Transcript & Slides: We Know (1 John 5)

PDF Slides

We Know (1 John 5)
By David Feddes

This will be our last message in our series on First John. As we think about faith, maybe a good question to start with is, what is it? What is faith? Is it a feeling that you have? Is it an opinion that you have on a certain subject? Is it a guess or an opinion about what is probably the case? Is it something that you imagine? Is it values that you happen to hold? Is faith maybe a tradition that you grew up with or that was handed down to you?

I would submit to you that faith is knowledge of reality. Faith isn't just an opinion, a guess, a feeling, or a vibe. Faith is knowledge—we know. That’s something you hear again and again as we’ve studied First John. In the passage we’re looking at today, God’s children know. John talks about what it means to be children of God, about being born of God and being part of God’s family and having God’s DNA in you. But something that he emphasizes maybe most of all is simply that we know.

In just five short chapters, he uses the word “know” twenty-nine times. When he explains why he wrote this book, 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). That’s why this book was written—so that you would know. And at the very end of the book, he again says, “We know that we are children of God” (1 John 5:19).

As you read through John, here are just some of the occurrences of that statement—that we know or that you know. “We know that we’ve come to know him.” “You know that you know.” “We know that we are in him.” “You have known the Father.” That’s not just a fact you file away. When you know somebody, you also have a personal knowledge of that person. “You’ve known the Father.” “All of you know the truth.” “We know that when he (Christ) appears, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). “You know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins” (1 John 3:5). “We know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are” (1 John 3:10). “We know that we’ve passed from death to life” (1 John 3:14). “We know that we belong to the truth” (1 John 3:19). “We know that he lives in us; we know it by the Spirit he gave us” (1 John 3:24). “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). “We know the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16). “God is love” (1 John 4:16). That’s something we know, not something we wish or hope for. God is love. We know this love. “I write these things so that you’ll know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). “We know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:15).

Now we’re getting into the chapter that we’re going to be studying. “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him” (1 John 5:18). “We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). “We know also 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—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

Just look at this statement: we know, understanding, true, true, true. That’s how he ends his book. We know reality. We know truth. So as we look at this final chapter of First John, I want to look at the three main sections. First, he goes through tests. He’s given tests of knowing whether you’re a child of God earlier in the book, and now he brings them out again just in case we missed them before, and he ties them together. Then he reminds us that it’s really not just the tests of ourselves that we want to focus on in being born of God; we want to focus on Jesus Christ and God’s testimony to Jesus Christ. And then finally, trust—trust that we have eternal life through God’s love and through the work of Jesus, trust when we go to God in prayer and confidence that he’s going to grant what we ask that’s good for us, and trust in him and not in idols.

We know. He first gets back into the tests in the first five verses, and we’ve seen them in various forms throughout the book of First John. One of the tests is faith, or knowing, or what you believe, or whom you believe. If you find faith, trust, and knowledge of truth about God in you, then that’s one of the signs of being born of God. Another is love—love for God, love for other people—and not just love by itself, but love that takes the form of action: love for God that obeys God, love for other people that actually helps other people and seeks their well-being. And in all of that, victory—victory means you differ from the world and also that you defeat the world. It doesn’t defeat you or crush your faith or force you into its mold.

So those are four things that have come up again and again throughout the book. When he’s talking about walking in the light, these are the signs he gives. When he talks about being born of God, these are the signs he gives. When he talks about having the anointing of the Holy Spirit, he talks about these signs. And once again, one last time, he walks us through those four tests—those spiritual DNA tests that mark the children of God. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands” (1 John 5:1-3). You see those tests—believing or faith, love, obeying commands.

Then he goes on to that fourth sign and really emphasizes it—the victory. “His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:3-5). So those four things come up again and again. You can look at each on its own, but you can also see how they all fit together.

Faith in God and in his love becomes the wellspring from which we love others. We love because he first loved us. We know that we love the children of God because we love God, and we know that we love God because we love the children of God. And how do we know we love God? Well, we obey his commands. Why do we obey his commands? Because we love God. We know that we love other people because we help them. Why do we help them? Because we love them. And why do we love them? Because God first loved us. You see these things reinforcing and building on each other.

Then especially he says, “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). That’s what makes it possible to obey God, to be a Christian in action, and not burn out or say, “Oh man, it is such a drag to always be trying to follow all those rules.” John says, “His commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

Do you want to know why commands seem burdensome to us? It’s because of the amount of worldliness that still hangs around in us. When we want to be just like the world, then God’s commands come as a burden. But when you have God’s love in you and his salvation and his Holy Spirit, then you feel about as burdened by those commands as a bird feels burdened by its wings. A bird does not go around all day saying, “Boy, those wings are a bunch of extra weight. What a drag.” The bird is delighted.

When you read in the Bible about people who love God’s law and who love God’s commands, it’s because they love God and have God’s power in them. That’s the difference. His commands are burdensome when you don’t know his love for you and that he’s commanding these things because they’re best for you. His commands are burdensome when you’d prefer to do your own thing and think you know better than God does.

