Sermon Tone Analysis

*Sermon: /Perfect Love Drives out fear/*

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*1.       **Text: 1John 4:16b-18*

/God is love.

Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

18 There is no fear in love.

But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

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*2.       **Ideas from reading the Scripture*

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*3.       **Boundaries: Unit of Thought*

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*4.       **Core idea*

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*5.       **What does the writer say about the core idea*

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*6.       **Surf the Testaments*

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*7.       **Distill into a Power Statement*

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*8.       **Pictures in Scripture Album*

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*9.       **Notch out the Passage*

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*10.

** What truth do you want to relay*

 

\\ PEMAY92 Humor~/Medication~/Headaches: A CURE FOR SPLITTING HEADACHES  Another new mixture:  a combination of aspirin and glue, for people with splitting headaches.

Submitted by Reverend John H. Hampsch, Los Angeles, California+

 

PEJUL92 Time~/Troubles~/Worry: TIME TO WORRY A man once said, "I've got so many troubles that if anything bad happens today it will be two weeks before I can worry about it.

Submitted by Dennis Kamper, Fellowship Christian Reformed Church, Greeley, Colorado+

 

SFAUG92 ~/Student~/Tests~/Anxiety~/Grades~/Prayer: ONE LESS TEST Mike was studying for a test one evening.

He was very quiet for a long time.

So  naturally his parents became curious.

When they checked on him, they overheard this prayer:  "Now I lay me down to rest, And hope to pass tomorrow's test.

If I should die before I wake, that's one less test I have to take."

Submitted by Bruce Rowlison, Gilroy, California+

 

PEAPR94 ~/Anxiety~/Worry~/Work~/Laziness: WORRY OR WORK Studies show that more people die from worry than from work.

This should come as no surprise, however.

The law of averages is in their favor.

At any given moment, there are more people worrying than people working.+

PEMAY95 ~/Stress~/Patience~/Control~/Self-Control: THOSE WHO KEEP THEIR HEADS If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible that you haven't grasped the situation.

By Jean Kerr, submitted by Dicky Love, Christ Community Church, Ruston, Louisiana+

 

WEST TEXAS PREACHING  A visiting preacher was quite concerned when he began the first night of a revival meeting and noticed all of the men were wearing a gun.

Although rattled, he did the best he could with his sermon.

When finished, his anxieties heightened as several of the men walked to the front with their guns drawn.

In panic, he turned to the chairman of the deacons who was sitting next to him.

The deacon quickly calmed his fears, "Oh, don't worry about them.

They ain't coming after you.

They're looking for the guy who invited you to preach."

(Watching The World Go By, W.E. Thorn, 1987, p. 68)  IOWJANFEB93+

 

WORRY  An exasperated husband asked his wife, "Why are you always worrying, it doesn't do any good."

She quickly piped back, "Oh yes it does!

90% of the things I worry about never happen."

One minister saw worry in a different light.

When asked whether or not he ever worried, the wise pastor said, "Of course not.

Worry is sin.

If I'm gonna sin, I pick something a lot more fun than worry."

("You Don't Have To Worry," Michael Dean, The Baptist Hour, 2~/5~/93)  IOWJULAUG93+

 

 

*/THE FIRST EPISTLE OF /**/ JOHN/*

Part of the arrogance of human nature is to think that we know more than others do.

In this letter, the apostle John addresses the problem of false teachers who were making lofty claims about their knowledge regarding the deity and nature of Christ.

John counters their false claims by reminding his readers of the eyewitness accounts of the apostles, including himself.

Jesus Christ came in human flesh, lived a human life, died, and then was raised from the dead.

He was fully human and fully God.

Anything else being taught by others was false.

In this letter, John sounded the alarm: False teaching could not be tolerated.

Falsehoods would lead to immorality, and immorality would lead to eternal death.

In contrast, the truth would demonstrate itself in love, and love would lead to eternal life.

For John, what one believed truly mattered.

*Author and Date • *The author of this letter is understood to be John, the beloved apostle.

