Assurance is that after which everyone seeks and that which is incredibly difficult to find. Whether it is assurance that the stock market will rise, that our families will be safe as they go off to work in tall buildings, or the that the news reports we are hearing are based on facts, we all want assurance. And in recent times such assurance has been shaken after events such as 9/11, dips in the stock market, and news reports based on false documents. Assurance has simply fallen on hard times.

It is the same reality in the church. We want assurance of our eternal state, and yet this issue causes some of our greatest struggles. Thus, we have some individuals who are quite assured they are right with God that very deeply need to be convinced otherwise and others who think they may not be saved because they cannot remember a “time and place” when the evidence of God’s grace is clear in their lives. Maybe many grew up like myself, practically in tears every night for about a year’s time, praying and hoping that I was saved and longing for God to give me the assurance I so desperately sought. Assurance is a difficult matter to say the least.

However, as we have seen over the past weeks, John’s aim in writing the letter is to deal with this very issue of assurance. He has a two-fold aim as he writes. First, he wants to remove assurance from those who have gone out of the church, denied the gospel, decided to rebel against God’s Word and still claim to be believers. Second, he wants to provide a basis of assurance for those who are holding to the gospel and yet are faced with doubt. So what does John do? How does his teaching help us on this issue of assurance? These are the questions we want to answer this morning.

Concerning what John does, he focuses his efforts on qualifying what a believer looks like. Last week we saw from 1 John 2:28-3:10 that John stressed that the believer displays God’s righteousness through his righteous living even as God is righteous, because God’s seed, his nature, has been placed within him. This week, John continues this theme, but transitions just a bit. We see the transition in 3:10 as John writes, “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”

Within that, the reference to practicing righteousness refers to what John had said, and the reference to love refers to what John is about to say, that which we see in our text this morning. Therefore, as last week we saw that being a child of God is shown by one’s righteous living, we see this week that,

We demonstrate that we’re God’s children by loving one another (11-18)

John has already made this point in 10, as we have noted, but he writes in verses 11-15, “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

John points out to his readers that this is that which God has always commanded, that we love one another. And, the opposite of love is hate, which is sin, and is the basis for murder. Thus, he points to Cain, who murdered his brother, as an example of hate, the opposite of love.

Then, John draws a logical argument that runs something like this. Cain murdered. He murdered because he hated. He hated because his deeds were evil and his brother’s deeds were righteous. And because his deeds were not righteous, he did not know God, who is righteous. Therefore, do not be surprised when those who do not know God hate you, because they do not know God, their deeds are not righteous, and they do not have eternal life abiding in them. However, you do love one another because you have passed from life to death.

One who is born again simply loves his brothers and sisters in Christ. And if one doesn’t, he does not know God. As a Christian, we should be able to look at our lives and realize that we love others, and (especially if one was saved later in life) some might be able to see clearly that they love in a way that obviously did not before.

So, here it is, do you want to display before the world that you know Christ? Love one another. That is the key. Jesus even said the same thing in John 13:34-35, saying, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

But lest we think we don’t have a model or motive or example of just how this should take place, John clears all of this up in verse 16, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

Christ is our example. He is our standard. That is, love between believers is not simply some kind of mushy sentiment. It’s not just a disposition of one’s heart. It’s definitely not less than that, but it’s more. We know love by looking at what Jesus did and imitating him toward our brethren. That is, we show our love for our brothers by sacrificing for them, sacrificing our time, finances, energy, and very lives. And in case John’s readers still aren’t getting the picture of just how practical love should be, he clears it up in verses 17-18, writing, “But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

Love between believers will be more than just saying, “I love you” or giving a hug. Love between believers will show itself in self-sacrificial provision of their needs. And that kind of love displays to the world that we know Jesus Christ. We model the love of the cross before them. And this is so basic to Christianity that John can say that if one does not have a love like that toward other believers then his Father is not God but the devil.

But again, why write all this? Why does John care so much to show that believers are individuals who have been given hearts to love one another? And why does he take these many verses to stress this to his readers? It is not because he wants to place a great burden on them. That’s not his goal. He is writing because he wants to comfort and encourage them.

