God Is Transparent with Us, So Be Transparent with Him and Others (1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:2)

God Is Transparent with Us, So Be Transparent with Him and Others (1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:2)

sermon 1 John 1 : Patrice Berger, 2021_03_16, AB Lausanne church

God Is Transparent with Us, So Be Transparent with Him and Others (1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:2)

God Is Transparent with Us, So Be Transparent with Him and Others (1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:2)

Summary
The summary of what we saw last time, at the beginning of the first epistle of John:

Ouessant Island

The island of Ouessant is famous for its lighthouses.


The Créac’h lighthouse was built in 1863 on the island of Ouessant, one of the Ponant islands. It has a height of 47 meters, it is the most powerful lighthouse in Europe. Its two superimposed lanterns emit a light signal of eight beams with a range of approximately 60 kilometres.

Also, Sentinel Island is surrounded by 5 lighthouses.
I heard a native of the area, who is a guide for walks on the island, say that you can walk there at night without any problem.

The Light of the Lord

It’s the same thing with our Lord in the darkness of our rebellion, of our decay, He is the only light:

  • whose purity enlightens us on the reality of our state,
  • whose purity reveals the truth to us about all things,
  • whose purity empowers us through Christ to be forgiven and to advance in His likeness.

Light Illustrates the Perfect One
Sometimes the image of light illustrates the perfect, holy, pure side of God.

Light Illustrates Transparency
In other texts, Jesus illustrates transparency:

  • Christ is true,
  • what He says is reality, and is reliable.

Darkness illustrates a dark side


Conversely, darkness would reveal someone who has a dark side in his life, who has a bad secret, like keeping something under the pedal and darkness is related to sin (there is always a form of enjoyment, cheese-swatter). A share of control not handed over to God’s lighting. It is a scenario of one saying that it is I who is in charge (pride, the moral value of our society, etc.).

In the text of the day

And it is this meaning that is at the heart of the text of 1 John that we are going to read today. Let’s look together:


Light-Transparency


Darkness – a part of a shadow

A reminder of the previous text
This is the continuation of what we read the last time:

  • God, Jesus, almighty, capable, creator, desires to be in communion with us,
  • a communion shared between those who place Jesus as Savior and Lord.

The apostle John is a privileged witness and he reminds us of that here.

1 John chapter 1


This is the message that we have heard from him and that we announce to you:
God is light and there is no darkness in him.
(God is true and clear, there is no double side)

6 If we say we have fellowship with him while walking in darkness, (while cultivating a dark side) we are lying and not practising the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light, just as God himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus [Christ] his Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we recognize our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us of them and to cleanse us from all evil.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John chapter 2
1 My little children, I am writing this to you so that you do not sin. But if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 He himself is the expiatory victim for our sins, and not only for ours but also for those of the whole world.

This text is quite simple.

Fellowship with God?


If we tell others or if we tell ourselves, often the first person we deceive is ourselves!
That we are in communion with God and yet we keep and cultivate things that are not of God, that steal the place of God, that emerge at one time or another as a priority. Today’s passage tells us that we walk in darkness in doing this.

Walking in darkness

Walking in darkness means cultivating a part of darkness.

Cultivating Against Biblical Truth

If I cultivate this dark side, I cannot say that I am putting God’s truth – the truth that God shows me in his Word (the Bible) into practice.

Not realizing your sin

We can even in this process of cultivating a part of darkness convince ourselves that we are normal Christians, a bit like the others. Finally, we do not see or no longer see the sin that sticks to our skin:

  • clarity,
  • transparency,
  • the truth has fled us,
  • discernment too,
  • we tell ourselves that it’s normal,
  • we are next to the plaque.

Double game
And in the end, the ambivalence and the cultivated lie rob us of the understanding of the Word of God, the understanding of God.

In the end, who is the liar, God or me?
If I voluntarily keep in my heart in something that God condemns, while saying that I am in communion with my brothers and sisters, with God, when God says the opposite, there is a problem:

  • either I am a liar,
  • or it is God.
    It is the perception of what I am hiding that is at stake:
  • I find it good
  • God sees it as a sin.
    Ultimately, it’s His word against mine.

