Turn in your Bibles to the book
of 1 John chapter 2. As you can see on the screen,
the title of the message actually comes from the third verse. How do we know? How do we know? The point is, how do we know
that we know Christ? How do we know for sure that
we are saved by His grace? That's the point here. Let me
give you an illustration from the Bible that kind of illustrates
what I'm going to say about this message. We just sang about it. I shall know Him and that kind
of thing. But you know the episode where
Peter and the disciples were in a boat out on the sea Storm
was raised and they looked off in the distance and they saw
someone coming and of course he identified himself as Jesus
of Nazareth coming, walking on the water. You remember that,
calming the storm, walking on the water. You remember what
Peter did? He jumped out of the boat and
walked toward him on the water. And then all of a sudden Peter
did something that he shouldn't have done. He took his eyes off
Christ and looked around at the situation and he began to sink,
began to drown. He said, he cried out, he said,
Lord, save me! And that's really kind of like
the point of this message. How do I know that I'm safe? And
the bottom line, very simply, is keep your eyes fixed on Christ
and not on self. Now that doesn't mean that we
should never take inventory of ourselves, that we should never
try to improve ourselves, but when it comes to salvation, when
it comes to the forgiveness of our sins, when it comes to our
justification before God, you know what justification is? It's
being forgiven of all my sins, past, present, future, original
sin, whatever you want to say about. That's sin that demands
death. That's sin that racks our bodies
as we get older and leads unto death. To be justified is to
be completely, fully, eternally forgiven of all my sins on a
just ground. And what is the only just ground
of the forgiveness of sins? It's not your repentance. Most preachers preach that, you
know. You repent and then God will forgive, no. God is not
a reactionary God. He doesn't do anything as a result
of your doing something. He's the first cause of all things.
The only just ground for the forgiveness of sins is not your
tears, not your suffering, it's the blood of Jesus Christ. Remember back in the Passover,
what God say, the Passover lamp, when I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. Same spiritually. And then to
be justified is to be declared righteous in God's sight. And understand now, righteousness
has to be measured not by human morality and sincerity and religiosity,
Righteousness has to be measured by Christ because He is the righteousness
of His people. He's the only one who ever kept
the law perfectly. Now you might say, well, I'm
doing my best. Man at his best state is what? Altogether vanity. You won't make it. You ought
to do your best. But if you're doing that in order
to be justified before God, declared righteous before God, you're
not gonna make it. I don't care who you are and
how well you appear. You know, this Pharisee, he said,
you do indeed appear righteous unto men, but inwardly you're
full of dead men's bones. And the righteousness of Christ,
the merits of his obedience unto death as the substitute and the
surety and the preserver, redeemer of his people, That's the standard
of righteousness at judgment. Acts 1731, God has appointed
a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained, in that he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. So
mark it down. As believers, we ought to be
doing the best we can do in every area to honor God, to obey God,
but that is not my righteousness before God. Christ is. So when we talk about this subject,
this is what we're talking about. Look at verse one, I preached
on these two verses, verse one and two last week. My little
children, these things write I unto you that you sin not.
We're sinners. There's only two types of people,
sinners lost in their sins and sinners saved by grace. But he
says I'm trying to encourage you to fight sin and we ought
to fight sin. The Bible speaks of a believer
as a person who has an inner warfare. It's the warfare of
the spirit against the flesh. And we ought to be engaged in
that warfare every day. Remember our state, our standing,
and our struggle. The moment we're born again by
the Spirit and given the gift of faith to latch hold of Christ
and believe in Him, that struggle begins. And one of the biggest
parts of the, one of the biggest weapons in the flesh is self-righteousness. that we can do something to make
ourselves acceptable to God and righteous in God's sight. Something
other than Christ. And so we see that we're justified
by being declared righteous in God's sight now on a just ground. And what's the just ground? That's
where the doctrine of the imputed righteousness comes in. The merits
of Christ's obedience unto death that is legally charged to my
account. It's like somebody who's got
a credit card debt. You've seen that. And unbeknownst
to them, somebody comes along and says, put that debt on my
account. I'll repay it and pays it all. That's what Christ did
for us, for his people, his sheep, God's elect. And that's spoken
of in the word propitiation. Look at verse 1. My little children,
these things I write unto you, that you sin not. And if any
man sin, we have an advocate with the Father. Who is He? Jesus
Christ the righteous. He's our advocate. And He's Jesus
Christ. Jesus, meaning He shall save
His people from their sins. Christ, meaning the Messiah,
the Anointed One. God manifest in the flesh. And
he's the righteous. You see, I have a righteousness
before God. And it's not what I've done or
tried to do. It's what Christ has done and
did do. You see, He didn't die to make
me savable if I would cooperate. Because by nature, none of us
will cooperate. That's what the Bible teaches
about our sinfulness and our depravity. that if we're saved,
it's by God's work in the new birth, giving us life from Christ,
the resurrected life of Christ, and giving us the gift of faith.
