It is great to see you here this morning. Thank you, Jeff. And it is always good to be in the presence of God and His Word with His people. 1 John 3, verses 19 to 24. You can find that on page 1022, I believe, of the church's Bibles. The first verse of 1 John, John says he has an announcement concerning the word of life. And of course, Jesus Christ is that word of life, but we are to read 1 John as a word about the word. So I often introduce these texts by saying the word of life to us today is announced in this text. And today it's this 1 John 3, 19 to 24. It's been a couple weeks since we've been in 1 John. You might ask the question, what is the basics of Christian living according to the epistle of 1 John? And you could summarize it like this. Believe in Jesus Christ, keep his commandments, love one another, and abide in God. You may have not gotten all those down on your notes as I said them. Believe, obey, love, abide. That's Christianity 101 according to this apostle. And that's also verse 23 and 24 of our text this morning, the end of our scripture reading. will be called to believe, to love, to obey, and to abide. This is John's drum beats. It's the rhythm of his book. He comes back to it over and over again. For this morning, we're gonna primarily let those statements be our context, the environment in which we sort of come to this text. Those statements will be our goals. As we hear this text, we're gonna be led to believe, obey, love, abide, all the more. The focus of the sermon, really though, will be the verses leading up to that. The great majority of the sermon will be in verses 19 through 21 or 22. When you understand what John's calling us to hear, God through John, we're going to be led to that more faithful expression of that Christianity 101 kind of lifestyle. So with that in mind, let's stand for the reading of God's Word. Verse 19 and following is our text for the day. I'm going to read verse 16 and following as it will provide some critical context for us. Brothers and sisters, give ear to God's Word. By this we know the life that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives 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. By this we show that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before 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. This is God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this word that is life to us. Would you bring your life to our hearts through this text this morning? We pray in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, I wonder, on a road trip, how many times do you recheck your GPS to make sure you're going in the right direction? If you're like me, poor with directions, you do it pretty frequently. Or maybe a new recipe you're working on in the kitchen. How many of you have a repeated impulse to re-read, re-scan, re-check the ingredients list just to make sure you aren't messing it up? Kids, what about you? Maybe your parents have given you a task and you want to do it well. You've been told if you do this well, you'll get some kind of treat or prize or reward. And maybe it's something you don't think you know how to do very well. So what do you do? You ask your parents, maybe every minute or so, is this the right way? Am I doing it the right way? Am I really getting it right? Is this how you do it? Why do we do this? Why do we constantly check in one place or another, check and recheck to make sure we're doing things the right way? And the primary reason, perhaps, is that we all know deep down that we can mess things up, that we can get on the wrong track. If I'm driving to Louisville and I keep looking at the signs and I see that the signs for Chicago are increasing and I haven't seen a sign for Louisville in quite a while, one, I know that's the kind of thing I might do, and two, I really don't want that to happen. Not readily want to admit that, but you have to be honest with yourself this morning. It's true of you. People like us do get things wrong. We're prone to failure, and we're not always sure we're doing it right. In our text this morning, John is getting at some of that experience in the most important possible area of your life. Can you know that you are of the truth? How do you reassure your hearts? Not how do you reassure your heart to know you're driving in the right direction. You all pretty much know how to do that, especially with modern technology. But how do you reassure your hearts before the living God? We started the book of 1 John with the goal of growing an assurance of salvation. Many of you asked for this in our preaching and teaching together. We chose 1 John to get at this idea. How are we assured of fellowship with God? And passages like today are the reason why you go to 1 John. to talk about assurance of salvation. How shall we know that we are of the truth? How shall we know that He abides in us? How shall we know that we have confidence before the living God? If you or anyone close to you has ever found the need to recheck your faith by trying to remember when you prayed the sinner's prayer, or you talked yourself through your life the past week one more time to say, yes, for sure, I know I'm a Christian, or if you're sitting