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We Can Intimately Know Jesus
1 John 1:1-4

Vs. 1
• Love is mentioned 36 times in 1 John; more than any other book of the entire Bible, even more than the Psalms and the Song of Solomon.
 
• This is truly the Epistle of Love, written by the Apostle of Love.

• This letter and the subsequent letters of John were written in a time when false teachers were infiltrating the church.

• Gnosticism and other eastern viewpoints were being pushed upon the church.  John’s overall theme is “back to the basics, back to the most fundamental aspects of our faith, truth and the love of God.” 

• He is expressing the absolute character of Christianity, loving God and loving people.  In a warm conversational way, John leaves no doubt that abiding in the love of Jesus Christ is the purpose of God’s people.

• So, I believe God is birthing a fresh vision for Mountain Springs.  I believe it is going to be about love and discipleship.  The outgrowth from being a Word and Spirit church is that of love!  Love in the Word and Spirit. 

• Love must be central to everything.  We have a love mandate coming from the Spirit. 

• This letter will deal with the basics of the Christian life, taking us back to the “beginning.”

• John is the last remaining apostle; all the others have been martyred for their faith. John is in his 90’s now and living in Ephesus.

Vs. 2

• John walked with Jesus and hung out with Jesus.  He absolutely knew that Jesus was real, really human, really God.

• He was an eyewitness and one of the three most intimate of apostles with Jesus.

• Jesus had discipled 12 but had a deep relationship with 3, Peter, James, and John.

• Ephesus was the intellectual center of Asia Minor, and just as the Apostle Paul had predicted years before, false teachers had begun to infiltrate the church.

• These false teachers were the early advocates of Gnosticism, the most dangerous heresy of the church for the next three centuries.

• Gnosticism was influenced by philosophies like Plato, advocating a dualism, asserting that matter was inherently evil and the spirit was good.

• These teachers attributed some deity to Jesus, but denied his humanity, to preserve his sinlessness.

• Gnosticism also claimed that only certain people had this special knowledge from God.

• From Gnosticism came two forms:

o Docetism, from the Greek word, “to appear,” which held the belief that Jesus’ earthly body was not real, but only “seemed” to be real.

o Another form of Gnosticism was led by a man named Cerinthus.  This form contended that Christ’s spirit descended on the human Jesus at his baptism, but left him just before the crucifixion.

• This is why John begins by saying that he saw, walked with, and had a personal relationship with Jesus.  John is saying Jesus was really human; He really came in the flesh.

• John gives Jesus the title “Word of life.”  A distinction of John was the association he made to Jesus as the Word.

John 1:1-4
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

• Here in 1 John the words are joined together: the Word of Life.

• He is not just the Word, the truth, the written and spoken Word, but He is the Word of life, the living Word.

• He is the reason for, the purpose for, and objective of God’s Holy Word.  We don’t study God’s Word as literature, though it is the finest in the world; we don’t study God’s Word for its poetry and history, though it is quoted and utilized in all historical research of antiquities; we read and study the Word of God so that we can discover, experience, and have a personal relationship with the God of the Word!

• The Word of God has been given that we might come into a relationship with the God of the Word.

• Jesus is the God of the Word and He wants to bring us life.

John 10:10
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

• Jesus came to give us life:

o A life of hope
o A life of peace
o A life of purpose
o A life of joy
o A life that will endure for eternity

• This life was manifested.  Jesus really lived and really walked on the earth; this is no mirage.  He really did the miracles we read about.

• As the last remaining apostle who spent day to day time with Jesus, John wants everyone to know that he was there and it was not that Jesus just “appeared” to be human, but that He was real.

• Jesus really wept at Lazarus’ tomb; Jesus really wept over Jerusalem; Jesus really physically walked into Capernaum and healed the people and cast out demons.

• John also wants people to know that Jesus was more than a man; He was also fully God, with eternal life flowing in His wings.

• John is sharing that Jesus is fully God and fully man.

Vs. 3
• John is writing to a people who need to be reminded that being a follower of Christ is all about relationships!  Relationships are the stuff of life.

• These believers are struggling with their relationships, with both God and people.

• True worship of God begins with God, but it must flow out to people.

• Real joy can only happen in our lives as we are having true fellowship with God and people.

• This is the most foundational principle of being a Jesus follower, fellowship with God and His family.

• You can’t have a relationship with the head of the family and skip out on the family.

• The first thing Jesus did was call to Himself a family of 12 men so that “He could be with them.”

• The word for “fellowship” is koinonia, communion, a  deep fellowship connection.

• I truly believe that we can have an intimacy with our Lord Jesus that is like John’s; the same koinonia with Jesus that John experienced:

1. I want to thank Jerry Wilson, who gave me his thoughts on intimacy with Jesus through the 5 senses; the same senses John would have used in being in physical proximity of Jesus.

2. In a way, we have the opportunity to develop these 5 senses in a more intimate way because we have the Holy Spirit living within us.

3. The Bible indicates that we can have a deep intimacy using our 5 senses.

• We can engage our 5 senses in an intimate relationship with Jesus:

1. We Can Hear the Voice of Jesus

John 10:27
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

John 15:15
“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

 God speaks today fundamentally from His Word, the Bible.

 But He also speaks through that inner voice, where you have a “divine sense,” an acute sense, that He is leading you.

 He speaks through visions and dreams, always tested by God’s Word.

2. We Can See Jesus

Matthew 5:8
“Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.”

Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

 We see the Lord through His creation, through beauty, and through His power flowing in other people.

 Jesus is wild.  Look at nature, look at storms, look at the sea!

3. We Can Taste the Lord

Psalms 34:8
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

Psalms 119:103
How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!

1 Peter 2:1-3
Therefore, laying aside all malice, all guile, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
 
4. We Can Touch Jesus

Psalms 37:23-24
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD,
And He delights in his way.
24 Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down;
For the LORD upholds him with His hand.

 The Lord desires to uphold you with His righteous right hand.

5. We Can be the Fragrance of Christ

Ephesians 5:1-2
Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

 When we walk in love, we become a sweet smelling aroma of Christ to the world.

John 13:35
Jesus said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
 
• The main thing that draws people to Jesus are the followers of Jesus!  Our love for the Lord is most evident through our love for each other.

• People are longing for relationship and friendship.

• If we could discover that our life on this earth is all about relationships, and that relationships are what satisfies our hearts longing for love, we would discover true life.

• The cross symbolizes the most important relationships we have: 

1. The vertical beam symbolizes our need for a relationship with God.
2. The horizontal beam symbolizes our need for fellowship with two kinds of people:
 those who know the Lord, the family of God, and
 those who don’t know the Lord that we are to be a witness to.

Vs. 4
• John is writing this letter and reminding us of our need for fellowship with the Lord and each other, so that we can experience His joy.

• This is the main goal of this epistle of love, that we would experience His fullness of joy.

• So what has John said so far?

o Jesus really lived as a man but it in no way diminished His deity as God.

o He is the Word of life, the living and active Word in our lives that brings us life.

o That this life is best experienced when we have a close fellowship with Him, and then with people in the Body of Christ, the Church.

John 15:9-13
"As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.”

• To sum up John’s opening prologue of this letter, he is reminding us that if we really want God’s joy resounding through our hearts and our lives, then we should keep a fervent fire of love for God going, and then let that love burst forth from our hearts to other people.

John 15:13
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.”