Blessed Assurance I John 4:17-5:5

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Psalm 27 NIV

Of David. 1 The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. 3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident. 4 One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. 5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. 6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord. 7 Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. 8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior. 10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. 11 Teach me your way, Lord; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. 12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations. 13 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

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Blessed Assurance 1 John 4:17-5:5

10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Part of the Package) Part of the Package There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and lovely people. That’s logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn’t look for value in what it loves, but that CREATES value in what it loves. Consider that special toy or blanket your child grew to love at a young age. Even when it became nothing but tatters, it was still loved and cherished by your child. It may have been a rag doll, a blankie, a toy truck. For my son it was a crib pillow pillowcase. The pillowcase was one I had embroidered with nursery rhyme characters. You know the old nursery rhyme that says, “Hey Diddle Diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumps over the moon?” Well, this pillowcase was embroidered with stars and a cow jumping over the moon. My son called it his horsey blanket. I guess that doesn’t speak well of my ability to embroider a cow. LOL! Anyway, from a very early age, my son would pull that pillowcase off that pillow and carry it around with him. When it came time to nap, he would chew or lick on a corner of that pillowcase and stroke his cheek, putting himself to sleep that way. In time, that pillowcase became stiff, and the white became a sooty black color. However, no matter how bad it looked, no one would even think of throwing it away because he loved that pillowcase, stiff and ugly as it had become. No matter how hard I tried or no matter what product I used, I could not get that clean. It just looked worse with each passing day. The sensible thing to do was to trash that pillowcase. But that was unthinkable for anyone who loved my son. If you loved Jacob, you loved the horsey pillowcase—it was part of the package. I think I still have that pillowcase in the top of a closet somewhere. It is hard to think of parting with it because of the love I have for my son. John in his letter wrote, “If anyone says ‘I love God’ yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar,” (1 John 4:20). Essentially, he is saying, “love me, love my ragged pillowcases,” says God, “including the one you see when you look in the mirror. This is the first and greatest commandment.” Ian Pitt-Watson/edited to be more personal by Lauri Ferring

Today we return to John’s message of love. We had detoured for three weeks to look at the personal characters of the Trinity, but today we return to John’s purpose of giving us confidence in our faith in God.

Stand with me as we continue further into this letter from John. For the sake of continuity, I am going to step back a few verses as we come into our actual text of 1 John 4:17-5:5.

1 John 4:13–5:5NIV

13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

I. Perfect Love, No Fear 1 John 4:16b-5:5

Love is a key theme in John’s letter. You see, if we truly trust in God’s love for us, we cannot help but feel confident in our salvation. For example, in a good solid marriage where both partners trust each other, you will not find jealousy. The jealousy is removed by a sense of deep trust in your partner. When a couple loves each other and trusts each other, they make better decisions because they listen to each other, and they seek solutions to problems that meet the need of both.

If we truly understand God’s love, we will in turn love Him and be obedient to Him, and the peace of our salvation will rule our hearts and lives.

Repeatedly throughout this epistle, we are told that we are to love others. We may wish to do so, but we struggle at it because of the shortcomings of our human nature. At this point in John’s epistle, we discover the secret to loving others, even those who do not meet our standards. Even our very enemies. The ability to love others is not rooted in our desire to do so, but it is rooted in God’s love for us.

1 John 4:16–17a (NIV) 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us...

In verse 18 it continues to talk about “perfect love.” Perfect love can only be found in and through God. His love is so perfect, it can overlook the dirt and grime of our pillowcase and love the heart of the person found behind it.

