Confidence before God (1 John 5.13-21)

Introduction

If you were to ask me what I think (in one word) is the overwhelming and dominant worldview here in the UK, I would probably reply pretty quickly; and my word would be agnostic.

Agnostic literally means “don’t know.” Opinion polls, when they ask the public their view on who they are going to vote for always leave an option for “don’t know.” So many people don’t know, they can’t make up their minds, or perhaps they’re apathetic and just don’t care.

There are political agnostics. Which is the best party to vote for? Don’t know. There are philosophical agnostics. What is happiness? Don’t know. And of course there are religious agnostics. Is there a God? Is he good? Does he love me? Don’t know. Agnostics tend to be sceptical about any certainties. They are reluctant to commit to one view or another.

The comedian David Mitchell is an agnostic. Here’s what he said a few years ago: “I don’t accept the argument that atheism is the most rational response to the world as we see it. I think agnosticism is. And I don’t want there to be nothing… I want there to be an all-powerful, benevolent God and I like that thought. And I was initially brought up with it and now I’m not sure – but I’m not ready to reject it.”

The Irish poet W.B. Yeats said, slightly tongue in cheek, “Some people say there is a God. Others say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.” But of course, it doesn’t lie somewhere in between. It’s at one of the poles. Either there is a God or there isn’t.

Whichever it is, agnostics are definitely wrong though. In a two-horse race, agnostics don’t know which horse to bet on, so they back neither and, either way, they are certain to miss out on the winnings.

Why 1 John Was Written

Anyway, at the end of his Gospel, John explains why he wrote it. “These things are written,” he said, “that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

And now at the end of this letter, in v13, he explains his purpose in putting pen to paper here. Why did you write this letter, John? “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.”

I think this verse is the key that unlocks the whole letter. It’s written to believers who are having a bit of a wobble. Agnostics say, “I don’t know; seeing is believing.” But the Bible says something more like, “Believing is seeing. Only when we believe can we really know.”

The letter was written because the church John loved was in danger of becoming a bit agnostic. They were a lot less sure than they had been before. And the reason for that is that they were becoming unsettled by know-all spiritual leaders travelling around saying, “What do you know? Follow us – we’re on the right side of history. We know best.”

These people were saying that Jesus is great – but he’s not the Messiah. Their message was all about them and their mystical in-crowd.

They were a secret society called gnostics – which means “those in the know” and they went around boasting about their superior wisdom. They had restricted access to classified information. They had the key that unlocked every spiritual enigma. Like in the Da Vinci Code, they were the illuminati.

And they went from fellowship to fellowship around spreading anxiety among believers and engineering splits in churches. They said, “We know what we’re talking about; Jesus was just a man who lived an inspirational life, but he was not the Son of God who opened the door to eternal life by his atoning death on the cross.

Unhealthy Bible teaching will always focus on new fads. Things like 10 Simple Steps to Feeling Great. It’s spiritual junk food; it promises a life of ease and preaches the false gospel of me, me, me.

But Jesus said the opposite; “Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it”. Good, wholesome Bible teaching emphasizes self-denial, not self-fulfilment. And the paradox is that in denying self and exalting Jesus we find ourselves more alive than ever.

“If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full” said American pastor John Piper and I agree.

And so John, seeing the church he loves come under attack from this bad teaching writes this little letter to exhort the believers to stay true to the real, authentic, flesh and blood Jesus that he saw, heard and touched.

All the way through, he counters this secret knowledge rubbish by saying, “No, this is how we know that we belong to the truth... This is how we know who the children of God are... This is how we know what love is. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us.”

All the way through, John wants to give assurance to anyone who has had their heads turned by doubts and uncertainty.

Over and over again the scriptures teach assurance of salvation, because our salvation is not ultimately rooted in our choices which are fickle and inconsistent.

Our salvation is rooted in God’s sovereign decision, made and sealed before time began, and he never wavers, never has an off day, never thinks twice and his will is never thwarted.

