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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions. Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holliday and we
are beginning today a study in the book of 1 John and Daily Drive Time
Devotions. Those of you that are a part or have listened before to these Daily
Drive Time Devotions, you can listen to them whether you're driving or working
or whatever you're doing, know that we take ten minutes a day, five days a week,
to look at a chapter of the Bible each week.

And we go through a book at a time. And the book that we're starting right now
is the book of 1 John. It's an incredible, awesome book.

Of course, I'd say that about any book in the Bible. It's a book about how God's
light and love and life change our lives. And before talking more about who
wrote this book, I want to begin just from the very top of our study of this
book to talk together about why it was written.

John, the writer of this book, says that he wrote it for five specific reasons.
As you walk through the book, there are five times when he says, "I wrote this
that you may have this, that this might happen in your life. " What are those
five things?

In chapter 1 verse 3, he says, "I am writing that you may have fellowship with
one another. " This is a book about how to relate to other believers, other
people that are in following Jesus Christ. And then in chapter 1 verse 4, John
says that your joy might be complete.

This is a book about how joy happens in our everyday lives. And it might
surprise you as we walk through this book about how joy happens. We always want
to focus on ourselves to find joy, and you never find it there.

Never find it there. In chapter 2 verse 1, John writes, "I'm writing this book
that you might not sin. " It's a book to protect us against temptation and
against the choice to sin in our lives.

In chapter 2 verse 26, he says, "I am writing that you might be on guard against
error. " Truth is what brings light into our lives, but error, the false truth
about God, is what can destroy our lives. So John says, "I'm writing that you
might be on guard against error.

" And then there's a fifth reason that John says he writes this letter, and that
is that you will know, that those who read it will know that you have eternal
life. Now that last one really heads toward two major reasons that John wrote
this book. He wants you to know, and he wants you to love.

He wants you to know, and he wants you to love. We know. That's assurance.

The word know is used 36 times in this letter, this short letter of John. But he
also wants you to love. The word love is used 36 times in this short letter.

We know, we have the assurance, but we also love, we have the action in our
lives. It's interesting. John's gospel, the same John who wrote this letter, 1
John is the one who wrote the gospel of John in the New Testament, John's
gospel, the major purpose of that gospel is belief.

In John 20-31 he says, "I'm writing that you might believe. " But here we find
that the major reason for John's letter is assurance and action. "I'm writing,"
he says, "so that you might know and so that you might love, so that you might
be assured of your faith and you might act on your faith.

" And that's my prayer for me and for you as we walk through this book together,
that God will do those things in our lives. He'll give us a new assurance of our
faith, that because of our faith and our trust in Jesus Christ we do have a
relationship with him. And if you haven't begun a relationship with him, I'm
praying that as we walk through this book you'll begin that relationship and
then have that assurance the rest of your life.

And then also that we will love. God gives us this assurance for a reason, not
just for our own sake, but so that we can take that confidence that we have in
our relationship with him and build on that as a foundation to love the people
in our lives, love the people that God loves. Now with that in mind, these
reasons that John wrote the book, the fact that we're to know and we're to love,
let me tell you a little bit about John, the man through whom the Spirit
inspired this letter.

In fact, let me tell you four or five things about John. John was a disciple.
John was an older man.

John was an eyewitness. John was a pastor. If you want to know who this man is,
that's who this man is as he's writing this letter.

John was a disciple. He's one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus Christ.
You might remember in his gospel, the gospel of John, John refers to himself
often as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

Some people think that's prideful. Wow, he loved me and he didn't love anybody
else. It's not prideful at all.

Instead of using his name, John just referred to himself as someone whom Jesus
loved because that was the major identifier of his life. More than anything
else, he saw himself as someone who was loved by Jesus Christ. He was a
disciple.

He'd walked with Jesus Christ those three years and then he'd begun to live his
life for Christ. And by the time this letter is written, John was an older man.
In fact, by the time he writes this, he's probably the only surviving apostle,
the only surviving one of the original twelve that Jesus called and who walked
with him.

And as I think about that, this long life that John lived, this long life of
faith, I think about all that had happened to John between the end of Jesus'
life at the end of the gospel of John and now as we pick up at the beginning of
this letter. Remember John was asked by Jesus to take care of his mother. So
he'd taken Mary into his home and until her death, John had taken care of Mary.

Can you imagine the stories that he'd heard about Jesus? Can you imagine the
discussions they'd had about the resurrection and the new church? In fact, John
had also been involved in the rapid expansion of this new church in Jerusalem
and then out from Jerusalem.

John later in his life had also had an extensive ministry to the churches of
Ephesus and the Lycus Valley. He'd actually become a pastor to an entire region.
John, you might remember as a disciple, was known as someone who was a son of
thunder.

That was one of the nicknames that was given to James and John, two of the
disciples of Jesus. They were angry young men. They were men who, well one time
a city didn't want to follow Jesus and James and John said, "Jesus, should we
call down fire and destroy it?

Wouldn't that be great that you have the feeling they felt? " But by the time
John writes this letter, he's known as an apostle of love. He's got a heart of a
pastor towards the people.

