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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
Would you please join me in standing
for the reading of God's word?
This is from one John chapter five, verses 13 through 21.
I write these things to you who believe in the name
of the Son of God that you may know
that you have eternal life.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him,
that 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 have the requests that we have asked of him.
If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading
to death, he shall ask
and God will give him life to those who commit sins
that do not lead to death.
There is sin that leads to death.
I do not say that one should pray for that
all wrongdoing is sin,
but there is sin that does not lead to death.
We know that everyone who has been born
of God does not keep on sinning,
but he who was born of God protects him.
And the evil one does not touch him.
We know that we are from God
and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
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.
He is the true God and eternal life.
Little children keep yourselves from idols.
This is the word of the Lord.
You can, uh, go ahead and grab your seat
If you haven't done so already.
Uh, a few years ago, uh, I was on my way from, uh,
home driving to the Apex campus, uh,
going down the highway when I heard a loud pop.
And my first thought was, yeah, probably should have got
that oil change that I've been putting
off past couple of weeks.
Um, I dunno about y'all,
but I if you're like me, you're like, I know my car.
Like the light comes on. You're like, yeah,
but I probably got another week or two.
Right? Some of y'all are driving around
with that light on right now.
Uh, what I thought was, is that okay,
I, I'm running low on oil.
I need to go and get an oil change.
But, uh, what I didn't
realize was, is that there was a leak.
And so the oil was leaving a lot faster than I thought.
And so here I am sitting on the side
of the highway on a cold Sunday morning, uh,
with a cracked engine block
and not knowing how I was gonna get around,
uh, for the foreseeable future.
Now, fast forward a couple of months,
I was still working in student ministry at the time
and our volunteers in middle school ministry over at the
Apex Campus, uh, they actually worked together
with another family that was in the church
who was trying to get rid of a car.
Uh, and basically they, they gifted me with a car.
It was a 2008 Toyota Corolla old faithful.
It was great, right? So I drove around in Old Faithful
for a while, and it wasn't until about a year
and a half, two years ago that I found out, uh,
the whose family donated the car.
I was standing in the lobby over at the Apex campus
and uh, this guy walks up to me, he's like, Hey, listen,
you probably don't know who I am, but
but my family, we were the ones that
that gave you that Corolla.
We just wanted to know how did it work out for you
past tense, okay?
I said, it's going great. It's present tense.
And he goes, you're still driving around in that car.
He goes, man, this was a commuter car that we had.
It was just supposed to get us back and forth.
He's like, I thought it lasts you a couple months.
I thought maybe you just squeeze a year out of it.
And at this point, it had been a couple years.
And I told him, I said, man, actually I have had zero
problems with that car.
And that was mostly true, okay?
When he gave me the car,
there was an NC Quick Pass sticker on the windshield.
You know what I'm talking about? Little things So you can
drive through the toll roads, right?
So he gives me the car at the time I'm living in Raleigh
near, back then it was the PNC arena.
Now it's the Lenovo Center.
I'm living over there and I was working part-time.
I was waiting tables at the Improv Comedy Club in Kerry.
Some of you might know what I'm talking about.
It's in that weird part of Kerry
that's like also kind of Morrisville.
It's where like, around where the Northwest Kerry
campus used to meet, right?
Um, and so it was like a 40 minute drive to get to work,
but it was like a 30 minute drive if I took the toll road.
So I said, all right, I'll take the toll road.
So I start going and after like a month,
I'm making this drive like three times a week.
So six times through this toll road.
And I go, man, I still haven't gotten a bill
for going through the toll roads.
And so my thought was, I said one of two things.
Either, uh, this family's like the salt of the earth
and they're getting my bills for the toll road
and they're taking care of 'em.
And they haven't said anything to me.
I'm like, they want to stay anonymous.
We'll see how long that lasts, right?
Or it's like one of those prepaid deals.
I'm like, you know what, maybe it's
covered like through the year.
And so I'm fine. So, uh, I'm working at this comedy club.
My roommate gets a job there
and I'm telling him, Hey bro, don't worry about it.
Just get in the car. We'll ride together
through the carpool, like tolls are taken care of.
