1 John 5:13-21
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That You May Know
That You May Know
Good morning my friends!
Well, here we are the last Sunday of 2023… it is New Years Eve!
Wow, we have come to the end of another year.
It is hard to imagine another year gone from us, it seemed as if only yesterday we started the year and suddenly so much has happened.
Consider that my friends, just all that happened this year, some good events and some that were not so good… but what about your Spiritual life, did you grow in and with Jesus this last year.
I ask you that question because our Spiritual life should always be growing, moving ahead so that we are becoming more like Jesus.
But it takes effort, it takes a lot of effort, just as the physical takes effort, so does the Spiritual man.
Larry Byrd the great basketball player for the Boston Celtics would arrive at the areas 2 hours early and just practice shooting the ball, hundreds of shots to get ready for each game.
Michael Jordan shot thousands of baskets every evening after school to help improve his game.
The point I am making is everything requires effort. No one who plays for a team desire to be on the bench, mediocre, no they want to do their best and the Spiritual man takes effort.
Everyday we need to evaluate each one, each part of our life.
And at the end our days will it be said of us that “...we grew close to Jesus and made his name known...”
So lets finish the last passage of 1st John and hear the word.
As we open up the text, I want to share these thoughts with you that John mentions here in the text. Lets start with the first one.
1. Confidence in Knowing Jesus...
If there is anything we know today to be true, it is this…The world needs to know Jesus, and be certain of their faith.
And from the beginning of the Apostles ministry, their goal was to do just that… To see people come to faith and then disciple them and nurture them so they have confidence in that faith.
And John continues that thought in our text today. Lets look at verse 13 1 John 5:13
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.
Remember what we have talked about all through this journey in 1 John, John has been burdened in helping ensure that believers are not led astray by incorrect teachings. We can just flat out call it heresy.
So John says I am writing to you who have believed, so that you may have confidence in your faith.
So often in this life, believers struggle with the assurance of their salvation. And without a doubt, because of those false teachers in the area, it was happening there with those John is writing too.
It is apparent that many in the church had been led astray by false teachings, something that was shared with them and sadly they were doubting if they had eternal life or not.
So John seeks to help these who are struggling.. It is crippling to the faith if a person wrestles believing their salvation..
Did they do the right thing, say the right words, did they do enough, was I good enough… so many thoughts..
John’s desire here is to help those who struggled with their faith, with the joy of eternal security,
He wants them to be encouraged and strengthened so that they will not give up but rather dig in their heals and know for certain that whosoever has the son, has life.
This is crucial… Here is why?
A. Doubting your Salvation hinders your walk… If you are constantly struggling with your faith, wondering if you really are saved will keep your attention divided.
There can be no spiritual growth in a heart that is divided.
B. The Lack of Joy and Peace... If you struggle with the your salvation there can be no joy in your heart and no peace in your mind.
C. A Person will Fail… When there is the absence of the first two thoughts, the person is prone to fall by the wayside, they doubt, they are not growing and since there is no joy or peace, they wither and are hindered from producing fruit.
John wanted those believers to hold fast to their faith, to trust and believe having in them the mind of Christ as we see Paul speak about in Phil 2:5.
We will face difficulty, our peace will be disturbed but hold fast to your faith, again I call you to remember the words of Jesus. John 16:33
33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Hold fast to Jesus, believing in the one who loved us from the beginning.
And this brings us to our second thought...
2. Confidence in Prayer.....
Friends prayer is one of the most glorious parts of our walk with God. It is the two way conversation with our heavenly Father that every believer should pursue each day.
It’s free, it’s effective and it’s a blessing to us...
And we can be confident that our heavenly Father hears us and will answer our prayers… John tells us this here in verses 14-15. Lets look at the text 1 John 5:14-15
14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
As His children, the Father is in tune with us and our needs. To you believe that God knows your needs? I believe so!
You see my friends the gift of eternal life allows the believer to come directly before God with boldness and confidence.
You see prayer is what is naturally birthed out of our relationship with the Father. We have been made His children having eternal life, we have a place, a home and the ability to speak to our Father.
How awesome is that!
