Book of 1 John - Ch. 2, Vs. 3-14 (08/11/2002)

Assurance of Salvation in 1 John 2:3-6

1st John chapter 2 and I believe verse 3 and hereby we do know that we know him. If we keep his commandments. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.

But whosoever keepeth his word in him truly or barely is the love of God perfected. Hereby, I know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him off himself. Also, so to walk even as he walked brethren.

I write unto you no new commandment. But an old commandment which he had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which he have heard from the beginning. Again a new commandment. I write unto you which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is passed and the true light now.

Shining he that saith he is in the light and hated his brother is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother Abideth in the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him but he that hated his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whether he goeth because the darkness at Blinded his eyes.

I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven. You for his name's sake. I Write unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you young men because you have overcome the wicked one.

I write unto you little children because you have known the father. I have written unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. I've written unto you young men because you are strong in the Word of God.

Abideth in you and you have overcome the wicked one. So we'll cover see how much of that material we can cover this afternoon. I I Didn't have a clear note on exactly where we stopped last time. Let's let's start with verse 3, but I'm working my way towards verse 8 actually but let's look at a couple of these here by we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments and.

As brother Otis has already taught on this verse, this is not a teaching about eternal security. It's a teaching about assurance. Much of first John is a book about assurance of your salvation. What's the difference between eternal security and assurance?

They're very similar and yet there's an important difference. Eternal security of the believer is something that God does that you can't change. It has to do with what we talked about in the message this morning where it says you were in Christ.

But you are preserved in Christ. You cannot lose it. If it's genuine salvation it was from before time began anyway because the Bible teaches all through page to page that God knew you before the foundation of the world and.

So you cannot lose your salvation. That's eternal security. It's easy as this ask yourself. Did I save myself? And if the answer is no, then who saved me God, so then I can't unsave myself. My salvation is not based on I anyway, it's based on him.

It's not based on me and what I've done is based on Jesus Christ and what he has done. He is the one who paid the price. I can't pay any part of it. So I can't unpay it either. So that's nonsense. So that's eternal security.

But what about assurance? How is that difference assurance has more to do with how you feel? Eternal security has nothing to do with how you feel. You're secure whether you feel like it or not. If you're born again, you're born from above you were saved by something God did to you that just as miraculous as your physical birth and you had just as much to do with it as your physical Birth figure that one out.

You'll know how much you had to do with it. You didn't pick the color of your eyes. You didn't pick your mama or your daddy. You had nothing to do with it and your spiritual birth is the same way. The Bible teaches we're blind we're dead.

We're we're lame. We are lost. How can a blind dead lame lost person? Do something that only living people can do so God has to do a miracle and Bring you from the dead to life and open your eyes to see Jesus as who he is and then you respond.

By saying yes Lord, but by then you already say God did the work you're just responding. So you can't save yourself. All you can do is respond to your salvation. It's like a baby comes out and starts crying.

He's dark. He's responding to the environment. He finds himself in he finds himself there. You found yourself saved one day and That's the way it is. Now. I understand you have to hear the gospel. That's God's means of salvation.

Just like there are many things that have to happen for a baby to be born, right? There are means involved, but the baby doesn't have anything to do with it and With your salvation there are means involved.

But it all happened because of God's hand on your life and you were his child before the foundation of the world. He knew you as his own and there came a day when you were birthed. You were born again into his family.

Now no matter what happens in your life from that day forward you're in God's family. You may be an obedient child or you may be a disobedient child, but you're a child. The others who never saved never were children of God.

They were children of the devil. They were not much more than a creation like a tree or a rock. They were not the Lord's and the Lord knew them not in fact think about the verse. I mean we don't think about verses we read but what about that verse it says there would be many who come to me in That day and say Lord Lord have I not done many wonderful things in your name.

And he says depart from me. I never knew you. You see it didn't have anything to do with the stuff. They were doing. It had do it rather. He knew them as his own or not and that's the way it is now. You can't change that.

