Coffeeville First Baptist Church By Craig Baker, Pastor

By Madison | March 19, 2024 |

This week we consider the third question in our “Glad You Asked,” series. That question is, “How can I know for sure that I am saved?” That is a question that most Christians have struggled with at some point. I once heard an older pastor say that in all his years of ministry, he had never questioned his calling but had questioned his salvation more often than he cared to admit. To know that we are saved, we are going to look at some passages in 1 John. The Apostle John wrote this letter around 90A.D. while overseeing the church at Ephesus and the churches in the surrounding area. At this point, Christianity had been around for a generation. The church had suffered a lot of persecution, but it had survived. While the church still faced some persecution, when John wrote his letters the level of persecution had died down. The main problem the church faced at this point was false teachers. Out of these false teachings came fake believers. They professed to be believers, but their lives showed no evidence of the faith they professed. They claimed to be part of the church but were conforming to society’s standards rather than God’s standards. This brought a decline in obedience to God, an increased acceptance of sin, and a host of false doctrines and ungodly beliefs into the church. As you can imagine, this also brought a lot of confusion into the church. People were unsure what to believe or if what they believed was the truth, so they doubted their salvation and what it means to follow Jesus. All of this was not that much different than what the church is facing today. How do we know that we are saved, that our faith is real? In 1 John 5:13, the Apostle John wrote, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” John accomplished this by giving believers tests of truth, obedience, and love to determine whether their faith was real. We will not full cover every aspect of John’s tests, but we will look at their first occurrence. John begins with a test of truth in 1 John 1:5-10. John wrote, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” Light is holiness, righteousness, revelation, and knowledge of the truth. Darkness is evil, sin, deceit, and concealment. They cannot exist together. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum. If we are walking in light, then our darkness will diminish. It will be driven out. If we are walking in darkness, then we have no light. Some of us are walking in darkness, living a life of sin, but try to cover it up by pretending to follow Jesus, pretending to walk in the light. We want people to think we are spiritual, so we live a lie, but we are not just lying to others. Verse 8 tells us we deceive ourselves, and some of us have been lying to ourselves about our sins for so long that we believe our lies. Verse 10 says our spiritual decline gets even worse. By denying the truth and refusing to acknowledge our sin, we not only make ourselves out to be a liar, but we try to make God a liar too. We contradict His Word which says, “all have sinned…” We think we are an exception to the rule. Therefore, we have no conviction or repentance of our sins. We sit through worship services and Bible studies and are not moved by the Word of God or His presence. If you say you are a Christian but are willfully and purposely walking in darkness, living a sinful life, the Bible says you are a liar, and the truth is not in you. The next test is a test of obedience in 1 John 2:3-6 & 28-29. For the genuine believer, obedience to God is not an option. It is of the utmost importance. The heart of being a Christian is living in obedience to God and His Word. Even as believers we there will be times when we disobey God. John was not saying we must have perfect, sinless obedience, but when we are saved, we are made a new creation. Having a genuine belief in something will change the way you act, our want to, and desires. We will no longer desire sin but desire obedience to God. I read a while back where some conservative church leaders said that if we take serious what the Bible says is evidence of genuine faith in Jesus that only about 10% to 15% of people who claim to be Christians really believe. The other 85% to 90% show no evidence of a life transforming faith in Jesus. Do you keep God’s commandments? To keep means to treasure, love, value, hold dear. John says if your faith is genuine, you will keep God’s commandments. Notice commandments is plural. The implication here is all God’s commandments, not just some of them, not just the ones that are easy or you like. It is all of them. You cannot pick and choose which commandments you will obey. In 1 John 2:5 John makes it clear that keeping God’s commandments is keeping His Word. The word keep is in the present tense which means that keeping God’s Word is to be a continuous action. Again, John tells us if we claim to know God but do not keep His commandments, we are a liar. The final test of faith John gives us is a test of love (1 John 2:7-11). Think about the people you know who say they are Christians. The question is, “Do you love them?” Jesus said they will know His followers by their love for one another. Now I realize some people, even church people, are hard to love because they are not very Christlike. Some are the liars that John has been telling us about. You could say that even though they are among us they are not with us. Regardless, we are to love them, but we are not just to love our fellow believers. The Bible is clear that we are to love even our enemies. Love those who mistreat us, those who gossip about us, those who do evil towards us, those who curse us, and even those who hate us. We are also to love the needy, the hurting, the hopeless; those who have nothing to offer us. The love John is referring to is not some mushy emotion. It is a feeling of genuine concern for the betterment and well-being of others that spurs us to action on their behalf, perhaps even doing more for their good than we do for our own good. How can you know for sure you are saved? Take the test of truth, obedience, and love. Do you practice truth, walking in the light and fellowship with God? Do you have a desire to know and keep God’s commandments? Do you love others, even your enemies? John tells us that if you say you believe in Jesus but do not do those things you are a liar, and the truth is not in you. Do you pass the test?

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