Think of it, you came into this world, born into a family where by you had the joy of speaking and communicating with your parents. We hear and know their voice and they know ours.
And this is what John is telling us, being born into the God’s family, we have confidence toward God. Our place and position tells us that “…if we ask anything according to his will he hears us...”
Now there is a lot being said in that verse, lets break it down.
The verse is conditional in nature. If we ask according to His will, he hears us.
Now I believe that God always hears but at times the answering is not favorable to us… because we do not ask according to His will.
So what does it mean to ask according to His will? well consider what John says in John 15:7
7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Think of this, abide in me and my words (myself) abide in you .... there is the truth. The two are uniquely one.
Stephen Smalley a great teacher and theologian says — “The fundamental characteristic of all truly Christian intercession is that the will of the person who offers prayer should coincide with God’s will.”
This isn’t saying that sincere prayer will be answered by God, sometimes our desires are not God’s desires. Sometimes what we ask for while good, God has a different plan for....There are a lot of good Godly things we prayer for, but is this where God is working at the time? God’s will is key...
Faith will tell us that God’s will is best and we can trust his plan and purpose even when we don’t understand it at the time.
So when our will is the same as God’s will, we should expect to see God answer prayer. This is the promise of praying according to the will of God… He hears us.
The outcome is a favorable response from God.
And so John continues this thought in verse 15.. If we are praying according to His will, He hears us. Look at verse 15 again
15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
We should expect God to hear and answer prayer that is according to his plan. The word “if” is really the key word in this phrase, the word “if” does not indicate any amount of uncertainty.
If he hears what we ask, then we know we are asking rightly. why? Because He answers.... and there is one more key that speaks to the prayer being answered right then.
Look at the last part of verse 15, John says “...we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.” That little phrase, “…we have...” is present tense, it means immediately…
But there is a great question, are we taking the time and the effort of knowing Him, abiding in Him, walking in Him.
These types of communion with God allows us to know him more deeply and to know his will, his plans.
You have heard me say so often we treat prayer so one sided most of the time, meaning we do not stop and stay quiet before him, waiting for him to speak to us.
We talk, so pray, but do we stop to hear his heart and mind.
We can have confidence in prayer if we abide in Him, listen to Him and know what He is saying.
Talk that time.... listen and know the voice of God.
Now along those same times, we are called to pray for others. this is our next thought!
3. Pray for Others....
If someone asked me what I liked about our church, I could honestly say, we have a praying church. We have a strong prayer ministry, lifting up the needs of our brothers and sisters and others in prayer. We are willing to pray.
We pray for life, life events, sickness and the home, and so forth… it is a blessing to pray and intercede for one another.
But lets look at what John says here...
Look at verses 16-17 1 John 5:16-17
16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
Wow, what a passage.... right. let me give a little insight to this passage to better help us understand what John is speaking too.
He is really speaking to two kinds of people, the children of God are one group, this is the group who might get caught up in a sin not unto death.
The other group, they are the ones who do not have any amount of saving faith in them… We will talk about that...
So first.....
A. So lets talk about the first group, what about a Christian who get caught up in a sin that does not lead unto death?
John says if you see a brother or sister falter, fall into sin. If you see them commit a sin, the call is not to scold them, the call is certainly not to tell everyone else about it...
No! The call is to pray for them! Uniquely asking God to help that person abandon sin, repent and turn back to God fully...
John has talked about sin often in this Epistle, and rightly so, we need to be reminded that sin hurts the believer, and it hurts others as well.
I hope that we as believers would simply, loving encourage that person to leave that alone, to repent and come back to God.
The phrase that God would give to him life, is not that they were endanger of losing life physical or spiritual, but that they would have the opportunity to enjoy all that God has planned for that life.
Enjoying the life God has prepared for us can only take place as we abide in Him!
It’s heart breaking to see people fall away into sin, they take their eyes of Jesus and start to looking to self. I need this, I deserve that, and suddenly their heart is stolen from them and they fall into sin.
Pray for believers whom you know as strayed.... Intercede for them asking the Father to help them, asking God to forgive them but also kindly as you have chance, encourage that person to come home… Come back to the house of God and worship.