So we're going multiple times, right?
I start doing a flag football league, flag football league,
kind of in the same part of town.
All of my friends. I'm like, Hey,
just come over to my apartment.
We'll, we'll, uh, carpool to the flag football game.
I feel like a king, right? They like Mo Ho, uh,
hoisting me around on their shoulders.
It's great. Still don't get a bill for this thing.
Fast forward like two years later, okay?
Me and my wife were married and, uh, it's time for me to go
and get my inspection renewed.
So he's like, oh. So I go in
to get my inspection renewed
and the guy goes through all the things.
He goes, okay, Mr. Nelson, your car hasn't
passed all the inspection.
Uh, but I can't renew your registration
because there's an outstanding balance.
And I, I'm like, what do you mean an outstanding balance?
There's, he's, he goes, well, do you owe anything else?
And the car? I'm like, no, the car's completely paid off.
It's taken care of. And he goes, well,
have you gotten maybe an unpaid speeding ticket
or an unpaid parking ticket?
Now I'm getting defensive.
I'm like, man, listen, my brother in Christ, lemme tell you,
I take care of my stuff.
Everything needs to get done is done. It's all paid for.
There's no outstanding things. He goes, well,
listen, I can't renew your registration.
The only other thing I can think of, he said, have you been
through any toll roads?
Because sometimes they won't let us renew this if
you've been through a toll road.
And so I go, you know what? It happens. I drive.
Now I have, I have forgotten about all the
times I'd gone through this thing.
I thought, well, maybe I just drove
through one and didn't notice it, right?
So I go home, I tell my wife about,
yeah, can you believe this man?
They won't renew my thing because I didn't pay the thing
because, so I'm calling people, Hey, I'm here
to talk about the thing, talking to them on the phone.
And this lady, I go, Hey, uh, I'm calling
because I'm trying to renew my registration.
They're saying there's something that might be a toll.
I'm just calling to see if I have a balance.
They say, what's your name? What's your license plate?
I run all that. They go, okay, Mr. Nelson,
you owe $545 worth the tolls.
And my wife is just waiting for me to get off the phone
and be like, oh, they made a mistake, right?
And I'm like, huh, no, hold on. Lemme figure.
Lemme talk to her first. So,
so I'm talking to her and,
and let me, I'm gonna be honest with you, church,
I told you a small lie, okay?
I actually had about 150 to $200 worth of unpaid tolls.
The rest was all fees from not paying it
for the time they had been left over.
And all I could think about was all those times that I said
with confidence, Hey guys, just come get in the car.
Let me ask you this question. Uh, have you ever had
or noticed in yourself a false sense of security
where you're like, everything's okay as long
as this job continues to, to pay the bills, as long
as I continue to do what I'm supposed to do, as long
as this person comes through for
me, everything's gonna be okay.
Only to have that thing let you down.
Have you ever placed your faith in yourself
or in someone else in a way
that actually ended up hurting you in the long run?
See, I was so certain that this little sticker
that was on my windshield was my ticket
to convenience when really, uh,
it was costing me without me even realizing it.
For the last nine weeks, we've been walking cover
to cover line by line through the book of First John.
Uh, and in this series, uh, first of all, really quick,
can we just celebrate the fact that
as Danielle finished reading today as a church,
we have collectively read
through an entire book of the Bible together.
Can we just, I think that's super cool.
I I think that's a beautiful thing
through one John.
We've been talking about the uncertainty of life,
but one of the truths that I think there's been, uh, kind
of lying or hovering right below the surface of all
of this is that the only thing that's worse than uncertainty
is absolute certainty in the wrong thing.
The only thing worse than uncertainty is absolute
certainty in the wrong thing.
You've probably heard that expression before.
Uh, don't place all your eggs in one basket, right?
And we've probably heard that
because what somebody was trying to tell you was, Hey,
listen, in case that doesn't work out,
you should probably have a backup plan.
But what John wants us to know through this letter here is,
is actually there is no backup plan.
You have eggs, you gotta put 'em somewhere.
Where are you putting your faith?
Where are you putting your trust?
