1 John 5 - Closing Confidence in Prayer and Truth
Tom Shrader wraps up his study of 1 John by examining the final verses of chapter 5, focusing on prayer that aligns with God's will rather than wrestling with a reluctant deity. He emphasizes that effective prayer is about spiritual realignment with God's purposes, not forcing our agenda on Him. Shrader concludes by affirming three final truths John wants believers to know: Christians will not persist in sin, there is spiritual warfare but God gives victory, and believers alone can truly understand life through Christ.
“Prayer is me moving and lining up with God's will for my life and for the situation that I'm in.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 John
Recorded: April 26, 1989
Duration: 43 min
Themes: prayer, confidence, truth, victory, spiritual warfare, assurance, hope, freedom, doubting salvation, struggling with sin, feeling defeated, new believer, mature christian, prayer warrior, spiritual mentor, facing deception
Scripture: 1 John 5:14-21, 1 John 5:13, John 14:14, Romans 8, Philippians 4:6-7, Psalm 66:18, 1 Thessalonians 5, Acts 5, 1 Corinthians 11, Romans 1
Theological Themes: assurance of salvation, eternal security, intercessory prayer, spiritual warfare, sanctification, biblical authority, christology, soteriology
Full Transcript
Thursday noon at the Phoenix Women's Club. So that's it. It's the same study that we do in the morning, it's just that we do it down in the central corridor in a study. So 1 John chapter 5 is where we are, 14th week. We close out the book today.
If you've been with us, you know that John is writing, and we picked the book for a specific reason. John's writing was somewhat of a historical perspective. The body of Christ, the church as we know it, has existed at this point for about 60 years. So where Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John give us the gospel accounts of the life of Christ, Luke in his letter talks in the book of Acts about the spread and the history of the church. Then we have a whole bunch of teaching and letters back and forth to others.
But all of a sudden John comes along and writes 1 John, again with a specific purpose in mind. He has the historic perspective, and cropping into the church and creeping into the church are people who are teaching false doctrine. They're saying, this Bible's not real. Jesus wasn't God. They're coming with a whole series of false teachings. And John rises up and he says, look, in the midst of this, I want to tell you some truths. I want to tell you some things you can believe and some things that you can know.
John's Four Freedoms
So that's the setting. And John comes and he says, I have four things that I want to tell you. He said, first of all, my whole point in writing is to give you a sense of freedom. Freedom in four areas.
Chapter 1, verse 4, I want to give you freedom from despair. I don't want you to get overwhelmed by a hopeless situation. I want you to know that you have joy. And I want you to know that in the midst of this, you can have hope.
He says in chapter 2, verse 1, I want you to have freedom from guilt. You don't have to be riddled with guilt over your sin. You can have freedom from that.
Chapter 2, verse 26, he said, I want you to have freedom from deception. You no longer have to be influenced by all this false doctrine that's running around. You don't have to wonder what's right and what's wrong. You can know it.
And then last week, and that's where we left off, 1 John 5, verse 13, he said, "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you might know that you have eternal life." You can absolutely know it.
The Three Witnesses
And John said there are three ways that you can know it. Three, remember the word he used last week, witnesses. A witness is a firsthand personal account of something that they've seen. He said there are three witnesses, two external, one internal.
The first witness was the baptism of Christ Himself. When the Son of God is baptized by John the Baptist, and God the Father comes down and says, "This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased," then He bears witness to the perfection of Christ's life.
And then the second witness was His blood, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. When Christ rose from the dead, it was a confirmation, it was a witness to all of us. And everybody who saw it bore witness that, in fact, this was the Son of God.
And then he said there was an internal witness. He said it was the Spirit, capital S, the Holy Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8, the Spirit of God testifies to your spirit and mine that this is true. That all of a sudden, when I come to Christ in repentance and faith, when I become a Christian, when I make that step of faith, when I receive the gift of eternal life, I am all of a sudden indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit testifies to me that this is true. He bears witness. He becomes my guide. He gives me insight. He gives me assurance of my salvation.
