John 3. We're glad Obie's back
and feeling good enough to be here and wish the family was
too. I'm going to start reading at verse
18, read to the end of the chapter, down to verse 24. My little children, Let us not
live at love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in
truth. 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. Beloved, if our heart condemn
us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we
ask, we receive of him, because we can keep his commandments.
and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. 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 unto us. Back here with me at 1 John,
and I get my subject, To get my subject, the title of my message
out of verse 21, have we confidence toward God or confidence toward
God? Confidence toward God. John here
talks about assuring our hearts and having confidence toward
God. He says back up there in verse 19, and shall assure our
hearts before Him and having confidence toward God. And that's
what the Gospel does. That's what the Word of God does. It gives us assurance and gives
us confidence, not in us, not in ourselves. You know, the apostle
says we have no confidence in the flesh and know that in my
flesh dwells no good thing. So he's here talking about confidence
toward God, not ourselves, not the church, not the preacher,
but God and assurance. And only, I'll tell you this,
the only person that can give another person assurance is God
himself. God is the only one who can give
a man assurance. And the gospel in the word of
God, that's what it does. That's what gives us assurance
and confidence. That's what Paul says. We know
that the gospels come unto you because we know your election.
It came in word and it came in power and it came in truth and
with much assurance, much assurance. And you notice there and also
in verse 18 and here by no, excuse me, verse 19. Assure our hearts
before Him. Now, verse 19, yes. And we know
that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts. And
look where it's before. Before Him. Before Him. Before
God. It's Him with whom we have to
do. And oh my, how do we know that we got this confidence in
God? And how are our hearts assured? Well, John said here in verse
19, and hereby we know And when he said, hereby we know, up until
that time, he's talking about because of everything I said
before, hereby we know. We come to this conclusion. Hereby
we know. So let me give a few things in
these verses here about having this confidence toward God. Things
that we know and have assurance in our hearts. First thing is
that we perceive the love of God. Look back up in verse 16. Hereby perceive we the love of
God. We have some understanding of
the love of God. And that word perception means
we see it, we believe it, we have some understanding of it.
And we have some little, we have perceived God's love towards
us in our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we perceive God's love?
And he says because of the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made.
He laid down his life for us. Christ laid down His life for
us. This glorious God-man, this blessed,
sinless Savior, this blessed one, loved of the Father, sent
from heaven itself, sent here from glory to earth, And he who
had no sin of his own, had no guilt of his own, he was the
just for the unjust. He was punished not for his sin,
but for our sin. And it's said here that he laid
down his life. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
and he resisted not. And when it talks about He laid
down His life, that means, beloved, that He gave it. He laid it down. He willingly gave Himself for
us. And He said, that's how you perceive
the love of God. That's what John said in John
3.16. Herein is the love of God that God sent His only begotten
Son into the world that we might have life through Him. God so
loved the world. And then he says, not only that
do we perceive the love of God, but here's another way that we
perceive God's love for us. Not only that Christ laid down
his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the
brethren. If Christ laid down his life for us, we ought to
lay down our lives for one another. Now what in the world is he talking
about here? Well, how do we lay down our lives for our brethren?
Well, by our service to one to another, waiting on one another,
ministering to one another, If we have any of these world's
goods and we see our brother in need, we are glad and thankful
that we can take our world's goods and be able to share them
and give them and meet the needs of others that don't have them.
God has some people that have lots of world's goods and some
that don't have so many. And He does that to balance things
out so that those who have a lot of it will be able to help those
who don't have much. And so not only by giving this
world's goods, but giving, giving to help, guarding their reputation,
guarding one another's reputation, ready to stand up to the defense
of one another, stand up to defend one another, defend their character,
defend their truth, defend their, whatever it is about them, you
defend them, you defend them. You know people, people are so
quick, talked about this recently, people are so quick to believe
anything that somebody says about another person. But I don't,
this is, I know this to be true. I know this to be true. God's
people are not like that. God's people are not like that.
Somebody comes to them and starts talking about a brother or a
sister or something like that, we come to the defense of it.