Sometimes, let’s admit it, some commands are burdensome because they’re not really God’s commands. Religion has a bad history of adding one command to another that’s not in God’s Word at all, piling them up until it becomes very burdensome. Jesus confronted that kind of situation in his day when God’s commands weren’t considered enough, so people were adding commands—sometimes calling it “putting a fence around God’s law.” They added even more commands so that you didn’t get close to breaking the ones that were really in God’s law, but the net effect was piling a bunch of burdens on people that never belonged there.

That’s why Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). Why is his yoke easy and his burden light? For one thing, he doesn’t pile on all the nitpickiness—he only commands what’s good for us. And for another, he enters into the yoke with us himself. He helps us carry it and enables us, giving us the power, the will, and the wish to do what God commands.

That was in contrast to the teachers of the law in his time who added all those extra commands and, as Jesus put it, didn’t lift a finger to help you. Jesus doesn’t just lift a finger—he lays down his life and sends his Holy Spirit to live in you. That’s why the commands aren’t burdensome: because they’re good commands with nothing extra added, and because he himself says, “You’re entering into the yoke with me, and you’re not pulling on your own.”

A yoke was something you put over a couple of oxen or horses to pull something. If you were pulling all by yourself, it would be burdensome. But if Jesus is in the same yoke with you and he’s doing the heavy pulling, then his yoke is not heavy and his commands are not burdensome.

Then you see the relationship between victory and faith. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4-5). Faith—as the song goes, “Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.” When you put your trust in Jesus, all of these things happen, including victory.

This little section begins and ends with faith. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1). And at the end: “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:5). You’re not going to overcome the world by “oomphing” a little harder or by trying a bit more. You overcome the world by believing in one who is greater than the world.

And by “world,” we don’t just mean earth and the good things God made. The world is the hostile system that has set itself up against God—all of human effort to do things its own way rather than under God. When you believe in Jesus Christ, he’s better than all that, he’s bigger than all that. “I believe in him,” and that’s what gives me the ability to be different from the pattern that’s out there as well as the ability to overcome it.

We have his promises. John wrote a rather different book when he wrote the book of Revelation, where he was receiving visions directly from Jesus Christ and saying what Jesus told him. In Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus is speaking to a number of different churches, and his promises to every one of those churches are made to those who overcome—to the overcomers.

“To the one who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). “He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death” (Revelation 2:11). Hell has no ability to harm the one who overcomes. “To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna” (Revelation 2:17)—that bread from heaven that God uses to feed us. “To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations” (Revelation 2:26). “He who overcomes will be dressed in white,” and he says, “I will never blot out his name from the book of life” (Revelation 3:5). He’s talking about how righteous he makes us before God and how he’ll never wipe out anybody’s name from the book of life. “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God” (Revelation 3:12). “To him who overcomes I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21).

Those are God’s promises to overcomers, and the only way you overcome is by believing those promises and saying, “It’s worth it, and I have God’s power to help me.”

So these are the tests of our spiritual DNA—of whether we have the life of God in us, whether we’ve been born again. Do I believe the true doctrine of God and know Jesus Christ as he is—as God and man, as the one who came to die for our sins and take them away, the one who rose to give us eternal life? Do I love him? Do I love others? Am I obeying him? Am I helping others? Am I experiencing victory?

That doesn’t mean life is one uninterrupted series of triumphs. It means that when you do have a setback, you don’t surrender. You pick yourself up—or more accurately, God picks you up again—and you move on and keep on winning, because God always has that trump card, that mighty trump card of forgiveness. When you do have a setback and God forgives you, then he re-energizes you and gives you strength again to overcome. Then you’re entering more and more into his victory.

Those are the tests that John has given again and again, and that’s how he brings them further home to us in this passage. We know by examining ourselves, looking at our own spiritual vital signs—our signs of life—and saying, “Yes, I see this, I see this, I see God at work in me, so I know that I’ve been born of God.”

But that’s still not the bedrock. The bedrock is not looking at yourself. The bedrock is looking at God and listening to God and finding out what his testimony is.

⁶ This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁷ For there are three that testify: ⁸ the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. ⁹ We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. ¹⁰ Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. ¹¹ And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:6-12)

 

Actually, just to correct the translation a little bit: “He who has the Son of God has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1 John 5:12). You know how this book started: “The life appeared” (1 John 1:2). You either have the life or you don’t have the life.

When we look at testimony, there are a number of things involved in that. One is that there are a variety of witnesses: there’s the water, the blood, and the Spirit. What does John mean when he says that Jesus is the one who came by water and blood? It’s kind of a mysterious statement, and a variety of different thoughts have been connected with it.

