1 JOHN 5:13-21 - Resurrection Treasures

Introduction

Today is the most important day in all of history—the anniversary of the day Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Of all of the celebrations that mark holidays on the Christian calendar, Easter Sunday—Resurrection Sunday—is the fountainhead from which all of those other days get their significance.

For instance—the only reason that Christmas Day is worth celebrating is because of Resurrection Sunday. Think about it—what would be the point of celebrating the birth of a baby who would grow up and die like everybody else? Anyone can claim that they are the eternal God come in human flesh—but the reason we celebrate Jesus’ birth as a baby is because He is the One who was proven to be God incarnate in human flesh because He rose from the dead! He was

Romans 1:4 (ESV)

4 ...declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

In fact, I want to argue this morning that it is not just Christmas Day that is treasured because of Jesus’ resurrection—in fact, everything worthwhile in the Christian’s life flows from the fact that that tomb is empty! I want you to see today that

All the Christian’s treasure FLOWS from the fact that Jesus ROSE

We are finishing up John’s first epistle this morning, and I think it is entirely fitting that we conclude this amazing letter by doing what John himself loved to do through all of his writings: Point back again and again to the supremacy of Jesus Christ in all things, and hold up His person and work as the supremely satisfying treasure of all existence. And if you are here celebrating Resurrection Day with us and you have never come to Jesus in repentance for your sins to embrace Him as your Savior, I pray that the Word of God that we are about to listen to will be used by God’s Spirit to draw you to make Jesus Christ your supremely satisfying treasure for the sake of your eternal soul.

Christian, your treasure flows from the fact that Jesus rose. John names the first treasure right here in our first verse. Because Jesus rose from the dead,

I. You have ETERNAL LIFE (1 John 5:13)

Verse 13:

1 John 5:13 (ESV)

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.

And of course this is the Christian’s greatest and most enduring treasure—death can never hold you, that your sins have been forgiven and you will live forever with Christ! Because Jesus died and rose, you will rise with Him—He has been declared with power to be the Son of God, and He is the one who has the power and authority to give you eternal life:

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.

Believing in the Name of Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God, means that you believe that

There is no other NAME but JESUS (Acts 4:12)

that will save you! We read in the book of Acts,

Acts 4:12 (ESV)

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Jesus is the only one who has risen from the dead; He is the only one who has made the way out of the grave—and that means that He is the only one who can grant you eternal life! There is no other Name but Jesus that will grant you eternal life, and

There is no other WORK but BELIEVING (John 6:29; Romans 10:9; 1 Cor. 15:3-4)

that will secure that eternal life. John says that you receive eternal life when you believe in the Name of the Son of God. Jesus Himself says the same thing—when the crowds asked Him in John’s Gospel, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” He answered

John 6:29 (ESV)

29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

In order to believe in Jesus Christ for your salvation, you first need to confess that you need saving, don’t you? Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. If you have ever used God’s Name as a swear word, the Bible calls that blasphemy—and Leviticus 24:16 says “Whoever blasphemes the Name of the LORD shall surely be put to death”.

Have you ever taken something that wasn’t yours? Then the Bible says you are a thief. Have you ever looked at someone you are not married to and imagined what it would be like to sleep with them? Then Jesus says you are an adulterer. Have you ever gotten drunk and lost control of your words and actions? The Bible says you are a drunkard. And 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says

1 Corinthians 6:9–10 (ESV)

9 ...Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

The Scriptures say clearly that because of your sin you deserve death at the hand of God: Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Here is the Good News of the Gospel: Even though you deserve death, Jesus Christ died in your place: Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And the way that you receive that forgiveness, the way that you escape the death sentence your sin has placed you under, is by believing in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as your only hope for salvation

Romans 10:9 (ESV)

9 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

The treasure of eternal life flows from the fact that Jesus rose! You have eternal life, and

II. You have ANSWERED PRAYER (1 John 5:14-16)

Jesus’ death on the Cross purchased the treasure you have of a God who always hears your prayers!

1 John 5:14 (ESV)

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

Consider for a moment the suffering Jesus endured as He went to that Cross—in the Garden of Gethsemane, He cried out for His Father to be spared the horrific torture and death that awaited Him:

Matthew 26:39 (ESV)

39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

And His Father said “no”.

Hours later, in the midst of being tortured to death, Jesus cried out again:

Mark 15:34 (ESV)

34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

And His Father ignored Him, and left Him to suffer and die.

And because God the Father said “no” to His Son’s cries for deliverance, He will always say YES to yours!

2 Corinthians 1:20 (ESV)

20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

Because Jesus went unheard on the Cross, you will never go unheard! Because of Jesus death for you, God

Hears your PETITIONS (vv. 14-15)

1 John 5:14–15 (ESV)

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.

You will never go unheard by your Heavenly Father! Because you belong to Jesus Christ by your repentance and faith, God will always hear you when you pray! And even when He answers your prayer differently than you wanted, you can be sure that He is doing so because what He wants for you is always better than what you want for yourself! Every “no” from God is a “no—I have a better plan!” The death, burial and resurrection of Christ means that He will always hear you when you cry out to Him!

