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Hello and welcome to the Waking Up to Grace podcast, where we celebrate and explore the finished work of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The Waking Up to Grace podcast can be found on every major platform. And now, here's Lenny.

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Welcome to the show, everyone. I just wanted to say that whether you are waking up under the grace of God that he has given you, waking up to the understanding of God's amazing grace, or just You are always welcome here at Waking Up to Grace Ministries. Today we are going into the final chapter of our study on John's first epistle. We are going into chapter five. Lord, please bless our message today. Please keep us constantly focused on your truth and revealing to us. the deepness of your love and the deepness of the knowledge of your love and the truth that you give us in the scripture. Keep us seeking truth without bias. Keep us looking for what you are telling us in scripture and not what all the noise in the background is trying to tell us to believe about scripture. Open our minds to your truth, Lord. Allow the scripture to change our paradigms when our paradigms are off. Please be with us, Lord, in our message today and with our audience. And I hope that we are all growing in grace together. We have been growing incredibly in this ministry since it started. And Lord, you have sent us some blessings and have shifted our paradigm since we started going into this ministry. And it's been amazing. It's been an amazing journey. So beneficial. So... Let's get started. 1 John chapter 4. Melissa, would you like to read? 1

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John chapter 5.

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5. Sorry about that.

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Yes, I would. Good morning, everyone. All right. 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. By this, we know that we love the children of God. when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God, that he has been born concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning his Son. And this is the testimony that God gave 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. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him. That if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life. To those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true in his son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

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Right. So we that's the concluding chapter. 1 John 5, and so now we're going to get into our verse by verse, starting with verse 1.

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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. It

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would be my understanding that Jesus was born of God. Of course, He was God and was from the beginning, but when He came to this world, He was born of God. John actually mentions that later in this chapter too. So just to affirm the fact that he was in fact born of God. The virgin birth allowed him to dodge the spiritual death that we are all born into through Adam. When we are born again, we too share in his spiritual life. We also are now adopted into God's family. We are members of his church. We are the body of Christ. Jew and Gentile alike. As Paul states, the dividing wall of hostility has been broken down. I sense that there may have been some serious hostility between the Jew and Gentile believers caused by the Judaizers as part of their lies. It would only make sense that they would target the weakness in the believers that existed in this way. We see this was true even of the apostles when Paul rebuked Peter right to his face, as is written in his letter to the Galatian church. Peter wasn't sitting at the same table with the Gentiles. He was intimidated by those who came from James. John spiritually reminds them here that loving all believers is as important as loving Christ himself. The mystery of God bringing Jews and Gentiles together was not easily accepted by mankind, and they struggled in the flesh to see them as equals. If you don't think there was any racial bias in the nation of Israel, take a look at the story of Jonah in your Old Testament. First, Jonah tries to not go where God tells him to go. And then we all, most of us know, you know, God swallowed him up in the belly of a whale and spit him out where he was supposed to go. That's

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one way to get there.

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So God fixed that issue. And then Jonah was so upset that God made him preach to the pagan Gentiles that he wanted to die after he did it. He just sat there and complained and wanted to die. But God mercifully tried to cheer him up, but he acted like a baby. I think this has a lot to do with what is written here. There was hostility between Jew and Gentile.

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Wow. Yeah. Racism, you could even call it. Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Definitely.

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And so we'll get into chap verse two.

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By this. Yes. Verse two. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God. that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome.

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So John clearly lays out the commands that we must believe in Jesus and love our brothers. If you believe in doctrines of free will, you'll have a difficult time wrestling with this concept. If God needs our will to help his along, then we can only see a works-based salvation here. We must love our brothers or else. The truth about this is that he is dividing right regeneration into two parts that are really just one. He does this for the sake of making many detailed points about love. The gospel tells us when we believe it is our sign that we are regenerated, but there is a process to regeneration. So it is not wrong of him to properly break that down to build up the church. The gospel is not two parts, but both of these commands happen to us when we are regenerated. They happen to us because God commands it. This is not at all to be related with commandments under the context of the law. We are no longer under law, but rather we are under grace. When God draws us to himself and reveals his love to us, we now have his love within us. That is why it is not burdensome because your effort has nothing to do with it. Keeping his commandments is made possible because of Christ and his work and you, not the other way around. If you try and turn the tables on that, you enter into religion and you fall away from grace. Verse four.