Confidence in Prayer
Now that's the backdrop. And he said, I want you to know, verse 13, that you can have eternal life. Starting in verse 14, and for verse 14, 15, 16, and 17, we hit four verses that are fairly controversial in the sense that they can be interpreted in a variety of ways. There are a whole bunch, and that's a theological term, a whole bunch of ways to look at verse 14 and 15, and for sure verse 16 and 17. So the fact that you have the opportunity to hear the one that's accurate ought to be a special source of encouragement to you today.
Verse 14 and 15 deals with prayer. John writes this, "And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He'll hear us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request which we have asked of Him."
John almost adds, parenthetically, in this whole area of knowledge, that there is a confidence that we have in prayer. And he said the first confidence is that He hears us.
Have you ever been in that situation where you're in a point in your life and you're firing up these prayers, and I mean you have a machine gun prayer going, and you're wondering if they're ever getting above the ceiling? You're wondering, is there anybody up there? Is there anybody here? And I don't see any response. Nobody seems to be coming back. Is there anybody listening?
And John said, I want you to understand something. You pray with confidence, because you know you have eternal life, and you have confidence that you're His kid, and you have the confidence that He hears you. So that's the first thing you need to understand, that God hears you. When you as a child of God pray, He hears you.
Now here's how we evaluate whether He hears us or not. We're evaluating whether He hears us or not by whether we get a yes to what we ask for. John said, well, that's a little bit of a different subject. He said, I want you to have the confidence, first of all, that He hears you.
Jesus says this in John 14:14, "You ask me anything in my name and I'll do it." Jesus says on several occasions, you ask anything in my name and I'll do it. You ask it and it's done. But there's a little phrase, "in my name," and
Prayer is an interesting topic, and there are many opinions on prayer. Let me give you just my perspective. First of all, it's been my observation that everybody prays. I mean literally everybody that I know seems to pray, even the agnostic. Even the person that's not very religious seems to pray because there's something inside us. Paul tells us in Romans 1 there's something inside us that tells us there's something larger than us out there.
We may not know what it is, but Paul said just creation alone screams with evidence that there's something larger than you and me. Probably the most intriguing and interesting thing I've heard about prayer in the last six months came from that great theologian, Jane Fonda. Here's what Jane said, and I think this really demonstrates the point. She said, "I have found myself lately praying and praying and praying. Literally every day I pray. Not only just once a day, but I find myself regularly in the course of the day praying." And then she said this: "But I don't have any idea who I'm praying to."
The Universal Nature of Prayer
I think there is something inside us that bears witness, even to somebody that has no clue in the area of theology and may even deny the existence of the Holy God that you and I talk about. There's something inside us that knows there's something larger than us, a creator. Prayer screams out and says there's a creator. We instinctively, in tough times as well as good times, tend to reach out and scream out in prayer.
When you and I go to prayer, we seem to be going to prayer for a variety of reasons. And again, with a whole different perspective on this idea of prayer. To me, the key to prayer is found in Jesus' example in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He says, "Not my will, but thy will be done."
A Different Perspective on Prayer
So let me give you my perspective on prayer. I come from a little bit of a different angle, perhaps. Prayer is primarily, first and foremost, begins with God and ends with God. Prayer is about God. When you and I go and our quest, our desire, is to pray in God's will, is to pray, "thy will be done."
Immediately that raises a question. Anybody want to venture what that question is? What is His will? Or even beyond that, why even pray? I mean, if all I'm saying is, "Look God, what you want to do, let it happen," why pray anyway?
Now the bigger question: does prayer change anything? And the answer to that is absolutely. Prayer changes me. I don't view prayer as God and I in this wrestling match. Prayer is not me dealing with a reluctant God, trying to coerce this reluctant God to assume my posture, to accept my plan.
