Assured - Checking for a Pulse | Wade Branch

Good afternoon, everybody. It's great to see our crowd and

I'm excited to study with you. I think the only thing better

than listening and studying God's Word is talking about

yourself. And I know I get a lot out of

this. So thank you for being patient

with me as I develop as a teacher and as I go through the

process of explaining the word to you.

Maybe it's helpful for you, maybe it's not, but it's, it's

sure helpful for me. So thank you for being such a

good audience all the time. And I'm looking forward to our

study and 1st John, as we continue on into Chapter 3.

And I've given the the title assured checking for a pulse.

And that is checking for a spiritual pulse.

That is the theme of this book or this letter is assurance.

It's giving people assurance who are facing disagreement or

facing controversy from others outside maybe having doubts

within. And he's giving them insurance

and He's showing them ways they can know and have joy and have

full joy and do not be dissuaded by other people in their faith.

And this letter is as a whole about assurance.

But I think today we're especially going to focus on

assurance. We've been through the purposes

several Times Now, so I don't think I need to rehash those.

We're just going to start reading in a couple verses

before chapter 3 and 1st John 2 where we left off last week or

two weeks ago. It says there in first John 2

1 John 2:24

verse 24. Therefore let that abide in you

what you heard from the beginning.

If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you

also will abide in the Son and in the Father.

And this is the promise that He has promised us eternal life.

These things I've written to you concerning those who tried to

deceive you. But as the same anointing

teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a

lie, and just at His, just as it has taught you, you will abide

in Him. And now little children abide in

Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be

ashamed before Him at His coming.

If you know that He is righteous, you know that

everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.

That's where we left off, and we're going to start in verse 1

of chapter 3. Now He goes on to say behold or

check this out, look at this, admire this, what manner of love

the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called

children of God. Therefore the world does not

know us because it did not know him.

As I understand this word in manner, other people translate

it and it's translated a little bit more aggressively and a

little bit more. He's it's like he's reaching out

to find where does this come from?

Where is this manner of love? What kind of love is this?

One translation said? What kind of foreign love are we

witnessing? It's a foreign out of this world

love that we would see and learn from the things that God has

given to us. What kind of love is this?

The writers say in amazement, in awe of the kind of love that we

would be called his children and the world does not know us

because it doesn't know because it did not know him.

Verse 2 beloved, now we are children of God.

He starts this next stop by stating a fact and as we get

into these, these considerations of assurance, He's stating it

like it's a fact. He's stating it assuredly and

not like if we are of him, he's saying we are children of God.

And he says it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.

But we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him

for we shall see him as he is. So he's kind of recalibrating

and reminding us of the reality we're in.

Remember, we say that pretty often our our spiritual minds

are always a focus issue. So we study.

Even if you know something, even if I know something, it's a

matter of focus. And he says it has not been

revealed what we shall be. Sometimes we get so used to

being in our lives, in the mundane or in the regular or in

our limitations that that's all we see.

But he's reminding us that we're in a stage right now and it's in

a stage of not yet. It's in a stage of not yet being

revealed. But there's going to be a time,

he says, that we are going to be something else.

It has not yet been revealed or opened up to us, but we know

that when he is revealed, on that day when Jesus comes out

and greets us and where we go to meet him in the air, we're going

to be like him. He always, the gospel writers

always leave a sense of we don't know yet.

They do not seek to fully explain every detail.

And I find that to be, you know, sometimes it's kind of off

putting. Like I just wish God told us

more about and often it's something along the lines of

heaven because you try to describe heaven and it's like,

well, there's not that much that we're that we have to say about

it. There's, there's kind of hits

dropped here and there, but we don't have the full picture.

And that's what he says here. He leaves kind of a carrot

hanging out there. We don't even know what it's

going to be yet. And that's what hope is.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

But another scripture says that we don't hope for what we

already have. And so we've always got this

thing in our minds that says we don't even know how good it's

going to be yet, but we know we're going to be like him.

