This is the nineteenth in a series of verse-by-verse expositions of the book of 1 John. This message was delivered at Hillcrest Baptist Church on the evening of June 22, 2014. This message identifies obedience as an act of love. This post contains an audio recording of my message, along with my sermon notes. Please note that the sermon notes are not a full transcript.
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SERMON NOTES:
1 John 5:1-3
John introduces the subject of the victorious life.
Verses 1-3 lay the groundwork for being victorious, which is obedient love.
v.1:
As always, the first order of business is BELIEVE!!!
This is a direct reference to the new birth.
John 3:7
Saving faith is the necessary prerequisite to true love, and as we will see later, victory.
The Greek tense of the word “believes” indicates an ongoing faith.
This isn’t just some temporary fit of emotion. This is true saving faith, which is permanent.
If you love the Father, you love the Son.
You cannot love one and not the other, they are inseparable.
John 10:30
v.2:
The proof that we love God’s children, is that we keep His commandments.
This makes perfect sense, since His commandments demand love.
Matthew 22:36-40
If we keep His commandments, we will demonstrate love.
We cannot properly keep His commandments without love.
So it stands to reason that keeping the commandments is proof that we love His children.
v.3:
The love of God is now manifested through His children (the church).
Obedience to His commandments means love toward the brethren.
As John talks about keeping God’s commandments as an attribute of love, we see that obedience becomes another piece of the love puzzle.
Jesus Himself says that if you love Him you will keep His commandments.
John 14:15
The word obedience can stir negative reactions from people.
You talk about obedience, and people accuse you of being legalistic.
True legalism, though, is a works based salvation.
No where does Scripture teach that you can earn your salvation through obedience.
What the Bible teaches is obedience as the proper response to our salvation.
Still, people don’t like to talk about obedience. We don’t want a set of restrictive rules.
Again, its a response based on ignorance of Scripture.
Christ doesn’t burden us with impossible rules.
This is in contrast to the burdensome man-made religious traditions of the Jewish leaders.
Matthew 23:4
Jesus’ commandments are not burdensome.
They should be viewed as an act of love, which should never be a burden.
Jesus never promised that obeying him would be easy.
But the hard work and self-discipline of serving Christ is no burden to those who love him.
And if our load starts to feel heavy, we can always trust Christ to help us bear it.
Christ seeks to take our burden from us, not to add to it.
Matthew 11:28-30
What God truly wants is to give us rest, and while it may seem counter intuitive, He can do that through our obedience.
In Defense: The Blog 
Posted on June 26, 2014
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