1 John 1:
“By AD 100, Christianity had become a thing of habit, traditional, half-hearted, and nominal. John was writing when the
thrill was gone and the flame of devotion had died to a flicker.”
John, son of Zebedee and Salome. His brother was James, who was another of the Twelve Apostles.
Christian tradition holds that he outlived the remaining apostles and that he was the only one to die of
natural causes. The Church Fathers considered him the same person as John the Evangelist, John of
Patmos, John the Elder and the Beloved Disciple.
He is helping us to go to the core of our faith and root of where we should be building our lives when in
these letters. So let’s start with 1 John 1:3
He is wasting no time and taking us straight to the point, important factor of our faith is not what we are
saved from but what we are saved for...
So often we are dwelling too much on the surface of the fact of what we are saved from... saved from hell,
saved from curses, saved from darkness and we kind of conclude the matter of our faith and live a very
guilt driven, competitive, shallow religious life trying to change our behaviors and forgetting the higher
calling is to BE LIKE HIM.
John is saying we proclaim all these things through gospel, revelation, letters, life so that you also may
have fellowship, we are saved, redeemed, called, and bought for this purpose to have fellowship with
father and with his son, Jesus Christ.
Fellowship – Greek word - koinónia where word communion comes – Doing life together.
We understand that through Adam God created this fellowship, He made him, breathed him with life and
placed him Garden of Eden and walked with him. In His own image Adam was created and yet sin broke
that relationship. And ever since God is reaching out to restore this broken relationship with us by
transforming us back into His image
In the past God gave two beautiful gifts to reconcile this relationship:
Sacrifice – To deal with sin, Sin of lie, immorality, greed, laziness, pride God gave them a gift of
sacrifice where innocent was slain for the sinner and the same continue through Jesus who
paid the ultimate price for our sins.
Commandment - These commandment guided Israelites to love God and have fellowship in His image.
Transforming them to be life Him.
Even when these commandment were giving at the top of the Mount Sinai to Moses, we know what
Israelites was doing under the mountain, worshiping Calf and in Exodus 33, God was upset and said that
you may go and life in Canaan but my presence will not go with you guy and when they heard that they
were cut to the heart because for them presence of God (fellowship) was more important than Canaan.
They were willing to live in the desert with God rather go to Canaan with God. And so they send Moses
back to God on Mountain and God told them to build tabernacle and later His glory rested and He walked
with them.
Question: What are you more comfortable: Canaan without God or God without Canaan?
Beautiful story is again given Luke 2 where Joseph and Mary travelled to temple along with Jesus and
relatives and while returning they found out that Jesus is not with them…
Can you imagine living a life and toward to the end we find out that we were never in the fellowship with
Him..
In Gospel of John 17 Jesus describes the heart of our faith is to know God, it’s not heaven, angles,
blessing or even staying away from Hell or curses but fellowship with God.
Talking to Him every morning, listening to Him every day……
Very scary and John explain how it can happen. Let’s read ver 6-8
We need to understand that we are purchased and in process.
Privilege to have Fellowship with God is given through cross and now we need to give permission to God
to let him process in our waste dry heart to make it in His image.
Near my house in Delhi, there was a huge waste land with few monuments… once given to
gardener he transformed it into beautiful landscape.
That required 2 process. Cultivation of flower and pulling of weeds
in ver 6-10 John describe the process of pulling of weed.
Bible never offer us a life without sin infect God know that we will always have weeds in our lives and
that’s the unconditional love of Christ displayed through cross that God is working with us knowing that
we will always have weed either from deep within us because we have not pulled the root of sin from
our lives or they will fly from nearby and get rooted in our garden.
The evidence of our fellowship with God is that we’ll be able to see those seeds, not when we were
baptized but present tense and be willing to pull them.
It’s not going back and getting baptized again but confessing, it’s like when you get married… and sin
against your spouse, you don’t’ go back to priest and call for a wedding but sit and confess, take
responsibility and through the fruits of repentance, mend that relationship.
And that’s what pulling the weed, it is life long process, weeds will keep coming and we need to keep
pulling them. Sometime it’s painful but it’s worth it as it will transform us into His image.
Personal sharing when I had to confess my sin…
In conclusion from chapter 1 we learn that there are 2 kind of people sitting today with us…
1. Those who are walking in darkness. You don’t have fellowship with God. You have allowed your
heart to deceive you behind your good conscious or religious activities or the blessings of God.
2. Those who are walking in denial – you claim to know and have fellowship with God but you are in
darken due to the blindness you have towards your own weeds and you can’t see how these weeds
are growing and chocking your beautiful garden which God being a gardener working and
nurturing. It’s blocking you to be crafted into His image.
John is encouraging us to come near the cross and enjoy this fellowship, communion and see those
weeds, pull them so we may be able to walk and live in Light. God bless you.
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