As you're getting settled, if you have a Bible, please turn with me to 1 John 5.
As was mentioned earlier, Matthew is away this week, and we have finished up Judges,
and today we're going to finish up 1 John as well, which I'm very excited for.
This is God's Word.
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 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 request 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 a 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.
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning.
But he who is born of God protects Him, and the evil one does not touch Him.
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding,
so that we know Him who is true.
We are in Him who is true in His Son, Jesus Christ.
He is the true God in eternal life.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
Let's pray.
Almighty God, we are thankful for Your Word.
For it is by Your Word that we have life.
And it's by Your Word that You correct Your children.
And it's by Your Word that You comfort us.
We pray that You would do those things this morning.
In Christ's name, amen.
Early in the fall of 1797, the American Daily Advertiser published an article.
Really, I don't even know if it was an article.
It's 32 pages long.
And in that article, President George Washington wrote a letter to the American people.
It really wasn't him, though.
It was a letter that was revised by Alexander Hamilton
that was written by James Madison with a little tweaks by the president.
And in that letter, if you know history, you kind of know the contents of this letter.
And even if you don't know history, if you know pop culture and you've seen or heard the musical Hamilton,
this is detailed in that work.
But what George Washington wanted to convey to the American people is a couple things.
He wanted to summarize and give a farewell speech to all of his supporters
and address some of his detractors.
But he also wanted to chart a vision for the future
and to leave the American people with a vision of what America could become
because it was still kind of in question.
And when he did that, all these people were clamoring for a third term.
He kind of put all that to rest and said,
this is what's going to happen.
It was so moving, or maybe kind of even so long, it was 32 pages,
that no president after him had a farewell letter or speech until 40 years later with Andrew Jackson.
But in that, something's come about.
We have this staple of the American presidency where there's a farewell speech,
and some have used it to vindicate their actions.
Some have used it to introduce new policies.
Some have used it in much more moving ways, like Washington so many years before,
to chart a vision for the future, to conclude their time together.
In this final section of 1 John, we have a farewell speech.
It's pretty moving as well.
It's not like when we just ended Judges last week, right?
You're kind of left with this, wah, wah, wah.
And now what do we do, right?
What are we waiting?
We're still waiting.
Israel's a mess.
Israel's sad and spiraling out of control.
But here, we have this focused, like almost football coach-like speech.
It's an exhortation for Christians of any time, of any age,
with this important message, this message that John has repeated over and over and over again
for five chapters, that we can be assured because of what Christ has done.
And if we look at our own lives, we can see God is at work.
And we can be confident because it's not secured by us,
even though we look at our lives and see all this work.
But it's secured by Christ.
So this morning, we're going to look very practically at four different arenas
in which we can see that God is at work, that we know God is at work.
The first one is prayer.
The second one is holiness.
The third one is in real spiritual battle.
And the final one is an understanding.
So prayer, holiness, spiritual battle, and understanding.
These four ideas are the real-life application of what we read in verse 13.
Just to remind you,
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.
That's that summary statement of all of 1 John,
that you may know that you have eternal life.
And if you've been worshiping at Shine Mountain for any amount of time,
you've known that we're marching through books.
We march through judges.
I've been marching through 1 John.
It's taken me a stinking long time.
And thankfully, we've spread that out a little bit,
because there's one message in 1 John,
that you know that you have eternal life.
That is the one-sentence thesis statement, kids,
for on summer break of 1 John,
that we know we have eternal life.
But really, it's this idea of certainty.
How do we know?
How do we know that we have eternal life?
Can I really be sure that the gospel is true?
Can I really be sure that John is talking on behalf of God?
How do I know John's right?
How do I know that I'm in the faith?
Those are questions that we all kind of still struggle with.
If you think about it,
at different points in our lives,
we've probably had these questions,
and that's okay.
How do I know that the gospel is true?
How do I know that I'm a Christian,
and I'm supposed to be righteous,
and supposed to be without sin,
but if I look at my own life,
I still see sin?
