Christians Have Been Born Again And Enabled To Believe, Love Their Brothers And Sisters, And Love God (1 John 5:1-4)
We want to take credit for everything. There is something within us that causes us to desire to be, not only our own bosses, but the center of the Universe. And here we find John saying something that may seem a bit foreign to us.
He has argued throughout the Book of 1 John that the Christian will believe rightly about who Jesus is and what He accomplished, will love God and will love His brothers and sisters in Christ. He has told us what love for God looks like, obedience to God’s commands. And He has also told us what love for our brothers and sisters looks like. Now John is going to tell us that the Christian does these things because they have been born again.
It is not because there is something special about you that caused you to be spectacular. It’s because God has worked in you that these things characterize your life.
Christians have been born again and enabled to believe, love their brothers and sisters, and love God.
Our church subscribes to The Baptist Faith and Message 2000. In it there is a great description of the New Birth which will be the topic of the message today.
“Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.
Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Savior.”
Baptist Faith and Message 2000 IV. A
The heart is our very nature. It is the core of who we are. And here we see that God changes us, He makes us new. And this is a work accomplished by the Holy Spirit.
In the Old Testament, it was taught that this would be characteristic of the New Covenant. Ezekiel 36:22-27 discusses the new birth in the New Covenant era, so does Jeremiah 31:31-34.
22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:22-27 ESV)
As you can see from this text, one of the great things that God said He was going to do was give His people a new heart and put His Spirit within them. This is a description of the New Birth. The old, unloving, and uncaring heart is taken away and the believer becomes a new person who loves God and desires to walk in His ways. And God’s Spirit enables the believer to do so. Notice how similar Jeremiah says it in his famous passage about the New Covenant.
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV)
Jeremiah says that God’s Law will be written on their hearts and that they will “know the Lord”.
And the text that describes this new birth with the most detail in the New Testament is 2 Corinthians 5:17.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV)
The new birth is the change of heart brought about in the believer. It brings a conviction of sin and the sinner then responds with repentance and faith. And John is going to take everything we’ve been discussing over the past weeks and say that these things are true of the Christian because they have been born again. This should give us confidence as we examine our lives, but it should also give us humility as we understand that these things did not originate with us.
Christians have been born again and are enabled to believe, love their brothers and sisters, and love God.
The One Who Believes Has Been Born Of God (1 John 5:1)
John begins with the simple announcement that everyone who believes rightly about Jesus “has been born of God” (1 John 5:1 ESV). This simple statement is loaded with a few ideas. One is about right belief, the second is about trust.
The heretics had wrong views of who Jesus was, and here John is stating that the person who believes the message delivered by the Apostles about who Jesus is, is the person who is a believer and has been “born of God” or born again. A person could understand, intellectually, who the Bible says that Jesus is without being a believer. But, the person who trusts in Christ as He was delivered to us by the Apostles has been born again. This is in contrast to the person who either, believes in a Jesus that is not found in the Scriptures or a person who does not trust in Jesus at all. So, the person who believes and trusts in Jesus as He was delivered to us by the Apostles in God’s Word, that person has been born again.
This is remarkably similar to something that Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3.
“1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”” (John 3:1-8 ESV)
Notice what Jesus says here, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3 ESV) The person cannot enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of “water and the Spirit” (V. 5). This is just another way of saying, “born again”. The first birth is of water, the second is of the Spirit.
John understood that the person who believed in Jesus, the true Jesus, had been born again.
Remember, these people are struggling with their faith. They needed assurance because of the heresies that we have discussed throughout our look at 1 John. How would they have understood this text? What would they have taken away from John’s words?
The heretics believed that they understood things rightly and that they had the truth though they believed wrongly about who Jesus was. And so, John tells them that it is those who believe the Apostolic Message that have the real truth.
I have heard many people name the name of Christ that do not believe in Jesus as was taught by the Apostles. According to John, those people have not been born again. And this matters because in our society, it seems that there are almost as many views of Jesus as there are people because everyone seems to be fashioning a Jesus to suit their own beliefs. But that is not what the Christian does. That is not the behavior of those that have been born again. Those who have been born again believe in the historical Jesus as He was delivered to us by the Apostles.
There is only one Jesus, and He is not the one portrayed to us all on cable news. The real Jesus was delivered to us by the Apostles in God’s Word. And those who believe in Him have been born again. God the Son took on human flesh in history. He accomplished our salvation when he did so by living a perfect life on our behalf and dying on the cross to pay the punishment for our sins. Three days later He rose from the grave. Those who have been born again believe in Jesus, the real Jesus. Those who have not been born again do not actually believe in or love the real Jesus.
You need to know that you are going to be cornered over and over in our culture with a false view of Jesus. Our society is going to tell you that there is no way that Jesus was ever as bigoted as you are when all you have done is repeat Jesus’s words word for word. And that’s the point I’m attempting to drive at here. Those who have not been born again may have a view of Jesus in their minds that they have been working with, but that is not the real Jesus. Those who have been born again believe in Jesus as He was delivered to us by the Apostles. The Christian has submitted their life to the true Christ and not made up someone in their minds to support their cause.
