1 John 5 - Three Witnesses to Christ
Tom Shrader examines the three divine witnesses that testify to Jesus Christ's identity as the Son of God: His baptism (water), His crucifixion (blood), and the Holy Spirit. He emphasizes that these witnesses provide believers with absolute certainty about eternal life, which begins now and includes God's presence, peace, and joy through the Holy Spirit.
“In the midst of this uncertain world, we're just trying to grab something that we know for sure - and John said, when we summarize this, I want you to know something for certain, absolute, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you have eternal life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 John
Recorded: April 19, 1989
Duration: 43 min
Themes: faith, witness, testimony, assurance, baptism, crucifixion, fellowship, love, new believer, struggling with doubt, seeking assurance, questioning faith, wanting certainty, young christian, pastor, bible teacher
Scripture: 1 John 5:1-13, Matthew 3:13-17, Matthew 11:28-30, John 14:27, John 15:10-11, Romans 8:15-16, Galatians 5:22, Ephesians 1, Titus 3
Theological Themes: christology, pneumatology, holy spirit, eternal life, born again, divine witness, salvation assurance, fellowship
Full Transcript
In 1 John chapter 5, we continue our study on this Tape Day. You can pick up the tapes from the last two weeks on the way out.
Last week we looked at what John identified as consequences of fellowship. He makes a point that's so important we want to look at it one more time: whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. That's the first thing. That's the basis of fellowship. The reason that you and I are with God is because we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
When we use the word believe, for those who maybe haven't been with us for this study, I encourage you to pick up the tapes and contact the office to get the back tapes if you need them. When we use the word believe, we mean believe in the active sense. Not just mental assent, not just saying, "Yeah, Jesus is the Son of God." But making that 18-inch trip from my mind to my heart where I believe that it's true and then I begin to act as though it's true.
The Love Test for Believers
We said whoever believes in Him, whoever believes that Jesus is the Son of God and loves the Father, loves the child born of God. There's a sense in which I love the Lord Jesus Christ because I believe in who He is.
Here we go. Verse 2: "By this we know that we love the children of God." A characteristic about us as believers is that we love the brothers and the sisters. In fact, it's interesting we even call them brothers and sisters. There's a closeness in the body of Christ.
Let me give you two points here. Number one, you are called to love people who are Christian even though you may not like them. They may not be your kind of people. You may not like the way they wear their hair or the way that they dress. They may just rub you the wrong way, but you're called to love them, to be committed to them, to be their servants.
Secondarily, let me add a second point. If in fact this is not the case, you may have a problem. If being with Christians is a drag, watch out. If you're one of those guys that say, "You know, Christianity's okay and Sunday's all right, but Christians aren't much fun," God's Word says there should be attraction to the brothers. We're not going to like everybody, but there's a sense in which we're going to love everybody and there's going to be some of those that we like and we're going to have a desire to be with them.
I'll never forget about five or six years ago, Monday night, the Cowboys are playing the Redskins and we, Susan and I and another couple, are in a Bible study and about nine o'clock we end up at Mary Doyle's eating ice cream. We're sitting there and all of a sudden I started laughing to myself saying, "I can't believe this. It's Monday night, the Cowboys are playing the Redskins. Two things: I'm sober and don't have a bet on the game and I'm eating ice cream with a bunch of Christians and I'm enjoying it." That's a characteristic of a real believer. I have a desire to be with the brothers.
God's Commandments Are Not Burdensome
He said there's one other thing and he makes it very clear: "For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments." He's said that to us before, but he adds a little parenthetical insert here. He said, "His commandments are not burdensome." Isn't that interesting?
Keep your finger right there and turn to Matthew's gospel in the eleventh chapter. Matthew 11:28, Jesus said this: "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden." He said come to me all of you who are just flat tired. You've had enough. You're weary. You've been burdened upon burden upon burden. You're drudgery. He said come to me and I'll give you rest. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you shall find rest for your soul."
