Assurance by Reality

If you have your Bible, I ask that you turn to the book of 1 John.

We're going to be looking at chapter 1 and the first four verses. Hear God's word for us tonight. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come tonight and we ask that you send your spirit at this time and you teach us your word. Lord God, take the words, these ancient words that are living, drive them deep into our heart. Teach us your truth. Lord God, let us learn of you and be deeper and deeper, more in love with Christ. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. What I'd like to do over the next several messages as I have opportunity is to take a look at the first letter of John. My daughter sometime back had asked me, Dad, if you ever have an opportunity, could you preach on assurance of faith? We've had several conversations. She is now 25 years of age and one of the things that my sweet daughter Emily struggles with at times is assurance. And as I thought about what to preach on and I prayed about it, God laid on my heart this first letter from John because it looks at that in a much deep detail that gives us ways in which we may know.

You know, I wrote down an opening question to start the night. Do we believe the Christian life is smooth sailing? Because I think that is a misconception that we all have that as we hear the gospel, as the Holy Spirit brings life to our hearts, as we come to know Christ Jesus, that we are going to just have it nice and easy. We're like on an escalator just continuing straight up this path of sanctification and what we find out rather quickly is what?

Our escalator has a tendency to drop down and then pick back up for a time and level off and then climb, but then drop again. And in each one of those movements, what we have is we have times that cause us to struggle with assurance of faith. I have struggled with assurance of faith recently because when sin can well up within my thoughts or within my actions, I put myself in a position of saying, am I good enough for God? And I start to lose the whole reason that I was brought to salvation because I wasn't but Christ was. And so we struggle with these things.

Is what I believe right? Is there more I need to be doing to be right with God? I don't know how many times in my own life I've thought I'm having struggles in this area or that area, but probably because I'm not praying enough.

Probably because I'm not doing enough service. I start to think that I can form some kind of merit with God when the fact is there is no merit that can well up from inside of me. The big one that many times attacks us is how can God love me since I still sin? All these things the Apostle John is going to address in this first letter, but this struggle of assurance we're going to find is not unique just to us in our time, but it starts in the early church. The writer of this epistle, though there is no official introduction to the Apostle John, tradition has and most scholarship hold that it is John the Apostle and that this letter is probably a circular letter that is written to the church at Ephesus and the churches in Asia Minor. The doubt that was occurring in those churches was due to false teaching that was rising up in the church. In that time in the church there were those the eruption of what was called a Gnosticism or a Gnostic thought and it was combining the philosophies of the world into the teachings of the church and it was taking a very simple context that people in their philosophy that to this day still exists that matter is evil and that spirit is good. And so there was many heresies that would enter into the church's thought process, one of them being Docetism which many of the scholars think that is what is being responded here to in the church and that is the belief that Jesus only seemed to be or appeared to be human, but he wasn't fully human. And I want you to think about that as we read and work through this letter, these false teachings as they're coming in, they're causing confusion for the believers.

It's attacking the very person, it's attacking the very work of Jesus, it's attacking the harmony and love of the fellowship. So John writes this letter to dispel this false teaching and to assure the Christians there that in Christ, in the truth of Christ Jesus, in the gospel that they believed in, that they can stand firm. My ESV Bible has an introductory statement for this letter and it says this, this apostolic letter speaks authoritatively about the truth of the incarnation, a message John's doubting readers needed to hear after hearing false teachers deny the full divinity and humanity of Christ. It reaffirms the core of Christianity saying that either we exhibit the sound doctrine, obedience and love that characterize all Christians or else we are not true Christians. When all the basics of faith are in operation, we not only know joy but can live a holy life and be assured of salvation even though we are still far from perfect. This assurance comes especially as we find ourselves learning to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This general letter to congregations across Asia Minor which is now Turkey was probably written by the Apostle John in the late first century AD. We like those believers in the Asia Minor church can be buffeted by false teaching. That Gnosticism that still exists believe it or not today even in some of our churches. One of my very good friends searches out churches that look for extra biblical knowledge. They're looking for the deeper wisdom.

They're looking for God to speak more so that they can know more or be more in the spirit or in God. We have churches that are based on legalism. They fall to the ditch of legalism and they create a works based righteousness and they base it upon the efforts of the believer.

