Pray with Confidence

Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning, we are going to be at 1 John chapter 5, verses 14 through 17, asking, does God even hear us when we pray? So, let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and get into God's Word. You know, today is a big day, you know why? You're going to have some coffee? No. Oh. Because I'm in the spring chair. Oh, you are in this, Beneacher. Good promotion. All right. Here we go.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the blessing it is to get to read your word. We thank you for how you work by your spirit in your word. Lord, pray that you would please give us wisdom. Let us follow after you and trust in your ways. You are a good God. Father, please lead us by your Spirit, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Alright, 1 John chapter 5, beginning at verse 14. I'll let you read 14 and 15, and I'll read 16 and 17. Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. Whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. Good.
If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and he will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death. All right, so we need to ask ourselves our three questions.
A. What is this about?
B. What is the best for us to do? And C. What are we called to do? All right, so there's kind of two different parts about this, but it's all about prayer, right? And what's the confidence we have when we pray? That God hears us. Yeah, God hears us. And when we pray in Jesus's name? Let's do Jesus to God. Yeah, right, and so we know that he'll answer those petitions. Now, people will treat God like a genie in a bottle, right, because of this. Well, if I just pray to God, he's going to give me whatever I want.
No, right? What does the rest of the scriptures say, right? James says that we receive not because we ask not, and when we do ask, we ask with wrong motives. Yeah, right, so no, no, it's not saying that if you're a Christian, you just ask of God, and He's going to give you whatever you want. No, it's not like when I, it's more like when I ask you, Dad, can I ride on the Ferris wheel that's in Iowa City today, because it's open in Iowa City? You're going to say, not a chance. Yeah, not today. It's a school day, right? Yeah.
So, yeah, there's, there's, no, right? There's, God knows what's best for us, and so, but might He say yes? Yeah, if it's according to His will, right? If it's going to, go for his glory, for his name, for his purposes? Yeah. He'll say yes. So we trust him with that. So if we ask according to this, well, he hears us, right? And that's a confidence that we have, right? Cause we're in him.
And so, but he says that there's specifically something that we shouldn't pray for. What should we not pray for? Sit. Well, Specifically, there's a sin that leads to death. He's saying you shouldn't pray for that. What's he talking about? What do you think? I have no idea. Okay, yeah, so this is one of those areas I had to research the first time I read through 1 John and was studying it.
Most commentators and theologians will say this is specifically talking about the sin of disbelief. If somebody is persisting in their sin of disbelief, we can't pray that God's going to forgive them because they don't believe. Now, we can pray that God changes their hearts, but if they hate God, if they hate Christ, we can't pray for them in that same way. It's leading to their destruction. They're hell-bent on hating God. And so, we don't pray for that. We don't pray that God would forgive them, even though they disbelieve. Now, he says here that all sin is unrighteousness, or all unrighteousness is sin. And there is a sin not leading to death. There is, in Roman Catholic theology, this difference between venial sins and mortal sins, right? So they have all sorts of sins that they say are mortal sins, sins that are really, really, really bad and they're going to end up being punished.
Like, you're going to hell. So if you're a murderer, things like that, right? Adultery, boom, right? And then there's venial sins, right? You got a little grumpy with your dad and, you know, you had a bad attitude. That's a venial sin, right? I was mad at Daniel and he asked me to pull out his tooth. Okay, yeah, but the point being right is and we say mmm I don't think that that's what's talking about here because this is one sin that is saying there is a sin that leads to death right and so so we we just want to be Careful in our exegesis right this is where we go back to the language and we go. Oh, okay. There's a sin and So what's that sin?
Well, it seems like the sin of disbelief, the unpardonable sin. Even Jesus talked about every sin would be forgiven under heaven and earth, but blaspheming the Holy Spirit would not be, right? Being against God, fighting against His will, going against the church, right?
This, this, I hate the gospel and I'm going to persecute and destroy until my, but here's the thing. Wow, you're having a really hard time keeping that microphone with you. I hope that didn't leave a whole bunch of nasty sound. Why don't we just clip that thing onto you so it doesn't fall off, right? That's what this unpardonable sin is. So, okay, you're gonna walk out of here. Grandma might ask you, so what'd you do with your dadding devotions today? What was the passage about?
That when we pray for the nations, we can't pray that God would just forgive them, but we have to actually hope that God would change their hearts, because we can't just, it's just like if Daniel, ate a piece of candy that it wasn't supposed to. I can't just ask you, hey, Dad, could we just pardon Daniel? Because if Daniel is just like, no, it was right for me to eat that piece of candy, but everybody knows it wasn't. I can't just come to you and say, well, you know what, Dad?
I'm going to be kind and forgive him. You're probably not going to let that happen. Now, if Daniel was like, oh, man, I really shouldn't have eaten that candy, and then one of us wanted to show him some mercy, then we could. Okay, yeah, so he needs to have a heart change. Right, good. All right, wonderful. What do you think would be the best verse to summarize this section? I'm going to say 16. Okay.
So, if anyone sees his brother sinning, a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and he, meaning God, will give him life for those who commit sin, sin not leading to death. Isn't that a huge blessing that we know that God can still provide life even though we're sinners? Yeah, absolutely.
I can pray for you that way. You can pray for me that way. We can continue to pray for each other. I would argue, or not argue, in my Bible, verse 14, I like 14 and 15, but I can see why you would do 16. Let's talk about seek calling. What are we called to do? Oh, kind of answered that. Well, go ahead and put it for you. What are you going to do? You're going to walk out of here. You're just going to be a hearer of God's word, or are you going to do something about it? I forget. Who is it?
Somebody that said, like, when they see another person and like it was something like during a war or something where if they'd either pray if that person would have a heart change to forgive them and to for them to change the ways but if they were bent on sin and they would not listen to God and they were not doing God's will that they would Well, if they are doing God's will, but if they are directly trying to destroy God's kingdom, that person would fall into hard times. Okay, so this is, you're actually remembering my mentor, Ken Smith, the one who shared the gospel with Rosario Butterfield, and Ken had a list of people that he said he prayed for their conversion or for their demise. So he had a list of people, powerful, sinful people in this world, and he would pray for God to convert them. But if God didn't convert them, that God would stop them, and that God would punish them for their evil.
So, yeah, I think we can do that. Even when we see people like Saul of Tarsus. God, he can't continue on in this sin. But you can stop, and you can turn that. But Lord, if he's going to continue, God, you've got to stop them. God, we do pray for those in the world. We know that there are both politicians and people who hate you, do not love you, and are even fighting against you and the spread of your gospel and your kingdom. God, we pray that you would stop them. Lord, You would stop them either in Your providence by organizing things whereby they would stop, or Lord, that You would stop them by converting them and bringing them to Yourself.
Lord, we thank You that You hear us, that when we pray to You according to Your will, You hear us. So, God, we pray in the name of Jesus that Your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And may the Lord bless you. May you pray with confidence and joy in the Lord. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.