The Two Pillars Of Godly Support: Belief And Love - 1john 3:23 Series

MESSAGE – THE TWO PILLARS OF GODLY SUPPORT: BELIEF AND LOVE - 1John 3:23

We will be looking at a verse in the first letter of John but just to place it into context we will look at 4 verses – {{1 John 3 v 21-24, but it is verse 23 that is our focus. 1John 3 v 21 “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God, 1John 3:22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight, 1John 3:23 AND THIS IS HIS COMMANDMENT, THAT WE BELIEVE IN THE NAME OF HIS SON JESUS CHRIST AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER, JUST AS HE COMMANDED US. 1John 3:24 The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”}}

THE FIRST PILLAR - BELIEF

There are two verbs of importance in verse 23. The first is “believe” – “believe in the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ”, and the second is “love” – “love one another”. The first verb is wider than the second. It is God’s commandment that we believe. Is this just for Christians, for John wrote this to Christians? No, it can’t be, because Christians are believers and believe already. There is a sense where Christians must keep on believing, and in that understanding, it means to keep on trusting. It is a failing by some, that in their early days with the Lord, they keep trusting like a child who keeps walking with a parent, hand in hand, but after a while, drops that hand, and goes it alone. Some Christians, when they are more established, very imperceptibly, lessen the trust in the Lord, and place it more in their own ability and decision-making. Not consciously, but bit by bit, they take back control of their own lives, and wonder why God seems absent.

The very worst situation is when you take control of your own life, and then try to take control of God’s people. It is vital that our continual trust in God is the same as when we first used that God-given trust to put our lives in God’s hands at the start. Our end must be as our start – focussed, child-like faith, or trust in our Saviour.

John writes to Christians in his letter, not to unbelievers, so the primary application of believing in His Son, Jesus Christ, is for Christians and in the sense I just stated – the ongoing measure of believing. We begin by faith; we must end the same way. There is a very sobering verse in the New Testament – {{Hebrews 3 v 12 “Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart in falling away from the living God,”}}

To transfer continual trust from God to our own efforts, spells disaster, not only for us, but for others. However, I feel this commandment John speaks about in this verse, the commandment to believe, is also wider than just for Christians. It is for the whole world. In Acts 17 v 30, God is declaring through Paul – {{“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent.”}} Repentance leads to faith and trust. The great gospel verse of John 3 v 16 has the same theme. It is encumbered on men to believe; and to believe not, is to one’s own peril.

MAN IS WITHOUT EXCUSE

To assist mankind, God has placed before mankind, such a display of His power and wonders, that any rational, honest person, can only make one conclusion – that there is a God, and He rewards those who seek Him earnestly. Romans 1 concludes all people guilty if anyone rejects the declaration of God in creation. Man gropes in his own utter foolishness to dismiss God. The continual discoveries in the universe of colossal power and majesty, is clearly before this generation as never before. The discovery of the absolute complexity of life through the analysis of DNA and the double helix, is astounding – all in our generation.

The unexplained behaviour and insight of plants and animals is put down to random evolution. Who taught the sun bird to build its nest? What school did baby sunbirds go to, to learn? Who taught a flock of birds to dart effortlessly at great speed through a tangle of branches? What aviation certificate did they study for? Who taught the salmon such skills that it is able to return from the ocean to the very stream where it was born? Do they all study cartography at university? I could go on all day about the absolute marvels of creation; and all this dismissed by those who try to tell us that life arrived on earth on some comet. Of course, the searing heat of friction when entering the atmosphere, would have melted it so much that any organic compound that might have been on the comet in the first place, would have been instantly destroyed. The evolutionists say that life developed from the slime in a pond. Slime is also life, so where did the slime come from?