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

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So here we see him again following up his prior statement with encouragement. It is written by Paul the Apostle that faith is distributed to us by God. He gives it to us in the measure he chooses, and it is ours to keep. And remember what Jesus said, faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. When we realize that God has given us this faith, we also realize that we cannot lose it by self-effort. We keep it by design. When a believer has God working through him or her, it is truly effortless. It may feel like work in the way of labor, but it is done willingly and not to show off to others or to seek some kind of special gift, and especially not out of fear of punishment. If your only reason for acting right is to be right with God, you are wearing a yoke of bondage. The gospel teaches us to love freely without fear, and we already have everything we will receive. The inheritance is ours, and it cannot be earned. If there was some special position for you in heaven, it was already reserved for you from the beginning. To those who are earning special favor... Do not forget that our Lord clearly stated that the least would be the greatest and the greatest the least. That may not be the full context of the passage, but it certainly must apply here. There is no carrot on a stick with Christ Jesus. There is no punishment or condemnation for the believer either. We are blessed when we receive loving discipline from our Lord as it always leads us to where we need to be.

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Verse six, this is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. And the spirit is the one who testifies because the spirit is the truth.

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And then we have John's gospel, which is the same author, but in a different letter. It's in his gospel, chapter three, verse five. Jesus speaking here.

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Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water, So to me, the meaning of this passage is the same in 1 John 5, verse 6, as

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it is in John's Gospel, chapter 3, verse 6. It affirms again what he declared at the beginning of his epistle, that Jesus was born of flesh and had sanctifying blood, which the Spirit would testify to.

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Yeah, for there are three that testify, the Spirit and the water and the blood. And these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God, that he has born concerning his Son.

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So the testimony of man would be false teaching. That's what he's referring to here. He's not saying because some man teaches it, it's false. He's calling it the testimony of man because it's a worldly teaching and it's contrary to the spirit. Okay. Verse 10.

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Whoever believes in the son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar. Because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his son.

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Again, targeting unbelievers here. He warns that if you do not believe in the Christ, you are calling God a liar. You cannot say you believe in the father when you reject the son.

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That's right. Verse 11. This is the testimony that God gave 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.

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So it was a life and death situation. The wages of sin are paid to those who are not cleansed by the blood of Christ Yeshua. The wicked will perish, as is written. Life is only found in Christ. When you hate Christ, you hate life.

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Verse 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. So

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in all the labors of this letter, showing us what unbelief looks like, targeting false teaching and false belief, His goal was that the believers would be encouraged. He could also have meant a specific area he had recently written in the letter, I suppose, too, when he wrote that, when he was kind of summing up the reason he was writing. It could have been just about a part of it. But I think as a whole, that was the intent of the letter, to call out false teaching and to encourage the church. It's quite a letter when you look at it as a whole. He spends much time directing his teaching towards the false belief system that was being spread around at that time. This likely led to the conversion of many who had had the letter read to them. This letter was certainly intended to set straight the many false ideas that were confusing many in the church. Their gathering was under attack.

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Yes. Verse 16, if anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, He shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.

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It is no small matter that we must read this passage in light of the gospel message that he taught us in this letter. The word life here cannot take on the meaning of the everlasting and eternal life that we are given by God at salvation. In my opinion, he simply shows us that praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ who get caught up in sin can lead to their restoration. It can cause a renewing of the mind to focus on things that lead to life. What would those things be? Love. That's what the whole letter is about.

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That's right. There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin. Based on

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the next passage, he must be referring to unbelief. This also brings to light the fact that without Christ, everything you do leads to death. Some interpret this to say not to pray for unbelievers. I don't think this is a message to all future generations who believe. I believe it was meant to help them focus on what was most important during those terrifying times. I think he was sort of saying, you guys pray for each other and for us, and we will be going out there evangelizing to our enemies, hoping to find more of the elect among the crowds. Because they certainly did not disregard their enemies, because evangelizing was loving their enemies. They were facing death to spread the message to people that could potentially kill them.

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Golly, yeah, they were. So

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verse 18.

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We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who is born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.

