1 John 3:13-24 (Teaching)

[0:00] You'll flip with me to in the New Testament, the first John in chapter three. Really thought I was going to be preaching tonight.

[0:16] And that's why I hadn't moved the microphone. But the longer I was here, the more I realized I might ought to just teach. And that's fine.

[0:27] And it has nothing to do with the number of preached people. I've preached to two people before. I've preached to four people before.

[0:37] But I've said before that I said this while I was pastor in a church in Johnson City that a good preacher slash pastor, and I realize I'm not your pastor, but a good preacher slash pastor, sometimes he preaches and sometimes he teaches.

[0:56] And sometimes he just needs to sit and listen to what his congregation has to say. And it takes discernment to realize what needs to be done.

[1:07] And so hopefully I'm using good discernment tonight in teaching instead of preaching. I realized that I taught through first John several months ago, I guess, maybe a year or so ago.

[1:24] But we'll be in the third chapter of first John tonight. Won't do the whole chapter. But I'm going to talk about assurance tonight and teach a little bit about assurance.

[1:37] And that's something that I think we could all use as assurance. I mean, I have assurance of my salvation.

[1:48] And if you're here and you're saved, you should have assurance in your salvation. It comes from a God that cannot lie. And it comes from an eternal God.

[1:59] And everything about him is eternal. Y'all heard me say that over and over and over, that every one of God's attributes and everything about God is as eternal as he is.

[2:12] And that in itself should give us an incredible amount of assurance. But we are finite beings. And sometimes doubt creeps in.

[2:24] Sometimes questions creep in. Sometimes bad situations or bad circumstances might creep in. And it might actually affect the assurance that we have not only in our salvation that God has gifted us and he has granted us, but our assurance of God, period.

[2:47] And that's not a place that we need to be. We need to have assurance that we are God's. And not only are we God's, but he is ours.

[2:58] He is our God. He's a great God. He's a wonderful God. He's our Savior. He's the one that brought us from darkness into the light. He's the one that redeemed us, the one that reconciled us.

[3:10] And we can go on and on about the things that God has done for us. But nonetheless, like I said, we're finite creatures. And because we're finite creatures, and because we have a mind of our own, and because circumstances and situations and things like that come into our lives, sometimes it causes things to pop up in our minds that really shouldn't be there.

[3:40] But, excuse me. We'll begin at verse 13 and 1 John in chapter 3. Now leading up to this, of course it would be verse 12.

[3:56] And we'll read verse 12. And he's talking about love in this verse, and really through this chapter.

[4:07] He's talking about belief and love throughout the entire chapter. And that is a staple of John. It's a staple in the gospel of John. It's a staple in, especially in 1 John.

[4:20] And it's also one in 2 and 3 John. It's belief or faith and love. But in verse 12, he says, not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother, but whereof slew he him, because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous.

[4:42] So he's talking about Cain here, of course slewing or slaying or killing his brother Abel. He's talking about works.

[4:53] He says that our work shouldn't be like that. And this verse, then he goes on to verse 13, which is where we'll pick up reading. He says, Marvel, not my brethren. If the world hates you.

[5:03] Well, that verse is hens to verse 12. That's why we read it. Because that was a good example of Cain hating his brother and what happens when we hate people.

[5:17] You know, we would hate them. We would disagree with them. And bad things come about because of that.

[5:27] But he says, Marvel, not my brethren. That the world hate you right after stating this fact from the book of Genesis in chapter four, that Cain slew his brother.

[5:38] He says, Marvel, not that the world hates you. In other words, don't be surprised the world hates you. Cain was a representative of the world in that previous verse. And of course, Abel would have been a representative of God's people in that previous verse and in the book of Genesis.

[5:56] And that's why he leads it or that leads into Marvel, not my brethren. If the world hates you and folks, the world will hate us. And people say, well, hatred is such a strong term.

[6:10] And that's something that we've been conditioned to think as a society, as a people, not just here in the tri-cities. I mean, really, all around our country and even all around the world is that hate is such a strong word.

