# 1 John 5:13-15 | Sunday May 3, 2026

Last week we saw four different testimonies that all point to Jesus. The first three testimonies were the water of Jesus’ baptism, the blood of the cross, and the Holy Spirit. All three are in perfect unity in testifying who Jesus is and what He accomplished. The fourth testimony that is given is from God the Father. His testimony is in perfect unity with the others and is far greater than any witness that man can give. God’s testimony about Jesus is the most important truth that has ever been revealed to humanity.

#####  **John 5:9-15 ESV**

> (9) If we receive the testimony of men, **the testimony of God is greater**, for this is the testimony of God that He has borne concerning His Son.  
> (10) Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning His Son.  
> (11) And this is the testimony, **that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son**.  
> (12) Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.  
> (13) I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.  
> (14) And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.  
> (15) And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.

God has made it clear that He has given eternal life to us. This is such an indescribable gift it is hard for us to comprehend how truly amazing it is. God could have given us so many different things. **He could have given us a new law.** We would have no power to follow it because of our sin nature, yet He could have kept defining His holiness to us**. God could have given us earthly riches and comfort.** He could have given us the ability to have whatever we desired instantly. Living in a world where each person could do this would be chaos. Yet, the biggest problem is that even after having every comfort and luxury this world has to offer, when we die, we would spend eternity in hell separated from Him. **This is what makes His gift of eternal life to us so amazing. He gave us Himself.**

##### **John 17:3 ESV**

> (3) And **this is eternal life, that they know you**, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

God’s definition of true eternal life is far different from what we expect. Eternal life is not just life that never ends. **Every person ever born has never-ending life.**

##### **Matthew 25:46 ESV**

> (46) And these will go away into **eternal punishment**, but the righteous into **eternal life.”**

The word eternal is the same. **The punishment in hell is just as eternal as the life that is found in God**. Eternal life is not defined by its duration or the fact that it does not end. Life is put in direct comparison to punishment. **Eternal life is knowing God by having an intimate fellowship with Him.** Eternal punishment is being separated from God and the life found in Him. God has given us eternal life and the ability to know Him and walk with Him, and it is all possible through Jesus. This is why, as believers, we can start living right now in the eternal life that we have been given because we can abide in Jesus and walk in a fellowship with Him today. To have the Son is to have eternal life. John wants us as believers to know that we have this life.

#### **1 John 5:13 ESV**

> (13) I write these things **to you who believe** in the name of the Son of God, **that you may know that you have eternal life.**

1 John is really the next step of the Gospel of John. John was just as specific in his gospel for why he wrote down these specific miracles and teachings of Jesus.

##### **John 20:30-31 ESV**

> (30) Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;  
> (31) but **these are written** **so that you may believe** that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, **and that by believing you may have life in His name.**

We are not given an exhaustive list or narrative of all Jesus did or taught. John handpicked specific miracles and events with one very important purpose in mind. He wanted us to believe in Jesus because when we believe, we have life in His name. Now in 1 John he continues the thought. He is writing to believers, those who listened to His gospel. He is not describing how to be saved but now wants us **to know the eternal life** we were given the moment we were saved.

The specific word **know** John chose is really important. This Greek word know means **to know as a fact**. It **is not** the Greek word to know by perception or experience, but it means to know something **as a settled and absolute fact.** John does not want us to just perceive or have the experience that we have eternal life **but wants it to be clear beyond a shadow of a doubt.** We have the testimony of God proving to us that whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life. **We can know this as a fact because it is based on God’s Word and His testimony and not on our opinion or experience.**

##### **John 3:36 ESV**

> (36) **Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life**; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

This is the fact that John wants us to be able to rest in**. If anyone believes in Jesus, they have eternal life. Even if you don’t feel like it, and even if your life does not always reflect it.** There is a false idea today that we cannot truly know if someone is saved. Part of this idea is based on the fact that we can never truly know someone’s heart. While this is true, it does not mean that we can never be assured of our or someone else’s salvation. **John wants us to know, as a certain fact, that we have eternal life if we have believed in Jesus**. The false teachers were giving John’s audience plenty of reasons to doubt their salvation. John wanted them and us to know that **our eternal security rests on God’s testimony and on His promise.** Unfortunately, 1 John has been used by many to cause doubts about whether someone is saved or not. They misunderstand John’s desire for believers to walk in fellowship as the test of salvation.

##### **1 John 1:3 ESV**

> (3) that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may **have fellowship with us**; and indeed **our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.**

John wants all believers to experience true fellowship with the Son. He desires for us to walk in eternal life today. He has described what this would look like. A believer in fellowship would have ongoing confession with the Father, and they would grow deeper in their love for God and others. Yet this **experiential knowledge of our walk** cannot be the ultimate basis for if we **know as a fact that we have eternal life.** The moment personal obedience, feelings, or our daily walk become the basis for our eternal security, then we can never truly know if we are secure. **As people, we are so weak and full of doubts and insecurities.** Even John the Baptist started to have doubts over who Jesus was.

