Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

1 John 5:1-5 "Who Do You Love?" Rev. Meagan M. Boozer

I’m going to read our Scripture for today from three different sources. It is so amazing! It is so powerful! Please allow these words to challenge your mind and heart.

First, I want to read 1 John 5:1-5 from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Scripture entitled, The Message.

Every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten. If we love the One who conceives the child, we’ll surely love the child who was conceived. The reality test on whether or not we love God’s children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome. Every God-begotten person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world’s ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.

Now, here it is from the New Living Translation:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments. Loving God means keeping his commandments, and really, that isn’t difficult. For every child of God defeats this evil world by trusting Christ to give the victory. And the ones who win this battle against the world are the ones who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Now, from our NRSV pew Bible translation:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

There are some major Biblical themes in those verses:

We hear about being God’s children. We hear about loving God. We hear about obeying the commandments. We hear about having victory over the world. We hear about faith and belief. And all of these themes are book-ended by the 1st and 5th verses:

You must believe that Jesus is the Christ.
You must believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

What does it mean to say, “I believe that Jesus is the Christ?” In The Message the word used is the Messiah. Are the two words interchangeable? Christ and Messiah?

Let’s turn to the Gospel of John 1:20 (Regarding John the Baptist), “He (John) confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” Then in 1:25, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” Each time in my translation that the word Messiah is used, there is a footnote that says, “Or the Christ.” Now, let’s look at 1:41, “He (Andrew) first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed).” My footnote after “Anointed” says, “Or the Christ.”

Now let’s take a look at John 4:25 (the woman at the well account), “The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” Look over in v. 29, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” My footnote says, “Or the Christ.”

The Old Testament is the story of a nation of people, the Hebrews, whom God revealed to be his chosen people. Throughout the Old Testament we read about an expected king who would be born from King David’s family line, who would deliver the Jews from bondage to foreign powers and restore them to their God-ordained place of honor and power. (It’s sort of like the Republicans and Democrats at a time of election. Whichever party is in the minority, they are waiting for that person who will come and restore their party to power.) The Jews were waiting for that person to come.

The Hebrew word Messiah (mashiach) comes from the Hebrew verb mashach which means “to anoint.” The ones who would be anointed with oil into places of leadership for the nation of Israel would be prophets (1 King 19:16), priests (Exodus 28:40-41), and kings (1 Sam. 16:12-13). However, though many would be anointed for leadership as prophets, priests, and kings, only one would be The Anointed One, Mashiach, who would deliver the Hebrew people as all of those offices combined – as The Prophet, The Priest, and The King. Throughout the Old Testament, the nation of Israel anxiously awaited the arrival of the Messiah, the Anointed One. The Scripture read as we began our worship together today from Isaiah 9, “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us – his authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom” (vv. 6, 7) is the kind of sure hope they had in a Mashiach.

The term used for the Messiah in the New Testament (which is not written in Hebrew, but is written in Greek) is Christos. Messiah or Christ means The Anointed One (the one anointed by God to be our prophet, our priest, and our king).

John wrote, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God.” Everyone who believes that Jesus, the one who was born as a baby into rough beginnings, who lived to show and tell the ways of God, and who died to take the sins of the world off of the world’s debt account by dying as the sinless Son of God; everyone who believes that he is the One whom God promised to send and was anointed by the Holy Spirit to do these things – that person is born again as a child of God. Every human being who has ever lived has been created by God – but only those who believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah, (or the Christ) are given the position of being children of God.

“If we love the One who conceives the child, we’ll surely love the child who was conceived. The reality test on whether or not we love God’s children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome.”

John is challenging us, big-time. He is saying that if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, then you are a child of God, and if you are truly a child of God, then you should love your brothers and sisters (others who believe that Jesus is the Christ). There’s a reality check here:

If you are having trouble loving your brothers and sisters in Christ (some might even refuse to love them and turn their back on them), then you must not love God. That’s what John has written to us. This Scripture tells us that if we love God we keep his commandments. We must remember that Christ told us that the two greatest commandments are to love God, and love others.

