If you look back at a passage
of scripture, I just read. I've entitled this message. Truth. Experience. Fellowship. And love. Now, that is all seen in this
passage of scripture, I just read. First, we have the objective
truth. That which was. From the beginning. And then we are given the subject,
the subjective experience of that truth revealed when he says,
which we have heard. Which we have seen. which we
have looked upon and our hands have handled. And then we read
about what arises from that fellowship. Verse three. That which we've
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. And then John gives his reason
for writing this epistle. He says, These things write we
unto you, that your joy may be full. I want my joy to be full,
don't you? First, let's consider the objective
truth, that which was from the beginning. Now, the objective
truth, what do I mean by that? It's truth that is not subject
to us. It's not subject to our experience. It doesn't make any difference
whether we believe or whether we don't believe it's still the
truth. That's what I mean by the objective truth. God created
the world. Somebody says, I don't believe
that. Well, that doesn't make it not so. But I didn't see it
happen. So what? It's still the truth. You know, for thousands of years,
men did not believe that the earth was round, did they? For
thousands of years, men really did not believe the earth was
round. But it was, although nobody believed
it. I remember when I was a kid, I used to wonder how people on
the side and on the bottom stayed on. I just couldn't handle that. I had it happen. I didn't understand
gravity. I had a hard time believing in
myself. They say that, but how did it
keep from falling off? But what I thought about it had
no bearing on the truth. The earth is round. Thousands of years thought that
the Earth was the center of the universe and everything rotated
around that. People really believe that. Everybody believed it.
But it didn't make it so, did it? The truth is objective. It's not subject to whether you
and I believe it or not. Now, that which was from the
beginning. In the beginning, he already
was. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the same what? Was. In the beginning, with God,
all things were made by Him. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
eternal I Am. Before anything is, He already
was. That's the truth. There was a time when there was
no universe, no matter, no sun, no stars, no galaxies, no planets. Man, with all the high thoughts
he has of himself, was a creature unknown. Where was Christ then? He was with God. And He was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. He said, I had glory with thee
before the world began. He is called in Revelation 13,
8, the Lamb slain. from the foundation of the world. Before there was ever a sinner,
there was a Savior. The same was in the beginning. He was before the beginning.
There was a time when time began. The creation of the world. Where was Christ then? Well,
the scripture tells us all things were made by him. And he is before all things.
And by him, all things consist. He was the one who created the
universe. There was a time when there was
no matter. He willed it, and it was. There was a day when sin entered
the world. There was a time, it's hard for
us to imagine this, but there was a time when there was no
sin in the world. Before the fall of our first
parents in the garden. Then sin entered the world. Where
was Christ then? The very day the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world was revealed at that very time as
the seed of woman that would bruise and crush the serpent's
head. There was a time when the world
was sunk in ignorance and sin and helplessness. Where was Christ
then? The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. You know, the great confession
of the church is that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Remember that
passage of scripture in 1 John chapter 4 says, Whoso confesseth
not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, but
is the spirit of antichrist. Whoso confesseth that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is of God. Now, in that confession, we say
he was before he came. In that confession, we say he
came in the flesh. And in coming in the flesh, he
did what he came to do. What did he come to do? Thou
shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sin. Did he do it? Absolutely. He did it. Mission accomplished. Now, right now, we've been talking
about the past. What about the present? Right
now? Where is he now? He's seated at the right hand
of the Father, ruling and reigning and controlling everything. Somebody
says, I just don't believe that. He's controlling that, too. He
controls everything. He's the Lord, and he's representing
his people. And the future, the time is coming
when we'll all stand before God in judgment. Where will Christ
be then? He'll be the judge. He'll be
the judge. The father has committed all
judgment to the son that all men should honor the son, even
as they honor the father. He'll be the judge. He will judge
those in him and he'll find them not guilty. And he'll judge those
outside of him and he'll find them guilty. He is the judge. Now, that which was in the beginning. That's just the truth. Whether
you believe it or not, doesn't make any difference. Whether
I believe it or not, doesn't make any difference. That is the objective
truth. Christ is the eternal, immortal,
immutable, I am. The same was in the beginning
with God. And that is the truth. You see,
He is the truth. He said, I am the way, the truth. He didn't say, I'll teach you
the truth, or I'll show you the truth. He said, I meant. He's
the truth concerning who God is. All you're ever going to
know about God is Jesus Christ. He's the truth concerning who
you are. If you see who he is, you'll see who you are. You'll
see that in your flesh dwells no good thing. He's the truth
concerning salvation. He is salvation. Now, that is
the objective truth. He is the great I Am. He's the
beginning and the end. He's the first and the last. He's the Alpha and Omega. He's
the author and finisher of our faith. He is Him that is, was,
and is to come. That is Jesus Christ. He is the
truth. I love saying that. He is the
truth. I never came closer to telling
the truth than what I just now said. He is the truth. Now, this is too profound to
be explained. This is inexplicable. It's simply
to be declared and believed. I can't explain how he was in
the beginning. with God, I can only proclaim
it and believe it. Now that is the truth. Now here's
the second point. Our experience. Our experience. This is our subjective experience
of the truth. Now look again in verse one.
