Faith, Love, and Victory: Lessons from 1 John

And so, if you read the Old Testament, without ever reading the New Testament, it would be clear that God was going to send the Messiah. And the word Messiah in Hebrew means the chosen one or the anointed one. And as you read through the New Testament, and the Gospels in particular, you very quickly realize that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah. [00:46:27]

And so, we're not saved or born again because we come to church on a Sunday, or because we read our Bible every day, or because we go to prayer meetings, or even because we get baptized or become members of the church. We are born again by believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the one who came to save us. [00:47:22]

And this is what John's getting at here in the first five verses. He's saying that we should love God, and believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and we should love one another. But He adds to that by saying that if we love God, and we love one another, then we should keep His commandments. Obedience should be an expression of our faith. [00:48:29]

And John labors this point in verse 3. He says that His commands are not burdensome. He's saying it's no meant to be hard work, this work with God. It's no meant to be a grind. And very often as Christians, we can look at our lives of following Jesus as being a shift, and being hard work. And it is challenging at times. [00:49:55]

And that's not what John's meaning here. But he's not trying to say that obedience is an easy thing either. And for some of us, it's necessary to stop some of the things that I've just mentioned there for our aim and well-being. But if we have this big list of things that we can't do, then where's the freedom that Jesus offers us? [00:51:13]

And so we can begin to rip up that list if we've got one just now, and instead we just need to focus ourselves on loving God and loving one another. And so this is what John reminds us in the opening section of chapter 5. And as we move into the second section of the chapter, we come across some tricky language for us to understand. [00:52:24]

And this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son does not have life. And the key verse here is verse 11, that tells us again that the testimony of God is that He has given us eternal life through His Son, Jesus. [00:51:15]

Because our life in Christ begins this side of eternity. That victory for us begins right now. But how many of us actually believe that, and are living in that place right now? That the victory in Christ is eternal, but it's for us today. It's for us today in this new life. [00:52:46]

And so if we're struggling with addiction, addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, gambling, whatever it may be, we can have victory today through faith in Jesus. Or if we're struggling with anger, with lust, with gossip, whatever that may be, then we can have victory today through Jesus. [00:53:39]

And the reality of sin in real life is that it has the potential to destroy us both spiritually and physically. Sin isn't just something that affects us morally. It's destructive, and it separates us from God. But it can also destroy us spiritually and physically. [00:58:27]

And when I think back over my life, I've lost a lot of friends and family members through falling into patterns of sin in their lives. And we know as a church that firsthand, and I'm sure everybody sitting here can think of somebody this morning. And if sin wasn't a big deal, then we wouldn't need the cross. [00:59:24]

And so that leaves us with this question, do we have anything in our lives that's replacing God or getting in the way of our worship? And as I've been preparing for this sermon, don't think I just appear here on a Sunday and preach this to you. I've been preaching this to myself all week, and I've been so challenged by it. [01:02:52]