In his sermon 'Assurance of Salvation-Love the Brethren,' Pastor Steve Hopkins explores the themes of true faith and assurance of salvation through the lens of 1 John 2:9-11. Hopkins emphasizes the dual purpose of the letter: to assure believers of eternal life and to expose false professions. He warns of those who claim to know Christ but live in a way that aligns with the world rather than God, suggesting that such individuals are not true believers. The sermon highlights the importance of self-examination, encouraging believers to assess their own faith through their love for the brethren. True believers, he argues, are identified by their love for God's people and their walk in the light, as opposed to the darkness of the world. Hopkins discusses the transformative power of God's love, which enables believers to move away from sin and towards a life of obedience and holiness. He concludes by urging the congregation to cultivate love for one another, as it is a key evidence of genuine faith and assurance of salvation.

Welcome back to Burnet Bible Church. Here's Pastor Hopkins with his sermon entitled, Tests of Faith Part 2, loving God's people. If you would turn in your Bibles to the book of 1 John chapter two, and please stand with me for the reading of verses nine through 11. 1 John two, nine, 10, and 11. Let's read together the word of the Lord.

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." Let's be seated. In our last session, we began at the end. Anyone else ever start at the end of the book?

I like to open, I get a book and I start at the end of the book. I want to know what's going on before I ever get there. I want to know what the end says. We began at the end and then we began in the fifth chapter of the 13th verse. We found not only the recipients, the intended recipients or recipients of this letter, but also the purpose for which the letter was written.

The address on the envelope again is believers. John says, I have written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God. And I have written unto you who believe on the name of the Son of God for this purpose, that you might know that you have eternal life and that you might believe, that is, that you might be strengthened in your faith. And yet, the letter John writes, which is intended to encourage the people of God, that they might know that they have eternal life, has the dual effect, as I said last week, of exploding the false assurance of those who are Christian in name only. Because it is a letter filled with tests of faith, and tests of faith that call for self-examination, the demand of self-examination in the light of God's Word.

And we found in our last session that many who profess to believe in Christ do not in reality know Christ. And that there are many who profess that they know Jesus, but the day is coming when Jesus will profess that he does not know them. And so it's a sobering book, it's a sobering text. Those who profess Jesus, but whom Jesus will one day profess to not know, will hear those dreadful words from the mouth of Christ one day when he is sitting on a judgment throne. And he will say, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you that work iniquity into fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. It's a serious subject. And we've been dealing with the sobering reality, the reality that many, many souls who are in the church are not in Christ. And though many claim to walk in the light, there are many who walk in the darkness. There are many who walk in a way of, rather than love for God and his people, they walk in a manner that manifests a love for the world and the things of the world.

They live in agreement with the world. They approve of the evil that's in the world. We had a situation this past week where there were a couple of professing Christians who were siding with the world on the internet against the people of God. They were advocating for things that the world applauds. And they were doing so against true believers who were trying to straighten them out.

Worldly professors come to the defense of the world and attack true believers. If you've been on social media, you've seen this. They side with the world. False professors hate true believers and they hate the truth of God's Word. False professors are continually in conflict with the true family of God.

They are not amongst the family members of God. False professors argue the world's views against the true believer. They are not in the family of God. They hate the family of God and identify with the world. We're seeing this more and more on the internet.

We have people defending homosexuality who call themselves Christian. They are professing themselves to be of God, but then in the next breath advocating things that God says are abomination in His sight, abominable in His sight. I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Remember the Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 1, not only those who do these things but those who applaud or approve of those who do them are in the same boat.

So we've been dealing with this sobering reality. There are many who say I know God but in works they deny him and John says they lie and do not the truth and that the love of God is not in them. This sermon will get you thrown out of a lot of churches today. John said, whoever says, I know him, but keeps not his commandments, 1 John 2, 4, is a liar. John called them liars.

It's like walking up to someone and they say, I know Jesus, and then they're advocating for those things which are obviously against the Word of God, what God teaches, and the Christian responding, You're a liar. You're not really in the family of God. Ouch. I know him, yet keepeth not his commandments. The Apostle speaking under inspiration of the Holy Spirit says, He's a liar and the truth is not in him.

Jesus again said, you will know them by their fruits. And the same is true of the family of God. You'll know the family of God by their fruits. The tree of true believers is also identified by the fruit that is born on the tree, not just the fruit of unbelievers who falsely claim to be believers. Believers are also identified by the fruit that is produced on their tree.