Prayer Is Not Negotiation
It's not me going to God and saying, "Look God, I know you've got a plan, and boy, it's a good one. But here's my plan. It may not be as good as yours, but I want you to know that it works." When I go to God, I'm not saying, "Okay God, here we go. I mean, if I was God, here's exactly the way I'd do it, and since you're God, you must do it this way too." That is not what prayer is.
Prayer is me getting to the point where I grasp and accept and submit to God's will in a certain situation. That's the whole point of me praying, is to understand God's will. If you will, it's me getting a spiritual adjustment.
I took my car in last week to get its tires realigned. Not aligned. God didn't say, "We're going to align your tires," he said, "We're going to realign them." They were aligned once, but now they're off. When I go to God in prayer, I think what I'm looking for is a spiritual realignment.
Prayer Is Alignment, Not Compromise
It's not like this: "Okay God, I'm here and you're here. God, I want this deal closed, you don't, so let's compromise. We won't close the deal, but I'll get the escrow money back. I'll get the earnest money, it'll go to me." That's not what it is. And it's not, "I'm here and God's here, so we're going to come somehow meet, He'll move just a little ways and I'll come here." That's not what it is.
Prayer is me moving and lining up with God's will for my life and for the situation that I'm in. That's the whole idea of prayer.
Prayer Blockers
Now there's some things that I can do that block prayer. There used to be a thing years ago called starch blockers. It was one of the fad diets. You could take these pills and they were starch blockers and somehow you'd take it and they'd block the starch and you'd be fat, but you would be flexible. I don't know what starch blockers did. But I think there are some things that we can do that are prayer blockers.
Psalm 66:18 said this: "If I regard iniquity or sin in my heart, the Lord won't hear me." James said if I ask for the wrong reason for the wrong motives, God won't hear me. Peter said if in fact I'm not in right relationship with my spouse, God won't hear me. Jesus said this: "If you abide in me and my words in you, you shall ask what you will and it'll be done." It seems that obedience becomes a contingency of answered prayer. That's the groundwork.
Redefining Prayer
I want to challenge your system of belief on prayer. Paul comes along all of a sudden and Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, "I want you to pray without ceasing." The minute Paul says that, if in fact what he means is I am to be in prayer 24 hours a day, at least all my waking time, praying without ceasing, it means we're going to have to at least in one instance redefine prayer.
Prayer has to be something more than or other than or beyond just me on my knees communicating with God. And I would suggest to you that that's exactly what it is. It's an attitude. It's an attitude that I carry with me literally 24 hours a day of alignment with God. Now that does not mean we're not involved in prayer. It doesn't mean that we're not on our knees. It doesn't mean we're not interceding for others. We're doing all those things.
The Weight of Prayer Tradition
Now let me do what we need to do at this point. I'm going to read, and my experience has been after about 45 seconds, maybe 60 seconds, you check out. It's fairly long, but this is fairly important.
I went back to a book that I hadn't read probably in five or six years. There's classic books, and it seems like about every month, two or three books come out that are really good books. This was a book that when it came out, I thought was really good. It's a book by Chuck Swindoll called Strengthening Your Grip. It's Swindoll dealing in a whole different areas and topics of areas in our life, and one of them is prayer.
Now I want you to tune into this, and I will read it as clearly as I can. Let me try to get you to hang with me on this. Swindoll starts with this premise. He starts with Philippians chapter four, verse six and seven, and he quotes it: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." That's the scripture. He said, be anxious for nothing, pray for everything, and the peace of God that passes all comprehension will be the result.
The Promise Versus the Reality
Now here's what Swindoll says: "Now that's a mouthful. If I understand this correctly, the anxiety that mounts up inside me, the growing irritation and the struggles that make me churn will dissipate, in fact, will be replaced by inner peace plus all those other qualities I want so much if I'll simply talk to my God. Prayer is the single most significant thing that will help me turn inner turmoil into peace. Prayer is the answer."
