I'm going to read in 1 John 1
verses 1-4 and then we're going to come back and deal with the
opening four verses tonight. At 9.30 I'll open the floor for
Q&A, so I want to encourage you to listen actively. If you can
do that, I know that this will be probably a year's journey
through the book of 1 John and what will be a profit for you
as well as me, is for us to listen actively. Don't go to sleep.
If questions arise, write them down so we can work through this. The epistle of 1 John is just
a wonderful, wonderful synopsis of the purpose for which Christ
came. And then it explains further to us the manner in which Christ
is accomplishing His redemptive goals in the life of His church.
When we understand 1 John, rightly, what we understand is what it
means to actually have authentic and true fellowship with God. That is the thing that we are
going to be working towards tonight. And we'll get into the term again,
the idea of fellowship, and then we will work that concept. It will become an underlying
premise for us for the whole of our study. that is through
the whole of 1 John. And in fact, as you're gonna
see in your outline, the term fellowship will connote and have
as a number of synonyms, different things that will arm you and
strengthen you in your understanding of the idea of fellowship, simply
because we have really confined the term fellowship down to a
very narrow and religious cliche that doesn't have any real ultimate
meaning, other than sitting around some food and talking and and
fellowship in the biblical sense in the gospel sense is a whole
lot more than that and I will say this if you were blessed
to be part of our in him conference this weekend the in him conference
is a precursor to, and it is a premise upon which you can
build this idea of fellowship. If I could, and the whole of
our study would be on the board, I would circle the whole of this
board and right at the top in him, because that's what fellowship
really means. That's what the term fellowship
really means as we get to verse four. And you're gonna see the
far reaching implications of it as we unpack it. In verse
one of 1st John, John says, 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. Those two Verses are really one
running sentence and to be honest with you that the whole sentence
runs through verse 3 that which we have seen and heard declare
we unto you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly
our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ
it starts off with that which was from the beginning and closes
and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus
Christ so now as we begin to unpack verses 1 2 & 3 you can
follow me in your outline I want you to know that what John is
doing is claiming apostolic authority as he opens up this letter he
is claiming apostolic authority his intention as he begins to
speak using the first using in the opening letter, the first
person plural, we, that which was from the beginning, which
we, which we, which we have heard is speaking to specifically the
role and privilege and office of the apostles. You must know
that as he opens the letter to the churches in general, as he's
addressing the churches in general, he is speaking in the first person
plural with regards to the apostles. He is identifying himself with
the apostles and inherent in verses 1, 2, and 3. is in fact
the true apostolic calling. I want you to grasp this. As
he opens the letter, he is not only identifying himself as an
apostle, but he is going to confirm what constitutes true apostolic
calling as he opens it up. Now, this is critical that he
lays out his authority as he begins to unpack the letter,
because as he unpacks the letter, as you and I have learned a few
weeks ago, He must, in some cases, be polemic. He must, in some
cases, be apologetic. He must, in some cases, oppose
those things that are right now circulating among the church,
alleging to be biblical truth, but actually denying the proper
claims of Jesus Christ, of which the apostles themselves were
stewards of. So when he opens the letter,
he opens up with the we. Now here's how he goes. He says,
that which was from the beginning which we heard, which we have
seen, which our eyes with a scene with our eyes, which we have
looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life.
Point number one in your outline, we, the apostles know him. We, the apostles know him and
declare him unto you by way of message. Testimony from the beginning
of the gospel in order that you might continue with us in Communion
with him as you have already done. This is the essence of
which the first three verses are being set forth He's saying
we who are the Apostles we know him. I And we know him enough
to be able to declare him to you. And the method or instrumentality
by which we declare him to you is the message of the gospel.
We have been given the message of Jesus Christ on a number of
grounds of which we have authority therefore to share with you.
And we are sharing with you this message. Now watch this in order
that you might continue in fellowship with him as you are already doing. Then the next line I have is
the beginning is really the beginning of the gospel The beginning of
the gospel look at line one that which was from the what? That
first clause is opening up in what we call at the neuter form
that particular opening line That is not a who that's not
a personal now That is a neutered now that which was from the beginning
in other words. He is not here asserting are
calling your attention to a person, but he's calling your attention
to an event. That which was from the beginning. And he is not calling your attention
to the Genesis account, our creation, but he is rather calling your
attention to that marked epic of time when Jesus Christ entered
into the world. And in fact, the way 1 John 1,
verses 1 through 3 opens up, it would be in what we would
call the typical Johanan structure. This is a Johannine epistle on
the part of John chapter 1 verses 1, 2 and 3. In the what? Beginning was the Word and the
Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning. So what John does is he claims
origin of their message rooted in an epic or an event that they
experienced. He claims origin of the message
to which he is communicated rooted in an epic or a period of things
that transpire of which they experienced. Now, John would
not be honest to say we were in the beginning of time. That
wouldn't be true for his experience, nor would he have the right to
say we were in the beginning, but he does have a right to say
we were there when our master began his ministry. because the apostles are the
stewards to testify to the coming and ministry of Jesus Christ.
So it opens up that way. And then it begins to deal with,
as we are about to see, one, two, three, four verbs that I
want you to see. And they are in your outline.
The first one is we have what? Heard. Secondly, we have seen. Thirdly, we have gazed. Fourthly, we have handled. So this is an interesting way
in which John affirms his presence at the beginning by dealing with
the senses. He heard, they have seen, and
they have gazed. And I'm going to talk about the
distinctions here. Gazed, it seems like these two are redundant,
but they are not. And then finally, we have handled. Are you with me so far? Okay,
see, they are claiming to have been at that epic in the beginning. They are saying they have the
message. They're saying their message corresponds rightly and
accurately with what transpired in the beginning. And now he's
strengthening his claim by bringing to bear upon the message the
senses of his body. He's saying we didn't hear something
only at that time. We saw it. We marked it. We touched it and we handle that. Are you guys with me so far?
