Sermon Tone Analysis

Have You Heard The News?

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Introduction

Just the other day I heard someone ask the question - what is a Christian?

The answer is really very straightforward.

A Christian is someone who has a personal, living relationship with Jesus Christ through faith in what He has done for that person by dying on the cross for their sins.

In fact, I saw the answer to the person’s question on a poster in the Fraserburgh Old Church Centre at a meeting of Presbytery.

It expressed it in a nutshell: Know Jesus - know life.

No Jesus - No life.

That also is what is summarised in our passage this evening.

It is the conviction about Jesus Christ that all Christians are meant to have.

Listen again to verses 11 and 12. /And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son./ /He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life./

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This is the testimony

It is a testimony - a firm conviction which comes from the Holy Spirit who indwells every Christian.

So, rejection of the testimony that Jesus came to give eternal life is not simply a case of someone doubting a human idea or human word of witness: it is to deny God’s own testimony to His Son.

The summary of God’s testimony that there is life in the Son confirms what is at stake in this whole letter.

The issue is: “Where is salvation - eternal life - to be found, and who has that salvation?”

The answer is that eternal life comes through a person taking to himself the benefits of Jesus’ life-giving death for His people.

It includes also the complete testimony which every Christian receives in himself.

Primarily, it refers it to the historical life and ministry of Jesus, as laid out for us in the gospel records (cf. 1 John 1:2, /The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us./ and John 10:10,/ //I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.;/

John 10:28,/ //I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand.;/

John 17:2, /For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him./)

God’s witness concerning Jesus is not only that, He is the divine-human Christ but that He is the Life-giver.

In other words, not only is Jesus God’s Son, but that in Him alone is life.

So, the heart of the Holy Spirit’s testimony is that salvation is to be found in Jesus as the Son of God, and in Jesus only.

µKnow Jesus - know life.

No Jesus - no life.

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Know Jesus - know life

If a person does believe God, then that person has an internal assurance that what he has believed is trustworthy.

He is given a still deeper assurance by the personal, inward witness of the Spirit that he was right to trust in Christ.

This is the work of God’s Spirit.

John’s reference to/ //eternal life// /as the essence of salvation carries us back to the opening verses of the letter, in which he wrote that this life was revealed in Jesus, who is Himself the life.

/Eternal life// /is not merely unending life, therefore.

It is the very life of God.

/Eternal life/ is a free gift which God gives to those who believe in His Son, and the gift of life, the experience of fellowship with God through Christ which is eternal life (cf.

John 17:3, /Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.)/.

That is God’s final testimony to His Son.

This life is not to be enjoyed by everyone, however.

This life is in Christ.

Consequently, it is as impossible to have life without having Christ, just as it is impossible to have Christ without at the same time possessing/ eternal life./

/He who has the Son has the life - having /describes our personal possession of the Father through receiving the Son.

So, three important truths are taught in these verses about eternal life.

First, it is not a prize which we have earned, but an undeserved gift.

Secondly, it is found in Christ.

Thirdly, this gift of life in Christ is something we have now.

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No Jesus - no life

Those who do not accept this witness to the Son show that they do not have the Spirit of truth, and in their rejection of the Spirit’s testimony they effectively deny that the Spirit is speaking the truth.

As John put it: they make God a liar.

They cannot have the eternal life the Son brings, for they have cut themselves off from its very source - Jesus.

If a person does not believe what God says in His Word and through His Spirit, he makes God out to be a liar.

Effectively, he says that God cannot be trusted.

In that situation there is nothing more that God can do for that person, because the person will not believe God.

So, the alternative to having Christ is clear and uncompromising.

We cannot escape its logic.

Eternal life is in God’s Son and may be found nowhere else.

It is as impossible to have life without having Christ as it is to have Christ without thereby having life also.

This is because the Son is the life (John 1:4,/ //In him was life, and that life was the light of men.; /John 11:25,/ //Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.;/

John 14:6,/ //Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No-one comes to the Father except through me.”)/.

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Conclusion

In these verses John has been elaborating what he stated briefly in one verse of his Gospel: John 20:31,/ these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

/The way to life is faith, and the way to faith is testimony.

God has borne witness to His Son that people may believe in Him and so /‘have’ /Him, and having Him may have life.

Do you have that assurance?

Do you know Jesus?

I pray that you do.