"Your first step then? Yield, give in, submit, get off your high horse, come down to earth and capitulate, or surrender to His commandment."
[This message is part of a series through the book of 1 John, entitled "Salvific Assurance Through Testimony," preached by Pastor Senter].
After looking at a prospective on giving, giving to those in need, we now turn to our benefit from this giving. In many ways, if we have the proper perspective we have already received our reward, because we give in response to what we have already received. However, God loves us abundantly above all we can comprehend, and certainly, above what we deserve. In this love, and through our obedience, we receive grace.
Please turn to 1 John 3:22. We have looked at perspectives of giving; now we need to look at obedience associated with this perspective. In these passages we find again that John’s faith, John’s form of belief, John’s form of Christianity is active in nature. What this action is born from is very much a part of this faith, belief, and true Christianity.
In this next section, and at various places throughout the rest of this epistle, we will be discussing belief. We have mentioned it before, and it is something we must grasp completely in order to fully understand what it entails. We can stretch belief out too far past practicality–in other words, we can believe and just sit and do nothing; thereby waiting for things to just happen that are good for us. Alternatively, we can believe actively, exercising our faith regularly and completely. This is the belief and faith I espouse and seek to implement in our lives; and I pray you seek to implement it in yours. I have used an illustration before about Blondin. Admittedly, it is one of my favorites and it serves tremendous purpose as an example:
On June 30, 1859, Charles Blondin successfully crossed Niagara Falls on a three-inch manila rope stretching from the American side of the falls to the Canadian, a total span of 2,000 feet. It took him 20 minutes to cross above the Niagara River on what would be the first of eight crossings. Twenty-five thousand onlookers would come to Niagara Falls to watch this amazing feat, and Blondin, always a showman, did not disappoint. Half-way across the rope he calmly sat down, and then proceeded to lie down on his back and rest his pole across his chest before resuming his crossing. He then proceeded to walk the rest of the way to the Canadian shore; however he would perform a back somersault to the amazement and shock of the crowd, before finishing his amazing feat.
On a subsequent crossing, Blondin pushed a wheelbarrow containing a small stove made of sheet iron across the gorge. To the delight of onlookers he then proceeded to light a fire and cook an omelet while suspended on the rope, he lowered the omelet down to passengers on the Maid of the Mist (the ferry boat that ventures into the gorge) who ate it before Blondin continued his crossing. He even went across the gorge while tied up in a sack, his arms, and legs shackled, with only his hands exposed. On one of his crossings, he brought with him a chair, which he stood upon. However, one of his most famous feats involved his manager Harry Colcord. During the summer of 1859, Blondin crossed the gorge several times, with Colcord on his back, an amazing feat considering Colcord weighed only 5 pounds less than the amazing Blondin.
It is told that Blondin would take the wheelbarrow back and forth with various things, then he would make a proposal to the crowd saying, “How many believe I can take a man across the gorge in this wheelbarrow?” The crowd of thousands would cheer their concurrence. Then Blondin would point to a man and say, “You sir– get in.” The man whomever he selected would decline. What level of belief, then, did this person have? He agreed, he assented, and he understood that Blondin could take someone across; it just simply was not going to be him.
Today we begin with belief. Today we begin with a belief not just for the sake of our physical life, but also for our eternal spiritual life. “Keeping His commandments is an active belief; passivity is not active,” because our tendency is that, “we pray, we believe, we exercise faith, yet because we do not perceive our prayers being answered, we are skeptical.“
I. Keeping the commandments (verse 22)
We should begin by noting that this verse, verse 22, is a continuation of the previous verse. We are still talking about the heart. We are still talking about condemnation in our hearts (or the lack thereof) being a sign of confidence we can have before God. Therefore, reading this verse in context, we first find that our heart and testimony are under question, not necessarily all our lives and every moment of them. This does not eliminate the need for us to inspect our lives and, as previous sin is returned to us, we place that at the Lord’s feet for forgiveness. The first word of interest in this verse comes in a variation for the word “ask,” and has some urgency attached to it. It is something that we are pleading for while perceiving a happenstance. It is, therefore, an anticipatory word. “Ask” is used in many forms, here it is a subjunctive, indicating a possibility or consideration which we translate with a “may,” “might,” or “should.” A second word we should be interested in is the word we see translated as “keep.” This word has a military connotation such as “guard,” or “protect.” Finally, we look at the word we see here as “sight.” This is a Greek idiom. The actual word for “sight” is not in the verse. The connotation here is something “in plain sight,” or “right before your very eyes” kind of thing. This is exactly what the word means – “in front of,” or “before.” We find this used in Matthew 27:11, where Jesus “stood before the governor.” We also find this word in Mark 2:12 where Jesus healed the lame man who picked up his bed and walked out “before them all.” The connotation is therefore, in plain sight, which is the translation we have here. Now, with the groundwork done, we should work through this verse a little more carefully.
