1 John 3 This has been the most difficult
and probably taken more time than anything I've ever studied
in the Word of God. third chapter of 1st John. And as I've said to you before,
the language is very, very simple. It's very simple if you listen
to it, if you read it. And yet, we're dealing with matters that
we want to be very careful about, very, very sure of. And so we want to look at it
carefully and I've tried to do that and I pray it will be a
blessing to you. First John 321 beloved. If our heart condemn
us not. Then have we confidence? Toward God now this is this is
teaching. That applies to. Our everyday lives, and I know
that's a common. Maybe a trite phrase, our everyday
lives, but we, we, this is how we live every day. And so that's,
that's why it's so important. If our heart condemn us not,
then we have confidence toward God. And of course it goes with
verse 20, verse 20. Beloved, if our heart condemned,
verse 20. Yeah. If our heart condemn us,
God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Now our
hearts as believers, you know this if you are a believer, often
condemn us. They often do. And the context
here explains why the prospect of our heart condemning us is
raised in this verse. When considering whether we love
God and his sheep, we saw that, right? The context all through
the book of 1 John so far. We've seen in the first three
chapters, it's talking about hereby we know. Hereby we know
that we pass from death unto life because we love the brethren.
And it talks about our love for God. And if we love the brethren,
then we love God. If we love God, we love the brethren.
If we don't love the brethren, we don't love God. And when you're
talking about things like that, you're talking about my love,
my faithfulness, my faith, my anything. A believer's heart is often going
to condemn him. Only the believer has a heart
that will condemn himself. Only the believer has that heart.
An unbeliever is never going to do that. Now an unbeliever
might have a twinge of conscience now and then. But it's so unreliable. Somebody might feel guilty if
they stole a pencil from work and accidentally brought it home.
Oh boy, I gotta take that back. Other people might rob somebody
of $10,000 and never miss a wink of sleep. Your conscience is
not your guide. The word of God is your guide. And an unbeliever may have that
twinge of conscience now and then, but even that is wrong.
And I'll tell you why. The unbeliever's conscience is
telling him he did something bad and he needs to be good to
be righteous before God. That's wrong. And it's worthless
to them. You need Christ in order to be
righteous before God. Only him and only he can present
you faultless before the throne of God. When a believer's heart
condemns them not, Think with me. When we have a
clear conscience, it's different than an unbeliever.
When a believer's heart condemns them, when your heart condemns
you, when your heart says, oh, it's not, oh no, I'm gonna go
to hell now because I did something bad. When a believer's heart
condemns them, it's, oh no, God deserves so much better than
that. Isn't that right? Isn't that how you feel about
it? It's not I'm gonna go to hell. If you trust Christ, you're
not worried about that. You're not worried about that.
But I'll tell you what does bother you. My God deserves faithfulness. He deserves all
my love. He deserves my selfless devotion
and service to Him. And I haven't never for a minute
given it to Him. Not for a minute. That's not
your conscience. That's the Spirit of God. And that's only a believer. An
unbeliever, by and large, though, they may feel that twinge of
conscience every once in a while, but by and large, they're going
to think the best of themselves. You know how I can talk about
unbelievers with such knowledge? Because I've got one living right
in here. I am one. I've been one. And in a sense, I still am one.
And unbelievers are masters at justifying their sin. Masters
at it. And understand that when I say
unbelievers, I'm not excluding anybody in this room. Because
we all have an unbeliever inside of us. God... Think about this
now. A different way in which the
heart condemns or doesn't condemn. God will say to the unbeliever,
I was sick and you didn't even visit me. I was in prison and
you didn't come to me. I was a stranger and you would
not take me in. We proved that, didn't we? Even
when he was a little baby, we had no room for it. And the unbeliever says, when?
We've never done anything bad like that. The believer on the other hand,
the Lord says to the believer, I was sick and in prison and
a stranger and you were there for me. And the believer says,
when? I've never done anything right. I know I should have been there
for you. But I'm so caught up in my own
things. So selfish, so cold. The believer says with the Apostle
Paul in Romans chapter 7, the things that I would do, I can't. I don't do them. I can't find
how to do them. And the things that I would not
do, That's what I ended up doing. And then he says this, oh, wretched
man that I am. He doesn't say, well, that's
just the way it is. As long as I'm in this body of
sin, I'm just gonna sin and I can't do anything about it. No, he
says, oh, wretched, wretched, vile, miserable fool that I am. And he looked forward to deliverance.
from the body of this death which can only come through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Not, O wretched circumstances,
not even, O wretched sin, O wretched man that I am. Does your heart condemn you like
that? Yeah, me too. And this is worth repeating now.
