If you would take your Bibles and turn to 1 John chapter 1, you can find that on page 1021 in the pew Bibles. I saw a comment online recently that said, “Having a toddler in their ‘why’ phase makes you realize how little you know.” Kids ask a lot of questions and parents don’t always have the answers. There was a study done some years ago that followed four children between the ages of 14 months and 5 years, and it found that on average they made 107 inquiries per hour; over 100 questions an hour! It reminded me of when we were in that phase, there was a time – I’ve told this story before – but there was a time when our son was, I believe, nearing that 100 question mark, and Molly said, “Barnes, I don’t know everything.” And he said, “But this is just one thing!” It doesn’t take many “whys” before we have to recognize that we have a lot of “I don’t knows.”
And tonight we come to the beginning of 1 John. This is the first of three letters of John that are found in the New Testament that we’ll be studying over the spring, and there are a lot of questions that we may have of this book for which we have no answers. Like, “Who?” We’re not actually told who wrote this book; it’s technically anonymous. But there are so many obvious parallels that there is good reason to believe the early church testimony that this was written by the apostle John, the same writer as the writer of the gospel of John because there are so many parallels between the two. The “What?” question. We don’t know what this is. We don’t know if it’s a letter or a sermon or something else because it doesn’t start or end like a typical letter. It doesn’t tell us what the specific issue is that’s being addressed, the reason, the purpose for its writing. We have to read between the lines to find out some of those things. We don’t know when it was written. We don’t know where it was written or to whom it was written. There are so many questions from this book of 1 John.
But we do know why. And there are a couple of different purpose statements that we find in this book. And one of them is found at the end in 1 John chapter 5 where he writes, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” And so he is writing in order to give and to foster assurance, an assurance of faith. The second purpose statement is found in the verses that we are going to be reading tonight. It says, “And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” This is why John is writing this book. It’s to give us assurance and joy. And how many of us could use encouragement in both assurance and joy tonight. I’m sure there is something in all of us that longs for, seeks after a greater experience of both of those things – assurance and joy. Well John begins, in accomplishing that purpose, he begins with Jesus because that is where assurance and joy begin. They begin and end in the one who took on flesh and dwelt among us. They begin and end with Jesus. And yet sometimes that’s hard for us to remember. Sometimes that’s hard for us to believe. And sometimes that’s even harder for us to live out in our lives.
And so I want us to see two things from this passage tonight. I want us to see, number one – a dangerous idea. And then number two – the beautiful mystery. A dangerous idea and the beautiful mystery. Before we read, let’s pray and ask God’s help and blessing on the study of His Word tonight. Let’s pray.
Father, so many of us are prone to be distracted, to struggle with doubts, to get discouraged, and to lose sight of the joy that You have bought for us in the Gospel. And so we pray that You would reset our sights, that You would focus us once again on Jesus, the focus and object of our faith, that You would strengthen our faith, that You would work through Your Spirit to help us believe and to keep on believing and to persevere in faith to the end. We pray for joy in our fellowship together even as we read and study Your Word tonight. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
1 John 1, the first four verses:
“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 – 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 – 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. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
First, a dangerous idea. Here is the idea. This is the main point of these verses. It is that our joy is made full when our fellowship is centered on Jesus. Our joy is made full when our fellowship is centered on Jesus. This is basic Christianity. This is the very first principle. It is the heart of everything. It’s to say that Jesus is the object of our faith; He is the central focus of our lives. John Stott, in his book, Basic Christianity, wrote that, “In essence, Christianity is Christ. And who Christ is and what He has done are the rock upon which Christianity is built. Christ is the center, and everything else is peripheral.” And that’s where this book begins – “That which was from the beginning,” verse 1. “The word of life who was made manifest,” verse 2. It talks about He who was “with the Father” and who is proclaimed to you. Jesus is the one who is seen and heard and touched and proclaimed. It’s the message about Jesus that gives us life. It’s what brings us into fellowship with one another. It’s what makes our joy complete. And so the focus is on Jesus from the very beginning.