All of this letter is centered around unity with the Father and

closeness with the Father and being sons of the Father and

daughters of the Father. And we have assurance and

comfort in the fact that however this turns out, we're going to

be one with him, not just in our location, but even in our

presence, in our state of being. He will always be Lord of the

Lords over us to where we're not in the same level as him, but we

are going to be in state and a glorified body, and we will see

Him just as he is. You know, I think we all have a

great longing inside of us that is to be seen and to be

understood. You know, we see that most often

in children. I think most obviously like they

always want attention. They want to be seen.

They want to be they, they even step out and do something

outlandish in order to get attention.

Sometimes we want to be seen at a core level and understood.

The problem with us as adults, as we understand that as our

sense of being seen increases, our risk increases and we are

vulnerable. And when more people see more of

us, that's risky because we know what we are and we know our

faults and we know our shortcomings and we know the

deep secrets and we know the dark and we know the weaknesses.

So it's hard sometimes to have full vulnerability with other

people and to feel comfortable in that.

We feel our greatest sense of comfort in our spouses maybe,

and that's where you were meant to find that sense of they're

going to they see everything you are and they see everything that

you all your warts and all. And yet you find comfort in the

closeness that they understand you deeply and that they

continue to love you anyway. In theory, we know that's what

God is for us, right? We know that at the core of it

all, God sees everything we do from the time we go wake up to

the time we go to bed, and we know that He still loves us and

that is so comforting to us. But there's going to be a day

where it's not just A1 sided knowing, where it's not just God

knows me, I know God knows me, but I have kind of a hard time

seeing him all the time. There's going to come a day

where we are going to see Him for who and what and everything

that He really is. And I don't know about you, but

that encourages me that if I'm going to see that one day, and

that's going to be the climax of my earthly existence and the

climax of my exaltation is to see Him as He is, that makes me

want to see Him more now. That makes me want to look into

Him. I don't know my Bible up here.

I was going to pat my Bible. I want to look into Him more,

and I want to know Him more, and I want to see Him more clearly

and to show love for Him. Just like that day when I'm

looking forward to, I'm supposed to be looking forward to this

day when I see Him just as He is, I want to see every bit of

it I can. Now when we are raised

incorruptible, we're going to see Him just as He is.

Verse 3. And everyone who has this hope

in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.

So we should all be living with this hope of seeing the

glorified Jesus and being next to him in a glorified state

ourselves. And that hope should be living

in US. And if it is, it causes us to

purify ourselves. And any faith that does not

respond with a self reflection and purification because of it

is not as he's going to say, it's not a real faith.

And this is what happens when it's really inside of you.

He purifies himself just as he is pure.

You see Jesus and you see that hope of Jesus and say, hey, if

I'm going to him, I better start purifying myself.

Because God cannot have evil in his presence.

It has an action. Don't let go of the hope, this

hope. Don't let go of the hope amidst

the mundane, amidst the grind, amidst the hard against the

lonely, amidst all the things you deal with.

Don't let go of this hope. Whoever commits sin also commits

lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

And you know that he was manifested, He was made evident

to take away our sins. And in him there is no sin.

You know, sometimes we think of it like, I'm not lawless like so

and so is lawless. I I just committed a sin and I

have sin in this area. But he says sin itself is

lawlessness. I am lawless in a regard when I

sin. And it doesn't matter if it

wasn't 15 things, if it was one thing, it was lawless on my part

to commit a sin, to have a heart that was wrong.

He says that sin is lawlessness and sin is just that.

And you know that He was manifested to take away our

sins. So he is separate from this

lawlessness and does not want to be in the presence of it.

Verse 6, Whoever abides in him does not sin.

Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him.

This is one of the most re explained verses I think maybe

in the New Testament. And it's often times to try to

assure people who are new in the faith who read this and go,

wait, what if if I sin, he says I have no clue who he is.

Well, that's not really what the verbiage means.

These verbs are in present tense action, active oriented.

The NIV words it a little bit more clearly.

It says no one who lives in him keeps on sinning.

No one who continues to sin has neither seen him or known him.

The the key here is it's a pattern of behavior and it's a

pattern of life. And it is a decision you're

currently making to do one thing or another.

It's really pretty straightforward.