That which was from the beginning. Which we've 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,
revealed, and we've seen and bear witness and shown to you
that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested
unto us. Now, here's our subjective experience
of the truth. It begins right here, which we've
heard. Which we've heard. Faith cometh
by what? Hearing. And hearing by the Word
of God. The Lord said, My sheep, hear
my voice. And I know them. And they follow
me. The Lord said in John 8, 47,
he that is of God, heareth God's words. And he said, you therefore
hear not because you're not of God. Somebody says, I don't hear. Then he didn't speak to you.
That's why. He that's of God, heareth God's
The Lord said the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God and they which hear shall
live. Now, have I heard? Have I heard? Now, I've not heard his voice
audibly like John did. You know, when I read these things
that John speaks of, if I look at him simply from a fleshly
point of view, I feel like I can't enter in. I know my hands haven't
handled him the way John did. But I've heard his voice in a
much more powerful way than if I simply heard him audibly. Well,
what do you mean by that? Well, let me show you. Hold your
finger there and turn back to 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 2. First Thessalonians, Chapter
2, verse 13. Now, here's how you can know
if you personally have heard his voice, and that's the voice
I want to hear. First Thessalonians, Chapter
2, verse 13, For this cause also thank we God without ceasing,
because when you receive the word of God, that's what you
receive, the word of God, not man's word, but God's word. When
you receive the word of God, which you heard of us, you received
it, not as the word of men, not as the preacher's opinion, not
as the preacher's view, not as the church's denominational distinctions.
You didn't receive it as the word of men, man's opinion, man's
thought, but as it is in truth. The word of God. Is there anybody
in here that knows that I'm preaching the word of God right now? You
know, it's God's word. It's not Todd's word. It's not
man's word. It's God's word. Now, that's
what it is to hear. You hear the gospel. You know,
it's the gospel of God. You know, it's not the gospel
of man. It's not invented by man. It's not executed by man.
It's God's gospel salvation. is of the Lord, and you know
that so. It's God's Word. Now that's when
you hear from God. You know it's God's Word and
not man's Word. And I can say this with such
confidence. He that is of God, John said,
heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth
not us. Hereby we do know the spirit
of truth and the spirit of error. Our experience begins with hearing. Hearing is word. But look what
he says next. That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes. We've seen him. We've seen him. Now, once again, I've not seen
him physically, nor have you. Somebody who claims they have,
they're liars. They're liars. It's really that simple. But
I've seen him. What do you mean by that? When the Lord was brought to
the temple, when he was eight days old to be circumcised, there
was a man in the temple named Simeon. And he was promised by
the Lord that he would not see death. And that's the same word.
He would not see death. Death was not something he could
look at. What it means is he would not
experience death. Remember, this point is called
experience. He would not experience death until he had seen the Lord
Christ. And they brought the Lord Jesus
to him, and he was only eight days old, but he knew who he
was. God revealed to him who he was. Now, the Lord Jesus could not
talk at that time, but he knew he was the Lord's Christ. And he said, Lord, now let us
now thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Have you seen that he is God's
salvation? That's why Simeon could say,
I'm ready to die. I can depart in peace, for mine
eyes have seen thy salvation. I've seen Christ in the Word.
