The Christian Life

1 John 5:1-5

August 24, 2003

 

            What is the Christian life? Or, to put it another way, what does it mean to be a Christian? This was the question with which the Apostle John was concerned when he wrote his first epistle. The church to which he wrote had many problems because of false teachers and antichrists who were trying to lead God’s children astray, and so the Apostle took time to write to these people and tell them exactly what it meant to be a Christian so that they could be sure they were in fellowship with God. He was trying to protect them from error and deception.

            This morning we come to the fifth chapter of this letter, and as we come to verses 1 through 5 we find a comprehensive statement of the Christian life. In these short five verses the Apostle sums up for us the totality of the Christian life in an effort to protect us from error and false teaching. I think this is just as needful in our day as it was when the Apostle first wrote these words. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, preaching on this passage, said this about our modern view of Christianity: “Indeed, as we read words like these [in verses 1-5], must we not plead guilty in general to the charge that our ideas of the Christian position are totally inadequate and insufficient; must we not admit our failure? Indeed, I believe that most of the difficulties in this connection tend to arise from the fact that we will persist in thinking of it in terms of something that we are, our faith, our belief, our action, our good works, instead of thinking of it in the way in which the New Testament puts it.” How, then, does the New Testament put it? How does the New Testament describe the Christian life? If it is not about me and what I have done, my works, my faith, my deeds, my praying, or all of these other activities and actions, what is the Christian life?

            That question is answered comprehensively by the Apostle John in these five verses. Since verse 7 of chapter 4 the Apostle has been discussing loving the brethren, and now here in these 5 verses this morning he discusses how his entire teaching about loving one another fits into the whole of the Christian life. How does this concept of loving one another fit into my view of the entire Christian life? How do these parts fit together?

            As I said, in these five verses John gives as a summary of the entire Christian life; he tells us what it is all about. Let me put his teaching like this: The Christian life is a life of God-wrought faith that is manifest in love for the brethren and that overcomes the world. Let me say that one more time. This is the proposition John makes to us in these 5 verses: The Christian life is a life of God-wrought faith that is manifest in love for the brethren and that overcomes the world. Let’s examine this statement more closely.

 

God-wrought faith (v. 1a)

 

            When I say, “The Christian life is a life of God-wrought faith,” what do I mean by God-wrought faith? Look at verse 1. Here’s how John says it: Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. It is that statement that I am calling God-wrought faith.

            What is faith as the Apostle describes it here? Faith is believing that Jesus is the Christ. John says, Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ. The faith is not faith in general. It is not faith in a god who is out there somewhere and may or may not be interested in this universe. It is not faith in the gods of false religions, such as Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism. The faith that the Apostle describes is believing that Jesus is the Christ. This means that you believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the One whom God sent to be the Savior of the world. You are convinced that Jesus is the One sent by the Father into this sin-filled world to redeem it and save it. It is faith that there is no other way to God but through Jesus. The faith the Christian has is not faith that Jesus is merely a man, or that He was merely a good teacher or an example to us. No! The faith of the Christian is that Jesus is the Christ, very God in human flesh. He is the Savior of the world, both of Jews and of Gentiles.

This faith is very exclusive. It does not permit you to believe in anyone for salvation other than Jesus of Nazareth. It is the conviction Peter had in Acts 4:12 when he proclaimed, There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Jesus is the Christ. That is the faith about which the Apostle John is concerned. He is not concerned with faith as a general principle, or faith in false gods, or faith in yourself or in circumstance or fate or even in other people; true faith is found only in the one who believes that Jesus is the Christ.

            In my summary of this passage, I have called this faith, “God-wrought faith.” What do I mean when I say that our faith that Jesus is the Christ is God-wrought faith? I simply mean that God put it in us. God began our faith; He is the Creator of it. We were dead in sin, and we did not have faith in Jesus, but God came and mercifully regenerated us. He caused us to be born again, and when He did so He put within us faith that Jesus is the Christ. That is why the Apostle puts his statement in this form: Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. That means that God has given spiritual life to the one who believes that Jesus is the Christ. That is why a person believes that Jesus is the Christ, because God has caused him or her to be born again. He has regenerated the person who has faith that Jesus is the Christ.

