1 John 5 - Part 1

Why don't I open us up in prayer, and then we'll dig into 1 John 5. Father in heaven, we confess the inerrancy and the sufficiency and the infallibility of your word. We thank you for giving it to us so graciously. So we pray that today as we open your word and explore your word, that it would be used for your good purposes in our lives, that it would be used to change us from any wrong ways of thinking to right ways of thinking, and that that would lead us to proper behavior as well.

We pray for all the Sunday school classes right now, the people who have labored, some of them for decades, to be able to dispense the truth to children, teens, other adults. We thank you for just the wealth of knowledge that you've provided through your word and through your son. We pray that it be used by this church for your glory. In Christ's name I pray.

Amen. We'll turn to 1 John 5. As most people in here would know, we did not simply jump into 1 John 5 today. We have been studying from 1 John 1, from chapter 1. coincidentally, Andrew's been teaching through the book of John. And so we've gotten a lot of John at our church. And John repeats himself a lot.

He crosses over the same thoughts a lot. So it's actually been quite beneficial to study it in Sunday school and listen on Sundays as Andrew preaches through it. You did that on purpose? Wow, that's great. I didn't know that. I thought it was one of those happy coincidences. but here we are in 1 John 5 so of course if you turn there we have to keep in mind that there is a context that John has been writing for several chapters already when we get to 1 John 5 and of course when John wrote the book he did not divide it into chapters and so we never look at it like oh here's a new thought you know like chapter 10 in a novel that we read is often a whole different story or a new thing.

That's not how the Bible was written. And so it would be a continuation of what we've learned in 1 John 4, which was a continuation of 3. So let me read it. I'm reading from the Berean Standard Bible, if it sounds different from what you have, that's why. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves those born of him.

By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome because everyone born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who then overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

So that was the Word of God. And so I wanted to ask if anyone here carried a King James with them. Well, you have it on your phone, you mean? I didn't know if anybody, that was their Bible that they read from. So let me show you what the King James says. I didn't think there'd be anyone. that that was their standard.

But, of course, Mike could have randomly been here when I was teaching, and he'd have one with him, Mike Stockwell. But listen to the difference. If you look at your Bible in 1 John 5, 1, and how the King James translates the same text, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

And for some of you in your Bible, depending on the kind of Bible you have, you'll see notes at the bottom of the Bible called footnotes. And next to verse 1, you'll have a little letter that tells you to look down there. And in my Bible, it says literally, next to the verse 1, And everyone loving the one having begotten also loves the one having been begotten from him.

And so it's an interesting thing when you study the Bible in English. So before anybody gets afraid, we have absolute certain hope that you're reading God's word in English. So you don't have to walk out and think, oh, no, there might be a mistake. We have God's word in English, but because we are translating God's word from its original language to another language, there's often variations that we can choose when we take words from the Greek or in the Old Testament in the Hebrew.

Different words in English may represent that. Different words in English may be the right, better word to use. or in fact because of language changes, we may have words in English that at one point was the absolute perfect word to describe what God had originally put in the Greek, and now it's a different word in our vernacular. So what interesting though is that in the Greek there is a word for father that used throughout the New Testament and that not the word that used here And so the word that used here is the one who has begotten And so when it says in your Bible everyone who loves the father, I'm going to argue that that's an interpretation by the translators.

And I think they're correct. But what it really says is everyone who loves the one who is the begetter, the one who is the, we'll say, the progenitor of someone else. And so when you think about the importance of that word begotten, because most of us know the verse John 3.16 as, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, or his only begotten son.

And so there's a there's a truth to the concept of being begotten that shows that you are made in the image of the one that you're begotten from, that you are like him. And and that it is God, the begetter who. Begot his own son, but he's also the one who causes us to be born of God. And so if your Bible says father, it's correct, but that's not the same word father that you find other places.

I just found that interesting. There's no huge theological implications for that. Just that I would have translated it the way the King James people did. So verse one. Is reminding us that if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, that you've been born of God or you've been begotten of God. and so the whole old testament scripture was leading up to this point of a messiah coming that is what that is what we read about from the very beginning of of the bible really the first two chapters we see the fall occur but then by chapter three we see a promise that there would be a savior and then he's repeatedly called the messiah the anointed one who would come and John of course would have been looking for the Messiah as a early first century Jew.