Completion or perfection makes us think of maturity. As new Christians, we often get caught up in living by the law, however, as we mature, we begin to understand it is not about obeying a law, but it is about loving others. When we love others, the law is immaterial because we obey it automatically by acting in love toward others. Peter talks in his letter about our need to mature in our faith. 2 Peter 3:18 says,

2 Peter 3:18NIV

18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

This is good, but it will fall short if we are not also growing in love for the Father. One of the reasons I felt so compelled to spend time on the Trinity the past few weeks is because the more we grow in knowledge of God and comprehend God’s love for us, the more we grow in love of God. I spoke last week of the perfect unity of the Trinity. They are a package deal. We cannot deny one without denying them all. In turn we should love and appreciate each. Jesus and the Holy Spirit help us to understand the Father’s love and to likewise love the Father who is only visible to us through the Son and His Spirit.

So, how do we know or recognize that we are growing in this love. We often depend on our feelings, but our emotions fluctuate based on circumstances around us. If we depend on our feelings, our confidence in our faith will fluctuate day-to-day. However, John’s letter points us to...

A. Four Evidences of God’s Love Being Perfected in Us

If we were to be put on trial, we would not be judged based on the way people feel. Instead, evidence is presented to make the case. In the case of our faith, there are four things in our life that become evidence of the changes that are taking place in our life giving evidence that we are maturing in our love for God and for others.

The first one is...

1. Confidence in our final destination. 1 John 4:17-19

1 John 4:17–19NIV

17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19We love because he first loved us.

When we begin a relationship with someone, our love and the level of love and understanding of each other grows in stages. It is no different when we begin a relationship with God. Here are the stages as I see them. We begin with…

a. No knowledge of God.

At the first level, we fear death. By fear, I literally mean we are tormented with the idea of it. Do we just stop existing and that is the end of everything? Or is there truth in heaven and hell? If so, where will we be? What about the other religious ideas. Will I come back as someone new to live a whole new life, or worse, I return as a cow? The uncertainty is excruciating and most just try not to dwell there.

Hopefully, we can help people move to level two by discovering Jesus Christ and the sacrifice He made so they can have eternal life. We can then move to level two when…

b. We put our faith in Christ.

What I mean by this is, they have come to understand God’s love for them, and that Jesus died for their sins so they can have a relationship with God, their creator. They believe this and they have a sense of peace that they will have eternal life. When we finally accept the truth of this salvation provided for us, we feel exhilarated. We feel so free and different. Then life hits and it becomes a bit perplexing. We sense something new has occurred in us, but we do not fully understand it. We struggle between the new love we are experiencing and struggle against the old life we have always lived. We want to do what God wants us to do, but we are not fully sure how to and often look to the law to guide us. But the law is harsh and uncomfortable. However, when we hang in and begin to grow, we come to another level. It begins with a bit of a crisis trying to understand God even more. This…

c. Crisis drives us to sanctification .

i.e. As we grow in fellowship with God, we become disillusioned with the law, yet we desire to please God. We cry out to Him to help us better understand. We pledge our allegiance to Him completely to draw even closer to Him.

Think of it this way. You are in a car, and you are following God’s car that is in front of you. You sometimes do a good job of following, but sometimes you take little detours. However, you have learned that those detours often make things confusing. Sometimes you get detained, or sometimes even lost for a time. When you catch up with God, you find He knew the perfect route. You now accept that He knows the best roads. So, you decide that rather than following Him, you want Him to come drive your car. You turn it completely over to Him. The only difference is, it is not a car we are talking about, but it is your life.

When we reach this stage, we find a greater level of peace and a good deal of confidence about where our life is heading, both here on earth and even beyond death because we have come to understand that in death we will not stand before a judge, but we will stand alongside our loving Father who deals with us just as He would His own Son. From this point forward, we have no more fear of that coming day. We have nothing to prove to God or to others, because we know we are saved for no other reason than because God loves us. Love is freeing and when we feel loved like this, we are free to love others for the same reason.

1 John 2:28NIV

28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

John 5:24NIV

24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

Romans 8:1NIV

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

I can remember a time when as a Christian, I struggled fearful of not being taken when the rapture occurred. Now, I no longer have that fear. Whether my days are good or bad, I have perfect peace that when Christ comes for me, whether rapture or death, I will be taken by Him to a new life. A perfect life.

