Our scripture reading for this morning is found in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 and then in John chapter 1 verses 1-5 and verse 14. Genesis 1-1, John chapter 1 verses 1-5 and verse 14. They are the word of the Lord. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now from John's Gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. Without Him, nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Now verse 14, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. This is the word of the living God. You may be seated and let's worship the Lord with our ties and offerings. I'm you you and Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him above the heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. You may be seated. Almighty God, it is a good thing to be able to bring our tithes and offerings to you. We gather into your presence to worship your name. Lord, take these tithes and offerings that your people have presented from cheerful hearts and multiply them. Bless their use. That the Word of God may be preached from this pulpit every Lord's Day. And that the Word of God may be preached all over the earth. And now, Lord, we come to a time of intercession and prayer. We thank you for this blessing of being able to pray. If we're left to ourselves, we would have to run and hide from your presence because of our sin. But we're not left to ourselves. We have a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. who has gone before us, not with the blood of bulls and goats to offer for his own sins before making atonement for your people again and again on the day of atonement, year after year, but a high priest who has gone before us. not into a sanctuary made with the hands of men, but that sanctuary in heaven, and gone into your very presence with His own shed blood, once and for all, who makes intercession for us, and who bids us now come boldly And every time we enter your throne room, we marvel that we may come with full acceptance, that you take joy when we enter into your presence to pray, that you eagerly hear our petitions, and in your omnipotence and in your wisdom, You heed them and you answer us, and you give us whatsoever we ask according to your will. We marvel that we may come and find such acceptance, but such is the power of the work of our priest who has gone before us, such as the strength of his shed blood, who has washed us clean of our pollution. Lord, we come praying, kingdom cause us. We come praying for your word to be established in this place. when we come praying that this land stand would be strong and would grow and that the light would shine ever brighter from Shiloh, Presbyterian Church, to dispel the darkness in this community, that you would gather the elect in by the strength of your might, through the means of grace that you have given to your church, especially the preaching of your Word. Oh Lord, we pray you establish this candlestick firmly, that you purify the light, the preaching, the lives of the members here, that each member here would be salt and light in this world. Lord, establish this church as the aroma of the Lord Jesus Christ in this place. an aroma that will attract the elect as they come, even if it might stir up the anger of the enemy and of the world. Lord Jesus, when we suffer for your sake, we're participating in your very sufferings. O Lord, we pray, that you would send the angel to this church. You know his name. We've been praying for him for a long time. We pray that soon you would demonstrate to us and put him before us, that we would know his name, that we might pray more earnestly to the end of your sending him to come. preach your word and to shepherd your flock and to evangelize this community along with this congregation. We pray for our search committee as they labor and as they work and in particular now as their focus is narrowing that you would grant them wisdom, especially in these days. Lord, we pray that you send us that angel, that star in the right hand of the Lord Jesus Christ for this world. Father, we recognize, as always, that your kingdom is much bigger than Shiloh. Your kingdom is much bigger than the Presbytery of the Southeast or the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We are very happy for that. We have brothers and sisters in Christ, some who are not in our tradition at all, some with whom we differ significantly on certain doctrinal issues, but who hold the gospel with faithfulness. They are brothers and sisters in Christ. Those are true churches of Jesus Christ, where the marks of the church are evident and in place, where the word is preached truly, where the sacraments are rightly administered, where church discipline is exercised as needed. Those are the marks that you have given to your church. Lord, where your church truly is, here in Cary, here in the Raleigh area, We pray you would bless those churches, that you would purify them and strengthen them, even as you purify and strengthen us. That the preaching of the gospel would be a chorus of voices. Oh Lord, give us a burden for this community around us, to be a landstand among landstands. Lord, we think of your church universal as well, and even though the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is a very poor picture of that church universal in light of what your church is, yet we do seek to demonstrate our connectedness with our brothers and sisters in Christ. our mutual accountability at the presbytery level, in the region, at the General Assembly level, in the delamination. At least a picture of the church