What do I do with that?
Am I really a Christian,
because I think these things,
and do these things?
Or I heard my neighbor say this,
but I know that the Bible says this.
What do I do with those things?
Maybe it's not my neighbor.
Maybe it's a friend.
Maybe it's somebody in my class,
or maybe somebody I heard on the radio,
or even a YouTube commentator said this.
But it doesn't square with what I see in Scripture.
So what do I do with that?
Who's right?
Is it the guy on the internet,
or is it God's word?
What do I do?
John is reminding us that we have to take
this very clear, hard look at our theology.
What we think about God.
That seems really big,
but all it is,
is what does God's word say,
and what do I think,
and what do I believe?
And then our ethics.
How do I live in light of that theology?
And kind of a subcategory of that
is how do I love those around me?
Our relationships.
So what do I think about God?
How do I live?
And how do I love?
You see, assurance is for the Christian.
For the one who has faith in Jesus as the Son of God.
And this farewell speech
is not narrowly for the Christian,
but it's focused on someone that has faith in Christ.
There's implications for the skeptic.
It raises questions even if implicitly.
But they're not meant to be gotcha questions for the Christians.
Like, ha, you're not as holy as you think,
so therefore you must not be a Christian.
Or, yeah, you don't really love in this area.
You must not truly be a Christian.
John's not doing that.
He's saying, look at your life,
look at the sum of your life
from you becoming a Christian until now,
and do you see growth?
If at any amount.
And we know that God is at work
because you would be way worse off.
You would be back where you were.
And that's how we know that God is at work.
And that's how we have confidence.
So that first category is prayer.
This is the most lengthy one, to be honest.
And it's the most confusing of the bunch
if you've been following along as I've been reading.
It starts in verse 14 where he says,
and this is the confidence that we have towards him
that if we ask anything according to his will,
he hears us.
That first component is confidence.
Confidence before the throne of God,
big and scary, right?
Confidence because of the person and work of Jesus.
Not confidence in Andy,
but confident because of what Christ has done.
And that's applied to me.
Confidence because of his merits.
Not me, not you, not the work of the elders,
not the work of our church,
but confident because of Jesus.
And that extends to prayer.
Prayer and asking for things, as John says,
according to his will.
Whenever I see that, I'm like, gosh, what does that mean?
Makes me a little nervous.
Am I asking for things that are outside his will?
John's saying, no, we're just asking for things
in submission to his will.
Not just our own, not my own desires,
although that plays a role.
It's kind of like what we just prayed for
in the Lord's prayer.
Your will be done.
It's not a robotic thing.
It's not a very narrow thing.
It's pleading with God
for things to be done according to his will,
for even his kingdom to come,
for his reign even now to be present.
Not things that are just willy-nilly.
But as we have confidence in approaching the throne
and praying for things that we know
are according to his will,
we have to come with the expectation
that we are heard.
In prayer, there's a confidence,
but there's an anticipation that we are heard.
Look at verse 15 with me.
And if we know that he hears us whenever we ask,
we know that we have the request
that we have asked of him.
This is a result of the confidence
that we have in eternal life
because it rests on Jesus and not me,
but it's also flowing out into our asking
as we go before the throne.
It's not asking these careful and very narrow prayers
because I'm scared that I don't want to ask
these things that are outside of his will.
No, very practically, we're asking for big things.
We're asking for God to move.
We're asking for God to do things that only he can do
or through other means.
But God is not hemmed in by the rules of this world.
No, he's gonna do great and amazing things.
And as we approach his throne,
we should be expectant.
We should anticipate that he is.
We gotta remember that this is the way
in which we commune with God.
That's the really fancy way of saying,
I have a relationship with God.
And one of those ways in which we engage with him
is through prayer.
Because that veil has been torn
and we now enter in to the holy of holies.
As the writer of Hebrews reminds us of this,
we have boldness to enter into the holiest of places
because of Christ, because of Jesus.
What a great privilege that is in prayer.
