TEXT: 1st John 1:1
TITLE: Introduction to John
SERIES: Letters from John
TOPIC: Evangelism
OCCASION: Burnside Christian Church, November 7, 2010
PROP.: Sharing Jesus based on my experiences.
INTRODUCTION: Good morning and welcome! Today we start a NEW SERIES! We are going to be studying the books of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John.
I want to start this series off in kind of a strange way. I want to talk about our church name. BURNSIDE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. It’s a pretty straightforward name, is it not? I mean, it’s not fancy. It’s not creative. But I’m ok with that! I hope you are too! Because there is no confusion about our identity. I’ll explain what I mean.
Let’s first talk about
BURNSIDE: Burnside gives the location. That doesn’t mean much to people who don’t live in Hancock county. Most people will get a confused look and say - BURNSIDE? And what I’ve come to realize is that when I talk to people who don’t live in Illinois (like at a convention or something), when they ask: “Where are you at?” and I say, “Burnside, Illinois.” Their next question is: “How close to Chicago are you?” As if Chicago is the only city in Illinois. So Burnside talks about the location.
Let’s talk about
CHURCH: The word church in the first century when Jesus first uttered the word, wasn’t a religious word. It simply meant GATHERING or ASSEMBLY or MEETING. So when people would have “church” in the first century, they were basically just meeting together. And when they met they could talk about a bunch of different stuff.
In our communities, they have church to discuss school business - it’s called school board meeting. They have church to watch the chargers play - it’s called football. But that’s not why we’ve gathered together to meet.
Notice what kind of meeting or gathering we are to have:
CHRISTIAN: That term CHRISTIAN is very descriptive. It’s a Biblical term. Did you know that?
Acts 11:26 - the followers of Jesus Christ in Antioch were called CHRISTIANS.
Read chapter
“…Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”
Christian describes what the gathering is all about. It describes WHY we meet together. We are the gathering who meet for the purpose of all things relating to Jesus! We love Jesus. We teach Jesus. We worship Jesus. We remember Jesus. In case you haven’t noticed, we are a little obsessed with Jesus! And maybe if you’re new here, you’re like: “I wonder what’s their infatuation with Jesus?”
Let me answer this question if I may. I am not sure if you are aware or not, but I have a sin problem. In fact, so do you. The Bible makes it clear that we all have a problem with sin! (Romans 3:23) We do bad stuff - all the time!
And this sin was such a problem for me that I didn’t know what to do with it! It was weighing me down with guilt. It was making my life a mess! And then I found out that Jesus SPECIALIZES in taking care of sin problems! (Romans 6:23)
But I also have another problem. I’m getting older. My body is wearing out. And every day that passes is one day closer to my death. I don’t want to die! I want to live forever! Do you feel the same way? And then I learned that Jesus Christ died on a cross (to take care of my sin problem) but also was put in a tomb and three days later rose from the dead - giving me hope that if I follow Jesus, if I commit to having Jesus as Lord of my life and as Savior of my life, that one day, when my body is put in the grave, my soul will rise from the dead to live forever in heaven! (John 3:16)
So do you see why we are fans of Jesus around here? SIN - no problem! DEATH - no problem! And the world is full of people who have problem with those two things. And around here, we have an answer for those two problems - JESUS CHRIST!
BURNSIDE CHRISTIAN CHURCH - We are the followers of Jesus Christ who meet in Burnside regularly to concern ourselves with all things Jesus!
Now I want you to hold onto that. Because we are going to come back to that later on in this sermon series.
Open up your Bible to 1st John. 1st, 2nd and 3rd John. are these three small books at the end of the Bible right before Jude and Revelation. It’s different from the Gospel of John although they were written by the same guy.
These three books are really letters. And so here’s the deal. We are reading someone’s mail! Now if I was to go to your mailbox and start opening your mail and reading it - first of all - I’m guessing you wouldn’t be ok with that; but if you were ok with that, I’m guessing the personal letters you would receive wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to me! Because there would be a lot of inside jokes that I wouldn’t get and reference to people I wouldn’t know.
Well these three letters were written to a specific group of people but indirectly they were written to us because these letters that were written were inspired writing and so they apply to our lives today!
And so to help you understand some of the ‘inside jokes’ and stories, we have to get to know John and who he was writing to. And that’s what I want to do for you. I want to introduce you to John!
