My kids are some of my greatest critics. If you have kids, then you know what I mean. Especially now that they are older, they have heard all my old stories again and again. And so now days, they never fail to let me know when I am repeating myself. We are usually driving in the car or something like that, having some sort of a discussion, and I start to launch into this story which I think illustrates the point, and they say something like, “Dad, you’ve told us this story before.” And I say, “I have?” with this real disappointed tone to my voice. And they say, “Yes, several times already.” And of course I’m crestfallen. But not always. Sometimes, if I feel really indignant about the subject, I’ll tell them I’m going to tell it again anyway, because you need to hear it again. After all, repetition, it is said, is the mother of all learning. Or, as the famous pirate quote goes, “The beatings will continue until the morale improves.” I like that one. So today some things may seem a bit repetitious, but its for your own good.
Now John is probably an old man when he is writing this epistle. And if you have been following along in our studies, then you will realize that also John has a tendency to repeat himself. But actually, John is deliberately repeating certain things over and over again. It’s part of his strategy. His teaching style is to cycle back over certain truths again and again, but if you will notice, each time he seems to add a new nuance, or a new perspective to each cycle, so that you learn more and more as you go through this book about these essential doctrines.
The primary principle that I believe John is presenting in this book is that of Christian fellowship. Fellowship is the goal of the Christian experience. Fellowship with God, and fellowship with Christ’s body, which is the church. Fellowship is the source of life, it’s the source of strength, it’s the source of love, and it’s the design of God for this new life in Christ.
Today in our study, we are going to hear John bring up many of the same themes regarding fellowship that he has talked about before many times. He talks about loving God, loving one another and keeping the commandments. All of which are essential to fellowship. But in today’s message as he cycles back through these now familiar topics, he adds another dimension that has not been fleshed out to the degree we see here in this text. And that new aspect of fellowship that he presents is faith. So I’ve titled today’s message The Faith of Fellowship. And as we examine this text, we are going to look at three aspects of faith, which are essential to our fellowship. First we see the family of faith, then the fidelity of faith, and finally the triumph of faith.
Let’s look first then at the family of faith. John says in vs 1, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.” The ultimate fellowship that man can have is to have fellowship with God. But Jesus said that God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. The problem, according to the scriptures, is men and women are not alive spiritually. We are dead spiritually. We have a sin nature inherited from our forefathers, traceable back to Adam and Eve in the garden. When they sinned against the word of God the punishment for that sin was that they would die, and their spirit died immediately. Their body took a few years longer. Sin brought about death, first spiritual, then physical. And Adam passed on that sin nature to every human being born on this planet. As a result, Romans 3:23 says, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
But God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins, that we might be restored and reconciled to God. Thus John says that those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is the promised Messiah, our Savior, then that person is born of God. That means that we who have faith in Christ have been born again, spiritually. We now are now spiritual like God, born into the family of God, and have the capacity to love God and worship God in spirit and in truth.
So if you would have fellowship with God, then it begins with faith in Christ. You must be born again. You cannot belong to Him, you cannot have fellowship with Him, you cannot have spiritual life through Him unless you have been born of the Spirit of God into the family of God.
The question is, how are you born of God? Well, John says in vs1, that it is by faith. By believing. Paul teaches the same principle in Romans 1:17 saying, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” Faith, or believing in Christ, is the basis for receiving righteousness. Paul explains this further in Galatians 3:6-7 “Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.” So there we see that faith and believing are the same thing, and that faith is the means of being granted the righteousness of Christ in exchange for our sins.
But let’s be clear. What constitutes faith/believing in God? Not just believing or hoping that He exists. The Bible says the devils believe and tremble, but they are not born again. Faith is trusting in Him as your Savior and Lord. Faith is believing in the ministry and the message of Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through Me.” He was teaching not just three different aspects of His deity, but also He was teaching that these three aspects are synonymous; the way= the truth=the life. And I will warn you, that if you start to tamper with the truth, then you do so at your own peril. If you keep deleting ingredients from an antibiotic, soon you will be left with a placebo, and a placebo has no power to save. Jesus’ gospel is the truth, about life, about God, about righteousness, and that truth is the way to reconciliation with God, it’s the way to life, abundant life, spiritual life, and eternal life. Faith encompasses all of that truth as God has revealed in His word.
There is a word there which may need clarification, Christ is the Greek translation which means Messiah. You can see in vs 5 that John uses Messiah interchangeably with the Son of God. So the gospel is that Jesus is God, who became flesh, who suffered the penalty for sin upon the cross, who is risen and seated on the throne in heaven, and faith in Him and His work is the means of our righteousness, the means of spiritual life, the source of all truth. All of that encompasses believing in Jesus as your Messiah, which is the means of being born again.