Faith doesn't come from you naturally. You say, well, I believe. Well,
if you believe the truth, that gift, that's a gift from God
that he gave you in the new birth. Repentance, the same thing. So
he says, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for
our sins. What is that propitiation? Satisfaction. A sin bearing sacrifice who made
satisfaction unto God. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. And so if he's your propitiation, at some point in your life, he'll
send the spirit into your life and bring you under the gospel.
give you life, a new heart, new eyes, eyes to see, ears to hear,
and faith to believe. That's what a propitiation is.
He's not the propitiation for anyone who dies in unbelief and
is condemned. But he says, and not for ours
only, but also for the sins of the whole world. He's not talking
about every individual without exception there. John makes that
clear on into the passage, and the rest of the Bible makes that
clear. He's talking about God's elect all over this world, Jew
and Gentile. God has a people out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. It's not just located in the
Jewish ethnic people, most of whom perished in their
sins because of unbelief. So verse three, here's where
we come to. And hereby we do know that we know him. And then he says, if we keep
his commandments. His commandments. Now what is
he talking about? Can you imagine this assurance of salvation?
Hereby do we know that we know him. How do I know that I know
him? To know him is salvation. And it begins first, not with
our knowing Him, but His knowing us. You remember in Matthew 7,
the false preachers who stood before Him, pleading their works. And that's what they were doing.
Lord, haven't we preached in Your name? Haven't we cast out
demons? Haven't we done many wonderful works? And He said
to them, depart from Me, ye that work iniquity, I never knew you. Now He knew who they were. He
even knew their hearts. He knew their names, but he did
not know them intimately, savingly, like he knows his people, who
are his church, his bride. Christ, the husband, the bridegroom,
knows his bride, his wife, intimately, savingly. And then he tells us
in John 17, in his high priestly prayer, this is life eternal,
that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom thou sent. Well, how do we know that we
know him? It says, if we keep his commandments.
And again, the if there is an evidential if, not a conditional
if. This is gospel language here,
grace. That's how you know the difference,
whether an if, if you do this, if you don't do this, is it conditional? In other words, is it a blessing
or is it salvation that God gives me if I meet certain conditions?
Or is it the evidence of having been saved by the grace of God?
Well, this is evidence. We keep his commandments. Verse
four says, he that saith, I know him and keepeth not his commandments
is a liar. And the truth is not in him.
But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God
perfected. Now what that means is this.
If you keep his word as an evidence of salvation, it means that God's
love for you has reached its goal, has brought it to perfection
in the sense of settled the matter. It doesn't mean that you now
love perfectly because you don't. Now those who are saved, we love
Christ, we love the brethren, we love our neighbor, but not
perfectly. It's not perfect love. And it
don't take you but maybe a day or two to learn that. Dealing
with people. I remember I used to work at
a clothing store. And I'd have people come in there
wanting different things. And about half of them, by the
time they left the door, I wanted to kill them. Not literally, but I just had
bad thoughts. And that shows you I didn't love
my neighbors myself. I've never thought that about
myself, that I wanted to kill me. But anyway. And even believers. You know, we have a fellowship
here that can't be broken. You might think you can break
it, but you can't. Because our fellowship, as John said in chapter
one, is with the Father and with the Son. But we may get mad at
each other. We may get angry. may even not
even want to be around each other, but you can't break that fellowship.
