Coming to the end of a chapter, I'm just gonna warn you, we're not gonna finish the chapter this morning, but we're in the last section of chapter three in this epistle of 1 John. In this very black and white letter from the apostle John, John has been giving us great warning against falsehood, against false teaching, specifically, as we've talked about many times, against Gnostic teaching. And we've mentioned many times about the Gnostic influence that was threatening the church in John's day, as well as the threats from that same type of thinking and many others that press upon the church even today. The very fabric of the gospel message is being attacked. Today, for the last 2,000 years, it's been attacked. It's been abused. It's been corrupted. It's been ridiculed throughout time. And that attack is never going to stop as long as we are here on this earth. that attack against the gospel is not going to stop. There are those who would claim to be believers who would corrupt the gospel of Jesus Christ in subtle ways, ways that make it still sound close to the gospel but make it no longer the true gospel of Jesus Christ, make it no longer the gospel at all and no longer a message that has the power to save. There are very dangerous, very confusing very influential ideas that are going on out there all the time. They exist today, they existed in the early church in John's day, they existed in every age in between then and now. So John, in his usual hard-nosed, draw-a-line-in-the-sand fashion, is writing this letter to protect the church from that kind of error, that kind of influence. What's the best way to be protected from error? Well, it's knowledge of the truth, right? How do you, how, how was a person protect from error better than knowing what the truth of something is beyond knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one can convince me of a lie. If I know the truth, if someone were to walk in here today and they were just make a statement that say, Oh, you know, we all think that we're on earth, but we're actually sitting on the moon today. Would any of us believe that? No. And why wouldn't we believe that? Because we know that that's not true. We understand that we're not on the moon. We're on Earth, right? They couldn't make a strange claim like that because we all have knowledge that we're actually on Earth, not on the moon. Now, if I were to tell my 40-year-old granddaughter that same thing, I might be able to convince her of that because she doesn't have that knowledge yet. But today, with all of us, with the knowledge that we have, we know that that is not true. We wouldn't believe it. It wouldn't be an issue. So we know the truth. And the truth in that case would protect us from error. And it would be our defense against untruth. It would be our defense against the lie that that person was trying to sell us. So in this epistle, John is giving us the straight up truth about our lives as believers, as those who belong to God. John has been busy showing us contrasts between believers and unbelievers that are meant to reveal what is true of us in our own lives. It's to protect us from the errors that others might try to convince us of, such as the false teachers that were creeping around John's church and the ones that creep around us as well. And I don't mean that they're hiding in the bushes out there, but you can pull up any type of teaching, any type of YouTube, podcast, whatever that have these strange doctrines that you can just find today. But when we know the truth, then we are properly prepared to withstand the many different attacks that come from the world around us. It's the truth that keeps us from error. One of the attacks that the world has for us is the attack upon the certainty of a believer's salvation. There are different groups out there, different Christian denominations, different denominations that call themselves Christian, but by their teaching they aren't true Christians, that teach that if you can't ever know that you are truly saved or not, they teach that you can't know. I remember reading one time about charismatic churches, believing that at some point Satan or a demon can come in and entice someone to sin and use that essentially to steal salvation from them. So that you always have to be on your guard against that. You always have to be wary of that in anticipating that type of attack. Now I don't know if all charismatic churches believe that, but at least some of them do. Similarly, you look at like the Catholic Church. As probably many are aware, the Catholic Church is taught against the doctrine of eternal security for most of its existence, if not all of its existence. Catholic Church teaches that a Christian can never truly know that they have obtained saving grace. That was stated in the Council of Trent in the 16th century and has been reaffirmed many times since then. The thought is that you can never know for sure that you're saved and therefore you better keep doing things to save yourself or keep yourself saved. And the church has many different ways, traditions and rites that need to be performed to help you do just that. You'd have to keep going through these things. But the question is, is that really how God wants a believer to view his or her salvation? Is that really what God intended for us in the Christian life? To go around with our fingers crossed, minding our every step, just hoping, wishfully thinking that maybe we won't mess up to the point that God will just let us throw it all away. Live a life where we can go along faithfully for years and years and years, and then in a moment of weakness, a moment of sin, we can just suddenly become unsaved once again. Is that truly the picture of the Christian life? The answer is no, that's not the picture of the Christian life. That is most definitely not how God wants us to go around living our lives as his children. And we know this because God has revealed the truth to us about our salvation and we can know that we are saved indeed. And that's the truth that we're seeing here in 1 John. That's what we're talking about here. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not just seen in 1 John, but specifically here, John is giving this to us and telling us that this is his purpose for writing. If you look with me again at chapter five, verse 13, our theme verse for the entire letter. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. John is writing so that those who have believed in the name of the Son of God might know that they have eternal life. So that we know this truth, so that we are assured of the fact that we are genuinely saved. And if genuinely saved, then saved for all eternity. That's the entire point of this letter that we've been studying together. That's the lens that we ought to look at this letter through so that we might see that we can have the confidence of knowing that we are eternally secure in Christ our Lord. It's that assurance, that certainty, that foundational truth that is at the heart of the next section that we have here in 1 John 3 from verses 18 down through the end of the chapter, verse 24. And just look with me at verse 19. We're not going to get very far though. I'm just going to tell you right now. We're not going to get very far in this section this morning. So I want to talk about a couple other things first, but just look at what he says in verse 19 of this section. He says, we will know by this, that we are of the truth and will assure our heart before him. And what John is talking about here is a way in which we can know, we can be assured before God of being in his family, of being in his presence someday. He's written several times that we can know certain things. We can know that we are saved. We can know that we belong to God. But here in these verses, he's equating that knowing that you belong to God is the same as having assurance. They are one and the same. The eternal security of the believer is essential. It is absolutely essential to the idea of assurance. If the salvation of the believer is not 100% guaranteed, then there is no possible way that you can ever have assurance of your faith. You just couldn't ever be certain, and then your life would be like what some of those other groups claim. You would always be in doubt. You would always be, even up until right at the end of your last day on earth, you would be crossing your fingers, hoping that you didn't mess up something in those final minutes of your time here. I want to start off this morning by looking at the idea of eternal security. Because once again, if there is no eternal security, then there can't be any assurance. We're probably not going to get very far. Like I mentioned before, we're only going to get into a couple of verses here. The first John this morning, but I think it's important for us to have this concept firmly implanted in our minds. I want us to see that as we study assurance, we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can be assured that as believers in Jesus Christ, we should be assured of our salvation. So turn with me, first of all, back to John's Gospel in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John. We're going to start off very basic here. You know, we have to understand the basis, right? Sometimes the basics. Sometimes we make doctrine and theology so complicated that we lose sight of the basics. And don't get me wrong, the study of doctrine is important. It's vital for our understanding of God's word. We can't just stick to the basics. We can't just stick to the elementary things. But we can't lose sight of those things either. We need to grow our understanding of theology out of the basics. So look with me at 1 John 5. In John 5, Jesus is talking to the Jews who were looking for a reason to persecute him, right? Now that's most of his life, or at least most of his ministry. And look at what he tells him down in verse 24 of John chapter 5. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. What he says here is so simple, so basic that we sometimes miss the meaning of what he's saying here. What is he saying? What kind of life is it that Jesus is offering? To those who have believed. eternal life. Let me just ask you this question. When does eternal life end? When does it stop? It doesn't, right? It doesn't stop. What does it mean to have eternal life? Look at the last part of the verse. What is true of the one that has eternal life? He says, and he does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Being made eternally alive, passed out of death, does not come into judgment. That's what eternal life is. It's no longer being dead. We were once dead. We've seen that in Ephesians chapter 2 many times. We've turned there and looked at that. We started off dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. But this is no longer being dead. It's now being made alive with no threat of judgment, he says here. Does not come into judgment. Notice something. Jesus does not say to these people, truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has a really good chance of making it into heaven better than 50 50 shot of making it into heaven. He doesn't say that. Nor does he say, truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who has sent me has an ambiguously defined, vaguely understood kind of life that may or may not result in spending your entire existence with God as long as the following conditions and provisos are met on a constant basis and you don't do anything so bad as to mess it up along the way. He doesn't say that here. My Bible doesn't say that. Yours doesn't say it either. He doesn't say that. There's only one kind of life that believing in Jesus Christ brings about, and that is eternal life. Life without fear of judgment, life without fear of death. That's what Jesus came to provide, was it not? Now that's simple. That's easy, right? That's the basic we talked about. But you know that we won't leave it that easy because the