Hi there! This is Pastor Jeff giving you a quick recap of the things we talked about on Sunday. Sunday was our first foray really into our study of the book of 1 John, so let me remind you of who John was:
Remember that John was one of the 12 original disciples of Jesus, and even though he was known in his younger years by the nickname “Son of Thunder,” when he later wrote his gospel about Jesus’ life, he didn’t even refer to himself by name. Instead, he just called himself the disciple Jesus loved. Jesus’ love for him was the only identity he needed.
Anyway, toward the end of his life, he was the last living apostle, and he was leading a few churches in the region of Ephesus, but he was worried about their tendency to fall away from what was truly most important:
- The unchanging truth of salvation through Jesus, God in the flesh.
- The need for believers to live morally upright lives.
- The need for believers to love one another.
That’s why he wrote the letter we call 1 John. It was a letter addressing those three points.
On Sunday, we tackled the first chapter and about half of the second chapter because all together that section is trying to highlight that love and truth must go together or else one is false.
The way I phrased it on Sunday was this: True Love is Both … meaning that true love is when you have truth and love together.
John makes this point using rich poetic language that can be hard to understand at times, so on Sunday, I tried to highlight his key points and how they relate to each other.
- fellowship with God means fellowship with God’s people
- fellowship like this means living in light, truth, and forgiveness
- living in the light means confessing sin, trusting Jesus, and walking in obedience.
- walking in obedience means living in God’s love and giving that love to others in his family.
That fourth point links us back to the first point and proves that all these things must be working together:
- If you want fellowship with God
- you need to walk in the light,
- which means confessing sin, trusting Jesus, and obeying,
- and obeying means loving one another,
- which brings us into fellowship with God.
So, I’ll end today the same way we ended on Sunday:
There are two boxes you can be in:
| FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD (Father & Son) |
|
| LIGHT | DARKNESS |
| CONFIDENCE | DECEPTION |
| OBEDIENCE | SIN |
| FORGIVENESS | |
| FAMILY LOVE | |
| GOD’S LOVE |
If you want to be in the box on the left, you need all of them. If you are missing one, you are fooling yourself and are actually in the box on the right.