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This is such a great passage. He affirms again that we do not keep on sinning when we are born of God. This is not physically, but spiritually through Christ. It truly illuminates the magnitude of the sanctifying blood of our Messiah. He also tells us that he who was born of God protects them from the evil one. He cannot touch them. He who was born of God was Christ Yeshua, our Lord and Savior. It wasn't just some other brother. He was referring to he who was born of God. Got

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it.

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Verse 19.

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We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

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So at that time, Satan was on the loose, running wild. He was a mighty force for a time. But as is written, he could do all kinds of things. But those who were in Christ were protected. Verse 20.

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And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

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John loves to glorify Christ Jesus. It is refreshing to hear such passion, isn't it? He ends his writing rather abruptly with this next statement. It

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is refreshing.

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Yeah, it is.

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Verse 21, little children, keep yourselves from idols.

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So what would he mean by this? Why was this so important? Well, all through the history of Israel, the Jews' biggest problem was worshiping other gods. Even the most wise King Solomon fell into this trap for a time after being warned by his father, David. If you take the word to its fullest extent, though, an idol could really be anything that we regard above God. Anything. Today, I see a strong battle going on between science and Christianity. Real science that is supported by real facts is one thing, but the term today is being used for things that have nothing to do with science. Philosophy has been branded science through lies and deceit, and many Christians accept without hesitation philosophy that is in complete opposition with scripture. From my vantage point, science is quickly becoming a religion. It is hard to say otherwise when those promoting it are antagonizing those who do not follow the science.

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So true.

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Be careful what you believe out there. Mankind loves to lie and deceive, especially when there is money and power to be gained. I'm just going to keep it at that. So in summary of what we have learned in John's first epistle, before we close out this study, John begins his letter addressing sin deniers and showing his audience all they have to do is confess their sinfulness, which in this case would be to agree with God and believe him and the Messiah. And our Lord Yeshua will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. All they had to do is believe that. You got to agree with God about your sin in order to agree that you need a Messiah and that cleansing from all unrighteousness. I mean, that's really clean and really permanent, isn't it?

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It sure is.

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So we learned that believers walk in the light while Christ rejecters continue in darkness. We were taught that Christ Jesus was the plan for redemption from the beginning of time, and that plan was taking place at the time of this letter. Loving our brother is a supernatural response to the love God gives us as a gift at salvation. There was a great tribulation going on at the time of the writing, and false prophets were on the loose. Antichrists are those who rejected the Messiah. They were against Christ. Hence the word Antichrist. People turn that into all kinds of things. Anyone

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who is against Christ.

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Yeah. Specifically, I'd say to the Jewish people who rejected him, they get into that in Revelation pretty heavily. It seems to be specific to those groups of people, but he does sort of generalize it as those who are against Christ. Right. When Christ's seed abides in us, Christ continues in us. That is a powerful thing that we learned. Spiritually, we do not continue sinning when we are regenerated. The unregenerate continue in sin because of their unbelief. John told his audience it was the last hour. John was also the author of Revelation. He probably knew the signs to be looking for, wouldn't you say? Interesting fact, out of the four gospels in our Bible, John is the only one who does not write about Jesus' teaching regarding the end of the age, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the synonymous second coming. He rather wrote in detail about it in Revelation, in a whole separate writing. We also learned that Christians ought not to fear punishment from our Lord because we have been perfected. in his love under this new covenant promise. And perfect love drives out fear. So I hope you guys enjoyed the study with us. I wanted to point out that I have the full notes on these episodes on our blog page at wakinguptograce.com. If you'd like to read and go over details in that way, have at it. They're all there along with the podcast audio so you can follow along while you're listening if you want, or you can just read the notes if you like to read things. There are a few notes missing from the first chapter regarding certain word definitions. But other than that, they're like a full written transcript, but better. So you guys have a good day out there. And thank you for joining us at Waking Up to Grace. And remember who you are. You are a saint. You are saved by grace. You are loved by God. You are perfected in love. You are forgiven from the east to the west. You've been made perfect forever. All

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right. Now I'm ready to start my day.

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I mean, there's so many things that you can just pull out that define our identity in Christ. And don't let anybody tell you different. Be honest about yourself and who you are. Have a good day out there, you

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guys. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. This podcast is brought to you by Waking Up to Grace Ministries.