As you hear me preach anything,
I could probably be in numbers and I could end up in John. We are starting with the first
letter of John this morning and I don't know, I've tried to play
it out, how long is it going to take me to get through. I
don't really know because I'm not going to be in a hurry. I
think it's important to understand that the traditional and historical
understanding of John's letters point to a unbiblical theology. It points
to an unbiblical theology, just like the letter of James, where
people like to take these things out of context, not understanding
that the audience of these letters are indeed the saints who are
sealed in Christ, who are the elect of God, who have no fear
of condemnation whatsoever in any form, and to encourage people
to read them in light of them being evangelistic. You'll hear
the language of John in these letters, and I'm going to probably
just go through 1st, 2nd, 3rd John and just teach all three
of them so that we can have those done. It doesn't take long for
each 3rd John anyway, a couple of years. And that's a joke. And as we see them and we understand
the language here, it's what I'm trying to say is this. that
you're going to be challenged to reevaluate how you understand
the gospel. Some of us are going to be challenged
to the point where we may come to conclude we've never known
the gospel. Or we may come to conclude we've
been adding to the gospel. And it's OK to come to that conclusion. It is far better to say, you
know, I have been lost. I have been in religion, I have
been in the world's understanding of grace and God has revealed
to me the truth. Why do we have such a love affair
with the idolatry of salvation experience? But we do, we want
to have the badge, just like the old RAGA badges. That was the Christian Girl Scouts
and Boy Scouts. And I remember wanting to get
those badges. I want to get the badges for tying knots. I want
to get the badges for showing up on time. the badges for having
my Bible? And I want the badge of saying,
hey, I've been a Christian since I was three. I've been a Christian
since I was 10. I've been a Christian since I
was 20. Why do we care? What longevity
is there? In the annals of the book of
life, are they truly in a chronological system? We say, oh wow, looky
here, we have a good crew here. Sorry the plane went down, but
I'm glad to see you all. Oh wow, look here, we have the
oldest member of the fellowship, of the new arriving fellowship.
They've been safe for 62 years, oh my goodness. It's like Mother's
Day, you know. Who drove the furthest? Who has the most children?
Who's the oldest mother? Who's the youngest mother? You
know, that kind of stuff. We're not going to get those
accolades that God doesn't care about win because he determined
the win. He determined the win when you
woke up. We hear that phraseology all the time in the context of
politics and culture. We just sang a song that talked
about being lame and deaf and dumb. but that Christ heals those
things, not in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense. When
we're out of sorts, when we're religious, when we're looking
at works, when we're hanging on every breath of our flesh,
when we're thinking that we've got to do more for the Lord Jesus
Christ so that we can assure ourselves and others to prove
that we're truly in Christ, when the primary principle hope that
we have is to finish work of Christ. Therefore, we learn. We live. We engage. We create intimacy. We learn
that loving is the active word of God toward us in Jesus Christ,
that He died for us, and that in like manner, because He loves
us, we love Him, and our love for Him is simply this, we love
each other through our service and laying down our lives for
one another. That's as simple as it gets. That's the whole
reality of what John is trying to teach. John's Gospel and all
that is there is written that you may believe and have life.
It is evangelistic. It is theologically rich. It
teaches the truth about who Christ is, of which any of those truths
you reject, you reject the witness of God concerning His Son. You
cannot pick and choose academically what you enjoy about the gospel
and say, well I like this and I like that and I like the other
but I don't like these. So I'm going to be this type of Christian.
I'm going to be this many point Christian. I'm going to be that
many systems Christian. That's not the life of Christ.
That's not the gospel. That's not biblical. And the same thing happens when
we see these letters. As John evangelized his Jewish brothers
and sisters with his gospel, now he teaches those who are
sealed in Christ some things pastorally. So John's letter
is a pastoral letter. It's an exhortation. It's not
a theological treatise in any way in its intention. Yet anytime
we teach Christ, we get deep theology. The Bible in its doctrine,
in its teaching, teaches us who Christ is, that he is God, and
in doing so teaches us who God is, which is theology. So we're
not anti-theology. We believe in the foundation
of the word of God as from which our theology comes. So John just
continues. He continues. And I've told you
this a thousand times, and that's hyperbole, probably not a thousand,
maybe nine hundred and eighty. But I've told us this to remember
over and over again, that you do well not to get into commentaries. You do well not to listen to
preaching. and diverse preaching. You do
well not to subscribe to the podcasts of theologians and pastors. You do well to really focus your
energy and most of it in your personal reading of scripture.