We know, and we can corroborate that with plenty of other

scriptures we've already read in First John that says whoever

says he has no sin is a liar. So we know that this is not

saying that we've never sinned before, clearly, because there's

other scriptures to make that clear.

He's saying a pattern of life. Now I do want to give that

comfort, but I also don't want to get away from the the point

that he's making. So the point is direction, not

perfection. But we do need to, to look into

this a little bit more. I think for our own honesty.

Only you and only I know what our direction is.

You might think you know somebody, but only you really

know only oneself. Like the scripture says, only

man knows the heart hearts within him unless he reveals it

to someone else. Only you know where your heart

is and where your direction is. And if we are living in sin,

then it doesn't matter what the past was.

We are not living for him now. I think we have to look at this.

If you're going to, if you're going to actually evaluate

yourself, take a situation, think about a temptation you had

recently and think about how you responded to it.

Maybe there's fifteen other things that you just cruise

right through and have no problem with those temptations.

But maybe there's one or maybe 2 where you notice that there's a

temptation happening. Think about how you respond to

it. If you respond to that thing

that gets you and you disregarded what you know is

right and you shirked off what you know what to be right, and

you just went on doing what you felt like doing, then you could

find a place in your heart where there is habitual sin that

you're choosing to live in. So maybe take stock and I'm

going to just throw this in there and this next part you can

completely ignore if it doesn't work for you.

But I find that I sometimes need a tough love.

I was talking to my brother this week and he was himself working

through the stages of he's becoming a mature enough

Christian to where he's trying to counsel somebody else who is

working through sin. And so you have these kind of

double layers of people who are working through sin.

The person who was talking to me was saying I'm trying to help

them, but I myself still struggle with sin and, and he

was trying to help him. Maybe it was some of the same

things that the other person was trying to get help overcoming.

And he's like, I, I can't really do all this.

I can't have all my burdens and, and continue to help someone out

with with their burdens. And I, I, you know, I, I try to

give as much consolation because there's always a phase of

affirming people giving consolation.

You're trying. That's what matters.

And if you need to hear that, if you need to hear you're trying,

keep up, that's great and trying and doing your best is all God

asks of you. But there comes a time where our

mindset can say I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying and pretty

soon is it really true? Is it really true that just

because I feel some sort of angst that I'm really putting

effort into my faith, just because I feel that

cognitiveness dissonance, like negativity when I'm trying to

fight against sin, it doesn't necessarily mean you're fleeing

sin. That's what the apostles tell

us, flee from sin. And so I told him something that

I need to hear, and maybe someone in here needs to hear

it. If you don't like the way this

is worded, please disregard it because it's, it's not for

everybody. Sometimes you have to suck it up

and move on from a sin. We can tell ourselves, I'm

struggling with that. I'm struggling with this, but

something makes it click one day and says you can't anymore.

You can't afford. There's people who need you.

There's people who who need your guidance, who need your

leadership, who need your example.

And you can't continue to struggle with this.

You can't continue to just kind of say, oh, I'm trying to get

rid of this sin. I'm pushing it away as hard as I

can. Sometimes you need to draw a

line for yourself and say no. And somebody needs to tell us to

suck it up and move on. Get rid of that thing, get rid

of it completely. I had in sports, this was, I

know the sports really helps me understand this concept because

I was a hard worker in sports and and I tried to lead the team

I was on with my work ethic. You know, we would always have

weight training in addition to our practices.

And so I tried to do my best in there, but I had days where I

was being a Sissy and we all have that where you're just,

you're just, I'm trying and I'm feeling weak.

And one day I was supposed to be the one leading the other group

and I was having that, that mental whining going on, you

know, like you're, you feel like I'm dragging today.

And the coach who does not normally have to say anything to

me, called me some things that I'm not going to repeat in here

and lit my fire. He called me out for being a

Sissy, in other words. And I needed that because after

he said that I had all the motivation in the world.

And I started working harder then and every day after that.

Then I started to feel a sense of like, I don't feel like it

today. I thought of that and it made me

work hard. Now, I didn't live in fear of

his criticism. It wasn't a negative thing.