First, a little information about John:
John grew up in a town on the north east corner near the Sea of Galilee called Bethsaida. (Beth-say-duh). It was a fishing village.
John was a country boy who came from a small town! And you and I can relate to that because Jesus called his students from the small town - not the big booming city!
As a matter of fact, 1/3 of the disciples came from this small fishing village.
John was probably the 1st or 2nd of Jesus’ disciples that He called.
That’s significant, because John saw EVERYTHING that Jesus did! He was an eyewitness!!!! Especially all of the big things.
John was one of Jesus’ closest students. He was part of the inner circle. Peter, James, John.
It was John who was able to go up on a mountain with Jesus and watch Him become transfigured into all of his glory right before John‘s eyes!
John was at the crucifixion. And it was John who was told by Jesus as he hung on the cross to take care of Mary as if she were his own mother.
It was John who saw Jesus come back to life!
And it was John who saw with his own eyes, Jesus leaving planet earth and ascending into heaven!
And that’s important. Look at 1st John 1:1
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
John begins his first letter by saying, I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it. I’ve heard it. I’ve experienced Jesus. So perk up your ears, because I’m writing to tell you about Him.
And one of the reasons that John starts his letter off in this fashion is because after Jesus died and resurrected, things got intense for the disciples! In fact there were people (and this belief still exists today) that thought that the disciples stole Jesus’ body from the tomb to make it only appear as though Jesus raised from the dead. And people have accused the disciples of stealing the body of Jesus just to get people to follow them. called Christianity.
Let’s run with that theory for a moment. Did the disciples steal the body of Jesus? Did Jesus not really rise from the grave? What happens pretty quickly in Acts (Acts 12:2) is that John’s brother, James, is put to death by Herod for following Jesus.
If the disciples were guilty of stealing the body of Jesus away from the tomb, don’t you suppose that John, when his brother James was arrested would have gone to Herod and said, “We were just messing around. Look. Here is the body of Jesus. None of this stuff that we’ve been saying is true.”
But that never happened! They only continued to preach Jesus Christ even more! In fact, John saw all of his fellow disciples killed over the years. And never once did he bat an eye. Never once did he back down from what he had been professing.
Why did John do that? Because John saw with his own eyes the miracles that Jesus performed were real! And that changed John’s life! And so John put up with persecution and those who opposed him.
And what happens as John is writing these three letters, is John is the only apostle still alive. And at the time that John is writing these letters, he’s an old man. And so John becomes this elder, this grandfather figure of the church at the end of the first century.
So let me give you a timeline that will help you understand even greater the letters of John. You will recall that Jerusalem was the center of the church. But in 70 AD Jerusalem is completely destroyed. And so the focus of the church moves from Jerusalem North - to an area that we recognize as Turkey - to a city by the name of Ephesus.
And so John moves there and begins to oversee the churches that are up in that region. And so now we have this shift.
(SHOW MAP OF EPHESUS)
As you can see, Ephesus is here on the west coast and it’s believed that John would be writing to the Christians all throughout the region of Asia Minor. And if you’re familiar with John’s writings, when he comes to write Revelation, John is going to write letters to the 7 churches in Asia minor. Again, it’s because he is the overseer of these churches.
In fact, turn in your Bibles to the books of 2nd and 3rd John and notice John starts off these letters: with just a simple phrase: THE ELDER. And that phrase has two meanings.
1. Elder means - simply one who is old. We respect those who are older because of their wisdom and the same was true in John’s time. So it’s interesting that John refers to himself as “the old guy”.
But there is also a second meaning to the word Elder
2. Elder means - overseer. Pastor. One who cares after others. In the modern church we have Elders who do just this, don’t we?
So let me give you a timeline of John’s writings. Because These three letters aren’t the only letters he has written. So John moves to Ephesus in the mid to late 70’s AD. And he writes his gospel of John. In the late 80s to early 90’s John writes these letters: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. And about 95, John writes the book of Revelation. John was probably in his mid 70’s or early 80’s himself at the time he writes these three letters.
…and just like that I’ve told you who John is writing to (He is writing to churches scattered all through Asia Minor)…what year these letters were written (1st, 2nd and 3rd John were written between 85-90 AD)…and I’ve told you about the man who wrote these letters. (John was the last Apostle alive. He was a follower of Jesus Christ part of the inner circle and is now an old man)
Pretty sneaky, ain’t I? J
I’ll give you some time to write those things down because this information will be helpful in understanding these personal letters written to these churches John was overseeing.