And for us, this is no new idea, but we might take it for granted, but it’s still dangerous, and it’s dangerous because the very thing that gives us the greatest joy is often the very thing that we fight again. Why is that? How does that work? Well, we think that the way to harmony, we think that what we will enjoy the most is to be with people like us, is to be with people who do what we do and like what we like. In fact, a few years ago there was a movement or a trend in church planting in the planting of what could be called niche churches. And so Burlington, North Carolina has a Broken Chains Biker Church. Lonestar Cowboy Church in Montgomery, Texas is a place where they celebrate their western culture and their rodeo heritage. You can find epic rock ballads at The First Heavy Metal Church of Christ in Dayton, Ohio. And there’s a hiphop church in Sydney, Australia called Krosswordz – starts with a “K” and ends with a “z” of course. Niche churches. Niche churches are a case of personal preferences and personal tastes going to an extreme, maybe.
But how often are we also guilty of focusing too much on peripheral things? And what do we do? We can blur the lines, can’t we, between what it means to be a member of the church and to be a member of a political party. And maybe we want to be in a Sunday School class with people who went to college with us. Maybe we want to be in a small group with those who run in the same social circles with us. It’s not uncommon for people who prefer their mens or womens Bible study or a support group in preference to congregational worship. Why? Why is that? Well it’s the age-old appeal of the PLU. It’s wanting to be with “People Like Us.” And sometimes we work so hard to create uniformity because we like what seems safe and predictable, but, but if Jesus is the center of our fellowship, and if Jesus is the way to have the fullest joy together, then all of those other things have to fade into the background. And that means that we will have to let go of some things that are actually very important to us, to let go to some degree of those things that are so familiar for us. And that’s dangerous, that’s dangerous because it’s disruptive, and it might even upset some people.
But you know what? The Gospel is disruptive. The Gospel is disruptive because after all, it’s supernatural. And if we are united together in Christ alone then we are to be united together in spite of differences that might seem too big to us. You see, in Christ we are united together regardless of ethnic and social and political and economic and cultural differences. Fellowship in Jesus, joy in Jesus does not operate along the usual lines of communication. The first time our family, as a family of five took communion together, was at a Greek Evangelical Church in Thessaloniki. And the service was in Greek and we wore headphones with a translator who was doing the best he could to keep up with everything, so we didn’t get every word. It moved pretty fast. But we worshiped along the best we could. And all of the hymns were in Greek and they were to tunes that were unfamiliar to us. Except for the last hymn, and the last hymn was to the tune – again, it was in Greek but it was to the tune, “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.” And I did my best to sing in Greek. The words were something like, “ ———————————.” And I don’t know every one of those words, but what I could pick out and based on the tune of the hymn it was singing about the glory of the cross of Jesus. It was singing about the life and the light that we have in the Gospel. It was enough to bring me to tears. And in fact, when I think about some of the most joyful times, moments in my life of worship, it has often times been such as singing the name of Jesus with Sudanese refugees in Memphis. It’s fellowshiping with brothers and sisters in the church in Peru. It’s participating in a funeral at a Missionary Baptist Church across town in Jackson and singing together the words, “Soon and very soon we are going to see the King!” Vast differences, big differences but united in one big thing; united because of Jesus.
And sometimes I think that the bigger the differences the harder we will fight to establish the common bond we have in faith, when sometimes when the differences are so small we magnify the distinctives of our faith. I think even as we read through and study about the kingdom of God in the book of Daniel, we read about the expansion of the kingdom of God in the book of Acts, we look forward to what it says about the kingdom of God in the book of Revelation, we long to see the kingdom of God represented among our own congregation. We would love to see our congregation look like the kingdom of God. And yet that won’t happen if we elevate and prioritize peripheral issues and take Jesus off of the center as the bond of our fellowship. But it also won’t happen if we make diversity and differences the focus of our coming together. It has to be, it must be a fellowship that is centered on Jesus. There was a theologian, a writer who said recently, he said, “We must fight, we must fight the collective sin of allowing anything but the Gospel to be the cause of our unity.” We must fight the collective sin of allowing anything but Jesus to be the cause of our fellowship together. And that’s the main point of these opening verses of 1 John. It’s a dangerous idea that our joy is made full when our fellowship is centered on Jesus.