B. Now to the second and maybe a little more complex of a thought here…
This group of people would appear to be those who are not believers at all.
I say this because they are in danger of experiencing death due to sin. I would remind you that a true believer John has already reminded us would not continue in sin. Let me take you back to 1 John 3:9
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.
Those who are not believers would continue in sin, especially if the sin means more to them than anything else.
So there are in reality two types of sin that we can classify as unforgivable. One, we really do not think of, but we will talk about it.
1. So consider the unbeliever who has commited the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This is commonly seen in the life of the Pharisees.
Their life was one who deliberately, purposefully rejected the works of Jesus, done through the Holy Spirit saying that what took place was the work of the devil. Let me share with you… Matthew 12, verses 24 and 28...
24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”
They looked at and saw the good works Jesus was doing and they said, he only does this because He is of the devil and has the devil’s power and permission.
And Jesus rebuked them for their actions. Matt 12:28-29
28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Jesus said that such sin would not and could not be forgiven in this life or the life to come. And going back to John, he says this at the end of verse 16… “....There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.”
We cannot and should not pray.... because they are not a brother. Such a sin is deadly.
I remember hearing J. Harold Smith preaching his famous message God’s three deadlines. He was preaching one evening in church and there were three buddies, three successful men in that church and they just sat there, laughed and made fun of what they saw and God spoke to J. Harold and he told them men they had crossed God’s deadline, they has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit and within 24 hours they would all three be dead. The first died at 6am the next morning, the second at noon and the third died at 6pm that evening all three before those 24 hours were up.
C. Now there is one extra thought out there, I think it is possible since with God all things are possible. I think this could also speak to a person who acted like, thought they were a believer but they went out from them...
John says there are those like that in the church he is ministering too, they left their fellowship and started teaching and preaching false doctrine.
Essentially, they have denied the person and work of Jesus Christ. They denied he was virgin born Son of God fully man and fully God. They reject that Jesus died physically as an atonement for sin, was buried and rose from the dead on the third day gloried and perfect bearing the scares of his death.
This complete and utter rejection of God, means they heard the truth but refused to to submit, repent of sin and ask Him to be their Savior.
That type of rejection, purposefully and freely walking away, ,abandoning God’s gift will end up in Hell without excuse and at some point God will stop asking and they are doomed.
I remember visiting a man once, some of us young men who used to visit for their church and we witnessed to this man, we called for him to be saved and I will never forget the chilling words he told us.
I cannot be saved. He said that he used to feel God’s spirit all the time, urging him, calling him to give his life to Jesus and he kept rejecting, he kept saying no and he said one day God’s presence never came to me any more. He said God has withdrawn from me and I cannot be saved. I am damned to Hell because of my hard heart.
How sad.
To know and reject is a terrible thing to do and it will land you in the more terrible place of all, Hell!
Now look at John’s words, again verse 18
Now Lets look to verse 18...
18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
Here is what we do know about the believer and sin… A true child of God will not keep on sinning.
God will protect him, and the evil one does not touch him. He will return from sin...
In verse 19, John reminds us that there are only two realms where by people can live and act...
19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
We are from God, those who are redeemed and the rest of the world are under the influence of the power of the ruler air… the devil.
And closing the final thoughts of verses 20 and 21… John reminds us that as the church we know who Jesus is, we testify, we know and share that He has come and He is the the Lord, the only means whereby men may be saved..
And verse 21 one last warning .... leave idols alone..
Let me ask you quickly, What is an idol?
An idol is anything we lift up and worship, putting ahead of God and what is due him.
Money can be an idol, we worship it, we want it, we need it more than anything else, and we it and Jesus is 2nd or 3rd.
Our job, our family, our actions....
It’s anything we have in place of God....
Let me ask you, the last day of the year, tomorrow is the New year…
Is there anything in your life that you have put in front of God?
Is there something you have asked for more than Him, wanted more than Him?
If something has become your idol, let it go, confess it to God and repent and be forgiven.
if you are here this morning and maybe you have hard or ill feeling toward another person or brother or sister, repent and ask for forgiveness.
Maybe there is something else, confess it to Jesus today and ask for His forgivenss and start the new year of right.
Lets pray
27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to do it.