so that when we are together and that when we are in the world
and that when we are living our lives and when we are facing
world calamity and when we are dealing with cultural issues
that we just aren't familiar with, we have a baseline, we
have a foundation, we have a rock who is Jesus Christ upon which
we will always stand firm if we are in the Word of God. Because
when I ask the question oftentimes of people, who asked me questions,
where did you learn that they can't tell me except for the
name of the person who told them, for the name of the book that
they read it in, for the name of the channel that they saw
it on, for the name of the Facebook post that they reviewed it with,
and the list goes on. Beloved, if you do not have a
relationship intimately with the Scriptures, you do not have
a relationship intimately with the Lord Jesus Christ. You may
be His. You may be born again. You may
be alive. But your relationship intimately
with the Lord Jesus is equivocal to your relationship with the
Scripture. And your love for the Lord Jesus is 100% equivocal
to the love that you have for the saints and your actions toward
them. You see how that works. And I
tell you, this is why are you beating this drum? Because this
is where John is going. This is what scripture is starting
to teach. This is what's taking place with
this letter. This is not a test of salvation.
This letter is not for you to look at and go, okay, I know
that I'm saved because I love people. I know that I'm saved
because I no longer sin, because John rebukes that. I know that
I'm saved because I don't sin quite as much. I know that I'm
saved because I put away filthy talking, or I don't look at certain
things, or I don't watch movies, or I don't have pictures, or
I don't have a television. I know that I'm saved because I'm in
church. I know that I'm saved because I've been baptized. I
know that I'm saved because I've been in church my whole life.
I know that I'm saved because I'm a pastor or a teacher or
I have a theological channel on Facebook. None of that stuff
is your assurance. None of that stuff matters. Beloved,
lost people in the time of Paul were preaching the gospel and
benefiting from it. And Paul told them to just keep
on letting them preach. Keep on letting them preach. So here we go. First John chapter one. That
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched
with our hands concerning the word of life, the life, was made
manifest, and we have seen it, and we testify to it, and proclaim
it to you, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and
was made manifest to us, that which we have seen and heard,
we also proclaim 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, And we are writing these things so that
our joy may be complete. So that our joy may be complete. Now, I want to ask a question.
When you see these things, when you understand these words
with your language, what is it? What is it that you hear him
say? Are you seeing an invitation
here? Are you looking to see an opportunity for someone else
to come and to see the gospel? One pause. Are y'all having audio
problems? In the red box in front of you,
turn that up. Can't help that. Sorry. Sorry
guys, I just saw all these confused looks back there like I was speaking
Chinese. Nothing we can do about that.
Go to YouTube. Facebook's terrible. What do
you see? Do you see this invitation here?
Is it something where you come to Wonder that you could take this
and say, hey, if you see what John is writing, then maybe you
can have fellowship with Jesus. Are you confusing fellowship
with the saints and fellowship with the father as salvation? I pray that you're not. Because
that's not the point. The point that John is trying
to show is that we do have fellowship. intimately in the gospel of grace,
but that also we need to grasp that that fellowship, though
it is spiritual, is not necessarily intimate in person until some
things are true. Look at what we see in the world
today. We see many people who claim Christ but have no desire
to serve. No desire to grow. no desire
or interest in any way to establish any possible hope, focus, work,
ministry for others. They want to be heard and seen,
but they don't want to invest in each other's lives. Leadership
in our world today has become, as many of you have already seen
me say, a soundbite type leadership. I'm a leader, you listen to me,
let me give you some soundbites, boom, that's the end of it, I'm
gonna move right along, we're gonna get another soundbite,
boom, gonna move right along, another soundbite, boom. Friends,
intimate relationships is where leadership dies and lives. Without intimate relationship,
you are not leading anyone. Without intimacy, without true
acknowledgement of certain individuals in your mind, Without a true
prayer life of praying for specific people who you relate to on an
ongoing basis, you are not ministering to anyone in the context of being
a leader to show them and to grow them and to shepherd them.
There's no such thing as an internet pastor. There's no such thing
as a digital overseer. Yes, we may connect through the
mediums. Like if I met you in El Paso
when I got gas, we connected at the gas pump, but I'm not
a shepherd, I'm not the gas pump pastor. I'm not pastoring the
people at the gas pump. And you think that's funny, but
I know some people who call themselves truck stop preachers. Yeah, I've
been pastoring for 35 years. Oh yeah? That's awesome. Tell
me a little bit about it. Well, I stand here at this truck
stop and I just shepherd people as they come along. That's not
shepherding people. You might wipe a sheet tiny.