Is the Word of God reliable or mine?


That’s a good question since it is by His very word
• that He created the world from nothing,
• that He performed all the miracles presented to us by the Gospels,
• that He was resurrected,
• that He gave us lots of speeches so that we know the truth.

  • And you, your word?

Theory to practice

Not to remain conceptual, what could be my darkness?
What am I cultivating personally, without putting it back in the light of God in complete transparency?

  • My freedom,
  • my thirst for possession,
  • the sexual experience as soon as it arises,
  • a desire for life together,
  • her health,
  • her beauty,
  • my family,
  • my comfort,
  • certainty,
  • the revenge,
  • the refusal to forgive (receipt or approach),
  • my devouring ambition for everything,
  • the culmination of life: married, a house with a view of the lake, the first children in the class, breakfast in the sun and the dog running in the garden,
  • placing my values ​​in a political and spiritual movement and defending them,
  • patriotism.

Mechanism of these examples

Let’s understand the mechanism of these examples:

My freedom
Puts my individualism at the service of my egoism.
I am the priority and God must be at my service.

My thirst for possession.
Certainly one of the values ​​to which we are most attached, Westerners or not.
It shapes our life goals, instead of it being God.
It puts us on intangible “reasonable” principles, could God call that into question?

  • Our savings,
  • our insurance,
  • our 2nd and 3rd pillars,
  • our way of life,
  • our never-satisfied purchases,
  • my hoped-for right to an inheritance
    could God call them into question?
    Or are they intangible values ​​that have nothing to do with my faith in Christ?

The sexual experience as soon as it presents itself.
Before or after the wedding, this hides behind, in the background of the thoughts, that one is perhaps the last of the idiots if one refuses a hyper-favourable opportunity. Everyone would have done that! Does the light of God have the same reading?

Loneliness. Single.

Is it a terror?
If so, it is certain that she risks making a mistake.
Because if the desire to get married, to start a family is a number 1 priority, you will cling to the first or the first and not to what God says on the subject.

His health
Your health is perhaps your number one priority, if it were taken away from you, would all the fault be with God? Would you do anything for your health? Are you going to use occult means?

Her beauty.

If I am beautiful and if you are beautiful and that is taken away from you. Is it so important to look like such a fashion profile, such a person?
A study had me a little stunned: it highlighted that in the student world, investment in fashion was a priority for many compared to the food budget.

My family

My family, my children, my spouse, my parents, a newborn? Are they our gods?

A friend confessed to us that she was not sure how she would react (this implied spiritually) if one of her relatives was suddenly hit.
Incidentally, the fact of having mentioned to us was already a first step, hence one could ensure this subject is not in the depths of darkness where God has no right.

My goods

Whatever I have is mine alone.
As soon as you touch it, any spiritual aspect vanishes.

Ah yes, and these goods how did you acquire them? Who gave you the capacities, the economic and political environment so that you prosper or inherit?

Job was immensely rich and very aware that it was a favour from the Lord. Yet God allowed riches to be taken away from him.
If his wealth was a god, Job would have cursed God, but his consciousness of God was stronger than his wealth.

You don’t have to be rich to be too attached to what you have.

My comfort

“Amen, Lord, to all those wonderful missionaries who devote themselves full-time to bringing your light to the savages or the unbelievers.

And for you, would it be possible, over there, in France, with the support of a missionary?
We won’t say it openly, but our comfort turns out to be a real idol, a due that God cannot call into question.

Vengeance

There’s no reason why the harm done to me shouldn’t be returned or even a little stronger. If the opportunity arises and I am in a position of strength, I will not miss it.
Fortunately, God does not act in this way!

Refusal of forgiveness

1000 excuses, even pseudo-biblical, in fact, I have too much pride. I forgive but I do not forget…

My all-consuming ambition
Every time I do something, I have to be first, which is different from doing it well.
Areas: leisure, study, work, church.