Where are you putting your security?
And so John says, Hey, listen, you've got
to put your eggs in one basket.
Just make sure that it's the right one.
Make sure that it's the right Jesus.
Make sure that it's the right gospel, holy
and completely place yourself in his loving arms,
because that is where hopefully you find your source
and your sense of security.
And so through this whole letter,
because John wants us to have this certainty, this,
this sense of security,
he's invited us into inspecting two things.
The first he wants us to inspect Jesus.
He's teaching us about who Jesus really is.
Despite false teachings, despite rumors, uh,
despite the uncertainty that you may feel in this life,
the security that Jesus offers you is not a
false sense of security.
It's assurance. It's something you can hold onto.
The second thing that, or the second person rather,
that John invites us
to inspect is ourselves or the believer.
He says, Hey, look at yourself. Do you love like Jesus?
Do you live like Jesus? Are you practicing righteousness?
Is his spirit transforming?
You and John, even in, in one, John chapter three,
reassures us that, Hey, when you feel like you've blown it,
when you look at your life and you realize, man,
I haven't been great in all those areas,
when your heart condemns you, he reassures us
that the God we follow is even greater than our hearts.
John wants us to know with certainty.
And in this passage that we're gonna look at today,
John uses that word no, KNOW, seven times.
He used it 39 times throughout the entire book of one John,
because his goal is for you to know,
and what does he want us to know?
Let's look at the passage that Danielle read
for us earlier, starting in verse 13.
John writes, I write these things to you
who believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know
that you have eternal life, that you may know
that you have eternal life.
This is John's whole purpose for writing this letter.
Now, here's what I want you to do.
I want you to put on either your thinking cap
or grab your time machine, whichever one
is more easily accessible to you.
And I want you to think back to week one of this series,
because when I introduced this series, I said,
because of what John wrote in one John one, three, he says,
oh, my purpose in writing this is
that you may have fellowship with me
and with the other believers.
Right? Remember he said, y'all who don't understand
who Jesus is, I want you to have fellowship with us
who know him intimately.
So which one is it? Like,
if you've noticed throughout this past
or throughout this book, John tends
to like popcorn all over the place.
And we're like, did John, John, did you lose the plot
like I thought you were writing
so that we would have fellowship.
And now you're writing about eternal life.
And the truth is, is that to John, it's all one
and the same, to have fellowship with the believers,
to have fellowship with God is to have eternal life.
How do we know that? He thinks that?
Because in John chapter 17, verse three,
John records a prayer from Jesus where Jesus says,
and this is eternal life.
So he's about to define it.
This is eternal life that they know you,
the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sinned.
Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God,
not something you get after you die.
Eternal life is not the, the golden streets
and the the crystal lakes
and the mansion that we all hope for one day.
And the the crown of righteousness, right?
Like all that stuff gets, gets added on towards the end.
But right now, Jesus says,
you can experience eternal life if you know God,
if you love God, if you love his kids, if you love God
and you love his church, John is saying, all
of this is eternal life.
And I don't want us to blow past this.
Because what he's saying is that right now,
as we gather together
and we share fellowship with one another,
and as we sing songs to God
and experience fellowship with him,
what we're actually experiencing is
what Jesus died on the cross to give us.
Like right now, you're experiencing that
what a beautiful gift knowing God
and this knowing, it's not just like some sort
of intellectual ascent.
It's a, it's not just a thought process.
It's a deep, intimate knowledge.
It's a life changing, life altering knowledge.
And the only way that we can receive this eternal life is
by way of the son, the right son,
the right Jesus, the right gospel.
And, and, and what I, the reason why I think John wants us
to get this so important is hypothetically speaking,
if you have your version of Jesus, that you're huddled
around over here, and then I have my version of Jesus
that I'm huddled around over here,
but the real Jesus is over
there, well then where's the unity?
There's no unity around the right thing.
Instead, we've created disunity over
what we perceive, right?
So John wants us to say, Hey, gather around the right Jesus.
And when you, uh, have a relationship with Jesus,
you can know the Father.
And this is what, what all of this boils down to.