[6:26] Can't we tone that down? No, we can't. Because the world does hate the people of God. And you'll have people that are lost, people that are unregenerate that'll say, I don't hate the church people.

[6:41] I love the church people. I don't hate the people of God. I love the people of God. But if a saved person hangs out with a lost person for long enough, the true thoughts of that lost person toward that saved person will eventually manifest.

[7:00] Something's going to be said, something's going to be done. And the world will hate us. Why does the world hate us? The world hates us for the same reasons that the world hated Jesus Christ.

[7:11] It's because the life that Jesus Christ lived in front of them was holy. And it was pure and it was righteous. And if we live a life like that in front of the world, they're going to hate us for it.

[7:23] If they hated Jesus for it, they're going to hate us for it just as much and for the same reason, because it's a testimony against their life, because they know their life is not right with God.

[7:35] They know that their life is not pure before God. It's not righteous and it's not holy before God. And I'm not saying that we live a perfect life just like Jesus Christ did, but we strive under perfection.

[7:49] We strive to live that life. We don't purposely sin. We don't go out seeking to sin. We don't wake up in the morning to sin or wondering how we're going to sin. I think I talked about that a little bit not long ago.

[8:04] And while I was teaching through the first John here, we don't perpetually sin, continually sin. We sin every day, yes. But it's not at the forefront of our being and of our life.

[8:18] So he begins this section with Marvel Not, my brethren, at the World Hate You. And I'll tell you all the same thing. Don't be surprised. Marvel Not at the World Hate You.

[8:30] Jesus told his disciples, he said, if the world hate you, know you that it hated me before it hated you. Know you that it hated me first, in other words.

[8:41] And remember, though, Christian, that when the world hates you, I won't even say if. When the world hates you, it is not because of who you are. It's because of whom you are associated with.

[8:53] And I've pressed that over and over here and other places that I've taught and preached. It's because of Jesus Christ that the world will hate us. Verse 14, we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.

[9:09] Me that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Folks, this is one assurance of several that we can point out throughout 1 John.

[9:19] This is one assurance that we can have that we belong to God. He says, we know that we have passed from death unto life. When did we pass from death unto life? At the very moment that we got saved.

[9:31] The very moment that God regenerated us. He took out that stony heart that we had and He put in a heart of flesh. The very moment that the Holy Spirit of God moved in is when we passed from death unto life.

[9:47] John's not talking about here, though, about the moment that we became saved. He says that we know that we have passed from death unto life. We know that we belong to God because we love the brethren.

[10:01] And I know when I talked through 1 John, I said it then and I'll say it now, before I was saved, I hated the church. I hated the church. I hated the church people. I hated the Bible.

[10:12] I hated God. I hated godly things. I hated anything that was godly. I hated it. But once I got saved, all that changed. And that is an assurance of my faith.

[10:23] It's an assurance of my salvation that that has changed. The Bible teaches in Ephesians 2 that we're dead and our trespasses in sin. And we remain that way until God saves our unworthy souls.

[10:39] And He saves it by His grace. It's not of our works that continues there in Ephesians 2. It's not of our works lest any man should boast. It is by the works of Jesus Christ.

[10:50] It is by the grace of God that we are saved. It's by the grace of God that He has brought us from death to life. But this is an assurance. We know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.

[11:04] He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. And this is the shape that the world, the unregenerate world, is in. He that hateeth not his brother abideth in death.

[11:16] And I know when I talked through 1 John, I concentrated pretty hard on tenses of words. And I'll do that now where it says that He that hateeth his brother abideth in death.

[11:30] Both of those are perfect tense, meaning that it's someone who continually hates their brother. They continually abide in death. It's not that they hate him for a little while, then they're all right or anything along those lines.

[11:47] And the same can be said for those of us who are saved. Jesus said, He that believeth on me hath eternal life. He says all that in the perfect tense, meaning He that continually believes upon me continually has perfect life, perpetual he has, or not perfect life, but everlasting life, eternal life.

[12:09] And both of those are continual and they're perpetual. But here in this verse where he says, we know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. And the question is, why do we love the brethren?