The second evidence is...

2. An honest love for others. 1 John 4:19-21

1 John 4:19–21NIV

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

We have heard this from John before.

1 John 1:6NIV

6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.

1 John 1:8NIV

8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1 John 2:4NIV

4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.

Honesty is evidence of our spiritual maturity. God loves us! We do not have to do anything to earn His love as we already have His love. Our true Christian brother and sisters love God and understand the same thing. We do not need to prove anything to them because if they are genuine, they are confident of God’s love and feel free to love us the same way. This is very freeing! It allows us to encourage each other with nothing to prove. We can share our struggles and weaknesses and not be judged but be encouraged, counselled and prayed for.

To lie about our spiritual maturity is contrary to the concept of maturity. Here again I can point to Acts 5 and the deception of Ananias and Sapphira. Their lie revealed that they were not true converts. They were about pleasing men, not God. As mature Christians, we seek to help each other to grow in maturity. We do this by being honest with each other and by encouraging and praying for each other.

Maturity in our faith gives us not only confidence in our final destination, but confidence that we are accepted as we are, flaws and all!

Now we come to the third evidence.

3. We delight in obeying God. 1 John 5:1-3

1 John 5:1–3NIV

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,

During Jesus time on earth, He never once hesitated to seek the will of the Father and promptly do it. His love for the Father and confidence in the Father’s love for Him, gave Him perfect confidence to do the Father’s bidding all the way to the cross. He had perfect confidence that the Father would not allow His body to see decay but would resurrect him. When we love and act in love, we do not find anything a burden. It is a joy to serve those we love.

Jacob had such love for Rachel that he was not deterred by the idea of working seven years for her. In fact, we are told in…

Genesis 29:20NIV

20 So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.

Love completely changes our perspective. The law looks cumbersome to one who just views it through the eyes of obedience. However, when viewed through the eyes of love, it becomes a joy. We are eager to please the one we love.

The problem is that our world has such a skewed idea of what love is. I heard a great illustration on this subject of love this week.

A woman visited a newspaper editor’s office, hoping to sell him some poems she had written. “What are your poems about?” the editor asked. “They’re about love!” gushed the poetess. The editor settled back in his chair and said, “Well, read me a poem. The world could certainly use a lot more love!” The poem she read was filled with moons and Junes and other sticky sentiments, and it was more than the editor could take. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you just don’t know what love is all about! It’s not moonlight and roses. It’s sitting up all night at a sickbed, or working extra hours so the kids can have new shoes. The world doesn’t need your brand of poetical love. It needs some good old-fashioned practical love.”

One day, I was in a car full of ladies. I do not remember who they were or what exactly we were talking about, however, two stories came up that I have never forgotten. One of the ladies was talking about a man whose wife had developed Alzheimer’s. The man, who professed to be a Christian, promptly divorced his wife and remarried another woman. He declared his divorce okay because his wife was not cognizant enough to know the difference. This man’s actions demonstrated him to be a liar about being a Christian. His actions were not those of someone who loves.

After this story was shared, another woman told of a man in her church whose wife had developed Alzheimer's and he quickly retired to stay home and take care of his wife. He was unwilling to put her in a home, and he daily watched over her, taking care of all her needs. His love put to shame the other man’s selfish desires. This man’s attitude demonstrates the love God would respect.

That is the kind of love that God has for us. It is a love we can depend on at all times of our life. When we are celebrating, God is celebrating with us. When we are struggling, God is right beside us giving us strength and clearing the roadblocks ahead of us. When we are ill and unable to take care of ourselves, God is right there proving for our care. When we experience this kind of love, we desire to please God because our hearts are so overwhelmed by the love that He has for us. There are times when we may be like that woman with Alzheimer’s, totally oblivious to the sacrifices being made on our behalf, but God is still there. He never leaves us. He never says, “Oh, they do not know it anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” The truth is that God is alongside everyone believer and non-believer alike, trying to give aid if only we are willing to let Him do so. We are all His creations but He longs for us all to be His children.