We have the opposite. We have hyper grace churches that are antinomian that say there is no law under Christ so therefore I can do as I wish and as long as I ask to be forgiven I'm fine. And then the scariest of all that we're seeing in the church today is a syncretism that is creeping in from the world. And we are adopting world's methods and world's thoughts and bringing those into the gospel message and we are using them to tell people how to live and to be right. Tonight and over the next few messages I would like for us to dig into 1 John and see what God teaches concerning truth and the assurance that the believer can rest in.

Two important items I would like for us to keep in mind as we study 1 John. As we go through this text the first thing that I want you to be watching for and it's not in tonight's text but it's going to be in every text following is a repetition of this phrase by this we know. It is going to be used six times by the apostle by this we know and it is a way of us knowing, being assured of what we believe, who we believe in and that we are his. And the second comes this morning from our sermon.

And I think it's something that we need to keep in mind. It smacked me in the face when Eugene read it this morning but Ezekiel 1832 and I want to share it with you and I want us to keep this in our minds. This glorious thought it says this, for I have no pleasure in the death of anyone declares the Lord God so turn and live. When our assurance is shaken I don't know about you but I can tell you from my point of view there are many times that I think that God should take great pleasure because of the sin I've either thought about or committed. But God has no pleasure in anyone being sent into punishment and death. He is good and merciful and loving and we must remember that as we as Christians work through this life that moves up and back down and you ask how could that happen and then it moves up again.

And even I don't know about you guys but with me probably my highest times are my most dangerous times because I start to think look how good I'm doing and it becomes about me even on the up or the peak and it brings the valley much quicker. And in the opening text that we have tonight it is the grounding text to the early church and to us in the truth that assurance is based in the reality of Jesus Christ. I would like for us to look at three truths from these four verses. They are going to be the first one we are assured because Jesus entered our time and space as a real man.

This is highly significant. Number two we are assured because the man Jesus is also fully God. And finally the third truth out of tonight's text we are assured because the gospel of Jesus brings us into fellowship with God in the vertical but also with man in the horizontal. And so that's what I hope to look at tonight as we look at these four verses. So let's turn to point one assurance by the fact Jesus entered into our time and space as a real man. The apostle writes this in verses one and two that which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.

The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and was made manifest to us. You do know that today there are some people who deny the existence of Jesus Christ as a person. The American Association of Atheists, what a name, the American Association of Atheists have a full text paper of how the biblical Jesus or the true human Jesus was most likely mythical and they walk through their proofs of taking the New Testament texts and trying to dissuade people from believing the validity or truth from them. And then when they touch to the extra biblical texts, Josephus and others who write outside of canon, they say they're probably misstatements or we misinterpret what they were bringing across.

There are so many things that I can say but as I read the article just to see how they tried to defend, it was foolishness and it made me think of Romans chapter one. That they know God but they suppress the truth. They actually have to suppress down the truth and believe in false arguments that they create in their own mind so they don't have to deal with the reality that Jesus Christ was truly man on this earth.

That is not even saying he's a savior or a redeemer. They don't even want to acknowledge the existence by every evidence that we have that we hold to truth today. We don't question whether the Caesars existed. We don't question whether Pilate existed.

We don't question whether Rome existed. But we question whether Jesus existed as a person because if we can suppress that truth, that is the very thing that we need to do so we can deny God. And I would love to tell you that it is only the association of atheists but there are many within the church who deny the biblical teaching concerning Christ. Dave Weekly is doing a Sunday School on the Holy Spirit and he shared a few statistics from a survey that Ligonier Ministry did in 2022. It's a biennial so every two year survey, it's called the Ligonier Ministry State of Theology Survey and he didn't touch on these but I want to share them.

I talked to Eugene during the week about it. When they do it, they do 3,000 participants. They ask four specific questions and if the four questions are answered in a yes manner, those participants are labeled as evangelical and then they can take their results and build a survey saying this is what evangelicals believe. Well, in this survey, and I want you to hear this, almost three out of four, 73% who answered the four questions that classified them as evangelical agree with the claim that Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. That flies in the truth of the text revealed by God to us of who Jesus Christ is so how in evangelical circles can people be sitting and hearing and making a statement that Jesus Christ is the first of the great beings created by God but it gets almost a little bit more frightening. Almost 44% say that Jesus was a great teacher but he was not God.

