1John 5:14-21 - “Know Means Yes”

Thomas Jefferson was the driving force behind establishing the University of Virginia.  He wrote this: 

[T]his last establishment [a state university] will probably be within a mile of Charlottesville, and four from Monticello, if the system should be adopted at all by our legislature who meet within a week from this time. My hopes however are kept in check by the ordinary character of our state legislatures, the members of which do not generally possess information enough to perceive the important truths, that knowledge is power, that knowledge is safety, and that knowledge is happiness.

Knowledge is power.  Attributed to Francis Bacon.  Greeks have two words for knowledge.  One is experiential, day-to-day - usually of a person.  The other expresses absolute, immediate knowledge of some truth, the fact about something, knowledge which you gain in the past and which has ongoing results in the present.  Of the latter, Jesus said, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  Knowledge is power.  The power to be free.  Confident.  Assured.  The power to do something, it unlocks the yes - yes, you can do something.  Often it is what you know.  Sometimes it is WHO you know.  John uses this word know more frequently than any other NT writer.  And he closes out this writing with a flurry of knows:

1John 5:13   These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 AND this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.  

16   If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.

18  We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know 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, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.  21  Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

A few Know’s to close out this letter, and Know means YES!

We know that we have eternal life, John says.  Eternal life = Knowing the One True God, and Jesus Christ Whom He sent. (John 17.3)

So here we have, Know God means YES, eternal life.  We have it.  100%.  We die tonite, we are going to heaven!

Know God AND what He wants

• So that we may know Him.  Verse 20 - so that we may know Him.  It is a relationship, a personal relationship.  It’s not that I know Who He is - I know Him!  Even the evil one knows WHO He is.  But I KNOW Him.  He knows my name!  And He calls me his own!  So I can relate to Him, and talk to Him, anytime I want.  And for our Father, the more the better!  We can talk to Him.  We can ask Him for things!  And John here gives us the secret to answered prayer…
• So he says, if we ask anything according to what God wants, we get a yes answer.  Know means yes.  Know what He wants, and ask, and you get yes.  But the key is knowing what He wants.  It is that Greek word thelema, which is usually translated “will” when applied to God but it is the word for desire.  Wants.  Knowing God's thelema, what He wants.  So for us it’s about not about pursuing facts about the Lord, nor pursuing His gifts or what He can do for me, but pursuing His heart… I’m always glad to give good gifts to my kids, but it means so much more when they come to me not for what they can get from me but simply to be with me, to enjoy me.  You know, when we’re little, “Daddy’s home!” can elicit a pretty awesome response.  But then we grow up and we find other things to occupy our time and our thoughts.  We maybe begin to take dad for granted a little.  Oh, that’s just dad.  The luster wears off.  The shine is gone - except maybe on his receding hairline… :)  Surely the opposite should take place in our relationship with our heavenly Father.  Pursuing His heart and being increasingly thrilled with Him, thrilled with the idea of spending time with Him, filled with longing for His courts and being occupied with what He wants.  Obsessed.  Increasingly so.  Living into the reality that He is better.  Simply better.  So much better.  There’s no better place for us to be than to be smack dab in the middle of what He wants.  And it starts with knowing what He wants.
• Jesus in the garden.  He said, Father, not what I want, but what You want.  Prayer is often the means by which we discover more fully just what God does want.  Prayer in its very essence is a seeking and a searching out and a communion with the Almighty.  With our God and Maker and Savior.  We can definitely learn what He wants by spending time with Him.  Studying His Word.  Time in prayer.  Spending time with others who know Him.  The operative word here is time.  There are no shortcuts to knowing a person’s heart, including the heart of God.
• Actually there maybe could be one short cut:

Colossians 1:9   For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 

• Knowing what God wants, that impacts our prayer life, doesn't it?  Confidence, boldness - we know what to ask!
• Certainty in our relationship with God also breeds boldness.  Remember?  Confidence/boldness in judgment (like the happy dog!).  Confidence in His presence.  But this is not merely confidence THAT we have a relationship with God.  It is confidence and boldness IN that relationship - it's secure, on good footing.  Confidence to boldly approach His throne of grace.  Boldness is for speaking - that word means to utter beside.  I sidle right up to my heavenly Dad knowing that I have His ear and that He wants me to come to Him with my needs and requests and even my wants.  Think about it - what is going to happen when one of my kids who I adore crawls up into my lap and asks me for the very thing I want for them?

