Sermon Central
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1 John 1:1-4 - Know Jesus, Proclaim Jesus, Make Our Joy Complete! Series
Contributed by Stephen Belokur on Jan 8, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: The apostle John had a certain way of hammering his points home in the opening verses of his letters. What points were so important to John that he had to repeatedly emphasize them in these opening verses of this letter?
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
“This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
“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.”
And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Please open your Bibles to 1 John 1
The apostle John was a passionate man!
I wonder if it was John’s passion for truth that caused him to be “the disciple whom Jesus loved?”
I love it when we read in the book of the Gospel according to Luke and he says in …
“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”
That is great! Luke the investigative historian, gathering all the information he could get from all of the available eye witnesses he could find!
But even greater would be to hear from an actual eye witness who had been with Jesus from the beginning of His ministry here on earth to the very end!
Well, we have one right here in the passionate apostle John!
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read 1 John 1
What are the major things we see in verses 1-4?
We have actual eye witnesses of something and this letter is being written by one of those eye witnesses; the apostle John, the beloved disciple.
There is something John and others have seen, heard and touched. They have experienced this “something” with their physical senses. If we go back through the Gospel biographies of Jesus we see that this was not a momentary experience but lasted for three years!
So, what was this “something” that they all experienced with their eyes, ears and hands?
This “something” which was actually Someone who was
- “That which was from the beginning”; preexisting creation
- “the Word of life”; Word capitalized indicates that it is a proper noun, a name
- “the Life appeared”; Jesus was born into humanity, the incarnation
- “the eternal life, which was with the father”; Jesus is the source and giver of this eternal life which was with the father and which has now been made available to us
What are they going to do with this first hand testimony of what has appeared and been given to us?
- This we proclaim; verse 1
- We proclaim to you; verse 2
- We proclaim to you; verse 3
Why are they making this proclamation?
- “…so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” John 1:3
Fellowship … what is fellowship?
In our church we could have a fellowship of motorcycle riders; those who own and ride or have previously owned and ridden motorcycles. We would have a common interest and a fellowship that would exist between us because of that common interest and common experiences.
We could also have a fellowship of arts and crafts people such as knitters and other types of needle work. They would be able to discuss and share talents that others would not understand.
Obviously our main fellowship would be our common love of Christ and our desire to follow and please Him.
Have you ever wondered why we as a church do not participate in ecumenical services around the area? Wouldn’t we have fellowship with other groups?
For instance, what if a group wanted to hold an ecumenical service with JW’s, Muslims, Jews, Baha’is and Sikhs, and, what if these folks invited us to join?
Would we participate in the service?
After all, all of these religions are monotheistic; they believe in one true god.
Would we be able to join them in worship?