You cannot be bad enough to lose your salvation, but you weren't good enough to get it. But you know what? Assurance is a whole different matter because assurance means how you feel about your salvation.

Am I sure I'm saved now that I'm saved well I'll tell you what if I've just gone through a season of rank disobedience. I'm not going to be sure I'm saved. That's only healthy. It makes me search it out and makes me question.

Why am I doing these things that I'm doing that are not godly. So assurance can come and go it has to do with your emotions and your feelings and what the whole book of first John teaches Is first of all it teaches you can't lose your eternal security.

But it teaches if you want to be sure of your salvation and in the in the sense of your assurance. Then obey the Lord live walk with him now. Look how it says it Hereby verse 3 hereby. We do know that we know him.

It doesn't say hereby. We know him. It does not say here's how we know him if we keep his commandment. It doesn't say here's how we get saved if we keep his commandment doesn't say here's how we know him.

It says here's how we know that we know him. That's assurance. You see if it read here's how you know him. It'd be talking about security. But it doesn't say that it says here's how you know that you know him.

Here's how you believe that you know him. Here's how you have assurance that you know him if you keep his commandments. If you find yourself doing things for the Lord that you know you hated before you got saved, then that's a great sign that you're saved.

I so vividly remember what it was like to go to church before I got saved. It was just, I hated it. It was the most boring thing in the world. I would sneak off when I was little and go hide in the third floor and rummage around the junk on the third floor of that, the attic of that big church.

And my mom, my grandmother thought I was sitting with Stevie on the back row. Stevie and I were in the attic, running around, hiding from the janitor. She still doesn't believe that. She thinks I was born saved.

I do not! Where'd you get that? I'm not talking about born again! I give up on her. I'm not, I'm not gonna be able to raise my mom right. It's just not working out. But anyway, when I got saved, all of a sudden I liked being in the church.

All of a sudden I liked reading my Bible. Hereby you know that you know him if you keep his commandments. Verse 4, he that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.

How many people do you know in the Bible Belt, you ask them, are you a Christian? They say, no, no, no, I'm going straight to hell when I die. Have you ever had one? I've had one actually tell me that.

You know, I'm going to hell, I'm proud of it. One, that he was totally an idiot, frothing at the mouth practically. But you won't hear people around here say, oh yeah, yeah, my dad was a preacher. My grandpa was a preacher.

Yep, I'm a Christian. Every time, I've heard that many times. Oh man, my grandpa and my great-grandfather were preachers. Yes, I believe I'm a Christian. I believe I'm a Christian. You know, they don't know and yet their life, you know, they're sitting there and they're holding a can of beer smoking a cigarette and got a big old beer belly.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a Christian. My grandpa was a preacher. Well, that's what this verse addresses. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. Where they say, well, yeah, I'm a Christian.

My grandpa was a preacher. I just don't go to church because a bunch of hypocrites down there. So, I go to the lake and fish because those fish are not hypocrites. Well, you know, the problem with that is, he says that I believe, but the problem is, the verse says, he that says I know him and keeps not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.

Jesus is the one that said, forsake not the assembly of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, and so much the more, as you see the day approaching. Well, we see the day approaching. We ought to be in church more today than we were last year.

You know, really, if you think about it. And a guy said, well, I just don't, you know, you don't have to go to church to be, to go to heaven. Well, how are you supposed to answer that? I mean, yeah, that's technically, I guess, that's true.

You don't get to heaven by going to church. We know that's true, but that's not the issue. The issue is, why aren't you going if you're saved? Why don't you find a church where there's brothers and sisters if you're saved?

Oh, let's go on here. It's about to address this. Look at this. Whosoever keepeth his word, in him truly is the love of God perfected. So, if you're in the word, you love the word of God, and you're walking the parts of it you're learning, then God perfects his love in you, and hereby, know we, that we are in him.