And one other word which we should clarify is the word faith. Hebrews 11:1 gives us the Biblical definition of faith; “Now Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is trusting in the truth; what God has promised concerning Himself and the life which He gives. Faith is not mustering up some emotion, or a belief in something which isn’t true in order to make it true. Faith is believing in what God has declared is truth. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Natural man is spiritually dead. Jesus is the truth that sets us free from the bondage of death, He is the truth that gives life.
If we skip ahead to vs11-13 we read about this life; “And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
So we are born again spiritually by faith in Christ to new life. And now, having been born into the family of God, John says in vs 1 that we love God and love His children. This love for God and for one another should be a natural outcome of our new birth. Children automatically love their parents. They should automatically love their siblings as well. So our love for God should be the result of our new life. We love our heavenly Father, and we love those who are born of God, those who have the same Spirit as us.
The question arises though, who are the family of God? John answers that in vs.2, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.” Simply stated then, the family of God are those that love God and observe His commandments. This is how we recognize them. They exhibit the character and nature of God. If they say they love God, but they don’t exhibit the love of God towards others, and they don’t keep His commandments, then John tells us in 1 John chapter 1 that such men are liars. They are not born of God. But on a positive note, we know the family of God because they exhibit the nature and character of God dwelling in them.
Now there is also a love we are to have for those that are unsaved. There is a love we are to have for our neighbors. There is a love we are even to have for our enemies. All of that love is predicated on the realization that they need to know the truth to be saved, and we can show God’s love for them so that they might know the love which God has for them. The object or goal of our love is that they might be saved. But there is a special familial love that we are to have for the brethren. Those that are our brothers and sisters in the Lord are to have a special relationship with us. These family members make up the body of Christ. And how can we not show a special love for the body of Christ? There should be a closeness and a fellowship which is deeper than even the family ties of the natural man.
So we can know the family of God, as those who love God and keep His commandments. Jesus said in John 13:35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Now let’s move on to the second characteristic of faith, which is the fidelity of faith. Fidelity means faithfulness, trustworthiness, integrity, loyalty. We not only claim to believe, we not only claim saving faith, but we act in accordance to what we believe. Fidelity is often used in relation to a husband and wife. They keep their vows to one another. They love one another with an exclusive devotion. They love one another with a selfless, sacrificial love. The Bible teaches that marriage between a husband and a wife is a picture of Christ and the church. We submit to our husband, who is Christ. We honor and obey Him. This fidelity of our faith is realized in the faithfulness of our love, to honor and obey Him.
Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” And so John urges us in this text to be faithful in our love by keeping His commandments. Vs.3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”
This idea of submission and obeying has fallen out of favor in marriages today. But in divine love, it remains true that if you love Him, you will obey Him, you will submit your will to do His will. The divine love that God has intended for us is sacrificial love. It’s the love of the will. And we are to love one another as Christ loved us. So we love with a sacrificial love, giving up our prerogatives so that we might do His will.
Now though that may sound oppressive or burdensome to the modern ear, yet it should not be. If you love someone, you should want to honor them, to please them, to serve them. It’s not a chore, it’s a labor of love. It reminds me of the story of a young man many years ago, long before the days when it was possible to get in your car and drive to school, and he was often seen carrying a little boy on his shoulder. And as one particular passerby noticed, the little boy that was being carried on his shoulder was lame. So he walked up to the young man who was carrying the lame boy and he said, "Do you carry him to school everyday?" And he said, "Yes sir, I carry him everyday." "Well that's a very heavy burden for you to carry," said the stranger. And the young man replied, "He's no a burden, he's my brother." His attitude illustrates what a difference love makes in carrying out the commandments of the Lord God.
And let me add, that HIs commandments are not a burden, because His commandments are for our benefit. God has made it possible for us to have new life, spiritual life, eternal life, abundant life, through faith in His Son. But He has also made a plan that we might know how we are to live. His commandments lead us in paths of righteousness. HIs commandments prevent us from going off into dangerous territory. His commandments are not meant to bind us up, but to free us to live a life that will be blessed. As someone once said, God’s commandments are not a wall to restrict us, but a guardrail to protect us. They are for our benefit. So then we should not find His commandments burdensome. If we love Him, we will want to please Him and we should realize His commandments are for our benefit.
Furthermore, Jesus has promised the Holy Spirit to be our Helper, so that we might be able to keep His commandments. When we have the Spirit of God working in us, He lightens the load and helps us. Jesus said in Matt. 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
On the contrary, when we go against His will, and disobey His commandments, we cause ourselves to be weighted down with sins, which come with consequences that can weigh heavily upon us. So the fidelity of faith is our willingness to submit to God’s will, to keep His commandments as a testament of our love for God.