Talked about this in this study, but this is worth repeating.
Love is given as the evidence of God's grace in us. Verse 14
says, if you can know, if you can know that you love the brethren,
if you're certain of that, then you can be certain of this. God
has done a miracle in your heart. You're alive spiritually. Our
Lord said that even the world will know we are His by the love
that we have for one another. But this is not our confident
assurance before God. It's just not. It's not in the
scripture and it's not in our experience. When we start to examine our
love or our faith or our anything, as I said, our heart will condemn
us. How then do we have confidence toward God? We'll look at verses
19 and 20 again. I want us to be, as I said, I
want us to be careful here. These are key verses, 19 and
20. And understanding them opens
up this whole passage. And hereby we know that we are
of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him For if
our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth
all things. Hereby we know that we are of
the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. That word
for there is most often translated that. And I think that's the
better rendering of it here because look at it. Here's how we assure
our hearts before God. Now it refers back, as I said,
now verse 18 is not left out of the context. We do have evidence
by our love. Verse 14, I think, is just indisputably
clear about that. But also, that assurance comes
from what it says in verse 20 also, if our heart condemn us.
You know, that's some of the best evidence right there. You know who says I don't love
enough? Somebody that loves. Somebody that hates don't say
that. Don't care whether they ever love or it's much less enough.
But the one that says my love is pathetic and I wish it was
better. I wish I was better than I am. That's the one that loves.
That's the one that cares. If our heart condemns us, God
is greater than our heart. Here's our real assurance now.
And this is where we start getting into this word confidence in
verse 21. It's a different word than assure
in verse 19, different word. Now we're moving toward where
our real confidence is. God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. And
here's the question this morning. We've looked at different things,
different aspects of this chapter. Here's the question this morning.
What gives us real confidence toward God? If we love, then He must have
loved us. That's evidence, no question.
Because if we love, it's because He loved us first. But we don't
feel that we do love, certainly not like we ought. So our love
is not gonna give us much assurance. But our verse 21 there that we
read a while ago speaks of confidence. How does that come? Confidence.
If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward
God. If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart.
Let's talk about that for a second. My heart doesn't love much. And of course, when we talk about
our heart, we're talking about who we are, not the blood-pumping
organ in our chest. That's who we are. My heart doesn't
love much. It doesn't love very good. It
doesn't love very faithfully. But He does. God's greater than
my heart. You see that? He does. He loves
perfectly. He loves infinitely. He loves
freely. He loves eternally. He loves
immutably. Our hearts not very faithful. But his is to me. His heart is
faithful to me. My heart says I'm a wretch, like
Paul, a wretched man. But God says, you're my child. You're mine. I've loved you with
an everlasting love. And you are spotless and pure
and holy in my sight. Well done. Well done. Enter into the joys of thy Lord. Well, my heart's saying one thing,
God's saying something else. Who wins? God's greater. God's
greater than my heart. What he says overrules what my
heart says about me and about everything else for that matter.
And he knows all things. He knows, we read that verse,
he said, I know that my thoughts toward you are of peace. He knows the end from the beginning,
and that my name is written in his book, the book of life. God said to Ezekiel, can these
bones live? You remember that story? He took
him out into a field of exceeding dry, dead bones. And he said
to Ezekiel, can these bones live? And do you remember what Ezekiel
said? It's the same thing when you're
talking about can these bones live? Do these bones live? You
know who knows? He knows everything. And sometimes
I know. Sometimes I have confidence.
But my confidence is toward God. It's toward God. He knows, and
I know what he said, and so I can have confidence toward God. What is John saying here? Can I possibly be a child of
God? He knoweth, you know, Lord, you
know. Do I love? Do I know you? Am
I yours? Thou knowest, O Lord. What is John saying here? How
does this Help us with confidence. Well, what my heart says when
it condemns me, it really is of no value. I'm not the one
that knows. What my heart says about that
is not of much value. What matters is what God knows.
