1 John 5 - Part 5

Well, we are in 1 John chapter 5 still. So if you want to turn to 1 John 5, we have covered down to verse 13. And today I would like to reread 13 and part of 11. No, 10, excuse me, and up to 16, and then we will dive in. So 1 John 5, part of 11 here, and this is that testimony. God no excuse me 10 whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony within him I wanted to highlight that and now 13 to 16 I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life and this is the confidence that we have before him if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask.

We know that we already possess what we have asked of him. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he should ask God who will give life to those who commit this kind of sin. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying he should ask regarding that sin. so we've established throughout first john that john is writing to believers and one of john's primary purposes in writing to the believers was leading up to this verse in chapter 5 verse 13 that we may know that we have eternal life i i could go back and listen to recordings, but I think all the other teachers of 1 John kept propping this verse up as well as kind of John's ultimate goal, to give believers the assurance that they have eternal life.

And chapter 5 did not fall short of that at all. It reminded us of the testimony of God and then that testimony that is even within us. The idea that while you are, while you objectively believe that God has done in Christ for you what you need. You believe that outside of you this event occurred, and it's true, and it is independent of how you feel. It's also true that the way that you experience that is very real to you, and it is within you, and it's something that you can discern for yourself as well.

And one of the ways that God has given us that we can start to enjoy this experience of knowing him and being united to Christ by his spirit is through your prayer life. And so we have a couple of very interesting things that come out here. It almost seems like Don's changing topics again. John does this where he will take you to what seems like a new topic, but if you investigate it, you'll see that it really just flows from what he's already said.

So he tells you he's written these things. to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you know you have eternal life. And then he adds, and this is the confidence or this is the boldness that we have before him. And John says, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And then in case we weren't sure what he meant by he hears us, John specifies that he's saying if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we already possess what we have asked of him.

Most people who believe in any God at all will agree that God hears everything. So God's omniscient. There isn't a prayer that's been uttered in the history of the world that God didn't know about. He's heard it in the sense that God knows it existed. When John says he hears us, he clarifies that what he's talking about is that God's actually answering the prayers of his people.

God is actually providing for what his people are asking for. So when Jesus said something like ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened unto you, he meant it. So if you turn to John 14, I want to review prayer today. I want to review the seriousness of your prayer. if it is true that when you as a believer can confidently go to god and ask for things and have a sense that you know he's going to hear you meaning he's no you know he's going to provide the things you're asking then i think we need to be careful that we ask for the right things but let's just clarify this statement here in verse 14 of john 14 Jesus says if you ask me for anything in my name I will do it in John 15 verse 16 Jesus says you did not choose me but I chose you and I appointed you to go and bear fruit fruit that will remain so that whatever you ask the father in my name he will give you and then in chapter 16 of John Jesus essentially repeats himself again verse 23 Jesus says in that day after he leaves and gives the spirit he says you will no longer ask me anything truly truly I tell you whatever you ask the father in my name he will give you I think we can see how these verses could be abused There are cults out there that believe that basically whatever they say it going to happen They speak it into existence.

And they'll use verses like this as supporting texts. So what's the key to what we saw in 1 John 5? and even in these verses what's the key to when we ask god for something in prayer that we can really expect it he hears us that we already possess it what is the distinction that john makes in both these books it's not a trick question so say it louder and when we pray according to his will right and so it said that in first john five that whatever we ask in his name is another way of saying according to god's will it doesn't mean tacking in jesus's name i pray at the end of your prayer although we i do believe that there's biblical warrant for saying that when you pray but it's about who you're praying to god through you're praying through the one mediator jesus Christ, your only high priest. So a couple notes on prayer so that we can work our way to what I think is some good application of how we ought to pray.

Turn to Romans 8. If you don't have Romans 8 memorized, I'm going to suggest that you make it something that you work toward, even if you just memorize parts of it or you just reread it a lot. Romans 8 may be the chapter that has the most easy to go back to points in it to help you in your Christian life to understand the rest of the Bible. In Romans 8, the first point I wanted to make was that we have whatever we ask of him.