And as we reorient ourselves in prayer
and it goes from this duty or this thing
that I kind of stink at and I avoid it
because I'm not really good at it
or I don't make time for it,
we have to have this grander vision of who God is
and our ability to have relationship with him
and realizing this is one of the avenues
in which that happens.
What a great privilege that is.
If we have a bigger vision of God,
then prayer becomes a delight and not a duty.
But then we have this problem
of this real life example in 1 John.
Look at verses 16 and 17.
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 a sin that leads to death.
I do not say that one should pray for that.
All wrongdoing is sin,
but there is a sin that does not lead to death.
What in the world is he talking about?
This is pretty stinging tough, I'm not gonna lie, okay?
There's a lot of ink shed over different views of this,
but if you start breaking it down,
it kind of makes sense.
John's drawing the distinction
between the sin of a believer
and the sin of an unbeliever.
Everybody has sin, we know that, right?
But the sin of the Christian is different, right?
Kind of yes, kind of no, all right?
Yes, it still warrants death.
Yes, it still needs to be punished.
It needs to be atoned for,
but it is atoned for by Christ.
But the sin of the unbeliever is not.
John reminds us of this
in the first chapter of this letter.
He says,
The blood of Jesus cleanses all sin.
If we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sin,
he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sin
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The Christian is admitting he has sin,
and that he has a problem,
and he can't do anything about it.
That sin is forgiven.
That sin is atoned for.
But what about this guy right here?
This gal?
There's sin that leads to death
because this sin is not paid for,
and it leads to the death
of this unbeliever.
Remember the context here.
This letter is written
to a group of people,
to a church,
where there's different ideas
being thrown around.
There's deviation away
from the true gospel
and from what John has taught them.
What they know.
And there's people that have walked away
that are saying,
Jesus is not fully God.
He's not fully man.
And John's reminding them
that this deviation,
this wayward stepping,
is sin.
And they're presenting a false gospel.
So this person that's an unbeliever
that has once known,
that says they've confessed these things,
now thinks something very different.
And John is saying,
don't pray for this person
to be saved
in spite of the gospel.
He's not saying for us,
for our unbelieving parent
or spouse or child,
save them,
I don't care what your word says.
He's saying,
save them,
draw them back to yourself,
draw them back to the truth,
so that they might be forgiven.
Does that make sense?
Those are two different ideas
and two different ways
in which sin is to be prayed for.
We're to walk away from this
with this bigger vision of prayer.
There's confidence,
there's expectation,
there's anticipation
that he's gonna do this
if we pray according to his will.
But oftentimes,
as a Christian,
your prayer life looks a lot like
Little League baseball players.
There's two kind of hitters
in Little League baseball.
For those that,
it's been a minute,
I've spent a lot of time
watching Little League baseball recently.
And there is one hitter
that comes into the box,
the batter's box,
and he's practiced,
he's trained,
he knows how to hit.
He's just waiting for his pitch,
which in Little League baseball,
you can be waiting a while,
just to be honest.
There's no pitch timer,
and a lot of those pitches are balls.
But then there's one type of hitter
that comes into the box,
and I'm not sure he actually wants
to hit the ball.
He's a little nervous,
and he's just waiting everybody out.
As he waits everybody out,
he's hoping,
he's wishing
that there's four balls
and he can go to first base.
And so he doesn't even have to
think about hitting.
I think oftentimes
we approach prayer
like that second Little League hitter.
We're not confident.
We don't really believe
it does anything.
We just know
that we kind of have to do this,
or I feel guilty
when I don't do this.
We don't approach God's throne
with the confidence of Christ.
We don't approach God's throne
with anticipation
that I am going to hit the ball.
That it's going to do anything.
Christian,
we are called to pray.
We are called to do so
because of that confidence
of our relationship with Jesus.
We're to do it with anticipation
and do it according to his will.
But maybe you need help.
I need help.
Probably most of us need help.
But we need a bigger vision of God
and what prayer does
and communing with him
and that's our first step.