No matter how saved you feel, you may be lost as a skunk. But
what value is that? I feel saved. Is that your confidence? It's not about what your heart
says. But wait, Chris, if my heart condemning me doesn't matter,
then how does my heart not condemning me matter? Because look again
at what it says. When considering my love, my
faith, my anything, my heart condemns me. But remember these
two things. God is greater. In other words, when my heart
is at odds with God, God wins. Trust what he says, not what
I feel. And also it is what he knows
that matters. You may have been a believer
for 20 years and you still maybe say, I just don't know. I just
don't know. That's all right. That's all right. He does. And if your heart does not condemn
you, how come? How can you have a heart that
doesn't condemn you? because you're confident it's
not in yourself, it's toward God. In verse 21 there, it doesn't
say before God. It doesn't say I can have confidence
before God. It just doesn't. And I've heard
it preached that way, and it's just not right. When Paul says
in Galatians 1.20, Now the things which are right unto you, behold,
before God, I lie not, before God. I'm standing here before
God, in the presence of God, and telling you the truth. Now,
he's saying there what it sounds like, in the presence of God.
That's not what our verse says. And I'm assuming they could have
used that word, if that's what they wanted, if that's what John
wanted to say, he could have used that word, in the presence
of God, before God. But he didn't. It means unto,
toward, or with regard to. Notice here how that verse verses
20 and 21 are all about getting our consideration of things,
our perspective away from ourselves and own God. My heart this, but
God is greater. God knows all things and I can
have confidence toward him. I don't know, but God knows all
things. I'm not sure. Have confidence
toward God then. I'm not sure of myself. Be sure
of Him. And if your confidence is toward
God, then your heart won't condemn you. It cannot. You know why? Because it is God
that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. That's my confidence, not that
I measure up. If my confidence is toward Him,
I measure up in Him. And what my heart tells me doesn't
matter that much. It matters in the sense that
I want to be comforted, I want to have assurance, don't you?
I don't want to go through this life cringing at everything I
do. And the only reason I'm not doing that And it still hurts
when we fail. It's always gone. You're not
going to be able to see it anymore. Now, I say that sometimes we
will because we're still in this flesh. But not completely with
impunity, though. We'll, in our own hearts, we feel it. We know what we're,
what we are before him and what he deserves better than anybody.
And that's always going to affect us. But our confidence is toward
God. He saves sinners, not good people. You know, it says, there is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, not to them
that love enough, to them who are in Him. That you love at all is evidence
of salvation. We've seen that, but it is not
our confidence. If it is, your confidence will
abandon you more often than not. And if it is, you probably shouldn't
have any confidence, because your confidence is in the wrong
person. Our confidence is that God sees
what we can't see. He knows what we do not know.
And He's worthy of all of our confidence. When you look to
Christ, you will feel no condemnation. When you look to yourself, you're
condemned. But remember this, believer,
this may be the most important thing I say all morning. When you look to yourself, you
will be condemned, but only by your heart. Your heart, believer, If you
believe on Christ now, He's your hope, He's your trust, He's your
righteousness, He's your sin offering. Your heart's gonna
condemn you often, but only your heart. He said, neither do I condemn
thee. Go and sin no more. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. I
think this sheds some light on this, on where our confidence
is and why It ought to be, and I'm glad that it is. Hebrews
chapter 10, verse 19. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. We're confident. We can come to into the presence
of God. We have and we can come with
boldness, not not pride. But with confident assurance,
that's what our text is talking about, confident assurance, that's
what boldness is. With grit, without without fear,
but with great respect, great reverence. You know the difference
between fear Adam and Eve were afraid in the garden and they
hid themselves. Paul referenced God and said,
we come boldly, we come boldly to the throne into the holiest
by the blood of Jesus. There's our confident assurance
about right there by a new and living way, which he have consecrated
for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. You see, if my heart's condemning
me, I'm taking my eyes off of this. I'm looking at myself.