This is a strange way, unless he already has in his mind certain
battles that he wants to right now quail and settle. Strange
that he would say, now, when we were there in the beginning
of the gospel, we want you to know that we did not merely hear
something. This was not a matter of testimony
passing from one person to another. This was something which took
up the whole of our being. The only thing he didn't say
that they did was eat it. We saw it, we heard it, we touched
it, we handled it, and we gazed upon it. In fact, when he uses
the verb forms here, notice what it says in verse one, that which
was from the beginning, which we have what? Heard. It's in what we call the perfect
tense. That's why I have in the bracket, perfect tense. Now,
what that means, ladies and gentlemen, is this. John can claim having
thoroughly and totally and completely heard everything that Jesus meant
for them to hear and have heard it in such a way that he can
say there was nothing else to be heard. When he says we heard
him, it means he heard everything that was to be heard within the
scope of that time. We heard him. We are not hearing
him. We heard him. It's a perfect
tense. That means that the experience
or the act of hearing at that time had terminated itself according
to its purpose. It's like if you are sitting
under the preaching of the gospel and the sermon is going to go
an hour, but you get up 45 minutes into the sermon and leave. And
then you try to tell somebody you heard that sermon. and you
tell them you heard it in the perfect tense, you would be lying.
There are 15 minutes left in that sermon that you did not
hear that are relevant to the whole of the hearing. And in
fact, if you missed out on the last 15 minutes, it may be of
such crucial nature, those 15 minutes that you miss, that it
would totally have negated or nullified the first 45 of which
then it might rightly be said, you didn't hear a thing. until
you have heard it all, you may not have heard one thing. And
John is saying, we heard it all. This is another device in his
polemic against the allegations that are coming from false prophets
and false teachers around what constitutes hearing from God.
When John says we heard from him in the perfect sense, he
is intimating by that that all that we heard is all that needs
to be heard. There's a saying that goes on
in church like this, God is still speaking today. I want you to
hear me very carefully as I talk about this. If you take that
statement seriously, you have major implications with what
we call the canon of scripture. If you take the implications
that God is still speaking, in a blanket unqualified way as
if somehow people all over the world are hearing the voice of
God in a direct revelatory fashion, then that destroys the authority
of scripture. Are you hearing me? Let me help
you understand this again. This is a very important rule.
is a very important rule. When we say God is still speaking,
we must never imply or infer or even remotely intimate that
God is speaking to us in such an authoritative, infallible
way that what he says to us equals that which he has already said.
To assert that what you are hearing from God is on an equal par with
what God has already said destroys the relevance of the scriptures. For as soon as God is speaking
to you with the same infallible inerrant authority from heaven
that he spoke to the apostles who wrote this down, now that
revelation which came to you trumps that revelation which
came to them. And it no longer has equal authority
because every time God speaks into creation, that which constitutes
new revelation, old revelation now is subordinate to it. and
being subordinate to it, it is modified by it. It is either
strengthened and brought to termination or nullified and set aside altogether. This is why when we read in Hebrews
chapter one, verse one, sundry times and in different manners
did our fathers, did the prophets speak to the fathers, but in
these last days, he has spoken to us in his son. The writer to the Hebrews is
saying the Old Testament writings had authority up to the point
in which Jesus came, who of whom the Old Testament was written.
And now what Jesus has said to us has authority over what the
prophets have said to us. Now, there was nothing in which
the prophets spoke that contradicted what Jesus is saying. But what
Jesus is saying supersedes what the prophets spoke so that what
the prophets spoke now in its applicatory form does not have
the same authority. In other words, when Jesus spoke
in the New Testament and used the phrase to tell us that it
is finished, By virtue of his authority, he completely now
nullifies a number of practices that we were under obligation
to engage in in the Old Testament, i.e. circumcision, i.e. sacrifices,
i.e. Sabbath days, i.e. ceremonial
laws, i.e. keeping of the law for forms
of righteousness, washings and cleansing, i.e. joining Judaism. All of that had relevance until
Jesus began to speak. And once Christ began to speak,
it summed up that which was said, not contradicted it, fulfilled
it, and made it now obsolete in the sense that it does no
longer serve as an authoritative binding rule because something
new has come. Are you guys following me? And
you must be the most megalomaniac person on planet earth to assert
that God is talking to you directly as if he spoke to the apostles
in the first century. Now watch this. If this is true,
we must listen to you. So when the apostle John says
we have heard in what we call the perfect tense, what he is
saying is what we say is the message and no other message
has the authority that we have because we have heard it all.
Are you with me so far? We, the apostles have heard it
all. Now, the next one he says is, We have what? Seeing, seeing,
seeing, seeing. In that particular Greek term
blepho there is a word that carries a lot of meanings. In the Greek,
there are five or six Greek words used for seeing. And those words
can be understood in the literal sense of viewing something with
your eyes or comprehending something with the mind that corresponds
to the synonym of seeing. And I've said this many times
as an example before. When you and I are talking and
someone explains something to you, you go, oh, I see. It's
not that you are seeing the thing that they say, you are understanding
or perceiving what they say. The Greek term oido is like that. The Greek term blepo is like
that. The Greek term theoreo is like
that. We'll look at this one down the
line. So the Greek term genosis is like that. There are words
that we use that actually describe Physical senses, but they mean
something else connotatively This is what we call the economy
of words, right? I see what you said. I see what you're saying
Well, what do you mean? You see what I say? I'm saying
I understand what you're saying so what but what what John is
saying is is he literally saw and then he intensifies what
he sees with his eyes by using the word gazed and Do you see
that? Gaze. So not only did he hear
perfectly and not only did he see perfectly, he says we have
gazed, gazed. In what we call the Greek language,
the Aries active, what he's saying is from the point in which there
was the revelation of that which was from the beginning, not only
did we hear that which was from the beginning, but we saw that
which took place from the beginning. And when we saw it now, Marcus,
now we marked it. You see that word gazed. It's
the word that is translated, looked upon. First John, I mean,
John chapter one, verse 14, go there, I want you to see this.