It was I don't have to stay in a mindset that allows myself to

perpetually whine and gripe about what I'm doing, even if

it's hard. And I learned a different

mindset because of that. And I think spiritually I need

that sometimes. And certain people have told me

certain things where you're like, you're right, I don't have

to stay in the sin. I have a choice whether I walk

away from it or not. And I have a choice whether I

draw boundaries for myself and further increments away from

that so that I do not go near that.

So maybe you need that, maybe you don't.

But whatever the case is the, the always the answer moving

forward is you need to focus on right now.

What are you going to do now? If you struggle with habitual

sin that's past, what are you going to do now and make your

decision now to follow God And if you have things maybe that

you're dealing with things that make it a call like that just

feel overwhelming. You're like, I I'm just stuck.

That's often times where you need help.

You need somebody's help and that's OK.

Talk to somebody, say I need you to help me bear these burdens

and so fulfill the law of Christ.

The Bible says carry, have someone else help you carry your

burdens. That's fine.

That is doing your best. Soliciting the help of other

believers is just fine. OK, so no one who lives in him

keeps on sinning. We make a pattern.

We make a new path to not continue in sin.

Verse 7. Little children, let no one

deceive you. He who practices righteousness

is righteous just as he is righteous.

He's don't, don't make it overcomplicated.

People can make it about everything that it's not.

If you listen to some religious discussions, it's all about

everything except for what are you doing?

And he says don't let anybody deceive you.

Don't deceive yourself. Don't deceive anybody else.

Don't perpetuate this lie. That is against the fact that if

you are practicing righteousness, you are

righteous. It's sometimes that simple.

But he who sins, verse 8, is of the devil, for the devil has

sinned from the beginning. The line is clear.

But remember, this doesn't just mean, oh, if you practice

righteous and you do all the right things, then then you're

holy and better than everybody. But remember, righteousness,

true righteousness, is the right heart too.

So no one could criticize this sentence and say, well, that's

how you get a bunch of high haughty people.

Well, no, because the right heart is absolutely at the

center of righteousness. So there's no room for criticism

of the Scripture there. There is no righteousness

without righteous motive. The brass tacks.

Maybe there's people who had the anointing we studied last time

and they said, no, it's this, it's that about the anointing.

No, it's who practices it for this purpose.

The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works

of the devil. Whoever has been born of God

does not sin, for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin

because he has been born of God. There's another concerning

phrase. Wait, it says you can't sin.

See, they said it's impossible. It's a generalized statement.

If you have God's Spirit living in you, it counteracts the evil.

And so it's a very general, you don't have to make this as as

specific as it's impossible to sin.

It's that sin is going against the new life, the new heart, the

new everything that God is putting inside of you and

working in you. So you can't continue to live in

sin because of that. God's working in you in a way

that you can't. Two things don't go together.

It's like oil and water. Oil and water don't mix.

It's kind of like a general statement he's making because

those two things do not go together.

Those who are born of God have a totally different approach to

life. Verse 10 In this, the children

of God and the children of the devil are manifest.

This is a pretty big deal. He just drew a hard line in the

sand. Whoever, whoever does not

practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love

his brother. There's a lot of social media

these days and there's a lot of media that connects people in

Word from a long way apart. And one of the hard things about

that is people. You, you can hear people from

all over saying different things and you have no idea who they

really are. So I encourage all of us to try

to live more closely in the circles where you actually

communicate and not live in these far off circles where you

don't really see people's actions because it can be really

confusing. And you by the Bible says by

their fruits, you shall know them.

So when you're listening to somebody, you're talking to them

and you're trying to better understand them and, and, and

God's plan and everything, it can be confusing if you don't

see the whole life, But when you see their fruits, it's going to

make certain things. You're going to understand God's

plan. You're going to understand how

to understand people, how to, how to hear people, because

there's people all over the world who claim one thing.

There's how many mega preachers have we heard about who mega

church preachers who were living double lives the entire time.

Focus on our circles and we can have relationships that prove

the law of God and that maybe disprove other things and make

it more clear for us God's plan and God's ways when we focus on

the people who are around us. Nor is he righteous who does not

love his brother. He's given us more tests.

Remember throughout this letter he say this is how you know.

