The word of God that we read this evening is 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2. We read now God's own word. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not, and if any man sin, We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. but whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning again. A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you. Because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whether he goeth because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father. but is of the world, and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." And we read that far in 1 John 2. The Word of God that we consider tonight is verses 3 through 5 of this chapter, and hereby We do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. Beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ, the three young adults who have stood before you tonight have confessed that they know Jesus Christ. they have confessed their faith. And in confessing their faith, which faith clings only to Jesus Christ, else it is not faith, they have said basically before us all that they know Jesus Christ. The confession that one knows Jesus Christ is therefore an amazing and tremendously important confession. Because the Word of God, especially that Word of God as it was brought by the Apostle John, is a word that teaches us that to know God, to know God in Jesus Christ, is eternal life. That's the Word of God that we find in John 17, verse 3. To know God is eternal life. And that's the Word of God in this particular epistle also. It begins that way in 1 John 1 through 3. He tells us that he is teaching us about what without which he himself saw and even handled the word of life. And then says that that life that he shows is eternal life. That is, to know this Jesus is eternal life itself. The concern of the text, however, is not about the knowledge of Jesus Christ as such. The concern of the text and its instruction is about knowing that we know Jesus Christ. To know Jesus Christ is one thing, and to know that you know Him is something else. Know your wife, or ask whether you know your wife, is different than knowing that you know your wife, or asking the question, how do you know that you know your wife? Obviously related issues and concerns, but yet different. This passage is a passage that it should be plain is very appropriate to a confession of faith. In the first place, this particular passage is a word that the Apostle himself addresses to us as little children. importantly, and yet addresses also to us as fathers and young men, or we might say young people, the Word of God then that applies to us as we gather here at a confession of faith as parents and grandparents and young adults and friends. but especially an appropriate passage, because it ought to be the concern of all, including those who made confession of faith and we who have made it, maybe a long time ago in the past, whether and how we know that we know Jesus Christ. Why is that important? Well, verse four points that out. Because there are some, there are individuals and people who claim that they know Jesus Christ. Who say they know Jesus Christ. Who may confess before all, I know Jesus Christ. But in fact are lying. And even know they're lying. They are, the apostle says, liars. It is not referring to those who live outside the church. It refers to members of the church. It refers to those who confess their faith. It says of some who confess their faith, who stand before the church and say, I know Jesus Christ. I confess my faith in Him. But in fact, do not have faith in Him at all. They are lying. Given that not only possibility but reality, the apostle addresses then a very, very important issue, as important as the knowledge of Jesus Christ itself, which is eternal life. And the question is, how do I know that I know Jesus Christ? And the Apostle gives a very simple and plain answer, the answer of God Himself. if we know Jesus Christ by whether or not we keep His commandments. Consider with me, knowing that we know Him, knowing that we know Him, the meaning of that, the manner in which we know that, and the significance of this truth from the Word of God. I could, in a very short few sentences, explain the meaning of the passage, and I think you instinctively know what it means, even though we will explain it more in depth. I want to begin by speaking very plainly, and I believe you know what it means because we speak the same way. The word no is used twice. But we also understand, and instinctively even understand, that the word no here is used in two different senses that we use it. I gave the example in my introduction of asking the question, how do I know that I know my wife? Or how do you know that you know someone? And we instinctively understand that we're not using the word knowledge in one sense, but another sense. And even in the passage or in the sentence, we're not using the word know the same way. And quite simply, what we are talking about is this. How are we certain? How do we know, in the sense of being certain, that we know someone? And by knowing them, we mean knowing them with some intimacy. That is, to know with our heart. We might even substitute the word love. The question is, how can I be certain that I love Jesus Christ. Now, we'll explain that a little further and make certain that we know that's the meaning, but at the outset, that's what we're talking about. The question is not, how do I know God knows me? The question is not, how do I know God loves me? But the question is, how do I know that I know God, or more succinctly, Jesus Christ? So let's break that down. The object of this knowledge in the first place is Him, and