You know, the first thing that came to my mind when I was thinking
of seeing Christ in the Word, I thought about Abraham walking
up Mount Moriah. And he's walking up with his
boy. And he's going to slay his son. His son is carrying the
wood and the fire, the instrument of his own execution, up a mountain. You know anybody else who did
that? The Lord Jesus Christ bore his own cross up the hill. And his boy looked at him while
they were going up and they said, here's the wood, here's the fire,
but where's the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham replied,
My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. God provided for himself. For him to do something for me,
he had to first do something for himself. He had to honor
his own justice and honor his own law. Sin had to be paid for. God will provide. the land. I can't provide one. God provides
one. God will provide Himself. He is the land for the burnt
offering. You know what? I see the Lord
Jesus Christ in His Word. We've seen Him. Look what it says next in verse
1. Which we have looked upon. We've looked upon. I thought
of that scripture in Hebrews 12, too, looking unto Jesus. The author and the finisher of
our faith. Look unto me and be ye saved.
You see, we know him. We look to him and we trust him.
That's it. We know him. We look to him and
we trust him. Now, how can I know if I really
know him? I've never seen him. I've never heard his voice. How can
I know if I actually know him, that I know the Lord so that
he knows me? How can I know that I know him? Let me give you two things and
tell you for sure whether or not you know him. If you know
him, first of all, you love him. You love him. Now, don't start
thinking about your love. Because when you start thinking
about your love, you start thinking about how puny it is and how
weak it is and how it ought to be. Just forget about it. Don't
think about your love right now. Think about this. Do you love
His sovereignty? Do you love His holiness? Do
you love His justice? Do you love His power? Do you
love His attributes? Do you love Him as He's revealed
in His Word? To know Him is to love Him. You
love everything about Him. And to know Him is to trust Him. If you know Him, here's what
you do. You trust Him. Now, let's think about it. Kelly, if you're going to have
somebody babysit Kara, you're not going to go downtown Lexington
and pick out somebody you don't even know and say, here, I want
to entrust my precious child with you. You're not going to
do that. You only entrust her to somebody you know. Now, if
you know Him, you will entrust the salvation of your soul to
him. You'll let go. You're just hands
off. I'm entrusting, I'm committing
the salvation of my soul to him. You look to him. I love the story
of the brazen serpent. Remember when the children of
Israel murmured and complained that we're sick of this light
bread. We want something else to eat. We're tired of the manna.
The Lord sent fiery serpents to bite the people. And many people died. And they
came to Moses. They said, we've sinned. Pray
for us. Do something for us. We're in trouble. And Moses goes
to the Lord, and the Lord says, you take a serpent of brass and
put it on a pole. And anybody who looks will live. If you look to Christ,
you will live. It doesn't even say see. It says
look. Whosoever looks, lives. He said, look unto me, look unto
me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth. For I am God and
beside me is none else. They looked and they continue
to look, don't they? Look what it says next. And our hands have
handled of the word of life. Now, I used to look at that passage
of scripture and it kind of troubled me because all of my hands hadn't
handled it. I haven't experienced what John experienced. I haven't
been able to lay my head on his breast the way John did. I haven't
been able to enter into this physically. It kind of made me
feel bad. I'm missing out on something. But wait a minute.
You remember what John is speaking to. John is speaking, this is
the last of the epistles. This was written 30 or 40 years
after the last of the Apostle Paul's epistles were written.
