The Fruit of a child of God

1 John 5:1-3 “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”

1. INTRODUCTION

2. BODY

a. A child of God loves his Father (5:1)

i. John is continuing in his thought of talking about loving God. This section ends at 5:3. But here in verse 1, John talks about belief and the result of that belief.

ii. Again, most of the time, the NASB is great with translation but here, it isn’t the best. It should be translated, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Why is this significant? Because it helps us understand that salvation is never by just grace or faith. They both are important. This is why John gives us the order in which it occurs.

iii. When we look at 1 John 4:19, we see the grace of God. Nothing we have done deserves the love of God, yet He lavished His grace upon us by loving us first. Well in 1 John 5:1, it starts with whoever believes. This is the double sided aspect of the Gospel. If we recognize the grace we have received, we must respond in faith. This is why John writes that whoever believes Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

iv. Faith is thus a sign of the new birth, just as love (4:7) and doing what is right (2:29; 3:9f.) are also indications that a person has been born of God. At the same time, however, faith is a condition of the new birth: “to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (Jn. 1:12). Here, however, John is not trying to show how a person experiences the new birth; We already saw in 1 John 4:19 that it is grace in which allows us to experience the new birth, but in this passage, his aim is rather to indicate the evidence which shows that a person stands in the continuing relationship of a child to God his Father: that evidence is that he holds to the true faith about Jesus.

v. One thing I would like people to remember is and I believe the most important thing about Christianity is our relationship with God. Therefore John uses it in the language of family. Here is a universal, self-evident principle, and John implies that ‘what is true of the human family is also true of the Divine Society. Just as a child who is born to parents love his/her parents, the same is true for us when we join the family of God. When we are born again, we come to love our Father because they take care of us. The way we come to know God is through the love He shows us.

vi. John starts verse 1 by telling us again, dealing with the question of, how do I know if I am saved? John gives us the answer by saying that we know we are saved, we know that we are children of God if we believe that Jesus is the Christ. And what John adds is that you can only believe this if you have been born through the Spirit of God. What must happen? 1 John 4:19 tells us that we love because He first loved us. We love Him because He has caused us to love Him back. Therefore, we can believe only if He has enabled us to love to believe Him.

vii. But John doesn’t stop there. He doesn’t say that all you have to do is believe. He gives us more to what it means to believe. How do we know we believe? John writes, and whoever loves the Father loves the one born of Him. John helps us understand that true faith leads to love for God. “everyone who believes” (an expression found on Jesus’s lips in John 3:15, 16; 12:46; cf. Acts 13:39; Rom. 10:11 [quoting Isa. 28:16]) is affected by faith in this way. Believes what? Believes that Jesus is the Christ. John has already spoken explicitly of “Christ” five times in this epistle: he is the one with whom believers enjoy fellowship (1:3), the Righteous One who makes intercession with the Father (2:1), the one whom the antichrist denies (2:22), the one in whose name (alone) people are commanded to trust (3:23), and the one who has come from God in the flesh (4:2). John does not need, at this juncture, to spend more time sketching Christ’s identity and character for his readers; they both know of whom he is writing.

viii. Therefore John writes, those who believe these things about Jesus, these are the ones who have been born of God. These are the ones who have received the right to become children of God (John 1:12). It is not based on merit, but wholly by the grace of God. John 1:13 gives us the key in understanding what this means. Because it is the will of God for those to receive Him, all those who received Him, were given the right to become children of God.

ix. This is the same as 1 John 5:1. The combination of present tense (ho pisteuōn, believes) and perfect is important. It shows clearly that believing is the consequence, not the cause, of the new birth. Our present, continuing activity of believing is the result, and therefore the evidence, of our past experience of new birth by which we became and remain God’s children.

x. I look at my children when they were born. They knew nothing and did nothing to receive my love and my wife’s love. They were born to us and we loved them and as they grew up, their love for us grew because they realized that we were their caretakers and they had a relationship with them. We loved our children first because we knew they were our children and through that, our children returned their love for us. This is the point that John has been making from 1 John 4:19-5:3.

xi. John tells us here that if you are a child of God, you love God and the Son of God. If you are His child, you don’t love Him for His gifts. You love the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what separates true authentic Christians and fake Christians. Fake Christians want the blessings of God apart from the giver of those gifts. Authentic Christians want the giver of those gifts even apart from those gifts. Why? Because Christianity is about having a relationship with God. It is not merely to receive His blessings. Rather, it is to know a person, a God who loved you so much to the point that He was willing to send His son to die on the cross for your behalf. Its primary concern is not that your life becomes better. It’s primarily to help you navigate through this life that you would become more like His son.