You might feed it some water. You might shear it and make it
a coat. But you're not shepherding anyone. The same thing is true,
beloved, when we minister to one another. A lot of people
think that the elders of the church, we are all the ministers
and y'all are all the recipients of ministry. But it's the exact
opposite. We have a very myopic role in
the context of what our ministry is to entail. Pastor shepherds
sin more than most Christians because they spend more time
doing everything but what they've been commanded to do. Give oversight to the body of
which they have been given care. Tend the sheep. Feed the sheep. Pray for the sheep. Protect the
sheep. And teach the sheep to do the
work of the ministry so that when ministry comes available,
there is someone there equipped to do it. This is a void in American
ecclesiology. But what is there is people say,
well, this guy here has taught me this, or I've read this in
the Bible, and I've come to this conclusion. And I, myself, and
me, all three of us, are doing well in the Lord Jesus Christ
in our tiny little black box with no windows. Don't tell me
I'm not living according to the pretext of Scripture. I'm telling
you now. I'm not telling you. God is. And that's what this letter's
about. This is what this letter is about.
We're not individually the body of Christ. I am not the body
of Jesus and neither are any of you the body of Jesus. That's like me bringing my pinky
up here and sitting on the podium and say, James is standing there. Or my pinky toe or my eyelashes
or my toenails. Just like to have a bag of eyeballs
and say, look, I've got somebody. No, you don't. You've got the
parts of lots of bodies. You see the point? So theologically
speaking, the body of Christ is not present until the body
is together. There is no ethereal body. There is no metaphysical body. There is no spiritual body of
Jesus. It is a physical, tangible, real
people with real intimate relationships who live their life by faith
in the Son of God who died for them and loved them and gave
himself for them that they might in turn love one another. And boy, brothers and sisters,
do we need to learn to love one another right now. This is one
of the most divisive days I have ever seen culturally. For there
are factions inside factions of factions. There are people
dividing over what word to use on certain political points of
view. There are certain people debating
whether or not anything should even be political. You want to know why people make
memes? So they don't jump off a cliff. So that we'd have something to
laugh at. But our joy should be in Christ. And if we're together,
we're together. That joy can be full. And anything
that comes in the way of our fullness, of the joy of Christ,
is a problem. You see? And this isn't the only
place you see this taught. In Paul's writing to the Ephesians,
he says the same thing. In chapter 3, he deals with that. I pray that you may be filled
with all the fullness of God. And so plant these things in
your mind. I will tell you all, beloved,
that when I get through teaching this letter, it is going to be
a changer for us. Some of you are sort of protected
just by your own wisdom from the great wide world of the internets. And you should stay that way.
It is good for you. Some of you are protected. You
don't realize that there are dozens of people this very moment
waiting and watching what James Tiffins has to say concerning
1 John so that they can now draw the line in the sand and go,
I knew it. He's a heretic. And you know what? I do not care. I don't care. But I care about
you. I care about you because who
I am, you will also be. Does that make sense? If I'm
your face and your grace truth, then you're me and I'm you. See
the point of the body? So that if how I teach and what
I say and how I deal with certain things culturally and theologically
and biblically impact you, then what you do personally also impacts
me and one another. Here's an interesting tidbit
of the very nature of John's writing. But John, in his fashion,
gives great hope. So as we see these first four
verses, I'm going to deal with these first four verses probably
for three weeks. And always the intro to these letters and to
this type of thing, it can all become philosophical, and in
my view right now, I can't put my finger on what John is trying
to say other than the way I've just described it. You may not
think that this has any relevance whatsoever to the text, but it
does. Everything I've said thus far is completely relevant to
the text. There, get those words right. because John is reiterating the
gospel and he's reiterating the gospel for its intention, for
its practical, applicable intention. And if you look at the very last
thing that John writes, he says, and we know that the very last
thing he writes in this letter. And we know that the son of God
has what come and has given us understanding so that we may
know him who is true. And we are in him who is true
and his son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God. He is the
eternal life. Little children, keep yourself
from idols. Context, context, context. What's happening? Beloved, we
are idolaters at heart. Know what that means? We worship
other gods. Now see, from the historical
idea of worship or gods or idolatry or even idols, it's confusing
to us because, well, I do have some idols in my house probably
because I've got some artifacts from different places in the
world. I'm sure some of them have been worshipped. I also
have some baby dolls in my house, saxophones in my house, some
firearms in my house. I love those things. I have certain dishes that when
I smell coming out of the kitchen, I love my wife even more. She's
cooking that for me. It's not just about bowing down
in a religious way. It's about holding a desire and
affection for something that gives us joy that's outside of
Christ. And we can, as believers, come to the place where we can
enjoy Christ in the world that we live in that we're not of
because of his blessings. But whether it be a tasty meal
that fills me twice or a meal that's terrible that keeps me
alive, I can still rejoice in Christ. When my life is upside
down because of circumstances, my focus has come off of the
Lord Jesus. And so has yours. And it's so easy to fall into
the idolatry of the Christian life being this ethereal, non-material, special interest, individualistic
faith. And we've sung songs about it,
right? When He was on the cross, I was on His mind, remember?
