When we were building this sanctuary we were discussing whether to put paper towel dispensers in the new rest rooms or those hot-air hand dryers. I strongly recommended the paper towel dispensers because of a story I heard about at another church. They installed the hot-air hand dryers. The week after they were installed, some smart aleck put a note on the dryer that read, “Punch this button for a brief recorded message from our pastor.”
How do we know if we really know God? Tonight we look at the 6th test that helps to prove if you really know God. Does the gospel remain in you? Does the gospel abide in us?
How we live shows quicker than anything else whether or not we know God. If you have grasped the truth of God’s Word, and are living it out in your life, then you definitely know God. The opposite of that is true as well. If we are not living out the gospel in our lives, then we don’t truly know God. Regardless of how we feel, regardless of what we profess, regardless of what others may think about us, we really don’t know God if we are not living out the gospel in our lives.
Tonight we look at 4 verses in the 2nd chapter of 1 John—1 John 2: 24-27. In these four verses we are going to see the test, the promise, the warning, and the provision of God to protect us. READ verse 24.
The test is stated clearly. Does the gospel remain in you? Note that the word “gospel” is not used in this verse. I looked at 9 translations of this verse and not one of them used the word “gospel.” Instead John says, “what you have heard from the beginning,” see that it remains in you. What we have heard from the beginning is the gospel.
If you look back at verses 22-23 that we discussed last time, you will see that false teachers were denying that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. They were denying the gospel. So “what you have heard from the beginning” is the message of the gospel:
• The gospel of Jesus Christ.
• The gospel of salvation.
I want you to note the evidence of salvation in this verse. If the gospel continues in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. That means that we are not supposed to be carried away by false teachings, worldly pleasures or worldly possessions.
How do you know if you know God? Well, are you letting Jesus Christ live His life out in you? Does Jesus shine forth in the way that you live?
We sing the song “Just A Closer Walk With Thee.” The words of that hymn remind us that every Christian’s desire should be an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. READ THE WORDS OF THE HYMN. P. . Every Christian’s desire should be that he would have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Ephesians: “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” (Eph. 4:1)
Are you living the Christian life? I think many times people become Christians, they accept Christ as Lord of their life—and yet they don’t fully realize what being a Christian means.
Has anyone ever explained to you how a Christian should live? Has anyone ever explained the Christian Life? There’s a lot to it. And I want you all to hear what Christianity is because then you won’t have an excuse for not having ever been told.
What is Christianity?
• To know God and to do His will,
• To accept gratefully what He sends us and do faithfully what He bids us,
• To pray as we would talk with a friend,
• To trust where we cannot understand,
• To believe that God is kind even in things that hurt,
• To keep unspotted toward the world’s sin and unselfish toward the world’s needs,
• To love those whom we cannot like,
• To hate no one,
• To be true when others are false,
• To be brave in the midst of cowardice,
• To be kind in return for injuries,
• To pity our enemies, to enjoy our friends,
• To serve our heavenly Father above by helping his children on earth,
• To be like Christ in love, in life, in service and sacrifice.
That is Christianity and that is the ideal toward which the Bible leads us.
So John tells us to “see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.” This is not the only time we are told in the Bible to let the gospel remain in you. Jesus said, 9 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.”(John 15:9)
Paul told the Colossians, “6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to live in obedience to him.(Col. 2:6) And here, John says, “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.”
Jesus said in the Book of Revelation, “Look, I am coming quickly. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take away your crown.(Rev. 3:11) “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.” So the test for us is “does the gospel remain in us?”
Now let’s look at the promise. READ verse 25. So the great promise of God to man is WHAT? God has made many promises but this promise supercedes all the others. Eternal life is the supreme promise of God. One of the most familiar Scripture verses we know says just that. John 3: 16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
And eternal life is the very life of God. Think about it, to live forever in this physical world, in not necessarily a good thing. I wouldn’t want to live forever in this world the way things are, would you? The world and man’s body need changing and that changed life is found only in eternal life.