Here He tells us something interesting in verse 30: "My yoke is easy and my load is light." Maybe you're here this morning looking for a light easy load. You come to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why it's light and easy because you will be yoked with the creator of the universe. Perfectly yoked and it's not that He's necessarily going to remove you from the circumstances that you're in, but He is going to provide you the strength to endure and not only endure, but to endure in a joyful manner.
John said I want you to understand something: My commandments are not burdensome. Jesus said this in John's gospel: "These things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulation, but take courage. I've overcome the world."
The Victory of Faith
That's what John says in verse 4 and 5 of chapter 5. He said whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. And who is the one who's overcome the world but he who has faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
There's a picture of the believer. He's somebody who's placed his faith and trust in Jesus Christ. He loves God, so he loves God's kids and he loves God, therefore he keeps His commandments. And all of a sudden his life is not a burden.
Now does that mean it's just absolutely a stroll with no problems and here comes the rose petals? No. That means that there's still tough times. That means that there's still deals that blow and deals that never even get started. It means that there's still wives that aren't there when you'd like them to be there. It's still kids that are driving you crazy. There's still those parts of life that are there, but there's a sense in which I have ultimate freedom because I no longer have the burden about worrying about my eternal life.
Almost all, 95% of the people in this country acknowledge that there's a God. And depending upon the poll
that you look at, at least 87%, almost nine out of ten, say that there's an afterlife. If there's an afterlife and if there's a heaven and if there's a hell, how do I know that I'm going to secure heaven and shun hell?
See, Jesus' commandments are not burdensome. Here's what the law says. Any of you that have come out of a denominational background, you can understand this. I went through that for years. I went through doing this and doing this and not doing this and doing this to the point where I said, I'm never going to please God. I'm never going to get God satisfied. He's perfect.
So I went through a period where I said, well, He mustn't exist. It's the classic denial. I said, well, if He doesn't exist, or at least I question His existence, then I certainly am never going to be judged by Him because if He doesn't exist, I'll never stand before Him. But I couldn't get away from the fact that somebody had to create all this.
When for the very first time I sat down and somebody explained to me that all I had to do to please God was to embrace His Son, Jesus Christ, and have eternal life, and then to repent, change my ways, and live accordingly under His strength, I could feel the burden being lifted right off my shoulder. But He says His commandments aren't burdensome. It is easy for me to see what He's saying.
The Three Witnesses Introduced
Now He says, I want you to see the truth of that. It's what we pick up today in verse 6. Let's just read through to verse 13. I'll watch all of you kind of frown, and then we'll come back and try to make sense out of it all.
He says this in verse 6, "This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ." He's saying Jesus Christ came by water and He came by blood, and we'll come back to that. "Not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for the witness of God is this, that He has borne witness concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son."
And now he begins to summarize this section and really begin to head toward the end of the book. He said, "This is the witness that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life."
Verse 13, and this is the crown of what we're going to look at today, "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you might know that you have eternal life."
Understanding the Concept of Witness
Now if you just look at that and you just take a pen, there's one word that you're going to see in those seven verses over and over and over again. I think it's there nine times. It's the little word witness. If you're somebody who marks in your Bible, great opportunity to start in verse six and go through to verse 13 and just circle the little word witness, because John's going to say witness is important.
Here's what a witness is. It means literally in the original language, one who remembers or one who has knowledge of something by personal experience. John said this isn't something you cooked up. This witness that you're going to get is a firsthand witness.
If you've ever followed any sort of a court proceedings, you know that the most credible evidence that you can present is an eyewitness, somebody who can testify firsthand. If I see a guy and he's got the gun laying at his feet, and I can find somebody over here that says, well, I saw him holding the gun, I've got pretty good circumstantial evidence that the body over here behind the door is there and dead as a result of his execution, but I don't know for sure. But if I've got a guy that says, look it, I saw him behind the door with the gun pointed at the guy. He pulled the trigger. I saw a puff of smoke. This guy fell. Blood came out. He killed him. All of a sudden it's case closed. If the witness is credible.