Bible says other things about it as well. So look with me down at the next chapter in John chapter six, and we come down to verse 35 of John chapter six. Here, Jesus is talking to the multitudes at Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, and they ask him for a sign for them to believe in him. Why should we believe in you? Give us a sign. And they make reference to the manna that God had provided to their fathers in the wilderness, right? Do something like that so we can believe in you, right, God? We saw manna fall from heaven. Do something like that. Well, down in verse 35, we cut into Jesus's response to them. And it says, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, but I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Now once again, just like the simplicity Just look at the simplicity in his answer. They were looking for a sign that he was from God, like the bread that God had given the Jews in the wilderness. If only he had a sign, then they'd believe him. But what does he say instead? I'm the bread. What I have to offer you is the bread of life. And what does the bread of life offer? If you have the bread of life, if you believe in the son of God, you never hunger again. You never thirst again. Once again, what do we see here? There's a permanence. There's permanence in these statements. But now look at verse 37, and here's where we go from the simplistic to the specific. He says in verse 37, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." Now it's no surprise that Jesus and God the Father are on the same page here, right? Here we see God the Son and God the Father working together, right? They work together in this. Jesus came down from heaven to do God's will in making this all possible. The Father gives all to the Son, or gives these to the Son. All that the Father gives comes to the Son. The ones that come to the sun, it says, are certainly not cast out. So once again, you see the permanence here. Again, there is a perfectly locked chain of events that has no breaking points within it. It's the will of God that this process does not get broken ever. It doesn't get broken. You have God the Father giving a number, right? I don't know the number. We'll say a billion. God the Father gives a billion. It says, those come to the sun. So how many come to the sun? Well, it's a billion. How many does the sun receive and how many does the sun not cast out? A billion, right? It's the same number. Those people who have been given by God to the sun, the sun takes them all and he casts out none of them. Continue on down to verse 39. He keeps going, he puts it all together. He says, this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing. but raise it up on the last day for this is the will of my father that everyone who beholds the son and believes in him will have eternal life and I myself will raise him up on the last day. He's talking here about being raised to glory, raised to be with God for all eternity in the eternal kingdom in a glorified body. How many does Jesus lose in that process? What's his loss percentage? It's easy. Zero, zero percent are lost. I lose nothing, he says. You see, Jesus is giving out life for all eternity, not just a good shot at eternal life. Have you ever seen those commercials or seen those ads? Maybe a link comes up on Facebook or something like that. It's an ad that says, well, if you sign up for this, you're going to get a seven-day cruise. or some other type of lofty prize. You'll get this cruise. Okay, you click on the link and you look at it, and hopefully it doesn't put a virus on your phone or your computer, but you click on the link and you go through it and you sign up, put your name in there, put your phone number in there, put your email address in there, and only then do you find out when you read the fine print and after you click on the link that you have really only been given a chance at winning that prize. Or now they say, okay, now your name is in a drawing. It's in a pool for a drawing that you might get this prize. But they already have your email address and your phone number, so now you get contacted by them, right? Well, that's how some people, some groups think of eternal life. They think that's how salvation works. Eternal life is not like that. There is no fine print here. You believe in Jesus Christ. You put your faith and trust in him for salvation. You have life for all eternity. You don't even need to fill out a form and give him your email address. You're in. And once you're in, you're in forever. Jesus Christ isn't going to lose you. He doesn't misplace you. He's not going to send you an email telling you that you've been disqualified. You are saved for eternity. That's what eternal life is. Don't lose sight of that, never lose sight of that. That's one of the most glorious truths about the Christian life. Jesus Christ has made me alive for all eternity. He has passed me out of death into a life that is free from condemnation, free from judgment forever. That's what that means. Paul said in Romans chapter six, verses 22 and 23. But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification and the outcome eternal life for the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. It's eternal. You might say, OK, I get it. I'm saved. Yes, you are. And you're saved forever. There is no other kind of salvation. There are no temporary kinds of salvation. There are no degrees of salvation. If you're saved, you are saved for eternity, forever. That's the only kind of life that Jesus came to offer. Let's go to the book of Romans, the eighth chapter of Romans. We were in Romans chapter eight last year, about 18 months ago, I looked it up. So you can consider this a review. Romans chapter eight is the final section of Paul's wonderful gospel message that carries in on for eight chapters of this letter. So remember, this is the tail end of what he's presenting as his gospel presentation. He takes the gospel and develops it in absolute