So, here's another. I used to call this whole book, Symptoms of Salvation. Like, when you have a cold, somebody comes up and says, I got a bad cold, but they don't have a runny nose. They don't have itchy eyes.

They're just great. You say, I don't know if you got a cold or not. You just don't want to go to work, or you don't want to come to school. But now, if they come to you, and this green stuff is coming out of their nose, and their eyes just, when you look at them, all of a sudden you feel like, you got a cold, or if you hear them talk, you say, oh man, now I'm getting sick, and you just hear them.

Then you know. Why? Because they got some certain symptoms that go with it. Salvation has symptoms. One of the symptoms is, that you keep the commandments. It doesn't mean you're perfect. What it means is, you don't want to break them in your heart.

You don't want to break them, and when you do, you get right with God, and you predominantly are in a place in your life where God is removing the sinful habits, and placing in their habits of righteousness, righteous living.

And then secondly, here in verse 5, it's talking about the Word of God. All of a sudden, you have a love for His Word, and you want to keep His Word. There's another symptom. Verse 6, he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as Jesus walked.

So how can a person say, on the one hand, that he abides, and the word abide in the Greek is the word meno, which literally means to stay in a given place, state, or relation. To stay. How can you say, well I'm staying in Christ, but I don't walk like He walks.

I mean, how can I be in Christ, and not be going where He's going? I'm not in Him, if I'm not going where He's going. I'm just in myself. That's the problem with a lot of people, and a lot of born-again people.

They're in the self-life, and they have no victory. You have to be in Christ, not in self. He that saith he stays in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walks. Symptoms of salvation. Look at verse 7.

Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which He had from the beginning. There are a lot of times when the New Testament writers are trying to point out, especially to the Jew, that we're not creating a new religion here.

Yes, they may not say it this way. Yes, we have a different dispensation, a different way in which God deals with us, because the cross made a difference. But it's not a new religion. It's not even new commandments.

From the beginning, God has taught to love your brother as yourself, and all of these sorts of things. So, I don't have a new commandment for you, but an old commandment. From the beginning, love your brother.

Verse 8, and again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passed, and the true light now shines. He says the only reason it is new, is because of the cross, and the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

And now, when you get born again, you get baptized into Christ, like we talked about this morning. And when you get baptized into the body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit indwells your body, and your body becomes the temple of the living God, you can't be the same anymore.

All of a sudden, the darkness is passed, and there's true light in you. And notice what it says, a new commandment I give you, which thing is true in him and in you, is because you have the light of Christ in you.

You have him in you, and that which is true of him now, becomes true of you, because he's in you. It's not so much about you, it's just that you benefit so much from it. It's about him, and he is the light, and you are in Christ, and he is in you.

So therefore, you have this same thing. It's as with him, is so with you, because the darkness is passed, and the true light now shineth. It is passed in the sense of the Old Testament darkness, where they had mysteries they didn't understand.

That's passed, but it's also passed in the sense that the darkness that you personally had in your life before salvation is gone, and now you're walking in the light. All of a sudden, you can understand something out of the Bible when you read it.

I'm not saying you understand every word on every page. I learned something new in Sunday school this morning. I learned that about a particular phrase, I was thinking it meant wrath. I forgot the verse now, something to do with wrath, but I thought it's talking about my own wrath, but it was talking about the wrath of God.

I never saw that till today. So yeah, you're not going to get all of it on every page, but you know what? If you're born again, you're going to get something on every page. Something that's for you right now today, and then next year, maybe you pick up that other thing.

God gives it to you as he knows that he wants it there to fulfill his purposes in your life. A symptom of salvation, the Word of God is being taught to you by the Holy Spirit. So here we have this old commandment, and now it becomes new only in the sense that you have the teacher living in you that can teach you the same Word of God that we have had from the beginning.

Love for the Brothers as a Mark of Salvation

Verse 9, he that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even though now. So now we have another symptom of salvation, is a true born-again person loves other true born-again people.

