878. God Dwells In Us

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today on The Daily Platform, Dr. Steve Pettit, President of Bob Jones University, is continuing a study series entitled Truth and Love, which is a study of the book of First John.

There's a study booklet available that Dr. Pettit has written for this series. If you would like to follow along, you can order a printed copy from the website thedailyplatform.com. Let's now listen to today's message from 1 John 4, 13 through 16, entitled God Dwells in Us. Would you please take your Bibles this morning and turn with me to 1 John chapter 4? And I'd like us to finish up very strong on our study of truth and love, and in particular, today, this message is really setting up for next week, which is what I think is the driving point of John for the life of the believer. You know, when Paul speaks about our spiritual maturity, he says we need to be Christlike. When James speaks about spiritual maturity, he talks about being a wise person, and when John speaks about being mature as a believer, he talks about one who is perfected in love or perfect love, and that's what we're going to talk about next week, but this week is very important and very foundational for your spiritual growth and maturity into perfect love, and that's found in 1 John chapter 4.

We'll begin reading in verse 13 down to verse 16. John says, hereby know we that we dwell in him and he and us because he hath given us of his spirit, and we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God, and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. How do you know that you truly are a Christian?

How do you really know that? Well, according to the scriptures, a Christian is one who has God residing within his own heart. Paul writes in Colossians 1, Christ in you, the hope of glory. He writes in Galatians 2 in verse 20, Christ liveth in me. This morning we read in 1 John 4 verses 13 to verse 16 where John tells us three times that God dwells in the true believer. In verse 13 he says we dwell in him and he in us. Verse 15, God dwells in him and he in God. And verse 16, dwelleth in God and God in him. And the point John is making is very simple, that a Christian is one who has God residing within his own heart.

That's a Christian. So here's the question. How can you be absolutely certain that God is living in you? I have no idea how many we have here this morning.

I'm gonna guess, you know, we probably have 3,000 plus. 3,000 people here, 3,000 souls. The question is, is God living in the heart of every person in this room?

If so, how would you know that? And that's what 1 John 4, 13 through 16 is all about. Because John elaborates on this truth by presenting three tests that confirms the indwelling presence of God in the life of a true believer. Someone has written this is the best summary in the entire New Testament of how a person can truly know that he is saved. So let's look at and let's take these three tests. Test number one.

The first is this. Do you possess the Holy Spirit? Look at verse 13. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us.

How do we know that? Because he has given us of his Spirit. The internal witness that someone is a child of God is that the Holy Spirit lives within their heart.

1 Corinthians 6, 19. The body, the human body, is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you. The Spirit of God is given to the believer at the very moment of his salvation and he continues to operate and work within his heart throughout his entire life. That's what John means when he says that God hath given us of his Spirit. The word given there is in the perfect tense.

That means something takes place at a point in time and it continues on. God's Spirit comes to live in your heart at a direct moment, a point in time in your life and then he continues to live in you and work in you until the day of redemption when you enter into heaven. God is given out of his Spirit, his Spirit to us. So how can you know that you possess the Spirit?

Well what would be the evidences of his indwelling presence in your life? Let me say first of all that the Spirit's presence is not determined for example by you living a moral lifestyle or you conforming to a religious code of behavior. We have a code of conduct here at Bob Jones University and I believe it's the right thing, I really do. I think we all have a mutual responsibility to one another as Christians, not just in what we believe but in the way that we live.

But do you know anybody can follow this code of conduct? It's not that hard, it's not that big of a deal and you can easily do that and still not really have the Spirit of God living inside of you. The Spirit's presence is not determined by being engaged in religious activity or worship. This past weekend we had all kinds of activity going on on Saturday as many of you went out into the community of Greenville to spread the gospel. We have groups all over the United States of America right now from Bob Jones going out doing all kinds of things that has a religious activity to it.

And then Sunday we were in services and worshiping God. We can do all those things and yet that is not a guarantee that the Spirit of God is dwelling in your heart. So what is that? Well when the Spirit indwells the soul of a believer, that believer possesses something that no religious person has.

