Introduction to 1 John (1 John 1:1-4)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. Good morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. We are starting 1 John. Today we'll be in this for the next few months.
If you have a blue Bible, it'll be on page 591. If you have a regular Bible, it's towards the back, towards the end of the Scriptures. So, in our culture, and more specifically, in the American church, there's been this new kind of thing that's been happening over the last few years. At least, newly branded thing that's been happening over the last few years. It's the idea of deconstruction. Deconstruction is loosely based on this philosophical idea that you can deconstruct your beliefs down to the bare bones of what you believe.
This can be faith. This can be any belief system. But you can deconstruct to the bare bones, and then with the hope that you can rebuild something back that's better. And this has kind of become a thing over the last few years. As American Christians, who many are really disenfranchised with the American church, they're not happy with the American church. And to be fair, the American church isn't super great.
It's got a lot of problems in comparison to the global church. Also, to be fair, if you're basing your faith on the American church, that's a problem, because it's not a complete and beautiful reflection of Christ. But anyways, the reality is that people are leaving. They're deconstructing their faith, naively thinking they can build something back that's better, and they're just leaving. They're abandoning the faith. This is becoming more of a thing, and it's becoming something that people have to have this deconstruction journey, and they post it on Instagram and Facebook, because you can't do anything without posting it online.
And it's happening more and more, and there are pastors who are doing this. And culture, many in the culture, are celebrating this. This is a happy thing for many people. I mean, there's one pastor years ago that did this, and he got a team up with Oprah. There's another pastor who did this recently, and he went to try to sell classes on how to deconstruct. And this is happening over and over again.
When you see it out in public, when it's not people you know, it hurts. But when you see people that you love, people that led you to Christ, people that you're in community groups with, people that you've been in Bible studies with, and church with, and ministries with, when you see them start to walk away from Jesus, it hurts. When you see people abandon the faith that they once celebrated, when they reject obedience they once used to uphold, when they trade in the love of God for a cheap cultural substitute, it is painful. And if you follow Jesus long enough, you're going to see this over and over and over again.
And when this happens, lots of questions come out. Like, what happened? What happened to this person? What happened to this person? I mean, were they ever even a Christian to begin with? And then when you start to think about what led them to walk away from Jesus, then you start thinking about yourself and having some existential questions.
Am I even a Christian? How do I know that I'm saved? How do I know that I'm a Christian? How do I know that I'm not going to fall away too? And that is where 1 John gets to be a helpful book, one of the more helpful books in the Bible for that subject matter. Because the same discouragement that we are feeling in the American church as we're watching people reject Jesus, is the same discouragement that the early church felt, which is why this letter has been so helpful for centuries.
So, we're going to walk through 1 John. And in the coming months, we're going to see what it means to be a true follower of Christ. 1 John is going to clearly outline some things of what it means to be a Christian. This is what it means to follow Jesus. This is what it means to be in the church of Jesus. We're going to walk through this.
And as we walk through this, here's the hope. That for those of us that are in Christ, we will be lovingly confronted by 1 John in a way that corrects us, in a way that calls us to repentance, but also helps us see, okay, I have assurance that I'm walking in Christ because of what we're going to walk through in 1 John, the things it's going to outline. And that for those who claim the name of Christ, for those who say they're a Christian, but what's actually there isn't an authentic faith in Jesus. My hope is that as we walk through 1 John together, you would be confronted with that reality. And that God would be so compelling that you'd say, I actually want that type of faith in Jesus.
That's the hope of 1 John as we walk through the next few months. So let me read the first few verses. We're going to be in verses 1 through 4. And then I'll pray and we'll launch in. Verse 1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.
The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaimed to you the eternal life. Which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Let me pray.
Lord, we love you and we're thankful for the word of God. We're thankful that we get to come here every week. We get to sing about it. We get to read it together. We get to sit under the authority of it as you mold us and shape us into your image. God, I pray that as we introduce 1 John today, you would begin to point out some things in our hearts and that we would respond by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So we're going to start in verse 3. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you. All right.
So you've been with us long enough. We walk through books of the Bible. We go verse by verse. Begs the question. Okay. Why start in verse 3?
1 John, in the Greek, which is the original language of the New Testament, is constructed in some very interesting ways. The first three verses is one long sentence and in it is one main verb. It's proclaim. That we've seen and heard, we proclaim also to you. So it's a proclamation that is happening at the onset of this book.
