1 John 5:13-20 - Gifts from God

Introduction & Review

<<PRAY>> <<REMINDER about Children’s materials and the REASON for it>>

Kids, what’s the best part about getting a present? The surprise? Tearing the wrapping paper? Parents know that sometimes the best part of your kids getting a present is the gift receipt. That way, when your kid rips off the paper, looks at the box, and says, “I already have the green one with the shark face,” you know where to take it so that he can pick out the blue one with the pterodactyl wings.

Kids, did you ever get a present that was so unexpected that it made you jump up and down screaming, “YES!” Were you ever surprised by a present that you didn’t think you would get?

Gifts tell us a lot about the giver and the receiver. A little bike with training wheels is for a kid who’s just learning to ride a bike. And if it has Elsa and Anna on it, it’s for a girl. A big bike with 18 speeds and a water bottle holder is for a big kid or an adult. And if it has Elsa and Anna on it, it might be a white elephant gift.

The gifts that God gives us are always good. They’re never re-gifted. And they tell us about God and about us.

Here in the conclusion to the letter of 1 John, John reminds us of the biggest themes of the letter in terms of gifts from God - things that He has already given, and things that He will give.

We learn a lot about God and about ourselves from these gifts. So let’s look at verses 13-21 and see if we can find them all.

Q. What gifts has God given us in Christ?

Org:

I. The Gifts of Assurance and Confidence (13-15)

<<READ 13-15>>

ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

Verse 13 - assurance of salvation. Remember, last week, in verses 11-12 <<READ>> - Eternal life is a gift from God, for everyone who believes in Jesus.

You were created to live forever, and death is not the end for any of us. Every one of us will either pass from this life into judgment for all of our sins, or into never-ending joy in the presence of God Almighty. None of us can work or earn our way out of eternal punishment; but through His death on the cross, Jesus has already paid for every sin of everyone who believes in Him as Savior and Lord. So that everyone who believes in Him would have eternal life. As a gift.

And assurance of eternal life is also a gift. John says that you can know for sure that you have eternal life if you believe in the Name of the Son of God.

Assurance - knowing that you have eternal life - is a gift that comes with a note and a signature.

The note reads like this:

John 6:37–40 ESV

37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

And the note continues in

John 10:28–29 ESV

28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

And the signature is the name mentioned in verse 13 - Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Who gives eternal life? <<Jesus>> Who gives us to Jesus? <<THE FATHER>> Who can snatch us out of Jesus’ hand? <<NO ONE>> Who can snatch us out of the Father’s hand? <<NO ONE>>

APPLY:

Sometimes we don’t know how much we need a gift until much later. Assurance of salvation is like that. Many Christians, especially young ones, put their trust in Christ and come to know the LORD, and for many years, things kinda go ok. Assurance of salvation seems fine, but not a huge deal.

And then, something big happens, and it shakes them. A death in the family starts you thinking about eternity. Or maybe even more common, you find your faith rocked by your own sin.

Do you know that you have eternal life? You can.

Maybe you forgot about this gift of assurance. And today is the day to read Jesus’s note to you again: “All who the Father gives me will come to me, and everyone who comes to me I will never cast out.”

Assurance is not an assumption or arrogance, if Jesus is your Lord. It’s trust that God keeps His word.

CONFIDENCE TOWARD GOD IN PRAYER

Right next to the gift of assurance is confidence toward God in prayer, in verses 14-15. The finished work of Jesus on the cross is the grounds for confidence before God elsewhere in Scripture, too. For example:

Hebrews 10:19–22 ESV

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

This is confidence that every single time we ask Him anything according to His will, He not only hears us, but that we have what we’ve asked.

And I know that someone here today might be struggling with this, because “according to His will” sounds like a cop out. But it’s not. And here’s why.

