Sermon Transcript
I want to invite you to please take your Bibles, if you would, and open up to the book of 1 John. Privileged to be able to do our leading message in what is going to be a new series for the next several months as we go through the books of 1 and 2 and 3 John, and I’ll tell you why we’re going to do that here in a little bit. But the book of 1 John near the end of your Bible. If you didn’t bring a Bible, we have them in the pews. In front of you.
As you’re turning there, I want to remind you of a phrase that I’ve always heard, and many of you could probably complete this. If an offer, or if an idea, or if something sounds too good to be true, fill in the blank. What do you say? Probably is. Might be.
It’s likely too good to be true. And each of us has probably experienced that have some first-world experience to be able to explain, yes, that’s absolutely true. But sometimes there’s exceptions to that. Sometimes you hear about something and you decide, I’m going to invest in it anyway, even though this sounds risky, even though this doesn’t make sense, and then you end up being pleasantly surprised. We’ve had that experience when we’ve gone on different trips.
Shannon is very astute and adept at planning out vacations that we go on, and we sort of share ideas about places that we’re gonna go and things that we wanna do. And usually we end up having a great time. About a month ago, Shannon and I had the chance to go for the first time to the island of Kauai. And many of you have been there, and you gave us suggestions. We talked to many of you saying, this is some things that you all ought to do, these are some things you all should not do.
And we took many of you up on your recommendations, and we had an incredible time. We also looked up some of the different places that we’d be going, and we found that there were certain things that we were interested in, and of course, other things that we weren’t, given the time that we were going to be there. So, we ended up being pleasantly surprised by all the different things that we got to do. Really, nothing was a waste of time for us, but there was one specific experience that we had the first night there that none of you all told us about. And it was something that we heard from somebody who was more local there.
We had flown in that morning, had lunch at a place that some people from the church had recommended there near the airport, had a great time. And then that evening, though, for a place for dinner, we had gotten a recommendation from somebody who lives there in Kauai. And it was way out of our way. It wasn’t something that we had planned, but we were told, you got to go. And it was a restaurant on the south part of the island in a little place called Koloa, very touristy, but we were told, you got to get there between such a time, such a time.
And you’re not going to regret it. We didn’t know much more beyond that, and we decided to go, and it was probably our favorite thing that we did, and none of you all told us to do it.
But we could have wasted our time, and that would have been okay too, because we would have been out maybe just one evening. We had other evenings had we been disappointed, but we weren’t. The sunset was beautiful. We got to watch the surf, and it was just an incredible experience that we’ll never ever forget. I’ve also had the experience of doing some things that now, if I was to counsel my children about certain offers that you hear about, I would probably counsel them to do something different than what Shannon and I did.
In the year 2000, we were just coming off of Shannon and I, her 5th pregnancy loss, and we were just exhausted by this point. We were throwing up our hands and just saying, God, we don’t understand this at all, and we needed to get away. And we’d always wanted to go on a cruise. We’d never been on a cruise. And this is in the very, very early days of the internet when offers that are made on the internet nowadays you might look at and be skeptical about.
But we had heard about a cruise on a ship that we knew very, very little about, the QE2, the Queen Elizabeth 2. And it was on an online auction site, which nobody knew, again, in the year 2000 what an online auction site— the site doesn’t even exist anymore. I’ve already looked it up. But we bid on a cruise that was going to be an 8-day cruise without knowing very much about it other than we called a travel agent and they said, if you can get this deal, you need to get this deal. Shannon and I nowadays, in 2019, looking back, we’re not sure of the dollar figures, but we’re both pretty positive that we paid less than $200 for an 8-day cruise on the QE2.
Sounds too good to be true. And what we didn’t know about the QE2 is that this is one of those old-fashioned ocean liners. If you call it a boat, they’ll kick you off. They go, no, no, no, no, this is an ocean liner. And we didn’t understand that on this ocean liner that they— that you could only eat for dinner in specific places based upon your accommodations.