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. It is all about the law. However, the Psalmist continually shares his love for the law. He loved the law because he loved the Father and knew that the law protects us and blesses us when it is kept.

Warren Wiersbe said,

“The burden of religion (i.e. man trying to please God in his own strength) is a grievous one, but the yoke that Christ puts on us is not burdensome at all.”

When you compare the “laws” and “rules” of the religions of the world, they are burdensome. They all demand people jump through various hoops to earn some kind of final reward. However, all God asks for is our love. If we truly love God, there is nothing else needed. There is nothing we need to do to earn God’s love, we already have it and if we love God, that is all that is needed to be saved. It doesn’t get any easier than that. Christianity is the only religion that is based on nothing more than accepting God’s love for us and loving God back.

So, the third evidence is our delight in obeying God because we love Him. And now we come to the final evidence John shares.

4. We have victory in all circumstances. 1 John 5:3-5

1 John 5:3–5NIV

3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

No matter how tough things get, we can live as victors because we know the outcome and we are on the side of the victor. God has already won the war. It was won when Jesus rose from the dead. Through Jesus death, the penalty for our sins was accomplished and through His resurrection, we are assured of resurrection as well.

“To be born of God means to share God’s victory!”

We do not have enough time to go into this as deeply as I would like, so let me end it with this story.

A Civil War veteran used to wander from place to place, begging a bed and bite to eat and always talking about his friend “Mr. Lincoln.” Because of his injuries, he was unable to hold a steady job. But as long as he could keep going, he would chat about his beloved president. “You say you knew Mr. Lincoln,” a skeptical bystander retorted one day. “I’m not so sure you did. Prove it!” The old man replied, “Why, sure, I can prove it. In fact, I have a piece of paper here that Mr. Lincoln himself signed and gave to me.” From his old wallet, the man took out a much-folded piece of paper and showed it to the man. “I’m not much for reading,” he apologized, “but I know that’s Mr. Lincoln’s signature.” “Man, do you know what you have here?” one of the spectators asked. “You have a generous federal pension authorized by President Lincoln. You don’t have to walk around like a poor beggar! Mr. Lincoln has made you rich!”

We have an eternal pension. It is stamped on our foreheads and reads, “Child of God.” No matter how difficult things get, we can walk in love, peace and joy because we are victors. In life we can overcome anything but death. But through God’s love and the sacrifice of His Son, we can even overcome death. We are victors over death. God is our creator, Christ is our King and our brother. When He comes into His full inheritance, so will we. It is not a matter of if, but when! And I believe we are very close.

Conclusion:

As we mature in our faith, we draw closer to the Father. As we draw closer to the Father, we experience more of His love and His love gives us confidence in our final destination, honest lives, joy in obedience, and confidence in our victory. It is an overwhelming sense of wellbeing because we are loved by God Himself who is the creator and sustainer of all creation.

If you have not yet put your faith in Christ, I encourage you to do so today. Just open yourself to Him. Ask Him to forgive you and come live with you. Accept that He has already paved the way for you to do so, when He died on the cross. There may not be a lot about this you understand just yet but take the first step by believing. We can help you learn the rest. We love you and want you to understand and will do what is necessary to help you to understand.

If you are struggling in your faith, ask God to help you draw closer to Him so you can experience His love. He is longing to do just that if you will only let Him. Seek out someone who you admire who demonstrates these four proofs of faith and ask for their help. They will not judge you but are willing to pray with you and help you to grow in your faith. We are to help each other.

If you recognize these four traits we spoke of today in your life, thank God for His love and faithfulness that has brought you this far. Just enjoy that sense of wellbeing that He provides and share it with someone.

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