“I give [my sheep] eternal life, and they shall never perish”; said Jesus and “no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10.28)

“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10.9).

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8.31)

“Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8.39)

But all of us doubt, some of us doubt chronically; and the church John wrote to did as well, but 1 John teaches very clearly that God’s will is for us is to know that we are his children, by faith, and he will not let us go.

Some people feel that their hold on God’s grace is defective or insufficient. Many wonder if they can have any assurance or confidence in being saved at all.

Psalm 56.3 says, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” The Bible does not say that believers never have anxieties and troubles or doubts. In fact, it says that we will.

Imagine you are in a car race and a cheating rival tries to throw you off course by hurling mud at your windscreen. As the mud splatters against the glass you lose sight of the road and you start to swerve left and right.

But that wouldn’t mean that your race is over. It wouldn’t mean that you are on the wrong track. If you were out of the race or on the wrong road, your enemy wouldn’t waste time trying to sabotage your race. Having mud on the windscreen just means that you need to turn on your wipers.

When we doubt God’s goodness and the plans for us, it doesn’t mean we are not God’s children, or that we are not saved.

It means our faith is being attacked. God’s promise is that we will stay on track and finish the race. Because by his grace, we resist and battle against the unbelief of fear. We turn on the windscreen wipers.

So that’s assurance. It’s not arrogance, it’s confidence in God.

Confidence in Prayer

John continues in v14-15 to talk about confidence in prayer. One of the big questions in the Prayer Course was about unanswered prayer. The course specifically deals with that question in week 5.

The assurance we are given here is this: “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.”

It’s troubling for us, because quite recently we all raised our voices and prayed and fasted with passion and with tears. We banged loud and long on heaven’s door. And our request was not granted and we’re sore from that experience. I still am. Our faith has taken a battering.

On the Prayer Course, we’ve been learning that prayer is about growing in our relationship knowing God, not just about getting from God what we want. It says here that God hears us, and he grants our requests too – with the proviso that we ask according to his will.

In the Lord’s Prayer of course, we pray “your will be done,” not my will. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus shuddered and sweated blood as he looked ahead to the hell that awaited him the following day. “If there’s any way, take this bitter cup from my lips! Yet not my will but yours.”

Sometimes I know what God’s will is – it is clearly spelt out in the Bible. If I ask God to help me love my wife better I know that prayer will be answered because I know it’s God’s will. “Husbands, love your wives and lay down your lives sacrificially for them” says Ephesians 5. At other times, I am not so sure whether what I ask is God’s will or not. In whatever situation, we can add to our prayers, ‘Your will be done.’

If the answer is ‘yes’ God may be increasing our faith. If the answer is ‘later’ he may be increasing our patience. If the answer is ‘no’, he may be teaching us to trust that his will is ‘good, pleasing and perfect.’

I don’t understand why our prayers for Donna were not God’s good, pleasing and perfect will. I wish I did. I believe one day, in eternity, I will.

But I do understand this: many times in my life God has answered prayer; big things and trivial things. I’ve been praying for 7 years for a retired minister to come here and join our team, and now one is – just as I’m going. Thank you, Lord! You could have answered a little earlier, but I trust that your timing is perfect.

I’ll never forget Simon Ponsonby from Saint Aldate’s Oxford talking about a conference held in his church on relationships. One evening, a remarkable message was given and two men came forward for prayer just covered with fear, guilt and shame issues related to sex and relationships.

Their experiences had rendered them incapable of forming and sustaining healthy relationships with the opposite sex. The Holy Spirit fell and powerfully impacted both of them: they both wept and wept and they soaked Simon’s sweater with their tears. Both were married within a year!

Sometimes the Christian journey is a choice to not let the things we don’t understand eclipse and spoil the things we do understand.

John though, I think, is maybe thinking about a particular type of prayer and it’s for a brother or sister who has drifted away from faith. All through this letter there are hints that people had left the church and gone astray. Chapter 2 says it clearly.