We didn’t know this, but we ended up finding out that we had the best accommodations of anybody. And we paid again just a couple hundred bucks for this. So we were eating with— they paired us with this couple that was from Beverly Hills. He was a multimillion-dollar investor. She was an author.
And they were looking at me and Shannon— we were still in our 20s at the time— and they’re wondering, how did you get here? And we told them, we bid on this and we paid a couple hundred bucks and we’re here. Sounds too good to be true. Again, if I was to tell my children, if they were to say, hey, I heard about such and such, I would tell them, It’s not real. We’re confronted all the time, aren’t we, with deals, whether it’s something in your email or something on a commercial or an infomercial or something you hear, uh, word of mouth, and you just go, you know what, that’s, that’s too good to be true.
And if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And we live in a time when if you have certainty about certain things That’s frowned upon. It used to be that you could have certainty about your convictions, especially your faith convictions, and people really wouldn’t press you on that like they do nowadays. I’m not trying to be the old person saying, hey, you know, these days are horrible. Sometimes we can have a really robust and positive dialogue about different beliefs and different convictions that people have, but when it comes to biblical convictions and you start talking about things like absolute truth, you’re going to get pushback.
You’re going to get possibly persecuted. You’re going to be labeled as narrow-minded, and you’re going to lose friendships and relationships because of that when you have certainty about your convictions. Moreover, we live in a time where if people think about Jesus at all, it’s usually thinking about him in a way that is less than what the Bible proclaims him to be. And that’s nothing new. We live in a culture like that now.
That’s nothing new. That existed 2,000 years ago, the time that John wrote the book of 1 John. 1 John is a book of certainty. It’s a book of matter-of-fact speaking about black-and-white matters that you and I can have great assurance and certainty about, including things that people would say, that sounds too good to be true. And John is writing to help us to have greater certainty about those things.
Greater certainty is better than less certainty, isn’t it? Especially when you’re talking about— you’re not talking about losing money, you’re not talking about losing time. What you’re talking about is, especially when it comes to Christianity, eternal things. And how sad would it be if a person, perhaps somebody here in this room today, was to miss out on eternal life Because it sounds too good to be true.
How sad would it be if somebody here in this room, or perhaps watching on video— we’re recording this— and somebody was to come across this message, and how sad would it be if somebody was to hear the truth about who Jesus is and to say, that doesn’t fit my framework. I’m going to build my life on this framework, and then find out at the end of their life that that was a faulty framework? How tragic.
John is writing the book of 1 John to help us to be more sure and more certain about what it is that we believe and why we believe what we believe. And because this is the first week that we’re getting ready for 1 John, I want to do just a brief look at who John is and just reminding you of some things that you likely already know, but just things that are going to help us and prepare us for our study of 1 John. One is, is that we know that John was— there were lots of people in the Bible named John. This specific John was the apostle of Jesus, the one who walked with Jesus, was one of the 12, one of the inner 3, Peter, James, and John. This is the one that John in his Gospel says that whom Jesus loved, and that sounds rather arrogant, doesn’t it?
But I think anytime you read that, what John is really saying is, I can’t believe that God loves me. I can’t believe that Jesus loves me. And he doesn’t even want to name his name because that truth about Jesus loving him was too great. And so John doesn’t ever really mention his name, which is odd. And you may notice that whenever you’re reading about 1 John, you’re going to notice in these first 4 verses, he doesn’t introduce himself.
He doesn’t mention himself by name at all. He doesn’t mention who his audience is. So how do we have any certainty that this is the same John And I’ll just briefly give you 3 things if you care about these kinds of things. One is, this is what the earliest Christian writers believed. Those who lived in the 1st and the 2nd century, by and large, believed that John the Apostle, the one who walked with Jesus, wrote this.
And by this time, John was rather aged. He had been, we believe, in his late teens or maybe early 20s when he had walked with Jesus. And by this point, all the other apostles had died when he wrote 1 John. So he would have been in his 80s, we believe, at this point. But the earliest Christian writers say, no, it was John.
