Your Deceptive Heart

Let's go to 1 John, 1 John chapter 3, and one of the most powerful texts, I guess, on the assurance of salvation. As I looked at it more and more, I thought, well, that's really the core of where John's going with this. And no doubt, as he's writing to these churches and probably a lot of younger believers in these churches, and believers who are being deceived and lied to by false teaching of the day, not the least of which, which was the Jewish legalist who would try to push works and keeping of the law as a part of one gaining the right standing before God.

John seems to want to correct that. This afternoon, it was interesting that I got a phone call from one of our businessmen, and he was already contemplating how we can get this debt paid off, what he was going to do on it and about it and everything, and I just kind of laughed. And he was a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but he was very serious because I know him, and I know he's very serious. And he talked about, well, if we can get guys to give this much and we get that paid off, and I said, I agree, and I'm all for that, you can call every one of them. But I said, it never works the way you think it's going to work.

You just can't figure it out. Somebody will give a great offering that normally doesn't give one. And as I've said for going on 40 years, and all the, Lord knows how much money we've raised in 40 years, I want to say to you, though, your pastor, I have a clear conscience. I've lived what I've asked you to do. I have given what I've told you to give, and I've tried to be generous, and at times, by an American definition, even sacrificial. But nevertheless, saying all that to say this, it takes all of us, and I think that's what God wants it to. It takes some who can give very large gifts, and it takes the rest of us doing what we can do.

And we all just participate in it together. So I just thought it was interesting, but then I thought about my text for this evening. I thought, why would this man call me, and just share that after hearing it said this morning?

Well, first of all, I've been here for 40 years, and I know people very well that have been here a long time, or a lot of them, most of them. But secondly, it's because he loves the church. He believes what he has, God gave him, and as he can, he wants to use it for God's glory. And then I thought about my own pilgrimage. I mean, I was converted out of almost paganism. I guess you would, well, I guess we're all, in a sense, converted out of paganism, aren't we?

We're all the enemies of God, the Bible says. But I mean, with no knowledge, and no connection to organized religion at all. Maybe when I was a child, there was some. And immediately after the night I was converted in my car, I started attending church.

Isn't that weird? I started wanting to be around Christians. And it took me a while to learn that not everybody in church is a Christian.

I realized after a while that I was supposed to love these people, and I did commit to love them, but it didn't just flow out of a natural part of my heart and spirit to love all of them. And then as time went on, I learned that Dr. Gray Allison, the former president, he's in heaven now, Mid-America Seminary was right when he said 75% of Southern Baptists are lost. They're unconverted. And then when you challenged him, he'd say, fruit, fruit, there ain't none.

And what is it? Billy Graham used to say that 80% of church members are unconverted. Pretty good authorities. These are men who knew the church and knew it very well. And so I learned through the years that there's a reason why, though I love these people, I didn't feel this natural spiritual heart love the way the Bible taught it. And then as God put me in a healthier church, a truer church, I sensed that much, much more strongly than I used to.

But I thought about the change in your heart and how whatever else it includes, listen to me now, when God really saves you, one of the clear marks of true conversion is that you begin to love the people God loves, begin to love his church. I don't mean just the organization. We do love that. We love the wisdom of God and the way he's biblically structured the church and the beauty of God.

There's a beautiful thing that he's created called the church, but I mean the people. There's just something there. It's not too unusual. I guess, you know, Brother David Young has a lot of phrases.

Have you noticed that? If you're random, he's got a lot of phrases. And usually they're funny.

And one of them that's not necessarily funny, but it's kind of cultural, I guess. And we use it sometimes in staff meetings and stuff. We'll be talking about somebody in the church. And one of us will say, man, I love me some so-and-so.

I love me some so-and-so. And the reason why we say that is because it's bigger than we both like the same ball team or we both like the same outdoor activities or we both, whatever, come from the same background. It's that we see Christ in that person and we love that. We're drawn to the Christ we see in them. And that's something John brings out here so pointedly and thoroughly about Christians and our salvation.

