Take Aways:

V. 1-4: John takes these first few verses to overly emphasize that everything he is going to be speaking about is things he has personally experienced. This is not just here-say or his thoughts on the matter, this is relationship with God through Jesus upon encounter, not knowledge. Each of us have had unique experiences with Christ that have shaped our relationships. We proclaim what we experienced. Your experiences give more credence (believability and impact) to your testimony. We each are uniquely qualified to share based on our experiences. There is power in your testimony. 

V. 5: John starts his message saying this is what I received from Him and these are not my own ideas. He's not adding anything extra, just sharing what was shared with him by Jesus.  So often we tell people about Jesus and we try to throw in our own ideas too.  Or we share the parts we agree with and dismiss the parts we don't. The word of God is not written in pencil for us to erase or change.  It is written in ink with the expectation that we should be the ones to change to its will.  

V. 7: John is calling us to walk in the light. There are 3 things that will occur when we remain in the light with God. 

1. We will have fellowship with one another.  When we walk in the light we flock to those who are also in the light.
2. We walk in relationship with God. 
3. We will be purified of all sin through the blood of Jesus. 

V. 8-10: Self righteousness is a trap for us to fall into. It can be very easy for us to get to a place where we feel like we are good. See Proverbs 20:9, Who can say I have kept my heart pure, I am clean and without sin. We have to be aware of where we are and see the flaws in us so we can confess those sins (James 5:16) to be forgiven and be purified of all unrighteousness. I have to truly repent from the heart.

Picture a magnified vanity mirror with lights around it.  From a distance, everything looks okay.  As you draw closer and closer to it you will begin to notice more and more flaws in yourself. (pores, bumps, etc...) You have not changed, but your imperfections have been exposed in the light.  This is what its like when you draw closer to God and walk in the light.  What once we thought was okay in low light become exposed in the bright lights and get purified as we confess and repent. (This is the process of Sanctification)

Chapter Recap:

After my initial encounter with Jesus, I am proclaiming to people my experience with him. But that’s just the beginning not the end. We have to choose to walk in the light everyday. In doing so, we will walk humbly, recognizing our sin and our need for a savior.  As we walk in the light the more sin we will see, allowing us to be purified of such sin so we can walk more and more in the image of Christ. Only those who are remaining in Him (in the light) will see the truth of who it is they are. 

Application Questions:

1. How can your personal testimony be used to reach other people?
2. Do you feel you are walking in the light as John shares with us in v 5-7?
3. What areas to you feel you are not walking in the light?
4. Considering verse 9, how has confession of sin helped you walk away from that sin?

Take Aways:

V. 1-2: This may seem to be a contradiction to verse 1:10, but it is a reiteration that we should have a desire to walk in the light. John knows that we are unrighteous people and reminds us that we have a need for a forgiver and our acceptance to follow Christ atones for our sins and anyone else who chooses to follow HIm. 

V. 3-5: John repeats what he said in his Gospel verse 14:15. Love is not a feeling, but love is an action. To truly love is to act upon the feelings that you are proclaiming. EG. If you claim you love your spouse, but only see them a couple times a week, never show them affection, never do the things they ask of you, and never desire to make them happy, it would be a challenge to say that you really truly loved them. No matter what you say. 

V. 6: To live as Jesus did means to constantly be doing the will of the father and to constantly be in the light. Consider Matt 7:21-23. Not only is Jesus our savior, but he is our example. He is authority and servant. He surrendered to the fathers authority, to the fathers love for the people, and to the fathers mission. Her holds authority over us and gives us the example of what servitude looks like. I must submit, love, and be on mission as He is. 

V. 7-11: The way we love one another shows who we are in Christ and shows we are his disciples. See John 13:35. He says nothing will make us stumble in the light, but unforgiveness takes us out of the light and pulls us in the darkness. He points to a very important truth he told his disciples about forgiveness. Matt 6:14-15

What does it look like to love others as Christ loved us?