Now what's interesting about that is they say, well yeah, I'm born again, but I just don't go down there where those hypocrites are. Well you know my definition of love, I mean one small part of the aspect of the definition of love, is that I want to be with the person I love.

Don't you think that's true? I think that's true. I look back there at Miss Sharon and Brother Raymond, look at them, sit, be still, just look back there at them. Don't they look cuddly? That's one of the greatest examples of a happy marriage.

I mean Charlotte and I have a tremendously happy marriage, and we've always been thankful, but we've always thought of Raymond and Sharon as an example of a happy marriage. But that's only because we're not there behind closed doors at home.

No, I'm kidding. But when he's off on that truck, sometimes she goes with him on that truck. Why? Because love means they want to be with each other, and now I have these people claim to be Christian, but they don't want to be around other Christians.

They don't want to go to church on Sunday where there's other Christians there. They just have their own thing going with the man upstairs. Well they don't know what they're talking about, because one of the great symptoms of salvation is loving the brothers.

In fact, it gives the opposite or the negative side of that in verse 9. Yeah, okay, you say you're walking in the light, the same light we talked about in verse 8. You're walking in the light, but you hate your brother.

The Bible says you're in darkness. You're not walking in light. You're in darkness even to this. Now look at the phrase, even till now. That's a scary phrase, because that takes you right up to the very moment of the breath you're taking right now.

If you're a person who hates the brothers, and we're going to get into that definition of hate in a minute, because it's so easy to read that and say, well, I don't hate anybody. Well, that's not me, because I don't hate anybody.

Well, maybe we won't use the word hate. Let's just look and see what the definition of that is, and see if we do that to anybody here in a minute. But before we do that, think about this. He says, I'm in the light, but he really, from God's viewpoint, God knows he hates the brothers.

Now he'd never admit it. He said, I don't hate anybody. You got to realize that's how it is. You know, I don't hate anybody, but God's looking down. He says, you hate that person. God knows. And God says, if that's true, then at the very breath you're taking right now, you are lost in darkness.

You are in hell already. You are lost in darkness, because you don't have God's love. And you know what? You can't do anything but hate people if you don't have God's love, because people are not lovable.

They're not. Not when you really get to know them. So you have to have God's love to really love people. Now look at the positive side of this concept. Verse 10, he that loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him.

But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, is, present tense, right now, even so to this moment, he remains in darkness, and he walks in darkness, and he knows not where he's going. It's like a blind man stumbling in the dark, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

It's the very same thing that makes him hate his brother. It's the same darkness that's blinded his eyes to everything. So these, I write unto you little children, because your sins are forgiven for your name's sake.

The Forgiveness and Spiritual Strength of Believers

Let's stop with verse 11 for today, because this next passage changes the subject. But think of it as symptoms of salvation. If you ever have a friend that is doubting their salvation, they claim to be a Christian, but they have doubts, ask them to go home and honestly read First John, the book of First John.

And usually if they'll read that book, they'll know. I mean, if they are saved, they'll know they're saved. If they're not saved, they won't understand anything they read in the book, but maybe it gives you a clue from their response that they're not really saved, even though they're claiming to be a Christian.

It's full of symptoms of salvation. A love for the Word of God, a love for the people of God, two of the key ones. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your Word. We ask you to make it a part of our lives as we go forth from this place, that we might bear fruit and that it might bear fruit in us, that your Word would bear fruit in us.

We thank you that it is a spiritual book and your Holy Spirit makes it alive and straight from your mind and heart to ours. And we thank you that you teach us from day to day through your Word, through the experiences in life that cause us to understand your Word even better and be with our young people and our children to help them to grow quickly, because they do live in these last days and they must be strong and have the full armor of God.

We ask you to bless those that are not well and not with us today, such as June and others that we've mentioned, and be with them and give us your protection as we go on our ways. In Jesus' name, Amen.