Blessed Assurance Pt 3 – Hearts condemn?
Readings: 1 John 3. 11-24 & John 10. 11-18
We’re continuing our series on 1 John, where he’s writing to give us assurance. And he began his letter giving his readers the assurance that what they have been taught, what they have come to believe is objectively true. That he’s a firsthand witness to these events which have changed the world. So if we doubt that these things happened, John wants to assure us that he was there, they did happen. And now he moves on to assure us that if we believe in Christ that we truly are saved, that the Gospel is subjectively true, true for us.
John is continuing on this theme of love. Having spoken about how God in his love for us has made us his children and how in being adopted our lives have been changed, John now turns to a theme which weaves through his letter again and again, one we’ll properly cover next week; love for one another. And John sees love in a very practical sense, it’s not about warm feelings and kind words, it’s about our actions. He’s rooting his vision of love in the cross. Christ died so that we might live, and that for John is the definition of love, laying down your life for another. And so if we are God’s children, if we are in on the family of God we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If we see a fellow Christian in need our response in love should be to see that their needs are met, even at the expense of our own comfort. At the very least we should have pity on them. I could go on but I want to save something for next week.
But mention it here because John moves from this treatise about how the hallmark of a Christian is sacrificial love to how we can know for ourselves that we are in Christ. How do we know that we’re truly Christians.
I don’t know is that’s something you struggle with. You believe the Gospel objectively but is it true for me? I know all this stuff, I assent to it, but am I really saved, am I really a Christian? Will I get to eternity and find that actually I didn’t have this one thing I needed and so too late lose out? How do we quieten our anxious hearts in those moments with the truth of the Gospel? We don’t want to shut up actual promptings if we’re not saved, if we just come to church but don’t really know Jesus, we want to hear those out and act on them don’t we. But if we are in Christ how do we calm our anxious heart and mind?
Well John is really helpful at distinguishing between an anxious heart which is in Christ and promptings which witness we are not. Because he roots his first test back into the hallmark of a Christian. Do we love our fellow Christians?
The first test he gives is to look at the fruits of our life. Are we loving our brothers and sisters not just in words but with action. Do we sacrifice for one another, do we love and care for one another when it’s not easy. Do we love our fellow Christians who aren’t like us, who are from a different background or class or area. Does our love for our fellow Christians look different to how the world loves? And again John isn’t talking about a vague sense of love, in speech or thought, he’s talking about being able to point to actual moments, actual things we have done which reveal our love for one another. They might be big things, they may be small things. But John’s first way to calm an anxious heart is to point ourselves to the concrete evidence of the fruits of our renewed lives, namely our practical love for one another.
And if in examining our lives we find little in the way of that fruit we must then do something about it. It may be that we are in Christ but have let our love, let our faith grow cold, and so we need to rekindle it, fan it into flame once more, we must take action to put right what is wrong. It may be that actually upon reflection we find that we really don’t love our fellow Christians, maybe instead we find disdain there, a hatred and an envy. And if that is what you find then John would call us to cry out to the Lord to save us, to bring us into his light, to plant within us the saving Gospel of his love and life. So whether we discover that our faith and love has grown cold or we find it was never truly there to begin with, regardless what we need is Christ, his saving life and mercy and love. We need not more effort, more trying to save ourselves, instead we are to fling ourselves upon him and ask him to ignite in us his life and love. This first test of John’s helps us to see where we are at with Jesus because our faith should produce fruit.
But perhaps you’ve examined your life, found evidence of your love for your brothers and sisters, can point to that love in action in big ways or small, and yet your heart won’t quieten, it still accuses, what then?
Well contrary to popular belief in our day, John tells us we’re not to trust our hearts. It’s common parlance in our day ‘follow your heart’, ‘seek what your heart desires’. And yet John, in harmony with the rest of Scripture is quick to remind us that actually our hearts are fickle things, they cannot be trusted, they may accuse us but it may not be with God’s voice that they are speaking.
And so we’re to bring ourselves before God. We’re to stand there the three of us, God, us and our hearts, and we’re to listen to God. God knows everything, if we want assurance, go right to the source of all knowledge and truth, we’re to come before God and say, I believe in you, I trust in you and yet my heart is telling me that it’s all a lie, that I don’t believe, that I don’t trust.
Turning to our Gospel reading sometimes the wolf which comes to scatter isn’t out there somewhere, sometimes it’s in here. Sometimes it’s our hearts condemning us, telling us to give up, walk away, God could never love you after what you’ve done. So we’re to come to the true shepherd and guardian of our souls. And we’re to listen to what he says.
Last year, around this time I was working in McDonalds. Lots of people don’t believe me when I say this, but I loved it, it was hard, but it was great. And a few days in I was working on putting all the different food into bags for the different orders and one of my jobs was assembling the delivery orders. All the delivery drivers are self employed through different companies and one of them was really difficult, could be rather nasty. And I was working hard, trying to get orders assembled, but not as fast as others could because I was new and still getting the hang of things. And this driver starts yelling stuff across the counter at me, at my manager about how I’m slow, I’m useless, I’m making him lose money etc. He’s getting louder and more agitated and more unpleasant. And do you know what happened? The rest of the crew closed ranks around me. The manager held up my side and went to fight my corner with this guy. The other people working round me encouraged me, told me not to listen, how great I was doing. One offered to whack him in the carpark if he did it again. Why? Why did they do that? They barely knew me I’d been there 4 days and I really wasn’t that great at the job yet. So why? Because I was one of them. I belonged to them and so they were going to fight my corner, tooth and nail if they had to.
When our hearts condemn us, when the enemy comes and accuses us; you’re a terrible Christian you just lost your temper. You’re rubbish at this loving thing, you may have done that good thing last week but look at the mess you’ve made this week. You can’t really be saved, you wouldn’t be having doubts if you were really saved. You’ve sinned again, why do you even bother, just give up already, God’s already given up on you.
When condemnation comes we’re to run into the arms of our shepherd, because he will scoop us up and assure us, he will speak over us words of affirmation and encouragement. As we open the Scriptures we will find him speaking there. He will knock back the voices which condemn, will speak against them, speak over them. Why? Because we’re his. Thanks be to God, he has already given us the victory, sin has no power, death has no power, Satan has no power, indeed our own accusing hearts have no power in his presence. Why? Because we’re his. And once we are his there is nothing getting between him and us, not in this life nor the next.
Why? Because his Spirit is in us. That’s how John finishes this section. This is how we know we abide in Jesus, because his Spirit abides in us. When our hearts condemn us, the Spirit speaks to assure us that we are his.
Do you doubt your salvation? Perhaps you’ve never even thought about it. But do you doubt this might be true for you. John tells us what to do. Examine our lives, look for the fruits of God at work, practical love for our fellow believers. That’s assurance number one. Then go to God, the one who knows all truth, and ask him if we are his, for if we are, we will find that nothing in all creation can snatch us from his hand. That’s assurance number two. Do not let your heart condemn you, run to Jesus and find in him that blessed assurance that we are his and he is ours.
Amen.