All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching. ( 2 Timothy 3:16 )
Signs of a True Christian- Are You One? By Paul Washer
Let’s open up our Bibles to the book of 1 John chapter two verse seven.
Let’s stand. 1John chapter two verse seven:
Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old
commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old
commandment is the word which you have heard. On the other hand, I am
writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you,
because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the
darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and
there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother
is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he
is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.1
Let’s pray.
Father, I pray that you would use your Word in the lives of many according to the need
and according to that which would bring you the greatest glory in Jesus’ name. Amen.
You may be seated.
We have been in 1 John for a while and we are discussing the true test of salvation. How
can a person know that they are truly born again? It is not simply because they repeated a
prayer. It is not simply because they have joined some religious organization or gone
through some religious rite. The evidence of salvation is the working of God in our lives
that causes us to grow in conformity to his character and conformity to his will. We have
the assurance that we have truly been born again because the things that are written in 1
John are found, at least to some degree, in our lives. A life that has not been changed has
not been saved.
I know we live in a country where everyone and his brother is a Christian because at one
time in an evangelistic crusade they prayed a prayer. My friend, that is not biblical. We
are saved by the power of God because salvation is the power of God. It is brought about
by the power of God and we are saved not by repeating a prayer, but by repenting of our
sins and believing the gospel. And the sign, the true sign that we have done that are the
things written in Scripture that identify true Christianity.
1 1 John 5:7-11
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In the beginning of our study we saw that the true Christian will walk in the light. That
means they will live a style of life that reflects something of God’s character and reflects
obedience or conformity to God’s will. We also saw that a true Christian will be
sensitive to their own sin and that sensitivity will lead them to repentance and confession.
We have also seen that the true Christian will have a new relationship not only with God
and not only with sin, but with God’s Word. That true Christian’s life is marked by
habitual obedience.
Our obedience will not be perfect. A true Christian will sin. That is why he must be
sensitive to sin. But the life of a true Christian will be marked by a new relationship, a
real relationship with the Word of God. And then, lastly, we studied that the true
Christian will walk like Jesus walked. That doesn’t mean that we will be able to do all
the miraculous things that Christ has done. It doesn’t mean that we will live a life of
sinless perfection as he did. But it means that our style of walking, of living, of being, of
talking, every aspect of our life will somehow be brought into conformity little by little,
to the life of Jesus Christ, to the life of Christ.
Now we see another test in verse nine of chapter two. “The one who says he is in the light
and yet hates his brother is in darkness until now.”2
Possibly the greatest sign of true Christianity is that you love the brothers, you love the
brethren. Now, the word “brother” here does not refer to someone of another race
because Scripture simply does not acknowledge that there are other races. There is just
one. It is human and we are all a part of it. It is not referring to someone from another
culture. It is not referring to the poor even though we should love the poor and we should
love people from other cultures, all cultures, every walk of life. We should love our
enemies, those who persecute us and nail us to trees, we should love. But here he is
talking about love for other individuals who profess Jesus Christ as Lord.
Now, let me give you an example of how this works. Do you remember the teaching of
Jesus where he said, “I was in prison. You didn’t visit me. I was sick and you didn’t
come to me. I was hungry and you didn’t feed me. I was naked and you didn’t clothe
me.”3
And that verse is so often used as a proof text for prison ministries and ministry outreach
to the poor. Well, we should do all that, but that is not what that verse is teaching.
Let me give you an example. In many third world countries when you are thrown into
prison you are not fed. In prison, in many third world countries, some of the countries
that I have been to and even lived in, you are not given food. You are not given water.
You are not given clothing. You are not given shelter. You are not given anything. You
are thrown in behind four walls.
2 1 John 2:7 3 See Matthew 25:43
Now what does that mean? It means that if someone on the outside does not come and
slip you food through the bars you are going to starve to death. If someone does not come
and bring you a change of clothing, you are going to be ragged. If someone does not
come when you are sick, you are probably going to die of that sickness.
But now let’s take that into the Christian context of the first century. There is someone
who is thrown into prison. Why? Because they professed that Jesus Christ is Lord, not
Caesar, Jesus. And because of that they are thrown into prison.
Now they are going to rot there. They are going to die there. They are going to starve to
death there unless someone from the outside ministers to them. Now there is the catch.
The prison officials are going to be watching. Anyone who brings this Christian food is
obviously a Christian and we’ll get him, too.