            It is a general rule and absolute principle that if a person believes that Jesus is the Christ, that person is born of God. He could not believe in Jesus otherwise. The natural man does not receive the things of God. The man who loves the wisdom of this world rejects the cross and Christ crucified; he cannot accept it or comprehend it. It is foolishness to him. So if a person believes that this crucified Jesus is the Christ, it can only be because God has caused that person to be born again. The person who believes has been born of God.

            Do you this morning believe that Jesus is the Christ? If you do, it is not because you have done anything on your own. Do not be deceived! If you believe that Jesus is the Christ it is only because you have been born of God. It is only because God has put new life in you. God has created this faith in you, and He has become your Father if you have faith in Christ.

            Let me try to illustrate this. When John says, Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, it’s the same type of statement as this: Whoever has a fever is ill. The person’s fever is a symptom of the illness. The illness is what causes the fever. The virus, or bacteria, or whatever is troubling the body, is the cause of the fever. The fever did not cause the virus. It would be absurd for a person with a fever to think, “This fever has caused me to acquire this virus.” No, but what do we say? “This virus has produced this fever.” It is the same type of statement. The faith that a person has does not cause him to be born of God; rather, the faith a person has is a result of being born of God. Faith is never the cause of the new birth; it is caused by the new birth. When God causes a person to be born again, faith is the result. That is why John can say with certainty that everyone who believes is born of God. The new birth causes belief.

            That is why I call it God-wrought faith. The Christian life is a life of God-wrought faith. It is a life of believing that Jesus is the Christ because God has given you spiritual life in the new birth. God has regenerated you; you are now born of God, and because of that you have faith. Everyone who has faith is born of God, and everyone who does not have faith is not born of God. The new birth always causes faith, so if a person does not have faith that Jesus is the Christ it is a sure sign that they have not been born of God. If a person has faith that Jesus is the Christ it is an infallible indicator that that person has been born of God. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

 

Love for the Brethren (vv. 1b-3a)

 

            The first part of John’s proposition is that the Christian life is a life of God-wrought faith, but he does not stop there. He goes further, and tells us that this God-wrought faith is manifest in love for the brethren. The Christian life is a life of God-wrought faith that is manifest in love for the brethren. Look again at verse 1. He says, Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. What is the Apostle saying in this verse?

            At the end of verse 1 the Apostle is refuting the false claim of verse 4:20 once again. Remember, the chapter break between chapters 4 and 5 does not necessarily mean that what follows in chapter 5 is disconnected from chapter 4. In 4:20 a person said that he loved God and yet this same person hated his brother. Here, the Apostle is saying that whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. In other words, if a person says he loves God, then that person must also love God’s children. He cannot love God and not love God’s children. Why? Because God’s children have God abiding in them. God unites Himself to His children and causes His Spirit to dwell within them; therefore, a person cannot love the Father and not the child, because the child has God dwelling in Him. The child is even a partaker of the divine nature. So it is nonsense to say you love God and then hate those in whom God dwells, and hate those who are partakers of His nature, however imperfectly they reflect it. If you love God, then you will love God’s people, because God dwells in His people. The Apostle took great pains in 4:12-16 to prove that. And here he is reminding his readers that it is absurd to say that you love God and then to hate those in whom God abides. If you love God, you must love His children, because God unites Himself to His children; He abides in them, and they abide in Him.

            The question arises at this point, “Why does the Apostle move from faith to love in this verse?” The transition seems almost unnatural. In the first half of the verse he is discussing God-wrought faith, and in the second half of the verse he is saying that if we love the Father then we must love one another. What is the connection?

            I believe the connection is this: God-wrought faith is manifested in love toward the brethren. When God causes a person to be born again, he also causes them to live a life motivated and driven by love. That is what the Apostle said in 4:7. He wrote, Everyone who loves is born of God. In 4:7 we see that being born of God results in a life of love, and in 5:1 we see that being born of God results in faith. The two go together. The person who is born of God lives a life of God-wrought faith that manifests itself in love, especially love toward others. So the Apostle is not putting together two disconnected thoughts. He has a tightly knit fabric of thought here, and that thought is that when God regenerates a person, He regenerates that person to a completely new life. The Christian life is not a life of faith only. And it is not a life of love only. It is a life of God-wrought faith that shows itself in love toward the brethren.

