Marks of True & False Believers (1 John 2:3-4)

Well, thank you all for coming, I appreciate it. Before we get going, let's have a word of prayer. Father, we love you and praise you and just thank you for all you do in our lives, the way that you watch over us and guide us and give us your strength each day, that you've provided a beacon of hope in the scriptures and in Christ himself, that we can know him, that we understand him and can find hope in the midst of any storm.

We thank you, Lord, for all you do in our lives and ask that you go before us as we open your word today, illuminate it to our hearts and our minds, help us to learn it and apply it to our lives and that we might share it with the lost and dying world and that they might come to know the love that we share as well.

We just commit this to you now, in Jesus' name. Before I start, I wanted to make a personal comment, if I could, to start off. Before I started teaching this class, three weeks back, I hadn't really taught for about five, six years and I taught one Sunday school class, I think, for the teens and then just what I've done here and the church that I was in prior, before coming to Kootenai, it was more about books, it was more about going through a specific book, talking about different things and it just wasn't where I was at.

I didn't really like that style so I never got involved in the teaching of it at all. I met Justin Peters and his ministry is all over the place but he was in the process of moving here at the time and so I thought, well, he's going to Kootenai Community Church, I don't know what that's all about.

My family wasn't happy with the church we were at and so we started to come up here probably four or five years ago and when you're around teachers like Jim and Justin and a good church, it motivates you to strive to be excellent.

It wasn't something that I had before so I wanted to tell you that because I appreciate your grace and understanding as I'm teaching this class and I'm trying to get better and I'm trying to focus on some things in my teaching.

One of the things I'm trying to do is to just get comfortable. I mean, it's terrifying to be up here teaching a class and so I'm just trying to get comfortable. Teaching God's word and public speaking at the same time can be a little daunting so I'm trying to blend those two things together into something good and glorifying for the Lord and I'm also trying to work on delivery of the material.

How I can say things and how I stand up here and communicate God's word is something that I'm really working on and a little bit more interactive would be I would say the third thing. A little bit more interactive is if you get comfortable with me, hopefully we can have good discussion and good dialogue in the class itself so if you'll bear with me, I just want you to know that I'm working on these things and I appreciate your patience as I'm trying to work back into some kind of a style here and find my own groove.

1 John 2 and the Marks of a True and False Believer

So with that, open your Bibles to 1 John chapter two. We're gonna read the first 11 verses of 1 John chapter two so if you'll open up your copy of God's word there, we'll begin reading. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous and he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world.

By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. The one who says I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him but whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected.

By this we know that we are in him, the one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked. Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning.

The old commandment is the word which you have heard. On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you which is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him but the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

We're gonna be focusing on verses three and four this morning and the title of this message, if you will, is Marks of a True and a False Believer. Marks of a True and a False Believer. And we're gonna see that in a couple ways.

One is you can know by the phrase come to know him. We're gonna look at that, come to know him. You can also know true and false believers by the fact of whether they follow his commands, whether they keep his commands or not.

We're gonna see that, talk about that. You're also gonna learn today that a true and false believer can be identified by how they guard the commandments, how they guard the commandments. How many times over the years have you known people that have seemed to have a solid faith, they've walked in the church, and for some reason or another, they left the faith.

Something happened. You thought they had a strong family, they had a strong marriage, kids were, you know, good kids involved in all kinds of youth groups and everything, but only to find out later they had walked away from their faith to serve their own passions and desires.

You had thought they were a believer for all that time and then you realize that they really weren't. I look at, sometimes I have some old church directories, you know, the old ones, we do use digital now, but you look in the church directory and you see all the faces in there, and over time you realize, well, they left the faith.

There's some kind of sin entered there and their family is destroyed. And then you also see on the other side where there's a lot of true believers that you see still persevering in the faith and you kind of go, okay, well, the ones that are leaving the faith, you wonder, well, were they ever really saved in the first place?

You have no idea whether they were saved in the first place. Did they have any kind of a genuine faith or a profession there? And I think we wrestle with that. I mean, I do wrestle with whether we know someone is saved or not.