This is because somebody says something about it. Now a natural
man, he would rather believe a lie as to believe the truth.
The lie gets up and goes all the way around the house before
truth even gets up off the porch. But God's people are not like
that. Charity covers a multitude of
sin. Charity is not easily offended.
And so we will guard one another's reputation. We wouldn't dare
tell something on somebody and go out and say something about
somebody that wouldn't be true. And even if it's true, we ought
not say it if it's going to hurt their reputation. And that's
what He said, lay down your life. Look what He said, I think we
looked at this last week, but look in Romans chapter 16. Look
in Romans 16. Look in Romans 16 verse 3. That's
why Paul said, I willingly offer a sacrifice upon your faith and
your love. I willingly be offered upon your
sacrifice of your love. He said here in Romans 16, 3,
Greet Piscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus, who
have for my life laid down their own necks. Put their necks, and
that word put your necks, that means put it on the chopping
block. Struck their necks out for me. You ever heard anybody
hear that expression? They struck their neck out for me. And that's
what he's saying, they put their necks out for me. with the idea
that they may have their heads cut off. They stood up for me.
Unto whom not only I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles,
they give thanks for them too. So that's what he's talking about.
Now back over here in 1 John 3, everybody doesn't perceive
the love of Christ. Everybody doesn't perceive the
love of God. Everybody won't lay down their
life for their brethren. because he says here in verse
17, But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have
need, and shut up his vows of compassion from him, how dwelleth
the love of God in him? It's just a conclusion. It's
just a conclusion. It doesn't dwell in him. And
then look what he goes on to say in verse 18, my little children.
How many times did he call them my little children? He's talking
to grown men, talking to a lot of people that's old. He himself
was very old at this time. And then he says, my little children. My little children. Oh my. Let us love. Let us not love
just in word. Let us not love neither in tongue,
but in deed and in truth. So let us love not just in what
we say, not by just using words. Let our love for our brethren
not be just a lip service. Let it not just be a profession,
just professing to love and not manifested, not really brought
out and not seen and not experienced. And he says, let it not be. If
it's just from the word and it's just from the lips and just from
the tongue, that's just a profession. He said, that's just a profession.
Let's not have just a profession of loving somebody and they never
know it and never experience it and never know anything about
it. That'd be awful if you was married to somebody and they
would never know that you loved them if you didn't express your
love for them. And that's the way it is with brethren. You
don't know if somebody, if they don't ever express it. Talking
to Todd today, and I know every time I talk to Todd or Bruce
or one of the brethren before I hang up, I say, boy, I sure
do love you. And they say, I love you too,
Donny. And that's the way we part ways. And I've done this
for years, and some of y'all know this. You know, when I see
the brethren, I haven't seen in a while, I grab them and squeeze
them real hard and give them a kiss on the cheek. I kiss them
on the cheek. You know why I do that? Greet
the brethren with a holy kiss. Oh, bye. And then look what he
goes on to say in verse 19. And hereby, what I've said to
this point, And you got to keep it in the context about the message
of love. He started out this chapter about
love. And he gets through the middle of it, he talks about
love. He talks about love and hatred, love and murder, and
Christ putting away our sin and us not having sin in Christ.
And hereby we know because of what he said, He says this, because
of everything we said, this is how we can know that we are of
the truth. How can we know we're of the truth? Because we love
the brethren. We pass from death unto life.
We're not murderers. We know that Christ died for
us. We know that Christ put away our sins for us. We know that
Christ destroyed the works of the devil for us. And we know
that. And because when we hear these blessings, we know then
that we're of the truth. We know we're of the truth. Over
in Thessalonians, it says there that they received not the love
of the truth. Not the love of the truth. Now
that's one thing. We know we are of the truth.
How do we know we're of the truth? Do you love truth? Do you love
the truth? I mean love it. Just delight
in it. And you know when you hear the
truth, you just love it. I love it. I love the gospel.
I love the truth. And not only do we love the truth,
but we seek the truth. We want the truth. We desire
the truth. We want the preacher to tell
us the truth. We want to be truthful to one another. Not only that,
but we need the truth. We need it. We need the truth
about Christ. Tell us the truth about Christ.
