Wednesday, June 14, 2023 PM

Well-fed and satisfied. If there's anything left in the silver percolator over here, it's the good stuff. It's the smaller one. It's, uh, so just so you know. We, during the summer, we're not having TAG, so when we finish with our devotional time, we encourage the children to go sit with their parents and be a part of their prayer group.

And as we talked about in TAG, kids, if you remember from TAG, when we're having our prayer time, you may not know all of the prayer requests, but you can pick at least one that you do know about that you can pray for, okay?

That is the plan. All right, we're going to open our Bibles now and look over to 1 John chapter 1 and look at verses 1 through 4. That'll be our study for tonight. Let's begin with the word of prayer.

Father, I thank you so much for this day. I thank you for the many blessings that you have in our lives these last few days. We thank you for gathering us together again. We thank you for your faithfulness.

We thank you for the hope that you have given to us, the love that you have poured out into our lives through your Son, Jesus Christ, and by the gift of your Holy Spirit. We pray now that you would bless our reading of your word and help us to rejoice in your Son, Jesus Christ.

It is in his name that we pray, amen. All right, 1 John chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. 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, concerning the word of life.

The life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declared to you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. Now, right at the very beginning of this letter, the Apostle John is telling his readers who he's going to talk about, what he's going to talk about, why it matters, what it looks like.

And he seems awfully keen on emphasizing what? Yes, that the word of life, the gift of eternal life, the word of life, the life that was manifested from the Father, by whom we may have relationship with God, was someone who, from the beginning, was heard, seen, looked upon, touched.

So, this is going to be a very important message for everybody with whom John might speak. Let's say he's situated in Ephesus. Let us say he has a prolonged ministry there. And there is a robust synagogue of Jews, and there is a robust pagan worship.

Great is Diana of the Ephesians. A city filled with pagans and with Jews. And John is emphasizing that eternal life, that salvation, is wrapped up in a person who, from all eternity, was life, but was manifested, was revealed in the flesh.

Somebody you could see and talk to and touch, somebody who was real as is real can be in the flesh. And yet, he was, from all eternity, life. Now, this sounds a little bit like the opening of his gospel, doesn't it?

The Word of Life and the Incarnation in John 1

John chapter 1. And there, where he is planning to take a little bit more room, give a little bit a little bit more space to his thoughts, we have a more developed expression of exactly what he's saying here.

Now, in John chapter 1, he also speaks of the beginning, but not the beginning of John's witness, not the beginning of John's witnessing of Jesus of Nazareth, but the beginning of everything. So, John chapter 1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it, or did not overcome it.

Now, in the first chapter of John, he starts in a similar fashion, focusing on the Word, but he brings their themes that he's already talked about in his gospel, because we move down through the theme of John chapter 1, and we hear of this Word, who was in the beginning with God, who is God, who as God made all things, and we read in John 1 .14 that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

So, all of that is compressed here at the beginning of his letter. Speaking of, you'll notice the Word, the eternal life, the Word of Life, who was with the Father, John 1 .1, the Word who was with God and was God from all the beginning, but who was manifested to us, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld, see, the Word of Life was manifested to us through the incarnation.

And so, he is very keen on emphasizing that the Word of Life, who was with the Father from eternity past, has now been manifested to us, and John said, I saw him, I heard him speak with his own voice, I laid my head on his chest, right?

I touched him. So, this is important for two reasons for John's audience. One reason is that the large worldview assumption in which he was operating, the Hellenistic culture, the Greek culture, as they dealt with a constant assumption of dualism, that everything material and fleshly was corrupted and bad, having its source in that which was evil and corrupted.

The reason why the world existed was because the evil gods battled one another and fought with one another and basically vomited our existence here, and, well, we are miserable because of that, right?

Trying to explain why things aren't the way they should be. Well, what's the escape? What's the salvation? What's the way to get out of this is to become all the more ethereal and spiritual and mystical and your flesh doesn't matter.

And so, this led into various Greek philosophical schools of thought, such as the Stoics and the Epicureans and so on, who would say, well, what happens to the flesh doesn't matter, so don't get upset about it, be a Stoic, or what the flesh is doesn't matter, so spend it however you want to, waste your life in exuberance, it doesn't matter, Epicureans, so it didn't matter.

So, it's a surprise and a foolishness to talk about God taking upon human flesh, and that salvation is through one who was fully God and fully man. That's foolishness to the Greek, and it's a stumbling block to the Jews.

It's a stumbling block to the Jews. Foolishness to the Greeks, if there was a really truly holy spiritual man who escaped the flesh, why would he be raised from the dead again? Why would he take back upon the corporeal flesh that you're trying to escape from?

That's foolishness, but it's a stumbling block to the Jews as well, because how can God himself show up in the human flesh and be called his son and call upon God as his father, and yet himself say, I and the father are one, but he himself said, he said of himself, I am, several times, I am.

So, that's a stumbling block to the Jews, that the word of life would be manifested in the flesh. Their word of life in the corrupted expression of Second Temple Judaism, their word of life was the keeping of the law according to the rabbinical standards.