You ever think that in your own head? Like, well, that person's not saved. Well, that one is. You know, but how do we really know from the scriptures whether someone is a true believer and who is not?

Who is a false believer? We're gonna be talking about that in the lesson today. One of the things that we deal with is those that are in rebellion. We probably know people or have known people over the years that have been in rebellion and we wonder, well, are they saved?

They've been walking against the Lord for a long time and do we say they're saved or not saved? Is that a struggle for you at all? I know it is for me. Because I want to say, well, yeah, they're saved or yeah, they're not saved.

So, a question I have to ask is, is it our place to talk to somebody and tell them they're saved or they're not saved? What's your thoughts on that? Is it up to us to do that? See, this is the part where I'm working on the interactive part.

And what's that?

Ask an easier question. Yeah, that is a difficult question. Well, we're gonna cover that. I mean, the comment always comes back is that we don't know their heart and we really can't say.

Yes, okay, that's a good point.

Only God knows and we can't know their heart.

Yes, your response is either way,.

Wouldn't we know whether they're a believer or non-believer if we preach the gospel? Solution is the same whether we know their heart or we don't. Yeah, I think that's true. We have to look at the scriptures and we have to see from there how God views it.

I think what I hear a lot is we don't know their heart. They always point to the story of David and they say, well, David walked away from the Lord and then he eventually came back, right? So we don't really know and it's a struggle for us.

But we can know from the scriptures, as you had said earlier, about their actions. We can look at what they do and that fleshes it out quite a bit for us to the point where you probably have a pretty good idea whether they are or not just by looking at their walk and what they do.

But the question in rebellion for me is how long in rebellion is somebody before we say, well, they're not a believer? Is it one year? Is it five years? Is it 20 years? What is it? I know an individual that has been in habitual sin for over 10 years and claims to be a believer.

I mean, at some point in time, I feel like I gotta call it. Like, you know, this is just not right. And, but like you say, I don't know God's heart on it. I don't know their heart. But from the scriptures, I do know that their actions go against the scriptures and every fiber of my being says that that person is not saved.

Every fiber, based on what the scriptures teach. Yes, sir? David had an Nathan, your comment is, would we be a Nathan? Confront somebody in their sin and talk to them about it. And I think that's an important aspect of it.

You know, that's the scriptures do teach that. We need to confront people in their sin and give them an opportunity to make a change. But on the other side, as you are a believer, can you really stay away from God forever?

Is that possible? Is it possible? He says, all that the Father gives me, I will lose none. Not gonna lose any of them. So eventually, they gotta come back. But we struggle with the timing. Is it a day, a week, a month, a year, and so on?

So we're gonna be talking about the marks of a true and false believer today. The Bible is pretty clear about it. It's nice because it's black and white.

Yes, sir?

Friendship with that.

There you go, right.

Yeah, the comment is, just for the tape, is that I don't think we can really know. It's by our witness and our walk. And Judas walked with the Lord and still walked away from him in the end. So we don't really know.

That's a good comment. I think it does come down to, you know, the simple tests of the scriptures. I mean, what we're gonna look at today is really that, marks of a true and a false believer. I mean, it comes down to very simple understanding.

Either you're gonna follow the Lord or you're gonna follow your own way. It's manifested out in your actions and the things that you do. So our first verse is verse three. By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.

By this gives us really a nice segue into just kind of a quick review for anybody that might not be here or haven't been here before. It's been a couple weeks and people may be online or watching, but just a little bit of a review.

And I think back to when we started, we talked about John the Apostle writing this and his headquarters is in Ephesus. And he's, you know, Ephesus is right on the Aegean Sea. It was a pretty big city, a lot of commerce going on there.

But it was also famous for the Temple of Artemis. And if you remember in Acts 19, Paul had preached there and Demetrius, the silversmith and all the other craftsmen were in an uproar in Ephesus because they worked in the Temple of Artemis and because people were defecting from the temple worship to the one true God, they weren't making as much money.