Is that a lie? No, but it's a very weak rendition
of the truth. When He was on the cross, we
were on His mind. And that's poetic, it's not biblical. Jesus is mine. Paul is mine. The Word of God
is mine. This is, as Paul would say, my
gospel. What'd he do with it? He gave
it to us. He gave his life for us. He taught
for us. He shepherded us. When John writes,
it's we. Paul says we. I got into that
habit years ago. We, we, we. That's as polished as my French
is. So now let's look at it with
this in mind. That which was from the beginning. Sound familiar? It should sound
familiar. Henarke, the beginning, the same
thing that we see in John's Gospel. in the beginning. What is John
talking about? See why I want you to stay away
from commentaries is because you're not going to get a good
answer there. You're going to get a different answer depending
on who you listen to. If you go to a Greek commentary,
if you go to a critical commentary, if you go to an exegetical commentary,
you could be bogged down for years trying to figure out which
one is right. How about John speak for himself? In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was God and the Word was with God. All things
were made through Him. So what's in view in John's writing,
in his gospel, in his evangelistic appeal? That in creation, when
time began, God the Son was already. Now how do we touch that? How do we go there? How do we
come before the God that was already? that we cannot see,
that we cannot know, that we cannot stand in his presence
without death. How do we come before that which
was from the beginning? And I think John has shown us
that. We know that it is by grace that
we can even know that he is that which was from the beginning. So if John's already explained
to us the eternal nature of God and the eternal nature of God
the Son as God, then we can just continue in that same mindset.
But now John is doing something more specific. He's doing something
more intimate. He's showing us from the foundation
of this letter that he's going to rock it together and lock
it together and seal it together and hold it together by the gospel. By the fact that the power of
God alone holds us together in Christ, but that there is more
to just this supernatural work of God. That we can know for sure That
we can have intimacy and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we have intimacy and fellowship with each other. This is important
because this is the introduction. This is the outline of this letter.
Why would John use impersonal pronouns to talk about the Lord
Jesus Christ? That I mean have you ever been
in a crowd and somebody used that type of language talking
about their children? What is that thing doing? Where
is that child? At least child gives an indication
of relationship. Doesn't it sound blasphemous?
Doesn't it seem a little off-putting? If we were to come and say, well,
we're not going to talk about God, we're going to talk about
that, that thing in the sky, that guy upstairs, that, you
know, being, whatever he may be, or whatever it may be. Get
the pronoun right. But that is John's words. That
is John's wording to show something. But he's not being blasphemous.
He who is from the beginning, the Word, the Word, the Word
that, the Word that was from the beginning. He's just continuing
in the same illustration, but he's going to show you something. What's from the beginning? It's
supposed to impose this mind, in your mind, this question.
What is John talking about? What is John talking about? If
he'd said, the grand God of all things, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was from the beginning. I mean, we got it. He's right. That's what he's saying. But
he wants our minds to track with him for just a moment. He wants
us to think impersonally for just a second about what he might
be saying. He answers it very quickly. He's
not leaving it for interpretation. He says it. That which was from the beginning.
That which we have heard. Now does it start to make sense? There's something very akin to
even the teaching of Jesus. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. I am the resurrection. I am the bread. So Jesus in himself
always taught in some sense. He would apply the symbolism
and the metaphor, the analogies. The imagery of all of these little,
tiny, impersonal things that pointed to Him, the personal
God, who saved His people from their sins. Show us the sign
that you bring to prove that you are from God. Where is the
bread that came from Moses? Jesus says, Your fathers ate
the bread from Moses that actually came from God and died. If you want to live, you've got
to eat this bread. You've got to believe in this
body. You've got to believe in this blood. You've got to take
it all in and nothing else. You can't sprinkle some seasoning
on the body and blood of Jesus to make it palatable. That's
not evangelism. It's heresy. That which was from the beginning,
establishing, yet again, the eternality of Christ. It's in
view here. Is He teaching it directly? No,
He's just referring to it. Which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon, and we have touched
with our hands. That which was from the beginning
we have had intimacy with. Just think about it for a second. And of all people, John knows
full well what it means to touch Jesus. What it means for Jesus
to touch His feet and wash His feet. What Peter understands,
and all the other disciples, had Jesus disrobe and wash their
feet. They saw Jesus physically taken
in the garden and arrested. John saw Him die. I like to imagine that John, as Jesus died on the
cross, wept and prayed. and possibly
even felt the warmth of the Savior's blood on His hands. You don't take a body off the
cross and stand on a cross. It's not a clean place. Just
like the worship in the temple is not a clean place, it's a
bloody place. It's a bloody place where they
butcher the animals and catch the blood. It's a bloody practice. Salvation is a bloody exchange. And we like to look at it in
a clean-knit place when we take the table. It's a real clean
place. It's neat and packaged properly
for us to have this little view of Jesus and what He did for
us in a real neat way. Beloved, many of us would probably
not eat the Passover that they ate. And the Last Supper. The hygienic conditions of that
place was probably deplorable. Much less considering sacrificing
a person in judgment for the life of his people. John is now reminding his brothers
and sisters in Christ that he's not talking about an abstract
God. He's not talking about a prophecy
He has not witnessed. He's not trying to get us to
realize that there is, you know, this great unknown cause. Every human being in the world,
without fail, has asked the question, what has always been? What is that which was from the
beginning? Where does everything come from? And philosophers and scientists
and theologians and atheists and world religious ideologies
throughout all of humanity have always come to that question.
