I'm going to read in Romans chapter
8 a very common verse that we began to explicate a bit last
week. That's verse 26. I'm going to
set the context and then we'll remind ourselves of the larger
context. In Romans chapter 8 verse 26,
Likewise, or in the same manner, the spirit also helpeth our infirmities,
for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. but the
Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot
be uttered. And he that searcheth the heart
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God." Now we found ourselves
landing on Romans chapter 8 verse 28 with regards, 26 rather, with
regards to an aspect of the work of the Spirit of God that John
says in 1st John chapter 5 verse 10 through 12 among the two categories
of witnesses that God is bearing in the earth and in the heaven
by his spirit he is bearing witness in the life of the believer that
the believer indeed is a child of God and the spirit is assisting
the believer to bear credible witness to the world that Jesus
is the Son of God. So we are dealing now with this
third aspect of the witness. We call it the witness of the
Spirit. That's at the top of your outline. And we've been
looking at the nature of that work. And we can circumscribe
the inward prevailing, the internal prevailing witness of the Spirit,
as you have it in your outline, as the objective of God in the
third person to fulfill the promise that he made to his people when
Jesus said in John chapter 16, I will not leave you comfortless. I will not leave you comfortless. He told the disciples as he was
explaining his departure and the disciples were becoming sorrowful,
Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. And the King James is comfortless,
but the word means to be orphans. to be an orphan is to be what
fatherless. So what Jesus is saying is, I
will not leave you without a father. I will not leave you absent of
your your sonship affirmed. I will not leave you in a state
of being bastards. I will not leave you without
a filial sense of the presence of God, the father. That's what
you have in your outline. I will not leave you without
a sense, without a sense of special filial connection to the father.
Isn't that good? Now I want you to grasp that
because that's the only way you're going to understand the ministry
of the spirit in the areas in which we've already defined him.
Our Lord said to the disciples who were really struggling with
the idea that the master would be leaving them to a gargantuan
task that they knew in themselves they could not fulfill. They
were called upon to be the foundation of the church. They were called
upon to share the gospel, or spread the gospel, or preach
the gospel to every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. You can take
that command and apply it to yourself, and you immediately
sense the overwhelming burden and task of something that you
don't have within yourself the power to accomplish. You and
I do not have within ourselves the power to accomplish the witness
of the gospel to the world. We struggle with testifying the
gospel of Christ to our neighbor, to our relatives, let alone taking
it from your own people group, the Jews moving out beyond those
borders to the Samaritan who were Jews and Gentiles, and then
going beyond that to the Romans and then sending this gospel
to the other most parts of the world. So you and I need to know
that the call to be witnesses for Christ requires power. The call to be witnesses to Christ
requires power, a subjective power that is directly associated
with the presence of God in our life, that you cannot successfully
testify to the glory of God without the spirit of God. I can sum
it up like this. You need God in order to bear record to the
things of God. The testimony of God cannot be
done by mere human strength. We affirmed this again last week
when the disciples shortly before our Lord was crucified Um, they
misinterpreted their own strength by saying to Jesus, we will never
leave you. We will never forsake you. Everyone
else may abandon you, but we will not. And our master plainly
said, yes, you will. Yes, you will. You probably have
learned by now that you will too, without the grace of God.
It's absolutely amazing what will happen when a man or woman
seeks to do Spiritual things are things of the kingdom apart
from the strength of Christ. You can't do them. This is what
Jesus meant in John chapter 15 when he said, without me, you
can do what? And that's so very important to understand, therefore,
that when we are talking about the ministry of the spirit of
God, we're not talking about a gift that's given to us because
we are special people or that we are somehow uniquely endowed
or that we have now some special anointing by which we attract
attract people to ourselves. The ministry of the Spirit of
God is not for you to showboat how close you walk with God.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The need for God in
our life is for us to simply be able to live the Christian
life in a way that authenticates our claims that we believe that
Jesus is the Son of God. So we dealt with the several
categories, what it means for Him to work in our life, to reveal
the glories of the gospel, to teach us, to guide us, We dealt
with extensively last week to empower, to empower us, to equip
us, furnish us, enable us, strengthen us, qualify us, and therefore
produce in us what we cannot produce in ourselves. And so
today we are dealing with the witness of the Spirit, which
is what Paul speaks of in Romans 8, verse 16, for the Spirit itself
bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
That's the insight that the Spirit of God gave to the Apostle Paul
about what is necessary for us to be able to sustain our testimony. We need the Spirit of God bearing
record with our own spirit that we are the children of God. And
what I shared with you on that last week is that there are times
when you and I struggle with being able to believe that we
are children of God. There are times when we struggle
with that. And the goal of the spirit is to make sure that you
do not fail to understand what God did when he deposited into
your life, the new nature, the job of the spirit of God is to
nurture and to grow the believer into a very confident understanding
that they are indeed a child of God. What a gracious work
the third person has to sustain us in our calling as children
of God. But you also need to understand that there are, some
very serious inferences to be drawn from this. If I need God's
Spirit to even sustain my own belief that I am a child of God,
there must be some opposition, some conflict, some adversity
that is at bay testing that claim. If I need God's Spirit to sustain
my own belief that I am a child of God, so that I do not walk
away from the faith. Remember when the Lord Jesus
told Peter, when Peter was confidently boasting, I'll follow you anywhere.
Peter, the devil has sought to sift you as wheat. Remember that?