So we have the church in Ephesus and in Asia, mine are struggling because Gnostics are coming in and telling them things that are not truth but swaying and causing confusion and the believers have struggles with assurance and in the church today, there are churches where people must struggle with assurance if they don't believe that Christ is part of the Godhead and that Christ himself is not God. And so this very opening line, John is anchoring the church in the truth that Jesus Christ first and foremost is a real person in history. He opens with an eyewitness account of the very truth. The apostle John is not passing on a story that he heard. The apostle John is not sharing what he thinks.

He is sharing the exact things that he has seen. He stated this truth similarly in his gospel account, the gospel of John in 114 of the gospel of John, he writes it this way, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory. Glory is of the only son from the father full of grace and truth. The word became flesh. Jesus Christ is a real person, a real man, a human being. He had a body and our confession and our catechism say a reasonable soul. He was fully man. He ate. He drank. He tired and slept. He suffered harm.

He suffered pain. He was a human being of fullness in tonight's text that states he has seen him, he has heard him, and he has touched him. What's neat in that first opening lines where he says which we have seen with our eyes and which we looked upon, those two statements, one is the physical sight of him, but the other is the grasping of who and what he is. That we have seen him with our eyes, but we looked upon him.

We know he's revealed to us who he is. Scripture reveals that Jesus truly entered our time, our space as a real man, and there is great importance for the church in Asia Minor as well as the church at Grace and Harrisburg because the writer of the Hebrews in chapter 2 verse 17 says this, Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. The writer to the Hebrews said he had to be made.

The Greek word a phelan. It's the sense that it is necessary. It is a must. He must be made. It was necessary that he be made like his brothers in every respect. The scripture does not present a Jesus who is a seeming or a spirit body, but a real physical human body and there's a necessity for that. He had to be like that so that he could become our great high priest and make propitiation that he could turn away God's wrath, which we cannot do.

We need to understand this necessity. This incarnation is vital to us and John testifies clearly that Jesus is that man. He is assuring the early church in us that that man is Jesus and he is a reality. And this leads us to the second truth that we find in the text and that truth is that our assurance is by the fact that Jesus is fully God. In verses 1 through 3 at the very opening of 1, that which was from the beginning, giving us deity statement right from the start, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and which we have touched with our hands, physical, concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaimed to you the eternal life which was with the father and was made manifest to us. The opening and the ending declare Christ deity, fully God. Do we really need that truth revealed over again to us?

I read you the 44 percent, almost half, said he was a great teacher but he was not God. Yes, indeed we need that truth. The Asian church needed that truth. The apostles had come. They have preached the gospel. They have believed. People have come in.

They have brought in outside teaching. They are causing confusion within the body and that body needs reestablished in two truths. Christ is fully man and Christ is fully God. John in his gospel in chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 states it this way.

He leaves no doubt. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. The same language used in the letter to the churches is the gospel message that Jesus Christ is deity. John testifies the real man, Jesus, is also the true God that lives and saves his people. Again, this is a vital importance to his original audience but also to us in this truth.

The writer of Hebrews states the importance in chapter 1 verses 3 and 4. He says it this way. He is the radiance of the glory of God in the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. He is speaking of Jesus here.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. This man Jesus that John is sharing back to the believers, he is the radiance of the glory of God. He is the exact imprint.

The Greek word there is an exact reproduction. He is God. He is not leaving any room for any debate on whether Jesus is fully man or if he's fully God. He is the one that upholds the universe. What created being could uphold the universe?

Only the creator himself. Jesus is the second person of the Godhead. Jesus is the son of the father. This truth brings us, brings Christians assurance because it is required in order for us to be able to be right. Paul in his letter to the Romans in chapter 8 verse 3 tells it this way, for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do.

By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. John, Paul, the writer to the Hebrews, the scripture, God's word, God's breathe word declares, teaches that we can be assured that God through Christ is all that is needed in order to be right and be righteous before him because it is by the work that Christ has accomplished, not by our work. And so all those things as I struggle with my assurance, what more can I do?

What is it that I need to be doing for God so he sees me right? The scripture overwhelmingly drives us back to that we need to be in Christ Jesus and in him alone, in his work, in his rightness. The believer can rest fully in this truth that Jesus is that one who accomplishes all that we can't.

