David Henneke's Podcast

Grace is more than simply the unmerited favor of God displayed & enacted in Jesus. Grace also has a purpose…the practical outworking of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Believers. It is Grace alone that saves us and it is Grace alone that empowers and enables us to Glorify Him.

We cannot pick & choose what we want to believe & follow from the Bible. The Bible will have no sustaining power for life if we make ourselves the authority of what we will or will not believe and follow. The Scriptures were life to Moses and food to Jesus.  They cannot and must not be anything less to us. The Word of God is the very breath of God. Therefore, Scripture is the inerrant, sufficient and final authority of our faith and practice. May we live in full obedience to His Word!

Fully aware of the danger of heretical teaching infiltrating the Church, John gives his Final Encouragement…hold fast and submit and surrender your life to the One True God! After all, Jesus IS the True God and Eternal Life.  He is the true revelation of God. Anything else is a counterfeit and a false substitute.

Over the past several weeks we have looked at several foundational truths that we can believe & confess with great confidence: The 1st TRUTH is, WE KNOW THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD; the 2nd TRUTH is, THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE SON OF GOD HAVE ETERNAL LIFE; the 3rd TRUTH is, GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS! John illustrates “praying according to God’s will” with a very specific example found in 1 John 5:16-19 which leads us to the 4th TRUTH, WE HAVE BEEN CALLED TO PRAY FOR ONE ANOTHER.

This morning we gather to look at the 3rd Truth that we can BELIEVE & CONFESS with great confidence. The 1st TRUTH is, WE KNOW THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD; the 2nd TRUTH is THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE SON OF GOD HAVE ETERNAL LIFE and today’s TRUTH is GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS! Not only can a believer HAVE the assurance of their salvation, they also HAVE the assurance that God will HEAR their prayers and will ANSWER them. It is Because of the GIFT of eternal life that we, as children of God, can come directly before His Throne of Grace with boldness and with confidence. 

Last week we looked at the 1st of five truths that we can believe and confess with great confidence - WE KNOW THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD. This week we will discover that - THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE SON OF GOD HAVE ETERNAL LIFE. This we can proclaim with confidence because this is something that we know. How do we know this to be true? In addition to having the witness of the Spirit within; we have the witness of the Word of God. “These things have I written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life” 

It was in 1789 that Benjamin Franklin wrote the words: “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Of course, we KNOW that there are many more certainties, other than just death and taxes. As Believers, we are not afraid to say (with confidence), “We Know! ” In fact, the word “know” occurs 39 times in this letter, 8 times in the closing chapter. In these closing verses of John’s letter, we find five Christian certainties on which we can build our lives with confidence. The first (and foundational) certainty is: Jesus IS the Son of God. 

The keyword in this section is perfect. God wants to perfect in us His love for us AND our love for Him. In this section, John gives us four evidences that God’s love is being perfected in us: (1) Confidence, (2) Honesty, (3) Joyful Obedience and (4) Victory. 

For the third time, we are considering the subject of love! He first mentioned it in 2:7–11, where it is given as an INDICATOR of one who is walking in the light. The second time comes in the middle of ch. 3 and is mentioned as EVIDENCE that one is a child of God. In our text this morning we get down to the very foundation of the matter. Today we’ll discover WHY love is such an important part of the life of a believer. If we are united to God THRU faith in Christ, then we share His nature and since His nature IS LOVE, then LOVE is the test of the reality of our spiritual life.

When it comes to the truth: What YOU believe…What is think…What you feel…is all absolutely irrelevant unless God believes, thinks and feels the same way. Therefore, we must be alert and vigilant about WHAT we believe. In this section, John’s warning is CLEAR: behind every statement is a SPIRIT but NOT every spirit is the Spirit of God. You are responsible under God to test what you hear against what the Bible teaches.