How to Overcome Doubts

Last fall, we spent some time in the book of 1 John. We found that it is a very practical little book, because it answers many of our most pressing questions about the Christian life.

John wrote this letter to Christians who were facing a challenge to their faith and their understanding of the Christian life. They were encountering people who called themselves Christians, but who held widely diverse views of what it actually means to be a Christian. So John wrote this letter to make the issue clear; he wrote it to show his friends what an authentic Christian believes and how an authentic Christian should live.

And, as we discovered, John says that you can tell who is a real Christian. There are unmistakable signs which show it.

I have in my library Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America. On each page there are pictured several birds, with little pointers and notes on the identifying marks of each one. John gives us in his epistle a Field Guide to Real Christians. What are the identifying marks of an authentic follower of Christ?

1. An authentic Christian is someone who recognizes he’s a sinner and confesses his sin to God. He doesn’t gloss over it, doesn’t try to cover it up or rationalize it. He agrees with God concerning his sin and is completely open with God about it.

2. An authentic Christian is someone who seeks to do God’s will. It’s his overriding passion, the number one priority of his life.

3. An authentic Christian is someone who loves God more than anything or anyone else in this world. He recognizes the temptations that come from the desires of his own physical appetites, from the desire to possess nice things, and from the desire to be better than other people.

4. An authentic Christian is someone who believes that Jesus Christ is God.

5. An authentic Christian is someone who remains in fellowship with Christ. He continues with Christ; he abides with Christ.

6. An authentic Christian is someone who does not make sin a way of life. He certainly may sin, but he does not continue to live in sin.

7. An authentic Christian is someone who loves others with the same kind of unselfish love that Christ had for us.

These are the marks of a real Christian. This list of characteristics help those early Christians, just as they help us, tell who is a real believer and who is just a make-believer.

But John goes on in the passage today to talk about a slightly different issue. It is a question which all of us have asked. It’s a problem which some of us really have to wrestle with. It is the problem of doubt. It’s very important to be able to discern who is part of God’s family, but how do we know if we ourselves are part of that family?

You see, at one time or another, every Christian has reason to question whether or not he really belongs to God. How can we know for certain that we are authentic Christians ourselves? Is there any objective evidence upon which we can rely? If so, what is it? Why do we have these doubts? Why do we sometimes feel as though we are not Christians and that God is a million miles away? Is it sinful for us to have these feelings, or to ask these questions?

The passage we are looking at today is found in 1 John 3:19-24. It deals with precisely this issue of our own self-doubt about our relationship with God. I want you to notice first of all that this passage begins and ends with a sentence that contains the word “know”:

1 John 3:19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth

1 John 3:24 And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

As a matter of fact, the apostle John uses the word “know” in this letter no less than 41 times in just 5 brief chapters. God wants us to know about our relationship with Him; He wants us to be sure about it.

Let’s look at three important facts which God tells us about this issue of assurance.

Fact Number One. Our own feelings about our relationship with God are not a reliable foundation on which to base our assurance that we are Christians. In other words, don’t judge what is real by the way that you feel.

As you look at these verses, you see that there are three players in the drama of doubt: you, God, and your heart. When John talks about your heart, he’s talking about your feelings, your emotions, your conscience. Now it seems that sometimes your heart is for you, and sometimes your heart is against you in this issue of whether or not you are a Christian.

1 John 3:19-20 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us.

There are days when it seems that our heart is against us. Like the hostile crowd behind the visitors’ bench at an NFL game, our heart yells out slurs and boos and rude remarks to us. It hangs out bedsheet banners saying “Some Christian you are! How are you going to goof up today? How are you going to let God down this time?” There are days when our feelings condemn us.

But then there are other days when our heart is on our side.

1 John 3:21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God

Those are good days. We feel good about ourselves. Our heart is a cheerleader for us on those days.

So we come to the conclusion that if we’re going to have any assurance that we really are an authentic Christian, it isn’t going to come from our heart. Because our feelings, our emotions are fickle. They run with the tide, they blow with the wind. Some days we feel on top spiritually, and other days we feel so far down that we have to reach up to touch bottom. So we’d better not rely on our heart for our assurance. Subjective perception leads to deception. Don’t judge what is real by the way that you feel.