Pinnacle of life

(ultimate cliché of our consumer society, revisited endlessly in films and advertisements:

  • married, Ken and Barbie,
  • the children, he is a doctor and she is a school principal
  • the house with a view of the lake,
  • and the dog running in the garden with the small children, worse than magazine covers)

If it is a life goal, at all stuck in our hearts, then we risk having attitudes and life choices that will serve this ambition before serving Christ. God can allow it to be given as a grace, but it is not a due, nor a god…

Placing my values
​​ • moral,

  • political,
  • spiritual,
  • theological,
    as sanctuaries, will necessarily lead me to defend them, instead of being a witness of Christ!

Patriotism for my origin
Does my patriotism reflect xenophobia or affection

  • towards my neighbour?
  • towards my brother or my sister?
    Would my citizenship of heaven come after that of my country, or of the confederation, my canton, or my community?

It can be powerful, so much so that a servant of God so attached to his country, to the detriment of lost souls, that he went the opposite of where God expected him, so stubborn in his patriotism that he even sacrificed his life: Remember Jonah.

Are our dreams carried with simplicity to God, in full transparency?

Idols We Hold
These few examples show that in our darkness hide idols that we worship and serve without even realizing it. And it would not even occur to us to question them by transparency in the light of Christ.

Idols for which we are ready to do anything

  • We become wolves, and beasts, if taken away from us,
  • we become predators when we don’t have them, ready to jump on them at any price, so these attachments are tenacious and buried in the depths of our thoughts.

Everything reaches

  • Necessarily, we all have something that steals priority from God and necessarily something to which we are attached and that God reproves.

Do I cultivate it or do I become transparent about it?
The question at stake: do I cultivate it or do I play transparency with God?

No one is perfect
Today’s text does not speak of a perfect human: no human will be luminous like God and Christ!

But honest with God
But people who walk in the light of God, under the light of God, Thus, we can see what is wrong.

Illumination of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit illuminates these grey areas and gives me discernment to see what is of God or not.

Solution in Christ

Which allows me to bring them to Christ, to find the right solution in Christ,

  • because His blood purifies me from all sins,
  • because He is our defender who, by taking our fault, by taking the just punishment for our fault and by overcoming this fault, has the solution to give us victory.

Why does Christ have the ability to win?

  • Because He is just,
  • He is just because He is God.

Christ has already carried everything.


Christ on the cross has already carried

  • my bad understanding,
  • my bad priorities,
  • my bad judgments,
  • my resentments,
  • my bad goals,
  • my bad attachments,
  • my false self-image,
  • my selfishness,
  • my individualism,
  • my pride,
  • my laziness,
  • my hedonism,
  • my false fights,
  • my false reasonings.

Lighting
In doing so, when I walk in the light of God, He enlightens me on my wrong paths.

Work of the Holy Spirit
It is the marvellous work of the Holy Spirit, of His Word, the Bible (the Holy Spirit presided over the entire drafting of the Bible), and the blessing of the brothers and sisters who support us (because the Holy Spirit is at work in their lives).

Virtuous circle
Moreover, the more I am simple, transparent, listening to what God tells me through his Spirit: the more his Spirit will be active in me, and the more the process of enlightening me will be virtuous.

Destructive spiral
Conversely, the more I hide and cultivate what the Holy Spirit brings to light, the less I am sensitive to His action and the more I feed my darkness.

Attitude to aim
So if God underlines things to me, and brings them to light, instead of justifying them, finding excuses, or cultivating them, I recognize them; I ask forgiveness from God and come to Christ for purification. Christ helps me to metamorphose my false ideas and values ​​to replace them with His own and to change my reflexes when I am confronted with a similar situation.

Reality
I am not perfect but I progress in His light with transparency.

Consequences
Consequences of this transparency:

  • communion with God through Christ,
  • communion with God because Christ makes it possible, because He took our imperfection and condemnation, he overcame it and because it is He who helps us move from progress to progress if we are true to Him.

Communion with my brothers and sisters
Communion with my brothers and sisters who are in the same process but there is usually a break in communion with those who are sufficient in the face of this attitude of transparency.

  • It is not because of the brothers and sisters but because of the one who refuses the illumination of Christ.

