Searching Through the Junk Drawer – 10/29/23

In my entire life, I’ve lived in five different houses, and I hope to never move again. Like all houses, they share some similarities — all had a kitchen, all had a living room, a bathroom, and at least one bedroom. But all of my residences that I’ve ever lived in share one very specific and particular feature — a kitchen junk drawer. Now, that’s what my family calls it because that’s what my mom and dad called it. So, any time you needed something, you would ask for it, you would be told to go to the junk drawer — a battery, a safety pin, glue, pen, paper, gum, mint, scissors (if the person put them back). All of these can be found in the junk drawer.

Now, in the junk drawer, they weren’t readily available. You had to search through the junk drawer to find those items. And you would come upon other things, like a jeweler’s screwdriver set missing most of the parts, an old McDonald’s kid’s meal toy, a yellowed receipt from Community Cash, an old medicine bottle where the label was faded but there were still pills in it, a broken bracelet, if you’re old, a film container containing quarters. And everybody’s junk drawer has a ring of keys for which you have no idea what they do, whatsoever.

In a junk drawer, you saw things that you expected. You went there because you knew something was going to be there. But every once in a while, you would look down and all of a sudden you would find yourself holding a kazoo and wondering why in the world is there a kazoo in the junk drawer? And then just like everyone else before you, you would put the kazoo back into the junk drawer and close it for the next person to find.

Now, it is a weird thing you can find in junk drawers. A kazoo is an odd thing, but it doesn’t mean it’s valueless. Maybe that was from your kid’s fifth birthday, and you wanted to have something to remember the fun you had. So, you can go to a junk drawer and find things you expect. You expect batteries, and you can find things that stand out or things that surprise you like kazoos.

Now, what I want to try to do respectfully is compare the last half of I John to searching through a junk drawer. We’ve been in I John since August. So, by chapter 5 and the second half of chapter 5, there are things — because John is so repetitious — there are things we expect to find when we read chapter 5. We’re not going to be surprised by them at all. Those are batteries as we look through chapter 5. But as you read chapter 5, you also find a couple of kazoos in there. If you were here last week, think of the section where we talked about John calling Water, Blood, and the Spirit to witness in court for the validity of Jesus. It was brand new material out of nowhere — kazoo. So, as we look through I John, there are things we expect to find, like batteries, things he’s already talked about, and then brand new things that are kind of surprising to us that are kazoos.

So, to really pound this metaphor into the ground and maybe jump up and down on top of it three or four times, I want to read our passage today. And I’m going to stop after every paragraph and ask you “battery (things you expect John to say) or kazoo?” And what would be really helpful is if all of you answered out loud so I feel less like a moron standing up here going “battery or kazoo?” All right? So, you guys will answer the question when we get there? Good. Thanks.

1 John 5 — Have you heard this before or not? Battery or kazoo?

“And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Eternal life, Son of God — have you heard that before or not? Battery or kazoo? Well done! Thanks for the energy. Keep it going. Definitely it’s a battery. We’ve heard about that topic — chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, and chapter 4. He continues.

“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.”

Battery or kazoo? Battery. You guys are awesome, and I just want to say you’re a little bit better than first [service] because they were … Yeah! Competition! Because this one’s a little tricky. That first part, eternal life, yes, definitely heard about that. We heard about prayer before, mentioned in chapter 3. We’re going to review that a little bit later today. We also heard about confidence in chapter 2:28 and chapter 4:17.

How about this one?

“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.”

Battery or kazoo? Very kazoo-like, very new information, similar to the Water, Blood, Spirit courtroom scene from last week.

What about this?

“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who has been born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.”

Battery, kazoo? Battery. Yep. We’ve heard about not practicing sin in chapters 1, 2, and 3. John continues.

“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 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.”

Battery or kazoo? Battery again. You guys are almost 100%.

Last one. Let’s see what happens. The very last words of I John.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Battery or kazoo? Kazoo. Yes, has he talked about idols at all or idolatry?

