Tough Love, 13: Staying True

1 John 5:14-21

In a nutshell: “It might be true for you, but it doesn’t work for me.” That’s not true! There is truth in the world, and that truth is the truth of God. We must stay true to truth and not be led astray. Our love must be tough so that we do not wander into what is false.

Where we have been
In this series on 1 John we have unpacked a number of themes. We have seen that:

The church is affected by the culture of its city. John was writing to the church in Ephesus. This was a church with a great history. It had been founded by Paul, led by Timothy, and now instructed by John, but it wasn’t immune to the pressures of the wider culture. Living as a Christian in Ephesus was not always easy. We need to understand the culture of the place where we live, and learn to handle the pressures that brings us.

The apostolic emphasis is on certainty in uncertain times. The wider cultural and religious currents in Ephesus were causing the church to wobble. John wants them rock-like not jelly-like! John preaches certainty because of his certainty in Jesus. Jesus is fully God and fully man and in him we can have confidence. There are many currents (religious, economic, political, environmental, scientific) swirling around us that could cause uncertainty, but we must find our certainty in Jesus.

Sin is our fundamental problem. It is sin that keeps us from God. It is sin that keeps us from one another. Sin is our problem, but Jesus solves the sin problem. By his death in our place Jesus has turned aside the wrath of God and enabled us to know restored relationship with God and with one another.

Jesus Confronts, Comforts, and Commands. Jesus is our Prophet who gets in our faces and confronts the sin in our lives. Jesus is our Priest who tenderly draws alongside us and comforts us in our sorrows. Jesus is our King who expects our obedience and commands us how to live.

The way of Jesus is the way of love. It is because God is love that Jesus came to save us. As people who have been rescued by the love of God we need in turn to respond to this love by loving Jesus and loving one another. There is no real obedience without love, and no real love without obedience.

Our identity needs to be in Christ. Our sense of who we are needs to be primarily grounded in our relationship with Jesus. In him we are transformed people and none of the other markers of our identity (gender, career, age, race, marital status) carry as much significance as Christ’s mark upon us. What you do is not so important as what you are, and what you are is “in Christ.”

Stand firm in the truth. As people in Christ we have overcome the world. We need to stand firm in this truth, and not allow it to be taken away from us.

Live in the experienced reality of the Spirit. The way that we are able to stay in the truth is by an experience of the Holy Spirit’s power in us. The Spirit is God’s empowering presence who gives us assurance of our salvation and enables us to live in a way that is pleasing to Jesus.

Understand the benefits of salvation. As soon as we put our trust in Jesus we enter eternal life. In this life we experience relationship with God and with his church and for all eternity we will be with Jesus in a relationship of love. We have crossed a line from death into life.


Where we are up to
John wraps his letter up with some concluding remarks that summarize all that has gone before:

Praying in his will, vv14-15
As people who are sure of eternal life we can pray with great confidence. However, there is a condition on our prayers – God only answers those prayers which are in line with his will.

There are times when we pray and God does not appear to answer. Sometimes we pray for good things, which we think must surely be in the will of God, but God doesn’t appear to answer. John doesn’t give a full explanation as to why this is the case, but he makes it clear that he wants us to be confident in our prayers. He wants us to pray! And he immediately gives an example of something we are to pray for.

Praying against sin, vv16-17
John wants us to pray for people caught in sin.

But there is an issue with these verses! The issue is this: What does John mean by saying there are some sins that lead to death and others that don’t?

In 1 John ‘life’ and ‘death’ refer to spiritual life and spiritual death, so when John says there is a sin that leads to death he must be talking about a spiritual dying, rather than God striking someone dead. In the context of the letter it makes sense that who John has in mind here are the antichrists – that group of people who have a hardened rejection of Jesus and are deliberately teaching falsehoods about him.

There is a parallel here with Jesus’ teaching in Mark 3:22-30, when Jesus says that there is such a thing as an unforgivable sin. This is something that Christians sometimes worry about; but it shouldn’t be!

What Jesus (and John) is talking about is those people who in some way recognize the truth about him but deliberately reject him. The reason that this sin is unforgivable is because it reflects a hardness of heart that is so complete there is no possibility of that person being turned in forgiveness towards God.

By definition Christians cannot commit this sin!

John has given quite a lot of attention in his letter to the heretics who were seeking to undermine the faith of the church. Basically what he appears to be saying here is, Don’t waste your breath praying for them. There’s too much else important to pray for! So don’t get stressed by these false teachers – just ignore them.

Who, then, should we pray for? For those whose sin is not the same hardened stance against Christ as the antichrists. John says here that we are to pray for our “Brother” – the implication being that he is talking about other believers. When we see others falling into sin we are meant to pray for them to be restored to full relationship with the church and with Jesus.

I think there is also an application here to pray for those who are not “brothers” in the sense that they are believers, but are “brothers” in the broader sense that they are our fellow men. We are meant to pray for those who don’t know Jesus. We are meant to pray with confidence for those in sin because there is power in our prayers.

Knowing confidence, v18
Those who put their faith in Jesus have victory over sin. In this letter John has repeatedly emphasised the importance of purity. We are to respond to God’s forgiveness of us by living in a way that reflects him.

Christians are people who have been “born of God” and Jesus is “he who was born of God.” John writes this to remind us of our status in Christ. Because of what Jesus has done, we now share in all that Jesus has and is. This should give us great confidence and security. Jesus is watching over us, and we are overcomers.

We know that the power of sin over us has been broken.

Crossing the line, v19
John is very clear that there is a dividing line between God’s side and Satan’s side. When we come to faith in Jesus we cross the line. We change camps. This is one of the reasons why church membership is so important. When we come into membership of a local church we are in effect making a public stand about which side of the line we are on.

We know that we are God’s.

Living in Christ, v20
How is it that we get to get faith? By Jesus! He enables us to understand what he has accomplished for us. What is the result of this faith? Confidence in who we are in God. How does this happen? By being “in Christ”. What does this do? It shapes our identity so that we know that we are in him and in him have found the truth.

We know that Jesus is God, and has rescued us.

Staying true, v21
In following Christ we are kept from idols. Whether people realize it or not, everyone has a god – an idol – in their life. Only by following Jesus can we be rescued from this idolatry. God gave the people of Israel a command “You shall have no other gods before me.” [Exodus 20:3] It is by staying true to the teaching of Jesus that we are able to fulfil this command.

Summing it all up
The Ephesian church had a lot to be uncertain about, but John wanted them to be confident. This confidence is found in relationship with God – but how can we know that we have this relationship? We can sum it up like this:

Adventure: By crossing the line from unbelief into belief about Jesus; by experiencing the power of the Spirit; and by working out our faith in action we know we are in fellowship with God.
Purity: The working out of our faith leads to victory over sin and a righteousness that doesn’t justify us but is evidence of our justification. This life of purity is not introspective but bold and gives us confidence that we are in fellowship with God.
Compassion: Our love for Jesus, for other believers, and for his church is evidence that we are in fellowship with God.


Application Questions
• How are your confidence levels?
• Who are you praying for at the moment?
• In what ways do you need to more fully find your identity in Christ?
• How are you living a life of adventure?
• How are you living a life of purity?
• How are you displaying compassion?