Being in Christ
1 John 1:1-4
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes, Pastor
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Greeley, Colorado
August 15, 2021
INTRODUCTION
From the time I started preaching over 35 years ago, I have loved studying and teaching the Bible.
Early on, I admit, I didn’t know the Bible as well as I do now. It reminds me of the story I heard about a Methodist church who was looking for a new pastor. The committee was interviewing a young man and the chairman said, “Son, do you know your Bible?” He said, “Yes, sir!” The chairman asked, “What’s your favorite Bible story? Would you share it with us?”
The young preacher, who was pretty nervous, thought for a minute and said, “I’ll tell you the story of the Prodigal Son.” He took a deep breath and continued: “There was a man of the Pharisees name Nicodemus, who went down to Jericho by night and he fell upon stony ground and the thorns choked him half to death. The next morning Solomon and his wife, Gomorrah, came by, and carried him down to the ark for Moses to take care of. But, as he was going through the Eastern Gate into the Ark, he caught his hair in a limb and he hung there forty days and forty nights and he afterwards did hunger. And, the ravens came and fed him. The next day, the three wise men came and carried him down to the boat dock and he caught a ship to Nineveh.
And when he got there, he found Delilah sitting on the wall. He said, ‘Chuck her down, boys, chuck her down.’ And, they said, ‘How many times shall we chuck her down, till seven time seven?’ And he said, ‘Nay, but seventy times seven.’ And they chucked her down four hundred and ninety times...And, she burst asunder in their midst....And they picked up twelve baskets of the leftovers....And, in the resurrection whose wife shall she be?”
There was silence for a few minutes until the Chairman spoke up. He said, “Folks, I know he’s not good looking, but he sure knows his Bible. Let’s call him as our pastor!”
In previous years, we’ve studied several books of the Bible including Genesis, Psalms, Matthew, John, Ephesians, and James. And as I consider our preaching plan for 2021-22 I’d like for us to study the writings of the Apostle John including First, Second, and Third John.
We believe John was the youngest of the original disciples and he was the only one who died by natural causes. According to the early church pastor, Tertullian, John was arrested in Rome and was sentenced to die by The Emperor Domitian by being boiled in oil in 95 A.D.
This is a painting that you can see in Basel, Switzerland today. It is by Hans Friese and was done in 1514. Tertullian was writing about the church in Rome and said: “How happy is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood; where Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s; where Paul wins his crown in a death like John [the Baptist]’s; where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island exile.”
Miraculously, John survived being boiled in oil because God wasn’t finished with him yet. He was exiled to the Island of Patmos where he had a vision and wrote The Revelation of Jesus Christ. He later traveled to Ephesus where the spent the last years of his life writing his Gospel Account and these three epistles. Someone said once that an epistle is the wife of an apostle. But they are letters.
1 John is filled with basic truth for new Christians. John is writing like a Father to his children. We’ll entitle this series “The Basics of Christianity.” Before you study a book in the Bible, you always look for the key verse or key verses. There are four key verses in 1 John. Let’s preview them.
Key 1: To promote joy.
This is in our passage today. 1 John 1:4 reads: “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” We will talk more about this in a moment.
Key 2: To promote purity.
1 John 2:1 says: “My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one.”
Key 3: To protect from error.
There was so much false teaching in the church, as there is today. 1 John 2:26 says: “I have written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.”
Key 4: To provide assurance.
Some people say you can’t know for SURE if you’re saved. They’re wrong. 1 John 5:13 says: “I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
The fourth and perhaps the main purpose of the book is to provide assurance of our salvation. The word “know” appears over 30 time in these five chapters and I hope by the time we end this study of 1 John if somebody asks you if you going to heaven when you die, I hope you won’t say, “I hope so” or “I think so.” I hope you’ll say, “I KNOW so!”
