Seven Evidences of Being a Christian — Edgar Reich

Fellowship with the Father and the Son

We're going to cover seven verses from chapter 1 and chapter 2, but for now we'll read 1 John 1, verse 3. 1 John 1, verse 3. That which we have seen and heard we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

Now this verse was written by the Apostle John. He is the loving Apostle and he generally said a lot of kind things, but some of the things he says in his letters will remind us of Christian standards that we need to hear about because we don't hear those Christian standards these days very often, but they help us to live by and to walk in the truth.

So first of all in verse 3 he says that which we have seen and heard. Now he was an eyewitness. He was a witness when Christ died and rose again. So when he says which we have seen and heard we declare to you here an eyewitness is speaking that there is a future and a hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and that he rose again and that he came to bring us salvation.

And then it says that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. So the first part here refers to the fellowship and truly our fellowship is with us and with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

Now I wonder what is a fellowship in your opinion and in your thinking? Perhaps you can think about it, but a fellowship is really a relationship. It is relating to one another, talking with one another, knowing one another, being able to speak with one another, being able to feel the heartbeat of the other person and the other person being able to reflect on my heartbeat.

And so the first part here is that we have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. That is the number one evidence of a Christian. That we truly have fellowship and you know this is a very difficult concept.

It is also a difficult concept for me because we have fellowship with a Spirit at this time point. With the Spirit of God, with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. We cannot see him at this point. We will see him later on, but for now we are walking by faith.

So this fellowship is in a relationship with an unseen God that we cannot see with our eyes. So that becomes very difficult at times. And so we say well how is that possible that we can have that fellowship?

And Jesus explained that through his discussions with a very high ranking official with the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a ruling party of the Israelites and a member came to see him at night. Nicodemus was his name.

And Jesus said to him, you must be born again. And then he didn't understand how this new birth would take place. And Jesus said that this new birth would not take place in a physical sense. But that it would be in the Spirit.

That we must be born again in the Spirit. And he said of the water and of the Spirit. The water has a number of different meanings for different people. But to me it means that we were physically born to be able to receive Christ.

Born of the water. Some say it refers to baptism. And there are some other meanings that are ascribed to the term water. But Jesus said that we must be born of the Spirit. And this is not a physical birth, but it is one where when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ into our life.

Then we are born of the Holy Spirit as a new person. And so as Jesus explained this. He also said that in this relationship with the Holy Spirit. We would not always be able to see the moving of the Holy Spirit.

He compared the Holy Spirit to a wind. We had a big tornado here the other day. It touched down in Milton. Actually my daughter and I, we got stuck in the car. We were coming from the airport. And we were sitting on the side of the road.

And the water was coming down so much that we couldn't see out of the windows. And then the tornado touched down in Milton itself. And destroyed some properties there. And we had two little grandchildren in the car.

And they were frantic. And as we started to pray, peace came over the car. And the peace of the Holy Spirit came. And outside we could see the wind moving trees. Outside we could see the wind moving things around.

But on the inside, the wind of the Holy Spirit gave peace and joy and love. And so we see the Holy Spirit move in our lives. And in many different ways, if we're open to him, if we invite him, and we look for him to show us how this relationship actually works.

Now, I'd like to also give a little bit of a comparison where sometimes we get misled about this relationship. And we say, well, I have a relationship with God. And that is you know about God. But perhaps you have not had that one-on-one relationship.

To give an example of that, I drove by car to Washington, D .C. I wanted to meet the President of the United States. I said, I know him. He knows me. So I want to go and see him. So I went to the White House.

I went through the security gate as a visitor. And they checked for guns and knives and everything else. And then you get admitted to the White House. And the security people came to start to give the tour.

And I said, well, my name is Edgar Reich. And I'm a friend of the President of the United States. And I would like to see him. And the security man, he was about 6 '2". He looked down on me with a disdain expression on his face.

And he thought this man has lost his mind. But he said, well, why don't you go on the tour and let me check if the President knows you and then we'll let you know. So I ended the tour of the White House.

By the way, young people, this is a make-believe story. This is a make-believe story to try to explain whether or not I had a relationship with the President of the United States. And at the end of my White House tour, three big security men came.

They had their dark blue suits on. They were all over 6 feet tall. And the first man came and he said, you've got three problems. And I looked at the three big fellows, 6 '2", and greater, and I said, yes, I know, I have three big problems.

