Assurance
1 John 3: 19-24
The Letters of John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Introduction: Throughout my too
many decades in public education, I was always curious about the educational
fascination with Pavlov’s experimentation with dogs as well as the ongoing
experiments with the rats in mazes?
Recently I was pointed to a web article by a B.K. Eakman on the subject
of “’cognitive dissonance’, which is a stressful
mental or emotional reaction caused by trying to reconcile two opposing,
inconsistent, or conflicting beliefs held simultaneously”. Since I was obviously never a candidate to
profit from too close an insight on what the educators were really up to, I
only knew about this from bitter experience.
After reading this article I can better understand several heart attacks
and even a death or two of dedicated honest workers who suffered from this form
of harassment over the years.
The article begins with a situation whereby a young
man’s “confidence in his parents and himself”
are shaken apart on purpose. Rather than
building up and using parental authority to assurance in foundational morality,
his very assurance is attacked and discredited so that something base and
worthless may be conditioned in his mind instead. The new values being instilled are reported
from an educational in-service workshop.
They include:
1.
“There is no right or wrong, only conditioned responses.
2.
The collective good is more important than the individual.
3. Consensus is more important than principle.
4.
Flexibility is more important than accomplishment.
5.
Nothing is permanent except change.
6.
All ethics are situational; there are no moral absolutes.
7. There are no perpetrators, only
victims.”
I can remember when counselors first got into the
public schools and they began talking about the necessary difficulties between
adolescents and their parents, which everyone must be made aware of. It quickly
became a self-fulfilling diagnosis. Well, I wasn't born yesterday, and I had a
loving home and so I didn't waste my time with the secular counselors. Again, when I was in my thirties, our
counseling staff began talking about every one's mid-life crisis. One education
believed the fraudulent line so much, that it did indeed became a
self-fulfilling prophecy. He created his own crisis, found an excuse and left
his wife and family for a temporary Bohemian lifestyle. Finally, right on schedule, his mid-life
crisis ended and he turned up with a new wife and a second family.
Another professional in recent years came into our
school to describe a new sickness, which could afflict the children of
fundamentalistic parents. For a year the professional caregivers at our school
went out of their way to deliver as many children of these parents as they
could from their parent's faith, guidance and control. Given all of these practices and the diabolic
unprofessional destruction of a normal person's assurance that all is well, it
is sometimes with fear and trembling that evangelical ministers take on the
Godly task of not only comforting the afflicted but also afflicting the
comfortable! Even as the world more and more takes on the methods and
principles of Godly encouragement for their own nefarious purposes, those who
would really counsel in the Name of the Lord, and those who really would parent
under His authority must be as wise as serpents as they go about their calling.
Development: One of my friends
who works as a janitor at a public school observed that if any employer treated
teenagers like most coaches treated their team members - they could be arrested
for endangerment and abuse! Every fall, before school has even started local
students are injured during practice sessions. Not only is no one charged for bringing
on exhaustion and overexertion, any and all damages must be paid for by the
parents or their insurance company. Talk about adding insult to injury. Again,
if the school doesn't put a child into a seat belt, nothing happens. But let a
parent get picked up under the same circumstances! And so, in the midst of this common worldly
mind set, pastors and parents still have a calling to raise up children and
encourage young adults into righteousness.
Where we would warn people and even older children about the dangers of
Hell, the world would even charge us with child abuse in some places. In
But our purpose this morning is not like the
worldly “controlled- stress approach to
precipitating conflict and overwhelming rational thought”, no indeed –
our purpose is through the challenge of rational questions in the scriptures to
bring you to a full assurance that you belong to Christ, as a sincere faith will
allow. RC Sproul notes that what we do “is not done out of idle curiosity about the state of our
soul, but to enhance our growth in sanctification. Christians who remain uncertain about the
state of their salvation are subject to all sorts of questions that paralyze
their walk with Christ.
The purpose of John's letter was made clear, he
earnestly desired to set the record straight so that the members of the church could test the
spirits of their time, examine themselves and determine if they were indeed in
the faith that leads to salvation and eternal life. That particular knowledge we call: assurance.
You may have assurance even as you know you belong to Christ, even though that
belonging involves growth and struggles day by day.
Our Confessional Larger Catechism (WLC 80) encourages us that a careful examination “may, without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded
upon the truth of God’s promises, and by the Spirit enabling them to discern in
themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made, and bearing
witness with their spirits that they are the children of God, be infallibly
assured that they are in the estate of grace, and shall persevere therein unto
salvation.”
