“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” [1]
The couple, a man and a woman, had come to the door professing concern for my welfare. Their concern was driven by certainty that a great, world-wide conflagration known as Armageddon would soon be unleashed on the earth. They didn’t want to be caught up in that great battle, so they were working hard to secure their place in the safe zone God would provide. Their question feigned innocence—had I given thought to what was soon coming on the earth. Well, in fact, I had thought about what was coming. In fact, I had studied the issue at some length for a number of years. However, I informed them that I was much more concerned about living in the nasty now-and-now then I was concerned about the sweet by-and-by.
My response to their initial inquiries elicited another question from the woman: wasn’t I concerned that I might not be delivered when Jehovah at last unleashed Armageddon on the earth. At that, I reached for my Greek New Testament which was near the door, and asked, “Why would you want me to give up my certainty for your uncertainty? Why would you ask me to surrender to the dark unknown when I live in the bright presence of the Living Saviour?”
The question I posed led the woman to smugly comment that I didn’t know what I was talking about. They had studied the Bible and knew what it said; I couldn’t know what they knew. I opened the Testament that I was holding, pushing it toward her and saying, “Of course, you who trudge door-to-door peddling your error are all scholars and understand what the Bible says; what do you say about this verse?” I pointed to the verse that serves as our text and read, “Tauta egrapsa hymin hina eidete hoti zoen echete aionion tois pisteuousin eis to onoma tou huiou tou theou.” I explained, “You do see that John used the verb oida rather than ginosko to indicate that those who believe in the Name of the Son of God have an intuitive knowledge that they possess eternal life.” The couple had a rather startled look on their faces as they nodded blankly. I asked, “Do you have certainty that you possess eternal life?”
The woman was clearly startled by what I had said and the question I had posed to them. Suddenly, she exclaimed in a rather excited voice, “You must be one of the 144,000!”
“That’s not possible,” I explained patiently. “I’m not Jewish and I’m not a virgin.” Had these two individuals actually read the Word rather than reading about the Word in literature produced by a self-promoting cult which was ignorant of the Word, they would have known what God has done and the impact of His provision.
The purpose of the message today is to encourage believers, pointing to the certainty with which we are to live. May the Spirit of God direct our attention to the Word that He has given.
GOD HAS COMMUNICATED FOR OUR BENEFIT — Why should it be important for us to know that we possess salvation? Why does it matter whether we are confident in Christ or resigned to living life as a question mark? The answer lies in the purpose of salvation. Most of us will say that God loves us, and that is true. We have no doubt read JOHN 3:16: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Not long ago, an American actress married a British prince. The Episcopalian bishop that delivered the wedding sermon spoke on the theme of love, emphasising that God’s love was the foundation for the Gospel. Many Christians were thrilled that the wedding sermon was so lively at the otherwise staid wedding. I listened to the sermon; and it was a good sermon as far as it went, but it was incomplete. The reason Christians were pleased was that they believed that the message was biblical. Nevertheless, I harboured reservations about the bishop’s sermon.
I daresay that the average Evangelical Christian would likely argue that the message of Christianity is that “God loves me.” In fact, the average professing Christian would say that “God loves me enough to send His Son to die for me.” However, is this a biblical statement? “God loves me” is not the essence of biblical Christianity, because if “God love me” is the message we are to deliver, then who is the object of the Faith? “God loves me.” Me! Christianity’s object is me. Is this accurate? Is this what Christianity is all about?
If this is true, then when I look for a church, I look for what suits me! My concern is central to finding where I shall worship. Because I am convinced that I am the centre of the message of Christianity, I will be concerned that the music used in worship pleases me. The style of music, the instrumentation, the presentation must please me. I will listen to ensure that the message pleases me. I don’t want to be made to feel uncomfortable, so the message must not assault my feelings. I will seek out a church that has doctrine that pleases me. The entirety of my religious effort will be centred around me. Is that biblical Christianity?
The message of biblical Christianity is not, “God loves me,” as though I am the object of faith. The message of biblical Christianity is “God loves me so that I might make Him known among the nations!” God saved us to declare His majesty to all peoples. If we are saved, and we are confident of His grace and mercy, we will press the opportunity to declare Him to all the world. If the message of the Faith is about me, then I will be in charge of my service.
We have created a bifurcated Faith in this day. This is what I mean by that statement. We hear the final charge Jesus gave and we say that it applies only if we are called. Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” [MATTHEW 28:19-20]. The command applies only to me if I am specifically called. Thus, it is a partial charge.
However, we see the well-known promise of JOHN 3:16 as universal. That passage reads, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” We make the Gospel applicable to the whole world, though we make the commands of Christ contingent upon whether we feel as though we are called.
