1 John: Jesus Is The Source Of Fellowship
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1 John: Jesus Is The Source Of Fellowship
1 John 1:1-7 (ESV)
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—
2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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 cleanses us from all sin.
Once we get to know Jesus Christ as our Savior, we do not only receive the privilege of enjoying eternity in heaven, but we also gain the potential of experiencing so much joy in this life even before we go to heaven. Please don’t miss the word “potential” because I know many believers are missing out on this kind of joy.
Someone has described the Christian life as entering a King’s palace with many ordinary and special rooms. The ordinary rooms are accessible to everyone who gets to enter the palace. However, to enter the special rooms, which are beautifully decorated and filled with rare portraits and priceless gems, the King Himself must open them and lead the way in enjoying them. Unfortunately, many Christians are satisfied with their ordinary access even when they have been inside the King’s palace for a long period of time.
Early this week, I asked our high school and college students who are very involved in our ministries these two questions:
Why is it hard for many teenagers to commit their lives to the Lord Jesus wholeheartedly
What are some reasons others would settle to a very minimal commitment to Him?
What led me to ask these questions are the statistics I read from the Barna Research Groups:
2 out of every 3 young adults who grew up in church have withdrawn from church involvement.
22% of young people have lost their faith entirely.
The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of adults.
With the questions I posted, I have three students who responded, saying that the possibility is that many of them are afraid that they are going to miss out on enjoying life because of the following:
The Christian life has so many rules.
Their friends might stay away from them and misunderstand them.
They see the time they spend serving Christ as time being spent away from their fun-filled activities with friends.
They have so many distractions and find no time following Him.
I’ll ask you to take note of these responses because I’m going to share some essential insights that I’m hoping will challenge all of us this morning.
Well, you might be wondering why I have chosen to start with this reality about the teenagers' relationship with Jesus in today's sermon as we study together the first letter of John to the Christian churches around the known world during that time. Allow me to explain: Many Bible scholars believe John, the beloved, who authored this letter, decided to give his life in following the Lord Jesus at the age of seventeen or eighteen. He was the youngest among the 12 disciples and has often demonstrated being easily angered because of immaturity. This character flaw earned him and his brother the name "son of thunder" (Luke 9:51-55).
However, with his faithful walk with Jesus, the Lord would lead in his journey and give him the honor to write five books in the New Testament. By the time he would write 1 John, most likely he was around ninety years old, with the specific date of writing would be 85-95 AD. If we followed these dates, John would have enjoyed walking with Jesus for around 80 years already.
This blessed walk with Jesus would be the basis of the central theme for 1 John portraying Jesus as the source of fellowship. With this emphasis, we must define the word "Fellowship." Often, our understanding of this word is minimal. We use it to mean hanging out together with some fun and food. However, it is taken from the Greek word in the New Testament, which means relationship, communion, or the sharing of life together. The perfect picture of this relationship is found in the shared life of the husband and wife. In other words, once you establish this fellowship with Jesus, He becomes an essential partner in life. We are no longer alone; we have Jesus Christ partnering with us to handle this burdensome life.
To examine 1 John with our theme, let’s cover three basic elements of Jesus being the source of fellowship:
I THE FOUNDATION OF FELLOWSHIP (vs. 1-3)
Last Sunday, when Pastor Dan covered 2 Peter, we saw the problem of false teachers sneaking into the church and perverting the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. Evidently, if Satan cannot destroy the church outwardly using persecution against the believers, he will destroy the church inwardly by using false teachers. Nevertheless, the church must diligently do its best to preserve the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
During the writing of 1 John, the prominent false teaching was called Gnosticism. This word came from the Greek word “Gnosis,” meaning “Knowledge.” This Greco-Roman philosophical teaching says they have some extra “knowledge” or “understanding” about human existence. And what is this extra knowledge they possessed? It lies in the understanding that human beings contain a piece of God (the highest good) in them because of their soul and spirit. However, humans are sinful because their material bodies are polluted by sin. When the churches entertained the idea of Gnosticism, it resulted in two wrong teachings:
If Jesus Christ is God and Holy, then He did not have a human body. He existed only as a spirit.
If Jesus possessed a human body, then He was a sinful being and not God.
Of course, both doctrinal options are unacceptable. To show the errors of these teachings, John shared three essential doctrines about Jesus that He explained in verses 1-3:
A. The Eternal Existence of Jesus
In these first three verses, you have to catch two key phrases – “That which was from the beginning” . . . “which was with the Father.” These two phrases mean that Jesus already existed with the Father even before anything came into existence. Undoubtedly, His pre-existence speaks of Him as someone equal with God the Father because both of them are eternal beings. To be an eternal being means he is without beginning and without ending.
John conveyed the same concept when he wrote the Gospel of John:
John 1:1-2 (ESV)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
In this passage, John referred to Jesus being Word because He is the revealer of the Father to the world. So, again, Jesus already existed before the beginning with God, the Father.
B. The Incarnation of Jesus
The second important doctrine is Jesus’ incarnation, or Jesus becoming a human being by taking on human flesh. You find this doctrine from the repeated phrase in verse 2, “was made manifest.” Therefore, the eternal God with the Father before creation became a man.
