02.20.2022 AM | The Lord Who Knows Our Hearts

PREACHER: Brian Payne | Pastor
John 2:23-25

 

1 | We Can Only Look on the Outward Appearance (2:23)

 

2 | The LORD Looks on the Heart (2:24-25) 

 

Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus knew what was in people:
- Jesus knew the character of Simon (1:42)
- Jesus knew what Nathanael was like (1:46ff).
- Jesus told the Samaritan woman all that she had ever done (4:29).
- Jesus knew the Jewish leaders did not have God’s love in their hearts (5:42)
- Jesus knew that one of his twelve was not truly a believer (6:64)
- Jesus knew the adulteress was repentant in her heart (8:10-11)
- Jesus knew the murder in the hearts of his enemies (8:40ff)
- Jesus knew Peter would betray him 13:38.
- Jesus knew that each of his disciples would be scattered, each to his own home and would leave Jesus alone (16:32).

 

3 Criteria of Saving Faith:
1. An evangelical understanding and confession of the gospel.
2. Perseverance in the faith
- Hebrews 3:14
- 1 John 2:19
3. Repentance from the idols

 

The pervasiveness of sin:
- Our hearts are deceitfully wicked (Jer 17:9).
- The mind and understanding are darkened (Eph 4:18)
- The will is corrupted (Ro 3:11b)
- Our eyes/ears are fallen (Mark 8:18)
- Our foreheads are like brass (Is 48:3)
- The hands are weak (Heb 12:12)
- Our feet run to evil (Prov 1:16)
- Our feet turn to evil (Prov 4:27)
- Our feet are swift to shed blood (Rom 3:15)
- Our necks are stiff necked (Acts 7:51)
- Our necks are outstretched (Is 3:16)
- Our emotions naturally rejoice at wrongdoing (Acts 13:6)
- Our knees are weak (Heb 12:12b)
- Our tongues flatter (Ps 5:9); boast (Ps 12:3), slander (Ps 15:3), deceive (Ro 3:13b)