WWUTT 443 His Commandments Are Not Burdensome?

As followers of Jesus Christ, there is still a cross that we must carry.

But in obeying Christ, His commandments are not burdensome. In fact, we delight in obeying them when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. 1 John 5, again today, verses 1 -5.

As the Apostle writes, 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? So we have kind of this interesting circular argument that is being presented here, but it's not fallacious.

Everything that is contained within that circle, that the truth that is within that circle needs no help from anything that is outside of it.

So this full circle comes around from the start of chapter 5 to the end of verse 5.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And then the close of this paragraph is, who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the

Son of God? So everything is contained within this circle of truth that's being presented here by the

Apostle John. And then in verse 2, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love

God and obey His commandments. What did we read in verse 1? Everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him.

So basically it's been said to us here that whoever loves God will love who is of God.

And whoever loves others is of God. See it's kind of this whole circle of things here that is cemented by the truth that the love that we have been given has come from God.

So if we love one another, it's because we've been filled up with the love of God. If we love God, it's because we have been filled with the love of God.

All of this is ultimately coming back to giving all the glory to God. We take no credit for it.

You didn't do anything that has caused you to love your brother or the people of God or even

God Himself. It is because the love of God has been poured into your heart. And so the evidence that you have been saved by God and are in His love is when you love like God.

You love God and you love the people of God. We come back to 1 John 4 verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.

And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know

God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent

His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved

God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No one has ever seen

God, but if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.

We come back to this truth over and over again. John is just finding other ways of wording it so that we'll get the point.

Love has come from God and if we are filled up with the love of God, then we will love

God, we will obey His commandments, and we will love the people of God because God commanded us to do so.

Are you getting this? And as this is being repeated over and over again, it shouldn't cause you to go,

Oh, okay, you've said that, John, let's move on. It should cause you to go, Amen, praise the

Lord. The love of God is in my heart. I am being shown this assurance of God's love because I see

I love the brothers. I love God. How am I able to do these things? Because God has poured

His love into my heart. Amen. Praise the Lord. So it just causes us to praise

God all the more and we're filled up with more of the hope of God, more of the hope of His spirit, more of the assurances of His promises when we are reminded over and over again of the love of God that has been given to us.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Everyone who has been born of God loves

God and loves the people of God. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love

God and we obey His commandments. The evidence of faith is obedience.

If you say that you believe in Jesus, then you will obey the things that Jesus commanded in John 3 36.

He who has the son has life. He who does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

So we show that we believe God and we believe in Jesus Christ when we obey the things that Jesus told us to do.

By this, we know we love the children of God when we love God and we obey His commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep

His commandments. So another evidence that the love of God has been poured into our hearts is when we do the things that Jesus taught us to do when we obey

His commandments. It's how we know that God's love is in us. We love God.

We love the brothers. Oh, we also obey the commandments of Christ. That's how we know that we are in the love of God.

We obey the things that Jesus taught us to do. You have the Great Commission at the end of Matthew 28, and the

Great Commission is not just some fluffy proverbial thing that Jesus said. It's a command.

He is telling His disciples to go out. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore, go make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and lo,

I am with you always to the very end of the age. We are commanded to evangelize, baptize, and disciple -ize, all right?

We would go out and share the gospel of Christ with the whole world, that we would baptize them in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe, discipling them all that Christ has commanded.

And if we do these things, we know that Christ is with us always to the very end of the age.

It's right there in the Great Commission, the things that John is saying to us here in this particular paragraph.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

We also read this in the book of Matthew. This is Matthew chapter 11, beginning in verse 28.

Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This was being said in light of the legalism that the

Pharisees were teaching, telling people that if you want to be saved, you got to be as good as us.

You got to keep all these laws and all these principles. And not only did they have the law of God, but they were also adding to that law.

There were other things that the Pharisees were imposing upon the people that was not in the law of God, and they were leading people astray, leading them to believe that salvation is attained by our works.

But we cannot work to attain salvation. As a matter of fact, our works are nothing to God.

They don't mean anything. Nothing exterior, nothing on the outside brings salvation.

It is when God has transformed our hearts to love him, and then we are able to do what is good and pleasing and acceptable to God.

Only then, only when we've been transformed by Christ. But here, the Pharisees are trying to attain a righteousness of their own.

They're trying to do it according to their own merit. And I'm so good, I can keep all these laws, and unless you keep all these laws too, you cannot have eternal life.

But Jesus is saying here that that is a burden that's being imposed upon the people that they cannot bear.

They cannot attain salvation by their works. No one can. We will fail over and over again because we are so imperfect and sinful.

And so it is to those who have been so weighed down by this legalism that the

Pharisees have imposed upon the people that Jesus says this, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden.

You are laboring to attain a salvation you can't get, and you feel farther from it today than you felt yesterday.

I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Okay, so they've got this yoke of the law that is upon them.

The Apostle Paul said to the Galatians, do not any longer take upon yourself the yoke of slavery.

And he's referring to the law, the law that was imposed upon people believing that it was by that law we attained salvation.

But that is not how we are saved. So this yoke that has been imposed upon the people by the

Pharisees, it's too heavy a yoke. Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

So understand what Jesus is saying here. He's not saying that we don't have to obey anything, that there isn't anything for us to follow.

You've been following this law, the Pharisees, and it can't save you. Well, I tell you, hey, you don't have to follow any law at all.

That's not what Jesus is saying. But we understand that everything that has been required by the law has been fulfilled in Christ Jesus.

