This is the testimony of God that He is born given His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe, God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning His Son. And this is the testimony that God gave us, eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. Let's go to the Lord with me, looking at this section in 1 John 5, a beautiful and great chapter. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you build chapters into our lives, and they're all bookended by Jesus, who is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the one who never changes. He was the same yesterday, today, and forever. We thank you that That's true. And in the stream of this covenant life you bring us certain blessings like Lucy on this piano and just all the wonder of the glory of your love to us expressed in various tokens. Lord's Day to Lord's Day and we thank you for that. We thank you now that we have the Holy Spirit among us and in us and in the church. And now may the Spirit apply the word to our hearts, the word Jesus Christ, bring us to him, cause us to be built up in our most holy faith. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So the subject of the testimony of God, and Elder Craig made a nice comment regarding the testimony of God just before he began to read the scripture lesson today, actually started in last Sunday's scripture lesson. I know not all of us were here. And yet today it pretty much gets expended, the idea of the testimony of God. Let's ask, what is the testimony of God, most particularly of God the Father, especially in the book of 1 John? Well, the testimony of God is the Father's word of absolute covenant verification regarding his complete and total pleasure with his son, Jesus Christ. So God puts the absolute stamp of approval upon his glorious son. Who he is, what he did, what he has done, and what he has accomplished for us, his church. Now, last week from verse 9 we learned that the testimony of God is a whole lot greater than the testimony of men, although we grant that there is a legitimate aspect to the testimony of men. And very much this is sort of a courtroom scene here with all this testimony being talked about. Today we find out that God's testimony is not just external to us, but rather it gets assimilated into our very heart, our soul, our being, our DNA as human beings, especially in the church. have the testimony infiltrating us completely and absolutely. And as per usual, we are entirely passive in the initial reception of this testimony, in our justification, and yet, In our sanctification, we join with God, our Heavenly Father, in also witnessing to, or testifying of, or giving testimony for, the glorious person of our wonderful Savior, Lord, and King, Jesus Christ, the Sovereign One. So, that's what we're seeing in today's Scripture lesson. Therefore, let's make it our goal on this Resurrection Day to believe the testimony of God as Christ's faithful and loving church. Looking together at 1 John 5 verses 10 through 12, the testimony of God, the doctrine, the testimony of God always witnesses of and for the Son of God. Now it's interesting that we will look in vain for any testimony of God that is devoid of Jesus Christ being at the absolute heart and center of it. This is true in the old covenant as well as the new. Everything God has to say to any of his creatures at any time always is funneled through the heart. of the creation, the one who actually was the centerpiece of the creative work of God, as he created the world through the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the Divine Logos, as we know from John 1, 1-3, and many other places. Now this is most obvious in the Gospels in the New Testament, but as our eyes are opened, we see it everywhere in the Old Covenant texts as well. The testimony of God always witnesses of and for the Son of God. First, God has nothing to say that does not center on his Christ. Now, just to help drive this point home, I'd like you to listen with me to two gospel texts, both from the Gospel of Matthew, that record for us the supernatural speeches of God the Father to ordinary human sinners who are standing around the Lord Jesus Christ when they heard these words coming from heaven or from a cloud. I'm sorry, the first one's from Luke. Luke 3.22 we read, The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in bodily form, like a dove, and a voice came from heaven. You are my beloved Son. With you I am well pleased. And the second one comes from Matthew 17, 5, where we read, analogously, Behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. So the Father is doing all of his work with us as church, or the creation at any point, through his Son. Now I've taught you many times from this pulpit that the whole Bible, and all of the created realm, everything God made for that matter, proclaimed to us the existence of, the provision of, and the person of God's holy, beloved, gracious, and glorious Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And that is so true, and it's absolutely inherent in today's scripture lesson. the one through whom all things have their being, and the one through whom all creation glory ascends, as it goes up to all three persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, through the one human mediator, The God-man, Jesus Christ our Lord, 1 Timothy 2.5. So what do all these divine communications essentially teach us? That God has nothing to say, that does not center on his Christ, and only those who love Jesus through faith are exonerated in God's courtroom. Again, the courtroom seen here with all these testimonies. I mention love here first because love is the goal of our filial relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That's the absolute goal. What's