We continued our series “God Is…” at Gateway in Austin looking at the attributes of God as we look through the letter of 1 John.
Last week our senior pastor Carlos Ortiz, Jr. shared on “God is Light.”
The world is full of uncertainties, but in Jesus, we have a certain and secure hope that transcends anything this world can offer. The hope that we have in Christ is not wishful thinking—it’s certain, future hope. Hope isn’t just something we look forward to; it also changes how we live now. Because of the hope we have in Christ, we are called to purify ourselves, to live with an eternal perspective that influences how we handle the challenges of today.
Digging Deeper
Work through the following questions and scriptures on your own or get together with your group, spiritual
running partners, or family to talk through what you are learning.
Message Video from Gateway South Austin:
Message Notes:
Have you ever found yourself struggling with hopelessness?
Many of you know about the season my wife Deborah and I went through a really difficult time in our marriage. It was 2007. Our kids were young and needed lots of attention. We were arguing about parenting and finances. We seemed to struggle to have meaningful time with each other. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be married to a pastor any longer, and as someone who felt called to be a pastor, that stung. I was willing to give that up to work through our challenges. Deep down we loved each other, but our lives could not continue as it had been going. I was hurt by her, and she was hurt by me.
It was in the midst of the hurt that I found myself struggling to have hope. How could we possibly make it through this? Do we give up our calling for our marriage? If we give up on our marriage, how could we possibly live out our calling?
Deborah struggled with hope for the future for several months because of my workaholism. I kept promising it was just a busy season and things would get better soon, but a busy season turned into a busy year turned into a busy life. She felt like a single mom as i was traveling so much and not fully present even when I was home.
I am generally an optimistic person, but when I lose hope, I can get to a dark place.
It was in the midst of the darkness that we reached out to one of our pastors and a couple of close friends and family members for help. We got into counseling and decided not to make any big decisions about where we lived or where I worked for a year while we got help.
I remember when hope began to break through the darkness for me. Our counselor said to us: “You know I have helped a lot of couples make it through far worse situations than you are facing.”
Having just a tiny bit of hope changed everything!
At another point she said to me: “Eric, you don’t need to come to these counseling sessions with your list of all the things your wife did to hurt you this past week. My job is to help you communicate better with her, not be the referee for the two of you.”
The more we learned tools to help us communicate and resolve conflict, the more our hope in a better future grew. Soon we started to connect more emotionally. Then moving here a few years later and going through Restore (our 12 step program), I felt we had the tools to work through the triggers and hurts and conflicts in a healthy way. Our love and trust grew to a place I never knew was possible!
Today, we are continuing our series on God’s attributes by looking at the letter called 1 John. During this series we want you to discover who God really is rather than believing what you hear on the news about how cultural Christians misrepresent God to the world. As we will see in this series God is light, God is love, and today we will see that God is hope.
Last week we looked at a passage in 1 John 1 and discovered that even in seasons of deep loss and darkness, God remains the unwavering source of light and truth. When we walk in His light – through honest confession and sincere fellowship or partnership with Him and Christian community – we experience healing, restoration, and the life God created us to live. We don’t have to stumble in the dark alone; God’s light offers clarity, connection, and transformation.
Next week we will look at how God is love.
Today we are going to look at how God is hope and we will look at a passage from the last chapter of 1 John.
Context of 1 John
Before we do, let me give you some context for this letter.
The apostle John is writing this letter to help followers of Jesus understand the way of Jesus. Now John was an eyewitness to Jesus’ life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. He was one of Jesus’ best friends and the author of the Gospel of John along with the other letters 2 John, 3 John, and many believe the book of Revelation (although some think John the Elder was a different leader in the church named John).
Now John wrote his eyewitness account of Jesus to help us believe – to put our faith and trust in who Jesus is. John wrote about his Gospel account: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” – John 20:31
This is why for those who are new to the idea of God, we encourage you to read through The Gospel of John praying: “God, if you are real, show me who you are and who you want me to be.” I have always been amazed at how God answers that prayer for those who are exploring God either through a verse that jumps out to someone as they are reading or in remarkable ways throughout the days or weeks someone is reading through the Gospel of John.
Now this letter of 1 John was written to help believers discern true faith in a time when false teachers were spreading confusion about Jesus and the Christian life. The early church faced many false teachers. One of the more prevalent false ideas has been called Gnosticism which has actually made a comeback in our culture. Gnostics believed in Jesus, but they denied he was a real person but just a spirit, and they had an unhealthy distinction between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. As a result, people who fell into this trap said they believed in Jesus, but they weren’t actually asking God to help them change their behavior.
Can you see how this has seeped into cultural Christianity? People say they believe in Jesus but these same people tend to be known for being judgmental, hypocritical, misogynistic, homophobic, and racist.
There is another type of cultural Christian that claims to follow Jesus but they live just like the rest of the world. You cannot see any difference in the language they use, the way they treat other, or even how they navigate relationships and sex.
