1. The Doctrinal Test
2. The Obedience Test
3. The Love Test

The fictitious story has been told many times by preachers, because it makes the point so well:

There once was a famous tightrope walker, the Great Charles Blandini. He traveled from city to city performing death-defying feats high above deep canyons and raging rivers. Whenever he came to town, massive crowds gathered. Men stood with folded arms trying to look unimpressed. Women held their breath in case he fell. Children climbed onto their fathers’ shoulders just to see.

On one particular day, the crowd lined both sides of a massive canyon. Suspended hundreds of feet in the air was a single tightrope stretched from one cliff to the other. No safety net below. No harness. Just a wire stretched into the distance.

The Great Blandini stepped out onto the wire carrying only a balancing pole, and slowly, carefully, step by step, he walked the tightrope. The crowd fell silent. Every eye was fixed on him. One slip and it was over.

When he finally stepped onto the other side, the crowd exploded in applause. Then he turned around and walked all the way back. The cheers became louder. Celebration of his accomplishment was acknowledged by all. Spontaneously, people began to chant: “Great is Blandini! Great is Blandini!” They believed this man could do the impossible.

Then he raised his hands for silence and pointed to a wheelbarrow sitting nearby. “Do you believe,” he shouted, “that I can push this wheelbarrow across the tightrope and back?” “Oh yes!” the crowd yelled. “We believe!”

So he loaded the wheelbarrow with heavy rocks and began once again his journey across the rope. The rope trembled under the weight. The wheelbarrow swayed above the canyon. The crowd gasped with every step, yet slowly and carefully he walked the tightrope, across the canyon, and back again!

At this point, the crowd was beside themselves. “Amazing!” they shouted! “Incredible!” they roared! “We believe in you! We believe in you!” they chanted!

Again, the Great Blandini raised his hands for silence. When it was quiet, he dumped the rocks out of the wheelbarrow and looked directly at the crowd. “You say you believe in me,” he said. “Now I need a volunteer.”

The crowd suddenly became very quiet. “Who will climb into the wheelbarrow and cross the canyon with me!”

No applause now. No cheering. No volunteers.

There is a difference between saying you believe and actually demonstrating that you do believe. It is one thing to profess your faith with your mouth. It is another thing to show your faith. There are many people who say that they believe in Jesus, yet, when it comes to their lives, they live as if they don’t believe.

The greatest example of this is told at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapter 7. Jesus looks ahead in the future to the judgment day, and he pictures a crowd of people who are saying, “Lord Jesus, we believe in you! We believe in you!” And they seek entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus turns them away.

Matthew 7:21-23
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

It is the most tragic scene in all the Bible: expecting to enter the kingdom of heaven, only to be turned away by Jesus, who says, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” I have a healthy pastoral fear that any who have been in this church, listening to my messages, would ever have this experience. This passage is what drove me to go to seminary. This passage is what has driven me into the pastorate, that I might not be one of those turned away, trusting in all these great works I have done and yet really practicing lawlessness, professing with the mouth but denying it with the life.

We, as a church, have just finished looking at the gospel of John. For almost two years, we have worked our way through this gospel, verse by verse, section by section, chapter by chapter. I counted: 74 sermons on the gospel of John. And through the course of those sermons, I have emphasized the purpose that John gave us for his writing the book. We have quoted these verses so many times in my messages that many of you have come to memorize them without even trying. By the way, that is how you memorize anything: repeating the same thing in your mind many times over a long period of time. So, if we say it again, it will help you in your memorization of the verse:

John 20:30-31
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

I have been told of evangelistic opportunities that have come from memorizing this verse. Someone in this church was in a discussion with another person who was trying to argue that you get to heaven by your works, and this verse came into mind and was quoted as an argument against such a belief. Life in the kingdom doesn’t come through your works. Life in the kingdom comes through faith.

Yet, there are many who say they believe, but don’t really believe.

So, today, I want to ask you a question: “Do you know that you believe?” Do you know that when you stand before Jesus on that final day, that he will not say to you, “I never knew you; depart from me, you worker of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23)? This is the title of my message this morning: “Do You Know That You Believe?”

The great news is this: John, the author of the gospel that we have been considering at Rock Valley Bible Church for the last two years, whose purpose in writing the gospel was to persuade you to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name, also wrote a letter whose purpose is for us to know that we have eternal life. This letter is called 1 John.

John wrote this letter. Most scholars believe that John wrote this letter after he wrote the gospel. It makes sense as a follow-up to some questions that his gospel created, because it answers this question about belief and knowing that you believe.

It is a bit like John Piper’s experience. John Piper wrote a great book in 1986 entitled Desiring God. The book describes how the one who genuinely believes in Jesus will have a desire for God that is greater than his desire for the world. He quotes verses like Psalm 73:25-26.