Tell us who He is. Tell us what He did. Tell us
why He did it. Tell us who He did it for. Tell
us where He is now. And I'll tell you a truth that
we really need about ourselves, and we love the truth, that we
love the truth of what it says about ourselves. And you know
what it says about us? That outside of Christ, we can
do nothing, have nothing, know nothing. And it addresses us
as we are. It addresses us, and bless His
name, we want to know the truth about ourselves. And this is
why I don't want, if there's something in me, That that's
against God that's against Christ against his truth against his
word if there's something in me That's not for all the truth
that God will teach me and give to me and show me God saved me
from it right now Show me that truth and save me from it save
me from it, huh? Oh, we know we are the truth.
We love it. We seek it. We need it. You know
why you come here? Because you need to hear the
truth. You come here to hear the truth. You come here to hear
about Christ. And you don't get upset if the
preacher calls you a worm or a grasshopper. That's what God
said about us. O thou worm Jacob grasshoppers
and then he turns around tells us that we're beloved of God
and we're complete in Christ and perfect in Christ and we
we know both those truths to be so Oh my and our Lord says this
know ye the truth and the truth will set you free and you know
even as believers there are times we need to be set free we really
do We need to set free from false opinions of ourselves, set free
from traditions, set free from wrong opinions, set free from
false perceptions, set free from ill-thinking, ill-willed, things
contrary to Christ, things contrary to the Spirit of God. There's been times I say, Lord,
oh, please set me free from these thinking. Set me free from these
thoughts. Set me free from this feeling. Set me free from this
attitude. You ever had an attitude and
you say, Lord, save me from this? Set me free from this attitude.
None of you've ever had that, have you? Never had to pray like
that. Get up of a morning and I mean,
you don't know why it is, but you're grouchy, grumpy, mean,
hateful all day long. Bless your hearts, I know they
don't happen to you. I'm not, I'm preaching to myself
now. Not even preaching to the choir,
preaching to me. Tell the way you're looking at me. You know, our Lord says the words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. The
words, He said, I speak unto you, I'm the way and I'm the
truth. and oh God give us truth and then he says and hereby we
know of the truth and when we know that we know of the truth
shall assure our hearts before him not before one another before
him assure our hearts before him and that's where it counts
in his sight you go through Galatians and go through the scriptures
and how many times did you say in his sight in his sight justified
not by works in his sight justified by faith in his sight And so
we talk about being in God's sight. How does God look at us?
And he says, and so when we know that we're of the truth, we can
go before the Lord, and before the Lord, we can assure our hearts
before Him that we are of the truth. We have this great confidence,
this blessed assurance that we are of the truth. And that's
why, beloved, it's with Him that we have to do. It's by Him we
live, move, and have our being. And that's the thing in assuring
our hearts before Him In order to have an assured heart before
Him, our hearts is confident in the sight of God. In the sight
of God. And then look what he says in
verse, and it goes on about the heart. He said, there we can
assure our hearts because we're of the truth. We know that we're
of the truth. And so we shall assure our hearts
before Him, persuade our hearts before Him. When we hear the
truth, our hearts respond to truth. And then he says, if our
heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all
things. Now what in the world, and you know, I think I dealt
with this last week, and I've dealt with it a time or two.
If our heart condemn us, now you gotta keep, he's not talking
about being condemned by sin. That's not what he's talking
about here. God condemning us for sin. He's already judged
us for sin. But this, if our heart condemn
us, if our heart condemn us over, and keep it in its context, about
the love of the brethren. And that's what this whole thing's
about, is the love of the brethren. loving one another passing from
death unto life and have this world's goods and not just loving
in word not just loving in tongue but loving actually in our deeds
and what we do for one another and he says now this I'm not
he's not talking about being condemned over sin that's not
what he's talking about but the context in the context condemned
if your heart condemns you for not loving the breath for not
treating people right, for not acting right, for not having
a good attitude and the right attitude, for not glorifying
Christ in these things, and not loving the brethren, and not
honoring Christ, and not glorifying Christ. He said, if our hearts
condemn us, and then he says, God is greater than a heart.