Ephesians 5:17 …do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

• What John is referring to here is that flowing together of what I want with what God wants.  And knowing what He wants allows us to ask accordingly.  When we ask Him for something which we know He wants, we can be sure that He both hears us and gives us what we’ve asked from Him. That's what John is saying in vv 14-15.
• I do think what John is emphasizing here, particularly on the heels of v 13, is the certainty of relationship.  Having a relationship with God through Christ, being connected to Him - this opens up the possibility for conversation as well as for answered prayer.  In the Greek verse 13 and 14 are connected by the word, and.  The two thoughts are connected, they go hand in hand.  Know Me, including My heart/what I want, AND ask.  Know you have eternal life AND whatever you ask.  It's prayer which is limitless in its invitation.  Whatever you ask.  Ask Me anything.  Ask and you will receive.  Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door will be opened.  You do not have because you do not ask.  A limitless invitation - because you know Him (and hopefully are getting to know what He wants).
• Speaking of a limitless invitation - there's a standing invitation to join the church family for Sunday morning prayer.  Midweek evening prayer.  And the prayer room…
• So we have, Know means yes.  Know (and asking for) what He wants means YES, answer to prayer.

•Know who we are

• Born of Him, John says.  Children of God.  Born of Him.  Born unto life eternal.  We are His children.  We are in.  We are in Him, in Him Who is True, in His Son Jesus Christ.  This is eternal life.  We know that we have it - assurance, confidence, boldness even.
• In this sense, Know(ing) that we are His child means, YES, we can approach Him. Know means yes. We are a child of the King, and He loves us.  It is not like kings of old, where you had to tiptoe around and watch your every facial expression and even if you were the queen you had to wait to be summoned.  That was, no, no, no.  We can go straight up to Him, straight up to His throne of grace.  He is Abba Father.  Daddy. Yes, yes, yes.
• Saints.  Because we are born of Him, we are also saints, not sinners.  No one born of God, no child of His sins.  God does not make sinners - He makes saints.  Holy ones.  Ones like Jesus, always doing the things which are pleasing to the Father.  Because of Jesus, when we put our faith in Him, we are declared righteous.  Know God means YES, we are righteous.  Yes, in His eyes we’ve done everything right.  Sins are gone as far as the east is from the west.  Yes, we are completely forgiven.  And yes, we are free from the guilt of sin and the power of sin and we are free to live as completely new creations.  Yes, I can rest in Jesus.  Know Him, and YES rest.
• The verb for sin here is present tense, it refers to an ongoing action, to go on sinning.  Yes, we mess up, but God’s true children do not go on sinning, continuing in it, wallowing in it.  Yes, we do struggle with it, but we struggle and strive against it.

-”If any should see his brother sinning sin not toward death, he will ask and He will give to him life, to the [ones] sinning not toward death.  There is sin toward death.  Not about that one I am saying in order that he should ask.”

• Who is the brother referred to here?  
• A saved believer possessing forgiveness and eternal life?
• A member of our assembly who has not yet fully trusted in Christ?
• A "brotherhood-of-man"/unbelieving neighbor?
• What is the sin unto death? The mortal sin?  The unpardonable sin?
• Lying to the Spirit (a la Ananias and Sapphira) - physical death
• Resisting the Holy Spirit - eternal death
• What is the life God will give here?
• experiential assurance of life and forgiveness for the believer
• Eternal life to the unbeliever

