commands that don't burden
1 john 5:1-5 • Sermon • Submitted
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PREACH FOR TRANSFORMATION
Good morning Rivertree it is a joy to be with you again this week. Ross continues to be good and his quartinne is almost over! I know he will be excited to be back with all of you soon!
If you have your bibles go ahead and open up to 1 John chapter 5 and we are going to be looking at verse 1-5 this morning.
If you missed last weeks sermon we tlked about the reality that we are loved to love.
In other words becasue God loves us we can love others.
We also unpacked the idea when we love form an overflow of how God loves us it makes the invisible God visible to the world.
One of the more fun things which happened as a result of my sermon is I told a story about the delta sky club in atlanta which really seemeeed to resonate with some of you.
SOme of you sent me pictures from teh sky club.
but this story also worked otu well for me
One church member sent me this
haha
another church member made this for me
and then someone else said in their grow group they were discussing the sermon through our sermon discussion questions and she was Like i just can’t randomly go up to someone and say I LOVE you in an airport but I can cook
so she did
She made our family Friendship bread and delievered it
and what she said to the Dunnes is I love you and God sees you
and I guess that’s what I wouldn’t want you to miss from last weekl It’s not just going up to people and saying I love you. That can be wierd and is wierd at times
I’ll illustrate it for you this way.....
I was at a book store the other day looking for a book. A guy walked up to me and said you like that book?
I was like I haven’t read it is it good
and he was like yes.
and then he was like actually i’ve never read it
then he was like do you like adventure books. I said no. He put his head down and walked away.
Then he told someone who was walking into the bathroom he like their shirt
and it was in that moment I was like......oh this is what it might be like to expierence me.....an d sometimes that can be a little strange to people. But other times it’s beutiful
and I tell that story to say this. God allows us to show his love to people in unique ways. The important thing is wheter it’s saying I lvoe you to the airport person, or the coffee shop person, or the grociery person. Or baking food just be attentive to who God is putting in your path and allow the love which he has so richely lavished on you become evident to those he brings your way
and As we read the passage this morning we see love as a major theme again of johns writing. But this time it is lease about how we have expierenced Gods love and more about our idenity as a child of God that not only allows us to love, but also allows us to have beleive, have faith and obey Gods commandments.
Let’s read
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
in verse one John starts with a simple truth if we believe it’s because we have been born of God. Being born again/or spirtual birth allows us to believe Jesus is the messiah.
It’s not that we firgured it out on our own. it’s not that we just studied and thought about the gospel and God and creation and then decide we would believe it’s true
that’s now how being born again works
What John is teaching is alings with what Paul teachhes in ephesians 2
. Having expounded the total inability of man to save himself because he is dead in transgressions and sins (verses 1–3),
/Paul asserts, ‘But … God … made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions … it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God’ (verses 4–5, 8)
When God gives us the new birth he changes everything about us.
what John is offering the church is becasue of the new birth we have a new way to love and a new way to obey.
No longer does our love come form a selfish motivaiton, it comes from the reality we can love others who have been born of God because they are his children alos.
and because of the new birth, becasue we are his children, because he is our father love and obedience come together.
When john uses this birth language it’s not a new teaching like the gnostics were doing. No john is looking back to what he’s already said and what Jesus already talk.
In johns gospel he starts in chapter 1 with this statement about birth
To all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12
Then in John 3 Jesus says these words
English Standard Version Chapter 3
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.
When John says in 1st john if you’ve been born of God. He is refering back to the new birht.
He knows this new birth is complety from God, and it trasforms everyitng about us.
and the reason this is signficant is because if we don’t understand this we can get really out of balance when it comes to obey Gods commandments
John really highlights this in verse 3
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
He repets himself but adds something which seems counter intutive. He says this is the love of God keep hiis commandments
but just as a reminder his commandments are not burdensome.
John is echoing what Jesus taught in the new destement when he said if you love me you will obey my commandements.
Obedience is always an act of love.
A legalist reads this backwards: “You will keep my commandments
if you love me.”
In other words, we must prove our love for God by doing what He commands. Commandment-keeping, to the religious person, becomes our duty, a condition we must meet if we are to enjoy God’s love.
But someone who is walking in grace and from a place of identity reads it just as Jesus said it. He understands that keeping Christ’s commands is the fruit of genuine love.
Maybe you even grew up with this teaching. You thoguht I obey so God will love me and everyone will see I love him.
But that’s why this truth we are loved FIRST is so signnificanat. It is not our love and obedience for God which causes him to love us.
No it’s his love for us which allows us to love and obey him.
It’s actraully who we are
we are people because of the new birth that can and want to obey the commands God gives us.
Becuase we realize this commandds are actually for our good and from his heart for us.
