Each week throughout 2021, I will share a Bible study blog post taking us through the letter of 1 John. Only five chapters long, this brief book is worthy of our consideration. Whether you drop in for one post or many, I pray that you enjoy them. Access all posts here.

If I stood in front of you today with a tank of helium, filled a balloon with the helium, tied off the balloon to trap the helium, and let go, you would have an expectation of what would happen. You would anticipate that the balloon would float upwards toward the ceiling. Why? Because that is what a balloon with helium inside it does.

A similar thing happened to John. He knew the truthfulness of the gospel message and watched Jesus' life, and heard His teaching. He witnessed Jesus' death and resurrection and had seen the gospel flood the world after Jesus' ascension.

And, over time, John had discovered what the gospel does inside a believer. He knew the gospel message is true, but had also come to discover some of its outworkings.

We've read and studied John's teachings regarding these outworkings, three in particular, but in our next passage, he will conjoin them into one small paragraph. Then John will point to three witnesses to the gospel's truthfulness.

So, for the next two weeks, we will follow John through the passage. In it, we will notice three outworkings, followed by three witnesses, of the gospel's truthfulness.

1. Outworking #1: Love

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him.

Love for the Father's Kids

John's point here is to remind us that every true believer in Jesus' gospel message has been born of God (1). Believers are God's kids.

Now, elsewhere, John used this truth to encourage us to love one another. John thinks we should love each other because we are family. In Christ, we are spiritual siblings who should care for one another.

But here, John moves beyond the horizontal argument that we should love other Christians because they are our spiritual relatives. Instead, John goes vertical when he says, everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him (1).

What this means is that I should love you because you're my sibling, but also because you are God's child, and I love God. If I love the Father, I will think much of His offspring.

This is easy to exemplify from everyday life. I have one biological sibling, a younger sister who I love very much. She is important to me. I admire her but also root for her because she is my blood. Life would not be the same without her. This is sibling love.

But I am also close to several friends God has placed in my life. Many of them have children, and I love those kids. Because I know and love their parents, these little boys and girls, babies and toddlers and kids and teens have my heart. Why? Because I love their parents.

Love for the Father's kids is what John wants. He thinks a major outworking of the gospel is love for other believers. Partly because we are spiritual siblings, but also because we love God, and those are His kids.

Lesser Dividing Lines

This seems important for modern believers. The new birth, salvation, unites us, but it is a shame how quickly Christians will divide over less consequential issues. We ought to love others who've been born again, regardless of lesser dividing lines such as race, gender, nationality, or political affiliation.

When we sense ourselves more united with nonbelievers with whom we share those distinctions than we do with a fellow believer who does not, something is wrong. God wishes to tune our hearts to His frequency. The gospel asks us to love one another because we love God, and we are God's kids.

But there is another crucial outworking of the gospel's truthfulness John wishes to remind us of - obedience to God's Word.

2. Outworking #2: Obedience

2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

A Surprising Twist

Now, this statement from John begins with a surprising twist. John says, We know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments (2). This is unexpected, shocking to the reader.

What we would expect John to say is that our love for God is evidenced in our obedience to Him and our love for other believers. And he has said these sorts of things elsewhere in the letter.

But, here, he flips it around. Instead of saying love for God is displayed in our love for others, he says our love for others is displayed by our love for God. A significant proof of our love for each other is our love for God and allegiance to His commands.

Put another way, when I walk with God and allow Him to govern my life, it demonstrates my love for you.

Bottom Line: One of the most loving things you can do for others is to love and obey God.

You see, when you take care of your walk with God by loving and serving and obeying Him, you are doing a good thing for the rest of us.

Why Obedience Is Love

But how is our love for and obedience to God loving towards our brothers? Here are a handful of suggestions:

To love and obey God means you will walk in the light. You will not allow your life to head into the dark world of disobedience. This is good for the rest of us because walking in the darkness introduces chaos and evil to the community. You make the church family better when walking in the light.
To love and obey God means you will spend time with Him. And time with God leads to transformation. You become more Christlike (2 Corinthians 3:18). When that occurs, we all benefit.
To love and obey God means you will allow space for course correction. Even the holiest person has blind spots and areas they succumb to the flesh. But the person who seeks God and wants to have their lives conform to His Word is eager for course corrections. Change might be slow, but at least there is hope it will occur.
To love and obey God means you will not become an instrument of temptation towards others in the church family. Carnal believers often harm others, inviting them into gossip, anger, complaint, pride, lust, or other weaknesses of the flesh. The obedient and godly believer, however, is not a source of such temptation.
To love and obey God means you become a positive contributor to the strength and health of the overall group. A church is a collection, a gathering, an ecclesia of various people, all of whom have different levels of spiritual maturity and health. When you love and obey God, the group at large gets a little healthier.

We often forget how much our love for God impacts others. But when you maintain your relationship with God and walk in His light, you become the best version of yourself, and the community becomes enriched by your life. Conversely, if you neglect your walk with God and disobey Him, you hurt the community.