Maybe we need practical help.
There's well-trodden paths
of prayer warriors
of years gone by
and they're printed
and that's great.
Use them.
Jump start
how you pray.
There's also the Psalter,
the Psalms, right?
where they have every emotion
and all those emotions
that are poured out
before the throne
are enshrined in Scripture
and they're a lot more raw
than we think so.
So that whole praying
according to God's will,
remember,
David is just pouring out
his heart most often
even when he sins.
That's our model of prayer.
We need to get to that point.
The second application
of Christian assurance
is holiness.
Look at verse 18 with me.
We know that everyone
who has been born of God
does not keep on sinning
but he who is born of God
protects him
and the evil one
does not touch him.
This is not a new idea.
Again,
John is just recirculating
all these ideas
and he's giving us them
in his farewell speech.
This idea,
he unpacks
and turns it around
like a dime
and looking at every aspect
in chapter 3.
He writes something like this,
whoever practices righteousness
is righteous
as Jesus is righteous.
Then he says further,
no one born of God
makes a practice of sinning
for God's seed abides in him.
In fact,
he can't keep sinning
because he's been born of God.
We see this in 18,
this idea again
that there's this call
to holiness,
this call to righteousness
and what do we do with sin?
But it's tied
to being born of God.
Even further back
in chapter 2,
he says practicing righteousness
is connected
to those who have been born again
very clearly
and now here in chapter 5,
John's reminding all of them
that it's tied,
that not sinning,
that righteousness
is tied to being born again
and that active component
of the original language
is here, right?
It's not,
hey,
I'm going to be
an unbridled,
unchallenged,
unchecked,
keep on sinning.
It's not that sense.
But yet we know
Christian sin.
Yet I know I sin.
But there's that change
in relationship
that we saw in prayer.
There's a desire
for holiness.
Yes,
it might wax
and wane
over the years
or the minutes.
There's not the same love of sin
that there's always been
because they've been born again.
If you remember,
the Christian
is supposed to strive
after holiness
and fleeing from sin
because they've been born again
and they're being kept
from the evil one.
And this shift
in your own heart
is cause for assurance.
But again,
it's tied to what Nicodemus
and Jesus talked about
in the Gospel of John.
Nicodemus comes up to him,
he's supposed to be a wise guy
and says,
how can this be?
And Jesus says,
you can't even see the kingdom
unless you've been born again.
And now here in 1 John,
John is saying,
you can't even be righteous
unless you've been born again.
But it's not like
we're changed into children,
we're new babies
and then we're turned out
to pasture
with no oversight.
Kids with no parents
on the playground
and mayhem ensues.
No,
God preserves them.
He keeps them.
You might be thinking,
yes,
that's all well and good.
Yes,
a Christian is called to pray
and see some kind of
fruit of holiness
and God's calling each of us
out of our sin
and to himself.
But what if I don't believe that?
What if I don't see
those things in my life?
Well,
God is very clearly
calling each of us
to deal with the message
of the gospel.
We're called away from sin
because it warrants death
as we confessed.
Away from sin
and to him
and put our faith
and trust in Jesus.
and unless we've done that,
we're not going to see
this growth in holiness.
We're not going to see
any shred of desire
to pray.
Maybe we will for a time,
but it won't endure
for a season.
And so if you have
none of these markers,
you shouldn't be assured.
And you have to come back
to that simple message
of the gospel.
Have you done that?
That's kind of the implicit thing
that John is asking
and that we have to deal with
this morning.
But year over year,
do we realize
that we're growing
in righteousness?
Can we look back
over five years
and see how we're not
struggling in the same way
or maybe even
with the same sin?
Do we see God at work?
Are we pursuing lives
in which that happens
or are we so busy
and so myopic
that we don't even have time
for something like
robust community
where other people
are speaking into our life
and saying,
hey, I have seen this
or hey, what's up
with that, dude?
There's also
a real spiritual battle.
Assurance reminds us
of this fact.
It's an individual battle,
but it's in a campaign
of much larger warfare.
