First epistle of John. Let me read these first ten verses
and then we'll pray and ask the Lord to bless us. That which was from the beginning
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of life. For the life was manifested,
and we have seen it, and bear witness and show unto you that
eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto
us. that which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with
us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with
His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto
you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which
we have heard of Him, and declare unto you that God is light, and
in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship
with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth
us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us. Our Father, thank
You for Your Word that we have read this morning. Thank You
for Your grace that You've shown to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, make this a place where Christ is preached, where Christ
is loved. Help us this morning to worship
You in spirit and in truth. Help us to set our affection
on things above, our mind, arrest our attention. Lord, arrest our
attention. Instruct us, teach us by Thy
Spirit. Let us go away from here this
morning rejoicing in God our Savior. And for those that are sick in
this congregation, we pray for them. Those who are under trials,
Father, that You have sent, we pray for them. Pray that You
would heal according to Your will, that You would bless, that
You would encourage, and that they would find Your grace sufficient.
In the name of Christ we pray, and amen. The title of the lesson this
morning is Life, Fellowship, and Joy. Life, Fellowship, and
Joy. John wrote these letters of his
around A.D. 85, 95, it's believed to be. He wrote to encourage
the church. It's called a general epistle,
it's to all believers, to encourage the church, to encourage every
believer, even to this day and beyond, who read this. He encourages
them to grow in faith throughout his epistle, to grow in love,
to grow in fellowship, to grow in joy. These are the things
we can grow in. These things. Now, there was
a group called Gnostics. A lot of heresies started rising
up. during his time. And you'll find
that, you'll find where the gospel is preached, the true gospel
of the grace of God, you're going to find, where you find one group
of people that believe the gospel and is faithfully preached, you'll
find a teen of other places that preach a lie. Satan is always,
always going to be... He's always going to oppose the
Gospel. He's always going to oppose those who believe the
Gospel. And John knows this. He's experiencing this. And so
he writes this letter. You see, the Gnostics insisted
upon mental enlightenment as being superior to faith and conduct. That's what they started spreading
at that time. They believed in the inherent
evil of everything material. That anything done in the body
was evil, but it didn't matter. It was only what was done by
the Spirit. And they brought Christ down to being nothing
more than a mere creature instead of the Creator. And that's one
of the reasons I believe John starts out his letter just like
he did the Gospel, like he did in the beginning, was the Word.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He doesn't
start out like Matthew with a genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
starts out with His eternality. His deity is what He does. And
if you'll notice here in verse 1, John says that. He doesn't just give him a name
right off the bat. He doesn't just say Jesus Christ. He says
that. There's another place in the
scriptures, in the gospel. You remember when the angel spoke
to Mary? He said that holy thing, that
holy thing that's gonna be born from you, come out of your womb.
And here John uses that same language, that. that which was
from the beginning." He's going to refer here to the eternality
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That this One, who is Jesus Christ,
is from all eternity. He has no beginning of days or
end of life. He's the Ancient of Days. That's
who He's going to start with. Christ, He says, is the Eternal
One. He existed before anything else
existed. He was with the Father before
His incarnation. Turn over to Proverbs 8. Proverbs
8, look at this. This portion of Scripture is
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 22 of Proverbs 8, the
Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works
of old. I was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, wherever the earth was. When there were
no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no fountains
abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before
the hills was I brought forth. While as yet He had not made
the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust
of the world, when He prepared the heavens, I was there." You
see, this is the One who came into this world and revealed
the Father. This is the One who came and
gave us the message that we have today. This is the One. I was
there. when He set a compass upon the
face of the depths, when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened
the fountains of the deep, when He gave to the sea His decree
that the water should not pass His commandment, when He appointed
the foundations of the earth, then I was by Him as one brought
up with Him." Brought up with, not brought up by Him, but brought
up with Him. Equal, that's what He's saying. Equal with Him.
The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ is equal with the Father.
He thought it not robbery to be equal with the Father. And I was daily His delight. Daily His delight, rejoicing
always before Him, rejoicing in the inhabitable part of His
earth. And my delights were with the
sons of men. John starts with the eternal
one, the one who existed before anything else existed. Christ's
deity is the foundation of which John builds his message. And
it's the foundation of our faith. It's the foundation of our hope,
who He is. This man, this man, Christ Jesus,
they said, what manner of man is this? This is the God man.
This is God. If you want to study God, Study
Jesus Christ. When you read through the Gospels,
and I do this, this is interesting to me. When I read through the
Gospels, I read through the Gospels watching Christ move about and watching how he
deals with sinners and listening to what he says because I realize
this, I'm watching and observing Almighty God. When you think of God, you think
of holy, just. You think of God who is great,
God who is immense, God who is above all. Do you ever think
of God as meek and lowly? Do you ever think of that as
an attribute of God? Christ said, come to me and I'll
give you rest. He said, I am meek and lowly
of heart. I've never hurt anyone. Anyone ever speak of God as having
an attribute of meek and lowly. But he is. He is. When you're watching in the Gospels,
you're watching God. You're reading of God. That's
who he is. God came into this world. That's
astounding. That's absolutely astounding
that God, who we cannot comprehend, came into this world. He came into this world. And
we, the apostles, had an intimate contact with the Word of Life,
with life. Jesus Christ is a living expression
of God the Father. He's all of God we're going to
see, because He is God. If you've seen me, He that has
seen me has seen the Father. Philip said, show us the Father.