And the error that was going on at that time was the error
of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was the chief error. It was that
belief at that time that all matter was evil. Therefore, Christ
couldn't have taken a real body because that would have made
him evil. And we're not going to do that. So he just made a
spiritual appearance, a phantom appearance, but he didn't have
flesh and bone, not real flesh and bone, because that would
have made him sinful. That's called Gnosticism. And John said,
no, we handled it. We handled Him. We touched Him. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Our hands have handled, I like
what he calls Him, of the Word of Life. For Thee life was manifested
and we've seen and bear witness and show unto you that eternal
life. He is eternal life. His life, his obedience, his
law-keeping, his compassion, his obedience to his father,
his life is my life before God. That's what we show, that eternal
life. His righteousness is my righteousness
before God. Now that is our experience. Here's my experience. My experience
is I don't trust my experience. My experience is that his life
is my life before God. That's my experience. That's
what I hold on to. He is eternal life, and that's
my life before God. Now, there's the objective truth,
that which was from the beginning, and there's our experience of
that truth. We've heard him. We've seen him. We understand who he is. We look to him. Our hands have
handled. We've shown that to you. Now, verse 3, here's fellowship. That which we have seen and heard,
declare we unto you. Now, notice he says, we declare
this unto you. That means we speak it publicly. A man doesn't
believe any more than he preaches publicly. And if he doesn't say
it publicly, he does not believe it. Somebody says, well, I don't
know if he believes that. Well, what has he said? You can
know whether he believes it. What does he say publicly? I
like what the Lord said. He said, ask them which heard
me. They can tell you what I preached, what a man declares publicly. He said, now we're declaring
this to you. This is a this is an open declaration for this
purpose. We. That you also may have fellowship
with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his
son, Jesus Christ. Fellowship. Now, fellowship means
a sharing in common. A sharing in common, you know,
when you really got something in common with somebody makes
them special to you, doesn't it? There's a fellow down at
Chris Cunningham's church, his name is Tommy Hampton. And he
had five months before me, he had an esophagectomy. We both
had esophagectomies. And, you know, we have a special
bond. I think I say, hey, he never came to pronounce it. You
know, neither one of us have an esophagus, but that's what I
call it. But there's a special bond there because we've experienced
that same thing sharing in common. Now, notice. John says in verse
three, and truly, and we want you to have fellowship with us
and truly. Truly. Now, why do you use this
word truly, truly? Our fellowship is with the father
and with his son, Jesus Christ. Why does he have to use that
word truly? Well, here's why. Look down verse six of the same
chapter. If we say. That we have fellowship
with him, I have communion with God. You know, part of fellowship
is communion. That means if I fellowship with
him, I speak to him and he speaks to me. That's what happened in
fellowship. There's a true communion. You
speak to God and he hears you and he speaks to you from his
word. Now, if someone claims this thing of fellowship, I have
fellowship with God, yet he walks in darkness. What's he doing? He's lying. He's lying and he's
not practicing the truth. Nothing to him. Now, when he's
talking about walking in darkness, He's talking about walking in
darkness as to how God saves sinners. That's what that's a
reference to. And verse 7 bears that out. Look, if we walk in the light,
the light of how God saves sinners. Remember when he said, I am the
light of the world in John 8, verse 12? What did he say before
that? He said to that woman, who was
caught in adultery in the very act. He said, Woman, where are
those nine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She
said, No man, Lord. He said, Neither do I condemn
thee. Go and sin no more. I am the
light of the world. I am the light as to have God
cannot condemn me when I'm guilty and make it to where it's the
just and right thing to do. The light of how he accepts sinners,
receives sinners, saves sinners for Christ's sake. Now, if I
walk in darkness regarding how he saves sinners and I make a
claim of fellowship with him, I'm a liar, I'm a hypocrite,
I don't do the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, verse 7, we have fellowship with one
another. And the blood of Jesus Christ,
his son, cleanses us from all sin. Now, sharing in common,
first of all, we share some things in common with God. We have fellowship
with God, we have fellowship with the living God. What do
you share in common with God? Well, we share the same righteousness. His righteousness is my righteousness
before God. We share in nature. Second Peter
1, 4 says you're partakers of the divine nature. When you were
given a new nature. It didn't come from the flesh.
That which is born of the flesh is what? Flesh. That which is
born of the spirit is spirit. You're given the very divine
nature. Explain that? No way. I can't
explain that. It's mysterious to me. I wouldn't
say something like that if it wasn't in the word, but there
it is. We we have the same desire. Christ. The father's desire is that in
all things he has the preeminence. That's what I desire to. The
father desires his glory. I desire his glory, too. We have
the same object of faith as God. God looks to his son for everything. He looks to his son to save you.
