On Being A Christian
#7 It's A Wrap
Nov 16, 2008
In this last chapter John wraps up all that he has said in the previous 4 chapters of his first letter to the early Christians. Throughout this letter John has repeatedly emphasized not only the 3 essentials of Christianity, which are obedience, love and belief, but he has also highlighted again and again that these three are dynamically interdependent. Like a 3-legged stool you cannot have one without the others. Take away one or 2 of the legs and that stool will not hold you and it will collapse beneath your weight. Like the stool obedience, love and belief are necessary to hold you up in your Christian walk and witness. These 3 essentials, legs as it were, are necessary for us to experience the glory and joy of the Christian life. In this final chapter John underscores this interdependency in three ways: in verse 1-5 he talks about the victory of faith. In verse 6-12 John speaks to the testimony of God, and finally he concludes with the certainties of the believer.
I. 1 John 1:1-5—the victory of faith. This time John begins with belief and says that to believe is to be reborn, to be changed, to be transformed highlighting that Christianity is not merely an intellectual, doctrinal system. There is far more to following Jesus than head knowledge, as important as that is. Notice the flow of belief, to love, to obedience in these verses. John is saying that if you love the Father, you will love his children as well. And you cannot love the Father if you do not love His children as well. When I was a kid my brother and sister and I would bicker, argue, tease and at times punch each other. In fact as a 9th grader I punched my brother in the head (not a smart thing to do!) and broke my hand. We could fight with the best of them, but just let a neighborhood kid pick a fight with my brother or me, and each was right there to defend the other. Let someone pick on our sister, and her older brothers were right there to protect her, even though we thought she was dumb and ugly!
John is saying here that if we are truly reborn into the family of God, we will not only love God but His redeemed children as well. Remember now what kind of love we are talking about: not feelings but an attitude of self-denying, self-giving love that chooses the best for other people.
What does that look like? John describes that in verse 2, “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands.” A lot of things are done in the name of love: adultery, stealing, premarital sex, lying and most any destructive thing we could imagine. That is why God has given us parameters, boundaries to what that love is not. We call them the 10 Commandments. We call them The Sermon on the Mount. Anything within these limits is fine but if you go beyond those limits then no matter what you call it, it cannot be called loving behavior. So John says that if you love the Father and you love His children, then your love will be shaped and determined by your obedience to His ways, and that obedience is the result of your belief. All of this is a result of faith and that faith will overcome the world. In 2:15 John wrote, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” So, how do we not love the world and the things of this world? John says that it is through a relationship with God who is the Lord of this world. And that in Christ there is not only a reason to overcome the world, but also the ability, the power to do so through the Holy Spirit. This then is the victory of faith that we experience living a life out of belief, love and obedience in, for and to our God.
II. 1 John 5:6-12—the testimony of God. Now a very important question—how do we know that all of this is true? Is it just imaginary, pie in the sky or is it something we can stake our lives on? In these verses John answers this overarching question. He begins by appealing to the objective evidence of Jesus, the water and the blood, i.e. the birth and death of Jesus. We celebrate those 2 great events as we observe “the holidays” of Christmas and Easter, which the meaning of each in our society is fast fading. John is saying that there is plenty of written evidence and eyewitness accounts that Jesus did live and die as the Son of God in the flesh. This reference of water and blood could also mean baptism and communion, which references our new life in Christ, purchased and made possible by the Cross of Calvary event. So the witness of the body of Christ is of those who believed, who exhibited self-denying love through joyful obedience to God. However you see the water and blood, John says that there is enough evidence to support his claims.
John then moves into the area of subjective evidence (6b-8). This is the inner witness of the Spirit of God that cannot be explained, but the experience is nonetheless real. We call it assurance, assurance that we are indeed saved, born again and that Christ lives in us. It was in May of 1738 that John Wesley visited a church on Aldersgate Street for worship. There the Spirit of God touched him and “strangely warmed his heart” and he knew within that God had forgiven him of his sins and put a fire, a passion within his heart. Up until that time he was a devout Anglican priest doing the religious thing. Both John and Charles Wesley were transformed me who changed the course of the British Empire.