detail for the entire first half of this letter. And of course, the last half is all about living a sanctified life once we're saved. But in Romans eight, Paul is talking about our lives now as those who are saved and what that means for us. And he talks about our security. We could spend several weeks in just this chapter here, but I'm going to go on, just go over some of the highlights with you this morning. But I mean, look at verse one of chapter eight, just how he starts off the chapter. He says, therefore, there is now no condemnation. for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, quite frankly, that right there should be the end of it, right? If you are in Christ Jesus, there's no condemnation. That's it, we're done. Well, we're not quite done. But Paul starts off here telling us exactly where he's going. There's no question. It's now just a matter of seeing how he comes to this conclusion, why he says this. So come down towards the end of the chapter where he starts to talk about this process, the process of salvation. And it's really the same process that Jesus was talking about in John chapter six. We see a little more detail here though. Starting in verse 28, he says, we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. So we're talking about believers here, how God deals with those whom he calls to salvation. Remember what Jesus said in John chapter six, he was talking about all that the father gives him. Remember that? The father gives those to him. Here we see those that the father calls, that's the same thing. These are the same ones, the same people in view here. It's God calling them to salvation, giving them over to the Son to be saved. And you note that they are also the ones that love God, right? He mentions that here, which goes right along with what we're seeing in 1 John. One of the characteristics of a true believer is that they have a biblical love. We love one another. Other believers, well, when we get into chapter four, we'll see that we have love for one another and love for God because God is love. So we're talking about those who are called. He continues on in verse 29, where he says, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called. And these whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified. And we've seen this passage before, and I think we've gone here a couple of times, at least many times, but we see this, this is an unbreakable chain. There's absolutely unbreakable here. This is a more detailed chain than the one we just saw in John chapter six, but it's that same locked chain of events. We go from being foreknown to being predestined. Those are in eternity past. to being called, and that's here on earth while we're living our lives, we are called to being justified when we believe, we put our faith and trust in the gospel, we are justified, and you go back earlier in Romans to see those details. And finally, he says, to being glorified, and that's in the future, that's in eternity future. We will be glorified. That is the chain all the way from eternity past to eternity future. In fact, you see there in verse 29 that we are predestined to be glorified. He says we were to become conformed to the image of his son. That's the end result of this process. He didn't predestine us just to the beginning of the salvation process. You were predestined to believe and now you're on your own after that. but we were predestined to the very end of the process. That's what God has in store for every person who believes the gospel of Jesus Christ. What Paul is showing us here is that process of salvation and it's complete from beginning to end. Everyone who was foreknown will end up being glorified. Just like Jesus said, everyone that the father gives him, right, that billion number, He will raise up on the last day, again, a billion. I mean, I'm making a billion up, right? But you understand the concept. It's not a billion. It starts with a billion, and somehow we got to 900 million. It doesn't work that way. It's a billion to a billion. That's the same thing. That's that same process. These are all equivalent. There is no one who only goes through this part way or who starts in this process and doesn't finish or anyone that starts in the middle. It's from beginning to end. This is God's process in his child for the believer and it is always, always accomplished. Now after stating this, Paul's beside himself and for good reason. In the last verses of the chapter, he makes one of the most profound statements about eternal security that we find anywhere. Puts it in complete perspective for us. Now look at verse 31. We'll mostly read through this, but we'll go through the end of the chapter. Look at verse 31. We read through verse 36 here first of all. He says, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who's against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies, who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long, we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered." Here he's asking rhetorical questions. The answer to all of these questions is no one, nobody, nothing. Right? When we see that we go from being foreknown and predestined to being glorified and none or lost in that heavenly process, in God's process, how could we not ask these rhetorical questions? If God is the one directing this process, who can interfere? Who can stop it? Who can overrule him? No one can. That's a silly question. No one can thwart God's plan of salvation for those that he has determined or saved are to have eternal life. No one can do it. God is for us. Jesus Christ is continually interceding for us, right? Paul says that here. We saw that as well in 1 John at the beginning of chapter two. When you look at the overwhelming advantages that we have with God directing every step in the process of our salvation and eternal life, What would ever lead us to believe that anything could ever cause us to lose that salvation? And that's exactly where Paul goes