How Can I Know I'm a Christian, Part 1
1 John 4v13-16a
14th July 2023
How do you know you're truly a Christian, saved, born again, a child of God? John tells us the answer:
1 John 4v13
We know that we live in him and he in us because he has given us of his
Spirit.
You know you're saved because God has given you the Holy Spirit. As Paul said:
Romans 8v14-16
…those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you
received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
There are some things that the true Christian knows with absolute certainty. A scientist would say we can't know anything that isn't scientifically provable. I would say that nothing is scientifically provable; that's why scientists disagree with each other, and why science keep changing.
I can say with absolute certainty that Jesus is God, that He died on the cross to pay for my sins, that I'm forgiven, that God loves me and speaks to me. I know that I am in Christ. And I know that Christ is in me. I don't think these things are probably true. I'm certain they're true. I don't know these things because some physicist thinks he's proved them. I don't know them because I'm so clever that I've worked them out with a pencil and paper. I know them because the Holy Spirit convinces me.
This can take a little time for somebody who's just become a Christian. It can take a few months or years for us to tune in to God well enough to be absolutely certain. There's a lot of rubbish that has to be cleared out of our hearts and minds when we first start following Jesus. But a Spirit-filled Christian who has walked with God for a significant time knows. He's not in doubt. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
We can lose that certainty if we indulge in significant sin, or if we neglect to live a Christian life, if we fail to meet with our church or read our Bibles or pray, or if we constantly fail to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. But every Spirit-filled Christian who genuinely walks with God will always know with absolute certainty that he belongs to Jesus, even when everything seems to be going wrong.
We also have the testimony of the people who knew Jesus when He was on earth. John says:
1 John 4v14
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour
of the world.
John and the other early apostles had this amazing experience: they saw Jesus in the flesh. They witnessed the miracles. They heard the sermons. They saw God's love embodied in the one perfect man, Jesus Christ. They saw the Crucifixion. They witnessed the Resurrection. They knew Jesus so well that they were left in no doubt at all that He is the Son of God, sent from heaven into the world to save us from our sin. We trust their testimony, because the Holy Spirit confirms it to us, and because we too have experienced the blessing of being united with God through faith in Jesus.
1 John 4v15
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
As we saw earlier in this series, this word "acknowledges" means more than just "assents". In this letter, it means "gladly proclaims". John is saying that if anybody feels like shouting and dancing because Jesus is the Son of God, then he has been born again, he is in Christ, he's saved, he's a true Christian.
And if you know that the amazing love and mercy of God has come to you, saved you, included you, adopted you as a child of God, transformed you, how can you possibly not feel like shouting and dancing about it? Sadly, some of us are a bit repressed. Brought up in England, we're taught to be a bit embarrassed about shouting and dancing. But Jesus us alive! He's paid for your sins! He's given you His Holy Spirit! He's welcomed you into His family! If anything in the universe is worth shouting and dancing about, surely it's this!
And if you have this wonderful, irrepressible joy, that's another proof that you are in Christ.
1 John 4v16a
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
Since we live in Christ and Christ lives in us, since the Holy Spirit reminds us and convinces us of this all the time, a Spirit-filled Christian who is walking with Christ, with his church and with his Bible, knows he can rely on God's agape love.
We can't rely on our own goodness; we know we still sin. We can't rely on our own strength; we know our strength will fail as our bodies age. We can't rely on our own wisdom; we know we get so many things wrong, saying and doing much foolishness. We can't rely on our government or our scientists. But we can rely on God's love.
There's no such thing as financial security, as the coronavirus lockdown and inflation have proved to many people and businesses. There's no such thing as guaranteed good health, as many of us already know. The combined governments of the world, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations, the NHS, the scientific intelligentsia, Imperial College's epidemiology department, couldn't prevent the coronavirus pandemic. The League of Nations couldn't prevent the Second World War. I may get run over by a bus tomorrow. The only security there is, is security in God. We can rely on the love and faithfulness of God.
Hebrews 13v5-6
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have,
because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can
man do to me?"
What can evil men do to me? What can government do to me? What can illness do to me? What can anything do to me? Nothing will happen to me that God does not allow. And nothing can separate me from the love of God. The only real security is the certainly that God loves us, and He always will.
Philippians 1v6
... he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of
Christ Jesus.