So there was a serious uproar there. But the Temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the world. I mean, it was 425 feet long and 225 feet wide. It had 120 columns that were 60 feet high and four feet around.

This thing was massive. I think back to my Navy days and the submarine that I was on was 425 feet long. Same as this temple. It's a big, massive structure, you know? And I think with, you know, length, just to put it in perspective, I mean, a football field is 360 feet long, so it's that and then some.

It's a pretty big structure. So I just wonder as John walked around, you know, into that city, the impact of seeing that structure, did it affect him in the sense of writing this gospel? Writing this, not gospel, but writing this letter.

Because he saw the temple worship, the false worship, it would be easy for him to write in verses one through four the way to deal with this is the one true God, Jesus Christ, who was from the beginning, who we have seen and heard, you know, this is the one true God.

I just wonder as he's seeing these things, is he thinking about that? I mean, how much easier in verse two and three of chapter one to proclaim Christ? When you see all this idol worship going on and you're focusing on the one true God and you're screaming out in your soul saying, no, this is the one true God here.

We proclaim him, we don't proclaim any other God at all. And I often think about this, did John see believers walking into the temple of Artemis and also walking into the church? Maybe that's why he wrote, if we say that we have fellowship with him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth, it would be easy for these kinds of things to happen.

And I just wonder if John was looking at the temple when he wrote these words, my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if you do, verses five through 10, we do have an advocate with the Father.

We have someone that is going before us on our behalf to bear the wrath that we so rightly deserve. And so it's easy to sit back there and look at this book and understand that John had this firsthand knowledge and experience with Christ.

I mean, he knew the marks of a true and a false believer. Think about the times he's walking with Christ and he's seeing the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the people that ran away from Christ. And then he's seeing the ones that hung in there and manifested their faith by following him without deviating in any way, shape, or form.

He had that skill, he had that experience. And I think somebody mentioned Judas here, it might have been you, yeah, you mentioned Judas. I mean, yeah, Judas, perfect example. I mean, how do you know that that guy was with Christ, he walked with them, could we say, was there signs along the way that we could say, yeah, that doesn't line up with the Scriptures.

But in the end, he defected. So he never really was saved. But the actions, I don't know if there was anything along the way that we could see that. So the first point here is in our verses, verses two and three, or three and four.

By this we know that we have come to know him. And verse four says, the one who says I have come to know him, wanna focus on those come to know him. Those who come to know him are the ones that are saved.

Those who come to know him are the ones that are saved. The one of the marks of the true believer is that they desire to know God. They wanna utilize their energy and time to come to know him. You can know a lot about somebody by how they spend their time.

You can see where their focus is. Is it all self, is it some work, is it, you know, what can you put in realistically into the relationship with Christ? How you spend your time is important. People that come to know him, they keep his commandments.

That's what it says here. There are a lot of ways we can get to know God better, right? We can know him by reading our Bible. We can listen to podcasts. We can read other books about the Bible to learn that.

And we can still do all those things and not really have a strong relationship with him. See that? That's true. There are people all over the world that have made a decision for Jesus. But yet you look at their walk and you realize, well, if you made a decision, are you really saved?

Because I'm seeing all these other things that don't line up with the scriptures. And, you know, people that have prayed a prayer and believe that they are saved. This message is for them as well, that to be confronted with the truth, it gives an opportunity for people to change.

If you let people go in, you know, their slide, then maybe they don't realize some of the things that they're doing are against the scriptures. So that's a good component of it. But what does come to know him mean?

Any thoughts? What does come to know him mean? If we say we come to know him, what's that saying? They have heard the gospel. Okay, good, yeah.

What else? What else?

It's one of those hard questions. It's, the word for know is called, it's Greek for ginosko, and it's used 23 times in John. First occurrence is here. And it's to have a relationship with a person. It's to have a relationship with a person.

The person here, obviously, is Christ. We have a relationship with Christ, we're gonna come to know him. We're getting acquainted with the God of the Bible. It's coming to know him in a variety of ways.

Ginosko, in the verb, is the perfect tense. So it denotes something that happened in the past, but it has present day implications. Jim talked about this last week when he talked about Hebrews 10, 14.