This is Luke's gospel, chapter 22. The devil has sought to sift
you as wheat, but I have prayed for you. I have prayed for you. In this context, Jesus is taking
on the role of the Spirit of God. For we are reading in verse
26, that's the role of the Spirit. So I want you to mark the relationship
between the person who is proclaiming to be a believer and his need
of the Spirit of God because Satan seeks to sift. He seeks to tempt. There is adversity
that goes on in our lives. So you and I are struggling not
only with the opposition of the devil that will come at you in
an accusatory fashion through the world, through your fallen
nature, through your relatives, through your friends, through
all kinds of means for which we need the Spirit of God to
sustain us. We need him to sustain us when
we fall, fall far, far short of being what we are called to
be. Is that true? Then the mystery then is, I'm
just going to wrap this this basic introductory thought up
before we go on and deal with verse 26 and move forward. The
mystery is when you and I find ourselves weak and fallen, it's the grace of the Spirit
of God that raises us back up again. If you've been a child
of God any time, you know that you have had to sue for mercy
frequently to the grace of God for having made so many mistakes,
so many errors, having fallen short so many times. You know
those periods in your life where you have found yourself so weak
and so feeble that you thought you would never recover. If you
are a child of God, if you've been a Christian any time long,
you have had those periods where you wonder, I wonder, will I
ever rise up out of this lethargy, out of this darkness, out of
this coldness, out of this sense of unbelief, out of this sense
of despair? Will God, the Spirit, will the
Spirit of God bring me back to a place of assurance of my salvation
so I can continue walking with Him? Have you ever been there?
Um, if you're a child of God, you have, these are the normative
challenges that go on in our life to teach us what it means
to walk by the spirit and not walk in the flesh. See the tension
for the believer is not walking in the flesh versus walking in
the spirit. And if we're sons of God, we're
called upon to be led by the spirit and not by the flesh.
And so to the degree we are making choices that are carnal and fleshly,
we will find ourselves having to suffer the consequences of
chastisement fallenness, weakness, and have to learn what it means
to call upon God and have the help of the Spirit of God. For
instance, in verse 26 it opens up, likewise the Spirit also
helps our what? The spirit also helps our infirmity
that that is a verb that is in what we call the passive form,
which means he is assumed to be there. That's his role there
to help us. He's not doing it for us. He's
assisting us. So it's our job to walk before
God in humility and seek God and sue God for mercy and grace
to live before him. You and I have a problem though
in our walk and it's called infirmities, infirmities. The goal of the
Spirit is to assist us in our infirmities. Is that making sense,
ladies and gentlemen? I want to make sure you get this
before we move forward. The thing that always bothers
me is, you know, people not actually grasping these concepts. You
and I, though saved, if we're saved, are weak. You and I, though
saved, if we're saved, are weak. We are weak by nature. There's
a constitutional weakness. This is not a justification for
sin. Let me establish that caveat. People who Listen, if you find
yourself inclined to sin, just want to sin, you're in a whole
nother category of trouble. I'm talking about weakness. Weakness
is where you desire, you want to, you put the effort in, and
you still find yourself not satisfied with your labors. Weakness is
when you are seeking to do the will of God, but you never quite
are able to do it to your own sense of satisfaction. That's
weakness. Impotence is when you don't have
the power at all to do it. Are you guys hearing me? so what
God said with the Lord Jesus said to the disciples in The
gospel of Luke when he asked them to pray with him for one
hour When he was going through his most horrible time and they
fell asleep He said the spirit is willing but the flesh is what
the spirit is willing the flesh is weak. That's a real believer
Where the spirit is not willing and the flesh is powerful, that's
an unsaved person. You guys got that? Where the
spirit is not willing and the flesh is powerful, that's an
unregenerate person. That person really doesn't have
the glory of God as his highest objective. For a true believer,
he yearns. We're getting ready to see that
there are three entities in Romans 8 that groan, and the believer
groans, groans. to be able to live out a full
manifestation of his sonship before God. And I just want you
to mark the Spirit's job is to help. He comes alongside of us. That's the preposition soon.
S-U-M-R-S-U-N corresponding to C-O-N. He comes alongside of
us to be with us. He's on our side. And then there's
another preposition attached to it called an anti. This is
an anti preposition. He comes alongside of us over
against our infirmities. He comes alongside of us over
against our infirmities. Now, last week, I used the metaphor
of lifting weights. Remember that? And I said, when
you put a certain amount of weight on the bar and you go to lift
that weight and you realize that weight is too heavy, you need
a what? A spot. You need a spot. So if we use
the analogy of a spotter who comes along to help lift that
weight, he is not lifting that weight for you. He's lifting
that weight with you, right? So you are actually lifting the
weight, but he's assisting you in actually accomplishing the
lifting of the weight. Is that true? He's not lifting
that weight for you. That wouldn't be fair. It would
be his work alone then. In this sense, he is assisting
you in lifting the weight because his job is to help you succeed.
But you can't lift it quite on your own because of your weakness,
ostinato, the absence of strength, your lack of strength and vitality.
So you need to come along in agreement with you to lift that
weight. And what is the opposition? Gravity is the opposition in
this sense. That is the anti. position that
he's working against. He's working against the gravity
that's keeping that weight down because you don't have the strength
to lift it up. But we've got to get it up. And the idea is
we've got to continue to walk with the Lord, or serve the Lord,
or live for his glory, or maintain, if you will, in our context,
our testimony. The word infirmities there means without strength,
or lacking strength, or being very weak. That's who we are
by nature. Now the context, also the larger
context in which we are dealing with the ministry of the spirit
bearing record in our spirit that we are sons and daughters
of God and then giving us the credible testimony that we are
children of God to others is in the context of a fallen world
system, a sinful world, a world that stands in opposition to
the gospel. So you need to know that the primary characteristic
or atmosphere and condition of the world in which we live as
believers is hostility. That's the primary context in
which we live. This sometimes can burden a true
believer that he doesn't have a whole lot of days where everything
is going his way, her way. But it's true. We don't have
a lot of days where things are going our way. We always seem
to be swimming upstream. We always seem to be working
against the tide. We always seem to be dealing
with some kind of resistance. The context of Romans 8 is that
we are in a world that's falling apart. The world itself is groaning
and travailing together until now. The world is groaning. This
creation is groaning because of sin. Look at it, verse 22.