There are common mistakes made by individuals who frequently want to prove scripture as being wrong. One of the things that individuals who are steadfastly working to that end will typically do is to misquote scripture, or take it out of context. This is easily done in 1 John (as we have demonstrated earlier), and can be done here in this verse. Do you receive everything for which you pray? On the other hand, is there more to this than is “enopion”, or plain to see?
A. We Receive
A connotation that bears on the thought that “whatsoever we ask, we receive of him (God)” is the condition of the asking. This ranks with 1 John 3:6 and 9 and the promises of sinlessness and His love for us in 2:5 and 4:7. We indicated that this is an emergent moment; this moment has something that deals with an immediate situation, yet has to do with, as our previous verse indicates, our heart and our confidence before God. What is this prayer then? Can it be for anything in general? What is this section discussing – silver, gold, affluence? Are we to take from this scripture that anything we ask for, we will receive?
The first condition is a heart response. In this way, the first condition, then, keeping context in perspective, is to look at what John is discussing – specifically our testimony of giving, our heart being condemned in not doing it right, or our heart not being condemned in doing the right thing. All of this is in context with the hate that can be levied upon us (be not surprised if the world hates you) and the hate we can display to others (anyone who closes their heart to the needs of another). In fact, this thought is so ingrained with these other subjects; it is part of the previous sentence beginning in verse 21. What, then, do we receive?
Where the first condition comes out of the heart, the second condition is received by the heart. We receive the specific assurance or condemnation mentioned in the previous verses. We receive–right then–either the fact that we should have done something and we failed, or the understanding that we did do all we could. This verse has no deeper connotation than what is being directly discussed in this context as a whole. We receive answers to prayer specifically in these times of stress to either condemn or to ease our heart.
What, folks, are you doing in your life? Are you giving where needed, are you loving when required, are you praying for the conviction to do both when you don’t know? Where do you stand?
Not only do we need to look at the context, but look specifically at the verse for the appropriate response.
B. Because we Keep
The direct connotation is that there is a cause and effect. This is also given to us in a present-tense form. It indicates that we are presently keeping or doing what the verse talks about. The effect is either assurance or condemnation; the cause is either keeping or not keeping His commandments. What commandment are we discussing then? Is this a reference to the entire Bible? What commandment has been discussed repeatedly by John, and what commandment does John repeatedly reference? To love one another. The word for “one another” is a reciprocating pronoun. This love is reflective; it comes back. We are to give love selflessly, and in this fashion we also are to receive it. In the midst of this and these conditions in a present tense form,we are abiding in Christ Jesus. Look at verse 18 folks. Love in deed and truth. What, then is the commandment that we are to keep – to love one another enough to give up our own desires for one another. That is the “deed”, and the “truth” is that we struggle with that every day, and in many ways.
This, folks, is the reference. If we pray, therefore, in a time when we are struggling with giving, asking the Lord to give us the strength to give up our desires for another who is in need, He will answer that prayer. Okay, so you see a need. You do not want to fulfill it because of some personal desire or thought. Perhaps there is a specific introspective reason–not a godly one–just a personal reason you have chosen to rationalize not fulfilling that need. Pray. Pray that God will release you from this desire and free your heart to be compassionate and loving. I guarantee you that prayer will be honored if all the conditions are met. Also pray when you are not condemned. In all occasions when you are concerned about how to love, give, and keep His commandments – pray.
Pray for release from the sin-filled covetous desires that preclude you from giving the way you should be giving.
Yes, I said if all the conditions are met. We should consider more things before we get concrete about a specific answer to prayer.