next in the passage, look at verse 37. He says, but in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. We overwhelmingly conquer through him, through the one who brought this all about in us. You see, our eternal security has nothing to do with us, not in the slightest. We are not responsible for keeping ourselves saved. Once we put our faith and trust in Christ for salvation, we have no say in whether or not we remain saved. In fact, we can't even change our minds. We couldn't reverse that process even if we wanted to. Why would I say that? Well, look at the last two verses of the chapter. Verse 38 he says, for I am convinced, and remember that word convinced, for I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What we have here is a complete list, an absolutely airtight complete list of everything. There isn't anything that exists or that has ever existed that this list does not cover. Alive or dead, things here today or tomorrow, from the highest of the heights to the lowest of the depths, whether in the physical world or the spiritual world. And if you can find anything that isn't already in those categories, He ends it by saying, nor any other created thing. Nothing that has ever been created can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That means that Satan can't get you. He can't steal you away. It means that the church, the bodymen of the church can't decide that you're not going to heaven. Guys in big hats or funny robes or little white collars can't overrule this and say that you are not worthy of heaven. It even means that you can't change your mind and decide not to go. There is nothing that has ever been created, including you, including me, that can change what God has brought about in you. Guess what? Eternal life is for eternity. That's it. Groundbreaking, earth-shattering statement, isn't it? Eternal life is for eternity. Once God has given you eternal life, you are eternally alive. You note the word that Paul used at the beginning of verse 38 I mentioned. I am convinced. He's convinced of this fact, he says. Well, back in 1 John 3, In the verse that we read earlier, verse 19, John says, we will know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our heart before him. Our hearts are assured. That's the same word that Paul uses for convinced. Paul was assured of the eternal security of believers. John is showing us how we can have that same assurance in our hearts before God. It's by looking at our lives, seeing the characteristics of a true believer. That's what shows us. That is what is the evidence of our eternal life. If we know that we're saved, then we know that we're saved forever. What a wonderful, comforting thought this is. God doesn't want us to live our lives in fear. He doesn't want us to live our lives in constant worry or constant doubt. No, the believer's life should be one filled with joy. We are to live our lives in joy. In fact, turn back to First John, chapter one, the very first chapter. Remember when we started this letter? I know it was a while ago, but when we started the letter where there were three things that John talks about that he wants us to know from this book that he's writing to tell us about this in this book. But there are three reasons and the overall theme has to do with our assurance. We saw that in verse 13 of chapter five, but he also said in verse four of chapter one, these things we write so that our joy may be made complete. Complete joy, that's one of the things that John wants us to get out of this letter. That's the goal, that's the goal of assurance as well. So that we have lives of joy. understanding where we are, what is true of us and having complete joy in our Christian lives. That's the life that God wants his children to have. And so with that in mind, we now turn to this next section here, where we turn that corner and we see John telling us that we can have this assurance. After my 40 minute introduction, we get now into looking at a couple of these verses here. You've recalled it in the last section, and from verse 11 down through verse 18, we just dealt with the test of love. A true believer loves other believers. And so we're going to segue here from one section into the other with that in mind. And we ended our last lesson in verse 18, which is the same verse that we pick up with here today. Look with me again at verse 18, where he says, little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. Now we've seen before that John's letter just keeps rolling along and he doesn't have nice clean breaks between his topics, right? This verse serves as a segue, again, between what he was just talking about and where he's going next. So what we have here is that when talking about the characteristic of love that is true of believers, our love is to be an action, right? It's not just a feeling, it's an action. It's not simply to be what we talk about or what we say. It's not with word or with tongue. But it's what we do, it's what manifests itself in our lives. It is to be in both deed, that's the action, and truth. So it's manifest in action, but it's manifest in action that stems from a knowledge of the truth. True biblical love is a love with purpose. How do we know what true love is without a knowledge of the truth? without a knowledge of God's word, without knowledge of the example that God made on our behalf. That's how we know what true love is. We talked about in our last section about the love that the world knows, right? The world knows emotional love. It knows family love. It knows romantic love, right? These feelings that we have. But it's the Bible that tells us about the love of God. That unique love that is foreign to the world and that gives us, that it gives of itself regardless of the personal cost, regardless of the sacrifice, right? It's a sacrificial kind of love. That's how the true love or the true believer will love others, especially other believers as was the context of our last section. So that's what