He doesn't look for a thing in you. He looks to his son to save
you. And you know what? I look to
his son to save me. We have the same faith. You see,
there's fellowship with God. Isn't it wonderful to have fellowship
with God? And you know, we have fellowship
with one another, too. You know, right now, what this
is, right now, this is fellowship, isn't it? This is fellowship. Fellowship
around the gospel. Do you see the righteousness
of Christ as your only righteousness before God, and you prize that,
you treasure it? I do, too. We have something
in common, don't we? Do you see Christ as altogether
lovely? I do, too. If you love Aubrey,
yeah, I love you. I do. Anybody who loves Aubrey,
I love. Anybody who loves Christ, I love. There's a true, you know,
we we have the same object of faith. Christ, we we have same
nature, too. I mean, we're closer than blood.
We're partakers of the divine nature. We're truly brothers
and sisters in Christ. We're members of the same body.
What fellowship we have in the gospel. Oh, and it's a sweet,
sweet fellowship. John says, I'm writing, you might
have fellowship with us. Truly, our fellowship is with
the father, with his son, Jesus Christ. And I want that fellowship,
don't you? Truly, we're fellows in the same
ship. And people who have fellowship
love one another. They love one another. That's part of the mystery
of the gospel. And look at verse 4. Here's the
outcome of all this. And these things write we unto
you, that your joy may be full, may be complete. And this is
the Lord's will for me and you. Fullness of joy. That's the Lord's will for me
and you. Now, quite often we don't have
fullness of joy in our experience, do we? Unbelief. Sin. Sin robs you of your joy, doesn't
it? I know it does. What do you think David was talking
about when he said, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation? And listen, it's not somebody
else's sin that robs me of my joy. It's my sin. But we can
have this fullness of joy, even if our circumstances are horrible. Remember Habakkuk, the fig tree
not inviting? We read that recently. All the
bad stuff that was going on, not one good thing was happening.
But he said, yeah, well, I rejoice in the God of my salvation. Fullness
of joy. Now, where does a believer's
joy come from? I want to always have this fullness
of joy speaking out. Where does a believer's joy come
from? First, in the revealed truth
of the gospel. What do you mean by that? For
instance, Romans 9 and 11, talking about
election, says the children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, that salvation might have nothing to do with works,
but of him that called. You know what? That gives me
joy. I'm so thankful that it doesn't
have anything to do with good or bad, simply God's purpose,
God's will. That gives me joy. The truth
of justification. That I really don't have any
sin before God. That I stand before God. This
excites me so much right now thinking about it. I stand before
God perfect. Without guilt. Without sin. Not guilty. My sin was put away. Christ's righteousness is mine.
And I stand faultless before God. That gives me joy. Oh, the power of His blood, the
blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. That gives me joy. You see, joy
comes from revealed truth. And it's that revealed truth believed.
It's that revealed truth acted upon. For instance, if you believe
right now, if you believe that Christ is your salvation, if
you see him and you're relying on him as all you need to make
you accepted before a thrice holy God, you have joy. Right now, you have joy. Your circumstances may be miserable,
but you still have the joy of the Lord. You can't repent. You can't have your mind change.
You can't change your mind and not do so joyously. Isn't it
a blessing when the Lord changes your mind about something concerning
him? You can't love and not have joy.
You love Christ. You're rejoicing. You can't have
hope. Oh, the blessed hope we have
for the future. All things are a mess right now.
I know it, but it ain't going to last much longer. And I'm
going to stand before God perfect. And that makes me joyous. There's
joy. And there's joy in practice,
rejoicing the Lord. You know, the Lord said in John
chapter 13, verse 17, if you know these things, happier you
if you what? Do them. If you do, oh, there's such joy
in doing what the Lord says, believing, he says to believe,
believe. I thought this scripture is more
blessed to give than to receive. If you give, you're more blessed.
You experience more joy. Truth. That which was from the beginning.
That's just the truth. Subjective experience, which
we've heard, which we've seen, which we've looked upon and our
hands have handled. And what comes out of that subjective
experience that we have? Fellowship with God and with
one another. And what comes out of that? Fullness
of joy. Let's pray.