Back to the beginning

Where it all began.

I have been thinking and praying over our lessons. I have come to the conclusion that it is time to move into a verse by verse study over the book of 1st John. With the Ray concluding the study of Moses, this will allow us to work on one book together. Let us turn our attention to the book of 1st John.

Any communication that you read there are three things that are important to know first. These things give you insight into how to interpret what you are reading. If you have ever seen an email at the very beginning you find who sent the email, who all they sent the email to and the purpose of the message. We find something similar in many of the letters written by Paul. But some letters in the bible, like 1 John do not have this address and only see the purpose at the beginning of the letter. So before we get into the bible Let’s look at these questions. The first question we ask is who is the author. Who do you think wrote it?

If you said John, you would be correct. But John who and what makes this John someone we can trust to write a book of the bible. I know a lot of people named John but they did not write it. Did you know that there are 5 people in the bible named John. There was John the Baptist, John - Peter the apostle’s dad, John Mark - who wrote the book of Mark, There was John the Apostle and then a Jewish ruler named John. I am sure they weren’t the only guys named John.

How do we know which John wrote our book? So now we must do some investigating. The book of 1 John is assumed to be written around 90 A.D. toward the end of John’s life. All the other John’s mentioned in the bible had died by this point in time. Hard to write a book if your dead. That leaves the Apostle John. But there is other evidence. The early church fathers from the 2nd century also attribute this book to John the Apostle. Why does what they say matter? Because they actually knew John. He was really old and they were young, but they knew each other.

So who is John? We know that this John was a disciple of Jesus. He learned from Jesus himself. Not only did Jesus teach him but the we read in the Gospels that Jesus loved and trusted John. Jesus trusted John so much that before he died he said, Hey John, take care of my ma. Okay, it didn’t quite sound like that. In John’s gospel testimony he recounts the resurrection: John 19:26-27 John’s relationship with Jesus gives us the ability to trust in his teaching.

The next question is who John was writing too. John doesn’t exactly say. Typically in a letter the writer says, Hey Bob. Then we know the letter was written to Bob. When John does address the audience he uses general terms such as Children, Beloved, fathers, or young men. This tells us that this is not written to a specific person, rather a group of people. But what group. Again, we look at the Early church fathers and the areas where it is believed for John’s ministry. This brings us to churches in the region of Asia Minor as the area John was writing too.

Asia Minor is not China or India or further east. Asia Minor was a region that is now occupied by the country of Turkey. It is an area where many churches were established by Paul and John. This was not an area filled with Jewish roots, though some Jews lived in the region. The area was occupied by Rome at the time and was an important region for land travel. As a result, there were both Gentiles and Jews who lived in this region. From reading Paul’s letters we find that this constantly caused conflict within the church. 20 years after Paul there was still problems.

The last question to look at is the purpose of the letter. This is 20 years after the death of many of the apostles. There had been under great persuction

by the Romans around 66-70 A.D. Paul and Peter were killed. Jews and Christians had be dispersed throughout the known world. Satan had begun bringing in false teachings to confuse and disrupt the church. Now John is compelled to write his account in the Gospel of John and these letters to the churches because there were divides starting to occur over the Gospel. This letter was written to reaffirm and correct the interpretation of the Gospel, Bringing it back to what Jesus taught to John and the disciples.

With this background, let us now start to look at 1 John. We are only going to cover four verses quickly. I will have the verses on the screen or you can turn to it in your bible as well. You might recall that I last spoke over the Problem with Evil. The problem of evil is because man has a nature of sin in him. The other problem is that we have an enemy in Satan that comes to tempt us. Satan tempts us just like he did Adam and Eve. Not only does he tempt us but he tries to deceive us in false beliefs. As we get started we see John’s purpose for the letter and his address to the false teachings in the church. Listen to his first words.

1 John 1:1–4 ESV

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

As John starts this book he calls us to remember the beginning. John says that this truth, the gospel goes back to the beginning of time. Before the origin of sin we find the story of the love of God. We find the solution to sin. We find the love of God. We find the spoken word of God. This is one of three books in the bible that start with “the beginning.” I am going to read the others and see if you can find the words that match or are similar in meaning.

