God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper

This week’s sermon: "Everyone Who Has Been Born of God Overcomes the World: A Wide-Angle View of John’s First Letter"

The apostle John wrote his First Epistle to believers, with deceivers in their midst, to give them rock-solid confidence in their possession of eternal life as born-again children of God, so that they would not be drawn away after sin—all to the completion of his joy.

At the heart of John’s reason for writing was his desire to help his born-again readers know that they were born again—that they already had new, spiritual, eternal life.

In his letter, John gives eleven evidences of those who are born of God:
1. They keep God’s commandments (2:3-4; 3:24).
2. They walk as Christ walked (2:56).
3. They don’t hate others but love them (2:9; 3:14; 4:7-8, 20).
4. They don’t love the world (2:15).
5. They confess the Son and receive (have) him (2:23; 4:15; 5:12).
6. They practice righteousness (2:29).
7. They don’t make a practice of sinning (3:6, 9-10; 5:18).
8. They possess the Spirit of God (3:24; 4:13).
9. They listen submissively to the apostolic Word (4:6).
10. They believe that Jesus is the Christ (5:1).
11. They overcome the world (5:4).

These tests of the new birth are rigorous, but John does not mean for us to infer either that the born-again are perfect or that the born-again can loose their salvation. He affirms that “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1:8) that those who go out from us “were not of us” (2:19).

Those who are born again enjoy the dual comfort that they need not be perfect and that they will never ultimately fall away.