For we know that the whole creation, what? Groans and travails in
pain together until now. So what God has done by Paul
is he's told us that on the larger cosmological level, I'm talking
about the universe, The universe is experiencing a kind of failure
to glorify God the way it ought to, consistent with the failures
of God's people to glorify God as it ought to. Do you guys get
that? So the universe is not living up to its calling. God
created the universe. He created it gloriously to honor
Him and to exalt His person and His attributes. But sin ruined
our universe, hasn't it? Our universe is going through
convulsions now. When you look out through these
magnificent telescopes into the universe, you see war, you see
conflict, you see disintegration, you see things that can scare
you taking place out there. It's falling apart. It's falling
apart. So are our bodies. They're falling
apart. And so there's a war in the heavens
too. There's a spiritual warfare going on in that second dimension
where the devil is in his rebellion and his hosts are at war with
the angels of God because this whole thing is falling, it's
falling. That's the context in which we live. That spiritual
conflict bleeds over into our world now that you and I stand
between the things seen and the things unseen. As true believers,
we live in this world and in the world to come. As true believers,
we stand between heaven and earth. As true believers, we stand between
the spiritual dimension and the carnal dimension. And in this
sort of dichotomy, you and I are struggling with the battle, the
battle of the flesh and the battle of the spirit. I'm setting the
context. because Christians will often not see this as the normative
experience of their life. Now in that context, what do
we need? We need God to lead us. We need him to guide us.
We need him to show us truth. We need him to strengthen us,
empower us. We need him to help us. Now verse
26 also says this, for we know not what we should pray for as
we are. Do you guys see that? Now again, Paul, is making a
very logical development of the relationship between the believer
and God through the Spirit. That walking with the Father
in this life assumes a need for us to be led by the Spirit, assisted
by the Spirit because of all the opposition that goes on in
our world. Secondly, now I want this to
be driven home because I'm going to launch from here into the
next aspect of our Our subject with regards to first john chapter
5 because I want to broach that subject tonight It is assumed
that when you become a believer it is assumed That you will at
some point in your walk as a believer start taking prayer seriously It is assumed by the scriptures
That at some point in your walk as a believer, you will start
taking prayer seriously And if you don't, you and I have real
concern. We ought to have real concern
with regards to our understanding, our calling, and the relationship
we have with God. I've said this more than once.
The apostle Paul becomes for us a great testimony of this
truth. Prior to his conversion, he persecuted
the church. He hunted believers down. He
caused them to blaspheme. He put them to death, consented
to his death. When God saved him on the Damascus road, the
first thing we find is he's driven to a house on a street called
Straight where he, where God tells Ananias, you can find him
because when you find him, you're going to find the one man that's
in that house doing what? That's right. Behold, he prayed. That was the first time the apostle
Paul prayed authentically in his life. He didn't know God
until then. So upon conversion, he was brought
into that infantile state where he realized he needed God. What
had happened? God had blinded him. Remember
that? He was utterly blinded, made to be helpless, made to
be like a child, made to be utterly dependent upon God. And he was
blinded for three days. In other words, the blindness
didn't leave him. until God had brought Ananias
to lay hands on him. And it gave him three days to
work through what was this revelation he experienced of the glory of
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking to him, knocking him down, blinding
him, subjecting him to the lordship of Jesus Christ. He didn't know
if his eyes would be opened ever again. So he had to go through
the struggle. Imagine you and I all of a sudden
being blinded. what kind of humility we would
go through at that moment. I guarantee you, if you and I
were to go blind right away, we would start praying like,
I don't know what, praying, praying, praying, praying as the Apostle
Paul did. See, prayer is the rawest form
of faith there is. When you pray, it is a manifestation
of utter and total and naked dependence. And what I'm saying
to you is that Christians can go a long time not really taking
prayer seriously. And Christians can do that at
the beginning of their conversion where they're happy and they're
learning a lot of Bible doctrine and they're growing in the word
and they're becoming very knowledgeable about biblical truth. And they
are actually rejoicing in Christ as they are absorbing the doctrines
of the gospel and a real manifestation of who Jesus is. We are rejoicing,
but rejoicing is not the same thing as learning how to have
communion with God in prayer. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
We come to discover that there's a strange antithesis or antipathy
or aversion even for the converted believer to pray to God seriously. Now we can talk about some of
the external factors that affect that meaning. When you live in
a society like we do with all of the kinds of distractions
that are around us, it's real easy not to pray, real easy. When you live in a setting in
a part of the world where bombs are dropping every day and people
are dying just around you in a very haphazard way, and all
you have is very little to eat and very little to wear, and
you are bereft of family and you don't know where you're gonna
stay tomorrow night, praying becomes a common parlance. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? So God often has to work in Providence
to bring you and I to a place to take prayer seriously. How
many of you have been a Christian now for 10 years and have learned
that prayer has to be a common part of my life? What I do in
the morning, in the evening, at night, what I do all during
the day while I'm walking and talking with God, it becomes
a common part of our life. We come to a conscious awareness
that it is possible and I don't want to ever be there where I
am not talking to God in the course of a day. Have you come
to understand that? Because you know, this is a process.
What I'm talking to you about right now, ladies and gentlemen,
is a process. I'm talking about the process
of awareness of our weakness, the process of coming to a place
of being tired of being weak, and then coming to realize that
the vast majority of my failures are really because I haven't
taken my walk on a devotional and personal level with God seriously. I'm not talking to God. I'm busy
doing my business. And there's a sense in which
As we use the analogy of marriage, we've talked about the five positions,
the five-fold position, where we have stopped that one-to-one,
our face-to-face position with God, and we've moved to position
two, right? Where God is our partner, helping us get the job
done, but we're not having any real personal communion. Isn't
that true? We're in position two. And you
know, ladies, if that ain't doing for you and your husband, it's
not doing with God either. And so what he'll do is he'll
create are produced, struggles in our life. This is where the
concept of the groaning comes in. The universe groans, and
then it goes on to say in verse 23, and not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption that is the
redemption of our what? See, so now we recognize the
problem. We have a body that needs to
be what? Redeemed. See it? We realize that the struggle
that we have is a fallen nature, a body that is not by itself
capable of executing the will of God. So I'm walking around
with a fallen nature that does not of its own accord work with
me in terms of accomplishing God's will. Now I need a power
greater than my fallen nature. And believe you me, that becomes
a revelation. You've lived all your life long
in agreement with your fallen nature. You and your fallen nature
have learned to work life. You've learned how to deal with
life. You've learned how to negotiate life. You've learned how to handle
life. In reality, you have become pretty comfortable with your
fallen nature. Am I telling the truth? Because you guys have
gotten the job done. Only when it comes to operating
out of kingdom principles and operating out of the gospel and
doing it God's way, You come to recognize that your fallen
nature does not cooperate with you. It really wants to do the
old dance all the time. And you come to realize that
doesn't work. So now you got a problem because your new nature
stands over in antithesis to your old nature and you are in
this battle now. So how am I going to overcome
my fallen nature so that his predilections and his bids, his
desires are not the thing that I accomplish every day in my
life. I'm going to only overcome him by the presence and the power
of the spirit of God in my life. Only the Spirit of God can bring
that about in my life. That's what the Apostle is saying
there. Now, he says this, he comes alongside of us over against
our opposition to help us with our weakness. For we know not
what we should pray for as we are. The assumption is our infirmities
will bring us so low that we'll start praying. That's true, isn't
it? Our weaknesses will bring us so low, we'll start praying.