C. Because we Do
Read verse 22 again please. Okay, now read with me while we do a “Tim’s translation,” beginning with the word “and” after “commandments”: “And what (is) pleasing in front of him we are doing.” That was very literal, so to render it a little more readable: “and we are doing what (is) pleasing in front of Him.” The final condition then is that we are doing, normally, what is pleasing before Him. This word for “doing” is the base word that we derive our word “practicing.” Here too, this doing is like the keeping before it; it is in the present tense. Ladies and gentlemen, if you regularly do the right things before God, and are doing the things before God that please Him; however, in this instance you are suffering condemnation, or you have no condemnation and are seeking assurance–pray, and this prayer will be answered.
This is not some blanket “ask and thou shall receive” comment. This scripture has been so twisted, it is pathetic. This promise is directly associated with how your heart is reacting to a situation where you are currently struggling with how to love someone properly, give to someone properly, or obey properly.
Do you regularly do the things before God that are right, then? Alternatively, do you regularly fail Him and this is the reason you have no assurance, and are seeking relief from condemnation? Or, do you have no condemnation at all and are you seeking assurance in this?
There are things tied to the assurances and these condemnations. You have heard me repeatedly take you back to Jesus Christ and Him alone. I am not the only one to do this.
II. Defining the commandments (verse 23)
Once again, what we are focused upon are the commandments given which directly correlate to this specific scripture. The one commandment we have been issued by Christ Jesus is to love one another. We have been talking about giving to and for one another; giving up our desires to and for one another; and providing to and for one another. Part of this giving up our desires, our wants, our fears, our personal idiosyncrasies, and our pet peeves–even our pains and suffering–is believing or trusting. Our belief takes action when we truly begin to trust. We sin because we truly do not trust Christ. Eve sinned in her not trusting that God knew what was best for her. She doubted His motives.
This is a commandment to love one another. If you deal harshly with anyone just because you are frustrated in any fashion, you are dealing inappropriately, unacceptably, and in an ungodly, unloving manner toward another. We are not to love only when we “feel like it”. The commandment is to love one another–not berate, or belittle them into submission. This goes back to the “bum on the street” example of last week. You cannot spit directives at them like, “Get a job” or, “You are worthless, do something with your life,” and expect them to change. You have to give them love to change them–understanding, caring, compassionate, love in some form. I have seen open displays of this hatred to others. I also know others do it in the secret of their homes. I know Christians and non-believers alike, who regularly treat each other with great contempt. This promotes only hate and cultivates negativity in relationships.
Therefore, where do we go to get this situation resolved? The one element we have to continually consider is our stance before a perfect God.
Every ounce of your relationship needs to be centered upon love in Christ. Every ounce of your being needs to love others, not hate. You must do so – it is a commandment.
There is only one way we can accomplish this monumental task: give everything up that we harbor, into the hands of the One who can take care of us. However, we must first have faith that He does and can care for us.
A. Believe in Him
You know, you can have the greatest testimony in the world, you can be the nicest person in the world, you can be the most gracious individual to ever step foot on the face of this earth; however, if you do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you will never step foot in heaven. Our first consideration in this verse then is the word “believe.”
This word is used over 241 times in the New Testament. We find this in Matthew 8:13, where the centurion’s servant is healed as a result of the centurion’s belief. We find this correlated with faith (same Greek word, only a noun not a verb) in Matthew 9:28-29. We find that faith in prayer provides answers to this prayer in Matthew 21:22. We find a stern rebuke to the Chief Priests concerning John the Baptist and their not believing him. However, prostitutes and people who confiscate money inappropriately–they believe and will see heaven. There is example after example of this faith being efficacious. Salvation comes through belief in John 3:16, 5:24, and 6:47. In fact, John talks about this word “believe,” or “faith” more than any other New Testament writer. Of the 241 times it is referenced, John uses it 98 times in his Gospel and epistle. The next reference that is close is in the book of Acts (37 times), then Romans (21 times). The rest are below 15 uses. Then we have this verse, James 2:19. It reads “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” The belief in James 2:19 is the same word as all the other words indicating belief. What does it mean then?
This reference in verse 23 tells us specifically to believe in His name – what is His name – the name He was given? “Jesus” is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Joshua – “The Lord is Salvation.” “Christ” is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew word for Messiah – God – the redeemer of Israel. This is the One in whom we are to believe. The difference is that these demons in James 2:19 are not trusting and believing in Christ’s deliverance.