[12:23] Because we could enter that a few different ways, I guess, but one would be because we have the love of God in us. But at the same time, we could say, well, I've got a brother or sister in Christ that's part of my little club, or they're part of my church.

[12:43] I should love them. Or they do this or they do that, folks. But the world can say those very same things. The world can say, well, this person's on my team.

[12:54] This person's in my club. This person's on my side. I love them for that. So that's not what we're getting at here. We know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.

[13:08] We love the brethren because we have the love of Christ in us, yes. But it's not just because we have the love of Christ in us, but it's because they belong to Christ just as we belong to Christ.

[13:23] We're of the same family. It doesn't matter your skin color. It doesn't matter your ethnicity. It doesn't matter your locality. None of those things. We know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.

[13:36] And we love the brethren because the brethren belongs to Christ just as we belong to Christ. This is why we love the brethren. Not just because the love of God and the Spirit of God has moved in on the inside and now abides with us eternally.

[13:52] It's because the Spirit of God and the love of God has moved in with a brother or sister in Christ. And we love them. He's talking about the brethren. He's talking about fellow believers in this.

[14:03] I understand that Jesus said that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor. And we've emphasized over and over and over that it doesn't say you're saved neighbor or you're lost neighbor.

[14:15] It just says you're neighbor. And this is true. But John here is writing about, he's writing to believers about believers in this particular section. And we love those brethren because we have the love of Christ and because they have the same owner that we do.

[14:35] We belong to Christ. They belong to Christ. We're all in the same family. But another thing about this though, we know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.

[14:48] This isn't the basis of salvation, of passing from death unto life because we have love for the brethren.

[14:59] That's not the basis of it. That is the evidence of it. And that's exactly what John is saying when he says we know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. Because anybody, the world included, could say I love so and so.

[15:12] I love this one. I love that one. And that is not the basis of having eternal life. However, it is the evidence that we have eternal life because we love the brethren.

[15:26] Verse 15, whosoever hated his brother is a murderer and he know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Whosoever hated his brother is a murderer.

[15:38] How many of y'all have hated somebody in your life? I certainly have. I have. Have I hated anybody since I've been saved?

[15:48] Honestly, I can't think of a single person that I've had hatred in my heart for since I've been saved. That's not to say it hasn't happened. Maybe I'm just not recalling it.

[15:59] I know before service we was talking about me getting pulled over years and years ago and me being irritated with a certain state trooper and me holding a grudge against him.

[16:10] But folks, I don't hate that man. I don't hate that man a bit. I hope he goes to heaven right along with me. I hope we're already both in the same boat and we both already have the same owner, which is Jesus Christ.

[16:24] What we were just talking about. I don't have hatred for that man. But it says, whosoever hated his brother. So we've gone from just talking about the brethren to whosoever.

[16:37] Whosoever hated his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. So if we if we have had hatred in our heart for someone, whether it's a brother, whether it's a sister, whether it's a mother or a father, or a neighbor or whoever it was, if at any time saved or lost, we've had hatred in our heart for another person.

[17:02] The Bible says the same is a murderer. So whether we've ever pierced someone's heart with a knife, whether we've ever shot someone, strangled someone, whatever is insignificant.

[17:12] According to what I'm reading about here in the scripture, the Bible says that anyone whosoever has hate, hate with his brother is a murderer. But he goes on saying, you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

[17:28] So people with hate in their hearts, remember, we're talking about belief and love, mainly an assurance in this. But he says that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

[17:42] No murderer does. No murderer is going to inherit the kingdom of God. No murderer will inherit the kingdom of heaven. They won't be there.

[17:52] Forgiven murderers will. But if you're a forgiven murderer, you're not going to go out murdering people anymore. Just like if you're a forgiven liar, you're not going to go out lying anymore.

[18:04] If you're a forgiven thief, you're not going to go out stealing anymore. If you're a forgiven adulterer, you're not going to go out and continuously commit adultery or any other sin that we can think of.

[18:16] Those things cease with a born again child of God, because we've got a new nature. We've got a spirit or the spirit of God abiding on the inside of us that is guiding us in the ways of God and guiding us in the things of God.