So, this exercise that we’ve done, as odd as it might be, gives us the ability to do a couple of things with this chapter that we’re on today. We can review what we expected to see. We can investigate what’s new, the kazoos. And then we can summarize the entire book of I John at the end. So, we’re going to use that structure, keep hitting the metaphor and talk about batteries and kazoos.

The first battery we saw I’m going to describe this way — we possess eternal life. As we go through, I’m going to put up all the references or most of the references of each topic so that you can see it in other parts of the book. John says,

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life.”

“I write these things.” Well, what things did John write? Well, it’s the first four and a half chapters of the book. All of John’s words lead up to this moment of conclusion — I’m writing so you know you have eternal life. You can know if you have eternal life. And John’s answer throughout the book, repeated over and over, is “If you confess Jesus as Son of God, come in the flesh, you can verify that you know God through loving your brother and obeying God’s commands, you can know if you have eternal life.”

Battery number 2 I would describe as, we know God hears and God responds. We know God hears and responds. 1 John 5:14-15.

“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’ve asked of him.”

I mentioned earlier, John says the same thing in I John 3:21-22.

“Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”

So, John is saying, if we ask, God hears; if God hears, God responds. Why? Why does God hear and respond? Well, first in chapter 3, he says he listens because we do what pleases him. We obey his commands. And then in I John 5, John’s reminding us of who God is in relation to us. We are fathered by God. We learned that last week. If we confess Jesus as Son of God, come in the flesh, then we’re born of God. God’s now our Father. God listens because dads respond to kids. It’s what they do. We have confidence because of how we relate to God through Jesus. God is literally now our Father, just like he’s the Father to Jesus.

When Jesus’s disciples asked him, “How do we pray? How do we do that?” This is what Jesus said.

“And Jesus said to them, ‘When you pray, say, “Father, hallowed be your name. Holy be your name. Your kingdom come.”‘”

Friends, when we pray, we pray like kids asking their dad for help. Kids assume their dad’s going to help, especially when they’re very young. They assume that mom and dad can solve anything in the world like that. That’s how we talk to God because he loves us and we’re in Jesus. We pray like kids who believe their dad loves them and knows the best answer. God knows what his kids need more than they do. God knows what his kids need more than they do. God always responds kindly to his kids.

Jesus actually put it this way. Jesus is preaching on a mountain in front of people, talking about prayer. And he says this. He asks questions of the crowd.

“Or which one of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, will give him a serpent?”

So, Jesus is asking these odd questions to people — “Hey, if your kids ask for lunch, and you hear the question, instead of giving them a sandwich, do you walk outside and give them a rock? If your kids ask for dinner, do you go outside and find a copperhead and throw it onto a plate?” It’s a ridiculous question. Of course not! Why? Because dads don’t do that. Jesus continues,

“If you then, who are evil…”

If you then who aren’t God know how to give good gifts to your children … I’m a broken man. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I know how to give good gifts to my kids. They were really happy two Christmases ago when they got a new iPhone. If someone like me can make a kid on this earth happy, if I have the potential to give a good gift, Jesus says, “How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?” So, you can literally look at Ferguson and go, “If a guy like that can do a good thing for a kid, then what in the world will God the Father do for his kids when they ask for help?” We’re asking in God’s will. We’re asking, according to his name. Our requests to God align with who he is and what he wants. Our prayer content is first and foremost informed by what God would want. And Jesus is without doubt the pinnacle example of praying this way, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Jesus, the night one of his friends betrayed him, right before he got arrested … They had a meal, and then when the meal was over, Jesus and his friends went to this garden because Jesus wanted to pray. He wanted to talk to his Father. Mark records that moment for us and says this. And Jesus and his disciples,

“They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ And he took with him Peter and James and John, and he began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death, sorrow to the point of death. Remain here and watch.’ And going a little farther, he fell on the ground …”

Jesus collapsed on the ground.

“… and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.”

The upcoming experience might pass from him.

“And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’”

So, Jesus asked for a different path while simultaneously trusting his Father to choose the correct path. That’s how John says we can pray. We can pray, believing that God will choose the best path.