I'm looking at what John is talking about in the context, our love
for God and for his people. And I'm looking at that and I'm
saying, man, I'm in trouble. But God still
knows this. God still knows this and he's
greater than our heart. He overrules my heart because
he sees the blood. When I see the blood, you live. He has consecrated for us through
the veil, that is to say his flesh. And having in high priest over
the house of God let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith not assurance in faith we don't faith doesn't
trust faith faith trusts him that precious blood having our
hearts sprinkled oh see here's our text right here my heart's
not going to condemn me why It's sprinkled with the blood of Jesus
Christ. And then whether I feel saved
or don't feel saved, I'm saved. Having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering. For he is faithful. that promise. You see that? That's an important
verse right there. Because what most people think,
if what most people think were true, what this would say is,
let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering
because we need to be faithful. Our faith doesn't hold to ourselves. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering because He's faithful. Let our
faith be in His faithfulness. Most people's faith is in their
own faith. I have faith and so I'm saved. I have faith and I believe God
that even though I've never measured up, I don't measure up and I'm
not ever going to measure up as long as I'm in this body.
Christ saves with His precious blood. And I couldn't add anything
to that even if I wanted to. My assurance, my faith. And I'm
faithful. My faithfulness. Let's hold fast
the profession of our faith because He's faithful. He is faithful
that promised. I believe his promise. I don't
believe I'm what I ought to be. But I believe his promise. That he came to save sinners
like me. Now look at verses 22 through
24 together back in our text. 1 John 3, 22. And whatsoever we ask, we receive
of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight. A heart that is confident. Let's
read them together. And this is his commandment. That we should believe on the
name of his son, Jesus Christ. And love one another. as he gave us commandment. And
he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him.
And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he
hath given us. How do we keep his commandments?
Well, there's a couple of ways to look at this. Commandments
in verse 22 is plural, and commandments, singular, in verse 23. To keep
all of his commandments is to keep that one commandment. If you have faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, then before God, you have kept every commandment
he ever gave, because Christ did as your representative. Now the commandments may be,
it says commandments plural, and he may be referring to faith
and love. As you see both of those in verse
23. Either way, it's right. Because if we have faith in Christ
in the full God. We've kept every commandment.
That's why he came. And lived as he did and did always
those things that please the father. He wrote a perfect righteousness
for all of his people. And it's not. It's not as though
we kept the commandments. We keep the commandments. Because
We're in Him. It's real. It's not a fake. That's
why these saints in the scriptures speak the way they do. They don't
say it's as though we kept the commandments because He did.
No. We're one. We're one with Christ. He's my representative. When
He did, I did. It's not like I did. I did in
Him. And this is His commandment. A heart that's confident toward
God is one that looks to Him and not self. We don't look to
our love, but His. We don't look to our faithfulness,
but His. We don't look to our knowledge or power, but His.
We don't trust what we've done or do, but our hope is in Christ
and what He has done. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, his person, his
word. And knowing this, we come in
prayer to God, knowing that we will have from
him what we need. And I'll take it a step further,
because we'll have every good thing there is to have. No good thing will he withhold.
from those that love him. Isn't that what the scripture
said? And we just talked about that. It's about love. If we
love him, it's because he first loved us. And since he did first
love us, we love him. And no good thing will he withhold
from those that love him. And so we come and ask, and he
gives it. I've said this to you before,
but this is important. It's not that we get everything
that we ask for. It's better than that. Always
remember that. It's way better than that. If
you got everything you ask for, that's one thing. But this is
way better because what you get from God is only and always what
is good for you. Whether you ask for it or not,
you're going to get it. Now, what we don't have is because
we don't ask. You know what James said? We
may not get every good thing, but everything we need, we're
going to have it from God. Even if I'm too dumb
to ask for it, He's going to give it to me. Isn't that right? I mean, if I'm in Christ, he's
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. Now, I may suffer in this life and suffer a lot
of pain and fear and regret and things needlessly because I don't
ask. But if I need it, I'm gonna have
it. And He's going to rule out everything
I ask for that's not good for me. Isn't that a lot better than
getting everything you ask for? That's a whole lot better. Now we receive this because we
keep His commandments. This is said in the same sense
that it says above that whosoever is born of God does not sin. Now we know better than that,
we sin. We commit sin every day, every
hour, every minute. of some kind. And so are we to
conclude that we're not born of God? No, we do not sin because
we are in Christ and because we are born of the Spirit of
God. We saw that in that passage there.
