Book of 1 John - Ch. 3, Vs. 1-24 (08/25/2002)

I think we can start a little early this afternoon. We'll be in 1 John chapter 3, 1

John chapter 3. This passage starts out recognizing our present position in Christ.

It says, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

Well, that's great love that we would have that title, the sons of God. It's interesting in John chapter 17 where Jesus says that the

Father loves you with the same love He loves me. That's always amazed me to read that chapter.

So that is an amazing love. Behold what manner of love, what kind of love is this, that the

Father has called us sons? Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew

Him not. So the second half of that verse talks about our accompanying persecution, our present position and our accompanying persecution.

The next verse talks about our future glorification. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when

He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Again, it reemphasizes our present position.

Even in verse 2 it says we now are the sons of God. So we don't have to wait until our glorification.

We already carry that position and that title. But it doesn't yet appear what we shall be.

So our glorified state is something that is kind of like heaven in the sense that we have some information about it, but not hardly even enough to picture it.

But it's going to be amazing. We know that when

He shall appear we'll be like Him, and we'll be like Him in His glorified state. You see, not so much like we pictured

Him on the earth in His ministry time, but as He is now.

We'll be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And then the next verse talks about our present duty.

Every man that has this hope, what hope? Well, the hope that you're, the fact that you're called a son, but the hope that you will be like Him when you see

Him. Every man that has that hope in Him purifies himself even as he is pure.

So this is an interesting aspect in the scriptures because we, when we study sanctification, we know that there is positional sanctification and there's experiential sanctification.

Positional means that the moment you got saved, the cause, you were placed on that altar, the altar sanctified you.

Just like the sacrifices, you put them on the altar, well the altar had already been sprinkled with blood and sanctified.

So then whatever touched it became sanctified. So the day you were touched by the blood of Jesus, your salvation day, the moment of salvation, you were sanctified.

But there is a teaching in the Bible that you are still continually being sanctified in your experience by the

Holy Spirit and by the Word of God. And now there's a third aspect of this that we see in verse 3 and that is by yourself.

He purifies Himself. We know though, if you know all the rest of the scriptures, that it can't really mean by yourself.

It simply means that as the Lord is in you working and causing you to want to do and to do

His good will, that you yourself are also going along with that and you're a servant.

You have a heart that is in line with the Lord Himself and you're in agreement.

And so it shows this wonderful working together of God in us. Sometimes we forget, as much as we believe in the sovereignty of God, we need to always remember that it's unusual in Bible history when

God just does something miraculous. Normally He works in His people and accomplishes

His work that way. And so as He works in us, if we have the hope of glorification, then we ought to live like it.

This particular passage, this particular verse, fits very well,

I think, with Romans chapter 6 in the areas where it talks about reckoning this to be true.

In other words, if it is true that you've been given the title, a son of God, and the position, a son of God, and it's true that the amazing love of God that caused that to be the case, if all of that's true, and if it's true that when you see

Him, you'll be like Him, then you ought to just purify yourself now. You ought to be like Him now.

It ought to be the desire of our hearts not to sin. It ought to be the desire of our hearts to be

Christ -like. And so that fits so well with Romans 6 and 9, let me read a little bit of it to you.

Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died,

He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto

God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof, neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness.

Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. All of those verses, the key word in that whole passage is the phrase reckon, reckon yourselves to be dead.

It is so that you are dead, so count it as so.

God tells us the old man is dead, believe Him and count it as true. So that fits very well with 1

John 3 verse 3 where it says if you have this hope, this hope that you will be like Him, then be like Him now.

Reckon it to be so, yes, yeah.

Just as He is an individual, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, if it might get the

He's messed up, yes, yes.

We ought to realize that the whole work of God in our life now is to mold us into the image of Jesus Christ and we are going to arrive there at the moment we meet

Him and see Him. So do it now the best you can, you know, desire to be like Him now.

Very good. Well, in Romans 6 and that passage, the idea of reckoning these things to be true, it's like saying believe

God. That's faith. I mean, so our walk is by faith, okay?

Let's go on to verse 4 and 5, whosoever committed sin transgresses the law, for sin is the transgression of the law, and ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins and in Him is no sin.