Now in John's life, we also know that he faced persecution. He was imprisoned on
an island named Patmos. In John's life, he was revealed some great things.

In fact, the book of Revelation is recorded by John. There's so many spiritual
experiences that this man had in his life because he was a follower of Jesus
Christ. And he takes all of those experiences and he distills them as he writes
this letter about what is most important in our lives.

John was a disciple. He was an older man. He was an eyewitness.

He wrote authoritatively to give a new generation of believers confidence in
their faith. Many by now are second or even third generation Christians. They
didn't see Jesus Christ.

They weren't even saved just a year or two after Jesus Christ, but they'd heard
about Jesus Christ from someone who'd been saved and maybe even they'd heard of
Jesus Christ from someone who'd been saved by someone who had told someone who
had been saved. And John writes to these people and he wants to let them know
that what they'd heard from someone who'd heard from someone is real. In fact,
by this point in the church, the power of tradition had begun to set in in some
places and John writes to let them see the fresh breath of life about what it
means to follow Jesus Christ.

John was an eyewitness. He was a disciple. He was an older man.

He was a pastor. Even as he pastored those churches, he's also pastoring us as
we read this letter. In fact, his motivation for writing is his concern for
God's children.

That's me. That's you. We're God's children.

And it's like you have this older man in the faith who has seen it all,
experienced it all, sitting down in a chair face to face with you and saying,
"Let me tell you about what's really important. Let me tell you about what's
really going to last. Let me tell you about God's love in your life and your
love for other people.

" The problem in the day that John wrote, as I indicated a moment ago, was not
so much persecution by the world, although that was there. But the biggest
problem in the church was compromise with the world. It wasn't persecution that
was destroying the message of the church.

It never does. It was compromise that was destroying the message of the church.
There were people within the church trying to make Christianity intellectually
respectable.

A false teaching by the name of Gnosticism that we'll talk about more as we go
through this study. But the point is this, Satan had very quickly discovered
that a better strategy than persecution for destroying the message of the church
was this strategy of pride, trying to make us so prideful that we have to be
respectable to the world. The truth of the matter is, sometimes the truth is not
respectable.

The cross is not a respectable place, but the truth is life-changing. The
problem in John's day was not that people were trying to destroy the faith, but
people were trying to improve on the faith and make it look just a little bit
better. So John writes to say, "Here's what's real.

Here's how to live. " Now, the next couple of days, I'd like to give you a
couple of outlines of 1 John. How do you think about this letter?

So as we walk into it, we have a sense of what we're going to hear, what God's
going to do in our lives. The first outline, I'd say, as you look at John, is an
outline of seven contrasts. In a time when the church is being tempted to
compromise, John writes to let them know that Christianity is a sharply defined
faith.

Can you imagine Jesus saying in response to somebody's question, "Well, that's
sort of a gray area. We can't really be sure about that. " No, Jesus had clear
answers.

Jesus had clear truth. And in John, you see these contrasts, seven of them.
Number one is the contrast of light and darkness and how God can bring his light
into our lives.

Number two is the contrast of love for God the Father versus love for the world
and how love for God can transform our lives. A third contrast in chapter two is
the contrast between Christ and Antichrist. Antichrist, now there's a word to
get your interest.

In this letter, John talks about the Antichrist. He tells us who the Antichrist
is in this letter. And there's this contrast between Christ and Antichrist that
we'll see when we get to chapter two.

Also in chapter two, going into chapter three, there is the contrast between
right works and evil works. In chapter four, there is the contrast between the
Spirit, the Spirit of God, versus the spirits, little s, the spirits of our own
thoughts and our own ideas and the spirits of this world, true spirit versus the
false spirits. In chapter four, there is the contrast of love versus pretense.

And then in chapter five, there's a seventh contrast, the contrast of a
relationship with Jesus versus no relationship with Jesus. Now as you think
about this book and you think about those contrasts, my question to you as we
begin this study and to me too is how am I going to allow God to redefine my
life through his word? And maybe you've been a believer for a long time and you
think, oh, I've heard all of this before.

It doesn't make it any less true or any less powerful. I may have eaten a meal
before, but if I get hungry, I'm going to need it again to give me the
sustenance that I need. And we are hungry for God's word every day of our lives.

And I believe for me and for you by faith that God wants to do something radical
in our lives through our study of this book. He wants to make a difference. How
does God want to bring new, sharply defined contrast of truth into your life?

Begin to pray about that now. And as we walk into this book, as we walk into
what God wants to do in our lives in this book, I want to begin together by
talking to him. Would you pray with me?

Our Father, in this book you talk to us about light, your light, and love, your
love, and life, your life. And I pray, I pray that as we walk through this book
together, you would bring your light and your love and your life into new
reality in our lives. Lord, if we're new to the faith, I pray we'd see an
explosion in these very areas of our lives.

Lord, if we've been in the faith for a long time, I pray we'd see an explosion,
a new growth, a new step in these very areas of our lives. Lord, thank you that
you're never through with us. Thank you that you always have growth for us.

Help us to see you at work in amazing ways as we walk through your Word
together. We pray this, Jesus, in your name. Join us tomorrow.

We're going to continue our study of 1 John as we look at what's really real in
verses 1 and 2.