After the economic downturn that began in 2008, Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard, stated that the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index showed “that Americans are smiling less and worrying more than they were a year ago, that happiness is down and sadness is up, that we are getting less sleep and smoking more cigarettes, that depression is on the rise.”
He stated that the real problem was not financial—not having enough money, but something else: uncertainty. People did not know what was going to happen. Would they have a job next week? What is ahead in the future? Professor Gilbert pointed to a Dutch experiment where some subjects were told they would be intensely shocked twenty times. The researchers told a second group that they would receive three strong shocks and seventeen mild ones, but they would not know when the intense shocks would come. The result was that subjects in the second group sweat more and experienced faster heart rates. Uncertainty caused their discomfort, because they did not know when the shocks would come next.
Daniel Gilbert summarized, “An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait… Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty.”[1]
As we look back on 2020, all that could be said of 2008 was only multiplied manyfold. And even as we see some light at the end of the tunnel in 2021, with Covid-19 vaccines soon to be available to many of us, there is still a sense of uncertainty hanging in the air.
What is true in the economic realm, the political realm, and in the realm of health, is also true in the spiritual realm: uncertainty makes us nervous. The good news is that God does not want us to live with spiritual uncertainty. Rather, he promises us blessed assurance. The question is: how do we access that assurance? That is the question John addresses in this next section of his letter. Listen for God’s word to you from 1 John 4:13-21…
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
The all-important question that John seeks to answer here is: How can we know that God lives in us? John gives us a five-part answer to that question.
First, we can know that God lives in us because: We have received God’s Spirit.
Here John is reiterating the same point he made in 1 John 3:24. However, here he says that God has given us of his Spirit. Does this mean that it is possible to receive only part of God’s Spirit? I believe the answer from the rest of the New Testament is a clear “no”. It is impossible for us to have only part of the Spirit, but it is very possible that the Spirit has only part of us.
Let me explain…
The New Testament is quite clear that we receive the Holy Spirit when we first believe in Jesus. In Acts 2:38-39 we read what Peter said to the crowd who heard him preach on the day of Pentecost…
Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.
Paul also makes it clear that without the Holy Spirit, we do not belong to Jesus. In Romans 8:9 he says,
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
Thus, we receive the Holy Spirit when we believe and without the Holy Spirit, we cannot believe or belong to Christ at all. However, once we have the Spirit it is possible to limit the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Thus, Paul urges us:
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
It is not possible to grieve an inanimate object, but because we have a personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit living in our lives it is possible to grieve him, by our sin, by our neglect of the means of grace, by trying to live on our own power instead of his.
The alternative to grieving the Holy Spirit is to be filled with the Spirit. In Ephesians 5:18 Paul says, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” This verse suggests that to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to come under his full control, just as when we drink too much alcohol we come under its control. God wants us to “drive under the influence,” but not of alcohol, rather of the Holy Spirit.
“But how do we know that we have the Holy Spirit in our lives when we cannot see him?” That is a good question. Though we cannot see the Holy Spirit, we can see the fruit he produces. Paul tells us that the fruit of the spirit is: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) The fruit of the spirit is one fruit with many aspects to it. The important thing is that when we see these qualities in our lives, we can be sure that they have been produced by the presence of the Holy Spirit, and because we have the Holy Spirit, we can be sure that we are living in God and he in us.
Secondly, John says we can be sure that God is living in us because: We have the testimony of the apostles. John writes, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”
The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is a subjective source of assurance. However, the work of the Spirit is also tied to an objective source: the testimony of the apostles. Those who knew Jesus, who heard him speak and witnessed his miracles, told others what they had seen and heard and experienced, and within twenty years these stories began to be written down. This is what Jesus himself promised would happen:
When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15: 26-27)
In the New Testament, we have reliable testimony to Jesus from the first generation of his followers. As it says in 2 Peter 1:16…
For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
If we want to gain assurance of our salvation, there is no better way than to prayerfully read the New Testament, asking the Holy Spirit to speak to us through it and give us the assurance we so long for.
A third way John tells us that we can receive assurance, a way spoken about in Scripture, is through acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God.