This talks about recognizing the purpose and the power of the cross, it's for deliverance.

And today the gospel is preached in the modern church that it's for salvation and what they mean by that is to go to heaven and avoid hell.

But it's so clear that the very purpose that's given in verse 5 that Jesus came into this world and was manifested was to take away our sins.

And in Him is no sin and that means us being, it means, to me it has a double meaning.

He didn't have any sin, but if we're in Him there is no sin and you see that, of course, in these verses that accompany this.

So, to recognize that the purpose and the power of the cross is for the purpose of deliverance.

So our salvation is not just from hell to heaven, but it's to sanctification on the way, purification on the way.

It's so that we might be pure people now, also, on the trip along the way, that sin might be taken away, which it has been, but it would be experientially removed as well as we walk.

Now, that's not to teach that we can be totally sanctified like some of the Pentecostals teach today, that you can arrive at that state here.

You cannot. The Apostle Paul never arrived at it and we will not either, but we're supposed to try.

Look at verse 6. The next few verses talk about walking filled with the

Spirit. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth not, sinneth.

Start over. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him. Now, the word see, that see in the

Greek, a better English word would be beheld, doesn't mean you had to see Him with your eyes. You can behold

Him now by faith. So it includes us, not just those who walk with Him, but it includes us also, those who behold

Him by faith. So whosoever is a sinner has not beheld Christ, neither known

Him. But they have not had eyes to see yet. Now little children, let no man deceive you.

He that does righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous, because the righteousness comes from Him.

Now you have to be a little careful and interpret that verse in the light of all the other scriptures we know too, because obviously it's not talking about the fact that you could in fact be deceived by people who seem to do outwardly righteous acts and say the right words and all of that.

This is talking about a person who truly has a righteous life that you've observed over a long period of time and you can tell it's coming from Christ, because maybe you knew the person before they were saved.

That's not even them, you know, they're not like that. But you see the fruits of the Spirit is what it's dealing with here.

So if you see the fruits of the Spirit in a person, then he is righteous as Christ is because it's coming from Christ.

I'll tell you an interesting observation I've had just watching people through the years. There are many people who can say the right words and do good deeds, but there are few people, there are no people who can fake and have the actual fruits of the

Spirit. Have you ever noticed that? They can go around and do stuff, and they can say stuff, but they can't be like Christ.

The love is usually missing. Little things like patience, one of the fruits of the

Spirit, long -suffering, patience, that'll be missing. Gentleness and loving -kindness, that sort of attitude won't be there, but they'll have all the words usually, you know, they'll be correcting and rebuking or giving some doctrine that everybody needs to do or whatever, and yet that Spirit, that fruit is not there.

They can't fake that fruit. It's very fascinating. So I believe verse 7 is talking about the fruit of the

Spirit. When you see that, in fact, there's a place in Romans where it's talking about fruits.

One of the types of fruits is, what did we used to call it? Well, it was called the fruits of righteousness.

Well, I used to have a name for it to remember it by, but this is what it's talking about.

When you see a person that has that, then he is saved, because his righteousness comes from Christ.

He that committed sin is of the devil. So now we're talking about a person who has a continual, habitual lifestyle of sinning.

He is a true sinner, like the Bible uses the word. Well, you don't, God's trying to give us some discernment here.

He's saying you don't have to be totally in the dark about people. Yes, there will be those who slip in unaware, and for a season, a relatively short season will seem like they have righteous acts, and like they know the right words, and so they'll seem like your brother or your sister.

And yet, they will eventually be manifest, because he that commits sin, when you find out all of a sudden, after a period of time, that this person has a continual, habitual lifestyle of certain sins, over a period of time, then you know that they're of the devil.

Because the devil is a sinner, sinneth, from the beginning, for this purpose the

Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil, and once again, gives the purpose of Jesus.

A while ago, it said to take our sins away, and now it says to destroy the works of the devil. So our salvation should be a deliverance salvation.

We should be delivered from the work of the devil, because positionally, Satan is dead. Positionally, he's destroyed.

Experientially, I mean, he's still here. I love the example of Saul in the

Old Testament, it pictures him so well, we've talked about it before, but God kicked him off the throne, but he stayed on it anyway for a while.