Now how do we do that? How do we keep our focus on Jesus? It’s by remembering, it’s by believing, it’s by continuing to marvel at the beautiful mystery. And that beautiful mystery is presented before us here in these verses. And it’s too much. It’s too much for some people because it’s not like it’s something that we can fully comprehend. It’s a mystery. Mystery doesn’t mean it’s not true, it just means it is more than our limited minds can take in. But what makes us think we can eliminate all mystery when it comes to God? What makes us think that we would want to eliminate all mystery when it comes to God? And this mystery that John is writing about is what J.I. Packer calls “the supreme mystery of the Gospel.” It is really “getting two for the price of one,” he says, because the incarnation, the teaching about Jesus, about God becoming flesh and dwelling among us, it’s really two mysteries for the price of one. It is about the distinctions in the Godhead – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And that the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, became flesh and dwelt among us. Two natures in one person; God and man together in Jesus Christ. This is double mystery for us.
And one of the early widespread heresies of the early church came about because it was all too much for some people to believe – Arianism. Arianism was the doctrine that there was a time when the Son was not. It denied the divinity of Jesus. And Arianism was accepted by so many in the early church that when Athanasius taught and fought against it he was called “Athanasius contra mundum” – “Athanasius against the world.” It may be hard to believe, but John says clearly here and in his gospel that God became man. John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” And here in 1 John he is saying that there was not a time when the Son was not. Jesus was from the beginning. He is the Word of life, eternal life. He is eternal life that was made manifest, made manifest among us. He was revealed in flesh and blood so that they could hear Him and see Him and touch Him. They had that kind of fellowship with Jesus, you see. Jesus washed their feet. They leaned and reclined at table with Jesus, leaning against His side.
Just think about the betrayal of Jesus. He was betrayed by a friend, by a close friend, a friend who had dipped bread together with Him at the table; a friend who betrayed Him to the authorities – how? With a kiss. What about Thomas with his doubts? Jesus said, “Thomas, put your finger here. See My hands. Put out your hand and place it in My side.” That’s how close they were to Jesus. The Greek word is “koinonia.” It’s two times in verse 3 where we read the word “fellowship.” “Koinonia” – it’s still a word that’s in use in modern Greek, but really there’s nothing particularly special about it as a word. It might just refer to society and culture in a news program or on a website. It just means “society.” “Koinonia” means “a group that shares certain things in common.” But you see, this is one of the most beautiful words we can think of, and what gives the word such significance is how John uses it in communicating the realities of the Gospel. That “koinonia” is the bond with each other like the “koinonia,” the bond between the Father and the Son. And it’s a fellowship that required, that can only come about because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. That’s how valuable and unique this fellowship, this “koinonia” is. It’s mind boggling.
It says in verse 3, “Indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” It’s like David was saying this morning, talking about Leviticus and the sacrifices and the worship of God – the greatest blessing of the Gospel, the good news of this message is God. We get God in the Gospel. We get access to Him. We can draw near to Him. We can know God and worship Him and fellowship with Him because of the good news. And Jesus is the way. He is the way. He is the way in which God fully reveals Himself. He is the way to our fullest joy. And if we look anywhere else, if we fellowship around anything else then we are uniting around cheap substitutes that can only disappoint us, because it’s not the real thing. Jesus is the real thing. Jesus came in flesh and blood to make God fully known. In fact, we can say that Jesus gave up His flesh and shed His blood to make God fully known to us.
Maybe the question would be for these first readers, “But we weren’t there. We didn’t hear Him and see Him and touch Him like you did. How can this be true for us as well? We weren’t there. How do we have fellowship with God and with one another?” Well John tells us. What does He say? He says it’s because not only was the Word made flesh but the Word was made known, it was manifest through the apostles’ message. Verse 2, “We proclaim to you the eternal life.” Verse 3, “That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you.” And John says that our fellowship with one another, our fellowship with the Father and the Son comes through the preaching about Jesus. And that means that this fellowship comes by hearing and receiving the message that was preached. In other words, this fellowship with one another, this fellowship with God comes by faith. And by the way, this is where we can imply, and he’ll tell us later, this is where the Holy Spirit is at work as well because it is the Holy Spirit who testifies to these things to us and makes this union and bond a reality in our lives.
