Sermon Tone Analysis
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Prayer
Last week we looked at John’s plea for us love one another as Christ has loved us.
This is NOT love with just our words.
But to love with truth and deed.
There was a heavy dose of implication last week, because Christ laid down His life, we should lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
John is saying that to love with word and tongue is to say that you love someone with no action.
And we saw last week that the Lord Jesus Himself is our perfect example of someone who loves in deed and truth.
John has been talking to us about the different tests of how we can know that we are Christians.
The test of righteousness vs. unrighteousness or love vs. hate…
Again, John will stop his train of thought and adds a parenthesis of thought.
Mary came to faith at a young age.
She has been a part of the church for as long as she can remember.
Mary began struggling with depression while her children were little.
It has been years since this started and now she explains that she can no longer read the Bible for comfort or encouragement.
Every time she opens the Scriptures she is confirmed with how much of a failure she is.
What is going on with Mary?
Or maybe Sally, who came to faith later in life.
She has grown so much in her faith but is also dealing with depression.
Her criteria for success was a home in perfect order and two perfectly behaving young children.
Her inability to meet these standards caused her to be hyper-critical of herself and her family.
This in turn alienated her from her husband and children.
Which created additional problems and reinforced her feelings of being an inadequate wife and mother.
What is going on with Sally?
Or maybe Steve, who came to faith at a young age.
He committed a sin as a teenager that he just can’t move past, and this has been happening for over 60 years.
From a theological standpoint he knew he was forgiven, because he had confessed the sin numerous times to God.
Despite his affirmations regarding God’s forgiveness, he still was not free from self-condemnation, even after 60 years.
Are these stories rare?
Are they uncommon?
I would argue, that they’re not uncommon.
But let’s take it a layer deeper…
What do you think these three individual’s prayer life would be like?
Do you think they would pray confidently?
The answer is no.
And thankfully God’s Word gives us adequate information for them.
Since God is greater than our hearts and knows all things, we should comfort our condemning consciences.
As we seek this comfort, we will have confidence before Him, and we will experience joy-filled prayer.
Or better, “by this we will know…”
And we “shall assure our hearts”
John is extending two things which are future oriented.
This first is that we will know we are of the truth.
He is setting up for us the fact that we will likely struggle with what we’re going to talk about today.
And second, that when this comes, we will be assured.
Comfort for the Condemned Conscience
The heart refers to the center of a person’s life.
It is the source of a person’s thoughts, choices, and behaviors.
Now in several translations, they substitute the word conscience for heart.
You could just as easily keep the word heart there.
What is a conscience?
The conscience can be best defined as the internal mechanism in us that orients us toward right and wrong.
This mechanism has been given to all people everywhere.
It is part of what makes us rational beings.
And everyone, believer and unbeliever have a conscience.
“First.
It is a witness, testifying to what we have done in thought, or word, or action.
Secondly.
It is a judge, passing sentence on what we have done, that it is good or evil.
And, thirdly, it, in some sort, executes the sentence, by producing a degree of pride in him that does well, and a degree of uneasiness in him that does evil.”
That’s a bulky definition, but I think it is helpful in considering three main aspects of conscience.
Testifying to what has been done.
Passing sentence on what has been done.
Finally, executing the sentence in uneasiness or calmness.
The human conscience judges, guides, and governs our inner sense of morality.
One author compared the conscience to a thermostat...
A thermostat is a mechanism that measures and regulates temperature.
In the same way a thermostat operates, the conscience measures and regulates us.
When a person becomes a believer, their conscience begins being trained by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.
Whereas an unbeliever’s conscience is described in other places as being seared or burnt with the red-hot iron of sin.
A conscience, which everyone has, is a GOOD thing.
But like a thermostat, it regulates and measures the room.
But what happens when the thermostat or the conscience malfunctions?
It is someone who’s conscience is malfunctioning that John has in mind here.
Their thermostat is telling them the room is on fire when it is actually quite comfortable.
This shouldn’t surprise us either, because of what we see from the rest of Scripture.
Listen to the way that Jeremiah even describes the heart of man, deceitful, desperately sick.
Jeremiah even asks, “Who can understand the heart?”
The kind of person John is writing to here..
“Do I really love my brothers and sister?
Do I love them sufficiently?”
This person may even remember the unloving acts he has had toward someone else.
Condemned Conscience
“Assaulted Heart”
What I DON’T mean by condemned conscience?
Sinning Against the Conscience
When we talk about a person’s conscience condemning them, we DON’T mean a person actually sinning against their conscience.
We DON’T mean a person who is willfully sinning.
We DON’T mean someone who has unconfessed sin or ongoing unbelief.
When a Christian sins, the Holy Spirit and their conscience is what alerts them to it.
It is GOOD that our conscience alerts us to areas of sin.
But THIS is NOT what John has in mind here.
What I DO mean by condemned conscience?
What John is setting up here is the concept of a conscience that is hyper-sensitive.
How do you know if you have a hyper-sensitive conscience?
• You have to ask forgiveness over and over for a sin you no longer commit.
• You ruminate about past mistakes and failures in your life.
• You seldom feel acceptable to or accepted by God.
• You get down on yourself for small errors or normal human failures.
• You have vague feelings of guilt, but you are not really sure why.
1 John 3:19–20 (ESV)
By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him;
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