We looked at this in the last couple of weeks. They walk in the light. The true believers walk in the light. They're not sitting in the dark and covering their tracks. They're confident of this one thing, that the work that God has begun in them, He will continue.

As we read in Philippians 1, verse 6. They know that they have been resurrected from spiritual death to spiritual life because God changed them one day. There was a time where they were what they no longer are and I quoted John Newton I tried to just Repeat him again and again because I wanted this to really stick with us where where John Newton the former slave trader who is born again and becomes a Christian and later writes great hymns like Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound, That Saved a Wretch, Like Me. Said, you know, I know I'm not what I ought to be. And I'm not what I one day will be, but by God's grace.

But I know by God's grace I'm not what I once was. I'm not what I once was. The true believer can look back at his life and he can look at a time where he used to be what he no longer is. And he thanks God for it. He once lived in sin, but he can no longer live in sin.

He once practiced sin, He can no longer practice sin. The love of Christ constrains him. God has put his spirit within his people, and they are now sensitive to the sin in their lives, where before in the former life, they weren't sensitive to the sin in their lives where before in the former life they weren't sensitive to the sin in their lives. Someone could point it out to them and they couldn't see it. They were blinded as our text says this morning.

Now they desire or their desire is to live in Christ in obedience and true holiness. They don't do so perfectly and they know that, but they're sensitive to the sin in their lives and when they do sin, they're brought under conviction by the indwelling Holy Spirit. And they confess that sin. That means they acknowledge their sin. They own it before God.

And they confess it and they forsake it and they look to Jesus suffering and crucified and dead and buried and resurrected. And they trust that He is the propitiation for their sins. That He was the object of God's wrath in their place. He who never sinned took their sin upon Himself And bore the penalty of God for that sin they trust in Jesus and their lives once marked by Yielding to sin are now marked by departing from sin their lives once marked by yielding to sin are now marked by departing from it. Remember last week I said the highway of the righteous is to depart from evil.

That's the highway he's on. Does he always do it? No, not perfectly, but progressively. He's being progressively conformed to the image of Christ. He was changed and he's being changed.

The unbeliever is not so. The true believer knows Jesus died for me. He rose for me. He washed me in his blood. He cleansed me from my sin, and I love him for it.

And they live in gratefulness to him for what he has done for them and to them and in them. And they will not. They cannot. For the life that is in them go back to wallowing in the mire of habitual, unrepentant sin, because God has made them new creatures in His Son. How many can say amen to that?

God has made them new creatures in His Son. They're a new creation, the scripture says. It's a new person. That's what I was, but that's not what I am anymore. I used to talk that way.

I used to think that way. I used to act that that was my old life, but that was the old me. I'm now different. I can point that out. I can look back and say, this is the time where I was not in Christ, and from this point forward, I knew that God had begun a work in me, and he's continuing to do that work in me.

From the day I first believed and repented, I've been believing and repenting ever since. Ever since. The true believer is being progressively conformed to the image of Christ in true holiness and godliness and loving obedience to God, God who redeemed them and set them free. The tree is known by his fruit. All those who are truly in union with Christ by faith in him bear the fruit of life in him.

Old things are passed away, behold all things are become and are becoming new." Again, John Newton, if I could just impress his words upon the congregation, I know I'm not what I ought to be. I know I'm not what I one day will be in glory when we'll all be perfected, But I know without a doubt that I am not what I used to be. I'm not what I used to be. I'm not what I used to be, and that by the grace of God. And that by the grace of God.

So as we come to the passage before us this afternoon. Another test of true and saving faith. Another test intended to produce assurance of salvation in those who truly have it and explode the false assurance of them who do not love in a word love verse 10 tells us he that loveth his brother abideth in the light he that that loves his brother abides in the light. John keeps using these these phrases, he abides in the light, He walks in the light and not in the darkness. And he continues to use negative forms.

He gives you the positive. He that walks in the light loves his brother. He that loves his brother abides in the light, he walks in the light, and he in the negative form that says he's in the light, I'm a believer, And yet he hates his brother. Look at these words, is in darkness even until now. He's still in darkness.

He's in darkness even until now. We began the service this afternoon with a reading from 1 John chapter 4, and in verse 7, the apostle Paul wrote, again speaking under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. And everyone that loves is born of God and knoweth God. The positive command of the people of God to love the people of God. Love for God's people is evidence, John says, that one is born of God.