Priorities take precedence over Christ and fellowship
In the end, the priority hidden aspects will come out at some point and reveal that we were not on the same wavelength, that we were not walking in the light of Christ.

Root of Church Problems
Secret ties and pride are the sources of all problems of communion between brothers and sisters (which will be highly justified by the Bible): values that take precedence over Christ, His body, and the church of the redeemed.

Instead of recognizing the wrong priority, out of pride, one says, ‘I’m not going to move’. There are clouds in the relationships because the darkness has done its work, thus, the communion flies away.

Summary

Through today’s text, God invites us to be someone who advances with an uncovered face, ready to hand over to Christ what God will point out to him and to no longer be someone who advances masked, camped on what he/she considered capital in his/her eyes, alone without God.

Taking stock
This text invites us to take stock with God in reflection and in prayer.

Perhaps there is an aspect in our reflection in prayer on which we could dwell:
Lord,
I lack discernment,
I lack clairvoyance,
that I may be more sensitive to Your light.
Give me a humble heart to hand over to You what I attach enormous value to, ultimately more than to You.
Thank you for the work of the Holy Spirit, help me to be sensitive to it, so that He can work in me, through Your Word.
Thank you, for Your listening, thank you for Your ability to turn the tide.
Forgive me for my missteps!
Praise be to You because You carried them to the cross in my place!
Praise be to You because You have overcome them!
Adoration to You, Lord Jesus Christ, because You are the conqueror, the creator, the restorer!
Help me to stay in this simplicity and this heart-to-heart relationship with You!
Thank you for my brothers and sisters in faith with You!
Increase the bond between us by Your truth and not by mine!

Bible Passages

Genesis 1:1-5/ ASV


1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters
3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

1 John 1:5-6/ ASV


5. And this is the message which we have heard from him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

John 1:5-6/ ASV


5. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not.
6. There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John.

Related Links / Notes

1st John Sermon Series

Study Notes are translated from the original French version prepared by the pastor Patrice Berger. The orginal French notes are in “note” form, and are not a direct transcription of the video, however they are quite close the original text preached at the church. The notes provided here follow that form, and are detailed enough to help provide a deep understanding of the texts in the epistle 1st John.

All services as well as some of the bible studies are streamed on the channel  YouTube église AB Renens-Lausanne.  Also visit the You Tube channel of the Swiss Action Biblique Youth Groups (JAB Suisse Romande)/ Facebook.

Bible verses in the study link to the ASV bible. In addition to the ASV Bible , other versions of the Bible are also available on our website.

The King James Version is available as an audio bible Podcast which can be accessed below.

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Keywords

  • Light
  • Transparency
  • Communion
  • idols
  • Priority
  • My freedom
  • Thirst to possess
  • Sexual experience
  • Desire for life together
  • His health
  • Her beauty
  • His family
  • Its comfort
  • Vengeance
  • Refusal of forgiveness
  • all-consuming ambition
  • Political movements
  • Patriotism
  • Misunderstandings
  • wrong priorities
  • Bad judgments
  • My grudges
  • Bad goals
  • Bad attachments
  • false self-image
  • Selfishness
  • Individualism
  • Pride
  • Laziness
  • Hedonism
  • fake fights
  • False reasoning

Complete Joy in Knowing The One Who Is in The Beginning (1 John 1: 1-4)

Complete Joy in Knowing The One Who Is in The Beginning (1 John 1: 1-4)

sermon 1 John 1 : Patrice Berger, 2021_03_16, AB Lausanne church

Complete Joy in Knowing The One Who Is in The Beginning (1 John 1: 1-4)

Complete Joy in Knowing The One Who Is in The Beginning (1 John 1: 1-4)

The book of the Bible that we are going to open today will not be the book of Exodus, but the first epistle written by the apostle John.

1 John 1: 1-4 (Check the sidebar)

John the Apostle

The apostle John, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, is the one who lived the longest. He was a remarkable witness to recall the beginning of the birth of the church of Christ and the simple and marvellous fundamentals of the work of Christ.

Great pedagogy

There again, with great pedagogy, he reminds us of the essentials so that our joy is complete, deep, and anchored in the truth.