Let's look at it together. 1 John chapter 3, verses 19 through 24. We will know by this, and that reflects back on the previous verses. We know by this that we are of the truth and will assure, and I think that's the best translation, not persuade, but nevertheless, either one will work. And will assure our hearts before him. And this continues the phrase now.

This is not a disjointed thing. Verse 20 follows, verse 19, in flow. And in whatever our heart condemns us, for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. You better be glad God's greater than your heart, your lying, deceiving, cheating heart. I was even going to entitle this your cheating heart, but it throws some of you back on Hank Williams, Sr. and you'd sing it and not listen to me preach. But it is, it is a cheating heart. Your heart's a deceiving heart. Your heart's a lying heart. Thank God he's bigger than my heart.

Doesn't it bother you when you get around Christians and they go by their heart? Well, this is just in my heart. I don't care if it's in your heart. Lord help, your heart's so rotten and filthy and vile and black and depraved, it took the death of Jesus to get rid of it. I don't want to hear from your heart.

I want to hear the truth of God. Amen? Now, look, there obviously, there are contexts where that's good and fine, all right? But I'm talking about when it comes to biblical and spiritual truth. Well, I just feel, everybody feels, and look at our world today, they're all feeling something, aren't they? We're not a people who live by principle anymore, but feelings, silly little effeminate feelings.

I'll stop right there. Look at verse 22. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.

And this is his commandment that we believe in the name of the Son of God, the Son, Jesus Christ, rather, and love one another just as he commanded us. Notice those two together. Notice those two together.

Believing in Christ and loving Christians. On a level plane there, as if when there's one, there's the other. Was there the other?

There's the one. They're always together. They never, ever, ever are not together. Believing in Jesus and loving brothers and sisters in Christ, i.e.

primarily your local church. They're always together. Verse 24, and the one who keeps his commandments abides in him and he in him. We know by this that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given to us. So I want to talk about your deceptive heart. Your deceptive heart. I mean your natural heart. The word heart here, cardias, the word we get the English word cardiac from, and it just means the innermost part. And probably most of the time in the great usage of the ancient word, it meant your mind and your emotions. We would talk about it more as the emotions today.

We would separate the two. But it's the innermost being involving both the mind and the emotions. But what I want to point out and what John's alluding to very clearly here is that your natural heart, the heart you were born with, the innermost part of your being is no good.

You're no good in the innermost being. Your heart will lie to you. It will cheat you out of God's blessings.

It will deceive you. Matter of fact, it's trying to cheat you out of the blessings of God from the moment you came into this earth and when you consider the things of God, and then after you're a Christian, it continues to try to cheat you out of what God has for you. Jeremiah 17, nine, a verse we use a lot when we're talking about the condition and standing of man, naturally speaking, before holy God. The heart is more deceitful rather than all else and is desperately sick and who can understand it?

The heart, the natural man. That's why we have to marvel over the glorious mercy and grace of God to cause us to become righteous in the eyes of this triune holy God because the gulf that was crossed and the distance between us woeful sinners and a holy God was beyond comprehension. Yet God took care of it through his son, Jesus Christ. Now, the point is as Christians, we must not, matter of fact, it's a sin to do so. We must not live by this deceiving, cheating heart's impressions and we must live by his truthful word. We don't live by our natural hearts, what it says, feels, perceives, desires, but we live by truth, truth in God's word. And what you'll find out in Christianity, when you commit yourself to truth, your emotions catch up. Pretty soon you start having joy in the truth of God, but sometimes you have to commit to God and his truth until the emotions catch up. That's the way principled and mature people live their lives. Now, turn over to Matthew chapter 15 for just a moment.