Psalm 73:25-26
Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For years, he preached about this concept that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” But he kept encountering people who would affirm these sorts of things but found their hearts wandering. So, almost 20 years after writing his first book, John Piper wrote another book in 2004 entitled When I Don’t Desire God. In that book he helps those who want to desire God and know the joy that such an experience brings, but struggle in the process.

In the book, Piper affirms that this is the desire of many in the Bible. David wrote during some dark days in Psalm 51:12, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” Somehow, David’s joy was lost, but he prayed that it might be restored, that he might rejoice in his salvation.

Anyway, it makes sense that John and 1 John hold a similar tension. The gospel of John was written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing you may have life in his name. The question certainly came to John, "How do I know that I believe?" This is the question that John seeks to answer.  Look at the purpose statement of why John wrote his epistle.

1 John 5:13
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

Do you see the link? John writes his gospel that you might believe. John writes his epistle that you might know that you believe, or more particularly, “that you may know that you have eternal life,” which is the result of belief. This purpose statement governs all that John writes.

When you read 1 John, it is helpful to read it through this lens, asking yourself, “How do these verses help us to know if we have eternal life?” If you summarize it all down, John, in his writing, basically gives us three tests. I want to go over these tests with you this morning. As we do, I really want you to examine yourself and ask, “Do I pass this test?” Because, when you pass these tests, you can know that you believe, and in believing, you have eternal life.

I want for you to do what Paul said to those in Corinth toward the end of his letter: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5). That is what we are going to do this morning. I am going to encourage you all to examine yourselves, to test yourselves to see if you are in the faith.

Here is the first test:

1. The Doctrinal Test

That is, do you believe in the right Jesus? Because there are many who say that they believe in Jesus, but really they believe in a fictitious Jesus. They believe in a Jesus who isn’t even real. And someone who isn’t real cannot save you from your sins.

For instance, you might have a faith in Superman, that there exists a man who really comes from Krypton, who is “Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! And able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” You may believe this. You may look up in the sky when others are saying “It’s a bird!” or “It’s a plane!” and say, “No! It’s Superman.” You may have faith in a Superman like this. But this Superman can never save you, because this Superman doesn’t exist!

So also, you may have faith in a Jesus who simply doesn’t exist. You might believe in the “Only a good teacher” Jesus. You might believe in the “Merely human” Jesus. You might believe in the “Non-judgmental” Jesus. You might believe in the “License to sin” Jesus. But these sorts of Jesus don’t exist. Jesus was more than a good teacher. Jesus was more than merely a human being. Jesus will be our judge. Following Jesus doesn’t give you permission to sin. And if you believe in any of those lies, your Jesus can’t save you from your sins. Your Jesus can’t give you eternal life.

John’s epistle gives us some doctrinal tests about Jesus. Look over at 1 John 4. We read in the first verse.

1 John 4:1
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

This is why it’s important for you to take the doctrinal test, because there are many in the world who are false, who are trying to deceive you, who are trying to teach you false things about Jesus. Verse 2 puts it as clear as can be.

1 John 4:2-3
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

Here is the test: do you believe that Jesus Christ has come into the flesh? In other words, do you believe that Jesus was a man who walked this earth and experienced everything that we experience as human beings? Do you believe that Jesus ate and drank and slept, and felt hunger and thirst and fatigue? If so, then you pass this doctrinal test.

In the days after Jesus, there was this teaching called “Docetism,” which taught that Jesus didn’t really come into the flesh. Rather, it just “seemed” that Jesus was a man like us. “Docetism” comes from the Greek word dokeo, which means “to think or suppose or seem or consider.” The idea is that some, after the days of Jesus, claimed that Jesus merely “appeared” to be in the flesh. John was writing against that error.

Perhaps that is the reason why John spends so much time in chapter 1 talking about his experience with Jesus in the flesh.

1 John 1:1-3
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

Now, in our day and age, most people believe that Jesus was a real man. Most people pass this particular test. But lurking behind the test is the assumption that Jesus was God. When John wrote chapter 4 against those who didn’t believe that Jesus came into the flesh, they all believed that Jesus was divine. That was the problem. In Greek philosophy, the spirit is good, but the material world is evil. So, as people thought about Jesus being God, they thought that he couldn’t be stained by this world, so Jesus merely “seemed” to be a man. But his deity was assumed.

For us today, however, this is not generally believed by most people. Most people today believe that Jesus was a man, but most people don’t believe that he was God. Most people today don’t believe what John wrote in the first chapter of his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). This being called “the Word” was Jesus, who was with God, who was God.

