Having Confidence in Your Salvation and in Approaching God

How does confidence affect what you do? If a mechanic opens the hood of your car and begins scratching his head and looking uncertain, that does not bode well for the state of your automobile. If you have a teacher that seems unsure about the topic that they are teaching on, it is difficult to give them your full attention.

This morning we are talking about confidence in the things of God. It is far more weighty than a mechanic or a teacher. We will look specifically at confidence in your salvation and confidence in approaching the Holy Lord in prayer.

Read 1 John 5:13-15

Confidence in Your Salvation

We have spent an important amount of time thinking through what it means to believe. It is a head-knowledge that a person has and something that they can place their faith in. To utilize the illustration that I so often use, I look at this chair and believe that it will hold me up. I have faith that it will actually support my weight. If a person has faith in who Jesus, they can know that it is because Jesus has secured eternal life on our behalf. Knowledge holds with it a skill and ability. It is more than just head knowledge but actually experience.

To believe in the name of Jesus is to believe that everything said in this book about his life, death, and resurrection are true. To have faith in Him enough to give Him your life. And when we give Him our lives, we are promised eternal life.

John writes to these dear brothers and sisters that what came before verse 13 all had one goal: that they would know that they have eternal life. Scholars have wrestled with what specifically John was referencing, whether it was just the point that came before regarding the three witnesses, the water, the blood, and the Holy Spirit, testifying that Jesus is the Son of God or the entirety of this letter.

I want to make note of the pattern of writing that is seen from John. His gospel was solely devoted to highlighting the truth of who Jesus is for those who do not believe so that they might hear. John Stott notes that the progression from John’s gospel account to this letter is that “his hearers may hear, hearing may believe, believing may live, and living may know.” It is because of that progression that I believe that “these things” refers to the entire book.

So, I want to tell you about what has been told to us so that we might believe and know:

Jesus is the Word of Life

The importance of walking in the light

The love of God is perfected in Jesus

God abides in the one who lives his brother

Don’t love the world, do God’s will

Allow the truth of the gospel to abide in you

It is a liar that denies that Jesus is the Christ

The Father’s love is seen in His adoption of us.

Practice of sin is practice of lawlessness and of the Devil.

By the love of brother we are confident that we know truth.

Test the spirits

God’s love is manifest in the fact that He sent His Son.

THe one who believes is the one who overcomes

The water, the blood, and the Holy Spirit testify of Jesus as the Christ.

With all of these things, can believe that Jesus is the Christ and know that we have eternal life.

There is great value in confidence. It means that a person is able to life live with no reservations while here, sure that there is life after this world.

The second confidence that we notice in this passage is

Confidence in Approaching God

It is in verses 14 and 15 that we are reminded that the confidence we have from God is not just what is in the future but also what is in the present. John notes that our belief and knowledge have an effect on prayer.

Because we believe and know, we are reminded that our desires are being conformed to the will of God.

We understand that God actually hears our prayers. He desires that we would come to Him and doesn’t just tolerate them out of obligation.

And he answers according to His will!

We are able to boldly speak before the almighty God. However, there is one qualifier: that our requests would align with God’s will.

Just this one qualifier ought to cause us to reconsider how we view God’s will and prayer. Do we pray according to our own well-being first or do we come to Him, seeking to do His bidding and trust that we will be cared for in the process? The one who believes in the name of Jesus Christ must pray that the world would come to know His name. This is easy for us to pray for our loved ones and neighbors and coworkers. Is it easy to pray for the politician who we despise or the terrorist across the world planning to burn down a church today or the homeless person on the corner? No but it is God’s will that all might be saved, so when we pray we ought to pray for them anyway.

But there are so many other ways that we can pray better according to God’s will! This morning we are going to close in a different way. No music, no standing and singing. Our response is going to be silent for a few moments before I call up our musicians.