It's there. And there's that love that will
always cause you to side with the brethren against the world
because you believe the gospel. And so when he talks about that
love is perfected in us, he's simply saying it's when God brings
a person by his grace in the new birth, to believe in Christ,
to know Christ, His love has reached its goal in us. Brought us into the family and
the kingdom of God. So he says, he says, whoso keepeth
his word in him, verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby
know we that we are in him. That we're in Christ. And that
can mean a lot, that's a lot of things, but he's talking about
spiritual union with Christ here. There's an eternal union with
Christ for His people before the foundation of the world.
Their names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And it's
not like some false preachers believe that, well, He erases
your name out and then puts it back. No. If you're one of God's
children and you've been brought to know Him, you can know that
your name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the
world began. God chose you in Christ. And that's eternal union. He
was made your surety in the covenant of grace. And that's why he came
to this earth, to save his children from their sins. And then there's
a legal union. You can talk about justification
there. God declaring me forgiven, not
guilty. Righteous, based upon the blood
and the righteousness of Christ. And there's that legal redemption,
legal justification and salvation brought forth in redemption.
When Christ died on the cross, he died for his sheep. That's
why he gave his life. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. And he knows who his sheep are.
And He redeemed us with His blood. He paid the redemption price
in full. He didn't get it started. He
didn't do it for everybody, even those who end up in hell. He
didn't do it conditionally, if you will add your faith to it,
because you don't have that. It's all Christ. And then there's
a spiritual union, that's in the new birth, when God gives
us life and brings us to faith in Him. We latch hold of Him.
And that's what he's talking about here. Hereby we know that
we're in him. How do I know that I've been
born again, that I've laid hold of Christ? And then he says in
verse six, he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so
to walk even as he walked. following Him, all of that. Well,
one of the things that you've got to keep in mind here when
you talk about keeping His commandments, and a lot of people will say,
well, that means if I'm saved, I better start keeping the Ten
Commandments. Well, first of all, you're already behind before
you start that process. And secondly, he's not talking
about the Ten Commandments here, even though there are moral principles
in the Ten Commandments that we must go by. You know, it's
wrong to worship idols, it's wrong to murder, it's wrong to
commit adultery, it's wrong to covet, all of those things. But
can you imagine, now think about this, if you know yourself, and
that's one of the things that God does in our salvation, our
spiritual salvation, he brings us to know ourselves. know ourselves, what we are.
Could you imagine knowing what we are, trying to gain our assurance
of salvation from how we are acting and how we are doing?
Now, you who know yourself, if you're here and you don't know
yourself, you might say, well, that's weird. No, if you know
yourself and are honest, Remember in Psalm 32 when he says, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose heart
is no guile. That guile there is the hypocrisy
that fools unbelievers into thinking that they're better than what
they are. When that guile is removed, it
forces us to be honest. You remember what Peter said
to the Lord? He said, Lord, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. And
I've said it this way from this pulpit several times, that if
God were to judge me right now based upon my best efforts to
keep the law, I'd be damned forever. Because all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Do you know that means something?
It's not just a virtue quote as they say on the Roman road.
It means that at your best, at my best, we all fall short. Well,
how can we measure up? Only in Christ, the Lord, our
righteousness. Now, how can I know that I'm
in it? Well, when John's talking about keeping his commandments
and keeping his word, what he's talking about in the context,
if you look at 1 John 2 verse 18, I read this in the earlier
message, but look at verse 18. I want to show you. John is writing
to a people who were experiencing professing believers leaving
the gospel, apostatizing from the faith. And I talked about
that, how he's talking about men and women. who claimed to
believe what we believe, the true gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace, but then totally left it and turned their back
on it, even to the point in the book of Hebrews it says, they
called Christ accursed. And they were seeing this happen.
And why they were doing this, a lot of times it was because
of persecution. They didn't want to be persecuted.