And what is that? It is the power of a new life. Second Corinthians 5 17, therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. And this newness, this transformation is so radical that your entire inner being is transformed so that God gives you brand new desires. You say desires for what? Well if the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, then what desires would he give you? He would give you desires for that which is holy. Now we know as a sinner our desires are for sinful things or temptations. And we know that when the Spirit comes to live inside of us, then he puts within our innermost being a desire, a thirst for that which is holy.

And that includes two things. Number one, a true believer possesses an appetite for spiritual things. Peter writes, as a newborn babe, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. When a baby is born, a baby has natural appetites.

You don't have to learn this, it just is what it is. A desire for milk. And so it is true in the life of a believer that when you are saved, you actually have a desire for spiritual things. Peter writes in verse three, he says, if so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Somehow God gives us a taste for him, a desire for him. There is an appetite for God's Word. You know I've seen it many times when people come to Christ. You don't really have to force them to learn the Bible.

They want to learn the Bible. Going to church to them is not boring. Going to church is a blessing. Hearing God's Word proclaimed does something in your life. It feeds your soul, it satisfies, it nurtures you. The interchange that has affected, has worked in your heart, has so affected you that now you have a different focus. It is now eternal and spiritual as opposed to secular and materialistic. Paul says and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove was that good acceptable and perfect will of God. There's a new appetite, a new life gives you a new interest in a new passion for spiritual things. For me personally when I got saved I couldn't get enough of God's Word. It's like the more I read the Bible the more I read the Bible. The more I studied the Word the more I wanted to study the Word.

Why? Because there was an appetite. Let me ask you a question.

Do you have an appetite for that? All right let me be honest. When you come to Bob Jones we have chapel four days a week and let's be frankly honest there's a lot of chapel services you get to.

A whole bunch. And not all chapel services are created equal. And some speakers are more engaging, some are better than others. I actually think we have pretty good speakers here.

Fact is we have really good speakers here. But sometimes you come in the chapel and because of various things what's going on in your life, you're tired, you just had a test, you got to take a test, you got a bad phone call, you had a breakup, something happened this week, I don't know what it was. So sometimes you come to chapel and you're not as mentally and as emotionally engaged. Okay I got that.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about whether or not do you come here to chapel and you really, in your heart of hearts, really have a hunger for the Word of God and you go away from chapel and there's a satisfaction, something's happening in you. Well that's an evident sign that the Spirit of God is living within you. But then there's a second characteristic of someone in whom the Spirit dwells and that is a true believer possesses an awareness of sin. That is you have a new sense about sin that is far greater after your conversion than ever before your conversion. Paul said it this way, I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. He just, you can almost say it this way, as a Christian you have like this spiritual sixth sense about sin. Let me give you an illustration. I was saved my freshman year of college, began to grow spiritually, got into the Word of God and by the end of my sophomore year I of college I was I felt like I was a really growing Christian. I remember going home that summer and of course having all kinds of different time and I watched some television shows and I watched you know old school stuff like Gilligan's Island, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, the old Star Trek and to be honest with you I mean like these are like the most benign television shows ever created okay.

These are like the oldie goldie shows and yet even as maybe you know non-offensive as Gilligan's Island there were still elements in the show that were sensual and bothersome if I could say to my new life. I'm just being honest and I wasn't trying to be that way. I wasn't trying to be super pious. It just was what it was because as I feed my new nature in my new life then I'm going to have a sensitivity towards sin like I've never had before.

Do you have that? Is that within you? I realize there are highs and lows based on if you yield to temptation or not but a true believer has an appetite for God's Word and he has an awareness of the presence and the reality of sin and temptation within his heart and within the world that he is living in and therefore it's this new presence inside of you that is working to seek to help you to avoid that which is evil. So the first test is very simple. Do you possess the Holy Spirit? Have you passed this test?

Well that leads me to the second test and that is this. Have you made a confession of faith in Jesus Christ? Notice what he says in verse 14. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God. God dwells in him and he in God. God lives in the one who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God.

Now think with me a moment. The Apostle John had a unique privilege that very few people in human history have ever experienced and what was that? He was a personal friend of Jesus. He actually spent three years with Jesus. He saw him, he heard him, he touched him, he lived with him and you know what? John never forgot it.

