God has given us each other, and he has given us himself, to ensure that we will not succumb to evil, but are secure in our eternal life.

Well, we are pulling into the station this morning, ending our journey in First John. Next week we’ll resume our study of the Gospel of Luke. John has written this letter to the church. And by being part of the church ourselves, he has written this letter to us. Now, that might seem like a stretch to you. You might even think that that sounds incorrect. After all, John wrote 2000 years ago to other churches on the other side of the world. Did he really have us in mind? It was the practice of the early church, the first century church, to share letters written by the apostles so a church would receive a letter and they would read it aloud to the congregation, and then they would send the letter on to the next church. In fact, the letters were written with that intention in mind that they would be circulated. Paul tells us in the letter he wrote to the Colossians, in Colossians chapter four, verse 16, he says, make sure the Laodiceans get this letter. Make sure you get it over to them. Oh, and by the way, read the letter that I wrote to the Laodiceans. So change letters as you exchange them and read them to your congregations. Now, we actually don’t know what that letter was coming over from Laodicea. It’s either lost to history or it might have been the letter Ephesians. We’re just not sure.

But we know that they changed letters. Peter is even clearer. He addresses his first letter this way. He says to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. So he just says, look, this letter is for everybody. Everybody in the entire region. The early church took this distribution of apostolic instruction to the church so seriously that they made copies. They made copy after copy of these letters. It’s the reason we have such a well preserved, reliable New Testament today. And the gospel. As the gospel spread across the world, the church knew that they were going to need sound doctrine in their churches to have healthy churches. And so they work diligently to make sure the words of the apostles who testified to Jesus and to the kingdom of God would be preserved for generations to come. So it’s true. First John was not sent by messenger by foot to Calvary Evangelical Free Church; that did not happen. But the intention in John’s heart was that when the gospel reaches the ends of the earth, which to John certainly would have included Rochester, Minnesota, this letter would be here to give us confidence. That’s how John ends this letter. He wants us to have confidence in our faith, knowing full well that we have eternal life in the Son of God. Last week we looked at how we can have confident approach to God in our prayer.

We can be sure that when we pray for things that align with holiness and righteousness, that we will be heard. Prayer is a powerful tool, and it’s a privilege that God has given us. It’s why we take everything to God in prayer. This morning, John’s going to give a final summary of what it means for us to be the church in this evil world, to be a light that shines in darkness. He wants us to do that with the utmost confidence. God has given us each other, and he’s given us himself to ensure that we will not succumb to evil, but are secure in our eternal life. We’re starting in First John chapter five, verse 16 this morning. John first gives us an example of what it looks like to pray confidently for each other. And it’s one of the ways that we lift each other up as a church. And then he gives us three things that we can know for sure that give us confidence. Let’s start with how we pray for each other. 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.

Now, I know at first glance that looks complicated, doesn’t it? Does that seem complicated to everybody? I can see confused faces. It’s complicated. It’s complicated to me. He’s been so clear throughout this letter, hasn’t he? And then we got to chapter five, and suddenly blood and water are testifying, and some sins lead to death and others don’t, and ahh! I mentioned this passage to my wife, Rachel this week. She asked me what I was preaching on and I told her about this and she said what we were all thinking. She said, don’t all sins lead to death? Isn’t that pretty clear in the Bible? Paul said, the wages of sin is death. I don’t need an elaborate, logical syllogism to understand the relationship between these two things. Our sin causes eternal death. Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf gives us eternal life. By taking that death for us, that’s the gospel. That’s the good news. That’s the center of the entire Christian message. And it’s what John has been saying over and over again throughout this letter. So why now on the goal line of completing the drive of his entire argument, does he make a distinction between some sins that lead to death and other sins that don’t lead to death? Well, there is good news here for us. What he is saying here isn’t complicated. He just says it in a way that sounds complicated to us.

Probably the original readers wouldn’t have been as confused by this, but we are because we don’t speak this way. But what he’s saying is actually pretty, pretty clear. Let’s walk through it. The question of whether the sin leads to death or not has to do with the person who’s committing it. Okay? If a Christian sees a fellow Christian, a brother or sister, you see that word there? If we’re talking about a brother or a sister here in Christ, if a Christian sees a fellow Christian committing a sin, that sin does not lead to death. Why? Because Jesus already paid for it. That’s why. That sin does not lead to death, because Jesus already took the death. When a person who is truly transformed in Christ commits a sin, that sin does not condemn him eternally. It’s terrible. It’s an awful thing. It angers God. It grieves the Holy Spirit. It damages our minds. It hurts the people around us. But it does not eternally condemn the Christian because Jesus has already paid the price for that sin. What will happen in the Christian’s heart then is conviction. That’s what’s going to happen. Conviction, which will turn you to repentance and restoration with the people that we’ve hurt. And it’ll lead you eventually to a rededication, to kill that sin and pursue hard after Christ.