Would you do that? Matthew, the first gospel chapter 15, and let's look at a description of the old natural heart from Jesus. Matthew 15, beginning in verse 18. Matthew 15, 18, but the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and those defile the man for out of the heart, that's the unregenerate natural heart you're born with, out of that heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man. Of course, the context was the Jewish ritual, ceremony of cleansing of the hands had somehow in their thinking a way of cleansing you before God or making you acceptable before God. Jesus said, you've missed everything. You've taken the forms and the typologies and missed the true thing. You've missed the truth of the God who can come in the person of the Son, Jesus, and really cleanse the heart.

And you wiping off dirt on the outside is not going to do anything. He says, that's what's in the natural heart. Your heart tries to deceive you from ever coming to Christ for salvation, does it not? Did your heart not tell most of you, you can be saved later. You can come to Christ later.

There's always later. I want to tell some of you young people sitting here, some of you five, six, seven years old, may know enough that God will hold you accountable at the judgment for pushing away Christ and not putting your faith in Christ. You can be saved later. Has your heart not lied to you or did it not lie to you rather before you were saved?

Well, you're good enough. Nobody's perfect. Everybody's sinners.

We all fail. Yes, and we're all condemned by holy God. Your heart's trying to deceive you. Your heart deceives you before you're converted by saying, well, religion will save you. There'll be a time you can go down to the church, talk to the pastor and why he'll baptize you in the Baptist or you can start taking communion at the Lord's table or if you're in another type of Christianity or practice of Christianity, you take the sacraments or whatever it is, whatever they teach, your heart's lying to you. Because putting on religion doesn't change anything about your condition as you're standing before God.

I heard this by someone that I love very dearly. God wouldn't send anyone to hell. He's a loving God.

He wouldn't do that. That's your deceiving heart. Well, you don't want to be a fanatic. You can just kind of believe the things of Christ. You don't have to sell out to this thing.

Be totally committed to it. Well, your heart tries to deceive you from salvation, but your heart also tries to rob you of the treasures of salvation. Well, you've sinned now and God can't use you. You sinned now.

You blew it now. God can't use you now. I told you about a famous preacher, well-known, well-known preacher who was charging college students about going to the mission field and he uses some phraseology I would not use. But the point he was making was, if you young people wait to surrender to the ministry until you get victory from sinful lust and temptation, you'll never go to the mission field. If you wait until that's never an issue, if you wait until you're scoring 100 in the area of sexual temptation and lust, you'll never surrender to serve God.

And he has a point. God didn't save you to use you because you now score 100 on the sin test. God uses sinners. He uses humbled sinners. He uses repenting sinners.

But God uses sinners. Your heart wants to lie to you and say, God can't use you now. You're not good enough. He lies to you. You're not smart enough. You're not talented enough. You don't preach like Brother Jeff and run around and scream all the time.

Your style's not right. You know what all that is at the end of the day? It's pride. You're thinking about you instead of what God's telling you to do. You didn't get baptized at the right church. Your deceiving heart uses feelings and human performance to cheat you out of the treasures and the joys of knowing and serving Christ.

Well, a couple of points in the outline here. First of all, let's talk about the treasures your deceiving heart tries to cheat you out of. The treasures your deceiving heart tries to cheat you out of. Number one, he certainly tries to cheat you out of peace with God, peace with God. And by that I mean gaining that assurance of salvation and having peace in my standing with God that I'm no longer under his wrath and condemnation, but I have been forgiven and cleansed. Notice it there in verses 19 and 20. He says, we will know by this that we are of the truth and we will know by this, the last part of the verse, and will assure our hearts before him. The word assure there is that idea of quietening the heart to find conciliation in the heart, comfort, if you will. Some scholars say persuade is a better word. It could go either way, the scholars tell us, but I'm convinced that's what that means. That's what I called coming to a settled rest that my faith is in Jesus and Christ has saved me. Okay, well now, John, just practically now, we will know by this.

What is the this? Look at verses 17 and 18. Context explains a lot of things in Scripture. But whoever has the world's goods and sees his brother, sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

His point is this is a brother in Christ. The cultural context would be that, folks, when you became a Christian, you divorced yourself from all other worldly attachments. I mean, you didn't live in a post-Christian culture like we live in where still in the South today, there's a general embracing acknowledgement that it's good to be a follower of Jesus Christ. A lot of it's superficial and fake, but it's still there in the culture.