This is how you know, and this is one of the tests.

If you do not practice righteousness and if you do not

love your brother, you are not of God.

Verse 11 For this is the message that you heard from the

beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was

of the wicked one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and

his brother's righteous. You know, if if you had cane

side, maybe you have a long list of reasons why that dynamic kind

of went sour. And it's kind of a toxic

relationship. Sometimes people do that kind of

stuff and they make it all complicated and muddy.

He says it's this simple. His works were evil and his

brothers were righteous. Now all he had to do was repent.

It would have been fine in God's sight, but that's what caused

him to lash out and anger. Verse 13 Do not marvel, my

brethren, if the world hates you, don't be surprised.

We know that we have passed from death to life because we love

the brethren. So he's going to talk for a

little bit about some things to do about loving the brothers.

And I do believe, yes, we have a responsibility to all the world.

We have a responsibility to anyone we might come in contact

with in the world. But the things he's going to say

are very specifically directed, I believe, at the brethren, the

brothers and sisters in the body.

And this is this is an intense call to action.

So I, when I read this, I found myself more challenged than I

have been in the past to honor you all and to honor my brothers

and sisters in a way that maybe I hadn't realized the level we

are called to. He says he who does not love his

brother abides in death. Whatever, whoever hates his

brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer

has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love because he

laid down his life for us. So he just said, love your

brother. So what does it look like to

love a brother? By this he laid down his life

for us. And we also ought to lay down

our lives for the brethren. That is a radical way of looking

at the world in every circumstance.

What is the best thing I can do for you?

What is the best thing I could do for you?

What is the best thing I can do for every person in my life is

particularly the brethren up to the point of dying for them.

Most people do not need you to die for them.

I don't know anyone in my life right now that would need me to

die for them. I don't know anyone that would

get anything out of that. So we know that that's not

required. It's kind of like when Jesus

said, you know, he said, you know, there he was washing their

feet and, and they said, well, they washed my whole body.

He's like, you don't need that. You don't need me to wash your

whole body because only your feet are dirty.

You don't need to go around and dying for people because that's

not what they need. People need you to lay down

their life for them in many ways, whatever that requires.

I heard an analogy given one time.

They said, imagine your whole life, everything you had to

give. Maybe that giving is physically

or maybe it's your effort. You have $100 to give in your

life. God does not give us $100 bill

because you'd walk out, hand them that person, maybe die for

them, and you'd check your bill and you walk right out and

you're done. But instead, God gives us a

whole lot of pennies. He gives us bags and bags and

bags of pennies and he says lay down your life for them.

If you're going to give everything you have to those

around you and to the world and to your brothers, that $100, you

got to do it 1 penny at a time. And that is exhausting just

thinking about that hand out a lot of pennies.

It's exhausting, but it's what's needed.

The one by one action of goodness and love is what Jesus

has called us to, and it's the example that he left because he

died at 3033. He died after living a lot of

life. He didn't just pop in and pop

out. He gave everything day after

day, exhaustion after exhaustion.

You know, that's why many extremist Muslims have died in

the world, because they have in the Quran, it says that if you

die for the holy war, the jihad, if you die in the middle of

that, you have a free pass to their heaven.

That is that mentality. Hey, give me one shot.

I'll do it. I'll be done and I get in, get

out. Three minutes of bravery can

give you an eternity in in your paradise, right?

Well, we know that that's, that's a human way of thinking.

It's easy way out, really. He calls us to every single day

give pennies of that $100 to the point that we have given all and

service to the people around us. And this, his picture I actually

got was, was actually a real picture.

They found this guy, his name was John Reyes and he was in LA.

He had, he had been going through his father's, his late

father's things. And he went into the crawl

space, into the house and found 1,000,000 pennies.

And that was about $10,000 worth of pennies.

So funny little, it doesn't really apply to the analogy

we're talking about right now, but it does take patience and

consistency to give what God has given us.

And in this sense, we lay down our lives for the brethren.