Now we go back to Blondin. Remember the wheelbarrow incident? The crowd believed that Blondin could actually do it, could actually take someone across the gulf of the Niagara falls in that wheel barrow. They had seen him move back and forth with ease, walking with no problem. That is more than we can say about our Savior. Do we see Him? Do we witness His work in Heaven? The fact is, many say they do believe, but they do not truly believe. Belief is not just saying you believe in Him–it is being wholly dependent upon Him in and for your life. Put your entire being into the hands of the Savior. This is a resting, a submission to, and confidence in something. This is faith.
Do you truly believe, or are you still leaning upon your own understanding? Do you truly want to let Christ take care of you and your life, or are you trying to engineer everything so that you can manage it yourself? After all (you may say), “you cannot trust anyone.”
You are not only to believe that Christ saved your soul, but that He has also provided for your whole life–here and eternally. Moreover, for this He actually expects something in return, if you truly believe – you must obey, submit, and give in to Him. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not about you.
B. Love through Him
The key word here is the word for command. It is used about 67 times in the New Testament. It is used for the word commandment 64 out of those 67 times. It really is simple, but it is complicated too. Obey: this is an order issued by One who has authority. Give in: this is a directive that we are to do. Submit: this is something that we cannot escape. Yield: this is God talking to His whole creation, Him being in charge. Look folks, you will willingly bow to Him now, submit to His power, obey His commandment, give in to His scriptural demand, and yield to His authority overall–or you will be forced to do so, uncontrollably, at the judgment. I do not know what exactly is going to happen when “every knee will bow;” but I know this: I want to bow now, because right after every knee bows comes the confession that “Jesus Christ is Lord;” then, right after that confession there will be a violent and immediate expulsion of that unbelieving individual from before the Great White Throne to the Lake of Eternal Fire, which is the Second Death. Ladies and gentlemen, you will no longer be able to determine your own personal reality at that point in time. You will have no choice but to face the reality of your pure, unmitigated rebellion.
Your first step then? Yield, give in, submit, get off your high horse, come down to earth and capitulate, or surrender to His commandment. A comedian one time said that when he was dealing with his children, he would say to them, “We brought you into this world…we can take you out.” God can do something like this, if He needs to in order to complete His will. God does not need a single thing you have. However, He would like to give you the privilege of working with Him.
If you do give in to His commandment and obey it, He can exercise His love through you so that you can love others. If, on the other hand, you determine in your pride (or even in a level of piety) that you are not going to give in, that you know better, and your understanding is paramount–then you are in violation of His command and He cannot love through you. When He can love through you, you can love like Him and your prayers to be enabled to manifest this love , to be obedient to the Holy Spirit’s conviction–the entire process follows through, once you submit to Him.
Have you really submitted everything in your life to Him? Do you really believe, have faith in Him to take care of everything in your life?
Life. This takes us to our next step. We have talked about existing in His will before, and with this next verse, we talk about it again.
III. Abiding through commandments (verse 24)
Forgive me, but we must do another “Tim’s translation.” There are a few words here that I think can be clarified in this effort, so suffer through this with me again. Consider this with me please: “and the one keeping His commandments is abiding in Him and he in Him and in this we are knowing that He is abiding in us, out of the spirit which he gave to us.” How do we know what pronouns belong to which nouns. Who is “he” and who is “him?”
You could approach this theologically and come out with the proper answer, probably. However, as so many have gotten these things wrong with errant theological reasoning and rationalization, we will endeavor to connect this grammatically. The words translated “he that keepeth” are two words in the nominative case (a participle and its article). This is the subject of the sentence. This subject is the believer, an individual who keeps these commandments. Move down the verse to the second “and” which reads “and he in him.” This first pronoun “he” is also in the nominative case, which connects it back to the first nominative, the participle for “the one keeping.” Therefore, the one keeping is a believer.
The next piece we look at is the first word “his.” This is a case that matches “Jesus Christ” in the verse before. Hence we could say, “The believer who keeps Jesus Christ’s commandments is abiding in Jesus Christ;” because the first word “him” is in a case that describes the believer as being indwelt. We dwell in Christ. Then we have the words that confuse everyone: “he in him.” Tying these cases together, we could translate this verse, replacing the pronouns with actual nouns, to read this way: “and the believer who keeps the commandments of Jesus Christ in him abides in Jesus Christ, and he in Jesus Christ. Further, in this we are knowing that Jesus Christ abides in us, out of the spirit which he gave to us.”
Do you, therefore, dwell in Jesus Christ, and does He dwell in you? Do you deny His existence with your actions, your disobedience, your hate, and your inability to love? Alternatively, do you permit Him to dwell within you? Do you keep His commandments to love and give yourself for others?
