[Listen to an audio verison here]
The Need for Faith
Our society does a lot to ignore the reality of death. We want to look young. The cemeteries are somewhat hidden. You will see many commercials about preparing for retirement. Very few about preparing for after retirement.
In spite of all this, the truth is that this world is a tomb. It is a place of death. It is a place where the dead are buried. When you think about it, we have lost a lot of people close to us this year. Kelsey just lost her Grandfather this past week. I lost a Grandmother last month. Jackie Bain lost her grandfather. Diane lost her husband Bobby. Deb Bain lost her husband Steve, and we lost an elder and leader in our church. Lisa Suplee lost her Father and her Uncles. Penny Reeder lost her Mother. This world is a tomb.
In the Bible, death is not just physical death. It is spiritual death. The presence of physical death is the result of the death of our relationship with God. The separation of the body from the soul is rooted in our separation from God. Out of our separation from God flows a separation from other people. This separation from other people leads to war and to death like it did with Abel and Cain.
That’s why there cannot be joyful fellowship with God and man. There is death. This spiritual death manifests itself in physical death. This spiritual death has made this world a tomb.
Into this world of death, God sent His Son. His Son died the death we deserved to die and experienced the separation from God that we experienced when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” However, He rose from the dead. He conquered death. He brought about new life and new hope.
If we have Jesus, then we have life. “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 of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11–12). What does this mean? It means that instead of a sentence of death, we have life. This means we enjoy a restored relationship with God forever! That’s what we have when we have the Son.
Now, we might ask, why then do we have to die? For the believer, death is a liberation from the presence of sin. When we come to Christ, He breaks the dominion of sin. At death, He frees us from the presence of sin. When Jesus comes again, we will have our bodies restored but in a glorified way like Jesus. “But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2b).
This is why we need faith in Jesus. “Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony” (1 John 5:10). When we believe in Jesus, we accept what God says about Him. We accept that it is true and that it is what we need. We are saying that Jesus can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. That is the power of faith. It is not the greatness of faith that saves. It is the Christ in the faith that saves.
The problem we face is that there is much pressure in the world to go in a different direction. It tells us, focus on what we see. Focus on what we can get. Make this world about you. This is what John calls the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (see 1 John 2:15–17).
So, how do we overcome the world and obtain life in Jesus? “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4b–5). Do we want to overcome the world? We need more faith! If we feel like the world is attacking us, we need the faith that enables us to overcome the world.
How is faith the victory? Because it restores God to the center of things in our hearts. It says that He is the source of life. It makes first things first. It says that joyful fellowship with God is first. As a result, it restores human relationships to their proper proportion. This is the victory: the restoration of joyful fellowship with God and man through faith.
So, if we want to have life, we need faith. If we want to experience more life, we need more faith. If we want to see more joyful fellowship with God and man, faith is where we start. That’s what we’ll see in our next point.
The Life of Faith
When we think about the life of faith, the first thing we must understand is that it is a supernatural life. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God . . .” (1 John 5:1a). Faith is a gift that flows from the supernatural life infused into us by the Holy Spirit. Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah supernaturally. They were unable to have children, and God gave them a child purely as a miracle. Every person who believes in Jesus is an Isaac. They are all born supernaturally. Everyone is dead in sin until God comes and makes them alive.
And what is the result when God makes them alive? They believe in Jesus Christ. They put their faith in Him. They see Him as the source of their lives.
The result of faith is love. If someone believes that God is the source of their life and will give them all they need for body and soul, how could they not love Him? In addition, “everyone who loves the father loves the child as well” (1 John 5:1b). It’s true. When someone befriends a person, they generally also have a connection with their children. So it is with the supernatural life of God. The connection with God gives us a connection with all His supernaturally born children.
I once tried to get together with a young college student who was a Christian. He said that he didn’t want to because we had nothing in common. I thought, well, we recognize we are sinners and need Jesus Christ and have our hope in Him. We are both children of God. That’s something, isn’t it? Note, he later changed His mind because that’s the heart of the children of God. They love the Father, and they love His children as well.
Up until this point, John has been saying that if we have fellowship with God and love Him, then we will also love His people. How can we love the unseen if we do not love what we see? Now, he says that it works the other way, too. “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands” (1 John 5:2). How do we know that really love God’s children? When we really love God. The vertical and the horizontal are connected in such a way that you can infer the one from the other.
