It's become very popular in our day for people to describe themselves as "spiritual." What this usually means is they're open to anything and everything. And in this day, where truth is seen as purely subjective, for a person to be "spiritual" can mean almost anything. This has led to confusion. A confusion that needs to be challenged with clarity.
The clarity needed to challenge the confusion of our age must come from those with a personal relationship with the God who has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the truth."
1 John is the effort of John, the beloved disciple, to share how Christ followers might live our faith in such a way as to counter the spiritual confusion of this world with spiritual clarity. John wrote this letter in an effort to equip God's people to live out and live for the truth in our daily lives. Through-out this book, John tells why he wrote. He wrote:
1) To help believers deal with the assurance of their salvation.
"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." - l John 5:13 (NIV)
2) To help believers discern between truth and error.
" I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray." - I John 2:26 (NIV)
3) To teach believers how to deal with and overcome sin.
"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." - I John 2:1
4) To help believers discover the "joy of their salvation."
"We are writing these things to you so that our joy [in seeing you included] may be made complete [by having you share in the joy of salvation]." - 1John 1:4 (Amplified)
John says the Word of Life has been revealed in the person of Christ.
1. John's Message - vs. 1-2
A. The Eternal Reality of Christ - v. la
Now, this is something which, though beyond our ability to grasp, we are called on to accept by faith.
This shouldn't bother us, however, since there are lots of things we readily accept without understanding.
I don't understand electricity. They say that one electron touches another electron and all of that, but I don't know why it happens to go one way instead of the other way. I don’t understand electricity, but I accept it, and benefit from electrical power.
Likewise, to benefit from Christ's coming into this world, I must accept Him as the eternal God, come into this world to draw us unto Himself.
"The exclusive claim of Christianity about Christ is not centered on our belief that Jesus was right about God. It is centered on our claim that God was fully present in Christ to reconcile the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:18). It is the theological claim about Jesus (that He is God) that makes the spiritual claims of Jesus potent. Jesus' words are right because those words are God's words (Jn. 14:10b). Jesus' “way” is not superior because it promotes a higher ethic or because it champions values that resonate with our spiritual sensitivities. Jesus' way is true because in Him we find God drawing us to Himself." - Gary Burge, commentary on John
"Depend on it, my hearer, you never will go to heaven unless you are prepared to worship Jesus Christ as God." - Charles Spurgeon
B. The Historical Reality of Christ - v. lb
Josh McDowell, in his book, Evidence That Demands A Verdict, identifies eleven different ancient historical sources which identify Jesus Christ as a person of history (pages 81-87).
"Some writers may toy with the fancy of a ‘Christ-myth,’ but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the ‘Christ-myth’ theories." - F. F. Bruce, former Rylands professor of biblical criticism and exegesis at the University of Manchester
The word translated, "looked at," is the word from which we get the word, “theater”; and means "to intensely gaze upon, to study, to
examine.”
John says when Jesus appeared on the stage of history, that he, along with others, looked Him over and found Him to indeed be the very Word of Life - the ultimate revelation of God to mankind!
C. The Experiential Reality of Christ - v.2
Christianity is not just knowing Christ in a historical sense. It's knowing Him in personal experience.
"And this is eternal life: that people can know you, the only true God, and that they can know Jesus Christ, the one you sent." - John 17:3 (Easy to Read)
Do you know Jesus through a personal relationship with Him; OR do you merely know facts about Him? The difference is as profound as living with a person you love as opposed to relating to that person only through a photograph.
A Christian lady of 70 years once said, "There is no more chance of convincing me of the non-existence of God than of the non-existence of myself! I know the Lord. I talked to Him this morning."
2. John's Motive. - vs.3-4
A. To Bring Them Into The Fellowship - v.3
1) With The Heavenly Family - v.3a
There's a level of fellowship shared only by true believers in Christ.
It's a fellowship we experience together every Lord's Day when we gather. It's a fellowship we experience when we happen to worship with another congregation of believers when we are somewhere else.
It’s a level of fellowship we share with believers when we travel to a foreign country. It's a level of fellowship we share with believers half-way around the world we've never met who ire undergoing persecution of experiencing revival.
It's a fellowship we share as we serve together, study together, grow together, share together, worship together, minister together, rejoice together, and grieve together. And it's a fellowship we will enjoy with one another for all eternity!
2) With The Heavenly Father - v.3b
In The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird writes: I grew up knowing I was different, and hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and whenI started school, classmates made it clear to me how I looked: a girl with misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech. When they asked, “What happened to your lip?” I'd say I'd fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. It seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced no one outside my family could love me. But there was a teacher in second grade we all adored - Mrs. Leonard. She was short, round, happy - a sparkling lady. Annually we had a hearing test. Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn. I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it back – things like, “The sky is blue" or “Do you have new shoes?" I waited there for those words that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, 'I wish you were my little girl.'
God says to everyone deformed by sin, “I wish you were my child." But He doesn't whisper. In Christ, He has shouted it loud and clear
for all who will hear.
B. To Bring Them Into Fullness - v. 4
John desired that they know the full joy of their relationship with Jesus.
Seeing them enter into the fullness of their salvation brought him joy. “The child of God is, from necessity, a joyful man. His sins are forgiven, his soul is justified, his person is adopted, his trials are blessings, his conflicts are victories, his death is immortality, his future is a heaven of inconceivable, unthought-of, untold, and endless blessedness - with such a God, such a Savior, and such a hope, is he not, ought he not, to be a joyful man?" - Octavius Winslow
Why might a believer not experience this fullness of joy? Is possible only as Christ is the focus of my life. Joy can be found in every area of life where Jesus is at the center.
"Christ is the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean . . . so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet." - John Flavel
Conclusion: Have you discovered the joy of a personal relationship with Jesus? Are you daily walking in the reality of that joy? Are you sharing that joy with others?
