For many people today the spiritual journey is filled with crushing burdens. I think of the character Rodrigo from the 1986 academy award winning movie The Mission. Rodrigo, played by Robert DeNiro, portrays a slave trader who kills his brother in a fit of rage. He’s filled with such terrible remorse and guilt that, to pay penance and get rid of his guilt he carries his armor through the jungle as a symbol of the crushing burden of his guilt.
Are you burdened like Rodrigo in your spiritual journey today? If so, I’ve got good news that you can lighten your load. It’s likely that many of us are carrying burdens today that don’t belong on the journey, burdens like the armor that Rodrigo was carrying on his journey. Today we’re going to look at how to lighten our load of four specific burdens that crush us in our spiritual journey.
I. The Burden of Disobedience (5:1-3).
The first burden we’re going to look at is the burden of DISOBEDIENCE in vv. 1-3. John tells us that the person who’s truly come to faith in Jesus as the Christ is so radically changed that the only word picture that adequately describes the transformation is a new birth. A faith commitment to Jesus Christ isn’t just adding a little religion or reforming our morals, but it’s a new birth. This is how the Bible insists that we enter into the spiritual journey, not through church attendance, not by getting religious, not by trying to be good people, but by coming to a faith commitment to Jesus Christ that totally reorients our life…to use the words of Jesus, "by being born again." New birth is the door into the Christian journey.
Since we undergo a new birth, this makes God our Father in a remarkably new and profound way. God adopts us into his spiritual family, he receives us as his own sons and daughters, ensuring our security and future in his family. And John also tells us that our new found love for our heavenly father will naturally lead us to love that Father’s other children as well.
These first three verses of chapter five show us the remarkable interplay between our love for God in the spiritual journey and our love for other people.The Bible never lets us separate our love for God from our love for other people. When Jesus Christ was asked once what the most important command of God was, Jesus replied by saying, "The most important command is to love God wholeheartedly, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself, there is no command of God more significant than these" (Mark 12:28-31). Our love for God is intimately connected to our love for other people, we can’t separate these two loves because in God’s economy the two are forever related, they’re two sides of the same coin. That’s why our church exists to help people love God and others, because this is the acid test of true devotion to Jesus Christ.
This interrelated love is an expression of our obedience to God’s commands. We don’t like hearing words like "commands" these days, instead we like "suggestions," "insights," "proposals," or "advice." But John tells us that it’s obedience to God’s commands that expresses our love for God, that this obedience doesn’t destroy the spontaneity of love or squelch the sincerity of devotion. Jesus Christ said, "If you love me, you’ll obey what I command" (John 14:15).
Our tendency is to think that God’s commands are impossible for us, that God’s just too unrealistic and demanding, he doesn’t really understand the challenges of life in the 90s. But we learn here that God’s commands aren’t intended to be "burdensome." This word means "heavy," "crushing," like the armor our friend Rodrigo was dragging behind him on his journey. This is the word Jesus used when he accused the religious leaders of his day of tying heavy legalistic burdens on people’s backs. This is also the word Jesus used when he said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matt 11:28-30).
You see, John knows that disobedience to God’s commands is a far more crushing weight than obedience is. Christians often talk about the cost of discipleship, how following Jesus Christ does indeed cost us. But people rarely talk about the cost of non-discipleship, that a Christian who chooses a path of disobedience to God chooses a much more painful and difficult path, because the weight of disobedience is a crushing weight. Dallas Willard writes, "To depart from righteousness is to choose a life of crushing burdens, failures, and disappointments, a life caught in the toils of endless problems that are never really solved" (The Spirit of the Disciplines 2).
Here we find the first way of lightening our load. We lighten our load in the spiritual journey by expressing our love for God with OBEDIENCE to God’s commands.
You see, God’s principles are built into the very fabric of life, and God tells us his commands for our good, so we can live in harmony with those principles of life. When we choose disobedience we live in constant conflict with the way life is supposed to be lived, we live against the grain of life, and that crushes us. Our culture promises us freedom if we disobey God’s commands. So we throw off the constraints of God’s commands about sexual purity and live sexually promiscuous lives…then we find ourselves wounded, alone, HIV positive, no longer trusted by anyone, hating ourselves for the perversion that’s filled our lives. The life of disobedience is a spider web, it promises freedom, but it tangles us in the consequences of our disobedience until we’re trapped. Our pastors spend a lot of time helping people figure out how to clean up the messes of their lives caused by the burden of disobedience.
Are you burdened today? God invites you to take the yoke of Jesus upon yourself, the yoke of obedient love.
II. The Buden of Discouragement (5:4-5).
The second burden that beats us down in the spiritual journey is the burden of DISCOURAGEMENT.