the Him there clearly refers to our Lord Jesus Christ. Not simply God. One could certainly say that because it talks about His commandments and His Word. But if you go back, you will discover that the subject of the knowledge, the understanding, the whole discussion is our Lord Jesus Christ. He talks about the possibility of sinning. The reality, really, of sinning. and says, but remember, remember if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and then immediately talks about knowing Him. So it's referring to our Lord Jesus Christ. It should also be clear, then, that the apostle isn't simply referring, then, to some sort of head knowledge, mind knowledge, about Jesus Christ. Some facts from, perhaps, Holy Scripture, or some facts that we learned at catechism, or from our parents about Jesus Christ. Now obviously, we must know some facts about Jesus Christ. We must know that He is our advocate with the Father. We must know, as the Apostle says, that He is the propitiation for our sin. We must know Him, therefore, as our Savior. We must know Him, as the Apostle says, the Righteous One, not only in Himself, but righteous for us. He is our righteousness. But He's not referring to simply the acknowledgement that, or the knowing of that, of knowing these things as facts in and of themselves. Well, to be sure, we need to know those things, but that's not the concern. That's not what the word know usually means in Scripture with regard to God, especially God in Jesus Christ. In fact, that's rarely what the word no means in Holy Scripture. It can be used that way, but almost always it means something deeper, something greater. that this is the case should be obvious when he talks about those who claim they know Jesus Christ but are lying. Such will be able to claim that they know Jesus Christ in the other sense. These are individuals who live in the church, who grow up in the church, who are taught in the church, and certainly they are taught who Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ has been presented to them. They know full well in their head and in their knowledge that He claims to be at least the propitiation for our sins. that He is or claims to be the Son of God in our flesh. They will know all these facts. They may say in that sense, I know Jesus Christ. And yet, really don't. The apostle says of them, they're lying. They don't know Jesus Christ really at all. It's plain the apostle is talking more than simply head knowledge, understanding of facts and truth as such, because he refers to knowing that we know this. Say what you will about understanding facts or knowing facts, but that doesn't require evidence. If someone even asked that, we would look at them strangely. How do you know that 2 plus 2 is 4? It just is. And I know that I know that. It's a dumb question. You don't have to ask whether or not you know that Jesus Christ is the propitiation for sins or the righteous One, when in fact someone is claiming to know that. And yet, may be called rightly a liar. So it should be clear to us that the word no here is referring to something spiritual, spiritual knowledge. And not knowledge now simply of the mind, but of the heart. The knowledge of love and affection. The kind of knowledge that doesn't say simply, I know that Jesus is the Son of God, but I love him, I embrace him, I receive him as that. It is the spiritual knowledge of fellowship, of friendship, that regards Jesus Christ not simply as an object, and certainly not as an enemy, but as my friend, one whom I delight in. That's how we would use the term with regard to, for example, our wife. If I was talking to you or you were talking to me about whether you know that you know your wife, we wouldn't be talking about simply the fact that I know that she's my wife. that doesn't need proof, that one cannot deny, one doesn't really lie about to others about. We're talking about living with her as my wife, knowing her intimately as my friend, and me as her friend, delighting in her in my innermost heart. And now we take that same concept and we apply it to God. The question is, how do you know that you love God? How do you know that you have fellowship with God? How do you know that you have friendship with God? How do you know that Jesus Christ is the one who died for your sins? How do you know and embrace him as that? How do you know that? This makes clear how important it is that we know him. How important it is that I know, I make sure that my knowledge of Jesus Christ isn't simply that of my mind. The kind of knowledge whereby I can honestly say I know Him and yet be a liar. That doesn't minimize knowledge of Jesus Christ in the other sense. But it's not the point of the passage. The passage doesn't minimize the fact that we know who and what Jesus Christ is. It doesn't minimize what doctrinal truth and knowledge is, because It's impossible to know Jesus Christ in the other sense unless we know the truth and the doctrine of Jesus Christ. There are those who claim otherwise. who say that's what's really only important with regard to Jesus Christ is you don't need to really know who and what He is. All those doctrinal issues are really a bunch of minutia and the church has wallowed around in that for too long, argued about minor points that doesn't really make a difference. All that matters is how do you feel in your heart toward Him. Well, that's not true. That's not true with regard to earthly life in a marriage. It's not true then with regard to God. How I feel about my wife, or how you feel about your children, or how you feel about another member in the church, what you have and find in your heart, is based upon what you know about them intellectually in your head. How in