Now he asks some interesting questions: "But wait, why then is it such a struggle? What is it about prayer that makes even the great and godly men so guilty, so dissatisfied, so unhappy with their own prayer life?" In no way do I wish to be disrespectful by saying the following things. Now grab this. But I think it's time somebody declared them to help clarify the barrier that keeps us from entering into authentic prayer.
The barrier is the traditional wrappings that have been placed around prayer. Not even the grand models of church history admitted to much joy or peace or satisfaction. For example, once admitted that his prayer life was an experience he was ashamed of. Martin Luther anguished in prayer, saving the best three hours of the day to pray, yet he seldom seemed satisfied.
The Giants of Faith and Their Struggles
Go through the list and we find one after another working hard at prayer, but frequently we'll find that they were dissatisfied, some woefully unhappy about their prayer life. E. M. Bounds, Samuel Rutherford, Hudson Taylor, these are giants of the faith. G. Campbell Morgan, Charles Spurgeon, F. B. Meyer, A. W. Tozer, Harry Ironside, on and on. Great men, strong Christian examples, magnificent models, yet you can hardly find one of the number who was satisfied with his prayer life.
Oh, they labored in prayer, they believed in prayer, they taught prayer, and they preached prayer, but why the dissatisfaction? Why the guilt? Why the disappointment? Why the embarrassment?
At the risk of sounding downright heretical, I'm convinced that for centuries Christians have forced prayer into a role it was never designed to play. I would suggest we have made it difficult, hard, even painful. The caricature that emerged through the years of tradition, not biblical modeling, is now a guilt-giving discipline, not an anxiety-relieving practice. It's self-imposed, it doesn't come from God.
Prayer Should Bring Peace, Not Pain
Remember, Philippians chapter 4, verse 6 and 7, Paul's perspective on prayer is this: it results in peace, it doesn't take it away. It alleviates anxiety, it isn't designed to create it. But you see, we have been led to believe that in order for prayer to be effective, it must be arduous, lengthy, even painful. And we must stay at it for hours on end, pleading, longing, waiting, hurting.
Grab this, here's his conclusion. Are you ready for a shocker? You don't find any of that in Scripture, except in a very few and extreme cases. Prayer is neither long nor hard to bear. I cannot find any biblical character who struggled with guilt because they didn't pray long enough, or because they weren't in enough pain, or because they failed to plead and beg sufficiently. Check it out for yourself, it's not there.
I watched a fellow on TV the other night, I have no clue who he was, I had never seen him before, he's from one of the seminaries, say this: if you're not praying an hour a day, you are not a good Christian. See, I think that we may well pray an hour a day, but going and praying an hour a day isn't the object. See, I need to take a picture of my life, I need to understand what I'm doing when I pray, and I need to go to God with the respect, the adoration, and the thanksgiving that God deserves.
How We Should Really Pray
Do we pray for the sick? Do we pray for somebody to be healed? Absolutely. I think one of the great mistakes that many of my friends make is that they don't pray for healing. They'll say, "God, this person's sick, if it's in your will, I want you to heal them." I really think I need to go to God and say, "Look, whether it's in your will or out of your will, I'm telling you what I want desperately. My heart is saying, look, this is a little kid, I don't understand it. God, I want this baby healed. This is the way I feel. I mean, this is hurting me. God, heal the baby. But if not, give me the peace and the understanding to see and glorify you in the midst of that situation."
That's the way that I go and pray. And I go to Him, not pleading and wrestling and arguing with Him, but I go to Him saying, "God, give me your eyes, give me your heart." And I go with a spirit of thanksgiving.
Let me ask you this: when's the last time you thanked God for something very important in your life? No, you thank Him for your
My kids pray this way: "Dear God, thank you for this day." And I want to go, "Now what does that mean?" And they probably learned that pattern from their dad, that's why I don't ask them. But let me ask you this.
All of us, or at least almost all of us in here would agree that my salvation came from God. I didn't do anything to be saved; God saved me. How did I get to heaven? God gave me the gift of eternal life. What did I do to earn it? I didn't do anything.
