I think it was last Sunday that I kind of threw out a surprise question to the congregation. The question concerned whether or not you could say that your life was a living testimony to the transforming power of the gospel. I don’t often ask for a raising of hands in our services, so perhaps I caught everyone off guard. Because the response was from just a half a dozen people or so, until I said that I expected a lot more affirmations, and then a few more people belatedly raised their hands.
Now my purpose this morning is not to embarrass anyone. I’m not going to ask for another raising of hands or anything. But I would like to come back to the question of whether or not you can testify to having been made a new creature? Can you say that there has been a transformation in your life? To use the church expressions of yesteryear, have you been born again? Have you received a new heart? This is the essential question of Christianity. Not trying to be a better person, or a religious person, but having become a new person through a radical transformation within your heart and soul.
Now John has been circling this question in this entire epistle. His main theme, as I have repeatedly emphasized, is that of fellowship. Fellowship with God, and fellowship with the church of Christ. Fellowship is the goal of our salvation. We are to become one with Christ, as He abides in us through His Spirit, and we abide with Him in obedience and love.
Now obedience can sound legalistic. It can sound as if we are trying to earn our way to heaven by good works. But that is not what John is teaching here. For one thing, he is speaking to people who are already supposed to be born again. They are already Christians, they are a new creation in Christ. They are the body of Christ. So what he is assuming is that we already have a relationship with Christ, and now he is giving a series of evidences or tests that we are in fellowship with God.
And the only way that is going to happen, is not by perfectly keeping every commandment and doing every work perfectly, though we should aspire to be perfect, even as He is perfect. But the only way we can be in fellowship with God is if we have first been born again. We have to have a transformed heart. We have to have a new nature which is given to us by God. We then have to act in obedience to God’s word to maintain that fellowship, but new life must first come as a gift from God in response to our faith in Christ.
So if we have this new heart, then that simply means that we will have new desires. We will want to please the Lord. We will love the Lord, and consequently love His law, or His word. We will love His church. We will love one another. But we will not have those new desires unless you have first been radically transformed by faith in Christ and receiving salvation from Him.
So, don’t raise your hands. This is a rhetorical question. Do you know that you have been radically transformed in your heart, you have been born again and are a new creature? That is the starting point. There can be no talk of fellowship until you have first this relationship with Christ which results in a transformed heart. And if you can’t honestly say that, then you need to call upon the Lord and confess your need of a Savior. You need to be changed. You need to repent of your sinful nature and ask for the righteousness which comes from the Lord. And when you receive that forgiveness and Christ’s righteousness is applied to your account, God works a transaction in your soul. He puts your sins upon Christ, and He puts Christ’s righteousness upon you, and He gives you a new heart, new desires, and He gives you the Holy Spirit to indwell you to help you and lead you into paths of righteousness. The divine transaction results in a divine transformation.
Now if that is already your experience, you have been born again, you have a new heart, and are a new creature, then John tells us in these last verses of chapter 3 that you can have the assurance of fellowship with God. You can have confidence that you are a child of God, and that He loves you, and is with you, and will never leave you. You can have confidence in fellowship with God because now that you are born of God, you exhibit the nature of God in your new life. So in keeping with this theme of fellowship, our title of this message today is the assurance of fellowship. And there are four points, or four evidences of fellowship which gives the Christian assurance.
First, there is the assurance of love. Love is the normal result of fellowship. When a man meets a woman, they initially form a relationship. If it’s the right fit, that relationship usually initiates the dating process. They start going on long walks together, hanging out together, talking to one another, listening to one another, finding out about one another. All of that is what the Bible calls fellowship. Fellowship is communion with God, walking with God, abiding with God and He abiding with you. And what is the typical result of this couple’s dating or felllowship? They fall in love. And love is this blissful, contented, happy existence where you are satisfied with each other. He or she is the most important person in your life. You want to spend eternity with one another. You want to be together all the time. That is love. And that is the love which we have with Christ when our fellowship is all that it should be.
Now the problem with this kind of love that the Apostle John is talking about, is that we don’t really understand Christian love. When we think of love, we think of amore, we think of feelings, of sexual love, or sentimental love. The problem is that we have one word for love, and it covers every thing from loving ice cream to loving my dog, or loving my wife. But in the Greek language there were primarily three different words that were used for love. Eros is a word for love which refers to erotic love. It includes romantic love. Sexual love. All of that is included in eros. Phileo, another Greek word, means brotherly love. It’s the root of the word Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. It includes familial love; love of family. Neither of those words are the one that John uses here. That word John uses is agape love, which refers to a sacrificial love. In some of the old English versions, it was sometimes rendered as charity. That wasn’t a bad idea, because it is a love which involves giving. It’s an active love that is more concerned with others needs than your own.
