Sermon Tone Analysis

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?