Real love is not a warm feeling you get when you think about a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, or wife. Real love is a whole lot more action than it is feeling. Real, God-born love, is about commitment to another. It is about living with the best interest of the other in your mind and heart. Real love that comes from God is not a contractual love that says, “If you’ll do this, then I’ll do that.” Real love that comes from God is a covenant love that says, “I commit myself to helping you be all that God intended you to be.” Real love for God will show itself in whether you treat others with honor and respect – and this kind of care and commitment for others should come out of your life easily, not begrudgingly, if you really love God. (There is a difference between liking someone and loving them. We don’t have to like someone to love them, do we? Some people rub us the wrong way - their characteristics, their mannerisms, the things they like aren’t the things we like… We don’t have to like the person in order to fulfill God’s commandment to love them and show honor and respect for them as a child of God.)

John writes in v. 4 that real love like this conquers the world. This kind of committed, sacrificial love that treats our brothers and sisters in Christ with intentional, free-flowing kindness and respect, will give us victory over the uncommitted, selfish ways of the world in which we live.

We no longer live in a world in which the majority of people believe that Jesus is the Christ. Most people today haven’t even heard the name of Jesus except as part of a string of swear words. Most people today still say they believe in God, but they do not 100% connect Jesus to the god in which they believe. Most people today believe that god can be anything you want it to be as long as it helps you feel good and live a better life. In fact, many people today believe that those who do believe in Jesus as the Christ are narrow-minded idiots. Listen to what was in World Magazine this past week, “The old argument against Christianity was simply that it is not true. Modern science, evolutionary theory, and rational argumentation and the like were said to disprove the existence of God and the claims of the Bible. But this line of attack does not work well anymore [because more and more of the history of the Bible is being proved through archeology and ancient historical accounts]. So, instead of arguing that Christianity is not true, the more popular argument today is that Christianity is evil. Last month, the book Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, reached No. 10 on the Amazon best selling list and No. 6 on the New York Times nonfiction list. Going beyond the old argument that the world’s suffering shoots down belief in God, Harris argues that belief in God causes the world’s suffering.”[1] (In other words, we’re not just part of the problem in this world, we are the problem.)

Then I read this past week about a Presbyterian congregation in Bossier City, La., who was merging with another Presbyterian congregation, and sold their building to an Islamic Association. Now, instead of a cross on the top of the church’s former sanctuary, Islam’s star and crescent overlook the city. In the article I read, two considerations influenced their decision to sell to the Islamic Association. First was the amount of money offered, second was the opportunity to engage in interfaith dialogue and friendship. The one pastor said something like, “Well, we worship the same God of Abraham.” No we don’t! Their God is not God the Father, God the Son Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit. It is not the same God! Rejected were two other offers to purchase the property from Christian organizations. One buyer wanted to house an outreach program to the poor and homeless, the other needed space for worship and evangelistic outreach to the community.

The world isn’t just “out there.” The world is in here. The world – meaning the influences that go against what Jesus taught us – the world is breaking down church doors, or perhaps we should say in light of that story that the world is buying church doors with words like dialogue, friendship, welcoming, tolerance, narrow-minded, and old-fashioned.

Jesus came to this world and he pushed all those buttons. All of them. He was not the authoritative, conquering king the Jews wanted. He didn’t come to battle their enemies as much as he came to battle their own hearts and minds. Jesus came and looked right into the eyes of those who said they were God’s people, and challenged their motives and their love for God. (Which is what John is challenging us with today.)

The victory that conquers the onslaught of the world is faith. Not just any old faith, but faith that Jesus is the Christ, and Jesus is the Son of God. May we prove our love for God by loving each other as Christ taught us. Will it change the world? No. He already did that. But it will change us and keep us in a place of victory over the wiles of the world. My prayer for us, brothers and sisters in Christ, is that our love for one another will help to loosen the self-made protective guard of those who have not yet received the true gift of Christmas – the gift of the Christ child. What more could God have given? What more did he have to give? Amen.

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[1] World, December 2, 2006. P. 15, Anti-Christian Paranoia.

Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

12-03-06