Remember, this perception of Jesus Christ is significant to counter the false teaching rejecting the deity of Jesus Christ because He possessed a human body. However, we who have learned about the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ know that it is the basis of our claim regarding the holiness of Christ’s human body. The story was recorded in Luke 1: 34-35:
34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
When the angel, Gabriel, came to Mary and told her that she would conceive a child in her womb, she was perplexed because she was a virgin. Then, the angel explained to her that the Holy Spirit would create this body in her womb so that the body would be holy.
C. The Eternal Life from Jesus
Notice, Jesus did not only pre-existed and incarnated but He is also the Eternal Life. Please don’t fail to notice the definite article “the” before the phrase “eternal life” in verse 2. The reference to Jesus being the eternal life is crucial because it points to Him as the only source of eternal life. This truth is reinforced in John 14:6 (ESV):
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Take note. No one will spend eternity with God in heaven with Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
As John enumerated these three precious doctrines about Jesus Christ, he also kept saying these statements in the first three verses – “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands” . . . “and testify to it and proclaim to you.” John was not being redundant when he kept repeating these words. He provided testimony of how he and the other disciples of Jesus experienced fellowshipping with Him. There is no doubt that he, at the same time, was trying to respond to the Gnostics who are saying that Jesus did not have a human body. In a way, John is saying, “you are wrong because we were able to see and touch Him!”
Let me close this section by emphasizing what John emphasizes in verse 3. All these three fundamental doctrines about Jesus gave them the foundations to fellowship with Jesus Christ and the Father. Therefore, if we would like to have fellowship with God, we must believe all of these truths about Jesus Christ.
II THE FALSEHOOD OF FELLOWSHIP (vs. 5-7)
For this second point, I want to skip verse 4, but I will return to it in my last point. So let’s read verses 5-7 again:
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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 cleanses us from all sin.
In these verses, John wanted to distinguish between the children of God who have fellowship with Him and the ones who do not belong to Him and have no fellowship with Him.
Undoubtedly, according to John, a person is either a child of God or not; there is no middle ground. Since God is light and there’s no presence of darkness in Him, then His children will live in the light. In other words, believers will live in obedience to His commandments and follow the example of Jesus Christ. John re-echo’s this truth in 1 John 2:4-6 (ESV):
4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,
5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:
6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
We always believe that Scriptures should interpret Scriptures. If we want to know what it means to live in the light as children of God, there are two things mentioned here:
A. God’s children should keep His commandments. (v.4)
B. God’s children should walk as He walked. (v. 6)
On the contrary, if you go back to our main text, John in verse 6 highlights the problem with those who are merely professing to have fellowship with Him. They habitually live in darkness. In other words, if you examine their lives, it would be evident that they don’t belong to Him because they continually do the opposite of righteous living.
Now, John strongly calls these people who profess faith and live in darkness liars who need to be exposed to the church community. Why? It is because they can lead people astray. The apostle Paul even went further than simply calling out false teachers. He instructed the believers to avoid false teachers:
Romans 16:17 (ESV)
17 I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.
Of course, you have to know who they are to avoid them. So, the best way to know the false teachers in our church would be to know the correct doctrines. We will never know the false teachings if we don’t know which ones are right. Second, we need to watch how they live. We should avoid them if they continue to live in sin, even if they are good teachers.
III THE FULLNESS OF FELLOWSHIP (v. 4)
It is always best to end every sermon positively, so I reserved verse 4 as my last point. It reads, "And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete." In other translations, the last part of the verse would be rendered, "That your joy may be full."
The ultimate reason why John wrote about Jesus being the source of our fellowship is so we believers can experience a fuller joy. We need to emphasize that we can experience not a little joy but a full joy.
Unfortunately, in our popular culture today, most people think that being wholeheartedly committed to Jesus will make your life miserable. The young people who answered the survey questions I sent conveyed the same sentiment. Unfortunately, many young people feel that Jesus would rob them of their joy and would enjoy seeing them live miserable lives. But is this true?
Definitely not! John's ultimate reason for writing the believers about Jesus being the source of fellowship or relationship is to help us understand that God wants to share or partner in our lives. He delights in seeing us experience greater joy in life. The truth is that if someone wants to see us miserable, that would be the Devil. Jesus said these words:
John 10:10 (NIV)
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Considering this verse, the emphasis is a strong contrast between the purposes of the thief who is the Devil and that of Jesus Christ. The Devil wants to see us destroyed, while Jesus Christ desires us to experience His fullest joy. This reality is the main reason we have to choose Jesus Christ over the Devil at all times.
Here is a great verse to close with:
Revelation 3:20 (ESV)
20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
This verse is written to all believers, and Jesus says that although He is already present in our lives, He still longs to have an intimate fellowship with us. So He is constantly knocking, hoping that you would open the door of your heart and allow Him to have a much deeper relationship with you. So let Him in, and you will never regret once you did!
-Bishop Jeremiah Lepasana