As we work through chapter 5, we now come to our first oddity, our first kazoo, and I’m going to describe that “as we pray for a sinning brother”; we pray for a sinning brother. This is that whole “sin unto death doesn’t lead to death” section. The language here stands out to us. It seems odd, and if you have an ear for the Bible, maybe even contradictory to other things that you’ve heard.

The first thing we need to recognize is that John stays on topic. He’s still talking about prayer. So, he’s talking about we believe God answers. Now, he’s going to narrow down prayer to a very specific scenario. Listen to this. 1 John 5:16-17.

“If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, he shall pray, 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.”

So, let’s look at a couple of things about this section as to why it may stand out and feel or fall on our ear in an odd way. The first is because of the apostle Paul. If you’re familiar with the Scriptures, Paul wrote a lot of letters. He wrote this one particular letter to the church in Rome, and we call it Romans. And in that he writes this about sin.

“The wages of sin is death.”

The payment for sin is death. Sin, “not measuring up to God’s righteous standard,” separates us from God, and that separation results in death. Then we read I John, and John says,

“All wrongdoing is sin,”

all wrongdoing is not measuring up to God’s righteous standard,

“but there is sin that does not lead to death.”

So, how does that work? Are Paul and John at odds? Is there a discrepancy there? Not at all, because John in his writing has already given us the answer. We’ve got to go back to chapter 1:9.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Then at the beginning of chapter 2, John says,

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”

1 John as a whole is a lot of words given to us to help us not sin. It’s a sin-prevention document.

“My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

If you confess your sin to Jesus, Jesus becomes your advocate with the Father.

So, sin that does not lead to death is sin Jesus advocates for. It’s sin that Jesus talks to God about on your behalf. With an advocate, with Jesus as our advocate, when we sin, we still possess life because Jesus argues to God on our behalf. So, sin leading to death is sin that Jesus is not the advocate for, that Jesus does not talk to God about. Without an advocate in Jesus, the sentence for sin is death. What John is saying is, if we believe, we know God hears; if we know God hears, we know that we have whatever we ask in his will. Therefore, if you see a brother — someone who claims to follow Jesus — sinning, pray, and God will give him life.

Second reason this might seem odd to our ears is when John says this really odd phrase,

“I do not say one should pray for that.”

He talks about sin leading to death and then says, “I do not say one should pray for that situation.” What do we do with that? It seems a little harsh and odd. Well, I think to understand it, we have to go back and look at Jesus again as the best example of how to pray to the Father. John records this prayer of Jesus’s in his gospel. John 17. So, this is Jesus talking to God, and Jesus says this.

“I have manifested your name [I have shown your name] to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them.”

Jesus is praying for people who have come to know the truth, who believe that Jesus came from God, and they believe that God sent him. That’s who Jesus is praying for. And then Jesus says this.

“I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name.”

These people who have believed in you, my prayer for them,

“Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”

Jesus in this moment is particularly praying for people who know Jesus came in the flesh and that God sent Jesus into the world. In this moment, Jesus is not presently praying for the world, for those who don’t believe in him. Jesus has a tight prayer point. His point is,

“Holy Father, keep them in your name.”

Keep them to what they believe about me and you. John is saying when we see a brother sin, that in a sense we mimic Jesus. Just as Jesus prayed for the people that believe, we pray for people who believe. We pray for them since they believe, and so God continues to give them life. God keeps them in his name. John, like Jesus, is not particularly praying for those who do not believe in this moment in I John, and he clarifies that by saying,

“I do not say one should pray for that.”

So, that was our first kazoo.

We’re back to another battery, something that we’ve heard John talk about before — We don’t practice sinning. We don’t practice sin. Now, every time we come to a practice-sinning section in John, your minds should always go back to I John 1:9-2:1. We don’t make a practice of it. We don’t make a practice of continuing to sin. We make a practice of righteousness, of obeying God’s commands. So, God as Father listens to his kids and protects his kids to keep them from sinning. 1 John 5:18,

“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning [doesn’t practice it], but he who was born of God protects him [Jesus, born of God protects us], and the evil one does not touch him.”

