Strengthening Our Boldness Before God: Generous Children of God

1 John 3:16-24 Strengthening Our Boldness Before God (Generous Children of God) Introduction: In these verses John is bringing a huge Biblical truth before us. God is a God of social justice. He is the avenger of the poor. “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.” Psalm 146:7-9 “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.” Deuteronomy 10:17-18 We can’t miss the significance of these statements. The Biblical writers introduce God as “a Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows” (Psalm 68:4-5) This is the who or how God identifies himself. This is one of the main things God does in the world. He identifies with the powerless, he takes up their cause. In all other ancient cultures of the world, the power of the gods was channeled through and identified with the elites of society, the kings, priests, military captains, not the outcast. “But here in Israel’s rival vision” it is not high ranking males that but ‘the orphan, the widow, and the stranger’ with whom Yahweh takes his stand. His power is exercised in history for their empowerment” Proverbs 14:31says, “Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.” Proverbs 19:17 says, “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.” Therefore to ignore the needs of the poor is to sin against the Lord. So the poor and needy are a test. Our response to the tests the genuineness of our faith toward God. This understanding is essential to John’s argument that the Christian, whoever is a child of God will produce the character of God through their life. God is the avenger of the poor, he is a friend to the outcast and the down and out, therefore his people will also bear these characteristics. 1. Stinginess (A Stern Warning Against the Meanness of Your Heart) a. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 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.” i. John seems to have in his mind the warning given to God’s people under the Mosaic Covenant recorded in Deuteronomy 15:7-11 1. “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.” 2. “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. -Proverbs 3:27 a. According to the Christian worldview, who deserves to be shown good? Those who are in need. There is no other requirement. ii. John is talking about the possibility of our hearts condemning us. What does he mean by this? 1. Some take that John is just bringing up a common experience had by Christian of having moments where we feel condemned by our own hearts. The reason they do this is because this is a common feeling, but also because they take the word heart here to mean emotions. But in the Bible the heart never rarely refers to the seat of emotions (that is usually associated with the bowels) but the scripture uses the heart to speak of man’s innermost being, the whole of who he is. 2. Therefore what John is most likely referring to is our ability to bring our selves into condemnation when we follow our sinful hearts desires. 3. John is saying that when we close our hearts off to a brother in need we condemn ourselves... Meaning we bring our selves into a place of judgment; we come between God and the poor, the needy. 4. John is actually saying that when our evil hearts act this was we must persuade ourselves to think and to act differently. a. Most of our translations have the word reassure but the greek word “pietho” is primarily translated to persuade b. We must persuade our hearts to not succumb to this meanness of closing ourselves up to those in need. iii. How do we persuade our hearts? 1. Paul connects personal generosity to a true grasping of the Gospel. a. “I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. ……...For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness.” 2 Corinthians 8-14 b. “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” -2 Corinthians 9:8-15 c. We persuade our hearts from meanness by remembering the grace that God has shown toward us. i. “To the degree that the Gospel shapes your self image, you will identify with the those in need. You will see their tattered clothes and think: “All my righteousness is a filthy rag, but in Christ we can be clothed in his robes of righteousness.” When you come upon those who are economically poor, you cannot say to them, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” because you certainly did not do that spiritually. Jesus intervened for you. And you cannot say, “I won’t help you because you got yourself into this mess,” since God came to earth, moved into your spiritually poor neighborhood, as it were, and helped you even though your spiritual problems were your own fault..In other words, when Christians who understand the gospel see a poor person, they realize they are looking in a mirror. Their hearts must go out to him or her without an ounce of superiority or indifference” -Tim Keller 2. John connects persuading with the understanding of God’s Character. He is both just and omniscient. a. “The statement ‘God is greater than our hearts’ in this context seems to mean that God does not share in the meanness that is so often found in human hearts. His generosity is far greater, his compassion towards the needy much greater, than theirs. This fact should function as a reason for us to overcome the meanness of our own hearts and seek to be like God, and when John says, that ‘God knows everything’, he is reminding us that any meanness on our part will not go unnoticed by our omniscient God” - Kruse iv. If these reasons do not persuade your heart to be compassionate and generous, you are in a place of self righteousness and hardheartedness, you need to ask God to break your hard heart, so you can receive the gospel and be changed to be generous like God. 2. Generosity (A Life That Leads to Assurance and Boldness Before God) a. “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.” b. When we do not succumb to the meanness of our hearts (in closing our hearts to someone’s need) we experience confidence before God when we approach him in prayer; a confidence that God will hear when we pray and grant our request. c. If we are stingy with our possessions, especially in regard to the needs of others, do we expect God to be generous with us when we ask him for the things that we need? We would not think to have the kind of boldness to even dare to ask for anything, if we ourselves have withheld from others. i. “So the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous. For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.” - Psalm 18:24-27 d. But when our hearts do not condemn us because we have persuaded ourselves by remembering and living out the gospel, we can have confidence that God hears us, because we keep his commandments and do those things which please him. i. Side note: it’s not just keeping the commandments but living a life that wants to and does please God. 3. A Warning (Beware of Cheap Grace) a. “And this 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.” i. To believe in the name of Jesus Christ involves total commitment and obedience to him (John 8:31; Matthew 7:21; Luke 6:46) and this always involves doing what he commanded, “to love one another”. ii. We must understand what John is saying here. John is not saying that we are accepted before God on the basis of obedience and pleasure. That would be to base our relationship with God on legal terms which the Bible asserts is false and cannot save us. God saved us by his grace and not by any goodness or obedience that we have performed. iii. What John is doing is warning us against “Cheap Grace”, an abuse of the grace, God has showed us. God has been exceedingly generous with his people.. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” ...Therefore “God’s people” already have favor with God and will be a people who want to please God. As John will later say, “His commands are not burdensome to us”. We will do this by practically loving one another, taking care of the needs of one another, and having lives marked by generosity. iv. “John insist that both faith and love stand as essential tests for the true child of God. Right belief and right action reveal the authenticity of one’s faith.” -Akin v. “Mercy and generosity to the full range of human needs is such an essential mark of being a christian that (John) uses it as a test of true faith. Mercy and generosity are not optional or an addition to being a christian. Rather, a life poured out in deeds of mercy is the inevitable sign of true faith.” -Tim Keller Conclusion: Here John comes back to his main purpose in writing this letter: to enable his readers to distinguish those who claim to to live in God but do not (false teachers) from those who do (those who like John have remained faithful to the message they heard from the beginning) Here is the trap that we often fall into as evangelicals... "it is easier to be enthusiastic about humanity with a capital "H" than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting - exasperating, depraved, or otherwise unattractive. Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular." C.S. Lewis How do we avoid falling into this kind of practice? “And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” Luke 10:25-37