When Jesus comes he's fulfilling the Old Testament and John of course is the one who wrote that if you're going to see the kingdom of heaven, if you're going to enter the kingdom of heaven, you must be born from above or what we say oftentimes is born again. And so in order to be born again we know that the spirit has to do that in our lives. It's a work of God. now John is continuing the theme that he was teaching in chapter 4 where he says and everyone who loves the father also loves those born of him and so looking back into chapter 4 we remember the last couple verses there verse 20 if anyone says I love God so if you say you love God, but you hate your brother, you're a liar.

For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And we have this commandment from him, whoever loves God must love his brother as well. so one of the difficulties in i think teaching john's writings whether it's the revelation whether it's first john especially jumping into chapter five whether it's the book of john is that john is literally the most repetitive person he is writing the same thing over and over and then he's oftentimes just repeating it in different words. And I think our temptation is, well, we need to come up with some fresh concept of what he's teaching, or we have to figure out the secret code of what's going on.

But in reality, I think John just knows, and I'll try to put this politely, he knows that we're just kind of slow. He knows that we need to hear the same thing over and over. And John was like us. Remember, John was one of the group that Jesus called little faithers. It wasn't a nice term when he said it. When Jesus said, you of little faith, he wasn't being sweet.

He was being sarcastic. He was kind of mocking their low faith. And John knows that we're like him, and so he repeats himself. But he also repeats himself in different ways to help us because we're all different kinds of learners sometimes. Oftentimes, the way that you read a text, it'll just hit you right in the heart. It'll hit you right between the eyes.

You know exactly what it means. and another person read the same text and they don't get it. But then another text, thank God for John, who was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write a perfect text, another text will make perfect sense to that person, but maybe not as easy for you to understand. And so we thank God for men like John who do this. And so Matthew Henry is, I think, 17th, 18th century, 18th?

18th century, I think. It doesn't matter. Matthew Henry was dead a long time before any of us was here, and he wrote about the Bible a lot, and he wrote about this in 1 John 1. He said, love is three things. He says it's natural to our profession. That's from 1 John 4, 11, and 16.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also love one another, is 1 John 4, 11. And then in 16, we've come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love. Whoever abides in love abides in God and God in him. So Matthew Henry argues that John says love is a few things. It's natural to us.

We should love one another because if we profess God, it just should be natural. It means that we been loved by God It should be normal for us to love John also adds that love is commanded according to Matthew Henry in 1 John 4 We read that one. This commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must love his brother as well. But now Matthew Henry is trying to point out a bit of a distinction where John's saying that loving one another is grounded in our familial relation to one another. so if it was only that God said, hey, I'm God, and I love, and I am love, and now I've bestowed love upon you in Christ, and so you ought to love, that makes perfect sense.

He also added, by the way, there's a commandment that you should love one another. We ought to do it, and it should make perfect sense. But God's also adopted us into his family. one of the glorious truths of our salvation is not just that your sins were forgiven not just that you have the holy spirit these are all wonderful things i'm not belittling them when i say just but one of the wonderful things about our salvation is we now have the right to be called what?

Children of God, right? And so we are. John says it in 1 John chapter 3, where Mike taught, and he says it in his first chapter in the prologue of his gospel. And so because of our family relation to one another, there should be a more natural affection. Everybody who reads the Bible, we agree that the Bible gives us special revelation. We believe that God's telling us something in a way where he's condescending to use language we can understand so that we can know things that we cannot know without him.

But oftentimes what God does is he takes natural revelation, which is what we can understand just through nature, and we understand things that he teaches us then in the Bible in a way that now kind of heightens its truth for us. So most people around the world, whether they've seen a Bible or not, have a concept of family. In fact, most creatures in the animal kingdom build little families, and it's because of the relationship of the mother to the child. and so we know that loving one another as Christians is something that we ought to do which is part of the emphasis of verse 1 of 1 John 5 is an ought we know it's something we ought to do because when you come into church and you see somebody else you are to see them as your brother or sister and the reason you see them as your brother and sister is that you have been begotten, born again of God, and thus he is your father, and that brother or sister has been begotten, and God is their father as well.

And so, just like in a regular family, we expect our children to love one another. We want them to. Maybe you don't always expect it, but you want them to and in particular what are some situations where you would even expect a heightened sense of care for one another any thoughts I'll throw out an open-ended question like Andrew does and then I'll say every answer is wrong until I yeah yeah that never happens yeah there's a good one No, I was joking.