In vv. 4-5 we learn that John’s friends were deeply discouraged because of the terrible false teaching that had invaded their church and destroyed their relationships. What had once been a close knit community of Christians, was now a war zone of conflict and controversy, characterized by bitterness, resentment, and misunderstanding. John’s friends felt like waving the white flag of surrender, the world system had beat them down so far into the ground that they felt like giving up.
Is that how you feel today? God reminds us that people who have been born into God’s family through faith in Jesus are overcomers. This is the fourth time John uses this word "overcome" in 1 John, and as I’ve mentioned before the Greek word used by John here is the word the shoe company Nike gets their name from. Those who’ve been born of God are nikes over the world system they live in, they’ve won the victory and are live as conquerors. Now since John’s friends felt like anything but conquerors—nikes—John reminds them that the basis of this victory is their faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Jesus Christ conquered death on Easter Sunday when he rose from the grave, and anyone who’s conquered death can conquer anything, no matter how big it seems to us.
Here we find out how to lighten our load of discouragement. We lighten our load in the spiritual journey by trusting in God for spiritual victory.
How do you feel when our culture seems to have more influence in our family and community than Jesus Christ? How do you feel when our children seem more interested in the Indigo Girls than the apostle Paul? How do you feel when our bosses are more passionate about closing a big account than conducting business with integrity? How do you feel when our elected officials seem more concerned with the latest opinion polls than doing the right thing? We feel discouraged, the crushing load of discouragement begins to slow us down in the journey. John would remind us that our spiritual victory over our world’s confused values and culture rests securely on our faith in Jesus.
Victory doesn’t rest on a political party or candidate, it doesn’t rest on the opinion polls, it doesn’t rest on how big our church is. It rests on God’s Son, Jesus, the one who conquered death. Our circumstances may seem to contradict that victory. But like John’s friends, we need to be reminded to go back to our faith, to trust in God for the spiritual victory. When we go back to our faith we see that this bond of trust with Jesus enables us to see our circumstances for what they really are. You see, this faith isn’t pie in the sky wishful thinking, but it’s a sturdy and unshakable confidence placed the risen son of God who conquered death. We get out from the weight of discouragement by remembering that, so we can once again trust in God for his spiritual victory.
III. The Burden of Conflicting Claims (5:5-9).
This brings us to the burden of CONFLICTING CLAIMS in vv. 6-9. Many of the people who’d once been part of the church John’s writing to had abandoned the biblical understanding of Jesus for a new and supposedly "improved" view of Jesus. This leads John to clarify that he’s talking about the Jesus who came by water and by blood. The water here is probably describing Jesus Christ’s baptism by John the Baptist. As you read the four biographies of Jesus in the New Testament-—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—-you find that the baptism of Jesus marked the beginning point of Jesus’ public life. So the water stands for the life of Jesus, the time he spent walking the dusty streets of the middle east, teaching people, loving people, healing people, confronting people, and so forth.
The blood here is talking about his death on the cross. It was the idea that Jesus Christ came by blood that these false teachers rejected. The false teaching infecting the church was an early form of a religion called gnosticism. The Gnostics made a distinction between Jesus as a human person and the Christ as an emanation from God. They viewed Jesus as an ordinary human being, the natural child of Mary and Joseph. But at Jesus’ baptism the Christ came as an emanation from God and dwelled in Jesus, enabling the human Jesus to do all the miraculous stuff we read about in the New Testament. But before Jesus died on the cross, the Christ departed from Jesus, leaving just the ordinary human Jesus to die on the cross. Although ancient gnosticism has died out, you find a very similar view today in New Age groups.
But John insists that you can’t separate Jesus from Christ. The name "Jesus" describes the Son of God’s full humanity and title "Christ" describes his full divinity, two natures forever joined together in one person. This the reality we celebrate at Christmas, Godhood and manhood joined together in the person of Jesus Christ. So it was Jesus Christ who was baptized by John, Jesus Christ who lived a sinless life, Jesus Christ who died on the cross, and Jesus Christ who rose from the grave. Jesus Christ came by water and by blood.This is God’s testimony of who Jesus is. Jesus’s life is God’s testimony that he lived the perfect life that all of us have failed to live. Jesus’ death is God’s testimony that he died the sacrificial death that we all deserved to die. And the Holy Spirit uses this united testimony to confirm the Bible’s picture of who Jesus is.
Now some Bible translations have an addition to v. 7 that’s not there in the New International Version of the Bible. There’s a footnote in the NIV that lists an alternate reading: "These three testify in heaven: The Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." Now that’s certainly a true and biblical statement, but virtually all modern scholars believe that phrase was written hundreds of years after John wrote his letter. I’ve included some of the info about that on the Growth Guide for you learn more about this if you’re interested.