And then he comes along In another area, which the text goes on
to tell us, which is really what is called an explication, here
is the real help that the Spirit of God does. The Spirit itself,
Himself, maketh intercession for us. Do you guys see that?
The Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us. And in this context,
it's in what we call a strong active verb form, which means
His role is to come out in front of us and to actually work to
effectually communicate our prayers to God so that God's will is
done in our life. This is a powerful concept because
really what it's describing is his work as our mediator before
God in order to get the will of God done in our life, which
God purposes for us of which we can't do because we don't
even know how to pray accurately. Absolutely phenomenal thought.
This is how weak we are by nature. We are so weak by nature that
our prayers, by and large, do not by nature, I'm talking about
nature, correspond with the will of God. We're going to really
work with that. You see the outline, the prayers of the believers,
the believing and prayer. This is what 1 John is going
to deal with. I'm going to unpack that now. This is where we're
going to go. We're not going to deal with the rest of the categories. Let me
make this proposition as you go to first john chapter 5. I
want you to see this We're going to deal with this part part,
which is very important We are so weak by nature And our fallen
nature is such that it impedes our ability to accurately Communicate
to god What we need in relationship to god's will in our life We
are so weak by nature not only in our physical constitution,
but in our mind, child of God, we are so weak by nature that
we don't have the wisdom and understanding of how to unravel
and untie the knots of our problems in such a way as to bring them
under biblical categories and thus ask God to do this specifically
in relationship to that so that the will of God ultimately is
done in our life. Now, if what I'm saying is true,
then I know it is. If what I am saying is true,
and that is we don't know how to pray as we ought, that itself
makes prayer exacerbating. If what I'm saying is true, if
what I'm saying is true, that our infirmities do not only affect
our physical constitution, but they affect our mind, so that
our mind is not able to actually benefit from the opportunity
of being humbled to cry out to God. We will humble ourselves. We will cry out to God. The infirmity
will bring us down. But in the midst of that place
of praying, stay with me for a moment before we go to work,
learning what it means to pray appropriately. In the midst of
praying, we find ourselves engaged in another battle. And that's
the battle of praying right. praying biblically, praying effectively,
praying earnestly, praying authentically, praying consistently, prevailing
in prayer. I know I'm telling the truth.
I know I'm telling the truth. It is there you have to literally
ask God to help you to pray. So if you are just struggling
on your own with prayer and you're just trying to press through,
You're failing to understand the reason why you're not making
it through. You got to ask God to help you. So we're back at
first John, chapter five, and I want us to start working through
the idea of believing in prayer, because this is where John is
taking us as he's wrapping up his thoughts. He very plainly
tells us in verse 10, he that believeth on the son, of God
hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not, God hath
made him a liar because he believes not the record that God gave
of his son. And then he says over in verse 13, these words,
after making the very clear proposition, he that hath the son hath life.
He that has not the son of God hath not life. We'll be able
to work with that when we get past this new subject that John
is bringing up. And I want us to broach this
subject. This is fascinating to me as I get ready to break
into the subject of prayer, how little the people of God pray. This is something that has fascinated
me all my Christian life. Just fascinates me. See, when God saved me, I was
in a crisis. I use the word crisis a lot.
When he saved me, I was in a crisis. And you know how I closed with
God? It was in prayer. He brought
me low. I didn't know nothing about him.
I didn't know nothing. I didn't know nothing about him
personally. My girlfriend who later on became my wife was hitting
me upside the head with the Bible, but I didn't know anything about
him. I didn't know how to talk to God. I didn't know how to
call on God. I didn't know how to worship God. I didn't know
how to negotiate with God. But when he brought me low, I
guarantee you what? I started talking to God. Didn't
know if he heard me. I just laid out my plea, my petition
and said, Lord, if you be the God that this woman say you are,
I tell you what, if you deliver a brother, I'm yours for the
rest of my life. And I meant it from every part
of my being. I meant it from every part of my being. And from
that point on, it was fascinating because here's what I'm saying.
I have been contemplating God like everybody else contemplates
God in you. Listen, when you're getting shot
at, you think about God. Listen when you're fighting with
people you think about God when thugs is running up on you you
trying to get in the house It's 11 o'clock at night. You ain't
had no business out there anyway, but you three four blocks down
the street And you know, you still may not make it all you
thinking about God. You're just not praying to him
Not authentically you're talking You're contemplating but you're
not really communicating with God. He has to bring you to your
wits end See and you actually have to come to pray to God Saints
and You have to come to realize that those people out there are
not your enemy. You are your own enemy. Am I
making some sense right about now? You know, you have opposition
out there. You know, you have problems out
there and you throw up these, these, these petty requests.
Get me out of this. But the reality is until you
come to realize that you are the one that got yourself in
this mess, you're not calling on God. See, that's where the
heart really is sincerely crying out because you realize that
you have betrayed yourself, that you have deceived yourself, that
you have brought yourself to this ruin. And without the God
who made you, you know that you can't... You have already went
through the delusion and allusion of being delivered from circumstances
only to get back in those circumstances again, over and over and over
and over. So you realize now the changing
of the circumstances is not what delivers me. There has to be
a change of my nature because I'm discovering that the enemy
is within Right. That's what God has to start
doing when he's breaking you. That's why I tell my my brothers
and sisters who are You know often impatient with their children.