universal, a microcosm of it. What do we think of our brothers and sisters in Christ within our own regional church? We think in particular of those in the church in Chilhowee, Virginia. Those who are suffering because of the storm that came, we know by Your hand that stormy wind fulfills Your Word, that all things work according to Your eternal decree and for Your purpose and for Your glory. And we give You thanks even when we suffer. For in suffering, You sanctify us. We need it, oh Lord, we know that, or it would not come from your hand. We pray for our brothers and sisters there. We thank you for the outpouring of concern and of care and of love from throughout the denomination already. We thank you, we thank in particular those families who have lost much in the storm. that you would provide for their every need. Oh Lord, we pray. But whatever such disaster strike, we pray that it would become opportunity for your gospel to go forth in power. We are not like those who suffer without hope. But the hope you put within us transcends our suffering. Lord, we know that is a testimony. Lord, make your saints there a testimony of your power and of your grace and of your love. Be still, friend, for those in Japan. Oh, Lord, our hearts grieve with a young man that we know gone over there to help and yet has lost his way. Father, we pray that you would bring him to repentance. Even that you would save his soul. But the labors of our missionaries there, Father, we thank you for their steadfastness. multitude of things you've already done in the wake of this disaster. The opportunity for the gospel. Or let your light shine. And all across it, mission works and congregations and mission fields. Are our churches involved, and our sister churches, our sister conservative Presbyterian churches, but our sister churches of other traditions, O Lord, lay your Word run before them and be glorified, we pray. Teach us to pray boldly. Now, Lord Jesus Christ, our High Priest, who has gone before us, we pray that you would take our intercessions as imperfect as they are because our motives are mixed, even mixed with sin, because our knowledge is limited due to ignorance and our sin. And yet we offer up sincerely our petitions for Jesus. Perfect them as you take them to our Father. Thank you for being our intercessor, Lord Jesus, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. Let's take our Psalter again and turn to Psalm 54B. Psalm of preparation, Psalm 54B. Stand and sing. Music Music By your name, O God, now save me, Grant me justice by your strength. To these words of mine give answer, O my God, now hear my prayer. Strangers have come up against me, even men of violence. When they seek my life's destruction, God is not with them, their cause. See how God has been my helper, Thou, my Lord, sustained my soul. Through my toils He pays that He will, In joy through this join them all. I will sacrifice with gladness, I will praise your name, O Lord. He has saved me from all trouble, I have moved on from my foe. Amen. Our scripture reading for our text for the sermon is found in 1 John 1, verses 1-4. 1 John 1, verses 1-4. Hear the word of the Lord. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father was manifested to us. That which we have seen and we have declared to you that you also may have fellowship with us. Truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. These things we write to you, that your joy may be full, may be seated. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would bless to our minds, to our hearts, and to our souls Your word read, your word heard. You said, blessed is he who reads and who hears your word. This in itself is a means of grace. O Holy Spirit, illumine your word to us. Now we come to the preaching of your word. Again, your servant stands before you in need. of the very redemption that He offers to others every time He preaches, who recognizes that He is a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips. O Lord, purge my lips, that my words in preaching would be true to Your Word. Holy Spirit, grant unction and anointing. Preaching of your gospel. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I thought it would be good to begin a sermon series. Just a brief report to you. Please be in prayer for your search committee, especially at this time. There are three or four men that they have a great interest in. One particular man they have been in conversation with, so you can be in prayer for them at this time. Realize that much of what they do they have to do in confidence, and please bear that in mind. But we also recognize the realities of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We don't quite move as fast as the Torahs. Maybe a little faster than a snail in the OVC. And even if the Lord demonstrates this man shortly, we realize there are Presbyteries that have to meet, and our next Presbytery meeting is in October, which means that it's still going to be some time before God brings the man we've been praying for. But God is sovereign over history and the history of Shiloh Presbyterian Church. He is sovereign over everything that has taken place, when we've done things right and when we've made mistakes. He is still sovereign over these things, and He will bring that man, we're confident, in the proper time. But that means you will be stuck with me, probably, for a while longer, and therefore I thought it would be good to preach a series of sermons. And so I'm beginning in John's first epistle this morning. There are a number of reasons for picking this. I have preached 1 