Now let me just say that sometimes you do goof up in the Christian life. We all do. And you feel a sense of shame and remorse when you sin. You are painfully aware of your sin. There are two other players in the drama of doubt that I didn’t mention. They are the devil and the Holy Spirit. The devil is called the accuser of the brethren in Scripture. He stands by just waiting for us to fumble the ball down there on the playing field of the Christian life, and then he moves into a seat in the stands right beside our heart and he nudges our heart and starts to whisper all sorts of terrible remarks to it about us. The devil calls attention to our sin so as to draw us away from God.

But the Holy Spirit calls attention to our sin so as to draw us closer to God. When you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, you will become aware of sin in your life. But it will be a helpful awareness; an awareness that will bring you into God’s presence to confess that sin and receive God’s forgiveness for it.

So if our assurance of belonging to God doesn’t come from the way that we feel, where does it come from? Well, look again at verse 19…

1 John 3:19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth

What is he refering to? What is the “this then”? Actually, he is referring back to what he has said about love in the previous verses.

1 John 3:16-18 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

If we are loving people this way, then we know that we belong to the truth. But to love people this way, your life has to be totally transformed. So the objective basis for the assurance of our salvation is the evidence of a changed life - the fruits of righteousness, specifically love. This is Fact Number Two about assurance.

If you cannot point to any ways that your life is different because you are a Christian, then you probably aren’t. I don’t want to delude anyone into thinking that they are a Christian when they are not. When you become a Christian, God makes a total transformation in your life: new attitudes, new priorities, new behavior patterns. We’ve looked at the marks of an authentic Christian; they are all life-changing marks.

If Jesus Christ is not making a significant difference in the way that you live, and the way that you think, and in your value-system, then it is because you do not have a relationship with Him. Because nobody can truly have a relationship with Jesus Christ the living God and not be totally changed by it.

John W. MacArthur has written a tremendously significant book called The Gospel of Jesus in which he speaks out against the way that the church in North America has watered down the gospel. So much emphasis has been placed on the idea that you just need to profess your faith in Jesus to become a Christian, you just have to pray a little prayer, you just need to walk the aisle, you just need to sign a card thatwe have forgotten that the gospel of Jesus Christ calls for us to make a radical life-changing commitment to Him. We do not earn our salvation by our commitment, to be sure. But if we are going to follow Jesus and wear the name Christian, we are going to have to do it with all that we are and all that we have. Jesus doesn’t accept followers on any other terms.

But we have churches full of people who call themselves Christians who are living no differently than anyone else outside the church. They are just as consumed with materialism, they frequent the same places they always did, they pursue the same entertainments, they indulge the same old habits, and their marriages break up with the same frequency as those of non-Christians. There has been no change in these people.

The basis for the assurance that you belong to Jesus Christ is the fact that Jesus has changed your life.

1 John 3:21-22 …we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them.

Fact Number Three about assurance is this: God Himself affirms that He lives in us by His Holy Spirit.

v. 24 And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

This is the first time that John has even mentioned the Holy Spirit in this book. But it won’t be the last. If you are an authentic Christian, if your life has been transformed by Jesus Christ, then the Holy Spirit will affirm that fact to you. You will have that sense of belonging to God that only the Holy Spirit gives.

Romans 8:15-16 …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.

That word “Abba” is an Aramaic word which means literally “Daddy”. When I come home from work, I am usually greeted at the door by my one year old, Tommy. He has his little face all pressed up against the glass and when he sees me, he gets excited. When I step in the door, before I can take my coat off, he wants up. As I pick him up, he wraps his little arms around my neck and gives me a tight hug and then he points to me and says “Dada”. He knows who he belongs to.

And so will we as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of sonship, testifies within us. We will have the assurance that we belong to God. And that assurance that comes from God is greater than our feelings, because God is greater than our hearts. That assurance will be with us on the bad days as well as the good days. The feelings of doubt may come and go, but the Spirit of God stays.

Perhaps you have been struggling with feelings of doubt. You are not sure whether you belong to Christ. Let me assure you that those feelings are not sinful. They may be exactly what God is using to cause you to examine yourself and your relationship with Him. Some Bible teachers may leave the impression that it is bad practice to question your relationship with God. But Paul recommended that the Christians in Corinth do just that…

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

And the test to which Paul is referring is the test of a changed life.

Fact 1 Don’t base your assurance on the way that you feel.

Fact 2 Your assurance is based upon the evidence of a changed life.

Fact 3 God affirms that you belong to Him by His Spirit.