Where is the original thing that was? And John's saying it's the
Lord Jesus Christ. and that in all the wisdom of
God, what the Lord Jesus Christ did, even in creation, was to
show Himself. That is salvation, that God shows
Himself to His people. He reveals Himself. He exposes
Himself for who He is. He exposes Himself for what He's
done. He exposes Himself through the
salvation of His people as He's elected them and gathered them,
eclected them. collected them into one body
to represent His glory and to receive it one day in their glorification
that they may share with Him His glory. The very thing that
the heart of Lucifer said he deserved. Think about it. And John is saying, we've seen
it with our eyes. We've seen the life. It was made manifest, verse 2,
and we have seen it. We have seen Him. We have beheld
his glory. We know the God of the cosmos. We know the creator of the universe. We know the first cause of all
things. We know the eternal one because
we've seen him in all that he is. We've seen him. We've touched him. We've heard
his voice. We know him. And the reason that
we have seen him and know him and touched him is because he
knows us. Now, put yourself in the disciples,
apostles shoes. This this letter was written. I won't argue 60 to let's just
say 60, 50 to 60 years after. the ascension of Jesus. And people argue about that. And all that time, John is pastoring. All that time, John is teaching. All that time, John is shepherding. Sharing the gospel. telling of
His personal eyewitness testimony. You remember how we closed John's
Gospel? The disciple, the one who's seen
these things, testifies them to you. bears witness about these
things, written these things for you, and we know that His
testimony is true. This testimony is continued here.
That which was from the beginning, I've seen it, I've touched it,
I've heard it, I know it. And He is the Life, the Word
of Life. So you think I make stuff up.
He said it there. that Word which was from the beginning, that
Word which we have heard, that Word which we have seen with
our eyes, that Word which we have looked upon, touched with
our hands, concerning the Word, the Word of the Word of life. I'm not just talking about any
Word. I'm talking about the God-Man, Jesus, who is the living Word
of God that became flesh and dwelt among us, and that no one
has seen God but this One, this Word, that which we have seen
and heard. Who is the God who is at the Father's side has made
Him known. And this Word, the Life, has
been revealed. It has been revealed. If you
do not know Christ, He does not know you. If you have not seen Christ,
you have not been born of God. I want you to see that, beloved.
Pun intended. I want you to see that knowing
and seeing the fullness of the glory of God in the face of Christ
is your only hope for salvation, and that in the truth of the
gospel of grace, you cannot cause yourself to see. You cannot decide. Oh, I get it. You cannot come
to a place to go, all right, I understand. I guess I see now.
