The Lightened Heart - 1 John 3:19-24

Introduction & Review

<<PRAY>>

<<READ>>

OPENING ILLUSTRATION: Confidence depends on the strength of the ship

If you’ve ever spent much time on the water, you’ve had the experience of trusting in the integrity of a ship or a boat or a watercraft.

On a relatively calm lake, a small rowboat or a canoe can be fairly safe. But I’ve been in an aluminum canoe when lightning started flashing, and let me tell you, in that moment, it doesn’t seem so safe.

Once - deposition of ashes on Lake Michigan from a sailboat - the weather was a very important factor in deciding when to go out, but we would not have even attempted it in a canoe, a rowboat, or any boat we couldn’t have confidence in.

The tested integrity of the vessel gives confidence to the passengers.

We know from the story of the Titanic that a man-made vessel, even a mighty and imposing one, can give false confidence and lead to disaster.

And everyone who’s taking a youth group canoe trip has watched teenagers stepping gingerly into a perfectly sound canoe as though it’s just waiting for the right time to break, shatter, spring a leak, something.

The tested integrity of the vessel gives confidence to the passengers.

The letter of 1 John started with John’s first-hand testimony about Jesus Christ and His message. The very same message that Jesus taught, John now proclaims to us.

It starts with Jesus’s nature as the Eternal Life made manifest in the flesh, God the Son, through whom we can have fellowship with God the Father.

He calls us out of the darkness of sin, calls us to repent and believe in Him. That’s the only way we can have fellowship with God, because that’s the only way our sins can ever be dealt with.

As 1 John 1:8-9 says “if we say we have no sin… if we confess our sins… <<RECITE>>

And the message of Jesus is clear: His is the only Name by which we can be saved. John calls Him our advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and the only propitiation for sins.

Any other faith, any other hope, or no faith at all, is like trying to weather a hurricane in Houston on a pool noodle. It’s hopeless. That doesn’t stop people from thinking they can weather the storm of life and death and judgment, but when their vessel - if we can call it that - when their vessel disintegrates, they’ll be left bare before the Judge of all Creation, with no cover for their sin.

But John wrote this letter so that those who believe in Jesus Christ would have confidence that their vessel will not capsize or fail. That in every trial in this life, and through the veil of death, they can rest as easy as Jesus slept in the back of the boat on the Sea of Galilee when the storm tossed it. Because He is our shelter, the ark of our salvation.

Verses 19-24 are a gift to the storm-tossed and troubled, the fearful, the sorrowful, the doubtful, and the mournful.

Verse 20 starts, “Whenever our heart condemns us,” and that’s the proof that John knew what it was like to doubt, to fear.

Christian, have you ever looked at your own reflection and wondered how God could love you? Have you ever worried that maybe your faith or your love isn’t strong enough to make it through the storm? Or have you ever worried that perhaps God is fine with you now, but He might change His mind about you later? That you’re <<>>this close<<>> to totally blowing it?

The tested integrity of the vessel will give confidence to the voyagers.

And so we’re going to look at this text as a catalog of God’s grace to everyone who believes in Jesus.

Q. What kind of confidence should we have before God?

I. Confidence in God’s greatness (vv19-20)

EXPLAIN:

<<READ 19-20>>

When doubts, fears, and shame rise like floodwaters, the heart is not where our confidence should lie.

We often tell one another to follow our hearts, to listen to our hearts, but the heart can be a fickle thing. In verse 17, the word “heart” points to the source of compassion in the person who’s been born again. Here, it points to the inner judge - the conscience.

The conscience is a gift from God, helping us to see first of all that there is a standard of right and wrong, and second, directing us to choose between them. But like everything else in us, the conscience is affected by sin.

It’s often called a “moral compass,” but just like a compass can be fooled by a magnet, our moral compass is dragged off true north by the attraction of sin.

So the conscience has to be recalibrated according to the true north of God’s Will, which we find in Scripture.

The heart, in other words, is not a foolproof judge. This shouldn’t surprise us,

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

The heart is a potential deceiver and accuser.

And after John has reinforced the absolute truth that Jesus gives eternal life to all who believe, and that everyone who has been born again will produce righteousness as a result of His work in them, because they are God’s children now and belong to the truth,

and as verse 14 says, <<READ 3:14>>

John knows that some Christians will read those words and hear their hearts rise up as accusers, condemning them for not loving well enough. Condemning them for not obeying perfectly enough.