There are some though who won’t ever return and come back to the Lord. And John describes them as those who have committed a deadly sin.  

Before anyone here starts to worry or panic, let me say quite firmly and categorically that no one here today falls into that category. If you have committed a sin that leads to death, you wouldn’t be here.

What is the sin that leads to death? Some say it’s about the seven deadly sins; pride, lust, greed, sloth, envy and so on. Well, most of us are guilty of those sins, me included, and there’s nothing in the Bible that singles out those seven vices as being particularly awful or beyond the reach of prayer.

Others say it must be a reference to Hebrews 6, which talks about former believers who, having shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, have fallen away, blaspheming Jesus and subjecting him to public disgrace.

It says there that those people are so far gone and are so obsessive about their rejection of Jesus that it’s impossible for them to be brought back to repentance.

Well, that may be what John has in mind here. I think of people like Fredrick Nietzsche, son of a pastor, who was so fanatical in his hatred of Christ he went clinically insane. I can only think of maybe only one person I have known who fits this description – and it’s no one here.

I wonder if John is thinking about specific cases like Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) who died instantly after lying to their church about how generous they were. Or the people who abused the Lord’s Supper in Corinth, some of whom had become sick and died. Perhaps John is saying, “Don’t bother praying about them to return to God; it’s too late, they’re dead.”

But here, the promise is that if we pray earnestly for people who have wandered off from the Lord, and we pray according to his will, we can be confident that the Good Shepherd will seek the lost will bring them back.

There are a few more “we knows” in this section…

“We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin, 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.”

…but I feel like I’ve spoken on them all before in the last few weeks. In fact, I have, as John keeps coming back to the same points, like a spoon stirring a pot.

The final verse, 21, some scholars believe is very possibly the last sentence written in the Bible. 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation and all the rest of the New Testament were actually written earlier, so it is thought.

So, here are very possibly the last words God spoke to his church with binding authority. “Little children, keep yourself from idols.” In other words, “accept no substitutes.” It’s Jesus or nothing. And it’s all of Jesus or nothing.

Ending

But I want to draw this talk - and series - to a close by mentioning two stories about the Apostle John; this elderly gentleman with a father heart for the church he loved.

Neither is from the Bible, but there is good evidence that the stories are genuine because they are quite early and they fit so well with what we know about John in the Gospels and his letters.

The first is of John in extreme old age and very infirm. So infirm that his disciples would have to carry him in to church for the Lord's Supper, and every week they’d ask if he’d say a few words. Maybe he’d talk about his experiences of actually seeing Jesus in flesh and blood. What was it like? What was he like?

By this time, John could barely muster the voice to speak but every time they asked, he’d say, "Yes, I have a message… Little children, love one another.”

For months on end, it was the exact same 5-word sermon, week in, week out. “Little children, love one another.”

After a while, people began to tire of hearing the same short, simple message until finally, they lost patience and said, “Teacher, have you nothing else to say? Why do you always say the same thing?”

And John would look at them and say, “Because it is the Lord's command and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.”

The second story is also of John very late in his life. It was recorded in the 2nd century by a man called Irenaeus. Irenaeus had been a disciple of a leader called Polycarp, who knew John personally.

At the end of the 1st century, not very far distant from when this letter was written, there was a gnostic itinerant preacher named Cerinthus. He said that God didn’t create the physical world, he rejected the virgin birth, and denied that Jesus was the Messiah.

The story goes that John was in the public baths one day, and saw this man Cerinthus bathing in the same pool. “Get me out of here!” he said. And as they carried him out of the building, he said to those who were with him, “Let us haste, lest this bath house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within!”

It seems out of place with the first story but they tell us about the two non-negotiables for living in the light of love; an uncompromising zeal for the truth of the Gospel (without which the church falls apart and it’s finished) and a tender-hearted longing for the love of Christ to fill his church.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 1 March 2020