Breaking this verse down into two easy parts then we have the ones who are keeping and abiding and knowingly abiding in the spirit.
A. Keeping and abiding
We have already covered much of this concerning the keeping of His commandments. However, we have turned a corner here. In our previous discussion about keeping, we discussed keeping to obey, keeping to pray, and keeping these commandments as a prerequisite to actually expecting an answer to prayer. Here we are keeping not for prayer, but in order to have assurance that He is with us. We are keeping these commandments, to love one another as Christ loved us, and in doing so, our testimony of obedience and submission provides us with assurance that He is in us, and that we actually dwell within the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit Himself. We can exist in it like a blanket, it can cover you, surround you, envelope you, and exist with you. This is the testimony of this verse: to actually exist in and with the Holy Spirit in your life. The devils in James 2:19 do not have Jesus Christ abiding in them. This is because of their lack of saving belief, faith, and trust. They are not resting or trusting in Him; therefore, they do not keep His commandments.
Are you submitted and obedient, and therefore existing with the Holy Spirit–or are you still prideful and think you know more about eternal life that those around you?
Not only do we keep commandments for Him to exist in us, we know He lives in us when we keep His commandments.
B. Knowingly abiding
The little word “by” in the translation is a little misleading. It is in all the translations as “by” and it means what it says. One little two-letter word means “from,” or “out of,” or “of.” This can easily be translated “by” as well. However, that little two-letter word has tremendous theological significance. In this, we find the third part of our Triune God. The Holy Spirit Himself acts, He is real, He is the one Jesus sent to testify of Him–for and to us. Here we learn that this Spirit, the Spirit of God, is living within us, existing in us. A being that worked in the creation, that works through our spirits, cleans us, convicts us, and deals with our sin-filled hearts. This great God is living in the believer, the subject of the verse.
You must know, of course, He cannot live in, He cannot come into your heart, He cannot exist there, He cannot abide there–if you do not obey and love. The Spirit testifies of the Son. He testifies of your acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Savior. The Spirit within you convicts you of sin. If you are not being convicted, you can have no assurance that you do have the Spirit. If you can hate, speak hate, yell, get frustrated, and be hateful without your conscience eating you up, you may have a serious spiritual problem–you may lack salvation.
Although our testimony of the Spirit of God can be “quenched,” according to 1 Thess. 5:19; who of you reading this believes you could squelch the very Person of God, the Holy Spirit? The Bible teaches that this is impossible in the believer’s life. If you, therefore, are not capable of this, yet, you feel nothing when you are mean, rude, disrespectful, hateful,or in any way unloving to someone, you have a serious heart problem.
How does all this tie together then?
We began our discussion in verse 22 where we talked about keeping Jesus’ commandments. What is that one commandment He asks us to keep? Correct: that we love one another. We talked about what we receive in return for this–our prayers answered. We qualified this answer to prayer to clarify our understanding. We identified that we receive these answers because we keep the commandments, and, further, because we do things to exemplify these commandments. We also talked about defining the commandments that we are to actively keep. We looked at verse 23 and talked about belief, what belief meant, and how it was actuated. We talked about love as well, and how this correlated to belief and how it is actuated. Then we broke open verse 24 and talked about how we live, how we exist, how we abide, and remain in these commandments. Further, we talked about the fact that we should know that we are abiding in these things.
Folks, if you harbor any hate, you cannot abide in this commandment. We learned in 1 John 3:15 that there can be no room for this hate to exist in you. Faith is not speaking; faith is living. Belief is not verbalized; belief is actualized. The reason the people did not believe at Niagara Falls was not that they did not know, but that they were not willing to act on what they did know. Obedience is the same way, people. Obedience is active. Instead of the world’s way of finding how far you can go before you cross the line, how about thinking this way: “Where is the line, and how can I implement that line in my life so that I will never cross it?”
Do you have active faith, active love, active obedience, and an active belief in your life? If you do not, if it is not evident in your life, if you have never asked Christ Jesus to take your soul, you are not on the journey to eternal life. You cannot then walk toward eternity with any confidence; you only face condemnation, torment, and eternal pain. Which will it be? Will you begin to actuate your faith, belief, love, and obedience today; or will you continue to choose to fail in your own pride and piety? If we can help you with any of these questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