Gospel author

The apostle John is also the author of the Gospel of John. Both writings begin with the same starting point, “the beginning”.
All truth rests on a clear basis. The apostle likes to recall it.
He is going to tell us about Jesus who is from the beginning.

Just like the apostle Paul

Colossians 1: 16-18
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 Indeed, in him everything was created in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, thrones, sovereignties, dominions, authorities. All was created by him and for him.
17 He exists before all things and everything subsists in him.
18 He is the head of the body which is the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, in order to be the first in everything.

Reliability

If we want our joy to be complete without being disappointed, it must be based on something reliable.

Need for a starting point

Whatever our understanding of the Bible and science, there must be a starting point, as with all things.

Weak foundations

There is no point in going back to the subject with billions of years if I do not know the starting point. All these billions of years rest on what? It’s a scam, it’s not a scientific process, it’s a reverie, a delirium, it’s ideological.

The Big-Bang

A friend in a child’s class heard the teacher explain the Big Bang to explain our origins: with a great image, she explained that the profusion of planets came from the magma which had exploded as if a big firecracker had propelled the planets we know.
She had known how to put herself at the level of the daily life of her students to explain to them a scientific notion.
Then one of his students raised his hand:

  • “Mistress, who lit the firecracker? “.

You need a starting point!

Characteristic of the starting point
A starting point is needed which is not only a biological coincidence.

For it to make sense, the starting point has to have the creative capacity, it has to work and there has to be a purpose.

Confrontation of two ideas

To be even clearer, the explanation of the “beginning” is confronted with two main ideas:
• God at the origin
• or ousting God, in favour of pseudo-scientific hypotheses.
Both appeal to faith.

Without God

Without God, we have been indoctrinated since childhood, in all the naturalist reports that it is a conjunction of selections and adaptations that makes us become what we are.

A Single Ferrari

In short, we are being told that all the parts of a Ferrari have been fine-tuned to the nearest micron and assembled with surgical precision.

Optimistic

Incidentally, this perfection is based on the fact that, of course, positive changes are still going to occur and are resolutely going to be for the better…

More and more elaborate!

And that we start from something simple to move towards something elaborate, more beautiful, and more complex.

But we observe the opposite
Except that, what we observe, is precisely the opposite, the changes go towards an alteration, in an ageing manner on planet earth.

The diversity of fauna and flora is becoming increasingly impoverished, and the cries of alarm concerning our planet go in this direction.
The basic races supplant the more complex ones.

Gasoline for the Ferrari

But the demonstration of the creation of the Ferrari forgets to tell us that it needs gasoline for it, therefore platforms to extract oil, refineries and gas stations. Well, maybe we can be made to swallow the pill after billions of years.

Roads for the Ferrari
However, what do we do with a Ferrari in the universe, even if it has gasoline? Roads are needed; these roads, what do we put them on? What are these roads for? Who drives?

Inert, the Ferrari

The Ferrari example relies on inert parts that cannot enable it to function. Not on living cells.
Here, life?

Origin of life
Where does it come from? Since we only know how to transmit it (we do not give life, we transmit). This morning’s text tells us exactly about it. And that’s the other explanation for “beginnings.”

Someone capable
Inevitably, there must be someone capable and who has thought of everything: God, with a capacity for creation and not just a capacity for transformation, capable of creating a perfect environment to welcome living beings with coherence and purpose for this varied and bountiful life.

This is what the Epistle to the Colossians tells us in chapter 1, verse 16:
For in him, everything was created in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, thrones, sovereignties, dominations, and authorities. All were created by him and for him.

God’s obligatory starting point

It is at this starting point that the apostle recalls that God is at the initiative of the “beginning”. It remains to define who God is so that we do not mistake the person and so that “our joy is complete”. How to know if the person is:
• Budda,
• Allah,
• Shiva,
• the Eternal?