the highest and greatest commandment? We read ten important commandments today, but all of them were subsumed under the greatest commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbors, ourselves as a secondary related one. And so, love I mentioned here first, but it must be acknowledged that this kind of love is not possible without saving regenerative faith in Christ Jesus coming first. And of course, faith is experienced after regeneration by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit in us. God testifies to the truth all the time. And every time he does so, he is concentrating on the truth, Jesus Christ, who himself said in John 14, 6, that he is the way, the truth, and the life. And the truth of God testifies both good news and bad news, even as today's text makes clear. Verse 12 wraps this up by declaring that those who, quote, have Christ have life, and that those who do not have Christ do not have life. And again, this is essentially the final verdict meant by the courtroom of God. And this is one of the basic principle reasons that we always say that Jesus Christ is at the heart of everything for everybody. Whether or not anyone understands this, knows this, acknowledges this, or comprehends it, it's still true. But for us, who by God's sovereign, merciful, redemptive, miraculous grace are here today as his regenerated children, we have special privileges and responsibilities. We'll see some of those in the exegetical section, which we enter now. So the testimony of God always witnesses of and for the Son of God. Now from the text, let us observe the locations of the testimony of God from verses 10 to 12 of 1 John 5. Now this is an intriguing and perhaps somewhat unusual way for us to look at these verses, but they lend themselves to this paradigm quite nicely. We probably usually conceive of the testimony of God being in the mouth of God, understandably so, but here, the testimony of God is found universally in these three verses in human beings. The vast majority of, made up of the category of fallen and Adam sinners, just like you and me, and the one unique category of the pristine union of the human and divine in the God-man, Jesus Christ, who represents us before the Father. So let us now discover together the locations of the testimony of God. And you're going to apply this to your own lives. First, it is in the persons of the regenerated elect, verse 10. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his son. Now, you understand when John says made him a liar, it doesn't mean that God could ever be a liar, of course, but he's using that kind of language. He actually used it earlier. John's very strong on honesty, lying, truth-telling, confessing. If we say we have no sin, we're liars. We've made God's testimony false, which cannot be done, but that's how serious this is. Now, what does it mean that born-again Christian churchmen have the testimony of God in themselves? Well, what this means, dear saints, is that the believer in the Son of God possesses the exact same affirmation of the Son of God that the Father of the Son of God has for his own natural Son, Jesus Christ. So we are placing in from ourselves, as a gift of God, the testimony of God, the affirmation of the Son of God that the Father had. Now someone might say, is our affirmation as perfect and complete and comprehensive and whole and pristine as that of the Father? Of course not. But it's in the exact same stream and strain as that of our Heavenly Father. We are one great family, the family, the covenant family of God. We share the same genetics, spiritually speaking. And let us notice how this verse 10 clearly delineates the entire universe of originally fallen and Adam human beings into two very distinct and separate spiritual hemispheres. Interesting that John does this. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony of God in themselves, verse 10a, And those who do not believe are said to make God a liar, since they refuse to believe his God's testimony, quote, concerning his son, unquote, verse 10b. Everything for everyone always universally and comprehensively depends upon one's relationship with God in the strict sense of their understanding, our understanding of, and either belief in or rejection of the Son of God. He is the absolute important witness before us. the locations of the testimony of God. It is in the persons of the regenerated elect. Now, of course, just to be theologically clear here, there are elect people in the world even today who are not yet regenerated. They're living like we used to, in sin and darkness and hell and death, and we're still subject to those same temptations. We're no better in our fallen self than they are. But they will be regenerated in God's perfect time, according to his sovereign will. But what we're talking about here in that first point is the persons of the regenerated elect, and now it is in the person Christ of the covenant of grace, verse 11. And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Notice that the eternal life is not in anything else than the Son of God. It's not in our good theology books, although those are important and they bring us to the Son of God. It's not even in the text of the Holy Bible, which we absolutely love and appreciate because it is the written Word of God. But the eternal life is in the person of the Son of God, the one to whom everything points, the scripture, creation, the church, everything. The eternal life is in the Son of God. And when we say that Jesus Christ is the person of the covenant of grace, we mean that in the strongest possible way we can say it. That is, with no qualifications whatsoever. Here in verse 11, John has the Spirit-inspired boldness to assert that eternal life is in the Son of God, and