And he did it perfectly. No one else could do it perfectly, but he did. I think I mentioned to you earlier,

I can't remember if it was earlier this week or last week, but not only did Jesus die for us, he lived for us as well.

He lived a perfect life that we could not live. We couldn't do it. There is only one perfect man who has ever lived, and that is

Jesus Christ. He lived perfectly, fulfilling all of the law and the prophets.

We can't do that, but Jesus did. So therefore, we take his yoke upon us, knowing that Christ has fulfilled all the law and the prophets, and now we are able to do the things that Christ has commanded us to do, knowing that it is by him that we have been saved, not by our works or our merits that we are saved, because we epically fail at that every time, but it is by Christ that we have been saved.

So now the things that we do will be pleasing to God and our works will show that we have been saved.

It is not by our works that we are saved, but it is by our works that we can show that we are saved, because we show the marks of the

Savior who saved us. So come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden.

I will give you rest. Rest in me. I've done the work. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.

So Jesus is very forgiving, and we have that statement that was made at the beginning of 1 John, 1

John 1, 9. If we ask forgiveness for our sins, God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This is the gentleness and lowliness of Christ, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. It doesn't mean that we won't have any yoke upon us.

There is work for us to do, for Christ commissioned us to go into all the world, to evangelize and baptize and disciple those to obey all that Christ has commanded.

But this is an easy burden for us to bear, because we know that Christ has done the work, and we simply show what it is that Christ has done in us.

The work that he has done to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and now we walk in the righteousness of Christ.

This is a yoke that we can bear. It is a burden that we delight in carrying, and there is a burden that we will carry.

Jesus said in Luke 9, 23, if anyone would be my disciple, if anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross daily and follow me.

What makes that an easy burden to carry? When we realize that when Jesus died on that cross, he took the wrath of God upon himself, so we don't have to experience that.

The cross for us means I have been crucified with Christ. My sins were taken upon Christ on the cross when

God poured out his wrath upon Jesus, and instead I have received the righteousness of Christ.

It's that double imputation thing. My sins imputed to Christ, his righteousness imputed to me.

And so when I take up that cross, I am remembering that the debt has been paid, I do not have to suffer under the wrath of God.

Christ has lived the perfect life for me. There is not a law that I need to keep in order to be saved.

All of these things have made that burden of carrying this cross awfully light.

And it is a delight to carry that cross because I desire to worship and glorify

God with my whole life. I'm laying my life down, all my desires, my sinful passions of the flesh have been crucified with Christ, and now it is no longer

I who live, but Christ who lives within me, as Paul said to the

Galatians. And so this is the yoke of Christ that is upon me that is easy, and it is a burden that is light, and it is a delight to obey

God and keep his commandments because this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

It is a joy. You want to obey God, you desire to obey

Christ, and you rejoice in the Lord in doing so. Even David understood this in Psalm 119 where he said,

Oh Lord, how I love your law. It is my delight to meditate on it day and night.

And he talked about how it gave health to his bones, even rejoicing in following the commands of God and the commandments of Christ.

Commandments do not burden us, as a matter of fact, they lighten our load because we know that the imposition of legalism has been lifted from us, our sins, our transgressions, everything that was weighing down on us, and we knew that the wrath of God was upon us because of our sin, all of that has been lifted at the cross.

It has been lifted at Calvary, and the commandments of Christ are not burdensome but a delight to us to follow in and obey.

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. The oppression of the world, the burden of the world, the pressures of the world, not there.

We've overcome the world. Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

So we show that we have overcome the world when we obey God and we keep his commandments.

Hebrews 11 .1, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

We hope for these things that we do not see, and faith is that very thing.

It's the assurance of the things that we hope for. And in hoping for these things doesn't mean that we are like, you know, hey,

I hope that my baseball team wins tomorrow. I hope I've got money in my checking account so when

I swipe my debit card, it's not going to incur an overage charge, okay?

That's the way that we tend to use hope, but faith is an assurance of the things that we hope for.

It's not a guess. We're not guessing at these things. We know, and it is the conviction of the things not seen, meaning that we believe these things so much that we are driven to obey the things that we believe.

Hebrews 12 .1, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

And it is because Christ has accomplished this on the cross that we are overcomers.

If we are in Christ, we have overcome the world. In Romans 8 .37, it puts it this way, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. So we have one more verse to finish up here in 1 John 5. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the

Son of God? There is nothing in this world, there is nothing in all creation that will separate us from the love of God.

And when we know that, when we have the power of Christ that dwells within us, we have overcome the world.

John has previously said, 1 John 4 .4, little children, you are from God and have overcome them, the antichrists, the false teachers, the ones who are in the world.

For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

The God who dwells within us is greater than the ruler of this world who is

Satan. And so all these things that attempt to separate us from God, we have overcome by the power of Christ that dwells within us.

Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the

Son of God? Let us pray. Our Lord God, we thank you for the truth of your word that has been given to us that we would be filled with confidence and assurance of the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ.

And so if we love God, we will obey what you have commanded. And I pray that we would turn from sin.

We would not walk in sin anymore. We would not pursue sin or respond to the passions of our flesh.

But our hearts have been transformed and has been poured into them the love of God.

And so let our desire for God be the thing that drives us to turn from sin and to obey the commands of Christ, to love others and love

God with everything that we are. Teach us this more and more, discipline us in this all the more, because even as it says in Hebrews 12, the

Lord disciplines those he loves. And so we know that we are loved by God when we are disciplined by you to do the things that Jesus has commanded us to do.

Let us walk in this way that has been set before us by Christ Jesus, looking unto him, the author and perfecter of our faith.

In his name we pray, amen. This is the protection of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.