the world Could one trust in Jesus Christ and love Him as their Savior when they do not even know how He saves or what His salvation involves or even His qualifications to save? That would be foolish. But neither is that the only thing. And that is what the Apostle is pointing out. What the Apostle is pointing out is that it is not knowing Christ. It is not truly knowing Him, if all we can assent to, or all we can say is, I know some facts about Jesus that I learned in catechism, or even that I say I believe that they're true. You may ask the young people of this congregation that. You may ask them what happens when they come to the consistory, and all that they can do is give us some facts about Jesus generally. I believe that he is a savior from sin, that Jesus saves people's sins. Well, that's true, all right. But that is not to know Jesus Christ. That is not faith yet. We need to hear what you believe with regard to Jesus Christ concerning you. And we ask that because that knowledge is the knowledge that then is a knowledge also of love. It's also important for us to understand that the knowledge that is being talked about here and that which the text is concerned about is a personal knowledge. The question of the text, the concern of the text is not how I know that you know or how you know that I know Jesus Christ. But the question is, how do I know that I know? You see, it's not possible for me to know whether you truly know Jesus Christ or not. I may know that you're lying, but if I have no reason to charge you with lying or to doubt what you say, I don't really know. The best that we have with regard to one another is I have no reason to doubt. We deal with one another according to charity, according to our confession, until someone shows otherwise. And that is typical. That is normal. It is something that we're usually obsessed with. And when our concern is only about that, that's when the church gets into trouble. Many a time, the church has been divided. There are splits and schism, not over what I believe or what an individual believes, but about what people think other people believe. It's about doubt over whether what they believe is right or true or this or that. Well, faith, faith is personal. It is by my faith that I know God in Jesus Christ. And therefore, I'm really the only one that can know and does know whether I know Jesus Christ. You don't know that, not for sure. And so we have to understand that, because if we apply the standard of the knowledge, of the faith, and the love of God in Jesus Christ that we have for one another to ourselves, we fail. The first word, know, the certainty there is one of absolute certainty, a certainty without doubt. It's asking the question, how do I know without a shadow of a doubt that I know Jesus Christ? And that's more than the standard simply that I have for you and you have for me, which is having no reason to doubt. That, too, has to be pointed out about the text. It's a question that I ask myself, you ask yourself, and about which there is an answer. The answer, as plain as it can be made, is this. How do I know this? How do I know that I know Jesus Christ? And the answer is, if I keep his commandments. That's how. That's how. That's an amazing answer. That's an answer that many cast doubt upon. That's also an answer that many twist and turn into that which it says not. But the text teaches, without a shadow of a doubt, that I know, that I know Jesus Christ if I keep his commandments. That is, the keeping of his commandments is the evidence whereby I know that I know Jesus Christ. Now let's break that down. First of all, the commandments of God. It's not simply talking here about the Ten Commandments, although certainly that is on the foreground and the chief expression of the will of God for us. It actually refers to all the commandments of God. Scripture is full of all kinds of these commandments. Commandments that are admonitions. Those that warn, that constrain, that urge. Any of those commandments. The commandment that the Apostle John especially emphasizes, however, is the great commandment. Simply go on and read verses seven through nine, and you will see very quickly that that's the one that he has in mind. That's what he's referring to when he says, little children, I'm not giving you a new commandment, and yet I'm giving you a new commandment. And if you ask, well, what commandment is he talking about? He's talking about the command, the command that we love one another, that we love one another. But it includes many other commandments. I'm not going to take the time tonight to go through them. You can read it for yourself. But if you look, for example, at verses 15-17, he has in mind the commandment of God to live an antithetical life. That is to live a life in the light and not in the darkness. And not with the darkness. To love not the world or the things that are in the world. Where he says such things that he that loves the world Someone who loves God and is lying about their love of God. Go back to chapter 1, verse 7. He talks about not loving the world or the things in the world. The lust of the fresh. The pride of life. Calling to walk as Jesus walked. To walk in Him. To have fellowship with Him and not darkness. All those things. Those commandments. Now the word he uses is keep. Keeping those commandments. Again, not merely knowing them. The text does not say that we know God in Jesus Christ, that we know Jesus Christ if we know His commandments. Know what they are. Know what they demand. Know what they require of us. That too is a mistake that we often can make. No, again, It would be possible for someone to say, well, I know God's commandments. I know what they require. I know