our love is to be like. That is what is to define us. That's the love of those who were born of him, with whom he was talking back in verse 10. So now we see in verse 18 that we love indeed and truth. And now we come to verse 19, we're going to see how John is going to take us from that concept, the true love of the believer, and relate it to the next concept, that assurance that we are to have as believers, how that flows together. So look at verse 19 again with me. We will know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our heart before him. There are two things that John tells us will happen here that are true of the believer. We will know and we will assure our heart. So these are both vitally important concepts and vitally comforting concepts. Let me just say here that this section that we're in is a welcome break. These last few verses. of chapter three are kind of a welcome break because usually what we've seen before in this letter is John takes us back and forth in his writing, shows us the believer and then the unbeliever, shows us the light and then the darkness, shows us righteousness and then we see sin, love and then hatred. And he's always been taking us back and forth from the good to the bad and back again. In this section, he gives us a little break from the bad. For really seven solid verses, we get to see a picture of the Christian certainty. of the life of the believer and what is true of us. And he doesn't really go back and forth. He camps out on this. So it's kind of a refreshing section because it's all about Christian assurance. So in this verse, instead of a positive statement followed by an example of say murder, which we saw last time, we have two reassuring concepts here, knowing and being assured. The word for know is the Greek word ginosko. And if you Don't remember that word. I brought it up several times already. Gnosko, which we've talked about before, it's the knowledge brought about by experience or discovering something, investigation, right? It's what tells us that something is true, not just a recitation of facts, right? There's another word, oida, which is kind of like you have that head knowledge, but gnosko means you have experiential knowledge. And it would be kind of like, you know, I can read about gravity. I can have someone explain to me what gravity is, or I can see it described, but until I drop something, right, or fall out of my chair for the first time, where you can see I really don't know what gravity is, right, if you explain to, if somebody was, we talked about the moon earlier, if somebody was born in space, and they've never experienced gravity, and you explain to them what gravity is, they have no knowledge of that until they get to a place where there is some gravity, right? You can take something and drop it, I thought about bringing something and dropping it, but I didn't want to drop my phone or anything like that. But I think you all know what I'm talking about, right? You drop something, you know that it's going to drop because we've all experienced that. So this knowing that John is talking about here comes from experiencing something. And what is it that we know in this way? We know that we are of the truth. And you know what he's referring to here, he's still talking about love, right? We're coming out of that love discussion. He's talking about the way that we are to love back in verse 18. We love indeed and in truth. And by that type of love, if we have that type of love, if that's the way that we love, particularly loving in truth, we know that we are of the truth, he says here. That's the by this statement that he's making. This is the same concept that he talked about before back in chapter two, the end of verse five there, he said, but whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected by this. We know that we are in him for one. The one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked. We know that we are in Christ if we are those who are abiding in him, we are walking as he walked. Well, we know that we are of the truth if we are loving according to the truth. And what does he mean when he says of the truth? Once again, this is akin to being in the light, right? When he started off with way back in chapter one. Chapter two, he contrasted lies and truth. Believers are those who know the truth and the Holy Spirit teaches us the truth. Being of the truth means that we are those who have believed and have been given the means to know what is true. We understand the things that God has revealed to us because of the Holy Spirit who indwells us. So it's another way of saying we're saved. We know that we're saved when we love the way that God, God's word commands us to love. It's just a characteristic of true salvation. But he takes it another step. And this is the step that will lead us into the next verses. Not only will love show us to be saved, but manifesting the characteristics of a true believer in the pattern of the truth of God's word will assure our heart before him. Our heart will be assured. This is based on knowledge. This is based on a revealing of truth. We know That if we love, it shows that we are of Him. We know that. God's Word tells us that. John is here telling us that, as well as other things in this letter. We have that knowledge, and that is to be coupled with the evidence that is in our very lives. We have the knowledge of the truth, and then we have the experience in our lives as well. Right? It's kind of like I talked about with gravity. I know what gravity is. I drop something and it falls. I've experienced it as well. If you take these two concepts together, if you take the evidence and the knowledge together, then guess what? You can have assurance based on what we know to be true. Now notice where we have this assurance, where our hearts are assured. He says they are assured before him. And this is going to be critical. This is absolutely critical. Follow me here for just a minute. I know you've been