            This raises the question, “How do I know if I really love the brethren?” Many times we hear people talk of loving others, yet what does it truly mean to love another person? How do we know if our faith is working itself out in genuine love for our brothers and sisters? This is a vital matter, because if we do not love the brethren then our faith is a sham. The Apostle says as much in verse 1. So we must be absolutely sure that we do in fact love the brethren. How can we know? How can we know if we have God-wrought faith working itself out in love toward the brethren?

            The Apostle tells us in verse 2. He writes, By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. Here are two tests to help us know whether or not our faith is manifesting itself in love toward the brethren, the children of God. We can be certain we love the brethren when we truly love God and observe His commandments. It is essential that you keep these things together, loving God and keeping His commandments. If you separate them, you will do violence to the teaching of the Apostle at this point, and you will go astray in your life. We must both love God and observe His commandments if we want proof that we truly love the brethren. Loving the brethren includes loving God and keeping His commandments. The only guide we have for loving the brethren is the Law of God. God’s commandments teach us how to love the brethren.

In John 14:15 Jesus said, If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. That is why I say that our God-wrought faith is manifest in our love to the brethren rather than saying it is manifest in our love toward God. If we love God we will keep His commandments. So how do we show our love for God? How do we show that we are devoted to Him? How is our love for God manifest? Look at verse 3. The Apostle says, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. Loving God is manifest when we keep His commandments. You say, “I love God, and I want to show my love for Him!” How do you do it? The Apostle says that you must keep God’s commandments if you would manifest your love for God. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. Let me explain it further.

            Let’s ask this question: If the love of God is keeping His commandments, what are God’s commandments? The commandments of God boil down to these two: Love God, and love your neighbor. The first and foremost commandment is to love God. So when the Apostle says that the love of God is keeping God’s commandments, you ask, “Well, what are His commandments?” Here’s the first one: Love God. Love God more than life itself. Love God more than you love anything and anyone else. Devote your all to Him, and give Him first place in everything. Live for Him. Love God. You say, “Well, I do love God. What now? What’s next?” Love your neighbor. Do you really love God? In John 14:15 Jesus said that if you do, you’ll do what He commands, and His commandment if you love Him is to love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another. Again, that is why I say that our faith is manifest in love for the brethren. Our faith necessarily means that we love God. But how is that love manifest? It is manifest by keeping His commandments, and that is manifest when we love the brethren. We are to show our love for God in our love for one another. Our faith is manifest in our love of God, and our love of God is manifest most clearly in our love for one another as the Apostle has defined love.

            If you love God and observe His commandments you know immediately that you love the children of God, because God’s commandment is to love them. And the Bible takes great pains to teach us how to love them. Don’t steal from them. Don’t kill them. Don’t sleep with their spouses. Don’t be jealous of their things. Don’t be rude to them. Do encourage them. Do confront their sin. Do comfort them when they are in trials. Do pray for them.

            The difficult thing about this concept is the circular nature of it. The Apostle has told us that we can’t love God if we don’t love our brothers. And now he is telling us that we don’t love our brothers if we don’t love God. Why is he putting it like this? Why do you have to say things in such a difficult way, John? Why are you stretching our minds like this? I think the reason he is doing this is to teach us that the Christian life is a whole life. It is a complete life. We can’t reduce it down to just believing a set of facts. We can’t reduce it down to just loving God and isolating ourselves from others. And we can’t reduce it down to just loving other people apart from faith in Christ. The Christian life is a complete life, lived by God-wrought faith that manifests itself in love for the brethren.

 

Overcoming the World (vv. 3b-5)

 

            We must go a step further. The faith that God gives us not only manifests itself in loving the brethren, but it also overcomes the world. It overcomes the world, and this is the third part of the theme of this passage. The Christian life is a life of God-wrought faith that is manifest in love for the brethren and that overcomes the world. The Christian life is a powerful life. It is a dynamic life. It is a life that conquers sin and the world. How does the Apostle show this? He says at the end of verse 3, And His commandments are not burdensome. He has just told us that the love of God is keeping God’s commandments. God has commanded us to love Him and to love our neighbor as ourselves, two incredibly high demands, and only the Lord Jesus Christ has met them. Yet the Apostle insists in verse 3 that these commandments are not burdensome. They are not too heavy for us to bear. They are not grievous. Why? Well, it is simply because of this: For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. The reason these commands are not grievous is because whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