One is simply the fact that when Jesus died, his side was pierced with a spear. John was there and saw it happen, and when his side was pierced, he saw water and blood come out of Jesus’ side. He emphasizes in John chapter 19 that he saw this—he was an eyewitness to it—it really happened. He saw water and blood coming out of Jesus’ side. Is that what John means here, that Jesus is the one who came by water and blood?

It’s certainly true that John saw the water and the blood coming from his side, but it would be a strange thing to say that he “came by” water and blood. It’s more likely that John phrases it this way because of the kind of error he was dealing with. Remember I mentioned earlier a man named Cerinthus and certain kinds of teaching that were called either docetic—Jesus just seemed to be human—or gnostic, where Jesus was just a man, but at his baptism (that’s water), the Holy Spirit came upon him—the divine Christ Spirit came upon him—and then before he died, that Christ Spirit left him and he was just a man again.

John is saying he didn’t just come by water only. He wasn’t becoming the Son of God when the water was on him in his baptism. He was always the Son of God. But the water testified to it, and he didn’t stop being the Son of God when he went to the cross.

He came by water when he was baptized—he received God’s voice of approval, God’s testimony to him. You remember what happened when Jesus was baptized: the Bible says that heaven was torn open, and the Spirit came upon him in the form of a dove for us to see—not because he never had the Spirit before—and a voice came from heaven, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). God gave testimony. The Father gave testimony to Jesus at his baptism. Jesus launched his ministry and identified with sinners in that baptism, and God’s voice gave testimony to who Jesus is: “This is my Son.”

He did not come, however, by water only. He shed his blood, and there was testimony at the time he shed his blood too. You remember that when Jesus was on the cross and his lifeblood was flowing from him, the sun stopped shining for hours. And then, when Jesus died, there was a tremendous earthquake; everything was shaken; the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and some graves even broke open, and certain holy people came back to life. God the Father was saying something about the blood. He was saying, “This is not just another person dying here.”

And then he said something even stronger about the blood: he raised Jesus from the dead. That was God saying, “I accept his sacrifice, and I’m letting you know again—this is my Son, whom I love.” The Bible even says that Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).

The one who comes by water was testified to by the voice of God. The one who came by blood and gave his blood was testified to by all those phenomena that happened while he was dying, as well as by his great resurrection. And all of this is God giving testimony to the one whom he sent into the world—his own beloved Son.

Along with the testimony of water and blood, the Bible says there are three: the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and their testimony is unified. They are all saying the same thing. The Spirit testifies to Jesus and lets us know this is the one to believe in. He takes what is Jesus’ and gives it to us. He makes Jesus known to us, and the Spirit is always testifying.

When he does that, we can know, because the Spirit is not only testifying by coming on Jesus visibly at his baptism—the Bible also says the Spirit was involved in raising Jesus Christ from the dead.

It says, “Everyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony”—where?—“in him,” or “in his heart” (1 John 5:10). The Holy Spirit testifies, and God the Father testifies to the facts of what happened in Jesus. But the Holy Spirit also does something inside you.

So what was done in the water and the blood as fact and objective, as real events of history, the Spirit is also saying, “Now, when you believe in that, you’ve got the knowledge right in your heart that it’s true.” Anybody who believes that Jesus is the Son of God has that testimony in his heart. Why is that? Because people can’t believe in Jesus and put their faith in him without God working in them. It just doesn’t happen.

If you believe in Jesus and trust him as your Savior, then you have a testimony right in your own heart because the Holy Spirit has done something there.

So when we think about witnesses, we do need to face the fact that some people will say, “Well, why should we believe in that?” And then we have to realize that we accept testimony all the time. John says, “We accept man’s testimony” (1 John 5:9).

Think about it for a minute. We accept testimony in court, but we also accept testimony in just about every area of life. Just about everything you know about cooking, you picked up from somebody else and what they told you. Just about everything you know about science, you didn’t learn it by your own research in your own lab experiments—you learned it by testimony. Somebody else told you. Ninety-nine point nine percent of what you know is known because you believed what somebody else told you.

So when somebody says, “Oh, you just believe that because somebody else told you,” well, yeah—that’s why most of us believe what we believe. And if we were such skeptics that we were only going to believe what we discovered by our own original research, we’d all be pretty ignorant. That doesn’t mean you believe everything you’re told, but the fact is that we do need to be open to testimony.

John says, “We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater” (1 John 5:9). Who would say, “I’m going to believe human testimony, but when God talks, I’m not going to believe that”? That would not be a very smart approach to take, because God is truthful—God cannot lie—and he is more believable than any human witness. What he’s telling us is more important than a recipe passed along to us or a chemical formula. God’s witness is about the things that matter the most: about who his Son is and how you can have eternal life in him.

So we accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony God has given about his Son. That’s the content of the testimony. There are a lot of things God could talk to us about—he’s the great and ingenious maker of all things. He knows all the stuff our scientists are trying to figure out, and it’s wonderful that they try. He knows it all, but he doesn’t tell it all to us. When he talks, he tells us the things he most wants us to know. He has not left us to guess about who Jesus is. He said, “This is my beloved Son.” He raised him from the dead. He made it really clear who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do.