following me, but I'm going to have another little rabbit trail here. As mankind, just mankind in general, we are a people. You can say mankind's on one side and God is on the other. We are a people standing before a holy God. We are an imperfect people standing before a perfect God. We are a guilty people standing before a righteous God. The chasm between mankind and God, not even taking sin into account for a second, but just taking into account the creator and the creation is a huge chasm. There's a huge discrepancy between the creator and the creation. God is so far above us in all of his ways that we don't even compare to him. Now think about that for just a minute. Then on top of that, bring in the subject of sin. We as mankind have sinned against God, and we sin continually, and we sin willfully, and we sin without remorse. And you throw that into the picture, and now this chasm between this perfect God and mankind is infinitely wider, to the point where there is absolutely no hope of bridging this on our own. Now, as believers, we understand that perspective, right? And what I'm saying here shouldn't be a surprise to any of us. If you take that perspective as those who have come into a knowledge of the truth, as those who recognize that gap, who recognize that discrepancy, who recognize that absolute hopelessness and lost situation, what does that tend to do in us? It tends to cause us doubt at times. You see, as believers, as those whom the Holy Spirit has revealed the truth to, who teaches us the things of God, there's at times a double-edged sword as we learn more and more and more about God and about us, about our situation. Why do I say that? Because the more that we learn about God and the more that we learn about his word, there are two things that we really learn more about. And there's more than two, but two things at least here. We learn and understand more about how great God is. The more we learn about God, the more we understand just how magnificent he is. And as we are in his word and we learn more about him, that becomes more and more apparent to us. But that's not all that we learn. We also learn how inadequate we are, how sinful we were, how unworthy we were to stand before this holy God. We learn just how far away in this chasm, how big this chasm was, how far away from God we actually were. And if you combine those two things, what do you have? You have a people whose minds widen the gap between where God is and where we are. And in that knowledge, that tends to make us fear, and it tends to make us doubt. How could a worm like me ever belong to the almighty, righteous, holy God? How could that even be a possibility? You might have a guy who's a boxer, say. He finds out that he's going to fight the champ, right? He's up and coming. He's done pretty well, and he gets an opportunity to fight the champ. And when he finds out at first, his first thought is, you know, this is going to be a great fight. I'm going to go in there, and I'm going to beat this guy. He's got that confidence. But then what does he do? He starts to read things. He starts to read the papers. He starts to read the sports sites, listen to the news about this fight. And they're all saying how good the champ is, how he has a perfect record, how many knockouts he's had, how strong he is, how much he weighs, so on. And then he also reads about himself. And they talk about how much he struggled against the last guy. And they talk about how many fights he's lost. And they talk about maybe how old he is, or maybe he's never gotten over a certain injury that he had. And what happens? Well, he starts to lose that confidence, right? He's no longer confident in his abilities. He starts to doubt whether or not he can really take this guy, whether or not he should even be in the ring with him. For the believer, especially the well-taught believer, the more we learn, the more we recognize how great God is and how as his creation, who still struggles with the flesh, we learn how great we're not. And that can affect us. Now, I don't say that is a bad thing. In fact, I think it's a perfectly normal thing. As we learn more about God, we are coming closer and closer to Him, face-to-face with Him. That is part of our transformation, a part of our sanctification. As we grow in knowledge of Him, we're able to more clearly see the glory of God in His Word, and the Holy Spirit reveals who God is, and we have a greater understanding of Him. Now there's a couple of verses, I won't have you turn to them, I'll just read them, but a couple of verses that show what I'm talking about here, that show this reaction that man has when faced with a holy God. In Exodus chapter 3, when Moses first comes into the very presence of God at the burning bush, In verse five of Exodus three, it says, then he said, do not come near here, remove your sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. He said also, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Then Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. So here's Moses coming before God and as soon as he realized in whose presence he stands, his reaction is fear, right? He's afraid. Over in the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew chapter 17, this is the time of the transfiguration when the disciples saw Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, and they get a glimpse of his glory. And in verse five of Matthew 17, this is after Peter becomes the idea man, right? Remember at the transfiguration, Peter gets all these ideas. Oh, let me build tents. I'll build tents for you guys. And I'll do all these. And he offers to build these tents for them to stand under. And while he was speaking, it says in verse five, a bright cloud overshadowed them and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. When the disciples heard this, they fell face down on the ground and were terrified. Once again, in the presence of God, what's the reaction? They're terrified. This is seen time and time