Let's look at it again. We've got time this morning to
look at that. Verse 14, we know that we have
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his
brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer
hath eternal life abiding in him. Wait a minute, I didn't go back
far enough, did I? Okay, whosoever, verse nine. Verse six, we gotta go back even
further. Look at verse six. Whosoever
abideth in him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth
from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of
God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil,
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed
remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.
In both places where it says you don't sin, there's a phrase
right before it that tells you why. Whosoever abideth in him
sinneth not. If you're in Christ, you're one
with Him. God sees you as He sees His Son,
His only begotten Son. perfect and spotless and holy.
Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. And then down here in verse
9, whosoever is born of God doesn't sin. The new man doesn't sin. The old man does. And so everything
I do is infected with sin. But the new man does not. He's
created in righteousness and true holiness, the scripture
says. And so that's the sense in which we keep his commandments.
That's what not sinning is. It's doing God's will. doing
what he said, obeying him. And so this is nothing new, but
we wanted to look at it again because we need to understand
the sense in which we keep his commandments. We keep his commandments
and we sin not. And they're not exactly the same
thing. I said that wrong. They're not exactly the same
thing. Sinning not and keeping his commandments. They're two
sides of the same coin, though, so they're pretty much. Sinning
not is not doing it. That's the negative side. Not
doing anything that's against God. Keeping His commandments
is the positive side. Honoring Him. Loving Him. You can not do anything wrong
and yet just do that, you know, because you want to go to heaven
when you die. Keeping His commandments is more than just obeying. Didn't
he say love is the fulfillment of the commandments? Love. Love God. Do it because you want
to honor him. That's the heart that he gives.
That's the new man, born of God. In Christ, we do both. The new
man, born of God, does both. In verse 23, as I said, commandment
is singular. In verse 22, plural, but we've
talked about that. We keep all of God's commandments
in Christ. And this commandment we keep. How do we keep that one? Faith,
believing this is God's work. That you believe, listen to John
628. Then said they unto him, what shall we do that we might
work the works of God? Notice plural, the works of God. And Jesus answered and said to
them, this is the work of God. That you believe on him. If you do the work, you've done
the works because you're in him and he did him for you. He did
him for you as your representative. That's why he said it's singular,
though. You don't do the works of God. But there is one thing
you must do. You must believe. How do we do
that? Well, let's look at the rest
of our text. Verse 24, he that keepeth his
commandments dwelleth in him and he in him. Otherwise, I'm
the vine and you're the branches. If you don't dwell in him, how
many good works are you going to do? He's going to cut you
off and burn you up. You're not going to produce any
fruit. except you abide in the vine. You see that here? We abide
in him and he in us. Otherwise, forget it. Forget
it. He's not writing this that you
might do good works and be saved. He's already said in the context
here, I'm writing this to you because you are saved, because
you do believe. And here's why. Herein, hereby,
verse 24, the last part, hereby we know that he abideth in us,
by the spirit which he hath given us. Now, what are these commandments
that he talked about? In verse 23, this is his commandment
that we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another as he gave commandment. Faith and love,
where do they come from? The fruit of the spirit. is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
and somewhere down the line is faith, gentleness, goodness. Love and faith, how do we have
that? By the Spirit, which He has given
us. You and I ain't getting no glory
in this, are we? Is that alright with you? Is
that alright with you? I'm fine with that because of
His Spirit that dwells within me. The fruit of the Spirit,
love and faith. We know by the Spirit that dwelleth
in us. Think about that for a second.
Have you seen the Spirit in you lately? How do you know that
the Spirit dwells in you? Because you can speak in some
language somebody doesn't understand. I can show you in the scripture
where that's a joke. He just said it. You believe
on Christ. That's not of yourselves. The
fruit of the Spirit is faith. You love the Lord. You love his
people. That's what he just said. That's the Spirit that dwelleth
in us. Not us. Not I, but Christ. that liveth
in me. The fruit of the Spirit is borne
by the Spirit. And the fruit of the Spirit is
attributed to us. Because we're one. It's imputed to us. The Lord
Jesus Christ didn't say, Peter, does the Spirit love me? He said,
do you love me? He already knows the Spirit loves
me. Do you love me? And again, we do not look to
our faith or our love. We look to Him whose Holy Spirit
bears witness with our spirit that we're the sons of God and
bears this fruit in us. And may we love Him more And Lord, increase our faith. And may we always look to you
for all our assurance and confidence. Let's pray together.