That's what 1 John 5 told us. The next thing I want to point out is that according to God, you don't even know how to pray. So before you get to 1 John 5 and it says you have confidence and boldness that whatever you ask of him, he hears you. And if you know he hears you, that you already possess whatever you've asked of him. Before you have that confidence, you need to acknowledge the truth that you don't even know how to pray.

And when I say you, I mean you and me. Verse 26 of Romans 8. Somebody like to read that loud and clear. Verse 26. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with rooms that cannot be, that words cannot express.

Yeah, so when we're praying, which God wants us to do, the fact that you don't know how you ought to pray is not an excuse not to. But when you're praying, part of your confident hope is that the spirit is the one who's groaning with groans too deep for words. And he is the one who can go to God and he can pray according to God's will. Look at verse 27.

And he who searches our hearts, God knows the mind of the spirit that's within you, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. The idea being this, when you go to God and you're asking for something earnestly, you're asking so you can receive, you're seeking so you might find, you're knocking so the door will be opened unto you, and you think, I need to pray according to God's will. So you're trying to ask for things that you know make sense at least, but we don't always know what the right answer is. you can trust that the whole time you're praying that the spirit of God who actually knows the will of God perfectly is able to intercede on your behalf and pray the prayers that are perfectly necessary so that your desires will be met the way God sees them to be met so for example I saw a really good Spurgeon quote I'm not going to read the whole thing but if it was up to us like no one would ever die because we'd always pray for our loved one to feel better and to not get sick and things like that.

And because God knows better, while we're praying for somebody else's healing, the Spirit is able to intercede on our behalf and actually ask God for the perfect thing that God knows is right for that person and the whole church. So we don't know how to pray. So we acknowledge that with humility and we have whatever we ask of him. That's what 1 John 5 said.

And I don't have a proof text for this. We could certainly come up with one, but the third thing I want you to think about when praying is that he has king level power. God has king level power. He's the creator of the universe. He's the sovereign one over everything. He could do anything.

And so when you go to him, you can confidently pray for things that are bigger than you think are possible. Listen to this poem. This is something that I saw from John Piper. Thou art coming to a king, large petitions with thee bring. For his grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much. So thou art coming to a king, large petitions with thee bring.

For his grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much. Spurgeon said, our cup is small and we blame the fountain. So sometimes when we pray, we can become the kind of people who, recognizing the fact that we're weak, that we don't know how we ought to pray. We read Romans 8. We don't know how we ought to pray as we ought. And we think, oh, maybe I'm afraid to pray at all.

Maybe I'm afraid to ask for things because, well, what if it's not God's will that this person get better or whatever it is that you're concerned about. Well God doesn want you to actually worry about those kinds of things unless he already made it clear It not as well That a different problem So ask God for big things It honors him It honors his power and his goodness when we ask him for big things. We're also children of a father. if you are a father if you're a mother in this room you know that your child could come and ask you for anything especially when they're real little and especially if you're a grandparent the grandkids can ask you for probably even more than when you were a parent right so there's a sense that when we come to our father we want to recognize that he's not just some deity that's out there, impersonally separate from us.

He's transcendent and he's awesome. And he is different. But he's also our father. And he's adopted us as sons and daughters. Spurgeon, this is Spurgeon week. Spurgeon says, a sigh, a sob is the most you can get out sometimes when you pray.

He says, but a mother would sooner hear her own child sob than another child sing. There's music about that dear child's voice that moves her heart and touches her spirit. And he says, and so the inward moanings of a broken heart are music in the ears of infinite Jehovah. And he accepted the sincere prayers of his people. Let them be as broken as they may.

So Jesus tells us in the model for our prayer to begin with our father who art in heaven. And when he says our father, according to our catechism, Baptist catechism, question 107. The preface of the Lord's Prayer, which is our Father which art in heaven, teacheth us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence as children to a Father, able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others.

So when you come to God and you have that hopefully humble sense that you don't even know what to ask for. Sometimes you can't even get the words out. A lot of times when we go to God in prayer, we're hurting. There's something we don't even know how to describe the pain we're feeling. We don't know how to describe what we want to have happen because the thing that's going on is so difficult to even think about.