They're going to be all great answers, I'm sure. I have a couple thoughts, too. So during a time of crisis. Can you expand on that? Marriage, what you mean? Okay, so not just brother and sister, but if you get married.

No, that's good, but you're saying when you get married, you do join two families, and there is a sense of loving the in-laws. You love your in-laws more than you love a family you don't know in Iowa right now, right? That's normal. That's natural. And, in fact, I think it's how God has built us. What about if one of the children was particularly weak?

Like, let's say you had one child that had a condition, you know, like Down syndrome or something, where he needed extra help. We would expect all of the other children to love and care for that one, right? Not a lot of nods or... Like, I hope I go to a church where we all expect people to help weaker people, right? Like, that's, like, amen. But particularly in your own family.

Could you imagine if one of your children had a very difficult disability or weakness that they were either born with or maybe had come about through an accident or some kind of disease? Could you imagine how you would feel about a child that despised the other one for that? So can you translate that to what God must think about us when we despise brethren because of a particular weakness? or some condition like that.

And so those are just some thoughts on how we love the children of God. And John Gill said about this, that we are to not only love Jesus Christ, who was begotten of God, there a strange way that 1 John 5 is written where it says that we love him who is born of him and that could actually be referring to Christ. But we not only love Jesus Christ, who by nature is the only begotten of the Father, John Gill wrote, for those who know God to be their Father by adoption and regeneration will love Christ, who is the Son of God, by nature. but also every regenerate person, all that are born of God.

And he says, since they are the children of the same father, belong to the same household and family, and bear the image and likeness of their heavenly father. So the argument in 1 John 5, 1 is that because we've been adopted into God's family, we will love everyone else who's been adopted into God's family. and because in order to be adopted into God's family, you must be born of God, born again, or begotten from the begetter. We will continue to love them.

So now, how do we love the children of God? Or what's the evidence that we love the children of God? Verse 2, by this we know that we love the children of God when we do what? when we love God, what? And what? And obey. And obey or and keep his commandments is another phrase here, right?

For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And so by loving God and keeping his commandments, we know that we love the children of God. And so when you think about one of the issues that John was facing in the first century, I think Jason brought this up, and I'm not sure how much we've reemphasized it. I think it came up when Levi was teaching, too, is that what was one of the major heresies that John was battling?

Does anyone remember? Gnosticism. And can you define it or just at least give an example? So extra special knowledge that can be acquired by like heightened spirituality, for example. And denying that Jesus came in the flesh, which is a consequence of Gnosticism, which is the idea, Gnosticism, the idea that physical matter is basically evil and immaterial things, thoughts, spirituality, that is good or at least can be good.

And so what would happen if you were truly Gnostic? If you truly believed all physical matter was only evil, wouldn't that excuse any and all behavior in the physical realm right because if if you believe that you couldn't do any good or righteousness with your body well then it become irrelevant what you did with it right like if how could i come to you and say hey i think you're in sin because of this thing you did with your body and your response would be well everything we do with our body is evil already. So eat, drink and be merry, right?

So this is what John's battling in the first century. And I think we're battling similar things today. We just don't, we've renamed, we've rebranded all the old heresies. There's no, there's no new ones that I know of. And so if, if you believe that what you're doing with your body physically has no, no bearing on what's going on, then you can do whatever you want with your body and you can still be called spiritual you know you can still be a guy that says well i'm a real spiritual guy because i'm seeking the secret knowledge and i'm i'm communing with god in some special way in fact you could commune with god through through drugs alcohol you could become spiritual right you know that's why alcohol is called spirits because people would take alcohol and they would take drugs it's it's the biblical word is sorcery or pharmakia is the word in the Bible for people that try to heighten their spirituality by changing their mind through substances.

And so you could start to become a person who could deny sin, right? That's what 1 John 1 taught us is that some people deny sin entirely, right? And these weren't people that actually weren't committing sins. These were people that were engaging in all sorts of debauchery. And then when they were accused of sin, Their excuse was, well, I'm spiritual. The physical doesn't matter.

And so how do we keep his commandments in order to show that we love God and in order to show that we love others? Any thoughts on that? Given the context that part of the problem John was facing was people physically sinning and saying they weren't in their heart. Yes. Yes. Amen.

So the commandments are given for us and to help us. They're not a burden to us if we're born again, I think is part of the context. Yeah, good. It should be natural. As we were in our sin, it's natural that nature, our new nature, it should be natural to love one another. Amen.