The content of God’s testimony is this: it’s about his Son. John says that once we hear that testimony, then we’ve got a response. What is the response? “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God has this testimony in his heart” (1 John 5:10). You’ve accepted God’s testimony. “Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son” (1 John 5:10). That’s the seriousness of rejecting God’s testimony.

That’s why you can’t just say, “Well, you know, different strokes for different folks, your opinion here, my opinion there.” When God has spoken, you either believe what he says and accept his testimony, or you call him a liar. Those are the only options. There is no third option. Either you believe what God says about Jesus, or you call him a liar.

And what are the consequences? John is not subtle about that. “This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12). Was that unclear? If you have Jesus, you have life. If you don’t have Jesus, you don’t have life—you have deadness.

We might say, “Isn’t that mean of God to say that Jesus is the only way?” Think about it. If someone said, “There is one cure for cancer, and it works every time, but you have to take this pill, and it doesn’t taste very good,” would you say, “I’m waiting for another cure to come along until they’ve got one that tastes like marshmallows”? If there were one cure for cancer, everybody would be rejoicing and celebrating in the streets. They wouldn’t be griping that there weren’t five cures—they’d be delighted that there’s one that always works for anyone who accepts it.

So we ought not to complain that God has not offered many cures. The fact of the matter is, there’s one sense in which God couldn’t. I know it’s touchy ground to say God can’t do something, but God can’t give life outside himself because he is the life. You can’t say, “I want life without life.” It’s impossible. “I want the life, but I don’t want the life.” God has given the life—it’s in his Son—and you can take it or leave it, but you can’t have life without the life.

That is God’s testimony. So each of us needs to hear that testimony loud and clear—who Jesus is, and the fact that without the Son of God we don’t have life, but in him we know that we have life.

Now, there are a number of questions that come up in relation to all this. One is: Is faith in Jesus real knowledge? Let’s look at a few of those frequently asked questions. Some people think that knowledge is factual stuff—scientific stuff, things you can touch and measure. But why do we think that? Think of science itself. Is gravity real? Has anybody ever touched it lately? Has anyone ever seen gravity? It’s there. Many of the most important scientific entities are actually things that nobody’s ever tasted, touched, or smelled, but people believe in them.

The more important point is that it’s a phony idea that matters relating to God are opinion, while matters relating to physical things are fact. There are facts and lies in the spiritual realm just as there are facts and lies in the physical realm. Faith in Jesus—if you have true faith in the true Jesus—is knowledge, not just opinion.

Well, is it arrogant to talk this way—to be certain about God? A lot of people say that. They claim it’s far humbler to say, “I don’t know.” Well, if you don’t know, then it’s best to say you don’t know. It’s foolish to pretend you know more than you do. But is it necessarily proud or arrogant to be sure of something?

Think about it this way: if I doubted that the physical world existed, would I be humbler than you “arrogant, proud” people who think the physical world does exist? There are entire philosophies that don’t believe the physical world exists. I think they’re nonsense, but those philosophies are out there. I’m not trying to be arrogant or mean—I believe that the physical world exists. Not only do I believe it, I know it exists, and I don’t think it’s arrogant of me to believe that the physical world exists.

I believe that if you touch a hot stove, the consequences will be very painful; that if you fall into a fire, the consequences could be catastrophic. Is it arrogant of me to believe that and to try to keep my grandchildren away from the stove and prevent them from falling into the campfire? “Oh, you arrogant grandpa! You’re so proud—you think you know that fire’s bad for kids. What an arrogant person you are!”

If I say that the fire of eternal judgment is a great danger for those who want to proceed through life and into eternity without God, that’s not an arrogant claim on my part. It’s a statement of how things are, and a desire that people not go through that.

So it’s not necessarily arrogant to believe something firmly. If you’re a teacher or a home educator and you say to your children, “You said that seven times eight is fifty-four, and that’s wrong,” would they say, “Mom, you are so arrogant! I think it’s fifty-four. You happen to think it’s fifty-six, but the only difference between us is that I’m humble and you’re arrogant”?

When you’re dealing with matters of fact, pride and arrogance don’t necessarily have much to do with it.

Sometimes people can go around strutting like a know-it-all and looking down their nose at somebody who has less education or less knowledge on a particular subject. Of course, it’s possible to be arrogant about what you know—but not necessarily. When you know something, you just know it.

Am I arrogant to say, “I know my wife loves me”? Someone might say, “Well, it would be a lot humbler of you to say, ‘I think maybe she might, but I’m not sure.’” That wouldn’t be humility—that would be a lack of trust and not really knowing my wife. So again, it’s not just a matter of arrogance.

