True God and Eternal Life

I John 5:20

Welcome! He is risen!

I want to start today with a poem called “Jesus and the Fish” by Jude Simpson. Because it is Easter and our focus is on the resurrection of Christ, I have taken the liberty of reordering some of the stanzas. Hopefully Jude Simpson can forgive me. Anyway, here is the poem:

Jesus always knew where to find the fish.

He had fish in His diet; He had fish on His dish.

He had fish in the sea; He had fish on the shore;

He came to disestablish the rule of law.

Really Knowing

1 John 5:13-21

Just imagine that you’re sitting in a jury box and the verdict is about to be delivered by the foreman.  You have heard all the evidence and testimonies and now it’s time to give the verdict. As you wait for the judge to enter, your mind wanders back over the trial.  You and the rest of the jury had to come up with a decision that made sense beyond a reasonable doubt.  You think to yourself, “Did he kill her?”  You saw the pictures of the body and the blood.  His DNA was on the weapon.  Neighbors testified of screaming coming from the apartment.  Her blood was on his hands.  The evidence and testimonies weighed in the favor of guilt but you still have some doubts.  “How did it happen exactly?” you wonder.   “Did he shove her first, then hit her with the weapon, or did he hit her with the weapon first, then shove her?  Why did he do it?  Was it a jealous rage.  Was it from paranoia?”  

These are questions you’re not able to answer.  But you know that you have no doubts large enough to convince you that he didn’t do it.  And you don’t have the option of not giving a verdict.  It’s not like the event never happened.  You can’t just ignore it so that it will somehow go away.  You would not be a just and good person if you walked away.  So, you’re glad you made a decision.  You’re conscience is clear.  You’re brought back to the reality of the moment as the Judge enters and everyone stands.   

Having Life

1 John 4:20-5:12

Carl has titled this section, “Having Life,” and it turns out to be a very relevant topic for my family right now as we have watched the life of Lisa’s brother gradually ebb away over the last week and a half. The circumstances have made us all stop and think, What is life? What is death? What is eternal life? What does it mean to pass from death to life? These are deep and important questions – and some things we won’t completely understand on this side of eternity. It is good to stop and ponder sometimes: What does our life mean? It goes to the heart of who we are.

But first we need to talk about love once again. 

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.  ~I John 4:20-21

We Love Because...

I John 4:16-19

Welcome! Today is the last Sunday of the month, and in addition to a shorter message, we will spend time remembering the Lord with the bread and the cup, and we will also have a time of sharing with one another what the Lord has been teaching us and doing among us.

Last week John Farmer began by talking about the theme of light in I John, and he gave a personal illustration involving stumbling around in the darkness. I have an illustration as well – this past summer we visited the Stumphouse Tunnel along with Issaqueena Falls. If you’ve never been there, bring flashlights. The purpose of the tunnel was to provide a shorter railway path from South Carolina to Tennessee. Excavation on the tunnel began in the 1850s but it was not completed because of excessive cost. The tunnel was used to grow Clemson blue cheese from the 1950s through the 1970s; the moist, dark environment made it perfect for this. 

Relying on His Love

I John 4:1-16

Good morning and welcome everyone!  We continue today with the I John series: "In the Light."  I don't know about you, but there is something appealing about the thought of walking in the light.  And yet, if we are used to walking in darkness, we can continue to do it sometimes without even realizing it.

We were redoing our boys bedroom (for several months), and they were sleeping in the basement.  They were happy to move back upstairs, but honestly, sleeping downstairs was no big strain for them.  They were a lot closer to the playroom.  It was much easier for the Legos to happen to migrate to where their mattresses were.

In the morning, I would come down to ride on my exercise bike.  Since it was before the time change, there would be enough light that I could just barely find my way safely past the corner of David's mattress and around to the work room where I could close the door and turn on the light.

Lay Down Your Life

I John 3:11-24

How would you sum up the message of 1 John in one word? Love, light, truth, life – these are all themes that we have been looking at over the past weeks, and we will continue to encounter them over and over as we move through the second half of this book. John especially emphasizes love: God’s love for us (the foundation of the gospel), our love for God, and our love for each other. 

^"For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another."  --I John 3:11

Remain in Him

1 John 2:15-27

This morning I want to talk with you about remaining in Christ. This book is black and white. There is no middle ground. But the overall spirit of the letter is affirmation for John's Christian readers and condemnation for the pretenders. Even those things seem to be true I’m still convicted by things that John says like, “Don’t love the world or the things in the world.” There are a variety of tests that John gives for who’s a Christian and who isn’t, but as you dig deeper, you’ll find that God is inviting us into a relationship where He is more at home with us and we are more at home with Him.

Before I jump into our passage I would like to define some important words. Maybe if I explain what these words mean, then, you might have a better understanding of what John is trying to explain.

I Write To You!

 I John 2:12-14

Welcome! Today we continue our series in I John, and we will also spend time remembering the Lord’s sacrifice for us by partaking of the bread and the cup. Following this we will have a time in which anyone who wishes can share what the Lord has been teaching them, or how He is using them, as well as to request prayer, and we will close in prayer together.

It is easy to get lost in the details of the first parts of I John, to go along for the ride, so to speak, focusing on the individual turns and bumps in the road and lose sight of where it is we are going. And if we are not careful, our taking a limited number of verses to study from I John each week can exacerbate this tendency. For this reason, today I wanted to explore the big picture of where John has been going. And in fact, I think this is the reason for the very verses John writes that we will look at today!

Love and Hatred

 1 John 2:3-11

In order to begin at a good starting point and also to re-emphasize a couple of important points  from last week I will begin today’s message starting with 1 John 2:1.

Here we read:  "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.  But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." 

The apostle John said in chapter 1, “If we say that we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1:8

Light and Darkness

I John 1:5-2:2

Good morning everyone!  Welcome as we dive into the second week of our series on the book of I John.  Today, we are going to look into the nature and purity of God and contrast is against the darkness.  Last week when Carl introduced this series, he talked about the confrontational nature of the book of I John amid the beautiful promises that we memorize and hang on to dearly.  In today’s passage, right away, we get our first taste of John’s pointed identification of error.  He does not waste time in sounding the alarm.

Before we tackle these 12 verses, let’s pray and ask God to give us His insight and understanding.

True Fellowship

I John 1:1-4

Welcome! Today we begin a new series on the book of I John. To be honest, I come to this series with a bit of trepidation. Over the years I have talked to a fair number of people who have said that I John is their favorite book in the Bible, or one of their favorites, that they find it very encouraging and uplifting. Again, to be honest, I sometimes wonder if they have the same I John in their Bibles that I have in mine. Now, I don’t disagree that parts of I John are indeed very encouraging; to give you three examples,

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! – I John 3:1a

and

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. – I John 4:4