Confidence in Truth and Righteousness (1 John 5:16-21)
1 John • Sermon • Submitted
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· 51 viewsIn a world of lies, you can have confidence in the One True God and in His righteousness.
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Intro
Intro
We have confidence in righteousness
We have confidence in righteousness
The theme of prayer continue as John finishes his letter. But this is a specific prayer: for a brother who commits sin.
Now this is a difficult passage. A sin not leading to death and then a sin leading to death is difficult and confusing. I’ll briefly try to explain that in a little bit.
But we have this confidence in righteousness—that when we pray for a wayward sinner, God will give him life. Also, we have confidence in knowing that God promised life in abundance through Jesus Christ. We have a confidence in righteousness.
But what happens when we miss the mark?
John has written much about sin in this letter. He is clear that believers will still sin (1:8), but that they will not be characterized by a lifestyle of sin (3:8-9; 5:18). We see in v.18 that Jesus (he who was born of God) protects his followers and Satan cannot overtake them. But we also see one of the blessings of being part of the family of God: when we sin, we have a community of people who should prayerfully encourage us back to righteousness.
Now let’s come back to the command— if anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life.
First, we are to pray for other peoples’ spiritual needs. Here, a brother has been caught in sin. This is a spiritual issue.
“We naturally pray for those who are ill, and we should just as naturally pray for those who are straying away from God. It is just as natural a thing to pray for the cure of the soul as it is to pray for the cure of the body. It may be that there is nothing greater that we can do for the man who is straying away, and who is in peril of making shipwreck of life, than to commit him to the grace of God.” ~William Barclay, The Letters of John and Jude (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 138.
Just think about group prayer times you’ve been part of, even lately. How much of the prayer requests shared were for spiritual needs? Could it be safe to say that physical needs dominate prayer times?
When we see a brother committing a sin, we are to approach God on his account. We are to pray that he would find the fullness of life again. We are pray that whatever is trying to steal, kill, and destroy him would be bound from him and that he would be restored to Christ.
Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (, ESV)
What do you do when you see a brother committing sin? Some might ignore it, because you don’t want to offend him by pointing it out. Or maybe when we see our brother committing a sin, our first response is to gossip rather than pray.
We are to pray for spiritual needs, for the brother committing a sin not leading to death. Now, let’s take that on for a minute. What is the sin that does not lead to death?
I don’t even want to try to explain every interpretation of this one. There are many. And they don’t all agree.
Some say it is a specific, deadly sin.
Some say it is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Some say it is total rejection of the gospel. This is what I feel makes the most sense given the context of 1 John and the NT. The only sin that would lead to spiritual death is to reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, therefore subjecting yourself to eternal damnation.
It would seem that “the ‘sin that does not lead to death’ is the sin believers commit and for which forgiveness has been secured by the atoning sacrifice of Christ. For this reason, the author is quite confident that prayer for the restoration of a repentant believer will be answered, ‘and God will give him life’.” [Colin G. Kruse, The Letters of John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos, 2000), 191.]
The ‘sin that does not lead to death’ is the sin believers commit and for which forgiveness has been secured by the atoning sacrifice of Christ (cf. 1:9; 2:1–2) (see ‘A Note on Sins That Do and Do Not Lead to Death’, pp. 193–94). For this reason, the author is quite confident that prayer for the restoration of a repentant believer will be answered, ‘and God will give him life’.
Colin G. Kruse, The Letters of John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos, 2000), 191.]
The end of v.16- John says there is a sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. He is not forbidding praying for those who reject the gospel, but he does seem to doubt the effectiveness of such a prayer. If a person rejects the gospel, God will not give him eternal life.
Regardless of what you might come to believe is the sin that leads to death, we need to have the confidence of living in righteousness, and we must pray for other peoples’ spiritual needs.
How can you do that this week?
You can easily shift your focus to include spiritual needs in addition to the physical needs you are praying for.
But it might require you to actually get to know people on a spiritual level. You might have to ask them how their soul is. You might have to talk about struggles and real life situations. You might have to get beyond how are you? Fine.
Pray for spiritual needs, and let’s experience the abundance of life that Christ offers.
Transition: We know we can have confidence to live in righteousness since we are in a community together relying on the power and grace of our God to give us fullness of life now and eternal life later. Now, let’s talk about a second confidence we have:
James Montgomery Boice:
The Epistles of John: An Expositional Commentary Prayer for Others (vv. 16–17)
The one who truly understands prayer and who prays according to the will of God will pray for others, just as in material ways he will strive to show love practically (3:17–18).
“We naturally pray for those who are ill, and we should
We have confidence in truth.
We have confidence in truth.
We are from God, but the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (v.19). Do you see the difference between the Christian and the world? You’ve heard it said that we are in the world but not of the world.
We’re like a scuba diver—he lives in the water but breathes the air--he takes his environment with him.
So while those who are in Christ are not in bondage to sin and this world anymore, we are still heavily influenced by it.
Satan has been doing what he’s done since the beginning—lying. He twists the Word of God like he did with Eve, to make us think that maybe there is some other truth than what the Creator said.
The effects of sin and the power of Satan are all around us. And it often is confusing.
Why is that addiction consuming my neighbor?
Why can I just not seem to reconcile this relationship?
Why did I get fired after working for this company for 20 years?
This world can get real depressing real quick if you don’t have hope of anything better! Apart from Jesus Christ, you don’t have any better hope. You’re relying on worldly measures to interpret the futility of the world’s ways.
This is why it is important to know that we have great confidence in truth. In a world of confusing lies, we can always stay grounded in the truth.
V.20 says that we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding. We can have understanding in this confusing world.
Notice that the word “true” appears 3 times in v.20. We’ll have understanding so that we may
Know him who is true;
We are in him who is true;
God is the true God and eternal life.
You can know God. This is certainly knowledge but is not limited to that. You can abide with him: we are in him who is true. And we can know that in a world of many gods, there is only One true God and one way to eternal life.
The title of this series of sermons in 1 John is “Truth and Lies.” I have tried to pull out this major theme from the letter, and John gives a strong reminder of the theme in his closing words.
He reminds us that there is Absolute Truth in a world of lies. And this truth is not abstract principles that you can only hope to grasp. Truth was embodied in a person, Jesus Christ, and you can know Him.
GOSPEL INVITATION.
Now, let’s end with John’s final words of the letter. At first, v.21 might seem like a short, strange way to end the letter. It’s almost like a bad movie ending that leaves you wanting for so much more. That’s it??!!
Like John says, oh- one more thing—keep yourselves from idols.
I can imagine the readers just saying wait—you can’t just leave it like that. Explain it some more. Where’s the other page?
But John has been explaining just this:
you believe in the One True God;
you have born of the One True God;
you know the One True God;
you are in the One True God.
But as you live in this world of lies under the power of Satan, don’t you forget who’s you are.
Keep yourselves from idols. From those things that are going to try to take the place of God in your life. Will you let a man-made thing or ideology take the place of the One True God in your life?
Listen to (ESV)
18 To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?
19 An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and casts for it silver chains.
20 He who is too impoverished for an offering
chooses wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
to set up an idol that will not move.
21 Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23 who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25 To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
Read together:
(ESV)
23 Sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Tell of his salvation from day to day.
24 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
25 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and he is to be feared above all gods.
26 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
27 Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and joy are in his place.
What lies have you believed? Are you allowing something to replace God’s position in your life?
We can have confidence in righteousness— Jesus gives righteousness and God will forgive us. And we can have confidence in truth. We serve the One True God in a world of lies.