And John said this, I want you to know that there are three personal firsthand witnesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And the first one is He came by water.
The First Witness: Water
Keep your finger here because we're going to be right back again. Matthew's gospel in the third chapter in an incident that probably is glossed over yet is of incredible, significant proportion to us. Matthew chapter three.
It's the baptism of Jesus Christ. It's the reference that John makes here in first John, Jesus coming by water. He said this verse 13, Matthew 3:13, "Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John to be baptized by him."
Now John is an interesting character. This is not the John that wrote the book that we're studying. This is John the Baptist. John had some quirks. John was different. John kind of lived on the edge of town. John dressed in an old hair suit and John didn't have a weight problem because he had a real interesting diet. In fact, if he were around today, he'd probably be making about four billion dollars on this. He'd be on Larry King and everywhere else because he had a diet. John ate, remember what he ate? Locusts and honey.
Now when you just hear that, plus you hear that what he does essentially is stand out there and say, repent, repent, repent. You're saying John's kind of an odd duck. But the Lord Jesus Christ came to John and you know what He said? He said, in the history of mankind, there has never been a person greater than John the Baptist. This guy is as good as it's ever been in the history of mankind, Jesus Christ says. And he's a baptizer. He's a forerunner of Christ.
It's kind of a trick question, but the last of the Old Testament prophets is really found in the New Testament. It's
John the Baptist's Testimony
John the Baptist was the last prophet who prophesied the coming of Christ. Though we find him in the New Testament, he was still a prophet in the Old Testament sense. When Jesus came to him to be baptized, here's what John, the greatest man in the history of mankind, said. He tried to prevent Jesus, saying, "I have need to be baptized by you. And do you come to me?"
John said, "I can't do it." Another version tells us John said, "I'm not worthy to untie your sandal." Remember when we looked at the slave-master relationship? We said there was nothing that the slave was not asked to do except untie his master's shoe. That was the bottom of the barrel. They'd never ask anybody to do that. And the greatest man of all time says to the Lord Jesus Christ, "I'm not even worthy to do the bottom of the barrel for you." That's the distance between a holy God and a sinful man.
The First Witness: Water Baptism
John said, "I can't baptize you." In verse 15, Jesus answered, "Permit it at this time, for this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." He said this is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecy. Then he permitted him.
After being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water. Here's the witness of the water. And behold, the heavens were opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon Him. And behold, a voice out of the heaven said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."
John said here's the first witness in the series of three that John is producing for us in 1 John chapter 5. Here's the first witness: the baptism. And the witness is God Himself. Jesus is immersed. He identifies with your sin and mine. He's not baptized because He has a sin problem. He's baptized because He's identifying with us.
He comes springing out of the water and God is there saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Now let me ask you, what has Jesus done up to this point? He hasn't healed anybody yet. That's coming. He hasn't done any miracles. He hasn't turned water into wine. He hasn't raised Lazarus from the dead. He hasn't even given a sermon yet. All He's been doing for 30-plus years is pounding nails. I left out one important thing: pounding nails and living a sinless life.
This is an important time because the Lord Jesus Christ comes out of that water and God said, "I want you to understand something. This is my Son. He is perfect. He is without sin." The water baptism bears witness that this is the Son of God.
The Second Witness: The Blood
But He said there's a second witness. It's also the witness of the blood—the crucifixion of Christ. Remember the scene when Christ was hanging on the cross and there was a Roman soldier there? All he did was observe what happened. Remember what he said? He said, "Surely this was the Son of God."
The resurrection becomes the exclamation point that says again the blood was acceptable. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Look at Him as He rises from the dead." Those are two important witnesses that John gives you and me.
The Third Witness: The Holy Spirit
But he says there's a third witness. Back to 1 John chapter 5, he said here's the third witness: it's the Spirit, the Holy Spirit who bears witness that in fact, this is the Son of God.
Here's what Paul writes in Romans 8. Listen to this. Romans 8:15-16: "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship, the Holy Spirit. And by Him, the Holy Spirit, we cry out 'Abba Father.'" Here's what he says in verse 16: "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."
