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'And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.' (1 John 1:4)

We're still right at the beginning of John's first letter, and we're presented with a very important sentence. John says that this is the reason why it's being written, so we'd do well to take it in before wading into the letter's real content.

Whose joy?

If you look up that verse in your Bible you may see that there's a footnote - some manuscripts actually say '...so that your joy may be complete.' So the big question is, does it matter? My answer is, I don't think so. The purpose of this verse is not to particularly highlight the authors' joy, but to highlight the joy. John's saying that he's writing his letter in order to make joy complete. Both the authors and the readers are Christians, so in any case the lessons we learn can be easily applied.

What joy?

To begin understanding what John is on about in this verse it's important to ask the question: what joy is he referring to? The purpose of a letter from one group of Christians to another is to influence a common joy that they share, but what exactly is that joy? The answer is that all of Christian life is that of joy. Even in the midst of suffering Paul commands his readers to 'rejoice in the Lord always' (Philippians 4:4), and that doesn't make sense unless there's a deeper-rooted joy than that which is founded on our circumstances. The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured the cross 'for the joy that was set before him' (Hebrews 12:2), and it's this joy that we have right now! Jesus' joy was firmly founded in the reconciled relationship between God and man, which was achieved in his substitutionary death and resurrection. This means that Christians should be the most joyous people you know!

This is so enormous that I'm not even going to try to dig much deeper, but I do want to ask some provocative questions:

• Are you known by your non-Christian friends as a happy person?
• Are you able to be happy, even when life is hard and you have many worries?
• When you are engaging in 'spiritual' activities like Bible reading, prayer, and going to church, are you sombre or filled with joy?

I won't be able to do what John's pushing at here justice, so I'm going to point you to a free electronic version of John Piper's Desiring God, which does.

Complete joy?

The second question is: what makes this joy complete? The answer to that is found in the previous verse. We looked at it last week, but here it is again:

'[T]hat which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.' (1 John 1:3)

You see, the Christian joy is all to do with our reconciled relationship with God as Father, but that's not the whole message. Christ's death and resurrection does achieve that, but it does more - in this case it enables the recipients of this letter to 'have fellowship' with the authors, the same kind of fellowship that is between the authors and 'the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ'. Christianity is primarily about being reconciled to God, but secondarily it's about being reconciled to one another!

We are to be a people who are characterised by not holding grudges, by being filled with grace, by not being bitter, by being forgiving, by welcoming strangers, by not judging, by serving the poor in our communities, and so on. As Jesus said, 'By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another' (John 13:35). If an outsider looked at you, your home, your family, your church, what would be the first thing they'd say? Would it be, 'they have love for one another'? If it isn't, we need to return to Jesus' words over us as his church, beg his forgiveness, and strive for his standards.

"Bible verse and quote" from Jan Couns

Bible and Quote - March 11-15