I preached this sermon on Sunday. The sermon took a turn I did not expect, focusing on prayer both for our own spiritual health as well as for our brothers and sisters but it made a lot of sense. While John had emphasised that righteousness and love must be the hallmark of our Christian life or else our Christian faith is a lie, he also emphasises in this chapter that we have victory in overcoming the world through our faith in Jesus. The key is prayer.
Read this overview of the first 4 chapters to see the backdrop behind John’s conclusions in chapter 5: The Gospel in 1 John.
Good morning.
We have come to the last chapter of John’s letter where he draws conclusions and points us to what we should do next. Let’s get right down to the text.
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. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. (1 John 5:1-4)
John gives a summary of the key points he raised in his letter. We can read this as a summary of the essentials that make up a Christian:
Firstly, accepting Jesus as anointed by God to carry out his will.
Secondly, to love God and one another.
Thirdly, to obey his commands and walk the path of righteousness.
Fourthly, to deny the world a hold on our loyalty, our values and our desires.
If you have been following what John has been saying you will realise that he emphasises that none of these are optional. When we walk in darkness, reject kindness and love, entertain envy, pride and lust, seeking after the things of the world, we stand in opposition to God. The true Christian is in fellowship with God.
This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. (1 John 5:5)
But how are we able to accomplish these lofty goals? In chapter 5 John tells us about the certainty of victory. Firstly he tells us that victory is only possible because of Jesus. Is this true? Can Jesus accomplish all these? John examines the credentials of Jesus:
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. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. (1 John 5:6-7)
The phrasing may be difficult to understand but we cannot go far wrong if we say that “Spirit, water and blood” are what tells us that Jesus is the complete solution to the problem of life and death.
Most people consider “the water” to be water baptism. It is a phrase also found in John’s Gospel, when Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” There the common interpretation is also water baptism.
Personally I think that water refers to physical birth since in the womb, life is sustained in water. Flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit implies physical birth and spiritual birth. Moreover John does associate water with life in the phrase “living water” and “water of life” in the Gospel of John and Revelation.
Whether it connotes Jesus’ physical birth or Jesus’ baptism (both as human in repentance even though without sin, and divine when the voice from heaven acknowledged him), the reference must surely be about the Incarnation of the Son of God. Blood would be the death and resurrection and Spirit would be the gift of God.
God sent his Son to be born a human and willed him to surrender to death, murdered by his own people, as a sacrifice for our sake so that through his death and resurrection those of us who accept his sacrifice on our behalf will receive the Holy Spirit as a gift from God.
The water, the blood and the Spirit, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.
The Spirit alone (meaning no blood) would have been insufficient as the problem of guilt would not have been dealt with. In fact, there can be no Spirit without blood. The blood alone (meaning no incarnation and so Jesus was only human) would not have been enough because a human can only atone for his own sin. The incarnation alone (meaning no sacrifice and no Spirit, only a divine visitation) would not change anything because even with all the resources available to Israel, with a history of miracles, a comprehensive archive of law and history, and numerous prophets to teach and warn, the inevitable outcome remained: the destruction of the Temple and the nation Israel because of their wilful sinfulness.
All three together in our Lord Jesus provide a convincing basis for us to be confident that in Jesus we have all we need to overcome the world that corrupts our core. In Jesus God demonstrates his love for us; in Jesus God dealt with our sin; and through Jesus God abides in us.
And so finally, John sets out his conclusion:
Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 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 5:10-13)
Note the emphasis: life is in the Son. It is not in believing in him, but having him. It is not about something you did many years ago but that through what you did many years ago you now walk in fellowship with him. Without the Son there is only death.
Victory in overcoming the world is ours firstly because we have the complete solution: Jesus Christ in whom is life. Now John tells us that victory in overcoming death is ours because God will answer our prayers.
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)
Let’s first set aside the idea of a blank cheque that we misinterpret this verse to be about. To be in fellowship with God, who God is and what we want must match. God is light and we must seek after righteousness. God is love and we must love our brothers and sisters— “according to his will” and “whatever we ask” must match. We have victory in overcoming because this is our prayer.
The mission was a huge undertaking and it needed the Son of God to become the Son of Man, the death and resurrection of the Son of Man to be the Son of God and the Holy Spirit to see the whole process to fruition.