We're just asking for help. And while you in humility know that you might not be praying right, God's listening to you. This is the confidence that he gives. He doesn't say your prayers are answered because they're eloquent. He doesn't say your prayers are answered because you use the right words. And he gives us the father, child, mother, child relationships to help us to know that as much as you care for the weakness of your children, and you accommodate their weakness when they make their request, God is infinitely more compassionate, loving to his children than we can be.

What does he say? If we who are evil know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? So come to God with the humility knowing you don't even know how to pray and you need the Spirit's assistance. Come to him knowing that we're going to get the things that we ask of him when they're according to his will, that he has king-level power.

He's going to do more than you could imagine and that you come as a child. And then and then finally, one more thing I wanted you to think about was your prayer posture. Your prayer posture, Spurgeon said, as suppliants must we come joyful, he says, but not presumptuous, familiar as children before a father. He says, yet reverential as creatures before their maker.

So we just talk about you're a child. Come to God as a child. But there's also a respect for God as your maker. And so this is where I have found in my own personal Christian life and in my observation of other Christians life. This is where this is where we mostly lose. We are extremists.

We're either really good at coming to God as this this transcendent being that's that's altogether holy and separate. and we owe him all this reverence, or we're really good at coming to him as the father that we could get close to and personal with. But actually trying to live in the balance of both is where I think we find a lot of difficulty. At least I do.

But Spurgeon says this, and this is convicting. He says, posture is not everything, yet it is something. Prayer is heard when knees cannot bend. but it is seemly that an adoring heart should show its awe by prostrating the body and bending the knee and so for those of us who maybe don't get on our knees to pray often enough or you don't bow your head or whatever the different things you can do that maybe could show god some adoration sometimes we avoid these things because they're they're formalistic at times and we can we can think that we're earning favor with god by praying on our knees there's people who've done that At the same time, it doesn't mean we should avoid different postures.

So any thoughts so far on on praying, praying according to God's will? Gary. Yeah, I just think this is such an important subject. I appreciate it because no matter who we are, new Christians, Mormon, Christian, there is still so much we need to learn in gaining that confidence and understanding his will. Amen. And it takes me back to Romans 12, verse 2.

It says, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your life. Then you will be able to test and prove what God so is, His good pleasing and perfect will And I have to admit I have known the Lord for over four decades and just in this last decade I probably gained more confidence in understanding His will than I did in the first three It's still so important to me. That's wonderful.

That's good. And that's the humility we need to have as we continue to approach Him, right? It's knowing that we want to continue to grow in that way. I just agree with what you've been saying so much that he wants us to have that confidence he wants us to know his will he is truly like a loving caring father amen he's the ultimate loving caring father Charlie do you have something I was just going to say you mentioned God being all powerful it's in the psalm the psalm talks about open my mouth wide and I will fill it So we should come with an expectation that we're going to the mighty God.

Too often we don't do that, but we need to do that. We need to come to the expectation that God, you know, God's the mighty God. It says in the New Testament, but it doesn't go along with all we ask or think. So too often we don't come that way. We need to come that way, but we need to encourage it. Absolutely.

Amen. So turn to Mark 14. Let's look at a little bit of Jesus as our model prayer. Paul certainly prayed good prayers. Men of history, our own pastors. We can learn from everyone around us who prays as well.

But Jesus, of course, would have always done everything perfectly. So it's always good to keep an eye on how Jesus prayed. mark chapter 14 verse 36 i will tell you 35 jesus says going a little or john writes excuse me mark writes about jesus probably hearing it from peter but going a little farther he fell to the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour would pass from him. Jesus says, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.

Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. So there is a model, even in the Lord Jesus Christ here, of thy will be done, not mine. And so when we come to God, I want you to come to God with the humility to know that you don't know all the answers. I want you to come with the confidence to know that he is an all-powerful king who can do anything that's according to his will.

And the confidence that you're his child and he cares and he wants to. He actually, like, this is the stunning conclusion. He's actually implanting in you the desire so that you will go to him and pray for the things that he already planned to do so that you can enjoy the fruit of answered prayer. So that's the end goal of all this. That's how the Christian will grow.