here this morning and you have a nagging doubt about your faith that you can't get away from you, Maybe you've been trying to avoid it in the past week by entertainments or overwork or whatever, but here it is. It's with you this morning. If that's you, this is a text for you. Maybe you don't really ever think about these things. We'd just as much say it's a text for you. John would have you think about these things. Maybe you think about these things and the Lord has gifted you the most wonderful gift imaginable, the joy of assurance of salvation. Let me just encourage you as well, this whole passage is written basically in the first person plural. It's written to we, it's written about we, it's written about us or to us. John wants the whole church to know this. You almost certainly have brothers and sisters in this room who are struggling here and you shouldn't just think, well, good, I've got assurance. Tune out. No, what's it gonna be for us? Us to be assured in the knowledge of God before the living God. Here is 1 John 3, 19 to 24. We're gonna outline this text, four parts, four looks, four directions to look to guide us toward assurance before the living God. And the first look is the backwards look. The backward look, this is verse 19. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before him. There's the goal. What a goal, to know you're of the truth, to reassure your hearts before the living God. Well, how do you get that? How could you know that you're of the truth and reassure your heart before God? And a part of to figure out how you get that is you've got to do a little bit of literary analysis here. You've got to analyze the text and figure out how John is bringing the question to us. And there's two options in how to read these verses. One is to interpret verse 19 as a verse that looks forward in the text. The other is to interpret verse 19 as something that's looking backward in the text. First John, what do I mean by that? Well, looking forward, you would say verse 19 is a setup for verse 20 and following on how to reassure your heart before God. And so you might read verse 19 like this. Well, here's how you know God. You've got a heart that condemns you, and God is greater than your hearts. And maybe that idea clicks with you. Some of the translations of the New Testament of 1 John sound that way. And the idea would be then that the starting point to assurance would be to have a heart condemning you. That if your heart condemns you, that's a starting point to reassurance. And then God is greater and you go from there. And that may register at one level, but there's a couple challenges to that reading. One is simply the challenge that if your heart condemns you, that is not necessarily a starting point to know that you're really walking with God. It would be quite possible that your heart could condemn you because you are, say, condemned before God. Or that God being greater than a heart that's not trusting in God, that would be a scary thing because it's a God who would know a heart that's running away from Him. So we're hesitant to interpret it forward on that point. The other reason is, and most of the commentators agree with this, is that John's phrasing in verse 19 of, by this we shall know, is really a phrasing to say, by what I just said. you shall know. So if I said on a week we were having a fellowship luncheon, everybody line up through the library to go get in line to go get your food, and by this we shall prevent chaos in the line, you'd say, he thinks we'll prevent chaos in the line by lining up through the library, by what he said before that. And so John is saying, by what I just said or what I have been saying, We shall know we're of the truth and reassure our heart before Him. So you look backward. You'll find we look backward in maybe more than one way, but part of looking backward is to look at least at verse 16 to 18, maybe even before that. Look backward at what is being called to us in these verses. Preached it a few weeks ago. Living a life that looks like Jesus Christ laying down His life for His brothers. If you have the world's goods and you see your brother and you close your heart against him, how does God's love abide in you? If you close your heart against him, you don't have God's love. If you do, open your heart. It's a sign of God's love. Verse 18, love, not in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. What we find is the logic of verse 19 in many ways is just picking that up. It may be more logical almost to not have there be a paragraph break between 18 and 19. So verse 18, love in the truth. Verse 19, you put it together, as you grow in loving in the truth, you'll have a growing knowledge, you are of the truth. You see how the logic connects there. Now in 1 John, the truth ultimately is Jesus Christ. If you look at this, speaking of the whole context of 1 John, you might say the call is this, to believe in the truth, Jesus Christ, and to grow to live like the truth. And as those two things happen, you will have an assurance you are of the truth. By this you know you're in the Son, that you believe in Him and you grow to live like Him. And actually that's what John says in verse 23, that what is