All right, for a brief time before the Lord's Table, let's go back to 1 John 3. And your bulletin insert, which has an outline on one side, is still applicable, still helpful at this point. Remember the big idea of 1 John 3, 11-24, is that a real child of God demonstrates real love for fellow Christians. There can be a fake love that only shows up in words, not in deeds. But a real child of God demonstrates real love for fellow Christians. And especially since some words in the first service, I want to read some of what we've already read in 1 John 3 to have it make more sense altogether. We've already gone through the first and longer point. We've gone through verses 11 through 18, which tell us that God's life and love in his children always produce love for their brethren. If you have God's eternal life, if you've passed from death to life, and if God's love has grabbed you and come into your heart, that'll always produce love for your fellow children of God. But let me read starting back, backing up to verse 10. in chapter three and going down to verse 18 again. By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God. In other words, they are not a child of God, they are a child of the devil. So whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. Verse 11, the ending of our sermon text. For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one. He was a child of the devil and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know, love, that he, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, How does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. That's as far as we got this morning. And as I said, I think that was a section that took longer to really deal with adequately. But now I want to wrap this up with the second point of the text, verses 19 through 24. which now really changes the focus, shifts it back from, okay, what will our relationship with our brothers look like and not look like if we really have love for them? It takes the focus back off of our horizontal relationships with each other and shifts it back to our relationship vertically with God. So our love for the brethren, if we have it, as children of God, Our love for the brethren reinforces our confidence before God. Verses 19 through 24, and this is so encouraging. We just read in verse 18, little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. So now, if we really know what it is, not with perfection, not entirely without sin, But if we know what it is to truly love in deed and in truth, to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, then verse 19, by this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him, before God. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him. And by this, we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us. All right, so verse 19, first of all, as we see that our love for the brethren reinforces our confidence before God, it makes our relationship with God all the better. First of all, verse 19, if we love indeed and in truth, it reassures us that we are of the truth, that we're not living a lie, living in the darkness, as 1 John 1 put it, that we're not actually children of the devil. If we can just see God, that God has placed this love in our lives and that it's working itself out slowly but surely, it will really help us. It will reassure us. Notice it will not, like doing deeds of love is not going to make us children of God when we were not. And it's not that we trust in our good works even our deeds of love, we're not trusting in that to give us merit in God's sight. It just reassures us that we're the real thing, that God's doing the real thing in us by his grace, that he's put that love there that the world doesn't understand and know about, that love for the brethren. Does that make sense? By this we shall know that we are of the truth. We know the truth as it is in Jesus. reassure our heart before him for because verse 20 next For whatever our heart condemns us. God is greater than our heart and he knows everything Because you see we need reassurance Because our heart can condemn us when God does not John will return to say similar things about How our hearts can be fearful before the Lord even as his two children at times we can have a Well, Christians can feel insecure at times in their relationship with their father. Am I really a child of God? John will say even more about this later in the letter. But we need reassurance because our heart can condemn us even when God does not. Whenever or if and when our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Why would our heart condemn us? Well, there can be false guilt, for one thing. We can have unrealistic expectations for ourselves that aren't coming directly from God's law, but just we're expecting something that not even God expects of us. That is possible, and Christians can struggle with their view of themselves as God's child because they're not looking at the right standard of what God's actually said, but there could also be true guilt that's just misapplied, that's mishandled. The true guilt is that we really do sin, still as God's children, and it will bother us and it should bother us, but we can misuse that then. We can do the wrong thing with that guilt. and conclude because we're having a rough time with sin and maybe even for a season we really like that sin and we took it off ramp for a while. We can then have an inappropriate lack of assurance that we even are God's child. Now it's true as we've said before that in a sense this is part of the design that we're not meant to have as wonderful of assurance when we're being sinful. We're not going to feel that close to God if we are right in the act of something we