When we know God, we can understand that truly knowing God
anchors our life with unshakeable certainty.
Truly knowing God anchors our life in unshakeable certainty.
That's what we're gonna be talking about this morning.
And I'm gonna come back to that statement a couple of times
through all the stuff that John talks about,
because he's talking about all of this through the lens
of knowing God.
And thank God he does, because it actually makes a lot
of this, uh, uh, a little bit easier to understand.
I don't know if you were standing while Danielle was reading
and being like, I, I don't know what we're talking about.
Uh, she even came to me earlier today
and she was like, man, I was reading through the pastor
and she's like, I'm really interested to see
how you're gonna talk about all this.
'cause it feels like he talks about
all sorts of things, right?
He, he talks about, oh, well, if you pray
for stuff, you're gonna get it.
And he says stuff like,
there's a sin that doesn't lead to death.
And you're like, what in the world are we talking about?
But when we look at all of this through the lens
of knowing God, it starts to make sense.
So let's start with those next few verses.
First John chapter five, verses 14 through 15.
He says, uh,
and this is the confidence that we have toward him,
that 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 have requests, that we have the request
that we asked of him.
Okay? I wanna focus on the part
that we're sure about, uh,
less than the part that we're interested in.
Okay? Um,
the part we're all interested in is, wait a minute.
The Bible says, if I pray for something,
I'm gonna get it right.
That's what we all want to talk about.
Let, let's get there, we'll get there in a second,
but let's get to the point that we know for sure
and have certainty around.
Because I think just like
how Ben talked about a few weeks ago, how the idea
that like Jesus loves you is kind of a cliche term.
I think we also forget about the fact that,
that God hears us when we pray,
and we think of that as a cliche as well.
John says, we can have confidence that when we pray,
he hears us.
And I just want to ask you this question.
Do you, do you have confidence when you pray
that your God hears you?
Or do you feel like your prayer requests are like backed up
as in his inbox, like it's buried beneath a bunch
of junk mail and holiday ads?
Like maybe when he gets time, he'll get around to it.
Listen, I think it's a beautiful thing that we can know God,
but in my mind, it's far more astounding to me
that God even cares to know us.
Like that's just a, it's a crazy thought.
Let me ask you, have you ever a, have you ever met someone
and felt like you weren't worthy of their time?
Like maybe, maybe you're at work
and somebody who's really high up in the company comes
walking through your office, or maybe you're at the airport
and you see a celebrity walk to the airport, right?
What do we, what do we typically do?
We say, oh listen, they, they probably don't wanna be
bothered by me, right?
But what we tend to do is we tend to bring
that same mentality to prayer.
We tend to think, man, God's so big. I'm so small.
Like he's got a lot on his plate. My thing isn't big enough.
There are people with far worse problems than me.
Can I tell you something? You are absolutely right.
And he still wants to talk to you.
Your thing still matters no matter how big or how small.
He's never too busy. He always has time for you.
And he hear, John wants us to know he hears you
when you pray.
I I think one of the most, um,
interesting stories in all the Bible is the story of job.
I dunno if you've read it before.
If you haven't, I highly recommend it.
Uh, hopefully we get to preach on it at some point.
It's a really fascinating story.
Uh, but basically what happens is, is Job is this guy
who everything is going pretty great for him in life.
He has a great relationship with God.
And one day Satan goes to God
and says, Hey, listen, can I pick on Job a little bit?
He's like, I think the only reason why Job loves you is
because everything seems to be
working out great in his life.
I bet you if Joel's, if Job's, uh, circumstances changed,
I'm willing to bet that he would curse
you and turn his back on you.
And so God grants Satan the permission to do this.
And the entire book of Job is Job having a conversation
with his friends, trying to figure out why does good things
or why do bad things happen to good people?
God, why do you allow this misery to come down on me?
And so for the entire book, they're talking to each other.
And then in the last, uh, right around the last, uh,
few chapters, in chapters 38 through 41, uh,
God actually starts talking to Job.
And he does this thing where he starts talking about all
that he has control over.
He starts telling Job about how powerful he is,
and he lists some pretty incredible things, okay?
