How To Know I Know Jesus Series

You can listen to this sermon at https://www.npbc.org.au/podcasts/media

1 John 2:3-11

“How To Know I Know Jesus”

In the first century AD John writes to a group of believers with the purpose of equipping them to know they have eternal life. As part of that equipping John deals with the reality that

… if you want to be sure you have eternal life.

… you first need to be sure that you know Jesus.

So how can you know that you have come to know Jesus?

In response to that question John writes a test.

The test is not the only way to determine if you have come to know Jesus.

However it is still an important test because, if we cannot pass this test, then we need to be willing to face the possibility that we actually have not come to know Jesus. Which means the stakes are very high … of eternal consequence. So, let’s look at the test.

We are reading 1 John 2:3-11

3 We know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands.

4 Whoever says, ‘I know Him,’ but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in Him: 6 whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did.

7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. 10 Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. 11 But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.

The key focus in these verses is that

John wants us to know that we have come to know Jesus.

Every believer, at some point in the past, has come to know Jesus.

We believed that Jesus died for us.

It isn’t just an historical fact, or words we read in the Bible.

At some point we believed that Jesus entered our heart.

We confessed our sin.

We called upon his name.

We were saved.

That moment when the sacrifice of Jesus becomes personally applied to our lives. That moment when we said, “I have come to know Jesus”.

But then life happens.

We get busy with our agenda, and put the agenda of Jesus into the background.

We make horrible life decisions that cause brokenness.

We have days when reading our Bible does nothing for us.

We have times in our lives where we have cried out to God and said, “Do you see me? Do you care?”

We go through life quite well without really relying on God and we start to wonder, “Do I even need God?”

We pray … and it feels like we are talking to a brickwall.

We may have been in churches which have done more harm than good and so our faith has taken a beating.

We know our own sin, and the temptations which keep getting us.

We daily face a world that wants to stomp our faith out of us.

Life happens.

And there can be times in that life where we are sitting in this place

… of wondering.

… of doubt.

… or anger.

… or fear.

And as a result of how life is unfolding may find ourselves asking

Did I really come to know Jesus? Or was it all just words?

Was my “come to Jesus moment” a true transformation?

Or was I just saying it?

In the journey of faith there is a Scriptural truth which we must accept.

Knowing that you have come to know Jesus can’t be just words.

John makes this Scriptural truth an aspect of the test.

4 Whoever says, ‘I know Him,’ but does not do what He commands is a liar.

1 John 1:4

6 whoever claims to live (says I live) in Him must live as Jesus did.

1 John 1:6

9 Anyone who claims to be (says I am) in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.

1 John 1:9

You can say “I have had a come-to-Jesus moment. I know Jesus”.