We are going to start wrapping up our time in 1 John because the book of 1 John is short, and it’s almost done. What we’ll see in John’s letter now is that he is sort of giving a briefing, a recap of everything he’s already said and making sure that his readers, including us, church, understand all the connections of what he has said so far.
Join me please in 1 John 5:1-5, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and follow His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whoever has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (NASB)
Here, John sums up all that he has so far said about believing in Jesus. He is asking us to remember that belief in Jesus is more than just agreeing that Jesus is the Son of God, or that Jesus is the Christ. Belief includes personal commitment to Jesus, to give Him all that your life is; it involves public acknowledgment of who He is and the life He has called you to live despite any sort of opposition you might receive; and it involves trusting in Jesus to guide you, teach you, forgive you, heal you, and make your life what He desires of it. Belief in Jesus requires us to act on belief, to grow, to change, to witness to His name, to do good deeds, and to love others. We don’t just believe facts about Jesus; we believe in Him as our personal Lord and Savior!
John reminds us of what true belief in Jesus will do in the lives of those who belief. Look again at 1 John 5:4-5, “For whoever has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” John tells us that both those born of God and those that believe in Jesus will overcome the world.
What does that mean again, to overcome the world? Remember that John has talked about what the world is before, and what the world represents. It represents darkness, sin, separation from God and that relationship with God that we were created for. The world represents chaos and destruction and all evil. The world represents all things that are bad for you. We want to overcome the world because if you’re honest with yourself, you don’t really want to be stuck in the things that cause death, chaos, and destruction for you, do you?
No, of course we don’t. So we need a way to overcome the world, and John says that if you are born of God, if you believe in Jesus, then you will overcome the world. The very first step of live in Christ like we talked about last week, is belief. We must believe in Jesus, true belief, that He is the Son of God, Lord and Savior, and you must be willing to give Him all your life for Him to use for His purposes. It’s radical, yes, but that’s because God is radically different from the ways of the world, and if you want to be His child, you have to be radically different too.
We start with true belief, and what we’ve seen throughout 1 John is that the initial step of belief or faith that we take in response to what Jesus has done for us and God’s great love for us, causes a chain reaction in the life of those who believe. If we want to experience all the things that John has been talking about in this letter, true love, walking in the light, renewal of life, then it all starts with belief.
True belief like I’ve described and John has described, brings REBIRTH in the life of the one who believes, and that rebirth causes love, obedience, and righteousness to flourish in the life of the one who believes as well. I want to talk about the connections here between belief, rebirth, love, obedience, and righteousness because John shows how they are all connected to one another throughout his letter.
Okay, so you believe. You’ve been reborn in Christ. Those two continue to be connected, belief and rebirth, throughout your relationship with God. They feed into each other. As you believe, you experience that initial rebirth of your spirit. As you allow yourself to be made new in Christ, that causes your belief in Him to grow. You start to see Him working and changing you, and your belief in Him is strengthened. As your belief is grown and strengthened, you start to experience rebirth in other areas of your life and renewal in new ways. And so it goes.
Now, as that is happening in your heart and mind, the rebirth you experience, as I said, leads to love, obedience, and righteousness. John demonstrates the connections between being born of God, or rebirth, and these other things throughout His letter.
In 1 John 3:10 he wrote, “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother and sister.” John uses a negative association, by saying that anyone who does not practice the righteousness of God is not of God, not born of God, but the association here is that if you are of God, if you are born of God, then you will practice the righteousness of God.
This verse also highlights the connection between rebirth and love. John says if you don’t love your brother and sister, that is other believers, then you aren’t born of God. If you are born of God, if you have been reborn and made new, you will love your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Go back to 1 John 5:1 that we just read this morning, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” (NASB) We see here that love for the Father is part of that rebirth as well as loving other believers. So we can make a little caveat to our diagram of connections here so we understand that rebirth leads to love for God and love for other believers.
Now look at 1 John 3:24, “The one who keeps His commandments remains in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He remains in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” (NASB) Here’s where obedience comes in. John says that the one who is in God, that would be the one who believes, the one who has been reborn, will keep God’s commandments. That’s obedience, church. If you believe, if you’ve been reborn and you’re experiencing the renewal of mind and heart that comes with that rebirth, you will find yourself obeying God more and more. You will seek to keep His words, and you will find a desire in your heart to want to do what pleases Him because of that rebirth.
And here’s the connection between loving God and obeying God, linking love and obedience. Here’s 1 John 5:2-3 again, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and follow His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” For John, love for God and obedience to God are the same. Love for God is shown by obeying God. The two become equals to John, so much so that he even says that if you do not obey God, you do not love Him.
We further see the connection between obedience and love through the commands to love other believers as John shows in 1 John 3:23, “This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.” (NASB) And we just read that he goes on to say that if you don’t do this, you don’t love God. So our obedience for God is shown through our love for other believers, not just in our love for God. And since obedience in John’s letter is equal to love, we know that loving God is also shown by loving other believers.
We can see this plainly in 1 John 4:20-5:2, “If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister. 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and follow His commandments.” (NASB) If you love God, you love His children, other believers. If you love God, you obey Him and His command to love other believers. If you don’t….then you don’t.
Finally, we have one more connection here between obedience and righteousness. In 1 John 3:1-10, John talked about how obedience to God is shown through the purification of the heart and by choosing to walk in God’s righteousness. In 1 John 3:3 he says, “And everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (NASB) John understands that obedience to God is so closely linked to righteousness that they are equal with each other, just like love and obedience are equal. John understands that if you are being obedient to God, it means that you are walking in God’s righteousness and that your heart is being purified by the work of the Spirit in your life. He goes on to say in 1 John 3:9, “No one who has been born of God practices sin, because His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin continually, because he has been born of God” (NASB) We can follow John’s thinking here and see that if we claim to be reborn of God, to have experienced rebirth, that means we will be obedient to God, and if we are being obedient to God, we cannot sin anymore. Obedience is shown through righteousness.
So, here’s all the connections we’ve seen in 1 John between belief, rebirth, love for God, love for believers, obedience to God, and righteousness:
—Rebirth leads to righteousness
—Rebirth leads to loving other believers
—Rebirth leads to love for God
—Rebirth leads to obedience of God
—Loving God and obeying God are equal
—Obedience to God is shown in love for other believers
—Loving God is shown by loving other believers
—Obedience to God is shown by heart purification and walking in righteousness
1. Grow Up with God: What evidence of love for God or overcoming the world does your life show? Try to name specific examples.
2. Grow Deep with the Body: What evidence of love for God through loving other believers does your life show? Again, name specific examples.
3. Go Out: How does love for those in the world who do not yet know Christ fit into the belief connections we see in 1 John?