1 John 3:19-24 November 26, 2006
No Condemnation
Parable of Pharisee and Tax-Collector – Luke 18:9-14
– there must be something other than either arrogance before God, or a feeling of worthlessness. 1 John 3:19 says “This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence…”
Doesn’t that sound good? “Hearts at rest in his presence.” John introduces the passage with a promise that I think that we would all want “Hearts at rest in the presence of God.”
If our hearts condemn us…
Does your heart condemn you? I think that many of our hearts do – we have this interior dialogue that tells ourselves that we are not worth anything, or we feel this great shame that will not go away. When we make a mistake we beat ourselves up about it for weeks. We don’t concentrate on the mistake that needs to be fixed, but on our own character being the kind that makes such mistakes. We constantly tell ourselves that we are a screw-up, a nobody… It can either Shut us down so that we a paralyzed by our own condemnation, or we try to work our way out of it, hoping that one day we will prove ourselves good enough not to condemn ourselves.
Is that you? The good news that John gives us is that “God is bigger than our hearts.”
No matter how worthless we think we are, God say to us that we are of such great worth that we are worth dying for, we are worth sending his Son to die for! God wants us with him so much that he takes us and cleans us up and in his sight, no matter what we have done in our lives, we are clean and pure, his perfect child.
He pulls rank on us – our hearts condemn us, and he does not, and he says “who are you going to believe, your heart, or the God that created you?”
When I have an argument with my kids, and they are just not believing me, I say “How long have I been alive? You might think I’ve learned a few things in that time!” John says the same thing God overrules your hearts because he knows everything – he even knows about that thing that you are condemning yourself over & and He still says, you are my chosen child, you are of the greatest worth to me.
Jean Valjean – I order you to forgive yourself.
What a wonderful thing – even if our hearts condemn us, God says, “I don’t care what your heart says, I don’t condemn you, I accept you and love you.”
What do we do with a condemning heart?
You might say to me, but doesn’t the Holy Spirit convict us of sin? How do we distinguish between a condemning heart and the conviction of the Holy Spirit?
Condemnation vs. conviction
The Holy Spirit does convict us of sin in our lives, but he always does so as a way to bring us back in line with God. His conviction is always over a particular behavior that we can deal with by confessing and repenting. On the other hand, our heart, or the devil can give us condemning thoughts that are a vague feeling of guilt or shame not necessarily connected to a behavior that we can correct. The conviction of the Spirit leads us back top God, the condemnation of our heart draws us away from God.
So if we experience conviction, we should do something about it – we should confess our sin and stop the behavior that the Spirit is convicting us of. If we experience condemnation, we should tell our hearts (or the devil) that we have nothing to be condemned for since Jesus has cleaned us up and forgiven all our sins.
Paul experienced the judgment or the condemnation of many people in his ministry; this is how he responded to one group that was placing their judgments on him:
1 Corinthians 4:3-4
I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
If we are going to teach out hearts not to condemn us, we need to stop judging even ourselves and allow only God to judge us – he is faithful & he is just – he will tell us what needs to change in our life, not because we are worthless, but because we are of great worth to him.
Romans 8:1-3
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful humanity to be a sin offering.
Bill Hybels says that the difference between religion and Christianity is that religion is spelled D-O it is all about the thing’s that we do to garner favour with God. Christianity, on the other hand, is spelled D-O-N-E. It is all about what Jesus has done for us that make us pleasing to God.
Often times our hearts forget that – that God is already pleased with us through Jesus, and we thing that he is displeased with us for all the things that we do or do not do. If we are going to train our hearts to not condemn us, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus and what he has done for us.
We can get confused by our feelings, because there are days that we do not feel like we are Christian. Nick Gumbel says that it is not that feelings are not important, but they need to be in the proper place. Our faith is built on the fact that Jesus has died for our salvation, not on how we feel. He says it is like 3 people are walking on the top of a wall – fact, faith, and feelings. As long as faith keeps its eyes on fact, he is fine, but if he turns around and tries to see what feelings is doing, they’ll fall of the wall. We need to keep the facts of our faith in clear view, and our feelings, our heart will learn to follow along.
At the end of this passage, John says “And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” The Spirit does not just convict us of sin – he assures us of our relationship with God – he teaches our Spirit to call God Abba – father, daddy. We need to train our interior ears to listen to him over our hearts.
Prince Charles has many titles. He is the Heir apparent to the Crown, his Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Knight of the Garter, Colonel in Chief of the Royal Regiment of Wales, Duke of Rothesay, Knight of the Thistle, Commander of the Royal Navy, Great Master of the Order of Bath, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland. We would address him as “Your Royal Highness,” but William and Harry must call him “Daddy.” God is God, he is the creator of all that there is, he is the Judge of humanity and creation, but he invites us to call him “Abba!”
There are those of you who don’t suffer from a condemning heart, and those who have trained your heart to not condemn – you’ve grabbed on to grace with both hands. Well there is great blessing for you, and great promise for those of us who are trying to train our hearts.
If our hearts do not condemn us…
Hearts at rest in his presence.
God Created us for relationship with Him, He sent his son to die for us to restore that relationship with him. Although the Tax collector in the story was right in his confession and repentance, God doesn’t want us standing far off beating our chests in remorse – he wants us in his presence, at ease with his love for us.
Westcott – “The thought here is of the boldness with which the Son appears before the father, and not of that with which the accused appears before the Judge”
The confidence that we have before him is not the arrogance that the Pharisee has, but a heart that is at rest in His presence.
…receive from him anything we ask
When we hear this promise and start to think that if we can only train our hearts not to condemn us, I can get that Ferrari and the house on Baby Point, we need to remember that John is whiting this very promise while he is in prison on the Island of Patmos!
This is not a name it and claim it promise – it is more of a description of a heart that is at rest in the presence of God – a heart that is obedient to God’s will, a heart that keeps his commands and does what pleases him, a heart that lives in him, and he in them; a heart that doesn’t need the Ferrari and the big house to feel important, a heart that knows already what God’s desire is, when we ask for this, of course we will receive what we ask for!
Conclusion
When we obey the commands to believe in Jesus Christ and to love one another, we win either way: if our hearts condemn us, God is bigger than our heart and over rules it’s condemnation, If we live in his grace and our hearts do not condemn us, we get to enjoy the intimate relationship that we have been saved into!
And Can It Be
Offer prayer