So before we look at that, we need to see who's proclaiming this and kind of give some background here. So 1 John was written by the Apostle John. It's the same disciple who wrote the Gospel of John, who wrote 1, 2, and 3 John. The same son of Zebedee who wrote the book of Revelation is the one who wrote this. But this letter is not a normal style New Testament letter.
Not a normal style letter from their time. When you read a lot of the other letters in the New Testament, whether it's Paul or Peter, it begins with, I, Paul, I, Peter, writing to this church, writing to this group of churches. There's a normal introduction. 1 John doesn't start that way. He doesn't introduce himself at all. Which also begs the question, how do you know it's John who wrote it?
A few simple reasons. First, the Greek in John is, 1 John is very, very similar to the Gospel of John. So we have those kind of look at each other. That looks the same. And the church historically has almost unanimously understood this since the very beginning, that this is John who wrote this. So John is writing this, but he doesn't identify a church.
Why? One of the more compelling theories that I've seen is that this is not a letter that was written to one specific church. That actually, by design, this letter was a letter that was written to circulate amongst a bunch of churches. This letter was meant to travel from church to church to church to church because in the church at this time, when this letter is being written, it is apparent that there is something sweeping through the churches that is causing a lot of problems. that there is a false teaching that is happening, that is swept through the churches all over Europe and Asia and Israel and North Africa.
And there are people, there are brothers and sisters in Christ who are walking away from Jesus. They're walking away from the faith they once used to proclaim. So, it appears that John, one of the disciples closest to Jesus, is going to address this head on. So, what was the false teaching that was spreading through this early church? Well, we don't know exactly because it doesn't identify exactly what this false teaching is, but we can look at the first couple of verses and we can actually see and get some clues as to what is actually happening. So, verse 1.
I want you to see some things. He says, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard. He says, We have heard this. And then he says, Which we have seen with our eyes. That we've seen it. That we've looked upon it.
That's not just glanced at. That we've beheld, looked, gazed upon it. We've looked upon it. That we have touched with our hands. It gets tactile. That we've touched with our hands concerning the word of life.
The life that was made manifest. This is revealed for you to see. Manifest. We've seen it. And testified to it and proclaimed to it the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest, revealed to us. That seems overkill, right?
Seen. Heard. Manifest. Touched. Seen. Heard.
He's getting at something. That the language here is meant to show that Jesus is actually a real person. And when you look at who he's talking about, verses 1 and 2, it says, That which was from the beginning, concerning the word of life that was made manifest. That language? Very close to the Gospel of John. Very, very close.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. We're talking about Christ. And this wasn't just the Word of flesh that was, the Word that took on flesh that dwelt among us in the Gospel of John. It gets more specific in that. We saw Him. We heard from Him.
We touched Him over and over again. It's hitting this to say that Jesus was a real person. He was real. We saw Him. We heard from Him. We touched Him.
So, He begins this letter by going really hard after that. It probably means that there were people in the churches that did not believe that, that Jesus was a real person. Like if I was teaching world history, and I said, alright, world history, first lecture. First, you need to know something. The world is round. It's round.
Oh yeah. I, in college, I studied abroad and I was on a ship and we circumnavigated the globe and I'll tell you something, we did not fall off the edge of the earth. We went all the way around, baby. There are satellites up in the sky owned by different countries and private companies. You know, all the pictures they show, the world is round. If you were in that class, you might go, is there a flat earther here?
Why are you addressing that the world is round? That's what's happening here. Right out the gate. We've seen him, we've heard, we've touched him. He is a real person. He is going hard after that for a reason.
And we don't know exactly which false teaching it was, but we have some general good ideas for what it could have been. Probably, it could have been the early seedbeds of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a false teaching that arose at the end of the first century. It said a lot of things, but one of the things that it taught was that Jesus was not a real material person. That he was a spiritual being, but he wasn't actually a real material in the flesh being. And there's another heresy called Docetism that rose in the second century.
This could be the early seedbed of that, the early beginnings of that. That also taught that Jesus was not a real person. And out the gate, John is like, no, seen him, heard from him, seen him, touched him, absolutely is a real person. He's going to address this as a false teaching. He's going to address later in this book the false teachers. He's going to call them antichrists repeatedly.
And some of you just got really excited and said, oh, left behind? No. This is different for a lot of reasons. And then he goes on and he's going to acknowledge that people are leaving the church in chapter 2 over this. He said, no. We saw him.