Let us always be a church that proclaims the true Jesus as He was delivered to us by the Apostles. When we do this there will be plenty of people that hate us. Those who God has not made new will oftentimes take offense to our message, but those who have been born again will grow as we do so.
There is a famous story about John Wesley. He was preaching up and down what we would now call the East Coast. He had gone a few days without even hearing a word of discouragement. He had received only “amens” for days and he began to worry that his message had become so worldly that lost people were not getting angry at him anymore. He got off his horse and prayed to God asking Him if he had backslidden and become worldly. Just then an angry farmer picked up a brick and threw it at Wesley as he said. To John Wesley this was an answer to prayer. He joyfully shot up and rode off on his horse knowing that he still had God’s presence.
I’m not saying that we should aim for people to hate us, but we should understand that the message that we are to deliver to a lost world is not one that they like. In fact, they are hostile to that message and we have seen this throughout the Book of 1 John. If the world loves everything we’re doing, I do believe we have reason to think that there is a problem with the way we are doing things.
The One Who Loves His Brothers And Sisters In Christ Has Been Born Of God (1 John 5:1b-2)
If you look around you find that the phrase, “birds of a feather flock together” is generally true. It is generally the case that we like to be around people who are at least somewhat similar to us. In fact, loving those who are not from our family, socioeconomic status, different backgrounds, etc. is not always easy. It is oftentimes worth the effort, but it is not always easy to do.
This was definitely the case within the Early Church where slave and free, rich and poor, and people from different ethnicities were brought together. In fact, I would argue that it is much like what happens today. Our families were by and large much different from one another. We did not have the same upbringing. In a society that attempts to split everyone up based on the outer appearance this is a little more difficult to see. But think about the differences that exist among us that sit right here. Though slavery is not a part of the makeup of churches today, you would have to go to an incredibly small church to be homogenous. And, that is special. This is a volunteer gathering of people that are different and that is not all that common.
John says something peculiar here that is very powerful. It is that “everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him.” (1 John 5:1b ESV) This is John playing around with he Greek a bit to make a point. The phrase rendered very literally is, “everyone who loves the begetter loves the one He has begotten.” It is normally the case that siblings love and care for each other. Yes, they are often mean to each other. I can remember some rather intense moments of anger pointed toward my brother. I also remember some rather cruel things that we did to one another. But I also remember being kicked out of daycare for fighting a person that was bullying him because I loved him and cared for him. And that seems to be the way things work naturally. We love our brothers and sisters.
And the idea of loving God and loving His children is so linked together that John says, “by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.” (1 John 5:2 ESV) You can’t have love for God without having love for His children as well. You might as well say it in reverse as well. The person who has been born of God loves Him and loves His children.
Those who have the same parentage have love for one another. And the reason for this is because we all have the same new birth along with having the same salvation through Christ. We have seen through experience and in God’s Word that lost people have a dislike for God’s people and their ways. They oftentimes consider us to be backward and because we disagree with their very new moral code they consider us unloving. Simply put, they have a dislike for us. But this should not be new news to us.
The Christian loves His brothers and sisters in Christ because He has been born again. This is not something that has happened to the lost person. Jesus lived and died to bring us to God, to bring us into one family. This has been accomplished by the finished work of Christ, and we have been brought into this relationship through the new birth. This salvation is something that the lost person does not have. And the new birth is something that the lost person has not experienced.
The Christian begins His Christian life united to His brothers and sisters in Christ. It is we, sinful people, who bring strife into our relationships. And when this happens, we need to repent of our sin.
Let’s also think about how our society is trying to shape us. It is attempting to split us apart with constant discussions about race. America has moved further toward judging people according to the color of their skin and not the content of their character in the recent past. And the issues of race seek to divide us as believers. But we cannot let it do so. The black person who has been born again is my brother or sister in Christ. The Asian person who has been born again is my brother or sister in Christ. The Hispanic person who has been born again is my brother or sister in Christ. Anyone who has been born again shares the same parentage as me and is my brother or sister in Christ. This needs to guide us as we think about the Church as a whole.
Now, within our church this love for one another should shine forth. It is here, in the local congregation, that we get to put into practice those things that we say in theory. It is here that the love, fellowship, and unity of the body of Christ are to be seen live and in person. It is here that we get our hands dirty as we help one another. It is here that we get our shoulders wet as we comfort one another. It is within this body that we get to display the love that we have for one another because God has causes us to be born again. I am so privileged to have felt the love and care that you have for us and for one another in my short time here. And this is how it should be. It is easy to say that you love your brothers and sisters in Christ. But it is harder to show your love to your brothers and sisters that you worship with week after week and day after day. And here is the truth of the matter. If you do not love your brothers and sisters in Christ, whom you go to church with, you have not been born again.
The One Who Keeps God’s Commands Has Been Born Of God (1 John 5:3)
We oftentimes like to keep things in the abstract. John does not want to do that. He has not allowed us to define love as some sort of feeling that we can fake. So he gets down to the definitional level multiple times when discussing love.