V. 12-14: John takes a slight turn in the way he presents his message here. In this section he gives address to different ages in a 6 line poem.  He wrote it this way to get your attention and to put emphasis on it. There is something for all of us, we all need to hear it. He wants us all to know that we can overcome sin that can negatively impact their fellowship with god and each other. He lists the three (spiritual) maturity stages as follows: 

1. Little children: brand new Christians who have been forgiven and are learning how to live.
2. Young men: those Christians who have been battling and growing; fighting the world to be with God. 
3. Fathers: mature Christians who have had little children and young men disciples of their own. They have learned the truth and work to share it with others. 

V. 15-17: He shows again his purpose for writing the book as people are getting lured away.  The world will lure us away.

3 ways the world will lure us out of the light and into the darkness:

1. lusts of the flesh: satisfying things such as improper sexual desire, overindulgence (gluttony), or laziness (sloth).  
2. Lust of the eyes: pornography, jealousy, coveting others things (trucks, boats, jobs, spouses...)
3. Pride of Life: It could be materialistic things... our toys, our status, the things we have to show for us, the position we have (job or communal). 

Anything that will not continue on in the kingdom of heaven is not of this world and we should not have love for it. 1 Peter 2:11-12 says we should live as aliens in this world, not comrades. We should always desire to do Gods will, not our own will. 

V. 18-23 John is speaking now about people who were in the church who were lured away into the world and against the teachings of Christ.  He’s saying if any are lured away, they never were truly in Him. They were in essence wolves in sheep's clothings. For if you are in him you have to remain in him.  With this comes the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. The One that will continually give you truth. 

V. 24-27: Consider John 15:5. It takes intentionality to stay connected. It takes prayer, reading the Bible, and community. These are the ways you communicate and fellowship with God. John reminds us here that all of this leads to what was promised, eternal life. (Titus 1:2) So continue your fellowship with the Holy Spirit. He is our teacher, sustainer, keeper. John 10:4-5 My sheep know my voice. The Holy Spirit is the one who leads us, so if we are being led astray and can’t hear him, it is our desires doing the leading.  We need to go back and check ourselves and course correct. 

V. 29: Our actions show our hearts. John tells us we can see who is born of HIm (or born again or saved) by who is doing what is right.  It is not by a prayer or a mere admittance of repent and belief, but belief is shown through the actions of those made righteous by the one who has always been righteous. 

Chapter Recap:

Everything starts with Jesus. He is our savior and redeemer. Our love for Him is shown through our willingness to follow his commands. One of which is loving others. If we hate others, it shows we don't truly have love for God. We have to love God to be able to truly love others and we must love others to show we truly love God. No matter where we are in our spiritual maturity, the message is the same for all of us. We are to focus our eyes firmly on things of God and not of the world. As the things of this world die, we will too if we follow them. There are going to be many who try to steer us away. Claiming they know the truth. We have to remember the truth only comes from God and is bestowed on us by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is always the one that reveals the truth and not our own eyes, so we must always remain in God so that we will always see the truth.  Finally John reminds us that our evidence of someone who is remaining in Christ is shown through their actions. 

Application Questions:

1. What are areas of your life you need to surrender to gods will in?
2. What areas of your life are you still worldly in?
3. What is the Holy Spirit telling you?
4. If the Holy Spirit isn’t talking to you, why not. Are you plugged in and connected?

Take Aways:

V. 1-2: We recognize that we are never fully complete until He returns.

V. 3: We looked at how our expectations determine our actions.  (If we truly expect to go to Heaven for our acceptance of what Christ has done for us, then we would act a certain way in response.) Our expectations effect our behavior.

We do different things in our lives based on the expectations we have coming…

Expect a test - you study

Expect to play a game - you stretch

Expect a date - you bathe

Expect to go to a funeral or wedding - you dress up

Expect to have a big dinner - you don't eat much

V. 4-9: Consider Matthew 24:36-44.  We don't know the day or hour that Christ is returning. It is our job to make sure we are remaining in him, remaining in the light now, so we will be prepared for His return. 

If you truly expect Christ is returning, you should be doing the things He asks as if you truly expected Him to return. 

V. 10: John says that it will be obvious who is truly in a relationship with God and who is in a relationship with Satan based off the actions of our lives.