First, notice that it says “he hears us.” He listens. Don’t ever let it escape your attention that the God who created the entire universe, who set the Pleiaides in the sky, who invented the idea of a galaxy and then spoke billions of them into existence, who never had to calculate the speed of light because He defined it, who invented the molecular machinery that runs like microscopic clockwork in every single cell in your body - proteins that copy DNA, and DNA that tells proteins to build other proteins that assemble electric power plants that fuel the whole thing - the God who made that all up - listens when you call. Because He loves you.

Anything you ask according to His will is given. You might ask, “What is His will?” His will is His eternal purpose and holy character enacted in His world.

And this is why it is such a good gift that God’s will is the deciding factor in how He answers our prayers.

Because His will is perfect, good, holy, reliable, trustworthy, unchanging. His will perfectly reflects His infinite wisdom and eternal nature.

Let me paint you a picture of the alternative. You walk into the cafeteria at lunch. The line is already stretching past the first few tables. You take one look and know - if you stand in this line, you won’t have time to eat your lunch before your next class. At the front of the line, you see Bucky Sassafrass. You know you shouldn’t cut in line, but you walk up to him and say, “Hey, can I cut in line?” And Bucky gives you that Sassafrass smirk and says “No,” and then immediately he lets one of his friends cut.

Bucky Sassafrass is what you call capricious. His will is changeable, one moment he could be mean, and the next minute, he could - well, you just don’t know. And unlike God, Bucky could just totally change his mind about you or whatever. Like every one of us, Bucky’s will is finite, limited, changeable, and sinful.

When I pray, my desires are limited by my own nature. I don’t know the future, I don’t know how my life will affect other people’s lives, and what I want now might change when the sun comes up tomorrow.

Imagine if God were not committed to His own will in answering our prayers. If we couldn’t trust that He would always act according to His own holiness and wisdom and purpose.

I am so glad that God doesn’t change His mind about how He answers my prayers based on something changeable in Him.

And I am so glad that He will never give us anything that is against His will. He will never settle for what I want if His will is for something else. Because the will of God will always be better than whatever we ask any time the two disagree.

And this gives us the gift of confidence towards Him. Do you have confidence when you pray? You can.

APPLY:

This is a confidence that is based on the character of God. The One who gives eternal life loves to give good gifts to His children according to Matthew 7:11.

As you get to know God, you’ll get to know His will, especially through His Word. And your prayers will likely change.

They will reflect an awareness of His holy character and eternal purpose. They will celebrate His sovereignty. And they will be undergirded by a trust that His will is better than yours.

You can pray confidently, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s what I want, LORD, and please, oh LORD, let it be your will to give justice in this matter, or healing to this loved one. But I will trust you even if not.”

Entrusting your will to God’s will gives us confidence to pray even when we don’t know what God will do.

In Matthew 8, we read of a man who approaches Jesus with confidence. He is a Roman centurion, who asks Jesus to heal his servant who is paralyzed and suffering. But his confidence isn’t in himself. In fact, when Jesus says, “I will come and heal him,” the centurion says, “Lord, I’m not worthy to have you come under my roof.” But here’s the source of his confidence: “but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”

His confidence was not in himself or his request, but in Jesus’s power and character.

Let’s look at two more gifts from God, in verses 16-18.

II. The Gifts of Prayer and Protection (16-18)

<<READ 16-18>>

THE GIFT OF PRAYER

The first gift of God in verses 16-18 is the prayers of our brothers and sisters for us.

John is drawing a distinction between the sins of believers, atoned for by the death of Jesus, and the sins which have not been forgiven.

How do we know which ones are the “sins that lead to death” and which are the “sins that do not lead to death”? Without Jesus, pick one or a thousand sins - every one of them leads to death.

1 John 1:8–9 ESV

8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The sin that does not lead to death is still deserving of death and judgment and hell - that’s why he says “all wrongdoing is sin” - as Paul says, the wages of sin is death.