That's what Gary's been experiencing for 10 years in a more full fashion than you did the previous 30. Right. That's the point of Gary's comment is he's growing. He's seeing more answered prayers. His will has been conformed to the will of God. So now his desires that he prays for are just more naturally the things that God is sovereignly predestined to occur.

But on your way to that, it's always God, your will, not mine, be done. We don't know for sure what God's will is going to be in the events of this world. So we pray his will be done after Jesus. And then turn to Hebrews 5.7. in Hebrews 5 7 the writer of Hebrews is carrying on the teaching that Jesus is better than everything so he's better than angels, he's better than all of the Levitical priests, he's better than Moses Jesus is better than the entire old covenant.

He's better than all the sacrifices. This is the whole Hebrews is just Jesus is better. Just if you read Hebrews and you just think Jesus is better than and then you'll kind of see the whole pattern. In Hebrews 5, 7, when it's highlighting Jesus being this perfect high priest that we needed. He writes, during the days of Jesus's earthly life, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death.

And then using similar language to 1 John 5, he says, and he was heard because of his reverence. It's a really interesting verse. Because when I first read it, my thought is, well, he wasn't saved from death. He died. That was my first thought. But he was delivered from death, wasn't he?

This prayer of Jesus to be delivered from death, which could be referring to the prayer we just read in Mark 14. Right. This prayer of Jesus was answered, of course. God delivered him from the power of death, didn't he? He was raised from the grave and death holds no sting anymore. and yet it even says that jesus so if you imagine for a moment the the son of god become man who had no sin he didn't have to go to god and spend a few minutes in confession before he started asking for things in prayer you get that like he didn't have to do that like we do like we feel like we need that cleansing before we can start asking jesus didn't have to do that and he had loud cries and tears.

So again, you don't have to kneel when you pray. You don't have to close your eyes. There's a Free us from distraction, which is important. But if you never find yourself really crying out to God, if you never find yourself actually weeping while begging him for something, you are not praying like Jesus. There was one. Spurgeon just says everything better.

He has this whole section in this book on prayer. It was so. Oh, of course, I'm not going to find this one. Well, he said some things that we ask God for. Oh, some mercies are not given to us except in answer to importunate prayer. He says there are blessings which, like a ripe fruit, drop into your hand the moment you touch the bow. but there are others which require you to shake the tree again and again until you make it rock with the vehemence of your exercise, for then only will the fruit fall down.

So Jesus says he thinks men ought to always pray and not grow weary. And there is a sense that sometimes we pray and it's answered quick. Sometimes we pray and it's not given right away, and that's not a sign that you're to stop praying. You need to keep asking if that's what's on your heart. I want to share a personal anecdote. Last Saturday, I went to the Ohio State University before they played Rutgers, I think it was, at home.

And when we got there, we got there a little later than normal. We went to our normal spot where we would be. And there was a man there who was selling T-shirts that had filthy words on it. and and so we went to our spot which was very close to him so everybody who would have who would have walked by us would have also had to walk by this guy and children and women and would have had to see these dirty words that i don't want to see either and and we were praying before our our evangelism and i prayed i said god if it's your will would you cause this guy to not want to stay here anymore.

I said, I don't want people to have to see that at all. And about five minutes after we started preaching, he left. And you know, it was one of those things where I could look back and know, well, that was God's will. And he actually, he put that on my heart to pray this prayer. And I felt that direct access to God in that moment. And we were very grateful that the people who were walking by us were able to hear gospel preaching instead of seeing dirty words on T-shirts.

So Jesus prayed with loud cries and tears. And I think sometimes one more thing to think about when praying is try not to be too distracted. And by try not to be too distracted, I mean try not to be distracted. OK, so again, I'm not up here like the guy that's got prayer figured out and I've checked everybody's like these are the problems I know I have.

But I can I could be in the middle of prayer and suddenly just start thinking about something else. I could be in the middle of prayer and I can hear my phone ding or a noise in the house. And I can be easily distracted from this essentially conversation I'm having with God. And I just want you to think about it, that if you were speaking to your spouse, you wouldn't just stop and go do something else.