So this is properly Johannine language, and this is the way
John uses it in first John. And we're getting ready by virtue
of connecting these two passages to understand why it is that
we have this congested, seems like cumbersome, verbose language
in verses one, two, and three. Here is what John is ultimately
saying in first, in John chapter one. Listen to the language.
I'm in John chapter one and verse 14. Are you there? Now watch
it very carefully. Here's what John is saying. I
want you to see this. And the word, do you see it? Was made flesh and dwelt among
us. And here it is. And we be held. See that word be held. That's
our same word gauged upon in first John chapter one. And the
word was made flesh and we gazed upon it. Now, when you gaze upon
something, you know what you're doing? You're fixing your eyes
on it. To gaze on something is to fixate,
to lock in, to hone in, to scope it out, and to fully consider
it. The Greek word, as I said, is
the Greek term theoreo, which has two connotations. One is
to theorize is where we get our term to theorize. But the other
word theoretical is from which we get the term theater, theater. When you go to a theater, you
gaze upon the screen and you stay fixed on that screen, watching
the whole of the movie. What John says is we, the apostles
were privileged to fix our eyes on Christ. and to behold him
and gaze upon him so as to grasp the significance of what was
in front of us. Are you with me so far? So now
we're getting ready to understand this congested language and we
beheld his what? Now I'm going to get into this
a bit more on Sunday as I unpack John 17 for us. But I want you
to mark what the text says because verse 14 actually is an explanation
of verses one, two, and three in our first John text. And the word was made flesh. And the word was made flesh. This is the crux of the fundamental
argument of which John is battling against in his day. And that
is this. the incarnation of God. Are you with me so far? See,
when John opens up the way he does, what he's actually saying
is we are witnesses of God in the flesh. Are you with me so
far? We are witnesses of God in the
flesh. Now, if we are witnesses of God
in his ontological essence, we could not say that we have seen
him. For God cannot be seen in his
ontological essence. That is, God is by nature what? Spirit. and a spirit cannot be
seen. Thus Jesus said in John chapter
5, Paul said it in 1st Timothy chapter 2, and even John our
brother says it in 1st John chapter 4, no man has seen God at any
time. Because God is not comprehended
with the physical eye in terms of his genuine, authentic, unmodified
essence. You and I could never say in
actuality with these physical eyes we've seen God. Whatever
we see of God, as we have learned in theology class, and we will
learn this again this year, is always a medium that represents
God. We call it an angel or an epiphany
or a revelation, a theophany or a Christophany. It is a revelation
of God that points to God, but God in its essence can never
be seen with the naked eye. Are you guys with me? He can't
be approached unto. He cannot be viewed with the
naked eye. If we were to ever view God in
his unveiled glory in any sense, we would be annihilated. We'd
never live. We'd never live to tell the story. Oh, I see. Oh, I see. So when John says in first John
chapter 14, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us,
the word there dwelt is tabernacle. It means that he abode in the
same way the tabernacle in the old Testament abode with the
children of Israel when they were in the wilderness. So from
the Exodus account all the way to the book of Joshua, that whole
excursion of 40 years, the children of Israel could say they beheld
the tabernacle for 40 years. And in beholding the tabernacle
for 40 years, they could learn a lot about the tabernacle. Isn't
that true? This is what we're getting at.
And what John is saying is, we have the privilege of God. veiling
himself in a human nature. We call it the incarnation. And
he didn't just pass by us one day. We locked in on him, having
heard him call us by his grace into ministry with him. And so
for three and a half years, we gazed upon him. We gazed upon
God. In the flesh. Are you hearing
me? We gazed upon God in the flesh.
We heard him completely. We have seen him thoroughly.
We have gazed on him comprehensively. Not only have we gazed upon him,
he wasn't behind a plexiglass or any kind of barrier. We were
able to touch him with our hands. Do you see the next phrase? And
we have handled and he now discloses that which was in the beginning
in terms of the person, the word of life. We have handled the
word of life. Do you guys see that phraseology
back in 1st John chapter 1 verse 1? And we have handled the word
of life. We'll come back to the term glory
down the line. Not right now. Go back to 1st
John. That which was from the beginning, which we have thoroughly
heard, which we have comprehensively seen, which we have looked upon
and gazed at length. We looked upon it and we gazed
on it from the day he called us. And according to Acts chapter
1 verse 14, we gazed on him as he ascended in a cloud out of
our sight. We looked upon the glory of God
in the person of Christ in his incarnation, the day he called
us. And we kept looking at him for
three and a half years until God raised him from the dead
in that same physical body that was with us. And we watched that
body take off on a cloud. in Acts chapter 1. Why stand
ye here all day long gazing? Are you with me? Those brothers
paid attention to the master, didn't they? They had a privilege. They say we saw him come and
we saw him go. And not only did we see him come
and see him go, we heard him. But not only did we hear him,
we handled him. That's the same verb that's used
in the Gospel of John. When knucklehead Thomas ran out
on the brothers. So I'm done. And the Lord, you
know, the Lord is merciful to knuckleheads, isn't he? He said,
Thomas, he showed up a second time, third time. In fact, he
said, Thomas, come here. I heard what you said to your brothers.
Let's I put my hand in his side and touch the nail prints. I
don't believe this thing. I just don't believe this thing.
He said, touch, handle me flesh and bone. Our spirit does not
have flesh and bone as you see me do this day. He allowed, and
one of our elders, I think it was Todd, in fact, was saying
that he don't know if Thomas actually did it. He did actually
do it. He had to do it. He had to actually touch the
holes. He had to actually touch his
feet. He had to learn something about the post incarnate glory
of Jesus Christ. Let me help you just in case
you don't know, this is another doctrine inherent in the sonship
of Christ that you must learn. The power that raised Christ
from the dead changed the constitution of his physical body so it did
not need to operate as a flesh and blood body like the first
Adam did. You and I operate as a flesh
and blood body out of the dust of the ground where we created.
God breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, but our physical
bodies are sustained by blood. The life is in the what? The
life is in the blood that was not so for the resurrected Christ. Touch me and see me flesh and
bone. Where was the blood? Pour it
out. Pour it out as a sacrifice for God's elect. Pour it out.
