1 John 5:14-17
Notes
Transcript
I hope you guys had a great week this week! We have ourselves a doozy this morning. Last week we went over . I wanted you to know that if know you are a sinner and you have put your faith in Jesus Christ alone to save you from your sins against God that you HAVE eternal life. I want you to have the joy of knowing that you are safe and secure in Him and in Him alone. And we need to be reminded of that fact over and over again. We need to be reminded of the gospel of Christ over and over again. So that was last week.
Now this week, this morning…we have a doozy. If we were a church that skipped around this is one we could just skip over. If we could have just jumped over these next 4 verses and just jumped down to verse 18 I could have had this done a lot sooner. But…we are going to go right through it.
I want you to know that I learned a lot this week studying this text. I was convicted on my prayer life. Man, I want to be better when it comes to praying. Studying this week has made me want to spend more time really praying the way I should. Hopefully you will see what Im talking about when we get into this a little and maybe there are a couple of you who can relate with me when it comes to praying…and I pray we all grow to a deeper understanding of prayer.
Let me read Gods word:
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 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.
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. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
Lets pray:
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
So lets think about this for a minute. Lets bring it down a little.
I know yall are nothing like me. Yall would never do what I am about to tell you I do. But there just might be someone here this morning that does this thing I do sometimes. Maybe, just maybe you have done it to your wife or to your husband. Maybe some of you AWESOME teenagers have done this to your parents before…surely none of you kids have done this. But I admit, I have…and maybe do it from time to time still...
It goes like this...
“Hey babe! Man, you have been looking so good lately. You been working out? I love you so much sweety! What would I do without you? So, uh…you mind if I go play golf today for 4 hours while you take our 5 kids to do all their stuff today?”
Then, she says, “uh…NO!”
And me, being the good husband I am…say something like this, “are you serious? That’s ridiculous! Really?” and then I storm off and pout a little bit.
IS this how we approach God sometimes?
Have you ever come to God in prayer, buttering up to Him, telling him how Awesome He is…How Gracious He is, How Wonderful He is...
then make your requests
give it a little time and you feel like the answer is ‘NO’
and get all mad at God…store up some bitterness, lose a little faith in your prayers?
What have we done? We have tried to manipulate Him…as if that were possible.
We have come to him trying to impose our own will on Him instead of trusting in His will.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
So, after we understand that we HAVE salvation…we make the next step which is we have CONFIDENCE IN HIS PRESENCE that if we:
ask ANYTHING according to his will…NOT according to OUR WILL, but according to HIS WILL
He HEARS US.
The ONE CONDITION on Him hearing our prayer is:
it must be according to his will
Faith accepts that God’s will is best.
Faith trusts that God’s plan is better than our plan.
How do we know His will? Know his revealed Word. Know His attributes and who He is.
Keller on his book on Prayer says, “the clearer our understanding of who God is, the better our prayers.”.
Pray the Scriptures. DNA GROUPS.
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.
The “whatever we ask” here in verse 15 is conditioned by the “according to God’s will” in verse 14. YOU SEE THAT?
(I feel like I am just up here popping the prosperity gospel balloons)
So…here is what it is saying....
Whatever we ask, as long as it is according to God’s will, we HAVE our request.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
But many times we don’t feel like we HAVE what we have asked for do we?
We get impatient with God sometimes don’t we?
But I want to encourage you and remind you of our Good Father, God Almighty...
He knows what is best for his children.
Believe that what you have asked for, in accordance with his will, that he has heard your cries and you have what you have asked for.
VERSE 13 says that you should KNOW that you have ETERNAL LIFE.
Do you know that? Do you believe that?
But you don’t have it right now do you? But you DO believe that it is waiting on you…that when you die you will have eternal life with God Almighty. Hopefully we trust that!
Then trust that your prayers that are in accordance with HIS will have been heard and “KNOW” that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
your will is: I want to see it RIGHT NOW!
but “not my will but yours be done”…RIGHT?
Charles Spurgeon:
If a man had nothing more than he could see, there are many of you here who have possessions across the sea, or ships far off upon the water, and if you had only what you can see just now, your estates would be sorely diminished. So we may have the answer to many of our prayers: really have the answer, and yet for the present to us that answer, like a ship upon a long voyage, may not yet have returned, yet we have the answer as the merchant has the ship which is as much his upon the Atlantic as when it shall lie alongside his wharf. May we, dear friends, obtain the gracious position of knowing that having sought the Lord in prayer through Jesus Christ, we have the petitions which we desired of him.
If a man had nothing more than he could see, there are many of you here who have possessions across the sea, or ships far off upon the water, and if you had only what you can see just now, your estates would be sorely diminished. So we may have the answer to many of our prayers: really have the answer, and yet for the present to us that answer, like a ship upon a long voyage, may not yet have returned, yet we have the answer as the merchant has the ship which is as much his upon the Atlantic as when it shall lie alongside his wharf. May we, dear friends, obtain the gracious position of knowing that having sought the Lord in prayer through Jesus Christ, we have the petitions which we desired of him.
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.
1 John 5:16
What in the WORLD?
When we see a 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”.
When we see a brother or sister committing a sin…we pray.
the Church body prays for them and God will give them life. He or she will be convicted by the Holy Spirit whom they have been grieving and brought to their knees and repent of their sin. Their faith will be restored and they will start walking with the Lord again.
This is what a church does.
A church doesn’t see a brother sinning and just write him off. Is that LOVE? Is that LOVE for the brothers that John has been talking about throughout this letter that is a true mark of a true believer? NO. Christians don’t write people off because they fall into sin.
We pray that God will restore them.
And we wait…we study his Word, we believe His Word, and we pray according to his will…we trust that our prayers are heard and we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
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.
VERSE 16B
“There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray about that”
What is that?
In the context of 1 John it is talking about those who have denounced the faith.
Those false teachers and those who followed them.
Those who reject that Jesus Christ is the SON of GOD and the Saviour of the World.
Those who hate the brothers.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
Look at .
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Hebrews 6:1-
All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
John MacArthur says that we are living proof of this verse. And we are aren’t we.
We are alive but we sin. Chapter 1 says if we say we do not sin we are liars.
WE do sin, but we are still living. But sin is still sin and we should pray for one another.
most of the scholarly debate is devoted to understanding the “sin that leads to death,” John’s real concern is to encourage believers to pray for those whose sin “is not to death.” Thus, John again states that “there is a sin that does not lead to death.” “The words are added to show the wide scope which is given for the exercise of Christian sympathy and intercession.
Praying:
We need to have our hearts and minds right when we come to God and pray. Knowing who it is we are speaking to.
Truly feel our wants… seriously considering what we ask for …otherwise it becomes so redundant....scripted doesn’t it. As if we are doing it because we feel like he just “wants” us to…so we do it.