Do you remember what the Sadducees, or when the Sadducees challenge Jesus about the resurrection – what did Jesus say to them? He said they didn’t even know their own Scriptures and they didn’t know the power of God. He pointed them to Moses and the burning bush were God said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” God said, “I am their God. I am their God still, not just in the past.” And Jesus said to the Sadducees, “He is not God of the dead but the God of the living.” And you see, when we are united to Christ by faith we are brought into this fellowship with each other, a fellowship with God, and nothing, nothing can break it apart, not even death. Not even death.
In fact, it’s so much so that we can even talk about fellowship, fellowship of believers that exists with John and with those who are reading and hearing these first words as he first wrote them to them. That’s how deep and how lasting this fellowship is that John is writing about. Nothing on earth can compare to it. Nothing else is like that. Every other human connection will eventually dissolve. People, place, language, tribe, even family. You know, sometimes I ask couples in premarital counseling, I’ll say, “Are you committing yourself to each other forever?” And of course it sounds wrong to say, “No,” but we’re not. And even the very best marriages are “till death do us part.” Go back to Jesus and the Sadducees. What did He say? He said, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Marriage is not forever, but that’s what makes it all the more significant because the reality to which marriage points us is the relationship that we have with God in the Gospel. It’s a fellowship. It’s a communion that lasts forever. What is our greatest joy? What is the way to our greatest joy? It is by faith in the beautiful mystery. By faith. It’s that simple.
And that should be a means of assurance to us today as we start this letter, this book. Nothing we do, it’s not by some new revelation, it’s not some higher knowledge, it’s not some great religious experience or mountain top experience. No, it’s by believing what John proclaims to us about Jesus – that the Word was made manifest, that they were eyewitnesses to it, and that this word, this proclamation is the way to life and fellowship and joy. And he’s writing to those who believe in the name of the Son of God and he’s saying, “Don’t stop. Don’t stop believing. Don’t look anywhere else. Keep your focus on Him. Keep your focus on Jesus from start to finish and pursue Him. Pursue His way. Pursue Christlikeness and humility and sacrifice. Give up your preferences. Give up your way for the sake of other people. Pursue Christ. Keep your focus on Him and on Him alone.”
I saw a link to a photography exhibit recently. It was called “Leaving and Waving.” “Leaving and Waving.” It was a series of photographs that the photographer had taken over a period of 27 years. It was pictures of her parents standing in their driveway and waving as she left to go home. And you can see over the years, over the 27 years and over the series of pictures how her parents changed and how the process of aging took effect. You can see in one, in the foreground there’s a baby and a baby carrier in the car. And then a few pictures later it’s a picture with a teenager in the passenger’s seat. And then you get closer to the end of the series and it’s a picture of her mother standing and waving by herself. Until finally there’s a picture of an empty driveway as she drives away leaving after her mother’s funeral. And she says about this exhibit, she says, “It’s a story. It’s a story about family and aging and the sorrow of saying goodbye.”
And that’s what we have to deal with, with all other bonds and connections. All other ties that bind will dissolve, but not this. And fellowship in Christ is forever, and that’s why it’s the source of our greatest joy. That’s why our joy is made full only, only when our fellowship is centered on Christ. Let’s pray.
Father, we pray that You would help us to decrease and Christ to increase in our hearts, in our minds, in our affections, in our faith. That we would cling more and more to Him and make more and more of Him in our lives and in our fellowship together. We pray for this joy, that You would bring fuller and fuller joy in our lives as we look more and more to Christ. Help us to persevere. Help us to press on, not to give up, not to look elsewhere, not even to look to the strength and the magnitude of our own faith, but that we would look to Jesus and His sufficiency, His beauty, His grace. We pray all of this in Christ’s name, amen.