No, listen You got to let God do his work. He's patient God
has to bring our children to a point of realizing that the
enemy is within Because our children buy into the humanistic lie,
like everybody else, that the problem is with the court system.
The problem was with the judges. The problem was those people
that don't like me. The problem is all out there.
No, the problem is in you. And until God persuades you that
the problem is in you, you're going to blame everybody else.
That's why everybody in prison is not guilty. Am I making some sense? And so
it's important for you and I to understand that when you come
to know God, it is in a context of prayer, but we often too quickly
get up from prayer and move into a form of godliness, which denies
the power thereof. And prayer is a critical component
to the sustaining of our walk and the impact that our walk
can make in terms of our relationship with God, as well as the spirit
of the gospel, which I know when you were born again, you want
to be able to bear fruit unto God. You want to. but you can't
do it without him. Which brings us to verse 13.
Listen to what the apostle John says. These things have I written
unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that
you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe
on the name of the Son of God. See verse 13? Now in your outline,
I want us to be clear on what John is doing. Point number A
in your outline, verse 13. This proposition, this statement,
this verse is written to believers. It's not written to unbelievers.
Got it? This is written to believers. So this is not an evangelical
verse. This here is a verse of exhortation
to people to whom John has already stated, you are believers. What
I am writing, John says, I am writing to believers. These things
have I written unto you that believe on the name of the son
of God. Then he tells us that it's designed
to confirm their faith. Notice line two. These things
have a written unto you that believe on the name of the son
of God that you may what know that you have eternal life. Isn't
that good? He says, I'm the design and scope of my writing to you
is to help you with your assurance. Now, we need that, don't we?
We need assurance. Well, John has already assured
them of one thing that he believes that they are believers. That's
good. The second thing he is saying is, if you don't really
know what the design and scope of the letter is, even though
you're reading it, here's the design and scope of the letter.
The letter is designed to strengthen your faith, to bring you to a
place of assurance. And this is true of the whole
word of God. Why did God give you a Bible? To strengthen your
faith, to bring you to a place of assurance. Notice what he
says. that you may know, this is what we call a henna, this
here is a purpose cloth, that you may know, the word know here
would correspond with the idea of being assured, being confident,
having an understanding that grounds you in the fact that
you are a believer, that you may know that you have eternal
life. What a precious gift to be given a resource by which
you can know you have eternal life. Isn't that amazing? Now watch this, ladies and gentlemen.
Watch this. There are a lot of people who
believe they know they have eternal life, who don't have eternal
life at all. They don't have it. Matthew 7 is clear that on
that day, there's going to be a whole bunch of people who thought
they had eternal life. They believed they had eternal
life. but their assumption was based upon a flawed set of views. Here's what you can know. True
believers can know that they have eternal life. And the resources
are there for us to be able to know. In other words, our knowledge
of eternal life for those who are true believers will not fail
you in the day when you have to stand before Jesus Christ.
One of the things that we do in this church To establish a
clear and lasting testimony of those things by which you can
know you have eternal life is to preach and teach Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Clearly, constantly, incessantly. Because a knowledge of Christ
is going to be the certainty of eternal life for those who
believe. That's as simple as what the text says when it says,
He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God
does not have life. It would behoove all of us then
to spend all of our life making sure we have the sun. Why would
I waste my time engaged in all kinds of other ideas and concepts
and diatribes and arguments and not be sure what it means to
have the sun? For to have the sun is to have
what? So I can know that I have life
when I know I have the sun. Am I making some sense? And so
John saying, I'm writing these things to you who are believers
in order to confirm your faith, confirm your faith. That's first
John chapter one, verse four. Just look at that for a moment.
Just this inner Testament witness in first John chapter one, this
is verses one through four, but John affirms it again. I'm going
to read verses one through four, and then we'll go on. We've got
a little time tonight that which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes and which
we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the what word
of life. Who is John describing? Jesus. For the life was manifested and
we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal
life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. What
is the term or the name or the nominative that John is giving
for Jesus here? Eternal life. He's called the
word of life in verse 1 and he's called eternal life in verse
2. This is the same eternal life we're talking about in chapter
5, aren't we? So John is enamored with this
reality. that Jesus Christ is eternal
life. Verse three, that which you have
seen and that which you have heard, that which we have seen
and that which we have heard declare we unto you. Now, what
is he saying? We were physical, personal witnesses
of the word made flesh. We gazed upon him. We watched
him. We walked with him. We lived
with him. We did ministry with him. We are authentic witnesses
of him. And we want you to have the benefit
of knowing him. So we declare unto you, the proclamation
of the apostolic doctrine transfers the witness of Christ to those
who are paying attention. Listen to it. We declare unto
you that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship
is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ, verse four.
And these things write we unto you that your what? That your
joy may be full. See John's objective is for them
to settle down with the reality that when you have the son, you
have everything. So we're going back to our account.
Now that's gonna be your struggle all your life. What it means
to have the son. Your struggle all your life, child of God,
is getting to know Jesus till the day you die. That's your
job, okay? Now when you get off that point,
don't be surprised when you struggle with assurance. When you fail
to make Christ a priority in your life, do not be surprised
when you wake up fearful and doubting and wondering. because
that day or that week or that month or that series of weeks
and months where you decided to be distracted by something
else was the time when your assurance is going to sip away because
assurance for the believer is as full and certain as your consistent
walk with Jesus Christ. Assurance of the believer is
tantamount to your walk with Jesus Christ. To the degree that
you diminish your priority of Christ, to that degree, you're
going to lose your assurance. Be sure of that. Be sure of that. And then he, uh, well, I'll leave
that alone. The third thing that we understand
is not only does John write to the believer, not only does he
confirm their faith, but it's designed to sustain their faith.
Notice what it says. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may
know that you have eternal life, and here it is, and that you
may believe on the name of the Son of God. See that last clause?