Now John wants to make sure he sets the right standard of love at the very outset. So he gives us the Biblical definition of love in vs 16; “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Christ laid down His life for us, that is the Christian definition of love. Now ladies and gentlemen, that is not a natural love, is it? Not many of us would die for someone else so that they might live. It’s possible that we might do that for our wife, or for our children, but not for a stranger, or better yet, not for our enemies. That would be unnatural would it not? But that is what Christ did for us. Rom. 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were enemies of God, rebelling towards God, Christ died for us. And that love sets the standard for Christian love on our part. We love one another as Christ loved us.
That’s why I said at the outset that this kind of fellowship is not possible unless you first receive a new heart. Unless you have been transformed from the natural man to a new man in Christ, having received the nature of Christ, then you cannot, you will not, love like Christ loved us.
Now that is the principle; that we should love one another as Christ loved us, laying down, or laying aside our lives for the brethren. It’s tempting to think of this in heroic terms, and overlook the mundane, everyday ways in which this principle can be fulfilled. We are like Walter Mitty, and imagine dying gloriously on the battlefield or something heroic like that. But while it may possibly mean going to that extreme, it also means laying aside your prerogatives, laying aside your rights, laying aside your priorities, in order to serve one another.
So John gives us the principle and then tells us how to practice it in vs17, “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” That’s practical Christian love; not just dying on a battlefield or on the mission field, but unselfishly giving what your brother needs. Opening your heart up to others and putting them before yourself.
Now if you have that kind of love, if you are practicing that kind of love, then you can be assured that you have fellowship with God, because that is not a natural thing. It is a divine love, and evidence that God dwells with you and you with Him.
The second assurance of fellowship John tells us in vs 18, is that of obedience. “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” The word tongue there is the Greek word glossa, which means language. So our love is not merely lip service, not just in flowery speech, but it is evidenced in deeds and in truth. We can say that we love the Lord, but if it is true then we will love one another with a sacrificial love evidenced in deeds. What that means is that as the truth of God is revealed to us, as Christ is an example to us, we should be conformed to that truth in obedience. Jesus said, “if you love Me, keep My commandments.” God isn’t bowled over by your praise and worship, if it is not in accordance with His truth. We must worship Him in spirit and in truth, Jesus said.
Now obedience is the principle, and again John makes the practical application whereby we can know the assurance of fellowship. He first states it negatively in vs.19, We will know by this (that is that we love in deed and truth) that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” The meaning of this verse is not immediately clear, but I think the Geneva Study Bible explains it well in this way; “If an evil conscience convicts us, much more ought the judgment of God condemn us, who knows our hearts better than we ourselves do.” In other words, if we are hypocritical by professing love but not being obedient to love others as Christ, our conscience will be stricken by God who knows our hearts. So that is the negative assurance of fellowship.
Then the positive assurance is found in vs.21, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.” So obedience to the truth produces assurance of fellowship. It’s similar to the boyfriend/girlfriend example I gave you earlier. If you are true to one another, then you will have confidence in your relationship. But if you are running around behind her back seeing old girlfriends and so forth, then you will not have confidence in your relationship. But when you know that you love one another fully and completely, then you are confident in your relationship. And that is similar to what happens in Christian fellowship. When you know you have fully obeyed with all your heart, then you will have an inward assurance of fellowship and all the blessings that come from such communion with God.
That assurance leads to the next evidence of fellowship, which is answered prayer. This is an area which can either be a great assurance or a means of great discouragement and even the possibility of coming to the point of despairing in your walk with God. And that is the subject of prayer. But what we see here, is that John ties our prayer life with the previous point of obedience in deeds and truth. So in context, we must read vs21 again as a pretext to vs22. “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.”
The problem with most people’s prayer life is that they key in on one part of the promise, but disregard the conditions of the promise. They see “whatever we ask we receive from Him.” And that’s all they focus on. They are off to the races. “Lord, give me this.” “Lord, give me that. In Jesus name Amen!” I will confess that I can be as guilty as anyone else in this regard. I want what I want, and want God to give me what I want when I want it. And when He doesn't do it the way I want, then I accuse Him of not loving me. But that kind of master/genie “your wish is my command” situation isn’t what is promised here.
Look closely at what John says. First, he ties answered prayer back to not having a guilty conscience. When we know we are obedient, we know we are loving in deed and in truth, then we can have confidence that whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are right. Now if the truth be known, if we truly examined ourselves in light of these verses, we would recognize that we don’t deserve to have any of our prayers answered. Every prayer God answers is really a gift of grace. But again, God knows the hearts, John says. He knows those hearts that love Him, and those that are in rebellion against Him. He knows those that desire to do His will, and those that are stingy and selfish.