It's much more natural. We do what we naturally feel like doing most of the time. If you are a person who's naturally committing certain atrocities, it probably just shows that's what's coming from your heart, right? And if you're born again, you're going to have a desire to love other Christians. It's not a trick question. Just like, what are some ways you can love the children of God?

It's really all I'm asking. You guys, honestly, really most of you here, or all of you as far as I know, do it all the time. Like, you just say something you did this week for someone, you know. It's serving. Yep. Praying for others.

Fellowship with them. Yep. Coming alongside people in love and even rebuking them if needed. Good. Yeah. Very good.

I think it's good to just ask the questions. Yeah, a wise man draws out what's in the heart of others. Right? Proverbs. Stopping by to help the guy fix his car. or inviting them down to your shop. Right, Greg?

Charlie does that for me. Yeah, there's a lot of ways we love each other, and a lot of the ways we love each other are very, some of them will feel subjective, right? What one person desires at the time might be different from what another person would desire. But what it says here is that we know we love the children of God. How? So this is, again, how do we know that we are in this group of people that's been born again?

How do you know that you who've believed in the Son of God have eternal life? How do you know? And he says that we love God and keep his commandments. And I'm going to argue that keeping God's commandments will manifest itself in certain actions that you take towards God. And it's going to manifest itself in certain actions that you take towards one another.

And that can be further divided between, we'll say, the children of God and even those who are still nonbelievers, some of whom will become the children of God. And so I don't think that God gives us commands that are subjective. I think when God gives us commands that there is a way that we can objectify what he's trying to say. And so what I'd argue is that when we're told to keep God's commandments, that that's going to be something that we can understand objectively.

We'll be able to search the scripture. and as you read it and as you, I think what Katie brought up was really helpful, as you talk to people individually about what's going on in their life and understand maybe more of their motivations, you will be able to see from Scripture what are things you can do that model love and obedience. And so let me ask you this. Is a meticulous, well here, let me change that. is a desire to meticulously keep God's law, is that a bad thing or a good thing?

Okay, so Levi said good, and Mike said yes. So it could be, it could be. All right, so what would be an example of a desire to keep God's law meticulously as a bad or a good thing? Okay I want to be able to say that this is okay but that doesn reveal the whole issue Okay so you could try to keep a list of laws just for self Okay. And you said it was a good thing, Levi.

Can you explain that? God tells us to keep them, and so we should do it. There was a man that came into the world who kept God's commandments meticulously, and we're all awful glad he did, aren't we? If Jesus had failed in even the most minor point, would he be your Savior today? I mean, even hypothetically saying it, it feels blasphemous. It's coming out of my mouth, frankly.

But the thought, you know, that the fact that Jesus had no possible way that he was going to break God's law, even in the most minor point, should bring you the most hope. And because we are imitators of God in our born again state, we ought to have that same desire. But we aren't like Jesus. We don't naturally, perfectly want to keep God's law. So we have to watch out for the warning Mike gave that we can fall into, I think, what is usually just called legalism.

Right. So can somebody tell me what what they think legalism is? If we're told to keep God's commandments and then there's some bad version of it called legalism, what's that? I think it's when you. Okay, so like the Pharisees self-aggrandizing and failing to love others. I think if you make an idol out of it, it should just be obedience.

But like tithing on your mint and your cumin and yet... Then you ultimately are doing it for selfish reasons. You don't love other people. You sit and judge other people. You're still trying to love them. You take them more. ignore mercy right I would agree with everything you said and I would say those are results of legalism Tracy what were you going to say it means when the words of the law become elevated above the purpose of the law ok the words of the law are elevated above the spirit or the purpose the verse used to say I'm doing the words of the law but they're not they're not fulfilling the meaning of the law and they may be actually doing something contrary to another law in their own pathway.

Yes. But they're saying, well, I'm doing this because I'm fulfilling the meaning of this law. And I think that what you said complements what Mike said perfectly in the sense that you're doing the outward form of what a law says, but in your heart you're really not trying to obey that spirit. You're just trying to check the box outwardly. I think that's good.

Pastor, you had something. Yeah. To me, the heart of legalism is my acceptance of God's face on life. All right. Say it again louder. The heart of legalism is my acceptance with God depends on whether I can check all the boxes.