John in every church I've ever served because I think it is a vital book and its message is for the sanctification of the people of God. A lot of Christians struggle with assurance of salvation. Some of you have had that struggle. I know because you've told me about that struggle. Others of you have had that struggle, and you have not told me about that struggle. This is not uncommon in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. John knew this, and by the Holy Spirit, he wrote this epistle that you might know. This is the epistle of assurance. Now, I want to warn you as we work our way through it. It may first disquieten you, even those of you who have great assurance of your salvation. As we work our way through 1 John, it may disquieten you before It helps and assists you in that assurance. I would lay that out as a warning. At every church that I've preached this series through, I've had at least one person come to me and say, I thought I was converted. I thought I was a Christian until you started preaching the epistle on assurance, and now I'm not sure. And we work through things. One such individual, it's been nearly 20 years ago he came to me. He's now a ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Very, very godly man. He was converted at the time he came. He was Christian. I would warn you, it may be disquieting to you, but its purpose is to grant you assurance. This morning, I'm not going to expound the text I just read. I'm going to expound that text tonight. We'll come to the text proper. This morning, I'm going to introduce the whole of the epistle to you, to lay it out for you, so you can see how it is that the Lord uses it in order to grant you assurance. But the first thing I want to do is I want to contrast The gospel of John with the epistle. As you read the epistle, if you have John's gospel in your heart and your mind, you will recognize clearly the same man wrote these two. You see the gospel of John all over the place in the first epistle of John. But John's purpose in writing these two are different. If you turn back in John's gospel, We'll see, because John is very good at telling us his purpose for his writings. If you turn back to chapter 20 of John's gospel, the very end of chapter 20, he tells us why he wrote his gospel. And by doing so, we see his target audience for his gospel. Verse 30, he says, and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, here's his purpose, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Let me read that again. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name. The purpose of John in writing his gospel is evangelistic. He writes his gospel to unbelievers that they would read the gospel, hear what they read in the gospel, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God and have eternal life. I've already hinted at the purpose of his epistle, but let's read it specifically. If you turn to chapter 5, getting a lot of feedback here for some reason this morning. If you turn to chapter 5, verse 13, we read these words. Chapter 5 of 1 John, verse 13. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God." A two-fold purpose. I noticed some of you said, he kept reading, but my Bible stops. Anybody here have an English Standard Version or a New International Version or a New American Standard Version Bible? I kept reading, yours stopped. There is a textual variant here. The text that underlies the New King James, which I've read, and the King James Version, the majority text adds a second purpose, that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. The older manuscripts that lie behind the text, underneath the more modern translations, the English Standard Version, the New International Version, the New American Standard Version, omit that last statement. That's the difference that you see there. There's a textual variant that's involved. I believe the two things, though, fit hand in glove. Assurance of your salvation is a great assistance to you in perseverance and continuing to believe. But as we read the epistle, the fundamental purpose of the epistle is that you might know that you have eternal life. It is the epistle of assurance, but the byproduct of that assurance is it strengthens you, it abets you, it helps you in persevering in your faith and continuing to believe to the end. Now, you see the contrast between John's gospel and the epistle. The purpose of the gospel is evangelistic. He's writing to unbelievers. He's telling them about Jesus Christ, who he is, what he has done, that they might believe and have life, that they might be converted. But he writes his epistle instead to those who believe, to those who embrace the Lord Jesus Christ, and his purpose is that you might know that you have eternal life. and that you might continue to believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He states his purpose very, very explicitly. Now, I want to tell you what John doesn't do. John doesn't do what most of evangelicalism does to try to grant you the assurance of salvation. I don't know about you, I grew up influenced by revivalism. I grew up in a Southern Presbyterian Church in Maine, in East Texas. I'll tell you how much of a Southern Presbyterian Church it was. We had Schofield-referenced pew vines. Now explain that one to me. It was a church that was conservative, and I'm thankful for that. It believed that the Bible was the word of God. I heard the gospel there, and I'm very thankful for that. But it had come under the influence of fundamentalism and dispensational theology, which is contrary to, as you