[18:32] So verse 16, hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Hereby we perceive the love of God.

[18:45] So he's saying, this is how we perceive. This is how we understand the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

[19:00] This is how we know the love of God for us is what he's saying here. This is how we know because he laid down his life for us. For who?

[19:12] For us. But the thing about us is us, we were once upon a time God's enemy.

[19:22] The Bible says in Book of Romans says, but God committed his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, cross died for us. He laid down his life for us, his enemy, those that were against him, those that lived ungodly lives, those that did purposely did evil things and enjoyed doing those evil things.

[19:45] He laid down his life for us. We haven't always been redeemed folks. We haven't always been saved. We haven't always repented of our ways.

[19:55] But nevertheless, God laid down his life for us. Cross laid down his life for us. And this is how we perceive the love of God because he laid down his life for us and that verse continues.

[20:07] And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren and I know when I was going through 1st John, I explained and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren this way.

[20:17] Are we willing to die for the brethren? I mean suffer a physical death for a brother or a sister in Christ. We ought to be willing to do that. Would I do that if it actually came up?

[20:29] I mean, something happened and somebody comes in this church and puts a gun to my head and says, Spencer, it's either your life or Billy's or your life or Justin's or whoever.

[20:41] Would I be willing to say go ahead and take my life? I hope I never have to find that out. I really do. I would like to say absolutely I would do that and I can stand here and say I believe that I would.

[20:53] But if I was ever putting those shoes, would I follow through with that? But that's not the only thing that we can get out of this half of the verse that we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

[21:06] We also ought to lay down our lives as far as what we want for ourselves at that time. If a brother or sister has a need, if they're suffering, if they're, you know, feeling down, whatever the case is, if they're facing a trial or trouble of some kind.

[21:27] We ought to be willing to lay down our life for just a little while. What we had planned for ourselves, we ought to be able to say I'm not going to watch that TV show.

[21:37] I'm going to call so-and-so and check on them instead. Or I'm not going to go to this game. I'm going to go over so-and-so's house and check on them or whatever the case is. That's another way we can lay down our lives for the brethren.

[21:50] We can lay down what we want to do. We can lay down what's going to please our flesh. I'm not talking about sinful things when I talk about pleasing the flesh in that. But lay down the plans that we had for that evening or for the next day or that afternoon or whatever the case is.

[22:05] We can lay that down for a brother or sister in Christ. And we ought to be willing to do that. If we have true love for the brethren and we know that we've passed from death into life because we love the brethren, if that love is absolutely true, we should be willing to lay down our lives for them.

[22:27] So verse 17, excuse me, But whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother hath need and shudderth up his bowels of compassion from him, How dwelleth the love of God in him?

[22:41] Let's continue on with verse 18, Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth. So back to verse 17, But whoso, now again, this is whoso.

[22:54] This isn't just the brethren they speaking of here. But whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother hath need and shudderth up his bowels of compassion from him, How dwelleth the love of God in him?

[23:08] And that is a fine question. If we see a brother in need, if we see anyone in need really, being people of God, if we see anyone in need and we see them, we see that they're suffering somehow, we see that they're in need of something, whether it be clothes, whether it be food, whether it be of just time, or listening ear, whatever the case is, and we shut up our bowels of compassion toward them.

[23:34] In other words, we shut up our heart toward them, and we show them no pity, we show them no sympathy whatsoever. How dwelleth the love of God in us if we do that?

[23:48] And the very simple answer to that question is the love of God doesn't dwell in us if we do that. It doesn't dwell in us if we close our heart to someone that is in need.

[24:01] He goes on in verse 18, My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth. Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth.

[24:18] And folks, this is ever important, ever important. We think, especially coming from the verse that we did just a couple of verses ago, where it says we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, then we read these two verses, and John here is telling us that we need to love indeed and in truth.

[24:40] We think that laying down our lives for the brethren, we can think about that all day long, and it's very easily thought of. Great deeds, heroic deeds, things that stand out.