On top of that, the style, the vocabulary, the terminology, the content, the structure of 1 John looks an awful lot like the Gospel of John. You read those 2 things together— in fact, there are certain sections, especially the section we’re going to look at today, Sounds a lot like John 1, 1 John 1 does, as well. They sound very, very similar to one another. Sound like the same writer. And then thirdly, and this is perhaps most important, the writer of 1 John says that he is an eyewitness of the things that Jesus did.
So this has to be somebody who can testify, and many of those people had already died. Not John by this point. He hadn’t written the Book of Revelation. He was near the end of his life, but John was still around. So, we believe that this is John.
And really, what does it matter, right? Who cares? Does it change what’s in the letter? Well, it matters if you care about what an eyewitness says.
And I think many of us do. Somebody who says something secondhand, who hasn’t witnessed something, and they have great certainty about that, you would say, that sounds too good to be true. But somebody who was there, along with other eyewitnesses, and saw what Jesus did and said, You would take that more seriously. And that’s what 1 John is about. We also know that John, his writing style is very warm, but he’s also very matter-of-fact.
If you like somebody who thinks in absolutes and who just cuts to the chase and just puts it out there for you, John’s gonna be your guy. He doesn’t take his time. He returns to familiar themes, and it’s very simple in many ways, but John is, is very black and white in his thinking. Why is John writing 1 John? Well, it’s believed through his— what historians tell us, that John is writing 1 John because at this point in his life, he is overseeing a network of house church communities in Asia Minor, which for us would be modern-day Turkey.
And within these house church communities, from what we can tell in 1 John, there was a group of people who used to belong to the Christian church, and they had splintered off because they claimed to have a special knowledge about who God is, a special knowledge from God and about God. And this group had splintered off, and they said, if you are true to this special knowledge and you’ve received the special knowledge, then you’re a Christ follower. If not, then you haven’t received eternal life. And this was causing hostility, and it was stirring up the church and causing more confusion. So John is writing as a form of damage control to help people go back to what it is that John had taught and witnessed with his own eyes.
And so, he’s helping us to have greater certainty about things that people started having uncertainty about. Why are we going through 1 John? We could have gone through any of the other books of the Bible. I would submit 2 things that I can think of. One is, and this is so important, don’t miss this, we want you, and we want everyone in this room, to have eternal life.
We want everyone to have eternal life. I can’t think of anything as leaders of this church that we would care about more than that every person have eternal life. We want you to have eternal life. I’ll repeat it again. We want you and everyone to have eternal life.
And 1 John is a book about how you can know that you have eternal life. The second reason why we’re going through this book of 1 John, I believe, is because we want you to know that you know that you have eternal life.
Make sense? We want you to have eternal life, and we want you to know that you know that you know that you have eternal life. We want you to have certainty and assurance about that which our world would say you can’t have assurance about that. 1 John is a book about assurance. Praise God.
One other thing I want to say before we start reading these verses, I’m going to issue a challenge to you, and I presented it to our pastors last week at our pastors’ retreat at Hume Lake, and that is what I’m calling a memorization challenge. Over the course of the next several months, we’re going to get very, very familiar with 1 John, and there are certain places in the Bible that would be tricky to memorize or unnecessary to memorize certain verses because they are not as applicable. 1 John is so applicable, And I can’t possibly overstate how memorization benefits us. I’m gonna challenge all of us, and our pastors are gonna do this with us, and our staff are gonna do this, to memorize by the end of this 5 or 6 months the first chapter of 1 John. It’s 10 verses.
10 verses.
Now, I’m gonna get a different reaction from some of you than I’m gonna get from some in the second hour, or different than what I would from perhaps the children over in our children’s building. Some of you would say, I don’t memorize. I can’t memorize. You can memorize. You can.
You can. So, we’re going to bring this back to you different ways, and we’re not just memorizing for the sake of memorization. We’re memorizing for the sake of encouraging one another about things about which God wants us to have greater assurance. And you can memorize more than those first 10 verses. I don’t care what translation you use.