He usurped authority that was not given to him by God. I don't know if it's because the people let him do it,

I don't know, you know, it's an interesting study, and I believe it shows Satan very well.

So at this point, we see the fact is, Jesus came to take our sins away, but also to destroy the work of the devil in the life of us.

So that, if, listen, if that's not taking place in your own life, you need to examine your salvation.

These folks all across our country that say, well, I got saved, you know, back at such and such time, but I just have such a struggle,

I just, you know, I don't really like going to church, and I, certain sins I just like to do. You don't see that in 1

John. It's kind of interesting, on the way to church this morning, I said, you know this material I wrote over with my mom,

I said, this material is so awesome, I said, first of all, I hope I can get through it without crying, she said, because you're so sad, and I said, no, just because this is so good, this is just good.

And I said, you know, I would like to preach this to more than 40 people, and she said, well,

I thought this was great, she said, well, if you did, you'd still only have about 30 or 40 listening.

So I did a little mathematical study when I got here, it made me think of this, do you realize how big a church this really normally would be in this country?

Because it is true that the people that are here listen, and they're hearing the word, I can tell, I mean, you can look, anybody that's up here looking out there, you can see if people are taking it in or if it's just hitting their head and bouncing off.

So if you take, like, on a big Sunday when school gets started and we're all back here, and let's say we have maybe 50 here, counting kids and everybody,

Brother Criswell said one time that only, he felt that only 5 % of his congregation was really saved, that's the

First Baptist Church of Dallas, what do they run, 5 ,000, who knows, but do you realize that if you're the 5%, then we really have a congregation of 1 ,000 here today.

We've got 1 ,000 people that I'm preaching to, 5 % of them are hearing it and that's you. And so I always wondered why it doesn't really bother me how many, it's just, it's the word that's good, it's because we've got a huge congregation, it's just for some reason the rest of them don't show up, isn't that great?

I have my theories about that, you know the little parable of the mustard seed where this mustard bush grows into an out of size tree that's not normal and has black birds in it, if you allow the black birds to be there, then you can have a huge tree out of something that ought to be a bush, well, you're the bush, we're a bush church, that's what we need to call ourselves, that fits,

Park Meadows Bush, yeah, a bush church, yeah, that's good, he'd be showing up, wouldn't he?

The spirit -filled walk is pictured in verses 6 through 9, and boy, this language is so strong, you know, 1

John is a book of discernment, don't let anybody deceive you, he says, a person that's got the fruits of righteousness, he is righteous, you know one reason they're dealing with something that came up in Sunday school this morning that we don't really have to deal with quite so much, a lot of times the

Jews had a hard time believing that the Gentile was saved, and what's being taught here is if you see the fruits of righteousness in a person, this person may eat pork, it doesn't mean he's not saved, they're kind of dealing with some of this, be not deceived, if they have the fruits of righteousness, they are righteous, don't judge them by some of the stuff they do that traditionally you don't do, they had some real problems with that in the early church, he that commits sin is of the devil, be discerning, for the devil sins from the beginning, and in verse 9, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin, whoever is born of God is not a habitual continual sinner in the same area of sin, we should never have a sin that God doesn't work in our lives to remove, now we may get a new one the next year, but you shouldn't have the same old ones year after year, and it certainly should not be a thing that you are a slave to, you shouldn't be a slave to any particular sin for any long period of time at all, if you have had trouble in any area, pray and say,

Lord, this is not right, deliver me, and he will, because that's the purpose

Jesus came that he might destroy the works of the devil in your life, and in mine, so whosoever is born of God does not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, that's the

Lord himself, and he cannot sin, because he's born of God, so when you are connected with the

Holy Spirit, the spirit -filled walk as pictured here, you will not sin during that time of your life, you not only will not, but you can't not, you cannot sin when you're spirit -filled, now verse 10, the testimony of our consecration, such as is spoken of in verse 3, every man purifies himself, the testimony of it, in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil, whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother, remember what we were talking about a minute ago, that they can fake the words, they can fake the works, but they can't fake the love, isn't that amazing?

