Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / November 1, 2020 | Don't Settle For Christian - What You Know

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November 1, 2020 | Don't Settle For Christian - What You Know · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: How are you today?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't voted yet, make sure you do that this Tuesday.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a privilege we have in America, and it's an important election nationally, statewide, locally.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're in a series, if you're visiting, called Don't Settle for Christian.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, Connor gave an amazing message in 1 John 3, 1 to 10, Who You Follow.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Today, uh, sticking to the three-word titles, what you know, or a more extended title, as perhaps you saw on our website this week.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Can you be sure you are going to heaven?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the text comes from 1 John 5, 9 through 13.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm going to read it for you from the Christian Standard Bible.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It goes like this.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: You may want to, you will want to grab your Bible or your cell phone.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: If we accept human testimony, God's testimony is greater because it's God's testimony that he has given about his son.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given about his son.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the testimony.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: The one who has the son has life.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: The one who does not have the son of God does not have life.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is an important verse.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It just exploded on us.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 13 I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's pray.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Father, uh, we have an election coming up.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have uh we had Halloween last night.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was really cute to see all those little kids.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for families, for uh little children.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: We pray for our little children, the little children who are over in Sunday school right now.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we ask that you would bless them, that you would draw them to yourself when they are young and think uh easily and clearly about things of eternity.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um we ask that you would protect them.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um we ask for this morning.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: We ask for uh uh that we would think clearly, that we would read your word clearly, that we'd hear your voice out of your word clearly, and that as we celebrate the Lord's table, that uh that it would be a blessed time of sitting around the table with you and your son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now I lay me down to sleep.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I should die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: No nighttime prayer is better known than that 300-year-old prayer dating from the early days of our country.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you, by the way, have ever prayed that prayer?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I closed many days as a child on my knees upstairs in my bedroom, my hands clasped, praying, lisping out.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now I lay me down to sleep.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then I climbed up onto my bed, slipped under the covers, waited for mommy to tuck me in.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes after mommy did tuck me in and turned out the light, went back downstairs, that prayer stayed in my mind.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And even at that young age, it scared me, the uncertainty of it.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: What if I should die during the night and the Lord did not give me what I asked for?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: What if he was disgusted with me for being mad at my brother and fighting with him, or for not paying attention during family devotions that evening, for racing through the Bible reading as quickly as I could, for singing without enthusiasm, for praying the same words I'd prayed the night before and the night before that.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought maybe the Lord doesn't want to have anything to do with me.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he doesn't want to see my face, and so as I lay me down to sleep, my soul he will not keep.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if I should die before I wake, uh perhaps my soul he will not take.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I will not go to heaven to be with Jesus and mommy and daddy.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And someone listening to me at home or here in Mulvaine or over in college is horrified right now.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's just awful, you say, that a little child would worry about such things, but maybe it's been a while since you've been a parent of a young child.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, children in bed do worry about such things.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we should not be surprised because children often see things more clearly than adults who worry about things far less important.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as children lie in bed, they worry about things that really matter.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to misunderstand me in that story.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was not an unbelieving child.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I did not question whether Jesus had died on the cross for me, even as a child.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that I was a sinner and that God's son had come down from heaven to die on the cross for the sins of the whole world and to die for me.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But still, could I know for sure that God would let me into heaven if I died during the night?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not according to that song, I couldn't, because I was praying for it.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And during my youth, I had no assurance of salvation.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And in church youth group, we would sing a chorus that went well like this.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that you've been born again?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that you've been born again?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Are you ready if the Lord should come?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And today your soul should claim.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Can you face eternal years free from doubt and dread and fears?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know, no, know that you've been born again?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, if I had had to answer that question, my answer would have been no.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I did not know.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, without doubt or dread or fears that I was born again and bound for heaven.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Before you get to feeling too sorry for me, uh look inside your own heart.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to members of your family or your friends.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: You may find that your experience is no different than mine.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: For even in the best Christian homes and in the best Christian churches, there has always been a pandemic of insecurity, a dark cloud of doubt about where we will go when we die.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the best-known professors at Wheaton College says this I'm frankly astonished at the number of times I have explained to classes of Christian college students about the unmerited love God has for us.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in the course of my explanation, students from strong evangelical churches literally will cry.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: They point to the insecurity they have learned from their home churches.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't feel like God's child, maybe I'm not.