John writes, “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.”
Paul says something similar in Romans 10:9…
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Great peace of mind comes through publicly owning Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I remember the tremendous peace I felt, and still feel, because I publicly declared my allegiance to Christ in a church service when I was thirteen years old. Confession of faith in Christ is something we will do today as we recite The Apostles’ Creed. Of course, making a confession of faith in Christ in church is not the only way we can acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God. This is something we can do in our everyday life.
The animated story, A Charlie Brown Christmas, airs on one of the major television networks every year. The two producers who worked closely with Charlie Brown creator Charles Schultz remembered, in an interview, their desperate efforts to convince a network to show the special originally. All the major networks were hesitant. Finally, one agreed, and the great cartoonist got to work.
A memorable and moving part of A Charlie Brown Christmas occurs when the cartoon character Linus strolls to center stage and reads the biblical account of the birth of Christ. The two producers working with Schultz cautioned him about putting something like that in the special, because they were convinced it would not go over well. Charles Schultz faced both of the producers and said, “If not us, then who’s going to do it?”[2]
That is a great question we probably all need to ask ourselves. We may not have the opportunity to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God through a nationally syndicated television program, but we each have opportunities to confess Christ in our everyday lives. Furthermore, every time we do acknowledge Jesus, such action will fill us afresh with assurance of our own salvation. I have found that every time I share Christ with someone, I am strengthened in my own faith.
A fourth way that John says we can receive assurance that God is living in us and we in him is through an experience of God’s love.
Our experience of God’s love can be a growing thing in our lives. John says that we know and rely on the love God has for us. The more we put ourselves in situations where we must rely on God, where we must trust him to deliver us, the more we will experience his love.
God’s love seeks completion in us. How is God’s love made complete in us? It is made complete through our becoming more like God’s Son Jesus. That is a process. John says we are like Jesus in the world. Jesus was and is fully human. However, Jesus was and is fully divine as well. As God, Jesus can help us to become the perfect human beings he created us and redeemed us to be.
Jesus had no fear in relationship to his heavenly father. He trusted God completely as Abba. As Jesus lives in us by his Spirit, he can help remove any residual fear in our relationship with God. So long as we are afraid of God, of what he may do to us, such fear reveals that we have not fully experienced his love. God’s love for us is total, perfect, unending and unlimited. Therefore, we have nothing to fear from God, only wonderful things to look forward to receiving from his hand. The best is yet to be!
The final way John tells us we can receive assurance that God is living in us and we in God is through loving our brothers and sisters in Christ.
When we truly experience the love of God then we will naturally overflow that love to others, not just to our fellow Christians, but also to everyone. “We love because he first loved us.”
The story is told of two Christian co-workers who had a difficult time loving their boss because he was often mean to them. Finally, the two Christians decided to get together during their lunch hour and pray for their boss, whom they knew was going to be away from his office during that time. They decided to pray for their boss in the setting of his private office, to which they had access as his assistants. Thus, during their lunch hour, they stood praying for their boss in his office and they decided to add a physical gesture to their prayer that would aid them in visualizing exactly what God wanted for their relationship with their employer. As they prayed, these two Christians each held up one hand toward heaven, visualizing the reception of God’s love into their lives. Then with their other hand they gestured toward the door of their boss’ office, thus indicating the love of God they desired to flow through them to their employer.
As they were praying in this dramatic way, suddenly their boss returned from lunch and asked them what they were doing. They explained that they were praying for their boss for the love of God to fill his life.
I do not know how that man responded to the prayers of these two Christians, but the way these two people stood in prayer before God illustrates, figuratively, how we each need to walk through life. We need to go through every day with one hand stretched out to God to receive God’s love and our other hand stretched out to our neighbor to share God’s love with him or her. As we go through our days living out that posture, I believe we will receive great assurance that, indeed, God is living in us and we in God.
[1] Daniel Gilbert, “What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous,” (9-21-09); as seen in The Week magazine, (6-5-09), p. 14
[2] Greg Huffer; Lebanon, Indiana; source: ABC, WRTV Indianapolis; Bill Melendez Productions, preachingtoday.com
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