He said you and I have in us another witness—it's the Holy Spirit. I tell you that God is in this room today. You know how I know? Because there are Christians here. When I say God's in the room, I don't mean He's floating around. I'm saying He's right here. There are men and women who have given their life to Christ in this room. And when that happens, the Holy Spirit comes and indwells me and God lives within me.
How the Holy Spirit Works
There's something about the Holy Spirit living in me that testifies to me that this stuff is true. I begin to grow in my faith. And the Spirit is in there and He's doing what God has said He would do.
Here's what the Holy Spirit does. First of all, He convicts you of your sin. I don't know about your life, but there's a point in my life where I said, "You know what? Some of this stuff that I'm doing that I thought was okay is wrong. It's sinful. I don't feel good doing it. I'm not having any fun." And I've concluded I'm not having any fun because it's wrong. The Holy Spirit is the one who produced that conviction.
Then the Holy Spirit, according to Titus 3, regenerates us. He brings you to life. The Holy Spirit causes life inside of you spiritually and He gives you the gift to believe. The Holy Spirit does that. Then He comes in and indwells you.
The Holy Spirit does at least one more thing, and there are others. He then seals me—Ephesians chapter 1. The Holy Spirit is your seal. You ever been down to the bookstore that sells T-shirts that say "Property of Arizona State University"? When the Holy Spirit comes into your life, He seals you. You can't see it, but you have on you, as God looks at you, a big sign that says "Property of the Holy God, Creator of the Universe." That's what the Holy Spirit does. He seals you with that.
And He does another thing. That seal guarantees you eternal life.
God's Witness is Greater
Now here's the scene. We're looking for witnesses. How do I know that Jesus Christ is really God come in the flesh? Three ways: one, through His baptism; two, through His death; three, through His Holy Spirit.
Look what he says in verse 9: "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for the witness of God is this which He has testified concerning His Son." Here's what he's saying. He said, "Wait a minute. You believe all kinds of stuff that men tell you. How could you not believe what the Spirit of God says?"
A couple of weeks ago, we took a trip, and I was reflecting back on it this week.
The Everyday Reality of Faith
Let me tell you about a trip I took recently that illustrates how much faith we put in people every single day. First of all, we went down to the airport and left our car with some guy we don't even know. He doesn't have the keys, but he's got total access to it. Then we get in a bus and go to the airport, where we sit and wait for a plane. The plane comes and we get on it. I never met the guys flying it. I never met the mechanics who fixed it. And we head for St. Louis.
We get to St. Louis, come off the plane, and there's a woman right there who asks, "Where are you going?" We say, "Atlanta." She says, "Okay, that's gate 64." I never said, "Let me see your credentials. Are you with the airlines?" I just headed to gate 64. All of a sudden, I get on this thing, we sit down, and they say, "Welcome. Thank you for your trip. We're heading there. Just to confirm, we're going to Atlanta." I assume she's telling me the truth, and we get to Atlanta and off we get.
We get onto a shuttle bus, they give us a rental car, and then we exhibited massive faith. We followed every sign specifically. It said, "Augusta, 99 miles." I said, "Okay, it's got to be 99 miles. Turn left when you get to here."
When Human Directions Work Better Than GPS
We got a little disoriented. That's a fancy way of saying we didn't have a clue where we were. So we stopped and said to this guy, "We're trying to get to Glen Sky Drive." He said, "Well, y'all, where are you from?" I said, "Well, we're from Phoenix, but we're concerned about where we're going, Glen Sky Drive."
"Well, y'all go down this way a little—oh, block, two, might be a mile. You go down here, and then you go left. You go left a little bit. You see the courthouse. When you get to the courthouse, there's a Wendy's, or a McDonald's, or a—nah, it's a Waffle House. Just go to the Waffle House. That's what it is. Go to the Waffle House, make another left, and then when you get there, you're going to be real close to it, and then just kind of look around, and you can't miss it."