He's walking around as a man without blood because he's operating
according to that which will actually take over our bodies
one day. It's called a quickening spirit. The first Adam is a living soul. The last Adam is a quickening
spirit. The first Adam is a living soul
totally dependent upon this body being sustained by the natural
resources of this world, yours and mine too. But the last Adam
did not depend upon that after the resurrection. After the resurrection,
he walked around in his body because the body too is to be
redeemed. But he walked around in the full
or power of the quickening spirit, which is a promise for you and
I. As the Lord's body was raised from the dead, so shall he quicken
our mortal bodies by his spirit. Romans chapter 8 verse 10. Am
I making some sense? And so what the apostles had
a chance to do was not only authenticate the incarnation of Christ in
His coming, they were able to authenticate, now I want you
to hear this now, the post-incarnate Christ after His resurrection,
because that is a doctrine we must believe too. And that is
the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. The doctrine of
the resurrection of the body. Had they not touched him, had
they not watched him eat fried catfish, put in cornmeal with
biscuits that morning on the seaside when he was already cooking
it, when the fellas thought they'd go fishing again. Remember, we
go fishing and he said, fellas, hey, you catch anything? They
said, no. Cachanet on the right side. This time they were obedient,
weren't they? They got 153 great fish. When they came to shore,
they could already smell that, that hot cornmeal cooking that
catfish. And he ate with them and they
ate together and they knew that they weren't dealing with what
we call an apparition. Are you hearing me? These were
the things necessary that Luke said in Acts chapter one are
what were called infallible proves that Christ had literally risen
from the dead physically. Now, what we are dealing with
with John 1, 1 is the testimony of the apostles who exclusively
had this hearing with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry
to the time he was called up to heaven. Am I making some sense
right now? It is very important for you to know that going back
then to 1 John. And if you have any questions,
write them down so we can work with this when we come out of
our lesson here in 30 minutes. So John opens up in 1 John explaining
to us As I write in my outline, a past perfect experience which
qualifies them to bear witness to us. They paid attention and
they got it. The visible manifestation of
Christ was seen by them and they dealt with it with all four senses,
hearing, seeing, touching, and fully contemplating everything
that they had seen, heard, and touched. This qualified them
to be authentic witnesses of the incarnation, the suffering,
the death, the resurrection of the God, man, Jesus Christ. Verse
two. Notice what it says in verse two. For the life was what? For the life was manifested. Watch this. And we have seen
it and bear witness and show unto you that what's the phrase
now? Eternal life. Stop right there. for the life was manifested.
Point number two in your outline, we show, or we explain, or we
declare, or we make known unto you, that should be make known
unto you, that life. The word life there, Zoe, is
the term that Jesus used concerning himself several times in the
gospel of John. It is the word that's given to
us back in John chapter one, verse four. If you'll notice
what it says, go back there and I want you to mark how John is
unpacking and identifying the Savior. He's just given us the
incarnation of Christ. Now, if he gives you the incarnation
of Christ, he's giving you the beginning of Christ's physical
life. He's underscoring that point
in time in which Christ took on a human nature. That has to
be affirmed as significant and relevant for you and I. But notice
what he says over in verse three and four, all things were made
by him. And without him was not anything
made that was made. And in him was what now stop,
you know what we call that source source, just like I'm in Christ
and you are in Christ. If we are in Christ, guess what
we have life because the life is in him. And when John uses
this phrase way, In Christ, he's saying that all life is in Christ. That he is the fountainhead of
life from which all life flows. Physical life, bios life, human
life, spiritual life, eternal life, all life comes from him. Now watch it. In him was life
and the life was the light of man. In other words, because
Christ himself is life, He actually produces life in everything else. The word light here is a synonym
for life. The word light here is a synonym
for life. And the life was the light of
men. In other words, no human being has life apart from Christ.
He is the life producing life of the world. All creatures,
all animals, everything that has zoe life gets their life
from Christ. This is why he says in John chapter
14, verse six, what I am the way, the truth and the life and
the life. And if you were following through
your outline as John one, one and John one, four, and then
in John chapter 10, 10, you don't have to go there. Jesus made
it very clear. I am calm. that they might have
what? Life, and that what? More abundantly. So, I want you to mark that phrase
because that phrase actually gets into the character and nature
of the life that's given to God's covenant people. The character
and nature of life that's... Okay, so he... I am come, he
says, that they may have life. Who might have life? People who
have physical life. Because I am come, now may have
more than physical life, they may have eternal life. But he's
speaking more of just the qualitative nature of it. He's speaking of
the abundance and the increase and the abounding of life characteristic
to him coming. And I want you to mark this,
ladies and gentlemen. That there is an aspect of our
salvation that we must get a hold of. That because of our relationship
with Christ, there must be an increase in the quality and character
thereof. When Christ saves you and he
saves me, he doesn't just give us a spiritual heartbeat. Like
we're kind of just laying there in a pathetic state of just about
living. When he says, I am come that
they might have life and have it more abundantly. There is
a real sense in which if we actually believe that he is the God of
the universe and he possesses all power and all life. that there's an aspect of that
life to which we have now been brought into that has promise
of abounding. If we would ever learn how to
enter into what I have to talk to us about tonight, the fellowship,
the fellowship. He said, I have come that they
might have life and that more abundantly. In John chapter four,
he makes an interesting statement. Go there because I want you to
see this. John chapter four. He's talking to the woman at
the well. You've heard this before, but I want the proposition to
trouble you because sometimes we let things come to our hearing
that, as I said in the opening of our study, because we are
not actively listening. It just comes in one ear and
goes out the other. We say we had a good study, but when somebody
actually what he talked about, you can't you can't remember
what he talked about because you were passive in your listening.