Ice Cube famously rapped: Check yourself before you wreck yourself. But John has a bigger and better idea. He would say: Check yourself before you wreck your church. He wants us to love and obey God, partly because it is good for our church family, our spiritual siblings.

Imagine, if you will, a large ship. For the sake of illustration, this particular boat gives each passenger its own anchor. As the boat chugs along, if all the anchors are on deck, progress can be made. But if some of the passengers throw their anchors into the water, the entire boat will slow or stop.

Let this become part of your vision for your walk with God. When you love and obey Him, your anchor is up, and the community can make progress. Your walk is your individual way of giving the church community the best shot at success, the greatest opportunity at making an impact in this world. Without our love and obedience to God, however, the church slows.

Why God's Commandments Are Not Burdensome

But before we move on to the third outworking of the gospel's truthfulness, we must spend some time thinking about a phrase John wrote, to which some of us might have inwardly objected. He said: And His commandments are not burdensome (3). The not is in the original Greek, for those wondering.

How can this be the case? How can John, after a lifetime of allegiance to Jesus, say the commandments of God aren't burdensome. Love seems hard. Denial of the flesh is a constant battle. And service in the name of Christ is often discouraging. How can John think, how can the Scripture say, the commands of God are not a burden?

One reason His commandments are not burdensome is that Jesus condensed the commands of God down to love for God and others (Matthew 22:36-40). They asked Him about the greatest commandment. He said it was to love God and to love your neighbor. Jesus took the burden of a complex Law and made it simple.

Another reason His commandments are not burdensome is the new nature we receive from Christ. When you become born again, born of God, you become a new creation or creature in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). God begins to live within you, and He makes real inner transformation possible (Hebrews 8:10), so the burden is not all on you. He will help you.

A third way His commandments are not burdensome is when comparing them to the legalistic systems of the world. The religious leaders of Jesus' day tortured the people with obligations they could never keep. And, today, the world is littered with religions or philosophies that require impossible things from their adherents. In comparison, Christ's yoke is no burden at all.

Still another reason His commandments are not burdensome is their life-giving reality. Obedience to God leads to good and positive outcomes in our lives. When one eats nutritious foods, their body displays healthy results. When we obey God, spiritual and emotional health comes. The healthiest lives are obedient ones. And obedience isn't just good for us; it leads to deep satisfaction and joy.

Finally, His commandments are not burdensome because we love Him. Genesis tells us Jacob served Laban for fourteen years to earn the privilege of marrying Rachel; "They seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (Genesis 29:20). So it is with God and us. Love for God makes the commands of God easier for us to obey.

But there is one more outworking of the gospel's truthfulness John wishes to highlight.

3. Outworking #3: Belief

4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

What About the World?

John's readers, at this point, when thinking about obedience to God, might have thought about the pull of the world (4-5). Everything the world system under Satan's power offers us is attractive and tempting. Its draw is the main reason it's hard for us to imagine God's commandments are not burdensome.

We all know this. We can talk about victory over lust and greed and pride all day long, but when the images and philosophies of the world are thrust upon us, we feel their power and pull. Like a young Luke Skywalker being lured by the dark side, the attraction of the world has a substantial appeal to us. At times, we feel weak under the world's pressure.

Faith Overcame the World

For this, John wants us to remember, everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith (4). In other words, John wants us to remember how our faith overcame the world in the past. This is why he alluded to the victory that has overcome the world (past tense).

When you became a believer in Christ, you were launched into the family of God. His program and kingdom became yours. Your position before God was radically altered. The world's destiny for you was replaced with God's.

Faith Overcomes the World

John's logic is simple. If your faith tapped you into God's victory to overcome the world at conversion (4), then continued faith will help you overcome the world today. He asked: Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (5)?

In verse 4, we have overcome. In verse 5, we can still overcome. Our faith overcame the world at our new birth. Experientially, it is by faith we still overcome the world. Faith unlocked justification, but it also unlocks sanctification.

Faith is how we are to live with God as we sojourn through this world (5). Though what we see is hard to resist, we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7, Romans 1:17).

And this life of faith and trust is the third outworking of the gospel's truthfulness John had in mind. If God sent His Son to die for us, if Jesus came to rescue us, then He is worthy of our faith today.

You may be listening to this right now, feeling so weak against the mounting pressures and temptations the world throws at you. You might feel like you're hanging on by a thread. You might feel like your flame is about to extinguish. But Jesus will not break a bruised reed; He will not quench a smoldering wick (Matthew 12:20). Put your faith in Him afresh. He wants to give you victory over the pressures of this world.

So those are the three outworkings of the gospel's truthfulness John envisions. Love, obedience, and faith.

But, in thinking of our faith in Christ, it is helpful to think of the witnesses who testify to the truthfulness of the gospel. Next week... to be continued.