Someone who used the NASB or the King James Version ESV, go for it. I’m using the NIV, the 2011 version that I’m going to read to you and that Nate read earlier. And I want us to read these first 4 verses all together as a way of preparing us for this memorization challenge. You don’t have to tell me if you’re memorizing it, but you’re welcome to ask me at any point, have you memorized this week? Have you memorized anything?
And I’m going to tell you what it is that I’ve done, and if I haven’t done my work, I’m going to tell you that. And you can ask any of the pastors. We’re all doing this, and we want to challenge one another with this. Let’s read aloud together these first 4 verses. We’re going to have them up on the screen.
They’re in your bulletin notes, or if you have the NIV, you can read along with that. Go on ahead and put it up here on the screen, and I’m going to do it as I can from memory here. Read this all together aloud. 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. 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.
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you may also have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is a little bit tricky. You read these first 4 verses and you say, that’s grammatically really difficult.
Again, John’s not introducing himself. He’s just sort of jumping right into it. You can do it. You can do it. You— many of you already know verse 9 from chapter 1.
If we confess our sins, He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Many of you might know verse 5. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. Or actually, verse 5 is I’m trying to remember it right now, and you’re putting me here on the spot. Don’t put me on the spot, people.
No. Verse 5 is, God is light. In Him, there is no darkness at all. So, again, familiar phrases to those of you who’ve been in the church any period of time. I’ve still got some work to do.
I encourage you to do that. But I want to go through 3 critical truths that I think are found here, specifically about eternal life.
Specifically about eternal life. I want to pull out from these 4 verses 3 things that I think God would want you and I to know and to be certain of when it comes to eternal life. Most of us think about eternal life, and we think about a duration of life, years that go on and on and on. But John is using here a specific word in the Greek that we miss out on in the English. But he’s using a specific word that’s 3 letters, zoe.
There are 3 words for life in the Greek New Testament. There’s bios, which— from which we get our word biology. It’s a physical aspect of life. There’s psuché, which is sort of the inner life, from which we get our word psychology, something like that. But zoe is the word that John is using here.
Z-O-E. Zoe is a word that refers to the spiritual aspect of life. Zoe refers to that which is eternal or everlasting. And it’s not simply talking about a number of years. It is that, but it’s more than that. It’s also speaking about a quality of life and an abundance of life, a fulfilled life.
And John is very fond of using specific words again and again and again. He uses zoe, for life 10 times in 1 John, 3 times alone in the first 2 verses here that we just read. But he also— you go back to the Gospel of John, many of the verses that you and I might be familiar with would be things that John would refer to, that in Him was life, in Him was zoe, in Him, in Jesus, was eternal life, abundant life, and that life was the light of all mankind. John 3:16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have zoe, eternal life. Jesus, John 10, would say, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
I’ve come that they might have life, zoe, abundance of life. When Jesus in John 14 said, I am the way, the truth, and the zoe, the life, He’s not specifically speaking about physical life there. In John 17, when Jesus is praying in the garden with His disciples as they’re falling asleep, Jesus says, this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. This is zoe. This is eternal life.
And then John, in chapter 20 there of the Gospel of John, writes why he’s writing the Gospel of John. These are written so that you may have life, so that you may believe in Jesus Christ, the one that You have sent, that you might have zoe. John loves this word, and it’s a word that you and I need to be familiar with. So, when we read life, We’re not talking about physical life. We’re talking about abundant life.
We’re talking about a quality of life, a fulfilled life. So, let’s look again at these 4 verses. I’m going to pull out 3 critical truths. We’re not going to spend a ton of time on each of these things. We did a lot of introductory work here today.
We’re going to get into a lot of these verses and take our time through them in the coming weeks. First thing I want us to recognize, especially from these first 2 verses that John is pointing out, is that eternal life is only found in one place— Jesus, period. Eternal life is only found in one place— Jesus. And John is making profound biblical and theological statements when he says, that which was from the beginning. That sounds an awful lot like Genesis 1:1.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That sounds a lot like John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through Him all things were made. Without Him nothing was made that has been made.