            This is another one of those reasons that the Apostle John gives that just makes you scratch your head and wonder how it makes sense. I must confess that the Apostle John had an incredible mind and an incredible grasp on the things of God. He understood life and Christianity at a depth we can only hope to glimpse before eternity, and here he lets us in on part of his understanding. He says to us, And His commandments are not burdensome, for [because] whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

            To understand his reasoning we must ask ourselves this question: What is it that makes God’s commandments burdensome to a man? Why are they burdensome to the world? What is it that hinders us from loving God and loving our neighbor? It is the world. The world is what makes the commandments of God burdensome and heavy to the natural man. Why? Because the natural man loves the world. He loves the things of the world. He lives for what he can see, taste, touch, feel, hear, smell. He lives for physical pleasure and comfort and ease. And we know that the world is opposed to God. You cannot love God and love the world.

Because we are sinners we naturally love the world. We feel at home here, even though this is not our home. We feel at ease many times in this world, and we feel comfortable in it many times because we do not grasp the spiritual realities that we should. And because we sometimes feel at home in this world and our flesh is drawn to the things of the world, the commandments of God may seem burdensome. The commandments of God call us to forsake this world and to live for spiritual realities that are unseen. The commandments of God call us to deny comfort and worldly pleasures. The commandments of God call us to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Christ down the Calvary road. If we live for this world, the commandments of God are incredibly grievous. They are heavy. They are burdensome. It is the world that makes God’s commands seem unreasonably heavy.

            Let me give you an illustration to go along with our Sunday night Bible study. In Romans 12:12 God commands us through the Apostle Paul, Be devoted to prayer. In other words, make prayer a top priority in your life. Set yourself apart for the purpose of prayer. Do we do it? Are we devoted to prayer? Do we spend a portion of our day in serious prayer on our knees before Almighty God? Or do we find God’s command burdensome? Do we find this to be a burden to us? I ask you this, if you are not devoted to prayer, why aren’t you? God has commanded you to be. And this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. If you find keeping this commandment burdensome, why? Surely it is due to the fact that you are too focused on this world. It is the world that always gets in the way of keeping God’s commandments. It is this life that gets so busy with the things of the world. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not talking about the world in the sense of adultery, and drunkenness, and fornication, and obvious worldly things. I am talking about the world in the sense of the physical realm that distracts us from the spiritual realm. Everything that would take our attention off of Christ and what really matters, that is the world. You know from your own experience that what makes God’s commandments feel burdensome is the world and our affection for it. It is because we get caught up in this vapor of a life that we sometimes feel God’s commandments are grievous and heavy.

            But the Apostle says that His commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world. God’s commandments are not burdensome because the Christian has been born of God. He has been given a new nature. He now loves God and hates the world. He no longer lives for the world. He no longer strives after the world. He has faith in Jesus and he loves God, and we know that we cannot love God and love the world. The Christian is one who has been born of God, and whatever is born of God overcomes the world. The reason God’s commands are not burdensome to the Christian, says the Apostle, is because the world no longer has a hold on us. It no longer has our chief affections. If we have been born of God we live a life motivated by love, not by lust. If we have been born of God we no longer are concerned about the world and its priorities; we are only concerned about one thing: God and His glory. And so we overcome the world because we are born of God. We have this new nature inside us.

            The Apostle goes on to tell us in verses 4 and 5, And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? It is by faith that we overcome the world. We have been born of God, which means that we believe that Jesus is the Christ according to verse 1. We have faith in Jesus, and this is the victory that overcomes the world.

            The Christian life is a life of God-wrought faith that is manifest in love for the brethren and that overcomes the world. We could put it like this: The Christian is a person who has faith in Jesus and by faith loves his neighbor as himself and loves God more than anything this world has to offer. The Christian has been given a gift of faith by God, and that faith always works itself out in loving the brethren and overcoming the world.

            This morning I ask you, have you been born of God? Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ? Are you loving other Christians? Are you overcoming the world? Do you live this Christian life as John has described it? It is a whole life. It is a complete life. It is a transformed life in every way. Are you living it, my friend? You say, how can I tell? Do you love the brethren? Do you love God and keep His commandments? Are you overcoming this world and its allurements and temptations? Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ? The Christian life is all of these things. If you don’t have them all, you do not have any of them. We may make progress in one area more than another, but are they all present in your life to some degree? If they are not, then you better reconsider your position. If they are, then praise God that He has given you new life in Christ, and persevere in the faith that He has given you. Let’s pray.

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