It's just not how we show respect for, well, Nance might, I guess, based on his face. But, you know, we all are easily distracted at different times in life, I'm sure. And I think actually it bubbles over into your prayer life. Right. So if you're an easily distracted person on a regular basis, you're going to be more easily distracted during the sermon.

If you let yourself get distracted all week, you're not going to control it for 40 minutes. If you're easily distracted, you're going to you're going to walk away from your prayer. So if the spirit within you I want you to be able to think to yourself that that spirit will help you to stay focused on your prayer to stay focused on that time with God You have hope today because your high priest prayers were heard.

So because Jesus was heard by God, and it's evidenced by his resurrection, because Jesus prayed in such a way that God heard him, and Jesus is the one interceding for you, you have hope that your prayers are being heard. That's what 1 John 5, 13-16 is telling us. So, by way of application, and again, I can share my notes with you if anybody wants these.

If you want to write them down, you can. But so the first point, we should be careful what we pray for. To ask for something that God has forbid is evil. So you don't pray for evil things, right? If God said, you know, there's certain things that shouldn't occur in this world because it's sin, you don't pray for that to occur. and one of the reasons why it's important is that we don't pray for things because we're praying with the expectation that god's going to carry it out that's our hope that's our confidence that he hears us and he's going to do it so we don't pray for something that's objectively evil secondly don't pray for something that god has already sovereignly demonstrated that he will not do.

I'd argue that that's irrational at best, but at worst, I think it's problematic. And so a good example is a historic event. So if something's already happened, don't pray that it is different than what it was, for example, right? So like, you know, David's son died. David petitioned God and fasted and prayed for, who knows, maybe days. And his son dies, and he gets up, and he washes his face, and he moves on.

And they're like, why are you doing this? If you don't remember, this is in 2 Samuel 12. And David's like, he's not celebrating that his son is dead. He says, I can't do anything at this point. It's done. Where a tree falls, there it lies.

My son's dead. He's not coming back to me. I'll go to him. He's not coming back. And so there's a sense that you you need to try to make sure you're praying prayers that are doable by God in the sense that he hasn't already demonstrated he's not going to do it. And this leads into what we're going to talk about next week, which is not to pray for someone who has committed the sin that leads to death.

And so in First John 5, 14 to 16, 14 to 17, you have commands to pray and you have a command of something not to pray for. So you have seven days to go figure out what that is and to read all you want about it. You really only have six and a half because everybody's going to watch the Buckeyes game next week. But then you're still going to get up on time for Sunday school the next morning, even if it's a late game.

So don't pray for past events. Don't pray for anyone that's committed the sin that leads to death, which we'll talk about next week. You guys can study it all week, argue about it, whatever you think. But next week we'll have the answer. So be careful what you pray for. Be ambitious in your prayers.

We've already covered it. It's the summary. To ask too little of God is to esteem his power as nothing. So when you go to God and you esteem his power as low because you don't ask enough of him, you dishonor him. oftentimes when we ask too little of God, it's a result of a lack of faith. We don't really believe God's going to do some of the stuff he's even said he's going to do.

He said he's going to save people from all nations. Right. Do you pray for that? Do you give up praying for people sometimes? Because you think, well, evidently he's not gonna. Evidently, he's not going to save this guy because it's been decades.

Right. I'm tired of praying for him. There was a guy at my old church, Mike Shadwick. I got tired of praying for him every Wednesday. I admit it. It was like this repeat prayer, you know.

I just thought, wow. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen by now, you started to think. And then maybe just to show me God saved him He probably in his 70s almost By the time he got saved it was decades that they had prayed for him every Wednesday at that church God saved his soul. But God did it slowly by our measurement of things. All right.

You should be general and specific. We may not know how something should happen, happen, but we often know it's a good prayer. So God save my brother, my co-worker, my friend, asking for people to be delivered from different sicknesses and diseases and the things that are going on. There's things that oftentimes we know are good prayers, but we need to be, I think, a little bit general sometimes and not too specific.

