Assured Because of Christ

If you'd open your Bibles to the letter of 1 John, we'll be down in the middle of the first chapter starting at verse 5 and working our way through the second chapter, verse 2. Hear God's Word for us tonight. This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus the righteous.

He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Let's pray. Father, we come right now asking that your Holy Spirit open our minds, open our ears and our hearts to your word. Teach us tonight what you would have from this text to build up your body here at Grace Church so that we may honor and glorify you better and better being more conformed to Christ's image. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. I said to Doug, we were out in the hall and we prayed before I came in. I said apparently God wants Grace Church to hear about assurance of salvation today. After the message we heard from the book of Hebrews this morning and now in 1 John and that was the goal when we started a few weeks back to work through the book of 1 John to look at how we can be assured that we are Christ's, that we are in Christ Jesus.

And so the very first opening question that I have for the congregation in tonight's sermon is have you ever struggled with the assurance of your salvation? I think we all have and a few weeks ago when we started we looked at the opening four verses of this letter and as we were starting to take a look at this letter of 1 John, we established a few facts that we want to keep in mind as we work through it and the first that this letter itself is penned by the Apostle John. This is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John who wrote the Revelation and it is him we can tell by literary style and tradition that he is the author of the text and he is writing this letter most assuredly at least to the Ephesian church but it also could be an open letter that is being circulated around to the seven churches of Asia Minor as we see in Revelation 2 and 3 like with that letter. The reason for the letter John gives us himself in 1 John 5 verse 13 he writes this, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. If you remember in the Gospel of John towards the end of the book chapter 20 I believe is where he says I write these things so that you may know that Jesus is the Messiah the Christ and you may believe in him. So in this letter he's going from that step that we believe in the Son of God that we may know we have eternal life that we're assured in Christ Jesus.

Why was he writing the letter? We saw that it was most likely due to false teachers and teachings that were attacking the body. The three primary that are thought to be occurring is docetism Greek philosophy and just the person and work of Jesus Christ himself. So those are the three thoughts of why John is writing this assurance letter and these teachings are causing great concern and harm within the unity and community of the believers. Think about it in the early church you've gotten the true gospel you formed as a church you're devoting yourself to the apostles teachings but within or some coming in are giving different teachings and they're teaching things like you're able to be sin free or Jesus truly wasn't a man he was God and only appeared to us man like and could you ever really be right with God if there is sin in your life. And so these questions swirl especially in the early church and they are sitting wondering do we have the right truth.

Should I really still commit sin if I know this God and Jesus his Messiah. They struggle and they think. Do I have the right teaching and John pens his letter. To ground them and to ground us in the truth of what God reveals about man's condition about the truth about what God has done for our condition and how we may know. Over and over in this book as we work our way through we are going to hear that repeat from John, so that you may know. Today it's not Asia Minor it's not just the beginning of the church we're 2000 years later we've had the theologians we've had scholars look at text explain things.

But aren't we still buffeted by many of the same false teachings and false thoughts that crept into the church back then if you think about it. This monasticism this belief of a deeper knowledge or a secret knowledge. I have a friend who attends a church and their whole goal is to find out extra biblical revelation from God a little bit deeper knowledge of God that that's not really in the scripture but that they can get through a word or through a dream. We have legalistic churches.

They will tell you that it is all by your actions and if you do this or you don't do this or if you keep this group of actions together in your life that is what you can rest in. We have antinomian churches that so highlight grace that they say and give license to the sin within life because they say you can have Jesus as savior but you don't need him as Lord. He doesn't allow these things but then what's even more scary we see in our time as a syncretism just like we see back in the early church and back in Israel we see churches mixing with external truths around them. We see religious a church may say well there are other religions that have similarities to us and they talk about God so there are many different paths to God or it may actually be cultural syncretism a social gospel a. We need to feed the hungry and we need to just care for those who are infirmed and we have to make sure that these earthly material things are met which Jesus does not deny but that is not the full of the gospel. And in actuality that is not the gospel the gospel is Jesus Christ as we're going to hear tonight and those things of working are the out workings of his salvation to us but we incorporate them in churches have also accepted cultural syncretism in writing sin saying yeah you're okay if you want to be in that sin.

God will be fine with it as long as you recognize Christ. We know churches like that today. The United Methodist Church is going through a split this very moment over that issue of allowing culture to say sin is acceptable in the pursuit of Christ Jesus.