But here we find out how to lighten our load of conflicting claims. We lighten our load in the spiritual journey by receiving God’s testimony about Jesus Christ.
We ordinarily accept human testimony in our lives. I agree that Japan exists on the basis of human testimony even though I’ve never been there. I trust that the Holocaust during WW 2 happened even though I wasn’t there. All of us base many of our daily choices and decisions on human testimony. But when it comes to the spiritual journey we find ourselves bombarded with all kinds of conflicting claims. We find that we have as many claims as there are people, whether it’s Astara claiming that Jesus is just another guy, or the Muslims claiming that Jesus is not God’s Son, or the Mormons telling us that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer. These conflicting truth claims paralyze us as to what to do, where to go, what path to take. So God invites us to receive His testimony about Jesus Christ, his life, his death, as it’s recorded by the Spirit of God in the Bible. By receiving God’s testimony about Jesus we can sort through the competing claims about Jesus, we can find security of belief. In the midst of a confused and bewildered world, we can lighten our load of conflicting claims by receiving God’s testimony about His Son.
IV. The Burden of Uncertainty (5:10-13).
The final burden we’re going to look at today is the burden of UNCERTAINTY in vv. 10-13. When we trust our lives to the true Jesus Christ, the Jesus of the Bible, fully human and fully God, when we place our faith in that Jesus God gives us eternal life. Eternal life isn’t something just reserved for heaven, it’s not harps and halos, but it’s something we can experience right now. You see, eternal life isn’t just living forever, but it’s a quality of life that comes from an intimate love relationship with God. God offers people the possibility of eternal life right now, to know him today, in the midst of our problems and broken relationships.
Many religious groups today that claim to be Christian will tell you that eternal life is a reward reserved for really good people at the end of the age. For instance, the Mormon scriptures say, "If you keep my commands and you endure to the end you shall have eternal life" (Doctrine and Covenants 14:7). The Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught by the Watchtower organization that eternal life comes after a person dies and it’s based on how faithful you are. For these people eternal life is nothing more than a dim hope, a vague possibility if they keep their noses to the grindstone of their religion. Now that reminds me of our friend Rodrigo in The Mission.
But John tells us in v. 11 that if we’ve trusted our lives to Jesus Christ, God has already given us eternal life. We possess eternal life the moment we place our trust in Christ, not as something we deserve but as a gift of God’s grace through what Jesus accomplished on the cross. If you really have Jesus, then you really have this life, the two go together, you can’t separate them. If a person claims to have Jesus but doesn’t have eternal life, then that person isn’t telling the truth.
Then in v. 13 John makes a remarkable statement: That the reason why he’s writing is so Christians can know for sure that they have this eternal life. Instead of being uncertain about it, instead of hoping we have life, instead of wishing we had life, God enables us to know for sure—beyond any shadow of doubt—that he’s accepted us through Jesus Christ, that we’re secure with him no matter what.
Here we find out how to lighten our load of uncertainty. We lighten our load in the spiritual journey by knowing where we stand with God.
No follower of Jesus has to live in uncertainty about where he or she stands with God. Many Christians don’t know this, and they live spiritual lives riddled with uncertainty that crushes them, leaving them wondering if God really accepts them, if their sins have really been all forgiven through Jesus. But God wants us to cut away that burden, and he offers us a way to know for sure, that if we’ve truly trusted our lives to Jesus Christ, receiving the benefits of his sinless life and sacrificial death, we can know exactly where we stand with God.Part of this knowledge is internal, what v. 10 calls a "testimony" in our hearts, an internal sense of acceptance by God, knowing in our inmost being that Jesus Christ’s death was sufficient and that nothing in all of creation can sever my love relationship with God. But the sure basis for this knowledge is the truth of God’s word in v. 13, that the Bible says that I have eternal life if I’ve trusted Jesus—no matter how I feel, no matter how badly I fail, no matter how much I struggle in the spiritual journey.
Next time you’re in an airport notice the difference between passengers who have confirmed tickets and those on standby (Hybels, Too Busy Not to Pray 113). Those who have confirmed tickets are relaxed, their confident and expectant. Those on standby hang around the ticket counter, they pace and smoke, pace and smoke, pace and smoke…all because of uncertainty. God offers us freedom from the burden of uncertainty, so we can know for sure where we stand with God.
Does that scene from The Mission describe your spiritual journey today? Are burdens crushing you, beating you into the ground? Has disobedience, discouragement, conflicting claims, and uncertainty taken their toll? God invites you to lighten your load today by expressing your love in obedience, by trusting in Him for victory, by receiving Him testimony, by knowing for sure where we stand with Him. These are gifts of God’s grace to you today, will you receive them?
