Latest / HBCWestminster / 11.20.19 1 John 3:19-24 Pastor Nathan Anderson

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11.20.19 1 John 3:19-24 Pastor Nathan Anderson · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  I did not hand out notes this week because I want to do something a little bit differently this week. I really, really want us to focus on, as best we can, some essentials of this content that we're going to cover tonight. We're going to be in 1 John 3, verses 19 through 24. I told you guys last week and when we did the introduction, we're coming to really some of the most important.
• 0:28
  kind of the hinge pins of this entire epistle and all three epistles really that they will hang on. And so this evening, I'm really, really excited. I was talking with Carla before we came tonight and I just told her, I said, you know, I don't know exactly where this one's going to go because the truth that's in here is extremely personal. I'm sure all of us, as we go through this lesson tonight, it's going to be very personal to us, the truths and the promises of this.
• 0:58
  But these just touch me deeply to know that in spite of myself, the Lord is greater than it all. And so there's a solemnness that I come to this, a gratitude that I come to with this. But there's also an excitement. So I don't know if I'm going to get really, really worked up or if I'm going to cry. One of those two things probably going to happen. So buckle up. We'll figure out where we go.
• 1:24
  All right, I'm going to give a recap of just the last couple weeks. We won't go over the whole recap of where we've been to bring us to this point, but we'll go over a few paragraphs that summarize the last few weeks that we've been through to this point. We talked...
• 1:40
  in the latter portions of chapter 2 about the deceiving heart and the defense against that that John gives in 3 and on. He goes and gives us the defense for the deceiving heart and the deceiving spirit, which is simple and straightforward. But for us as believers, it's really, really easily forgotten. And that is simply that we abide. We abide in God's word and then we abide by...
• 2:08
  the spirit of truth that lives in us. John.
• 2:11
  takes us and continues to dive deeper into the truths which he used. And what you guys recall is we kind of have gone through each of the chapters of this. He has been building the foundation. He's put up those walls. He put up the roof. And now we sit in the house that John has been building over the course of these first few chapters that we've been going through. And now he's kind of adorning all of this and giving us the details, the working out of this. And that's kind of what we've been doing over these things he talked.
• 2:42
  We talked a couple weeks ago as we looked at the example of the Trinity shown forth in 1 John 3 verses 1 through 10 where the Father's love is expressed in the coming and the dying of Jesus for us and the gift of life which comes from the Holy Spirit which is the power which regenerates the believer through that sacrifice of Christ and the beauty of that and the promise of that. And then last week we looked at the fact that God has always
• 3:11
  and always will intend for his people, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, Israel and the church, to be a blessing, to be an expression of his love for a lost and dying world. John again says, all of this is not new. Love. Love as we have been loved.
• 3:38
  And tonight, as we get into our introduction for this evening, as I said, I'm not handing out notes. We're going to end a little bit early, and we're going to end with a song that I would like us to listen to, to take time to just take in all of this, to really think about the truths and the promises that we're going to read about and study this evening.
• 4:03
  And spend some time in reflective prayer giving thanks to God who is greater than all our sin, shame, doubt, hate, hurt, trials, failures, all of it. He's greater than all of it. And so I just want to take some time at the end for us to listen to a song that's really special. It's been really special to me over the course of this last year, really. And I just wanted to share that with you guys as an encouragement. And it's just time for us to reflect and really just...
• 4:31
  Soak in these truths. And tonight as we end, this is our last session, right? We've talked about that. This is going to be our last session before the holiday season. But I want to do my best to send us into this break with our eyes firmly and joyfully fixed on God who is truly great and has given to us without measure.
• 4:56
  This evening, we will cover our passage and be diligent with the text, but I want to do my best to allow the truth of this passage to touch our souls, to give us opportunity for the incredible promise laid out in this passage to wash over us and fill the cracks which the enemy desires to use to accuse and shake our faith. And he has intent on doing that, that he might shipwreck our faith. But tonight, God has different intents for us.
• 5:27
  that we know. By this we shall know. Tonight as the Holy Spirit speaks and illuminates God's word, I pray that it would, as John says, reassure our hearts. I'm going to read our passage and then we'll get started after we pray. It's 1 John 3, 19-24 and it says,
• 5:54
  This, by this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
• 6:22
  is his commandment that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 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. Let's pray. Father in heaven.
• 6:52
  There are so many things packed into so many ways that we can go in the meat of your word. But God, tonight, I pray that you would give us clarity, that you would direct the words that are shared, Lord, that you would really commune with our hearts through your spirit and your truth, God, that you would really guide us into a confidence, to a reassurance, to a peace, Father, because your spirit,
• 7:22
  is in us, and you are greater than all things, Father. Bless our time of study tonight, Lord, and may we live out what we learn in your name. Amen. I'm not sure about you guys. I might be all by myself on this, but I find that I have a pretty condemning heart of myself. I'm aware...