God is like a dad at the mall watching his kid to keep him safe.

My twenty-one-year old, when he was about four, I took him with me to the mall, and we went to this store called Aeropostale, and I’m looking at some stuff, and it had one of those round hanger racks, big round one with the shelf on top where they put other stuff, packed full of clothes … I’m looking at something in this direction. Max decides it’s going to be a great idea to separate the shirts, step in and up on the little platform, and he’s only this tall, and completely disappear. So, I turn around, and I don’t know where my kid is in the mall, and I’m going up and down the entire store trying to find my kid to see if he left. I walk by that rack again and then hear the little giggle. He’s hidden from me. God protects his kids way better than me. He always knows where they are. We don’t keep on sinning because we have the protection of the Father, who has overcome the evil one. God protects us from sin while we simultaneously obey God’s commands to not sin. We don’t practice sinning.

Another battery — We can know God and the enemy. We can know God and the enemy. Now, here’s the problem. Well, I don’t know if that’s right word. Here’s the thing with I John. What I just said — “We know God and the enemy” — is a ridiculous statement, ridiculously good. I just said you can know the God who spoke the world into existence. Are you with me there? I wish … I can’t teach that better because my mind … poof! How do you get good words to help people understand that? When I was practicing, I was like … All I’m doing is saying the same thing over and over. I’m not actually explaining it because I can’t. To make us fully understand it, all I can say is “You can know God, and you can know the enemy.” 1 John 5:19-20,

“We know that we are from God, and we know the whole world lies in the power of the evil one [the whole system that is against Jesus as Christ]. 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. Jesus is the true God and eternal life.”

If you believe Jesus is Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One come in the flesh, you’re from God. That’s where you reside. That’s where you grew up, so to speak. You’re from him. That knowing of God provides a proper vigilance in a world that isn’t passive towards you and your beliefs. They are aggressive towards you and your beliefs, and it gives us proper vigilance against an enemy who is trying to bait us and pull us away from our original confession. We, through Jesus, can know God and know we have an enemy.

And in the final words, you guys helped me by saying those final words are a little unique. “We keep away from idols.” John ends his letter with his repeated term of endearment, “little children.” Just as we’re born of God and God’s our Father, it sure seems like John’s relationship to his readers is that of father and children. He says it over and over and over. So, this last little phrase is in my brain, kind of like John is signing off like a mom would sign off a letter that she writes to her kid in college, trying to give a last little bit of advice at the end of the letter. John briefly gives fatherly advice —

“Keep yourselves from idols.”

The first thing I want us to note here — keeping ourselves from idols is a group activity. One of my daughters, my eighteen-year old, she and I have spoken throughout her junior high/high school experience that both of us aren’t big fans of group work. We’re wired more to being in charge, doing our own thing. Keeping ourselves from idols is group work. We do it together. We help each other do that. It’s not a solitary command. Now, John hasn’t mentioned idols or idolatry by name throughout the whole letter. So, I think what John is doing is he’s giving us a shorthand way to see the entire book. It’s a shorthand way to see the entire book. “Keep away from idols.” These words are consistent with his overall theme of believing that Jesus is Christ, exclusively believing that Jesus is the Son of God come in the flesh. John is saying in those last little words “keep away from any belief other than the belief of Jesus as Son of God and Christ.”

An idol throughout the Scriptures is a worship stand-in, a worship substitute. Instead of worshiping the one true God, one worships an idol, a carved image, a graven image, a statue, a stand-in for another god (little g). John’s entire letter is formed around the idea of really knowing Jesus as God, the Son of God, and possessing eternal life. So, his final words summarize everything in this brief, cautionary tale. What you believe about Jesus is everything. Believing Jesus is Christ is the only way to eternal life. So, stay the course, and keep away from idols. Don’t deviate. Stay away from any other worship substitutes. And more specifically for John, and I think really true of our day today, John is saying “don’t create a new Jesus Christ.” Don’t carve Jesus into the image you believe he should be. Remember the people in this group that left? They stopped believing that Jesus either came in the flesh or that Jesus remained the Son of God at his crucifixion, but they would still say they believe in Jesus. They carved a new image of Jesus Christ. And John is stepping in and saying, “No, keep yourself away from all idols. Stay true to Jesus as Christ, Jesus as Messiah, and reject worship substitutes.”

