Blessed Assurance
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· 11 viewsThe believer finds blessed assurance in and through God by seeking His perfect will in our life through prayer.
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Transcript
Handout
Focus Passage: 1 John 5:13-15
Introduction:
Where do people find their confidence/assurance?
Where does your confidence stand? In what do you trust more than anything? Is it self? Is it God? Is it others?
John wrote to fellow believers in a time of persecution and stress; a time where false teachers were trying to make those in the church unsure of the truth spoken by John and the other disciples. Gnosticism (salvation found through knowledge) was a deadly teaching during the day of John. They wanted them all to question their faith and their relationship with the Lord. This has been going on since creation. Satan uses doubt as one of his favorite tools against the child of God and has from the beginning.
1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
4 The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die!
May we have assurance in the Lord though. May we have assurance in Christ. For in Christ Jesus we have blessed assurance. Truly, we have a ‘KNOW SO’ salvation.
Outline:
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine (v. 13)
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine (v. 13)
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
John wrote with a purpose – ‘These things have I written...’
When John wrote his gospel it was to lead people to salvation
31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that by believing you may have life in His name.
When John wrote his first epistle, it was to bring assurance of that faith – ‘...so that you may know that you have eternal life’
When John wrote his first epistle, it was to bring encouragement to continue in the faith – ‘...you who believe in the name of the Son of God...’
John wrote to a particular people - ‘…you who believe...’
We can have blessed assurance in the Lord
We have a promise of assurance through God’s Holy Word
15 so that everyone who believes will have eternal life in Him. 16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, 14 who is a first installment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
We have a promise of assurance through God’s Holy Spirit
16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
We have a promise of assurance through God’s Holy Son
27 My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
Confidence Birthed Through Assurance (vv. 14-15)
Confidence Birthed Through Assurance (vv. 14-15)
14 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
The believer’s confidence is in God – ‘This is the confidence which we have before Him...’
5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of mankind, but on the power of God.
The believer’s confidence is birthed in a relationship with the Lord
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
The believer’s confidence is prayer
Their prayer is to be directed toward God – ‘…before Him...’
Is your prayer directed toward self or God?
What is the difference between self-directed prayer and God-directed prayer?
Their prayer is to be directed toward God’s will – ‘...if we ask anything according to His will...’
How we do know God’s will?
We know God’s will through the studying of God’s word. It is in and through the Word of God that begin to see His will in our life.
Confidence in knowing God hears their prayer – ‘…He hears us...’
God hears the prayer of the saint when they are living and seeking out his will and not their own
“Prayer must be viewed not as our attempt to get God to see things from our point of view but as our attempt to see things from God’s point of view. When we grow, mature, study, and meditate on Scripture and seek the will of God, we try to ask ourselves not what wewant, but what God wants. Then we make progress in prayer.[1]
When we are living according to the flesh and not the Spirit, there is no way God hears or answers our prayers.
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. 2 But your wrongdoings have caused a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
Confidence in knowing God answers their prayer – ‘...we know that we have the requests which we have asked from him...’
Conclusion:
One of my favorite hymns compliments the truth and assurance we have in Jesus Christ.
“Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine”
Written by: Fanny J. Cosby
Composed by: Pheobe Palmer Knapp
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight:
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
The story behind Blessed Assurance says it all...
One day Miss Fanny Crosby was in the home of her friend, Mrs. Joseph F. Knapp. In the Knapp home was installed what was believed to be the largest pipe organ ever placed in a private dwelling. However, all the “nuts and bolts'” had not been added yet to the organ so Mrs. Knapp called Fanny over to the piano to listen to a new melody she had just composed. After playing the tune a few times she asked, “What do you think the tune says?”
“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,” answered Fanny, drawing from her phenomenal mental storage of scripture knowledge. She then continued: “Oh what a foretaste of glory divine, Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit , washed in His blood.” (Written in 1873 “Blessed Assurance” still remains a favorite among Christians everywhere….)
Fanny knew all about “Blessed Assurance”…from six weeks of age until her death shortly before her 95th birthday… Fanny was blind. Sadly the blindness was caused by a medical error when a doctor put mustard poultice on her inflamed eyes from a cold infection… resulting in immediate blindness.
Her widowed mother and grandmother even took her to the famous New York surgeon, Dr. Valentine Mott, but it was too late…the damage was permanent. He was heard to lament as they left the examining room, “Poor little blind girl.” However, Fanny never saw her affliction as anything but a blessing. When she was eight years old she wrote this simple little verse:
Oh, what a happy child I am
Although I cannot see
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
Further, knowing she was blind gives me a tremendous appreciation for the 2nd and 3rd verses that have to do with sight:
Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture, now burst on my sight,
Angels descending, bring from above, Echoes of mercy whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
Once a preacher sympathetically remarked, “I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when He showered so many other gifts upon you.” She replied quickly, “Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I should be born blind?” “Why?” asked the surprised minister. “Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior!” [2]
[1]Walls, D., & Anders, M. (1999). I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude (Vol. 11, p. 225). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[2]Fanny Crosby and the Story Behind "Blessed Assurance" - St. Ignatius Catholic Community (st-ignatius.net)