The true way of Jesus actually leads to becoming more like Jesus. We actually become people who emulate the attributes of God to those around us – not by our own strength but by depending on the Spirit of God to help us live this out! with His help we live in the light rather than up back into the darkness!
So in this letter John writes to affirm the identity of Christ and to provide clear markers of authentic faith—chief among them, love for others and a lifestyle of honest confession and dependence on God. His letter encourages believers to examine their lives, not for perfection but progress and for evidence of genuine relationship with God through love, obedience, and humility.
So our encouragement is to read through all of 1 John during this brief series. Read a chapter a day Monday through Friday this next week or read it all in one sitting. Let God speak to you about who He is and who He is inviting you to be.
Summary of 1 John
So let’s start by looking at the verse that I think summarizes the purpose of this letter:
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” – 1 John 5:13
John uses the same phrasing here that he does in his Gospel saying: “I write these things to you… so that…”
He is writing to believers. This is a letter that as a follower of Jesus you can apply to your life.
If you are exploring God, you can read this letter to know what it means to live as a follower of Jesus.
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” – 1 John 5:13
So what does it mean to “believe in the name of the Son of God”?
It means you reorient your life and how you see the world through the lens of the Scriptures.
Like we mentioned last week, following Jesus does not mean asking God for perfection, because perfection is NOT the goal.
We say: “No perfect people allowed.” because when we are honest that we need God’s help, we are actually being more honest and authentic, and we are positioning ourselves so that God can help us change.
When we pretend we are perfect or we are unwilling to be authentic and honest about our struggles, we are positioning our heart to stay the same or actually get worse than we are now.
Do you have an honest and humble heart willing to admit you aren’t perfect? Are you willing to acknowledge you need God’s help?
Or do you allow arrogance or insecurities to keep you from this kind of authenticity?
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” – 1 John 5:13
So what does it mean that “you have eternal life.”
Now this one is often misunderstood in our culture.
Often we think of “eternal life” and “heaven” as where we go when we die.
But notice how John shares in his Gospel how Jesus defined “eternal life.” During his last meal with his disciples, Jesus shared with them that He was leaving and would send His Spirit to be with us. During a beautiful prayer Jesus prayed for those following Him in that room and for all of us who would one day believe, he prayed this:
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” – John 17:3
Eternal life begins the moment you say “yes” to following Jesus!
Eternal life means a relationship with God!
Eternal life means experiencing God’s presence, peace, joy, love, and goodness in your life right now, and once we die we enter this experience without the sinful brokenness of this world! (For more on this consider reading any of the books called Imagine Heaven by our founding pastor John Burke).
Once Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father to reign over this New Kingdom, the message became “the kingdom of God is here!”
The Kingdom of God is synonymous with the Kingdom of Heaven which is synonymous with eternal life.
The Kingdom of Heaven is here now! God’s space and humanity’s space overlaps through the people who follow Jesus as we have His Spirit within us! Everywhere we go we take the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven as it’s also known with us! This is why Jesus taught us to pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’” – Matthew 6:9-10
One day Jesus will come back and make all things right and there will be a new heaven and new earth! But until that day, we are invited to experience the fullness of who God is right now! And we can bring that to others – to where we live, where we work, and to those we love!
This should change how we live and how we see the world!
In his book Surprised by Hope, British theologian and scholar N.T. Wright writes:
“Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about.”
– N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope
He also writes:
“Easter was when Hope in person surprised the whole world by coming forward from the future into the present.”
– N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope
We can experience the fullness of who God is now! We can experience our future in His presence even in the midst of our dark and broken world that often lacks hope!
So knowing what it means to be a follower of Jesus and what it means to have eternal life, let’s continue to look at the end of 1 John.
Next John writes:
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
Because God is our hope, we can have confidence in coming to God with anything and everything.
Confidence and hope are often synonymous. In one of the most well known verses about hope in the Scriptures, the author of Hebrews writes:
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see…. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” – Hebrews 11:1,6
Faith and belief are interchangeable. Faith and belief means trusting in God regardless of our circumstances.
So what does it mean “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 what we asked of him.” – 1 John 5:14-15
Does this mean we get whatever we want from God?
That is not what this means.
These verses are not a blank check from God but an invitation into deeper alignment with his heart and purposes. John writes, “if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” That phrase, “according to his will,” is the key that unlocks the meaning. God is not a vending machine responding to our every whim, but a loving Father who delights to give his children what is good, true, and ultimately redemptive.
When we pray according to his will, we are praying from a place of communion with God—seeking not to bend God’s power to our plans, but to align our desires with His purposes. When we do that, John says, we can be confident—not just that God hears us in a passive way, but that he is actively responding, granting us what we have asked because our hearts are in step with his.
This is not a text to manipulate God into giving us what we want. Rather, it’s an assurance that as we are shaped by his Spirit, as we abide in Christ and let his Word dwell richly in us, our prayers begin to reflect his will—and those prayers, God delights to answer.