this life that is assured? It's the life that believes in Jesus and loves one another. So believe in Christ and walk in Him, and as these things are true and abounding in your life, you can truly have assurance of salvation. So part of what we do as we start this grasp for assurance is not just look backward in the text, not just do literary analysis, but look back at our life and say, is this me? Am I someone who believes in Jesus? And am I someone that lives a life of love before him? Maybe you look back at your last few weeks as you We ended two weeks ago sermons saying you shouldn't just say that you're gonna love, but it's actually something you should put into action. So maybe think, have I been seeking to put into action the call to believe in God and love in action and in truth? And for some of you, that will, in the spirit, not in pride, it will give you hope. As you see, that's the life I'm trying to live. I can testify to encourage. In my own experience of interacting with people, with so many of you, with the life that we have in this church, I see this happening all around us, where you're seeking to love in truth, and there's something about it connected to confession of faith that should give you an assurance that you're walking with God. Others of you, though, probably look at your life and say, Maybe not. And before we say, I don't worry about that, if you are not believing in Christ today and if you have no desire to love His people, John would say, maybe you're not of the truth. This passage is not going to guarantee that you feel really great about yourself when you're done. But then still others of us, we're starting to have a question in our hearts. And maybe the question is this, do you mean it depends on me? Do you mean that it's really up to me that I have to perform at a certain faith and love level, and if that starts to falter, my assurance should drop, and I can't really know if I know God? If you are like me, you would be forced to say, and it's, If you're an image bearer of God, you're forced to say, if it depends ultimately on me, I for sure don't have it. Yes, maybe yes, John is saying that I can grow by seeing my love for others, but if it depends on me, I for sure don't have it because there is a weakness and a fragility and an inability that shows up. and my desire to follow Christ." Two of us would be ready to raise our hands and say their faith and personal love is a guaranteed, no holes in the argument, never a doubt about it case for personal assurance of salvation. I couldn't raise my hand and say that. Probably not you. That there's never a time that your faith and love would cause a question as to whether you're walking with God in that moment. That leads to part two. In some ways, we've just dived into part two. The inward look. The inward look. And this gets to the start of verse 20. Whenever our hearts We're going to be seeking to live the 1 John 3, 16 to 18 life. And there will be times it gives us assurance, but what are you going to do when it leads to your heart condemning you as you falter in the way of following Christ? It's going to happen. You're going to make a recipe. You're going to feel something's off about it. You're going to put it in the oven. It's going to look wrong 30 minutes into it being there in the oven. Reread the recipe one more time, and you're going to realize there was a major ingredient you forgot. Realize that at least the recipe should be condemned to the garbage. It may happen with your cooking, and it's not that big a deal. What happens when it happens in your Christian life? You're gonna be in verse 20. Your heart is gonna condemn you. What happened for you? How does that show up in the Christian life? What kind of condemnation? Some of you would say, don't have to really explain it, pastor, that's my daily life, where I have this condemnation that fills me. It's all over. You could write 100, 200, 300 words on what it means to have your heart condemning you. Maybe your heart says already this morning, by the standard just given, I'm for sure not saved. Have you ever had the world's goods? Seen your brother in need and not given? I've done it. Have you? Have you ever had the opportunity to lay down your life for your brother and fall in shorts? Have you ever made some kind of commitment to someone to love? But in your life, it was just talk. It wasn't action and in truth. We're looking at the broader context of 1 John with the emphasis on belief in the Son of God. Has there ever been a season or period or day pervaded by doubt of truly believing in Christ. Maybe you've never had a worship service where there hasn't been something nagging you about whether or not your faith is truly in the Son of God. If that's true of you, how could you know? How could your heart be reassured in the knowledge of God? Do you get the problem? Do you get the struggle of self-assurance? You see how the backward look is going to cause in you an inward look, an inward look that might lead to disappointment? A multifaceted way to get us to assurance. It's not just a one track. Do this one simple thing and you're assured. John, it's a full life and a full set of proofs that lead to assurance. And you may hear