It changed his life forever. But just as John had three years with Jesus he also had 60 years without Jesus. Because after Jesus died and rose from the dead John never saw Jesus again until we get to the book of the Revelation not far before he died.

And the rest of his life John constantly testified to what he had seen and heard. So what did John say? What was his main message? And he tells us in verse 14 and we have seen and do testify this that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Now why did John give that message?

I mean he could have said other things about Jesus. Well we know that by the time John wrote this letter the question had already arisen among even the believers of whether or not man actually needed a savior because there was a denial going on that man is actually lost in his sins. And by the way let me just say this, for most unbelievers they don't see themselves as lost and they don't see themselves as going to hell.

The work of the Holy Spirit is to convince people of their sinfulness and their need of a righteous Savior and the fact that if they don't get saved they're gonna face the judgment of God. Only God can convince people of those truths. And John knew that they were drifting from that message. False teachers had denied their own sinfulness confessing that they didn't really need the sacrifice, the atonement of Christ. And the very centrality of the Christian message is the atoning sacrifice, the blood of Jesus Christ that takes away our sin. So therefore John's message established the absolute necessity of a Savior.

And basically he said four things. Number one, he said the entire world is under the dominion of sin. 1 John 5 19 and we know that we are of God and the whole world lies in wickedness or literally in the wicked one. Just like a believer is in Christ, an unbeliever is in Satan. And when one is saved he is brought out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

He is dead and he's resurrected. And so he preached that message and then secondly John said the pre-existence divine, pre-existing divine Son of God was sent to fulfill God's sovereign plan. We read here in this verse it says God sent his Son. The word sent means the word apostle. Jesus was the first apostle to come into the world with God's message.

And he came into the world to fulfill God's plan and what was that plan? And that's the third point that Christ atoning sacrifice is the only means of salvation. There's only one way I can get into heaven and that is through the sacrifice of Jesus, the blood of Jesus. His blood being shed, his death as the way in which God forgives me because Christ took my sins on his own body and then he rose from the dead victoriously. And then thirdly eternal life, excuse me, fourthly eternal life is provided for all those who confess their faith in Christ.

God calls and invites all people in all places to come and believe and what must they do? They must make a confession. So what is a confession?

Well it's more than just a verbal statement. As we all know we can say things with our mouth but it doesn't mean that our mind and our heart and our will is engaged in that truth. What is a confession? A confession is a verbal or a public acknowledgement of one's own sinfulness and one's own personal belief and commitment to Jesus Christ. And by commitment it is a commitment to believe his word for I know whom I have believed and persuaded he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. It is the engagement of the heart, the mind, and the will all trusting Christ and receiving him for all that he accomplished by the way that he lived and by the sacrifice that he gave in his death. And at the moment of your confession what happens? God unites you to his son and God comes to dwell in your heart. So I want to ask you a question. Have you made a confession of faith?

All of you, every one of you. Do you know that in your life that you've not just acknowledged the existence of Jesus and you've not just acknowledged that you actually believe he came into the world and he's God's son and he died on a cross and he rose from the dead? I'm asking you, have you verbally acknowledged your own sinfulness and your need of his bloody sacrifice to pay for your sin? Your heart has been moved, your will has been broken, and you have come and bowed before him and acknowledged him for who he is. So the second test is this, have you made a confession of Jesus?

Have you passed this test? And that leads me to the third and final thing. The third test is this, do you know that God's love is actually in you? Look at verse 16, and we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. John concludes this section as he began the section in verse 7 when he said, beloved, let us love one another for love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Here he says, we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. John is not just saying that we know God loves us, he is saying rather that the love which God has is in us. Paul writes it this way in Romans 5, the Spirit of God has shed abroad in our hearts the love of God. It's been poured forth in our heart. There is a presence of God's love in you. So how do you know that God's love is in you? And as I finished this morning, I'd like to give you from the writings of one of my favorite writers and speakers, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones. And in his book on assurance from 1st John, he gives 10 tests to know that God's love is actually in you and these are not things that you can produce or things that you can work up.