From the objective witness to the subjective witness, John moves on to remind us of the witness of God in the scriptures. In verse 9 we read, “We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God.” If man’s testimony is good, then how much greater is God’s testimony. What is that testimony? It is the witness of the Hebrew people, through Jesus as Messiah, and through the early church. Look at verse 11, “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” The promise of God, the hope of God, the salvation of God is clearly seen in the story of God’s redemption of His people beginning in Genesis and continuing on through Revelation.
Now, if we stop there we have a problem and it is a problem that exists in much of today’s Christianity, i.e. accepting Christ is nothing more than a legal transaction, a contract if you will. I do my part by asking Jesus into my heart, and He does His part by coming into my heart--all very neat, clean, and easy. But John is saying that following Jesus and being a Christian is far more than simply praying ‘the sinner’s prayer.” If you have accepted Christ into your life, then there is going to be clear evidence of His presence in your life. Things change. You will discover a desire to do that which pleases God and not do that will displeases God. And you will have the ability to do it. You will experience self-denying love for others. If we know whose we are and where we are going, then we can live with confidence and hope and joy and we can lose everything in this world and still say, “It is well with my soul!” That is a totally different attitude than the attitude of this world. Love alone won’t do it. Obedience alone won’t do it. Belief alone won’t do it. It takes all three to release us from the cares and stuff of this world.
III. 1 John 5:13-21—the certainties of the believer. John leads us through the witness and assurance of faith based on the unshakable testimony of God right into the apex, the climatic conclusion of this letter. Having written this letter and put forth his reasons for espousing these 3 essentials of Christianity, John concludes by describing the result of resting our full weight on this understanding of the Christian life. The result is that ‘we know.’ There are certainties that we as believers have. As you look over these verses, note how many times John uses the word ‘know.’ And it is not just knowing about something, but also really knowing if from personal experience. Is it belief that leads to knowing? Yes, and knowing leads to stronger belief. Is it obedience that leads to knowing? Yes, and living in obedience leads to more complete obedience. Does loving God and one another lead to knowing? Yes, and loving God and one another leads to a deeper, fuller love. The more we know the more we believe, obey and love and the more we believe, obey and love, the more we know. If we know, we can survive anything—whatever that may be.
We not only have the knowledge of eternal life, we also know we have access to the Most High God through Jesus. During the Civil War, the Confederates had captured a farmer’s son. A prisoner exchange was in the offing so this farmer went to Washington in hopes that his son was included in this exchange. Washington was in a state of confusion and nobody was able to help and everyone sent him to somebody else. Finally at the White House he sat down on a bench exhausted, frustrated and hopeless. Staring at the floor in dejection, he felt a hand on his knee. Looking up he discovered a young boy standing in front of him. “Mister, what’s the matter?” the boy intoned. The farmer poured out his story. Finally the young boy said, “I think I know somebody who can help you.” Then he took the farmer’s hand as they headed down the hallway, up a dark and winding staircase. The boy pushed open the door at the top, and this farmer found himself standing in President Lincoln’s office. The farmer was stunned and turned to leave, but the boy’s hand would not let go. “Father, there’s a man here who needs to talk to you.”
Aren’t you glad that Jesus, the Son, takes us by the hand in our times of need and desperation and leads us to the Father and says, “Dad, I have someone here who needs to speak to you.”
As Christians we can know our inheritance of eternal and that we have access to God Himself. There is one final, awesome ‘knowing’ and that is we can have victory in life here and now and not just when we get to heaven. Look at verse 5:18, “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.” The sin John speaks of here is willful, deliberate sin. He is not talking about imperfections, weaknesses, or mistakes. He is talking about knowing that something is sin, and still doing it. The person who knows Jesus gains victory by saying ‘no’ to sin and yes to everything that Jesus is.
Are you resting your faith in Jesus on this 3-legged stool? Are you walking in obedience to God’s will? Are you loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and loving your neighbor as yourself? Do you believe that God is all that He claims to be and that Jesus is your Savior? And here’s the clincher—is it making any difference in your life? If so then praise God. If not, then you “got some ‘splaining to do!”