Assurance and Clarity about Our Identity (2)

Introduction:

What a wonderful thought: in the face of the onslaught of false doctrine, the world’s appeal to our base desires, and the doubt generated by our own minds, we can still live with assurance of our relationship with God.

Today, we will follow as the Apostle John, delivering the message of the Spirit of God, clarifies what he meant at the end of 1 John 3:22.

Our obedience, he has claimed, assures us that we have a genuine relationship with God and with it, that God does hear our prayers.

So what “commandments” did he have in mind, and what things are we doing that please God’s sight?

John has in mind two related acts of obedience.

Belief in Jesus as Obedience.

Belief in the name of Jesus refers to Jesus’ identity, his person.

God has made claims about who Jesus is, his identity:

He is Messiah (note the contrast between 1 John 2:22-23 and 1 John 5:1).

He is the Son of God who came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).

God sent his Son as the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10).

He sent his Son as the savior of the world (1 John 4:14).

God has given us eternal life in His Son (1 John 5:10-12).

Those who believe in the name of the Son of God have eternal life (1 John 5:13).

1 John 4:2-3 “ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκετε τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ· πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ ὁμολογεῖ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν· καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου ὃ ἀκηκόατε ὅτι ἔρχεται, καὶ νῦν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἐστὶν ἤδη.”

This makes it clear that a historical claim is being made. What God has done for us through Jesus is tied to the physical, historical reality that Jesus came in the flesh.

Jesus isn’t a fairy tale we trust. He truly came into the world, demonstrate that He is the Son of God, the Messiah, and died on our behalf to appease the wrath of God.

John is saying that trusting in the person of Jesus is an act of obedience.

We have to weigh salvation as an act of obedience to the command of God.

Salvation is a not merely a matter of personal choice or feeling. While we may feel the weight of our guilt, and we should, the response to trust that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s sacrifice for human sin, and therefore our sin, is a matter of obedience. We are responding properly to the truth.

Salvation requires us to see the world and our own place within it.

Human beings are imperfect, flawed and consequently do evil things. Am I a human being? Yes. Therefore, I am imperfect and flawed. I have shown that by doing evil things.

We are not unique. All human beings are created in the image of God. All human beings are flawed and come short of God’s glory.

We are able to do some good things, but because we are sinners, there are no good people.

The consequence of this is that we are unable to save ourselves through doing works. Righteousness is not a matter of what we do. It is a matter of who we are. To meet God’s standard of righteousness, we would need a righteousness that would enable us to do good without any failure. Failure would not just be in our efforts but also in our thoughts.

God’s solution for our situation is the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. He has commanded us to repent (Acts 17:29). He has told us it is necessary to be born again (John 3). Peter and John preached “there is no other name under heaven having been giving among men in which it is necessary for us to be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Once we understand the reality of depravity, we can understand why trusting Jesus is God’s commandment. This is not the random insistence of an oppressive God. It is the expression of His grace toward us because He has brought about the only plan possible for him to consider us righteous and for us to have eternal life.

Our response to the Gospel takes God at his word. We find him trustworthy, dependable. Thus, we trust him. We show that we trust him by obeying his command to trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation.

Love Results from Belief in Jesus’ Identity.

It also obeys his commands - note 1 John 3:23c.

Assurance Comes from Obedience.

John offers a wonderful assurance in 1 John 3:24.

We can know that we are remaining in him and that he is remaining in us.

A mutual relationship exists between us and God. We can be assured of that.

A Final Assurance - God’s Word.

John adds an additional source of assurance that we are in him and he in us.

He has given us “his spirit.”

John is preparing to transition into the next section of the letter.

He will warn his readers to “try the spirits.”

This will be a warning about false prophets.

John has in mind the truthfulness of God’s word as it is delivered through the testimony of the apostles who were eyewitnesses.

Assurance derives from knowing what we believe about Jesus and what we practice as his commands are true.