know he disapproves of, right? At the same time, our hearts are not infallible when we are evaluating ourselves. And Satan also loves to get in there. Satan loves to play both sides. To get us to sin in the first place, he has a lot to work with. We have still sin inside of us, sinful old nature. Satan loves to get us to sin and then play the other side, getting us to think, oh no, I sinned. I've been stuck in this habit of sin for a while. Maybe I'm not God's child at all. He loves to play both sides. John knows all this. On the one hand, he is confronting a real problem in the church that some have been in the church and then left, never to return. They were really fake Christians. They weren't God's children. He's been really hard-hitting about this thing, that you need to understand this. Who is a child of God? Who isn't? But he also knows, as he talks through this, He knows that Christians then could easily be weighed down as they start to get really introspective and really examining themselves. And they see their own sin, their own real sin. And it could shake them too much. Reality is, though we still sin, and though it is a terrible thing to sin, even as a believer, Um, we could go too far with that and get our focus entirely off of what God says about us that, Hey, you really are my child. I'll help you with through the sin. I'll discipline you. I'll correct you. I'll train you in righteousness. I haven't abandoned you. We'll deal with that sin, but you really are my child, but we can get our eyes off of the gospel as the foundation of our assurance. and be so consumed with what I did or didn't do day to day as a believer, and then say, am I really a believer? Maybe I'm fooling myself. Our heart can condemn us in the sense of our conscience, rightly or wrongly in various ways, but the fact is our heart isn't the ultimate judge of us. God is the judge who matters. Our conscience should reflect good things that we've learned from scripture about God's holiness and righteousness. But our hearts can mishandle even real guilt, real conviction of sin. And God is greater than our heart. And you know what? God knows everything. So God knows more about ourselves than our hearts know about ourselves. God sees the big picture perfectly. We don't see the big picture about ourselves perfectly. We can't. Which is why, actually didn't include it in here, but I think I'll just turn there really quick. In 1 Corinthians, Paul says something striking in this regard about himself. 1 Corinthians 4, He says, this is how one should regard us, verse one, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, us gospel ministers. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. He's talking about, he's saying, it doesn't really bother me that you people in the Church of Corinth are getting all judgy about who's the better preacher. And he was doing better work for the Lord. And he says, with me it's a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself in the ultimate sense. For I'm not aware of anything against myself. I have a clear conscience. But I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. then each one will receive his commendation from God. The key point we're after here is, Paul says, even if I have a clear conscience, I'm not thereby acquitted. God's the final judge. I don't even know myself perfectly. So God is greater than our heart and knows all things. He knows everything about us. John Hannah, in his commentary, says, There will always be reasons for having fear about our spiritual condition, that is. But if there are evidences of a work of grace in our hearts, mainly, or I'd say especially, love for others, love for the brethren, we should trust God and lay aside our fears. Since God is the final arbiter of who should fear and who should not, and since the life of God is revealed through the expression of love, and since we have evidence of love through action, We should have confidence that we are indeed the children of God. He also says about verse 20 there, he says in verse 20, the for or that in some translations, the first word in the sentence for whenever our heart condemns us, he says that functions in an explanatory sense. It explains why we should not allow our consciences to condemn us. The answer is because God does not do so, and he is the one we should listen to in these matters. God is omniscient. Christians suffer from myopia. It is, therefore, wiser to listen to God rather than to our blighted conscience. Here is the trust factor coming into play. Are we willing to believe the words of God, supplemented evidentially by an observable change in our conduct, or not? Remember the story of Simon Peter, one of Jesus' apostles, and his great sin in denying the Lord publicly three times? Remember that? Pardon me a moment. Well, Simon Peter was On the one hand, he was way overconfident spiritually before his great sin. He was cocky, you might say, although he thought he was just very loyal and loving toward his master, Jesus. He said to Jesus in John 13, the same night that he would later deny Jesus, he said, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. Jesus answered, Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. Then later in John 18, we see the scene play out as Jesus is on trial for his life before the Jewish high priest and the elders of Israel. Jesus is not someone whose friend you want to be known as. Peter slips into the courtyard, warming himself at the fire. And at first, it's just a servant girl that says, you also are not one of this man's disciples, are you? And Peter said, I'm not. And later on, the trial keeps going. Things are not looking good for Jesus, his master. And Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, you also are not one of his disciples, are you? He denied it and said, I am not. One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off in the garden that night, asked, did I not see you in the garden with him? Peter again denied it. Other gospels say Peter called down a curse on himself if you were lying. Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed. Now, I know this is a famous account. We're all very familiar with it, most of us. Was Peter a believer at that point? Yes. Did he sin greatly? Oh yeah. Remember how Jesus, though it wasn't the first time Jesus talked with Peter after his resurrection, but you know when Jesus really sat down with Peter in front of all the other apostles and really fully restored him, made sure he knew he was restored. Peter appeared to Peter and it wasn't actually all the apostles but a number of the other apostles by the lake of Galilee Jesus worked a miracle. You can read about that in John 21. They recognized it's the Lord. Peter jumped out of the boat to go swim to Jesus and let the other guys deal with the big catch of fish they had. Jesus had breakfast for them on the shore. They were having fellowship again. And when they had finished breakfast, John 21, 15, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Peter had claimed, even if all these other guys Forsake you, I'll never forsake you. And Simon said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. In other words, I have work for you to do with my people. He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my sheep. He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he had said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, very similar to what John says about God here. He said to him, Lord, you know all things. You know everything. You know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Take a hint from Peter and from what John is telling us directly here. There's such a thing as proper examination, whereby someone might realize that they're not truly a believer. There's also such a thing as recognizing, I'm still a wretch in so many ways. As Paul himself, the apostle, said, in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. but recognizing and seeing all the sin and seeing it more clearly in the long run as a Christian, nevertheless, I see God's grace at work within me. And it pains me to see how often I fail God and don't live by his grace, and yet I can say, Lord, you know everything. You know it better than I know it. You know I'm yours, and you know that I love you. Again, I'm trying to come at this at a different angle. There's a proper lack of assurance or questioning of assurance, but you can't stay there as a believer all the time just because you always see new sins popping up or old ones. There's such a thing as an assurance despite still seeing the sins. And in the context of 1 John, you see, yeah, Of course. I love God, and it's not just talk. I love His people. He's showing me how to pour out my life for them day after day. I'm still very much a work in progress, but yeah, I belong to God. And I don't have to spend every day just hammering myself with doubts. God's greater than my heart. God can think up a whole lot more bad about me than I can. and he welcomes me in Jesus. Do you know what it is to get to that point? Yeah, you'll get knocked off that, again and again, a little bit. You'll get shaken because God's gonna show you more and more. Often it's not that you become a worse sinner the longer you're a Christian, it's just that you see your sin all the more clearly. And you see down to the depths of it more and like, I was that horrible? And I still am, until I see Jesus. And yet we have to return to this. God's greater than my heart. He knows all things and he accepts me in Christ. Now, I really have to hurry here. I spent longer there than I intended to, but I trust it's worth it. Verses 21 to 23. Obeying God's commands, especially those of faith and love, then enables effective prayer. If we can get past the condemnations of our heart, to a settled assurance. Verse 21, John says, beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. If we can grab hold of, oh yeah, God is at work in my life. He has produced this love for the brethren in me, for instance. Then we have confidence before God. Verse 22, and whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He has commanded us. This enables effective prayer if we can have a settled, basic security with God as our Father and that He is working out His love in our life. And it'll also make the point of the fact that we first of all believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, and out of that flows this love for one another. But whatever we ask, then, we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him. Later, verse John 5, John will say it this way, whatever we ask 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 things we've asked of Him. Now this isn't a quid pro quo deal. When it says, whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him. It's not saying, we do something for God, we obey Him, and then He repays us, granting our prayer requests. That's not what He's saying. But if you begin the whole flow of what He's saying, it's that, as Karen Jobes says here, it's another way of saying that people who keep God's command and do what pleases Him, they know God's will. As a result, they will ask only what's consistent with what they know of God, for they are His children. It's those, as John's been saying, it's those who keep God's commands and do what pleases Him that are really His children. And if we are confident in our relationship with God, we will ask rightly and we will