Everyone that loves is born of God. But then as he's done throughout the entire epistle, the positive command intended to provide assurance to the true children of God is followed by a negative intended to expose by proof in the life of the professor and confessor the false professions of those who are not really in the family of God. So John follows in verse 8 with these words, he that loveth not, this is from our opening text in the service this afternoon, he that loveth not knoweth not God, For God is love. Let us love one another. Love is of God.

Everyone that loves is born of God. He's born again. He that loves not loveth not. He doesn't know God. For God is love.

Love for the brethren is a fruit born by those born of God. Love of the brethren is a fruit, one of the fruits, born by those born of God. That's one of the things that's hanging on your tree, because the tree is known by its fruit. Those whom Christ has saved love the family of God. We can't help ourselves.

We love God's family. And the world hates us. And the world hates us. Those whom Christ has saved love the family of God, and false professors do not. The false professors do not.

Turn with me to 1 John chapter 3 and verse 14. There's so much on this subject that John just drives home to us. Let's see how the apostle puts it in 1 John 3, 14. Because this applies to what we've been talking about assurance of salvation tests of faith and assurance of salvation in Them that believe He says we know We know Whenever God's Word says we know something, I want to know what it is we know. We know, there's that word that has to do with assurance again, we know that we have passed from death to life.

You mean you can look at the fruit on your own tree? I guess so. Because we love the brethren. Could it be put in any clearer terms? We know that we have passed from death to life.

We're assured that we're truly saved. This is one of the evidences that we can look at, because we love the brethren. And then here he goes again in the negative, in case there's any doubt as to his meaning. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. There's his terms again.

Walking in darkness, Abiding in death, walking in the light, abiding in Christ. You're saved or you're not saved. And we'll get to degrees of love in a moment within the people of God. But first, he that loves not his brother abides in death. There's some people who profess to believe in Christ, But because this other person who's in the family of God doesn't have the same color skin as him, he hates him.

That person abides in death. Have you passed from death to life? We read earlier, John said, these things are written that you might know that you have eternal life. To not have eternal life is to not have life in Christ. To not have eternal life is to not have life in Christ.

To not have eternal life is to be on your way to hell. Could there be anything more serious than the subject that John is bringing us in this epistle. Martin Lloyd Jones comments on this passage, nothing can be plainer. If I love the Brethren, I must be a child of God. But if a man, despite what he says with his mouth, hates his brother, he abides in death.

Dr. Jones goes on to say, quote, he is not alive, he is spiritually dead. Nothing could be more serious Than the things that we've been looking at over these past few weeks It's the same thing that John says in 1 John 5.1, if you want to turn there with me, in 1 John chapter 5 and verse 1, when he writes these words, Everyone that loves Him, loveth Him that begat, is God, that's God, loves Him also that's begotten of Him. Same word, same teaching, same thing. Everyone that loveth Him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him.

Those who truly love God love the people of God. Amen? We can't help ourselves. Like, keep saying that, right? And those who do not love God's people do not love God.

No matter what they say with their mouths. No matter what comes out of their mouth. Please don't miss this vital point. Love and hate are set in absolute contradiction to each other in our text. In other words, it is impossible that one can both love and hate his brother or sister at the same time.

You understand that? There can be degrees of love, we'll get to that, but you cannot both love and hate your brother or your sister at the same time. You'll hear sometimes professing Christians try to wiggle out of the text and say something like, well, I don't love this particular brother, but I don't really hate him. Yeah, you do. We have a kind of a love-hate relationship.

No, you don't. If that is you, you're deceived. If you do not love your brother, you hate him. And our opening text says you're walking in darkness even until now. You're walking in darkness even until now.

Unregenerate. To walk in the darkness is to walk among the unsaved. Love is a test of true faith. And if you do not love, it is because you have never experienced the love of God yourself. No one truly loves the family of God who has not experienced the love of God upon them.

The love of God changes us. Love is a test of true and saving faith for everyone who claims to know and love God. And it's a test of true faith every one of us needs to take very seriously. John tells us, if you don't love your brother, you don't love God either. And we need to just grapple with that.

First John chapter four, verse 20. Here again, let's go there. John, he loves to do this thing of I don't care what you say. Because you know what That's going to be the situation all the way from now until the time we're standing before God one day at the judgment seat. Jesus is going to say the same thing.

