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1st John 1:1-5
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Now last week, we kicked off year three here by starting a new miniseries in the book of first John, and we started in chapter two. Today, we're actually gonna backtrack to chapter one because I wanted to start the year with what for me is one of the most encouraging passages in the New Testament. This is where I wanted to go last week, but I also don't want us to miss out on what is going on in chapter one of this letter, so and we're gonna backtrack today. But last week, we read as the writer of this sermon, because that's really what this is, does something really interesting here. As he starts by making some fairly bold claims.
Speaker 1:He says that when we obey God, when we love the way that God loves, then God's love, the divine love that sits behind the universe is made complete. In fact, the word he uses in Greek is telios. It's made perfect, he says, in us. That's a big deal. Right?
Speaker 1:God's love made perfect in us. Last week, I called this the divine flow. That once we come to understand how God loves and we begin to love like God loves, then somehow it is actually this divine love that comes down and in and through us and out into the world. The more we realize how deeply we are loved, the more we begin to love, the more God's love is made complete, perfect in and through us. But then on the other side of this, the writer also says that whoever says I know him, but then does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't all just popcorn and cotton candy last week. Although, let's be honest, that was pretty awesome. A lot of people have been asking me why we don't have a cotton candy station every week beside the coffee bar out in the lobby. Sorry. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1:I had to break that to my son this morning. However, there was this very stark reminder last week as well that knowing about God, good theology, and correct understanding will actually make you a liar if you don't love like God loves. So those are the stakes. That's what the writer puts on the table in the first 11 verses of chapter two. But then in verse 12, he shifts gears on us, And he moves from this teaching posture into something slightly different.
Speaker 1:And last week, I called it performance art because we watched as he shifts into a different speaking rhythm. He shifts into something that's more like poetry, maybe even possibly singing. The writing here almost feels like a song. And he begins to speak now, not to the intellect of his audience, but directly to their hearts. And this is what he says.
Speaker 1:He says, I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven. I write to you, fathers and mothers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you young men, young women because you are strong. And the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1:At an objective, dispassionate, clinical level, is there any possible way that this is true about everyone who read this letter? I mean, extend that out. This letter ends up in the canon of scripture that the church has passed down to us over the centuries. Is there any way that these words have possibly been objectively true of everyone who has read them over the past two thousand years? Of course not.
Speaker 1:And yet sometimes objectively true is less important than purposefully prophetic. And I don't mean prophetic in the sense of fortune telling. I mean prophetic in the biblical sense. As in the right truth in the right moment, that kind of prophetic. That's what the writer is doing here in this poem.
Speaker 1:He is speaking the words that need to be heard by those who read. Because here's the thing. Sometimes, we forget who we really are, And we forget that divine flow. And we forget that God has called us and commanded us and showed us what it means to be loved. And sometimes what we need more than anything else in the world is simply to be reminded of who we are in Christ.
Speaker 1:I said it this way last Sunday, that sometimes when you are not strong, to hear you are strong makes you strong. And this is not just a Tony Robbins motivational speech that's going on here in first John. It's something much, much deeper. It's something mystical, something prophetic that is happening here in the text. Because this writer is pastoring the community of God, And he's been doing it for some two thousand years now.
Speaker 1:These are the right words at the right time for those who read them. That's how significant the right words can be. So know this. When you speak to a friend and you remind them of their essential identity, and you build them up, and you help them become the person they were meant to be when you speak the right words in the right moment, These words carry far more weight than you realize because that's part of how you love. And it's how God's love is made complete in you.
Speaker 1:It's how the divine flow of God's perfect love moves through you and out into the world. So don't forget that. Now this week, as I mentioned, I wanna backtrack. And so we are going to kick things into reverse here and begin this time at the beginning. So this is first John chapter one verse one.
Speaker 1:That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched. This we proclaim concerning the word of life. That life appeared. We have seen it and we testify to it. And we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and has appeared to us.
Speaker 1:We proclaim to you what we've seen and heard so that you may also have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father and his son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. For this is the message we heard from him and now declare to you. God is light.
Speaker 1:In him, there is no darkness at all. It's the first five verses of John chapter one. Let's pray. Our father in heaven, who was from the beginning, who was before there was a cosmos, who was before creativity was unleashed, who was before love was lavished on your world. Would you help us today to recognize your divine presence here with us in this moment?
Speaker 1:To know that your love flows down to us and through us and out to those whom we encounter. May your love be made complete in us as we follow you. And would you guide us by your spirit as we fumble toward that true love. As we speak today of love made tangible. Your son come into the world, your essence in flesh and bone and sweat and tears.