Some folks pride themselves on how humble they are regarding knowledge and recommend that all people should be agnostic when it comes to the things of God. “Agnostic” is a Greek word that means “don’t know.” The Latin for that is ignoramus. For some reason, Greek sounds better than Latin. “I am a humble agnostic” sounds fine, but “I am an ignoramus” doesn’t quite have the same ring. Yet they mean the same thing: “I don’t know.”

Now again, I don’t mean to laugh at those who struggle and honestly don’t know the things of God, but I do want to put a little shade on those who take pride in not knowing the things of God and then tell you that you don’t know either. Just because they don’t know doesn’t mean you don’t know. Somebody else’s ignorance does not undermine your knowledge.

We need to understand that we can have real knowledge, and it’s not arrogant to be certain. It’s not hateful either to know that Jesus is the way and that unbelievers are wrong on that score. It’s not hateful to say, “I believe that the earth orbits the sun, and you are mistaken if you think the sun orbits the earth.” That’s a statement of fact, not of hatred.

If you say, “I believe this infection will be cured by penicillin, not by snake oil,” that’s not a statement of hatred—it’s a statement that says, “I think I know what the case is here, and I’d like you to get better.” When you go to a good doctor who knows what to prescribe for what problem, he’s not hating you; he’s helping you.

If you say, “Well, doc, I have a different opinion on that score,” that doesn’t mean he hates you for telling you what the real deal is and what the real cure would be.

Is it rational to discount contrary data? What do I mean by that? Sometimes people say, “You shouldn’t really believe too firmly because—look at all the pain in the world. Could it really have been made by a good God when you see how messed up things are? What about this problem in the Bible? Do you have an answer to that? That seems to be a real difficulty.”

So you get people who bring you various difficulties—real ones that you don’t have figured out. And they’ll say, “See? You really should temper your beliefs so that you have as much belief as corresponds to the evidence against it.”

In other words, if you think it’s a 63–37 proposition—63% evidence in favor, 37% against—then you should be 63% sure and 37% unsure. But that’s not quite how knowledge works.

Here’s an example: let’s say you were there when a crime happened. You saw what happened—you know exactly what happened. And then somebody comes with a bunch of circumstantial evidence: “Yeah, but this fingerprint was here, that shred of evidence was over there,” and so on. They give you all this contrary data. That’s contrary evidence to what you believe, but you were there—you know. Once you know, this or that scrap of evidence doesn’t make you 98% sure or 62% sure. If you know, then you know.

Sometimes there’s also the personal dimension. Again, I mentioned the example of knowing my wife loves me. Somebody might come up and say, “Well, what about that time or what about this?” My response: “Yeah, but you don’t know her.”

You might say it’s not rational for me to have 100% confidence in her love—but would it be more rational for me to doubt her love? Would it be more rational, or just more disloyal? Because you have to understand—there’s always that personal dimension too. When you say, “I’m going to temper my belief based on the evidence,” do you really trust God? Do you believe God is love or don’t you? Do you believe God sent his one and only Son into the world that you might live through him (1 John 4:9) or don’t you?

When you believe those things—those great central facts of the faith—then the other questions are off on the periphery. You know.

And regarding this problem of contrary data, you have to understand a couple of things. One is that there is more to God than you’re ever going to figure out. So if you’re going to doubt every time there’s something about God you haven’t figured out, you’re going to go through life chewing your nails, wondering. Hold on to the things you know for sure, and also hold on to the fact that his thoughts are not your thoughts and his ways are not your ways (Isaiah 55:8–9). There’s going to be a lot beyond you, and that will help you.

You also have to understand that the enemy of your soul is always going to be sending various kinds of evidence your way to undermine your confidence in the Lord. So keep those things in mind.

You have to be ready to discount information that’s not coming from the Lord, and you also have to be ready to believe in the central realities even when you live with loose ends. Part of Christian faith is having full confidence in God and living with loose ends. Because you’re going to have some loose ends—things that aren’t explained, things you haven’t figured out, things that don’t make sense to you—and yet you can still know.

What do we know? Let me remind you one last time from the book of First John. What do we know? We know Jesus. Jesus is the life. He’s the Christ. He’s the Son of God. He’s without sin. He came in the flesh to suffer the penalty for our sins, to take away our sins, to destroy the devil’s work. He is the true God and eternal life (1 John 3:5, 8; 5:20).

There are some things that aren’t clear—but that’s clear. That’s who we know. And when we know, we have those tests, we have God’s testimony to who Jesus is, and we also have personal trust.

John 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). That’s why we studied this whole book—so that you’d be sure of eternal life, confident in prayer, whether you’re praying for yourself and for things within God’s will or pleading for sinners who need God’s forgiveness. And as you have that trust, you know it’s not your strength but God who guards you.

At the same time, you’ve got to guard yourself against all of the phony gods. So let’s look at those in turn.

First, John 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). Not just knowing facts about God, but knowing that you are his—that you have eternal life through faith in him. You can be certain of that.