God has made it where there's something we can see eventually, it will eventually show that they don't have agape love, they only have human love, and human love will slap you in the face when you're not making them feel good, it will slap you down, and that does not come from God, that comes from the flesh, so the one true thing that we see here that we are given to discern people of the devil from people of God is that people of the devil don't love their brother, oh they say they do, don't look for the words, look for the action, the fruit of the love, the greatest fruit of the believer is agape love and we find that in verses 11 through 13, for this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not like Cain who was that of the wicked one and slew his brother, and wherefore slew he him?

Because his own works were evil and his brothers were righteous, he was a selfish, prideful person, he was jealous, he knew he was not right with God, but it bothered him even more that his brother was right with God, isn't that amazing, that's the evil of the children of the devil, so he killed him, marvel not my brethren if the world hate you, so you know the primary symptom of salvation is agape love, the secondary symptom is hatred of the world for you, so in other words if you see a person who doesn't have

God's love and the world just loves them and they love the world back, then you have to put them in the category of, they may say they're

Christian but you're not going to treat them as such on the inside, you're going to be watchful, you might even be witnessing to them, but you're not counting them as a brother if they don't have the fruit of love and if they do love the world and the world loves them because for a true

Christian there's going to be persecution from the world and the world will hate them, and then we see the assurance of salvation discussed in the next verses, first of all there's agape love for the true

Christian and you have agape love, look at verse 14, one of the greatest assurances of salvation is that you have love and you know it, you have,

I mean a while ago we talked about looking at the other person who claims to be a Christian but he doesn't have agape love, now look at ourselves, you know what's the difference, before we look at this, let me ask, what's the difference between assurance of salvation and eternal security, those are two different doctrines taught in the bible, they're similar but what's the difference, there's an important difference between eternal security and this idea of having assurance of salvation, can you remember, brother

Otis talked about it recently in one of the classes, big difference is one of them you can change and the other you can't, which one can change, assurance, the reason it can change is because it's a feeling that you have, you feel sure that you're saved or you don't feel so sure, eternal security cannot change because it's a position,

God is the one who saved you, he's the one that keeps you, he's the one that brings you home when it's time, you can't change that,

I mean you can be disobedient or obedient but you're still his child if you're his child, so you can't change eternal security but you can change assurance, if you get into sin, especially people that we call sometimes, we call them carnal

Christians, a Christian and let's just talk in theory here for a moment, if theoretically a person is truly born again and then they backslide and they walk in the flesh, they will not feel saved at that time,

I've known several Christians that had been supposedly saved for a long time who would come down to the altar quite often after sermons and say, pastor

I'm just doubting my salvation, and we'd go over it with them again, and then 2 -3 months later it happened again,

I feel like the person that I'm thinking of was saved but probably just had a sin habit or problem in their life that was making them feel unsaved, so look at this now, if we want to have assurance of our own salvation, where do we look in ourselves?

First of all, verse 14, we know, now that is assurance, if you know it, it doesn't say you think you're saved, you know that we have already passed from death into life, does that not mean we're saved, so we have knowledge of our salvation, this is truly assurance because we love the brethren, he that loveth not his brother abideth even still in death, so look at your heart, do you really love the people of God, do you love being with them, do you love the fact that when they cry, you cry with them, when they laugh, you laugh with them, would you rather be at dance on Saturday night or would you rather be at a church singing or something where you got your brothers and sisters around, you know, you have to decide in your heart, do

I love God's people and you know the answer, if the answer is yes, that's your assurance because we know we have passed from death into life because we have agape love which we couldn't have had naturally, love for the brethren.

Verse 15, whosoever hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him, hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, so assurance of salvation, first of all agape love, the greatest evidence of the presence of agape love in your own life is discussed in the next verses and that is selflessness, that's the opposite of selfishness, if you tend to be selfish, you need to question your salvation, if it's all about me, but whoso hath this world's good, look at this, and sees his brother has need but he doesn't go and help the brother, how dwelleth agape love in him?