Speaker 1:Would you remind us that in the Christ, we see the fullness of the divine. That there is nothing left hid from us. And so where we need comfort today, would your son bring grace and peace? And where we need understanding today, would your spirit of wisdom bring clarity? And where we need to know that we are loved and accepted and welcomed and embraced in you.
Speaker 1:And father, would you wrap us in your arms in this moment and remind us of who we really are, your loved and beloved children. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Okay. We've backtracked to chapter one today.
Speaker 1:And I read the first five verses, but there's a lot to talk about here just in the first verse already. So let's dive back in where we read the first words of this sermon in first John, which were that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at, and our hands have touched. This we proclaim concerning the word of life. Now that opening phrase, that which was from the beginning. That should sound familiar to us.
Speaker 1:Because last week, we read this same author say that he is writing to fathers who know him who was from the beginning. He really likes this language of beginning. Now sometimes, I hear people say that I say the same things a lot, and it's true. Maybe, perhaps, you could think of it this way. These are all things that you will hear multiple times every Sunday when you come and listen to me talk.
Speaker 1:It's okay. We all have these little quirks of our vocabulary that find their way into our conversations. I listen to a Trump speech. I have never heard anyone use the word tremendous so much. Like, who talks like that?
Speaker 1:I don't know if you know this, but the Oxford English Dictionary picks a word of the year every year. A word that has imposed itself onto popular culture. I feel like it will be tremendous this year. In 2013, it was the word selfie. Can you believe we have only been saying selfie for three years now?
Speaker 1:Feel like I've heard it so many times. I've had a lifetime of selfies. In 2015, the word of the year was, and I kid you not, this, which is here on the screen. Officially, it's known as Unicode u plus one f six zero two a k a face with tears of joy. That emoji was the word of the year.
Speaker 1:I mean, come on. I know I sound like a cranky old man, but the English language is falling apart right now. Speaking of faced with tears of joy, right now my son, who has a very limited vocabulary, has taken to saying this, not too bad. That's what he answers all the time. As in you ask him, how's dinner?
Speaker 1:He's like, not too bad. It's weird. And you're like, how was school today? Not too bad. And the weird thing is, he says it like he's from Jersey or something.
Speaker 1:It's all very strange. And I promise I've never shown him the Jersey Shore, so don't call child services. I have no idea where this comes from. Not too bad. For the writer of first John, in fact, the entire Johannine community of writings has these little distinctive linguistic quirks.
Speaker 1:And one of them is this language of beginning. In fact, the gospel of John starts in the beginning. It was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And that's a callback to the opening of Genesis, which starts in the beginning God created. But the word here is archae in Greek.
Speaker 1:It's the word in first John. It's the word in the gospel of John. It's the word in the Greek translation, the Septuagint of Genesis one. And beginning is about as good as it's going to get in English. But there is a sense in archae that goes beyond just beginning.
Speaker 1:Because in Greek, archae wasn't just the beginning of your day. It was the beginning, as in a point of origin. In fact, in Greek philosophy, arche was used of the first cause or the source of all beginnings. And so because of this, arche started to take on a lot of different connotations. Now there's a form of this word, arcon, which means something like a ruler or a lord, someone who's in charge or in power.
Speaker 1:The idea was that if you are really important, things start with you. You're the beginning. There was also religious connotations as well. The language gets picked up by these different religious cults in Rome. And so you get this idea that develops in the time before Jesus and then especially in the first century of archons, being the first creations of the demiurge or the creative force of the universe.
Speaker 1:And so these groups that we call the Gnostics develop. They believed that the archons were the ones who really created our world. But as humans, our task was to get past the archons and get back to the real source of life. The archons were there to deceive us with this physical world. And so anything created, our bodies, the world, anything physical was essentially evil.
Speaker 1:Only spirit was pure. Now we know about these groups in part because we have this letter from this guy named Irenaeus. And Irenaeus was a bishop in the early church, and he was a student of another guy named Polycarp. And Polycarp was said to be a disciple of the apostle John. Well, in this letter that he writes called against heresies, Irenaeus talks about one of these gnostic groups.
Speaker 1:This one has 365 different archons, and they all serve a great archon named Abraxas. And Irenaeus writes, and he basically says, guys, this is crazy. Like, there's not different mini gods to make happy every day. And you don't need to get up in the morning and try to figure out which deity to please today. There is one source of creation, and that source is good and benevolent, and everything that he creates is infused with his goodness.
Speaker 1:And forget these archons. What we are reaching for is the one who sits behind the archae, the one who is the source, the one who was the beginning, the one who is from the beginning. And everything he creates is good. So even this world, even our bodies, even when we mess it up, he says. If you've ever heard Christians talk about this world as if it doesn't matter to God, As if God has a plan b to evacuate us all to somewhere else someday.