This is how it's actually rendered. And that you may continue to
believe on the name of the Son of God. Now here's what that
means. It would be a fallacy of reason
for us to think that you can learn something about the Son
of God a week into your conversion. And from that week on, you don't
need to learn more about the Son of God. This is the fallacy
of what we call, you know, once saved, always saved. The argument
that people can come to the altar, accept Jesus into their life,
and they're good to go. That's a fallacy in the whole scope
of biblical truth. Because it fails to recognize
the process. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
It fails to recognize the process. It fails to recognize that to
know the son of God is an ongoing, abounding, increasing work that
continues until you come to see him face to face. When a man
or woman is born again, it's not that they have been given
a green card or an acceptance card or a card that will allow
them into glory when they die. So they go on living a life,
man be pending, meandering through this world, ignorant of biblical
truth. To have eternal life is for God to plant the seed, incorruptible
seed of Christ in your life, and then to continue to water
that seed by preaching and teaching, and then to nurture that seed
by worship and relationship, and to grow that seed by continuing
expository teaching and preaching of the word so that you come
to know him more and more and more and more. More about Jesus
would I know, more of his saving fullness show, more, more, more
about Jesus. The old folk got it right. We
don't get it right in this generation. This is how I know I have eternal
life because I know him and wanna know him more. Philippians chapter
3 all that I might know him and the power of his resurrection
That I might know him in the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Paul knew him Paul knew him better than most knew him
and yet he said I don't know him like I want to know him.
I Want to know him in such a way that one day I see him for who
he is. I This is how you are knowing
that you are knowing. And the medium or the method
or the instrumentality by which God continues to sustain this
longing to know him is by the word of God. By the word of God. This is why when people bail
out on scripture and stop studying and stop worshiping and stop
pursuing God in this context, you are in trouble. Be sure of
that. Be sure of that. to sustain our
faith and is the reason why the scriptures are given to us. It's
the reason why, for which John wrote what he did. And John was
emphatic about, I wrote these things to those of you who believe
that you may continue to believe because continuing to believe
is an evidence that you are truly a child of God. You know what
John is doing? He's echoing our master in John
chapter eight. Remember I told you John didn't
do much, but echo Jesus. If you are my disciple indeed,
You will continue in my word and you will know the truth and
the truth will liberate you fully. How do we know true disciples?
They continue in his word. Am I making sense? This is how
you know. And those who are continuing
in God's word are the ones who are going to have the assurance.
Why are there people who authentically rejoice and rest in the promises
of God in Christ? Because they stay near the cross.
They continue in His Word. And the Spirit of God continues
to sustain the assurance that you and I talked about several
weeks back, back in 1 John chapter 4. And He has given assurance
to our hearts. The assurance of faith, the assurance
of love, the assurance of the spirit, and the assurance of
good works. Four categories that describe assurance that's given
to the believer. The assurance of faith, Hebrews 10. The assurance
of love, Hebrews 6. The assurance of the spirit,
1 Thessalonians chapter 1. And the assurance of good works. The assurance of faith, love,
the spirit, and good works. And these all describe the life
of the believer. The believer walks in love, he
walks by faith. He serves God, the believer walks in the spirit.
And so what we are actually talking about is a sustaining work that
God does in the life of the believer. Now, let me make the categorical
distinction. If you're struggling now with this, when people fall
away and they depart from the gospel, it was merely that they
were under the external tutelage of biblical truth, but it never
took root in their life. Am I making some sense? so that
over time, like Judas Iscariot, Judas Iscariot was as legitimately
in the midst of Jesus Christ physically as all the other disciples
were. He was as legitimately involved
in ministry as all the other disciples were. Judas Iscariot
had certain advantages in terms of his relationship with Christ
that you and I don't have, even though for some of us, we are
legitimate believers in Christ. Judas Iscariot had an apostleship,
which none of us here would be able to claim. Judas Iscariot
was able to partake of the spirit of God and doing miracles and
healing people of which not all of us are able to claim. He had
certain external witnesses of which Hebrews chapter six is
tasting of the heavenly things to come, the good word of God
and things of that nature. But he wasn't born again. He
was not an authentic Christian and so eventually he fell away
So what the scripture says is over time people get tired of
Jesus Can you believe that? Over time people know it happens
in our life all the time. I'm here to tell you since I
was 19 years old I'm 53 now. I'll tell you I I know hundreds
of people hundreds of who started to walk with Christ with me in
those days who are not walking with Christ now. Hundreds. This
is the normal pattern of what Jesus warned about in the parable
of the sower and the seed, right? Some fell on good ground, some
fell on stony ground, some fell on thorny ground, some fell on
the wayside. This is the pattern. So what
John is saying is, here's how we can know, if we continue in
this word, He will continue to affirm our sonship because that's
what the scriptures are designed to do. So they are written to
believers. They're designed to confirm our
faith. They're designed to sustain our faith. And this whole concept
is what we call in theology, perseverance. You guys see that? Perseverance. It's called the
perseverance of the faith. In the verses that you have down,
they're all persevering texts. Those persevering texts have
what are called these conditional clauses. The persevering text,
when you read, if you continue in my word, that's John chapter
eight. If you read in Hebrews chapter
six, if they shall fall away to renew them to repentance will
not occur. When you read in Colossians chapter
one, if you remain rooted and grounded and not moved away from
the hope of the gospel, which is in you, those conditional
clauses are designed to distinguish, watch this now, the elect from
the non-elect, the sheep from the goats, the true believer
from the non-believer, the Judas Iscariots from the Peter, James,
and Johns. Got that? Peter, James, and John
would say, I am no different than Judas Iscariot. but the
grace of God. Got it? It's the grace of God. The grace of God. So now I want
us to move to our next category, because this is going to be interesting.
We'll have a couple of weeks before our break to study through
this. I want us to look at verse 14
now. We're going to start dealing with some very interesting language
here. We've got about 10 minutes to go. We'll wrap it up. This
is very interesting what John is about to do. After having
given the believer the purpose and design and scope of his letter,
in first John, he says over in verse 14, and this is the confidence. This is the confidence that we
may have in him that if we ask anything according to his will,
he what? So now when we talk about the
concept of asking, what are we talking about? Prayer. See, we're
back at Romans chapter eight, aren't we? Okay, so let's work
with this. So if I can paint the picture.
to talk to you and I about asking God what's wrong with the Christian
that gets up every day and goes through the normal parlance of
life. Just the routine, daily, mundane,
everyday rigors of life lays down on his bed at night, goes
to sleep. Thank you, Lord. You know, you got me through
another day. Gets up, does the same thing every day. and does
not ask God, thy will be done. What would
you have me to do? Lord, you saved me to talk with
you. I mean, you saved me for some purpose. What's going on
in the life of the Christian who are professing Christian,
who is not in a mode of constantly requesting God on a day-to-day
basis? Either it's ignorance, right? Ignorance. It can be ignorance
or apathy or both, which is negligence. Remember what I said earlier?