The Heidelberg Catechism, one of the Reformation teaching documents, asks: What is true faith? “True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture; it is also a wholehearted trust which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel that God has freely granted, not only to others, but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These are gifts of sheer grace, granted solely by Christ’s merit.” So faith has that component of sure knowledge and also of personal, wholehearted trust in the person of Jesus Christ as God’s great gift.

When we think about that, again, there are some frequently asked questions. Can you really be sure of eternal life? John says he wants you to be. There are strands of doctrine—one major strand being the Roman Catholic teaching—that most people should not be sure or certain of eternal life. You just shouldn’t. There are a few saints of extraordinary quality to whom God gives a special revelation that they are saved, but the rest of us need to “hope so,” with various degrees of confidence.

Can you be sure of eternal life if the very system of doctrine you have tells you that you shouldn’t be? Then it’s kind of hard to be sure. But what does John say? “I’m writing this so that you will know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). It is possible—indeed, it is intended to be normal—for God’s people to know with certainty and confidence. And that’s so important, because when you go through life as a bundle of nerves about whether God loves you or not, unsure of whether you belong to him or of what Christ did, you can’t live with boldness and confidence.

To take a trivial example, I’ve coached basketball. When you’ve got players who have zero confidence, all their shots go “clank” or are air balls. They can’t make anything. A lot of us are going through life shooting air balls because we don’t have the level of confidence in the Lord that God intends us to have.

That brings up another question: Can you be saved if you’re not sure? The short answer is yes. There are people who aren’t sure of their salvation who are saved nonetheless, but they’re not sure about it.

Here’s an example. If you think that you’re saved by the quality of your belief rather than by the quality of the one you believe in, then you’re always going to be worried that your faith isn’t quite strong enough. If you go to an outstanding doctor with some hesitancy—you’re not quite sure, you kind of wonder—but you’re going to count on him, if he’s a good doctor, he’s going to help you. If you go with supreme confidence to “Dr. Quack” and have fabulous confidence in his wonder potion, well, you went to the wrong doctor. It’s not the strength of your faith that saves you; it’s the strength of the Savior you go to.

When you go to Christ, it is the quality of Christ and his power to save—even if you go shakily. You know the song: “Just as I am, though tossed about, with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without—O Lamb of God, I come.” You come the way you are, but you’ve gone to the right place. So even if you’re not sure, I’ve got good news: if you go to Jesus a bit unsure and shaky, he still saves those who come to him.

Is knowledge ever unclear or unsure? You bet. A lot of knowledge we have is kind of iffy. We know some things about it, and some of it’s a little foggy. We know with varying degrees of certainty. And as Jesus repeatedly said to his disciples, “O you of little faith,” that’s said many times in the Gospels. But little faith is still faith—and it grows. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).

So God means us to be much more certain than many of us are. But that doesn’t mean that because we haven’t yet reached that level of confidence and certainty, our faith is nothing or that we’re lost. When we go to Jesus, when we trust in him, he saves.

And not only can we have confidence about our eternal salvation; we can also have confidence when we pray. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: 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” (1 John 5:14-15).

That’s kind of a mouthful, but it means you can pray confidently. The best way to pray confidently is to ask God to do his will. That’s why, when Jesus was asked, “Lord, teach us to pray,” what did he say? “Here’s what you ought to say: ‘Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done’” (Matthew 6:9-10).

If you start your prayer that way, you’re praying for God to be honored, you’re praying for God’s will to come to earth—and especially into your life—for the will of heaven to be done in you. You might say, “Well, why do I need to pray for that if God’s going to do it anyway?” Well, actually, wouldn’t you like to pray knowing that God’s going to do what you pray for?

If you’re always taking shots in the dark—praying through a wish list that you have no clue whether God wants for you or not—you can pray that way, but you can’t pray with supreme confidence that way. Pour out your heart to him, tell him what you desire, what you’re struggling with—that’s all fine—but if you want to pray with confidence, pray for what you know he intends to give.

And you still might say, “But why? If he intends to give it, why should I even ask for it? He’s going to give it anyway.” Well, I didn’t say he was going to give it anyway. There’s a paradox in prayer: God wants to give, but did he say he’s just going to give it if you don’t ask? He said, “I will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask” (Luke 11:13). “My kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven”—but “please be asking.”

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Jesus says we have to pray and not give up. So there’s a paradox, but when you pray for God’s will, by praying for that will you’re bringing it to bear—and he brings that will to bear in answer to your prayers.

Don’t just assume that God’s will is going to be carried out in your life no matter what if you don’t ask. I don’t know how to explain it theologically or philosophically—smarter people than I have tried—but there are two great realities: God has a will that is inscrutable, and he brings his will to bear in our lives in answer to our requests, our prayers, and our seeking.

So you can have confidence not just that God saves you forever, but that when you go to him and pray—beginning with the Lord’s Prayer and learning to pray for his will, “Thy will be done”—then you’re going to see that he’s going to do what you’ve asked.