God knows more about you than you ever knew. And what he's
saying is, is that he knows all things that's going on in our
hearts, he knows what's going on in our thoughts, he knows
what's going on in our attitude, he knows what's coming out of
our mouths, he knows what we're doing before we even do it. So
if our hearts condemn us, he's looking at our heart, he's greater
than our hearts, and he knows those things about us. And that's
why, you know, so many times you find the psalmist, that's
what he'd say. He'd say, oh Lord, the depths
is coming over me. But then he said, oh thou God,
come to me. He said, God, you know me. You
know me when I get up. You know me when I get down.
You know me when I go out. You know me when I come in. You
know when I'm laying down. You know when I get up. Everything
about me, you know. And so, you know, the thing is,
is that God knows it. Nothing's hid from Him. And if
our hearts condemn us, how much more would God condemn us and
grieve the Spirit over these things, over these things? Oh,
and I tell you, to condemn a heart that doesn't love Christ and
loves the brethren, that's what he's talking about here. And
then he says, beloved, I love this again. Little children,
now he says, beloved, beloved. If our hearts condemn us not,
If we're not condemned over our attitude, our nature, our love
for the brethren, if we know that we love the brethren, and
we love actually indeed, and we know that we do, we know that
God loves us and we love our brethren and we are willing to
lay down our lives for our brethren, put our reputation and our whole
lives for their sake, if we can. If our heart condemn us not,
it does not judge us, it does not find us guilty, and does
not make us feel bad about the way we think, and the way we
feel, and the way we act. If our heart condemn us not,
then we have some confidence toward God. Some confidence toward
God. And how do we know we have this
confidence toward Him? Look what He says next. Whatsoever
we ask, we receive of Him. Now that's a statement of fact.
Whatsoever we ask of Him, we receive. We receive. Whatever we ask, we receive of
Him. Now that's a statement of fact. And I tell you, prayer
and confidence go together. Oh my, when your heart's not
condemned and you have this confidence toward God, you ask of God. When
you got confidence toward God, you got confidence and you know
the truth, you have confidence to go to the Lord. And you ask
for things. You can ask and you receive.
You ask and you receive. Prayer and confidence go together.
And our Lord is an example. Our Lord is an example. Here
are the two, you've asked nothing in my name. Now you're asking
whatsoever you ask in my name, the Father will do it. And he
said in John 11, he said, Father, I know you always hear me, but
I'm not asking you to hear me for my sake. I know you always
hear me, but for those standing around there, I want them to
know that you always hear me. And that's when he called Lazarus
from the tomb. And in the garden, in the garden, Our Lord Jesus
Christ, he prayed, not my will, but thine be done. Thine be done. And I tell you how we're not
to pray, like that Pharisee who said this, I thank thee, O God,
that I'm not as other men. I fast twice in the week. I give
tithes of all that I possess. That's not prayer. That's not
confidence toward God. That's confidence in yourself.
And our Lord Jesus Christ, he came. And He came down in the
garden, in the dust before God Himself, and said, Father, Father,
if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless,
not my will, but Thine be done. And I'll tell you this, now when
you ask the Lord for something, ain't this the long and the short
of it? Lord, whatever your will is for
me, that's what I want today. Every single, it's your day.
Whatever your will is for me, Today, let it be your will done
to me. One thing I don't want, I don't
want my will. I don't want my will done. I
ain't got sense enough to govern my own life. I ain't got sense
enough to make the right decisions. I certainly ain't got sense enough
to pastor a church and preach without the Lord, that's for
sure. But oh Lord, we're like our master, that's the example
he gave us, not my will but thine be done. Oh God, Whatever your
will is, please help me bow to it. Let me submit to it. Let
me just give over submission to you, complete submission to
you. And I'll tell you something, that's what we try to do. Lord,
if it be Your will, we'll do this. If it be Your will, we'll
do that. If it be Your will, we'll go
here. If it be Your will, we won't. And that's what He's talking
about here. And then look what else He said.