Let me ask you this: when's the last time you thanked God for saving you? I mean, we thank Him for our food and our house and all the other things, but the really most important, ultimate act of grace that He gave us is our salvation. When's the last time you thanked Him for that? See, there's the attitude that I go in prayer, and I pray very specific. But you know what I'm not very good at? "Oh, God, yeah, that's right, you took care of it. Thank you, God."
Understanding How God Really Answers Prayer
Now, if you've got a piece of paper, you may want to write this down, because we're about to get very, very confusing, and you need to hang with me here. This is going to get real confusing, but in a minute, it's all going to clear up for you.
Here's what I heard ever since I've been a Christian: when I pray, God answers prayer one of three ways. You know them: yes, no, or maybe. Well, here's what I discovered. I discovered something about the way I pray, and I discovered something about God's answer.
When I pray, I have things that I want and things that I ask for. Let me give you an example. Many times, I will go to God deeply desiring something and asking for something. And here's what I've discovered: God answers prayer this way: no, no; yes, no; no, yes; or yes, yes.
What We Ask For vs. What We Want
Here we go. You and your wife are absolutely at each other's throat. I mean, you've been married for six or seven years, and you haven't had any problems. But all of a sudden, in the last 18 months, it has been living hell. She's on you, and you're on her.
And you stop in the quiet of your heart, and you say, "What in the world can this be? I don't understand it. I love this woman. We're here because we love each other. We've been a testimony in our church, all the other things. And God, I don't understand it. I want peace desperately in this marriage. And it seems to me, as I look at it, what we're arguing about all the time is money. We're just arguing all the time about money. And the minute she starts in, I begin to explode, God. I just can't seem to control it."
So here's what I want, God. Now, get this. Here comes the distinction, and hopefully it comes together at this point. Here's what I want: "God, I desperately, desperately want you to get this deal closed. I desperately need this new contract. Because when I get the contract, I'm going to get $25,000. And that's going to allow me to pay off all my bills and put a little money in the bank. And that will bring about peace in our family. You need to understand that."
I am now going to God, and I'm praying for this deal to close. Now, I'm asking Him for the deal to close. But what do I really want? I want peace with my wife. And now I'm going, and here's what I'm asking for, and here's what I want.
The Four Ways God Answers
Now, God may answer that prayer this way. He may say, "No, no." He doesn't give you what you ask for, and He doesn't give you what you want. You're sitting there two years later. The deal hasn't closed, although it's still in escrow with the eighteenth different guy now. But there it is. There's still hope for it. So you're still asking for it, but you don't have what you want.
Or He may answer it this way. And this is an interesting way. He may say, "Yes, yes." He may let the deal close, and you may get the money, and there may be a sense in which there's peace and restoration immediately in the marriage.
Or He may answer it this way. And this is not a good one. He may answer it this way: "Yes, no." He may let that deal close, and all of a sudden you discover that it's not the money. She just doesn't like you. There's no peace in your family because it's far deeper than this. You act like a total jerk. You've abused her for seven years. You thought there's been peace, but there hasn't been peace. This little gal has taken all she can stand, and you've got her to the point where she's about to explode. And whether you make $25,000 or $250,000 or $2.5 million, you're not going to alleviate the pressure in that relationship. Now, God said yes to what you asked for, but no to what you wanted.
Or He may answer prayer this way. This is kind of my favorite to observe in others—not necessarily in my life. He may answer it, "No, yes." No to what you asked for, but yes to what you want. He may say, "No, I don't think that deal's a good deal for you." And the deal doesn't close. And all of a sudden you go home one day and you say, "Let me tell you something, honey lamb, we've got major league problems. I mean, it was bad before, but it is really bad now because that deal is dead. There is nothing else in the pipe. Everything is dead. All my buyers are gone. All my buyers are in bankruptcy court. Everything's falling apart."