I like that picture. As you think about someone

coming and bringing something and laying it down in front of

somebody else humbly, maybe with a head bowed down, imagine doing

that to the person you're sitting across from or next to

or down the road from you. That is the mentality he calls

us to specifically to our brothers and sisters that you

would maybe to the person in here that you don't even know

very well. Your responsibility is to bring

your life and to lay it down in front of them, whatever that

means, whatever they would need. And that takes intentionality

that I have maybe not devoted as I should.

That takes a level of focus and looking into needs, not being

nosy but but looking out for others that I have not done

before. But whoever has this world's

goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from

him. How does the love of God abide

in him? He asked a rhetorical question

like how is that you We've been talking about the the what

manner of love verse one that the father has bestowed on us

that we would be called children of God.

We look at that and we say wow, and and he says, how could that

love be in us if we don't respond to the needs of our

brethren with this kind of love and sacrifice and love for

others? That is a shocking level of

responsibility and love. Verse 18 my little children, let

us not love in Word or in tongue, but in deed and in

truth. He specifies how this love

happens. He says put it into action.

He's not implying that words themselves don't have value.

He is elevating how important it is that our love take tangible

action for the people around us that we say we love.

Sometimes what is needed is emotional support and maybe you

talk a little bit, maybe you don't talk much at all and but

communication, that's what they need.

Maybe so he's not devaluing that, but the core of it is the

deed. What is the deed that I'm going

to do and what's the problem? Why is this such a big deal?

Words deceive, actions reveal. Have you ever seen somebody

doing something and been been been confused by it?

Not really. I when I see somebody doing

something, I feel like I understand exactly what they're

doing. But I've been, I've been

confused many times or deceived when someone says one thing and

I don't get the same picture somewhere else.

Words deceive and actions reveal, but you know who?

You know what they really deceive and you know who they

really reveal to. It's not as big of a deal maybe

as other people, but the people that they really reveal and

deceive to is us. Verse 19, He says, and by this,

by the deeds that he just referenced, we know that we are

of the truth in this conversation of assurance.

If we are not doing deeds of good love, they would reflect

laying down our lives to others. If we don't do that, he says,

well, he says the counter. He says by doing this, by laying

down your life for the brethren, you know that you're of the

truth. That's how you draw confidence.

That's how you start to realize, man, I, I'm doing this thing.

When I first started my Christian walk, I wasn't really

confident, You know, am I really cut up for this?

Am I too far gone? Am I, am I too sinful for God to

save? But now that I'm making some

progress and I'm active and I'm doing the love of God, I'm

starting to feel like God's right.

I am doing it. I am impossible to save and I am

doing this. Not that you're earning your

salvation in any way, but he says by this kind of active love

we know that we're of the truth and shall assure our hearts

before him. God has a great role in teaching

us, as we're going to see in a minute, and assuring our hearts.

But the very clear distinction here is when you do good, you

develop more assurance. And I know for sure myself

that's the case. There have been times where when

I did something for someone, I walked away feeling peace in my

heart. Not, not glory for me, not pride

in me, but peace. And the more I've gotten older,

I've realized that peace is because I'm having confidence

that hey, I am a biblical Christian.

I don't have to wonder if this guy 2000 years ago really has an

influence on me because I see it and I can see it in actions that

are becoming tangible and that assures our hearts.

Now I will add this. It may not be a quick fix.

People have said it before and you've heard it.

Doing, doing, doing, doing, doing more doesn't always solve

every problem in your life. And I'm not implying that.

I'm not saying if you just run yourself ragged doing good deeds

that you're just going to all of a sudden be this frazzled at

peace human. You're you're not you're you may

still have other things that you're dealing with internally

that need to get settled down and worked out to where you're

at peace. But this is the general recipe.

James too has some things to say about this.

He says, what does it profit, my brethren?

If someone says he has faith but does not have works?

Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked

and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, depart

in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the

things that they're needed for the body, what does it profit?

That's also faith by itself. If it does not have works, is

dead. You see that the saying did

nothing, as he already told us in first John.

But someone will say you have faith and I have works.

Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my

faith by my works. There it is.

There's that note of confidence. The Christian draws confidence

by knowing that their works reflect who they really are.

So much of the religious world, if I listen to a commentator,

it's like they beat works completely out the door and and

it's just discouraging. It's like, well, how do you know

then? Well, it's just in your heart.