We read MATTHEW 11:28 and say, “That’s for me!” We recognise that when Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” it was an inclusive invitation for everyone. Yet, we read His words in ACTS 1:8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth,” and say, “That is for someone else. We have created a two-tiered Faith—one that benefits me, and another for someone else. It is a Faith that allows me to enjoy all the benefits while transferring the responsibilities to others.
Was I saved for my benefit? Because I deserve God’s grace? Or was I saved to serve the Living God? Did Christ redeem me so that I could feel good about myself, going to a service from time-to-time so that I could recharge my spiritual batteries? Or did the Lord save me for the praise of His glory? Unconsciously, we have created a religion that is novel, unlike anything found in the Word of God. I suggest there is a serious deficit in contemporary Christianity.
I want us to see that the Master’s commands are not suggestions, they are commands. The Great Commission is not a call, it is a command. The Master charged us with carrying His message of life through faith in Him to the entire world; this is not the work of a few, but the labour of all! Jesus made a promise to His disciples, and hence, to us. The promise is found in the midst of other statements that are quite significant, which means that it is sometimes overlooked. As He spoke with His disciples, Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” [JOHN 15:10]. Is it possible that one reason the churches are no longer noted for their deep love for one another or their love for the Saviour may have to do with our exaggerated individualism, individualism that leads us toward disobedience to His commands?
How else shall we understand the statement Jesus made shortly before His Passion? Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” [JOHN 15:14]. Relationship is intimately tied to order. We do not come to the Saviour in order to command Him to do our bidding; we come to the Saviour so that we can follow Him, so that we can serve Him, so that we can do what He commands us to do. This means that we make the effort to know His will and then do what He has revealed through His Word.
I can see how some people could look at this and begin to imagine that God is a megalomaniac, that He is off on some sort of cosmic ego trip. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. In the first place, God alone is worthy of praise and glory. We see this demonstrated in the praise described in Heaven itself. “Around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!’
“And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.’”
[REVELATION 4:6b-11]
Later, John describes the scene as the Lamb of God receives the scroll, the title deed to creation. “I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’
“And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne” [REVELATION 5:2-7].
As the Lamb takes the scroll, all Heaven bursts forth in praise and worship. “When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying,
‘Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.’
“Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!’
“And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’
“And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ and the elders fell down and worshiped” [REVELATION 5:8-14].
God is worthy of our highest praise, and we are better for having praised Him. When we offer praise to the Living God, we are acknowledging our order in the universe. Paul makes this apparent when he writes, “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” [1 CORINTHIANS 11:3].
This orderly arrangement of all creation is emphasised repeatedly throughout the New Testament, but especially in the encyclical we know as the Letter to the Church in Ephesus. Among the truths presented in that letter, we read of, “The immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” Then, Paul informs us that “[God] put all things under [Christ’s] feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” [EPHESIANS 1:19-23]. As Head over the church, Christ is to be praised. Such praise strengthens the assembly even as it glorifies the Master.
Again, Paul has written, “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” [EPHESIANS 4:15-16].
Another instance when Christ’s headship over the Body is emphasised occurs in the passage that addresses the issue of complementarity. We read, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” [EPHESIANS 5:22-24]. I don’t want us to become so focused on the responsibility of the wife to her husband that we miss what is said concerning Christ and the church. He is the Head of the church, and as such, we willingly, joyfully submit to Him in that role. It is for our benefit that He is the Head.
He Who is Head over the Body is worthy of worship. Jesus, as Sovereign Head of the Body deserves our worship, deserves our praise, deserves our finest service. No other individual is deserving of worship. We worship Him as very God, our Creator and our Redeemer. The Lord has communicated all that we need to know. He has done this for our benefit, so that we may prosper in our service to Him. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t seek to know Him more fully or endeavour to understand the deep things of God; I do mean that we have sufficient knowledge to know what is pleasing to the Lord so that we will not dishonour Him in our service.
GOD HAS COMMUNICATED SO THAT WE WILL KNOW WHAT PLEASES HIM. The text makes it abundantly obvious that God wants His people to know all that He has provided. For a brief moment, however, note the following two verses. “This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” [1 JOHN 5:14-15]. With these verses, John unites the blessing of access to God and divine responsiveness to our knowledge of God’s acceptance of us, and consequently, His acceptance of our service.
While driving about in the mountains with Wayne this past spring, he commented on his devotional reading in the Word earlier that morning. In particular, he spoke of what God said through one of the Minor Prophets, a statement that is well-known and too often ignored. You will no doubt recall Micah’s words recorded in MICAH 6:8:
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
What is God’s will for your life? What does God expect of His people? What does God expect of you? God expects us to reflect His character. We say we are His children, we claim divine parentage, shouldn’t we reflect that parentage? God tells us that doing what is right, loving kindness and humility before the Living God is what He expects of us.