I do love the phrasing of that last part: “We know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:15). We know we have it, even before, in a sense, we’ve got it.

There’s an interesting story in Daniel chapter 10 where Daniel prays, and things remain pretty rugged for a while. Then, three weeks later, an angel shows up and says, “Daniel, your prayer was heard, and I was sent the moment you prayed. It took me a little while to get here—a lot of demonic forces to fight my way through—but I’m here, and you were answered the moment you said the prayer.”

There are many things in our lives that we may pray about and not see the answer in five minutes—or even in three weeks. But when we’re praying for things that are in accord with God’s will—when you’re asking, for instance, that you may be more like Jesus, that he will fill you with more and more of his Holy Spirit, that his will will be accomplished more and more in your life—those prayers are going to be answered.

When you pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12), you’re going to be forgiven, and you’re going to become a more forgiving person as you keep on praying that. When you pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13), he’s going to deliver you. He’s going to deliver you.

“We know we have what we asked of him.” We have it already, because he’s promised that he’s going to do those things.

Then John gives an example of prayer—a different kind. “If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death” (1 John 5:16-17).

Now, that’s a challenging passage with various opinions on what the sin that leads to death might be. The most important thing when you’re reading the Bible is to interpret in context. In the context of this letter, we’ve heard about some people John calls antichrists—those who abandoned the fellowship of the apostles, who cast away belief in Jesus as the Son of God and in his coming in the flesh. The abandonment of Christ is the sin that leads to death.

Even there, John doesn’t say you must never pray for somebody who has cast away Christ entirely. But there is no forgiveness for such a person as long as they are casting Christ away.

On the other hand, if you’re praying for a brother who has done something against you, or you see them offending and hurting someone else, and they do belong to Christ, pray for them—and God will take care of it. He’s going to answer that prayer.

So, praying for somebody who belongs to Christ—that their sins will be forgiven and that God will help them and get them back on the right path—pray, and know, have confidence that when you plead for sinners, Christ is the solution.

And you know, I’m still going to pray for people who I think are committing the sin that leads to death. Because just because it leads to death doesn’t mean they’re locked in yet. John isn’t necessarily referring to the unpardonable sin. If they were to turn back to Jesus, there’s nobody who comes to Jesus who gets turned away. Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37).

But for sure, if your prayer—how much of that do we need! Instead of getting mad at the sin you see in a brother or sister, or just being furious nonstop about something somebody did to you, what if instead you got on your knees and said, “Lord, their sin is really messing them up. It’s really harming them. Would you, for the sake of Jesus’ blood, forgive them and help them to change?”

Because in many cases, our brothers or sisters—and we’re all that way—are kind of clueless about our own faults. We know some of them, but really, we’re pretty blind when it comes to our own sins. We can see them in others, maybe, but not in ourselves.

Maybe if we were all praying for each other, then all the faults we each have would get prayed for. Because my faults are pretty obvious to you—I just don’t see them when I look in the mirror. Your faults, I can assure you, are pretty obvious to somebody around you—your kids, or others who have to deal with you closely. You’re a pain in the neck sometimes—they know exactly why. You don’t.

Maybe it would be an excellent idea if we all just started praying for the bad stuff we see in others—and kind of made a cooperative deal that they’re praying for the bad stuff they see in us. Maybe even, as James says, every once in a while we could “confess [our] sins to each other and pray for each other so that [we] may be healed” (James 5:16).

In that kind of environment—where you’re praying and pleading for sinners rather than just getting mad at them and trying to take them down—you’ll see more change.

John closes with that mighty affirmation: “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him” (1 John 5:18). You can’t make sin your way of life—the path you walk—because somebody’s guarding you. He’s keeping you from the evil one.

“We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). If you’re waiting for the whole world to become rosy and peaceful before you follow Jesus, forget about it. “The world lieth in the evil one,” as the original translation puts it. The world is snoozing in a coma. Maybe some of you have seen movies where people think they’re living normal lives but are actually unconscious while their organs are being harvested—that’s kind of a picture of this. The whole world lies in the evil one.

So when you know that you’re children of God, you can pray for the world that’s in rebellion against God, but don’t get confused or think that the world is winning.

“We know also 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—even in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:20-21).

Notice again: we know. He’s given us understanding. He’s true. We are in him who is true. He’s the true God, and he’s the one who guards us. And we also have some guarding to do. If he is such a great and good God—the great God of love—then we need to guard against the idols.

Who are the idols? Of course, there was a whole pile of pagan gods and goddesses at the time this was written, and you weren’t supposed to worship those. There was also a monstrous, intrusive government that made you worship the emperor and might kill you if you didn’t. Some think that was perhaps the sin unto death in this epistle—when people worshiped the emperor, and some who had been Christians even turned in their fellow believers to be executed while they worshiped the emperor.