that they address my inward life and my outward life, and I know the relationship between the two tables of the law. And I know all these things. I know what God requires that would not be evidence, not evidence to faith that I know that I know Jesus Christ. In other words, I'm lying again. That's not keeping His commandments. Now the question that is obvious The question that even the Apostle John through the Holy Spirit knows is in our heart and that we're obviously going to be asking is, well, how in the world can that be evidence that I know that I know Jesus Christ? Is it not the case that in fact I don't keep the commandments of God. Is it not true that not one of us can keep all the commandments in the sense that I can keep them perfectly? That I can keep them in any sense that are perfect? Even take the great commandment that I love my neighbor. Is it not true that I sin against my neighbor all the time? How often is it not that I fail and you fail, so that we find in ourselves envy, and greed, and lust, and coveting, and we find in ourselves idolatry? And is it not the case that exactly because I do not keep the commandments of God perfectly that I have to ask the question, well, do I then know God in Jesus Christ? Do I really know Him? Isn't that the reason I would doubt that in the first place and need to ask that question? And then you want to tell me that that's evidence, that's proof, that in fact I know that I know Jesus Christ? And the answer is absolutely. That's what the Word of God says. So it has to be true. Note that the Apostle John, under inspiration of course, does not say the evidence is that we keep the commandments perfectly or even have any sense that we keep it perfectly or even imagine that we do that. In fact, he wants to make sure we understand that this is not our reading or understanding of the text. He impresses that upon us. Simply go back to the context. where he states that very clearly. If we, that is, we children of God who are asking these things and talking about them, say that we are without sin, that is, we keep the commandments perfectly, that we say, yes, Lord, I keep the commandments, simply look at what I'm doing, that we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, just ironically, just like the liar who says that he knows Jesus Christ but is in fact lying. That's a lie, says the apostle. You may claim that. You may know that. That same apostle now, that same spirit, that same Word of God then goes on to say, and yet keeping the commandments is evidence that we know that we know Him. That's how we know we know Him. In verse one, the Apostle John goes on to say, not only do we lie if we say that we do not sin, but it reminds us that if we sin, he immediately says, remember something, you have an advocate. You have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He's noting there so that we do not misunderstand and we do not attribute a different meaning to him than what he has in mind. that, no, you don't keep the commandments in the sense of keeping them perfectly. And if that's what I'm teaching, then, well, we're among all men most miserable. So he assumes that we cannot keep the commandments of God in that sense. He's assuming, therefore, also, that keeping the commandments is not the way of to righteousness. It's not the way to achieve righteousness, that no man is made righteous or becomes righteous by virtue of keeping God's commandments. That's out the window. The righteousness that God requires before His judgment seat cannot be satisfied with our keeping of the commandments in any sense whatsoever, which is exactly why immediately after saying, if we say we sin not, we're lying not only, but we have to remember We have an advocate. Why do you need an advocate if you could somehow achieve righteousness by your keeping the commandments? So all of that is understood. All of that is understood in what the apostle is teaching, and it must be understood by us also. No one may claim, as undoubtedly happens, if you say, that you know Jesus Christ if you keep His commandments that you're teaching works righteousness or you're teaching the children of God to place their trust in their keeping the commandments. That's false. That's a charge not against me. It's a charge against the Holy Spirit. You need to take it up with Him. Besides, it's false. The Apostle himself assumes that righteousness by keeping the commandments is out of order. Hence, we need an advocate. And knowing, knowing, part of that knowing is that I know Jesus Christ as my advocate. Now, how do I know that? Well, by keeping in the first place, he means that the child of God loves the commandments of God. By keeping the commandments, he is assuming, he is saying, he is teaching that you desire them. You see them as good. You see them as right. You see them as true. You see them according to the Holy Scriptures. You see them as God sees them. You look at the commandments of God and you say, those are the word of God. Those are expressions of the will of God. And therefore I love them, I delight in them, I seek them, and I desire to keep them. And all of them without exception. When he says the commandments, he's not saying, well, I recognize the goodness and the rightness of keeping this commandment or that commandment, but these other ones, that doesn't really affect me, doesn't matter to me. No, that word keeping implies that you're protecting something, not just obeying, but an attitude toward it. You only keep that which you delight in. You only keep that which is precious to you. You only keep that which you say is worth keeping. Is that not true? So that's what he means in the first place. Do you have in your heart a delight