That didn't exist here. When you came to Christ, the Jews hated you, the Greeks despised you, your own family and friends perhaps turned their back on you, and you just had each other. And by the way, I believe that's what God is doing in our day. He's cleansing and purifying his true church. And the true church is gonna have to come together in this present age. And his point is in this state of almost constant oppression and persecution for following Christ, and that causes a brother, sister to literally be without necessary food, clothing and shelter, and you just shut them out. It's not I'll do my best for you, I'll try. No, it's just you shut them out is what the verse means.

You slam the door on them, say, I don't care. What he's saying is you can't possibly be one of God's saved children if you don't have a special love for other Christians. You know, I've said this to you before, when I was converted, I know there were some sweet and precious people who tried to help me and I thanked God for them, but I don't remember anybody for a long time saying anything to me about the assurance of salvation other than this. Did you pray that prayer? Did you ask him to save you? Well, if you ask him, then he saved you. You really have to twist the scripture to even find anything close to that in the New Testament.

It's just not there. That's not where you find assurance of salvation. John says, by this we will know.

By what, John? By the fact that you have a genuine love that's active toward other Christians. It's one of the best evidences that God has saved you and changed your heart.

Wow. Now don't, now don't, I screamed at you last week, if you are one of these hyper compulsive people and you start checking off boxes, how much have I shown love to Christians this week? I hope I scored high enough to be saved.

That's not what we're talking about. It's talking about there's a new natural drawing in your heart to be in communion and fellowship with a new kind of people called Christians. Why are you here on Sunday night?

And I'll just go ahead and say it. Those folks who has a pattern willfully will not attend church on Sunday night. I don't think there's good hope for their salvation. If the Bible's true. Now I'm certainly true Christians can fall into a season of a slothfulness there, I'll accept that. But you want to be with those people whom Christ has saved when Christ saves you. So that, he says, is how we were nowhere of the truth. Verse 18, he elaborates, little children, let us not love with word or tongue, but indeed and truth. You actually live out a genuine love one for another in your church when God has saved you. Then he says, verse 19, by this, we will know that we are of the truth and we will assure our hearts. So when your heart tries to deceive you, when your heart tries to lie to you, when your heart tries to cheat you out of the fact that you have peace with God through Jesus Christ, you can quieten your heart. That's what the word means. Find conciliation in your heart, find rest and peace in your heart by saying, now wait a minute.

It's clearly true. There was a time when I didn't really care about church. I didn't want to be around the people of God.

I didn't have a special love for them. And I see this, at least the seed of that, the germ of that, if you will, resident in my heart now. And that's a good basis for knowing that you are God's according to the Apostle John, according to, of course, sacred scripture. Well, he continues on in verse 19. Again, this is one sentence.

It don't need to be chopped up. In whatever our heart condemns us, if our internal judgment of our conscience condemns us for something and we feel condemned and dirty and unacceptable, we have the last phrase of verse 20, for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. You can say, yes, but my heart stands up and condemns me. Yes, but Christ stands up and vindicates you. Christ stands up and advocates for you. Christ stands up and takes your place at the judgment bar of God. Christ becomes your righteousness, not your behavior, not your skill level, not your obedience level, not your law keeping ability. It is Christ who saves.

Child of God, do you get that? Christ is your righteousness. Not just what Christ has done that's essential, but Christ himself is your standing before God. So assure your heart, say heart, hush. My confidence is in Jesus Christ.

In biblical counseling, all of us always use Philippians 4, 8 and 9. The Bible says to think on these things, Philippians 4, 8, whatever is true, you may feel something so strong, you may feel something so convicting and so real, but if it isn't true, according to the word of God, you're commanded to stop thinking that way and think on truth. You don't live by your feelings, you live by the truth. So we say, okay, John, how can we know we're of the truth?