again. We studied through Daniel a while back, a couple of years ago. We saw it there in chapter 10. Daniel sees a vision of the pre-incarnate Christ. And he says in verse 8 of Daniel 10, no strength was left in me for my natural color turned to a deathly pallor and I retained no strength. In other words, Daniel fainted. Daniel passes out when he sees the pre-incarnate Christ. Job 42, 5 and 6 says, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you. Therefore, I retract and I repent in dust and ashes. Job saw himself in comparison to God, and there was no comparison. His reaction is to retract, to repent. He shrinks back. The prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6, 5 says, Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah says, I'm ruined. You see, this is the reaction to the presence of God. And although we have not come face to face with God like in these examples, God has revealed to us more and more as we learn about him in his word. We understand who he is. In fact, it's very appropriate that we look at this reaction in John's writing, because in the book of Revelation, a book that John had not yet written, When he wrote these words that we're seeing, John will go on to say in Revelation 1.17, when I saw him, when he sees Christ, I fell at his feet like a dead man. John collapses when the Lord appears to him in Revelation 1. When we truly understand God, who He is, there is a tendency to bring about fear and trembling. There's a natural reaction to who God is and just how awesome He truly is. And I'm not saying that any of these guys did something wrong. That's just the reaction. Now, why am I saying this? Why am I bringing all this up? It's probably more than one of you that are thinking that. Because of what John says here in 1 John 3.19. This will assure our heart before him. You see, these are all emotional reactions. Fear is an emotional reaction. They're not well thought out, rational decisions. But assurance is exactly that. The word for assure means to persuade or to convince, to pacify or to win over with confidence. Remember, this is the word that Paul used in Romans chapter eight. when he was convinced, assured that nothing could separate the believer from the love of Christ. That's not an emotional reaction. That's a well thought out rational conviction based on his knowledge of the truth that had been revealed to him. The heart that John is talking about here is the seat of man's emotions. So what we have is that knowledge of our position as those of the truth provides us with a rational conviction in our hearts as those who can stand before God. Even though we may not sometimes feel saved, even though we may not see ourselves as worthy, even though we may recognize that before God we are but worms in comparison to his glory, We know through the truth that is provided to us in his word that he has given to us and the ministering work of the Holy Spirit, that we can stand before him in full confidence of our eternal security, knowing that we are saved and saved for all eternity. If we've placed our faith and trust in him, in the gospel for our salvation. And he has done that in us and he has made us a part of his family and chose us to be with him for all eternity. Isn't that absolutely magnificent? Isn't that the best news that you've heard all day in your entire life? If you have placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation, then you are saved indeed. And you can stand before God in full assurance of that salvation. That is what God wants you and me as believers in Jesus Christ to know in our hearts, to be assured of. It is through that truth that we can live our lives in complete joy, that we can live lives that are devoted to God in holiness, free from sin, because we can stand before him in confidence. Remember back in chapter two, verse 28, where John said, now little children abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from him in shame at his coming. That's the attitude that assurance brings. Confidence in the day that he appears, confidence, not shrinking away, but boldly approaching him as if we own the place. Because quite frankly, he's given us the keys and through his son, we do own the place. And I don't say that in an arrogant way to make it be arrogant, but that is to make us confident, to make us understand the hope that we have. That's what he's done for us. Because that is the hope that we have as believers. And speaking of hope, we didn't get quite as far today as I would have hoped that we could have, but we never do. So that's not a surprise to anyone. But we'll aim to finish this up, finish up the chapter in our next study. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you. We thank you for this opportunity, Lord, once again, to be in your word. And we thank you for the gift that you've given us in your son, Sending him to die on the cross for our sins. We thank you, Lord, for those of us that have put our faith and trust in him for salvation. Just the confidence, the assurance that that brings to us, Lord. And we pray that as we live our lives to glorify you, in obedience to you, to serve you. Pray, Lord, that we would just make it a point in our lives to do everything that we do for your glory. Pray, Lord, that we would be sharing the gospel with those around us. Pray, Lord, that we would just make it a priority for us to tell others about this wonderful gift that you've provided. And we just pray, Lord, that you would help us to just be bold in that. And Lord, we thank you for our salvation, and we thank you, Lord, for the time that we have here together as a body of believers. We pray, Lord, that as we edify one another, as we fellowship with one another, that, Lord, we would just be able to encourage one another in our daily walk, throughout our week, and pray, Lord, that you would just give us the strength that we need each and every day to serve you. And, Lord, we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.