You were drifting. You were focusing on something
else. You didn't give God your undivided attention. And so you
missed the blessing or at least you missed the challenge or the
possibility of the blessing. I want you to hear it here in
John chapter four. This is a this is an interesting
proposition that Jesus makes to the woman at the well in the
gospel of John chapter four when he's talking to her. He says
over in verse 13, Jesus answered and said unto her, whosoever
drinketh of this water shall thirst again, talking about the
water in the well of Jacob, their father. This is a, the Samaritan
woman, but listen to verse 14. Are you there? But whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst again. Point number one, if we ever,
actually drink of the water of Christ, there is a sense in which
that kind of thirsting which led us to that water is now satisfied. This is how we know we actually
have entered into communion with Christ, because Christ actually
satisfies the soul. I marvel and am in consternation
with people who are struggling with the reality of the gospel
and the reality of the blessings of the gospel in their life when
the promises of God are given and they can't really identify
on an experiential level with them. All I know is that prior
to coming to know Christ, I was famished I was dirt ridden. I was drought ridden. My soul
was thirsty to the core of its being and I had no way to satisfy
that thirst and Christ actually quenched my thirst. Are you hearing
me? There was a satisfaction when
I was able to drink of the truth of the gospel and experience
it, imbibe it in my soul that said, ah, that's what I needed. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness for verily they shall be filled.
Here's the metaphor again. He is the fullness. And if we
drink of him, we will experience satisfaction. You believe that?
So for the believer, there must be a an initial satisfaction
that comes with knowing Christ. Don't tell me that you come to
Christ and don't get satisfied. That makes him a liar. Are you
a liar? Am I making some sense? But there's
more. This proposition initially starts off with a satisfaction
that quells and solves and stops a long time burden that you had. And that was you were disconnected
from God. Now that you are connected to
God, there is a real satisfaction with being connected to fullness. But here's the promise that he
makes to the woman at the well of which you and I need to take
heat and then ask God to help us to enter into it. I want you
to see it. I want you to see this and claim this for yourself.
This is critical. But the water that I shall give
unto him, not only shall quench his thirst, her thirst, their
thirst, but it shall be in him a well. Stop. That's a powerful metaphor. It's
crazy. Isaiah chapter 26 verse one,
and they shall draw out of the wells of salvation water. to feed the thirsty, to quench
the thirst of the thirsty. You know whom God is speaking
up in Isaiah chapter 26? Believers. Listen, brother Willie,
he calls believers wells. You know what he did? He took
the water of his life and poured into you enough to make you a
reservoir to quench somebody else's thirst. I know that's true. I know that's
true. He did it for me. And He does
it for me daily. Because I'm learning to understand
something that we've got to understand. And this is what I want to critically
be brought home to you and me. To be in Him is a profound concept. There was an obligation on the
part of omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, effulgent, self-sufficient,
independent, needy, nothing God to take me and make me part of
his plan to bless other people through me. This is wild. But he chose to and he will do
it no other way. Take his people and make them
whales to satisfy the souls of other hungry and thirsty men
and women. Are you hearing me? So you should not be satisfied
when, I mean not satisfied, you should not be surprised when
God chooses to use you to so quench the thirst of another
man and woman this week, next month, the month after that,
the year after that, to where they say, I thank God for coming
into your presence. I thank God that he brought us
together. I thank God for the grace he
has placed in your life. You have been such a great blessing
to me. You bless my soul. Is anybody hearing what I'm saying?
Don't, don't, listen, listen, the redemption of our soul And
the purpose of God in using us is not about a spectator event. He didn't toss you a bottle of
water and say, watch this show. Here's a proposition that he
makes to this sister. And our Lord is such a omnipotent,
such an omnipotent God that he can make a promise that blows
our mind. and immediately implement it
so fast that the process of implementation takes place before we even know
it. He told this woman, I will cause
you to have a well of water that is so full that it will gush
up into eternal life. And that what the text says.
Will you look at it? Whosoever drinks of the water
which I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water." Here's
the verb, springing up, springing up, springing up, springing up. Do you see it? Springing up.
Not just a well. You walk over to a well and as
you walk, you have the right to say, maybe it's dry, maybe
it's not. Am I making some sense? Because
now you've got to look in, you've got to investigate, you've got
to take your bucket if you have one, or if there's one provided,
you've got to drop that bucket way down. The well might be dry.
Oh, we've got a whole lot of dry wells in religion today,
don't we? Don't we have a lot of dry wells in religion? But,
if God is pleased to make a spring on the bottom of your well, of
which whose waters well up, spring up, Jump up so that at the top
of the whale from a distance, people see the water jumping
up, jumping up. They ain't got to guess whether
or not when they get to that whale, they'll find water. That's
powerful. I was in Alabama two weeks ago,
as you know, and I was on my mother, my father-in-law's property
in Alabama, like a lot of our Southern states Fortunately,
you know several decades ago we were able to purchase lots
of land at dirt cheap and a lot of our relatives has lots of
land and my wife's Father's father was a man of prudence. He took his little pittance.
He was poor and broke, and he was able to obtain him almost
a hundred acres of land, maybe more. And he was able to preserve
most of that for his children, talking about the inheritance
of a father being passed to their children. But there was on the
land in which a number of the families lived, and I got a chance
to see it, a well. And this well was a water spring. of which they said every day
the water would just jump up out of the ground, jump up out
of the ground, a well spring, springing up. That's the metaphor
that Christ is using. Are you hearing me? So here is
the profound promise and blessing that he gives to the woman underscoring
the character and nature of Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ
is the water of life, is he not? And he's not just a drop of water
or a bottle of water or a cup of water. He is a whale that
springs up more and more and more. That's what he said in
John chapter 7, verse 37. If any man thirst, let him come
after me and drink. For as the scripture says, out
of his belly will flow rivers of living water. Now, he used
another word in that text. You know what the word is? Rivers. That's crazy. Isn't that crazy? That crazy? Does the God-man
Jesus Christ use exaggerated speech? Um, hyperbole to no end. Is he lying or is he telling
the truth? Is it possible for a man, a woman,
a family, a church to be such whales of water that they become
a river that actually overtakes people and blesses them with
a confrontation of the glory of God in Christ and they can't
help it. The pastor going crazy now. Okay.