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: If I can't always act like God's child, maybe I never was.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: My office has witnessed such statements from the children of our evangelical households every semester for years.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: The COVID pandemic is uh, shall I say, mainly a threat to the oldest of us who have other health problems, but the insecurity pandemic is a serious threat to all ages of us, children, teens, collegians, adults, and every pastor would agree with me that one of the most common questions that we pastors get from people is, Pastor, can I be sure of my salvation?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Can I know that I'm going to heaven?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if I took a survey of those of you here, those of you on computer, those of you listening to me today, and ask you to text back and answer to the question, how can a person be sure of his salvation?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: How can a person know that he or she is going to heaven?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we flash the answers up on the screen, I'm sure that we'd see a variety of answers.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most common answers to the question, will I go to heaven, or how can I know for sure that I'll go to heaven when I die?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most common answers I'm sure we'd get would be the answer of experience.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was the answer of the man that I talked to in Pennsylvania back when I was going door-to-door selling Christian books during my way through college.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: He invited me in and I showed him my Bible encyclopedia and my Bible commentary and the Bible storybook, and he said, No, I don't need those books, and I don't need church.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need any religious stuff, in fact, because I know I'm going to heaven when I die.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was a little taken aback, to be honest.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is critical, this is judging, but I he didn't look like a Christian to me with a cigarette and so forth.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, really?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: How do you know that?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Because Jesus himself appeared to me.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I said, tell me about that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he said, I woke up one night and I saw Jesus at the foot of my bed.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't say anything, but he smiled at me and then he was gone.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that was that.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was nothing that I could say to him that would matter.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: He'd had an experience that proved that he was special, that he was special to Jesus himself, and he would go to heaven.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now his experience was a little bit unique, but there are literally thousands of people in the world and in churches all over the world today whose hope of heaven is founded upon some experience that they have had.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: For some of them, it's an experience of being told they were baptized as a baby, or for others it's a conversion experience that included a great surge of emotion that flooded over them.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: For some, it was an experience of deliverance out of a crisis, or even maybe a near-death experience, or a variety of things.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: The stories vary from person to person, but uh what they have in common is that in each case the foundation of their assurance, of their knowledge that they're going to go to heaven, rests upon an experience that I they've had.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, don't get me wrong.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want I like experiences.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want everybody to have experiences are a wonderful thing, and I like hearing about the experiences that you have, because I like hearing about them every week.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But let's be realistic.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: A spiritual experience is kind of an unreliable foundation, don't you think, for assurance?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Really, uh for two reasons.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: One is that many unbelievers have them.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Many millions of unbelievers have had spiritual experiences.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, every non-Christian cult is experience-based.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, millions of believers have not had such experiences.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So experience cannot qualify as a way to know for sure that you are going to heaven.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh, another common answer I'm sure we get to our survey would be that the answer of feelings, the feeling of peace.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have a feeling of joy, I have a feeling of certainty in my heart.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love feelings.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I love feelings.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I expect to have good feelings after the Chiefs games today.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope to have good feelings after the election on Tuesday.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I really love spiritual feelings, and if I could, I would, I would want everybody who's listening to me to have a feeling of peace and assurance in their heart rather than feelings of doubt and dread and fear, because the feeling of assurance in the heart, I mean, is a nice assurance as long as it lasts and as far as it goes, but it doesn't go nearly far enough, does it?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a song we used to sing when I was growing up as a teenager, and I think it's maybe in our hymn called He Lives, and the chorus goes, You ask me how I know He lives?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer comes back, He lives within my heart.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think we'd all agree that that's nice, but if you're talking to uh you know a non-Christian about the evidence for Christ, and they would say, But how do how do you know that?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, and you'd answer, Well, I know it because it's in my heart, they're gonna want something more than that, more than a sensation that you have in your heart.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Feelings and sensations are no proof that you're saved, and a lack of feelings and sensations are no proof that you're unsaved.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you will say, but Pastor, what about that verse?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are sons of God.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when people say it to me, I say, go back and read Romans 8 again.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not saying that the Spirit says does anything to our spirit, communicates to our spirit, whispers to our spirit that we are truly saved.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: The verse says the spirit bears witness along with our spirit, alongside our spirit, in agreement with our spirit, that we are sons of God.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul's talking there about when we're when Christians are really suffering and they feel all alone and they go to God and they cry out, Abba, Papa, Father, help.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul tells us that it's a great comforting statement.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit comes alongside us there before the throne of grace, and he lends his voice to ours, mingles his words with ours before the Father, before the throne of grace, bearing witness along with our spirit.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: God, this is this is your child.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to him, listen to her.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's hurting.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when our spirit gets so overwhelmed, we can't even pray, it adds that the spirit takes over for us as he's praying alongside us with the Father.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he says to the Father, listen, listen, Father, this is your son, this is your daughter, they're really hurting, they're crying out for you.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Help him, help her.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the passage is talking about.