The Next Awakening - Part 9 - Assurance in Love
The Next Awakening • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We’ve been in a series of messages from 1 John as we examine the 5 signs of Revival as written by Jonathan Edwards during the 1st great awakening.
Here are the 5 signs as Edwards wrote them:
When esteem for the true Jesus is raised
When Satan’s kingdom is attacked (sin and worldly lusts)
When people come to love Scripture more
When men are led away from falsehood to truth (sound doctrine)
When there is an increase of love to God and man
This period of time marked a great move within church life in New England. 350 new churches were constructed and upwards of 50,000 people came to Christ during this time. The result of the Awakening was a massive change in the church. I believe that in order for us to have the next awakening, we have to be ready for major change once again.
The Awakening led more people to do these 5 things themselves rather than to depend on the religious elite to do it for them.
We will take a break from this series for the next 2 weeks as we talk about the Crossroads mission/vision next week and the following week, Richie Lewis is coming home from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to share some of what is going on with the ministry he leads, Capitol Area Dream Center, and will encourage us in the area of evangelism and having a heart for the lost.
After that, we’ll pick this series up and go through each of the 5 areas that Edwards wrote as we go through the last 2 chapters of 1 John.
I am praying that God will transform us as individuals. That He will impress upon us to Worship Jesus, fight sin, love scripture, teach truth and love God and one another. As we do that as individuals, I pray we we do that as a church community, not just Crossroads, but all of central Vermont and beyond would get on the revival train. As revival spreads, then cultural awakening can occur. The type of awakening that changes things. The first Awakening gave us our country, gave us the birthing of several major colleges - Dartmouth, Brown, Rutgers and Princeton to name a few.
What might the next awakening birth in our country?
Let’s take a moment and pray for that now…
***Put title slide up***
As we do each week, I am going to read the passage from time so we have an introduction to the passage for this week. We’ll start in 1 John 3:11
11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Love - it’s the foundation of the Gospel:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Today’s passage is going to talk more about love. The encouragement to us will be that Love is our assurance. Love is how we know God. Love is how we have relationship with the Father. Without love, it is very easy to be deceived, to be lied to. Not just by the culture around us, but we are even more susceptible to lying to ourselves. Lying about who we are, lying about who God is, lying about what success is life looks like...
The first way to combat the lies is through love. Not Hallmark/mushy/romantic love, but Christ-like love for one another and for God.
Let’s read the next 2 verses in 1 John 3
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
John wants us to belong to the truth and have our hearts/inner souls at rest in God’s presence. The first way is by having our hearts condemn us. Now that doesn’t sound so restful, but it will be…
Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about sin and this verse:
10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
and then last week:
15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
These are convicting verses. I have heard from some of you that these verses “made your heart condemn you”. You struggled with these. “Pastor, I continue to struggle with a habitual sin...”, “Pastor, I’ve been pretty hateful...”
The beauty is that your heart has condemned you. What do you do with that? Hopefully you don’t stay there. Hopefully you move quickly to confession and repentance. When our hearts condemn us, it is the natural law that has been written on our hearts that tells us something is wrong. We shouldn’t be acting that way.
Fortunately, our own heart’s condemnation is nothing compared to what God has done:
20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Because God is greater than our hearts. If God were to condemn, then we have a problem, but this is what scripture says about God’s forgiveness:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
This is how our hearts/our internal being can be at rest…we’ve received forgiveness in Christ. We ARE NOT CONDEMNED!
The lie, the deceit of the enemy would have us to believe otherwise. Read this next verse with me:
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
If you are in Christ Jesus, your heart can be at rest in the presence of God.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
This is our first encouragement from our passage today. Remember, this is a continuation of John telling us to love. If you are in a place where you are struggling to love and your heart is condemning you, remember that God is greater than your heart and he knows everything - He knows when you gave your life to him. He knows when you repented and believed. He knows that you love him.
If you find yourself at this place where hatred seems to have a hold on you, take a moment and reflect back on how God redeemed and saved you. Love came and paid the price for you, love now lives in you even if your flesh wants to take over…Jesus is still there.
If you haven’t given your life to him and your heart is condemning you, that condemnation is nothing compared to the condemnation that is coming. An eternal condemnation for those who are not in Jesus. You heart is telling you that things are not right and you need to make them right. Unfortunately, we can’t for ourselves…as much as we try, it’s impossible. But fortunately, Jesus has made a way for us. Through Him it can be made right.
Let’s read the next 2 verses for encouragement from the other side...
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
If we are in Christ, we have His forgiveness, things are right. We have the ability to love like Christ loved. A sacrificial, actions based love that is only possible in him. It’s through that love that we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
One of the most frequent questions asked to pastors is why didn’t God answer my prayer? It was a good prayer - to heal my loved one, for so-and-so to give their life to Christ, for reconciliation…all great things to pray for. The honest answer: I don’t know all the mysteries about God, and this is one of them.
When we pray, we are to follow the Lord’s example in prayer, and one of those lines is “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If our prayers are not in perfect alignment with God’s will, we may not receive everything we ask. Even if we think it should be, we are not always privy to all that God’s got going on.
What we can know is that God loves us and he’s got way more of the picture than I do. We have to trust that He knows what he is doing even if we disagree.
What does keeping his commands mean? I’m glad you asked...
23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
2 things - Believe in Jesus and love each other.
Ah…so simple yet difficult at times. Love is so important. How we treat each other tells the world more about us than any words we could speak. Unfortunately the church today is known more for its words than for its loving actions. Christians in the US, as a whole, have been labeled for their less hateful speech and their acts of hate in the name of this cause or that, somehow justifying it with this scripture or that.
Truth is, there is no place for hate in the heart of a believer. If it’s there, our heart condemns it and we must deal with it. If we don’t, how can HE live in us?
How can we operate by the power of the Holy Spirit in us if we don’t have love? This is a pretty high standard and we will never fully measure up, but each day we should be progressing to a greater and greater level of love for one another.