1 John 5:1-5 (NASB)
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. 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?
It is the first Sunday of the new year. I wanted to start us off this year with a message of hope and encouragement. There is a lot of chaos and trouble being predicted for this new year. In the USA, it is a presidential election year. That fact alone brings a lot of turmoil. In the NASB, 1 John 5 has the heading, “Overcoming the World.” That is what we all need to do this year, isn’t it? But how do we overcome the world? How do we not allow the trials and chaos to overwhelm us? In order to answer that question, we need to look at how John starts this chapter.
To begin, verses 1-2 say that, “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. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and follow His commandments.”
John makes it clear that in order to be born of God, we must believe Jesus is the Christ. When we believe that Jesus is the Christ, then we are born of God. What does it mean to be believe Jesus is the Christ? That means we believe He was not just a prophet, as a lot of religions and other people believe. We believe He is Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, Savior of the world. We believe He died on the cross and rose again from the dead.
A question that I get asked frequently is this: how do I know I am saved? Here in this passage of Scripture we find the answer: “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.”
That is how we are saved or born of God. More frequently, we say we are “born again.” Our faith that Jesus is the Christ is how that adoption into God’s family happens. The way we know that has happened and we are now a child of God is when we do what John says in this second half of that verse, which says, “and everyone who loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” This echoes what was said earlier in 1 John 4:7 when it says, “Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”
That means if we are born again, we will love God and love others. Our actions will line up with our confession.
All of that tells us two things. First, it’s important that we love God and obey His commands. Second, it’s important we love fellow Christians. It should be obvious to us believers that we should obey the Lord’s commands, but have you ever thought about how it’s important to love other Christians? Why would it be important that we love other Christians? We see the answer in verse 2: we are loving other Christians when we love God and keep His commandments.
Maybe you are wondering why obeying God equates loving other Christians. Why do those two things go together? They go together because when we disobey God, it hurts the body of Christ.
The other day I came across a video of Corrie ten Boom. She was born in 1892 in the Netherlands, and was a Christian whose family hid Jewish people from the Nazis in their home. Eventually, she and her family were caught and sent to concentration camps. Despite everything, she survived and wrote a book called The Hiding Place about her experience. In the video, which she recorded when she was quite old, she says that our individual sins are harming our nations. She says, “The world is very sick. There is terrific, much darkness and sin in the world, and every child of God is standing on the front lines of the battle and the battle is very severe. There’s no time anymore for compromise. It is all either: you do belong to the Lord, lock stock and barrel, or you do not belong to Him. And then you belong to the enemy. Just image when you are on the front lines of a battle, and you compromise a little bit with the enemy at the other side. You, yourself are in danger and your nation is in danger because of you.”
That might seem extreme to some people. How could one person’s sin possibly put their nation in danger? After all, my sin only hurts me, right? We might think that, but we are wrong to do so. Our sin hurts the people around us. There is no such thing as a private sin. It’s as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:6. In explaining how the church in Corinthians needed to remove those who are willfully sinning from their midst, he says, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?” In other words, those who are sinning are like a yeast that eventually grow to infect the whole group.
Our actions affect other people. Another example of this is seen in Joshua 7:11-12. God is speaking to Joshua and He says, “Israel has sinned, and they have also violated My covenant which I commanded them. And they have even taken some of the things designated for destruction, and have both stolen and kept it a secret. Furthermore, they have also put them among their own things. Therefore the sons of Israel cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become designated for destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you eliminate from your midst the things designated for destruction.”
This passage makes it sound like a lot of the Israelites must have stolen things and deceived Joshua. If God said that “Israel has sinned” He must mean that more than just one of the Israelites sinned, right? Actually, no. In verses 20-21 it is recorded, “So Achan answered Joshua and said, ‘Truly, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoils a beautiful robe from Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I wanted them and took them; and behold, they are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.’”
Achan was the only one who stole anything, yet God states that Israel sinned. God viewed and judged Israel has a whole nation. If just one of the people, like Achan, disobeyed God, they all suffered as a whole. The nation was in danger of being destroyed because of the wrongdoing of one individual. That is because we are the Body of Christ. Yes, we are individuals, but we all make up the Body of Christ. If one of us is in sin, it does affect the rest of the Body.
In this same way that one person’s sinful actions hurt the Body of Christ, one person’s lack of actions also hurts the Body of Christ. The body is made up of many parts. One part cannot do everything that needs to be done. We need each other. We rely on the other members of the Body to do their task and to use their talents in order to further the kingdom of God. If one of us is out of it, then the ripple effect from just one offsets the whole thing. Ever wonder why everything on earth is so broken? Maybe because there are a whole lot of us who are not doing our jobs. So many of us are like Achan. We have sins that we are hiding and we are hoping that nobody notices. We all, as individuals, must decide if we will confess our sins and be forgiven, so we may become effective in leading others to Christ so our nations can be healed.
This makes me think of Joshua 24:15 which says, “But if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served, which were beyond the Euphrates River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Knowing that Joshua spoke those words after what happened with Achan gives that even stronger meaning, doesn’t it? He was telling the people: you must choose who you are going to serve. Make a decision. As Corrie ten Boom implored Christians in her video message, there is no time for compromise. We must stop working with the enemy and stop fooling around with sin. Too much is at stake. As she said, “It is all either: you do belong to the Lord, lock stock and barrel, or you do not belong to Him. And then you belong to the enemy.”
