Sermon Tone Analysis

Today, we are beginning a new series called, “Our Community,” through the book of 1 John.

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I drink coffee everyday.

99 out of every 100 coffees that I drink, I drink them black.

Not just because that’s how you should do it :), but because that’s how I like it.

I like my coffee strong, mean, and down to business.

But that 1 out of every hundred, I like to pamper myself and order a grande Caramel latte with nonfat milk, whip, and Caramel drizzle over the top.

Hmm! Mouthwatering.

It’s like a vacation in my mouth.

Everything about it means rest and relaxation.

Would anybody like a sip?

It’s fresh and hot.

The other day, while I was sipping on my black coffee in one of my favorite local cafes, I sat and watched over a few moments dozens of people hurriedly walking in and out, ordering their specialty drinks, bustling about their day, and I thought to myself: this is an analogy for our faith.

Throughout our lives, we encounter seasons when we move in and out of faith in the same way that we move in and out of our favorite cafes, ordering up whatever characteristic of God that we want in our spiritual lattes.

I’ll take a double shot of Holy Spirit energy, with two pumps of grace, and a whip of forgiveness.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?! I’d drink it.

These are, in fact, right and true characteristics of God.

And it sips well so long as this spiritual latte fits your circumstances.

Yet, as soon as our circumstances change, our spiritual latte no longer satisfies.

In fact, neither does the cafe!

Who changed?

Did God change?

Or did we change?

If this has ever described you - it certainly has for me and my past - then you are in good company with the very community to whom the Apostle John wrote more than 1900 years ago, asking the same questions then as we are right now:

What makes our community distinct from other religions?

What is the foundation for our belief?

What are the fibers that bind us together?

What is the mission of our community?

These are the questions that we are seeking to answer, as we make our way through this new series, ‘Our Community’ on 1 John.

Though the author of 1 John does not identify himself, most scholars unanimously agree that the same apostle who wrote the Gospel of John also wrote first, second, and third John - which are called the Johannine Epistles - as well as the Book of Revelation.

In fact, much of John’s first letter in particular, builds upon the major themes from his Gospel:

Who am I?

Where do I come from?

What is my purpose?

Is there a God?

How do I relate to other human beings?

What is and good and evil, right and wrong?

These are human questions that have arisen from every generation across every geographical region since the beginning of human thought.

John wrote his first letter around 100 AD to the church located in the region of Ephesus.

He was probably in his early 80s, and wrote about 65 years or so after Jesus’s resurrection and the beginning of the early church movement.

Ephesus was a city very similar to Miami.

It was a wealthy port city, prominent in politics, with a plurality of religions present in the culture.

During the time in which John wrote his first letter, the church faced a few key issues in particular, and as I list them, ask yourself this question: do these issues resonate at all with anything that you may be experiencing in your relationships, in our city, and the country, or in your part of the world?

Here are some of the issues that John addressed in his first letter:

1.

Some had abandoned their faith, altogether.

2. Some had found the idea of God entering into human form impossible to believe.

3. Some claimed to believe in God... and Jesus as the Son of God, but their behaviors contradicted the teachings of Jesus.

4. Some believers considered themselves superior to other believers, so they abandoned the church altogether in order to keep themselves ‘pure’ and set apart.

5.

But some truly believed and longed to see the kingdom of God come in our world as it is in heaven.

Do any of these sound familiar to you?

Of course, they do!

This is the human experience of our faith.

Everyone falls into one of these 5 categories.

This past April 2018, the Pew Research Center, released their findings of a major study on the ever shifting spiritual trends in America.

Their research concluded that 80% of Americans say “Yes, I believe in God or a ‘Higher Power.’

And of the 20% who said, “No, I do not believe in God” 9% still say, “But I do believe in some kind of ‘Higher Power.’

Thus, 89% of Americans, as of Spring 2018, acknowledge the belief in God or a Higher Power, with 56% of those who believe in God, as described in the Bible.

These are astonishing statistics.

A lot of people believe in God or some idea about God.

Yet, what these 89% believe about God or a Higher Power is the real question.

It’s one thing to believe in God, but What do you actually believe about God?

Is God angry?

Is God absent?

Is God close?

Is God loving?

Is God distant?

Does God even exist?

What matters equally to someone who believes in God is what they believe about God.

John’s letter is about what we believe.

John’s letters are the story of us.

They are the story of ‘our community,’ and God is still speaking to churches everywhere through these letters, so let’s hear what God wants to say to us, beginning in chapter 1, verse 1:

1. ‘Weproclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen.

We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands.

He is the Word of life.

2. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him.

And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life.

He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us.

3. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us.

And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

4. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.

1 John 1:1-4

For those of you who are familiar with John’s Gospel, you will hear echoes of it in the opening sentences of his first letter, but you will also hear some differences, as well.

John’s first letter is a compliment to his Gospel, not a copy of it, and different from his Gospel, his letter offers real life, practical wisdom for the Church.

In his introduction, he only addresses two themes that he then unpacks for the rest of his letter: The reality of the incarnation and its importance for fellowship.

In the opening of his Gospel, John defined the incarnation by saying, “The Word became human and made his home among us.”

John 1:14.

Doesn’t that feel so personal?

The word didn’t just become human and give us a lecture.

No, in the person of Jesus, God made his home here with us.

The incarnation is absolutely necessary to the Christian faith.

It is the foundation upon which every other teaching builds.

God incarnated human life, assumed flesh and bone, and dwelt among us in our world in a real time and real place.

Jesus’ full humanity and full divinity are both absolutely necessary for our salvation, which we will discuss further next week in chapter 2.

Yet, quite honestly, this is one of the most difficult teachings for our finite human minds to grasp.

It was then, and it still is now.

To think that an infinite God could become a finite human being and live in our world is a total mind boggle.

One of the central issues that many believers faced then (and still face today) is leaning more toward the divine side of Jesus’ life rather than keeping both his humanity and his divinity together.

In the introduction to his letter, John overly emphasized the importance of his experiences with Jesus.

In fact, in the original language, John broke of all of the standard Greek grammar rules that he typically followed in order to press the point further, literally saying:

“1 What was from the beginning;

what we have heard;