THIS IS who we are. This is the identity that God has given us.
As we teach in our dgroup material
We are children of God, born again into a new family, given a new name and a new identity by which we can gain access to all of the resources of our covenant Father.
Our relationship with God is defined by COVENANT. He reveals himself to us as a FATHER who gives us our IDENTITY as his children. Now we are able to OBEY because as children of God we are empowered to do so. This is why it’s so important to live from our identity and not work for our identity
But there is a temptation to get it backwards.
Dane ortlunds book Gentle and Lowly is helpful when thinking about this for me.
In the opening paragraph of chapter 20 he writes these words
“There are two ways to live the Christian life. You can live it either for the heart of Christ or from the heart of Christ. You can live for the smile of God or from it. For a new idenity as a son or daughter of God or from it. For your union of Christ or from it”
and there is a major difference right. I have lived both ways. When I live for the heart of God.....For the smile of God......For my idenity it can cause all sorts of things that aren’t helpful to come out of me.
I can live in this constent cycle of shame and guilt and get pretty STUCK in my life. It can feel like it’s never enough. I can never do enough to measure up. And the reason I get stuck is because this isn’t how I was meant to live.
Maybe it’s something we have in common this morning. Maybe you feel like your life is a constant uphill battle and you can never quite do enough to please God.
You know God loves you and he gave his life for you but know you feel like you have to keep up your end of the deal.
This leads to stress, anxiety, struggle and isolation.
Yet it is so counter to what scripture teaches. Jesus said in
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
and we long for this freedom but it can seem far at times.
It’s the same thing the early church struggled with. This isn’t anything new for us.
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
I apperciate the question. Paul is perplexed. He says The Spirit saved you. Why in the world are you trying to perfect your life by the flesh.
In other words. It’s still Gods work
Ortlund says it this way.
“The Central message of Galatians is that the freeness of GOd’s grace and love is not only the gateway but the pathway of the Christian life.”
Jesus has made a new way of relating to God as Father. We no longer have to work for our identity, trying to measure up to the letter of the law. Our identity is something given to us, something we can’t mess up. It is rooted in who God is and not in our performance. As such, we are free to serve, obey, love and live missionally. We do these things from our identity not for our identity
and that’s friends why his commandments are not burdensome.
When compared to the way the relgious leaders of the day had talked about Gods commands John is offering a better way.
He is teaching what Jesus taught in
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The reason God gives us his commands in the first place is from a place of love for us.
and when you look at this text and matthew 11 you see God will never command without giving the strength to fullfill it.This is who we are.
My friend Lee reminded me of this truth this week. When she borught over friendship bread I told her to pray for me.
I said I am feeling a little pressure walking into this week. Everyone is like you did so good with only 12 hours to prepare. I felt a wieght and a pressure not from Jesus to really produce something special with a whole week to prepare
and without knowing it she confimred something the Lord ahd hlaready spoken to me.
God gives us the strength to fullfill what he calls us to do.
and if obeidicne really is an outflowing of idenity. If we actually get to the place where we aren’t trying to win the heart of God or win the approval of others
but we are actully coming from a place where we know we are deeply loved, tresaured and cared for.
if we are working from our indenity and not for it then his commandments are such a joy.
It’s not a conditinal clause. When Jesus says this and john echos it the expecation is this is WHO YOU ARE. Therefore you can rest.
You can rest in the finished work of Christ on your behalf and it’s a joy to folloiwng him in whatever he might ask.
John offers us in the last 2 verses a beutiful promise.
He says in this life our struggle as children of God won’t be agaisnt God and his commandments. our struggle will be with the world.
Yet there is great hope. And the hope is this. We will have victory in this struggle and overcome the world.
But once again our vicgory is not conditinoal on our effort, our works or even our obeidnece. Our victory is built on a better foundation then these things.
it’s built on the foundation of FAITH.
This is the first time John uses the word faith in the whole letter.
The Christian life begins with faith in Jesus as the Son of God. But faith is also a necessary component of the Christian life every single day.
and I would offer you this. It’s not the measure of faith it’s the object of your faith that matters.
Some people wrongly teach that we don’t have see mircales or healings, or transfomration because we don’t have ENOUGH faith.
this is anti biblical
Jesus taught if you have the faith of a mustard seed you can move mountians. If you ever seen a mustard seed you know it’s very small.
in other words if you posses any faith(which we do beause God has giving it to us in the new birth) then you will see miricales and victory.
Not becasue of teh measure of your faith but the object of our faith Jesus Christ.