John has already told us multiple times that love for one another means sacrificing for the good of others. In a recent message we saw that John said,
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11 ESV)
We have seen the self-sacrificial love of Christ for us as He died on the cross for us. And the love that we are to show for our brothers and sisters in Christ is also to be self-sacrificial. John doesn’t let us off easy with some soft definition of love. A Disney view of love won’t do for John. He wants us to understand that love is about sacrificing self for the good of others.
Now, John is going to give us a very concrete definition of love for God.
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3 ESV)
This is what loving God is. It is keeping God’s commandments. Loving God is not about a feeling. It’s not about the right liver shivers or spine tingles. It’s not an overwhelming emotion. The definition of loving God is obeying His commandments. Much like other relationships in this life those other things are good bonuses, but that is not what loving God is. Loving God is keeping His commandments.
The world views keeping commands as something horrific. But the Christian understands things much differently. The Christian understands that God’s commands are not just some burdens for us to take up, but rather that they are for our good.
Look around. Our society has attempted to throw off these commands because they have found them burdensome. Look at the damage that it has caused. The number of people who seek mental health treatment has skyrocketed; many believe that it is due to stigma around mental health. I do not think that is the whole issue. I believe a large part of the issue is that more people are damaged by the society we live in than have been in the past. 40% of births in America for the year of 2019 were to unmarried women. Statistically it is much less likely for these children to have a steady father in the home. These children grow up more likely to commit a crime, to be abused, to abuse drugs and alcohol, to have behavior problems, to be impoverished, and to drop out of High School. I have flung us down a sad path, but it is only one example of the fact that God’s commands are for our good.
The Christian has a different view of God’s Law. They have had a changed heart and long to follow God’s ways. And they see the Law of God as a means of keeping them safe and honoring God, which is their ultimate goal. G.K. Chesterton had an excellent illustration on this point.
He said that if you were to put a group of children on a high and dangerous cliff to play, they would likely be terrified because the potential for death surrounded them. But if you were to put up a big wooden fence that would give them safety they could run and bounce and play inside that fence without fear of danger. In our society today we see the incredible damage caused by taking down that fence. But as believers we find that God’s commands are in no way burdensome. And not only does staying in the fence keep us safe, but it is what pleases God and so rather than seeing it as a burden we love His commands.
The heretics taught that your morality didn’t matter. In fact, I imagine them sounding a lot lie a priest from a mainline church today. The ideas are just incredibly similar to what I’d hear from someone wearing a clerical collar doing an interview on CNN. But John stated that it was the one who actually kept God’s commands that loved God and had been born again. The person who did not keep God’s commands was doing something else altogether. The one who loves God follows His commands. Anything else is a lie. And it is the one who loves God and keeps His commands that has been born again.
We simply cannot claim to love God and not keep His commands. The person who loves God has been born again and proof of that is in the doing of God’s commands.
The New Birth Has Made Us Overcomers Of This World Through Our Faith (1 John 5:4)
John now says that “everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4a ESV). We don’t live by the world’s standards. We no longer live as the world lives, but we live as God’s people in this world. We live as part of the fellowship of light that walks in obedience and loves each other because we have been born of God.
And what is the victory over the world? It is “our faith”.
We have an unshakable conviction that God the Son came to Earth, took on human flesh, lived a perfect life, died on a cross paying the punishment for sin, and rose from the grave. His perfect righteousness was credited to us. His death paid the punishment for our sins. And He rose from the grace for our justification. This unshakable faith gives us victory over the world.
And it is a victory that God has given us through the New Birth.
Here is what we must understand. It is the person who has trusted in the real Christ, loves His brothers ands siters, and loves God who has overcome the world. The person who lives in rebellion against God and other authorities has not.
There is a real pride that has always existed in being a person who lives rebelliously sinful without regard to God’s Laws and God’s ways. But this person is not a real overcomer. Living that sort of rebellious lifestyle is just moving with the satanic tide with enough bravado to do it loudly. They have not overcome the world, they are proudly steering the sinking ship.
It is the Christian who is the overcomer of the world. It is the Christian who is on the right side of history. It is the Christian who has overcome sin, death, and Satan through the finished work of Christ on the cross. They have been born again and made partakers of this work that Christ accomplished.
Our faith, our trust in the real Christ and what He accomplished for us is the victory that overcomes Satan, sin, and death. We are overcomers of all the evils of this world. We are not those people wo are being left behind the wheel of progress. We are those who have overcome this world, no matter what the world calls winning.
As a local church we should consider that we are a little church here on the North East side of Conway. But we are a little church filled with overcomers. That is the way we live in this world. We live as overcomers.
Conclusion
Christians have been born again and enabled to believe, love their brothers and sisters, and love God. And this has made us overcomers. Those who have been born again are no longer enslaved to the wants and ways of this world. They have overcome through the blood of the Lamb because they have been born again.
R. Dwain Minor