But he said, the first thing is that the President of the United States does not know you. And your second problem is that you do not have an appointment. And the third problem is that the President has his afternoon snooze that he's starting just now.

So you cannot see the President of the United States. And you know, this is an example of where we know about a person. I knew about the President of the United States from television, from reading in books, from magazines.

And I thought I knew the man, but he didn't know me. And you know, that's what Christ made possible for us, is to have fellowship with the Father, to have fellowship with the Son, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because through the Son, God made it possible, through being born again, that we can have fellowship with God the Father. So if you're sometimes wondering, am I truly a Christian, then you need to ask the question, do I have fellowship with God the Father, with God the Holy Spirit, and with God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if your answer is yes, then likely you are a Christian. And if you cannot say yes to this, then you must seek God in a new and different way, because something has gone wrong somewhere in your thinking, because you do not have this one-on-one relationship.

And by the way, that relationship also comes through Scripture reading, because you must know the other person. In order to get to know the other person, you have to know what the other person is like.

And then you also have that one-on-one relationship through prayer. As you pray, God will reveal himself through Scripture, through circumstances. It is as the wind is bending trees, he becomes real, and you are my life, that we can know him firsthand.

So the first principle is to have a relationship with God the Father and God the Son. And now let us please go to the next text, and the next text is found in 1 John 2, 1 John 1, verse 6. 1 John 1, verse 6.

Walking in the Light

Now here's a test that the Apostle John gives us in his writings. And he says, if we say that we have fellowship with him, meaning God, and walk in darkness, ooh, that is a hard word, we lie and do not practice the truth.

So verse 6, if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. I spoke with a lady not too long ago, and she told me her husband was saved. He had repeated a prayer an evangelist had said.

However, he appears to be backslidden, she said. He knows one verse of Scripture, and he doesn't pray much. His Bible is dusty. He doesn't profess that he's a Christian, and he doesn't make it to church much.

He says he can't stand church people. They're all hypocrites. He still gets drunk, and he's still immoral, I think, she said, the same as in the past. But he claims he's just weak. He won't give it up, but says he's saved.

What do you think? And I answer that from my knowledge of Scripture, there must be evidence that the person has become new and different. I think he was never saved. And she responded, well, I was suspicious about that.

So here the second test, or the second principle, the second evidence that I'd like to give you is 1 John 1 verse 6. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, if our daily walk is in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

This is what the Apostle John is saying. I'm not saying this just to make sure that you don't get too angry at me, but this is what the Apostle John is saying. And he was this loving, loving disciple, and he says that we lie, and the truth is not in us when we are to walk in him and in the light.

Keeping Christ's Commandments

Now the third evidence and the third principle that I'd like to share is found in 1 John 2 verses 3 -5. 1 John 2 verses 3 -5. Now by this we know that we know him. If we keep his commandments. Now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.

So to know the Spirit of God, to know God the Father, to know God the Son, to know God the Holy Spirit, we know him if we keep his commandments. So if we don't keep his commandments, and we say we know him, it makes us a liar.

And verse 4 says that. He who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Now we talked a little bit about the commandments last week, and we talked about some of the commandments that Christ gave us, and I referred to some of the commandments in Matthew chapter 5, and for instance in Matthew chapter 5, 44, it says love your enemies.

He said it used to be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in the Old Testament, and he says in the New Testament I want you to love your enemies. And there are three ways in which we are to do that.

Would anyone remember the three ways from last week, by any chance?

Three ways. Bless them. Bless them. You have to love them. Yes. Love them, right? Well, it's do good. Do good.

That's the third one. Bless them, pray for them, and do good for them. Bless them, pray for them, and do good for them. That is so hard, by the way. It's so difficult, and we need the Spirit of God to help us do that because we cannot do that ourselves.

And then Jesus talked about anger without cause, and he compared it to murder, and it was in Matthew 5, 22. Why don't we just read these verses? Matthew 5, 44. Now, as Christians, we feel we have an option that whatever Christ said is nice, but Lord, let me make up my own mind if I want to do this.

And so we often rationalize that when we face a very difficult and bad situation, we say, but Lord, that other person did evil to me. You surely understand that I cannot love that person. You surely understand I cannot do good for that person.

