Christian Assurance
Notes
Transcript
Christian Assurance
Many of you probably don’t know that before moving to Haiti I lived in Nashville TN. I followed Jessica to Nashville because she had already moved to Nashville to begin working at HHI. While in Nashville I worked for John Cottrell who is an elder at the Southern Hills Congregation in Franklin Tn. The same congregation that Garrett is now preaching for.
I worked in the front office at the Furniture Warehouse. A large furniture store in Nashville. Every day while working there I had the privilege of dealing with Customers. Some of whom are very excited about their new purchase. Their new living room group or bedroom group but then are the other hand there is occasionally an unhappy customer.
out of all the customer service phone calls that I handled there is one that I still remember to this day. One afternoon I received a phone call from a customer who proceeded to ask me what he needed to do in order to bring back some furniture that his mother had just purchased. I began to think the worst. I am now going to have to tell this man that unfortunately he cannot bring his mother’s furniture back because all sale are final there are no refunds or exchanges.
But as the customer continued to talk to me I noticed that something was different about this customer. He proceeded to tell me that his mother had purchased the big deal (explain) the day before and then unfortunately that night before ever receiving her furniture, she passed away.
You see I remember the customer coming in and making her purchase. She looked to be a very healthy individual. And I remember telling her that I hope she enjoys her new furniture.
So after talking to this woman’s son on the phone I talked to our manager and thankfully we were able to make an exception and refund this family their money.
You see when I think of this story or when I hear of the sudden, unexpected passing of a loved one I am thankful that I know about the great truth and promise that that we are going to talk about this morning.
There are many great truths and promises in Gods word but this morning I want to share with you my favorite. This one truth and promise is my favorite because it brings me comfort and joy each and every day of my life. No matter what life throws at me I am able to remain joyful because of this one truth.
If you would be turning in your Bibles to the book of 1 John chapter 5. Here in this chapter John tells of 5 things that as Christians we can know. If you would notice these five things with starting in verse 13 of John chapter 5. 1 John 5:13-20.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
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.
If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.
All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Did you catch the five things that John tell us that we can know?
13 First we can know that we have eternal life.
14- In verse 14 John tells us that we can know that God hears are prayers
18 In verse 18 we can know that we have victory over sin
19 In verse 19 we can know that we belong to God
20 And then in verse 20 we can know that Christ is the true God
All five of these truths ought to bring us as Christians much strength and encouragement to press on in life no matter our circumstances.
But for me, it is the first truth, the truth found in verse 13 that I find myself falling back on, on a daily basis. And it is this verse that I think about when I remember the conversation that I had with the son of the woman who passed away so suddenly.
John says...
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
So you might be thinking why does this passage come to mind when I think about the story I told a few moments ago.
The story I told is a prime example that we are not guaranteed tomorrow. Its a prime example why Proverbs 27:1 says...
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
Or James 4:13-15 says...
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Although there are so many uncertainties in this life. Uncertainties about tomorrow, uncertainties about your job, uncertainty for some as to where their next meal will come from. Of all the uncertainties, uncertainty about tomorrow should not be one that we, as Christians loose sleep over.
So this morning I want to ask each of you this question. Do you know whether or not you have eternal life?
Believe it or not their are many people in this world who do not know if they currently have or will receive eternal life when they die.
You know wouldn’t it be sad to live your life devoted to a particular cause, a particular faith, a particular religion; to live your life devoted to this cause, to serve it whole heartily but wouldn’t it be sad if you never knew whether or not you would receive eternal life. Wouldn’t that be terrible?
Unfortunately, there are many people in this world who are committed to their particular cause or faith but they are told over and over that the one thing that they may never know is whether or not they will receive eternal life.
A preacher friend of mine once told me that he was studying with a student of a particular faith and the student brought the leader of his faith with him to study. And for three hour this teacher asked Jeff questions about the Church of Christ. And at the end of the three hours Jeff asked the teacher if he could ask him just one question. He agreed. So Jeff asked him; If you were to die to night would your God allow you to go to heaven. The man said, I don’t know. He said the only way you can get to heaven is if at the end of your life if you have done more good than bad then you will possible receive eternal life, but there is no way to know for certain.