-Not surprisingly, there are many suggestions as to what might be this “sin-toward-death”.  So-called mortal sin.  There is even an ancient (albeit non-Scriptural) list of seven of them - the “seven deadly sins”: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth.  All of these happen to be forgivable, and none would appear to result in direct loss of life (note - forgivable by no means implies permissible).  Some suggest John has in mind sin against the Holy Spirit (i.e. the unpardonable sin referred to in Mk 3.29, Mt 12.31-32)(this sin is typically assigned to and reserved for unbelievers, who are resisting the convicting activity of God’s Spirit in the soul, and who ultimately in rejecting the truth about God will keep Him and His gift of eternal life thru Jesus at arm’s distance all the way to the grave and into eternity - the one thing which God can’t forgive)(adopting this view would then require one to make the “brother” mentioned here to be an unbeliever - which is not at all how John uses the term in the rest of the letter).  Or perhaps it is some great and enormous sin (such as murder or idolatry), a sin which which was punishable by death in the law of Moses.  Possibly some spiritual sin which brought about the untimely death of the offender (as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira in Act 5.1-10 and the abuse of the Lord’s Supper in 1Cor 11.30), or perhaps some capital crime committed against the state for which there was no hope of pardon.

-Here’s truth - ALL sin leads toward eternal death - if unforgiven (Rom 6.23).  John here refers to “sin not toward death”, so he can’t be talking about eternal death.

-Let’s revisit this question - if the sin in mind is NOT toward death, why would the offender need prayer for life?  Seems like the one sinning toward death is the one who stands in need of life, and of prayer toward that end.  And why would John say we don’t need to pray for that someone?  For anyone?

-One easy way out is to allow that John actually IS referring to a brotherhood-of-man brother, one who doesn’t have spiritual life, one who still has the possibility of being forgiven and receiving eternal life.  Such a "brother", one who ostensibly is not sinning (blaspheming/resisting) against the Holy Spirit, is someone for whom we can indeed intercede.  We can pray for them and ask God to open their hearts to repent and believe in Jesus so that they can indeed be forgiven and receive eternal life.  The language vis a vis praying here is future indicative, by the way.  Future fact.  Bankable promise from God.  John says “he WILL ask” and “He WILL give” life.  Now the text does not say “God will give”, but of course we understand that only God can give life.  And so there is potentially a strengthened admonition here to pray for unbelievers, tied to an amazing promise.  Problem is, it requires a different use of brother.  And it requires us to say that all of this sin short of Holy Spirit blasphemy is not unto death, which it technically is.

-One thing we do have here is an immediate application of the truth about asking, that God hears us when we ask according to what He wants.  And He clearly wants us to be praying for people who are struggling with sin and disobedience and unbelief.

-What we may have here is the corporate side of 1Jn 1.9.  There John tells the reader that “if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”.  He uses the same phrase here in v. 17.  “All unrighteousness is sin”.  We understand that a believing brother doesn’t technically NEED to be forgiven or cleansed per se (not in a legal/positional sense before God at least).  Nor does he NEED life (eternal), inasmuch as the believer already has it.  So what John could be talking about here is an experiential assurance of life and forgiveness for a truly saved brother.  And the sin towards a physical death would be some egregious lying to the Holy Spirit (a la Ananias and Sapphira).  OR, we could be looking at the playing out of a process of entering into eternal life for someone who is associating themselves with the family of God.  They are aligning themselves with God’s children - but the process of salvation is playing out in their life.  They are in our assembly, and are showing signs of following Jesus, which means we love them and lay our life down for them, but there is this possibility that their as-yet-not-fully-formed faith could fizzle before the finish (which could be true for any one of us - Hebrews 3.12 warns us to be careful that we don’t find ourselves with what is an unbelieving heart).  In which case it would have been faulty from the first.  But so we can be praying for "members" of our assembly, knowing that just because they assemble with us that they may not have truly trusted in Christ yet, knowing that all unrighteousness is sin and that all of it can be forgiven (unless what they are doing ultimately is resisting the Holy Spirit, i.e. sin unto death)(and note that John doesn’t say NOT to pray for those).  We can pray for this person with the utmost confidence that God wants them to repent and enter in to eternal life.  In this latter instance, we put “brother” in quotes.  In the case of the former, we put “give life” in quotes, since a truly saved brother while he may struggle with sin for a season already has life and forgiveness - he just needs to experience that reality in a deeper way.  So which do you think it is - experiential assurance of life and forgiveness for a truly saved brother, or actual repentance for an unsaved attender of our assembly?