Speaker 1:That this world has been so broken and so damaged that even God couldn't heal it and fix it and redeem it. That's a very Gnostic idea. Remember the Gospel of John? In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. But what's the very next thing he says?
Speaker 1:He says, through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. So if you can see it, if you can taste it, if you can touch it, or smell it, or hear it, then it came from God, and it was meant for good. Now that is not to say that everything is good. There is a lot of hurt in the world.
Speaker 1:I know that. There's a lot of hurt in this room. I understand that. And so if you hurt today, then I'm not denying that. And I'm not trying to take that away from you if you still need to hold on to that for a time.
Speaker 1:Because far too often, what happens is we take what was meant for good, and we do incredibly hurtful things with it. But the writer wants you to know that you don't need to retreat into believing that the world is bad just because you hurt. It's not. It's broken, but it's good, and God wants to fix it. That's what the good news is all about.
Speaker 1:The gospel reminds us that the universe is not indifferent to us. As hard as it can be to believe at times, the universe is on your side because the God created it for you to flourish in. Well, the writer here in first John is trying to say something very similar, but he wants to make it very personal. Now the English says that which was from the beginning. But the Greek here could just as easily be translated the one who was from the beginning.
Speaker 1:Who we have heard, who we have seen with our eyes, who we have looked at and our hands have touched. That language sounds familiar. Right? If you can see it, if you can taste it, if you can touch it, or smell it, or hear it, then it came from God. But now, this theology of a good creation just got really real.
Speaker 1:Because now, it's not just that the creation of God is good. It's that the creation of God is so good that God would become that creation, that the beginning would enter that creation, that the divine would take on that creation in order to save his creation. But this was a step too far by many who had been influenced by some of these Gnostic cults that we're talking about. Now they may not have bought into the idea of 365 little archons. They may not have signed off on the great archon Abraxas or the big bottomless soup of energy from which everything came.
Speaker 1:Now they believed in God, and they trusted in Yahweh. They saw that God had sent Jesus to us. But they just couldn't quite get their heads around the idea that Jesus was God in the flesh. So remember Irenaeus? Well, his teacher was Polycarp.
Speaker 1:And part of the reason that Irenaeus was so hot on the Gnostics was because Polycarp had dealt with something like this too. See, right around the year January. So we're only talking about a generation or two after Jesus. There was another guy named Sorinthus. And, yes, they all had fancy names back then.
Speaker 1:But Sorinthus started going around and introducing sort of a diet gnosticism into the Christian community. He was one of these guys who said, listen, I'm not about archons, and I don't care about Abraxas. I'm not interested in the demiurge. I follow Jesus. But if Jesus was a real human being, then obviously, he can't actually quite be God.
Speaker 1:Right? So maybe maybe this is what happened. Maybe God came upon him and worked through him. But then when it came time for Jesus' death, well then obviously, God left him and went back up into heaven. Because God can't suffer and die.
Speaker 1:God can't hurt the way that we do. Like, he's too different, too distant, too far away for anything like that to happen to him. And this idea became known as docetism. From the Greek word, which means seems. As in, anyone who met Jesus knew that he seemed to be God.
Speaker 1:So God was so present in Jesus that if you met Jesus, it seemed like you had met God. But it just seemed that way. Now the opposite of this also took hold as well. There were other gnostic influenced groups that said, no, Jesus really was God, but he only seemed like a human. So he was just a projection or an emanation of God, like a hologram, not really flesh and bone and sweat and tears.
Speaker 1:That's too earthy and dirty for God. Well, either way, Polycarp tells this probably apocryphal story about how his mentor, John the apostle, was in a bathhouse in Rome one day, and Sorinthus walks in. John stands up and yells out at the top of his lungs, let us save ourselves. The bathhouse may fall down for inside is Sorinthus, the enemy of truth. I don't know.
Speaker 1:But John and Polycarp and Irenaeus and our writer here in first John all knew there was something very deeply important wrapped up in the identity of Jesus. But it wasn't just the technical theological detail that was important to them. The hypostatic union of divine and human in the person of Christ. That's how we say it when we want to sound smart. That wasn't it.
Speaker 1:No. It was what Jesus does for our understanding of the divine. You see, if God can't become human, and if God can't change and grow, if God can't suffer and die, if God can't be just like one of us all alone on the bus, and if there really is an infinite and insurmountable gulf between you and your creator that even God can't step over to come to you, then that means that you will never fully know him. And that wasn't good enough for the writer of first John. Now, I have lots of questions about God.
Speaker 1:Some of which, probably many of which, will never be answered to my satisfaction this side of the eternal. But the writer of first John is telling me that everything I need to know about God, everything God wants me to discover about him, Everything that will bring me fully and completely into his presence in the fullness of time, it is there waiting for me when I look at Jesus. See, the divinity of Christ doesn't complicate Christianity, it simplifies it. Because it tells us when you wonder about God, go back and look at Jesus again. That's everything you need to know.