And she may say, "You know what? I don't care. You've been all worried about that deal. I don't care. You don't understand. What I want is you. I'd be happy running a Hallmark card store in Prescott." That's probably a lie, but you'll say it anyway. "I'd be happy running a Hallmark card store in Prescott. Well, you love fishing. Let's just go and get a bait shop up at Payson."
But do you see what I'm saying? You may get no to what you ask for. That deal dies. But all of a sudden, in the midst of that, you find yourself getting exactly what you want. The lines of communication come forward and she said, "Hey, you big goof, it wasn't the money. It's you that I want. I just want to spend time with you."
The Foundation of Confident Prayer
Now, when I go to God, I need to have the confidence that He hears me. And I need to have the confidence that God—now grab this—God loves me.
more than I love myself. And God knows what's better for me than I do. I mean, I want to say, "God, OK, here you go, baby. This is a big one. And we got problems. And here are your choices, God. I'm going to let you make the choice. But here they are: A, B, C, D or E. Now, I've looked at this from every possible angle. But I'm telling you, I've thrown out all the others and this is all that's viable. A, B, C or D. And God, I know you love me. So pick one of them." And God said, "I love you. Here's K." Because God comes with a different approach. And the fact that God's will is beyond my comprehension is good.
God knows what's better for me than I do. And John said, when you go to pray, I want you to understand something. As you're communicating with God, know that He hears you. And as you're praying, know that He'll respond. And know that He loves you. And He's going to respond according to His will.
Encouragement to Deep Prayer
Men, let me encourage you to be men of prayer. And you may well find yourself praying for an hour a day. Or two hours a day. I don't know. Let me encourage you to make long lists and to petition God. Let me encourage you to pray for others. I would love to have you pray for me. I would love to have you pray for this group. I'd love to have you pray for the session that starts next week. I think those are six very important lessons to this group and all the studies that we're doing.
I mean, you can spend an hour in prayer. If you're one of these guys that go to prayer and you go, "God, okay, now let's see, let's run this baby down now," and after about five minutes, you're dozing in your mind somewhere else, let me tell you the antidote to that. You can get rid of that in a heartbeat. You could pray tonight for a half hour. You wouldn't even know the half hour was by.
All you need during the course of the day is a pencil and a paper. Start to make a list. Start to make a list of things to pray for. I mean, really look at your life. Just look at today and start to make notes of things to pray for. And that list will fill up by noon. You're not going to get them all in as you talk to God about them.
The Sin Leading to Death
John's still talking about prayer in verse 16, but he shifts gears. Here's what he says, and this is incredibly confusing. He said, "If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask God, and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should make requests for this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is not a sin, and there is a sin not leading to death."
Now, I spent way too much time on these two verses in the last week. And what I got is a whole bunch of different opinions from all sorts of different reliable scholars and some that might not be too reliable as to what this verse means. Let me just tell you what it seems to me to be saying. It seems to me that what we're looking at here is that there is a sin leading to death.
Now, the question becomes, are we talking in the physical realm or the spiritual realm? Even John MacArthur, who can make anything black and white, said, "I'm not sure which one of these I'm going with." So, if we're talking in the spiritual sense, the ultimate sin that leads to spiritual death is a lifelong rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. You just keep saying no, and no, and no, and no, and no, and then you die, and you'll spend eternity separated from God, spiritually dead. The word "dead" means separated. When I die physically, my body is separated from my spirit. There's a separation of life there.
Ananias and Sapphira: Physical Death for Sin
Now, if he means in the physical sense, there is a sin that leads to death even in the physical realm. Chapter 5 of Acts has a neat account, and you might look it up sometime, of two people. I always thought it was a group from Motown, Ananias and Sapphira. Ananias is the guy, and they sell a piece of property. They own the south west corner of 24th and Camelback, and they sell it. And they're not very bright, and they sell it for a million dollars.