Well, there we are, going down, and the next thing I know, there's the Waffle House, and here we are.
The Logic of Trusting God's Testimony
Here's what John is saying: If you trust the guy in Augusta who tells you where you're going based on "down this way a little, and over here, and by the Waffle House, and then look," and you really believe it, and you trust Him, and you believe enough to go do it, how foolish would it be to not trust God when He tells you the truth about His Son?
I mean, I'm trusting all sorts of people all day long with all sorts of information, and really moving my life by it. We're running down to gate 64 with a five-minute connection, and I'm trusting all of this. How foolish would it be for me not to trust God?
I think I mentioned to you, we had an astrophysicist teach a couple of weeks ago. This guy came in, and I mean this guy—nobody understood what he said. He'd say something, then he'd say, "Any questions?" We didn't even know what questions to ask for a while. But everybody loved this guy.
Why Smart Believers Encourage Us
Here's why, in my mind. It's not because he was a good speaker—that guy was a yawner, okay? It wasn't because he was dynamic. Here's why: He stood there and scientifically told you that this book was true. I'm convinced everybody in there loved it because all of a sudden, we saw somebody really smart believe what we believed.
That's all it was. We said, "This guy that's got about a four-digit IQ believes the same thing I believe, so golly, I did the right thing after all." This guy really is smart, but I believe Him. Here's what he said: "Don't believe me, believe the holy God creator of the universe." See, there's the witness, and that's what John said.
The Ultimate Witness
Now he begins to wrap this section up for us today. Verse 11: "And this is the witness, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son, and he who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life."
There are so many words that I fear—and there's no way to avoid it—that we use in here that we don't get back to define. Maybe it's a term we throw out all the time, and over the course of a period of time, we get them defined for you, but we can't stop and define every word. But there's a phrase that we use all the time in here, and it scares me to death that perhaps we've never defined it, and you don't understand exactly what it is. The phrase is "eternal life."
Understanding Eternal Life
Let me talk about eternal life just a minute. Eternal life has two aspects to it. Now, I don't want you to miss this. Eternal life has two aspects.
**Quantity.** We all have eternal life. All five billion people on the globe have eternal life. Everybody that's alive today physically will live forever spiritually. Everybody has eternal life. The question is not only quantity, but it is **quality**. The question is, where do you spend that eternal life? In union with God, in His presence in heaven, or separated from Him eternally in hell? See, that's one of the aspects of eternal life.
There's another one. **Eternal life begins today.** Eternal life starts right now. The first day of eternal life, from our perspective, is today. Eternal life is a gift from God. You didn't do anything to earn it. Nothing you could do to earn it. God gave you the gift of eternal life, and you accept that gift by responding in repentance and faith.
The Present Reality of Eternal Life
Eternal life is another thing. It is the presence of Jesus Christ. Eternal life is God, through the person of His Son and the Holy Spirit, actively involved in my life.
Listen to this. This is John 14:27: "Peace I leave with you. Now grab this. My peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world gives. Don't let your hearts be troubled and don't be afraid." He said, "I'm with you. And My peace I'm going to give to you. You're going to have the peace of God within you."
There's another one, John 15:10: "If you obey My commandments, grab it again..."
You will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commandment and remained in His love. That God, through the Son and through the Holy Spirit, are in me, and my love is in them. Here's the last one, and we could go on forever, John 15:11. "This I've told you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made complete." I've got the love and the peace and the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ living in me through His Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit. It's a result of God living in me.
Eternal life begins today. It's the presence of God. It's a gift from God. It lasts forever. Here's something that I pulled out of the Life Application Bible. I thought this was pretty good. Here's what they say about eternal life: You have eternal life right now. All you need are contained in His promise. You don't need to wait. It begins today. You don't need to work. It's already yours. You don't need to worry because it's guaranteed. Eternal life for the Christian is here now, and you don't have to worry about it.
Verse 13, and we close with this. This ties it all together. "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you might know that you have eternal life."