that and say, so he's got a multifaceted way to get me to doubt my assurance of salvation. Because any one of those tracks might lead me to stumble and think I'm not there yet. Not 10 ways to evaluate my heart, you want to say, it's 10 ways to know I don't have it. Does your heart condemn you this morning? Do you know what that's like? What happens when our heart condemns us? We likely move in one of two directions. Two directions were led to being overzealous or underzealous to solve the problem. Overzealous. The pastor preached it hard today. I really need to be a better Christian to have assurance of salvation. Now I'm doubting my salvation and I come home and there's that mailing on my island at home or my kitchen table where I could give to this charity. And you say to yourself or you say to your spouse, we've got to write a check. We're going to have to write a check. And when I write that check and I put it in the envelope and I drop it in the mailbox, then I'll be good. Because now I know I'm a Christian again. Maybe you've done that. Maybe a lot of your Christian service is to try to compensate in that way. Maybe it's not money for you. Maybe it's not the verse 17, closing your heart to the brother in need. Maybe it's church attendance. You think, I can't get this assurance thing figured out, but I can get to church at 9 o'clock. I can't get this assurance thing figured out, but I can serve on every committee I'm asked to serve on. And that'll get it figured out, because then at least I'll know that I love the brothers. Maybe you have a penance mindset. In the Catholic Church, you have the sacrament of penance. We'll talk about this with a few in the church information class this morning. It could be sort of a compensation, debits and credit mindset. I sinned in this way last night, so I'm going to pay it off this morning. I'm going to do penance and make sure that my accounting is all before God. This is what drove Martin Luther. to his knees in despair and really spurred on the Reformation in some way. It's not just a Catholic thing. Go read online the recent testimony of an offensive tackle for the Indianapolis Colts, Braden Smith. Last year, comes from a Protestant tradition, I believe, became so obsessed with his sins spent day after day, hour after hour, to the point of being basically unable to function, because every single thing he did, moment after moment, he was finding it to be sinful, and he was trying to make up for it, and it led to the fraying away of his ability to live, his desire to live. It happens. This overzealous response to a lack of assurance of salvation. It leads to despair. I'll never be good enough. I'll never give enough. I'll never do verse 17. I'll never give enough. My heart still condemns me. What's the underzealous approach? The underzealous approach could be that you just sort of adopt this incredibly simplistic view of Christianity. The pastor says I'm supposed to live a Christian life. John in 1 John, that's more important than the pastor, right? Just what the word of God says. I'm supposed to be living a life of love. And he says, I can't do that. I'd much prefer a Christianity where I just said the sinner's prayer at age seven, and I know for sure I'm going to heaven. So I'll find a place that says that's how it works, and we'll coast the rest of the way. Still others enter that underzealous approach with basically saying, if God is that hard to love, if assurance is that hard to find, if my heart condemns me, maybe I'll just go live like the world. Give up on the whole thing. Maybe I am just a wicked fool. Maybe I am someone who can't really love God. Maybe I can't reach the standard. Salvation is not for me. So forget the matter and run away from God. You see people go in those directions. Overcompensates, overzealous, underzealous, live like the world, classic way of talking about it in theology, the contrast between legalism, overdo it, antinomianism, run against the law. Is this how you deal with it when your heart condemns you? Is that how you're gonna fix the problem this morning? No. The answer is you're not gonna fix the problem. But we have a third part to the sermon, the upward look. The upward look. Now we're ready for the end of verse 20. God is greater than our hearts. He knows everything. The answer is the sheer greatness of God. The answer is not that God doesn't care how you live. The answer is not that there's this God up there who has no escape for you if you've sinned in some way in the last week. The answer is God is great. God is great. Right away, maybe we've learned the most important thing about this point of the sermon. Maybe the most important thing in the whole sermon. The ultimate final reference point is not you. It's the living God. Yes, your life matters. Yes, you should look at your life and see a growing faith and love, but that's not the final reference point. You look at yourself, you will find instability. You will find failure. You will find a lack of love. You will find inadequacy. You'll find the shifting sand until you land on the solid rock. Until you look at a God who is greatness without measure, great in His knowledge, great in His power, great in His majesty, great in His