John tells us that in Jesus we have overcome the world; we now belong to Jesus when we make him our Lord and reject the world’s hold over us. The victory is a once for all truth. Now comes the task of making it a reality, that in belonging to Jesus we will live like Jesus. The overcoming will take the rest of our lives and here, prayer is vital.
John categorically stated that his intention in writing is not to make us doubt the outcome but that we might know the certainty of the outcome—so that you may know that you have eternal life—that life is ours to enjoy. And now he tells us that when we “ask anything according to his will, he hears us” and if he hears us, then “whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”
John wants us to be certain. Unfortunately we have the habit of taking for granted what are certainties and that is not the intention of John. He wants us to be certain so that we will keep on keeping on. The victory is ours but the battles are ongoing. And so he calls us to persevere in prayer and ask God for his resources so that we will more and more be truly his children, certain that God hears us and that these things we seek from him will be ours.
Why is it important for us to continually tell God not only of our desire to overcome sin but also our desire to grow in righteousness and love?
I think it is so that true Christianity, this life that is in Jesus, of righteousness and love, of fellowship with God, of becoming all that he has created us to be and all that he desires us to be, will be at the forefront of our walk with him. To constantly pray, seeking to be righteous and full of love, affirms and strengthens our understanding of what it means to have life in Jesus.
Then, when sin invades we will know what to do. When false teaching attempts to seduce us and confuse us, we can respond with clarity. When we are challenged by the world and all that the world stands for, and we are troubled because we have to live in this world, we have the clarity of mind and heart to separate our hearts so that while we live in the world we are not of the world.
Then, when we are faced with the challenge to love, we will not say “aiyoh, so difficult” but we will be confident that God will help us. When we need to study the bible so that we learn righteous behaviour and the commands of God and understand the will of God we will not give up and say that we cannot do this.
My brothers and sisters, the certainty of victory that Christ has given us must not lead us to be complacent and presumptuous. Instead it should lead us to persevere. Pray, pray that God will keep our eyes on him, our hearts in love and gratitude to our Lord, and our spirits close to the Holy Spirit so that he can protect us, guide us and empower us. Pray so that we may grow spiritually strong and vigorous.
However, as John tells us so simply at the beginning of the chapter:
“Everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.”
Fellowship with God would also mean fellowship with others who are also in fellowship with God. John makes it very clear that we have no choice in the matter. We must not think that God desires to fellowship with me as an individual but with us as a people. Even as God wants us to care about our own spiritual life and pray, he wants us to care about the spiritual life of our brothers and sisters as well. And so if we love the children of God, that is, one another, then John calls us to pray for one another, especially when their fellowship with God and with us is under threat.
If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death. (1 John 5:16-17)
John, it would seem, likes to test preachers in their understanding of what he is saying. He talks about sin, and then sin that leads to death and then sin that does not lead to death, but he decides not to clarify. Once again, we take a simple approach, assuming that his readers should know enough to understand, meaning that the answer must come from the text.
If Jesus is life then to reject Jesus is to reject life, which means death. If we follow a false gospel and claim that we have fellowship with God and yet walk in darkness, we are wrong. If we say we know God but do not obey his commands, the truth is not in us. If we are consumed by hatred, or if we don’t love the children of God, we don’t know God and we don’t love him.
There is life and there is death and this is what he draws our attention to with his choice of words.
I don’t think I would be very far wrong to hazard the guess that sin that leads to death is to wilfully reject the things that keep us in fellowship with God.
Once again I use the word “wilfully” because all of us are not perfectly capable of resisting sin; but when we do fall into sin we should regret doing so and turn to God to help us overcome. When we pray—whatever we ask—God hears. When we do not regret our sin then we are wilfully harbouring sin. And this is where John calls us specifically to pray for one another, that we should have the strength and desire to turn and return.
It is not an issue of how many times we sin, as Satan is fond of accusing us, but rather everytime we do we turn to God. Satan will accuse us of hypocrisy and turn our conscience against us but John tells us that God is greater than our conscience. God is not so small, nor is he so weak, that he will reject you whenever you turn to him. His Son has sacrificed himself; he is not going to turn you away when you return to him.
John calls us to pray when we see a brother or sister in trouble because the longer they stay away from God the greater the possibility that things will accumulate to the point that God, Jesus and life no longer matter to them. Then they will fall into the sin that leads to death, turning away from him whether outwardly or in their heart and mind. We must understand John to mean that our prayers do make a difference.
