For most of my soccer career I was in the starting eleven, but when I started playing professionally my spot was less than secure. And so I had a different sense during practice, it was a sense of worry and doubt that I wasn’t doing enough to make the week’s top eleven. I can’t describe to you the feeling when at the end of my second season I was assured of a starting spot. I played with a freedom during practice like I’d never had before. There was power in the assurance you were in the coach’s favor.

In a very real sense, the same thing is true of our spiritual lives. To know you have the Father’s favor and His eye of delight falls on you brings power! In his book on assurance called Heaven on Earth Thomas Brooks said, “Assurance is the beauty and apex of a Christian’s happiness in this life. It is usually attended with the strongest joy, with the sweetest comforts, and with the greatest peace . . . [assurance] is heaven on this side heaven.” John wants us to abide in this assurance, to abide in this power and love. As begin to close I want to simply pull on two threads from our text on the growing power that comes when churches abide in assurance.

Abiding in Assurance Brings . . .

Growing reliance on God. Look again at 4:16, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.” If you have an NIV it says, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” Although the Greek word there is best translated believe, rely communicates something that’s integral to belief — reliance. To believe the chair you are seated in will hold you up is to rely on its strength. To believe the light will turn on is to rely on the power of electricity. To believe God has loved you in sending His Son is to rely on His love. Is there any better place on which to place our reliance than God’s love?

• Maybe you are in great anguish or suffering; rely on His love.
• Maybe your children are running away from everything you hold dear; rely on His love.
• Maybe relationships with a friend or family member seem to be falling apart; rely on His love.
• Maybe secret sin is lurking and seems like it will win; rely on His love.

John says we can rely on God’s love because we believe He’s sent His Son. Which leads to the second thing assurance brings to God’s people . . .

Deepening confidence in Christ. 4:17-19 tell us that faith in the love of Christ on the cross means we can be confident to stand before the God of the universe on the day of judgment. If we can stand before the judgment seat of the God of the universe and not have our knees knocking, what fear can stand against us? To abide in assurance is to live in the powerhouse of confidence in Christ. Are we church confident in what Christ is done? Is doing? I am, I see it everywhere in your lives and our life together.

Emily and I were recently talking about something related to the church, something in which many might be fearful, and I told her, “I have no fear whatsoever.” We have God’s Spirit, we believe God’s word, we trust God’s love, and we love God’s people. Why would we fear? What power there is in such assurance.

Living in God and loving like God are the two feet on which assurance moves. May He give us growing reliance and deepening confidence in His love for us in Christ. May we abide in assurance and so live in loving power.

This post is adapted from my recent sermon, “The Love of Abiding,” on 1 John 4:13-21.