We know Whose we are

• The wonderful promise attached to the truth of the divine birth is that of divine protection.  We are born of God, and bought with the price of the priceless blood of His Son.  We belong to Him.  We are His.  We are His precious possession.  And so He keeps us.  He guards us.  We are His.
• And the evil one can’t touch this… Not ever.  He is called the prince of the power of the air.  The commander of the powers of the unseen world.  The ruler of this world.  The whole world lies in his power and is walking in his path - but he can’t touch us.  Even tho we are living in this world, he can’t touch us.  Nope.  He can’t hit, he can’t hit, suh-wing batter.  He can try to tempt and deceive and discourage us, but he can’t touch us.  Truth be told he would probably like to kill us.  He comes to do what?  Steal, kill and destroy.  But he can’t touch us.
• In Christ we are uber-victorious!
• We are of God vs the whole world lying down in the evil one
• Know God, and YES, we have victory!  Victory over the world, victory over the evil one.  There is no power which can ever separate us from the love of Christ.  God is for us - who can be against us?!?  No one.  Nobody.

We know Whose we are.  We know who we are.  And...

WE know Him Whose we are

• Again, this is not about dry, detached knowledge.  This is about intimate friendship - and identity.

We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding in order that we may be knowing the (One Who is) True.  This is a great prayer - Lord, give them understanding so that they may be knowing the True, knowing You, the one True God.

Know the True.  In order that we me be knowing the True.  The True God.

Hear O Israel.  People of God, listen to me.  The Lord, the Great I AM, He is God.  He alone is God.  The one God.  The one TRUE God.  He alone.  He is… The True.  Knowing Him means saying yes to the truth that He alone is God.  Know means yes.

Which ties to the very last thing John writes - guard yourselves from the idols.  In other words - from The False, from all those false gods, those pretenders.  Guard yourselves, keep yourselves away from them.  It is in the aorist tense.  You’d think it would be in the present tense - keep on guarding yourselves and keeping yourselves from idols.  But John uses the aorist here.  It is a dot action instead of a line.  Simple action.  Just do it.  As in once and for all.  Resolve to make nothing else ultimate, to give nothing else first place in your heart or life or affections.   Not a career.  Not a resume.  Not a house.  Not a team.  Not a car.  Not a show.  Not some destination.  Not a person - not my spouse (present or future), not a child, not a parent.  Not any created thing.  To what do we give our hearts, our time, our treasure?  We put God first.  Stiffarm the False and embrace the True.  We say yes to He Who is True and make Him the ultimate destination of our hearts.  Know the True.  Know means yes.

John calls us little children one last time.  For the SEVENTH time.  He obviously cares - a lot.  Our fatherly bestest big brother.  John just told us that Jesus is guarding us, keeping us from the evil one.  Why on earth then does John close by telling US to guard ourselves?  I thought Jesus was doing it.  The truth is, nothing can touch us from without.  While the entire world is lying down in the evil one, lying in His power, he has no power over us.  He can’t touch us.  He can’t touch this.  Can’t touch this.  No, John cares enough here in closing, to remind us that the battle, the struggle for us now as children of the True is on the INSIDE.  What are you and I putting/going to put in God’s place that is false?  Do you and I know Him Who is True?  Are we getting to know Him, knowing what He wants, how awesome He is?  Knowing how great His love and protection and power is for us, that we are His children and that nothing can ever separate us from Him?  Know means yes.  May the Lord give us the grace to say yes to Him, every day, throughout the day...