” We “

The other witnesses

To answer this important question, the apostle John guides us and he also calls other witnesses to witness who, like him, could have said the same thing. Besides, the “we” is perhaps one of the most used words in these few sentences…

John doesn’t talk about it to himself

John does not tell it to himself, he is one witness among many others. It seems, in the first place, that these other witnesses could have been the other eleven disciples.
There are other witnesses, for instance:

  • the opportunists who came to take advantage of the creative, re-creative or reparative acts of Jesus to be cured. More than meeting the person of Jesus, it was their problems that they sought to solve, it proves that Jesus had this ability.
  • The great (wise men) or the small homeless (shepherds), at the time of His birth.
  • The naysayers: they weren’t questioning what proved His divinity, but the fact that it was destroying all their institutions. Jesus did not fit into the human boxes of religion. Normal, He was divine.
  • There were so many witnesses of His life and also so many witnesses of His resurrection.
    These witnesses are not “staggers”.

“They Understood “

They heard:

Other witnesses are:

  • Jesus
  • but also angels Acts 1,
  • but much more, Moses and Elijah,
  • the Father, at the time of the transfiguration.
    Luke 9. 35 “This is my beloved Son: listen to him!”

In short, they did not tell each other, they “heard”!

” To see “

Witness = see

The characteristic of a witness is to see. This is what the text tells us.
I will come back to what they saw, what they saw Jesus do is the clear sign that Jesus is the creator God, the “beginning” of all things.

Feed a crowd

But remember the disciples who feed a crowd of 5,000 men with the snack of a young boy.
• Not only was everyone fed on the same snack basis. When it is you who distributes it is not the same thing as when you receive:
• If you receive, you have your share but you do not care where it comes from,
• whereas when it is you who distributes and that you see the thousands of people, that there is a crowd, with your basket, you see the thing differently!
• And as if to put an additional exclamation point and for this to mark their memory as disciples forever (so that they pass it on to us), Jesus allows just one full basket to remain in each hand of the disciples.

Unique, outstanding
You see, when John says “that they saw” (the extraordinary acts of God), it was that it was unique, outstanding. No other follower of any deity can just claim to have seen this!

“Contemplated”

The disciples with John gazed.

Not stealth

They didn’t just have a flash in the corner of a field on a hypoglycemic day or have a fleeting appearance and go wild afterwards.

3 years

They had time to contemplate for 3 years, in unique moments like the transfiguration, but also in the common moments of life. And in 3 years of proximity, we have time to see a lot of facets of a person.

” Hit “

But the apostle adds something that reminds us that Jesus was not:
• a vague spirit,
• a hologram,
• an angel.

Our hands touched Him: we know that John was very close to Jesus during His ministry, but we also have the testimony of Thomas, who like the other disciples touched the real risen Jesus.

Remember Remember

But, imagine the apostle writing these few sentences: all the memories come back, it’s obvious…

“Word of Life” 

The apostle is a witness to the “Word of life”, a qualifier to designate Jesus.

Lazarus
He witnessed the resurrection of Lazarus, just through the word.

Word of the day

Also noteworthy were:
• His speeches,
• His conversations,
• His teachings
were just as much “Word of Life”

Man and the universe

It is with this same Word that Jesus created what we are and our environment. Moreover, you, regular readers of the Gospels, will have noticed that John mentions the same thing at the beginning of his Gospel. Why? Because it is crucial! Jesus is life in all of His people. It is so important that the apostle must announce it and recall it.
Jesus is not someone like Gandhi, but He is the author of Life. 1 John 1. 2-3
Life indeed has been manifested; we have seen it, we are witnesses of it and we announce it to you, this eternal life which was with the Father and which was manifested to us.

Jesus is the

• eternal life,
• He is eternal,
• He is God.

This is what the apostle John is affirming and, there again, he places himself as a witness with the others that have experienced the evidence: they have been witnesses of His action on all forms of illnesses, with incomprehensible healings given our habits: a disabled man for 38 years takes his stretcher and leaves, the muscles, the tendons, everything was operational without a physio session! John is a witness (chapter 5 of his gospel), can a man do this?