V. 11-12: Our ideas and plans are rooted in sin.  We were born of God, but into a world of sin.  If we do not have the holy spirit guiding us we will drift to unrighteousness and evil. 

V. 13-22: Love is not just words, it is actively doing something for others. It is accepting others. Being there for someone usually means we are sacrificing something from ourselves. Love in Action also means speaking truth in hard situations where people may not be able to see the truth. (Consider a friend/relative with an eating disorder that can't see the true view of who they are.) 

It is in the love we can see the truth of Who's it is we are. We can feel the Holy Spirit's presence in our chest. If we truly love God, we will keep his commands (John 14:15).

V. 23-24:  The 2 greatest commandments. Love God, Love others. Doing so is the evidence that He lives in us.  When we don't we can expect an outcome like mentioned with Cain in verse 12.  Unrighteous and forever separated from God.

Chapter Recap:

Chapter 3 is all about our response and taking action. Everyone who wants to be with Jesus upon His return and claims to know Him can no longer live in sin. We must constantly be purifying ourselves and striving to be more and more like Jesus.  If we want to join Him in Heaven we must no longer be children of Satan and must belong to God, which means doing what is right and following the word of God. Doing what is right goes beyond just not sinning.  This also means following other commands.  Love God, Love others. Both of which are done with an outward display of an inward feeling. Love is actionable. If you look at your life, do you really act as if you believe Christ is returning for those that truly love and follow Him?  Do the actions you do match the words you say? When you say you trust Him, do you? When you say you love others, do you show it?

Application Questions:

1. If you knew Christ was coming back tomorrow night, would you be doing something else today?  What does that tell you?
2. How do you show those you love you love them?  How do you show those you don't like you love them?
3. How do you navigate the fact that the world doesn't love you?
4. What are your biggest weaknesses in walking the walk vs talking the talk?

Take Aways:

V. 1: Right from the start he tells us to test our spirits. He goes on to tell us what that means and how to go about testing the spirits. He tells us that we have an internal tester, the Holy Spirit, that can recognize things that are wrong around us.  I equated this to being like a home, or car alarm.  When someone or something is trying to get in, we have an alarm that goes off letting us know that this person, thought, whatever, is not supposed to be there. Also, as we continue to stay in the light and remain in the Lord, those sensors get stronger and more sensitive. (V. 4:1)

V. 2-6: As you continue to grow this alarm can even help you as God is trying to speak to you.  Many of us struggle with trying to figure out if it is God talking to us or it is our own thoughts.  As it gets more advanced, the alarm system (Holy Spirit) can even help you determine who it is trying to come in. (Think facial recognition)  But this system needs to take time to get to know and understand who it is.  Basically, you need to have spent a lot of time with the Lord, understanding and listening to Him to start to be able to instantly recognize His voice from your own.  The more time we spend with him, the easier it becomes to recognize the differences between His voice and our own.  Think about any twins you may have met in your life.  In the beginning it was very difficult to tell them apart. (We are made in the image of God, so there should be some similarities.). The more time we spend with the twins, we start to notice little differences and character traits that make them much more easily discernible. So it is with God.

V. 8: "God is Love". For our experience to be complete in the fullness of God, we must love as he loves if we want to experience what its like to be more like God…

V. 9: For god so loved the world... he sent his one and only son so that we may live through Him. In verse 9 we see a close similarity to what John tells us in the popular John 3:16 verse. Only this time it is less about what He did for us, but what we should be doing in response. 

V. 12: This also means loving without fear - God does not worry, or fear, he desires.  To continue to grow closer to Christ and live the way we were intended, to be made complete, made full, to get what God wants us to have, we have to have a heart of love towards others always.

V. 19-21: We love because he loves." The whole reason he tells us about god loving us first is not just so we would respond in kind to him, but as a demonstration of how so that we would love others. This is a command not a reason.  We (need to) love because he loves. In this text, this isn't so much about a response of our love to God because he loves us (which the bible does talk about), but an example given to us and an ability given to us with God in us to be able to love others with the same heart He has. One of our biggest problems is we spend too much time looking for God and figuring out where he is and not enough sharing God and showing him to others. When we spend time consistently showing love to others, exactly how God shows us how in His word, John tells us more of Him will be made full and revealed in us. 

