Wired with a craving for connection...

As human beings we are wired with a craving for connection. Humanity has been created for relationships. As human beings, we are created for a relationship with God vertically and for relationships with one another horizontally. That is why the most painful emotion that anyone can experience is loneliness, because when we are lonely, we are living outside how we have been created and designed to live.

And in our culture today, we see the evidence of our craving for connection all around us. For example, just look at the explosion of social media. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, or a whole host of other social media sites, these sites strive to satisfy our craving for connection.

Yet, while we live in a day and an age where we are most connected technologically with others, we also live in a day and an age where people are most isolated from others. We see evidence of this reality in the increase in cases of depression and loneliness. We see evidence of this reality as people will sit around a meal engaging their mobile devices at the table instead of those who are seated across from them at the table.  We see evidence of this reality with the proliferation of on-line dating and hook up sites designed to move people past loneliness and into committed relationships.

Yet, even though people have hundreds of friends on Facebook, even though people have hundreds of followers of Twitter and Instagram, even though people have hundreds responding to their snapchat images, there is an increasing sense of loneliness and isolation among much of humanity.

But how can we live in a day and an age where we are most connected technologically and simultaneously be most isolated from others? How do we overcome the creeping sense of loneliness and isolation that many are experiencing? Could it be that we are looking for connection in all the wrong places? Could it be that the reason we sense a creeping loneliness and isolation is because we are trying to satisfy our craving for connection from the wrong sources?

But, if that is that case, then what exactly is true connection and community? And where can we find true connection and community? Where can we find the types of relationships that satisfy our craving for connection? And what are the landmines and roadblocks that keep us from experiencing true connection and community?

To answer these questions, we are going to spend this fall in a series entitled connect. During this series we are going to spend our time together looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of 1 John. During this series, we are going to discover the components that make for true connection and community. During this series, we are going to discover the landmines and roadblocks that keep us from true connection and community. And as we go through this series, our hope and our prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts, and hands, in a way that moves us to the place where we can experience the connection and community with God and one another that we were created and designed to experience.  

Now this week I would like for us to begin where the letter of 1 John begins. However, before we jump into this letter, I would like for us to spend a few minutes talking about the author of this letter and the original readers of this letter. The letter of 1 John was written by a man named John, who was one of Jesus closest followers. 

However, John was not only one of Jesus closest followers; John was the person who had perhaps the closest relationship with Jesus while He was on earth. John is referred to as the disciple Jesus loved. John was Jesus best friend.

Of all of Jesus followers, it was John who had the closest connection with Jesus. Of all the disciples, only John was present with Jesus when Jesus died on the cross. Of all the disciples, it was John who was given the responsibility by Jesus to look after His mother Mary. John was one of the first disciples to find the empty tomb. John was one of the first disciples to recognize that Jesus was raised from the dead. 

And as one of Jesus closest followers, John was one of the Apostles who were foundational leaders in God’s new movement in history called the church. As part of God’s new movement called the church, a church was planted by the Apostle Paul in the city of Ephesus, which is located in modern day Turkey. This church plant was then led by a man named Timothy. And in the New Testament of the Bible, we have two letters that were written by Paul to Timothy and the church at Ephesus, which we know as 1 and 2 Timothy. In these letters, Paul warned Timothy about the threat of false teachers.

Eventually, John succeeded Timothy to become the Senior Pastor at the church at Ephesus. However, the threat of false teachers remained. And because of the threat of these false teachers and the threat that they presented to the church and its community and connection to Jesus and one another, John sat down to write, by the leading and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, this letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in our Bibles today.

Tomorrow we will begin to look at this letter…