Let There Be Joy | 1 John 1:1-4
How many of you are happy? Last year, a Pew poll found that 35% of Americans said that they were happy, which was the lowest recorded in the poll’s history. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone is in a lifelong pursuit of happiness. The reason why a lot of people are miserable is because they have believed the lies of what the world says will make you happy. We often pursue lesser “joys” which don’t produce truly and lasting happiness or satisfaction. People get married and divorced for the same reason: happiness. They marry a person because they want to be happy and then they divorce a person because they are no longer happy. (Rock: You can either be married or happy but can’t be both.) People buy things and sell things for the same reason: happiness: we have to have something that we think will make life better and us happy and then we find something else that we think will bring us more happiness than the thing we once loved, so we get rid of it and buy something new. All for these things, relationships and stuff, promise happiness but don’t have the capacity to deliver ultimate happiness or lasting joy. But the good news of the Bible is that Jesus came to this world to bring us true and lasting joy because Jesus is the only One who give it to us. Joy is found nowhere else than Jesus.
The author of 1 John is John. He wrote the gospel of John (convert sinners), 1-3 John (confirm saints) and the Revelation (coronate the Savior). John was the youngest of all the disciples, but he is writing around 90AD while he is in his 90s and he has been exiled to the island of Patmos. The people who he was writing to were struggling with false doctrine that caused them to lack assurance in their salvation. The vast majority were not alive when Jesus died and resurrection. He was concerned about the next generation of believers and for them to have assurance. He desired that they would understand who Jesus is and what He came to do. Jesus came to bring joy, peace, hope, love, and life to those who trust in Him. In chapter 1, we see that JOY comes when we know who Jesus is and when we share Jesus with others.