1 John: Be Real
by, Tony Thomas
Sr. Minister, Woodland Heights Christian Church, Crawfordsville, IN
No. 62 in a series called, Route 66, a Road Trip Through the Bible
In the fall of 2011, ABC-TV premiered a fantasy drama titled, Once Upon a Time. The setting is the fictional town of Storybrooke, Maine. The residents are fairy tales characters who time-traveled to Storybrooke, but they were robbed of their memories.
In other words, they live in Storeybrooke with new identities. The Evil Queen is the town Mayor, Snow White is a fourth grade school teacher, Prince Charming is a comatose hospital patient, their infant daughter is now (28-years-old), and Rumpelstiltskin runs the local pawn shop.
In six seasons, there have been dozens of characters, from Robin Hood to the Mad Hatter to the Queen of Hearts; from Tinker Bell to Ariel to Red Riding Hood; from Pinocchio to Captain Cook to Repunzel. Each week one character after another discovers his real ID!
I watched that series for two seasons before I got lost! The characters played multiple roles, they lived in multiple time-dimensions, they traveled through a portal they couldn’t control and I couldn’t remember who was related to whom!
After two exciting but confusing seasons I needed a heavy dose of reality! The search for something real isn’t new with us. In fact, it’s as old as Adam and Eve. Man has looked for reality and satisfaction in wealth, thrills, conquests, romance, education and even religion.
There’s nothing wrong with any of these experiences as long as we recognize that they are temporary diversion. An experience doesn’t satisfy over the long haul. That solar eclipse that passed through on Monday was anticipated for 99 years, but it only lasted for 90 seconds and 90% of us missed it in Crawfordsville because of the simultaneous thunderstorm!
Wanting something real – and finding something real are two, altogether different things! It’s like eating cotton candy at Golden Coral: you bite into it thinking it’s real, only to end up with a mouthful of nothing. We waste priceless years on empty substitutes for reality.
And that’s what 1 John is all about. We’re in a series called Route 66 and this is week No. 62. We’re going through the Bible one book at a time and we’re in the home stretch.
The theme of 1 John is a life that is real. John is writing as an elderly man, and in his nearly one hundred years on earth, he discovered that satisfaction is not found in things or thrills, but in the person of Jesus Christ!
I. Helpful Trivia to Understand John
1st, John is the author of five books. He wrote one of the four gospels, 1, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. That’s 50 chapters. Luke wrote 52 chapters (Luke and Acts), and Paul wrote 87 chapters in thirteen letters.
Matthew’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus calling John to become one of his twelve disciples:
Matthew 4:18 Jesus saw two brothers, Peter and Andrew, casting a net into the lake.
19 Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
21 Then he saw James and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father, mending their nets.
22 Jesus called them, and they left the boat and their father to follow Jesus.
When John was called to follow Jesus, he was mending nets. John was a mender. John noticed broken people and he helped them put their lives back together. John spent his life restoring what was damaged and ruined.
Mike Murdock wrote a chorus you might remember:
I want to spend my life mending broken people
I want to spend my life removing pain
Lord, let my words heal a heart that hurts,
I want to spend my whole life mending broken people.
2nd, John is the last of the original Twelve. Jesus called twelve men to be his disciples. Judas was the first to go (hung himself), and all the others followed with the exception of John: he’s the only disciple not to die of martyrdom. And that makes John the last, surviving disciple.
That means that John wrote to second and third generation believers. John was an old man writing to young people, and he was writing from a perspective no one else could.
William Barclay writes:
“By AD 100, Christianity had become a thing of habit, traditional, half-hearted, and nominal. John was writing when the thrill was gone and the flame of devotion had died to a flicker.”
Some of us are 2nd, 3rd or 4th generation Christians, too! If we aren’t careful and vigilant our faith will evolve into nothing more than a habit. Our prayers will be powerless, our Bible reading stale and our fellowship will lack sincerity.
I received a book in the mail this week that I wasn’t expecting. Susan Humbert was the Alumni Director at Cincinnati Christian University and several years ago she stopped by the office for a visit. Since then she’s joined the staff of the Cumberland Church on the NW side of Atlanta, GA and she’s written a book.