But John is talking about a brother or sister - a fellow Christian - whose sin becomes evident. He says that if you see it, PRAY! Your prayer will be the occasion of God fulfilling His promise we already saw in

John 10:28 ESV

28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

We don’t know that a person is a false believer until they’ve left the Faith. Then, our prayers change, and John says he’s not talking about prayers for unbelievers at the moment. But until that point, we pray for them as brothers and sisters.

Do you see what he’s saying in verse 16? “There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.” So how should we pray for the lost? We should pray that they would repent and believe in Jesus SO THAT their sins would NOT lead to death. But his focus here is on our responsibility to pray for fellow Christians - that God would indeed do what He has promised to do - to purify us as He is pure. To crowd out the sin that remains with life.

STORY RE: PRAYER

And that means that we pray for them as those who have the next gift, in verse 18

THE GIFT OF PROTECTION

Just as we saw in chapter 3, the one who is born of God struggles against sin, but he or she does not “keep on sinning” - sinning without end, without hope, continuously and without remedy.

If you have been born of God, then he who was born of God - Jesus Christ - protects you. No one can snatch you out of His hand, not even the devil.

APPLY:

Does that mean that people who claim the name of Jesus can live however they want, and no matter what, just because they say they’re Christians, they’re saved? Absolutely not. From the very first verses of 1 John, he has repeatedly said that

1 John 1:6 ESV

6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

A Christian is born again by the Holy Spirit, and their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ is accompanied by His love transforming us, His light banishing the darkness in us, His Word abiding in us, and His victory over sin and the evil one at work in us.

1 John 3:8–9 ESV

8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 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.

The Christian - the person who has been saved by faith in Jesus Christ - struggles against sin because they know that it is their enemy. But they do so from within the protection of Jesus. He is their fortress, their rock and refuge.

Let’s look at verses 19-20.

III. The Gifts of Rescue and Relationship (19-20)

The gift of rescue carries through from verse 18 - we’re born of God, we’re from God, because He has rescued us from the world that lies in the power of the evil one.

Verse 20 says that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding - why? - to know Him. The Father and the Son.

And verse 20 ends by bringing us back full circle - to eternal life. Jesus Christ - the Son of God - is the true God and eternal life.

But this isn’t just full-circle for chapter 5. It’s full-circle for the whole letter. Chapter 1 began by declaring that Jesus Christ is the eternal life, God the Son of God the Father.

And it is knowing Him that makes all these gifts so amazing.

God has not sent you an Amazon gift card. He didn’t send you a $20 bill for your birthday and leave a voicemail. God is not far away.

He revealed His very heart to you. The Son of God came so that you could know HIM. This entire world is under the power of sin and death and the devil. The entire world is alienated from God, enslaved and deceived. And He so loved the world - the sinful, rebellious world - that He gave His only Son - the true God and eternal life.

As Paul says,

2 Corinthians 5:19 ESV

19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

And so, God drew near to us so that we could know Him. Here’s some of the gifts I see in these verses:

Rescue, relationship, truth and trustworthiness, protection from enemies, brothers and sisters to pray for you, knowledge and understanding, confidence in His character and will, a new name, life,

If you put all those things together, what kind of person is like that in our experience? A loving, doting, adoptive father.

Everyone who believes in the Son becomes a child of God.

1 John 3:1 ESV

1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Christians, your heavenly Father has has given you eternal life, and He wants you to know it. Your Father is perfect and trustworthy and steadfast, and you can trust Him to hear your prayers and give you good things. Your Father holds fast to your soul and He and His Son will not let your spiritual enemy prevail against you. And He has given you brothers and sisters to watch after your soul, and He has given you as a gift to do the same for them.

If you have come to KNOW God, that relationship gives you access to all these things. Look how John uses the word “know” to unite all these gifts.

v13, 15, 18, 19, 20

Which gift do you need to unwrap most today? Assurance? Confidence? Prayer? Protection? Rescue? Relationship?