How can we know we're God's children? And it varies person to person, but some of you, you really suffer with a compulsive condemning heart and you need to talk to your heart and tell it to shut up and look at Jesus. Look to Jesus, look to Jesus, rest in him and look at the change he's brought in your life to love others. Well, your deceptive heart's gonna try to rob you out of peace with God, even though it's already been accomplished, you can't enjoy it. Secondly, your deceiving heart will try to rob you from prayer to God and from answered prayer, from prayer with God or to God and from answered prayer.

Look at verses 21 and 22. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, if we can get our hearts in line with the truth, and get our old, by the way, your conscience is a gift from God, but your conscience is not infallible. Your conscience is stained and tainted and fallen in sin. You have to educate the conscience with the truth of the word of God. And you have to talk to yourself with truth until you no longer condemn yourself, you look at yourself how Christ looks at you as a cleansed, forgiven and now righteous one beforehand. And when you get to that place where you accept holy his full unconditional love and pardon of you, then you no longer, the phrase here in verse 21, your heart does not condemn us, then we have confidence before God. You're not gonna go to God, trusting in him, asking to him, looking to him, petitioning him if you believe he already crushes you in condemnation and doesn't want you around. You have to get your heart by the truth of God into that place of quieted, trusting, rejoicing rest that you're God's and you belong to him and it's unconditional. Then you'll pray more to God. You see, folks, prayer's not some sort of woeful coercion God puts upon you. It's a glorious privilege he gives his children that are unconditionally blessed and welcomed.

Did you hear that? Look at it as a blessed treasure we're given through the provision of Jesus Christ. You say, pastor, you don't know how much I've sinned. Yeah, but I know how much I've sinned. As a matter of fact, who you are, neither one know how much we really sin because we're not omniscient and holy like God is. God knows how much we've sinned and God says we can come boldly to the throne of grace. When you sin, you don't run from God.

When you sin, you run to God and it gives you a chance to confess the truth to God. God, that's just what I am. That's just what I am. That's how low I am. That's how defiled I am. That's how depraved I naturally am. That's just like me, God.

That thought, that notion, that motive, that anger, whatever it is. But you can carry on that communion with God, very often with the spirit of repentance because you can come boldly because you've conditioned your heart to quieten down, get off the condemnation binge and accept what Christ has given you through His grace and provision. So prayer's not gonna come out of you very much, it's not gonna be very real until you trust He receives you fully through Christ. And then verse 22, and whatever we ask, we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. Now this is the commandment, verse 23, that we believe in Jesus. We've fulfilled His commandment by believing on Christ and we love Him, we receive His gift of Jesus Christ, and we wanna walk in His truth. Now look, if you wanna glorify God and walk in His truth and you've believed in His Son, then what you ask is gonna be according to His will and you will receive it.

You have no desire. If you're a true Christian, you have no desire to ask anything that's outside of His will. And if you go to God within your request and if you say, God, you say, God, I would like to have this or I'd like for you to do that, but oh God, whatever you know is wisest and best, that's the only way you can walk. See, there's no way, listen to me, there's no way to commune with this God without a whole and total confidence that He's wise.

Are you with me? So you would never go to Him demanding something. Maybe there's one thing we ought to go to God demanding, demanding that He glorify Himself through our lives.

That's pretty good demand, but there are not many of those. So we know God will answer that kind of prayer. You're just not gonna seek God in prayer unless you rest that He fully accepts you in Jesus Christ. So your deceiving heart tries to rob you of the joy of communion with God. Now there are three additional blessings that I see here. First of all, the peace of God. Now that's very akin and maybe inseparable from the peace with God, but the peace of God is something we carry with us as Christians where you could say the peace with God is that standing we have before God that we're not under His wrath, but we have peace in the shirt beforehand. Look at verse 19 again. We know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our hearts before Him. That means we walk with the peace of God in our lives. Jesus said in John 14, 27, peace I leave you, my peace I leave to you, let not your heart be troubled. There it is again, the old deceiving heart.