It's like, well, I mean, there's there's nothing wrong with the

idea that faith is working in you, but you don't beat works

out the door to where people have no idea where they stand.

If you do it, you know it and you have peace.

It's simple in that sense. You believe that there's one

God, you do well, good for you. Even the demons believe and

tremble. He goes on the same verse 26 For

as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works

is dead. Also.

We talked about the beginning, finding a Christian pulse, the

assurance of our spiritual life. Works are your pulse.

Works do not earn you salvation, but it is indicator of whether

you are alive or not. And you can't live without life

and without action. So he goes on to say after we've

kind of taken a tangent, but on the note verse 19 said, let's

get our flow again. And by this we know that we are

of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.

For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart

and knows all things. There are kind of two sides of

this coin. I think there's a maybe a more

clear emphasis here. And I think the clear emphasis

he's making is God is sure, even if you aren't, God is sure about

your salvation and about your standing with Him.

Even if you don't have confidence all the time in it,

that is a great assurance. That is a wonderful piece that

God knows you even when your heart may condemn you.

Jeremiah 17 says this, but blessed is the one who trusts in

the Lord, whose confidence is in him.

They'll be like a tree planted by the water that send out its

roots by the stream. It does not fear when the heat

comes. Its leaves are always green.

It has no worries and a year of drought and never fails to bear

fruit. This is the NIV.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.

Your heart can deceive you against truth and what's right,

but it can also deceive you about your right standing with

God. There are plenty of people, and

I've experienced this, where my heart was condemning me when it

shouldn't have and it made me lose peace.

The writer Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful.

Don't look at your heart like it's the gold standard.

Sometimes you have to. And I've had to in my life by

experience, pry away from the idea that my heart is really the

guide, even if it would be more critical than Scripture.

Sometimes we think, well, as long as my heart's more critical

than God's Word, then I'm good, right?

Well, not necessarily because you can live a tormented life.

He says it is beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Sometimes that's the way our minds work.

Who can understand the way my mind is working?

But God is greater than our hearts.

First John says, verse 10 said I, the Lord, search the heart

and examine the mind. That's the consolation from

Jeremiah is that God really sees.

And if you don't know where you stand, don't worry.

God knows perfectly well where you stand.

He searches your heart and he will know you.

That's the greater reality. Something else to remember in

the same conversation is personality follows you into

your faith. So maybe you're somebody who's

overly conscious as a general person.

Maybe it's school. Maybe everything you do, you're

like very conscientious about it.

Some people fly right through the day and they don't.

They're not too worried. They're I'm doing my best, but I

don't need to get too hung up on anything.

It's not a bad thing. It's just maybe they're more

personality, your personality and who you are as a person is

going to follow you in your faith.

They're not separate. That's who you are.

Just like we understand Peter was a kind of an audacious

person and when he became in the Kingdom, he was audacious in the

Kingdom, and sometimes for good and sometimes not so good, his

faith followed him. Thomas, that's another one I

thought of just off the top of my head where he was called

doubting Thomas or Thomas. Why did you doubt?

Maybe he was a skeptical person as it was.

We we read about some of the more prominent figures, but

there's all kinds of personalities below that

threshold of audacious that exists that influence your

perspective spiritually. So we have to learn to navigate

our own personality. So how do we see reality?

Here's how we see reality. James 1 is not really focusing

on this topic, but it's a clue in there that I found really

helpful in this study. James one verse 23 says for if

anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man

observing his natural face in a mirror.

For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets

what kind of man he was. I'm not focusing so much on what

James is talking about in context, but there he makes a

reference about what scripture does.

Get this. If anyone is a hearer of the

word, hearing the word of God allows you to observe the

natural face in the mirror. What's he saying?

He says when you see God's word and when you study it, it shows

you who you really are. It shows you reality, it shows

you truth. Now he's saying, unfortunately,

often times we walk away from it and forget reality about who we

are. But I, I like that thought that

we, we can stick with that, that if I want to see me, if I want

to grow and seeing myself for what I really AM and what

everything really is. Instead of being unconfident

and, and, and whatever you might say over conscientious, continue

to look into the word of God and stay with it because it will

give you a clear pers, a clearer perspective on who you really

are and how everything else really is like a mirror in front

of your face. Don't let go of that, even when

it's confusing. You know, no matter how long it

takes, it took me a long time for some of these things.