John is saying that when we ask for things that are in line with God’s will, he hears us—and not only that, but he answers. This doesn’t mean God gives us everything we want, but it does mean he listens and responds when we pray with hearts that are open to his ways. As we get to know God better, we start to want what he wants—and that’s when prayer becomes powerful and personal. It’s not about saying the right words, but about trusting a God who loves to hear from us and wants what’s best for us.
If we aren’t careful, our relationship with God can become transactional. We only trust in God and follow His ways for what we can get from Him and when we don’t get what we want we give up on Him. People do this in their relationships all the time.
True and authentic relationships are dynamic. We work together through the ups and downs. We grow together. We get better together as we persevere and work through our conflicts and differences.
The same can be true with God. We can approach God with confidence knowing that He is for us. We can be honest with Him about our frustrations and fears.
Just like in ⅓ of the Psalms we see King David and others vent their frustrations and fears and anger with God only to then end with “but no matter how things turn out, whether you answer my prayer the way I want you to or not, I will trust you.”
Have you ever had a moment like Lt. Dan did in Forrest Gump?
God is BIG enough to take on your emotions and disappointments and anger and fears!
But even still we can trust Him.
We see this type of honest prayer from Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed:
““My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” …He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.’” – Matthew 26:39, 42 NIV
God never promised a life without suffering and struggle. That is the nature of life in this broken world, but He did promise to be with us in the midst of the suffering and struggle of this life.
Jesus willingly gave His life for us. God did not rescue Him from the cross, but on the other side of the cross was the resurrection!
Followers of Jesus are called to take up our cross and to die to our self daily. We need to be willing to follow Jesus wherever that takes us which could include suffering and death. But even in that, this life is not all there is! We can experience His love and presence and have a hope that is eternal – bigger than just our circumstances, bigger than this life.
The reward for knowing God is not getting God to do what we want Him to do. The reward for knowing God is knowing the One who loves us unconditionally, knowing the One who guides us in the light, and knowing the One who is our hope!
What area of your life seems to lead you more to fear rather than to faith?
What circumstances do you need to bring before God?
Ask God to give you hope even when you don’t have it.
Because God is our hope, we can bring hope to others.
16 If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death. – 1 John 5:16-17
John is encouraging us to pray for one another, especially when someone stumbles into sin.
Now all sin disconnects us from God. As we saw last week, when we mess up, we simply admit it and He will forgive us.
John is saying that even when we turn away from God and do our own thing or slip back into the darkness, we need to turn back to Him and we can encourage others to do the same.
When we pray for others in that place, God can bring life and healing.
John wants us to know that there is also a kind of persistent, hardened rejection of God—what John calls “sin that leads to death”—where someone refuses to turn to Him. Even then, John reminds us that all sin is serious, but God’s mercy is available when hearts are open. So he calls us to love one another by praying each other back to life.
For who are you praying that they would find new life in Jesus?
Don’t give up!
If you aren’t praying for anyone, who does God want you to begin to pray for?
As John Burke once said:
“If you don’t have a enough hope, borrow it from someone else.”
The flipside is true: If you have hope, share it with those aroudn you.
Because God is hope, we can experience growth and transformation.
18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. 19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. 20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. – 1 John 5:18-21
John ends his letter by reassuring those of us who follow Jesus that those who belong to God are no longer trapped in sin because Jesus protects them, even as the world remains under the enemy’s influence. This does not mean we will be perfect, but we will be made new and He will continue to transform us to become more like Jesus as we walk with Him. This process may be instantaneous in some areas and gradual in other areas.
John reminds us that through Jesus, we’ve been given true understanding—not just facts about God, but a relationship with the one who is eternal life.
His final word, “keep yourselves from idols,” is a loving warning: don’t settle for anything less than the real, living God. Everything else will lead you away from the life only Jesus can give.
Most of the time, we may not have little wooden idols in our home that we pray to or go to instead of God.
A pastor who served for many years in New York City named Tim Keller wrote a great book on idols called “Counterfeit Gods”
In that book he points out that an idol is anything we go to for comfort or purpose or our identity that isn’t God.
This means we can turn what God gave us as a gift into a god if we aren’t careful.
Here’s how you know if you have shifted your heart towards a counterfeit god.
An idol is anything in your life that is more important than God to you:
If something, like a career, social standing, or even a relationship, is more central to your life than God, it becomes an idol.
An idol is anything that absorbs your heart:
An idol is something that captures your emotions and desires to a degree that you can’t live without it.
An idol is anything you seek to give you what only God can give:
This includes things like security, meaning, happiness, or self-worth, which can become idols when you seek them from something other than God.
An idol is anything you can’t live without:
If you feel your life is meaningless or worthless without something, it’s likely an idol.
So what do you need to surrender to God today?
To what or to who are you going for comfort, for rest, or for meaning that isn’t God?