He said, you're looking at it. You're looking at it. Christ, who is the word of God,
is the life of God. The life of God. And he says
here in verse two, and the life was manifested. Life was revealed. Life was given. Listen. Life was given a body. Christ said, a body has thou
prepared me. You know, we think of a body
given life. You know, when God created Adam,
he created from the dust of the ground and he breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life. And Adam became a living soul.
And his body became alive. But here it's really in the reverse.
Life was actually given a body. This is what John's saying. Life
was given a body. And we have seen. We've seen life. John realized. He realized by the time he wrote
this. We, the apostles, looked at life. When he says looked
upon, he means we studied. We examined, we watched him,
we observed. We didn't just see him like I'm
seeing you right now. He said, we observed and we studied
life. Life. We touched life. Man, we touched life. In doing
that, he said, we touched God. We have looked upon God. You
know, God said in the Old Testament, no man can look upon my face
and live. But you know, in Christ, he can. In Christ, we can look
upon him and see God. We have touched life. We've seen
life. We heard life speak. We heard
life speak. The good news we declare is this,
life has come. You see, he goes up on a higher
level. And he's telling the church and the believers that this one
who is Jesus Christ is life. And life has come. We've experienced
the life of God. And we declare to you, we declare
to you what we have seen. We are witnesses. We are eye
witnesses. We are ear witnesses. We are
touch witnesses. We are witnesses of the things
which we have seen and heard. And we declare this to you so
that you, you may experience life. You
may have fellowship. I was thinking, I woke up probably
at three o'clock this morning thinking of this verse right
here, that you may have fellowship with the Father and with His
Son, Jesus Christ. Do you realize what a privilege,
what a priceless privilege that we have right now, not after
we die, But right now, I have the priceless privilege of really
having fellowship with the living God, with the creator of all
things. Tomorrow, when you look at the
eclipse and you see the moon coming, God made that. My God
made that. Our God made that. And the way
He made it, He spoke. He spoke these things into existence. Now, if I'm going to make something,
I've got to whip up some stuff. I've got to put this together,
that together. But God just spoke. The Word spoke. And all these things you
and I see came into existence. And the One that spoke is our
God, our Redeemer, our Savior, our High Priest, our Brother,
our Mediator. He's absolutely everything I
need to stand before Almighty God. Who can comprehend the immenseness
of God? I tell you, I seriously, I felt
so little this morning thinking about this and trying to, how
am I going to stand here this morning? and talk about one's
own brain. How am I going to stand here
and talk about life? How am I going to put that into
words? How am I going to put it into human words? I don't
have the vocabulary for it. I know the only way that I can
do it is the Lord help me and give me some words that we can
understand. I know that. But my soul, we
fall so far short of it. and we will fall so far short
of worship." I realized that too. So far short of it. Oh man, he says, life has come
and we've experienced the life of God and declared to you so
that you might have fellowship with the Father and the Son and
with us. I'm gonna tell you something. Our fellowship with one another
is completely based on our fellowship with Jesus Christ. The people that I truly have
fellowship, when I walk out these doors today, the people I truly
have fellowship with, Scott Richardson said, that's fellows in the same
ship. But it also means this, it means
that we have everything in common. That's what it means. Everything
in common. The people that I have everything in common with are
God's children. Believers. I don't have things
in common with people that I used to go to school with. I mean,
we talk, when we meet, we see each other, we'll talk about
some things, you know, but you don't talk about some things
so long. But the real kindred spirit is
between me and you. And it's because of our relationship
to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the tie that binds, isn't
He? He's the tie that binds. The Scripture says eternal life.
And you know the average person who calls himself a Christian thinks of eternal life as how
long it is. That it's forever. Everybody
that's ever born on this earth, that's ever came into existence
will live forever. We don't die like animals. And
we either gonna live with the Lord or we're gonna be in hell,
it's one or the other. We're gonna exist forever. Eternal
life is the life of God. If I have Christ, I have the
life of God in me. I have it. I know I'm going to live forever.
But that's not it. It's the quality of it. It's
the life of God in the soul. Christ, who is God the Son, came
down to dwell among us, to reveal the Father. He said, as I hear,
I speak. The words that I speak, He said,
are not mine. He said, they're not mine. I
didn't make this up. He said, when our Lord spoke, He was speaking
from hearing. As I hear, I speak. And He came to reveal the Father.