So, as we searched through I John 5, that second half, we found things that we expected to find in there because John had talked about them before — We possess eternal life. We know God hears and responds. We don’t practice sinning. We know God and the enemy.

We also found two surprises in there — We pray for a sinning brother, and we keep away from idols.

In a way, with that summary at the end, John takes us all the way back to the beginning of his letter. We end where we began.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — the life was made manifest [it became real], and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us — that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.”

John proclaims the reality of Jesus, the eternal life that was a human and the Son of God, who will ultimately heal a broken world and heal the brokenness between humanity and God.

How do we know? How do we know if we have eternal life? How are we certain? How are we assured? This is how we know. Our confession of Jesus as the Son of God come in the flesh — I John 4:2-3,

“By this, you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”

1 John 4:14,

“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”

This is how we know. Our commitment to love our brother — I John 4:7,

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”

This is how we know. Our obedience to God’s commands — I John 2:3,

“And by this, we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.”

This is how we know.

Throughout this series, Peter, myself, and others have said that I John is not an easy book. John’s structure and style are unique and challenging. John’s statements about nearly everything are so stark and black and white and right and wrong, and sometimes we can get lost in the difficulty of the book, and we must not leave I John lost.

I would argue, when taken as a whole, if you read all of I John as someone who believes Jesus is Christ, that I John, while difficult, is full of encouragement over and over and over. I don’t want you to leave without all of John’s encouragement. If you believe Jesus is the Son of God, come in the flesh to die on your behalf, to erase the separation between you and God, if that’s what you know, if that’s what you believe, if that’s what you know is true, then this is everything in the book of I John that you also know. If you know that about Jesus, this is also what we know.

We have fellowship with other believers.
We have fellowship with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
We have complete joy.
The blood of Jesus cleanses us from sin.
Our sins are forgiven.
We’re cleansed from unrighteousness.
Jesus is our advocate with God when we sin.
We know God.
The love of God is perfected in us.
We abide in the light.
We have no cause to stumble.
We know him who is from the beginning.
We’ve overcome the evil one.
We know the Father.
We are strong.
The Word of God abides in us.
The love of the Father lives in us.
We abide forever.
We know we’re in the last hour.
We know we’re anointed by the Holy One.
We have all the knowledge we need.
We know the truth.
We abide in the Son and the Father.
We have God’s promise of eternal life.
God’s anointing in the Spirit teaches us.
We have confidence that we don’t have to shrink at Jesus’s coming.
We’re God’s children.
When Jesus appears, we will be like him.
Jesus appeared to take away our sin.
We can defeat sin.
We’re of the truth.
We’ve been born of God.
God hears and responds to our prayers.
We abide in God, and God abides in us.
God gave us the Spirit.
We know the Spirit of God.
Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.
We’re from God.
We know the difference between the Spirit of truth and error.
If we love, we’re born of God and know God.
We live through Jesus.
We have confidence for the day of judgment.
Fear is cast out.
We love God because he loved us first.
We love God’s kids.
God’s commands for us aren’t burdens, but invitations to love.
We’ve overcome the world through faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the Son of God. We have eternal life.
We have life in Jesus.
God gives life to sinning brothers.
We aren’t trapped by sin.
God protects us from evil.
We’re from God.
The Son of God has given us understanding to know God and know the Son of God.
We’re in Jesus, who is true.
Jesus is true God and eternal life.
Believing in Jesus is rejecting every other worship substitute.

That’s what we know!

You can know if you have eternal life. If you know you have eternal life by believing in Jesus, then you know all of that as well, and you get to experience all of it as well. This is how we know. This is how we know what we believe about Jesus the Christ. Amen. Amen.