Here's what He's saying. Jesus is saying your heart is going to lie to you at times. Your heart is going to be deceptive to you at times.

So you've got to grab hold of your heart, your inner thinking and feelings because what I've told you is true, your heart's not true. And that will give you my peace that I've left with you. Just this unconditional forgiveness.

And sometimes we say that, but it doesn't seek in. Unconditional forgiveness. Unconditional forgiveness. Not only unconditioned forgiveness, but secondly, He delights to fellowship with you. God delights to fellowship with you. And thirdly, His continued love is unconditionally yours.

His love will continue on unconditionally forever. Now that's the recipe, when you grasp those things, that's the recipe for walking in the peace of God. In a sense, nothing can hurt a person who walks in those truths. You see, the good shepherd desires to lead his sheep by the still waters, but the deceptive heart cheats us out of this splendid treasure. Well, not only the peace of God is an additional blessing I see here, but the pleasure of God. This communion, this place you get yourself to where you enjoy and feel this unconditional welcome to go to God. Then you begin experiencing God's pleasures. Psalm 16 11 says, In Thy presence is fullness of joy, and in Thy right hand there are pleasures forever. Now in the context of these verses, we're reminded that one of the pleasures of God is realized in fellowshiping with God's people.

You see, I enjoy you in a special way because I enjoy you in Christ, and you enjoy me in Christ. It's all in Him. It's not just you, it's Him in you. It's not just me, it's Him in me. And that causes us, there's a mystical element to it. I can't put my hands on it.

I can't even wrap my mind completely around it. But there is that special bond and connection. We are one in the bond of love, the old Psalm says.

And it's true. A spiritual bond and loving oneness. And when we enjoy that, I tell you, it's just something special to it. I've heard over and over and over again from people, we're ready to get back in small groups. We're ready to get back with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Why? Because there's something we miss when we're not together. And that's part of, not all perhaps, but part of the pleasures of God. Jesus said, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.

The context is church discipline. But nevertheless, in anything we're doing for God, when two or three Christians are together and committed together to serve God, there's the element of God's presence with us that gives a pleasure nothing else can give. The pleasures of God are given by Him and the pleasures of God are present in Him.

Well, not only the peace of God is another additional blessing and the pleasures of God is another additional blessing that if we're not careful, our deceptive heart will try to rob us of these treasures. Thirdly, our praise to God. Our praise to God can be an element that's robbed. Now, He doesn't mention praise specifically, but He mentions our communion with God. And listen to me, there is no prayer to God that doesn't have some praise.

It just doesn't exist. And there is a beautiful truth in praising God. The Bible says in Psalm 33 one, praise is becoming to the upright.

Now, hold on right there. He says, if your heart's condemning you, if your heart is lying to you and you don't feel welcomed and you don't feel loved and you don't feel approved of God, then you're not gonna praise God. You're not gonna praise Him. Why do we praise God? We're not in this foolish, sentimental, fleshly nonsense that goes on in so many churches where their doctrine's about a thimble deep but their emotions run like rivers. And they get all caught up in the feeling of it and they call it worship and praise. Brothers and sisters, you can't worship and praise a God you don't know.

And you can't know Him if you're not deep in this book. And to know Him, listen to me, and to know His Son, Jesus Christ, and to know that radical, unconditional, unending favor and blessing and love and welcome He's given you can't help but cause your heart to say, praise His holy name. Christ receiveth sinful men, even me with all my sin.

Why the songwriters say, say it or and or again. Christ receiveth sinful men because we can't help but praise Him. When we grasp, rest in, quiet our old troubled, condemning heart down and joy in the unconditional cleansing and favor and blessing and welcome of God through Jesus Christ. Are you listening to me tonight? I don't care where you've been. I don't care what you've done. I don't care how many times you've done it. I don't care how violently and fiercely your heart condemns you.

You listen to me. God is greater than your heart. Now sure you're repentant and sure you wish it hadn't happened, but it's over. It's under the blood of Christ.

