Sermon by George Hemmings - given at St Thomas' Burwood March 18 2012
Let’s Talk about Faith
Over the last few weeks, as we’ve delved into 1 John, we’ve heard over and over again his call for us to love and obedience. Well, this morning I want to change tack a little and talk about faith. In chapter 5, John writes that our faith will overcome the world! Faith is victorious, in this life and the next. But this isn’t all John says about our faith. He describes what our faith should look like and what our faith is in.
Faith is… Vital
The first thing John says is that our faith is vital. It’s alive and kicking. That’s because it begins with the new life we receive from God. We like the think that we have faith and then we’re born again. But John tells us this isn’t the case. He says in verse 1, that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, has been born of God. Our rebirth comes before our faith! God is the one who has given us new life. Through God we’ve been born again, we’ve been made new. It’s this new life that enables us to believe in Jesus. Therefore it’s no surprise that the faith we have as a result should be alive as well.
Our belief in God isn’t merely intellectual. It’s not enough to say ‘I believe’ without having this borne out in our life. It’s not enough to say the creeds, without our faith changing our life.
Well, what does this faith in action look like? It’s no surprise that John goes back to love. (No we can’t escape it that easily!) John assumes that if we believe in Jesus, if we have faith, then we’ll first love God. ‘Everyone who loves the parent.’
And he quickly goes on to say that if we have faith, we’ll not only love God, but also love one-another. Having been born of God, we should love all those who have also been born of him. ‘Loves the child.’ It’s unthinkable that siblings would not love one-another. Everybody here with a brother or sister knows that you might, probably do, push each other around a bit you still love each other. Families love each other and so as brothers and sisters in Christ we should love each other.
If you were here last week, you’ll hopefully remember that Chris saying that in Greek there are four different words for love. (If you don’t good reason to download the sermon!) One of these words is storge – family love. We might think this is the kind of love that John is calling us to here.
But it’s not. Instead, he continues to use that other word – agape, the practical and unemotional love. And he says our love for our brothers and sister is expressed in a very particular kind of way:
2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
At first we might think John has made a mistake. Everywhere else in his letter, he’s written that we know we love God if we love each other and keep God’s commandments. But Here John turns things on their head. He reverses what he’s said before. Now he says we know we love one another, when we love God and obey his commandments. It’s frustratingly circular isn’t it! We love God when we love one another and obey his commandments. And we love one another when we love God and obey his commandments.
If we can put aside the circularity for the moment, what John is saying holds true for all our relationships:
2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
The best way I can love Sarah
- is by loving God more than I love her.
The very best way I can love Micah and Joshua
- is by loving God more than I love them.
The best way I can love you, as my brothers and sisters?
- is by loving God more than I love all of you.
This doesn’t make sense to our world. It’s very foreign to us. We think, that if I want to love you as much as is possible, I should make you number one in my life. But John says that’s wrong. The best way to love someone is to make them number two.
Why is this the case? Why is it that being the most loving husband or wife, the best mother or father, the best friend, involves loving God the most? Well, as we heard last week from chapter 4, God is love and God has shown us how to love. God loves us with a generous, altruistic, sacrificial love born out of the need of the loved one. We learn this by loving God, by putting him first in our life. When we love God we learn to put ourselves last. We reverse the sin of the Fall.
So in loving God, we learn how to best love others. It’s by loving them with this same generous, self-sacrificial love. It’s by putting them, and their needs above ours. It’s not by saying, are my needs being met as we are so often prone to do, but by saying how can I meet your needs?
I remember some years ago, driving along and seeing a sign out the front of a church which summarized this well. It was one of those signs with the changeable letters, a bit like the one opposite K-Mart plaza in Burwood. But instead of one of those tacky messages, that makes you cringe a little, this sign just said something like:
‘God first, others second, self last.’
And in the end, we’ll only do this if we see the other person as valuable, as worthy of our love. The only way we truly do this is by loving God. How I feel about a person will wax and wane. How much I think of you might change each day. But, God’s love doesn’t change. God has shown how much he loves each of us by sending his Son to die for us. God shows us how much other people are worth, and so it’s only in loving God that we’ll appreciate and truly love others. As one writer has put it, ‘If God means little to you, people will become worthless to you too. In the end, even love for them will die out.’
So to best love one-another, we need to love God first. And John reminds us that loving God is shown through keeping his commandments. Our faith needs to be active in love, and love itself is active in obedience to God. But this doesn’t mean our love gets smothered by our obedience, or is any less genuine and affectionate. Rather, our love is expressed through our obedience. Love means we gladly accept what God has commanded. And as we’ve seen over and over again in John, God’s command is to love.
Our faith must be vital. We mustn’t just say ‘I believe’ but instead ensure our faith is borne out in our life.