Yes, all we must do to be born again is believe in Jesus Christ, but we must define what believing means. Simply hearing and knowing the Gospel message does not produce eternal life. One must believe it in order to become a child of God. As I said earlier, if we truly believe, we will prove our belief by our actions of love. As verse 3 tells us, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”
Do you believe that sentence? Or do you find God’s commandments burdensome? There is a popular pastor who said recently that following what the Bible says is too difficult for people and so he does not tell people or expect people to follow God’s law. He said, “For many, [following God’s law] is not sustainable.” How can that be if God says His commandments are not burdensome? Jesus also said in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is comfortable, and My burden is light.”
That pastor, and others like him, are disagreeing with Jesus when they tell people that following God is not sustainable for people’s lives. Is that not the greatest lie the enemy tells us? Look at Corrie ten Boom’s testimony. She, of all people, should have said that following God’s way is not sustainable. But she did not. She clung all the more to God’s Word. She placed her very life in God’s hands and found Him strong enough to carry her.
Why is our faith so small that we don’t think we can trust God’s Word? In Barnes’ Notes on the Bible about verse 3, he says, God’s “commandments are not burdensome. The meaning is, that his laws are not unreasonable; the duties which he requires are not beyond our ability; his government is not oppressive. It is easy to obey God when the heart is right; and those who endeavor in sincerity to keep his commandments do not complain that they are hard. All complaints of this kind come from those who are not disposed to keep his commandments. Indeed, they object that his laws are unreasonable; that they impose improper restraints; that they are not easily complied with; and that the divine government is one of severity and injustice. But no such complaints come from true Christians. They find his service easier than the service of sin, and the laws of God more mild and easy to be complied with than were those of fashion and honor, which they once endeavored to obey. The service of God is freedom; the service of the world is bondage. No man ever yet heard a true Christian say that the laws of God, requiring him to lead a holy life, were stern and ‘grievous.’ But who has not felt this in regard to the inexorable laws of sin? What votary of the world would not say this if he spoke his real sentiments?”
Barnes says it so well. It is easy to obey God when the heart is right, isn’t it? The struggle arises when we desire to do what we want instead.
It is not God’s commandments which are burdensome. It is sin that causes the burden. Sin is what is heavy and hard to carry. Guilt and shame and brokenness are awful loads to bear.
If we believe in Jesus Christ and are born again, then we will love other Christians, and by so doing, we will obey God’s commands. If we do not love others, and we do not obey God’s commands, can we really think we are born again? If we look just like everybody else in the world, why would be think we have been born of God? Do we really have faith if we don’t have any proof?
Because we should always interpret Scripture with Scripture, where else do we find evidence for this idea that our actions should prove our faith? I think we see a longer explanation in James 2:18-26 which says, “But someone may well say, ‘You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.’ You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to acknowledge, you foolish person, that faith without works is useless? Was our father Abraham not justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was Rahab the prostitute not justified by works also when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
James says, “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” That is because faith, or belief, is only proven by our actions. Our actions don’t grant us salvation: salvation is the free gift of God, given to us by grace. But our actions prove that we have faith in Jesus. Our actions prove that we believe that Jesus is the Christ. All of that is vital to understand before we look at the rest of what 1 John 5 is saying. Here is the hope and encouragement. Verses 4-5 say, “For whoever has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
The key words in this section of Scripture are the phrase “overcome the world.” I think John uses this wording because this is a phrase that Jesus used. In John 16:33, Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Jesus has overcome the world: on the cross, He triumphed over death and the devil. Because He did that, we, too, can overcome the world. As verse 5 says, the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God overcomes the world.
In 1 John 4:4, when talking about false prophets to the believers in Christ whom he is writing to, John also says, “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”
If we are in Christ, we can overcome the world! That is good news! That changes everything, doesn’t it? That should give us hope and encouragement to face whatever the world throws at us, because greater is Christ who is in us, than the evil that is in the world. That is true!
But if that is true, then why haven’t all the Christians in the world overcome the world? The problem is, too many Christians are not living lives that overcome the world. They are falling prey to false prophets. They believe the rampant lies of the enemy. They are being held captive in sin. They have not overcome even though they believe in Jesus. This is because their belief in Jesus is faint. They have very little actionable faith. They want to believe but they have so many doubts. In A.W. Tozer’s book, Toward a More Perfect Faith, he says, “they have accepted a state of chronic discouragement as a normal condition for a Christian” (p. 44).
I think these believers are walking around burdened by the sin they are choosing to carry. Instead of loving their fellow Christians and obeying God’s commands, they are choosing to steal from the enemy’s camp. They are finding God’s commandments unstainable because it is incompatible with the life they want to live. But they are choosing to carry a heavy burden, when instead, they could repent and find freedom. If we want to overcome the world as Scripture says we may, we must love our brothers and sisters in Christ enough to lay off sin and obey God’s commands. For our sin hurts our fellow believers, because it helps the devil further his plans.
Despite how the enemy lies to us and tells us that we cannot overcome sin, we can overcome sin. We can do this through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us. As John starts off this letter in 1 John 1:9, we have this promise: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If we repent and confess our sins, God will take that burden of sin off us. He will cleanse us and set us free.
As we enter into this new year, let us lay off sin and be freed from the burden of sin. Let us pick up our cross, which is not heavy but actually light. Let us find rest and peace given to us from our Savior. Let us overcome the world, and not be swept under by the weight of sin. Let us cling with real faith to what Jesus promised us: “These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” If we do these things, then we can live lives full of victory. No matter what the world tries to do to us, we can overcome it.
Pray: Heavenly Father, we confess our sins to You. Please forgive us and heal us from our burdens of sin. Please help us by Your Holy Spirit, to lay down the sins we were carrying and not pick them up again. Please help us prove our faith in You by our actions. Please help us overcome the world by Your power. We stand today in the joy of the victory You bought for us, Jesus, when You died on the cross and rose again. Help to overcome so we may rest in Your peace. Amen.
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