Proverbial Secrets is based on Proverbs 31. I read the introduction and I was genuinely moved! Susan is a great writer! I had forgotten that she was converted in her 40s, after her children were grown, and her conversion is so recent that her love for Jesus is infectious!
Listen to one paragraph from her introduction:
“Just as Snow White was saved from eternal death by true love’s kiss, we too were saved by the same life-giving power. Unlike Prince Charming, however, our salvation didn’t appear in a red velvet cloak draped over a bent knee before a glass-covered coffin. “It came about through the sacrifice of a skin- shredded body nailed to a splintered and blood-spattered wooden cross.”
God gave the last disciple of Jesus a huge assignment! He wrote three letters to a generation of kids, reminding them of his face-to-face encounter with Jesus and hoping to wake them up from a life of lethargy!
3rd, John’s Gospel was written to have eternal life; 1 John was written so we’d know what that life includes.
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.
John opens his letter by explaining to his reader’s that they can trust what he has to say. He lets them know that he had heard Jesus, he saw Jesus, and he touched Jesus -- before he died and after he rose from the dead. He tells his audience, “What I have seen, heard and handled I pass on to you.” Why? So we can experience fellowship.
There’s more to the Christian life than eternal life. Don’t get me wrong – that’s important! But there’s so much more than eternal life. There’s deep fellowship, confident living, overcoming sin, silent and vocal opposition, genuine love and daily tests.
Three weeks ago, Emily Douglas-Stone hydroplaned near Mt. Vernon, IL and her 9-year-old daughter was killed. Her son was also badly injured and he was lifelined to the Children’s Hospital in St. Louis. I called Emily’s dad, Rich Douglas immediately. Rich and Donna were members of our church for twelve years before they moved to the Covington area.
Last weekend when I drove home to see my folks I arranged to stop in St. Louis. Emily’s 5-year-old son has a serious head injury. I was expecting the worst but I was surprised with the peace that was present in Wesley’s room.
Before I left Rich said, “I have learned that God is good, people care and prayer works.” That’s what I mean when I say that there’s more to life than eternal life.
4th, 1 John was written in a time of fake truth. When Gordon Whybrew was taken to the Heart Center in Carmel, I drove over that morning. When I got there I stopped for directions and I asked for his room. However, I asked for Gordon Heyward’s room. Gordon Hayward just got traded to the Celtics! But in my mind I asked for Gordon Whybrew.
The guy behind me, an African-American, started laughing. When I turned to look he said, “Did you mean to ask for Gordon Hayward?”
My first thought was, “Why bring up Gordon Hayward?” But then it dawned on my what I had done! The receptionist asked, “Is there a difference?”
“Slightly,” I said. “About 40 years, ten inches and $128 million. Other that that, they’re identical twins!”
1 John 2 …
18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.
There have always been imposters! Satan equated himself to God and he still masquerades as an angel of light. Just as there were charlatans in the first century, there are plenty of charlatans today, too!
1 John was written between 95-100 A.D. but it’s still relevant! It still speaks to modern man, and it transcends the centuries – so you would be wise to pay close attention!
II. How to Be Real in a Fake World
1st, Embrace Fellowship. When you hear the word “fellowship” we all assume different things. Some of us think of potluck dinners. Food is always better when somebody else cooks, right? Or we think of our small group that we meet with each week. Or we think of the times before and after church when we can enjoy an extended conversation.
John begins this discussion by telling us that, “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” Then he adds:
6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
The word fellowship means, “Having all things in common.” If we want a relationship with God, we walk in light. Why? That’s where God traffics. And when we walk w/God – we can walk with each other. But if one of us doesn’t walk with God there can be no fellowship!
We have a trend that we share with just about every other church on the planet. After Mother’s Day, church attendance dips. Mother’s Day is followed by Memorial Day and we have this little race in Indiana called “the greatest spectacle in sports” (Indy 500). That race is followed by vacations, church camp and summer sports teams that travel. By the time school rolls around some of our members have fallen into new habits.
Here’s why: there’s a lack of genuine fellowship! If your only connection is a pastor your church involvement won’t last because none of us, including yours truly, has the ability to keep up with 325 families! In case you haven’t heard, we are human! What you really need are genuine friends, not a handshake on Sunday morning at the door.
