemnation that’s not spiritual. If you’re practicing genuine love for your brothers and sisters in Christ, your heart must be right before God. When we sin, we grieve the Spirit and turn off the flow of God's love through us (Eph. 4:30-5:2).   After giving this basis for assurance to the condemning heart, John now goes on to give the blessings of assurance that come from a confident heart: 2. The Confident Heart: When our hearts are confident, we will enjoy the blessings of assurance, vss. 21-24. “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (v. 21).Once a condemning heart is silenced by resting on God’s knowledge of all things, there comes a new confidence before God. This confidence leads to two blessings, that of answered prayer (vs. 22) and that of the abiding relationship through the Spirit (3:24). Commenting on this, B. F. Westcott writes, “The thought here is of the boldness with which the Son appears before the Father, and not of that with which the accused appears before the Judge.”   There’s a wonderful story of a Roman emperor who was parading through the streets of the capital in a victory celebration. Roman soldiers lined the parade route to hold back the cheering masses. At one point along the route there was a small platform where the royal family was sitting. As the emperor approached, his youngest son, who was just a little boy, jumped down, burrowed his way through the crowd, and tried to run out to meet him. One of the guards caught the boy by the arm and said, "You can't do that! Don't you know who that is? That's the emperor!" But the boy quickly replied, "He may be your emperor, but he's my father!"   John wants us to know that if we’re God's children, we have that same kind of confident access to the Father's presence. Then, he outlines two blessings that result from this confidence.   a) Spiritual confidence before God gives us the blessing of answered prayer, vss. 21b-22, “we have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask, because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him.” One of the traditions around our home is that when your birthday is coming up, you put together a birthday wish list for the rest of the family. Now that we’re all high tech, you then e-mail your list to the rest of the family. If we can, we always try to get the birthday person what’s on their list. Why? That’s obvious. We love each other and if at all possible, we want to get them what they want. God has blessed us that our three children all love the Lord and are seeking to please Him. Because of that, they don’t ask for things that would be a violation of our convictions or values.   Occasionally I have strangers come to me and ask me to do a favor for them, in one way or another, in terms of counseling or advice. I've noticed that they usually approach me in a rather diffident manner. Sometimes  they call me “Reverend,” I’ve even been called “Father,” though some of them are older than me. They usually have a very polite tone to their voice, and some have even confessed to me later that they approached me with some degree of trembling and fear. I wonder what my reputation was in their eyes! But there are certain people who have no fear at all of me -- my kids. They come to me with boldness; in fact, even brazenness at times. They seem to be perfectly confident that they have the right to come to me. I do not always grant their request, but they do not hesitate at all in coming to me because they feel they have the right to come. And all of us understand this. Can I just point out, that if you and I do this with our human finite human minds and understanding, how much more does our loving Heavenly Father do the same thing!?!   Now this is not some celestial credit card, it’s not name it, claim it. There’s a control here, “because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him.” Also, John is not coming up with some new doctrine of prayer. As in so much of 1 John, the apostle is reflecting the words of Jesus in the Upper Room, where He told the apostles (John 14:13-14), “And I will do whatever you ask in Mmy name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it.” (He repeats the same promise in John 15:7, 16, and 16:23-24.)   To be honest, I do not completely understand or even experience these promises to answer all of our prayers. I realize that there are conditions attached to the promises. The Bible never teaches that we can pray for selfish wishes and they’ll be granted in Aladdin's genie fashion. To pray in Jesus' name is to pray in accord with His will. A. E. Brooke cites a noble Jewish saying, “Do His will as if it were thine, that He may do thy will as if it were His.” Prayer, then, that is according to God’s will understands what is pleasing to God and prays accordingly.   We need to understand too that God does not answer our prayers in our way or in our timing. To teach us in His school of faith, He sometimes makes us wait on Him…even for years. Sometimes He answers by giving us what we really need, which isn't always exactly what we were asking for! Where I struggle with these promises (and I'm being very candid here), is when I ask for something that is for God's glory and according to His revealed will, but He still doesn't answer. I’ve prayed for the salvation of people who have died without being saved. I’ve prayed for the restoration of Christian marriages that have ended in divorce anyway. I’ve prayed for the repentance of sinning Christians who did not repent. My only answer to these difficulties is that I do not understand the mysteries of God's ways and I must rest in His love and His sovereignty.   Think about this. When Jesus predicted Peter's denials, He said, “I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32). Most of us would have prayed that Peter would not sin at all, but that’s not what Jesus prayed. Concerning Jesus' prayers, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones observes, “God answered Him and granted His requests, and the nearer we approximate to Him, in the same way we can be certain that our requests will be granted.” As we grow to “do what pleases Him,” we will see more and more of our prayers answered.   b) Spiritual confidence before God gives us the blessing of the abiding relationship through the Spirit, v. 24, “Those who obey His commands live in Him, and He in them. And this is how we know that He lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us.” Verse 24 is the first explicit reference to the Holy Spirit in 1 John. In this last verse of chapter 3 the apostle introduces two new ideas into the letter, neither of which has even been suggested up to this time. He mentions the idea of a mutual abiding, of Christ in the Christian and of the Christian in Christ; and he mentions the Holy Spirit, through whom the abiding is effected. In mentioning the Holy Spirit we might think that John is here introducing a new and subjective criterion by which the Christian may assure his heart before God, much as Paul seems to do in Romans 8:15-16. But that’s not the case, for it is not as a subjective witness that the Spirit is mentioned. The Holy Spirit’s presence instead is the objective evidence of Christ’s abiding in us. He manifests Himself objectively in our life and conduct. It’s the Spirit who inspires us to confess Jesus as the Christ come in the flesh. It’s the Holy Spirit who empowers us to live righteously and to love our brothers and sisters. If we want to assure our hearts when they accuse and condemn us, we must look for evidence of the Spirit's working in our lives, and particularly whether He is enabling us to believe in Christ, to obey God's commandments and to love our Christian brothers and sisters.   That brings us back to the starting point of this passage. It reminds us that the cure for doubt is not found in our feelings or in some subjective experience, but rather in knowledge. It’s found in knowledge of the workings of God in our lives and of His verdict of acquittal of sinners through the work of Christ. Conclusion: Our spiritual confidence is always faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When our hearts condemn us, we must rest on our knowledge of God. Friend, if your trust is in Christ, God has promised you eternal life and He has promised never to allow you to be snatched out of His hand (John 3:16; 10:28-30).   A man once told D. L. Moody that he was worried because he just didn't feel saved. Moody asked, "Was Noah safe in the ark?" "Certainly he was," the man replied. "Well, what made him safe, his feeling or the ark?" The point is that if you're in Christ, it's not your feelings that save you from God's judgment. It's Christ who saves! Faith puts you on the ark! Make sure you're on board!   One of the major problems of John’s day was that the false teachers claimed to believe in Jesus but their claim was just empty words. By their actions, they denied Christ. Throughout 1 John, the apostle gives these tests of authentic faith. Do you obey God's commandments? Do you love your brothers and sisters? Do you believe in the name of God's Son, Jesus Christ, including His sacrificial death for you? You may think, "Yes, but I don't do those things perfectly. I often fall short."   Friend, it's to you that John writes these verses. Do you see evidence of God's working in your life through your loving others? Do you see answers to your prayers? Do you enjoy fellowship with Christ as you live to please Him? If so, know that God is greater than your heart. He wants you to be confident in His love. He wants to assure you that you are His child. You can have Spiritual Confidence because “God said it and that settles it.”