[24:55] We only think of that, but what about the small things? Like what I mentioned earlier, just giving somebody a phone call, giving somebody a phone call, letting them know that you're praying for them, that you're thinking about them, that you're there for them if they need you.

[25:14] And folks, that goes a long way. That goes a very long way. Send a text message, my goodness, you don't even have to have a phone conversation nowadays. You send a text message, most people only answer their phones anyway, truth be known, but you send a text message to somebody, let them know you're praying for them.

[25:29] And that goes a very long way. But this giving really itself sacrifice that we're talking about here.

[25:46] I mean, we can go back to the verse where he says that we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That's self-sacrifice that John is getting at there. And I think that John was specifically talking about lay down our physical lives for the brethren.

[25:59] I used laying down parts of our lives or things that we wanted to do just as an adage for that. But doing things for people, that's self-sacrifice.

[26:12] I'm going to do this for them instead of doing that for me. That's self-sacrifice. And folks, that is the love that Jesus Christ had and has for you and I.

[26:24] It was a self-sacrificing love. Jesus gave his life upon the cross for us. And we've already been over who us was and who us is.

[26:36] Those that were once his enemy, those that were against him and not for him. And against the things of God, he laid down his life for us. So we should be willing to have a self-sacrificial attitude toward our brothers and really toward our neighbors.

[26:54] So my little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth. And this is something that, you know, there's all kinds of professors out there.

[27:10] There's all kinds of people that will profess to be Christian, that will profess to have the love of God in them. But really, someone shutting up their bowels of compassion in the verse before this, and someone that is not loving indeed and in truth, it don't matter what kind of profession they're making.

[27:31] Their actions will tell the true tale of whether they actually have the love of God abiding in them. Verse 19, And hereby we know that we are of the truth, excuse me again.

[27:45] Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then we have confidence toward God.

[28:00] So back to verse 19, Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. How? He says in hereby, in other words, this is how we shall know that we are of the truth.

[28:16] How is that? Well, he tells us about, he said, Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him.

[28:27] And loving, we just went over it. Loving others indeed and in truth, this is the hereby that we're talking about. But again, this hinges.

[28:38] In other words, it hinges on the verse before, which is, my little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue or deed, but in deed or neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth.

[28:49] Then we have this hinge verse. And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. Then it swings the other way for if our heart condemns, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things.

[29:03] So when we love indeed and we love in truth, this should assure our hearts before God, if we're doing these things.

[29:17] And folks, if it's true, we know that it's true. I know, I know if I love you in truth, I know if I love you indeed and you know if you truly love me in truth, and indeed and in truth.

[29:32] And this assures our hearts before God. Verse 20, for if our heart condemns, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. And this, for some reason, is a very tricky verse in the theological world, in the church world in general, for if our heart condemns, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things.

[29:53] Well, folks, I gotta tell you, I know I'm a born-again creature, a born-again creation in Christ Jesus, but my heart condemns me sometimes.

[30:05] And if you're honest with yourself, your heart condemns you. This would be your conscience that it's talking about here. Now, we can go back a couple of verses and talk about shutting up our bowels of compassion to a brother and talk about how we're loving someone, whether it's indeed and whether it's in truth.

[30:22] We can go back and talk about those things. And that might be some of the very things that is being addressed here, when it says, if our heart condemns, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things.

[30:36] Well, I thank God that he is greater than my heart. The condemnation that my heart brings me sometimes is pretty heavy. If I know I should do something and I don't do it, folks, the Bible says, he that knows to do good and do with it, not to him, it is sin.

[30:55] So if I know to do something good and I don't do it, it's sin. And my conscience should condemn me for that. The Holy Spirit of God should and will condemn me for that.

[31:06] But it says, if our heart condemns, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. And I think God that he is greater than my heart, he's greater than my conscience.

[31:17] But folks, this verse makes me think of 1 John 1 and 9, knowing that if any of us have sinned that we can go to God, we can confess our sin to him.

[31:30] And he is faithful and just to cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. So when our heart does condemn us, God is greater than our heart.