I don't care what you say with your mouth. You can call me Lord, Lord, but I never knew you. Depart from me. Get away from me. Get out of my sight.

It's serious things we're looking at. 1 John chapter four, verse 20. If a man say, I love God and hated his brother, he's a liar, for he that loveth not his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Where the one is not, the other is neither. It's impossible that one who does not love his brother, that is another believer, could possibly love God.

If you do not love God's people, you do not love God, no matter what you say with your mouth. How can you possibly reason in your darkened heart that you love God, whom you've never laid your eyes on, when you don't even love your brother who's standing right there in front of your eyes. You can't truthfully make such a claim, John says. Such a claim is a lie. It is a lie.

If you do not love God's people, you do not love God, and you're walking in darkness even until now. You're not saved. Can it be any more point blank? I don't think so. Words are not enough.

It's one thing we should gather from all of these texts, that words really aren't enough, are they? Words can be a cloak, can't they? Can words be a cloak? Yeah, words can be a cloak. Affectionate words can be merely cover for what's really going on in someone's heart, you know that?

In 2nd Samuel 20 verse 9, Joab said to Amasa, are you well, my brother? But he had a dagger in his hand. You may even say those Three words we long to hear. You may even say those three words that your spouse loves to hear to your brother or sister. You may even say, I love you.

You may even give big hugs when the church gets together. Every time you see that brother or sister, but you may actually despise that person. Your words and your outward actions are a cloak. Cover something that's really, really not good. And again, there's no middle position.

You either love your brother or you hate your brother. Love is forward on the stick shift and reverse is hatred. And there's no neutral position on the shifter of the car. Remember Jesus said, oh well you love those that love you, so what? I'm paraphrasing.

The heathen do that, the the publicans do that. Well I love those that are nice to me. You love people that love you, so what? The evil, the wicked of the world love those that love them, are kind to them. And I have to say this before I go forward.

Yes, there are degrees of love. There are maturity levels. And John deals with these things. He says, I write unto you fathers, OK? You know God.

He's talking about older men in the faith. I write it to young men. There's kind of the middle group. You young people in the faith, so to speak. I write it to you children.

Maybe they're just babies in the faith. All of them have love for the brethren in various degrees, depending on their maturity. So yes, the text doesn't rule that out and it allows for it and it encourages it. We should strive for maturity in our love for the brethren. Love should be cultivated for God's people.

God demands it. Do you love the brethren? Well, some of them. Well, do you love all of them? Do you love God's people because they're God's people for whom Christ died?

Or is there maybe just that one person or one family in the church maybe you look down on or that you really don't care all that much for or to be around. The father and mother of the, we'll call them the Smith family, greeted, I already told Joe here, I'm not talking about him, this has been in the text for years, they greeted old Joe at church. The parents in the Smith family, they would greet old Joe at church and say kind words to him and give him hugs whatever but their children knew the truth because they heard what their parents said about old Joe at home. They saw their parents speak kindly to Joe at church, but at home, they heard their parents express their true feelings about old Joe. They pointed out his weaknesses and the funny little things about him and his inconsistencies.

He even laughed about them when they gathered around the table together with their children. Then one night in old New York, went out to his horse and buggy after work, he realized he had a broken axle on the buggy. And he was forced to walk through the city that night to get back home. And the route he had to take took him right past old Joe's house that night. And as he Passed by the open window of Joe's little apartment on that cobblestone street, Mr.

Smith heard a sound. It was Joe's voice. Joe was praying. And he stopped at the window for just a moment and he heard Joe praying, praying for the Smith family. Oh Lord, please bless the Smiths.

They are such a good people and they're so kind to me. You know, the world's also watching, right? The world's also watching every one of us. Jesus said in John 8.35, "'By this all men will know that you're my disciples.'" one of the men prayed in their prayer earlier By this all men that means the people of the world will know that you're truly followers of me that you're my disciples Jesus said if you have love one for another That's how they know Not because you got everything theologically wired, but because of the love that you show for the people of God. There have been many people who have been saved that God used the love of God's people for others as the thing that really just, that's what got it, that's got their attention.

You know, we read about it on the, in the Mayflower account of William Bradford When he said that there were many of the sailors that came over, they were just hired men, soldiers of fortune. And they said, when your people were dying, half of them died that first winter, in November of 1620. He said, we saw the love that you had one for another. He said, we let our fellow sailors die like dogs. But you cared for not only for the people of God, but for also for those that weren't even in the family of God or in your church.