  • If he was active in the suffering and battered life of men, Jesus was also active in death. Not a misunderstanding, there’s a small detail in the raising of Lazarus; Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to Him: “Lord, he already smells, for he has been there for four days.” (Gospel of John 11: 39). Lazarus didn’t have a perfume problem, the decomposition was doing its thing. John is a witness (chapter 11 of his gospel), can a man do this?
  • On the fauna and flora: He dries up a fig tree, and orders pigs and fish. As a reminder, the apostle John practised fishing in a professional way, so he doesn’t tell rumours!
  • The Elements: He also commands a raging lake to stop, a tsunami wave, nothing stops him. John who was a freshwater sailor witnesses this!
  • He defies the laws of physics: walking on water is within anyone’s reach, when it’s frozen. John a freshwater sailor witnesses this!
  • The invisible, spiritual world fears Him and obeys Him.

All this mastery marks the action of someone who has the upper hand.

The apostle tells us that they saw and they heard.
Yes, all these actions were not done with a defibrillator, scanner, MRI, medicine, chloroquine, vaccines, garlic cloves, satellite dishes or hyper lightning rods and others…

All of these extraordinary acts were done by His Word.

Today’s text tells us that Jesus is the Word of Life, what else could the apostle say? “I saw it and I heard it! “.

The crowning achievement of this coherence is that He announces His resurrection and brings it to pass.

Jesus
• demonstrated His divinity,
• that He was the beginning,
• that He was the Word of Life.

But John does not recall Jesus’s story in the gospels to be praised nor to show he is right, but to recall that he is in communion with Jesus, with the Father and the Son, which are of the same nature.

However,

note the different functions:
• the Father decrees,
• the Son executes,
• with the help of the Holy Spirit.

To be in communion with Jesus is to be in communion with God.

It’s nice to be among an audience with a great person in this world; however, it’s something else to be in communion with this distinguished guest…

John reminds us that he is in communion with Jesus and that it is not an exclusivity reserved for those who have witnessed His ministry, but that the people to whom he writes a few decades after the ascension of Jesus, can also be in communion with Jesus.

May your joy be complete!

Communion with Jesus is not a religion or a philosophy, but it is being in communion with the One who is the starting point of everything.

Well, wouldn’t that be the purpose of life?

I know someone very well who never knew his biological father and had to be removed from his mother’s custody as soon as he was born.

He was beautifully taken in by friends who adopted him. For nothing in the world would he change families. However, as a child, he was disturbed by his biological link.

Every time there was an appointment with his biological mother, at the child welfare office, he was turned upside down, all the more confused that she didn’t come, almost every time.

This link with its beginning was erased, it was deprived of it and will remain a wound and a difficulty.

We can be like him if we refuse the evidence of God, of Jesus as the beginning.

The millions of billions of years lost in nothingness aren’t the beginning of humanity.

But
• Our joy is complete because we know the beginning.
• Our joy is complete because this beginning has a name, Jesus.
• Our joy is complete because it is not a fabrication but He demonstrated it, on our ground, at home, on the earth during His ministry in front of a crowd of witnesses.
• Our joy is complete because He wants us to have fellowship with Him.

He is always present at the appointment.
He is waiting for us.
And our expectation doesn’t end in disappointment!

Bible Passages

1 John 1:1-4

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

Luke 9:35

And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.

John 11:39

Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

John 1:1-4

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

Colossians 1:16-18

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

Related Links / Notes

1st John Sermon Series

Study Notes are translated from the original French version prepared by the pastor Patrice Berger. The orginal French notes are in “note” form, and are not a direct transcription of the video, however they are quite close the original text preached at the church. The notes provided here follow that form, and are detailed enough to help provide a deep understanding of the texts in the epistle 1st John.

All services as well as some of the bible studies are streamed on the channel  YouTube église AB Renens-Lausanne.  Also visit the You Tube channel of the Swiss Action Biblique Youth Groups (JAB Suisse Romande)/ Facebook.

Bible verses in the study link to the ASV bible. In addition to the ASV Bible , other versions of the Bible are also available on our website.

The King James Version is available as an audio bible Podcast which can be accessed below.

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Keywords

  • Commencement
  • Basis
  • Truth
  • Big-Bang
  • Joy
  • Witness
  • Life
  • Word of Life