That will happen inside of you for sure. If you have been made new by Christ. So John says, here’s what’s going to happen in your churches. You’re going to see a fellow believer committing a sin. And your job is to go to God in prayer for your fellow believer. It’s not the only thing that we’re that we’re supposed to do, but it is one of the things that we’re supposed to do. We go to God and we intercede on behalf of our fellow Christian who is caught in sin. And God will respond to that prayer by restoring that wayward friend back to life. It says literally here, he will give him life. This can’t mean for the first time eternal life. Because this is a brother already. We already know this is a Christian we’re talking about. So I take it to mean that God will convict our friend of his sin and restore his mind and heart to the truth, and back to the practice of the gospel. God will get his life back on track. God says, this is how you as a church, pray for each other and help each other along the path of Christ. You pray for each other’s sin and God does the work of correcting, keeping us going. I’m going to talk a little bit more on that here in just a second. But then in the second half of verse 16, John clarifies who this prayer is for.

It is for Christians who sin. It is not for non-Christians whose sins are leading them to death. There is sin that leads to death, he says. That’s the sin that Paul talked about when he said that the wages of sin is death. Death is the result. Eternal separation from God is the result of sin. The sin of a non-believer is sin that will result in eternal separation from God forever. It results in a guilty judgment. It results in condemnation before the Lord. Now, here’s where it gets a little bit confusing because in verse 17, John says, I do not say that one should pray for that. Is he saying that we should not pray for non-believers? Is that what he’s saying? We should discern and only pray for Christians and not pray for the sins of non-believers. Is he instructing us not to intercede for people outside the church? No. That is not what he’s saying here. What he’s saying is that’s not my topic here. Okay. He’s not telling us not to pray for non-Christians. He’s clarifying the kind of prayer he’s describing now, which is for believers. Okay. It helps to remember there’s a group of heretics on their way to mislead the church when John originally wrote this, and they’re going to come and they’re going to say things like, well, you know what? Sin is no big deal.

You can walk in darkness and you can practice sin. You can still be a Christian. And John’s been telling us over and over again, no, you can’t. If you act that way, it’s a sign that you don’t have Jesus at all. What we need to be doing for each other is praying for God to convict and restore his people, not encouraging them to go on in their sin. So sin outside the church is not what John is concerned about right now. Sin inside the church is squarely in his sights. He wants to be sure that we are praying for our fellow believers like we should. That’s why he backs out and says, look, all wrongdoing is sin. We know that. One sin is not better than another. But there are some sins that aren’t leading to condemnation. They are children of God. These are brothers and sisters in Christ. And he says, I’m talking right now about praying for those folks. That’s the kind of prayer I’m talking about. Okay. Is that clear now? Looking around. Kind of? Okay. Yeah. It’s tough. It’s a little complicated. He’s just talking about one kind of prayer here. Okay. So now that that’s a little clearer, maybe, let’s talk about what we’re supposed to do here. Okay. Because that’s really the point of this.

What are we supposed to do? We are being instructed to pray for the fellow Christian in our church that we can see sinning against God. I just want you to take a moment to think about the kind of community we would have to be in order for us to be obedient to this. What are the implications of the kind of community we would have to be? What is required of a church community to fulfill this God-given duty? Well, first of all, we have to be close enough to our church family that they can see how we live, right? They have to be able to see us. In a big church like ours that means you have to be in a close, functioning part of our church, what we call a shepherding community, a small group. It’s a small group of people who have a leader who interacts with our elders. And in that way, we shepherd the whole church. Every member is required as part of our membership covenant, to be in a group. Caring for people. Taking care of the people of our church requires you to know other people, and it requires you to be known. That’s what a church is supposed to be. And you know what? That’s scary for some. I get it. It can be scary to be known. Some people like to come to a big church like this so that they can hide in the crowd, and they can sort of do religious stuff and never have to speak, have anybody speak into their lives.

Friends, you can see here that John is saying that God never designed his church to be like that. Can’t you? Can you see that here? It was never supposed to be that way. Your fellow Christians provide prayer support for you to be able to overcome sin and to walk closely and carefully with Jesus. And as a Christian, you’re supposed to be there to provide that for others too. That is part of your job, is to provide that for your fellow Christians. People in the church are dependent on you to do your part to pray for them. And that means that you have to be close enough for you to know them and for them to know you. And I’ll tell you, the elders just had our annual retreat yesterday. So we just spent the last three days together down at a camp south of town here. And we spent most of yesterday morning just going down the list of members of our church who are not plugged in to a shepherding community. Listen, if that’s you, we have no way of knowing how you’re doing. We have no way of doing what God has called us to do, which is to come alongside you spiritually.

So I’ll just let you know up front, expect that an elder is going to reach out to you to help you find a way to get connected to the body of Christ here at Calvary. And we’re calling on you. We’re emailing you because we love you. Okay. We’re not trying to badger you. We’re doing this because we love you, and we take our job seriously as a church to care for you, to know you, to know, feed, lead and protect. That’s what a church is. And that’s why we’re reaching out to you. The second thing that’s implied here is that if you have a desire for God to work powerfully in your life to overcome sin, you need to let others help you with it. You need to I’m sure you want more of the Lord in your life, right? It’s pretty full room here right now. That means there’s a lot of people here that really want the Lord to work powerfully in your life. They want more of Christ. If you’re here this morning, you’re saying, I want God to work powerfully. I want to be transformed by God. Lots of Christians, most Christians, they want to be set free of sin. They want to overcome anxiety or move past mental hurdles or be free of some addiction or find forgiveness in a relationship. Do you want that? I’m sure you do.

You wouldn’t be here otherwise. And that’s great that you want that. Let me ask you, how many people know about the struggles in your life and are praying for you? How many people? How many people know you and are walking with you through that struggle? I am saddened how often, over the years, as a pastor, that I’ve talked to people who have struggles in their life, and I them how many people are praying for them? And the answer is nobody. Because no one knows. I don’t know how we got to the point in America where spirituality became a private matter. Somehow we got there. Somehow. Christian growth became a self-help strategy. I think we’re just so ruggedly independent that we push away all of the scriptures like this one, that tell us that we cannot achieve Christlikeness without being known and willing to confess our sins to each other. There are so many other passages like this. And we sort of forget about them, we sort of push them away. Church being known isn’t optional in the Christian walk. God uses the powerful prayers of our fellow Christians as part of his restoring, life-giving strategy. It’s not optional. It’s vital. The informed prayers of your fellow Christians on behalf of your sins is a crucial part of your growth. Okay, that’s what a church is. It’s what it’s supposed to look like.

All right, let’s get to the big finale of this letter. See, when the church is functioning like this, when it’s praying for each other, when it’s pulling each other along, when it’s binding together and helping each other overcome obstacles, we can know three things. We can do this if we remember these three things that John wants us to remember. And someone asked me, how can God’s church exist within this broken world? I don’t think you could find a better summary than the three things that we’re about to look at here. John is going to say, we know, we know, we know. And each one of these works together to create a single picture of the church. First, 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. So you can see how this is a summary because he’s been saying things like this throughout the letter. But what a comforting truth that he ends on here. Christians, he says, will not keep on sinning. God will break that pattern of sin in your life. If you persist in sin without repenting, without caring about your thoughts or your behaviors that are rebellion against God. Then you don’t know Jesus. You don’t know him. John has said that multiple times in a variety of ways.

This is not new ground, but it is important ground. If you find yourself in a pattern of sinful behavior, and you’re not struggling to break free through confession and repentance and discipline and walking in step with the Spirit, that’s a very good indication that you don’t know the Lord yet, but you can. You can put your trust in him. But if you’re struggling and you’re unrepentant, it’s a sign that you don’t know him. Because if you’ve been born of God, born again of God, as he puts it here, you do not keep on sinning. Now what breaks the stranglehold of sin? This is where John adds something a little bit new here, right at the end. He says, he who was born of God protects him. So he, a single person who is born of God, protects the Christian. He’s talking about Jesus, he who was born of God. John uses this phrase because it parallels with everyone who is born of God. So the logic flows like this. Jesus is the Son of God who protects everyone who’s been born of God from the evil one. Evil can no longer touch you because Jesus protects you. You know what the church is like in the world? It’s like we’re all out on the playground. Okay, do you remember that Wild West, the playground? Remember that Lord of the Flies situation that is the playground, right? Most things were fine inside the school.

Get inside the school. There’s authority. There’s adults, there’s people watching out. There’s structure, there’s safety. As soon as those doors open up, right, man, that that authority shifted to the strongest or the meanest kid in the yard. Right. I mean, there was a playground monitor, but that lady and her whistle, she didn’t have any power at all. It was the mean kid, the strong kid. The authority was with the bullies. It was survival of the fittest out there. And if you were a weak little kid like me, the best thing that you could have was someone stronger and smarter than the bullies on your side. You needed a big brother. You needed a champion, someone who would defend you and stop you from being picked on, or worse. And that’s exactly what John is saying here. But he’s saying it on the topic of personal sin. Those who are born of God are in God’s family. He says it’s a way of describing salvation from our sins. We are born again into God’s family through Christ. But we’re now at odds, right? We’re now at odds with the sinful world that we were part of. The evil one is out to destroy everything and now that we’re in Christ, we’re no longer on his side. We’re no longer doing his mission. We’re on the other side.

We’re waging war against sin and evil. We are enemies of Satan. So we are directly in his crosshairs. It’s Satan’s intention to trap you in sin, do you know that? It’s his intention to, his goal is to mire you in patterns of God-dishonoring behavior so that he can keep you on his side, or at least make you no threat to his mission. But we don’t need to fear that attack, because Christ, our big brother, is right there on the playground with us. That’s what John’s saying. Look, this is going to happen. Don’t worry about it. Christ has your back. He who is born of God protects everyone who is born of God. If you are truly born again into the family of God, evil has no final power over you because Christ is with you. That’s what we know. Here’s the second thing we know. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil. This statement is like the first, but instead of looking at our individual situation, what it does is it zooms out to look at the whole world. John is saying, here’s what’s happening on the world stage, on the playground of all of creation. We, God’s people, those who are born of God, are from God. He says. That’s a very interesting word. From. Prepositions can be tricky in Greek because they have a range of meanings, but it’s pretty clear here that it means that we are from God, like something he has sent.

It’s like the label on a on a Christmas gift from God. To. Well, that is the question, isn’t it? That’s the question. To whom are we sent? John says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. There’s no aspect of all of God’s creation that is not tarnished in some way by sin. And God has given Satan some room to make choices and reign over this creation. It’s not total authority. As if Satan is in full control, that belongs to God. Satan cannot act without God’s allowance. But God has allowed this for his purposes. I don’t have time this morning to dive deeply into this, but I will refer you to my July 12th sermon if you’re interested. It’s called spiritual leading and misleading. And there you can get a fuller description of this allowance that God has given to Satan. John is simply summarizing what he taught earlier here. He’s saying, here’s the situation. The whole world, to some degree, is under the control of our enemy. Why state that here? It’s because the evil world is the recipient. It’s the to. It’s the recipient of God’s people. We are from God, sent to an evil world. Now, this is one of the hardest truths of the gospel for people to wrap their heads around.

Because every single one of us was part of the evil world, right? We were all part of it. So it’s difficult for us to understand that we’re sent to it. And for a lot of people, even for Christians, sometimes they view the church as still part of the evil world. We have a tough time thinking of the church, the way the Bible describes the church spiritually. We’re no longer part of the evil world. We are now separate from it and sent to it because of our new identity in Christ. The best biblical word that I know, that I have found, to wrap my head around this truth is the word ambassador. In First Corinthians chapter five, Paul uses the word ambassador to describe what Christians do when we share the gospel. He says, we are ambassadors of this good news, ambassadors of this message. An ambassador lives in a foreign country but represents his home country. So it’s not a stretch to say that we are ambassadors to this evil world. We are under Christ’s reign, not the reign of evil. But we are sent to the evil world on behalf of Christ. And there are so many biblical metaphors for this to try to give us pictures and to get our heads wrapped around what God wants us to know about what a church is.

We’re called light to a dark world, for instance. Salt to a decaying world. Wheat that grows along the side of weeds. Beautiful feet bringing good news. A house that’s built on a solid rock. When you enter into God’s family, you are no longer part of a dying world. You are sent by God to it to represent Christ. And the third thing we know is this. 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. So this is how we function as God’s people sent to an evil world. You know, how has the church not been crushed under the weight of evil? Ever wonder that? How is that possible? It’s been 2000 years. How are we still around, frankly? How is this still happening 2000 years later on the other side of the world? What? Why is that? How is biblical Christianity that’s led by humble, weak people still a thing in the world? Have you ever thought about that? It’s not because we are sustained by any one culture, any particular culture. The church flourishes in different cultures all over the world. It’s not been kept by force. I know that some historical sins and errors and atrocities have been committed by governments in the name of Christ, but the vast majority of church history shows us that Christians are the recipients of persecution, not the perpetrators of it.

A religion that says, love your enemies, turn the other cheek. Give away stuff to people who need it. Reject sinful pleasures, live humbly, and be fully dependent on God in every aspect of your life. Shouldn’t that have collapsed a long time ago and been swept into the dustbin of history? How is it still around? And yet, here we are, 30% of the global population in some way claims Christ is King. It’s the largest religion in the world. Why? Why is that? How is that possible? It’s because belief in Jesus, belief in the Son of God is not just an intellectual exercise. It’s not just a philosophy for life. God has come into the world and he is made real, compelling, irresistible spiritual change inside of us. He has made us into new creatures. Christ has given us understanding. He opens our minds to see God and the world the way they actually are. The gospel makes sense of the world in a way that no other worldview does. C.S. Lewis famously wrote, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. Christ came to bring understanding, to make sense of our world, to show us what is really happening here.

You know, sometimes when you talk to people about what’s happening in this world, they’ll say, they’ll point out things like senseless violence, or they’ll say there’s senseless hatred of others. And I agree, those things are terrible, but they are not senseless. If you know Christ and you see the way the world truly is, in fact, if you look at the world biblically, it makes a lot of sense that we would have all this chaos and sin and hurt and garbage. A creation broken and thoroughly influenced by the enemy of God who is bent on destruction makes sense of the world that I see. This is the bad news against which the Good News shines. Christ came so that we can be redeemed out of this madness. He came so that we can know him who is true. Jesus Christ both embodies and he preaches the truth that defeats the lies that bind us in sin. He came so that we can be in him who is true. Not just to know him who is true, but to be in him who is true. This is our spiritual unity with Christ. Jesus didn’t just come to give us understanding. He came to give us a new identity because we are spiritually bonded to him in his death and resurrection through the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

We are new creations in Christ. Our old lives are gone now. We are new creations spiritually united by Jesus. United together in Christ. The church isn’t around today because it offers the best life that you can live from a worldly perspective. It’s still around because it teaches the truth that sets us free. That’s why it’s here. Jesus alone shows us the way to eternal life because he is eternal life. He is the only way to eternal life. He is the only escape from a dying world that is ruled by evil. This is what we know. Church. These are the things we know. We confess our sins to each other. We help each other see our sins because we love Christ, and we don’t want to see anyone fall into the traps of the evil world all around us. That’s what a church is. And that’s why John ends this letter with one final thought that sums up everything that he hopes for us. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Keep yourselves from idols. John’s letter has circulated through time and distance to come to us right here this morning, Calvary EFC. To keep us firmly committed to Jesus. Friends, idolatry is everywhere. An idol is anything that you’re pursuing apart from Christ. It’s anything that has taken His place in your heart. It’s a false god that’s meant to mislead you away from Christ and away from eternal life.

And these idols are everywhere. They’re all over. John’s letter of warning to our church and to all churches is to get rid of the fake gods so that we can stay faithful and connected to the one true God, Jesus Christ. You know, some of you are absolutely enamored with sin that is robbing you of your joy in Christ. Do you know that? You are so committed to something that is hurting you, and it is taking you away from the joy that you were meant to have in Christ. Can you feel the divided loyalty in your heart? Can you feel that? Do you see that, that tension between what you say about Jesus and the worldliness that’s ensnared you? Some of you are snared in sin and you’re telling yourself it’s fine. That you can live both ways, that you can live two lives. John has written this letter to tell you, you can’t. You can’t. But here’s the thing, church. You also can’t pull yourself out of it. You can’t just make a few changes in your life and make things all better again. You can’t save yourself. You need to renounce your sin, admit your idols, turn to Christ and let Him set you free. Because there’s joy in serving Christ and in serving Christ alone. That’s what we as a church are here to do, to be helpers to one another, to push each other toward the Lord. Would you pray with me?

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