And they bring to Peter—Ananias comes in, and he lays down to Peter. Ananias and Sapphira decide that they're going to give a portion of it to the church, but they're going to let the church think it was all the money. And Ananias comes into Peter and lays down $250,000 at Peter's feet and said, "Here you go, Peter, here's the money." Peter said, "Is that all the money from the sale?" "Yep."
And Peter said, "I don't understand it. When it was your property, it was yours. When you sold it, it was yours. But why are you lying to God? Why are you trying to con God?" He said, "You know what? You've lied to God. You're in major trouble." And Ananias fell over and died. And the young men came in and hauled Ananias away.
Three hours later, in comes Sapphira. And the scripture said, Sapphira did not know what had happened. And Peter said, "Hey, good to see you, Sapphira." She said, "Thank you." And he said, "Is it true you sold that property at 24th and Camelback for $250,000?" And she said, "Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that was the price. Yeah, $250,000. That's it." And he said, "Why are you lying to the Holy Spirit?" And the young men came in and hauled her out and buried her next to her husband. And there was a sin leading to death.
The Church's Response to Divine Judgment
It's interesting. Verse 11, Acts chapter 5, verse 11, says something that was interesting. He said, "The church was afraid." And I would guess they would be. If I was sitting there in church this Sunday and I started watching all this happen, imagine if your pastor said, "Next Sunday what we're going to do is we're going to take a little inventory like Ananias and Sapphira did. And all those of you that have conned God, well, what's going to happen is the young men are going to come in. You'll pass out and die and we'll haul you away."
I would guess he wouldn't need to run a whole lot of copies of his notes for next Sunday because there isn't going to be anybody there, is there? But apparently there's
a sin that leads to death. Paul writes about it in 1 Corinthians 11 in relationship to communion. He said there are some that have died, that apparently they continue to sin and sin and sin, and God just takes them home. So I don't know what John has in mind here in verses 16 and 17, but it's probably one of those two interpretations.
What's interesting, and MacArthur makes a great point, he said whatever the sin was, he didn't have to define it to his readers so they knew what it was. He was confident that they would know what it was and it didn't need to be defined. So whatever it is John has in mind, I don't know which it is.
Three Final Truths for Believers
Verse 18, and we close the book out with this. John says, as we close, he said, "I got a couple of things I want you to know. We know that no one who is born of God sins, but he who is born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him." He said, here's one thing I want you to know, that you will not sin as a Christian.
Verse 19, "We know that we are of God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one." He said, I want you to understand there's a warfare going on. You're in the center of it, God's on one side, Satan's on the other.
Verse 20, "And we know that the Son of God has come and He's given us understanding in order that we might know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true. In His Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God in eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols." He said, as he closes out the book, I got three things I want you to know.
The Reality of Christian Life
Verse 18, I want you to know that as a Christian, you will not sin. It's in the perfect continuous sense. It reads this way, you will not keep on sinning. You will not get into sin and stay there. What's the time limit on that? Don't know.
We were dealing with this Sunday in Sunday school and this woman came up afterwards and she said, "My brother can remember three distinct times that he had a conversion. He was converted at a Billy Graham Crusade at Sun Devil Stadium. He said, Mom just pushed him in the aisle and he just found himself going down. And he can remember two other times. But his question to me is this, do you think I'm a Christian?" Eight years ago, he walked out on his wife and kids, he's been living with his girlfriend for eight years, there's nothing in his life that would indicate that he's ever come to Christ.
I find a lot of people who are deeply concerned about whether they're a Christian or not. Usually they're asking that question for one of two reasons. Number one, they really should be concerned. There's some sin in their life or there's something in their life that's causing them to doubt. They've drawn their own conclusion that there's something that's missing. Their life hasn't changed and it's empty and there are problems.
Here's the second one. Generally, when somebody doubts whether they're saved forever, they generally don't understand salvation. There's been a debate that has raged for over 1,500 years. Did God choose me or did I choose God?
The Sovereignty of God in Salvation
We just take the gloves off and we're throwing lefts and right and we're quoting verses all over. You would be amazed. Some of you guys maybe have never been in one of these debates or discussion groups. If we just opened it up right now to this topic, your mouth would just fall open. You wouldn't believe how these guys would argue. It would be unbelievable to you.