He’s saying that Jesus is from the beginning. He’s saying that Jesus, here in these first 2 verses, is not just somebody who just arrived on the scene. He has always been. There has never been a time when He was not. There will never be a time when He is not.
He is not part of creation. He is the source of creation. He’s the cause of creation. That’s profound. Jesus is not just some guy.
He’s that which is from the beginning. And then he says He’s the Word of life. We see that there in verse 1. He’s the Word of life. And sounds a lot like, again, John 1:1, in the beginning was the Word.
Why is he calling Jesus the Word? Why is he calling something that is alive something that is inanimate? Isn’t a word inanimate, but he’s using a specific word here that is helping us to understand that just as I use my words, or you use your words, to convey what is in your heart or in your mind or what you’re thinking or feeling, God used Jesus to get His message out to the world. He’s— Jesus is the Word. He’s the Word that communicates to us who God is.
He’s the total and complete embodiment of truth. Jesus is the total and complete embodiment of God’s message to the world. Lots of ways you and I could choose to get our message out to the world nowadays. Jesus was God’s way of getting His message out to the world, that eternal life is available to anyone who would call upon His name, and that, that’s why Jesus came to the earth. Everything that God wanted to say to you and to me was summed up and embodied completely in Jesus.
He’s that which was from the beginning, And He is the Word of life. He’s God’s communication to us. Well, how can John be so certain about these things? Because he was a firsthand witness. He didn’t get this from secondhand information.
He didn’t read a review about Jesus on the internet. He saw Him. He heard Him, just like you hear me right now in space and time and in person, face to face. John witnessed this. He witnessed with his own eyes.
Touched Jesus’ body. This was a physical body that was unlike any other physical body in the sense of there was something else. Jesus was not just a person. A person could not do the things that Jesus could do if He was not also God.
And John is saying, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, We heard with our own ears, which we have seen with our eyes. He physically saw Jesus do miracles. He physically saw Jesus die a physical death. He physically saw Jesus rise again. And he wasn’t the only one.
Jesus appeared to more than 500 people at the same time on one occasion, 1 Corinthians tells us. There were people who saw this. They touched him. And then he says, what we have looked at in verse 1. That sounds redundant, doesn’t it?
What we have seen and what we have looked at. Well, that special word that he’s using there in the Greek for looked at describes more than just observation. It describes studying something, scrutinizing over it. It describes taking something and gazing at it again and again and again to really understand it, looking at it from all facets. So John’s saying, look, we did all of that.
We’ve heard this, we’ve seen it, we’ve touched him, we have studied him, we’ve scrutinized over all of this, and we’re telling you this is the word of life. This is zoe. This is eternal life.
We want to be able to, to take Christianity and put it in the realm of the subjective. Well, that’s just your opinion. There is nothing subjective about the resurrection. Of Jesus. It’s not a person’s opinion.
This happened. John’s saying, we saw it. And he is so excited about this, about what he’s witnessed and the other apostles who are now passed have witnessed, that he says, we have to proclaim this to you. I got to tell you about this, because it’s changed his life and he wants to share it with other people. When you’re excited about something that you’ve witnessed, you want to tell other people.
Now, if you want to go to Kauai, you can come to me and I can tell you, All these wonderful things that you can do. I’m excited to share that with people, and John is excited to share that. One of the dates that stands out to me, and I’ll never ever forget it, is June 13th, 2012. Some of you hear that date and you’re like, well, what possibly happened? I was one of 42,000 people who was in what was then AT&T Stadium, is now Oracle Stadium, when Matt Cain pitched his perfect game.
June 13th.
2012. There were other people who saw this event. I was there. There were others from the youth group who are now in college and young adults. They’re older as I am too, who remember that.
They were there too. I have pictures of this. Somebody could watch the game and they’d tell you about it and they’d say, oh yeah, this happened, this happened. No, no, no, no. There was something different about that game.