And of course we have our political systems nationalism all these cultural things try to work their way into the church and pull us away from the truth that God reveals in his gospel. I asked us to keep two things in mind as we looked at this study and I touched on the one that we see that repetition of phrase by this we know and we will see that in our next message. The other thing was when I started Eugene had just preached a message from Ezekiel chapter 18 and verse 32 jumped out at me. And we will see tonight the importance of verse 32 from Ezekiel 18, as we look and see our assurance based in the true gospel. But God says this in Ezekiel 18 32 for I have no pleasure in the death of anyone declares the Lord God so turn and live. You know this evening is Doug read out of the book of Matthew as Eugene stood up and brought us to the next hymn there is a weightiness and a gravity to our life that God reveals.

There is a hell there is a heaven there is a God who is absolute and right and he will judge. That's a truth and as we sit and we see what God exposes in Scripture many times in our minds, especially as we've heard the gospel and responded to it as we see sin build up the questions in our mind become and I think Doug said it this morning in his sermon. I don't know or I don't understand why God would love me because we see that sin still that old man that clings and it can cause us to listen to the accuser who is right when he accuses us outside of Jesus Christ. You and I are not worthy we are not savable in and of ourselves and that is a truth when you are outside of Jesus Christ and that is what the scripture is revealing when it talks about how Christ will judge how God will judge people. Not are you good or do this or do that it is are you in Christ Jesus or are you not. Because it is only through Christ Jesus that we can become obedient to this word. So we started a couple weeks back and we looked at the opening four verses as this false teaching came and hopefully what we saw in that first message was the truth that we can have assurance by the reality of Christ the man. One of the things that was being attacked in the early church was this thought that Jesus may not be truly man that he was God but he wasn't really in our form fully he just took an appearance of that. And what we know is without him being fully man he could not pay the full price of our penalty and so thus the gospel would be of no value if he truly wasn't man and so what we saw in the first four verses is an eyewitness saying here's the truth about the man Jesus Christ. And we got assurance because we saw that Jesus actually God himself entered our time and space as a real person. We also saw in those first four verses that assurance we have assurance because Jesus was also fully God while being fully man he was fully God. And then the final thing that we saw is as we grow in Christ and in the truth of Christ we grow in fellowship not just with one another. But with God himself and these are all assurances to the body that they are in Christ Jesus well tonight. We're going to expand on this truth of the reality of Jesus and I pray that the spirit teaches us tonight the truth of the gospel because that's truly what we're going to see. As we look at 1 5 through 2 2 I want us to basically look at one main point and that main point is our assurance is based solely on the person and work of Christ Jesus.

We see it in 1 4 but as we move to 1 5 through 2 2 we're going to see three sub points out of that. The first being God is God he is holy he is pure and he is separated from sin. Secondly we're going to see that man is man we're marred by sin and we are in need of a redeemer. And finally when we move into Chapter 2 we are going to see that Jesus Christ is the only hope for us. So as we walk through tonight keeping in mind that our assurance is based solely on the person and work of Jesus Christ that is the true gospel.

So that is where our assurance is based. Let's look at verses 5 and 6 again. This is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth. I will tell you from personal experience I have read these two verses and many times just looking at these two verses it causes me more concern than it causes me assurance. Because as I sit and read especially verse 5 this is the message that we've heard from him from Christ Jesus and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

I read this and I see myself and I know my sin and the question comes to my mind am I lying to myself. Because he goes on to say if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth. And if these two verses were in a vacuum outside the context of 1st John we would be devastated. When we read that God is light and in him is no darkness at all the same kind of thought process should raise up in us that we read when we read Isaiah standing in Isaiah 6 and seeing the holy right and just God.

And he said I am a man of unclean lips he was undone. That is what John is giving to the church the truth that God the God is pure he is holy he is separate he cannot commune with darkness. And if we look at ourselves what are we? But sinners marred by darkness walking with darkness attached to us. And so thankfully we don't read those two verses in that vacuum but the truth is still the truth.