We spent time with him. We got to know him. I saw him. We ate meals with him. He is a real person with a real body and a real existence. And that has real implications for your life.
Comes out making that abundantly clear. Now, when we read that, we're not real blown away because there isn't really anybody today that says Jesus is not a real person. That's not a problem for us. You can find the most hardened atheist historian and they're going to say, oh, no, Jesus was absolutely a real person. No one disputes that. Well, religions don't dispute that.
Islam doesn't dispute that. He absolutely was a real person. So that doesn't shock us. Like, wow, thank you for overstating. He's a real person. Here is the problem that we have with this culturally.
Verse 2, it says, While we don't have a problem with the fact that he was a real person, we do have a problem with the implications that he came from the Father and their eternal life implications for his coming. That is a problem culturally. When people deconstruct, they're like, no, I'm done with that. He's a real person, but that good moral teacher. But God, that's not something that our culture is okay with.
So, that's a little bit of intro for where this comes from. Now, let's look at verse 3 and start to see what he is proclaiming and what he's going to proclaim for the rest of this letter. That which we have seen and heard. You have to get in one more time. We saw and we heard him. We proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us.
Indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. The goal of this letter is that they're writing to these churches that they might have fellowship with them as they have fellowship with the Father. The Greek word for fellowship there is koinonia and as best I can tell in etymology studies, which is just studying the origins of words, that is where we get our word community. So, we talk about being a gospel-centered community on mission. A gospel-centered fellowship on mission. That, he's saying, I would like, I want you to see, I want you to know that you are in fellowship with me as we're in fellowship, as we're in community with God the Father.
And the rest of this letter is aimed at that. 1 John draws a line in the sand. This is what it means to be a Christian. This is what it means to follow Christ. This is what it means to be in fellowship with us, John is saying, as we're in fellowship with God the Father. He's drawing a line in the sand.
And to be honest, it's a fairly blunt line as we're going to see throughout 1 John. He is fairly straight to the point. And he wants them to see that if you are in Christ, here's some main things that you are going to take away. So, throughout 1 John, we're going to see three big themes that draw a line in the sand that helped us see are we actually in Christ or not. And here are the three big themes. The first is true belief.
The second, is true obedience. And the third is true love. So, true belief, true obedience, and true love. That's what we're going to see throughout 1 John. So, let's take a look at that first one, true belief. 1 John is filled with doctrinal nuggets, these little teachings that are designed to help the hearers, to help these churches see this is what true belief looks like.
Here are some things you need to believe because there are those who are leaving the faith, who are rejecting Jesus, that don't have these beliefs. So, I just want to highlight some of the things we've got coming out in front of us. Some of these real, true beliefs. 1 John 1.5, next week, we're going to hit this. This is the message that we have heard from Him, proclaim to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. I don't know if you saw the bumper video, but it had a lot of lights in it and that's for a reason.
God is light. That's an opening statement that He's going to build so much of the rest of 1 John off of that God is perfect. He is glorious. He is light. In Him, there is no darkness at all and the implications that come out of that are going to be huge. He goes on to say in verse 10, if we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us.
So we're going to learn next week, if you think that you don't have real sin, if you're not honest about the fact that you have real sin in your life and you claim to be a Christian, 1 John says, you are a liar and the truth is not in you. And we'll walk through that next week. In chapter 2, verse 2, it says He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. We're going to learn about propitiation. Some of you are like, is that like aerospace engineering? Like what is propitiation?
Give it a couple of weeks. We're going to sit in that because that concept, that teaching actually is something that a lot of people are very much not okay with. And He makes that point clear. It's going to show up later as well. And then 5, now I'll give you one more. He says, we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
It's going to show up multiple times in John. This idea that Satan has power and dominion in this world. And if you haven't been confronted with that, it's like, whoa! And there are a lot of beliefs right there that are thrown in 1 John that absolutely can be jarring. But over and over again He's going to be building this case.
This is what it means to be a Christian. This is what it means to believe this. This is what distinguishes us in a way that is different from the rest of the world. We're going to see this over and over and over again because there are lots of people in these churches that he's writing to that claim to be Christians but they don't actually have true belief. And honestly, it could easily be written to a lot of southern churches across the south because the overwhelming majority of the south is going to claim Christianity. You ask a southerner, most likely, they're going to say, yeah, I'm a Christian.