I'm gonna just, I'm gonna leave that. I'm gonna leave. All right.
Go back to your text now. Go back to, go back to first
John. You, you can, you can, uh, write me off as 5150 if you
want, but I believe, I believe that that's possible. I believe
it's possible, but I do know this as I have intimated in our
message on the in him series that we have not because we ask
not, I do know that. It's impossible for you who are
limited to exist with the unlimited potential of an infinite God
to not have at your availability everything necessary for life
and godliness. It's impossible. Am I making
some sense? It's impossible for us who are
limited creatures in ourselves to be in union with the unlimited
God and not have at least the potential to be an influence
on everybody that's around us, if God would be pleased to do
so. Now, I know he's laid that promise out there, and I think
it's a conditional promise. I was talking to my sister earlier
about what we call conditional promises. I believe because you
know what the text tells me, if any man thirst, if he thirst
for this, well, if you don't thirst for it, then forget it.
But now let's go back to our text and work through these next
couple of points, because I only got 10 minutes before I open
the floor for questions. In our outline, We have point number
two. We show, explain, declare, make known unto you that life.
And notice what he says. We make known unto you that life,
which was with, I'm sorry, for the life was manifested and we've
seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life,
which was with the father. Do you see that? And was manifested
unto us. Verse two is actually explaining
the eternal nature of Christ. Are you with me? Here's what
he's saying. I have opened up speaking to
you about that punctiliar event that transpired in the beginning
of the gospel when our eyes were laid upon the God man, Jesus.
But now I'm actually telling you that Jesus didn't have his
beginning at his incarnation. That Jesus was before the incarnation. That he was always with God the
Father. That he and God the Father are
co-equal and co-eternal. That they have their existence
in eternity past. Notice the language. And that
eternal life we show unto you which was, watch this, with the
Father. Do you see? He's crafting the
language carefully. It's still Johanan. It's still
John chapter one, but he's honing it in for you and I, because
this is, as I said in the conference, and I want us to grasp this from
here on out, covenant language that reveals to us the true nature
of God and it seals to us the proper access to God on our part. And what I mean by that is this,
John would not have us to view Christ independent of the father. For to view Christ independent
of the father is to cut off all access to the blessings that
come to sinners through God. For as I said in our conference,
the only reason you and I are in him, if we are in him is because
he's the son and God is the father. And one of the evidences that
I know that I'm in him is because I call him. I have a father and
I call Jesus the son. See, if you don't honor the son,
you don't honor the father. And if you don't honor the honor,
the father, you don't honor the son. And if you deny those two,
you know what John tells me in first John chapter five, you
don't know him. Am I making some sense? And so
I told you before, it is at the bottom of your outline, when
it comes to the communication of God's purposes and blessings
in the life of God's people, they always are communicated
to us through two offices, High Priest and Sonship. You don't
get anything from God apart from a mediator. And you don't enter
into the promises of God's blessings apart from Sonship. All the blessings
of God in the eternal sense, in the sense in which the Scriptures
speak, of eternal blessings come through sonship. It is for this
reason that John is speaking to the church about the father
and the what son. And here's what he says. We already
as Jewish people have held to a paterology. Paterology is what
we call theology proper. You'll learn this in theology
class. Theology proper is that that system of theology that
starts with God, the what? God, the father. He's above all
things and through all things. He's God, the Father. Christ
revealed Him to us as the Father. No one called Him the Father
like the Son. I have come to do my Father's
will and to finish His work. I am showing you the Father.
All that the Father says to me, I do. If you have seen me, you
have seen. That was what Christ came to
do. And God's objective for us to
see the Father was to only see the Father through the Son. There's
nothing that can be known about God apart from knowing about
God through Christ. And if Christ is the prism through
which you now properly interpret God, here's what you call him,
Abba. Am I making some sense, ladies
and gentlemen? And see, as soon as you start talking about God
in the abstract sense without the personal pronoun, Father,
I know you don't know him. I know you don't know him because
we know him as Father. What a glorious nomination and
nomenclature for the infinite, eternal God and a creature like
you and me. Do you know God? Yes. What's
his name? Father. Father. Well, how can you talk like that?
I'm his son. Well, how do you know it? I believe on his son.
Well, what does that mean? The man that believes on his
son is innocent. And if you've written, if you're
in the sun, you've got the father. Am I making some sense? And so
this is what John is saying. And I want you to grasp John's
theology is bracketed. It is strengthened. It is hedged
in by a clear objective to make sure that he reveals to us, unfolds
to us, make manifest to us, declared to us, Jesus Christ, the life,
Jesus Christ, the eternal life, Jesus Christ, the word of life,
Jesus Christ, the son of God, Jesus Christ, the son of God,
the father. That's what verse two is saying.
which was with the Father and was, here's the next phrase,
manifested unto us. See that phrase? Mark it in your
outline. It's in your outline under verse
2.C. Manifested, epiphaneo. It's from the term from which
we get epiphany, and it means appearing. But it's not referring
to that which is created, but that which already exists. There
are things which are in our presence now that you don't see. But should
they manifest themselves, they would appear, but their appearing
wouldn't be their origin. It would simply be their manifestation.
And the scripture says more than once, more than a few times that
Jesus Christ was manifested in these last times for us. Great is the mystery of godliness,
1 Timothy 3.16. God was manifest in the flesh. Not God became in the flesh. Not God turned into the flesh. But God was manifest in the flesh. In the beginning, God always
was. And in the beginning, the Word
always was. And in the beginning, God and
the Word always were, and they were with one another. Are you
hearing me? Wherever the father was, the
son was. And wherever the son was, the
father was. And wherever those two were,
I want you to get this next little, this here is a coupling conjunction,
they were with each other. You see the little word with?