Traditionally Reformed pastors and elders have
sought to raise the consciousness level of their members so that you may
exercise your intellect and examine yourself as Paul encourages us to see if we
are indeed in the faith. Of course this necessary exercise can be overdone as
it sometimes is in some guilt-ridden congregations, where the light and joy of
salvation is seldom mentioned. However,
just as limited physical exercise improves the physic, so too may spiritual
exercise make a person more confident about their assurance of salvation and eternal
life. This was the purpose of John's
letter, and these few verses summarize that intent and purpose for John's
readers. Look at verses nineteen and twenty:
"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." However firmly founded a
Christian's assurance is our hearts may sometimes need reassurance.
RC Sproul tells us: “There
are four possible positions with respect to one’s assurance of salvation.
1.
There are people who are unsaved and
know that they are unsaved.
2.
There are people who are saved but do
not know they are saved.
3.
There are people who are saved and
know that they are saved.
4.
There are people who are not saved
but confidently believe that they are saved.”
The first four verses before us today may help us
wind our way through the four possibilities raised by RC. Calvin begins his comments with this
observation: “If
we, in truth, love our neighbors, we have evidence that we are born of God, who
is truth, or that the truth of God dwells in us. But we must ever remember, that we have not
from love the knowledge which the Apostle mentions, [but] … we know not otherwise [except] as he seals his free adoption on our hearts by his own
Spirit … [thus] love is accessory or an
inferior aid, a prop to our faith, not a foundation on which it rests.” Further the Apostle “reminds us by these words, that faith does not exist
without a good conscience, not that assurance arises from it or depends on it,
but that then only we are really and not falsely assured of our union with God,
when by the efficacy of his Holy Spirit he manifests himself in our love.”
To simplify the argument, let me quote from Pastor
Barnes: “The
Confession tells us that there is one objective ground of assurance – God’s
promises in the gospel; and two subjective grounds – the inward evidences or
fruits of grace and the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit testifying to our
spirits that we are children of God.”
Finally, in this regard we have the instruction
Professor James Benjamin Green: “Assurance itself is a fruit of faith and
love and obedience; and the proper fruits of assurance are not carelessness and
looseness of living, as some allege, but enlargement of heart ‘in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and
thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of
obedience.’ (WC
20.4)”
Conclusion: The implication of the text is that a growing
Christian is challenged during the process of sanctification. Our personal assurance of salvation may even
be temporarily lost, only to be won back after a fruitful struggle. Whenever we
would struggle and grow in the faith, it is John’s threefold test, which we
have highlighted over the summer that may encourage you into a greater
appreciation of your relationship to Jesus Christ. How many of you have had to struggle with
your sanctification in the last year or two?
Each person's challenges may vary from the emotional, spiritual,
physical or material area.
But, what if you have not known any challenge
recently, well look at verse twenty-one. Here we may gain confidence as we grow
in grace and obedience by the power of the spirit. And so, as we are struggling
or not, the Spirit may encourage us to a deeper and more productive faith.
However it happens to each and every person John would have us to know "by this we know that he abides in us; by the Spirit
whom he has given us." His Spirit gives us proof that He is in
us. Our relationship is not some mystical experience, but instead very
practical.
I am reminded of the Ugly Duckling section in Romans 9: 22-24, as I sometimes title the assurance of
these verses: “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to
make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared
for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of
mercy, which he has prepared before hand for glory – even us whom he has
called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” The note I have scribbled in the
margin is this: “The
ugly duckling wouldn’t have known he was a swan if he hadn’t grown up with
ducks.” There is a popular new
age proverb that goes something like this:
“How can you soar like an eagle if you think
like a
The unmistakable fact is God Himself births us
again by giving us a new heart filled with the Holy Spirit, a heart that
reprograms the mind and points us towards our heavenly home. And all of those Pilgrims on the way to the
promised eternal rest may know not only the trials of the journey, but also the
joy of anticipation in looking towards heaven.
John’s message is indeed simple: if you confess Jesus as the Son of God
come in the flesh and if you live a consistent life aimed at holiness and love,
then you may have confidence in your assurance. May such an assurance be yours today and
always. Amen.
Resources Used:
Barnes, Peter. Welwyn Commentary Series: Knowing Where We Stand.
Calvin, John. The
Comprehensive John Calvin Collection (Ages Software).
Eakman, B.K. http://www.educationnews.org/chronicles_magazine_bushwhacking.htm.
Green, James B. A
Harmony of the
Sproul, R.C. “Assurance of Salvation”, Essential
Truths of the Christian Faith.
Stott, John. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Epistles of
John.
PCA. The
Good News Publishers. The
Holy Bible: English Standard Version.
Copyright (C) 2002 Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian
Church in
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