Americans easily get up every day and go about their life because
we have so many things at our availability for which we do
not need to ask God. We don't need to listen. We don't need to ask God to help
us find our breakfast in the morning. We don't need to ask
God to help us to get to work. We don't need to ask God on a
daily basis to give me work to do. We don't need God on a daily
basis to keep a roof over our head. We don't need God for a
lot of things. A lot of things for which in
that context, listen to me, we therefore find ourselves bereft
of asking God for much at all. Now watch this, now watch this.
in that context of finding ourselves saying, well, you know, I have
a whole lot to ask God about. You are in dire ignorance of
the reason for which you exist, right? You're in dire ignorance. You are not brought into a saving
relationship with God, again, to just kind of run through the
earth aimlessly doing whatever you want to do and just kind
of enjoying the ride until one day you die or the Lord Jesus
comes back. That's completely missing the
point. Remember, you and I are called to be what? Witnesses. Witnesses. Witnesses. Now, if we don't take witnessing
seriously, we're not going to be asking God nothing. See, John
is under the assumption that they are taking witnessing seriously.
And in fact, you and I may know this. Let's take a historical
context and address this. In first century Rome, where
John is, believers are persecuted constantly. Jews and Gentiles. But in John's case, it's Jewish
believers being persecuted by Jewish non-believers, right along
with the pagan non-believers for being believers in Christ.
For them, persecution is a daily task. Right? A daily task. So now, you tell me, child of
God, if you were facing certain persecutions every day, wouldn't
you be asking God a lot of stuff every day? See what I'm getting
at? How the danger of the absence of the troubles and the afflictions
which were contextual for the first century church is a problem
for us in the 21st century church. The danger of the absence of
the contextual things by which Christians in that first century
were constantly calling on God to help them sustain their witness
and sustain their life because they're absent in us, because
we live in such a comfortable environment in our present generation,
on so many levels, we don't know what to ask God for. We are basically
walking in certain states of presumption. To that degree,
we are ineffective in our witness. I'm telling the truth. Even if
you don't want to bear record with me, I'm telling the truth.
I'm saying that you and I are nowhere near as fruitful as we
ought to be. I'm saying that we are missing our assignments
every day. I'm saying that we have huge assignments for which
we need God every day. But we are oblivious to those
assignments because of ignorance and apathy. Am I telling the
truth? I'm telling the truth. And to that degree, we have abandoned
our call to be witnesses. Now, if you are struggling with
this study, what you are really struggling with fundamentally
is that native principle of humility that is essential to an authentic
prayer life. If you're struggling with our
study tonight, here's what you're struggling with. You ready? pride.
You're struggling with the pride that has to be removed before
you take God seriously in the context of filial prayer. It can't be anything other than
pride that keeps us from talking to God. Am I making some sense? I don't want to make this hard.
I want to make this very clear because you and I have already
confessed last week. We had a good study, didn't we?
the weakness and the impotence of the 21st century church. The
American church is so pathetically weak and infirm, so amiss in
his job and his mission. So far, far, far from the anointing,
far from it today. Is that true? It's true everywhere. All the pastors I ever talked
to just grown in their souls at the coldness and the carnality
and the superficiality and the waywardness of Christians in
America. All of them that I talked to, They know, they don't quite
know what's going on as you and I are doing some development
of this. They don't quite know what's
going on, but they know that there has been a cloud that has
draped over Christendom in America and has basically killed his
capacity to be a vital, vibrant light for Jesus Christ. Oh, we're
doing all kinds of stuff, but it's not amounting to the testimony
of Jesus Christ by and large. I'm talking on the larger aggregate.
I'm not talking about on smaller levels. You've got believers
all over doing things on an independent level who are, thank God, not
waiting on the church as a whole to do it. They're just doing
it. This is true. But as an overall aggregate in
America, the American church is fundamentally impotent when
it comes to these things. And I can point the finger as
to why. Can I tell you why? As you go
to the average church, particularly your larger churches, anywhere
past 500 people or so like we are, Your larger churches, guess
what they are not known for? Prayer. They're not known for
it. They got all kinds of activities
going on. But a serious, intentional prayer service for power does
not exist. They operate on presumption because
the techniques are working to get the numbers in so we get
numbers But the quality is questionable. Am I making some sense? And this
transfers to the home, and it transfers to the marriage, and
it transfers to our seminaries, and it transfers to the mission
field. It's everywhere. It's pathetic. So here's what
we want to look at now. In 1 John 5, verse 14, he very
clearly says, and this is the confidence that we have in him,
that if we ask anything according to his will, he what? Now, I
want to make sure you understand that proposition because I just
want to touch on that one today. And then we're going to build
on verse 15 and 16, because we're going to come into some problems
here in a moment. But here's what I want you to get. If you
if you grasp fully what John just said. And that is this,
if we pray according to his will, he will hear us. It would seem
to me that this promise is of utmost importance to every believer. Right? Help me now. I know it's late. I know it's
Friday. I know you're tired. Help me. A promise is given that
if we pray according to his will, he hears us. That that promise should be for
us of utmost importance, right? because it implies several things
with regards to the relationship of the believer in God. The first
of which is. The will of God. Should be important
to us. I don't think it is. I do not
think it is. I don't think the will of God
is important to us. I want that to resonate now,
follow it now. He said, if we pray according to God's will,
anything we ask in that context, God will do. That's a phenomenal and simple
proposition. Got that? All right, so stay
with me now. That means if I pray right, it
requires me praying with an understanding. and with the right objective
and with the right motive. If I'm praying right or praying
appropriately, I'm going to be praying with the right objective,
with the right motive. And then I can be confident every time
I pray with the right objective, with the right motive. Guess
what? And this is not presumption. God will hear me. That's what
the text said. Is that what the text said? So
the real issue here for me, child of God, is learning what it means
to pray according to God's will. That's right. See, omnipotence,
the infinite God, the infinite best from which all blessings
flow, has just told me that I have access to an exhaustible resource
if I come right. That's phenomenal. So I'm still
trying to figure that out. I'm trying to figure that out.
