Eye-Witness to the Word of Life | 1 John 1:1-4 | This Week’s Devotions
The Sunday sermon is only the beginning. These five daily devotions are designed to help you sit with 1 John 1:1–4 through the week, turning the truth of John's eyewitness testimony over in your mind and applying it to your daily life. We encourage you to start by watching or listening to the full sermon, then work through one devotion each day.
Sermon: Eye-Witness to the Word of Life
Day 1: The God Who Speaks
Scripture Readings: Hebrews 1:1-4 & John 1:1-5
Reflection:
Long before 1 John was written, God had already been speaking. He spoke through creation, through the burning bush, through the mouths of prophets who sometimes trembled at the weight of what they carried. But in Jesus Christ, something entirely new broke into history. The writer of Hebrews tells us that God, who once spoke "in many times and in many ways," has now spoken decisively through his Son. He is the one who is the "radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature." This is not just another message. This is the Message made flesh.
John opens his Gospel with the same thunderclap: "In the beginning was the Word." Notice that John reaches all the way back before creation to establish who Jesus is. The Word was not created or a lesser deity. The Word was there and the Word was God. And this Word, full of life and light, stepped into our world of shadow and took on skin.
When the apostle John later writes his letter beginning with "that which was from the beginning," he is not introducing a new idea. He is calling his readers back to what they already know: God has spoken his final, fullest Word in Jesus. To hear Jesus is to hear the Father. To see Jesus is to see the glory of God. The incarnation is not a footnote in history. It is the hinge on which all of history turns. Your faith rests not on a philosophy but on a Person, one who has spoken clearly and can be known truly.
Questions to Consider:
How does understanding Jesus as God's final and fullest Word change the way you read the Old Testament and its prophecies?
Hebrews says Jesus is the 'exact imprint' of God's nature. What does that tell you about God's character, priorities, and heart?
In a world full of competing voices claiming authority, how does the uniqueness of Christ as the living Word anchor your trust in Scripture?
Day 2: Witnesses Who Couldn't Stay Silent
Scripture Readings: Acts 4:18–20 &Luke 24:36–48
Reflection:
When the Sanhedrin commanded Peter and John to stop speaking in the name of Jesus, these two fishermen-turned-apostles responded with something remarkable: "We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." There was no political calculation in that answer. No bravado. Just the plain logic of men who had watched a dead man breathe again.
In Luke 24, the risen Jesus appears to his disciples and does something startlingly deliberate: he shows them his hands and his feet. He asks for food and eats it in front of them. He is not a vision or a memory or a metaphor. He is present—touchable, recognizable, and very much alive. Then he opens their minds to understand the Scriptures, connecting every thread from Moses through the Prophets to himself. And he gives them a title: witnesses. Not theorists. Not admirers. Witnesses. People who can say, "I was there. I saw it."
This is the foundation beneath 1 John 1:1–4. John insists that he and the other apostles heard Jesus, saw him with their eyes, and touched him with their hands. The gospel is not spiritual poetry. It is the testimony of people who staked their lives on what they personally experienced. That testimony has been passed down to you through Scripture. You may not have stood in that upper room, but you have the witness of those who did, sealed by the Holy Spirit and confirmed in the church through the centuries. You are not believing a rumor. You are trusting a reliable witness.
Questions to Consider:
Peter and John said they could not stop speaking about what they had seen and heard. What would it look like for your faith to carry that same sense of compulsion and joy?
Why do you think Jesus was so deliberate about showing his physical body to the disciples after the resurrection? What was he establishing for the disciples and those who would come after them?
How does understanding the apostles as eyewitnesses, rather than mythmakers, strengthen your confidence in the New Testament?
Day 3: Fellowship with the Father and the Son
Scripture Readings: John 17:20–26 & 1 Corinthians 1:9
Reflection:
On the night before he suffered and died, Jesus prayed for people who had not yet believed in him. He asked the Father that we would be united with one another and with the Godhead itself, sharing in the same bond of love that the Father and Son have eternally enjoyed. This prayer was not wishful thinking. It was the Son of God, who knows the Father perfectly, asking for something he was about to secure through his death and resurrection.
The Corinthian church has been fractured by pride and division and Paul reminds them that they have been "called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." The word "fellowship" here is koinonia in the Greek, and it carries weight. It means sharing, participation, having something in common. You are not merely forgiven and left alone. You have been drawn into a living relationship with the Triune God himself.