truth and love. God is great. It's a refrain of the Old Testament. It was there in our call to worship in Psalm 66. We read a dozen verses right now announcing to you from the Old Testament, God is great. But we've got to see here the particular emphasis of the greatness of God in this text. Maybe it's already crossed your mind that other religions say that God is great. In Islam, it's the great refrain, God is great, or God is the greatest. Is that the best hope we've got, that we just get to say the same thing about God that billions of people from all kinds of religions get to say as well? Let me call you to listen closely for the particular greatness of God that is announced to us in this text. Just look at the God references from verse 20 down to verse 24. Verse 20 and 21 simply reference God, introduce to us or remind us of the presence of this God. You dive down into verse 23 and we have a reference, which means at first in emphasizing God, we were emphasizing the Father. And now in verse 23 we have an announcement of His Son, Jesus Christ. We have the Father and the Son. And how do you know that the Father and the Son have brought salvation to you? Verse 24, it's by the Spirit whom He has given us. the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. You see, to Islam, this would be blasphemous. This is the very thing they're trying not to confess. To other religions, this would be an absolute absurdity. How could you say this is true? To the Antichrists in John's era, this is the thing they're trying to deny. They're denying the work of God in history through Jesus Christ. They can say what they want. For us, this is the grounds of our assurance. For us, what we're testifying is behold the Father who has sent the Son. Behold the Father and the Son who have poured out the Spirit on the children. Such that people like us who know Him and yet fall and falter, people like us can say, yes, you have fellowship with the Father. and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We're not just saying in general, well, God is great. Well, God is great. We're looking at our crisis of assurance, and we're confessing the Trinity. We're saying we found something greater than us to guarantee us the prospect of assurance. We have been introduced to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and His truth is applied to us. And how does it work? How does the truth of the Trinity come home so that unassured people who believe in the Son and who seek to live in love but fail every day, how does that truth come home to us? It may help you in the mind to go back to the resurrection appearances of Christ. It may help you if you want, you don't have to, to go look at John chapter 20. John chapter 20, Jesus, the risen Christ, appears to disciples who, guess what, have fallen short. They have fallen short of this standard. Lay down your life for your brothers? How about deny Him and run away from Him? Believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. How about the servant girl in the courtyard? I've never even heard of that name. That's the disciples. What does Jesus do? John 20, verse 20, He arrives and He shows up among the disciples. Be with you. John 20, 21. Jesus said to them again, peace be with you as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And then he says, receive the Holy Spirit. What's Jesus' answer? You think the disciples there were struggling with where they were in their relationship with God? Jesus' answer is to show up as the risen Christ and announce the Trinity. The Father has sent me. The Father is sending you. I am present to you and receive the Holy Spirit. While John was there, he beheld his glory, and John would say, that God is great. I announce him to you, disciple who has struggled to believe and has not walked in love. Maybe even more clearly, Jesus talking with Peter. I appreciate my friend Gabriel Wingfield drawing this out for me. Jesus talking to Peter. John chapter 21. The repeated question of Jesus to Peter, who denied Christ so intensely. Think about Peter. Does he have confidence before God? Is his heart assured in the knowledge of God? Jesus' question, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? It's a 1 John kind of question. And Peter's response in John 21, 17, see if you can catch the echo, Lord, you know everything. You know everything and you know that I love you. You see, Peter's answer is not that I don't believe you or that I don't love you or any of that. Peter's answer is, basically, I'm a sinner. You know. You know you've made me yours. You know you've led me to believe in you. You know you've led me to love you. And you know the depths of my failure. You know everything. And isn't it amazing that Christians like Peter, gets a look at the living God who knows the sin of our heart. And instead of running from the idea of his knowledge, we get to say, you know it all. You know it all. And what was Jesus' response to Peter? Feed my sheep, feed my sheep. He's invited back in. He's invited back in to the knowledge of God. And the message for you today is the message that we've been seeing the whole book of 1 John. The apostles who beheld Christ are inviting you to have the same experience. They