It would take five minutes. And in five minutes, one of you poor souls would raise your hand and you would say what everybody says in that discussion at that point: "What difference does it make?" I happen to think it makes an enormous amount of difference.
Because if I chose God, if I figured out who Jesus was on my own and in my cleverness, I chose Him and He didn't draw me and He didn't pull me and He didn't elect me, if I just chose Him, you know what? Logically, I can unchoose Him. And in a very real sense, I unchoose Him every time I sin. Because every time I sin, I in a sense deny Him in that theology.
God says in His word, verse 18, if you continue in sin, continue in sin and it's premeditated and you don't care about it, you're not a child of God.
Understanding the Spiritual War
Secondly, he said, I want you to know there's a war going on. But he said, I want you to remember chapter four, verse four, "Greater is He that's in you than he that's in the world." In the midst of this war between Satan and God, you're in the middle of it, but you've got power that Satan doesn't have.
And he said, lastly, I want you to know verse 20, God has given us understanding. God allows us to see real life. Only a Christian can really understand what life's all about.
The Christian's Unique Perspective on Life
It's interesting to watch everybody respond to Lucille Ball's death. I think she is really funny. Those were great shows. But you've got people saying, "Well, that's the whole purpose of life, is now she's in a better place." How do you know that?
Remember when the Challenger blew up with the seven astronauts on it? You had a woman that was a Jew, you had a Hindu, you had a woman that said she was a Christian, you had four that were kind of hanging around anywhere. And here was Ronald Reagan's comment, "It's nice to know that tonight they rest in the hands of God." No way. Not even close. If some guy's a Hindu that denies the deity of Christ, he's not spending eternity in the hands of God.
You and I can know about life because we know Christ. You and you alone as a Christian can understand life and can understand eternal life. You're the only one that can see life as it really is. In fact, John says it, that you and I alone serve as a model to the rest of the world about what life is. Paul says it this way,
The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control—only a Christian can do it. A non-Christian can't even love the way God wants him to love. Man, that's an enormous challenge.
And He closes it out in verse 21: watch out, don't let anything crop in there, don't let anything become an idol and block you from God. I think that's a great book, a great study of a Christian in the real world.
Living as Christians in a Hostile World
It is a tough world. It's an antagonistic world. It's a world that wants to challenge you at every turn. And man, God says, face up to the challenge. Don't be afraid. You're right. You've got truth on your side. You know the truth, and the truth is giving you a real freedom.
As we close in prayer, let's pray that all of us would experience that security of salvation. Let's pray for somebody that may be here, or who knows, a whole bunch of guys that might be here today that have never come to Christ in repentance and faith. Let's pray that today the Holy Spirit would move them.
Closing Prayer
Father, we pray for exactly that. We come and we thank You for who You are. And Father, we adore You as the creator of the universe. We thank You for the gift of physical life.
Father, we just pray for anybody who might be here today that is not absolutely sure that they're a Christian. That if they died today, they don't know where they'd spend eternity. Father, give them that Holy Spirit that would firm up those answers and give them an assurance today.
Lord, others of us have made that commitment. Father, help us live for You and be examples. In our dark world, help us be salt and light. Father, we just ask You to use us in a mighty way.
Lord, we pray right now that You would bring one or two people to our mind that we could reach out to this week and invite to next week's study. Father, make that a priority for us. Give us, first of all, the discernment to see somebody who will be open. And then, Father, secondly, give us the boldness to take a chance, just a little bit of a chance, but Lord, to take a chance and bring them in.
And then, Father, let's pray that what we hear this week and next week and every week is Your word and Your thoughts and Your ideas. Make us men of prayer, Father. Men who are in line and in communion and communication with You.
Father, thank You for everything, especially for Your Son, Jesus Christ, and it's in His name we pray. Amen.