And what does it mean to love God? To obey His commands. Sometimes the Bible speaks of the law in a negative way. It does not do this because the law is bad. It does this because we are bad. The problem with the law is problem with us. We can’t obey in our sinful nature, and it cannot justify us or give us life. We cannot put our hope in it.
However, once we are justified and have life, our relationship to God’s commands changes completely. We want to do what God says. That’s the new life working within us.
There’s nothing more natural to humans as they were created than obeying God’s commands. If God tells us to do something, we should recognize that this command comes from our King who is all-wise, all-powerful, and all good. Sometimes we don’t want to do what others tell us to do because we don’t trust that what they are telling us is for our good. With God, that’s out of the question. It’s always for our good. That’s why John says, “In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). The renewed children of God want to do what their Father tells them.
So, how do we get the strength to obey? Through faith. It is a greater sight of God that leads us to love Him and obey Him. So, the life of the children of God comes through faith. So, the key thing for us, then, is to strengthen our faith, is it not?
So, let’s talk about how we do that.
The Growth of Faith
In short, we increase our faith by thinking more on the things of God and saying, “yes” to them.
It is the work of the Triune God to increase our faith. You will see in verses 6-10 that John speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
He speaks of the testimony of the Father. The Father has said of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” We need this testimony of the Father to strengthen our faith. We increase our faith when we listen to this testimony and say yes to it. This is what God says to us: “We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son” (1 John 5:9–10).
He speaks of the testimony of the Son. “This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood” (1 John 5:6). Now, this is somewhat obscure for us, and people have disagreed about what it means. However, it seems best to me to refer it the beginning and ending of Jesus’ ministry on earth. At His baptism, He identified with us and showed that He was the Son of God through the voice of the Father and the presence of the Spirit and His action in solidarity with His people. His baptism proclaims our union with Him, that whoever has the Son has life. His blood refers to the end of His ministry on earth when He was put to death. His blood tells us that we are forgiven. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, as we have it in 1 John 1:7. These are the great testimonies of Jesus to us.
He speaks of the testimony of the Spirit. “And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth” (1 John 5:6b). He goes on to say that there are three witnesses on earth. “For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement” (1 John 5:8). This probably refers to the sacrament of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are designed to increase our faith. However, they do this by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit speaks through them and uses them to increase the life within us, the life of faith.
So, we have powerful help to increase our faith. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have given us ample resources to lead us in the right direction. We should lean into them with all we have because the way of faith is the way of life and the way of victory.
Conclusion
So, what should you take away from this passage and this message? The power of faith. Are you discouraged about what you see in the world? Are you overwhelmed with the power of death? Then, there is a way of life and a way of victory. It is faith. What we need is a greater sight of God. What we need is to do what Mary did, to ponder all of these things in our heart. That will lead us to life and victory. That will lead us to joyful fellowship with God and man that the world cannot take away.
Think about this. What do we need in every situation? A greater sight of God. We need greater faith. When we struggle with our finances, we need a greater sight of God and faith in Him. When we struggle with loneliness, we need a greater sight of God and faith in Him. When we struggle with finding meaning in life, then we need a greater sight of God and faith in Him. When we struggle with other people in our family, workplace, or schools, we need a greater sight of God and faith in Him. When we see our bodies failing and the presence of death there, we need a greater sight of God and faith in Him. When we struggle with sin, we need a greater sight of God and faith in Him. That’s what we need in every time and every place, to increase our faith. We should always be praying with the disciples, “Lord, increase our faith.”
And so, we should do all on our part to increase our faith. We should think about the things God has revealed. We should think on our baptism. We should think upon the Supper. We should think about the testimony of the Father. This should be our constant message. As we do so, the Spirit will be working in us to help us to see more clearly the wonder of the salvation we have in Christ.
When we do so, we will begin to see a new life working in us. We will love God, and will love His children. We will experience that life. We will start walking in the way of His commandments. That’s the power of faith because of the Christ in the faith. “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4–5). So may it be.
Benediction: We’re getting closer to Christmas, and Christmas is the story of faith. There were many discouraging things in the world, in the government, in the church, and in the family. But the Christmas story is the story of those who found hope in faith.
And so, as you think about the story of Christmas, may you be filled with the wonder of Mary, the obedience of Joseph, the joy of the angels, the eagerness of the shepherds, the determination of the magi, and the peace of the Christ child. Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit bless you now and forever.