It's important to believe that Jesus was God, because God needed to come to save us from our sins. An angel couldn’t save us from our sins. A lamb couldn’t save us from our sins. The writer of Hebrews says that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:4). Only Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, can take away sins. John the Baptist said in John chapter 1, verse 29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” This Word, Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us. This is what we celebrate at Christmas time, that God came to visit us to be among us: “Immanuel, God with us.”

This is the doctrinal test. You must profess Jesus. You must profess the right Jesus.

1 John 4:15
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

If you don’t believe that Jesus is God, then you don’t believe in the true Jesus and you don’t have eternal life. If you don’t believe that Jesus came into the flesh, then you don’t believe in the true Jesus and you don’t have eternal life. That is "The Doctrinal Test." Let’s look now at,

2. The Obedience Test

This test is most clearly seen in chapter 2, beginning in verse 3.

1 John 2:3-6
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Those who believe in Jesus will obey Jesus. Flat out. This is true. Yes, we are not saved because we obey Jesus and keep his commandments. But obeying Jesus and keeping his commandments are indications that we truly believe in him.

Look again at verse 4: “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” You can say all that you want, “I believe in Jesus, I know Jesus.” But if you don’t keep his commandments, then you are a liar. You may be playing church, coming only for a show. You may be trying to play games with God. But God will find you out. The burden of my message this morning is that you would indeed know this before it is too late.

So, how are you doing with keeping his commandments? Do you even know the commandments? Ray Comfort often records himself going out into public asking people if they keep God's commandments. People say, “Yeah, pretty well.” Then he asks them, "Do you even know the commandments?" To this, people can hardly give but a few of God's Ten Commandments. How can you know that you keep the commandment if you don't even know the commandments?^[1]

So, how are you doing with keeping his commandments? Ray Comfort, in his evangelism, uses the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount to show those he is speaking with how they have failed every single one of them, as the full intent of these commandments gets to the heart. Yet, this cannot be what John is meaning here, because he says, "by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments" (verse 3). If he means here that none of us keep the commandments (as Ray Comfort argues with people), then none of us can know that we have come to know him.  Yet, this is the entire premise of the epistle that John writes: that we know that we know him (1 John 5:13)!!

So, the way to take these words is that is that John isn't meaning that we have perfect obedience, all the time. Only Jesus obeyed the Lord perfectly, all the time. If you did obey perfectly, then Jesus didn’t need to die on the cross for your sin. The idea of “keeping his commandments” doesn’t mean keeping them perfectly all the time. Even the best men of the Bible didn’t keep the commandments. Moses was a murderer. David was an adulterer. Peter was a liar.

John is talking about the general flavor of your life. In general, are you seeking the ways of God? Are you reading his word, that you might know what he wants of you? In general, are you seeking to walk in his ways? When you hear a command of God, are you praying for the Lord to stir your heart in obedience to him? Do you pray like the Psalmist did in Psalm 119?

Psalm 119:33-37
Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes;
    and I will keep it to the end.
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
    and observe it with my whole heart.
Lead me in the path of your commandments,
    for I delight in it.
Incline my heart to your testimonies,
    and not to selfish gain!
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;
    and give me life in your ways.

He has a heart that longs to obey the Lord. He is praying for the Lord’s strength to help him in his weakness. John isn’t here talking about the perfection of obedience. He is talking about the direction of obedience.

I heard recently that the life of a Christian in terms of sanctification and obedience looks a bit like the stock market. It has its ups and downs. There are good times and bad times. But what is happening over time? The market always increases. The same is true with sanctification. You are going to have up days and down days. You are going to disobey. But God is going to give you the desire and help you, slowly and steadily, to walk in his ways more and more.

John says something similar in chapter 3.

1 John 3:6-8
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

John doesn’t say, “If you sin you are of the devil.” He says, “If you make a practice of sinning” you are of the devil. There is a connection to John 15 here: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” When you abide in him, you will not keep on sinning. Sure, you will sin, but what is the general practice of your life? Look at his reasoning.

1 John 3:8b
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil in your life. When Jesus died upon the cross, he defeated Satan. He rendered him powerless over you and over your sin. Paul says in Romans 6:11, “Consider yourselves therefore dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” It is the death of Jesus that gives us the power to conquer sin in our lives. If you believe in Jesus, he will give you a desire to walk in righteousness, and he will empower you to walk in righteousness. This is what verse 9 says.

1 John 3:9
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.

This is what those who have genuine belief in Jesus experience. When you believe in Jesus, he abides in you. He creates righteous desires in you. He moves you to walk in righteousness. This is consistent with the new covenant of Jeremiah 31: “I will put my laws upon their hearts and on their minds I will write them.” God puts his law in our hearts and his commandments in our minds, and we want to obey. We want to do them.