And he said that by that one sacrifice, you know, we're being perfected for all time to those that are sanctified. That word perfected is the same concept here, is that Christ's sacrifice on the cross 2 ,000 plus years ago has present day implications for those that are being saved.

Coming to know, in this case, is at some point in time, you were saved. But today, you are coming to know him more and more as you live your life for him. That make sense? That's what that perfect tense is doing for us.

To know means at some point you were saved. I think of it like when I got saved or when anybody got saved. It's like an infant to a toddler to a full grown, you know, mature adult. When you were an infant, born again, just saved, I mean, how much did you really know?

You knew a little bit, but you didn't have a full grasp of it. As you're maybe, you know, seven, eight, nine, whatever, you begin to learn a little bit more. Maybe like the Old Testament and New Testament and how they fit together and dovetail.

But as you're maturing in your faith, it's something that you're reading the scriptures, you're maybe cracking open a commentary, you're listening to podcasts, you're digging deeper into the word of God, you're maturing in your faith and you're living that out for the world to see.

That's kind of the idea here. But not everybody does that, do they? This is the hard part when you go to a church and you go, well, you know, Sam over there just doesn't seem to be living his faith. He just doesn't seem to be growing at all.

The scriptures talk about this. In 1 Corinthians 3, one through three, it says this, "'And I, brethren, could not speak to you "'as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, "'as to infants in Christ.

"'I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, "'for you were not yet able to receive it. "'Even now you are not yet able, "'for you are still fleshly.'". This is the kind of individual that has not grasped and grown in their faith.

They haven't come to know God in that deeper, mature way. They're still fleshly. They're still requiring the milk from an infancy. Hebrews 5, 11 through 14, really kind of drives this home a little bit further.

"'Concerning him we have much to say, "'and it is hard to explain "'since you have become dull of hearing. "'For though by this time you ought to be teachers, "'you have need again for someone to teach you "'the elementary principles of the oracles of God, "'and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

"'For everyone who partakes only of milk "'is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, "'for he is an infant, but solid food is for the mature, "'who because of practice have their senses trained "'to discern good and evil.'".

That dull of hearing, you ought to be teachers, but you're not. Someone to teach you, we need that, and you need milk and not solid food. This is evidence of an immature believer. Someone that should be further along in their faith.

After 30 years in the faith, we probably shouldn't be still drinking milk. We should be focusing on the deeper things of the scripture. So tell me, what are some ways we can get to know God? How do we get to know him?

What are some ways? Study the word of God. There you go, boom, done. We can maybe listen to a podcast. Do that. Teach adult Sunday school. That'll do it. It's a lot of ways. But what kind of knowledge gets us the deepest understanding of God?

What kind of knowledge gets us the deepest depth of our soul knowledge of God? What's that? Reading his word. There you go. Reading his word. Pray. Okay, absolutely. Can't know scripture at all unless you're saved.

That is true. The scriptures are spiritually discerned. Can't know it until you're a believer, so that is true. I look at it like a woodworker or a mechanic. You know, they have all the tools, don't they?

Which I know how to use zero of those. But they have every tool. And someone new as a mechanic or new as a woodworker wouldn't, you know, what if they just looked at videos and read books about it? What if they didn't really know how to use those tools?

They just had an intellectual knowledge of those tools. Isn't it the application of that knowledge, the experience of it, that drives home the usage of those tools? They're not gonna know how to replace a transmission or build an intricate table strictly by reading everything.

You still have to know how to use the tools, and sometimes that takes experience because you learn as you're using them. That's, a lot of people try to do it the other way, right? They try to do different ways of learning God.

The Gnostics in this book tried to do it their own way by the superior knowledge. That's how they were knowing God. But, you know, John really blew him out of the water here with the Gnostic teaching because, you know, you come to know him, that's through experience.

That's through living your faith. It's not just simply an intellectual ascent to our faith. I'm not saying that reading and praying and all these things are bad. They're good for us, but we also need to go one step further and push that out into our communities and people that we know, and we need to talk about it to other people so they can understand the gospel as well.

