1 John 5:1-5

Our confidence and hope comes from faith in Christ

Your house is on fire and you smell gas on your hands. You realize that you have started a fire that is going to consume you. The exits are blocked and the fire is already raging around you — its too late. You have no way out. All you can do is hope that the firefighters are able to make it to your house and save you before the fire can kill you. This is the condition that John’s audience finds themselves in as they recognize that their sin has become lethal and that they have no control over it. They have no option except to hope that someone can save them before their sin can kill them. They have learned of the need for faith, to surrender control and to hope outside of themselves.

We have a damaged conscious because of sin

John wrote this letter so that those who believe in the name of Jesus would know for certain that they have overcome the world and have received eternal life. He is writing to a people that have a damaged conscious and do not know for certain what happens when they die. They do not know if they truly have eternal life or if they are too far gone.

We have given in to sin and have bought in to this world. Many of us have also seen the outcome that this brings, and so we live with a damaged conscious that condemns us. We know that we have abandoned God and have propped up our false gods and our idols, we know that we have sinned against God and we know that we deserve punishment for that. Sometimes we try to ignore it, sometimes we try to cover up the truth. Why is that? Why do we have a damaged Consciousness? walks us through it.

Romans 1:18–23 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Romans 1:18-

We all know about God just by looking around us. Creatyion itself screams that there is a God who has created it. It is incredibly clear that this did not happen by accident, nor did everything come from nothing just because it felt like it. However, we suppress what we know. We try to ignore it and brush it off. Why?

Romans 1:26–31 ESV

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Romans 1:26-

Because we are ungodly. Because we have sinned against this all-powerful Creator God and because we know that we should be punished for that.

This is the truth of the human condition. It was true of the people that John was writing to, and it is true of us in this room as well. We may each suppress that truth to different levels but deep down, we all have that same conscious that needs repairing. We all need hope.

Our joy is restored because of the victory Jesus has won

As John is writing to these people so that they might have hope, he says that if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the promised savior, then you have been born of God. You have been made His child.

You will know that you love the Father if you love his children.

1 John 5:1 ESV

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.

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If you think that you are loving God by hating his children, you have made a wrong turn.

In order to love God’s children, you must love God and obey Him.

1 John 5:2 ESV

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

If you think you are loving God’s children by hating God or disobeying him, you have made a wrong turn.

Loving people is really about loving God. If anyone every thinks they have loved a person while sinning they are sadly mistaken.

Bending the word of God will never be loving someone

John continues to write to these people and says that if you have been born of God, then you have overcome the world. There is nothing in this world that can drag you down away from the Kingdom of God.

1 John 5:

1 John 5:4 ESV

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

If A then C, if you believe that Jesus is the Christ then you have already overcome the world. Our damaged consiouc is healed because of Jesus Christ and our faith in him. We want to convince ourselves that we need to somehow earn our way back into good favor with God and make things right. That is not where our hope comes from! It is only faith in Christ and what he has done that we can be restored.

Bending the word of God will never be loving someone

So where does our confidence come from? It stems back to our belief in Christ. That is the only thing we can hold onto that will be able to clam our anxieties at night as we lie awake and wonder about things that are higher than us. Our relationship with Christ is everything to us!

And to obey God is not burdensome or difficult. Why? Because He will cause us to overcome the world!

As that faith becomes everything to us, we act on it

Faith is a gift - we must rely on God for it.

Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Faith is not trying harder. It is not working towards something. It is reaching out in absolute desperation and betting everything on someone. All or nothing, their failure is your failure, their success is your success.

As we grow in this faith, we will obey God’s commandments and they will not be burdensome to us because we grow in love for God.

If you are searching for joy and assurance, if you want to know for certain that your soul is eternally cared for, if you want to know that you really are a child of God, then you must look no further than the God Man Jesus Christ. He is the one who will cause you to overcome this world. He is the one who will rescue you from the fire that threatens your life. He is the one who will hold you and bring you into the Kingdom of God. If there is any doubt, and anxiety, any lack of faith, look only to Christ, for it is He who will hold you fast and bring you home.