receive it. God's not in the business of urging us to pray and then hearing us pray for good things and just saying, nope. Nope, I'm not gonna answer that. God always answers the prayers of His children, though they will still be imperfect prayers, but if they're prayed in basic good faith, as we would say, toward Him. Now, there's exceptions, of course, like there are times when we pray, the Scripture says, just to consume it on our own lusts. God doesn't answer those prayers. But when we come to him really wanting him to hear an answer according to what he's revealed pleases him, he's going to answer that in some way, either the way we asked for or better than we asked for, ultimately. You want to have a secure, You want to have a security in your relationship with God, a felt security, so you can pray well with confidence that God will answer, don't you? Which, by the way, is another argument for not dabbling with sin as a believer. If you try to play around with sin for a while, you're not gonna have a good prayer life then either. There's gonna be distance between you and God. Jesus said, John 15, verse seven, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. That's if you're abiding in Christ and his words abide in you. So you understand what pleases him, what you should ask for. Verse 23, of course, says, and this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he has commanded us. To believe in Jesus' name, of course, is not to believe in the literal name of Jesus as a good luck charm. The name of Jesus is referring to all that He is. He is the Son of God. We have heard His name, His reputation, who He claims to be, and we receive it. We embrace it. We believe in Jesus' name. He is the Son of God. He is the Savior of the world. He's my only Savior from sin. All right, last verse, verse 24, then. Those who dwell in and are indwelt by God obey these commands. Verse 24, whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him. And by this, we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us. And here, John is building a bridge to what he's going to talk about next. Again, John Hannah says, obedience to the Lord's commandments is not the cause, but the proof of his people's dwelling in him. But now he starts to talk about also, we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given to us. John's going to start talking about the Holy Spirit, and he's building a bridge to what he will attack next. There are going to be people who claim to be Christians who say, well, I have the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit told me this, to do this, or to believe this. And he's going to say, now, beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. So he's going to talk about how to know the difference between the Holy Spirit's work and the work of some other spirits. But again, To possess spiritual life, as John Hannah says, is to be in possession of the Spirit. And, you know, you can't see the Spirit. You can't see the Holy Spirit. It's like the wind. You can't see the wind, but you can see the wind's effects, what the wind does to things. You can see what the Holy Spirit does to us by the love He produces in us and all the fruits of the Spirit, as we call them, that He grows in us. So we're leaving it there because John's about to transition as he talks about the Spirit's work versus the work of the evil one. But back to the big idea. A real child of God demonstrates real love for fellow Christians. There are people who should look at their lives and realize their claim to be Christian is just empty. But there are plenty of believers who ought to look at their lives and see, they have to see past all the imperfections and see, yeah, I'm God's child. I'm one of those who have love for the brothers. Therefore, I'm gonna hold on to that. I'm gonna see the evidences of God's grace in my life, and I'm going to press in as his child, and I'm gonna ask him for things in prayer and receive them. I'm gonna have a confident relationship with my father who will help me every step of the way and clean me up from my sin all along the way. But I'm going to have confidence before God because it's not about something that I deserve by what I've done, but it's about what he's doing in me. And it's really there. It's real. And so I'm going to live as a Christian and rejoice that I have fellowship with God as my father. And he will hear and answer me. That's the way to enjoy as a Christian, to have a confident relationship with God. But you need to see, to have the kind of confidence you really should have before God, you need to pay attention to his work in your life, particularly as he produces love for your brothers and sisters in Christ. That's a good place to start. Let's pray and then we will at long last get to the table, the Lord's Supper. Father, please help this make sense. Despite the messenger and despite the time of day, help this to sink in and make sense for us as your children. Help us to not live in doubts with condemning hearts all the time. Help us to bring our sins to you and experience ongoing cleansing and forgiveness and change. But help us also to have effective prayer lives because we are convinced of your work of grace in our lives. And we cry out to you by your spirit, Abba Father, you are ours and you've made us yours. Help us to be confident as your children as a little child would run to their daddy without fear, without doubt that it is their daddy. Help us to run to you as our father. and experience, to the extent we really should experience, the wonderful Christian life in which you hear and answer us, and we are your precious children for Jesus' sake. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.