God is God and he cannot participate with you and I as we are sin filled. You know light is a very very much used illustration in the scripture that starts very early on if you look back at Genesis 1 3 what is the very words that God uses? Let there be light. If you're looking in the Septuagint the same word in 1 3 is the same word that we're seeing in 1st John it's phos and it means or is the sense of illumination. That God himself is an illuminator to the truth or the situation or the thing that he is around. God reveals all things God exposes all matters to their core. Jesus proclaims that this truth he's not only an eyewitness to but he actually demonstrates. In the Gospel of John chapter 8 verse 12 and again Jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. John 10 30 the same Gospel. I and the Father are one. The true and living God that is affirmed in verses 1 through 4 the man Jesus the real man who entered our time and space that was God and man. Witnessed to by hundreds but by John himself as he pens this is the very light that is spoken of when it says God is light.

He is the exact imprint of God's nature he is God himself and he declares and demonstrates this light in John 5 when he says. And the father who sent me has himself born witness about me his voice you have never heard his form you have never seen. And you do not have his word abiding in you for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.

You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people but I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my father's name and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name you will receive him how can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God. Do not think that I will accuse you to the father there is one who accuses you Moses on whom you have set your hope.

For if you believe Moses you would believe me for he wrote of me but if you do not believe his writings how will you believe my words. So when John declares God is light and in him there is no dark darkness and Jesus is the one saying I am the light and I have come into the world but you will not receive me. What should that make us do? It should cause us to shudder shouldn't it?

It should make us question our standing and our position. And I pray that it should because when this truth is declared it is that utter shuddering that gives us assurance that we know who God is. It is because the Holy Spirit has moved upon us and regenerated us so that we can understand the true God. So what I actually take when I take them in the vacuum and I shudder is actually the assurance that I realize who God truly is because Paul writes to the Roman church in chapter one.

What? That though you see God declared all around you you are going to suppress that truth. You're going to run to darkness. You're going to make every effort you can to deny the truth about the light even though the light is revealing you and your sin and your marred condition. I pray that when this truth is declared and we realize God is revealing himself we should find it devastating.

We should be undone because that's the very assurance that God has worked in us to give us a knowledge of who he truly is. If we can walk in our sin and think we are okay with God we are doing nothing but the very lie of suppression of truth that Paul writes about to the Roman church. I thank God that he reveals himself this way but I am also thankful that these two verses aren't the end of the story about God and who he is. John goes on to show in the rest of the verses we're going to look at in chapter one that man is man and our condition there are two responses that we just touched on that we can show.

Going to read verses six through 10. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us. We have basically two responses when the light is shown upon. When God's light is shown into the world there are two responses men have denial and running away and suppressing the truth or an understanding of our true condition before a holy right and just God with confession and repentance and humility.

That's the only two. We can't carry both and say we are okay and that is what John is writing to the group that they have an understanding that it is not that they are going to be sinlessly perfect as they've come in Christ. Though that's how God sees them because he only sees Christ but there are still going to be that onward sanctifying work that we daily need to do as God illumines our sin and we repent of it. Verses 6, 8, and 10 all show us the ways in which man denies and suppresses the truth. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice truth. Verse 8, if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. Verse 10 if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar.

As we walk down through we see that what it is is a suppression of truth about ourselves as light that is exposed. And I would love to tell you that that only happens to the non-believer. But even in our condition being changed by the Holy Spirit saved by grace there are times we don't want to truly admit our sin isn't there.

And so we need Christ's grace even more for that. Best example that I can give you I told you before that Wendy and I had marital troubles probably five to seven years into our marriage. And if you would have asked me at that time when they started and as we were working through them at first I would have told you I am completely right and she is completely wrong. There is no sin in me. All the sin is hers. And I had people who would agree with that who did not know my wife and who wanted to support and encourage me.

And what their recommendation was you don't have children leave. God doesn't want to see you unhappy. But I had a brother who was a pastor and do you know what he did? He shined the light of God of Christ of the gospel on me and said Jay if you have a biblical reason to divorce Wendy I will support you.

But I do not see that you have a biblical reason. And he kept shining the word of God pointing me to that light and exposing and it took going to a counselor for me to see that probably I was most of the problem and it was mostly my sin. But it was being held to the light to the illumination of the truth of who I was. That is what we need because our desire is that we are not bad.

Our thought process is it's always the other people around us and they just don't understand. No I'm the sinner. When God shines his light on my life this past week I am the one that failed. I'm the one that thought wrong. I'm the one that did wrong and I have no hope of changing that but I have the hope of running to Jesus Christ and driving more and more to the foot of the cross praying that the Holy Spirit be with me and cause me to hate sin.