And as Chet walked us through last week as we closed up our I Am A Missionary series, there are lots of people in America that claim to know Christ, that claim to be followers of Jesus but their beliefs don't line up at all. One of the things he cited last week was that in a survey it said 58% of American evangelical Christians contend that the Holy Spirit is not a real person. The Holy Spirit is a spiritual force but not a real person. And that's a major problem because we believe in a Trinitarian God. Our entire faith is built upon it. If you reject the third member of the Trinity, you've rejected the faith.
58%. I found some other surveys. There's one survey that American evangelical Christians have found that 51% of the people that responded to the survey said that all religions lead to God. All world religions, they're all just pathways that lead to God. That's 51% of those who were surveyed. 78% in that survey said that Jesus was created and was not eternally God.
Now not in getting the weeds of church history because I know that only three of you would get super excited about church history. But that was the biggest debate of the first few centuries. There was a heresy called Arianism that taught that Jesus was not eternally God. That He was a created being. And it almost ripped the church apart. Really big deal.
78% Of American evangelicals said, yep, that's what we believe. Now, polls are polls and surveys are surveys. Give or take 10 or 15, 20% off. That's alarming. And there are a lot more that you can cite that show that. That what you believe matters.
Now, I know some people will respond and go, alright, preacher man, I know you love theology. I know you get real excited about that. But is it just our faith about loving God and loving people? Isn't that some of the main teachings? You don't have to get into the weeds of all of this. Listen, I'm not advocating that you've got to love, love, love theology.
Alright? I'm not saying you've got to have systematic theology by your bedside every night and just get real giddy. I'm not saying that is the case. I think it would be fun. But I'm not saying that's what has to happen.
But the reality is you need to understand is that your beliefs matter because your beliefs ultimately shape how you worship. Your beliefs shape your understanding of God. Your beliefs shape the way that you practice your faith. I mean take just the self-proclaiming Christians in this survey that said that all paths lead to God. What you're essentially saying is is that faith can be found outside of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. That you can have eternal life with God outside of the blood being shed outside of the resurrection.
And if that is the case then Christ died for nothing. And the resurrection is meaningless. Now what you believe absolutely matters. You can play out the logic of any belief and lead it to its conclusions. It matters. What you believe matters.
And John understood this. That is why he comes out addressing something that is a very big problem in their churches. He's a real person with a real body and that matters. And so the beliefs we're going to walk through absolutely matter. And they're challenging but I'm glad we get to walk through them because they matter. Alright.
Beliefs also affect a major theme that runs through this and that is true obedience. That part of being a Christian means you have true obedience. Let me walk through a couple of verses that we're going to see as we walk through 1 John. 2.4 says whoever says I know him but does not keep his commands is a liar and the truth is not in him. It's a lot of lying accusations that John makes. Real blunt.
1.4 Says if you say you know him if you say you are a Christian and you don't follow his commands you're a liar. You aren't actually a Christian. What you say does not line up with actual obedience that he calls us to. 2.15 He says do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. We'll sit in that teaching the idea that if you love the world or just break it down even further if you look like the rest of the world in a way that does not distinguish you as a Christian if there's not any separating difference that you love the world so much that you look like the world he goes on to say that the love of the Father is not in you.
3.6 He says no one who abides in him keeps on sinning no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him and that's jarring and when we get to that we'll walk into the nuances of what is happening there but the real blunt takeaway is is that if you don't progress in a way where you are growing to be more like Christ and you continue in sin that grace may abound he's saying you don't know him. 3.8 He says whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. He doubles down on it and says if you keep on sinning you are son or daughter of the devil and it's like man that's abrasive calling people children of the evil one. Walk through that and see that in 3.8 and I'll just give you one more in 5.2 He says by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments.