Because right along with myself, there are legions of professing
Christians that obviously are not coming right. Am I telling
the truth? We're not coming right. We cannot
be coming right, because if we were coming right, things would
be different. They would be different in our
family. They would be different with our children. They would
be different on our jobs. They would be different in our schools.
They would be different in our churches. They would be different
in the world. See, the Lord made it very simple. He made it very
simple. If you pray right, I'll hear you. If you don't what I
won't. Now, secretly and privately,
come on now, don't you don't you kind of think, you know,
God's not hearing me. Secretly and privately, What
we are saying in our thought life is not always articulated
audibly. God's not hearing me. Secretly
and privately, we're not saying it to anybody in a vocal, audible
fashion in an explicit way, but deep down inside, intuitively,
we struggle with the possibility, God's not listening to me. Am
I telling the truth? Yes, I am. Yes, I am. I'm telling
the absolute God on His truth. I'm telling the God honest truth.
Here's how we know. Because we are going away from
the privilege of prayer because we are frustrated that prayer
is not accomplishing anything. So we're then going about it
in our own strength and our own methods and our own agendas.
And we're just kind of privately keeping it to ourselves. God
doesn't listen to me. This is the truth. This is the
truth. This study is going to bless
you. It's going to bless you. Because this is the truth. So
I'm going to just simply express the four things that are here
and next week we'll come back and we will outline each of the
four Aspects of prayer critical to
Answered prayer as John describes it in verse 14 And we'll also
deal with the interpretations that are rendered like, you know,
well God always hears us. No, he doesn't See the word here
means to respond to. God hears everything. He hears
it before you pray it. Am I telling the truth? You can
act like God is a human like you and I are waiting to hear
your prayer. God's not waiting to hear your prayer. No, God
hears all prayers. It's a matter of him responding.
Hearing in this context is receiving your prayers accepting your prayers
with the objective of responding to your prayers because your
prayers correspond with the will of God. God must do his will,
right? So here are four things that
I know are critical to it. The first is faith, faith. So you need to circle that. Don't
do anything with that. I simply want to say one of the
reasons for which we know that God doesn't answer our prayers
is because they're not prayers based on faith. I'm not talking about a leap
in the dark, acting like, you know, Lord, I'm gonna jump. I'm
gonna trust you for that Mercedes Benz, even though I don't have
a job, even though I'm not working, even though my credit's bad,
even though I don't have a house, I want that Mercedes. No, we
ain't talking about that. That's not what we're talking
about. That's not faith. That's, you know, that's for
our pagan churches. You know that, right? That's not faith. I want you to work with this
next week. So now, be simple when you talk to God this week.
Lord, teach me how to pray faithfully. Teach me how to pray in faith. That's one. The second one is
obedience. Obedience. We can be sure that
if we are walking in known and intentional rebellion against
God, God ain't going to hear you, child. Do you understand
that? He's going to do his will, but
it's going to be in spite of you. OK, are you hearing me? It's going to be in spite of
us. So just understand that. And again, the dynamic is subjective
objective. On an honest day, when I'm not
doing God's will, man, I ain't talking to God because I know
he's not going to what? He ain't going to hear me. Here's the other thing. If the
love of God is not the basis and motive for our communing
with God, with the objective of the love of God being the
highest good manifested in our life, with God getting all the
glory, forget it. Our prayers are going to be rooted
in inferior motives, ulterior motives, carnal motives, fleshly
motives. And the Bible has already told
us he won't hear that either. All the verses are there. I could
have just written like, I could have written like five pages
of verses to support each one. I just thought I'd give you four
or five so you can work with it next week. So when we come
back, you'll go, you know what? Oh yeah, I remember reading that. That's right. So
the fourth one is if you and I are not walking in the principles
of godliness, forget it. We can't say that we are praying
according to God's will. So now the principles of godliness,
just in case you don't know, if you haven't studied it through,
I'm giving you the short version, the American version, the 21st century
soundbite version. Are you ready? Cause the long
version, the old 16th, 17th Elizabethan English version, the, the Gothic
version, the, you know, long running sentences and clauses
that go on for three pages version that'll wipe us out in America.
So I'll give you the short version. Okay. The soundbite version of
godliness. Godliness is God first. That's what Godliness is. God
first. That's all. Godliness is simple, simple.
God first. You know, a godly person, he
thinks about what God thinks about it first. Oh, what does
God think about that? Just like that. That's the man
or the woman that's going to be God. They're not supermen.
They're not superwomen. They're not angels. They're not
floating around. Ain't no glow. We look like everybody else.
No glow. No special external radiance. No halo. We're like everybody
else. Oh man, I know he Godly because
look at the glow. No, no glow. Jesus didn't even
have a glow. I'm sorry. They put a glow around
you. No glow. What? No glow on Jesus. What? No glow
on Mary. No glow. The glow comes at the
end. Did you get that? The glow comes
at the end. The last act that God will do
is to glorify us with himself. That's the last act. No glow
now is walking by what in faith is a substance of things. What?
And the evidence of things what? No glow now. No glow? No glow.
They didn't see Jesus in Jesus when Jesus was here. He came to his own and his own
received him not. He was in the world. The world
was made by him and the world knew him not. No glow? What no
glow? He was a man. We esteemed him stricken, smitten
of God and afflicted. There was no beauty that we should
desire him. No glow. No flesh will glory in His sight.
No glow. We're just like everybody else. Got that? Godliness is
simply saying, what does God think about it? First seek ye
the kingdom of God and all of His righteousness, everything
else will take care of itself. It's really simple. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for the study. Thank
you for my brothers and sisters that are here. You've kept us
thus far. We trust you'll keep us to the
day of our salvation. Give us traveling mercies as
we go our way.