That's the response that I can have. We look at sin as something flippant and we make grace then cheap and easy and folks it's not. It says that God had to set aside to come down in our form and walk in a lowly stance under the law and he had to suffer death on my behalf and that was what was required for the God of light who could have no fellowship with darkness to be able to accept me.

To accept you. Grace is not easy it's not cheap. And as we walk through. The verses seven and nine. They demonstrate this being exposed to the light that we confess our sin that we go before God in humility admitting our marred nature over and over and resting and resting in that final truth.

And that final truth we find in to one and two where it says this my little children I am writing you thing these things so that you may not send. But if anyone does sin. We have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And as he writes to the church back then and as he writes it today, folks we have one hope and one hope alone. This is what we have seen from 11 to 110 that the real history entering God man Jesus Christ came to our earth in our form fully but fully being God and he walked where would in what we could not do keeping the law perfectly, but then he did something so much greater.

He lived the perfect life. But then gave himself over and took our sin upon him. And then he took his righteousness and he gave it to us. In that statement in verse two, he is the propitiation for our sins. That means he turned God's wrath away from us. And how did he accomplish that? He turned God's wrath away by absorbing that wrath that you and I deserve.

He deserved none of it. He lived perfectly. He walked fully in the spirit. He communed fully with the Father. He did everything that you and I could not do and yet was falsely accused of blasphemy and gave himself over to the creature to take the punishment that you and I could not endure. That as he hung on that cross with arson nailed to the tree him taking it cried out my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? He took the judgment that you and I can't. And he said, here's my righteousness.

Here's my life. Walk and live in that. As we read that propitiation, it is a great big word to tell us the work of Christ on our behalf so that we can be right before the God of light who has no darkness in him and cannot commune with it. What Jesus accomplishes by being the God man, by living what we couldn't, by dying and being raised from the dead, that gospel message is our only assurance. If you stand in the mirror and think to yourself, you know, I'm not good enough for heaven, you're right. It's only Jesus Christ that makes you good enough for heaven. If you look in the mirror and think, I can't possibly do enough.

You're right. It's only Jesus Christ who has done enough. And now not only has done enough, but he acts as our advocate with the father. Because as you and I, even still with the old man clinging, have failings, Christ looks at the father and says, I paid that one's debt.

The assurance, when we look for assurance, can't be found in ourselves. There are clues that God allows us to see that when we confronted with who God truly is, if it causes us truly to shudder and see ourselves in the condition we are marred by sin, we should praise God because the culture in the world has no clue or desire. And they want a God who's a grandfatherly old guy sitting up there just waiting for someone to reach up and say, hey, can you give me this or can you help me here? And that's not the God of the scripture. That is not the true and living God. And as we have him revealed before us, it should cause us to feel undone and shudder. It should cause us to look for Christ and desire him more. But when we do, it is resting in the work that he has accomplished. You want assurance of your salvation?

Don't look in the mirror. Look in the scripture. Read what Jesus Christ has done.

Pray that the Spirit opens your eyes and your heart to who he is. And not only that, pray that the Holy Spirit enables you to follow him, to obey what he has called us to. What are the two commands that Jesus put forth, the great two commands? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength and your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. And then he gives us one other command, right? To love him, to obey him, to follow him. To love him. If you love me, you'll follow my commandments. Tonight, as we think about this and we're going to go on and John is going to give us more grace-filled teachings on how we may know that we are his.

But he opens chapter one in the beginning of verse two with the most important. That Jesus Christ is truly the Messiah of God. And that he came and did what we could not. And he freely receives us as he moves and works in our hearts. Our insurance doesn't rest on us. Our insurance rests in Christ and the true gospel.

Let's pray. Father, we are humbled by your word as you teach us. We're humbled as we read your text.

Whether it's the book of Hebrews, whether it's the book of 1 John, whether it's the Gospels, whether it's the Old Testament's prophets or Genesis. You reveal yourself. You do not hide yourself from us. And you reveal yourself as a holy, just and right God. But you also show us that you have love and mercy, grace for us. For that is the only thing that we can rest in is your love, your mercy and your grace. Tonight as we saw Christ, his work, your gospel, we just praise your name that we can rest in you for our salvation. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.