1 John 1:1-4 | “The Word of Life Has Come”

Sunday morning sermon audio from Preston Highlands Baptist Church.

“I Believe; Help My Unbelief!”

Since the beginning of time, people have believed in God and struggled to believe in God.  Even among believers, there’s often a tension between faith and doubt.  We’re like the father of the boy possessed by a demon in Mark 9, who says to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (v. 24)

Struggling with doubt is a normal part of the Christian life.  For more on this see Barnabas Piper’s book Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt is Not the Enemy of Faith.  He talks about the tension that marks our lives as believers.  He points out that we’re sinners yet called to be holy, we believe God is everywhere though we can see him nowhere, we have one God in three persons but not three gods, we live in this world but are told that its not our home, we’re saved by faith not good works but faith without good works is dead faith, we’re called to follow the teachings of a book that’s clear in some parts but mysterious in others.[1]

Sometimes this tension between faith and doubt is so strong that we wonder whether we’re really Christians at all.  Another way to say this is that we all struggle with assurance.  We wonder whether we’re really in Christ or not, really saved or not, really going to heaven one day when we die or not.  Every one of us has faced and will face these thoughts, and at times they can be agonizing.

Why Do We Struggle with Assurance?

Though there are lots of tensions within Christianity, perhaps the greatest tension we live with isn’t so much about teachings outside of us but rather feelings inside of us.  In other words, many of us struggle with assurance because of inner turmoil, not outer teaching, or because of feelings of guilt or shame or fear or anxiety that we can’t shake, not because of some intellectual conundrum.

Why do we struggle with assurance?  Many of struggle with assurance because we struggle to believe that being in right relationship with God has nothing to do with our performance.  This is understandable because no one on this planet loves us like God does, unconditionally.  We get pretty close to that with our kids or spouses.  But kids and spouses can do things that sever the relationship.  We struggle to love unconditionally but a holy and perfect God puts up with so much stuff from us and still keeps loving us.

Our world is built on performance.  In the world, you have to deliver results to get the love.  For example, we love our favorite sports hero or musician or actor or politician until they do something we don’t like and then we don’t love them anymore.  So it’s hard to imagine a relationship where performance isn’t required to keep the love going.  When we screw up, it’s hard for us to believe that our standing with God isn’t changed.  We think we need to perform for his love, and we desire to have control, both of which make trusting God’s promise of unconditional love counterintuitive.

Our struggles with assurance are less about intellectual problems with the Christian faith and more about how we view God, how we view ourselves, and how we understand the offer of the gospel.  We assume that the gospel is mostly about sin and death rather than grace and life, so we don’t know what to do with utterly free and unconditional kindness from God given to us in the gospel.  We know how far we fall short, and we hate ourselves for it and we subtly assume that God does too.  Self-contempt, which is another way to describe shame, suffocates our assurance by making us believe that we’re so bad that not even God can love us.  So we work our hands to the bones to prove to ourselves, to others, and even to God that we’re good enough to be his.  All the while, Jesus waits patiently for us to feel the weight of his words from the cross, “It is finished.”

John about Salvation, First John about Assurance

Christians have struggled with assurance for two thousand years.  God, being the kind and wise Father that he is, knew this would happen, so he put a book in the New Testament with the main purpose of helping us know that we’re in the faith.  That book is First John, and we’ll be studying it over the next few months.

The same apostle who wrote the Gospel of John wrote this letter, but he had two different purposes in each.  The purpose of the Gospel was evangelistic, to help people believe in Jesus.  John 20:30-31, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

The purpose of First John was pastoral, to help people know that they belong to Jesus.  1 John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.”  The Gospel of John is about salvation.  First John is about knowing that you’re saved, or about assurance.

Why Was First John Written?

Why did John need to write this letter to the churches he was connected to about the issue of assurance?  Because the believers in these churches were being hounded by false teachers, leading many of them to start questioning whether they really knew God or not.

Some had left these churches (2:19) because they’d been led by false teachers to take different views of Jesus’ person and work (4:1-3) and to believe that keeping God’s commands was optional for Christians (2:4), namely, the command to believe in God’s Son and to love one another (3:23).  These teachers were still trying to influence the churches (2:26), and were undermining people’s confidence in the gospel, so John writes to increase their assurance (5:13).  These teachers insisted that they had a special anointing which led them to go beyond the gospel and made the people in these churches wonder whether they lacked that anointing and therefore lacked the spiritual insight these teachers had.  John wrote to say, “No, you have the only real anointing from God” (2:20, 27).