John's Four Freedoms
Let me give you a quick summary. Go back to the beginning of the book, chapter 1 and the fourth verse. We said when we started this book that John wanted us to experience freedom, real freedom, and he said, I want to give you freedom in four areas.
The first one is in chapter 1, verse 4. John said this, "These things we write so that our joy may be made complete." John said, I want to give you freedom from despair. I want you to lead a life of certainty, of joy, a life above the circumstances. Don't get bogged down in the day-to-day of the world. You don't need to. I want you to have joy.
Here's the second freedom he wanted to give us. It's in chapter 2, verse 1. It's freedom from guilt. He said, "My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous." John is saying you and I are going to live a life free of sin. He's saying, I want you to understand this. I'm writing this book so you understand that you don't need to be walking around carrying a bunch of guilt, that Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross and I came into a personal relationship with Him, gave me the ability to live a guilt-free life.
Here's the third reason he wrote it. Again, it's in chapter 2. This time it's in verse 26. He said, "These things I've written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you." He said, I want to give you freedom, thirdly, from deception. I don't want you to be deceived. I don't want you to be believing everybody you hear. I don't want you to turn on the TV on Sunday morning and watch a series of eight guys all say something totally different and not be able to tell which is right and which is wrong. He said, I want you to be free from deception.
And here's the last freedom. Here's the fourth one that he gave us. It's the one we've got now. Chapter 5, verse 13, "I've written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you might know that you have eternal life." And the word we want to focus on at this point is know.
Living in an Uncertain World
We live in a world that is, at best, uncertain. There are those who a few months ago had millions of dollars who today have none. There are those who absolutely had it in the wheelhouse. I mean, they had it locked. There was no chance. There was no way they could lose it.
I met a man who moved out here from the Midwest. He had $14 million in cash. That's a lot. The last I heard, he was down to less than $10,000. The honest of us wouldn't have said, "Wow, what an idiot. Boy, is he dumb. $14 million, why did he need more?" I asked that when he was at 13, and 12, and 11, and 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And the world is uncertainty.
There's a neat little thing I like to watch. It's called buyer's remorse. But I love to watch people buy something, and I watch the remorse because we're not really sure. On Wednesday, when I go to Tucson, one of the agreements I have with the guys down there, so I don't put 15,000 miles a year on my car, is I rent a car when I drive down, and they compensate me for the car. So I go to the same place every week.
And I went in there three weeks ago, and there's this gal, and she's all bubbly. She's in there all the time. "Well, good afternoon, Mr. Schrader." And I like her because she calls me Mr. Schrader. Say, "Good afternoon, Mr. Schrader." I said, "Oh, good afternoon." She said, "Did you see my new truck out there?" And I said, "I couldn't care less." I said, "Which one? No, which truck is yours?" And she said, "Oh, it's that one, it's the beautiful gray pickup." I said, "Wow." And she said, "Can I show it to you?" I said, "Sure, let's go look at it."
So we're walking out, and we go, "Oh, wow, look at that protective liner, wow, this is really a nice truck." And she said, "Oh, boy, this is really neat." I said, "It really is neat." I went in there this Wednesday. I said, "How are you doing?" She said, "Okay." I said, "How's the truck running?" She said, "It's not what I wanted." I said, "It's not what you wanted?" "I wanted something a little bit different. I thought I liked that gray, but you see it in a different light. It's not really gray." I mean, this gal has buyer's remorse. She went from up here to down here.
Paralyzed by Uncertainty
And the world is filled with uncertainty, and we know that. And it impedes every decision we make. People are almost afraid to do things. I am not kidding you. I met with a guy who was absolutely paralyzed, and I don't know if I've told you about this before. I don't know if I've even mentioned it here. And this guy was so insecure by all the uncertainty that he was literally paralyzed in the decision-making process.
And the reason he called me is he said, "I went into Dillard's yesterday. I wanted a pair of pants, 32-32."
I got there. He said they had eight pants in my size. I couldn't make a decision because I didn't want the wrong decision.