So eternal life is something we should all want. Eternal life is something that God has promised for us if we choose to accept it. It’s His gift to us but it is not ours until we WHAT? Take it. Receive it.
Now I am probably going to give you a little bit different picture of eternal life. SCENARIO: You profess Christ as Lord of your life. You allow Jesus to come into your heart and life. And how do you think about eternal life? Probably the same way most Christians think about eternal life—when I die on this earth, THEN I will have eternal life. But that’s not the complete story. And here is the new way of thinking about eternal life.
Once a person believes in Jesus Christ, he has eternal life. That is, he or she immediately receives eternal life. It’s not that he or she is GOING to receive eternal life. He or she already has it, right then.
When you accept Jesus Christ, you begin to live eternally from that very moment onward. That day that you make your decision for Christ is the first day of your eternal life. And every day of your life thereafter is another day in eternity for Him.
Now this is significant because it means that we should be very careful about how we live every day—for every day is another day lived in eternity. From that time forward, we shall never die. When God is ready to move us from this physical world into the spiritual world (heaven), He simply transfers us—all quicker than the blink of the eye.
Jesus said, “24 “I assure you, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.” (John 5:24)
So we receive eternal life the very moment we accept Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives. A little later on, when we get to the 5th chapter of 1 John, we will see that John essentially says the same thing in a different way. 1 John 5:11-12 says, “And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. So whoever has God’s Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life.”
So we have seen the test, we have seen the promise and now here is the warning. READ verse 26. The warning—some do attempt to lead us astray.
Again, there were false teachers who were trying to lead them astray. There still are today. A false teacher is one who tries to lead us away from Jesus Christ. He is a deceiver. He teaches that man can become acceptable to God by some other way than Jesus Christ. He teaches that there are other ways to God, other approaches, other religions, other truths.
I want you to take special note of the tense of the verb in this verse. John says, “I am writing to you about those who are TRYING to lead you astray.” TRYING. That’s a verb of continuous action. In other words, these false teachers are continually teaching false doctrine. They are always teaching and always trying to lead you astray.
That means that we have to be on constant guard against false teaching. So much is at stake. We will eventually abandon the faith if we listen to the deception and go astray. We have to continue to follow Jesus, and we have to let the gospel remain and take up permanent residence in our lives.
All you have to do is think about it a little bit. If God has really sent His Son into the world to save man, there’s not a chance in eternity that He will allow anyone to approach Him by any other way. His very purpose for sending His Son was to save man. If there were any other way, God would have never allowed His Son to leave the glory of heaven and be so humiliated as to come to such a corrupted world as ours.
The test, the promise, the warning, and now the provision. We already said last time that God’s provision for us to get us through all this false doctrine is the Holy Spirit Himself.
We are anointed with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is poured over us. The Holy Spirit lives within us. The Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us the truth. The Holy Spirit seals us and guarantees and assures us that we do abide and remain in Christ.
Soooooo. . . how do you know if you really know God? Let the gospel remain in you. That means allowing Christ to live through you. Your live should SHOW that you are a Christian. Does it? When people see and talk to you, do they know right away that you are a Christian? They should. Start showing the world that you are Christian.
A little boy gazed up at his dad and asked, “Dad, what is a Christian?” The dad answered, “A Christian is a person who loves and obeys God. He loves his friends and neighbors and even his enemies. He prays often, is kind, gentle, holy, and more interested in going to heaven than in all earthly riches. That, son, is a Christian.”
Now that’s a good answer, isn’t it? He emphasized everything we have talked about tonight. It wasn’t a bad answer. But imagine the shock on his face when his son asked, “Have I ever seen one?”
That story shows us that it is possible that we sometimes talk a good talk, but walk a poor walk? You might be able to tell others what a Christian is—you may even profess to be one—but have you ever shown it?
So the closing question for you to ponder is this: If someone were to come up to you and ask for a description of a Christian, would you TELL them . . . or SHOW them?