Tim keller said
“Strong faith in a weak object fails, but even weak faith in a strong object succeeds.”
in one of his books he illustrates this concept this way
He says let’s say you fall of a cliff(which I really don’t want any of us to do) But let’s go with it.
and you grab a branch to hold you up. If that branch is weak it will break no matter how much FAITH you have that it won’t break
but if you grab on to the strongest branch in the world.....even if you just have enogh faith to grab it you are safe.
because faith is all about the object
and Jesus is the strongest person in all of history we can grab onto.
Every day of our lives we face t enemies: the world, our own flesh patterns, and the devil
There is real struggle in the world John is writing to and that struggle continues today.
The world can be dressed up and come to us offering things to us. The world will conitue to seductively whisper in our ear. Promising us pleasure
fliriting with us telling us that real joy comes form loving the world and not loving Jesus
and at times this is powerful.
I will illustrate it with you this way.
I went to seminary in New Orleans. One day me and my friends decided to go to cafe domun and eat some awesome beignts. It was a true delight
after that we decided to walk the french quarter
We ending up on burbon street
and there were literally peole yelling at us to come into their bars, retraunts or other establishments.
and it was strange for this seminary student. But it was intruging also. Here i was in an unfamilar place with people promising me joy .
Probably the fact I was in a baptist seminary helped me jsut keep walking.
I feel like my friends and I where like dory in finding nemo. ANd we had our heads down and instead of saying just keep swimming we just said to one another JUST KEEP WALKING.
and while that’s reidicouls it’s how we feel when the world starts to call us in. We think we just have to keep our head down and just keep moving
but we have a better option. We have our Faith in Jesus that allows us to overcome the world.
If you read hebrews 11 you are reminded 17 times that the amazing men and women of the OT won the vicotry by “faith”
Not by intellect, not by power
but by FATIH
and it’s faith that overcomes the world
Some in church history have sought to overcome the world by escaping the world
but this is problematic.
First of all online the ELITE can do this
Second it forgets the world is not only outside of me but there is still some remnants in me
and it would be direct disobeidnce to Gods word. Scriputre teahes Christians are suppose to be in the world but not of it.
This is what being born again offers us.
The new birth is a supernatural event which takes us out of the sphere of the world, where Satan rules, into the family of God. We have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son (Col. 1:13). The spell of the old life has been broken. The fascination of the world has lost its appeal.
and because of our faith in Christ the victory is ours.
to say in the first centruy victory does not belong to Rome but to christ and the humble believer in Christ was revoluitonary in nature
yet it was completly true
With this final sentence, affirming belief in Jesus, we are back where we started, and the argument has come full circle.
Let us summarize it: Christian believers are God’s children, born from above.
God’s children are loved by all who love God.
Those who love God also keep his commands.
They keep his commands because they overcome the world, and they overcome the world because they are Christian believers, born from above.
and while this reality is beutiful sometimes we can forget. Or we struggle with beleiveing this is true about oursevles.
and we need help from others to remind us of this reality.
at the beginnign of the pandemic I talk a lot of walks. One night I was so fustrated with a istutaion outside of my control I decided just to walk.
All I had was my watch on me so I could count my activite
I walked and I walked and I prayed and I just poured out my heart to God. But then something happened. I looked around and I had no IDEA where I was. I mean it had gotten dark but the buildings dind’t look familiar and I dind’t have a phone. so I wasn’t sure what to do.
My watch could make a phone call but tha twas about it.
I was lost. I needed help. And I have a eye disease which makes things a little tougher at night.
I was able to get a call out to my wife and read the street names to hear and she came to find me.
I kept looking for her. Over and over. car after car and then she came.
I WAS resuced. and she helped me find my way home.
I wonder how many of you can relate to this story. Maybe you have been lost before and you just need help from a loved one to get you home.
but I wonder how much more true this can be when it comes to our faith in Jesus.
Maybe this teaching was new to you today adn for the first time in your life you realize you can live from your idenity in christ and not for it
but maybe for others you know these truths but during 2020 you have felt lost
with a global pandemic and so much information about it and so many different opions on what to do and what not to do you feel lost
with furloughs and ecomomich uncertatinty for 2021 still looming you feel lost
with divison over politics, race, mercy and justice in our nation you feel lost
with a desire to belive God does work all things for God as romans 8:28 says but a lack of evidence of what he might be doing behind the scneces you feel lost
and you need help today
our heart at rivertree is to help one another know Jesus by sharing the gospels and our lives.
my hope is for those who have LOSt thier way today, that the faith you have would allow you to remember who you belong to and you would allow jesus to lead you back home
this is his JOY. This is who he is
and he will do it like a loving father, becasue his yoke is easy and his burden is light
if you are a christian today. You are my brother or sister in Christ. We have the same dad. He loves you and so do I.
I invite you to come home, stay home, or come back chome this morning.
let’s pray