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a precious passage, but it's about suffering and praying, and it's not about assurance of salvation.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't say the spirit says anything to our spirit.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But hear me clearly.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I love feelings and I love hearing that the spirit or God has talked to you.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: But feelings in the heart or in the spirit are, let's be honest, an unreliable foundation.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: For once again, you know, um, and here's what I was just saying for his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with feelings is that many unbelievers, right, have them.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you want feelings, join an Eastern religion, take up yoga, because Zen Buddhism and Hinduism provide unparalleled feelings of bliss and of peace.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, millions of believers don't have such feelings because of either their personality being more analytical or whatever reason.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So feelings don't qualify as a great way to know for sure that you're going to heaven either.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps the most common answer that we'd get to that survey over feelings and experiences would be the answer of our good works, our obedience, our fruit.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saved by faith, yes, but the way I know that I am saved and going to heaven is by my obedience, by my fruit, by my good works.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Which was the idea of the guy in my office who'd recently come to our church, who told me that he'd received Christ a few years before, but that he still did not know that he was going to heaven.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now I realized he probably didn't understand what receiving Christ meant.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: We went to the one verse that uses that phrase, Romans John 1.12.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because I said, if you were to die today, listen, if you were to die and stand before God, and he were to say to you, Why should I let you into my heaven?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: After thinking for a minute, he said, Well, I'd say, I accepted you, I've lived a good life, I've tried to do my best, but I'm not sure my best is good enough.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've blown it at times.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'd say.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to him, Let me ask you this, will being good get you into heaven?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that, plus accepting Christ, he said.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I said, Would you mind if if I open the Bible and we looked at it again?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, he said.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we looked at John 1.12, John 5, 24, Jesus said, truly, truly, whoever hears my word believes on him who sent me, has everlasting life, shall not perish, but has come, you know, into eternal life.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So uh hasn't will not come into combination, but has passed from death to life.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we looked at our passage this morning, 1 John 5, 9 through 13, and it didn't take long before he realized that uh eternal life is a gift and it's only a gift, and you can know that you're going to heaven once you've received that gift because God's guarantee comes with it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: But this guy was a great example, a good illustration of the fact that it is sometimes the very best of us, the best Christians, the most sensitive and godly Christians who lack assurance of salvation.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because when sensitive, humble Christians examine themselves, they see clearly what carnal Christians cannot see.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: They see that they fall far short of God's standard.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they know the message of 1 John, the message of the Sermon on the Mount as well, which is the message that God's standard is perfection.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Be ye holy, for I am holy.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: His standard is nothing less than the righteousness of Jesus Christ, his standard is nothing less than you living the life of Christ.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And sensitive, humble Christians look in the mirror and they shudder at their lack of devotion to Christ, how they constantly fall short of the righteousness of Christ.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: They see their failures of faith and love and holiness and prayer life.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if they then base their assurance of God's love and their assurance of eternal life and being in the family and all of that stuff, if they base that on their own behavior, on their own good works, on their own fruit, then they fall into spiritual doubt and dread and fears and are not sure they have eternal life.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was struck by this in the last, just in the last day or two, when I had a chat about this very thing with one of the most spiritual women I know in Topeka.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: A young woman who's who said to me, Wow, I've struggled with assurance my whole life.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a little shocked.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it turned out that, yeah, she she she's constantly in prayer and is a godly mother, and just a godly woman, but she is humble.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And she's honest and she sees things that the less spiritual of us don't see.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: She sees how short she falls of Christ's beauty and Christ's perfection.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so she said, I constantly struggle with how can God love me?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: How can I be his daughter?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, hear me clearly.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Good works and obedience and fruit in your life is what God is looking for from his children.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is his standard.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: In this book, we are most clearly reminded, as Connor showed us last week, that his standard is sinless perfection.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: We are his seed, we are his children.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot point to, you know, say we're living in the dark side of the forest somehow and say, but that expresses who I am as a Christian.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: It cannot express what you are as a Christian, for you are a son of the king, and only living like the king can express your Christianity.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: But once we are in his family, says this book, we are in his family forever.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: God may be easy to please, but he's impossible to satisfy until you live the life of Christ.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: But once you are in his family, you're in his family forever, and he wants just to come, emphasis in this book, he wants us to come boldly before the throne of grace, come confidently to him in prayer, knowing that he is our Father and we are his child, and that he wants to answer our prayers and not live in doubt and dread and fear that we may not be his children because we have not lived up to the standard.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I would just add that once again, works in obedience are fruit and fruit are an unreliable foundation for assurance of salvation because, as you and I know, some of our next door neighbors act better than we do.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Unbelievers can act like Christians.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, even more commonly, we see that believers can behave like non-Christians.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is why, this first one, unbelievers can act like Christians.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount Some will say on that day, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this and didn't we do that?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And God, my father, so I never knew you, depart from me.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, we can have the Church of Corinth, as we know, who are believers, and yet they act like non Christians.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: So good works, too, do not qualify as a way to know for certain that you are going to heaven.