The Holy Spirit Himself breathed out the words of this letter through the personality of John - and He wrote it so that those who believe in Jesus would KNOW they have eternal life - so if you have trusted Jesus, and you read these words, and your heart condemns you, that’s proof enough that the heart is not a foolproof judge.

Notice how personal this matter is for John. “By this we shall know that we are the truth and reassure our heart.” John knows what it is to have a heart that accuses and condemns.

And he says, whenever our heart condemns us - every single time - the key is to come back to the character of God:

He is greater than our heart. He never misjudges, never errs. His integrity is infinite and incorruptible.

And He knows everything.

APPLY:

Why might your heart condemn you? Because we know our own sin, at least after a fashion. Like David says in Psalm 51, “I know my sin, and my transgression is ever before me.” So we read that we’re supposed to love like Jesus, and we know that our obedience is pretty lousy.

Since the heart is deceitful, I don’t know the depth of it, but that is even more terrifying. We are much more evil than we know.

ILLUST: Perhaps you’ve had the experience of sailing along and feeling okay about yourself, and then suddenly something shakes you up, and you see yourself in a light that you don’t like, and like Adam and Eve in the Garden, you feel shame for something you did, or said, or wanted, or thought. It’s like walking into the bathroom to get ready for the day, all is well, and you look up into the mirror and see a great hideous zit. And teens, I’m sorry to say that while they get much less common, unfortunately, sometimes they still show up.

In those moments, when your sin is right there, perhaps your heart condemns you, says that this must be proof that you God doesn’t love you.

And if God knows everything, then He even knows the sins I haven’t noticed yet.

But I want to draw your attention back, away from the zit in the mirror, to the Gospel of John chapter 1. Because God does know everything. He knows every secret sin you’ve never told a soul. And He has known every sin you’d ever commit since before He created anything. And remember these words from

John 1:9–13 ESV

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The wonder of the Gospel is that God, who is greater than our heart, who knows everything, knows all of it, and He came anyway. He came precisely because He loved sinners even though He knew them completely.

Psalm 103:14 ESV

14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.

Our confidence, our reassurance, comes not from the strength of our hearts, but from the strength of His demonstrated love for us in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Are you afraid, when your heart condemns you, that it might take God by surprise and teach Him something new about your sinfulness? Of course not!

It’s a surprise to you, because the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; but God knows your heart and <<1 John 3:1>>

Look at verses 21-23, and our second point

II. Confidence in God’s pleasure (vv21-23)

<<READ 21-23>>

Do you pray with confidence? You can.

If you are a child of God by faith in Jesus, then you already have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. Last week, we saw the example of Cain the murderer, as the one who hated his brother and was of the devil. And Abel’s blood served as a witness against him.

But Jesus’s blood is a witness for everyone who believes.

The author of the book of Hebrews says that the people of Israel were terrified when they were at Mount Sinai, even Moses trembling with fear. But in

Hebrews 12:22–24 ESV

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Jesus even now stands in the presence of the Father, and you can come to Him in confidence that He hears everyone who belongs to Him; that He is pleased with you; and that He will provide for you.

Jesus is the proof that God gives good gifts.

If He gave Jesus when we were still dead in our trespasses and sins, there is no good gift that He would withhold from us now.

You say, “Yeah, but it says, ‘because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him,’” and I say, “Exactly.” Jesus says,

Matthew 7:7–11 ESV

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Or Paul, in

Romans 8:31–32 ESV

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

John does not say here that God answers prayers on a sliding scale.

ILLUST: When I was a kid, for a while - star chart for allowance. The more stars, the more money at the end of the week. Implied: My brother and sister and I could expect different payouts for different levels of obedience.

But John is drawing the difference not between different believers, but between believers and unbelievers. The false believers, who claim to have fellowship with God while walking in the darkness, whose sins have not been taken away, who have not obeyed Christ’s command to repent and believe, do not have an Advocate with the Father.

As Hebrews 11 says, without faith it is impossible to please God. And Romans 12:1-2 says that believers learn to discern what is pleasing to God through the process of sanctification.

The first and most important thing that pleases him is right there in verse 23 - to believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another.

That’s the start. If you belong to Jesus, then you belong to the community whose prayers are heard and answered, because He takes pleasure in giving good gifts to those who ask.

John elaborates on this point in chapter 5,

1 John 5:14–15 ESV

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward 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 that we have asked of him.

APPLY:

Now, I know that for some of you, verses like these are difficult. You have been asking for God to help, to rescue, to relieve, for years.

I know because I have shared many of your prayers, for a prodigal, for relief from pain, for help with mental illness.

And sometimes, the opportunity passes, and God seems to have been silent.

Your question is often, “Did I not believe enough? If I had been a tiny bit more obedient, would God have given it to me?”

And your heart condemns you again, because you think unworthy things about God, and you know they’re unworthy, but you also can’t square His goodness with your sorrow.

You hear stories of others whose prayers have been answered in wondrous, even miraculous ways. And these verses seem hollow. Right?

John the Baptist hailed the coming of Jesus, proclaiming “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” When his disciples listened to him, many of them left and followed Jesus, and John didn’t begrudge it, but rejoiced and said, “he must increase, but I must decrease.”

And then, Herod put John in prison. He heard about all that Jesus was doing, and sent word to him, asking if he was the one who is to come, or if they should look for another. Either John was asking for everybody else’s sake, or his earlier Spirit-given conviction had led to doubts.

Matthew 11:4–6 ESV

4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Here, Jesus is paraphrasing Messianic prophecies from the book of Isaiah, including Isaiah 61:1, which Jesus had proclaimed at the beginning of His ministry. Isaiah 61:1 says

Isaiah 61:1 ESV

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

We’re not told if John the Baptist prayed for his release from prison. What we are told is that he was beheaded by Herod.

Even Jesus Himself, in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing that His hour had come, knowing that He had come in order to die at the hands of sinners, gave us the exemplary prayer, “Father, if it be possible, take this cup from me; yet not as I will, but your will be done.”

It was not possible for Jesus to be more perfectly obedient to His Father, it was not possible for Him to please the Father more fully; He absolutely, completely, perfectly fulfilled the Law and pleased the Father. And

John 10:17–18 ESV

17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

In fact, the Old Testament prophesied that it would please the Father to crush the Son so that in His death and resurrection we would be saved.

Isaiah 53:10 ESV

10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

This is the great mystery of God’s will in our prayers: God laid out His plan of redemption in the Old Testament, but no one saw it. No one understood. Even Jesus’s own disciples couldn’t understand it until after He had risen and showed it to them in the Old Testament and gave them the Holy Spirit.

Paul refers to Jesus Christ as God’s mystery in the book of Colossians. A mystery in the Biblical sense isn’t an enigma or something that can’t be understood; a mystery is a truth that was once hidden, but now has been uncovered. Peter says in

1 Peter 1:10–12 ESV

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

This is the same Peter who, when Jesus predicted His own death and resurrection, Peter took him aside and said, “May it never be!” because he could not understand until Christ was raised.

Even the prophets, even the angels could not put the mystery of salvation together before its time. The Old Testament saints looked ahead in faith, but they couldn’t have imagined how it would all turn out. It was so much more wonderful than anyone imagined.

And that is true of your prayers.

When God’s people pray, He hears them. When we ask according to His will, as 1 John 5:14-15 say, we receive according to His will.

And when we seem to languish in prison, praying for release, He hears us. When we suffer, and we cannot fathom what good could come from it, He hears us. And He gives according to His will.

And just as no one - no man, woman, or angel - could solve the mystery of His saving will until He chose to reveal it in Jesus Christ, and just as the revelation of Jesus turned out to be so much more wonderful than anyone imagined,

Another disciple of Jesus who ended his earthly life like John the Baptist, Paul, wrote:

Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV

20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

And elsewhere, Paul said,

Romans 8:18 ESV

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Beloved of God, you can pray with confidence in God’s pleasure - that He hears you, that He loves you, that His will is better than all that you can ask or think, and the proof is in the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Let’s close with a look at verse 24:

III. Confidence in God’s Spirit (v24)

<<READ v24>>

Earlier in the letter, John pointed to the Holy Spirit as our anointing and God’s seed within us, but now he names Him. The presence of His Holy Spirit is proof that we abide in God and He in us. In chapter 4, next week, we’ll see that the Holy Spirit is the One who shows us that Jesus is the Christ and allows us to know God. And the Spirit is the One who teaches us to keep Christ’s commandments.

If it weren’t for His Holy Spirit, we might have reason to fear or despair.

In fact, without His Spirit, we would have no hope at all. But God, who knows everything, who gave his Son, has also given His Spirit.

What greater cause for assurance, for confidence, in all the storms of life, in all the sorrows and fears that assail us, in every trouble, in every temptation, than the fact that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are our shelter? God is greater than our hearts!

Take refuge here, climb into the ark of salvation by faith. The LORD Himself will close the door and carry you through the flood, and He himself will open it when the floods have subsided. This is a vessel of infinite, incorruptible integrity. NO one who trusts in Him will be put to shame.

<<READ Ps 46>>