know, Presbyterian theology. We were also under the influence of revivalism. I used to go to revival services all the time in our church. It was according to which past we had, how often they did it, but it was typical to have altar calls in the Southern Presbyterian Church that I grew up in. I know, because I went to the front on more than one occasion. We used to go to evangelistic campaigns. When I was 11 years old, we went down to Houston. My parents were working with the young people in the church, took the young people to the church, and I was a tag-along. It's Billy Graham preached in Houston, Texas, in this big arena of some sort, or football field. It may have been the Astrodome. I don't know where it was. I can't remember. I was 11 years old. I went forward. A whole bunch of people went forward. Even though I was convinced I was a Christian, I just thought, well, it seems like the thing to do, you know? So I went forward at that crusade. And I'm sure, as I look out here among you, that many of you probably, some of you at least, had that same experience growing up. Now, if you recall in that tradition, What often happens is the altar call is given, the person comes to the front, a person makes a decision for Jesus Christ. Sometimes people are converted in those settings, and we're thankful for those things when that happens. But then the evangelist oftentimes will grant blanket assurance to everyone who has come forward and has prayed the sinner's prayer, and will tell you, never doubt this moment. Never doubt your salvation ever again. I'm a witness. I saw you do it. I heard you pray the prayer. You're going to heaven no matter what. Have you heard that before? Those who grew up in those sorts of circles. It's considered to be a grave sin to ever doubt your salvation. What they do is they want you to point to a conversion experience. But John doesn't do that in the epistle of assurance. There's a very important reason why. A lot of so-called conversion experiences are pseudo-conversions. They're not conversions at all. They're pseudo-conversions. I can prove it. Jesus tells a parable. The peril of the sower who sows the seed. What does he do? He sows the seed indiscriminately. The seed falls into four different kinds of soil. That on the path, the stony path. That shallow soil, but rocky. That soil that is contaminated with thorns and thistles and weeds and that kind of thing. And then that soil that is rich and fertile where the roots can extend deep. The sowing of the seeds, the preaching of the gospel indiscriminately to all, is received in four different ways by four different kinds of hearts. What you need to recognize is of those four different kinds of responses to the gospel, only one projects the gospel out of hand. Upon hearing it, that's the seed that falls upon the path. The birds come, the devil comes, and picks up the seed before it can take root. This is the only ones that reject Christ out of hand. The other three all appear to be converted. As it falls to the shallow soil, it springs up quickly, with joy. This is the person you know, they're supposedly converted, you know, they've never missed church for three Sundays in a row. Even their own Wednesday night prayer meeting, they're testifying, they're telling everybody what Christ has done for them. But where are they the fourth Sunday? Or where are they the fifth Sunday? Or where are they six months from now? And you run into them again, and they're back where they were before. How many times have you seen it? Again and again and again, we had a recent, we pray, conversion in our mission work in Gastonia. It was actually quite dramatic. I've been praying for this young man. I'm standing up there preaching. I sense a unique unction of the Holy Spirit speak directly to him in the sermon. His head snaps up like this during the preaching. The next day, he confesses sin to his father. The next day, he falls on his knees before God, and he cries out for mercy. I get a text message, you know, we're all excited, and I say, we'll see. It could be shallow soul. It's been a number of weeks ago, and we see progress. We see what appears to be fruit of repentance, that we're joyful in those things. But I've seen it happen so many times, especially in my more decisionalistic, sort of revivalistic sort of days. I used to be pretty good at giving altar calls myself. I don't know if you guys could see that or not, but I used to do it. The second kind of soul, See, some it grows, it looks like a plant, looks fine, maybe for a pretty long cease of time. Genuine repentance never took place. There's no fruit because of the presence of the world in that heart. It's contaminated by thorns and by business. The seed that's sown in the fertile soil where the root goes deep and produces fruit is their actual true regeneration and conversion. I say that to say this. You can't trust an experience. It may be a false experience. Let me say this too. Assurance is not of the essence of salvation. It's not in the essence of salvation. Someone genuinely converted, someone genuinely saved may struggle long to attain it, and may struggle with doubts. You may be genuinely converted and saved and struggle with assurance, or else John wouldn't need to write his letter. Also, it's not of the essence of salvation. There are many people today who have a false sense of assurance that when my time comes, I'm going to heaven who are lost and who are going to wake up in hell because they are not converted. Some because they believe what an evangelist said and some emotional situation that occurred