Look at verse 19 with me.
We know that we are from God
and the whole world
lies in the power
of the evil one.
It's less direct
in application.
It's almost just like,
hey, this is a billboard reminder.
This is what you're up against.
Just so you don't forget,
John is saying,
there's a real battle
going on between
real spiritual forces.
It's not just a nicety
to say,
I've accepted Jesus
into my heart.
He's accepted,
we've accepted
that we're to go to war.
And this world lies
in the power
of the evil one.
He preserves them
and their safety
in this cosmic battle.
This is really the point
at which Christians
start to sound crazy.
All right?
Because a nice,
modern conversation,
we can talk about
the good the church has done,
you know,
helping homeless people,
things like that.
But when it comes
to this stuff,
it's like,
we're in the modern age,
right?
We don't talk about this
in nice,
among nice,
polite,
empirical people.
evil.
But God's word reminds us
that that is a deception
in and of itself,
that we are engaged
day by day
in a real battle.
And if we can't see it
on display,
we kid ourselves.
We must be reminded
from God's word
that the whole world
lies in the power
of the evil one.
But we shouldn't be scared
because we have the power
inside of us.
We have the Holy Spirit
and we are kept by him.
But it's real
and we should be ready.
In the army,
there's this list of rules
sometimes when you learn
as a young lieutenant
and one of them is this.
Have your musket
clean as a whistle,
hatchet scoured,
60 rounds powder and ball,
and be ready to march
at a minute's warning.
There's a famous list
of these standing rules
from a British American officer
that have endured
the test of time.
Yes, we don't fight
with muskets
or hatchets anymore.
But the principle
is to be ready
no matter what you think
is going on.
No matter if we think
that this is a spiritual battle
or not.
It is
and we need to be ready.
These principles
that still influence
the modern military
because they transcend time,
because it's still happening.
This spiritual battle
is not a thing
of John's time
or a thing
of the Old Testament.
This is still happening.
This is still a thing.
So we need to be ready.
And if a soldier
is ready to fight,
we would be wise
to prepare ourselves
for battle.
We can't let our guard down
because the battle
is in our own home.
It's for the hearts
of our children.
It's in schools.
It's in the cubicle at work.
It's in HR policies.
It's everywhere.
The fourth and final application
of assurance
is understanding.
I don't mean understanding
and live in an understanding way,
but it means something like this.
Look at verses 20 and following.
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.
Little children,
keep yourselves from idols.
When we realize
the truth of the gospel message,
as good as it is,
it seems eminently logical,
people, right?
But people refuse to believe it
because the Spirit
is the one that comes
and invades our hearts
and opens our eyes.
The Spirit is the one
that gives understanding
of who Jesus was,
the fact that He was fully God
and fully man,
that He paid for sin.
Logically, that seems so good,
but why do so few people believe it?
Because it's the Spirit
that works in people
to open their eyes.
This last statement
is the essence
of this whole letter.
He's referring back
to Jesus Christ,
His Son.
He is true God.
John is leaving
this farewell speech,
he's leaving his readers
with this theological truth.
He's pointing it back
from application
all the way back
to this bigger vision
of what Jesus has done
and who He is.
He's saying,
look to Christ
who's the true God.
And so all these
practical outworkings
of how we should pray,
how we should pursue holiness,
how we are righteous,
this real spiritual battle,
the fact that God
lifts the veil
from our faces
so that we can see Him
as He truly is,
that's all because
of God's work.
because Christ
is at the center
of it all,
that we may know
and be certain.
That's what John
is reminding us
even today.
Let's pray.
Almighty God,
we're thankful
for this keen reminder
of certainty in life
that's drawn
from your word,
that's drawn
from who you are
and what you have done.
We pray that you would
remind us even today
of how this plays out
in our daily lives
that there is real battle
for the hearts
and minds of men.
And may we fight
with the weapons
in which you have given us.
Prayer,
your spirit,
and we ask these things
in Christ's name.
Amen.