A quick review of the New Testament reveals that the will of God entails, among other responsibilities, serving His people with the whole heart. The Apostle has urged us in the Ephesian Encyclical, to serve “as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,” [EPHESIANS 6:6].
We are told that the will of God for His people is their holiness, their sanctification. In the First Thessalonian Letter, we read, “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality” [1 THESSALONIANS 4:3]. That is pretty clear, I should imagine. Paul then encourages us to cultivate a trio of graces when he writes, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” [1 THESSALONIANS 5:16-18].
The will of God is that His people do what is good even when it hurts. Peter puts the issue in these words, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor” [1 PETER 2:13-17].
Clearly, the will of the Lord is that we who are called by His Name will walk in wisdom in this evil day. These are the words of Scripture: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” [EPHESIANS 5:15-17].
The passages just cited all identify what the will of the Lord is for His people. We cannot say that we are ignorant of God’s will, for God has revealed His will to us. We are to serve others with our whole heart. We are to be holy, morally pure. We are to cultivate thankful hearts. We are to be good citizens, honouring God through fulfilling responsibilities as peaceful citizens. We are to live righteous, holy lives in the midst of a fallen, immoral world.
Perhaps we might complain that we don’t know the precise steps God has planned for our life, but we know specific actions and attitudes that He has appointed us to fulfil. We will do well to remember that while it is true that each step for the follower of the Christ is guided by an unseen hand, it does not mean that God reveals precisely what will happen as each step lands. As Israel was poised on the edge of the Promised Land, God commanded the priests to bear the Ark of the Covenant while walking toward the Jordan. He promised that the Jordan would stop flowing and that the people would pass over dry shod.
We read, “As soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest), the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho. Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan” [JOSHUA 3:15-17].
What a scene that must have been! The priests, bearing the Ark of the Covenant, march resolutely toward the river. The Jordan is flooding, the waters overflowing the banks. The priests continue their unflinching march toward the river. All the people are watching. Whatever they believed would happen, they could see the river was flooding. No doubt there were many people who questioned what God was doing. Nevertheless, the priests continued their march toward the banks of the river. They neared the river; their pace did not slacken. One more step and their shoes would be wet. Listen again to what is recorded. “As soon as … the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water … the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away.”
Only when the feet of the priests touched the water did the waters stop flowing. Don’t expect God to give you a precise map of where He is leading. After all, “We walk by faith, not by sight” [2 CORINTHIANS 5:7]. Everything within us argues for us to “know” where we are going and to “know” what is going to happen with each step. It is enough to know Who is leading. We serve a God too wise to make a mistake and too good to needlessly hurt His child. He will not lead us astray, nor will we allow us to stumble. Christian, hold to His unerring promise,
“When you walk, your step will not be hampered,
and if you run, you will not stumble.”
[PROVERBS 4:12]
Again, we are assured by God’s Word,
“My son, do not lose sight of [understanding and wisdom]—
keep sound wisdom and discretion,
and they will be life for your soul
and adornment for your neck.
Then you will walk on your way securely,
and your foot will not stumble.”
[PROVERBS 3:21-23]
The vital issue to keep in mind is that if we do not know what is pleasing to the Lord, we will never know if we are pleasing Him or if we are offending Him by whatever we may be doing. God wants His people to know what honours Him so that we can enjoy Him and enjoy our relationship with Him. John writes, “This is the confidence that we have toward Him,” making it apparent that the Lord anticipates that His people will live in confidence.
Throughout this brief missive, John has emphasised confidence. For instance, John encourages us who follow the Master, “Little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.” Then, based upon this revelation, the Apostle of Love turns our attention to the practical impact of the confidence the Master gives when he writes, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him” [1 JOHN 2:28-3:1].
Soon after this, John writes, “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us” [1 JOHN 3:19-23].
We need to take a moment to unpack this because there is a lot here. Because we have placed our faith in His Son, God assures us that we are His. Because He calms our heart, we grow in confidence. Then, calmed by the promise of God, we are set free from guilt. Thus, we have confidence in God and in our relationship with Him; and in this confidence that grows out of our relationship to the Master, we know that He hears our requests and we are certain that He will give us what is best.
There is yet one other instance when John focuses on the confidence believers possess. The verses for review are found in the fourth chapter of this brief letter. John has been emphasising the expectation that we who know the Living God will love one another. Love, especially love for one another, is the universal mark of twice-born people. Since God loves us, and since He obviously loves all who are redeemed, we who follow Him are expected to love those whom God loves! Based on this self-evident truth, John writes, “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 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. 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” [1 JOHN 4:13-17].