[31:43] We know from Romans 8, 1, that there is therefore now no condemnation that are in Christ Jesus, that are in Christ Jesus. So even though my heart condemns me sometimes, and it probably condemns you all sometimes, praise God when that happens.

[32:00] Praise God when you feel condemned by your own conscience. But go to God with that. Go to God with that and ask his forgiveness. And he is faithful and he is just to forgive that.

[32:13] Normally if your conscience is condemning you about something, it's because you've done something that you shouldn't have. Or because you didn't do something that you should have. That's when your conscience will get a hold of you.

[32:24] But if our heart condemns God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things, I'm glad that he knows all things. I'm glad that he doesn't just know, well, your conscience condemned you. You must be guilty. Yes, he knows that I'm guilty.

[32:37] But he also knows that I'm his child. He also knows that I'm his child. And I go to him as my father. And when I go to him as my father, he looks on me as his child.

[32:52] And folks, I don't know how it was with you all, but I know when I was growing up and I've done something wrong or done something that mom and daddy plainly told me not to do.

[33:03] And I'd done it anyway and I got in trouble for it. I would go to them or I would be brought before them. I would be called whatever the case was. But either way, I was before them.

[33:14] And sooner or later, I would have to fess up to what I did. And I might still get in trouble. And folks, when we do that with God, he knows anyway. The Bible here says he knows all things.

[33:26] He knows anyway what we've done. We might as well just fess it up to him. We might still be punished. We might still get a weapon from our Heavenly Father, but everything's out there in the open.

[33:37] There's nothing left to condemn us at that point. We have done confessed it to God and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And what a clear conscience that gives us.

[33:51] What a wonderful feeling that gives us to know that we've received forgiveness for that sin from our Father. But beloved, if our heart condemns us not, then we have confidence toward God.

[34:04] In other words, once we get that clear conscience, if our heart condemns us not, if our heart condemns us not, then have we confidence toward God?

[34:19] Folks, when we go to God with a clear conscience, and the only way we can have that clear conscience is through and in Christ Jesus, our Savior.

[34:30] But when we can go in that knowing, knowing that I'm born again, knowing that I'm a child of God, knowing that He has forgiven me, and knowing that He will forgive me for whatever it is that my conscience has condemned me for.

[34:45] Folks, that's a wonderful feeling of liberty. Not liberty to sin, not liberty to go out and do unrighteousness, not liberty to go to God.

[34:56] Folks, that is a liberty, that is a freedom that I did not have before I was saved. I couldn't just go to Him. I had to repent, and I had to believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, before I had that kind of freedom.

[35:09] But once I'm born again, now that I'm born again, I have freedom and liberty to go to God with everything that is on my conscience. Whether it be sin, whether it be something else, whether it be circumstances that has come my way, or whatever the case is, I have that liberty to go to my Father, and I did not have that before.

[35:29] But when I can go to God with a clear conscience, and many times we don't get that clear conscience till after we've done repented of a sin that we've committed, whether it be a sin of omission or a sin of commission, but once we get that clear conscience, what a feeling of liberty that gives us.

[35:47] Beloved if our heart condemned us not, then we have confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

[35:59] So He's gone here from talking about belief and talking about love, and now He's talking about, and He's talked about our heart condemning us, our conscience condemning us, and then what it's like to go to God with a clear conscience, and He goes straight from that into prayer, into going to God with whatever is on your heart and whatever is on your mind.

[36:26] Again, verse 21, beloved if our heart condemned us not, then we have confidence toward God. Then He starts speaking about prayer, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

[36:42] Now, I know when I talked through 1 John, I made this clear, and it's brought up a couple of times throughout 1 John, that when it says, whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, does not mean we say, Lord, will you please let me win that two-bazillion-dollar jackpot lottery ticket thing that they do, and He's going to give it to us.

[37:07] That's not what we're talking about here. And some people will turn it into that. I've seen these verses used for that very thing. The Bible says that whatsoever we ask, He'll give it to us.

[37:19] And it does say that, but we've got to keep it in the context that it's in, but we've been talking about love and we've been talking about our faith and belief here.