So when Jesus says all that he says about visiting him in prison and all this such, he is
saying that your love is so strong for other Christians that you willingly lay down your
life. And if your love is not that way a red flag should come up and maybe you know not
the Lord.
Again, in this new covenant love is not something. It is everything. It is the
manifestation of all your godliness. It is love. It is love.
“The one who says he is in the light,”4 the one who say he is a Christian, what does it
say? “And yet hates his brother...”5 Again this verb, present tense. It is a habitual hatred,
a habitual animosity.
You say, “Well, I don’t have that great animosity and I don’t have that great hatred
towards people who call themselves Christians.”
But love is much more than just not doing the negative. What positive actions of love do
you demonstrate to the people of Christ?
Now let’s just step back for a moment and think about this. How many times have I heard
men say and women say, “I don’t need to go to church. Church is so filled up with
hypocrites anyway. I can worship God in this bass boat. I can worship God on this golf
course. I don’t need to be there. They are all a bunch of hypocrites anyways”?
If you have ever said that, you are doing the work of your father the devil. His name
means slanderer, accuser. You are standing outside of the people of God judging them.
I want you to know something. It is true that within the people of God... And firs of all let
me say this. Not everyone who goes to church on Sunday morning is the family of God.
There are church members who are not Christians.
4 1 John 2:9
5 Ibid.
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And you say, “Well, how can you tell them apart?”
Watch their life.
But even among the true Christians there are failings. There are problems. There is
stumbling. But the one thing that is going to happen to you, if you have truly been
converted, is you are going to have a love for the people of God because you are one,
because blood is thicker than water. I am sure it is and that is the way it ought to be. But
the Spirit is stronger than blood.
How many times have I sat down on an airplane with someone from a totally different
culture, totally different country whether it be from Switzerland or England or wherever,
South America or Africa, sit down, begin to talk, find out they are a Christian. And
within just a few seconds it is like we have known each other forever. We are family.
Why? The Spirit bears witness. This is a child of God.
And we are to be marked by love.
“The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until
now.”6
He is in total and absolute spiritual darkness.
I said this. I don’t know if I have said it here. I probably have. I repeat things quite a bit.
But I can remember as a young seminary student crying out to God to be able to preach
with the power of God on my life, crying out to God to be a missionary, crying out to
God to know his Word.
I know this friend of mine. He cried out to God to be like Jesus, to serve people like Jesus
and to love people like Jesus. He is not the greatest preacher in the world, but I would
give every gift I have to be like him. He chose the greater thing.
Donkeys and rocks can preach. Our great goal is to be like Jesus. It is the end of all
things we do. It is the end of preaching. It is the end of praying. It is to be like Jesus in
the most difficult place on the face of the earth to be like Jesus and that is the people
closest to you, because I want to tell you something. People in China that you don’t know
are real easy to love. But the closer you get to people the more difficult it is to love
people. And that is where we are coming at here. That is where we should be here in this
church, loving people, caring about people biblically, in the truth, sincerely, with all our
heart.
Now he says, “The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the
darkness until now.”7 He knows nothing. He knows nothing.
6 1 John 2:9
7 Ibid.
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“Well, you know, I have studied here. I have studied there. I have done this.”
I don’t care. Do you love?
Now he goes on and he says, “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light.”8
The one who loves his brother, he is not saved because of his love, but he is
demonstrating that he has been saved by the power of God because of his love.
And then he goes on and it says, “And there is no cause for stumbling in him.”9
Let me just try to put it in a... put it in my context.
You say, “That’s the boringest preacher I have ever heard in my life.” Someone might
say that about a preacher. “He is the boringest preacher I have ever heard.”
And then someone stands up and goes, “Yeah, but I have never met anybody who loves
like him.”
“I mean that is the goofiest person I think I have ever met in my whole life.”
“Yeah, I know. But I have never met anybody serve in the name of love like that person.”
You see, kind of removes all stumbling blocks, doesn’t it?
He says, “It is not important anymore.”
They are not big. They are not great. They are not fast. They are not smart. They can’t do
it as well as anybody else can do it on the face of the earth, but when you say, “But, they
love like no one I have ever seen before,” it just clears the air. What else matters? What
else matters?
I had a friend of mine that was terribly... went and had a terrible, terrible relationship. His
wife just... I mean I was in there. I was privy to what was going on. It was a horrid thing.
