In 2008, John Piper preached a sermon which was titled "Regeneration, Faith, Love" in that order. The sermon unpacks the reality of the new birth, the place of faith, and then the role of obedience in the life of faith. He eventually explains the aim and the purposes of our love for others, but he begins by talking about the regeneration that produces faith and the obedience to God's commandments.

Here's what John Piper said in his 2008 sermon as he ties together regeneration, faith, and love. Here's what he said. The opposite of experiencing the commandments of God as burdensome is to experience them as your deepest longing, your deepest delight. And that's what the new birth does. We're working our way, remember last time, through three links in the chain of thought in verses 3 and 4?

That was link number one, but this time, in this service, I want to push on this just a little farther and ask, "Which commandments?" What's he got in mind specifically? Anything? When he says, "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments and don't find them burdensome," which commandments?

What specifically might be at the front of his mind that might help us get a handle on this? I don't think it's hard to answer that question if you just read the flow of the thoughts starting back in 420. That's just two verses prior to the chapter 5. Let's start at 420.

1 John 420 says, "If anyone says, 'I love God,'" I hope you say that, "and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment that we have from Him.

Whoever loves God must love his brother." So we know what's on the front burner of this man's mind when he writes, "If you love God, you keep His commandments." It's the commandment to love each other. That's the main commandment. In fact, we're going to see before we're done, that's the summary of all the other commandments in this book and in the Bible.

So when he says, "If you love God, you keep His commandments," he means first, if you love God, you love other people, especially believers. So now we have in the first link of the chain, not just a vague statement about loving God yields obedience. We have a statement much more precise, and this is what I wanted.

We have a statement, "Loving God yields loving people." That's what we have in the first part of verse 3. He keeps on going. Verse 1, "Everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him." So you see the connection he's continuing? He's confirming that this is on his front burner.

Verse 2, second half of the verse, "By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments." Now that's odd. He switched it around on us. Kind of surprised me anyway. He's going along saying that loving God means loving people, and now he says, "By this we know that we love people." We love children of God, Christians, when we love God and obey His commandments.

Why does he do that? Why does he say not just, "You know you're loving God when you love people," but he also says, "You know you're loving people when you love God." Seems like a circle. Where are we going to jump in? Here, I'll tell you why I think he did it.

You decide. This is your Bible. I think John added verse 2 like that to guard us against sentimental reinterpretations of what love is. Nobody is going to say, "I don't think we should love other people." Nobody is going to say that. But they may mean something very sentimental by it.

No grounding in reality. Not doing anybody any ultimate good. Just doing what they think love is. And John wants to guard against that. And so he says, "By this we know that we love the children of God." Not when we do any old thing we feel like toward them, but when we love God.

You can't help anybody if you don't love God. Well, if you believe that. Well, of course you don't believe that. You can feed them if you don't love God. You can clothe them if you don't love God. You can give a roof over their heads if you don't love God.

You can help them get assimilated as a refugee if you don't love God. Of course you can do good to people if you don't love God. You can just make them totally comfortable on their way to hell. God is not impressed with that kind of love. Just doing stuff for people, distracting them from their totally big need.

Never angling all those food and clothing and shelter and help. That's them when they wake up to what they need. Not caring about that. Just doing what you think love is. This verse is in there to keep us from doing that, because one of the commands of God that validate whether you're loving people is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart." And if you're not helping people do that, you're not loving them.

You can call it what you like, but biblically speaking, you're not loving them. If you're not using all the practical helps, which almost certainly should be done with a view to awakening their heart to see God as their treasure and their Savior, you're not loving them. That's such a key thing to keep in mind is we seek to be kind and to love our neighbors.

We don't love simply because we have a design on their lives, but we do serve in love toward an ultimate end in mind, and it's healthy to be convicted about that end. The clip was taken from a sermon John Piper preached on March 2nd, 2008, titled "Regeneration, Faith, Love," in that order.

This clip was sent in by Christopher Burdine in Oklahoma City. Christopher, thank you for this clip. So many of you are sending us some great clips from the Piper Sermon Archive, and I appreciate that. Please keep them coming. Email us the sermon name and a timestamp of when and where the clip appears in the message.

Go to our online home and send us an email from DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well Pastor John returns tomorrow to address an unmarried couple who has committed sexual sin, and they're asking, "What should we do now?" I'm your host Tony Reinke. I'll see you then.