Turn with me to 1 John 5.
Read 1 John 5:9-13.
We are going to focus primarily on verse 12 as we talk about a special possession. John tells us several things in this verse. The first is …
I. We have a Special Relationship with Jesus.
John writes, “He who has the Son has the life.” These eight words say a lot to us. What do they mean? There are three things involved in our Special Relationship with Jesus.
A. We have a Realizing Faith in him.
What does that mean? There are three aspects of our realizing faith in him.
1. We have a realizing faith in his Existence.
This is a faith in more than his historical character. Jesus is more than a character in history. He is more than someone who comes to life on the pages of a history book like George Washington. When we speak of Jesus we use the word is not was. He is living, now in the 21st century. Last week I mentioned that Jesus is often classed with the so-called great teachers of history. The reality is that they are dead. Jesus is alive. You could go and find the graves of those guys. You could find their bones. Jesus is not dead, he is alive and well. No one has ever proven that Jesus is still dead. Some people have come up with some wild theories. When you examine those theories, it takes more faith to believe them.
2. We have a realizing faith in his Perfection.
To believe in Jesus as anything less than perfect is to make him a mere man. Jesus is more than just a really great man. Even the greatest most wonderful Christian has flaws. Billy Graham, James Dobson and others are imperfect. To say that Jesus is imperfect is to say that He could not be God. In the five verses we read this morning, Jesus is called directly the “Son of God” three times. Three times he is called “His Son.” One other time he is called “the Son,” with the implication he is the Son of God. We have read in the book of 1 John that we are to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to put my trust in an ordinary man for my salvation. To believe in the perfection of Jesus is to believe that he is God. It is also to believe that he is the One who can take away our sin.
3. We have a realizing faith in his Interest In Us.
The fact that we may have faith in his existence and his perfection means little without realizing that he cares about us. Jesus desires to save us. He died for the sins of the world. He cares enough for each one of us individually. Jesus would have died if only one person needed salvation. He didn’t die for the human race as a whole, he died for each individual member of the human race.
This realizing faith acts in three ways. We must use our intelligence, our heart and our will. God did not create us to be robots. He gave each of us a brain to use. Our intelligence tells that Jesus is who he says he is. Our heart is where our allegiance is. When we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we place our hand over our heart. It is with all our allegiance that we have faith in Jesus. It is also a matter of our will. Jesus isn’t going to save us against our will. It is of our own free will that we come to him. Jesus isn’t going to kick in the door of our heart. He is going to wait patiently for us to open the door and invite him in. The second aspect of our special relationship is that …
B. We are Accepting of his teaching.
When we have Jesus, we accept his teaching. We study him, his life and teaching and apply that to our own life.
Think about an art student who studies under the master painter. The student observes all that the master painter does. He watches how he holds the brush. He watches how he mixes the paint. He notes the choice of canvass. He does his best to imitate the master painter. He does more than just observe. The student spends time with the master painter. He talks with him. He listens to him. He absorbs the knowledge of the master painter. The student buys into all that is said. When the student matures, he still has all that the master painter instilled in him. As long as the student lives, the teachings of the master painter are still with him. They are a part of his mind and thinking and the way he goes about his life in art. In a sense, he has a part of the master painter with him. When we have the Son, we are devoted to his teaching. We look at the Scripture to see how Jesus lived and how he interacted with people. We observe his life. We look at what he taught while he was on earth. We spend time getting to know him. We talk with him. We listen to him. We listen for his will for us. As we grow in him, we get the mind of Jesus. He is the Master Teacher. When we grow in him, we will have him. The third aspect of our special relationship is that …
C. We are Sympathizing with him.
Sympathy doesn’t mean that we feel sorry for him. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love, because He first loved us.” He gave his life for us before we even knew the first thing about Jesus. Sympathy is when we begin to think like someone else and we seek to advance their cause.
During the 1950s, the United States went through the “McCarthy Era.” Joe McCarthy was a senator from Wisconsin. He began investigating various people with communist ties. He was convinced that there were several communist sympathizers in the United States government. McCarthy charged that these people were in sympathy with the communist movement and the Soviet Union. He argued that their true loyalty was not to the United States, but rather to the Soviet Union. There certainly were some spies and people with a loyalty to something other than the government. Those communist sympathizers were working to further their agenda.
Our sympathy should be with Jesus and the advancement of his agenda. Our life should be about the advancement of the Kingdom of God.
Our faith in Jesus should entail our whole being. Our mind, our heart and our will should be loyal to Jesus. When that is the case, our actions will back up our words.
The next thing that John tells us is …
II. We can have the Highest life.
I’m sure you have seen the beer commercial that talks about the “High Life.” The implication is that if you use our product, you will have the “High Life.” The fact is that Jesus offers us the Highest Life. He offers us life at its fullest. The life we have in Jesus is greater than anything the world can offer. There are few thing that the life in Christ is not.