Faith is… Victorious
The second thing John says about our faith is that it’s not only vital it’s also victorious. This is why we don’t find God’s commands burdensome:
4 ‘For the one who is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith’
Back in chapter 2, John described the world as the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride in riches. He warned us about the temptations and allures of the world that’s opposed to God. The world, John says, calls us away from loving God. It’s love of the world that prevents us from being able to obey God’s commands, that makes us see them as burdensome.
But as those who’ve been born of God we’ve conquered the world! We no longer see God’s commands as a bitter burden, or an unachievable goal. For our faith has enabled us to break free of the world’s downward pull.
This message is so important that three times in two verses John tells us we’ve conquered the world. He wants us to be assured that we are victorious. Knowing this we’re to be confident when we struggle to keep our faith alive. We’re to be courageous in keeping our faith active.
How is it that our faith is so triumphant? It’s because of the one we have faith in:
5Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
It’s Christ who has actually overcome the world. Jesus is the triumphant one. But when we have faith in him, when we’re born again in him, then we join in his victory. He now dwells in us, and we share in his victory:
1John 2:14 I write to you, young people, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one
1John 4:4 Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
And so we can be confident that our faith is victorious, for the one it’s in is victorious.
Faith is… in one who’s been Verified
Thirdly, John assures us that our faith is not only vital and victorious, but that it’s also in the verified. He’s not calling us to blind faith, but to have faith in someone who is well attested.
Our faith is in ‘this one’, in Jesus, the Son of God, the Christ. And it’s this Jesus who has come, who entered into our world. Jesus came, from heaven, and became flesh and lived among us (John 1:8,14). John first affirms that our faith is in no ordinary man, but in God Incarnate.
He’s the one who came through water and blood. There’s no end of conjecture as to what John means here and to what water and blood he’s referring.
But in one sense, Jesus’ coming into the world began in the water of his baptism. It was at this point that he kicked off his public ministry. It was here that the Father pronounced from heaven, ‘This is my beloved Son.’ But it was also here in water that Jesus humanity was affirmed. Even though he had no need for it, Jesus came and received the baptism of repentance. Jesus identified himself with those he’d come to save, ‘by water’.
Jesus is also the one who came ‘by blood.’ His purpose for coming to the world was fulfilled on the Cross, where he shed his blood. And this wasn’t the blood of just a man, but the blood of the one true living God. This is the only way that his blood could atone for our sins, to reconcile us to God, to obtain for us eternal life. Jesus came, not just to identify with us, but to die for us.
And so John affirms again that Jesus came, ‘not by water alone, but by water and blood.’ He’s again refuting the false teachers and anti-christs, who would deny various parts of the Incarnation or Atonement. He stresses that our faith is in the one who was both fully human and fully divine. The one who came by water and by blood.
All this is verified John says, by the Spirit. As John said it’s the Spirit that confesses the truth about Christ (4:2). This is exactly what Jesus promised it would do, testify on his behalf (John 14:17, 26; 15:26; 16:13). And it does this as it dwells in us (4:13-16). It’s the Spirit that abides in our hearts and confirms the truth within us (5:10).
Therefore we can be trebly sure that our faith is in the right person. For the water, the blood and the Spirit all testify that Jesus is who he said he was. All three testify that he is both human and divine. All three confirm that he is the one who has overcome the world and is the real deal. The one we should place our faith in.
John challenges us to do just this. He reminds us that we’ll take people at their word. In the case of Jesus, we have such a human testimony, including that of John himself (1:1-3). If we accept the lesser, how much more should we accept the greater? For we also have God’s own testimony. The Father has testified from heaven that Christ was his Son, Jesus has revealed himself to us, and the Spirit also testifies. God himself has testified this is the truth, how can we then ignore God or call his testimony into question? John, in his characteristically black and white manner, says it is impossible. If we believe God, his testimony lives in us through the indwelling Spirit. If we don’t believe, well then we are calling the God of truth a liar.
Faith is Victorious
Finally, John returns to a point he has made before. Our faith is victorious. Not only in this world, as we overcome it’s desires. Our faith is victorious as it leads us to the next. God has testified about his Son and calls us to have faith in him. This is not just because God is a proud parent who wants everybody to know about his child. No, it’s because life is only found in Jesus. And not just this life, but eternal life. God has given us eternal life in his Son, in the one whom he has testified to. And he calls us to put our faith in Christ, that he might give us eternal life. Our faith then, is victorious in not just this life but also the next.
Faith in Action
Thus John not only shows that our faith in Jesus is not blind. Rather it has rock solid credentials behind it. And our faith is victorious. Through Christ we have overcome the world. If we have the Son we have eternal life, the greatest victory of all. But our faith must also be vital – it must be active and not just intellectual. Let’s put our faith into action. Let’s make our belief bright and obvious as we love one another, as we love God and keep his commandments.