when they were 14 years old in a revival meeting. Others who just believe that, you know, God is love and, you know, I'm a good person. I never killed anybody or anything like that. You know, I'm not as bad as some other people. So, yeah, I think I'll go to heaven. Works righteousness. I have assurance. It's a false assurance. Assurance is not of the essence of salvation, but assurance is a great benefit. It is to be sought. If you struggle with it, you are to seek it until you attain it. It is a great strength for you to have that sense of certainty that you are in Christ Jesus. It aids you, it helps you in your sanctification, in your walk with Christ, in your perseverance, in faith and in believing. And so John writes his epistle to give it to us, that we might have it. I have written these things to you who believe, that you might know that you have everlasting life, and that you might continue to believe the Son. So don't dismiss it if you struggle. Seek until you find him. Okay, how does John ground it in the epistle if he doesn't ground it in a so-called conversed experience? What he does is he grounds it in the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in your life. It shows itself in three different ways. The ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in you It demonstrates itself in three different ways. John Stodd in his commentary on 1 John, I think does a great job in laying out this particular book of the Bible, in outlining it, in showing it in cyclical form, three different times he makes this application of these three different things, sometimes combining them, sometimes dealing with them separately, but you can never separate them. But there are three things that are true of you, three things that God is working in you if you are truly converted. Stott calls them tests. I don't like the language, and I'll explain shortly why I don't like the language of calling them tests, though I may call them that myself, because I don't know what else to call them. Maybe evidences, I don't know. But he calls them three tests. I'm going to deal with them in a logical fashion, not in the fashion or the order in which we find them as they're expounded throughout this letter. This is a general introduction of the letter, okay? We'll come back and look at the specifics of the letter in the weeks to come, beginning tonight with the preface of the letter. But three things that he points out in cyclical fashion again and again and again in this letter that God works out in you. Three things. which demonstrates the Spirit of God is working in you, the Spirit who regenerated you is sanctifying you, and these three things are happening. In logical order, the three tests or evidences are one, the doctrinal test, two, the moral test, and three, the social test. Three things. The doctrinal test, the moral test, the social test. What is the doctrinal test? The doctrinal test is believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is. One of the ways John says it is this, every spirit that does not confess that Jesus is the Christ, having come in the flesh, is the spirit of antichrist. You remember him saying that? Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus is the Christ, having come in the flesh, is the spirit of antichrist. There is a cognitive, a doctrinal component to saving faith. There are things that you must believe to be true about the Lord Jesus Christ, his person and his work. It is necessary that you put your trust in that Lord Jesus Christ and not in another. He is the Christ having come in the flesh. What lies behind John's epistle is a particular heresy that is already beginning to raise its head. It's not full-blown until the next century or so. It goes under the broader name of Gnosticism. It is an attempt to wed Greek philosophy with Christian theology, trying to bring Greek philosophy and Christian theology together. It takes from Greek philosophy the notion that spirit is good, And that matter is evil. Underneath that is even Plato's idealism. All that is real is that which is ideal, the ideal, that which you can't see. Matter is an illusion. You see, but you take that down. Spirit is good, therefore God is spirit, God is good. Matter is evil, therefore mankind, the created order itself, is evil. And there's all kinds of different ways in which that was formulated. There are differences of opinion among monastics themselves. But ultimately, when you come down to the bottom of that, as applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, there's a particular heresy called docetism. John is addressing that in this epistle. It is the notion that if spirit is good and matter is evil, and if Jesus is God, then Jesus couldn't have been man. He couldn't have taken on flesh. He didn't have a body. He is God, but He is not man. He is not the Christ, having come in the flesh, because then He would be tainted with evil, and He couldn't be that. So He only appeared to have a body. It was like a phantom. His body didn't exist. If his body didn't exist, he couldn't really actually die. He only appeared to die. This is an ancient heresy that denied the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus his death and resurrection on our behalf, thus it denied the gospel itself. And John calls that theology the spirit of antichrist. It may come in the name of Christ, it may speak of Christ, but it's not speaking of the Christ who is. Many years ago, Dr. Gershner, John Gershner, y'all familiar with Dr. Gershner? Longtime professor at Pittsburgh Seminary. He was the resident conservative