hence it can be found nowhere else. Nowhere else. No other religion, philosophy, lifestyle, thought, life, anything. Nothing else has the eternal life. It's in the person of the Son of God. It's one of the reasons many of you will get to participate in the table here next week, Lord willing, on Sunday. In Paul's words of Galatians 3.16, you might want to notate that amazing verse, he emphasizes this remarkable point of Christ being the one lone single kernel of the covenant of grace in the gospel of mercy. Here's what that amazing verse says. Now, the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ. Why are those words so important and significant? Because everything hinges on Jesus Christ, who is the person of the covenant of grace. Never be fooled, dears, by the world or any other influence into thinking that anything or anybody or any concept or any reality other than Jesus Christ ultimately matters. Other things matter, but compared to him, they don't matter. He is the ultimacy of all things. And as this verse 12 states, when God gave us Christ, at the very same time he gave us eternal life, and this is because Jesus Christ is eternal life, and eternal life is found in him alone. So we're looking at the locations of the testimony of God. It is in the persons of the regenerated elect, in the person Christ of the covenant of grace, and And finally, it is in the persons of the living church, verse 12. Now granted, that's analogous to 2A above, persons of the regenerated elect, but these are the people who have already been adopted in time and space and are in the church. In fact, the people that The Apostle John was writing to, whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. Also keep in mind that the Apostle was dealing with these Gnostic heretics, the Docetists in particular, who were really challenging his flock in these various churches to whom he wrote in this general epistle when. And so he's encouraging them, because the heretics were making them wonder if they really had everything that they needed for life. And was Jesus Christ really sufficient? Did he really die? Did he really become a human being? Did he really rise from the dead? And now he's giving this affirmation. So John, the gentle minister, the apostle of love, and yet the son of thunder, interesting character, wants to do at least two things here in verse 12. First, he desires to assure true believers in Christ who were faithful in his church that they actually did possess eternal life as they believed in the Son of God. And that was extremely important And the next verse, verse 13, which Lord willing we'll look at in three Sundays, the 26th of February. I've prepared that sermon. I'm very excited about that sermon, so pray that I get home so I can preach that to you. That verse is really going to drive this point home even more. And secondly, the second thing John wanted to do is something that's always been politically incorrect and always looked at askance, always by the world and by lots of religious people, and that is to leave, get this now, to leave no gray area. You know how we like to have gray areas? John gets rid of the gray area here in the ultimacy of the spiritual realm. Now, there are gray areas, but not here. He's saying those who are in Christ Jesus, who believe in him, who are covenanted in his church, they should be assured of eternal life. But everyone else should have the exact opposite situation going. And that's what he does here. He boldly separates those who, quote, have life, unquote, from those who do not have life. And this is all entirely dependent upon one question alone. Does a person possess the Son of God, eternal life, himself, or not? That's it. That's the question. It's not how good we are, supposedly, or how much we do, or any of that other stuff. It's simply, do we possess the Son of God in genuine, sincere, imperfect, but real saving, regenerative faith, which is a result of regeneration, justification, adoption? and in the process of sanctification leading to glorification. The order of salvation, the order oros salutas. Now dearest, the world you live in does not believe this gospel at all. and much if not most of the religious world, even the Christian religious world, does not believe this gospel. Now I'm going to tell you their gospel, and you're going to see it because you're going to say, yep, you're right, Pastor. They think the difference between people, we've already said what's the difference between people, the absolute cleavages Belief in the Son of God, non-belief in the Son of God. They think the difference between people is in what they do, their performance, and that God, if there is one in their minds, rewards those who do the deeds that they deem to be meritorious, or that they deem to be right, or virtuous, and that he, if he exists, frowns on those who do not do the things the world says is right or virtuous, their alleged good deeds. But there's the truth of the gospel is completely counter to that gospel. The true gospel does not say that. It puts it all on the person of Jesus Christ. Although, I will say this, the truth of the gospel does share one thing in common with the world's gospel, and that is that God does, granted, judge on the basis of works. But here's how he does it. We're not saved on the basis of works, but we are rightly and fairly judged on the basis of works. So, God looks at the regenerated, redeemed, saved Christian churchmen on the Judgment Day, judges his or her works, and if those works are the result of regenerative faith, they're pleasing to God. And God will see those. They aren't meritorious, but they're just evidence that we are in Christ Jesus after all. We're faithful to the covenant. We keep our vows. We do what we said we would do by the grace