John loves these people dearly.  He calls them “beloved” (2:7), “brothers and sisters” (3:13), and “children” (2:1, 12), terms of endearment.  He wants to help his friends see that they’re in the truth, not try to make them think they’re not.  The purpose of First John is therefore to comfort Christians, not confuse Christians.  This book is not polemical, but pastoral, meant to encourage, not rebuke, to reassure and reestablish troubled saints in the gospel.

This means that we need to read this book hope-fully, looking for ways it confirms the work of God in our lives, not fear-fully, looking to confirm the deep-seated lies we believe about ourselves, that we don’t measure up and never will or can.  This book is meant to encourage, not discourage!

In this book, John says that we can know we belong to God by looking at our faith, our lives, and our loves.  He gives us a doctrinal, moral, and relational test.  These tests aren’t binary: “I either believe or not, obey or not, love or not.”  If so, we’d all fail miserably!  Rather, they’re meant to show Christians areas where we need to grow.

A Real Person, Known by Real People, Who Proclaim Real Life

The place John begins his letter is doctrinal because our lives flow out of the things we believe in our hearts.  John knows that theological error has ethical implications, so he starts his letter by reminding his readers of some foundational theology.  In 1:1-4, John says that the gospel is about a real person, known by real people, who now proclaim real life.  There’s a lot of overlap in these verses, so we can’t neatly divide them.

As we’ll see throughout this letter, John doesn’t write like Paul.  Paul writes like a builder building a tower.  John writes like a bee buzzing around three flowers.  He keeps coming back around to what we believe, how we live, and how we love.  This makes the book repetitive and hard to outline, but it shows us how important these three things are for us to grapple with.

A Real Person

In these opening verses, John highlights the realness of Jesus, the “word of life.”  Verses 1-3 is a long and disjointed and confusing sentence!  But John’s basic point is that the “word of life” has unmistakably and definitively come into the world, been tangibly experienced by John and others, was proclaimed to the readers of the letter, so that they could have fellowship with God and the people of God.

John wants his readers to know, first of all, that “the word of life,” is “that which was from the beginning.”  This reminds us of John 1:1-2, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.”  Here “the beginning” means before the creation of the world.  In First John 1:1, however, the meaning is slightly different.  John is describing the “word of life” as it was incarnate, or enfleshed, in Jesus Christ.  So this verse is closer to John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

In this opening verse of the letter, John is recalling what he’s previously written in his Gospel, namely, that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the “word of life,” is coequal with God, is “very God of very God,” as the Nicene Creed says.

But John wants to show us not just the divinity but also the humanity of Jesus.  He “heard” him, “saw” him, even “touched him.”  Jesus is completely God and completely man.  Perhaps the most profound miracle in Christianity is that God was born, that God took on flesh.  As The Ligonier Statement on Christology says, “Truly God, he became truly man, two natures in one person.”

Jesus is God in the flesh, a real person, not a nice idea.  Dane Ortlund begins his book Deeper by reminding us who Jesus is.  He says, “We need to begin by getting clear on who this person is in whom we grow.  And we start just there – he is a person.  Not just a historical figure, but an actual person, alive and well today.  He is to be related to.  Trusted, spoken to, listened to.  Jesus is not a concept.  Not an ideal.  Not a force.”[2]

Do you ever meditate on the humanity of Jesus?  I often try to visualize what Jesus looks like.  One day we won’t have to wonder any more.  First John 3:2, “When he appears…we shall see him as he is.”  I told Suzy recently that I can’t wait to see Jesus’ face.  Do you long to see his face and be embraced by him?  Or are you living to impress him instead of enjoy him?  Jesus is, not was, a real flesh and blood person, and one day we’ll see his face.

How do you think of Jesus?  Is he a nice add-on to your life, someone who’s come to make your already okay life a little better?  Or is he the God who made you and wants to know you and walk with you and relate to you?

Known by Real People

Secondly, Jesus was known by real people.  Notice the plural pronouns throughout these verses.  The Son of God who came in the flesh was experienced by real people.  He’s not just a legend or a story handed on to give people something to hope in.  John says that he was “seen with our eyes.”  He’s writing as an eyewitness.  His proclamation of the “word of life” can be trusted because he saw and heard and experienced it first-hand.  His account can be trusted over the false teachers because he wasn’t communicating his ideas, but things he’d personally heard and seen.

Did you see the astonishing thing he says in verse 3?  He says that he’s preached what he experienced in Jesus to these churches “so that” they can have fellowship with the apostles and with God.  The purpose of John’s preaching is fellowship.  John Stott says, “The purpose of the proclamation of the gospel is, therefore, not salvation, but fellowship.  Yet, properly understood, this is the meaning of salvation.”  And another writer says, “Christian fellowship is not the sentimental and superficial attachment of a random collection of individuals, but the profoundly mutual relationship of those who ‘remain’ in Christ, and therefore belong to each other.”