and reformed man there. I love Dr. Gershner. Although I think he was wrong about apologetics, I think he's right about apologetics now because he's in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a Ventelian presuppositionalist now in apologetics. But he wasn't when he was here upon the earth. But Dr. Gerstner, you may not know this, but he labored long in Mainline Presbyterian Church. That's longer than most evangelicals and Reformed people did. He came out in 1989, 1990, unilaterally. He declared that the mainline church to be apostate, and that he went into the PCA. He did it after doing, actually, an exegesis of the Book of Church Order of the PCUSA, which showed that he'd failed in all three marks of the church. I had his original copy with his notes in the margin that had been copied and copied and copied. You know, at that time, it was quite persuasive to me when I read Dr. Gerstner's notes. Prior to that, Dr. Gerstner brought charges against a man, I don't remember the man's name, who was coming into the presbytery where he was a minister, who had written a book that denied the deity of Christ. The man came before the presbytery. And the man stood up and the man said, I love Jesus. I've made it my life to study the Bible. I love the Lord Jesus Christ. I serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't bring charges against me. When he finished, somebody looked at Dr. Gershwin and said, Dr. Gershwin, you've heard the man's testimony. Are you willing to drop the charges? Dr. Gershwin said, what for? He said, you heard me say it. He believes in Jesus. He loves Jesus. He serves Jesus. Aren't you willing to drop the charges? He said, which Jesus? If it's the Jesus of the Bible, then maybe so. But if it's the Jesus he wrote about in his book that he has not recanted before us, then no, he loves the wrong Jesus. The people who knock on your doors, you know what I'm talking about, and say things like, do you believe Jesus is the greatest man who ever lived? They got these little magazines called Watchtower, you know, that they're holding in their hands. They ever knock on your doors? Ask them what they believe about Jesus. They'll try to skirt the question. We believe He's the Son of God. I had two ladies knock on my door not too long ago. Two dear little ladies. Do you believe Jesus is the greatest man who ever lived? Yes. And God the Son. I said to them, I said, I want to tell you something, because I care about you. What your church is teaching you is a lie. They have taught you a lie, and if you believe that lie, you'll be condemned to everlasting hell. And they teach you that doesn't exist either, but it does. Please repent of what your church has taught you about Jesus. They have taught you that He is a creature, that He is not God made flesh. And you will be condemned to everlasting perdition if you don't repent of that. Please, I beg of you, repent. They said, you sound like one of those who believes in the Trinity. I said, yes, and you need to too. Of course, they were moving their car as quickly as they could. You know, my heart broke for these two little dear ladies who had been deceived and believed in a lie. about the Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, that would condemn them forever? It matters what you believe. It matters what you believe about Christ, His person, and about His work. But cognition, or what you believe, or the doctrinal aspect, you know, having a right Christology is not the same, it's not the essence or the full essence of saving faith. We teach on saving faith. We also teach there's the element of conviction, not just knowing these things, but believing them to be true about Jesus Christ, what the Bible says and what he's done. But then there's the third element, once stressed by Dr. Murray, the element we call the fiducial element of saving faith, the element of trust. We believe what the Bible teaches us about the Lord Jesus Christ, but we put our faith and our trust Not in the doctrine, but in the person himself who is revealed in the Scriptures. You see, the doctrinal component is actually clinging to the Christ who is, who has revealed Himself, who has died for our sins, and who has been raised from the dead. When you struggle with assurance of salvation, when you begin to doubt, what do you do? First thing you need to do is you run to Jesus. You cling to Him. You rehearse what the Bible says about Him. You say, I believe this is what the Bible says about Him. It's true. And you say, I'm trusting in You, Lord Jesus. You cling to Him. There's the doctrinal test. Then the second test is the moral test. If God the Holy Spirit is at work in you, what will result will be obedience in your life, the keeping of His law. And John is very, very blunt. He says, anyone who is born of God, anyone who has a seed of God in them cannot sin. It's ludicrous to think that someone who's been born again can stand! That should be disquieting to you. We just had a confessional stand in the worship service. Now, that's when you take another look, because John also said, as we read in our assurance of pardon, if we say we have no sin, we lie, we deceive ourselves. If we say we haven't sinned, we call God a liar. We make Him to be a liar. John says, I write these things, if you sin, not. But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins, not just ours, but for the whole world. Now undergirding this epistle is the knowledge that we send. But what does it mean? And we'll spell this out in far greater detail as we work our way through this epistle. But what John