It's gone. Now you joy in this God who forgives you and welcomes you unconditionally. Tell your heart to hush. Be quieted. Assure your heart, the text says. And that will bring that praise to God.

I'm telling you. Oh my goodness. Do some of y'all remember the praise and worship movement? Another one of these movements. Bless Southern Baptist hearts. Everything goes around, they chase after and try to bring it into the church.

Well, there was a time when they called it, they called it the praise and worship wars because some people in the church, the young people primarily wanted to get with it. They wanted some pop music. They wanted some rock music. Let's get it going.

Let's get it whooped up a little bit. Then came the musics. Now they got the dry ice and now we've got churches that literally have millions and millions and millions of dollars in special effects so they can really worship God.

I'm going to tell you what that is. That's wicked carnal idolatry is what that is. Our God doesn't need anything like that to help us know Him and worship Him. What our God requires is this book properly preached in the Spirit of God, making it alive and illumined in your heart and minds. If you want to see your people praise and worship God, teach them the truth of God and let them marvel in Him. And by the way, then when a pandemic hits and you can't get the great mighty multimedia extravaganza circus machine going that you call a church, your people are just like, that's not why we come anyway. It's so easy to pastor a church biblically.

Let me think about that just for a moment. It's easy in one sense, and it's a real challenge on the other, but I will say this with folks like you, it's a blessed thing and a wonderful thing because we've been through so much together and God's had to humble and rebuke us and correct us. And I'm the leader of the needing, humbling and rebuting and correcting.

I'll confess that, but we have together and we've grown together and we've learned to love Him more. And as we love Him more, we just love each other more. And really all we need to do is get together and somebody opened the book. We'll sing the glories of His name and preach the truth of His word. And that's enough.

That's enough. They may run us out of this building one day. They may do a lot of things, but if we can get together somewhere and open the book, we can have joy and praise and worship before our God.

Well, Roman numeral two. First of all, I've been talking about the treasures your deceptive heart tries to cheat you out of. Now let's talk real quickly about the truth that silences these deceptive hearts. The truth. He comes down to verse 23 and he says, this is the commandment that we believe in the name of the Son, Jesus Christ. I call that the upward faith.

That's the first part of the truth. The upward faith. You believe. That's an aorist tense verb.

It means finished action with continual results. You believe. Now, you do keep on believing and I like to use the phrase, you keep on being a father, but there was a moment in time when you became a believer that settled. Now that result, the continuation goes on in your life.

He said, that's the first thing. Have you believed that upward faith? It's the thing, the truth that will help silence that deceptive heart that says you're condemned.

You're not right. God doesn't like you no more. You sin too much. You can't be saved.

All that junk. The heart says that's not according to truth. So the upward faith. Notice secondly, the inward witness.

Look at verse 24, the last phrase. We know by this that He abides in us, that you're one that God saved that lives in how? By the Spirit whom He's given to us. By the Spirit. It's the witness of the Spirit. You remember the phrase, the Amen of the Spirit. One of the ways the Spirit is alive in your life is when you hear the, read the Word of God, meditate on the Word of God, go to your small group and hear the preaching of the Word of God. The Word of God comes out in truth and something in you grabs that truth and says, Amen, I believe that. The Spirit bears witness with the truth of the Word of God inside your heart. Now don't separate this from love for the brethren because the Bible says, the love of God's been shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit of God.

In other words, they always go together. This Holy Spirit in you that affirms the Bible and says yes to the truth of the Bible is also the Holy Spirit that says, I'm just really loving those people more and more. I want to be around them, I want to help them, I want to serve them, I want to encourage them, I want to bless them.

Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. The inward witness is the Holy Spirit and then the one I've really already just talked about is the outward evidence, the outward evidence. And again, we go up to verse 23. This is the commandment that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He commanded us. That's the outward witness, that's the outward evidence rather, that you're God's child, this love for one another.