All right. Whether I obey. even whether I obey His commandments. If I don't, somehow He loves me less. And that's how Christians live. Somehow He doesn't accept me. He's fed up with me because I accept Him alone.

What a great day to talk about that concept, right? Reformation Sunday here Sarah did you have something So the heart behind it. Steve? Steve? yeah so so there's there's a disconnect between loving god and obeying god's commands which jesus commended them for tithing mint and cumin i mean he wasn't saying they were wrong for doing that but then they didn't love their brother with their mint and cumin did they that's right steve somebody else I thought, Jeremy?

Oh, Jeremy has to go last because he always summarizes. Mike, go ahead. Go ahead. Exactly. I like that you called him the prodigal son too. Yeah, that's right.

Jeremy? Jeremy? Yeah, pride is definitely at the root. Very good. So to give you a little bit of a definition then, legalism is the false idea that a person can earn or maintain God's favor through obedience. It trusts in works rather than in the grace of Christ, as Jeremy just said, and it usually manifests itself in a denial of certain heart sins, and it often manifests itself with additional traditions of man being added to what God has commanded.

And so that is what legalism is. Lawfulness, however, is the fruit of salvation. So the opposite of legalism isn't lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness, according to 1 John 3.4. so the opposite well the opposite of legalism is antinomianism but the opposite of what we want to actually do for legalism is lawfulness that's the fruit of salvation it is the glad and willing obedience that springs from love of God so it's the idea that for us to love God there must be some sense that God has given us commands to follow so that we will actually know what that looks like.

You can't just crawl to God the way you want. You understand that? God doesn't just accept any worship of anybody anywhere. The easiest example is that in order to come to God at all, what do you have to do first? You have to come through the one way he gave you, right? You have to come through Jesus to come to him.

You realize that there are people all over the world, 8 billion, 9 billion, whoever it is now, most of them are worshiping God somehow. They're doing something they think is worship, and God hates all of it unless it comes through his son. And so, knowing that there are commands of God for how we are to worship him helps us to know how to come to him. and then knowing that there's commands that God has given for how to relate to one another helps us to show that we love one another.

So what's something that you would or wouldn't do because you love someone? Real easy examples. Yeah, if you love somebody, will you steal from them? No. Will you commit adultery on them or with them? I mean can you legitimately ever say that a man that strays from his wife and he finds a lover quotation marks can you legitimately say well he loves that other woman He's going to say he does, right?

They might even end up married later. That happens, right? But in that moment that he's committing adultery, he's not loving anyone. Maybe himself. And to some extent, you hate yourself if you're willing to do that. So, keeping God's commandments is not legalism, it's liberty, because the burden of sin is far heavier than the yoke of Christ.

So turn to Matthew 11. We'll just end with this encouragement. I'm sorry. Yeah, Matthew 11. so as Mike brought up and as Greg intimated in his comment when you love God you ought to and I think you also do tend to love brothers and sisters in the Lord there are commands that you're given to obey and those commands are not burdensome. And yet, we'll talk next week about the fact that somehow these unburdensome commands are apparently impossible for us to do, it seems sometimes, right?

Sometimes they're very difficult. But I just want to encourage you with Matthew 11, the end of the chapter. Go to 27. All things have been entrusted to me by my Father, Jesus says. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son. Real quick, just thank God there's not a period there, like end of sentence, right?

Because then he says, except the Son. And he says, and those to whom the son chooses to reveal him. So you're not going to know. You're not going to know God unless God opens your eyes. And then Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, all who labor and. Heavy laden, he says, I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. for I am gentle and humble in heart or lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. And he says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I will submit to you that Jesus meant what he said and he wasn't lying or kidding. And that when Jesus' yoke in your life, when his commands, this is a command, right?

Your yoke is the commands of God basically on you. When the command seems difficult, and it does get difficult, that Jesus' promise is that he's always with you. He's the one carrying the yoke, right? It's your yoke, but he's the one who carried it for you. And so we can rest. we can rest in Jesus Christ we can rest when we fail to love one another and we can know that he will give us the strength and the power to actually grow in those areas when he brings to our mind that we need to repent in those areas so let me pray Father thank you for your word we pray that it would be used to cause us to be those who exhibit our love for you through our love toward you and one another help us to be able to define your commands and to walk in newness of life obeying them and please keep us from the temptation to do things for our own self-righteousness or for our own pride to be satisfied but rather for your glory and for the service of our brothers and sisters in Christ in whose name I pray, Amen.