Just, just through the course. Here's a few of 'em.
He asks Job, he says, job, do you know
who laid the Earth's foundations?
He goes, job, I'm the one who tells the shore of the sea
where to stop Job.
Lemme ask you a question. You know, like, like
how when the lights go away, it gets dark
and then when the lights come back
on, the darkness goes away.
Job. Do you know where the darkness goes? Because I do.
He says, job, when you see lightning streak across the sky,
do you know I'm the one that charted the
course for that lightning?
He's telling Job for three chapters how powerful he is.
And you know what the most astounding part of all of it is?
It's not any one of those particular acts
that God is talking to a human being.
Are you kidding me? He even gives him the time of the day.
He's basically saying, Hey, you see all the stuff I could be
busy with, but Job, I see you and I'm talking to you
and I'm restoring you.
And I want, when you, when you complain
and you ask all these questions about me, and you curse me,
and you wonder if I'm good, Hey, I'm still here
and I'm still listening.
And that is the beauty and the power
of the God that we have.
And that's what John wants us to know.
Listen, that God, you have access to him right now.
Listen, there are artists and musicians and actors
and people who put stuff out into the world all the time,
put out art and stuff like that.
And, and, and I admire their work,
and I can send them a DM on Instagram right
now, and they would never see it.
But I can stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon
and talk to the one who created it, and he hears me
and he cares, and he talks back,
God is never too busy for you.
And that is the assurance that we have.
That's what we talk about when we say, no, God, to have
that level of a relationship with him.
Now, here's the part we can, we can get excited about that,
but there's still a part of it
that confuses us and disorients us.
And it's what John says next.
It's the part that says you receive whatever it
is that you ask for, right?
I think what we need to be mindful of, the part
that really makes the difference in this is that John says
that we must pray according to his will.
As a big caveat, it's a really important thing.
And I know for some of us, you're like, eh,
it feels kinda like a killjoy, right?
Like according to God's will, right?
But it's so important,
and I think this is important for us to remember
because there are so many of us
who I think we end up getting mad
and shaking our fist at God
because he won't give us something
that he never promised us in the first place.
Like we're asking him for things
and he's like, well, where did I ever say that?
I, and not like in a judgmental way,
but he's like, listen, I, I promise you a lot,
I've made a lot available to you,
but the things you're asking for don't fall on that list.
And so now we're putting parameters on God
that he never even placed on himself.
There are people who walk away from the faith
because they prayed for a promotion and someone else got it.
There are those of us who walk away from the faith
because we've prayed for a spouse or for a child
or for a house, and we never got it.
And listen, I wanna be sensitive here.
I'm, I'm, I'm not saying that you
shouldn't ask for those things.
James tells us that every good
and perfect gift comes from our heavenly Father.
Above. He's the giver of all good things.
But the promises we need to hold onto are the ones
that we see in scripture, the ones according to his will.
In Philippians four 19, uh, the Apostle Paul,
he writes this, he says, and my God will supply every need
of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Okay? I mentioned the Apostle Paul wrote that,
but do you know when he wrote that he was sitting in a jail
cell facing the end of his life?
And the obvious prayer request for Paul
was, get me outta here.
That was the clear thing for him to pray for.
But instead, Paul is teaching the, the Philippians
as he's teaching them about commitment.
He's saying, Hey, listen, I, I actually don't complain
because maybe God is using this jail cell
to give me what I really need.
Maybe he's using this situation to give me joy in the midst
of poor circumstances, the faith
to trust him when times get hard.
The peace on cold nights when I'm questioning,
how did I end up here?
Can I just correct something for just a second?
And this is a little bit of a tangent, I'm sorry.
But I think this is so important to say.
I think sometimes we think, oh,
I pray for stuff and I don't get it.
That must mean that I don't have enough faith.
I would argue that if you prayed for something
and you got it like every single time, I actually think
that would weaken your faith over time.
And I say that because like, if, if I needed
to turn on a light in my house, I turn on the switch.
And that doesn't require faith.
I just do it right when I don't turn on,
when I flip the switch and the lights don't turn on, God,
please don't let this be like too expensive.