means when he says someone who has the seed of God in him cannot sin does not mean that you cannot commit acts of sin. You do. You do every day. That's why we have a prayer of confession every Sunday. But that's not even enough. You need a prayer of confession every day, several times every day. We know we fall short of God's glory in this life. He's talking instead about continuing to live in sin under its dominion, under its Power. So that you cannot do anything but sin. That's the nature of the unregenerate heart. There's something else Dr. Murray taught. He taught definitive sanctification. I found there's a deficiency in OPC churches on the knowledge of the doctrine of definitive sanctification. We all got progressive sanctification down pat. You know that our sanctification is not entire in this life, that we are being conformed to the image of the Son of the Spirit as it works in us, so that we are dying more and more to sin and living more and more to Christ. We know that there's progression there, that we're becoming more godly the longer that we live in progression, but it's not entire, it's not complete in this life. It will be utterly complete and glorification when Christ returns. We've got the progressive part down. But definitive sanctification, it is empowering when you understand with clarity this doctrine. What it means is this, is that the moment that you are regenerated, the moment the Spirit of God changes you on the inside, the moment you are born again, The dominion of sin over you is broken once and for all. You are never under its authority ever again in your life. The Spirit of God dwells in you. You are able by the Spirit of God to do that which is pleasing to God. You know, that's something we call good. It's not a good work, according to Westminster, because it's wrongly done. It's not devoted of it. It isn't to give glory to God, because the heart's in enmity with God. There's a selfish motive in doing that which is good, which makes the good act the sinful act. But when you're regenerating, your character is changed. There is a love for God that manifests itself in obedience to His commands. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commands. And you find yourself, as a Christian, doing that perfectly? No. Sometimes woefully falling short? Yes. But doing it? Yes. It's well, because the Spirit of God is at work in you to will and to do His good pleasure, to do the works He prepared beforehand, and you should walk in them. You are His workmanship. He is at work in you, working that obedience. And so if you're truly born again, there will be a measure of victory, a measure of obedience, to the commandments of the Lord in your life. The moral test. And then the third test, the social test. Love. You see how close it's tied to the moral test. What is the summation of law? How did Jesus sum it up? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the first of the greats, the second is why none to it. On these two hang the whole of the law and the prophets. These two commandments sum up everything the Old Testament teaches. The law is summed up in the law of love. So if you love God, you'll obey His commandments. If you obey His commandments, you'll love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Now what we're going to see in the epistle is that John gives a more specific definition following the Lord Jesus Christ on the quality of the love for our brothers and sisters in Christ that far transcends loving your neighbor as yourself. But I don't want to give away everything in this introductory sermon. You have to wait to hear some of it. He says, if you say you love God but you hate your brother in your life, I have seen evidence of love for each other here. And even love for brothers and sisters in Christ, you don't even know. The offering that you took last week, people giving sacrificially, I know it wasn't just because you loved me, and I happened to live there. You and I, my brothers and sisters in Christ, were impacted by the storm. Some of you got up and left at 5 o'clock, 5.30 in the morning, whatever, drove four hours, worked all day long, you know, and then left at 5 o'clock and drove back, and you're sitting here struggling to stay awake, and it's only been this morning. That is an evidence of love for your brothers and sisters in Christ. That isn't evidence. The Spirit of God is at work in you. Causing you to love the way Jesus loves. The social test. The moral test. The doctrinal test. And he applies them three times in the Epistle. In great depth, we'll go through them one by one as we go through this study. Let me give you something very, very important that I really just came to realize recently with clarity. Why I don't like using the word test. Because when you use the test, what do you do? You say, OK, I see what it is. I see what John's saying here. It's very, very clear. If I'm a Christian, I'm going to believe right things about Jesus. If I'm a Christian, I'm going to be obedient to the law of God. If I'm a Christian, I'm going to love my brothers and sisters in Christ. I see what he's saying. Now, how am I doing? And so you step outside of yourself. You take these three tests as if they're objective tests. You look at your life, and you think about, Do I really believe in the gospel about the Lord Jesus Christ? And every doubt that ever comes to your mind, you may be watching a program on television, you know, about fossils or something like that, and they start talking about carbon-14 dating and this and that and the other, and you start, they start putting