##### **Luke 7:20-22 ESV**

> (20) And when the men had come to Him, they said, “**John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’”** (21) **In that hour He healed** many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind He bestowed sight.  
> (22) And He answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: **the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.**

John the Baptist is in a prison cell as he starts to have these doubts and sends messengers to Jesus. This is the same John the Baptist that saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus as a dove and then declared that Jesus was the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John the Baptist has been so beat down by life that he started to doubt who Jesus is. Jesus’ answer is so loving. **There is no correction or criticism of John’s doubt.** Also notice that Jesus does not point John the Baptist to look at his (John the Baptist’s) own life and all that John had accomplished. Instead, Jesus pointed John to the Word of God. He takes time to perform miracles and fulfill **Isaiah 29:18; 35:4-6; 61:1.** Jesus points to His own fruit, not John the Baptist’s. Jesus is pointing to the testimony that God has given in His Word about Himself. He is encouraging John to come back to the stability of the Word and what it says about Jesus. **Our own experience and emotions can never have the same stability and security that the testimony of God has.**

#### **1 John 5:11-13 Wuest Expanded New Testament**

> (11) And this is the testimony, **that life eternal God gave us. And this life is in His Son.** (12) The one who has the Son has the life. The one who does not have the Son of God the life he does not have.  
> (13) These things I write to you in order **that you may know with an absolute knowledge that life you are having, eternal life,** to you **who believe** on the Name of the Son of God.

We can know with absolute knowledge that we have eternal life as a believer because God said so! This is not the only thing that God wants us to have confidence in. He also wants us to have confidence when we approach Him in prayer.

#### **1 John 5:14-15 ESV**

> (14) And this is the **confidence** that we have **toward Him**, **that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.** (15) And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, **we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.**

The word confidence means not to **conceal anything, and to have a frank outspokenness, or free speech.** As believers, we have direct access to God through Jesus, so we are to pray with a freedom and openness in what we ask for. Ask is written in a way to imply **continually asking for something for ourselves**. We are to share our desires, how we hope God would work in our lives, or what we want God to do, but unfortunately, often we do not. Prayer tends to be our last thought or last resort. It is truly an amazing thought that will motivate our prayer life when we realize that **the God of the universe is hearing our prayers and already moving on our behalf before we are even done praying.** This is possible when we pray according to His will.

This is the challenging part. Often we do not know what God’s will is, and if we do, we would rather He listen to our will instead. Prayer is not a tool for us to impose our will upon God, but a way for us to come into unity with His will. We are to share our desires, and wants with Him as we seek to know His will. George Muller said it really well: **“Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.”** God willingly hears our prayers and is answering them when we pray according to His will. One of the best ways to do this is to pray using the promises we have in the Word.

**We are promised that God will give us wisdom if we ask for it.**

##### **James 1:5 ESV**

> (5) If any of you lacks wisdom, **let him ask God, who gives generously** to all without reproach, and **it will be given him**.

**We are promised that God is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. This means we can pray for His comfort no matter how hard the situation is and He will provide it.**

##### **2 Corinthians 1:3-4 ESV**

> (3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, **the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,** (4) who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which **we ourselves are comforted by God.**

**We are promised that God is at hand and present with us so we can bring our anxieties and worries to Him and His peace will guard our hearts and minds.**

##### **Philippians 4:5-7 ESV**

> (5) Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. **The Lord is at hand;** (6) do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  
> (7) And **the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.**

**We are promised that when we don’t know how to pray, the Holy Spirit is praying God’s will for us. We are also promised that God works all things together for good, so we can ask God to help us see the good He is working our current trial to.**

##### **Romans 8:26-28 ESV**

> (26) Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but **the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.** (27) And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because **the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.** (28) And we know that **for those who love God all things work together for good**, for those who are called according to his purpose.

**We are promised that God wants us to be sanctified so we can pray for God to help us in our walk with Him and that we would grow closer to Him.**

##### **1 Thessalonians 4:3 ESV**

> (3) For this is the will of God, **your sanctification**: that you abstain from sexual immorality;

These are all promises that can guarantee that we are praying God’s will. That means we should have a **confidence** **and can know** that He heard our prayer and is already at work answering them. **His answers might not be overnight and usually involve waiting and a growth process, but He is answering them.** We might not know the means and the timing, but we can know He is answering them. This is the same Greek word know that was in verse 13. Even if it does not feel like it, we can know He is answering our prayer as a fact when we pray according to His will.

#### **1 John 5:15 Wuest Expanded New Testament**

> (15) And if we **know with an absolute knowledge** that He hears us, whatever we are asking for ourselves, **we know with an absolute knowledge** that we have the things which we have asked from Him.

It is easy to pray and trust God when everything is going smoothly. It is during the trial, the hardship, **when we feel like He is silent, that we need to have faith and rest on these promises more than ever**. We can pray for an outcome and share our desire, but we must understand what is promised and what is not. We are to submit ourselves to His will. **When would God ever not want to assist us to do His will?** When we struggle to trust His will we can even bring that to Jesus, who knows firsthand what that is like.

##### **Matthew 26:38-39 ESV**

> (38) Then He said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with Me.”  
> (39) And going a little farther He fell on his face and prayed, saying, **“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”**