I really hope this isn't cra like I start asking questions,
but in the same way, like when you pray to God for something
and he doesn't give it to you, that's when faith kicks in.
That's the moment when you say, man, do I really trust him?
That's the moment when you really have to ask, God, do I,
do I actually believe that you care about me?
This is what Paul is getting at in Philippians.
Uh, Paul, a phrase that he uses throughout the letter
of Philippians is even if,
and I just wonder if we can be the type of people that pray,
even if prayers, God, whether this works out
or not, even if you give this to me
or you don't, even if this makes sense in my mind
or it doesn't, Lord, you see my physical, tangible needs.
But even if you don't answer this prayer the way I think you
should, I have certainty that you have given me what I need.
Even if prayers, that's what it looks like
to pray according to his will.
Timothy Keller, he puts it this way.
He says, God will either give us what we ask for in prayer,
or he will give us what we would have asked him
for if we knew everything he knows.
Come on, come on.
I wanna put it another way.
The purpose of prayer is not for me to get what I want,
but to humble me to the point
of trusting what he wants for me.
That's the purpose of prayer.
And that comes from knowing God.
When you know him, you trust him.
But you can't know God's will if you don't first know God.
This is intimacy, this is relationship with him.
Alright, we covered that. That's a lot.
Let's move on to the easy part of the passage.
Um, sarcasm, by the way, uh, verses 16
and 17, John writes,
if anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading
to death, he shall ask God
and God will give him life to those
who commit sins that do not lead to death.
There is sin that leads to death.
I do not say that one should pray for
that all wrongdoing is sin,
but there is sin that does not lead to death.
All right? Is John saying here
that there is good sin and bad sin?
No. Right? Because he clearly states in verse 17
that all wrongdoing is sin.
So this is not a license
or permission to send or do whatever we want.
So what is he talking about? Well, first thing we have
to keep in mind is that when John talks about life
and death here, he's talking about spiritual
life and spiritual death.
Okay? So, uh, if spiritual life, um,
is eternal life
and knowing God, then spiritual death means, uh,
separation from God.
So when he talks about sin that leads us to death,
he's talking about a sin that leads
to eternal separation from God.
Okay? Sin that leads to eternal separation from God.
Now, most scholars would agree, which by the way, dude, we,
there's, there's just not enough time
to get into all this, okay?
So I'm, I'm gonna try to minimize this as much as I can,
but most scholars agree that this boils down to two types
of sins, okay?
Not specific sins, but types of sins.
The first is
what John has been talking about all throughout this letter,
flat out rejection and denial of Jesus.
Okay? So that's the first one.
This is a sin that leads to eternal separation from God,
just flat out rejecting and denying who Jesus is.
The second is unrepentant sin
or sins that we willingly choose not to turn away from.
He even addresses both of these, uh,
between verses 18 through 20.
So first verse 18, he talks about the, uh, unrepentant sin.
He says, we know that everyone who has been born
of God does not keep on sinning,
but he who was born of God protects him.
I'm sorry, he who was born of God protects him. Yeah.
And the evil one does not touch him.
Here, John is talking about that unsent, unrepentant sin.
He's talking about those who are not constantly making an
effort to put sin to death,
but instead choose to relish in it.
The ones who just enjoy it, who just say, you know what?
I'm doing this thing. I know it's wrong
and I'm gonna keep doing that thing anyway.
Right? Uh, the point that he's making, um, is not only
that our sin in this way should be of our concern,
but also for others, right?
Because he says that we should be praying for those
who we see living in that sort of cycle of sin.
So remember what we just talked about a second ago about
prayer, praying, uh, for the will of God?
And if you're like, man, what is the will of God?
The eradication of sin is always the will of God.
So if you're looking for a way to start praying,
God help me, uh, to turn for my sin.
And I pray for those around me
who I see living in sinful ways,
and I know you want them to turn from that as well.
This text tells us that God will, uh, answer those prayers
and will move in on that behalf.
Okay? Um, so this leads us to a question.
If this is the type of safe, unrepentant sin is a sin
that leads us to death, uh, what do we do with that?
We confess it. We have got to confess it.