And so they left, they left the fellowship of believers, And
they turned their back on the doctrine, the truth of Christ,
and called it heresy. That's what apostasy is. And
listen to what John says in verse 18 of 1 John 2. He says, little
children, it is the last time, and of course that's the New
Testament time, we're living in it now. And as you have heard
that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists. Now you know an antichrist is
one who claims to believe in Christ but denies the truth of
Christ. So he says, whereby we know that
it is the last time, now look at verse 19, they went out from
us, they left, but they were not of us. What he's saying there
is that they claimed to be saved at one time, but they left it.
They never were saved. They never were of us, of the
people of God. For if they had been of us, they
would no doubt have continued with us. Another way of saying it, they
would have kept the commandments. They would have kept His word.
But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were
not all of us. Now what is he talking about?
When Christ spoke to the disciples and when he spoke to other people,
do you know the only time he ever quoted any of the Ten Commandments
in the form of what they were given to Israel under the Old
Covenant was to show the people he was talking to that they were
sinners and could not be saved by their works? He never quoted them as a rule
of life in order to gain or maintain salvation. And so in many ways,
look at 1 John 3, just across the page, verse 20. 1 John 3,
verse 20. He's talking about being assured
in our hearts before Him. Verse 19, hereby we know that
we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.
That is before God. In other words, we're not concerned
here about what other people think. Now that's not to say
we shouldn't be concerned about that, but my assurance of salvation
does not come by what you think of me. Do you understand that? Now I should live a good testimony.
But you know, the Bible says in 1 John 3,1 that the world
won't know us. They may look at you and say,
well, you go to church every Sunday. I know you're saying,
well, that's no reason to gain assurance, friend. But the world
doesn't even know what a Christian is, really. But look at verse
20. He says, for if our heart condemn
us, the heart is the mind, the affections, the will, the conscience,
God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Isn't
that something? What does that say? God knows
me better than I know myself. And he says, and whatsoever we
ask, we receive of him. He's talking about in the realm
of salvation, because we keep his commandments and do those
things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment. Now look at it, that we should
believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another
as he gave us commandment. Now that's what he's talking
about. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him
and he in him and hereby we know that he abideth in us and by
the spirit which he hath given us. What is his commandments? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and love the brethren. That's what
he's talking about. As opposed to professing belief
in him and apostatizing from him, leaving the fellowship of
brethren. If you're a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ sitting in this church today, we're together
in the gospel. And if you side against us with
an unbeliever, there you are. You're not keeping his commandments.
But what is the focus of this? Think about it again. Trying
to find assurance of our salvation based upon how well we're doing. That's not a steady thing, is
it? We're up and down. We have moments that, I have
moments that I would not want you all to see me or hear me. And you have them too. If you're
honest, if that guile has been removed, I told you about the billboard
on Dawson Road where a church puts up there and says, we love
Albany. And I'm not a skeptic, folks.
But when I ride by that sign, I say, no, you don't. Now listen to me. We as believers,
we can say we love the brethren. We can say we love our neighbor,
even our enemies. Good night. I don't have anything
to brag about my love. I'm not going to put it on a
billboard. Now what I'll put on a billboard
is God loves me. Christ loves me. You see, I say
this all the time. I say this on our TV program.
Again, we ought to be the best people we can be. But we ought
to realize that at our best we fall short and we don't have
anything to boast of. That's why Paul wrote in Galatians
6.14, God forbid that I should glory, boast, save in what? The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. My old preacher used to say that
preaching the truth is just bragging on Christ. And the people of
God love it. And you may be mad as all get
out with me, but you'll love it when I preach and brag on
Christ. Does that make sense? I may be mad at you, but we love it when Christ is
preached and we're together there. That's the fellowship that cannot
be broken. That's it. And so when he says,
look at chapter 2 of 1 John 2. After he says, they went out
from us, but they were not of us, they went out that it might
be made manifest, made known that they were never saved. They
didn't lose their salvation. They were never saved. If you're
saved by the grace of God, you cannot lose it. Now that doesn't
give you an excuse to go out and live like a heathen. That's
what's supposed to inspire you to obedience. You know, the motive
for obedience is this assurance of salvation that comes by looking
to Christ, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. That's keeping his word. And he says in verse 20 to the
people of God, but you have an unction, an anointing from the
Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written unto you because
you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lies
of the truth. Who is a liar, but he that denieth
that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth
the Father and the Son, and whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath
not the Father, but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father. So look
at verse 24. Let that therefore abide in you,
which you have heard from the beginning." Now, what did you
hear from the beginning talking about being born again? You heard
the gospel. Let that abide in you. In other
words, continue in you believing the gospel. The gospel never
changes. You and I, we change. Hopefully we change in growth,
in grace, and knowledge of Christ. But sometimes our change is not
for the better, for the worse. But the gospel never changes.