And I, I was an eyewitness and I’m so excited about it that I would I want to tell you all about it because I just can’t believe it. John is saying, how much more is he excited about that which was from the beginning, which he has seen and looked at and touched and heard and all of these things. Saying, this that we proclaim to you concerning the Word of life, we witnessed this with our own eyes. What’s the point that John is trying to make here? Jesus is not just a way to eternal life.
Jesus is eternal life.
Period. He is eternal life. I don’t want to mince any words here. If you do not have Jesus in your life, you do not have eternal life.
Without Jesus, a person does not have eternal life. We’re not talking about knowing about Jesus. We’re talking about having Jesus in a person’s life, receiving Him into your life, and letting His perfect substitute for you on the cross be sufficient for your relationship with God. That’s what we’re talking about. He’s not a part of your life.
He is your life. And that’s one of the ways that a person can know whether or not they have eternal life, that they are in Christ, is if Christ is in them. Jesus is eternal life. Well, what good does that do you and I who live here in the 21st century? That’s great that John got to witness all that stuff.
That’s great that John got to see and to hear and to touch Jesus. We can’t possibly do that. That’s where verse 3 comes in. A second critical truth about eternal life is that eternal life is a shared life. Eternal life is a shared life.
And to get this point across, he uses a Greek word that many of you would be familiar with. It’s a word called koinonia— fellowship. If you’re around Christian churches for any period of time, you’re going to hear the word koinonia. May have been a part of a group that called yourself koinonia. I’ve heard of life groups and Bible study groups calling themselves koinonia.
It’s a wonderful word. I grew up in a Baptist church in Texas, and we had a fellowship hall, and I always remember hearing that word. And, well, that’s where you ate together, right? That’s what you do in a fellowship hall. The word koinonia is so much more than just simply gathering together to eat and to hang out with one another.
The word koinonia actually means to have something in common. To share something in common. So when you hear that word koinonia, it should trigger something more than that. It is more than merely hanging out. And the koinonia, most of the time in the Bible, anytime it’s used, it’s used in one of two ways.
First way that koinonia is often used, this idea of having something in common, is a shared life with Jesus, that we have fellowship with Jesus, that we have fellowship with God the Father. We have koinonia. We have a shared life with him.
What could we possibly have in common with God? What could we possibly have in common with Jesus? How can we possibly have fellowship and something in common with Jesus? Nothing by ourselves, but that’s why Jesus came, so that you and I could have a relationship with Jesus that is as real as what John experienced. And that’s what he describes here in these first 4 verses.
Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. He’s describing what Jesus described in the Gospel of John in chapter 15 when He said, I’m the vine. You are the branches. And just as a branch only has life when it’s connected to the vine, so you and I can only have zoe, eternal, abundant, full life, when we are connected to Jesus Christ. The fact that you and I can share something in common with God, the fact that you and I can have a relationship with Jesus Christ, the fact that I can experience that.
I’m troubled by the fact that that is not more profoundly important to me than it often is. I caught myself last week in studying for this message just being troubled by the fact that I don’t think about what an incredible privilege that is. And I’m guessing many of you forget about what a privilege it is that we can come to God and have a relationship with Him. That we can call Him by name. We don’t have to ask permission.
We don’t have to remind Him of our name.
He knows us. And we can have koinonia, a shared relationship with Him that goes beyond touching and seeing, but that is as real as anything that you could experience in the deepest of your relationships. It’s a shared life. Eternal life is more than a duration of days. It’s a shared life with Jesus.
The other time that koinonia often gets used is it’s talking about a shared life with other Christ followers. Koinonia, having something in common, more than just simply gathering together out on the patio to have snacks, but it’s a sharing, a deep sharing of feeling and of life where you build each other up and you strengthen each other. And hopefully many of you, if not all of you, have gotten to experience that kind of a relationship, that depth of relationship where you say, This person is more than just another individual. This person is my brother or sister in Christ, and they build me up, and I build them up, and we have a shared fellowship with one another. And that’s what John is hoping for.