xii. This is why John states that if you are a child of God, you will love the Father and the Son of God. John is making it clear that you must profess Christ. The way to being a child of God is nonetheless. It is to know Christ and to confess Christ (2:22). When we think about 2:22, we see clearly that the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ is the antichrist, therefore not a child of God.

xiii. John is making it clear so that people don’t mistaken the two. There are only two families in the world. Children of God and Children of the Devil. People in this world try to make exceptions, but from the teaching of 1 John, we notice clearly that there are only two families. We must ask ourselves, which family do I belong in? Do I believe that Jesus is the Christ? Do I believe that He truly is the son of God who came to take the sins of the world?

b. A child of God keeps his commandments (5:2-3)

i. So in verse 2, John gives us the answer in how we are to answer these questions. How do I know which family I belong to? I believe that Jesus is the Christ, I even believe that He died for my sins on the cross. But I don’t know if I truly believe in everything and I don’t know if I am a Christian. How do I know?

ii. Verse 2, John continues this idea of being born of God. Notice that John goes from loving God to knowing something. This is an important idea in the book of 1 John that tells us that inorder to love God, you must know who He is. This is why John writes that by this, the idea that we are born of God and loves God, we know that we are the children of God.

iii. Interesting to see how John writes that we know that we love the children of God. We would expect John to say, “Everybody who is born of God (the Father) must love his fellow Christians.” But this is not what he says. His expression is more complicated. Normally he argues from the fact that we love our brothers to the fact that we love God; love for our brothers is the evidence and proof that we love God and keep his commands (3:14f., 17–19; 4:20). It must refer backward: “by this principle, namely that we must love our father’s [other] children, we know that we ought to love the children of God whenever we love God and keep his commands.” The content of loving God and keeping his commands is love for God’s children, since love for God must involve love for his children. Thus we love the children of God when we are loving God and keeping His commandments.

iv. Think about it. If you love God and you keep His commandments, what is His commandments? It is that we love our brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16-18). Therefore, this statement is true as well. We know we are children of God when we love our brothers because loving our brothers is loving God through obedience to His commands.

v. John is making it clear it is impossible to love the children of God (as such) without loving God as it is to love God without loving his children (4:20–21). A family relationship unites the two loves. Love for God has a second inescapable consequence, namely obedience. If we truly love God, we not only love his children, but also find ourselves carrying out his commands.

vi. John goes even further here in verse 2. Not only do we know we are children of God when we love Him, but also writes that if we love Him, we will observe His commandments. We will remember and try to keep His commandments.

vii. This is the mark of a true believer in Christ. All true believers who are born of God, love God and listen to Him. This is true about all children. I’ve learned this by looking at my own children. Our children listen to us because they love us because they know we love them.

viii. Look at this pattern. Our children listen to us because they know we love them. This is the same way with God. God loves us and displays His love for us. This is how we know to love Him in return and after we love Him, we listen to what He says. This is the natural pattern for how people understand love.

ix. John then explains in verse 3, what it means to love God. John writes that the only way you can love God is to be born of God. How do you know you are born of God? You love Him and observe His commandments. So what does it mean to love God? How do we display that we love God? John writes that we display our love for God by keeping His commandments.

x. This is the way we display our love for God and others can see the fruit of our love for God. But John does not end it there. John writes that His commandments are not burdensome. This is key in our understanding of our love for God.

xi. Many people struggle in keeping God’s laws and this is true for anyone who is honest. The reason it is a struggle is because we love ourselves too much. Although we love God, innately, we love ourselves more than God. But when we become born again, God allows us to love Him and desire to love Him more than we love ourselves. John is saying exactly that here. John is saying that His commandments are not burdensome because we love God. Anyone who loves God, desires to please God and that is His ultimate purpose in life.

xii. John’s point is that God’s commands free us to be the people He intended us to be—what Adam and Eve were originally created to be—loving (and holy) creatures reflecting God’s character. For the person not rightly related to God, these commands are a burden as they conflict with the rebel’s conduct and desires. For the child of God seeking to please Him and reflect His character, they prove a help that frees them from sin and its entanglements.

xiii. When we desire to please Him, His commandments are not burdensome. This is the key to the whole situation. When we desire to please Him, then His commands will not be burdensome because we are aiming to please Him. We are seeking out His best interest rather than ours. This is why it is not burdensome because we are seeking to do the will of God by the power of God. It is through His grace which He enables us so that we can please Him and obey Him.

xiv. The Christian life is always centered on our inner desire to love God and this flows in our outward action. The Bible makes it clear that you can’t love God unless you love Him inwardly. When you love Him inwardly, you can obey Him outwardly. This is what John is telling us in this section.

3. CONCLUSION