of God. We kept our baptismal vows. Not because we're so good, but because God did a miraculous grace of merciful work in us. Those are pleasing to God, the works of regeneration. But these are not the works that the world applauds, which are condemned by him because they're devoid of glory for God through Jesus Christ, no matter how virtuous they may appear. He condemns them. Away from me, you workers of wickedness. It's a serious matter. Let's do some application this morning and understand why the testimony of God is all we require for our eternal assurance. God's testimony is of one so great, Christ his Son, that the power of the Son's deeds on the cross and in his resurrection is fully conveyed through and contained in God's testimony of him to us. This, along with the nature of God, which is pure, holy, and honest, explains why the testimony of God is all we require for our eternal assurance. And first, it's because our Father is always true to all of his word. Do you believe that, dears? I hope you do. And if you've ever been, quote, disappointed with God, trust me, it's not because he failed in any way, shape, or form. It's because of either a sincere or a contrived misunderstanding of the situation. God simply cannot, does not, and it is impossible for God to lie or to deceive in any way, shape, or form. One of the most marvelous things about the one and only God, our God, the God of the believing church, the faithful covenant, is that he can be and should be unconditionally, categorically, and thoroughly trusted in every way. We can trust his word. God has never made a claim, a comment, or more importantly, a promise that he has not fully 100% backed up and or fulfilled in time and space or those few things yet that the church awaits in the future. They will also come to pass. One of my own personal favorite texts on this glorious truth is tucked away in the Old Testament historical book of Joshua, which I read every Sunday morning when I'm preaching, and that comes from Joshua 21, verses 43 through 45. And I would encourage you to write that reference and check it out, and here they are. These are the words. Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the Lord gave them rest on every side. Just as he had sworn to their fathers, not one of all their enemies had withstood them. For the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. And here comes the kicker. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed. All came to pass. Beautiful text, isn't it? and there are others like it. This same God, talked about way back there in the Old Covenant, in Joshua's time, is the same God who testifies today to his church, right now, from this pulpit, of and for his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. If anyone looks for assurance or any kind of stability outside of Jesus Christ, is a futile search. It cannot be found. But for all of us who, by grace and God's first loving us, love Christ and are faithful members of his church, we are appreciating, even today, why the testimony of God is all we require for our eternal assurance. which is because our Father is always true to all of his word, and his incarnate word, I-N-C-A-R-N-A-T-E, his incarnate word, Christ, has fully validated all of God's promises. The incarnate word is God who became man in the second person of the Holy Trinity, who now is forever God and man, both. When we read God's lovely faithfulness regarding all the promises made to old Israel, the old covenant church from the book of Joshua a few moments ago, we need to understand that even all of those promises were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the promised one, who was to come and who has come. This is one of the primary reasons that the Apostle Paul wrote the epic words he did in 2 Corinthians 1.20 listed on your outline. They say this, For all the promises of God, all of them, find their yes in Christ, and that is why through him, Christ, we utter our amen to God for his glory. All the promises of God find their yes, fulfillment, absolute, Completion in Christ Jesus. Here's the gospel itself fully testifies to our Lord Jesus Christ. What are we to do with it? Well, we're to believe in Jesus, that his blood washes away all of our sins, that his resurrection has secured and fully completely, legally, forensically achieved once and for all, forever, our complete justification before a holy God. that we are to love this God through this Redeemer, this God-man, one mediator between us sinners and this Holy God, Jesus Christ, love the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and lovingly, joyfully live for our Triune Deity through Him, Christ Jesus our Lord. Beloved Saints of God, the testimony of God is as sure as the being of God. you may leave here with absolute assurance. In Jesus Christ we possess the fullness, not partial, everything, the absolute comprehensiveness of the testimony of God. Let's pray and be thankful. Father, what a blessing. How could we ever ask for anything more than that? And yet the text that follows is going to pile on even more amazing grace upon us. We thank you that you just are so benevolent, so wonderful, so full and rich and free in your mercy and kindness. Just give us mercy and grace upon grace, all in Jesus. Thank you that we have the testimony of God, the legal witness, the absolute historical work, the final covenant blessing, Jesus Christ himself, the fullness of the new covenant, the covenant of grace. Thank you that your church is the expression of the glory of God in Christ Jesus on the earth, and that all things accrue to your honor and glory through Jesus Christ. May we join our hearts in every possible way in that great chorus of wonder we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.