and a love for the commandments of God as expressions of the will of God, as that which is good, as that which is right and righteous. That in the first place. In the second place, he means that we as children of God actually strive to keep them, that is to follow them. Do we find in our heart an actual laboring, working, striving, to keep them, never mind for the moment the failures and the weakness in that. And it's quite amazing how often in the creeds and how often in the forms, like the Lord's Supper form or the Baptism form or even in the explanation of conversion, how the emphasis falls upon especially the delight, but then the desire to keep, a pursuit of it. Again, never mind the failures, the failings, the faults. That's what the Apostle is teaching, as clear as it can be taught. The opposite would be that I have contempt for the law of God. I hate the law of God. I have no desire in my heart to keep it. It really doesn't matter why, by the way. There are those who have contempt for the law of God and despise the law of God because it's God's law, because it's God telling them what to do, and in their heart, they're rebels with regard to that. But there's also those who despise the law of God because they see it as completely incompatible with the gospel of grace. There is no must and requirement of the law of God. I despise that. When the commandments of God say and say to them, this is how you shall live, this is what you shall do, they believe the answer of faith is, no, we don't. No, we don't. We don't have to do that. Maybe we can say we will, but the law may do that to us. They despise the law, really. Well, we know that we know Jesus Christ if we love and delight in his commandments, all of them. We delight and love His Word, all of it, even when God tells us how to live and what to do and what not to do. And in the second place, there is in the child of God a real desire and a real effort in striving to live that way. This is the evidence that the Holy Spirit presents to us. That's what's striking here. There is no other evidence. The Apostle doesn't say that we may know that we know Jesus Christ any other way. And that's worth pointing out because there are all kinds of other ways that are often presented. What you need is an experience of some kind, a mystical experience, some sort of dream, some sort of vision, some sort of revelation, extra revelation from God. There's even Reformed churches that teach that. Or you know that you know Jesus Christ if you have some sort of extraordinary gifts from the Spirit. Maybe tongue speaking or the ability to do this or that, which other Christians don't have. Then you really know that you know Jesus Christ. And some who may reject that say, well, what you really need is really special knowledge. a sort of Gnosticism. Only those who know the code, the key, the secret, can claim that they know Jesus Christ. All the rest of you Christians are all deluded, don't know what you're talking about. Could go on and on, but the apostle plainly says it's, no, you know it if you keep his commandments. What's important about this passage is that the Apostle doesn't simply say this is the truth and teach this is the truth, and there's a part of us that perhaps at that point should just simply say, Amen. That's the Word of God. I receive it as the Word of God. Maybe I can't make that square with certain things, maybe even certain theological truths. I don't know. But every now and then, it's simply good to say amen and be done with the matter. But the apostle does go on to explain, because he does know, the Spirit knows, that we're still going to have questions. And our question is, well, how in the world can that be? And the question is really the same. I can't keep those commandments. Are those not works? Is that not trusting in your works? Is that not placing your trust in those things? And the answer is no, not at all. Not if you understand how it works. What's the explanation? What's the significance? And he explains a few things, and so we're going to do that tonight also. Why is this? How can this be? And I just want to remind you, this is the way it is. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying. It is appropriate, based on what the Apostle himself says, that those who say they know Jesus Christ and don't keep His commandments, that they are lying, that is the Word of God. So also, it would be the Word of God that if you deny this, you also are lying. This is the Word of God. Now, why? And we can be thankful there is an explanation. First of all, it's due to the relationship between Jesus Christ as Savior and Jesus Christ as Lord. It has to do with the Jesus that we know. If you know Jesus, if you know anything about Him, you know that He's not only a Savior. He is your Lord. This is the Lord Jesus Christ we are talking about. Well, what's the difference there? Well, there's many who claim that Jesus is Savior. He saves them from their sins. We'll even wax eloquent about how He's a complete Savior and He's completed all of salvation. Might even begrudgingly admit that there's Lord, but don't understand at all what that means. What does that mean? Well, ask yourself, why is he Lord? And the answer is not because he's the eternal son of God, not as such. The question is, why is Jesus the Christ? Jesus in human flesh, that Jesus. Jesus in human nature, how is it that he is your Lord? The answer is he bought you. When he saved you by atoning for your sins, he bought you. so that you and I can confess in the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day One, that my great comfort in life and death is that I am not my own. I don't belong to myself. I'm owned by someone. That someone is