There, there's a power in the confession of sin.
What I love about this is, this is actually confession is
the way that God rigged the game for us
to overcome something that was meant to kill you.
Sin, the only purpose of sin is to ruin your life.
And God says, yeah, but there's a
loophole if you confess it.
First of all, he tells us that he is righteous
and just to forgive us of our sins
that came earlier in one John,
but also confession to one another.
Here's the beautiful thing.
Because of Jesus confessed sin doesn't lead to death.
It leads us to the feet of Jesus.
Confessed sin does not lead to death.
It's not a hopeless dead end.
When you confess your sin,
it will lead you back to the feet of Jesus.
Where in desperation you find healing and restoration.
When you admit God, I'm broken
and there is something wrong with me,
and you go back to Jesus.
When your sin causes you to turn to him, there's healing in
that and it actually leads to life.
The other sin that leads to death, I mentioned,
is the flat out rejection of who Jesus claims to be.
So we see this in verse 20.
He says, 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.
And he is the true God and eternal life.
Pay attention to what John is saying here.
Eternal life isn't a thing you receive.
This is what we've been talking about this whole time.
It's a person that you know, so you can't reject Jesus
and still receive eternal life
because Jesus is eternal life.
So, so John is saying here, listen, the only thing
that a human being can do is that, that that
that isn't covered by the blood of Jesus
is not place your faith in him.
Amen. Jesus makes a way for all sinners
to be welcomed into his family.
But unless you are willing to place your faith in him,
that salvation isn't made available to us.
I, I don't know if you notice this, but in that verse,
in verse 23 times, uh, John uses the word true.
Did you notice that? Uh, 'cause I did not.
Somebody had to point it out to me three times.
He uses that word true
because John is obsessed with truth, the truth that the son
of God has come,
and that is what we are gonna be celebrating this week.
That is what Christmas is all about, that Jesus came,
he he truly came,
and in celebrating that we celebrate that that baby grew up,
that he died on a cross to give us eternal life,
to give us a way to turn away from sin
and instead to know God,
to know God even better than you know your sin.
'cause some of us know our sin all too well,
and it's painful and it hurts us,
and it feels like it condemns us.
But God is saying, man, I can know you
even more intimately than that.
All of this boils down to this.
If you wanna make sure that you, you avoid the sin
that leads to death, here's the two steps for it.
One, confess sin and two, confess Christ.
Confess your sin.
Drag it out of the dark into the light,
just like John talked about in chapter one.
And confess Christ, plead the blood of Jesus.
Cry the name of Jesus over your life,
over your family's life, over the circumstances
that you face, over the sin you're struggling with,
because that is where the power of healing comes.
As we come to a close, there's one final verse.
It's first John 5 21, and it feels outta left field.
John goes, little children keep yourselves from idols.
I'm like, we sin that doesn't lead to death,
does lead to death, all this sort of stuff.
It's like it felt, it feels like
that sometimes we do this thing up here when we're talking,
we're like, we're talking and then whoever's on
keys will like start playing.
And we're like, really? Already.
Okay, lemme say one more thing.
And then John's like, Hey, stay away from idols. Okay, bye.
I'm done. Right? Why is he saying that?
What does it have to do with anything
that we've been talking about at the end of five chapters,
at the end of nine weeks of study that we've been in?
Why would John close by telling us to stay away from idols?
Well, what is an idol?
It's a lesser, manmade substitute for God
throughout this entire letter.
John wants his audience to know the real Jesus, the one
who came, the one who lived, the one who died, the one
who rose again, so that we could have a right
relationship with God.
And John's final Hail Mary, like dart throw.
The last thing I want you to remember, stay away from
anything less.
Stay away from the toll tag that makes you think
that you're safe and you're secure.
When you're really not, stay away from anything else
that appears to offer you the things
that only Jesus can give you.
But it can't stay away from everything else that says, Hey,
this is what life is really all about.
When really eternal life himself came down
and revealed himself to you little children, this term
of endearment, stay away from false idols.
Don't fall for a fake. Don't fall for a phony.
Don't settle for a lesser substitute.