It's about obeying the word. When we obey and live our faith, it's visible for everyone to see. And that's how you really know. That's how you can see whether someone is puffed up with all kinds of knowledge or they're living their faith in obedience to Christ.

Because a lot of times people say one thing and then do another. I mean, you probably know people like that. I do. They say, oh yes, yes, I love Jesus, I love Jesus, and then their actions say otherwise.

And then you begin to question that. Are they saved? And you go down that rabbit trail, right? If those who practice their faith, they're able to discern good and evil, aren't they? You're in your word, you understand it.

We're growing and progressing from an infant to a mature adult. We're living it out, we're growing. That's what we need to do. Growing your faith by experience is often uncomfortable. Isn't it? It's not easy.

We have grown up in an America that's pretty comfortable, where we've been prosperous and people really aren't dying for their faith so much in America. We do hear it in other countries. But in America, we are not made to bow down to another God.

So you see that in how do we live our lives. The Old Testament and New Testament saints, they were put under duress. They had to make a stand one way or the other with their faith. And in the result and midst of that, their faith was put into action.

It was tested to see what metal they had. Mark of an unbeliever is that when faced with difficult situations, a lot of times, they don't conform. And so you see their actions doing one thing different than the scriptures do.

And so I wanted to talk just briefly about a couple lessons from Daniel. Because that really solidifies some very concrete examples of someone that is living their faith for Christ. And Daniel was taken to Babylon from Jerusalem.

Can you imagine that? When you've been taken from your own home? Think about that, somebody came to North Idaho, take you from your home, took you to another country, took you to Pakistan or India or some other foreign country, and you were made to conform to the practices of that country.

I mean, that would be earth shattering, wouldn't it? That's what Daniel had to do. He had to follow that. And remember, when he got there, he didn't want to follow the dietary laws. And so he pushed back on them.

And he said, I don't really want to do that. And they agreed. But you know, it took courage to do that. Took courage to do that. It's not easy to stand up in the face of this kind of adversity. You discover, though, how strong you can be during those times.

You think back to hard things you've done in your own life. When you go through that, you're much stronger after you do. You're easier to go through it the next time. Or maybe go raise your game to a different level.

Whether it's work or something that you're really struggling with. But the thing is that we have to realize also is that God took Daniel through this situation. We're not alone, are we? We're not alone in our struggles and trials and how we live our life.

I mean, God gave Daniel wisdom in the literature of the culture. He gave him wisdom in understanding how to do these dreams and visions. You know, he just didn't leave them hanging out there. And that's what we have to remember for our own lives is that God's with us as we live them.

We're not alone. We rely on him for his strength. We also see in the story of Daniel's friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You know, they didn't want to bow down to the gods of the Babylonians, the golden image and the god of the Babylonians.

And they were put under some extreme pressure to bow down. And we have not faced that in our country. We've not faced that in America where we're forced to bow down to another god. But I don't know if you know this or not, the times they are a-changing if you haven't seen what's gonna happen in our world.

I don't know what's gonna happen in the future. But we're certainly not at that level of bowing down to another god. What would you do if you were asked to bow down to another god? How would you react?

Would you say, well, okay, I will do that because I want safety and freedom and calm, or would you lose your job, lose your income, lose your home, lose all those things to say, no, I'm not going to do that because I have a higher calling which is in Christ, and I'm not going to do that.

That would be a tough situation to have to deal with. But these are some of the things that when we're called to the faith, it could happen where we have to really make a stand. But they would not bow down under the extreme pressure that Nebuchadnezzar put on them.

We're talking about a sovereign king that had full authority to do anything he wanted. There was no one looking over him. He could do whatever he wanted, and I'm sure that he wasn't used to hearing no.

When you're that kind of a sovereign, you're not used to hearing no. So can you imagine the immense pressure on these individuals to conform to that? And they say, absolutely not. We're not going to do that.