Does “sin that leads to death” mean that a person can lose their salvation? What about “once saved always saved”?
To comprehensively answer this will take quite a bit of time. There are many texts, and this verse about “the sin that leads to death” is one such, that speaks of this possibility. The most dire one is found in Hebrews 6:
It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. (Hebrews 6:4-8)
Hebrews talks about the person who wilfully turns away from the Gospel that he enjoyed and what awaits him now is death.
A common way of explaining this is that the person was never a Christian in the first place; it was a false faith. In Hebrews 6 the intention of the text is not to condemn the person to say that his faith was never true. Rather, it is always to warn us never to be complacent but be careful to take the will of God seriously.
In this respect I think it is more reflective of the intention of Scripture for us to say that a person who wilfully rejects God will lose his life in Jesus.
John wants us to be confident but in raising the possibility of sin that leads to death I believe that he also warns us not to be complacent and presumptuous.
When you see a brother or sister in spiritual difficulty, pray so that their spirit may have the strength and the desire to turn to God. Pray. Pray for them that the Lord will keep them safe and strengthen their faith that God will forgive them when they regret their sin, no matter how many times they have fallen. Reach out to them in fellowship and in love. Don’t wait until the situation is dire.
We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. 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 by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. (1 John 5:18-20)
John reiterates the confidence that we should have as Christians, but that confidence is in God and not in ourselves. We must not lose hope and stop going back to God for his forgiveness and his strength.
Finally, John reiterates what he has been saying in his letter: There is life and there is death. There is the real deal that gives us life in Jesus and there are false ideas that will take us away from Jesus towards death.
Truth and falsehood have very serious consequences. One leads to life and the other leads to death. In Matthew 7, Jesus told us about a group of people who think that they are on the path of truth because they have power but they were mistaken. God is not about power but about light and love:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23)
The person thought all the time that he was on the right track only to be told, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
John’s last words to us is this:
Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:21)
He had just reminded us earlier that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
Don’t play with fire. Stick close to the truth. Stay far away from what is not the truth. The consequences are as serious as life and death.
How do these concerns that John has impact us?
I think that we need to be much much more serious about our spiritual life because we can easily be flirting with our spiritual death. Fellowship with God is not a simple matter but it is not unattainable because God will help us overcome. Prayer is the key that God has given us.
The question we need to ask ourselves is how our spiritual life and walk with God is.
I think as a church our appetite for God’s word is very low. I remember when I was in varsity we would regularly come together on a Saturday afternoon to listen to God’s word being expounded for between 60 to 90 minutes. None of us complained about the time, only appreciating the solid teaching we were receiving. These days I don’t think people bother to remember what was preached the week before. It seems all we want is for the sermon to be over. Should we be concerned? Should we be praying and asking God to strengthen our love for his word?
Whenever the demands of our spiritual life are seriously brought up: regular devotion, bible study, even loving one another, the response is “this is not easy” and you can hear in their minds people setting aside these important things they need to do.
Instead of saying “this is not easy” should we be praying and asking God to deepen our capacity to do these things in obedience to his commands?
I first came to Agape Chapel a few months before the pandemic. These days the seats are painfully empty. I am also concerned about TLR as the numbers there are down quite drastically each week. What has happened to our brothers and sisters who are no longer regularly in fellowship with us? Should we be praying for them? Should we be reaching out to them in fellowship and love?
I have been very concerned about our young people both here and in TLR. I rarely see them with us in worship and when I do I often see that they are not paying attention and are occupied with their handphones. Should we be concerned for them and praying for them? What kind of Christian will they be when they grow up?
We use prayer to make life easier and happier for ourselves: healing and good health, the right school for our children, the contractor who can renovate our house the way we desire, hold back the rain so our function can run well, a job with a nicer boss, some people even pray for parking space.
John tells us to pray for what would please God and tells us that God will hear us —whatever we ask—and we know that we have what we asked of him. This is a powerful promise, yet do we use it for matters that amount to life and death?
God sacrificed his Son to lift us from death to life. Are we holding fast to what he has done for us? Are we walking in fellowship with him? Are we praying constantly for ourselves and our brothers and sisters and our children? Or are we thinking there is no need because everything is fine?