beheld it, and they failed, and they fell, and they ran away, and they have fellowship with the Father. And if your heart condemns you, you too may have fellowship with the Father. He knows everything. He forms believers who walk in love, who fall and who falter, and the Father, Son, and Spirit are great enough to invite you home. So can you take the upward look? Maybe you literally have been so down about your salvation. You've been looking at the ground or looking down and there's almost this curve that can happen in our physical bodies. And we're looking at herself. Because all the time we walk around with our shoulders slumped. And maybe you don't do it physically, but maybe that's what you've been doing spiritually. And John would say, look up. Look to the Father. Look to the Son. And look to the Holy Spirit. What a great God who comes to sinners whose heart is condemning. up to the living God, and we come then. What are you going to do as you look up? As you look up, in a sense, you're already doing the fourth part of this sermon, but let's dive into it now, the forward look. The forward look, looking forward, where are we going to go from here? What steps are we going to take? Verse 21 and 22, if our heart does not condemn us, beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God, and whatever we ask, we receive from Him. Verse 21 sits on the other side of the transformation that happens in verse 20. You go from a condemned heart to knowing the God who knows everything to verse 21, you're the beloved. Your heart does not condemn you. What do you have? Confidence for God. Your hearts no longer is with Peter condemned in your denial, but you've met Jesus who restores, and you have confidence. You've got confidence. Before the living God, Paul Barnett, probing at that word, says it's about confidence and openness in the presence of God. Confidence and openness in the presence of God. You may have people in your life that you don't have confidence and openness in their presence. Your shoulders shrink together almost as you inch toward them because you don't know how that conversation's gonna go. And maybe that's where you are with God. How could I? How could I have confidence before the living God? John says you do, you can. You can through the work of the Trinity. Jeff read about it in 2 Corinthians 3. Think about Israel. They've got the veil. There is a blockage between them and their ability to enter the presence of God. Can't go into the Holy of Holies. Their hearts are hardened. You could say they couldn't show their face in God's special presence. We have that same language. I can't show my face in that room or that place. Maybe you think you're too bad to show your face before God, but then Paul in 2 Corinthians 3 says, but we have confidence. We have confidence. Moses, maybe you think, well, that's Moses because Moses is that really great guy who wrote part of the Bible. Moses could show his face with boldness before the living God. God spoke with him face to face. In some ways, Paul in 2 Corinthians 3 is saying, me too, like Moses, I can go and speak in the presence of God. But then he says, but we all, we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of God. Moses can walk into the Holy of Holies with confidence. Paul can walk into the face of the Holy God with confidence. Peter, after his denial, could storm into the presence of the Holy God in prayer with confidence. The Apostle John could storm into the presence of the Holy God with confidence. And so can you. And so can you, sinner. So can you and your failures. So can you as your heart condemns you and you receive the grace of the gospel of God. And you see, friends, the goal of assurance of salvation is not to increase your internal probability in your mind that you're going to heaven and not hell. That's great. That percentage probability in your mind grows and grows. But John's aiming for more than that. He's offering, God is offering that you can enter His presence right now with a confidence, with a boldness. Like a priest walking into the Holy of Holies on the other side of the sacrifice knowing I'm going in and I'm not going to be consumed. Same with you and your prayers this afternoon. Same with you and your struggle this week. So you're invited. You're invited to walk in, you're invited. Whatever we ask, we receive from Him. This is not saying that if you want a million dollars this week, just pray for it, it'll come your way. But if you ask God this week for growing faith, if you ask God this week to strengthen you to love, if you ask God this week to assure you more and more of His abiding in you, if you ask God this week for wisdom to keep His commandments, all the stuff that John's talking about, You have a God who will give you what you ask in His time, in His way, but it's His promise that He strengthens those who ask. So come in. Maybe you have been afflicted, afflicted with this doubt. You have a triune God who is greater than it all. You have a triune God you can come to. And maybe for you this morning, you're saying, hallelujah, this is the gift God's given me. then join even now with us as we pray as a congregation that this will be true of each of us. Let's pray.