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in action and in truth, and hereby we know that we are of the truth, you see this is assurance of salvation, you look at yourself, do

I have agape love and you say well yes, you say well now but how do I know I do, are you selfish, are you selfless, which means the opposite, you're not selfish, if you are not selfish but you do love to help the other, then you have agape love, and hereby we know that we're of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him, for if our heart condemn us, you see that's if you lose your assurance and all of a sudden you start to wonder, am

I really saved, how could I do this and be saved, well God is greater than your heart and he knows all things, beloved if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God, you know what that's saying, it's saying look if you're truly born again but your heart condemns you and you lack assurance,

God's bigger than that, he knows you're still saved, but verse 21 says however it is better for you to know also, it is better if you not only just have eternal security but you also have assurance because that means you're walking the narrow path and your spirit filled and you have a relationship with the

Lord and therefore you have his love and it is showing an action toward others, a selfless action and so you know you're saved, that's better, the greatest evidence of selflessness is shown in verse 22, now look we've had a little progression here, how do you know you're saved, you have agape love, how do you know you have agape love, you exhibit selflessness, how do you know you have selflessness, look at verse 22, whatsoever we ask we receive of him, now you have to think about this one a little bit,

I know it's late today and time chicken needs to have some quiet time, you know, but think about this, answered prayer, why is it that answered prayer is the greatest evidence of selflessness, well look what it says, whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we 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 the son, his son

Jesus Christ and look at the second thing and have agape love as he gave us commandment, faith plus love which is the absence of selflessness equals obedience which equals answered prayer, verse 24 and he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him and he in him, this is a spirit -filled person and so what we see is when this person is in the spirit, walking in the spirit, he's the opposite of selfish, he does not ask the

Lord for selfish things, he asks the Lord, please, please help me pray, many of us have experienced that I'm sure in these days with regard to June, help me know how to pray, help me,

I struggled with that all one day, just it was, it just really bothering me all one day and finally at some point in the afternoon

I was driving around and it's like the Lord said, now why are you worried about what to pray, why don't you let me just just pray through you, why don't you let me pray in you, why don't you let me just nudge you in the right area to pray and don't worry about it and I remembered what

I already knew, the old truth came back to me that I don't know how to pray and only the

Holy Spirit can pray with my spirit within me and then take that back to God and so you see that kind of prayer will always be answered, always, always, every prayer that is asked or sent up in the will of God will be answered without exception, so if you have answered prayer in verse 22, whatsoever we ask we receive, that's assurance of salvation,

Brother Otis discussed with us in Sunday School today, God doesn't even hear the prayer of a person who's not spirit -filled, first saved and then indwelt by the

Spirit but also spirit -filled, he doesn't even hear it, so he's not answering any of it, so if you do see answered prayer in your life, it proves you're saved because you couldn't even have prayed the right thing without the

Holy Spirit telling you what to pray and when he tells you what to pray and you get selfishness out of it, which is hard when it's your own family, it's easier for y 'all to pray for her than for us because we want her to be healed, so we want to just pray

Lord heal her but I've struggled with that, I find it difficult to pray that, so made me angry with myself till I realized

Holy Spirit said, listen if I want you to pray that, I'll lead you to pray that way and he may still, but the point is if you have answered prayer, what wonderful assurance of the fact that you're selfless and that you have a

God -filled love and that you are saved and the last thing I see here it says, 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, the greatest key to knowing that he abides in us is the fellowship of the

Holy Spirit, so you have love, God's love, you have selflessness, you have answered prayer in your life and you sense the presence of God in your temple and therefore you have assurance, what a great, probably the,

I would, I would think safely say that greatest teaching of assurance of salvation in the whole Bible is found in this chapter, let's stand and have prayer together, not of eternal security but of assurance, that particular topic,

Lord we thank you for your word, we ask you to be with each family as we go on our way, we covet your protection,

Father thank you for the comforting words in Psalm 22 and we look forward to getting into Psalm 23, we ask you to be with June and Charlotte, Marsha, protect

Charlotte and the girls as they travel to take Jenny to school and back and then back to Tyler tomorrow,

Lord be with each of our families as we travel, Father thank you that through the word of God and your

Holy Spirit you prepare us day by day for what you call the evil day, that we might have on the full armor of God during that evil day and be able to endure it and pass through and through it all

Father we pray that you would help us to manifest that the fruits of the

Spirit including the fruit of joy and we ask it in Jesus name, amen.