John is making a distinction between the apostles and the false teachers.  He’s saying, “Who you’re with determines where you’re going.  If you’re with us, as those who’ve physically experienced God in the flesh, then you’re with God because we’re with God.”

This means that those who deny the basic Christian truths about Jesus’ person and work are not part of the people of God.  A church isn’t a church just because it says “church” on the building.  And a person isn’t a Christian just because they say they are.  Only those who have fellowship with the apostles, who have accepted their testimony and staked their lives on it, have fellowship with God.  Those who deviate from the apostles do not have fellowship with God.

This is one reason joining and being a part of a local church is so important.  Local churches are where we fellowship with the apostles, where we hear their words and seek to live out their instructions together.  It’s where we most clearly see the life of Jesus in the world, as we listen and serve and pray and give and worship and grow together into a maturing body of Christ.

“That Our Joy May Be Complete”

Another gift of being in a church is that you have opportunities for more joy.  Giving ourselves for the good of others in the church is also a way that God wants to complete our joy (v. 4).  John recognizes that his joy in Jesus isn’t complete if his friends in the faith are in danger of leaving the faith and joining false fellowships.  So he writes to help their assurance and to increase his joy.

It’s not wrong to do things for others for your joy.  Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”  It’s not wrong to seek your joy in the joy of others.  Jesus came so that our joy would be full (Jn. 15:11).  John is saying that one way Jesus’ joy grows in us is by seeking our joy in the good of others.

Do you serve others begrudgingly looking for compliments from them, or humbly looking for joy for you?  What kinds of things bring you lots of joy when you do them for others?  For me, I like studying the Bible and reading books and putting words together that will hopefully encourage people to love Jesus more.  I enjoy wrestling with my kids or getting Suzy a snack at bedtime because it makes her happy.  Seeking my joy in theirs isn’t wrong.  It’s really right.

Proclaiming Real Life

The gospel is about a real person, known by real people, who, thirdly, proclaim real life.  Notice how many times “life” or “eternal life” is mentioned in these verses.  Verse 1, “concerning the word of life.”  Verse 2, “the life was made manifest…and (we) proclaim to you the eternal life.”

This “eternal life” that was “with the Father and made manifest to us” (v. 2) isn’t an impersonal quality of life that comes from the Father, but refers to the “word of life” (v. 1), the Son of God who was with the Father before his incarnation.  John is saying that eternal life is found in Jesus because Jesus is the Son of God who came from the Father, and the Father is the epitome of eternal life.  God is eternal life, literally.  So God’s Son comes bringing the only kind of life that God has, the eternal kind.  Having Jesus, then, is having eternal life.  Being in Christ means being caught up into the very life of God, into a quality and quantity of life that is unlike any other.

The message John proclaims is a message that has been embodied in a person – the person of Jesus Christ.  For the apostles, Jesus was the message and the message was Jesus.  For true churches, Jesus is the message and the message is Jesus.  Real Christianity is about Jesus, about who he is and what he did, not about our best ideas about God or about trying to live impressive lives.

Our goal as a church is therefore really simple: stay on message, and the message is Jesus.  Our goal isn’t numbers and buildings and programs and baptisms and being cool.  Our goal is Jesus.  “To live is Christ” Paul says.  Our life together, our fellowship, is built on and sustained by Jesus.  Not me or Jared or music or location or age demographics or money.  Our life together must orbit around Jesus, just as the earth orbits around the sun.  If we stop orbiting around him, we die.  Apart from him we have nothing and can do nothing.

Do You Have Life?

The gospel is about a real person, known by real people, who now proclaim real life.  Do you know Jesus as a real person?  Have you accepted what his apostles say about him?  Do you have the life of God in you?  “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have Son of God does not have life” (1 Jn. 5:11-12).

Having the Son doesn’t mean you won’t have any doubts.  Having eternal life doesn’t mean that you won’t struggle with assurance.  We aren’t the first ones to live in the tension of “I believe, help my unbelief!”

We’ll spend the next several months considering what having the Son looks like from First John.  For now, let me say that having the Son most simply means loving the Son.  Those who love Jesus are in Jesus and have Jesus and are held by Jesus.  And Jesus in them creates a deepening faith, a more joyful obedience, and stronger loves.

God gave us this letter to comfort us and help us along the narrow road of faith, not to make things more confusing and difficult.  So read ahead and pray for these sermons on First John to create life and joy and assurance in your heart.  Next week we’ll see how John connects our honesty about sin with our assurance that we’re forgiven.

[1]Barnabas Piper, Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt is Not the Enemy of Faith (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2015), 28-9.

[2]Dane C. Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 22.