Grounds Of Assurance Series

Scripture

In his book titled Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism, Tim Keller writes:

Many years ago, in my first pastorate, I met with a teenage girl in our congregation. She was about sixteen at the time, and she was discouraged and becoming depressed. I tried to encourage her, but there was a revelatory moment when she said, “Yes, I know Jesus loves me, he saved me, he’s going to take me to heaven – but what good is it when no boy at school will even look at me?”

She said she “knew” all these truths about being a Christian, but they were of no comfort to her. The attention (or the lack of it) of a cute boy at school was far more consoling, energizing, and foundational for her joy and self-worth than the love of Christ. Of course this was a perfectly normal response for a teenage girl. Nevertheless it was revealing of how our hearts work. [Jonathan] Edwards would say that she had the opinion that Jesus loved her, but she didn’t really know it. Christ’s love was an abstract concept while the love of these others was real to her heart.

Do you have assurance of God’s love for you? The Apostle John insists that God wants us to know that we are his and that we can have assurance that our Christian experience is real.

Let’s read about grounds of assurance in 1 John 4:13-21:

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:13-21)

Introduction

John states three times in the paragraph we just read that “we abide in [God] and he in us” (verses 13, 15, 16). People today scoff at such a statement. After all, they insist, we live in the age of reason and science. How in the world can anyone prove the statement that John made?

Yet, John insists that we can be sure that we abide in God and he in us.

Lesson

First John 4:13-21 gives us five pieces of evidences by which we may be sure that we abide in God and he in us.

Let’s use the following outline:

1. We Have Been Given the Holy Spirit (4:13)

2. We Have the Apostolic Testimony (4:14)

3. We Have Confessed that Jesus Is the Son of God (4:15)

4. We Have Confidence in God’s Love for Us (4:16-19)

5. We Have Love for Our Brothers (4:20-21)

I. We Have Been Given the Holy Spirit (4:13)

First, we have been given the Holy Spirit.

In 1 John 3:24, John wrote, “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” His point is that it is “by the Spirit” that we know that “he abides in us.” Now John adds the thought that we abide in him, as he writes in 1 John 4:13, “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” So John teaches his beloved flock that the Holy Spirit abides in us and that we abide in the Holy Spirit. Both truths are important and emphasized throughout John’s letter.

I wonder if we are fully aware of this glorious truth. The Holy Spirit abides in me and I abide in the Holy Spirit. I am a new creation in Christ, and I have the Third Person of the Trinity abiding in me. He is the one who enables me to live a life that is pleasing to the Father. He is the one who empowers me to say “No!” to sin. He is the one who enables me to love my brothers and sisters in Christ. He is the one who strengthens me to serve unbelievers who are lost apart from the saving grace that is found only in Jesus. He is the one who assures me that I am a Christian.