He came to atone for the sins of His elect. The average person,
again, who calls himself a Christian, does not know what happened at
the cross. They don't know that. You ask
them. They'll tell you that Jesus Christ
makes salvation a possibility for all men. That is walking
in darkness, as we'll see here in a minute. That's walking in
darkness. That's not so, is it? That's
not so. I had a conversation with a man
some time ago, and I asked him, what did Christ do? What happened
at the cross? And his reply was, Christ died
to make salvation possible for all men. Jesus Christ died to satisfy
God's law. the law is satisfied. Now, either the law is satisfied toward everybody, and that being
so, then nobody can be condemned. It'd be double jeopardy. But the law, when Christ died
at Calvary, He satisfied God's justice on behalf of a multitude
of sinners that no man can number." And when Jesus Christ died at
Calvary, He offered up Himself, now listen, He offered up Himself
not to me. He didn't offer up Himself to
me. When He died on the cross, He offered up Himself to God
the Father, whose law was broken. He's the Lawgiver. He's the Lawgiver. I had a man
tell me this. A preacher, when I first heard
the gospel, 23 years of age, I was going to, it was just an Armenian church,
an Armenian place. And I heard the gospel and I
started telling him the gospel. When I was listening to Henry
and I started telling him, I was excited, I kid you. I was excited
and I thought he would be too. I thought the people there would
be excited. I did. I was rejoicing. I heard something. And he got upset. He got upset
and he said, I'm going to tell you something. He said, Jesus
Christ died for Judas as well as he did Peter. That man stood
in the pulpit every week, Wednesdays and Sundays, and preached. And
now I look back, it was just a lie after a lie after a lie. If Jesus Christ died to put away
the sins of Judas, Judas is not in hell. But the Lord called
him a son of perdition. And you and I know, we know from
the scriptures, that man perished. No man will perish for whom Jesus
Christ died, put away their sins, satisfied God's justice, and
is seated at God's right hand, making intercession for them.
For them. He came to atone for the sins
of His elect and destroy the works of the devil. To possess Christ is to possess
the life of God in you. True Christianity is not a system. It's not a system of laws and
regulations and ceremonies. It is a relationship. It is a
fellowship with the living God. The living God. John's very insistent about his
message concerning the apostles' experience of life. We're witnesses. Don't you like to hear somebody
tell a story that they've experienced? I do. I do. John says, we have experienced
what we're talking about. Make this up. We have seen, we've
looked upon, we've studied, we've touched, we heard. Life is real
and life was given a name. Think about that. Life was given
a name, and that name is Jesus Christ. And the purpose John says he's
writing this is that we may have fellowship with the Father and
with His Son, and that our joy may be full. There is a fellowship. That sinners can have, sinners,
the worst of mankind, the worst of men. They can have with God
in Christ and one another and it's real. The fellowship is
real. It's a fellowship that transcends
all earthly fellowship. It's like the love of God that
transcends all understanding. It's a love that passes all human
understanding. It's a fellowship that changes
this earthly existence into a glorious existence. It gives real meaning
to this earthly life. I was thinking this morning as
I was lying there, what would life be? What would it be? Well,
you wouldn't have life if you don't have Christ. You have His
physical life, but you don't have the life of God. But what's
this all about if you don't have Him? Why? I mean, I'm like, why? I'm
laying there, why? What does it mean? Our Lord said
this in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, is not life more
than this? Is it not more than eating, drinking? What am I going to wear? Paying
bills? Going to work? Isn't life more
than that? You know, the place I was working
here just a few weeks ago, they had built a room with air conditioning
and everything for me. and put me in it, and it was
a 30 by 80 box. And I appreciated it, I appreciated
the air conditioning. But I would go in there, and
so many times I'd think, is not life more than this? Is not life
more than a 30 by 80 box? It is. Life. Life. Real life. Is fellowship. Is fellowship
with God. Fellowship, this fellowship turns
failure into success. It turns suffering into joy.
It turns weeping into laughter and turns death into victory.
That's what this fellowship does. And our fellowship, he says here,
is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. As I said
this, fellowship means to share It means to share in common with,
that's what fellowship means. We are in common now with God.
We're common. We have a common interest, God's
glory. We have a common love. We have
a common faith, that's what scripture says, common faith. We have a
common joy. At one time we were enmity with
God. And our minds, it says, in our
minds, we were not at enmity, we were enmity. We're very body
of enmity. Everybody, and I said this to
a man once, and he just got mad at me. But I told him, I said,
everybody born into this world absolutely hates God. Someone
said, I believe it was to Henry one time, he said, he's loved
God. He said, I've loved God all my life. He said, well, that's
just too long. That's just too long. We are born, we are natural born
enemies. That's the truth. That's the
truth. And that's not stretching it
at all. One time we were at enmity with
God, now we have all things in common with God. God loves His
Son. We love His Son. God loves righteousness. We love righteousness. We love
it. We love it. And this fellowship, this fellowship
brings joy. I don't know that there's anything.
Well, I do know. There's nothing in this work.
that can give the joy that a believer has in the Lord Jesus Christ
when he or she is enabled by the Holy Spirit to have this
sweet communion fellowship with God in Christ. I don't know anyone. I'm going to go ahead and close
it here because I've got about two more pages to go. I think
that's enough of what I've said this morning. If we can just
take that, if we can just take that and go home with it and think and meditate and realize
the great privilege and honor that we have, that we can have
real fellowship with Almighty God. That's just astounding to me.
That's astounding. You know, Christianity is not
just coming together like this and learning some rules and then
go try to live right. It's a relationship. It is a
real, genuine relationship with the living God.