In verse 16, John moves on from the promise that God will always hear your petitions—your prayers to Him to help you—and says that, in the same way God

Answers your INTERCESSIONS (v. 16

on behalf of others. Look at verse 16:

1 John 5:16 (ESV)

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.

To petition God is to ask for His help in some way. An intercession is a specific kind of petition—intercessory prayer is prayer on behalf of others. In this passage John is writing about praying for a fellow believer (“a brother”) who is caught up in sin. John says that when you see another Christian falling into a pattern of rebellion against God, turning away from Him for the sake of their own passions and desires—you have been given a ministry by God to pray for them on their behalf!

This is, after all, the same thing Jesus did on the Cross:

Luke 23:34 (ESV)

34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do...”

John goes on to warn at the end of verse 16 that there comes a time when a Christian may be so deeply entrenched in his sin, so thoroughly hardened against repentance and so utterly far from hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit’s conviction that the only remedy for their rescue is to bring them home. (For instance, Paul warns that believers who constantly and habitually profane and trash the Lord’s Supper can become sick or even die - 1 Corinthians 11:30). And if that is the case, then praying for their deliverance from sin means praying that God would end their lives here on earth. And John does not recommend that we pray for God to end the lives of rebellious believers:

1 John 5:16 (ESV)

16 ...There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.

But in the case of a Christian who is beginning to fall into those patterns of sin, John says pray!

Because for the Christian, the resurrection of Jesus Christ means that—even for a believer who sins so grievously that their physical life here on earth comes to an end by God’s hand—sin does not get the last word! The resurrection of Jesus Christ means that

III. You have VICTORY over SIN (1 John 5:17-19)

John wants to make it clear that the case of a believer who sins so grievously as to lose their physical life here on earth is an extremely rare circumstance. And he says something absolutely revolutionary as he moves on in verse 17—and if you’re not careful, you’ll miss it:

1 John 5:17 (ESV)

17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

Did you hear that? All through the Scriptures, we are warned over and over again that sin brings death:

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

23 For the wages of sin is death...

Ezekiel 18:4 (ESV)

4 ...the soul who sins shall die.

Romans 5:12 (ESV)

12 ...sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

There is nothing more clear in the Scriptures than the message that sin brings death.

And so how in the world can John say that “there is sin that does not lead to death?” Of course, part of the answer is that there are some sins so horrible that they lead to the death of the one that practices them, and there are other sins that don’t lead directly to the loss of life.

But there is something else at work here—something absolutely glorious that flows from the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ: Sin is no longer automatically fatal! Now that Jesus Christ has risen from the grave with forgiveness and cleansing for all who believe, your sin doesn’t have to kill you! This is Good News that is better than anything else you can possibly hear today—if you are a Christian, you have escaped the fatal consequences of your sin by your faith in Jesus Christ!

And lest John gives you the wrong idea about sin no longer being automatically fatal, he very quickly qualifies his statement. Yes, there is sin that does not lead to death, but that doesn’t mean that you have an excuse to sin! Instead, John makes it clear that

You do not keep SINNING (Romans 6:4, 7)

1 John 5:18 (ESV)

18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning...

By His death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has made a way out of the death of sin—He has broken the deadly power of sin over you and given you freedom from it! You are no longer enslaved to your sin! When you became a Christian, you died with Jesus:

Romans 6:4 (ESV)

4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

And rising with Jesus means that you are free from the power of sin over you!

Romans 6:7 (ESV)

7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.

There may be times when you are dragged away and enticed by sin, there may be times when you stumble and fall into it, but you will never again be enslaved to sin by your passions and lusts! They no longer govern you—you are governed instead by the risen Christ!

By His resurrection, Jesus has set you free from the power of sin—you do not keep sinning, and

You do not keep YOURSELF (Jude 24-25)

1 John 5:18 (ESV)

18 ...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.

You are kept from the power of sin and Satan by the Only Begotten Son of God—your risen, victorious Savior! As one author put it.

We are well-kept whom Christ keeps; the enemy of souls cannot lay hold of him; he assaults but cannot seize” (quoted in Vaughan, 1,2,3 John, 134. Retrieved from Akin, D. L., Platt, D., & Merida, T. (2014). Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) [E-book]. Holman Reference.

Often at the end of our service we love to hear the benediction from Jude’s letter, where he commits his readers to Jesus Christ, the One who

Jude 24 (ESV)

24 ...is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy...

What an amazing treasure you have, Christian, that sin can no longer destroy you, you are able to say no to sin, and you are kept from stumbling by Jesus Christ Himself!

All the Christian’s treasure flows from the fact that Jesus rose—you have eternal life, you have answered prayer, you have victory over sin, and

IV. You can KNOW the TRUTH (1 John 5:19-21)

John says in verse 19

1 John 5:19 (ESV)

19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

This world around us is blinded and confused and deceived by the spirit of Antichrist, the evil one, Satan. He is a liar and a deceiver and an accuser, and he has twisted this world with lies and deceit and accusation. The world believes and follows any number of lies and deceptions and falsehoods—and all the while attacking the notion of any kind of absolute truth.