That’s why he said, we’re proclaiming this to you so that you can have fellowship with us. If you don’t have Jesus in your life and I have Jesus in my life, it’s going to make it very, very difficult for us to have the kind of shared life that God wants you and I to be able to have. It’s not that we can’t be cordial to one another, but you can’t have koinonia on your own. You can’t have a shared life on your own. You can’t have shared life by yourself.
A shared life is a shared life with other believers. And I think that we too forget how important this is, and we overlook it, and we don’t emphasize it like we should.
We neglect gathering together. And the writer of Hebrews says, don’t neglect gathering together, as some are in the habit of doing. You need to gather together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Build each other up. We need encouragement, because the life that I have and the life that you have can strengthen our connection with each other, and then it— it’s a byproduct— strengthens our relationship and our fellowship with God.
That’s how it works. It’s this dance. Between us and God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, that then includes you and me, so that we’re all part of this family. The early church experienced this kind of connection. We read about it in the book of Acts, because they gathered together, not just weekly, but daily, to encourage each other, so that no one was in need, or that someone’s needs went unmet.
Needs were being met, lives were being changed, miracles were being done. John is saying, I want you I want everyone to have that. And if you have an experience of Christianity that doesn’t include koinonia, if you have an experience— if your Christian walk does not include this kind of relationship with God or with other people, you’re doing it wrong.
If you don’t have koinonia as a Christian with God the Father or with other Christians, you’re doing it wrong. Jesus didn’t come so that you and I could memorize verses and practice spiritual disciplines, and then that’d be it. We’re to build each other up, the body of Christ. It’s a shared life with one another. And how much more we should lean into that and give thanks to God for that.
Eternal life is found in only one place, in Jesus Christ. Eternal life is a shared life. And then one other point, it’s here in verse 4. Is that eternal life and eternal fellowship produce fullness of joy.
When you and I think about joy, we think about maybe getting to sleep in, maybe getting some money back on your tax return, maybe getting some good news about a family member who is getting married or having a child or hearing that you’re having a grandchild or whatever that may be. Those are wonderful things, but John is using a word here that describes deep soul satisfaction. Happiness is something that just comes and goes. You have a great meal and you’re excited about that. I got a text yesterday from my friend JJ Swick, who some of you know.
He and his young family were part of our second service and part of the church, and they just moved to Texas. And he asked me for recommendations about whenever they move there. And so he sent me a picture of something that I had recommended for him to do that he thought was too good to be true. And I told him, no, no, no, it’s not too good to be true. I introduced him to something called a kolache, which is in Texas a breakfast item that will make your life substantially better if you eat it.
Yeah, there’s JJ. And look, he’s already wearing a Texas Rangers hat. He’s only been there like a month. I don’t know what that’s about. That’s fine.
He’s there in front of Shipley’s. Shipley Donuts, if you’re ever in Texas, go there. It will change your life. But that feeling’s just gonna kind of come and go. Any kind of a meal like that— the kind of joy that John is talking about here is so much deeper than that.
It’s a deep soul satisfaction that says that even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, even if I go through the darkest season of my life, I can have a complete, full joy because I have fellowship with God. I have fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ, and I most of all have eternal life. Eternal life and eternal fellowship produce fullness of joy. Looking for joy in anything else will produce incomplete joy, something that doesn’t really last very long. And I would say if you and I, if our experience of Christianity, if our experience of eternal life and our faith journey doesn’t include this kind of joy, you’re doing it wrong.
The Christian life is to be one of joy, and yet many of us could probably say some Christians that we know might be the most miserable people we’ve ever met. Christian life is meant to be one of joy. This last week, pastors and I and our spouses— well, Shannon didn’t get to go with me— Their spouses got to go to Hume Lake, and I went with them. It’s this wonderful Christian camp that is in the Sequoia Forest. Our youth go there every year for youth retreats and camps.
And if you ever have a chance to go to a family retreat or a marriage retreat at Hume, you should go. And the highlight of Hume Lake is the centerpiece of the lake itself. And yet, before you can get to the lake, you have to stop at the ranger station there. And I was the last one of our group to arrive. I had to come separately because I was bringing a buddy of mine who came and joined us, and the other pastors and their wives had already gone.