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: How then can I know for certain?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That I have eternal life.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Our text, I finally get to it, goes like this.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: If we accept human testimony, and we do, don't we?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you accept so much what you hear in news and opinion and so forth, you think it's so good that you stick it on your Facebook page, at which point you get attacked and find out that even members of your family don't agree with the human testimony that you put up there.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right about this?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we do accept human testimony.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with accepting human testimony, right?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: But God's testimony, obviously, is greater because it's God's testimony that he has given about his son.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on to say, well, uh sort of a parenthesis, and he said, and by the way, the one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony actually within himself.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: The one who doesn't believe God has actually is calling him a liar because he's not believed in the testimony or the word or the witness that God has given about his son.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And now he comes to the heart of it.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here is the testimony, 1 John 5, 11 and 12.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: God has given us eternal life.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: This life is in his son.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: The one who has the son has life.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: But the one who does not have the son of God does not have life.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's really straightforward.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's maybe too simple.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: But it is simple, isn't it?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: God has given us the eternal life that you want to know that you have.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: But this life is in his son.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the one who has the son has life.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: The one who does not have the son of God does not have life.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Huge verse.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: One of the maybe three greatest verses of assurance in the New Testament, along with John 5.24, maybe John 10.10, perhaps John 3.16, right?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then the final verse of the text, I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know, there it is, that you have eternal life.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now stop for a second.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: These things, some will say that I've written these things to you.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: We'll say that's actually pointing back to the entire book.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: That the only way to know you have eternal life is if you not only believe in the promise of God, but that you walk in the light, that you love your brother, that you know God, that you abide in God, and that you live a sinless life.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, what that does is that utterly destroys the purpose of this passage.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, this is a favorite little phrase of John in 1 John 2.1, right after the walk in the light, confess your sin passage, he says, these things, same thing, I've written these things to you so that you may not sin.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: In 1 John 2 26, he ends a section about cults and false teachers by saying, Now I've written this, I've written these things to you so that you may be able to identify the people who are trying to deceive you.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: So so to somehow take this as so at the end of his little paragraphs, he likes to say, This is this is why I just wrote this to you.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this applies to verses 9 through 12, and he says, I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, why is it so important that you know this, that you have this assurance?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer in this book is especially, because he mentions it three times, that God wants fellowship with us.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want us just to settle for being Christians.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: He wants us to come before him confidently and boldly.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way you're gonna come into his presence confidently and boldly, especially if you committed the same sin today that you committed yesterday and the day before, right?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: The only way that he's gonna get you to come as a little child into his presence and call upon him in prayer confidently and boldly, is if you're sure that you are his child.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And not living in doubt or dread or fear, but living in confidence, knowing that you can count on his promise that he's not kicking you out of the family just because, you know, you've never been worthy of being in the family.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing's changed, but he wants you to be confident and bold.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: So let's turn it around, and you can see that the logic of this passage is perfect as you go backwards, starting at verse 13.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: The aim of this text is that you may know that you have, we'll call it e-life, all right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Eternal life.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you can know it because God says so, is verses 11 and 12.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the testimony God's given to us eternal life.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the Son.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: The one who has the Son is the life, the one who doesn't have the Son of God doesn't have life.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's what God says.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you can take it as true.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, notice in this parenthesis, you've got the proof of it inside you because you have all three things inside you.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have eternal life, you have the sun, because eternal life's in the sun, and you have the word of God, the testimony.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, see, salvation is not a suit of clothes that you can take off and put on.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: That if you live in a certain way, it's off, and then if you believe in him, it's back on.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, it's something that happens inside of you and it stays inside of you and it changes you, and you've got the proof of your salvation inside you.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you can believe this and rest on it, is the first verse, because if you accept human testimony, God's testimony is greater because it's God's testimony that He's given about His Son.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: The fundamental, I'll say it, the fundamental grounds for assurance, and it's the same thing said in just a few chapters before, 1 John 2.25.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is the promise that he has promised us eternal life.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: The fundamental grounds for assurance of eternal life is the promise of God.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying anything this morning that the great saints down through history have haven't said.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: That God's promise is the most reliable assurance of salvation.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther, what is saving faith?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, the sort of faith that does not look at its own works, nor at its own strength and worthiness.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing, what sort of quality or virtue it may be.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: But faith goes out of itself, clings to Christ, and embraces him as its own possession.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Faith that is certain that it is loved by God for his sake.