• 7:54
  often of the incredible sinner I am. In fact, just last night, as I prepared and thought about all day teaching through this passage and this lesson, I fell victim to this condemning heart and allowed the enemy to bring discouragement and accusations. And I believed those things. Walking down those paths of discouragement, it's easy.
• 8:23
  Brothers and sisters, it's so easy for us. We are easily deceived. Our hearts are deceitful. We are, and also it's easy because we are an evil people. But that is who we were. The old self, alongside the enemy, desires to condemn us, to accuse us. This is why John writes,
• 8:53
  In 1 John 2, verse 1, and if anyone does sin, we have an advocate. This John states because we constantly, constantly need this reminder. Now in this passage, John is going to bring forth and to the forefront the promise of a God who is greater. And this tonight, church, is very, very good news because we know our hearts.
• 9:24
  You know, it's funny, the opinions of people and the praise of people and the criticism of people is a funny thing. Funny because they carry such a large and heavy weight with them, both in the positive and the negative. We give them way too much credit on both sides, don't we? I often allow myself the prideful indulgence of accepting praise without offering up to God. And I'll often do the same of criticism without offering that up to the Lord. The funny thing about the weight,
• 9:57
  we give these things is that we humans can't save ourselves, right? We really have no power and our words really have no power. And yet we give these words incredible weight and impact on our lives. In fact, there is only one source that words have life and only one way that we can speak life. And that is by the words of God and the words of his spirit. Yet we put ourselves,
• 10:28
  and others into a position to have the same weight as our Savior does, which is often why we find ourselves in a state of feeling beaten down with guilt, beaten down with shame, with doubt of who we really are, beaten down with the demands of religion. We listen to all the voices except for the ones or the one that matters, the one that has life in it.
• 11:00
  John chapter 6 verse 68, after many of the disciples have left Christ because they said earlier that he was saying hard things. If you guys remember the sermon series that Danny went through, the hard sayings of Jesus, right? This was examining some of those things and this is really the passage that that whole thing kind of...
• 11:21
  comes from is that they leave because he is saying these hard things and after the multitude of disciples left Christ Christ turns to the remaining 12 and he says will you also leave me do you remember what
• 11:39
  Peter responds to him with. If you guys were at the men's retreat, you guys might remember this because this was kind of the launching point that Kirk took in that weekend away. But Peter responds to him and he says what? To whom should we go? Where would we go? You have the words of life.
• 12:03
  We place a value on the words of others and our own deceptive hearts, which allow them to create an identity for us. We allow words of others in our own hearts to build a valuation of ourselves. And then we wonder why we're crushed, why we're discouraged. Because we've allowed these things to come in and they will do nothing but accuse us. They do not have life in them. We have given a role to the words of our hearts.
• 12:35
  and others which only Christ should have. We seek to be filled by something that will never fill. It will only take. This can and usually does lead us to trying to protect ourselves from the many dangers we experience because we often find ourselves in these moments of disappointment and discouragement because we've placed a high value on words that do not have life.
• 13:03
  We want to shut ourselves off from those experiences. I was reading a book recently and told a story about this aquarium that this guy had gone to. And at this aquarium, there's a sign that's hung up on this aquarium with these ocean fish, right? And the sign reads this way. The fish on display are all native to the South Pacific Ocean.
• 13:32
  We have removed the predators so you can observe the fish relating in peace as they do in nature. Now, if that doesn't strike you as a funny statement, then let me point to the oddity of that. Nature certainly is filled with predators everywhere, right? There are dangers in each.
• 14:02
  to each fish that is in the sea, even a shark. There are dangers everywhere. This aquarium environment is not how it is in nature. We can, if we allow the doubts, the wrong voices to take prominence in our lives, we can seek to expel all the predators of our lives to live in peace. This is not how it is supposed to be in this life. We are called to be a light in the darkness, to be salt, to be truth.
• 14:32
  That is what the entire book of John has been about, is being this contrast, showing the contrast that is real. It's not about the removal of all possibility of offense, because as we will see tonight, our own hearts will condemn us. So we're never going to get away from it, apart from Christ.
• 14:53
  Sin is present and real in this world we live in, and thus there is an inescapable predator we must face every single day, both within us and outside of us. And as we look into our passage tonight, I believe we will see that the important thing, the thing which brings victory and freedom from the accusers, from the voices that we hear,
• 15:22
  The thing that will bring that victory is what words we choose to listen to. John chapter 3 verses 19 through 21. The first point we're going to come to is we shall know God is greater. He says, by this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart.
• 15:55
  And knows, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. A believer who practices love, as John has been speaking of to this point, will grow both in their understanding of God as truth and as love.
• 16:16
  but will also grow in appreciation and confidence before God, whom they become more and more aware of the vastness and the depths and the unsearchable depths of his truth and love for them. They will experience this and it will just push them further and further down in their roots. However, the reality is that we still possess the old self, that old, nasty, lying self.
• 16:46
  which sits alongside the enemy in accusation against us. This is the condemning heart that John speaks of in verse 20. For whenever our hearts condemn us, sometimes our heart accuses us wrongly. There are times where we are hard on ourselves with things that aren't true. But often we find ourselves being hard on ourselves because we've actually committed the thing with which...
• 17:16
  we are condemning ourselves for. However, we do so with an inaccurate harshness, which is not from God. We are forgiven. We are cleansed. Jeremiah 17, 9 tells us that our heart is deceitful above all and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Jeremiah says. Deceitful above all and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Here, John tells us that God knows it.
• 17:49
  God knows the heart. He knows everything he says. In connection with the heart, the heart that condemns, God says he's greater and he knows it all. Let's just unpack that for a second. Jeremiah tells us the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. And John tells us that God knows the heart, but not only that, he knows everything of the heart, which means that God knows all that is in our hearts.
• 18:20
  those thoughts we don't want anybody else to know, all those feelings we want to keep to ourselves, all those desires we don't speak out loud, and all those four-letter words we left unspoken but not unthought. God knows it all. And here in verse 20, he says he's greater than all of those things. What does this mean?
• 18:48
  It means that if we ever find ourselves believing the lie that no one would understand, no one will ever know the hurt, the sorrow, the pain, the lies, the deceptiveness of our own thoughts, we are dead wrong. But there's a blessing. Not only does God know, the amazing thing is that John says in verse 20, God is greater than our hearts means he is more faithful, more faithful than our hearts.
• 19:20
  Brothers and sisters, this is amazing news. God has revealed in his word that he is keenly aware of the depths of our depraved hearts and says, I'm greater than it all. I'm greater than it all. For time, I'm going to skip over a couple things. I would encourage you guys to read Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19 through 24.
• 19:57
  in connection with this passage specifically. It talks about the cleansing that we receive and that we can draw near to God with full assurance of heart. Full assurance of heart, he says in Hebrews. We're not going to cover as many verses in depth as I intended tonight.
• 20:26
  There are two main things that I want us to get from tonight. The first, we have covered. The second, I want to go to verse 24, and specifically to the end, where he says, And by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us. By the Spirit whom he has given us. I want you guys to hold your fingers, a finger in 1 John, and I want you guys to flip over with me.
• 20:55
  to John chapter 3. John chapter 3, and we're going to look at verse 34. John chapter 3, if you guys recall, Jesus has a discussion with the Pharisee, Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes to him by the cover of night. They have this discussion on being born again, being born of water and the Spirit. Nicodemus is perplexed. The conversation continues. The Lord speaks.
• 21:23
  the famous verses of John 3.16. Then we go and we find in verse 22, after this conversation with Nicodemus, after this, Jesus and his disciples went to the Judean countryside. They find themselves in the countryside. John the Baptist was baptizing there, and there arose a discussion as they saw Jesus walking by.
• 21:47
  John's disciples and a Jew over purification and stuff. They start talking and then John starts to, and then John gives in verse 30, this famous, which I joked with Jen tonight about, but this famous quote in verse 30, he must increase, I must decrease. And then he goes on in the following verses and he speaks to all the ways that Christ is greater than him.
• 22:14
  All of the reasons why he is better than him. Why he is just the forerunner for Christ. And in verse 34, I want you guys, we're going to read this. He says, for he whom, he is Christ, right? For he whom God has sent utters the words of God. And then this is it. For he gives the spirit without what? Measure.
• 22:43
  Gives the Spirit without measure. Okay, now jump back over to 1 John. 1 John 3. There's not 24 chapters in 1 John. There's 24 verses in chapter 3. End of verse 24. He says, by the Spirit whom He has given us. We need to connect those two things. God, through Christ's sacrifice, and as He gives us the Spirit, has done so without what?
• 23:16
  Measure, right? He is given without measure. There are two measureless truths in this passage tonight, two measureless promises that I want us to grab a hold of, that I want us to hang on to, especially as we go to the song and we listen to that and we spend some time in reflective prayer. First, that God is greater than our condemning hearts because He knows everything and yet still...
• 23:45
  chose to love us he knows the depths of the sin of our hearts as jeremiah 17 9 describes and he says i am greater that i know everything his knowledge and his all-encompassing grace is greater than it all it goes beyond measure and secondly john tells us in verse 24 that he has given us
• 24:12
  his spirit, and John 3.34 says that he gave it to us without measure. All this leads us to the incredible truth that I think he starts with in verse 19. By this we shall know God is greater, greater than it all. I want to, as we listen to this song, if you guys,
• 24:46
  would pass out some pens and paper. The intent might be different than what you guys are thinking as we talk about this. But most of the time when we do something like this, you might say, okay, I want you guys to write down all the things you've been forgiven for. Write them all down, right? You've been forgiven for everything, right? I want, as we listen to this song,
• 25:16
  Rather than thinking of the areas where we mess up, where we've been forgiven, I want us to think about why God is greater. What is God greater than? God, you're greater than, and write it down. You're greater than all of these things. Anything I can think about. You're more powerful. You're more good. You're more gracious. You're greater than it all.
• 25:46
  This song is by Wren Collective. It's called Nailed to the Cross.