All of this, the only way that you can avoid it is
by knowing God,
because I said this earlier, I'm gonna say it one more time.
Truly knowing God anchors our lives in
unshakeable certainty.
Throughout the course of this series, uh, one
of us would come out and, uh, you know, we try
to do a quick little recap at the beginning of the message.
Say, Hey, for the past x amount of weeks,
we've been in this series called uncertainty,
where we're talking about how to find certainty
in the midst of uncertain times.
And I don't know about you, but
after nine weeks, there's still a lot of stuff.
I don't know, I'm still very
uncertain about a lot of things.
Some of you have things in your life right now
that you were uncertain about.
Think back over the last year,
what did you think 2025 was gonna be like?
Is it a little bit different?
Maybe you've done that thing
where you're like, man, it's been a tough year.
I'm just ready, I'm ready for 2025 to be over
so I can put it in the rear view mirror
so I can go into 2026.
As if your problems don't have jurisdiction
there, They follow you.
And there's probably even
more that you don't know about yet.
Listen, the message of First John is this
certainty doesn't come from knowing what's waiting
around every corner.
True certainty comes from knowing God.
True certainty comes from the alpha
and the Omega, the beginning
and the end, the one who knows you and loves you
and sees you and hears you when you pray.
So church, I, I, I hope you didn't listen to this series
or go through this study expecting answers,
because I don't have the answer to every problem
that life can throw at you.
But God does, God does.
He says, if you'll place your faith in me,
I'll be your unshakeable anchor
through all the uncertainty that life can throw your way.
As we come to a close,
I I know we've celebrated already people
who have placed their faith in Jesus, their, uh, people
who have made the decision to be baptized.
And, and, and I'm so grateful for that.
That has been insanely beautiful.
But I'm willing to bet there's some in here as well.
You think, man, I just still feel uncertain about a lot.
And if you have never had a chance to meet Jesus, if, if,
if this idea of knowing God sounds foreign to you, man,
we would love to introduce you And he's waiting for you.
He loves you and he cares about you.
And, and he wants to know you, uh, intimately.
And he wants to, he he does know you intimately.
He wants to invite you to learn a little
bit about him as well.
And so if that's you, I just wanna
close out our time by praying.
But before I do, I also wanna say this.
Um, man, if you know someone in your life
who just needs a little bit of hope,
who just needs a reminder that there is a God who sees them,
who loves them, who knows them, who cares about them,
who hears 'em when they pray, listen, we are going
to be celebrating this through the Christmas season.
And so, uh, uh, there's still time.
Make sure you're inviting people back
to the Christmas Eve services.
And even if they can't get here, guess what?
You get to go out with the light of Jesus
and you get to proclaim that there is a God who loves them
and knows them and sees them and cares about them.
And so right here in this moment, if you're here
and you wanna make that decision for the very first time,
I just wanna invite you to pray.
Father, um,
the idea that we get to know you is mind blowing.
You have created everything we have ever laid our eyes on.
Um, And yet you still want to know us.
You want us, us to be in that sort of relationship with you.
It's the reason why Jesus came down
and drew close to us, got into our mess,
got into our grossness
because you wanted to show us, man, this is
how badly I want us to have a right relationship against.
So God, thank you for that.
And Lord, I just pray
that if there's anybody here under the sign of my voice,
anybody who's watching online who has never made
that decision before, but they are realizing maybe today
for the very first time, that eternal life only comes
by knowing you.
God, I pray, uh, that they will today start to experience
and feel and know you.
I pray for all of us that we would, uh,
start living eter into eternal life now
and not just waiting for it someday.
Lord, you're good, you're good.
And we're grateful as we move into this Christmas season.
Lord, my prayer, um, is just that we will be mindful of you,
that we would keep you at the center
of everything that we do.
Lord, I pray that we enjoy, uh, opening gifts
and giving gifts in the lights and the songs
and all that sort of stuff, but God, I just pray that all
of it is a reminder of the ultimate gift
that you gave in your son Jesus Christ.
Lord, we love you. We bless your name.
We ask all these things in your son's name, we pray, amen.
Merry Christmas y