Steve says, “Worship one hour … serve one hour … study one hour.” But you worship in a crowd. You study and serve with a small group. And the most spiritual choice you will ever make is to join a small group.
2nd, Avoid Sin. Chapter 1 concludes with a discussion about sin. John urges us to, “confess our sins,” reminding us of God’s faithfulness to, “cleanse us from unrighteousness.” That discussion continues in 1 John 2:
1 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.
2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins …
One of the purposes for John’s letter is stated in vs. 1, “… to keep us from sinning.” I grew up in NE Oklahoma and my home town had one theater. They never played an R-rated film. It might have been an ordinance, but I’m guessing it was nothing more than community pressure.
As far as I know, nobody sold illicit magazines. You had to drive to Tulsa, or Joplin, or Pittsburg or Fayetteville.
Our TV reception came via an antenna and we got one channel from Joplin and two from Tulsa. On Sunday’s we tried getting Kansas City so we could watch the Chiefs play. Me and my brothers took turns going outside, climbing the tower and adjusting the antenna.
There was no internet. I think I was lucky to have grown up in a sheltered environment.
The first controversy I remember in college happened down in Louisville. There was a drive-in theater that played R-rated films and they were located where I-64 and I-71 intersected. There were so many wrecks the city made them construct a high fence (it might have been built by Trump).
That fence not only saved physical lives, I think it saved spiritual lives, too! Why? It kept men from sinning! John suggests that we not traffic where sin thrives.
Did you know there’s a new bakery coming to town? It’ll be located where Johnny Provolone’s used to be on the main drag downtown. There are very few parking places – that’s good news! The location will keep me from sinning!
John also provides an escape clause. God’s Word can keep you from sinning. But – if/when you do sin – we have an advocate to call beside us. “Jesus is our atoning sacrifice!”
3rd, Be Aware. Beginning in vs. 18, John writes about antichrist(s). A generation ago Hitler was the antichrist. After Oklahoma City, the antichrist was Timothy McVeigh. In the 80s, the Unabomber was the antichrist. But – an antichrist isn’t necessarily an evil person.
The Greek word for antichrist is antichristos. When we hear anti we assume it means against. But the word actually means, denier. Any person who denies Jesus as the only begotten Son of God is an antichrist. And John tells us to be aware!
I stopped to see Charlie Burkhardt at Wellbrooke on the way home on Thursday. When I walked into his room he had company, so I excused myself and promised to return the next morning. On the way out I saw Ruby, so I told her that Charlie had a friend and either a nurse or a therapist in his room.
Ruby knew about the friend, but she didn’t know about the young lady. So she asked her name, but I couldn’t remember. So she asked what she looked like, but I could remember. Then she asked what the color of her hair was (no luck) and what color top she was wearing – but by then I was embarrassed. I just kept saying, “I don’t know.” Ruby said, “You wouldn’t make a very good Policeman!”
1 John 2:26, “I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.” Satan wants you to be led astray … to fall off into a bottomless abyss. If you aren’t more alert than me you will be led astray by well-meaning, good-intentioned antichrists, people who deny the existence of Jesus.
4th, Live Confidently. Self-confidence is an important attribute, regardless of your station in life. Even a professional golfer can look like an amateur when he doesn’t play with confidence.
1 John 5 …
16b Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them.
17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the Day of Judgment. In this world we are like Jesus.
God gives us confidence as we live, and as we die. Ian Thomas writes:
“The life that he lived qualified him for the death that he died; and the death that he died qualifies us for the life that he lived.”
This passage applied to our lives on earth means …
1. In a dark world, the Christian is a bright light.
2. In a lawless world, the Christian is a silent rebuke.
3. In a chaotic world, the Christian is a calm refuge.
4. In an insecure world, the Christian is a stabilizing force.
1 John 5 …
12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
13 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.
Ozark Bible College used to have a group called Impact Brass & Singers. Meredith Williams, the director, used to close every program by asking two questions:
1. If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?
2. If Jesus asked, “Why should I let you into heaven?” how would you respond?
John says that if we have the Son, we have life, and 1 John was written to give us confidence.