You can claim to see, but until you see, you will not see, and
if you do not see, you will die in your sins. So how do we see? John's Gospel
has already told us that. We have seen the Son of God walking
as God on the earth. We have seen Him teach the redemption
of the people of God. We have seen Him show the election
of God for the salvation of His sheep. of His children. And we
have seen the Son of God prove it over and over again through
teaching and through power. And yet the only ones who can
see are those who have been given to the Son before the foundations
of the world when there was only Christ. When there was only God. When the Father and the Son and
the Spirit as God were together in unity and harmony in love
and affection and power and sovereignty and rule. And when God says,
let there be light, the very essence of that is that God is
reflecting upon him his own self. To be revealed to something that
he chooses to show it to. And now we have seen it. And
because we've seen it, John's saying, now I want to show you
what it means to have intimacy with it. Now I want to show you
what it means to surely, to surely have fellowship together in it. This life was manifest and we
claim to you the eternal life. And I don't know why people argue
what I'm saying, I really can't fathom Why people argue, when
John says very quickly, he expresses himself in almost identical language,
which was with the Father, from the beginning. And has made
himself known to us. Is that not the first 18 chapters
of John? Of John's Gospel? 18 verses? All the chapters. But is that not the same thing? God has revealed Himself. And
why am I hammering this? Because John hammers it. Because
when he says in verse 5, which we'll get to in a few weeks,
this is the message that we have heard from Him and
proclaimed to you that God is light. If you don't understand
what I'm saying today, you will train wreck your faith if you
misinterpret what it means for God to be light. Because if you think light is
personal holiness, you've misunderstood. If you think light is moral reform,
you've misunderstood. If you think light is obedience
to the commandments of Moses, you've misunderstood. Fellowship, intimacy. With the
light. Where do you first hear about
the light? In John chapter 1. The light
was the life of men. Jesus Christ is the life of men. That's twofold. In Him was life. He created all things. He gave
all things that are existence. He gave all things that live
life. He breathed into humanity the
breath of life. Christ created the world for
Himself, by Himself, because of Himself, for the sake of His
name and His glory that He may be revealed in the redemption
of His people who truly see Him and know Him as He is. This is
eternal life, John 17. That they know you and they know
the one you've sent. Life was the light of men. The
revelation of God and the fact that we exist and humanity shows
that there is a God. But Paul parses out the differences
between how people respond to that light in a general sense
when he says that they worship the creature rather than the
creator. And though they know that God exists because they
have life in their bodies and they see the life of the cosmos,
they refuse to worship Him or give thanks to Him and by doing
so they act in a manner unworthy. And they don't worship Him. And they suppress the truth by
acts of unrighteousness. Think about it. But God and mercy, Romans 3,
Ephesians 2, so on and so forth, everywhere you look, God and
mercy comes down, testifies, manifests himself to you that
you may see. Knowing Jesus is God in your brain is not salvation. Because the idea of God in your
brain, unless God shows you who He really is, you can't see.
You can say it, but it doesn't mean you can see it. Jesus Christ, as He is, all that
He did, and all that He said He did, the why, the when, the
where, the how, is the knowledge of God. We testify to you, proclaim to
you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifest
to us. This is the word of God coming
down from God, being sent by God. Does this sound familiar?
That's Jesus mantra. I do not come to do my own will,
but the will of the one who sent me. You do not believe in God
because you do not believe in me because I represent my Father. We are of the same thing, the
same essence. Ontologically, we exist in the
same way. We are God together. Three in
one. That's what triune means. Tri,
three, in, one. Three in one. that which was in the Father.
Jesus comes to do the will of the Father, to teach the word
of the Father, to do the work of the Father, to establish the
perfect revelation of the Father. If you've seen me, you've seen
the Father, Jesus says. You see, the work that I do is
because as the Father was doing, now I am doing. So he says in
John 4, excuse me, John 5, And when we go and continue to read
even the synoptics, we see Jesus doesn't change his tune. These
men aren't writing different things that contradict each other.
They're writing by the power of Christ under the guidance
and the literally the knowledge and the wisdom of God, the Holy
Spirit, that they may testify to these things as God has established
for them to testify. We have seen, we have heard,
And we proclaim also to you. Remember how we closed out John?
Such a weak close, isn't it? Such a powerful opening, such
a weak close. Why? Because it's meant to be read
at one time. It's meant to be understood at the same time,
all the time, every time. 1 John is the same thing. Beloved,
if you've not read John's Gospel in the last three months in its
entirety, read it three times before next Sunday. And then read this epistle. What
is it? A four minute read? Six minute
read? 12 minute read? John's gospel is a 90 minute
read. This is a quick read. It's a very short letter. Read
it and you will see it. God will show it to you. And
when you come in here, you will not be thinking, now what nugget
am I going to get out of that verse? Because there's no such
thing as a nugget in a verse. It's the truth in the writing.
It's the truth in the revelation. It's the passion of Christ and
the glory of God and all that He's written in the context of
everything that we see here. And it's to be digested and it's
full so that when we're over in chapter 21 of John and we
see what He says there, we are considering and all of the glorious
awesomeness of John 1 is in that sandwich. We're not just eating
the end pieces with butter on it going, oh, we need to go to
the grocery store. We're just adding to this huge morsel of
a grand banquet that we can never consume in all of eternity. And we're always tasting and
we're tasting the same truth over and over again. And it is
sweet and awesome to us. It is filling for us. But yet we understand food in
that way, but we don't understand the bread of life in that way.
because we're not experiencing the Word of God as it was intended
to be experienced when we just pick it up so we can follow along
with the pastor. If we're doing that, the best
use of my time would be to have a little thing up here that goes,
bing! So that we read it together, all from the same thing, and
when it's time to turn the page, we go, bing! Remember those books? Follow along, and you hear, bing!
The early ones are like, burp! I mean, you know, I don't know
what the story's about anymore. Young generation's like, what
are you talking about? We've had Kindles since birth. OK. We used to have paper
books. And that was the first set of
technology when parents no longer wanted to read to their children.