And many of them came to saving faith. God used that. God used that. Some think their level of theological training or apparent giftings or evidences of true faith, God contradicts them in his word. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, one, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels and I understand all mysteries, I got my theology down pat, and all knowledge, he says, and though I have And though I have all faith and have not love, I am nothing.

Nothing. Further on in that same chapter, it's called the love chapter, in verse 5 the apostle Paul says love is not easily provoked. I asked my family, I sent my family down this last week and asked every person individually, I said are you easily provoked? Are you easily provoked? Are you easily provoked?

Are you easily provoked? Are you easily provoked? Are you easily provoked? Are you easily provoked? Every one of us in the family had to admit that we're are to one degree or another easily provoked.

We need to mature in our love one for another. We need to be more like Christ and less like us. It also says in that passage that love is kind. Love is kind. Love is kind.

Can you look at your life and see a time where you weren't a kind person? You didn't exhibit this fruit that is said to hang on the tree of the true believer, these things that we see in perfection in Christ. Love is kind. Love is patient. Love suffers long.

It's long-suffering. It puts up with a lot. But not nearly as much as God puts up with us. And of course as I said Jesus is the perfect example in all these things. A couple of thoughts here.

Love would rather suffer for others than to have others suffer for it. Who was it? Epaphroditus in the scripture who said he was grieved. Why? He was sick.

But he was grieved. Why? He was grieved because the people of God found out that he was sick. Love would rather have others get their way than get its own way. Love would rather have others get what they want than to get what it wants.

As a boy I heard a preacher talk about a church in England, I couldn't find this, I tried to look it up on the internet, but down in their church basement, arguing about what color they were going to have their choir robes, you know, the color of their choir robes was going to be, while the Nazis were dropping bombs on the city above them. We're bombing London. The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 5 15, be careful that you don't devour one another in trying to get what you want. I told my family this last week, you know what the Christ-like response is in every situation in your life, in every situation that could come up in the church? Please, not what I want, but what you want.

Love says, please not what I want brother, but what you want. Love is happy when others are happy. Then everyone's happy, right? First John 3, 16, not John 3, 16, but First John 3, 16. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren.

That daily laying down of life for the brethren, that's the hard part. It's easy to just stand up right now, someone comes through the door and take a bullet, you know. What's the hard part? The hard part is the daily living that out, right? That's the hard part.

Daily living it out. Love is so concerned about others it almost forgets about itself. Love is so concerned about others it almost just forgets about itself. A widow in a certain church required 24-hour care And the ladies of the church would, they set up a system and they took shifts. Because many of the women of the church had children and they needed their rest.

A teenage girl in the church took the midnight shift. And one night when she was there in the home of this elderly woman, the lady wanted to be able to stay in her house. And So she took the midnight shift and one night in that midnight shift from 12 to 7, this widow, this elderly woman, she wasn't able to make it to the restroom in time and get out of her bed. And her bed was a mess and she was a mess. And the girl was awakened by hearing her crying.

It was 5 a.m. She got up and she went into her room and she turned on the light, saw what was going on and just smiled. Said, no problem, I can help you. She washed the woman and changed her clothes and changed her bedding and aired out the room and had everything dried and folded and put back away before the next lady from the church arrived that morning. And when she did arrive, this teenage girl said nothing about it at all.

She drove home in her car with joy in her heart, singing blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. As we close, John writes further in verse 18, my little children, let us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in truth. Hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. That's how we know. That's where we gain assurance.

Love builds assurance within us that we are that we are of the truth, that we are born of God, that we are walking in the light, etc. All these terms that John uses. But as we close, we need to understand that our love doesn't come from us. It springs forth from God's love in us. The love that we're to have for one another is rooted and grounded not in something that we have inherent, but in God's love for us.

In God's love that he has implanted in our hearts. And remember, God commended his love for us while we were yet sinners. In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, Romans 5-8. And we're commanded to love one another as he has also loved us, John 13, 34. And by this we know that we've passed from death to life because we love the brethren.

Let's pray. Father, we pray for revival at this church for years And We ask, Lord, that you would take the things that have been taught today and apply them to us and help us. We need help. We need help. Help that only you can give us.

Only you can work in us. And we trust that you will by your word and by the work of your spirit in your people because we know that that work that you've begun in us you will complete and we thank you for it. In Jesus name, amen.