You surely understand how I feel and how deeply I have gotten hurt. So how can I forgive and how can I love? But this is what it says here in Matthew 5, 44. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

This is a command from the Lord Jesus Christ and to be Christians, wow. That is really, really something. Now let's look at anger. Anger, Matthew 5, 22. Matthew chapter 5, 22. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in the danger of the judgment and whoever says to his brother, racker or fool, shall be in danger of the counsel.

But whoever says, you fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. So here Jesus talks about anger, he compares it to murder, and he says, don't be angry without a cause. What's the difference between racker and saying, you fool?

Did I miss it?

Racker was like saying, you idiot. It's just a term of contempt. And the fool, it says, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. So someone who is a fool, according to Scripture, is someone who is basically completely void of any knowledge of God and is going to hell.

Thank you, Mark. I knew the two terms were similar. But that is true, that the term fool really indicates a lack of knowledge and a lack of relationship to God in the Jewish tradition.

So is it basically saying you are never to call anyone a fool? Is that what it's saying? That's right.

Not even your own children. Or your own parents, as the case may be. Yeah. Oh, a lot of conviction going on here. All right, all right.

Then Matthew 5 .27 talks about adultery. 5 .27, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

And then Jesus actually gives a very harsh example. And he says, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

So we ought to take steps to avoid sin, to confront sin, and to take the steps that Scripture gives us not to sin in this manner. And so the third evidence is from 1 John 2 -3 -5. Now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.

And we're going back to 1 John 2 -3 -5. Now there's an interesting part in verse 5 because in verse 3 it says, now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. So we know God if we keep his commandments.

Then it says, he who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar. We don't really know God in the right relationship. We don't have his power to deal with the sins in our lives. And then in verse 5 it says, but whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

By this we know that we are in him. So whoever keeps his word, whoever keeps the word of the Lord Jesus Christ and of this book, truly the love of God is perfected in him. So this is a source of love.

Keeping the commandments enables us to love others and to be able to forgive others, to be able to not look for your faults. I don't need to look for your faults anymore. I look for God in you. I look for your love.

I look for your goodness. I look for the wonderful things and skills God has given you. And I love you on that basis because I don't need to love your sin. But God and the Holy Spirit opens up the door when help is needed perhaps.

And sometimes I used to go to a church where confrontation was practiced. And confrontation means that anytime you said something, somebody would immediately comment on what you said and take issue if it was something that they believed was contrary to the word of God.

Guess what that does? There wasn't much fellowship in that church. There wasn't much discussion in that church. There wasn't much love in that church. People didn't get along. They somehow had a critical spirit, which is from Satan.

And I think Philippians tells us to look in you for whatever is lovely, for whatever is good, and whatever is wonderful in you. Now, it also means that if you are walking in sin and you need help, that someone may need to help you.

But that needs to be done in love, and it needs to be done with a humble spirit. It needs to be in submission to God to give you help. Otherwise, he will not accept that help. So the third evidence is now, by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.

Loving Christian Brothers and Sisters

Now, the fourth evidence is in 1 John 2 .9. 1 John 2 .9, and here it says, He who says he is in the light and hates his brother, his wife, his children, his fellow worker, his neighbor, he who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now.

Here John says you're not really saved. If you can't get along with others, if you can't forgive others, you have to question whether you're really saved. And if you have these feelings, then you kneel and pray and say, Lord, Holy Spirit, I need your help.

I need to overcome this situation. I have a very dear brother, Pastor Nelson. He's a pastor from Jamaica, and he has five little churches up in the hills of Jamaica. They're so poor they can't pay him.

They don't have shoes to wear for their feet. They don't have clothing. They don't have eyeglasses and so on. But he goes and he ministers, and he sometimes comes and visits. I met him in New Jersey, and as we shared, he told me this story.

And by the way, young people, this is a true story. Because I've got to tell the truth. Brother Nelson had a neighbor, and the neighbor was a non-Christian, and his neighbor knew he was a Christian, and he said, I don't really like you.

I don't think Christians are for real, so stay out of my way, his neighbor said. Now, there was a good thing Brother Nelson said, because between his property and his little piece of land, there was a vacant piece of land separating the two, and he said that was wonderful.