So, consider your life. Are you one who walks in the ways of God? Not perfectly, of course. But is this the desire of your soul? Because when you have been born of God, God puts a desire to pursue obedience to the Lord in your life. This is the gospel: when you believe in Jesus, your sins are forgiven. You are born again and given new desires. You long to please your master with your whole heart. When you believe in Jesus, God works in you to bring a measure of this about. And when you sin, you are grieved, because you want to obey the Lord.

How are you doing on the obedience test? “Do you know that you believe?” Look at your life. It will be plain to you. At least, that is what John says. He says that it will be "evident":

1 John 3:10
By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Here we see two ways in which the children of God are made clear: obedience and love. We have considered obedience above. Let us now consider love with my third point:

3. The Love Test

1 John 3:11-13
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

John gives us a bad example first. In verse 12, John writes that we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. Why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Envy was in his heart. He hated the fact that God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and not his, so he killed his brother. And verse 13 follows: do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. Love for one another is what God does in the hearts of those who believe in him. Love, John says, is a test of how we know that we have truly believed in Jesus.

1 John 3:14
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

This is the love test. It is not that we gain eternal life through loving one another. It is our love for one another that demonstrates our faith in Jesus. “The brothers” here is primarily a reference to fellow believers. It is our love for one another that shows us that we have passed out of death into life. It is our love for one another that shows us that we have eternal life.

“Do you know that you have eternal life?” One way to check is your love. Are you loving the brothers? Now, don’t merely trust in your feelings toward one another. Remember the Great Blandini. The crowd said, “Yes, we believe you!” They talked and talked. But when he said, “Get in the wheelbarrow,” there was no action. Don’t love with word or tongue, but in deed and in truth. John brings up the contrast between words and deeds in verse 18:

1 John 3:18
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Love is demonstrated in its actions, not merely in talk. So I ask you: who are you spending time with? Who do you like to spend time with? Who are you serving? Are you finding ways to be with other believers, that you might help them and serve them? Our church is a willing place for you to practice these things. Look around you. You have a group of people who are willing to do life together with you. Are you taking opportunities throughout the week to be with them? Sunday morning is the first stop. Small groups and Bible reading groups are another way to gain connections with other believers, so that throughout the week you can love each other by bearing one another’s burdens. Opportunities for love come through the Weekly Word. In recent weeks, there have been opportunities to help furnish an apartment, opportunities to help clean out a storage facility, and opportunities to help clean the outside of the church. There are always opportunities. Love will get involved to help and serve.

That is the big test. The one who comes to church and says, “I love the brethren,” but practically has little connection outside of Sunday morning with the brothers and sisters of the church, or believers in general, doesn’t pass the love test. Look over at chapter 4, verse 7.

1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

It is not that our love earns us eternal life. It is that our love is a demonstration that we have been born of God. If you don’t love with deed and truth, then you don’t know God, then you don’t believe in Jesus. Because God is love, and his love works within us, and gives us a love that is unlike the world. This is what God does for all who believe in Jesus. He gives a supernatural love by which we love one another. Do you know that you believe?

1 John 4:9-10
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

That word “propitiation” is a loaded theological word. It basically means that in Jesus, God’s wrath was turned aside. When Jesus died upon the cross, God’s anger toward us for our sin was taken away. For those who believe in Jesus, God is no longer angry with us, because he poured out his wrath upon Jesus. When Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). God could have called back, “I have forsaken you so that I might pour out the sins of all those who will believe upon you.” Upon the cross, his wrath was averted. We who deserved punishment go free because God is satisfied with the sacrifice of Jesus. His countenance toward us changes: not angry with us because of our sin, but delighted with us because we believed.

John continues the thought in verse 11,

1 John 4:11
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:19-21
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

So, it's time for the grading.  Have you passed these tests? Do you pass the doctrinal test? Do you pass the obedience test? Do you pass the love test?  In other words, "Are you believing in the Jesus of the Bible?" "Are you submitting to God's word in your life?" "Are you demonstrating how you love others?"

This sermon was delivered to Rock Valley Bible Church on May 17, 2026 by Steve Brandon.
For more information see www.rockvalleybiblechurch.org.

[1] I would encourage you to spend just a bit of time memorizing the Ten Commandments (if you don't know them already).  Here they are in a nutshell:

1 - Do not worship any other gods.
2 - Do not make any idols.
3 - Do not misuse the name of God.
4 - Keep the Sabbath holy.
5 - Honor your father and mother.
6 - Do not murder.
7 - Do not commit adultery.
8 - Do not steal.
9 - Do not lie.
10 - Do not covet anything.

Here's a little song that my wife and I created years ago.  It has helped me memorize the Ten Commandments.  Perhaps it will help you as well:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-xX9OjVb8Q.