We see so many people, especially in that age bracket of 35 to 45, that are looking at making career changes, and we're paralyzed. We don't want to make the wrong decision because we know things change. I mean, I can go everything I have, and go both feet and jump right into the solar energy business. And all of a sudden, they make one little change in the tax laws. That's the way the world is. And it's been that way since Genesis 3.
Life Is Like a River
There's an ancient Greek philosopher named Heraclitus, and Heraclitus said this: You can never step in the same river twice. I used to think, was this guy smoking his toga? What's he saying? I'm not into abstract—I'm real basic.
So what he's saying is, after I think about it for a while, I step in the same river, it's contained in the same boundaries, but the water's different. It's been flowing. I can never recapture that river again. And that's the sense of which life is.
The only thing we bank on, the only thing that's certain, is that things will be uncertain. The only thing that's constant is change. Now that's the world in which we live. That's a given, and you know that. Economic conditions change, relationships can change, all sorts of things can change. And in the midst of this, we're just trying to grab something that we know for sure.
Certainty in an Uncertain World
Here it is, verse 13: "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you might know for certain, absolute, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you have eternal life." Again, the word "know" is an important word in this book. It appears in this book 39 times, 7 times in these last few verses.
Look at verse 15. If you're a circler, grab this. In verse 15, "we know." Verse 15 again, "we know." Verse 18, "we know." Verse 19, "we know." Verse 20, "we know." Verse 20 a second time, "we know."
John said, when we summarize this, I want you to know something. He's writing to the people who are fighting the Gnostics. Remember what the Gnostics said? "Oh, there aren't any real truths, and Scripture is half true and half not, and Jesus really wasn't the Son of God." He was saying what a lot of people say today. And John said, "Look, I want you to understand something. First of all, you have a witness that this is true, and Jesus was the Son of God, and He rose from the dead. But secondly, I want you to know it. I want you to experience the certainty of it."
The Unchanging Christ
I want you to know that God is the same, and Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever. What that means is, His promises are legitimate and real today. I can guarantee you today that if you will come to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith based on His word and your acknowledgement of real faith and real repentance, you have eternal life.
You want to see a sense of consistency in a very uncertain world? Here's where you're going to find it, in the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, "I have come that you might have life," not only eternal life, but you might have life right here and right now, that you'll be able to see things for what they really are.
The Daily Grind
Do you wonder when you get up this morning, "Why am I going through this again? Why am I busting my pick, and now I'm up even an hour early just to go to this study, so that I can run down, so I can spend four or five hours, so I get an hour off to go eat, and then I get back in, and then when I get home, my beeper goes off, and now they've got me carrying this brick portable phone around, and they've just got me 24 hours a day, and I can never get away from them. Why, oh why, oh why am I doing this?"
For job security, and then I find out I really don't have job security, because they just sold this business to some guy in Taiwan, and he's going to lay off 50% of us. And they looked at my pension, and they see I've got 19 and a half years in, and I'm out. Do you ever wonder if that could happen to you? Everybody.
God's Refuge and Rest
True certainty in the midst of an uncertain world, you're only going to find it in one place. God says, "I am your refuge, and I am your strength. Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I am going to give you rest."
Does that mean an absence of activity? Not at all. Does that mean you take on a spirit of complacency? Not at all. But He said, "I'll tell you what, I'm going to give you eyes to see what's really important. I'm going to give you the ability to make the vital things in life truly vital, and let the trivial just wait."
Wouldn't you like to be able to do that? Wouldn't you like to be able to prioritize your life and put at the top what's really important, and know for sure that the others are going to be taken care of? God says, "Come to Me, and I'll give you that ability, I'll give you that strength and that insight."
In fact, He says this: He said, "All you've got to do is ask, and I'll give it to you." Is that right? That's what He says next week.
Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your word. Thank You that we can know the truth. Thank You that we can have certainty in a very, very uncertain world. God, we thank You especially for Your Son, Jesus Christ, and it's in His name that we pray. Amen.