But he said one day, one day a man came to spray the weeds on the vacant land between the two property, and his neighbor had bought that piece of vacant land. And then after the man got through spraying the weeds on that vacant land, he came over to Brother Nelson's property, and he had a little bed of flowers, and the weed person started to spray his flowers.

And he ran out of the house, and he said, what are you doing, what are you doing? And the weed person said to him, well, I'm supposed to spray your flowers. And Mr. Nelson said, well, I haven't asked you to do it, and I'm not paying you for it to spray this land.

And the weed fellow said, well, your neighbor paid me to spray your flowers. And Brother Nelson said he got very, very angry, and he got very, very sad, and he got incensed about it because he loved his flowers.

And he started to hate the man next door, and he went over the following morning and confronted him, and the man said, no, no, I didn't do that. The weed person made a mistake. I never paid him for spraying your flower bed.

And so Mr. Nelson said he went back to his house, and then as he read Scripture, the Holy Spirit convicted him that he needed to love that person. And he referred to this Scripture which says, he who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now.

And so he said he started to pray that God would help him, and then he couldn't muster up enough courage to walk over to his neighbor's house, and he saw his neighbor's daughter walk down the street, so he called her over to his house, and he said, now, tell your dad that I forgive him, and I want to be friends with him, and tell him to come over to my house.

And this man's daughter looked at Mr. Nelson and said, you tell him yourself. And she walked out. So God arranged that because he was supposed to go and see this man, and eventually the Holy Spirit gave him the strength to go, and he went over to his neighbor's house, and he said, now, neighbor, we'll be neighbors for a long time, and I have forgiven what happened, and I really want to be friends.

Let us be friends. And the neighbor said, yes, it's okay to be friends, and they became friends thereafter for life. And he said that's how God used that situation to teach him both about this passage in Scripture and to help him to love someone who hated him.

Rejecting Love for the World

Now, the next evidence is found in 1 John 2, verses 15 and 16. 1 John 2, 15 and 16. That's the fifth evidence. And it says here, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So the question is, do I still love the world? And certainly when we look at the lust of the flesh, it encompasses the love of money, it encompasses materialism, it encompasses house, cars, possessions, overeating, not eating enough, drugs, drinking, the craze for sex, and so on.

So we know that here the Apostle John is giving this comparison with the lust of the flesh. And he says, if that is still your love, then you have to question whether the love of the Father is in you and me.

And so we need to return to God, we need to confess to him. 1 John 1, 9 says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, because sin separates us from God.

And then there's the lust of the eye. Perhaps you covet anything you see you need to have. You have this ambition and urge to buy anything you see. You want everything so badly, you're ready to die for it.

There's a story in the Old Testament about King Ahab. King Ahab wanted a certain piece of land, and his neighbor, who was called Nahor, didn't want to sell that piece of land to him. So he got very angry, and he started to pout like a 10-year-old.

And also we do that as adults, young people. We pout when we don't get our own way. Well, this king, he went to bed, and he turned to the wall, and he started to pout like a 10-year-old. And his wife came in.

His wife's name was Jezebel, and Jezebel looked at him, and he said, What's wrong with you? And he said, Well, my neighbor won't give me that piece of land. It's so beautiful, and I want it. And so his wife Jezebel was very, very evil, and she plotted to kill the owner so that her husband got that piece of land.

Now her husband ended up knowing about it, but he was also evil like she was. And so they got this piece of land, and then God, as he was aware of the situation, he told Jezebel that she would be pulled apart by dogs and that her blood would be spilled because she did this.

So there was retribution through God for her killing Nahor. Now Scripture says don't covet anything that your neighbor has. Don't covet the neighbor's wife. Don't covet their children. Don't covet their servants.

Don't covet the house. Don't covet the land. Don't covet the animals, someone else has. Perhaps you love horses, and you want that special racehorse. Don't covet. Don't covet gold. Don't covet silver.

If you do these things, you prove that the love of God is not yet in you. By the way, lust takes and love gives. And then there's the pride of life. Pride is really an awful thing, and we all have pride because we want to look good.

I want to look good before you, and I want to do the right things that you love me, and so I hide the true self. I hide the old, bad Edgar Wright as best as I can. And then if anyone gets near to me, then I practice self-elevation.

I elevate myself above you, and I talk to you condescendingly. I try to make you feel bad so that you don't get close to me, that you don't know who I am or what I am. Then the pride of life includes self-importance.