And down and on right after that. And whatsoever we ask of Him,
we receive, because we keep His commandments and do those things
that are pleasing in His sight. What in the world is he talking
about now? We have this confidence. We ask what we're good, but why?
Because we keep His commandments and we do those things that are
pleasing in His sight. Now, what in the world is His
commandments and what's pleasing in His sight? I know one person
that was well-pleased, well-pleased with, and that's His blessed
Son. I do always the things that please Him, our Lord said. And
if we're going to please God, and He gives us these commandments
right here. He tells us the commandments
that we keep. We keep both of these now. Every believer keeps
both of these commandments right here. And you go back and look
at what our Lord taught, and these are the things that He
taught. And here's the keeping His commandments. And His commandment
that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ,
we keep that commandment. We believe on Him, the blessed
Son of God. We believe in our sure that thou
art the Christ. We believe that you're God's
son. We believe that you're the only savior. We believe you're
only mediator. We believe you're the only one
that can save us from our sins. We believe that Jesus Christ
is the son of God, not just a son of God, but the son of God. the
only begotten Son of God. We believe that, and that was
a commandment God gave us, and that's why He don't ask people
to believe. Our Lord said, come unto me. No man can come unto
the Father but by me. No man knows the Son but the
Father, and he to whomsoever he'll reveal him. And He said,
except you believe I'm He, you'll die in your sins. That's a scary
thing. And the second commandment is
this, and love one another as He gave us commandments. Now
those that He said, We have confidence in that, we have this confidence
because we keep these commandments. Every believer keeps these two
commandments. They do. These two go together. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, and love one another. Look what he said over here in
1 John 2.10. 1 John 2.10. He that loveth his brother abideth
in the light, and there's none occasion of stumbling in him.
So here we have two commands, believe on the son of God and
love one another. That's what our Lord told us
to do. And he gave us this commandment. And then in verse 24, he says
this, and he that keepeth his commandments, he dwells in him,
dwells in Christ and Christ dwells in him. And hereby we know that
he abides in us or dwells in us by the spirit, which he has
given unto us. Now I want to show you two verses
of scripture and I'll wind this up. Look in John chapter 14 John
14 Verse 21 Well, we know that he
he abides we abide in him and he abides in us Well, we dwell
in him We dwell in Christ and we abide in Christ and he abides
in us by the Spirit which he's given to us Our Lord said here
in verse 21 John 14, He that hath my commandments and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be
loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself
to him. Judas saith unto him, our Lord
said, I'm going to love him and manifest myself to him. Judas
saith unto him, Iscariot, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that
thou wilt manifest, bring yourself out, make yourself known unto
us and not out in here in the world? Our Lord answered and
said unto him, if a man loved me, he'll keep my words and my
father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode
with him. We'll come and live with him.
We'll come and live in him, dwell in him, love him and take care
of him and live inside him. And how do we know that? By the
spirit that he's given unto us. God sent forth the spirit of
his son into our hearts. We cry, Abba, Father. No longer
servants, but sons. And if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he said, he's none of His. He's none of His. Our Father, in the blessed name
of Christ our Lord, thank you for the truth. Oh Lord, we know
we're of the truth and we thank you for it. We have assurance
in our hearts that we are of the truth, assured before you
even. Lord, if we believed a lie and
didn't know you, then we'd be afraid to come before you. But
because of what you've done for us, laid down Your life for us,
gave Yourself so willingly, so freely, rendered complete submission
to Your Father. And Lord, enable us to, in our
hearts, submit ourselves to the Father and His blessed will.
And oh, our Father, we pray that You would enable us to always,
always, always keep these two commandments, to believe on the
Son of God, believe Him, believe Him to be all that He said He
is and all that He's done. that we might be a partaker with
him. And oh, Father, that we would love one another. God,
cause this love to be shed abroad in all of our hearts. Cause it
to bring glory and honor to you. And Father, forgive us of everything
that's unlike you. And I ask this in our Lord Jesus'
name. Amen. Amen.