You can't make it, you can nurture it, but you can't produce it. These are all things that come because of God's gracious gift and here they are because of God's love being in you. Number one, here's the question, have you lost the sense that God is against you? Do you know when you know God loves you, you know God is for you? Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5-1. God commendeth his love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Do you know, do you sense that God is no longer against you?

Has the burden been lifted? Question number two, have you lost the feeling of a fearing of God while at the same time having a sense of a reverence for him? Let me put it this way, when you have a relationship with somebody, you can respect them, you can have a reverence towards them.

When you fear somebody, you're fearful of their rejecting you. What I think the question is saying is this, that we no longer fear God's rejection, but we still reverence God for who he is. Galatians 4 verse 6, because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into your hearts crying Abba Father. What do we call God? We call him our reverently daddy.

So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. I don't fear God's rejection. Perhaps I fear his frown and his disappointment, but I reverence God and I don't live with the fear any longer of him.

Then number three, do you feel that God is for you and that he loves you? Paul writes, if God is for us, who can be against us? And that great passage in Romans chapter eight, when he says nothing shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. We are his, his salvation plan is so clear. God has laid it out and God has done all of this because God loves us. If you're in Christ, if you're chosen in him, if you're called, if you're justified, it is all a part of the fact that God did that out of love. God loves you.

Do you have a sense of that? And then number four, do you sense your sins are forgiven? The Bible says in Ephesians one, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace.

You know Satan is the great accuser. He calms and he focuses his attention on what you do and how you fail and then he yells in your ear and he tells you that you're a loser and you must not be a believer and so you begin to question your relationship with God. But God comes to you and God does not do that.

God comes to you and he shows you his promises and he testifies of his blood that the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse you from all sin. Do you have a sense that your weight has been lifted and your burden is now gone and all of your sins are gone and they've been washed away and they're in the depths of the deepest sea and God has thrown them as far as east is to west. Then number five, is there a gratitude and thanksgiving in your heart towards God?

You know when you get saved, God puts that thanksgiving in you and you begin to praise him. Number six, is there an increasing hatred for sin? Paul said it this way in Romans 7, for I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I don't want to do, I agree with the law.

The law is good. It is no longer I that do it but sin that dwells within me and Paul was in a growing relationship in his life with God that he began to hate things. He started hating sin. He started hating not only what he did but he started hating some of the ways he thinks.

His attitudes and the way he reacts and the way sometimes he will use words improperly and so there's this growing internal hatred for sin and evil. And then number seven, is there a desire to please God and to live a righteous life because of what he has done? Do you know God puts his law within your heart so you actually want to obey it as a sign of salvation and God's love in you? Then number eight, do you have a desire to know him better and draw close to him?

As a deer pants for the water, so pants my soul after God. I love God and I want to know him better. You know when you love somebody, you want to be with them. It's like a friend. When you're with somebody that's a friend, three hours seems like three minutes.

If you're with somebody you don't want to be with, three hours seems like three years. Do you have a lot love for him and want to know him better? And then number nine, do you have a conscious regret that your love for him is so poor but you have a desire to love him even more? Oh that my love would be greater, that I would love him more with all of my heart.

I regret that I don't but I want to love him more. And finally, do you delight in hearing about him? I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. I delight to hear about Christ. To sing, to listen to his word, to listen to him being preached and uplifted. So my question is this, do you have God's love dwelling in you?

Have you passed the test? Now why is this so important as we finish? Because the next couple of verses he talks about being perfected in love and you can't be perfected in love if you're not secure that God's love is inside of you. You cannot grow as a Christian if you're still in doubt about being a Christian. And so if you were here today as a student and you really don't know that you're saved, I have prayed for you already this morning. Would you seek somebody out, somebody that you could go to that you're comfortable in talking with and saying please help me.

I don't know where I am. Or if you know where you are and you know you're not saved that you will go to God now and confess him and cry out to him. Father we thank you for your word that gives us the confidence that we're your children. Bless these that have heard this message. Help them to know that they're saved in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon from the book of 1st John by Dr. Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University. If you would like to order the study booklet titled Truth and Love written for this series, visit our website at thedailyplatform.com. Thanks again for listening. Join us again tomorrow as we continue the study in 1st John on The Daily Platform.