The obvious conclusion is that God wants His people to know what pleases Him, to know what honours Him. God wants His people to walk in confidence before Him. The Living God wants His people to know that they are doing those things that glorify His Name. I simply cannot fathom why people continue to practise a religion that consigns them to living life as a giant question mark. Why would someone attend religious services, repeatedly perform rituals designed to coerce an angry god to accept them despite never knowing if their efforts were sufficient to secure peace with that god? Surely, it is only because such worshippers imagine a god so pliable that he/she/it can be manipulated through the puerile efforts of the worshipper! Surely, they think that their craft and guile, their slavish devotion will somehow compel their god to do their bidding and accept them, though they can never know if they have done enough to ensure acceptance. It must be either that, or these poor souls are so desperate that they will try anything, even though they can never know if what they do is enough.
The writer of the Letter to Hebrew Christians writes of the repeated efforts of those who sought out priests in order to be cleansed before the Lord God. This writer draws a line from their repeated efforts to the present situation of people who continually seek to assure themselves that they have done enough to induce Christ the Lord to forgive them. Then, the writer states, “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” [HEBREWS 9:24-28].
GOD HAS COMMUNICATED SO THAT WE WILL KNOW HIS RICH PROVISION FOR HIS PEOPLE. God has enriched His people with gifts that are great and wonderful. Some people, firmly tied to this material world, can think only in material terms when they speak of God’s gifts. Paul warns against thinking in this manner when he writes, “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” [COLOSSIANS 2:20-23].
I am certain that the Apostle has penned a warning that is familiar to each Christian when he writes, “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy” [1 TIMOTHY 6:17]. Though I am not focusing on the warning at this time, I do want us to note the explanatory statement concerning God’s provision. Paul has written that “God … richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” Whatever we may possess, whatever we may hold as a gift or a talent, has been entrusted to our oversight by God Who is too good to needlessly hurt us and too wise to make a mistake. God richly provides us with everything to enjoy. What He has entrusted to us is given for our enjoyment.
I am well aware that there are people who are focused on the physical parameters of life to the exclusion of every other facet of life. However, it should not need to be said that you are more than a body. You have heard me say that we are not a body that happens to house the soul and spirit—we are spiritual beings temporarily housed in a physical body. We are taught that man is a tripartite being consisting of body, soul and spirit. For this reason, the Apostle writes, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” [1 THESSALONIANS 5:23]. Likewise, we read, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” [HEBREWS 4:12]. We have a body, but we are spiritual beings and we are living souls. Obviously, then, we must strive to balance our lives if we will honour the Lord. We care for the body, knowing it is the temporary residence of the soul and the Spirit.
To be certain, each of us does have a physical parameter. Emphatically, we possess physical bodies; therefore, a comfortable home, a fine automobile, good food, a steady job should be received as gifts from God who delights to give His children good things. However, these material accoutrements are not all the sum of life; rather, such comforts demonstrate God’s kindness. Because we recognise these things as gifts from the hand of our gracious Father, we are responsible to employ what He has entrusted to us so that we may advance His Kingdom. We do not have a comfortable home solely for our enjoyment; we are responsible to use those creature comforts entrusted to us to invite others to Christ, to shelter the needy if possible, to protect our own family. We do not have a fine automobile solely to drive about in comfort; we are responsible to assist those who may have transportation requirements they can otherwise not fulfil, or we are to use our transportation to take us to visit the sick and the vulnerable.
Is this not clearly indicated when the Apostle Paul writes the Corinthians, “Now God who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your supply of seed and will cause the harvest of your righteousness to grow. You will be enriched in every way so that you may be generous on every occasion, which is producing through us thanksgiving to God” [2 CORINTHIANS 9:10-11 NET BIBLE]. God expects His people to be generous, to look for opportunities to glorify Him by blessing others. God anticipates that His people, having enjoyed His goodness, will reveal that goodness toward others at every opportunity.
We are rich people, though we may not necessarily feel rich. We are rich because we have been blessed beyond measure. We would do well to remember the delightful hymn penned by a Methodist lay preacher named Johnson Oatman.
When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, count your many blessings—name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
The second verse admonishes the child of God,
When you look at others with their lands and gold, think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold; count your many blessings—money cannot buy your reward in heaven nor your home on high.
And the chorus instructs believers,
Count your blessings—name them one by one;
count your blessings—see what God hath done.
The Apostle Paul sets the matter in perspective when he identifies God as the one who “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” [see 1 TIMOTHY 6:17]. That may focus on the material aspects of our lives, but we are especially blessed in the spiritual realm. Listen as Paul instructs Titus. “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” [TITUS 3:3-7].
Because God has richly blessed us in the spiritual realm, we anticipate that His rewards will be eternal. As we enter into eternity, what rich blessings await the child of God! Peter writes, “[The divine power of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ] has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” [2 PETER 1:3-11]. All that we need now and all that is necessary to assure us of a glorious entrance into glory, God has provided for His people. Christ the Lord has purchased salvation and life. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
* A final version of this message in PDF format will be available after 12 August 2018 at https://newbeginningsbaptist.ca/category/sermon-archives/.