That's how we see reality. One last note on this idea,

they, there's a study done by these two men, Dunny and Kruger,

and, and they had, they coined this term the Dunning Kruger

effect, which is a cognitive bias that when you are

inexperienced at something, you overestimate your ability and

when you're experienced at something, you underestimate

your ability. That's pretty straightforward.

You see someone who's like done something a couple times, like

I'm feeling pretty good about it.

They've only had a couple of isolated circumstances and their

confidence levels may be higher than it should be.

It's inflated, whereas people who have been doing something

for a long time realize all the nuances of every skill and all

the details that go into making good plans.

If you're doing architectural drawings and figuring out design

attributes of a building, there's so much nuance to

someone who's really experienced, understands how

good some people are, and they underestimate themselves

sometimes. So there's a cognitive bias you

may have maybe that influences this.

Maybe the more you try, the more you realize your own weakness.

And that's echoed in Romans. I'm not going to read the whole

thing forsake of time, but Paul's basically saying when I

started, when I saw the law of God, it showed me all the wrong

inside of me and it showed me all my flaws and it it just made

it worse. It seemed like it made the fight

harder. It made it me feel like there's

so much more sin to take care of.

That's kind of what happens when God starts to work in me.

He sometimes those things become revealed.

Here's the assurance. When we have humble hearts,

God's word will cut, and that's a good thing.

But assurance is necessary. And that assurance comes from

God knowing our hearts and from him encouraging us to do good so

that our hearts fully see, hey, you're doing this thing.

Now the negative side of this, just real quick, it's short.

If even our hearts know if we're in the wrong, God says, trust

me, I know there's no getting away from God.

If even our hearts condemn us and we are truly and wrong, God

knows even better than our hearts.

So let's get the flow of what he said.

My little children, let us not love in Word or in tongue, but

in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are

of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.

For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart

and knows all things. New stuff, here it comes,

beloved. If our heart does not condemn

us, we have confidence toward God.

That is awesome. And whatever we receive from Him

because we keep His commandments and do those things that are

pleasing in His sight. So the flow of thought was, if

you do right, that assures your heart.

And when you assure your heart you have confidence before Him,

and when you have confidence before Him, you ask Him for

things and He gives them to you. That's awesome.

When we have confidence before God because we're doing right,

we ask things for Him and He and whatever we ask we receive

because of the good that we show that we are on his side, that we

are interested in his purposes and we want to we want his

commandments to be at the forefront.

We 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 us

commandment. You know what's funny is the

commandment that they're obeying the whole time was the action,

but he called it here. Believe on belief, on the name

of the Son of God and loving one another.

So if anyone wants to tell you, you know it's about belief and

love. Yes.

Well, how does he say you know you believe in you love by doing

these good things. It's really pretty simple.

The command to believe and to love is manifested in her

actions as Jesus commanded us and that pleases him.

Now He who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and

He and Him, there's the unity and the closeness that you don't

want to feel like Jesus was a long time ago.

He's moved on from you. We're together in Him by this.

We know that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He has given us.

When I read this, I feel the tide waters calmly wash over

reading this and we have great peace knowing that we can be in

Him and we can be assured of that.

And today you are not assured. He's given us a clear outline

for Howard. Remember, John is a book of

overview and and broad concepts. So we didn't flesh out every

detail of what it means to be a complete Christian.

That takes time, that takes understanding.

And but you can start the walk by believing and hearing the

word of God creates belief in US.

And because of that belief, we respond with a repentant heart

and we say, I'm going to change from doing my will and go to

God's will. And we confess that Jesus Christ

is the Son of God. There's no other name by which

we may be saved under heaven by than by him.

And we are baptized into Christ for the mission of our sins.

And if you've already done that and you need to make it right

and need to make something right with the brethren, we're happy

to help you if there's anything we can pray for while we stand

and while we sit.