It includes wanting to be recognized. It includes wanting to be honored. It's wanting respect, wanting power, wanting control. Pride includes selfishness. You tell everybody you did something good, and you withhold the glory from God.

By the way, God doesn't like that at all when we withhold glory from him because he does it all. And if there's anything good, and every good and perfect thing comes from above and comes down from the Father.

Doing the Will of the Father

The sixth evidence. The sixth evidence is found in 1 John 2 .17. 1 John 2 .17. And the world is passing away and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. He who does the will of God.

Well, many of you, and especially young people, always ask, well, what is the will of God? What is the will of God for my life? And it's true that God doesn't always make it clear for us what his specific will is for us, but there are some verses in Scripture where it says it is the will of God to give thanks in everything.

This is the will of God to give thanks in everything. And then there's also another verse which says this is the will of God, your sanctification to abstain from sexual immorality. So this is the will of God.

And then, by the way, those two passages, if you're writing down Scripture, are found in Thessalonians 4 .3 and Thessalonians 5 .18. Thessalonians 4 .3 and Thessalonians 5 .18. And then, young people, I'm going to refer to a verse, Ephesians 2 .10.

Ephesians 2 .10. God has a plan for each one of you. God has a specific plan, but that plan is not always revealed quite openly. God uses many different ways to reveal his clear will for us. It's in Ephesians 2 .10.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand. What does beforehand mean? Before we were born. Before we were born. Because in Ephesians 1 .4, it says, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

This is an incredible thought, that God already had a plan for our life before we were born. And we won't always know that plan. And we are to walk in it, that we should walk in it. So we have to be open to the Holy Spirit.

We have to be open to God's word. We have to be open to his guidance through his word, through the Holy Spirit, and sometimes through circumstances where perhaps others who are led of God call you and tell you, you're called for this.

And that's what you must do. That's what actually happened with me. Three different pastors said, you're called. And I said, no, I'm not. I can't possibly be. I'm too evil. I'm too bad. God can never use this man.

But the sixth evidence is that we want to do the will of God and that we want to carry out what he has planned for us. And by the way, there is another passage in Matthew 7 .21 -23. Matthew 7 .21 -23.

And this, again, is a warning from the Lord Jesus Christ. It supports the passages in John. And here it says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does what?

The will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. And by the way, Judas, was Judas saved? No. Scripture tells us that he was not saved. He was sent out together with the disciples and he was given power over demons.

He was given power to heal. And that's what Judas did with the other disciples. So the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not the evidence of whether we are saved. The Spirit of God is the evidence that we are saved.

And by doing his will, we show the evidence that we are saved. So this is the sixth evidence in 1 John 2, 17, and the world is passing away in the lust of it, but he who does the will of God, abides forever, or lives forever, or is saved forever, or has eternal heaven at his disposal.

Reliance on Jesus Christ

And now we come to the seventh evidence, and I've only chosen seven. There are other evidences, but this is the last one that we'll refer to. In 1 John 2, verse 22. 1 John 2, 22. And we're going to read through to 26.

Verse 26. Because there's a reason here that we are hearing this message today, because there are many who are trying to deceive us that there is an easy way, that there is a way that leads to damnation and hell.

There is a prosperity gospel these days, and it is misleading us. It is teaching us to covet. It is teaching us to want things. And here in these verses, it tells us why John has written these words. And in verse 22, Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?

He's antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. So if you say that you have God and you believe in God, but you do not have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, this text says, whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either.

So you do not have God in that case. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Verse 24 of 1 John 2, verse 24. Therefore let that abide in you, therefore let that stay in you, if you will, which you heard from the beginning.

If what you heard from the beginning abides or stays in you, you will also stay in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he has promised us, eternal life, which we have through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And then in verse 26, these things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. Now who is this Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God? Hebrews 1 .8 says, and let us just turn to Hebrews 1 .8 please.

Hebrews 1 .8, but to the Son he says, and this talks about God the Father. So God the Father says to the Son, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness, therefore your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. But going back to the beginning of verse 8, but to the Son he says, your throne, O God.

Jesus Christ is God himself also. And Jesus Christ is co-equal, he is co-eternal, and he is a co-ruler together with God the Father. And I believe John 5 .22 tells us that God has given all judgment to the Son, by the way.