Chapter Recap:

1 John 4 opens with a challenge for us to test the spirits to know they come from God. False prophets and teachings happen and we have to ensure we are listening to good sources. True teachers will always align with what scripture says. John emphasizes that the true test lies in confessing Jesus Christ as the Son of God who came in the flesh as our Messiah. He then goes on to tell us that Love is the main characteristic of God. If we are unable to love others, then we are unable to love God and have a relationship with Him, eventually separating us from Him forever (Hell). John explains that God’s love is manifested in sending Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for our sins. This divine love should compel believers to love one another.  The chapter ends by showing us that perfect love casts out fear, offering believers confidence and security in their relationship with God.

Application Questions:

1. Can you recognize God's voice.  What challenges do you face recognizing it?  Are there times that it seems easier or harder?

2. Who were/are my examples of what love looks like? Were you shown the love of the bible that Jesus preaches? How do you relearn what love really is and break the cycle?

3. Self Reflection: How have you recognized the Holy Sprit's presence in your life?

Take Aways:

V. 1-3: When we love God, we love Jesus, and therefore love all children of God (believers).  Being full of this love makes it easy (not burdensome) to do what he calls us to do.  John uses the word overcome here 3 times.  We know that when things are said 3 times, they must be important. While obstacles may become more prevalent when you are walking with Christ, the ease of overcoming them greatly increases.  Picture jumping over a 6 foot bar.  Now picture a pole vaulter jumping over that same bar.  When we have the Holy Spirit, we have something to lean on and launch us over even the greatest obstacles.  Things we once thought impossible in our own power are now rarely an issue with the Helper.  (Not to mention the more time you spend practicing, the easier it gets and the bigger obstacles you are able to conquer.) With God fully in us, we WILL overcome ALL the challenges of the world.

V. 6-12:  We see Jesus Christ's testimony. It is testified to on behalf of the Spirit, the water, and the blood.  What the Spirit tells us from God, what the water shows us in rebirth, and what the blood did for us on the Cross, all point to the truth of the testimony of Christ.  That anyone who has faith in Christ, will have eternal life. 

V. 13-15:  Finally, if we have faith in Christ, we no longer need to question our salvation.  The proof of our salvation is our love of Christ, and that is demonstrated and confirmed in our fruits, 1st of which is how we love others. So with this knowledge, we can have confidence when we approach God.  We have confidence that He hears us, but more importantly, that he will respond.  When we allow God to align our requests, when His will becomes our will, when His desires are ours, we will always have what we asked of Him.

V. 16-17:  With this gift of salvation, we also go to God on others behalf (supplication). When we see others (who are also in Christ) sin, we can pray for God to pull them back to the light.  Not only that we can, but that we should. 

V. 18-20:  The victory is won. Once we are saved, Satan no longer has any power over us as he does over the rest of the world.  Christ has given us discernment of what is Good and what is not through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

-V. 21: Remain in Him always and never freely give power back to Satan.  Every time you place idols in your life and you put something of the world over God, Satan will flex his power back over you. You were born of God, not of this world.

Chapter Recap:

As Christians we will be separate from the world and will overcome the ways of the world with the help of the one who has already overcome it through water and blood, Jesus Christ. God's testimony is shown in Jesus, that eternal life with God only comes through Jesus, his son. John is sharing all of this with us in the hopes that we too would become believers and put our faith in Jesus so we may have everlasting life. In doing so we should do our best not to sin.  For sin will lead us back away from God. As well, if we see anyone sinning, we are to pray for them as anything we ask in the will of God will be granted to us. For whatever we do we need to keep focused on God and not of things of this world. For truth is only found in things of God.  So beware of idols or anything that will pull our gaze from Him. 

Application Questions:

1. What are some obstacles God has helped you hurdle?  What are some obstacles that you need some help with?
2. Do you feel the need to question your salvation?If so, why?  Where do you feel insufficient?
3. What are your current idols in your life? (remember idols don't necessarily look evil or are they inherently evil, but they are things that draw our attention away from God allowing Satan room to replace Him.)