my savior, and by virtue of owning me, he is my Lord. I am his servant. Well then, what does a servant do in relationship to his Lord? And the answer is he obeys him. He submits to him. How would a servant know that he knows his Lord? The answer would be if that servant acknowledges him as Lord and acknowledges him as Lord by receiving his word, by receiving what he says, by delighting in that and striving to do it. It's that simple. Any explanation of our salvation that does not enthrone Jesus in your heart in that way makes Jesus a failure, is not a complete Jesus, to use language that is overused. So in the first place, it's due to that. It's due to who Jesus is. It's due to the relationship to Jesus as being Lord and Savior. In the second place, it's due to the relationship between knowing Jesus Christ and keeping His commandments. This should be obvious, but it's strikingly not. What is it to know Jesus Christ? And I'm not talking now about what is it that Jesus Christ knows you or God knows you. It's what is it for you to know Him. And by the way, you could respond by saying, well, what is it that God knows me? Because we do have language like that, right? that God knowing us, He predestinated us. In other words, God even knew us before He predestinated us. And if you look at the explanation of that foreknowledge of God. The answer is it's talking about God's love. It's not talking about some intellectual knowledge of God, of who and what we were, but it's maybe translated that way. But God loving us, loving us in eternity, He chose us. Well, if it's the case that God's knowing me is His love for me, then my knowing Him is my love for Him. What's the summary of the commandments? It's to love God. Do you see yet? How do I know that I love God? And God would say, well, look at the commandments. There's my expression of what it means to love me. The summary of them is love me. If you love me, this is how you do it, not any other way. Same with your neighbor too, by the way. Do you see now why that's evidence? How do I know I love God? How do I know I love Jesus Christ? Well, would I actually love him according to his commandments? That's how. It's not that complicated. It's not that by keeping his commandments, That now God loves me, that's not what we're talking about. But we're simply saying that keeping His commandments is to love Him. And that's how I know I know Him. To then. It's so simple. You would give the same answer with regard to your wife, would you not? How do you know that you know your wife? You'd probably scratch your head and say, that's a dumb question. I know I know my wife when I'm actually knowing her, right? In other words, when I'm actually living with her, when I'm actually loving her, when I'm embracing her with my arms. And you'd say, that's how I know. And that's not a second thing. It's the same thing. I know I'm loving my wife when I'm actually loving her. But there's another thing that this is due to also, which is the relationship between knowing Jesus and Jesus knowing us. That relationship is this, that if Jesus knows you and loves you and is gracious towards you, the result is that you will love Him. It's how it works. It can't be any other way, which is why the apostle goes on to explain this. The idea is that where the love and grace of God works, it works obedience to the commandments of God in every case. And it can't be otherwise. Again, to have Jesus as a complete Savior. What that really means is this, is that God has determined not simply and only to deliver you from the guilt and shame of sin, which He does. That's why He is a propitiation for our sins. Jesus Christ the righteous, but He delivers us from the power of sin. And the power of sin is that we don't keep the commandments of God. And so that's how I know. And that's how you know. There's no love for the commandments of God. There's no desire to keep them. There's no striving to keep them in myself. So if I find that, and I know that, then I know that the love and grace of God has worked that, has accomplished which amazingly only increases our love for Him. So that's the Bible's answer to that great question. How do I know that I know Jesus Christ? The answer is if I keep His commandments. And now understand why that is, because in the words of the Holy Spirit, because therein the love of God is perfected. You see, that's the end. That's what that word perfection means. The love of God that redeemed me, the love of God that saves me, the love of God that bought me has a goal, an end, and a purpose. What is that? How is that love perfected? It's perfected in the keeping of His commandments. And that's how too I may know that I am in Him. You see, how is it possible to be in Jesus Christ and not walk where He walks? How is it possible to be in Jesus Christ and walk a completely different direction and place than he walks? And the answer of the Holy Scriptures is, it isn't. It's not possible. And that's why when we keep his commandments, we may know that we know him and we know his love. And in us, his love is perfected. Amen. Let us pray. Lord, our God and Father in heaven, we thank thee for thy word, and we pray that in receiving this word, we may give all honor and glory to thee, for without that, there is no knowledge or certainty that can be found in the text at all. We are thankful for thy word and we pray that we may receive it as thy word, the word of truth. And is the word of truth exactly because Jesus is our Lord and our Savior, who saves us completely and utterly. from sin, so that even now in our sinful flesh, and even now in flesh that is depraved, we may keep and do keep thy commandments. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.