The defining feature is that you love God and you obey his commandments. That has some harsh teachings some hard teachings ahead of us but it matters. Somebody in my community group was talking about this the other day. I was in a relationship with a co-worker and that co-worker has gotten to know her she says she's a Christian and he finally just kind of took a step and said hey if you were a Christian and he addressed something that was in her life and he had kind of the rapport to be able to do this
He just said hey you're living with your boyfriend right now and why don't you actually let's talk about marriage because that's actually not honoring to God he started to walk get ready to walk her kind of through this challenge her on this and she said okay yeah but the Bible says a whole lot of things about wearing clothing with two different types of garments in it and shellfish we shouldn't eat shellfish and the Bible says a lot of things and in that moment she dismissed it outright
With a really bad Old Testament law hermeneutic bad Old Testament biblical interpretation but dismissed it dismissed it outright why? because she doesn't want to be challenged and that's us we don't want to be challenged in obedience we don't want to be challenged we like the way we live we don't want to be uncomfortable we don't want to be told this is what you should be doing this is what is ultimately good
This is what you should aim your life we don't want that and the reason why John is going to go hard after this is because obedience matters because disobedience leads to more disobedience it leads to more straying away one of my favorite TV shows of all time is Breaking Bad it is one of the more brilliant shows I've ever seen it is not like The Office you do not watch it over and over again
Because it's really dark but one of the things I appreciate so much about Breaking Bad is it shows this is the sinful nature of man and this is what happens when you indulge in this it leads to more rebellion I mean the whole story arc of the show shows this it's about a high school chemistry teacher who gets diagnosed with cancer and he doesn't have money enough money and his health
Insurance doesn't cover his treatment so he says I'm going to make meth with my chemistry skills and he starts out with I'm going to make one deal of meth I'm going to get my money I'm going to get out but the show is called Breaking Bad because he starts Breaking Bad and it just keeps going and it turns to another deal and another deal and another deal
Until he becomes a drug kingpin in the southwest and as his life is completely falling apart it's just showing what happens when you indulge sin when it completely falls apart and he's ruined his family and he's become a major fugitive in the very last episode he has this conversation with his wife he gets a chance to see her one last time and she thinks he's going to get the same speech about oh you did
This for the family oh you did this for us and he's finally just honest and he says I did it for me I did it because I liked it I did it because it made me feel good and that's sin it taps into something disobedience taps into something that's earthly within us but we just want to keep going and keep going I hear people say
I hear people say I just don't know why people do drugs I don't know why don't they see how self-destructive it is as someone who used to do drugs I can tell you why people do drugs it feels really good it's honest that's the honest response doing drugs feels really good in the moment I mean indulging in sin feels really good
In the moment and yes it leads to self-destruction yes it leads to your life falling apart but man it feels good and John gets this and understands that if you go down the road of disobedience it is only going to get worse you will inoculate yourself to the love of God you will you will become so used to sin and so used to
Loving the world that you just won't you won't love God anymore and you will walk away he goes hard after true obedience and he also goes hard after true love true love true love 1st John 4 8 anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love a lot of people that aren't even familiar with much of the teachings
Of the Bible at least have heard that God is love in college in my philosophy classes I took logic which was a ton of fun you learn about logical fallacies which makes arguments really fun because you can just point out things that are logical fallacies in people's arguments you also learn about syllogisms syllogisms are
They're if if then statements if if therefore statements three part syllogisms are if this is true and if this is true therefore this is true four part syllogisms are if this is true and this is true and this is true therefore this is the conclusion so I want to show you a few of these syllogisms that that are helpful to see
This is how syllogisms works all mammals are animals logic point one all elephants are mammals logic point two if that is true therefore all elephants are animals alright that's how syllogisms work but you can have fun with it and you can kind of insert some logical fallacies within it and you can make them say all kinds of fun things
Unicorns are awesome fact I am awesome fact therefore I am a unicorn I am a unicorn alright see how syllogisms work they can be really fun this this was one of my favorite syllogisms in all of my logic classes alright it's a four part one God is love love is blind Ray Charles is blind therefore
Ray Charles is God and it's silly the reason I love that syllogism is because it highlights how badly our culture has gotten love I mean love has been just abused in so many ways in a post-modern world where all that objectivity is out the door
And you create your own meaning and words have completely lost their own meaning I feel like love has taken the biggest beating I mean love has been abused and I can't I'm serious I can't think of a more important word in the English language for you to know the absolute true definition of love I cannot think
Of a more important word for you to actually know this is what love means because how you define love reveals what you believe about God it reveals how you view God love is a huge theme in 1st John this is a letter it is five chapters long it is not
They're not very long chapters in fact I think it would be good for all of us once a week to read 1st John just for the entire time we're in it it will not take long if you do it it will take you about 15 minutes once a month read 1st John become acquainted with the arguments that are being made in 1st John love is mentioned 26 times 26 times it's the second most
Of any book in the New Testament the only book in the New Testament that mentions love more is the gospel of John which is 21 longer chapters so love per capita usage 1st John is packed with it and we just saw the one that says God is love there are other challenging verses on defining what this love is
314 It says we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers whoever does not love abides in death we're going to get to that teaching and it says if you don't love the brothers if you don't love brothers and sisters and