[37:30] So if we have love toward God and love toward our brothers and sisters, and we have faith toward God, that Jesus Christ has died for us, then what are we going to be asking of God?

[37:43] Chances are it's not going to be things along those lines. Things that, as James says in chapter 4, that we can consume upon our own lust. It says you have not because you ask not, and you have not because you ask amiss.

[37:58] You can consume it upon your own lust. Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And again, this isn't something that the world does.

[38:10] This is something that saved people do. We keep His commandments, not perfectly, not perfectly, but we do. We strive to keep the commandments of God. And what are the two greatest commandments?

[38:21] To love God and to love your neighbor. And in them is wrapped up all the law and all the prophets according to what we read in the Gospel accounts.

[38:32] We keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave commandment.

[38:44] What does it mean here when He says that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ? We believe in everything about Jesus Christ.

[38:55] If we believe in the name or on the name of Jesus Christ, we believe in the person of Jesus Christ. We believe in the work of Jesus Christ. We believe in everything that Jesus Christ has done, everything that He is currently doing, and everything that He will do that the Bible tells us about in the future.

[39:15] The Bible is not exhaustive, I have a feeling, on everything the cross will do in the future. But to believe on the name of Jesus Christ means to believe on all of Jesus Christ.

[39:29] And everything about Jesus Christ, so He says, and this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave commandment. Again, we're back to belief or faith and love, belief in Jesus Christ and love toward our neighbor, toward our brethren.

[39:51] So belief in love, once again, when I got started tonight, this whole section is on assurance. I mean, from starting at verse 13, on down it's on assurance.

[40:03] We have belief in Jesus Christ, and we truly love the brethren, folks, that should give us assurance that we are indeed God's, that we do indeed belong to Him.

[40:14] And if y'all are like me, sometimes you just don't feel saved. Sometimes you just feel like you're wandering around, no guidance, you feel, and you wonder, God, where are you?

[40:28] But thank God it's not a feeling that saved me. And I cannot base my salvation on a feeling. If I did, folks, I'd be lost right now.

[40:40] I'd be lost most of the time if I was basing it on a feeling. But now I appreciate the times that I can truly feel God. I do, and every one of you, if you're here and you're born again, then you felt God at some point in your life, probably several times over.

[40:57] And I appreciate those times, folks. I cannot base my salvation on that. I base my salvation on the finished work of Jesus Christ and my belief in that work, and on the assurances that we can find throughout the Scripture, like the one that we read a little while ago, that we know we have passed from death on a life because we love the brethren.

[41:21] I do love the brethren. That gives me assurance that I am one of His. Verse 24, You had no need for Jesus Christ, and I can promise you, you and I both have need of Jesus Christ because we cannot keep the commandments perfectly.

[42:07] He that keepeth His commandments, or He that keepeth His commandments, dwelleth in Him. That word dwelleth is perfect tense. And He in Him.

[42:19] So I'm dwelling in Christ, and Christ is dwelling in me, and I can think of no better way to dwell than with Christ and He with me, and in Christ and He with me.

[42:32] And hereby we know that He abideth in us, and that word abideth is perfect tense, meaning He continually abideth in us, and hereby we know He abideth in us by the Spirit which He hath given us.

[42:46] And we need to keep that in mind as Christians. God was under no obligation to give us His Spirit. God was under no obligation to sin His Spirit.

[42:59] The Bible here says hereby we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He hath given us. The Spirit of God, the third person of the Triune Godhead, is a gift from God to us, to us which are saved, to us which have been redeemed, us which have been born again.

[43:18] It is a gift of God that we have that Spirit. And it is a gift that we neglect much of the time as believers. I'm as guilty of it as anyone else.

[43:30] We neglect the gift that we have in the Spirit just like we neglect our prayer life. The most useful tool that we have is probably the most neglected tool that we have, which is prayer.

[43:43] But folks, we have the Spirit of God abiding within us, and this is exactly how we abiding Christ and He abiding us is by this gift of the Spirit that God has granted to us who believe.

[43:56] And that brings us to the end of that chapter. And I hope that was a help to you all. Does anybody have any questions or comments on any of that?