Be that as it may, the worship of big government is a deadly idol. False ideas about the one God are idols, too. People say, “I believe in one God.” Well, which “one God” do you believe in? We believe in God the Trinity—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and there are many false ideas about God that are idols.

There are also different gospels and different Jesuses. Jesus is the God-man who saves by his atoning blood and rose again from the dead. If Jesus is merely the nice prophet, the helpful teacher, or the social revolutionary, some of that might contain a smidgen of truth, but if he’s not the God-man—if he’s whittled down—then that “Jesus” is an idol. It’s not the real Jesus.

Basically, anything we fear more than God, anything we want more than we want God, anything we love more than we love God, anything we trust more than we trust God—that is an idol.

“Break down every idol”—that’s what the song says. “Cast out every foe. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Guard yourselves against idols.

Look at your own life. Is there anything you fear, or want, or love, or trust more than you fear, want, love, or trust God? Keep yourself from idols.

So—trust. You can be certain of eternal life, confident in prayer as you seek God’s will to be brought to bear in your life and as you seek for others to be forgiven of the sins they don’t even notice in themselves but you notice. And then trust that God’s guarding you through it all, and guard yourself against the idols.Realize that you don’t have to go through life wishing, hoping, guessing, or offering opinions. We know!

Prayer

Father, help us to live in the joy of your blessed assurance of eternal life through Jesus our Lord—to live with the certainty and the confidence that you are love and that you have poured out your love upon us at the cross and through the gift of the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts.

Lord, use this message in whatever way is most needed in the heart of each person listening. We’re all different. You know what needs doing in each one, and I pray that you will work your wonderful will in the life of each person here. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

We Know (1 John 5)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

God’s children know

• “children of God” (6x)
• “born of God” (5x)
• “know” (29x)

I write … so that you may know that you have eternal life… We know that we are children of God. (5:13, 19)

We know!

We know that we have come to know him. (2:3) We know we are in him. (2:5) You have known the Father. (2:13) All of you know the truth. (2:20) We know that when he appears, we shall be like him. (3:2) You know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. (3:5) We know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. (3:10) We know that we have passed from death to life. (3:14) We know that we belong to the truth. (3:19) We know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. (3:24) Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. (4:7) We know the love God has for us. God is love. (4:16) I write these things … so that you may know that you have eternal life. (5:13) We know that we have what we asked of him. (5:15)

We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also 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—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. (5:18-20)

We know

• Tests (5:1-5)
• Testimony (5:6-12)
• Trust (5:13-21)

Tests

 ^5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. ² This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. ³ This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, ⁴ for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. ⁵ Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.  (1 John 5:3-5)

We know

• Tests (5:1-5)
• Testimony (5:6-12)
• Trust (5:13-21)

 
⁶ This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁷ For there are three that testify: ⁸ the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. ⁹ We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. ¹⁰ Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. ¹¹ And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Testimony

• Witnesses: water, blood, Spirit
• Credibility: truthfulness of God
• Content: God’s gift of his Son
• Response: believe or call God liar
• Result: eternal life or death

FAQ

• Is faith in Jesus really knowledge?
• Is it arrogant to be certain of God?
• Is it hateful to know Jesus is the way and unbelievers are wrong?
• Is it rational to discount contrary data?

We know Jesus!

Jesus is the Life (1:2), the Christ (5:1), the Son of God (4:15), without sin (3:5). He came in the flesh (1:1, 4:2) to suffer the penalty for our sins (2:2, 4:10), to take away our sins (3:5), and to destroy the devil’s work (3:8). He is the true God and eternal life (5:20).

We know

• Tests (5:1-5)
• Testimony (5:6-12)
• Trust (5:13-21)

Trust

• Certain of eternal life (5:13)
• Confident in prayer (5:14-17)
• Praying God’s will (5:14-15)
• Pleading for sinners (5:16-17)
• Guarded by God (5:18-20)
• Guard against idols (5:21)

Certain of
 eternal life

¹³ 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.

True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture; it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel, that God has freely granted, not only to others but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These are gifts of sheer grace, granted solely by Christ’s merit. (Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 21)

FAQ

• Can you be sure of eternal life?
• Can you be saved if you’re not sure?
• Is knowledge ever unclear or unsure?

Praying God’s will

¹⁴ This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Pleading for sinners

¹⁶ If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. ¹⁷ All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

Guarded by God

¹⁸ We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.

¹⁹ We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. (5:18-19) ²⁰ We know also 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—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. ²¹ Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

Guard against idols

• Pagan gods and goddesses
• Worshiping emperor/government
• False ideas about the one God
• Different Jesus than God-man who saves by blood and resurrection
• Anything we fear, want, love, or trust more than God

Trust

• Certain of eternal life (5:13)
• Confident in prayer
• Praying God’s will (5:14-15)
• Pleading for sinners (5:16-17)
• Guarded by God (5:18-20)
• Guard against idols (5:21)

We know

• Tests (5:1-5)
• Testimony (5:6-12)
• Trust (5:13-21)