So that’s back drop behind 1st, 2nd and 3rd John. But I can’t leave you just with that today, can I? The answer is no. We are going to briefly look at the first section of 1st John. So open your Bibles to 1st John 1:1-4
As you are turning to 1st John 1:1-4, I want to tell you about three key words and themes that appear over and over in John’s writings:
Those three words are: JESUS, LOVE, and TRUTH.
Those are the things John is passionate about. And you are going to see that those three things play an important role in John’s teachings and writings. Put that in your back pocket because in the coming weeks, we will come back to that!
1st John 1:1-4
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our[a] joy complete.
One of the reasons that John’s writings are so important is because he had a relationship with Jesus Christ! He knew Jesus VERY well! He spent approximately 3 years - 24 hours a day 7 days a week following Jesus. Seeing Jesus. Touching Jesus. John EXPERIENCED Jesus.
So what I want to leave you with today are two questions for you to ponder:
First:
1. Have you experienced Jesus?
ILLUSTRATION: The story is told about “Baptist day” at the University of Chicago Divinity School. On this one day of the year, everyone brings a picnic lunch to be eaten outdoors in a grassy picnic area. The school would invite some great theological mind to lecture while the students and faculty ate their lunches.
One particular year, they invited Dr. Paul Tillich who spoke for 2 ½ hours “proving” that the resurrection was of Jesus was false. He quoted scholar after scholar and book after book. He concluded that since there was no such thing as the historical resurrection, the religious tradition of the church was groundless, emotional, mumbo-jumbo because Christianity is based on a relationship with a risen Jesus, who in fact, never rose from the dead in any literal sense. He then asked if there were any questions:
After a few moments of silence, an old, wooly white haired man stood up and said, “Docta Tillich, I have but one question.” All eyes turned toward him as he reached into his sack lunch and pulled out an apple and began to eat it.
“Docta Tillich” (CRUNCH…MUNCH…) “My question is a simple question.” (CRUNCH - as he took another bite of his apple) “Now I have never read those books you’ve read…and I can’t recite the Scriptures in the original Greek and I don’t know nothing about Niebuhr and Heidegger…all I wanna know is: This apple I am eating, is it bitter or sweet?
Dr. Tillich paused for a moment and answered in a scholarly fashion: “I cannot possibly answer that question, for I haven’t tasted your apple.”
The white haired preacher dropped his now finished apple core into his crumpled paper bag, looked at Dr. Tillich and said calmly, “Neither have you tasted my Jesus.”
Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”
God wants you to experience His blessings. God wants you to see his goodness! God wants your faith to be real! He wants to have a meaningful relationship with you. He doesn’t want you to treat church merely as a hobby.
You see, it was John’s relationship with Jesus that was the reason for His writings now. He wanted the readers of these letters to have a relationship with Jesus. Notice what he says in verse 3:
3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
My second question for you today is:
2. Have you shared your experiences with those around you?
Let me ask you a question:
What do these people of the Bible have in common?
A. The woman at the well - John 4:28-30
B. The man with leprosy - Mark 1:40-45
You remember their stories, right? The woman at the well was a Samaritan woman and met Jesus in the middle of the afternoon at a well. Jesus told her a little bit about her life. He tells her:
16 “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
She is amazed at how much Jesus knows and then He tells her that she can have eternal life and never die.
And the man with leprosy had a disease that kept him from enjoying human contact. He comes to Jesus and he falls on his knees begging Jesus to heal him. Jesus has compassion on the man and reaches out and TOUCHES. The first touch this man has experienced in a quite sometime. And immediately the man’s leprosy disappears and is healed.
What do these two have in common? These two seemingly have nothing in common, and yet they both experienced God. They had an encounter with Jesus Christ that forever changed them.
And what did they do with that experience?
They all shared their experiences with others! As a result of what God had done for them, others came to believe in Jesus Christ through their experiences!
So I ask again: What good things has God done for you and have you shared that good news with others around you?
There are people all around you who are living life apart from Jesus Christ. And if you’ve experienced God’s goodness, if God has made a difference in your life - HAVE YOU TOLD OTHERS about that? WE COME NOW TO TIME OF DECISION…