James said it this way; “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:3) But a heart that is right with God, knows the heart of God, and asks according to the will of God, and not just according to his own selfish desires, sees his prayers answered.
James has a lot to say about prayer, and one of the best sections is found in James 5:14-18 “Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.”
Now I believe in the power of prayer. But there have been a lot of times in my life when I have prayed for years and not seen an answer. And during such times I come to this passage again and again looking for power to my prayers. And I have examined those verses from one side to the other, backwards and forwards, trying to make sense of what it says. But one day it hit me, and my eyes were opened when I read vs 16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” I noticed that at the beginning the verse emphasized confession of sins. And it ended with a righteous man. And connecting the two is effective prayer. The point being that the secret to effective prayer is being a righteous man. Which is predicated by confessing your sins. Praying for one another. And that is exactly what John is saying. You want your prayers answered? Then “keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” Then you will have power with God. And when you have prayers answered, it will give you this tremendous assurance of fellowship with God like practically nothing else.
Perhaps someone out there is saying, “Well, what does he mean by keep His commandments? Which commandments? Thou shalt not kill? I haven’t killed anyone.” So John once again reiterates what the commandments are. Look at vs 23; “This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.” To believe in the name of Jesus means to believe in all that name implies. That He was in the beginning with God, and He was God, and He became man to become sin for us, and paid our penalty of sin by dying on the cross and was resurrected and now sits on the right hand of the throne of God above all rule and authority, and no man comes to the Father except through Him. There is more, but that’s the main things that the name of Jesus signifies. So believing in His name is to honor Him as your Lord God and Savior, Jesus the Messiah. Believing in His name is trusting in His sacrifice as an atonement for your sins, trusting that He is the way, the truth and the life. Trusting in His word enough to obey Him as God, which equates to loving Him with all your heart, your soul, your mind and strength. And then to love your neighbor as yourself. To love one another, even as Christ loved the church and laid down His life for her. To love others like Christ loved us, sacrificially. In those two commandments are encapsulated all the commandments. Keeping those commandments is the way to answered prayer, and the way to continued fellowship with God.
Now John gives us one final assurance of fellowship in vs.24, “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 us.” There are two parts to this assurance. First, if we keep His commandments we abide in Him. Secondly, and as a consequence of the first, we have assurance that He abides in us by the Holy Spirit who He has given us.
Now these two parts sound unrelated at first, but actually they are contingent upon one another. You cannot keep His commandments apart from the help of the Holy Spirit. He is the author of our new hearts. We are born again by the Spirit of God. That’s why I said at the outset that if there has not be a transformation resulting in a new creature, a new heart, and a new person, then you cannot have fellowship which requires obedience. It starts with a new heart, which is the product of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit upon conversion.
And that new life, which is as apparent to you as it is to others, is proof of the fact that the Holy Spirit dwells in you. Furthermore, if you do not keep His commandments, then you will not have that assurance of the Holy Spirit, because you are quenching the Spirit through disobedience. I recently talked to a former drug user who had just been radically transformed by God and he said that the peace he now felt was the peace he had been seeking for in drugs but could never find. But now he had this peace through Christ. That is the evidence of the Holy Spirit abiding in you. When you know you are right with God, and He loves you, and you love God and one another, then you know the joy of your salvation. You know the comfort of the Holy Spirit. You know the assurance of your fellowship with the Almighty God.
There may be someone here today that says, “Man, Roy, that sounds good. I want that fellowship with God. I want forgivingness. I want that peace you are talking about. But I can’t say that is really my experience. I don’t really see these evidences in my life that I have real fellowship with God. Then I would ask you today to consider and examine whether or not you have ever been born again by the Spirit of God. You should be able to remember the time when God came into your heart and changed you by the Spirit to become a new creature. When old things passed away, and all things became new. You should be able to vividly recall the time when God changed your heart and your desires and you fell in love with the Lord and His word. But if you cannot, then I would suggest you consider coming to the Lord today in repentance and faith, asking for forgiveness, asking for a new heart, that new desires and a new spirit be given to you, that you might keep His ordinances and His statues. Today is the acceptable day of salvation. God will not turn you away if you come to Him with a broken and contrite heart, He will give you a new heart, and a new life.
Or perhaps there is someone here today that says, I remember when I fell in love with the Lord. I remember the day I called upon the Lord and He answered me and changed me and made me a new man. But I have to admit that my love has grown cold. I don’t have fellowship with God the way you have described it today. But I would like to get that corrected this morning. I would like to have the assurance of fellowship with God. Listen, God has provided a way for your fellowship with Him to be restored like it was brand new. 1John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Pray the prayer of David, from Psalm 51, O Lord, “Hide Your face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit. ... The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment