Certain Eternity Part 41 – Certain and Confident
1 John 5:13-15 September 14, 2025
Introduction
1 John 5:11-15 “11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and
this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have
the Son of God does not have life. 13 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. 14
And this is the confidence that we have toward 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 that we have asked of him.”
2 parts: Our Certainty and Our Confidence
Our Certainty (v13)
Charlie Kirk – politics don’t matter this was driven by the spiritual realities behind
the scenes. A truth speaker into the culture is a grave threat to the schemes of
the enemy…remember Stephen (Acts 6)
Charlie’s death is tragic. You may have never listened to him speak and yet
still feel a sense of loss, of violation, of sadness. Grive and mourn, but we
do not grieve like those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
Charlie Kirk loves Jesus and shared his truth, even if it meant he would be
a martyr.
We know that the Lord will bring justice…scripture calls us to trust the
Lord. And be reminded that He is in control.
Psalm 37:1-13
1 Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
be not envious of wrongdoers!
2 For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.
3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.
7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!
8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
9 For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
10 In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
11 But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.
12 The wicked plots against the righteous
and gnashes his teeth at him,
13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that his day is coming.
Trust the Lord. He is in control. His justice will come…but not until more of what
happened with Charle continues to happen.
Matthew 24:3-14 “3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him
privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of
your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “See that
no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the
Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of
wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not
yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there
will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the
beginning of the birth pains. 9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put
you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And
then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And
many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because
lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one
who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be
proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the
end will come.
Don’t be alarmed (v6), don’t be surprised when our brothers and sisters are
hated and killed, especially when they are speaking directly to the culture
(v9), do not lay blame at the cause of Christ, know the enemy and his
schemes (v10-11), continue to love like Jesus loved (v12), and continue to
trust in the Lord and endure (v13) placing your hope in His truth and
sharing that truth with those around you (v14).
This is why our steadfast and firm certainty in knowing that we are saved,
knowing that we are children of God is so critical.
Turn back to 1 John 4:1-6 [read it]– we face an antichrist spirit in this world.
And the enemy is actively seeking to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10),
but He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4) and
therefore we have overcome the world through our faith in Jesus (1 John
5:4)
Revelation 12:9-12 “9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient
serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he
was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10
And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the
accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night
before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and
by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12
Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O
earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he
knows that his time is short!””
The enemy knows his time is short, so he is seeking take as many people
with him as he can.
This is why our certainty matters. We can stand undaunted in the face of an
assassin’s bullet knowing that if we are martyred, like Charlie Kirk, we will
be with the Lord. But until then, we have work to do. We have truth to
share. We have love to give, we have hope to spread.
Like Paul, we can proclaim, Philippians 1:20-23 “20 as it is my eager
expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with
full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body,
whether by life or by death. 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is
gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet
which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the
two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”
We know it is better to be with the Lord, as Charlie is now. Yet, it is
necessary for us to remain and do the work we are called to here. The
certainty of our salvation is what allows us to do that courageously in the
face of fear. That by the power of the Holy Spirit within us, we can stand
firm and endure the threat of death because we serve the God who has
given us a certain future life with him. We serve the God who has
overcome the world and, through faith in Jesus… trusting His payment for
our sin, we can stand confidently even in the face of being a martyr.
Our Confidence (v14-15)
John says this certainty not only allows us to overcome the world and stand firm
against the enemy, but it also gives us confidence in how we pray.
“14 And this is the confidence that we have toward 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 that we have asked of him.”
“Confidence” (Gk. parrēsia) The basic idea is an attitude of openness or
boldness that stems from freedom and lack of fear to speak…a complete
freedom to speak directly to God, through the authority (in the name of) of Jesus
(John 14:13-14). Greeks used parrēsia of those with the right to speak openly in
the assembly.
Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of
grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
(same Gk. word)
1 John 3:21-22 “21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have
confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him,
because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”
John has talked about our confidence before the Lord throughout this
letter…the freedom to boldly approach the throne of God because
we’ve put our faith and trust in Jesus.
We’ve submitted to Him, He is our Lord and King. Therefore,
we are adopted into the family of God and encouraged to
approach the throne of our heavenly father knowing that He
hears – or gives special attention to – our prayers and delights
in giving good gifts to his children (Luke 11:13, Matthew 7:11)
who delight in Him and are seeking to do His will.
John Stott “Christian confidence belongs not just to the future, to the parousia
(1Jn 2:28)[second coming of Christ] and the judgment day (1Jn 4:17), but to the
here and now. It describes both the manner of our approach to God, free and
bold (1Jn 3:21), and our expectation of its outcome namely that … he hears us.
In 3:22 the condition of answered prayer is whether our behavior accords with
God’s commands; here whether our requests accord with His will.”
And that is the key isn’t it, that we are seeking to do God’s will first and
foremost in all things. Too often, people approach God with a genie in the
bottle mentality. Certainly, boldly lay your requests before the throne of
God….but always seek God’s kingdom first (Matthew 6:33), God’s
glory…His will to be done.
Jesus taught us to pray this way … “thy will be done”. (Matthew
6:10), Jesus modeled prayer in this way to us in the garden of
Gethsemane … “not as I will, but as you will.”(Matthew 26:39, 42, 44)
and John reminds us now that our boldness and confidence is rooted
in our faith in Jesus and trusting to seek His will in our lives above all
else.
Of course we know, that sometimes the answer is no, or not yet.
David Jackman “It is hypocritical nonsense to hold on to some cherished sin in
our lives and at the same time come to God in prayer, to ask him for some
gracious good gift. But if we have first found his cleansing and forgiveness (1Jn
1:9), we can ask with boldness. God’s will is ‘good, pleasing and perfect’ (Rom.
12:2), so when a request is refused it is not due to any reluctance or
unwillingness in God, unless it be the unwillingness to give to a dearly loved child
something that the heavenly Father, in his perfect wisdom, knows would not be in
that child’s best interests. For prayer is not an attempt to get God to see things
my way and to extract from him what I have decided I need or want. Prayer is
submitting my will to his…. It is opening the door of my need to the Lord Jesus.
And this means that prayer is God’s means by which my submission to Christ’s
lordship can be developed. The less I pray, the more self-willed I become. But
the corollary is wonderfully true. ‘Not my will, but yours’—that is the essence of
assured prayer, the secret of prevailing prayer. What confidence we can have!
This should be a great stimulus in our personal lives to find out God’s will, to
build on the commands and promises of his Word in our prayers, to talk every
situation through with him, and to submit all our thinking, planning and deciding
to God. Answers to prayer do not depend on a right diagnosis or analysis of the
problem by us as we pray, but on a childlike submission to the Father, knowing
that he will give what is best according to his will.”
This, of course, comes about as we mature in our faith and trust in Jesus.
And the enemy is going to try to do everything he can to get us to fall for
the lies that we can’t trust God…that He isn’t good…that He doesn’t have
our best interests at heart, that he lets his children get murdered in cold
blood and so we must take matters into our own hands.
But we cannot fall for those lies. We can always trust in God because He
always tells the truth…He loves us and always does what is in our ultimate
best interests – even when we don’t realize it – and death is not to be
feared when we are in Christ….though we may die, we are now with Jesus.
And so, by God’s grace, we can learn to trust.
Dwight L. Moody “The sweetest lesson I have learned in God’s school is to let
the Lord choose for me.”
Put differently, prayer allows us to listen, learn, and be molded to God’s
will…not to seek to mold His will to ours.
Max Anders “Prayer must be viewed not as our attempt to get God to see
things from our point of view but as our attempt to see things from God’s
point of view. When we grow, mature, study, and meditate on Scripture and
seek the will of God, we try to ask ourselves not what we want, but what
God wants. Then we make progress in prayer.”
God will always hear His children and as we learn to pray more and more aligned
with His will, we will see that He always answers our prayers, occasionally as we
expect and hope, but always aligned with what He knows is best for the moment.
Growing in our faith is, in part, learning to trust those answers with increasing
measure.
Charles Spurgeon “I saw the other day a greyhound [chasing] a hare. The
moment the hare ran through the hedge out of the greyhound’s sight, the race
was over, for he could not follow where he could not see. The true hound hunts
by scent, but the greyhound only by sight. Now there are some Christians too
much like the greyhound; they only follow the Lord as far as they can see his
manifest mercy; but the true child of God hunts by faith, and when he cannot see
the mercy, he scents it and still pursues it, till at last he lays hold upon it. Why,
man, you say you have had no answers! How know you? God may have
answered you, though you have not seen the answer. This is a riddle, but it is a
fact. God has not promised to give you the particular mercy in kind, but he will
give it you somehow or other. If I pay my debts in gold, no man can blame me
because I do not pay them in silver; and if God gives you spiritual mercies in
abundance, instead of temporal ones, he has heard your prayer. You may pray,
like Paul, thrice, that the thorn in the flesh may be taken away from you: God’s
answer is given, and it is, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’ … You have had an
answer, and if God has heard you but once, pluck up courage and go again.”
So we have confidence that the Lord hears our prayers and we have confidence
that He will always give us an answer in accordance with His will. Like we read in
Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your
heart.”
The more we learn to delight in the Lord…the more that our desires will be
to do His will in all things. Therefore, as we go through this life and face the
various trials, tribulations, and attacks that we all will face…we can have
confidence in the midst of those things.
We can confidently stand firm no matter what we face because our
God is with us now and in eternity. He knows what is best for us, and
as our heart’s desire deepens in its trust and delight in Him there is
none who can keep us from the good that God has promised (Rom.
8:31).
Our eternity is in heaven. Through our trust in Jesus we have overcome
this world. That is the certainty the Lord wants us to have as we serve Him
and fearlessly walk in the midst of the enemy’s schemes that would seek to
take us. But to live is to serve Christ and to die is to gain eternity with our
King. There is nothing better. Charlie Kirk is enjoying that right now…and I
pray that whatever stage of grief you may be going through right now, his
martyrdom will only serve to strengthen your faith and crystalize your
certainty that you are a saved, forgiven, adopted child of God that need not
fear anything this side of heaven. Because our greatest joy is to look
forward to the day we will hear “well done, good and faithful servant”.
That is our crown, and by God’s grace, He will give us the confidence to
prayerfully walk in that calling, even in the face of martyrdom.
So as we go from here, do not let anger take you, do not be pulled into the
political muck and mire that the enemy wants to trap you in. The Lord will bring
justice, that’s His job. Our job is spread truth and love to those in this world who
desperately need it. And a senseless death like this will remind people that they
are still looking for hope that they have not yet found in this world.
We know they will never find it anywhere but in Jesus. So let the death of our
brother spur us on to love. Let not your love grow cold, but let the light and truth
of Christ’s love in you shine forth. Share the gospel boldly, wisely, winsomely.
Come alongside those who are seeking answers in the face of this very public
martyrdom and point them to the gospel. Help them take as many steps as they
can toward Jesus and fight the lies and schemes of the enemy every step of the
way.
We know that the enemy is seeking to silence the voice of truth to young
people….but what the enemy means for evil, God will use for good to bring
about the salvation of many (Gen. 50:20). Let it be so as we are moved to
a deeper certainty of faith and confidence in prayer.
Amen. Amen.