Now, I've said this so many times to you because I've seen it so very, very much and it's absolute raping the Word of God to do it. And that is when people come across these statements on loving your brothers and sisters, they make it mean loving all of mankind. That is not what He's saying. Sure, we love all mankind more after we're converted. We just love humanity better. We see people made in the image of God and Christ died for all and we sure we do. But there's a special, unique, redemptive love for one another in the family of God.

That's what He's talking about. Because by the way, worldly people can love the world. Ungodly, unrighteous worldlings love the world. We don't love the world the way they love the world, but we do love the world. But we love the church and we love God's children in a special way. That's the outward evidence. And just real quick, look up at verse 10.

I'm gonna run through this and I'm done. By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love the world.

No, that's not what it says. Nor the one who does not love his brother, a specific category of people. Verse 11, but this is the message, which you've heard from the beginning, that we should love the world.

No, a specific group, one another. Verse 12, not as Cain who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him because his deeds were evil? And his who? Brothers were righteous. Verse 13, do not be surprised. Brethren, who's he talking to?

A specific group of people. Brethren, if the world hates you. And by the way, the word hate is the idea of detesting you deeply. It's not just like, well, we just kind of don't fit with you guys. No, the more they see Christ in you, the more they detest your very being.

He said, don't be surprised that that happens. I want to shout at all of these church leaders who are straining and do what I call pretzel theology. They've been their doctrine in theology and doing pretzel, trying to make it pleasing to the world, trying to get the world to like us. When God says, the world's not gonna like you if they get to know you. They hated me enough to crucify me and they're gonna hate you. Now don't go out and try to make them hate you. They'll hate you anyway, all right? Well, that's not my point. My point is, notice the people he's talking about loving each other as a specific collective of people.

Do not be surprised. Brethren, if the world hates you. Verse 14, we know we passed out of death into life because we believed on Jesus. That's not what that verse says, that is true.

But there's something else he wants to say here because we love the world. No, we love the brethren. I'm in verse 14. Because he who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his, the world, or his fellow man, no, his brother. Those in the church, other Christians, is a murderer. You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us. Limited atonement, particular redemption. And we ought to lay down our lives for the world.

No, we may do that, in fact, but that's not the emphasis of the text. It's just for a particular specific group, the brethren. Verse 17, whoever has the world's goods and sees others in the world in need.

No, it's not what he says. Who sees his brother in need. Of course we would help others in the world if they had need, and we could help them, but that's endless. But there is a specific collectivity that we really want to make sure we take care of. That's our brother who's in need, and we certainly can't close our hearts against them.

If we do so, how can the love of God abide in him? Verse 18, little children. Who's the children? The children of the world? No, the children of the local church. The children who are truly God's.

Let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and in truth. That's the outward evidence. So the truth that helps our deceiving heart and helps us come to that full assurance and rest is do you have the upward faith? Have you believed in Jesus Christ? Have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ?

Have you seen the inward witness? Have you experienced the Holy Spirit in you? Hey, by the way, convicting you of sin now in ways he did not convict you before. How many times has a newer Christian come and said, Pastor, I don't believe I'm saved. I feel so dirty and I've sinned. I said, you didn't feel that dirty and that sinful before you were saved.

The conviction is evidence. That's the witness of the Spirit. And what about reading your Bible?

He said, well, you know, I've been a little lazy, but I want to get back in it again, and I do enjoy studying. I'm understanding it in ways I've never understood it before. And I enjoy hearing your preaching before, and before I hated you.

I've heard that, by the way. I love to hear you preaching, and before I hated you. That's the witness of the Spirit. So there's the upward faith. There's the inward witness of the Spirit, and then the outward evidence of a new love for God's children. Yeah, we love all men, but we particularly have this new love. We want to see God's church do good and go forward.

And we like to be around those people. So, don't listen to your cheating heart. It wants to cheat you out of knowing Christ. It wants to cheat you out of the treasures you have in Christ. You listen to this truth, and you rebuke your heart and tell it to start feeling in line with the truth of the Word of God.