Speaker 1:And, yes, there are questions, and, yes, there is theology that will take you a lifetime to work through and attempt to understand, but everything you need, it is there waiting for you in Jesus. And so when you can't quite figure out why God seems so angry at times, even though Jesus seems like someone you could get behind, start with Jesus. And when the church seems closed minded, even when Jesus seems like someone so full of grace, start with Jesus. When Christians pick these divisive places to draw their lines, even when Jesus continually seems to sidestep our in and out questions and welcomes everyone to come with him, that's okay. You just start with Jesus.
Speaker 1:Because the writer of first John says that it's this tangible, touchable, earthy, dirty experience of the divine that we encounter in Christ. This is what we proclaim concerning the word of life. Christianity starts with our Christology, and everything else works itself out from there. So, it's not our philosophy, it's not our theology, it's not even our Bibles, except that that's the text that points us to Christ. It's Jesus that we orient ourselves around as Christians.
Speaker 1:Trump keeps on saying that he wants to make America great again. I heard someone say this week that we need to make Christianity look like Christ again. That's the message of first John. It's why the Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner, coined what later became known as Rahner's rule. He said this, that the economic trinity is the imminent trinity, and the imminent trinity is the economic trinity.
Speaker 1:And he was a scholar, and he used fancy language. And no, he wasn't in cents or even transactions. Economic, as he means it here, comes from the Greek, which means the mission or the plan, the budget, if you will. So what he's saying with this language is that God's plan, God's mission to save the world, God's good news, this is how God shows us who he is inside himself. So God doesn't have ulterior motives.
Speaker 1:He's not pulled in different directions the way that we are. And so when God acts, when he saves, when he shows up in history, we are seeing him clearly. And so when God creates, when he focuses his love and his generosity into the creation of a cosmos, and the world. And he inhabits that world with living, breathing creatures who create more living, breathing creatures. This is not just God doing something.
Speaker 1:This is not even God telling us something. This is God showing himself to us. God doesn't just create. God is creativity. And so if you have ever felt like you were meant to make something of the raw materials of your life, that that you were meant somehow, whatever that means to add something new to the world, then perhaps this is because you were created in the image of divine creativity itself.
Speaker 1:And when we see God choose for himself, people who are not particularly great and people who are not strong, and people who are not powerful. In fact, when we see God tell us that he chose Israel to be part of his plan precisely because they were weak and small, This is not because God wants to show off, and it's not because God has something to prove to you and I. This is God showing us who he is. That God has a heart and a care. He has concern for the poor and the oppressed and the weak and those in need.
Speaker 1:When we are there, God is on our side. And so if you have ever seen poverty, either physical or spiritual poverty, and you just knew that this is not the way it was meant to be. Perhaps, this is because you were created in the image of a God who is for all of us. And yet most important of all, what Rauner would say along, I think, with the writer of first John, is that when we see God giving himself away for us in Jesus, when we see the God who takes up humanity on himself, The mantle of years of brokenness and pain when we see a God who participates with us at the cost of his own rejection and shame and hurt. When we see God make God vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Then in that moment, we see who God truly is at the core of his divine being. Everything else is like looking through a glass darkly. But when we look at Jesus, this is what God sees when God looks in the mirror. That's who God is in himself. And it's why we talk about keeping Jesus at the center around here.
Speaker 1:Because anything less than that, any approach to Christianity that doesn't start from Jesus and work its way out from there, it's a bad hermeneutic, and it's less than Christian. And maybe you have been taught to bifurcate God into the loving embrace of the son and the stern demanding gaze of the father. And you have never been quite sure which God will show up when you encounter him. If that is the case, then would you hear the words of first John one more time, this time with prophetic clarity. For that which was from the beginning, which we have now heard and seen with our eyes, we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life.
Speaker 1:Because that life appeared, and we've seen it, and we testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and now appeared to us. For this is the message we have heard from him and now declare to you. God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all. Christianity looks like Christ.
Speaker 1:Let's pray. God, help us as we wade through all of these different conversations. The relationships that we enter into and the economics and the resources that we pass through our hands in life, the theology that allows us to think about, to talk about, to talk to you. Help us to keep at the center of all of that, the person of Christ who reveals to us everything that we need to know about who you are. God, when we are confused, we get a little bit lost or off track, would you guide us by your spirit back to the image of Jesus?
Speaker 1:And as we walk, and as we make decisions, as we encounter those around us, would you empower us to make Christianity look like Christ again? Because this is who we serve. This is who we follow. And this is how you have invited us to become the people we were meant to be. In the strong name of the risen Christ, pray.
Speaker 1:Amen.