He spent 14 years of his life just living... it was a horrid thing. She left him. She left the
kids. She left absolutely everything, left him high and dry. And I said, “Brother, what are
you looking for?”
He said, “I don’t care. I don’t care what the woman looks like. I don’t care how smart she
is. I don’t care the way she dresses. I don’t... I just want someone to love me. That is all I
want.”
Do you see what he is saying? Nothing else matters when you get the one thing. But if
you don’t have the one thing, nothing matters. Nothing matters.
8 1 John 2:10
9 Ibid.
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Look at this.
Verse 11. “But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the
darkness.”10
That means not just in this one area of his life is he in darkness. He is dark everywhere.
He knows nothing and has nothing to say to anybody about the Christian life. He is just...
his mouth is shut up because he doesn’t love.
And then he goes on and he says, “[He] does not know where he is going because the
darkness has blinded his eyes.”11
Church, let me share something with you. It is impossible to have a proper vertical
relationship without proper horizontal relationships. You cannot have a great,
magnificent, fire filled on power, divine relationship with God if your relationships with
the people around you are not right. You don’t hear from God because doesn’t speak to
you. You are dark everywhere. You are dark everywhere.
How many times? And I have had to do this. How many times have I left the house in a
hurry or... or just troubled or just too quick with my wife and just jump in the car ready to
go preach somewhere to save souls and God just basically say, “Well, you can get in this
car and take off, but I am not going with you. I don’t know what you think you are doing,
but you had better get back in that house right now and start doing some serious
apologizing.”
Why? Don’t think about going up if you haven’t gone across.
Oh, we are to love and that is a hard thing to do. Do you think that if I were to get up here
right now and to give you all the commandments of the law, I mean, I was to go and say
to you, “Folks, we have got to keep everything in the book of Leviticus. We have got to
keep everything in the book of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Genesis, every law that has ever
been given. We have to keep it.”
Do you think that would be hard? That is not half as hard as what I am telling you to do
right here, because this is the fulfillment of the law. This is the fulfillment of absolutely
every bit of it. It is just love, love.
Well, who do we love? Who do you got? That was the question they asked Jesus. Who
is my neighbor, looking for a loop hole? Who is not your neighbor?
“Well, you don’t understand what they have done to me.”
10 1 John 2:11
11 Ibid.
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They haven’t put a crown of thorns on your head. They haven’t nailed you to a tree and
they haven’t thrust a spear in your side.
Any more questions?
He goes on. And I wanted to go back up to... well, I want us to go over to John 13 for a
moment, John 13 verse 33.
“Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the
Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’”12
Now, folks, listen to this. If I knew I had just a few short hours left with my wife and my
children, I would not be talking about silly things. I would not be talking about who won
a ball game yesterday. I would make sure that in those few short hours I had left I would
be talking to those I love about the most important, most important, most important
things concerning me and concerning them. And that is what Jesus is doing there.
He goes down to verse 34. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one
another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”13
And you say, “Well, what is this new commandment?’
We go over in 1 John, we begin to get an explanation. He is talking about a new
commandment, a new command. But in 1 John he will say it is an old command. It is
not a new command. Here he says it is a new command and not an old command.
Well, what is he saying?
He is saying this. God has always been love. God has always been love. His character
changes not. He has always been love. God is love. And he has always commanded his
people to love. And therefore it is an old commandment. It is the oldest commandment.
And to sin is to violate that commandment and to keep that one commandment is not to
sin. God has always told us to love.
“Then how is it a new commandment, brother Paul?”
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved
you.”14
Jesus raised the bar so high that when he says, “Love,” it means something totally
different than when anyone else says it.
12 John 13:33
13 John 13:34
14 Ibid.
Page 8 of 13
I will give you an example. You sit down with me and you ay, “Brother Paul, are you a
good basketball player?”
I say, “Yeah. Yes, I am. I am a good basketball player. I was good in high school. Two
replaced hips, one broken arm and a bad elbow, but yeah, I can still put them through
there when I have to.”
But if you ask me if I am a good basketball player I can tell you, “Yes,” and within the
context of my life that is a pretty reasonable answer. “Yes.”
But it means something totally different when ask Michael Jordan if he is a good
basketball player. It means something completely different when he says he is good and I
say I am good. Two different worlds.
This is exactly what Jesus is saying here. “Yes, God has always commanded you to love,
but I am raising the bar so high it becomes a new commandment.”
I hear all these people saying, “Boy, I am glad I didn’t live back in the Old Testament
times when it was really rough to obey all those laws and follow God.”