As long as you follow along as you read a book, here's a cassette
tape. Now it's actually 45s. Here's the 45. And then the boy. And then the boy. And then the
boy. And you know. Bing! I digress. It would be a better
use of my time. Why did that come up? It would
be a better use of my time to follow along as we read and to
read the Word of God if you're not investing. And if you're
not investing in the Scriptures in this way, if you are spending
more of your time in diverse theological treaties, then stop
until you are so inundated with the truth of the Scripture as
it's written that you could at any moment, at any time, give
me an outline in 45 seconds of the Gospel of John. and keep doing it so that you would learn. Because
I want you to see. I want you to be in awe. I want
you to sit down and think to yourself after you get horrible
news from your doctor or from your friends or from your family
or just because you're just involved in your own mind for a while
that you can sit down and you can hear these first four verses. and that it will take you out
of all of these circumstances. Certain theologians back in the
80s were talking about how to experience God and interact with
God and all these things and they were real creative and they
used a lot of pictures and imagery. about how God is above all the
circumstances and He floats around and He looks down in there and
He's just going to take you out. And there was really neat stuff
psychologically. I thought, well, that gives me
a way to think a little bit different about where I'm going and the
circumstances that I'm in. I understand God's sovereignty.
But brothers and sisters, if you want to be in God's hand,
just open the scripture. If you want to know about it,
if you want to think about it, then philosophy is all you want.
If you want to be there with Him, be in the Word of God. It
will protect you, it will guide you. He will teach you that which
was from the beginning. That which we've heard, we've
looked upon, we've seen, we've touched. The Word of Life. John and these apostles spent
four years with this Messiah. Every day. Feast and famine. Love and hatred. Parades and
arrests. And when He was gone, God the
Spirit worked differently. Just like God the Son worked
differently. He created the world and at the time He appointed,
He became a baby. That doesn't deny God's unchangeable
nature. He is still the same. When Christ
was in the cradle, Christ was still the eternal God that does
not change. When the Spirit of God began to work in the lives
of the believers at Pentecost, He didn't come for the first
time, He just operated differently. Because now He was the one that
came along, the paraclete, as we saw in the latter part of
John's Gospel. Be in the Word of God, beloved.
Please do not depend upon me, because I want to stay in this
earth and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I'm done, and
when He's done with me, I want to be gone. I don't want to live
without serving the Lord. I don't. Because I think to myself,
what a waste it would be. How is it the scripture says?
If I can't preach Christ. Forget it. And my heart and all that I am
with everything that I have in my life, with every fiber of
all the things that I enjoy about certain things in life, it is
all absolutely boring in comparison to my intimacy with this letter
for the sake of your joy. Verse 3, and then I've got to
close and I'll pick back up here next week. That which we have
seen and heard, he's just repeating himself, we proclaim also to
you. We're proclaiming to you. What's he saying? Is this evangelistic? No. We're going to teach you all
that we've learned concerning the eternal life. He's already
talked about the eternal life. He's got that. Now we're going
to teach you some things, all things. How much was there? How much did Jesus teach? John
says it. If the, if the, if the world,
if they wrote down everything that he ever said, I suppose
the world could not contain the books that could be written. So we proclaim to you that you
too may have fellowship with us. Doesn't that sound like salvation?
No. Sounds like salvation was accomplished
already. Now we're talking about intimacy. Now we're talking about living
out gospel truths. with the life of gospel recipients. And then John explains what this
fellowship is like. We proclaim it so that you too
may have fellowship with us. You may have fellowship with
us. And indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and our fellowship
is with the Son, And we are writing these things so that our joy
collectively may be complete. So now we know why he wrote this
letter. He wrote this letter so that
we, as the body of Christ, could have a unity that surpasses all
understanding, that surpasses all unities. We, as the body
of Christ, are to be in a specific oneness. a specific intimacy
that centers on the finished work of Jesus, who is the God
that was from the beginning, that did the work of redemption
for the sake of the body. So this letter, above all things,
is a letter about ecclesiology. It's about being the body of
Christ collectively, individually, together. So the fellowship that we have It's not like the world understands.
The fellowship that we have is not the affinity that we all
believe sovereign grace. The fellowship that we have is
not that we're all part of the same church family. The fellowship
that we have is not that we all live in proximity of one another
in the counties in which we represent. The intimacy and the fellowship
we have is because we have been purchased by Jesus Christ and
the intimacy that He's established for us must be learned and lived
out because of what He's done. Therefore, therefore, therefore.