And you know why? Because we believe that God can save us. God can take care of us. And I love it because he's like, but even if he doesn't, makes no difference. That's beautiful. You take the consequences of obedience to Christ, and you let God worry about those things.

And that's the hardest part, isn't it? Is just letting go, because man wants to control our own destiny in a lot of ways, and the faith is about giving up self. It's about following him and not our own path.

So, I mean, you see a lot of this happening in the scriptures, but the lessons from Daniel are relevant for us today. Faith must be a home in action. It must be something we live. We come to know God by keeping his commandments.

This is the next portion of it here. We'll get a few more minutes, and then we'll probably have to start it next time. But, Mark's of a true and false believer. They come to know him, and the second point is they keep his commandments.

They keep his commandments. First John 2, three. By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. The one who says that I've come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

What commandments are we talking about? Where does your mind go? Matthew? Where else? When you say follow these commandments, where do you go? Go to the law of the Old Testament, right? The 10 commandments.

It's something that you're like, okay, I go there. But this is not what this is talking about here. The word for law is nomos, and the word here is entole, which is completely different. It's precepts and commands of the Lord Jesus.

That's what we're talking about here. It's not the Old Testament laws and requirements, because Christ came to fulfill all of that. So it's those commandments. It's personally something that Jesus taught, or it was taught through the apostles.

So what are the precepts and commands that we're supposed to follow? Any ideas? What are the New Testament commands and precepts that we're to follow? There's quite a few. There's quite a few. Any ideas?

Yeah, Peter. Exactly, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Perfect. But there are others. Repent is one of them. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

There's something we should be doing. Like Peter said, love one another. We're to follow Jesus. We're to come to Jesus for rest. We're supposed to forgive 70 times seven. We're to partake of communion.

We're to preach the gospel. Love God, love our neighbor. There's others. But that's the idea. These are the commands that define us. As a believer, when we come to know him, we learn these through reading and studying and understanding, and then as we have to live them out, everyone can see what we do.

And that's where we should be. But what about a false convert? Do they care about these commands? False converts may not even know what they all are. They might not care. They might not worry about it.

I love what John says in 1 John 5, verse three. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. I love that. We're not carrying around this heavy weight around our neck.

It's something that we do because we love him and we care for him. It's not something that's burdening us down. But we learn from experience through difficult situations, and we have to keep our eye focused on the scriptures.

On him. The last point here is they guard his commandments. And that's from the word keep in verses three and four. By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Pretty simple test of faith.

Either you keep them or you don't. It's how you can look at somebody's walk. Either they follow these or they don't. But the word keep, it means to guard and to keep an eye on. That's what it means. Someone that keeps his word is someone who guards these commandments.

We're guarding them like a warden guards his prison. It's like that. He looks over the prison inmates and the guards and he has a standard and he upholds that standard. He's committed to keeping that because he doesn't want any escapees and he's committed to that.

That's the idea here. True believers have a desire to guard the precepts and the commands of the Lord. And so to do that, we have to come to know him and understand who he is. And we have to learn that through an experience because what does it say at the end?

If you don't keep these, you're a liar and the word is not in you. I mean, you ever call somebody a liar and say, hey, you know, that's a lie. We tend to not want to do that. We come alongside them and say, look at these things here.

If you say you're a believer and you're not doing these things, then you gotta check your faith at the door somewhere. And that's our responsibility is to confront that, talk to people about it because the goal in all of it is to glorify God.

That's our goal. Glorify him with our lives and our walk. And I hope we can do that. We need to think on these things. So you know to trust Jesus, but do you? You know to pray, but do you? You know to forgive, but do you?

You know to love your neighbor, but do you? You know to serve your spouse, but do you? You know to love God with all your heart, but do you do these things? I would say just think on these things, brothers and sisters, and see what the Lord has for you.

Looks like we're out of time. Is there any questions at all? I know we're right at the end, but if there are any, I don't want to miss any. I covered everything so comprehensively, there are no questions.

All right, let's pray. Father, you alone are worthy. Thank you for your word and the truth that is there and so relevant to our everyday lives no matter what we're doing. We pray that we could glorify you no matter what we do.