John writes in 1:3 that the purpose of proclaiming the gospel is so that others may have fellowship with the apostles, and that this fellowship is "with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." The chain is unbroken: the apostles received Jesus, they proclaimed what they received, and through that proclamation, ordinary people across time and culture are brought into communion with God. This is not a transaction. It is an adoption. You are not a customer of God's grace. Because of your union with Christ, you are a child of God and have been welcomed into the closest possible relationship with God as your Father.
Questions to Consider:
Jesus prayed specifically for those who would believe through the message of the apostles. How does it feel to know you were on his heart the night before his suffering and death?
What is the difference between knowing about God and having fellowship with God? Where do you see that distinction in your own spiritual life?
If you were truly living in the reality of koinonia, a deep participation in the life of God, how would that change the way you approach prayer, worship, and other believers?
Day 4: The Joy That Completes Itself
Scripture Readings: John 15:9–17 & Philippians 4:4–7
Reflection:
Jesus spoke his final teachings to his disciples with an unexpected goal in mind: "that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." He was hours from Gethsemane, hours from betrayal and arrest and a crown of thorns, yet he was talking about joy. Not future joy, not eventual joy when everything gets sorted out, but a fullness of joy that could be present even in the shadow of the cross.
Paul, writing from a prison cell to the Philippians, does not merely mention joy, he commands it. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice." And then he connects that command to the peace of God that "surpasses all understanding." This is not positive thinking. This is not the absence of hardship. This is a settled confidence in the character and sovereignty of God that holds steady even when circumstances do not.
John writes at the end of his opening paragraph that he is writing "so that our joy may be complete." The joy John has in mind is not manufactured enthusiasm. It is the joy that flows from knowing the Word of Life, from being in fellowship with the Father and the Son, from being part of a community of people who share in the same grace. Joy, in the New Testament, is almost always relational. It grows as your knowledge of God deepens, as your fellowship with other believers strengthens, and as you remember daily that the God who created you also redeemed you and will one day present you faultless before his glory.
Questions to Consider:
Jesus linked full joy to abiding in his love and keeping his commands. Why do you think obedience and joy are connected rather than opposed?
Paul commands joy even in difficult circumstances. Is commanded joy authentic joy? How does the command actually help rather than pressure us?
What specific aspect of the gospel most consistently produces genuine joy in your heart? Why?
Day 5: What Has Been Proclaimed to You
Scripture Reading: Romans 10:14–17 & 2 Peter 1:16–21
Reflection:
Faith comes by hearing, Paul writes, and hearing through the word of Christ. This simple sentence contains a stunning chain of grace: God sends. Preachers go. People hear. People believe. The word of God does not return empty. It accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent. Every time Scripture is faithfully proclaimed, something is happening that goes far beyond human speech. The Spirit of God is at work.
Peter, in his second letter, is very careful to distinguish the apostolic message from "cleverly devised myths." He writes that the apostles were "eyewitnesses of his majesty"—they saw the transfiguration, they heard the voice from heaven. But then Peter does something surprising: he says that the prophetic word of Scripture is "more fully confirmed" and that it is "a lamp shining in a dark place." Even eyewitness experience, as glorious as it was, points you to Scripture as your most stable foundation.
This is exactly what John is doing in 1 John 1:1–4. He is establishing his credentials as a witness so that you can trust the message he is about to deliver. You did not see Jesus in the flesh. You did not touch the nail-scarred hands. But you have something the original disciples did not have in its completed form: the whole testimony of Scripture, Old and New Testament together, bearing witness to the Word of Life. Hear it. Receive it. Let it do its work. You are standing in a long line of people who heard and believed, and the same God who gave life to them through this message is giving life to you.
Questions to Consider:
Paul says faith comes through hearing the word of Christ. How have you experienced the word of God doing something in you that you could not manufacture on your own?
Peter says Scripture is 'a lamp shining in a dark place.' What area of your life right now most needs that lamp? Where do you most need clarity from God's word?
As you reflect on the whole week, what does it mean to you personally that the gospel is grounded in real history, real witnesses, and a real God who can be known?
Continue the Journey
We hope this week in the Word has been a blessing to you. If you'd like to continue through 1 John with us, the full Walking in the Light series is available on our website. And if you are new here and curious about the faith and convictions that shape our preaching and teaching, we warmly invite you to explore what we believe.
