1 John 5:13-21 February 11, 2007
… so that you may know that you have eternal life.
This is the last sermon in 1 John. John ends the letter by telling us why he wrote it. He does the same in the gospel of John. In the last verse of the Gospel he says: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:31
So the Gospel of John is written to people who don’t yet believe in Jesus hoping that they will. The letter, on the other hand it written primarily to Christians to encourage them that they have found eternal life. He says “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” – 1 John 5:13
John wants us to be confident of our salvation; he wants us to be sure that we have new life in Jesus.
Last week I told you that “eternal life” is not necessarily the best translation, that the more literal translation is “the life of the coming age.” When we say eternal life, we often think of something that happens after we die, but it is better to think of it as a new life given to you as soon as you put your trust in Jesus. It includes life everlasting, but is also includes being made new right here right now.
John wants us to be confident of this new life. God is faithful – if he promise us new life in Jesus, if we put our lives in Jesus he will give us this new life. John wants us to be so confident that we can approach God at anytime. When we sing “bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own” we usually think of an experience after our death. But John is encouraging us to be bold right now.
At the end of the book of Jude you find one of my favorite benedictions:
“To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”
Once again, our minds often times go to life after death when we think of this image of Jesus presenting us before God without fault and with great joy. But this is what happens every time we come to God in prayer. We come to him through Jesus, Jesus takes us by the hand, we enter God’s presence and God sees us the way that Jesus has made us – without fault, clean and pure, and he greets us with great joy and says “what would you like to say my child?”
When I think of it this way, I wonder why I do not pray more – we have direct access, not to Bill Gates, or our favorite movie star or sports great, but to the God who created Bill Gates! Not only do we have direct access, he is happy to see us – he greets us with great joy!
John says that we have confidence because we can be assured that when we pray we will be heard.
He has this amazing promise that “if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”
John has written these promises before, in his Gospel where Jesus says, ”And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” – John 14:13-14
That might seem like an open offer to get whatever we want from God just by asking – “Almighty Bruce” clip?
There is the caveat “In my name” in the Gospel or in the letter, “according to his will.”
This statement is not just an “out” for God; an excuse for when prayer does not work, it is an invitation into relationship in prayer, so that we listen to what God desires as much as we ask him what he desires.
In John15:7 Jesus says, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” I think that the remaining in is more important than the asking here
“Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or for bending his will to ours, but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his. It is by prayer that we seek God’s will, embrace it and align ourselves with it. Every true prayer is a variation on the theme ‘your will be done’.” – John Stott
The English mystic Juliana of Norwich grabs on to the relationship that we are called into in pray in this quote:
"I am the Ground of thy beseeching: first it is My will that thou have it; and after, I make thee to will it; and after, I make thee to beseech it, and thou beseechest it. How should it then be that thou shouldest not have thy beseeching?" - Juliana of Norwich: (quoted by Elizabeth Eliot in A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael, p. 91)
What to pray for 16-17 – others in sin
John gives us a prime example of what to pray for when he says, “If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life.”
John is saying, that we have this great confidence and privilege to come into the very presence of God and ask him for anything in his will. Our first priority should not be asking for things for ourselves, but interceding for brothers and sisters who are heading down the wrong path.
We have to admit that often our first response when we hear about another’s sin is often to shake our head in judgment and tsk tsk. But our first response should be to fall to our knees and pray for them!
We can know that this prayer is in God’s will, because Peter writes… “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
John has this little discussion abut sin that leads to dead and sin that does not lead to death. To be honest it is rather confusing and not all that clear where he is drawing the lines between these two types if sin. The only other place that talks about an unforgivable sin in the New Testament is when Jesus has been casting out a demon and the Pharisees accuse him of casting out demons using the power of Satan himself. Jesus cautions them saying, “And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” Matthew 12:31-32
I’ve met many people who are worried that they have committed the unforgivable sin. When I ask them what that sin is, they usually can’t tell me. Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is seeing something that the Holy Spirit is doing, knowing that it is the Holy Spirit, and calling it the power of the Devil. This might be what John is talking about as a sin that leads to spiritual death – if you are so far gone that you see God doing something and you say that it is the devil, you are to far gone.
Needless to say, that since it is hard to know what John is really talking about here, we should err on the side of praying for the people.
Why to pray for them 18– you want them on God’s side.
John reminds us of the seriousness of the situation when a brother or sister falls into sin.
He says: “ We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.”
John reminds us that God and sin do not mix, so if we are choosing sin, we are choosing to separate ourselves from God. We cannot say that we are going to stay with God, but just keep this one thing on the side.
This does not mean that in order to be Christian, we must be perfect. John has already said that if we say that we do not sin we are liars, the point is willfully continuing in sin. We will slip and fall periodically, but we come back to Jesus and ask forgiveness, he cleanses us and puts us back on our feet, and we try again.
The point is, that if a Christian brother or sister has chosen to live in sin, they are deciding to not live in God, and they are giving up the protection that God grants! When we willfully step out in sin, we are setting ourselves up for an attack and leaving God’s protection.
Paul tells us that we are in a battle and part of the armor that we wear is the breastplate of righteousness. When we step out of righteousness, we are stepping out into a pitched battle without a breastplate, we are exposed to the attacks f the devil.
That is why you have to get down on your knees and pray for your friend who has done this – they are in a very dangerous situation! Pray that they will see what they are doing and repent and come back to God and his protection!
If John is a jazz musician, and has been riffing on a theme, like any good Jazz musician, he wraps up by brining it right back to the theme he has been riffing on:
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. … And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Knowing Jesus is knowing eternal life
What are you going to do with that eternal life that he has given you?
Use it to enter his presence, to pray in relationship with God and cry out for the ones you love that they too will have eternal life.