Those of you who follow my social media feeds, now you're starting
to see what I've been talking about for the last two and a
half weeks. We are His body. but it doesn't mean we have fellowship
with each other. And if we want to learn what
it means to have fellowship, to have intimacy, to have true
love, then we need to look at the life of Christ and we need
to look at the life of the apostles as they emulate Christ and as
they teach us how to live this life. Do you not want to learn
to live the life of fellowship? This is the point. Because I promise you this, beloved,
the gospel is power. And the Gospel is powerful, and
the Gospel works, and the Gospel brings peace, and the Gospel
does all sorts of things. And the Word of God has taught
to us, whether we're reading Hosea, like we read this morning,
or whether we're reading 2 Kings, or whether we're reading 1 John,
it is all of Christ, it is all about Christ, and it all points
to Christ. It is the Gospel. And so when we come and read
it, and we get through with the pages, what's the first thing
that we do? We seek fellowship in this truth. Now, I want you to hear me. Some
people, no, I don't. I'm a maverick and I'm proud
of it. No, you're not. If you're a maverick, shut down
your Facebook page. You're not a man. You're not
tough. You're not strong. You're strong. You don't need
accolades. You don't need high fives, likes, and yeah, get a
voice, and add a voice. Shut it down. If you're a real
man, if you're solid, you don't need intimacy, shut it down.
Throw your phone in the toilet. Get out a pen and paper and some
stamps. You go buy a thousand stamps, post office stock would
go up 500%. We look, we seek fellowship.
We seek fellowship with people anywhere, any way, through any
means possible, that we can either fight with, or agree with, or
walk with. And the scripture says that fellowship
is found in the body of Christ. And our actions in any sphere
of life, at the workplace, on the internet, in our emails,
in our speech, in our conduct, in our business, it affects our
fellowship. I mean, think about it. We're
having a picnic at my house, and everybody's having a good
time, and we're singing praise, we're going through, we're all
talking, having good spiritual discussions, and somebody walks
up in the middle of the yard and starts to curse us all out.
It's going to hurt some fellowship, isn't it? Or worse, what if I did it? What's
wrong with this guy? All right, y'all stayed 30 minutes
too long. Get out of my yard. Get the water
hose, start squirting you off. Come to church next Sunday. Hey,
did y'all have a good time at my house? Where is everybody? You sprayed
them off. You rinsed them out of your life.
What do you think they're gonna do? See, that's a common sense. A cat knows that wisdom. You
spray a cat, it knows where not to go. Cat knows that wisdom. Beloved, we need to have that
wisdom. That when we spew sinful things in our lives, when we
invade, whether we intend to do it or not, it doesn't matter.
When we invade each other's consciences by our actions, words, or intentions,
we are disfellowshipping. We are not losing salvation.
We are not broken away from Christ. We're broken away from Christ
when we added the gospel. We never were. but we are disfellowshipping,
we are breaking intimacy. If we get in a fight with our
family, we still live in the same house, but by golly, it's
tense. Sometimes there's a couch sleeping, sometimes people leave.
Look at it. Same thing in the context of
fellowship. If our affinity is only in this room, then where is the life? Where's the life? And most importantly, where's
the joy? You want your joy full in the Lord Jesus? You've got
to share life intimately with people, and you have to consider
them better than yourself. And the light of the Lord Jesus
shows us how we have intimate hope. Because our righteousness
can never stand in the light. Our good deeds can never stand
in the light. Our works can never stand in
the light. Our love can never stand in the
light. It must be Christ alone. So that if we have fellowship
with each other, we have to have fellowship with each other in
Christ's righteousness. You see, so that when sin comes
along, forgiveness is just operative. Reconciliation works. Worship and joy and strength
and unity begins to grow, not because of the absence of sin,
but because of the light that is Jesus Christ. and His righteousness
for us. And that, beloved, must be the
sound of the song of this letter, lest you misunderstand. Let's
pray. We thank You, Father, for the
truth of the Gospel. Lord, for keeping my mind at
least somewhat focused. Lord, as I open this next week
and we begin to truly see the arguments, Lord, protect me. Protect me from my pet point
preaching. I don't want to point the preaching
to circumstances or people that I know are looking. I want to
preach to us this intimate fellowship and to those who are part of
our prayers and part of our love and part of our ministry. Father, let us not give so much
oil to the squeaky wheel, but ride smoothly on the ones that
work. Father, protect us from the attack
that just comes spiritually for when we begin to learn the truth
and to soak up the reality of what you've done for us in Jesus
Christ, our flesh is tempted and we don't know how or why,
but we know after the counsel of your will, your purpose, that
we are tempted in this life. But You have promised us we would
not forsake the faith, that we would not throw away grace for
a fleshly confidence. And so, Lord, I pray that we
would be protected in that. And Lord, I pray then also for
those who would gaze upon this teaching, Father, that they would
not esteem me at all, for I am nothing, but they would esteem
Christ in all things, and that they would know that their joy
is full. First, because of grace. and
then also because of intimacy around the grace, which is in
Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.