And I heard about after the fact that each of them had been stopped by a young man at the ranger station who was wearing the full ranger uniform, but he looked like he was maybe like a freshman in high school. And this young man reportedly, I was told, told to the different people who stopped there, as well as the other pastors, from other churches that were there.
So, so you all know the rules, right? That’s how he started his spiel. Whenever you go through to check in, he said, you all know the rules, right? You can’t enjoy the lake. What?
Like, like, what do you mean, like, we can’t enjoy the lake? Can we, can we walk around the lake? No, you can only stay in a specific area. Look, like, we’ve been to Hume a zillion times. We know how this works.
Like, can we walk around the lake but not enjoy it? Like, would that be okay with you, young man? That’s what we’re saying. Like, what do you mean that we can come here and we can’t enjoy the lake? Well, come to find out, he had perhaps been a new recruit and was very, very zealous, and he was just doing what he had been told.
No, we could not only walk around the lake, but we could enjoy the lake. Praise God for that.
But many of us, though, think about Christianity in that way. It’s just sort of, okay, like, you know the rules, right? You got to tithe. You got to come to church. Don’t cuss.
Like, whatever the rules are that you have received, and there’s nothing about joy in there. What is that? Like, we’re doing it wrong. If there’s not joy in singing praises to God, I tell you what, boy, hearing the choir singing that opening song, I am thrilled. If that doesn’t produce joy in you, you’re doing it wrong.
If coming together with God’s people and hearing God’s Word taught doesn’t produce joy in you, you’re doing it wrong. We have to come back and say, God, do I have eternal life? And if I do have eternal life, why isn’t it producing in me the kind of joy that You want to produce? These are the things that John is wanting us to surface. So, I just simply have 3 thoughts for you in closing.
One is, do you have eternal life?
Do you have eternal life, and do you know that you have eternal life? Are you sure? Are you certain? If you’re not, don’t leave today uncertain.
Come up and talk to me. Come up and talk to Nate. Come up and talk to Jane Bell or, like, I mean, Al Crews. I mean, like, talk to someone around you. Just grab somebody and say, I want to know that I have eternal life.
We can We can have that conversation. I want you to have eternal life. Do you have it? Second question is, do you have the kind of fellowship, koinonia, with God and with others that John is describing here? If not, we need to go back and say, God, I’m not experiencing that kind of warmth, that connection with You that I really should be.
Is there something that I’m missing here? And perhaps, Something that we’re overlooking. It’s not just a feeling, but it’s just a— it’s the reality of, God, I’m taking it for granted. Help me to not take this for granted, that I can have a relationship with you, that I’m part of the body of Christ and the family of God. Then the third question is, do you have the type of joy that John is describing here in 1 John?
Complete, full joy that salvation is meant to give you and to me. John doesn’t just want us to know about God’s love, he wants us to enjoy it. He wants us to experience it. Firsthand knowledge. If you have questions about any of those types of things, I’d love to talk to you about that.
But let’s just bow our head and let’s pray, thank God.
Heavenly Father, with our head bowed and our eyes closed, we want to— I want to say thank You for eternal life, for making eternal life possible.
And I pray that anyone here who does not know that they have eternal life, or they’ve never said yes to that, I pray that they would receive that today, that they would have eternal life and be saved. And if that’s you, just simply call upon the name of the Lord in your own words, from your own heart. Say, God, come in and save me. Rescue me. I not only want to have eternal life, I want to know that I know that I know that I have eternal life.
Just tell Him that.
And while you’re at it, you just ask God to give you the type of joy that comes from having a relationship with Him and a relationship with other Christ followers. Maybe it’s been a while since you thanked Him for making it possible for you to pray, making it possible for you to come to Him. Give thanks to God.
Heavenly Father, as we leave this morning, we pray that we would leave with these words in our hearts, that we can have life eternal. And we thank You for that. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