Finally, let’s look at the last characteristic of faith in this text, and that I call the triumph of faith. Let’s read the text in vs 4, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”
I want you to notice something in this verse. John says whatever is born of God. Not whoever, but whatever. Now what does He mean by whatever? Well, he gives the answer at the end of the verse; our faith is the whatever. So then we must understand that our faith is born of God. Now I don’t want to get mired down in some deep doctrinal issue here, but I do think it’s important to realize that God gives us faith to believe. Eph. 2:8 says “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Now you may argue that can speak of either salvation or faith being a gift, but I think that the Bible teaches both are true.
For instance consider Heb. 12:2 “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” He is the author of our faith, and the completion of our faith. So faith originates with God.
So what I think John is getting at, is that the object of our faith is the important thing here. Some people get focused on the size of faith, as if we somehow can muster up enough faith to accomplish some great miracle or something. But the emphasis I think John is giving us is that it is the object of our faith, Jesus, is the victory that has overcome the world. It is not the size of our faith. Jesus said if we had as little of faith as the size of a tiny mustard seed then we could move mountains. The point is not the size of our faith, but the object of our faith. We can have faith in what God has promised and who Christ is.
And Jesus has promised in the gospel of John 16:33 "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” Listen, we have faith in God’s promises which are fulfilled in Christ. Not in wishful thinking, not in hoping for some miracle of my own design, but our faith is in the written word of God. We have faith in what Jesus has accomplished and has promised to accomplish. And He has overcome the world.
Please understand what is meant by the world. The world is the world system. It is under the dominion of the prince of this world; Satan. Though God created the world and all things in it, Satan has subjugated the world system to his plan, to sweep mankind along in the course of this world to their eventual destruction. To trap mankind in the mire and muck of this world so that they miss the life giving truth of God.
Paul speaks of this world system in Eph. 2:1-3 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” The course of this world then is the world system conspired by Satan to sweep mankind to destruction in their ignorance of the truth.
But thanks be to God, Christ has overcome the world. He overcame sin. He overcame the devil. He overcame death. He has overcome the world. And our faith in Him overcomes the world as well. By faith in Him we can overcome the world system. We can escape the trap of sin that leads to death. Christ has come so that we might know the truth, and the truth would set us free. So that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
That leads us to vs5, which says because of Christ, we who are born of God can overcome the world as well. “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” Listen, as children of God, as children of the King, we have been given all the weapons necessary to overcome the world. We have been given the light of truth, we have been given the sword of the Lord, which is the word of God. We have been made righteous, we have been given the helmet of salvation, and the shield of faith. And through the Spirit of Christ working in us, we can be overcomers. We can overcome the world. I believe that means we can overcome the world system that is trying to trap our children. We can overcome the world system that has trapped sinners in it’s web. We can overcome through the blood of the Lamb.
Listen, we were made to be overcomers. The church is designed to overcome the world. The problem with the world system is that it is designed to look so enticing, that we feel we are missing out on all this fun stuff or exciting stuff that it offers. But the benefit to overcome the world is so much the better. The course of this world leads to death, but overcoming the world leads to life.
John wrote another book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. And in the first 3 chapters of Revelation Jesus gives John messages for 7 churches, which encompass not only 7 actual, historical churches, but also all the churches of the ages until He comes back. And in every one of those messages, Jesus says something about being an overcomer. To the church at Ephesus Jesus said, “To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.” To the church of Smyrna Jesus says, “He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.” To the church of Pergamum Jesus says, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” To the church of Thyatira, Jesus says, “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, TO HIM I WILL GIVE AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS; AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON, AS THE VESSELS OF THE POTTER ARE BROKEN TO PIECES, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star.” To the church of Sardis Jesus says, “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” To the church of Philadelphia Jesus says, “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.” And to the church of Laodecia Jesus says, “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
Those are some wonderful promises, aren’t they? The greatest treasures of this earth at best are only temporary and cannot compare to the reward God has planned for those who love Him and who overcome this world. I pray that you by faith in Christ will be an overcomer. I pray that if you have never been born again that you would receive the faith that overcomes this world. That you would be given the righteousness of Christ and receive eternal life in Him. And I pray for you that have been born of God, that you would overcome the world through the testimony of your faith, by sharing the truth of God with others. I pray that you would find freedom from sin through your faith which overcomes the world.
And I will close by saying this; we overcome the world through our faith, and our faith produces love. Love is the way we will win the world to Christ. Love God, obey His commandments, and love one another even as Christ has loved you. Share the love of God towards sinners, that Christ has come to reconcile us to God, that we might be born of God, and have the everlasting life of God.
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