My friend, the bar has been raised so high.
The Old Testament said, “Give 10%.”
The New Testament says, “Your brother is in need. You might need to sell your house
and give everything you have got to him.”
You want to talk about raising the bar? Love.
Now he says, “How are you supposed to love? The way I love you.”
The way he loves you. You want him to love the way he loves you, but you do not want
him to love you the way you love others. You do not want that to happen because we all
go to hell.
Isn’t it amazing? We will tell about mercy and sing about grace and then be like a miser
when it comes to giving it to others.
I crucified him to a tree. I put a crown of thorns on his head. I thrust a spear in his side.
But, praise God, he loves me.
“You didn’t shake my hand Sunday. You are out.”
What are we doing?
Page 9 of 13
I was supposed to teach on family this morning and the reason why I didn’t is because I
began to study and realize, “Man, I am going to have to finish this and go into that family
thing just full barrel.”
But one of the things I teach on family in the sovereignty of God is that the purpose for
your marriage is to conform you to the image of Christ. That is the primary purpose of
your marriage. It is to teach you to love someone who does not meet all your conditions
and, thus, become like Christ. It is love.
Now look at verse 35. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have
love for one another.”15
As I was sharing, a fellow in Romania came to me one time and stuck a pin on me and
said, “Here. Everyone know you are a Christian.”
And a guy who mentors me looked over and he goes, “Well, by all these things they will
you know you are his disciple.” By a pin on your lapel, by a cross around your neck, by
a Bible under your arm, they are going to know that you are a disciple? By your
knowledge they are going to know?
No. By your love in the name of Christ.
Now, let’s go back to 1 John quickly. Run over to chapter three for a moment, verse 14.
“We know that we have passed from death unto life.”16
How do we know that? We are no longer spiritually dead. We are no longer reprobate.
We have passed out of death into life. Who do we know that we have done it? “Because
we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.”17
The word “abide” here, present tense, means it is a habitual living in death. The word
also can mean not just to live in like in the context of a dwelling place, but to walk with,
to sojourn with. You are literally walking hand in hand with death. And you are
unconverted and you know not the Lord if you do not love.
It is a frightening statement, but a wonderful statement at the same time. And he goes on.
And he says, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no
murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”18
People have used this text to say if you commit murder that you cannot be saved. No,
what it is talking about is someone who continues on in the habitual practice of murder.
To continually hate your brother is to be a serial killer. You just keep hating and keep
killing. [?]
15 John 13:35
16 1 John 3:14
17 Ibid.
18 1 John 3:15
Page 10 of 13
Now verse 16. “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to
lay down our lives for the brethren.”19
How are we supposed to love? Not just... you know, we have this idea. “Well, I love
them.”
How do you show it?
“Well, I don’t do anything bad to them.”
No, you love because you lay down your life for them. You can’t... let me share
something with you, believer. If the extent of your Christianity is just coming into this
building and hearing a sermon and worshipping, you are not loving. You are to be loving
the brethren in practical ways.
But let me also say this. Many Christians because their families are such chaos and there
is so much animosity there, they come to the church to love because they can no longer
love in the context of their families and that is wrong.
We have to, in this church, build strong families based upon the Word of God. Husbands
who are husbands of God, wives who are wives of God, parents who are godly parents,
children who know they are loved and learn how to love. This has got to happen or
everything else is just... well, it is so much saw dust on the barn floor that is all it is.
And why would we want to export anything here to someplace else unless we are right? I
have always said the greatest thing that could happen to missions in the world today is for
most Americans to stay home because when they get over there they teach a gospel that is
not true. We don’t want to be the problem. We want to be a part of the solution.
Now, look at verse 17.
But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and
closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?
Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and
truth.20
Now, I don’t have time to preach this text, but the whole point that I want you to see is
love is not just a feeling. It is not just emotion. It is not just coming together and all of us
giving a group hug and singing kumbaya. And love is not just all of us coming here and
praying here down at the front. It is ministering to people when they go back. It is loving
people, caring for them, getting involved, getting involved. And that is the thing we don’t
want to do because we have all got fences around our houses, don’t we, little cards that
you have to have in order to pass through the gate. We don’t want anybody that close.
19 1 John 3:16
20 1 John 3:17-18
Page 11 of 13
Well, you can’t love somebody far away.
