CPTC: 1 John 5:1-12

04/24/22

07/30/22

Pray

Intro/Illustration

By a show of hands, where are the husbands and aspiring husbands at?

I’d like to do a thought exercise with the men here; to my sisters in Christ, please feel free to hold their feet to the fire on this one.

Think back to when you first set eyes upon your wife or perhaps your wife-to-be. Maybe it was an experience like Aragorn’s where you thought you had strayed into a dream or perhaps it was like Michael Corleone’s where you were hit by the thunderbolt.

Now imagine one day, you hear from a friend who’s a friend of her friend, that the woman of your dreams wants you to know that she really likes you. Now despite how lovesick you are, you’re not that wet behind the ears and so you brush this off as mere hearsay, as there really isn’t much to go off of to believe that something tremendous like this could be true.

Then it happens that her father comes to you and says that his daughter, the woman of your dreams, wants you to know that she is head over heels for you and she is waiting for you to sweep her up from her feet and carry her off into happily-ever-after and look, she even has written you 66 love letters addressed to you confessing her eternal love for you; all written in her handwriting in different color pens and pencils, all scented with her favorite perfume. What are you waiting for? Go to her!

How would you respond?

We’d all agree that these witness accounts demand some kind of a response.

In fact, how much of a buffoon would you have to be to actually think, “Ya know, despite all of this evidence, I still have doubts.”

I mean, all things considered for that scenario, what other testimony would you really need to believe?

What more would really you need in order to believe?

Now up to this point in 1 John, the apostle has strongly been communicating how the lives of believers will be marked in a considerable way that sets them apart from nonbelievers. In today’s passage of 1 John 5:1-12, we find that John begins to conclude his letter with an urgent word on the matter of belief.

In fact, when you gather up every reference John makes to belief in this letter, precisely 55% of the word’s reference is found in these twelve verses alone.

He’s already established that believers will obey, that believers will love, and has even touched upon what believers will believe (1 Jn 3:23). And to a non-believer, believers believe in some pretty peculiar things.

Yet in today’s passage, I believe John will be answering the following question:

What more do really you need in order to believe?

Primary Claim

For John, I believe he makes it very clear that God has provided everything for us that we need to believe as settled alone in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

Basic Development

To begin unpacking this question concerning what it is that we need to believe, we find that John gives us three important points today.

Let us read.

Read Passage

This is the Word of the Lord.

Point 1, Believing Jesus will always be inseparable to how a believer loves and obeys God.

v.1, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the One who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of Him.”

John builds off his previous statement in chapter 4, noting how if you love God, you will love your brother or sister in Christ, and he goes on to develop this expectation of action into the presumed belief of his audience.

Clear as daylight, when we look ahead at verse 13 of this chapter, John had no doubt that he was writing to believers who loved the Lord. With all the repetition John gives on the identity of the Christian, you’d almost begin to suspect that John may have felt that it can be easy to forget who you are when you’re a Christian.

In the first five verses of this chapter, we see that John is repeating this point that anyone who claims to be a professing believer of Jesus, the promised Anointed One, that person’s life will be marked by a persevering application of the greatest command to loving God and loving others as themselves.

But then John switches it up on us in verse two: v.2, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments.”

Now sit on that for moment.

I can understand how I would be falling short of obedience unto God when I fail to love my brother or sister in the faith, but this idea of falling short of loving them by failing to love and obey God? To dishonor my fellow believer with my own personal lack of love and obedience towards God?

Now I don’t know about you, but but kind of this goes against the grain of my 21st century American sensibilities. What business is it to my fellow believer what personal sins I commit against God? Well according to the Scriptures, we’re one body. When the pinky toe of a marathon runner is severely infected, the mission and purpose of the whole body is severely affected.

However, when the pinky toe is wholesome and healthy, the mission and purpose proceeds unhindered and flourishes.

So it is, when we love God, the implications towards the body are felt in such a tangibly life-giving way.

What you do in the dark when you think no one is looking consequently affects the body.

And so John presses on and tells us in v. 3, love God through your faithful obedience and know that His commandments will never be a burden.

Now in our flesh, in those sinful desires that we all possess, we might have a gripe or two against that claim.

However for John, believers possess the key device given to them by God Himself that equips us to overcome every obstacle in this world: our faith.

Now for many of us, we may have gone about in our Christian walk hearing that old adage, “All you need is faith.” However I appreciate that John saw the need to clarify and qualify what this overcoming faith was exactly.

Because nonbelievers have faith. Mormons have faith. Muslims have faith. Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, all have faith.

This really has to push us to ask ourselves, when it comes to reflecting on the faith that overcomes, are we picturing faith as a kind of cultivation of optimism with a little dash of spirituality attached to it?

Is a faith that overcomes merely a holy hoping for the best?

Not for John. In looking at v. 5, “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

I want to encourage you to recognize the scandalous audacity of that statement.

John is really saying that the one who overcomes all obstacles and hardships that come from this world is the one whose faith that is rooted in Jesus the Son of God

Truly there must then be power in Jesus Christ for His people. And such power must have implications in the lives of His people.

This is why believing Jesus will always be inseparable to how a disciple loves and obeys God.

Point 2, Believing Jesus will always be anchored in what God the Father testifies about His Son.

Illustration

Now a couple of months, there was a seven-hour debate between two scholars, Bart Ehrman, a self-described “agnostic atheist”, and Mike Licona, a fellow brother in Christ, on whether the resurrection of Jesus really happened. It’s a fair question. How can you know something like the resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened? In fact, if you pick on that question alone long enough, you’ll begin to come across other difficult questions that have led many in the church on to the road to deconstructing their faith.

If Jesus is who He affirms to be, whom the rest of Scripture asserts He is, what would it take for you to believe in these affirmations and assertions?