A. It is not mere Existence.
Every living person has existence. The devil has existence, but it is not the life in Christ. The devil has no chance of the life in Christ. We are called to more than mere existence.
B. It is not mere Intellectual life.
It isn’t a life that will just make us more intelligent. Many of the so-called great teachers of the world (Mohammed, Confucius, Buddha and the others) were intelligent people. They possessed a great deal of intellectual power, but they in no sense had the life offered by Jesus Christ the Son of God.
C. It is not mere Emotional life.
The world abounds with people who are kind and compassionate, but who do not have the life of Jesus in any way. Just because someone pities the down-and-out doesn’t mean that Jesus lives in them. Some of the greatest philanthropists have been non-Christians.
What John is talking about when he says, “He who has the Son has the life,” is that we have Jesus in us. Our motives and affections change. Our motives and affections are no longer earthly and sinful, but they are heavenly and pure.
Jesus is in the driver’s seat of our life. We relinquish control of the steering wheel and say, “Hey, I can’t do this on my own, I need help.”
I remember the first I ever visited a large city. I was about 11 years old, and we went to Kansas City to go to Worlds of Fun, the local amusement park. Every year, all of the Nazarene churches on the MidAmerica zone are invited for a special Nazarene Night. The tickets are discounted. It’s a blast, especially for a kid whose greatest amusement park thrill was riding the motorcycle merry-go-round at the local carnival. Our family and the pastor’s family piled into our Suburban for the 350-mile trek. My mom did all of the driving until we stopped at a rest area just north of the city. She handed the keys to the pastor and said, “Why don’t you drive, you know the city better than anyone?” He had spent several years living in the Kansas City area. He knew where to go. He knew his way around. He knew which roads to take. My mom relinquished control of the steering wheel to someone who knew better than she where to go and how to get there.
We need to relinquish the control of our steering wheel to Jesus. He knows where to take us. He knows the roads we need to take. We never really know where he is taking us, but he knows better than we do. He knows what roads to take to get us around the traffic jams of life. When we insist on driving, we will wind up stuck in traffic or in the ditch. Jesus knows what we need and where we need to go.
The more control we allow him to have, the more we will trust him. When we “have the Son,” we have the life that God wants us to have.
The third thing that John is telling us is …
III. The life comes Only Through Jesus.
The second half of verse 12 says, “He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” In the Gospel of John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”
Sin caused separation from God. It left a hole in the life of every person. We all have the desire to have a relationship with God in us. Many people try to fill that hole with things other than God. We try to find meaning in why we are here. Some try to fill the hole and find meaning through drugs, alcohol, sex, job, even family and other things. It could even be church. Nothing ever works apart from Jesus. We cannot fill the hole with anything other than God. Jesus is the only way to God, because Jesus reveals God to us.
A. He reveals the Righteousness of God.
God’s righteousness demands a penalty for sin. The problem is that there is not one thing we can do to appease God in regard to our sin. Only Jesus death on the cross could pay for our sin.
B. He reveals the Love of God.
Jesus shows us the love God. Love is perfectly expressed in Jesus’ death on the cross. Despite the fact that we continually violate God’s will for us and the fact that we shake our fist at him, he still sent his Son to die for us that we might have the life in him.
C. He reveals the Beauty of God.
Jesus reveals the beauty of God to us, even though we cannot fully see it through our dim eyes.
D. He reveals the Holiness of God.
Jesus shows us the holiness of God. We realize that we need God. We realize that there is nothing we can do to attain the holiness of God. Holiness is given to us through our faith in Jesus.
In Jesus we see the life that is possible only through him. Jesus gives us the supreme revealing of God. It is the Holy Spirit of God that awakens our heart and soul to the need for God.
It is only through Jesus that we can have a special relationship with God and enjoy the highest life.
Conclusion
Ø This is for anyone. Anyone can have the life through the Son. When John says, “He who…” it means whoever. Anyone can obtain the highest life. There is nothing we have to do other than have faith in him.
Ø God is seeking us to have a relationship with him. God’s Holy Spirit works on us, before we even know that we need God. Jesus died for every individual in the human race. God’s love is seeking for him to have a relationship with us.
Ø If someone doesn’t have the life, it is because they have not exercised the faith. God has given each of the faith that we need to accept him. There aren’t a bunch of conditions we have to meet before we can have a relationship with God. All we need is faith.
This morning we celebrate the gift of the highest life. We celebrate the special relationship we can have with God. We celebrate Jesus as the only avenue through which it can happen. If you don’t have the life of Jesus, you can have this morning.