But to what end? He shows us in verses 19-24. There, John gives us two blessings we have from recognizing that true believers are those who (summing up from 2:28-3:18) have been given a heart to want to obey God, fight sin, and love their brothers and sisters in Christ. The first encouragement and comfort is that …

As we see these realities in our own lives (i.e. a desire to obey God, fight sin, and love the brethren), we can be assured before God that we know him and that we are his (19-20)

This is the direction of verses 19-20. John writes in these verses, “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

I think what John is picturing in these verses is much the same kind of thing that many of us have known in our fight against sin. Maybe we’ve gone through times when having given into sin and having a sensitive heart to the Spirit, we’ve been convicted. And yet Satan takes that and drives it to the point of condemnation, possibly saying, “If you really knew God you would not have done that. He doesn’t want anything to do with you.”

And you examine your life and know you hate what you did, you don’t want to sin, and you truly love your brothers. Yet you’re struggling with this condemnation of your heart. John writes this, I think, because he wants us in those moments to “know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him” (v. 19), for God is greater than our hearts, knows our disdain for sin and love for the brothers, and wants us to have assurance before him as we see these signs of his life in us.

This is powerful. I wish somebody had led me to meditate on these verses during that year or so of my life when I was struggling with a doubt that just paralyzed me. I knew I didn’t want to sin. I knew I loved God. I knew I loved the church. But I was gripped as I struggled with sin and found my heart constantly condemning me. And Satan was feeding that, it seemed. John doesn’t want that for his readers, because he knows of the paralyzing effect such doubting and struggling can have. And so he writes this letter, and specifically these verses, “that you may know that you have eternal life” (5:13).

I used to miss this reality in this book and thought it was written simply to drive those deceiving themselves into thinking they were Christians that they were really not. And John was writing to give all of these tests to show them otherwise.

Well, that is a part of the book and it is a result of his writing as the readers can look at those who have gone out of the church and clearly see that they are not believers. But that’s not the primary aim of this book. Thus, not seeing the primary message, I could drive these tests home and leave hearers who love the Lord, are sensitive to the Spirit, have very sensitive hearts, hate sin, and (like mature believers) are very aware of their sins, doubting and struggling with assurance. But to do so would miss the primary intent of the book, which is to give assurance to such people. It is to say to them, “Your sensitivity to sin and hatred for it and love for the brothers are signs of life. Therefore, let God be greater than your condemning heart and reassure your heart before the Lord that you are his.” John wants them, he wants us, to have assurance before the Lord, even when our sensitive transformed hearts condemn us.

But why is assurance so big again? It’s a big deal because of the paralyzing effect sin can have, leaving you not wanting to pray, face the Lord, or labor for radical obedience. Therefore, John uses the rest of the verses in our text to paint a picture of one who can look at these truths and reassure his heart before the Lord so that it no longer condemns him.

He writes in verses 21-24, “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 what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”

His second word of comfort and encouragement is that …

Having assurance, we can pray with confidence as we walk forward in a life of radical obedience unto the Lord (21-24)

Walking backwards to unfold John’s thinking, we are reminded that God’s commandments are that we believe in his Son and love one another. Therefore, if you have a heart that has been transformed so as to be able to do that, then you abide in him, and he abides in you. And therefore, going back to his first word of encouragement we can reassure our heart before him so that it no longer condemns us, and then we can have confidence before God.

And all of this will lead us to approach his throne of grace with boldness in prayer so that we might walk and, by his grace, live a life of radical obedience.

Isn’t this a glorious picture? O that someone would have opened this text to me at my points of struggling with assurance being under false condemnation! But praise the Lord that he has done it now! And I pray that these verses might lead to a right kind of assurance among us here so that we may, with boldness, be a people of prayer, who sacrifice their lives in love for one another and serve our Lord with a heart that is overwhelmed that we may be called children of God, and indeed we are! Amen.

LOVE, ASSURANCE, AND CONFIDENT PRAYER

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