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: The certainty of faith rests on not grounding that faith in yourself, your feelings, your experiences, your behavior, grounding your faith on Jesus Christ.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: John Calvin, what is saving faith?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is the early John Calvin.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, we shall now have a full definition of faith if we say that it is a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favor toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds and sealed on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon, uh, over in England, the great preacher.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: What is saving faith?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Faith is accepting God's great promise contained in the person of His Son.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: It is taking God at His Word and trusting Jesus Christ as being my salvation, although I am utterly unworthy of his regard.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: A more modern evangelist who travels the world, any system or belief that requires our performance cannot give assurance of salvation.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Human performance is subjective, variable, unpredictable, and always imperfect.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Faith must rest in Jesus Christ and his promise, objective truths that cannot change.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, it's this is not just an intellectual message today, because this book is not just an intellectual exercise.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's about how not to settle for just being Christian.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason it's great to know you have, to know you have eternal life is not, well, I'm going to heaven, not hell.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a benefit, isn't it?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, knowing that God loves you, that he's your father.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the great emphasis of this book, I can boldly go to Papa in prayer, even if I've fallen short this last week.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, I'm forever grateful, forever grateful.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: And number five, I want to share what I have.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I can share it clearly, I can share a gospel that's clear and it isn't all cluttered up with feelings or behaviors or experiences.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know, where do you where do you stand on this?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that um let me tell you a story.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was eating lunch at a restaurant over in Wanamaker, and uh I just finished my meal, and I asked for the check.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the waitress came over, and she smiled, and she said, Someone in the restaurant paid for your meal.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then she walked away.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had the strangest, I just sat there, the strangest feeling, and the feeling was actually helplessness.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: There was nothing I could do except just, you know, take her at her word.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I could have gone up to the counter, and when the manager came, I could have said, listen, the waitress told me that my bill was paid, but I know there's no such thing as a free lunch.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I insist on doing something, insist on, you know, paying something, so I can leave here knowing for sure that I am free and clear, and I'm not gonna have to worry that you're gonna come after me.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just tell me what to do.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Congon, you're out of your mind.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: The manager would have said, just take me at my word.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Will you?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're paid for it, settled, get out of here.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's all you need to know.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right, his word is all, was all I needed.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says something like that to us in this text.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I don't want you to settle for Christian.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to live, you know, a full, abundant fellowship, all-out, confident life.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to come before me in prayer.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even when you know you've fallen short, and if you're full of doubt and dread and fear that you're not really my child, uh you're not going to be able to have the kind of fellowship with me that I want you to have with me, Father and Son.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So take me at my word.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: You are my child.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you've believed in my son, you now have it all inside of you, my son, the life, and the testimony.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: The fact is, I think our great enemy has tried to get us to look away from God and look to ourselves.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look away from God's promise and instead look at our own behavior, our own feelings, our own experiences.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: But God says to us in a still small voice this morning, my testimony is this.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've given you the life, the life's in my son, believe in my son, you have the life, and you have it inside yourself.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: So?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Look inside yourself and find out where do you stand on this?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join me.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm standing on the promises of God, of Christ my King.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, by the living word of God, I shall prevail, standing on the promises of God.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: What are you standing on?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let me encourage you to say some words under your breath right now.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, these these first lines, a famous old song that D.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: L.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Moody used to use in his revivals.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was written 150 years ago.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um these are the words really that are drawn out of the text today.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: So say these along with me, if you would.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don't have to say them loudly, but just say them.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's the promise of God.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Full salvation to give unto him who on Jesus his son will believe.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's done.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I believe on the Son, I am saved by the blood of the crucified one.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or, in more modern words, in a modern worship song, I am who you say I am, I am a child of God.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, as we come to sit before your table long, to have us all come and sit before the table confident.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And those of us who are not sure that we've ever believed in the Son, that we've ever looked at him and said, Yeah, that there, that's that's my Savior.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus, the Son of God who came to die for me on the cross.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: I need him.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that even before they break the bread or drink the cup, that they will look to you, look to your son, throw themselves in an abandoned, away from themselves, trusting themselves, trusting in Christ alone.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: The rest of us would remind ourselves that we are your children.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: We are your sons, we are your daughters, come confidently before this, even though we know we were never worthy of being your children, and certainly we're not worthy this past week, this past month.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that we can fulfill your desire in this book, that we not settle for simply being Christians.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.