Now up to this point, John is completely showing us his hand: believing Jesus equips us with the means to overcome, that Jesus is the only foundation sufficient to sustain our faith.

Now I have no reason to doubt that some of us already know this. And yet, it is still curious to observe how John transitions from v. 5 to v. 6, “This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.”

As if to validate the One who needs no validation from man, John directs us to three witnesses who affirm the identity of Jesus:

Water

Blood

The Holy Spirit

This mentioning of witnesses is important because according to the Scriptures, a testimony was not valid unless it was backed up by two or three witnesses. And how much weight you put on these witness accounts also depended upon who was giving the testimony.

And so, John provides three witnesses, of which he notes are in agreement concerning who Jesus is, according to vv.7-8, water, blood, and the Holy Spirit.

These three witnesses provide the answer to the question of what more a believer would need to believe that Jesus is who He asserts and affirms to be, God’s Son and the Christ.

It takes very little of the imagination to understand how or why the third person of the Godhead would count as a witness to the identity of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is God, why wouldn’t He affirm the identity of God the Son? But what about this inclusion of water and blood? What role does water and blood have to play in the identity of Jesus Christ?

Given that John notes how Jesus is the One who came by water and blood, I find that there is very little reason to doubt that this points us to the baptism and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the beginning and ending of Jesus’ ministry on earth, with the Holy Spirit in addition bearing witness to Christ. The very Holy Spirit who initiated the conception of Jesus (Lk 1:35), descended upon Jesus at His baptism (Mt 3:16; Mk 1:10; Lk 3:22; Jn 1:33) and remained with Jesus throughout His ministry until through the Holy Spirit Jesus was offered to the Father as our atoning sacrifice (Heb 9:14) and later, through the Holy Spirit, was resurrected on the third day (Rm 8:11).

With the water of Jesus’ baptism marking the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry and His blood shed on the cross marking the end of His earthly ministry, the Holy Spirit bears witness to the full human experience of God the Son from His conception to His final breath on the cross to His first breath in the tomb.

And as we look in v. 9, John paints a clear picture content to say that the Father’s testimony concerning His Son are sufficiently grounded in the water and the blood by which Jesus came and the Holy Spirit Himself.

And so I ask you, what more do really you need at this point in order to believe?

God has given us everything we need to believe. Is your faith lacking? Look to the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

I have no doubts that there may be a necessity for seven-hour long debates over these important matters, but understand that there are no apologetics, arguments, or debates that are sufficient to bring dead men back to life.

This is why believing Jesus will always be anchored in what God the Father testifies about His Son.

Point 3, Not believing in Jesus will always have eternally dire consequences.

Now if we can see the inseparable connection that our faith has with our actions and the sufficient foundation given to us in Christ Jesus for by which our faith must be anchored to, it would therefore follow that the implications of these truths are absolutely severe if we were to reject all of this.

In fact, looking to v. 10, “The one who believes in the Son of God has this witness in himself,” to believe in Jesus the Son of God is to partake in the Father’s testimony.

Think about the implications this has to those who are believers.

The language John is using here is not to give the impression that we partakers of God’s testimony by mere association through faith, but that God’s witness belongs to you. You have it. It is yours.

But then we have the matter of what’s at stake should we decide that what God has provided as testimony concerning His Son is insufficient: we make God out to be a liar. Looking at the rest of v. 10, “…The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which God has borne witness about His Son.”

Think about the consequences this has to those who are not believers, to those who outright rebel against God, as well as to those who say to Jesus Christ, “Lord, Lord.”

John clarifies that to reject God’s witness account of who Jesus Christ is, is to reject eternal life.

v. 11, “And the witness is this, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”

According to God the Father, as informed to us by John, eternal life is inseparably bound to the Son.

His last words on the matter of belief for the believer are clear: believe and you will have life, reject and you will not.

It’s scary simple: Not believing in Jesus will always have eternally dire consequences.

Conclusion

It was tempting as I was putting this sermon together to adjust that last point with a little tweak so that this sermon would not conclude with such an intimidating tone, and yet when we look at v. 12, “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have that life,” we see that John holds back no urgency.

We have got to get this right. There is too much at stake.

Do not miss this opportunity test your hearts before the living and active Word of God. As I noted before, John had no doubts that he was writing to believers, just as I have no doubts that I am preaching to my brothers and sisters in Christ.

But you must understand that belief is more than just head knowledge.

Jesus warns us in Matthew 7:21-23 that in the day of judgment, there’ll be many who “knew” Jesus and yet will find themselves hearing Christ say to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

We must understand that belief is by no means blind faith or a kind of spiritual “hoping for the best”

True belief, the kind of belief that gives the Christian that peaceful assurance of eternal life, is the kind of belief that leads you into submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and provides you an iron grip on His saving grace.

Is Jesus your Lord? Then do what He says.

Is Jesus your Savior? Then build your life upon His precious words.

This is why:

· Believing Jesus will always be inseparable to how a believer loves and obeys God.

· Believing Jesus will always be anchored in what God the Father testifies about His Son.

· Not believing in Jesus will always have eternally dire consequences.

The call to action here is simple and straight forward, brothers and sisters: Believe.

Believe in the witnesses God has provided that your faith may be sustained. Believe so that you may be able to endure and persevere and overcome. Believe so that you may be equipped to faithfully obey God and love your fellow believers.

We are called to believe. And in our belief, we are able to stand firmly in the precious and beautiful assurance of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.

Believe in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, God the Son, so that you may have the Son and therefore have the life.

Pray

Father, we cry out to you, as a desperate father had once cried out to Jesus, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

Apart from You, there is no faith that overcomes. All of us know the call to believe. Help us to believe in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ that we may live and love faithfully well.

In Your Precious Son’s Name we pray, Amen.