John 1:1–4 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Genesis 1:1–4 ESV

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.

The first word that I notice is beginning. This is important for the church then and important for us today. Our enemy, Satan wants to trick us. We do our best to resist him. At some point we are going to mess up. There will probably be times in each of your lives where you stop and conclude you are not living a righteous life with God. That we have strayed from the Gospel. What John is saying is that we need to go back to the beginning.

There is a big bush in my back yard. It had become overgrown last year from a few years of not being taken care of. So we had to cut it back quite a bit. It looked ugly after we cut out all the overgrowth. I went back out there on Friday and found that where there was ugly last year was new life. There was still parts inside that made it look ugly still. So I cut out more of the unsightly.

In this, we see that we come to the hard times in life and look back and see a whole bunch of ugliness that we need to go back to the origin. We need to go back to the gospel that saved us. There is going to be work to do. We may cut a ton of stuff out. Then as we see new life coming in, the remaining ugly will stand out.

Next I want to draw your attention to two words saw and light. In order for us to be able to see there must be light. So in Genesis God created light. In John we find a different light. When Jesus came as the incarnate word, He became the spiritual light. Jesus is the light that reveals the spiritual darkness of the world. Think about this. There are many things that are bad in the world. Some of those things don’t look bad. There are things in our life that don’t look bad on the surface and we rationalize it. We compare what we do against what the world does and we don’t see it. Then we hold it to the light of Jesus and see the ugliness of our sin.

In 1 John, he tells us to look back at that light. We have seen this light. Three times he says we saw it. We saw the light that was in the beginning. We saw the light that is Jesus Christ. That is the light of the Gospel. Come back to that light that changed your life. Come back to the light that saved you.

If you have ever been in a really bad storm, at times it may look like there is no light. Then lightning flashes and we can see the chaos around us. At times in life, it feels as if we are in a storm. I was in one of those storms this week and it felt like light was nowhere to be found. I heard the call to come back to the beginning. To look for the light. Through prayer and seeking God the storm vanished in an instant. Anytime you are in a storm, the only thing that can overcome the storm is to look back to the beginning. Look back to the light.

The last group of related words and phrases that I want you to hear all revolve around the spoken word. 1 John says, we have heard, the word of life, testify, proclaim. In John we find the Word (referring to Jesus) and in Genesis it says God said.

Now lets take this from the beginning to the end. Starting in Genesis God said let there be light. In the beginning God said the word. the Light appeared and said the light was good. So the word comes from God. The Light comes from God.

Then when we look at John it says the Word was in the beginning, the Word was with God and the Word was God. John is talking about the Incarnate Word. John is talking about Jesus as the Word. He says that not only is Jesus the word, but that in Jesus is life. In Jesus and Jesus alone is eternal life. That this life is the light of the world.

Then back to first John. It says that we saw the light. We saw the Word. You were called because we proclaimed and testified to the light that we saw and the Word that we saw and heard. I find it interesting that John, singular, use the word we, plural. I believe that this is because it is not only John making the proclamation and testimony, but the Holy Spirit. John is acknowledging that his testimony is not his alone, but that of the Spirit.

Today, I am the speaker. But it not just I that am making these proclamations. It is the Holy Spirit. One day you will be in the middle of a storm in your life. There will be a time where you see darkness all around you. On that day it may be me, or Ray, or Pastor Yong, or Dave, or Mom, or Dad calling you to look back to the beginning. To look to the light. To hear the Word of God. But make no mistake, they may be the vessel but it is the Holy Spirit using them.

John concludes this passage pointing to what happens when we go back to the Gospel. He says to come back “so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” When we come back to the Truth, we return to a fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We return to of unity with the Holy Spirit. We enjoy the company of Jesus and we restore unity with God the Father. John, the one that Jesus loved to the point he Trusted him to take care of his mother, wants you to return to Fellowship with The Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Why is it important to know who the Author is?

Why is it important to know who the Audience is?

Why is it important to know the purpose?

1 John

What was the problem that John was addressing?

Why did they need to go back to the beginning?

Why is what is light and what is seen important?

Why is the word important?

What connection can be seen between these beginning passages?