With those four purposes in mind, let’s go back now to chapter 1 and talk about our life in Christ
1 John 1:1-4: What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
What does it mean to be a Christian? The difference between the epistle of 1 John and The Gospel according to John is that John wrote his account of the life of Jesus for non-believers, so people would believe. He wrote 1 John to believers. In this passage we discover three characteristics of a real Christian.
1. A REAL CHRISTIAN ACCEPTS THE REALITY OF JESUS.
Just about every epistle was written to try to combat a common heresy or error and in the early church there was something called the Gnostic Heresy or Gnosticism. The Gnostics did not believe Jesus was real in the flesh; they denied the humanity of Jesus. They taught that Jesus of Nazareth was a normal human being until age 30. The Gnostics believed when Jesus was baptized and the Bible says the Holy Spirit came upon him was the moment when Christ came upon Jesus of Nazareth and that’s when he became Jesus the Christ.
They also taught and believed that when Jesus was crucified on the cross and gave up his Spirit, that’s when the spirit of Christ left and no longer was Jesus the Son of God—so there was no literal bodily resurrection. So it was a mystical type of belief and not too different than the New
Age movement. So John wrote to Christians to straighten that error. Jesus is real—you’ve got to accept the humanity and reality of Jesus. John tells us three ways in which Jesus is real.
(1) JESUS IS REAL ETERNALLY.
John wrote, “What was from the beginning.” Jesus has always been; of course, Jesus was unique and different. When you go back to the beginning, but you really can’t go back to the beginning, because whenever you think you’re at the beginning, there’s still something before
that and this just boggles the human mind. We cannot conceive it. Our mental computers go into overload when we try to think of eternity but John is saying Jesus existed from the very beginning. The Bible says, “From everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2) Jesus Christ has always existed.
If verse one sounds familiar, there are two other places in the Bible that are similar to this. Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 both start with the phrase, “In the beginning.” Jesus has always been. He is eternal.
(2) JESUS IS REAL HISTORICALLY.
Jesus wasn’t just 50% God and 50% man; He was 100% human and 100% God. John is trying to combat this Gnostic heresy by saying Jesus Christ had flesh and blood. Wouldn’t it have been something to hear the voice of Jesus? What do you think his voice sounded like? We don’t know but John heard his voice and I imagine that voice echoed through his ears for the rest of his life. Jesus must have had a booming voice, because those 5,000 people He fed could hear Him. At the Feast of Tabernacles there were thousands of people who heard him cry out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” (John 7:37) John said he was real. We heard his voice. We saw him with our eyes. We touched him with our hands. Even after Jesus came back from the dead and appeared in the upper room Jesus invited them to touch Him.
(3) JESUS IS REAL PERSONALLY.
John said he knew him. “What we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.” John walked with Jesus. He reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper. He knew Him personally. John was known as the disciple Jesus loved.
You can say a person is real historically, but not real to you personally. For example, I know that Michael Jordan is real historically, but I’ve never met him personally. But like John, you can say that Jesus Christ is real historically, and you can know Him personally.
When I was twelve, I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior, and since that day He’s been as real to me as anyone else I know.
Do you know Jesus Christ or do you just know about him? Is he just some historical figure like Socrates or Plato or do you really know him? That’s what the Christian life is all about. Paul says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” (Philippians 3:10) To do this, you’ve got to accept the reality of Jesus.
We love to sing a popular song entitled, “Without Him.”
(Vs1) Without Him I could do nothing
Without Him I'd surely fail
Without Him I would be drifting
Like a ship without a sail
(Chorus) Jesus, O Jesus
Do you know Him today
Do not turn Him away
O Jesus, O Jesus
Without Him, how lost I would be!
(Vs2) Without Him I could be dying
Without Him I'd be enslaved
Without Him life would be hopeless
But with Jesus, Thank God
I'm saved!
(Chorus) Jesus, O Jesus
Do you know Him today
Do not turn Him away
O Jesus, O Jesus
Without Him, how lost I would be!