January 7, 2017
1 / 2 / 3 John
1 John 1:1-10
WHO is speaking:
God through John
WHO is listening:
The church John leads is mostly made up of Jewish followers and has recently gone through a crisis where they have lost some people and some no longer believe in Jesus as hte Messiah.
WHAT is being said / WHY is it being said:
A lot of these books are church damage control, and recentering the church on the basics of following Jesus.
HOW it’s being said:
These books are not linear and logical like most writing, they are written in a form called amplification where the writer talks about LIFE, LOVE, TRUTH
repetatively.
1. Where Does The Authority of
What John is Going to Say Come From?
1 John 1:1-4
The Incarnation of the Word of Life
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.
John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
1 John 1:3-4
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 joy complete.
John sees an issue coming up from within the church, so he starts by saying why he has authority to speak into this becuase of his experience with Jesus.
2. Who is God,
and What Does That Mean For Us?
1 John 1:5-6
Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
God IS light. He doesn’t represent light,
He IS light.
If your life looks like “light,” it’s because fellowship with God brings light
If your life looks “dark,” it’s because we are separated from God
Barna Research did a study and found that:
- Over 90% of the United States population believe in a God or God’s that have power over the universe
- When asked if all of the world’s religions essentially prayed to the same God
- 64% of the adult public agreed
- 46% of evangelicals agreed
- 62% of people who called themselves “regular church attenders” agreed
So only based on that one thing, about half of everyone who calls themselves a Christian isn't really walking in light.
1 John 1:7-10
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.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
So the question is this:
Are you following God and trusting Him to purify you as a part of this church?
or
Are you trying to be good on your own and pretending you don’t need Him?
Communication Card
- I will search my heart, and ask God if my life is lining up with the Bible
- it’s easy to go with the flow of people not following Jesus
- I trust that God can and does purify me from sin.
- I need to repent of: _____________