You can have your truth that tells you that you are a woman and can compete in the NCAA women’s swimming championships; that you just have a clump of cells in your womb that you can have surgically removed so that your career plans don’t get sidetracked; that people should be judged by the color of their skin and not the content of their character; that it’s not your fault you fell out of love with your spouse and had to find love with someone else.

But the treasure that you have, Christian, is that you are free from all of that turmoil and upheaval—free from the fighting and lunacy of a world that is losing its mind in the grip of the Evil One—because you know Truth—not as an abstract set of ideas, but you know that

Truth is a PERSON (v. 20)

1 John 5:20 (ESV)

20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

I don’t know if it ever happened to you when you were a kid, but when our kids were little they would have trouble from time to time with getting carsick, especially on winding, hilly roads. And what we would sometimes tell them was to look off in the distance on the horizon for some fixed point—a tree, a hill, a building—that would give them a stable frame of reference so that they could get past the dizziness and disorientation of the winding road they were on.

Beloved, when you know Jesus as Savior, you have a Fixed Point of truth in this out of control world! To know God through Jesus Christ is to know truth itself, because Jesus is “the way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6)! When you know Him, there is nothing this world can throw at you that can confuse or disorient or sidetrack you for long!

If you’ve known Jesus for a while, and if you remember what it was like to try to navigate the deception and lies of this world apart from Him, you know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? When you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, when you know Him as the essential and unmoveable truth of this world, then everything else in this world makes sense!

Jesus has come and given you understanding in a world that is rebelliously clueless! He has given you sight where the world is blind, a sense of direction where the world aimlessly wanders, purpose and meaning and confidence where this world has nothing but randomness and meaningless anxiety!

He is the True God and He is Eternal Life. And as John concludes this chapter and this letter, He has one more exhortation for you:

Accept no SUBSTITUTES (v. 21)

1 John 5:21 (ESV)

21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

John has labored mightily throughout this letter to put to rest all of the false teachings that say that Jesus wasn’t really God in human flesh—if He wasn’t God, then it would have been impossible for Him to save us. And so it is fitting here on this Resurrection Sunday to pass this same exhortation on to you—Jesus Christ is the eternal God in human flesh, and there is no other like Him, because He is the only One who ever rose from the dead!

Think about it for a moment and you will see—there is nothing and no one else worth following, nothing else worth giving your life to, because there is no one and nothing else that has ever conquered death!

Everything that you put your trust in other than the risen and reigning Jesus Christ will let you down. Every voice in this world that you trust to tell you the truth will someday be stilled by death. Your hobbies, your possessions, your family, your philanthropies and causes--nothing that vies for your affection and devotion will live forever. Every treasure that you lay up for yourself here on this earth will someday be nothing more than rusted, moth-eaten piles of corrupted junk. And it will all perish with you.

There is no substitute for Jesus Christ in this world. That career that you are building is going to die someday! That wealth you are accumulating is going to turn to dust someday! That great reputation for kindness and fairness and open-mindedness that you have crafted so carefully—that sophisticated and cosmopolitan outlook that you are so proud of, and that would be simply ruined if you did something so embarrassing as to come to Jesus Christ in repentance? Someday that reputation will burn with you in Hell.

The only treasure that will last is the treasure that flows from the fact that Jesus rose. The only treasure worth having is the treasure of knowing that you have eternal life! Jesus rose from the dead so that you could receive forgiveness for all of your rebellion against Him—and because He died on that Cross ignored by His Father in Heaven you are guaranteed to be heard when you cry out to Him for salvation! Because Jesus rose from the dead, you can have victory over the guilt and shame of your sin!

Don’t you want to be free of all of that turmoil? Don’t you want to feel clean? Jesus Christ was crushed by the wrath of God on that Cross so that you could escape that wrath—and we stand here today to celebrate the fact that He rose again three days later so that you could die and rise with Him!

This world is full of deceptions and lies and twisted caricatures of Jesus Christ—don’t let those lies stop you from doing what you were brought here to do today! God in His kindness has brought you here to hear this Gospel of grace and forgiveness through the blood of His Son shed on that Cross, and this is the moment when you can have that forgiveness forever! Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that what we celebrate on this Resurrection Sunday really happened—that He really did rise from the dead! All of these treasures are offered to you this morning! So come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 (ESV)

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

John writes in 1 John 5:13, “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.” What does it mean to know that you have eternal life? How does John address the doubts of people who are unsure of their salvation throughout this book?

Read verse 16 again—how does this verse say we are to respond when we see a fellow believer being tempted by sin? How does this differ from the way we tend to react? How can you put this verse into practice this week?

Read 1 John 5:20 again. Examine your own life this Resurrection Sunday: Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior? Do you know that He has rescued you from the penalty of your sins and has given you eternal life?