Jesus Christ, the righteous, never changes. He's the same
today, yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes. And the righteousness in which
we stand before God never changes. It's never soiled by our sins. The Bible says, who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies.
Who can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Think
about that. Our sins cannot be charged to
our count, therefore they cannot condemn us because Christ went
to the cross and died for them. Now does that stir you up to
go out and live like the devil? If it does, you don't know Christ. That ought to stir you up to
worship, praise God, thank Him, glorify Him with every fiber
of your being. So he says in verse 24, 1 John
2, let that therefore abide in you, which you have heard from
the beginning. If that which you have heard
from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue
in the son and in the father. Now, with all that said, verse three of chapter two, hereby
we do know that we know him. How? We keep our eyes fixed upon
Christ. Hebrews 13 says this, it says,
it's a good thing that the heart be established with your obedience,
no, with grace. And a heart established with
grace realizes that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Don't be like Peter and take
your eyes off Christ and look at the storm. Fix your gaze on
Christ. My heart is fixed, the psalmist
said. It's fixed on Christ for my salvation. Yes, I look at myself. Yes, I
take inventory of myself. But I won't take my eyes off
of Christ when it comes to my relationship with God, my salvation,
my blessedness, my assurance. Peace because of the Prince of
Peace. Assurance because He's my surety. He paid my debt in full. Who
can separate us from the love of God in Christ? Nothing. That's
what he says there in Romans 8. Look unto me and be ye saved
all the ends of the earth, for I'm God, there's none else. A
just God and a Savior. Think about that. Keep your eyes
fixed upon Christ in the Word. And that's where that assurance
comes from. That's how we know that we're in Him and He's in
us. And don't depart from Him. I use this and I'll close with
this. Over in 2 Corinthians, I brought this up in the Bible
study earlier. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11. You know, Satan's work is a deception. Subtle. And as I told the people
a while ago, I said, Satan doesn't, he's not in the movie The Exorcist. Okay? Now I know there's demons
and demon possession and I know that happens. But Satan's tool
to try to get people to get their eyes off of Christ is deception. He doesn't come to you with horns
and a pitchfork and a tail. It says here in verse 2 of 2
Corinthians 11, and I want to read another verse in this and
then we'll close. He says, Paul says, I'm jealous over you with
godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Pure in God's sight
through Christ. The church is Christ's bride.
He is our husband. And he doesn't take it lightly
when we look at others that way. He says in verse three, but I
fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve. You know
what beguiled means, it means to fool her. Through his subtlety,
so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity or the singularity
that is in Christ. Satan's goal is to try to get
people to take their minds off of Christ and get it onto themselves.
get it onto all their troubles, get it onto the world. And it's
dainties, as one writer said. Anywhere but Christ. And how
does he do it? Well, look at verse 13 of 2 Corinthians 11. He says, for such are false apostles,
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ, claiming to be apostles of Christ, and no marvel, for
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. You know,
Satan tells a lot of truth, but he sprinkles in his lies. And
therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed
as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according
to their works. How do I know that I know him? You claim to be a Christian?
You claim to believe in Christ? Well, first find out if the Christ
you believe in is the Christ of this book, this Bible, according
to the doctrine of Christ, His person, His work. And look at
what the Bible says about those who trust Him and believe in
Him and who will be in glory with Him. Keep your eyes fixed
upon Him. That's the eye of faith, isn't
it? All right.