So as we struggle with assurance of faith, we have two very important foundational teachings that we can rest in. That God, knowing our state, sent his son who became identical or exactly like us, but remained fully God at the same time and did what we could not do and thus gives us a way to him. But he gives us an even deeper assurance in that first two foundational pieces and it is through fellowship assurance comes because in Christ we have fellowship with God and man. Verse 3 says it this way, that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us man to man and indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. When we sit and look at our sin marred condition, that God cannot look upon sin, that God cannot be in the presence of sin, but he has not only made a way for us to be right, but he has made a way for us to be in fellowship with him. He tells us, Paul in the letter to Romans and other places tells us that we are adopted into the family. He tells us that Jesus teaches in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 5. When you pray, pray this way, our father. It is more than just a good God who says you're okay now, now don't keep being wrong, I'll keep you right, but I have nothing to do with me. He comes and has relationship to the point that he calls us his children and we get to call him father and we get all the benefits of that that God bestows.

Where the Holy Spirit is able to indwell us, to live within us and to make us more and more like Christ to conform us to his image. We are provided those benefits that come as a child of God. Jesus Christ himself prays for us, intercedes for us. Eugene said it this morning that he goes to the throne of God and says put their sin on me.

That's how much, that's the benefit, that's being a family member. Jesus Christ stands in our place. But Jesus in chapter 17 in the high priestly prayer prayed it in a way that should blow us away. He prayed this, I do not ask for these only but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

Who is that? Church tonight that is us. Jesus Christ is actually praying for us in these words. And he says that they may all be one just as you father and me and I in you. That they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me. Father I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am. To see my glory that you have given me because you have loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh righteous father even though the world does not know you I know you and these know you that have sent me.

I made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. When John writes to the churches he is saying brothers and sisters as we come to the truths of who Jesus Christ is those truths show us who we truly are. We are going to see as we go through we are going to fail many times and when we see those that we may know we may ask the question but there's still sin but John is going to keep coming back and tell us how we get right. And we continually get right through Jesus Christ because we are in him and he is in God and we are in him and together we fellowship one another.

Why? Because there is no one sitting here tonight who is above or below the other. You are a sickening sinner outside of Jesus Christ. I am a sickening sinner outside of Jesus Christ but clothed with Christ we stand right before God and we are called as brothers and sisters to stir one another up in Christ to encourage one another to love one another to overlook the small things and have unity and fellowship.

Because that demonstrates out to the world that we are a different people. We are not our own. We are Christ Jesus and in him. John teaches that this truth of fellowship with God and our brothers and sisters will bring complete joy in verse four and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. We can go throughout the text of the New Testament and it talks about our joy, the believer's joy, being complete in Christ Jesus and in fellowship. The early church and we struggle with assurance and God provides the truths that we need to rest assured.

I want you to get it. It's not us. It's Christ. The opening of assurance drives home the very point of Jesus Christ. Our assurance does not rest upon us, our action, our thoughts.

John is not going to say though, go do what you want. We are going to hear we are called to be righteous and to follow the commands that we're not to sin. But when we do sin, we have a mediator, we have an advocate. But it founds itself in who and what Jesus Christ is and what he did. We will see over these next texts that the object and the subjective evidences that we see about our assurance are all founded in Christ Jesus. Jesus is a true man who entered our time and space.

Jesus is also the true God who has existed from the beginning, from all eternity. And finally, we come into fellowship with God and his people as we are saved by him. Let us tonight be assured first and foremost by standing in Jesus Christ alone, you are saved. You are assured of your salvation if you stand in Christ Jesus.

If he is the one that you rest your faith fully upon for being the right and perfect one before God. I ask tonight is that where we rest or do we look to ourselves? If we look to ourselves, you're going to find sin. You are going to find that we fail, but we also have the Holy Spirit who convicts and convinces and calls us back into right fellowship, into right living. And he enables us, as Doug called at the beginning of the year, to hate sin, to mortify it in our bodies and to love Christ more. That is what Jesus Christ does and the gospel does for us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that over 2,000 years ago or right around 2,000 years ago, you gave to the apostle the inspiration and the words to teach us assurance of faith. And that assurance begins and ends in your son, Jesus Christ, who fully man and fully God came and did what we could not do.

He walked under the law perfectly. He took every one of our sins upon him. And you've canceled the record of that debt through his death and his resurrection. Father, we are weak.

We fail. You are strong and loving and your Holy Spirit lives within us and enables us to continue resting and believing in Christ Jesus as our only hope. Teach us as we read through these texts over the next few messages that we see that it is your doing that enables us to mortify our sin. Give us a desire to mortify, to hate sin, and, Lord, build our love for Christ and what he's accomplished. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.