Assurance Leads To Confidence

Title: “Assurance Leads to Confidence” Scripture: I John 5:13-19

Type: series Where: GNBC 8-18-24

Intro: nearly 100 yrs ago, in LA, there was a person called the “Human Fly.” This man could literally climb the sides of department store buildings and slide along the walls without help. He was a master climber. One Friday afternoon, a crowd gathered to watch him climb. He had already climbed twenty stories and had ten more to go. Suddenly, he stopped moving. It appeared that he was looking for something to hold on to so he might continue his climb to the top of the building. Gradually, they saw his right hand moving to the side of the building, as if trying to get hold of something there. Suddenly, he lost his footing and fell to his death. When they pried open his right hand, they found he was clutching a cobweb. What he thought could hold him did not. There are a lot of people like that. They are grasping for the wrong truths. Their faith is in the wrong object. Since they do not have belief in the Resurrection, their faith is futile and is headed for failure and defeat. Trust in Christ’s Res. should give us assurance and confidence.

Prop:

BG: 1. We are nearing the end of our time in I John. Next week will be last. Have a new series for Fall.

2. I John has been a wonderful study in doctrine and personal application. Warned against heretics while encouraging the faithful to remain…faithful.

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Prop:

I. John’s Emphasis on the Believer’s Assurance v. 13

A. John begins this section by reaffirming the believer’s assurance of salvation and new life.

1. John begins this section by stating something that seems very similar to another of his writings.

a. V.13 sounds very similar to another verse that the aged Apostle wrote: John 20:31. (Read) John is saying the exact same thing here in I Jn. 5:13 as he did in Jn. 20:31, correct? No! Notice very carefully and you will see the difference.

b. Jn. 20:31/Gospel of John is written to lead a non-Christian to faith in Jesus Christ. Gospels were their own unique form of literature. A type of biography for belief. In his Gospel, John includes many of the miracles of Jesus. Illust: Anyone reading through the first three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—will immediately notice their striking similarities. The three tell many of the same stories, sometimes with identical wording, and follow the same basic storyline. These three Gospels are called the “Synoptic” (synoptic means “a common perspective”). While ninety percent of Mark’s stories appear in either Matthew or Luke, ninety percent of the Fourth Gospel — the Gospel of John — is unique. One commentator calls John the “maverick” Gospel. Unashamedly evangelistic.

2. John’s letter (I John) was written for the believer to have assurance.

a. “to you who believe in the Name…” I imagine John was at least in part thinking, well, if you have read my Gospel, you have been introduced to the person of Christ. Now, if you believe, then…read this…

b. Assurance of salvation…here and now. V.13 – “You who believe/you have eternal life”. Illust: In part because of the type of Church I became a Christian in, and in part because of my own temperament and sin struggles, assurance of salvation was a hard thing for me to grasp early in my relationship with Christ. What John is saying here goes against the grain of many of our own perceptions/experiences. The verbs are in the present tense. In other words, we are not to grow gradually, over time, in assurance, rather, we possess it here and now in Christ and are to live in that truth.

B. Assurance of Salvation is a Knowable Truth.

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a. All of us as Christians have times when doubt makes us question if we're saved. For some, those times are but fleeting moments; for some, they last a long time; and for others, they seem like a way of life. Puritan Thomas Brooks wrote, "Assurance is the believer's ark where he sits, Noah-like, quiet and still in the midst of all distractions and destructions, commotions and confusions.... [However] most Christians live between fears and hopes, and hang, as it were, between heaven and hell.

b. Illust: The Westminster Confession of Faith insists that Christians may be “certainly assured that they are in the state of grace” (18:1) and goes on to assert that this “infallible assurance of faith” is “founded upon” three considerations: “the divine truth of the promises of salvation”

“the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made” “the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are children of God” (18:2). The possibility of “certain” and “infallible” assurance is set against the backdrop of medieval and post-Reformation Roman Catholic views that paralyzed the believer with an "assurance" that was at best wishful thinking, based on rigorous participation in a sacramental treadmill that had to be continually run if there was to be any hope at all.