How sad it must be to live your life not knowing where you will spend eternity.
You see the wonderful thing about the letter of first John is that he writes it so that we can know for certain that we have eternal life.
You see before John wrote 1 John he wrote his gospel account. And He wrote the gospel of John so that people may believe that Jesus is the Christ. His purpose is to write so that people may believe in Jesus and be saved. John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Then after writing the gospel of John he wrote the letter of 1 John in the same way but with a different audience. John wrote 1 John so that the saved might know that they are saved.
His message in the gospel has a message of salvation and his letter has a message of assurance. So John first writes to people so that they may be saved and then he writes to us as Christians because he wants us to know that we have been saved and therefore we have eternal life in Jesus Christ. John reassures Christians with these words in order to eliminate any doubt that we might have. Isn’t this wonderful new!
Some might hear or read these words and think to themselves that there much be a catch? Right, how can one know for certain that they have eternal life? The answer is found for us in the first part of verse 13. John says I have written these things to you so that you may know.
OK, so what are these things? The things that he wrote would have been the things that he has previously stated in his letter. OK, so let’s flip back a few pages and look at what these things are.
This morning we don;t have time to look at all the things that he wrote but let me encourage all of us to read the entire 5 chapters of 1 John and pay attention to what he wrote.
But let’s quickly look at a few.
One of the things that he has previously written is found in chapter 1:5-10. Here is tells us that as Christians we must be walking in the light as He is in the light. And if we do so the blood of Christ will continually cleanse us of our sins.
Another thing that we learn is found in chapter 2:15-17. As Christians we are not to love this world.
In Chapter 2:28-3:10 we see that we as Christians are to abide in Christ.
Chapter 3:11 ff we see that we must love one another
Chapter 4:1-6 we are to test the spirits to see if they are from God or not. In other words don’t just take everything you hear as truth. Make sure that it can be backed up by God’s word.
You see these are just a few of the things that John writes about in his letter. But if we do these things and everything else that he writes about than we can know that we have eternal life.
Unfortunately there are still people out there that would say well I still don’t think that we can know for sure.
To that I would say that we as Christians can know because God has given us the ability to know. Notice with we verse 20 of 1 John Chapter 5. 1 John 5:20
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Here in this text we see that God and Jesus are eternal life. They are the power of eternal life. And to say that we have eternal life is to say that we have the life, the eternal life dwelling in us today. We as Christians have allowed the spirit of God to live within us, therefore as children of God we may know that we have eternal life because Christ is eternal.
Wouldn’t it be great if we knew the outcome of every decision that we made.
For our teenagers and college students wouldn’t it be great to know the outcome of that date that you will be going on and how it will turn out. Or for us adults wouldn’t be great if we knew the outcome of the job interview before we interviewed. Or wouldn’t be great if we knew the outcome of the investments that we made before we made them. Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury.
But as Christians we have one of the greatest blessings in that we can know what are future holds. We may not know about tomorrow as the song says but if Jesus is holding our hand than tomorrow doesn’t matter because we know that we have eternal life.
I think back to the story that I told in the beginning about one of my customers who suddenly passed away. I can guarantee you that that lady did not leave the store knowing that she only had a few more hours to live. She had no idea that she was about to leave this earth.
And as I think about that I wonder if she would have been OK with knowing that she was about to leave this earth or would she have been fearful.
You see one of the greatest fears that most people have is that of dying. How about you? Do you fear death? Me personally I do not fear death itself.
If you are a faithful Christian and you are striving to follow all that John writes about in this letter than you should not fear death because you can know that you have eternal life.
So this morning I want to encourage all of us to examine our lives and make sure that we are doing everything that God has called us to do so that we can know that we have eternal life.
Now this blessing of knowing is only for those that have first obeyed Christ’s teaching through obedience of the Gospel. If you have not obeyed Christ by being baptized for the remission of your sins than this morning you have an opportunity to do just that.