Title: Love in Action

Text: 1 John 5:1-12

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

1 John 5:1-5

As we begin the final chapter of John’s letter, John continues to tell us that we must love God and love each other. He’s been doing this for dozens of verses now; and John is going to throw us another curve.

The curve is in verse 2:  This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.  I’ve never heard anyone argue with the loving God part; that seems easy, almost abstract, but carrying out His commands is often a sticking point. As we have stated many times going through this letter, God’s commands can be summed up very easily.  We are to love God, and love one another.

Oh, hold on, did I forget one?  Yes, thank you for reminding me, it’s love God, love one another and make disciples. That’s the one many people get stuck on… There are all kinds of criticisms for this, as though I (or someone else) made it up or something, but that is simply not the case.  What was Jesus’ final command?

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20

 Since I have spoken on this so many times already, rather than to explain it again, let’s just try a new approach. First, how can we ever say that we love God, but we won’t follow His command to share that love with others? How can we say we love others, and not share the love of God with them? Come on now, that wouldn’t even make sense, would it?  God first loved us, so He sent His Son to die for our sins, thus if we don’t share God’s love with others who are lost, are we not sharing because God really didn’t love them as much as He loved us?

OK, fine.  We share with the lost and they enter into relationship with Jesus Christ; now they are our brother or sister in the Lord.  So, what then? Will we just stand by and watch them struggle with their new faith, or will we help them along their way?  Which choice demonstrates love in action?

John goes on to mention that obeying His commands isn’t burdensome because in Him, we have overcome the world.  Ever wonder what that has to do with anything?  What is it that would hold us back from making disciples?  Go ahead and make a short mental list of what might hold you back.  Got it?  OK, good.  Does it have things like being afraid they’ll say no?  How about not wanting others to think you’re weird? Maybe you’re afraid that you won’t know all the answers. Yes, there are other possibilities, but in my experience, these are the kinds of things people usually say.  In Him, we’ve overcome the world, and these are thoughts of the world, not His thoughts.  Was Jesus ever afraid of rejection or embarrassment or afraid of anything this world could do to Him?  No.  Why would we be concerned about such things? We have overcome the world because of our faith. Sometimes, like you, I need to remind myself about that…

To carry out God’s commands is not burdensome, because it is a joy; I can tell you from my own experience that there is no greater joy in this life than to see a person I have mentored, grow in their faith, and step up to serve God because of their love for Him.  Yes, it is by far the greatest joy there is.

This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

1 John 5:6-12

What an interesting text: Do you remember John’s warning about antichrists in chapters 1 and 4? John was warning the people of his time against the false teachings of the Gnostics, who denied that Jesus came in the flesh, and that He was “from the Father.”  John is taking aim at them again in this text when he speaks of the testimony of three witnesses.  In our time, while this is still a very important point, we tend to get into arguments about the water and blood part, with various interpretations regarding John’s meaning. For our purposes, I’ll give you my idea on this point, but I’ll spare you the lengthy dissertation on it, since I’d prefer to focus on application rather than systematic theology, and you probably would as well.

One of the main points of contention between Christian teaching and that of the Gnostics was whether or not Jesus came in the flesh; in a human body.  The Gnostic approach was that He came more in a spirit form and not in physical form, since everybody knows that the physical body is evil… or so they said.  It is always interesting to me to hear Christians who maintain this, since the notion of the human body being evil or dirty is a Western impulse, not a Biblical teaching… but alas, I digress!  That the Spirit testifies that Jesus is from the Father is obviously a reference to the Holy Spirit who testifies about Jesus.  The water, in my view, is a reference to His baptism.  To be baptized is a physical activity, in which an actual body is needed; a spirit would be rather impossible to immerse in water.  The blood, as I see it, is a reference to what Jesus did on the cross, since it would be a difficult thing to nail a spirit to a cross and have it bleed.  The water as a giver of testimony seems to me to refer to the baptism of a new follower of Jesus, who is immersed as a testimony of dying and raising again a new creation.  The blood is declared when we partake of Communion, where we declare for all time the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When you put these three things together, you have an ongoing testimony about Jesus from the Holy Spirit, from millions of baptisms, and from our observance of Communion that Jesus came in the flesh from the Father.  You might also note that the Old Testament Law requires the testimony of two or three witnesses, and John is providing three. If your reading of this is different from mine, that’s fine, for the larger point for us is what follows…

Let’s pick up John’s discussion here in verse 9:

We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  (5:9-11)

His point that we will readily believe a human testimony, but not God’s is a warning to all of us.  There are all sorts of human teachings about Jesus, many of which are designed to convince us that He never even existed, and the difference between life and death is whether or not we will accept God’s testimony, given not only by His Word, but by the Spirit. Just think about how crucial this is!

Then comes the most important, bottom-line statement of all in verse 12:

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Some of John’s writings are a little cryptic; he has a way of meandering around in a circle, and his meaning is vague… until he drops the bomb at the end, and this is one of them.  It’s one thing for us to say that life is in Christ, but the other side of the proverbial coin is that outside of Christ there is only doom.

Jesus has commanded that we make disciples, and that begins with leading the lost to Him.  There is a great deal at stake with this process, and John has made that abundantly clear in verse 12, wouldn’t you agree?  Maybe there was a time when you could share the peril and doom with a person who didn’t know Him, but if there was such a time, it is long gone.  I am aware that many Christians have been impressed with this, and out of their misguided love, they have run out and shared the warning… and driven off those whom they had hoped to save.  The world around us, our culture, and our society has picked up on this, and rather than be flattered that someone cared, they became enraged at the affront of it all, causing no end of trouble.

When Jesus Christ is involved, there is always hope!  In this case, there is a simple, if not always easy, answer: Share His love in grace.  In loving relationship, many will respond to His love.  We must be sensitive to the fact that so many have a negative image of Christianity, whether it is fair or not.  Approaching people in love means that we bother to actually care about them, it takes time, and it is a kind of investment in people, without judgments, without threats, without doom.  Even the most hardened hearts can be mended by the love of God… and I think it is especially important to bear in mind that it is God’s love that we must display in sharing with others.