But when we're confessing, I think we should confess particularly. So our confession, chapter 15, says, as repentance is to be continued through the whole course of our lives, it's every man's duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly. So I think sometimes when we pray, we tend to be general in confession. Oh, Lord, forgive me for I'm a sinner. but we tend to be specific in supplication so we we we like to tell god how to do things that we want but we don't like to identify our own sins by name and i think that should be flip-flopped especially in private with god it's hard to confess to others but god who already knows your sins it should be natural to name them and then be submissive in your prayers we should acknowledge that we don't know what we ought to pray for and be willing to say not my will but thine be done and we should pray in small things too recognizing that no good thing happens apart from from god you're not you're you're not you can pray for big things but you're not going to get through the next minute without god's power you're not going to be able to righteously even have a kind conversation with somebody without God helping you.

So it's good to pray for all the small things. My big one is at work. I'll have problems at work and I'll be working feverishly to fix something. And my wife will say, well, did you pray about it? And I'll say, well, no, I'm too busy. I'm trying to solve it, you know, is my thought.

And the problem is that it's actually God who has the power even to help me in my small things. And I found wonderful answers to prayer when Aaron has reminded me to pray about a difficulty at work. And then I'll be able to pray. So any thoughts on prayer? Does anyone have a testimony maybe of a time you prayed and God answered it either slowly or quickly and how it confirmed your faith?

Jason? boldness, that God will give you good things. And so, I mean, that really impacted me because I always thought I had that humility to ask anything of Christ. And so once I started praying like that, you know, I started realizing we're created to glorify God. And all of creation is made to glorify Him. We're made in His image. He delights in revealing Himself.

When we read the Bible, the entire Bible is to reveal himself to us. And so when we pray, we can know that he delights in continuing to reveal himself to us. And I've heard so many times we hear saints here that are struggling or suffering. And when we hear about them suffering, we hear the peace of Christ is helping them and aiding them. Why? Because we have the same Father who's revealed himself in the Word, revealing himself to the body of Christ through the suffering saints.

And so I think we shouldn be distracted with the what ifs or the confusion that comes into our head We should boldly realize it continues to delight in revealing himself to us on a daily basis My grandmother would pray, the more we wrote it down, that someone would come and help him, fix it, or things like that, just small little things. I'm still amazed at how many times those little prayers would be answered. Amen.

If you were a poor beggar and somebody was coming by with bread and you said well hey why don't you give the bread to the other poor beggars instead of me that would be unselfish and that would be thoughtful when you're a poor beggar spiritually before god there's there's no lack in god so you can't exhaust his grace and goodness on you and then he doesn't have enough for others so there's almost the false humility in praying for others instead of yourself, right? And so we need to pray for all. And by praying for yourself, you're acknowledging your neediness and you're acknowledging God's abundance in a way that shows faith.

What else? Somebody else has a prayer that's been answered. You're thinking about it. Susan? When Michael was saved at an older age. Yeah.

Amen. Amen. I'm guessing you didn't start praying for him at 23 or 24. So that was a long time you waited to see Micah born again. Do not grow weary. Alicia?

Yeah? I had my head injured and had the little cup from the coma. I had to, we learned basically how to do everything. And because my head was so injured and when I was in the coma, And God said, no, now is not the time. And I didn't really know my Bible a lot. So, and then, because Gary and I would be years later and we fell in love and got married and then later on, after a few years, we had our daughter back. who is now married and is blessed us with being grandparents now.

And I just, God has a plan because He told me in His own words, And no, that was not the time. Which meant, which, well I was back, way back, I was back at that now, and it meant he had plans. Which meant it wasn't time for me to die then. And, and then, okay, now we're back to the present day, Amen. Amen. That's a wonderful testimony.

We will ask God for the things that make sense to us, and God will always answer perfectly with what is best for his children. And we can be hopeful about that no matter what, and yet he still wants us to ask what's on our heart. So let's go to him in prayer now. Father, we thank you that your word is always perfect and it's able to discern the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

So I pray for myself and everybody else in this room that you would use your word to help us to grow in our prayer lives, that we all may have that confident boldness that comes from knowing we are children of God. And it's in Christ's name I pray. Amen.