Though he does not identify himself in this letter, the similarity of vocabulary and writing style between this book and the Gospel of John argues convincingly that both were written by the same person.

The writings of the early church fathers, from Ignatius to Polycarp, also identify John as the author of this letter.

Furthermore, in the epistle’s first few verses (1:1–4), the author places himself among the eyewitnesses of the earthly life of Christ, as one who literally saw and touched “the Word of life.”

Obviously such a description fits an apostle but not a second-generation church leader.

Finally, the author virtually calls himself an apostle (the “we” of 1:1–3; 4:14 seems to refer to the apostles).

Although some have argued that the epistle was written before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, a later first-century date allows for the appearance of the ideas that later developed into Gnosticism, ideas that John was probably addressing in this letter.

On the other hand, the letter could not have been written later than the end of the first century, when John died.

Also, the evidence of early second-century writers who knew of the epistle and quoted from it demonstrates that it was written prior to then.

Thus First John probably was written just a few years before the Book of Revelation.

In determining the date of the writing, several factors should be considered.

First, the tone of the book and especially the attitude of the author toward the readers suggest an older person addressing a younger generation.

Second, Irenaeus indicates that John lived in Ephesus and wrote to the churches of Asia.

John’s letters to the churches of Asia in Revelation (see Rev. 2; 3) substantiate Irenaeus’s comment.

It is natural to conclude that First John is directed to these same believers.

Third, Paul visited Ephesus several times between A.D. 53 and 56, using the city as the center of his evangelism efforts.

Timothy was in Ephesus with Paul around A.D. 63 and was still there when Paul wrote him around A.D. 67.

There is no indication that Timothy and John were at Ephesus at the same time, so John must have visited Ephesus after Timothy’s departure.

This would put the date of the writing of First John after A.D. 67 but before A.D. 98.

A date around A.D. 90 seems reasonable.

*Historical Background • *Gnosticism was a problem that threatened the church in Asia Minor during the second century A.D. Gnosticism was a teaching that blended Eastern mysticism with Greek dualism (which claimed that the spirit is completely good, but matter is completely evil).

This teaching was present in the church in a seminal form during the latter years of the first century.

By the middle of the second century it had become a fully developed theological system, which included Gnostic gospels and epistles.

John recognized the danger of Gnosticism and wrote to counteract its influence before it could sweep through the churches of Asia Minor.

Based on the concept that matter is evil and spirit is good, some Gnostics concluded that if God was truly good He could not have created the material universe.

Therefore, some lesser god had to have created it.

According to them, the God of the Old Testament was this lesser god.

The dualistic views of Gnosticism were also reflected in the prevalent belief that Jesus did not have a physical body.

This teaching, called Docetism, claimed that Jesus only appeared to have a human body and never actually suffered pain and death on the Cross.

Another heresy that John addressed in this letter and personally confronted at Ephesus was Cerinthianism.

This heresy taught that Jesus was just a man upon whom the “Christ” descended at His baptism, that the Christ then departed from Jesus just before His crucifixion, and that thus the spiritual Christ did not really suffer and die for humanity’s sins on the Cross, but only appeared to.

There are several indications that John was addressing these heresies in this epistle.

Note the use of expressions like “which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” (1:1); “every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God” (4:2); and “He who came by water and blood” (5:6).

All of these phrases use explicit and vivid language to describe the Incarnation, the truth that Jesus is both completely God and completely human.

*Purpose and Themes • *John most likely wrote this letter with two purposes in mind—one pastoral and one polemical.

John’s pastoral purpose was to promote fellowship (1:3).

But for the believers to have true fellowship, they needed to understand the true nature of God (1:5; 2:29; 4:7, 8).

Thus the pastoral purpose naturally leads to the polemical purpose (2:26), which was to protect his readers against the deceptive ideas of false teachers.

If the believers were deceived by false doctrine, they would eventually lose their unity, which is possible only in the love of Christ.

Evidently some deceivers had arisen among the believers (2:18, 19, 26).