Now, I want to close in verse seven of chapter four.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who
loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not
know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us,
that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might
live through Him.21
Never forget this. God is holy. God is just. He will judge the wicked. God is love. He
really is. He really, really, really is.
There is very little meaning in what I am saying. You can’t understand the strength of
that statement because you can’t really find a great definition of the Word because you
have never seen anything like this in your world. You try to find a definition for the love
of God. That is just not... there is not words enough. The human mind cannot
comprehend. There are not enough in the human language to be able to express the love
the God. But we do have an example. God’s Son crucified over a garbage dump outside
of Jerusalem crying out all the while, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what
they are doing.”22
God is love. And everything God does is in the context of love. And God’s
commandments are expressions of his love and God’s morality are expressions of his
love and God’s directive, God’s prohibitions, they are all manifestations of his love.
We look at a culture today that is literally gone wild, gone wild, turned over to the
wickedness of its heart. And that is true. But any time you hear Christianity spoken of in
the media, it is always the horrible people who want to oppress other people’s liberty by
telling them what they cannot do. And this horrible God of theirs that says there is a
certain way to live and apart from that way there is nothing but death. That is what our
culture hears. That is what the media portrays about Christianity.
My dear friend, let me tell you something. I love my two little boys. I love my wife
supremely and I want you to know something. I will tell my little boys when they are
going to close to a flame, “No, do not do that. Do not do that.”
Is it because I want to oppress their freedom? No. I want to save their life.
And one of the things that we have got to understand is, “Yes. God does come to our
godless culture and say, “You are all wrong. Every last one of you, you are wrong. But I
love you and this is why I am telling you you are wrong. And you can be right.”
21 1 John 4:7-9
22 Luke 23:34
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“Well, what do you know, God?”
“I made you. That’s what I know. I made you.”
“Don’t try to oppress my lifestyle.”
“Oh, I am not, not at all. I am trying to save your life. I made you. I know how you work.
I know how you can be saved.”
“Well, it goes against everything.”
Let me tell you something. It went against everything for me and it went against
everything for ever other person that has ever been saved.
You say, “Well, I have to renounce this.”
We all had to renounce something because we were all wrong. Now it might have
manifested itself a whole lot of different ways, but all of us were wrong and all of us had
to turn and all of us had to say, “God be merciful.” All of us.
I tell you what. I would like to take out a full page ad in whatever newspaper there is in
this city and just say this. “Ok. This is who we want in our church: every thief, every
murderer, every prostitute, every crack addict, every person that has every done anything
so horrible they don’t even want to mention it. We want them in this church. And this is
why. Because such were some of us, but we have been washed, we have been bought.”23
This is what we want. This is what we want. That is what we want.
Church, that is what God desires for us to promote in a godless, loveless world, a true
God who is both holy and love, who is both mercy and justice and has been able to show
the perfection of both those attributes the day his Son died on that tree.
I don’t care what you have done. I don’t care because for most of you I have probably
done worse. I don’t care what you have done. I don’t care what you have become, not at
all. What you need to understand is you sin in your life could be killing you because you
are not reconciled with God. You have no relationship with him and you were made for
him and you will be restless until he finds you. But you have sinned. You have broken
every one of his laws and because of that you are not a victim, you are a criminal and
criminals deserve justice. But God has satisfied justice. And how did he do that? He paid
for your sins when his own dear Son died in your place. And, yea, he not only died, he
rose again from the dead. And now he sits at the right hand of God and he is powerful as
the old preacher used to say. He is powerful to save to the uttermost and to the
guttermost. He is powerful to save. He will save. He will save. He will save.
23 See 1 Corinthians 6:11
Page 13 of 13
Like in one place Spurgeon says, “If I had only two words that I could ever say again...
He saves, he saves, he saves, he saves, he saves.”
Let’s stand to our feet.
We are going to have an invitation. If you have any need whatsoever, if you feel like
today, you know, you are saying, “I need to be saved.” Well come down and talk to us.
Walking down this aisle will not save you, but we will know who you are. You come
down. We will talk to you. We will go off somewhere. Whatever you want to do and just
sit and talk.
You say, “Well, I know I am saved, but my life is messed up.”
Ok. We are here. We are here.
“Well, don’t you have to go eat?”
No. We don’t have to go eat. We will stay here all day. What is the need? What is the
problem? We are here because there is a mighty God who can save you and who can
help you.
Tags: a, are, by, christian-, of, one?, paul, signs, true, washer
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