Who loves God, and how do we love others?

Verse 1a Who has been born again?

What does being "born again" mean? 

John 3:1–8 ESV

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 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.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 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?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.”

We use this kind of language in Christian circles so often, I think it has become hard to discern what it actually means to “believe” in Jesus. Ask the average “evangelical” and you might get different answers. What does it mean to “believe” that Jesus is the Christ?

Explain various answers you might hear…

But if the Bible is the word of God, the message of God to man breathed out, then it really doesn’t matter so much what the answers might be from others about what it might mean to believe in Jesus, but what God means, what John means. So what did he mean? I think we have a clue in that he doesn’t say everyone who believes in “Jesus Christ” as Jesus is commonly referred to. I am sure you know that “Christ” is not Jesus’s last name, but is the greek rendering of the Hebrew word for Messiah. The anointed one. The “offspring” of Eve that God promised would come all the way back in Genesis 3:15. And if you remember when God made that promise, it was clear that this offspring would crush the head of the serpent. Who we now know to be Satan, the one whom has held mankind under control through sin and death, and idol worship. To believe Jesus is that person. The serpent crusher. The sin crusher. That is the person John says has been born of God.

First of all we must understand that John would have assumed his audience understood that they were in need of a Messiah or a Christ…a savior. That they needed to be saved from something. I think many folks and maybe even many Christians have forgotten that much.

I myself and this entire world have been subjected to a curse of death brought on by sin.

Slums in Nairobi; Little graves; My own sinful desires; Are we really foolish enough to believe that God intended the world to be like that? A person who has been born of God, first recognizes their need for a savior.

So, first those who have been born of God recognize their need to be saved from sin, their need for a Christ. Secondly, there is a recognition that the historical Jesus of Nazareth is that person. The person who believes these things, John says, has been born of God.

Verse 1b this relational change (being born again) results in love for God and others who have been born of him.

When a person is “born of God” that person goes from knowing nothing except a knowledge of sin and its power over us, and our powerlessness against it. Then, suddenly that slavish awareness is replaced with an overwhelming sense of love and appreciation for God who delivered us from that slavery.

I owe this insight to Sinclair Ferguson, who points out that chapter 3 verse 1 could be translated literally, “What kind of a country does this love come from?”

We still have not gotten to the primary point that John wants to make in this verse, but it is this: those who have truly experienced God’s love through faith in Christ, will love others of those who have known this love.

Illustrate: When you go to a conference or some place unfamiliar, and you think you are going to be alone, but then you see someone you know…the love that overwhelms you. In the same way, the unifying shared experience of being saved from our sins by God, causes us to love each other.

Verse 2 How do we love those who have been born of God?

How is it that I love these other people, who recognize that they need a Christ, a messiah, a savior, to save them from sin and death and its effects. Who also recognize that the historical Jesus of Nazareth was that person, and love God as a result, how is it that they love each other? How is this love for others expressed. John boldly concludes chapter 4 by saying that anyone in whom love for others is absent, doesn’t really know what it means to love God. Ok, but let’s define these terms, John. What does it truly mean to love another person? How is this love shown?

Our culture often likes to leave love to be defined by the object of love. We like to say love is what makes me feel loved. We give all of the defining power to the one receiving the love. And I think this is why there is so much confusion, and such a broad range in definitions of what true Christianity really is. We let love be defined by the one receiving the love. Love is what makes the object or person receiving the love, feel loved. But in the end of verse 2, John defines love differently. He says we love those who have been born of God, when we do two things:

When we love God

And when we obey his commandments

The way I love the children of God says John, is when I love God and do what he says. In his definition, it is the one doing the loving that defines the love. The one who has knowledge of what love truly is.

One consistent theme throughout this epistle, is that love comes from God. God defines what love is. We, the objects or the receivers of the love, do not define what it is. It comes from God.

850—how would she have defined love? She doesn’t possess the knowledge I have. She does not know what love is. She has to receive it from me on the basis of faith.

What should motivate you to keep God’s commands? Have you ever thought about it that way? What am I doing when my neighbor parks on my lawn, and I’ve asked him and asked him not to park on my lawn. And I because I know the Lord said in Matthew 5, that anyone who is angry with his brother, is guilty of murder, of the 6th commandment. And so he parks in my lawn again. Might talk to him about. Might confront him about it. Not going to get angry about it. And if I do, my anger would be rooted in the fact that he doesn’t show any concern or love for God, rather than my anger being out of protection of my own ego. When I do that…I am loving.

Illustrate: Boss requiring you to attend an event that would compromise your Christian convictions—not attending is loving.

Conclusion

Those who are aware of their need of salvation from sin and death, and believe Jesus is the Christ who has made that salvation possible, are those who have been born of God. This knowledge of Jesus that we possess through faith in the gospel, engenders in the believing person a love for God and all others of those who believe in God. The definition God gives of loving others is doing what God has said we should do.