these things, and you say, you see, this kind of makes some sense, you know, but I know what Genesis 1, yeah, and what if we're wrong about this, you know? Does that ever happen to anybody here? Of course not, I believe the Bible, you know, that kind of thing. But every time that there's ever a doubt, what if I'm wrong about this? You know, what if such and such out there is right and we're wrong? It comes to your mind and it prompts you with your assurance. That's not the way it functions. I'm going to tell you how it functions in a moment. The same thing with the moral application or the moral evidence. You step outside of yourself, how am I doing in terms of keeping the law of God? You think that every single time you break God's law, every time you so easily succumb or tripped up and fall into sin, and the setting sin that you struggle with, and you sit there and you think, well, it seems to me like I'm under His dominion. It seems to me like I'm under His power. It seems to me like I'm in bondage. And you feel yourself in bondage, and you're sure it's gone. And you step outside of yourself and look at your imperfections. Or even your love. You think, well, yeah, I do love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but I start strong and I end weakly. I'm weak in the end. And I hear about what happens, you know, my heart goes out to them, I pray, you know, I get to the special offering, you know, but three weeks later, somebody has to remove my gift. Where's my compassion? You step outside of yourself and you look, and I don't love anybody very much. I'm not even sure I love myself very much. You step outside of yourself. You sever yourself from yourself. And in so doing, assurance goes. You're applying the very tests that are given, and you're applying them wrongly. That's not how you do it. That's not how you do it at all. Now what do you do when you doubt? You cling to Jesus? What do you do? You obey the Lord. It's in obeying the Lord that the assurance comes. It's in taking divine and doing His will. You come to the Lord's house on His day. You realize you're doing this in obedience to His call, in His call regarding His day, the Sabbath. And you're here, your heart is filled with joy as you're worshiping Him, in obedience to Him. You see, you're doing it. You're obeying, and it's in the obeying, it's in that that the assurance comes. The same thing in loving your brothers and sisters to Christ. Don't stop and step outside and say, how much, how good am I doing? But do it! Just love Him. Because you love God. Just love God. Because He loves you. Just believe in Him, Jesus, because He is who He is. Don't sever yourself from yourself in this way. Don't look at yourself. It will rob you of the salvation. Believe, obey, love, do these things and the assurance of your soul. Now here's a warning, a good warning. Sometimes it's good for you to struggle to have assurance. It's like waving a red flag, it's like I'm saying, remember me over here? If you let yourself become entangled in falling sand, if you let time go, you don't repent of that sin. If you let your conscience become calloused, which is a good fact, not a perfect fact, your conscience, but it's a good fact that God has given to you. If you let it become calloused, what you'll find is your assurance will wane. It doesn't mean you're not a Christian. And when your assurance begins to wane, it's like a red flag saying, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong! And you say, this is what's wrong. I'm not walking obedient to the Lord like I should. I'm not loving my brothers and sisters in Christ as I should. And you find yourself acting like a leviathan. A priest, while the Samaritan is laying over on that side. Not the Samaritan, the man that should be left on that side. The assurance comes by being and doing these things. But then it comes. It's a subjective experience based upon the objective reality of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the unknowing work of the Holy Spirit in you. I would exhort all of you in the name of Jesus Christ. Seek it. Seek it. Seek it. It will be a great assurance and help to you. It will be a great strength to you in the Christian world. Seek it. I can't wait to get in and test. In the weeks to come, to work our way through these passages, you'll see these things repeated again and again and again. Some may come to a crisis, that's okay. Some may be converted in the midst of this study, that's even better if someone needs to be. Some of you may come from this with a greater sense of assurance that strengthens you in persevering faith. So that's the book that we're going to take up, beginning tonight with the premise. I encourage you, if you have an opportunity this afternoon, look at John 1, 1 to 5 and 14 in relation to 1 John 1, 1 to 4, our text. There's a remarkable correlation between the beginning of the gospel and the beginning of the epistle. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for John. We thank you for this epistle. We thank you for being mindful of our weakness and our need of assurance that comes by the Holy Spirit indwelling us, whispering into our ears, We should cry out, O Father. Thank you for this epistle. O Lord, make our study of it effectual unto the edification of your people. O Lord, if there is one or more who are gathering here who may even be members of this church, even professing members and communicant members, who have a false assurance, O Lord, knock the legs out from under them unto their salvation, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.