With. This is why john says and that
eternal life was with the father It's a very advisory term because
what it connotes is watch this now equality Equality The son
is equal with the father in all of his attributes in all of his
characteristics only distinct in their personhood, but they
are equally God, co-eternal, co-existent, co-equal in all
things. Thus the son can say, I was with
him. Proverbs chapter eight, in the
beginning of all his ways, I was with him as one that grew up
with him. Now we're using anthropomorphical terms. And what that means is
as God began to unfold himself in his creative plan, he did
it through Jesus and Christ was with him in that unfolding. You
can't go back to where God was and not find Christ. That's what,
that's the economic terminology of John chapter one. In the beginning
was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. They were together
equally with the same authority, the same power, the same purpose,
the same objectives, the same goals, equal in authority. Here's another connotation of
the wit, which is getting ready to bring me to my point of which
I just want to sprinkle you and we'll come back next week. They
had great fellowship. The fellowship between the father
and the son is incomprehensible and inexhaustible in terms of
its implications. The oneness, the equality, the
unity, the purpose, the sameness, the cooperation, the law, the
joy, the fullness, the prospects and purposes that the father
and the son had for everything that they would create. There
was such a unity between God, the father and God. Now listen
to me, I'm getting ready to make a proposition that's going to
nail you. There was such a unity, a fellowship between the father
and the son that was so tremendous and enormous. that it caused
them to contemplate creating a man. Did you hear me? The joy that
the father had and the son had, can I talk to you for a minute?
The joy that the father had in viewing the son, this is the
Greek preposition pros, between the object and the subject. The
object is God. The subject is the word. Process
the proposition and God was with the word and the word was with
God They were looking at each other face to face That's the
relationship when it's healthy between a husband and a wife
When you look at each other face to face you love each other you
like what you see. In fact, you don't want to stop
position number one and watch this when the father looked into
the face of the son he saw himself and And when the son looked into
the face of the father, he saw himself. And they both loved
what they saw. That's position number one. The
word was with God. And the word was the profile
of God. That's where we get the word
profile. And what it does is the word becomes now the portfolio,
the resume, the articulation, the expression of who God is.
If we were to give God a facial profile, you know what it would
look like? The son. The invisible God cannot be seen.
He cannot be profiled except in the sun. And somehow the father
and the son were in such infatuation with each other and they had
the right to be brother Willie. You know, when you're perfect, it's
all right for you to be infatuated with yourself. You know what they said? The
father and the son and the Holy ghost said, we look good, don't
we? Can I just be, can I be anthropomorphic
for a moment? We look good. You know, we ought
not to share this good thing with just ourselves. I'll tell
you what, let's make folk that look just like us. So now hear me. This is the problem and the atrocity
with the human race. We have so devolved and departed
from the glory of God. in the dignity with which He
created us. We have failed to see that the
highest, the highest esteem and the highest compliment that God
could have ever done was to create you. Am I making some sense? The highest compliment that God
could have ever done was to reproduce Himself in us who are called
His image bearers. Father, Son, Holy Ghost, make
man, that's you and I, in our image and in our likeness. Are
you hearing me? Okay, so inherent in that proposition
is the word that we are going to work through for the next
several weeks. And the word is fellowship. Fellowship. Do you hear me? Fellowship. So hear how it goes
in our text. And I'll open the floor up for
questions and we'll deal with this next time. Here it is. Here
it is. Verse three, that which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you in order that's a purpose
clause in a purpose clause that you also may have what with us and truly Our fellowship is with
the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. Do you see that?
Stay right there. I just want to make one statement
about this so that it will enter into your head very clearly.
The term fellowship is not a verb. It's a noun. It is not asserting or expressing
something we do. is actually asserting and establishing
a status and position that we have. When the Bible uses the
term fellowship, it's talking about a station, a position,
a status, a relationship. Are you hearing me? When God
says He has fellowship with you, what He's saying is He has actually
brought you into a status, a position, a relationship with Him that
constitutes partnership. It constitutes communion. It constitutes airship. It constitutes Blessings, it
constitutes distribution. It constitutes everything that
God has now being yours. Now watch this. If we have fellowship
with God, it's not about what God's giving us. That's subordinate
to what God has placed us into, and that's a relationship with
Him. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? See, your prosperity
preaching churches are always begging God for stuff. He never
created you and I to beg for stuff. His job was to bring us
into fellowship with him. So fellowship is about status.
It's about position. It's about right. It's about
airship. It's about communion. Somehow
it's more important to God that you know him than that you know
what he has. All right, I'll give you guys
10 minutes to talk if you guys got some questions. Any questions?
Somebody get the mic and run with it. I want you to hear what I'm saying.
I want you to hear what I'm saying. People lock the vote. People
lock the vote. They lock the vote on the blessings
of God. because they think they can get
to what's inside the vote without knowing the one who owns the
vote. Are you hearing me Dante? Oh, I get to ask. Did you, did
you have a question or cause somebody over here has one. Okay.
There you go. Um, I was just wondering about,
uh, if you were going to open up about like the exclusivity
of fellowship. And you just mentioned right
now, that's a noun. It's something that you have
a position. I wonder since that sounds like
something exclusive, like not another person can have that
non-believer who doesn't know Christ can't have fellowship.
And so I just wanted to know. So you're, you're, you're being,
um, you're, you're being an active here. This is what I want you
to always be an expository listener. An expository listener has the
ability to listen to propositions and statements and then draw
out the implications. I said, there's only two ways
in which you and I can enter into fellowship with God. That
is the phrase in him is through a mediator and through sonship. Not everyone has Christ as their
mediator. Not everyone knows God as their
father. Exclusivity is a, it's what we
call an a priori position. Those who are in Christ have
fellowship with him. Those who are outside of Christ
obviously have yet to have fellowship with him, right? And we can know
that by the way they talk. Does that help? Okay. Somebody
else, any other questions? Here go one way back here. There
you go. And Mark, the way verse three
is speaking, my daughter, that which we have seen and heard,
we declare unto you, that's the instrumental means in order that
you also may have fellowship. See it? So where a person has
not heard the gospel, It must be assumed that they are not
experiencing fellowship because the criterion by which fellowship
is brought to realization is through the preaching of the
gospel. It's what brings us into fellowship with Christ. That's
first Corinthians chapter one, verse nine. Yes. Could you elaborate
on the of the word alive? No. Okay. Next question. What's the point? Give it back
to him. What's the point? Were they speaking
of them, John, when he was talking? What verse are you quoting? The
last part of verse 1. Verse 1, which we have heard
of the word of life. OK, what would be your question?
So they were of God because of the life in Christ. Which we have looked upon and
our hands have handled of the word of life. Verse one is not
talking about the apostles. Verse one is talking about the
testimony concerning Jesus Christ. So we are talking about the little
word of can be translated about. It's just a simple phraseology. We are speaking of Christ. We
are speaking of Christ. He's a vehicle to talk to us
about the word of life. Nothing super nuanced about it. Somebody else. Yes, Pastor. Concerning that
analogy you gave about Jesus being on the shore preparing
catfish and cornmeal and asking them... I knew he would jump
on that. Was it yellow cornmeal, white
cornmeal? I want to know what was the miracle
or was there two miracles? I believe there was two miracles.
One, is that they're telling him that there's no more fish,
and he's saying, drop the net over the right, and they get
more than they can pull in. But the fact that he's preparing
catfish, was that a miracle in itself? Where did he get the
catfish? Or is that a point? Yeah, in John's Gospel, Chapter
20, where he is now getting ready to reinstitute their apostolic
calling, because they had abandoned their apostleship. Remember,
I have prayed for you that your faith fail not, They went so
low that, hey, let's go fishing. And all of them said, yeah, let's
go fishing. Walking with Christ is not easy. Some days I'd rather
go fishing. I'm just telling you the truth.
But if you go fishing outside of the will of God, you're not
going to catch a thing. They didn't say there was no
fish in the water. They didn't even argue. All they did was
tell him what their experience was that night. We caught nothing.
The master says, drop the net on the right side. This time,
Peter didn't argue. He didn't say, master, now you
know, we the one do the fishing. You do the preaching, we do the
fishing. No, Peter threw that net over
so quick, and the boat almost tilted over. John said, oh, it's
the Lord! Peter jumped out of the boat,
and they dragged it all the way to the shore. And when they got
there, Our Lord had already provided breakfast to comfort them in
their failure, to comfort them in their failure,
to let him know he watches over our failures because our failures
are part of his purpose too. That was the message three weeks
ago. Failure is good. Failure is good. I'm the Lord
of the land and the sea. I will provide for you. Your
job is to be fishers of men. Got it? And we can speculate where he
got the fish from, but he's God. Somebody else? I had a question. OK, I think I see what you're
saying because God in the Old Testament spent most of his time
talking about his son. That's why he wrote the old book.
But there's no way to possibly know him apart from Christ, according
to what you were saying. But also concerning another thing,
we can't see his glory because he's the spirit. If we were to
see him, we'd get annihilated. So I have a question. The visions
that John and Daniel saw wasn't really him in his exact glory. That right there was even a veil
in a sense. Yeah. Everything that we see
in scripture that speaks to or points to God is given to us
in symbolic form. Everything you have in your Bible
that speaks of the nature of God is given to us in symbolic
form. The medium between the infinite
glory of God that is unmitigated or unveiled is something symbolic
or something mediatorial, whether it's an angel or whether it's
some other form of epiphany, whether it's a burning bush,
whether it's a cloud, whether it's pillared by fire, whether
it's some angelic type men. What you see in the book of Revelation
is symbolism upon symbolism, hyperbolic symbolism that is
constructed as a form of tutoring for us to tell us about things
we cannot comprehend with our carnal minds. Eye hath not seen,
ear hath not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of
man. The reality behind the imagery, but the imagery serves as a picture
of glorious things, glorious enough for us to convey or to
draw from them what God is trying to get across to us. So a picture
is like a thousand words, and that's what the scriptures are.
The angels in the Old Testament, those seraphim in the Old Testament,
those beings that came dressed up in all of that armory, artillery
and apparatus, all of that was symbolic of the Lord our warrior,
the one triumphing over our sin in the celestial realm, in the
spiritual realm, but certainly God cannot be confined to a mere
physical body except in the incarnation you guys understand that so when
you are reading Old Testament stuff and you get symbolisms
or pictures or images and it would say and this is the glory
of God well this here is a representation of the glory of God that's what
that's about right behind you two ladies This
is just a quick question because I never really thought of it
that way before. When you were talking about the creation of
man, you know, we just read that God let us make man in our own
image. But I never really thought about
what motivated the father and son to want to, you know, replicate
themselves. I don't know if I'm putting that
right. But it's the beauty of their relationship and their
love between them. And that's wonderful. You know,
I never really thought of why, you know, why would God, you
know, I always said, well, maybe, you know, he wanted, we are created
to glorify him. We are created to have relationship
with him and all that's true. But the real reason was the love
between themselves. And that's beautiful when you
think about it. And I'm wondering too, just quickly, if that, now
this is my sanctified imagination, if the man, and woman's love
between themselves is something that innate in them from God
to want to have children. That's the whole point. Oh, okay. And you got that in theology
class a couple of years ago, but you, we're all like my, my
old props have said, we're all like wicker baskets. You know
what a wicker basket is? So you go and you cut the faucet
on and you fill that wicker basket up with water. And then it begins
immediately to do what? And so you have to fill it up
again. Here's what you have to, here's what you have to know.
If we are properly taught about the abstract nature of God, what
we will come to learn are that the communicable attributes of
God, those things that he has given to us for us are designed
to merely reflect how he feels and how he thinks and what his
motive was in creating everything. God reveals himself to us in
three persons. That means relationship. Relationship
is at the height of the revelation of God. Relationship is at the
height of the revelation of God. That's why it was relationship
that the devil targeted to destroy. It is relationship that the devil
is targeting to destroy among us. It is the relationship, the
heterosexual relationship that God designed that the devil is
seeking to destroy among us because the heterosexual relationship
allows for the procreative process to take place by which God is
reduplicated.