Keep the law, keep the law, keep the law, keep the law, keep up with keeping up with keeping up with keeping the law. That was your word of life. Jesus says, you search the scriptures because in them you think you find eternal life.

In other words, you're searching the writings, and you're searching the law, and you're searching for that system by which you think that you obtain eternal life. He says, but it is these that testify of me.

They had the scriptures, they had a word, they considered it to be their word of life by which they had life as a people. Their whole hope of salvation was their fidelity to the law. But Jesus says, no, it is these that testify of me.

Paul would later lament about his brethren that they had a zeal about God, but not according to knowledge, because they didn't know the one about whom the scriptures were all about. A veil lay over their hearts as they read.

But the veil is taken away in Christ. A little bit later on in 1 John, he will actually identify the Antichrist as the one who denies that God the Son has come in the flesh, that the Messiah came in the flesh.

The ones who deny that Christ came in the flesh, that's the Antichrist. Well, that was certainly the claim of everybody who rejected the way, rejected Jesus, but it was especially the claim of the Jews.

No, the Messiah had not come in the flesh. No, Jesus of Nazareth was not the Christ, the Son of the living God. Can't possibly be so. They denied that. Now, notice that John, although we understand his concern given his audience, simply emphasizes the reality of Jesus of Nazareth, that he is the eternal life who was with the Father and was manifested to us.

He really came. He was real. I am a personal witness of this. I declare it to you that the one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, he has come. And John, as his witness, is testifying to those facts.

He's testifying to the reality of the good news of Jesus. So, John understands his role. He understands his task according to the commission that Christ has given him. So, verse 3, that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you.

That was his role. That's his job. But what we have seen and heard, we declare to you. What's his purpose? What's his goal? What's to say? Right. So, in verse 4, he says, and these things we write to you that your joy may be full.

To complete your joy, that your joy may be full. But our joy is not full simply because we have heard a first-hand, first-hand witness account of very important things that have happened. That doesn't complete our joy.

Now, that's very interesting to hear first-hand accounts of very important historical events. That's compelling. You know, oh, you were there. That's compelling, but that doesn't complete our joy. So, although this is the outcome, this is the approach, this is the desire of John, what comes before that?

It's fellowship. That's right. Fellowship. What we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. So, understanding that our joy is made complete, brought into fullness, our joy is robust in what? Our fellowship in Christ, with Christ. We have a fellowship together in Christ, a fellowship together, fellowship with one another, which is vital to our joy being full.

And it's a fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except by me. And our joy, as those who are made in the image of God, cannot be made full if we are not in fellowship with the One who made us.

And we cannot be in fellowship with the One who made us without him giving us his Son for us and for our salvation in the flesh, for our sake in our place, serving as our righteousness, our redemption, our resurrection.

But notice how we have that fellowship. It is by this declaration of what John heard, what he saw, what he handled. Not simply his own personal point of view, because he says the life was manifested, meaning that God put on display the eternal life in human flesh in such a way, in a particular fashion.

So it wasn't John's opinion which he's declaring. He is relaying the truth, the good news, as God manifested it. In other words, John is preaching the word about the word. He's preaching the good news about Jesus Christ.

And this is why he's writing. This is what he wants them to know, that those to whom he is writing may have fellowship with us, he says. A fellowship indeed with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

In other words, we can't have fellowship with one another and with God through Christ if we do not know, or if we reject, or if we do not believe what God has manifested, Jesus Christ. The word became flesh.

So we have to receive the testimony, the declaration of who Christ is, what he came to do. We have to believe what God has manifested about his Son if we're going to have fellowship through his Son with the Father.

We don't have fellowship with God except by Christ, and we don't know who Christ is except by that which was declared. This is John saying, you're saved by faith alone. You're saved by faith alone. You have fellowship with God by believing, agreeing with, confessing, rejoicing in, giving the soul-filled amen to the testimony of Jesus Christ.

That's how we have fellowship. That is our koinonia. That is how we come together. John starts off with what is most basic, most essential. The heart of everything is not what we have experienced. It is not how we feel.

It is not about what just anybody might have to say is truth or the good life. It is what God has manifested about his Son. That which has been declared, the faith once for all delivered to the saints, that has been declared from the scriptures generation upon generation upon generation.

To this day, we have fellowship with one another based upon this gospel. We have fellowship with God through his Son based upon this gospel. This is the rock upon which Christ is building his church, is this testimony, this manifestation of this life.

And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. You see, the gospel of Jesus Christ, his person and work, our fellowship with one another, and our fellowship with God is not a really great starting point for a good life.

This is the missing ingredient to somebody who says, you know, I'm just not really fulfilled. This is actually fundamentally, thoroughly what we need if our joy is going to be full. Christ, his Son Jesus Christ, the eternal life which was with the Father manifested to us, this word of life, our fellowship with him means we have fellowship with one another and with God, because he's the mediator.

If we have fellowship with Christ, it means we have fellowship with God and with one another. This is so that our joy may be full. We don't need someone else than Christ, and we don't need something other than being given the testimony of him and believing it, rejoicing in it.

This is where our joy is made full. Questions or thoughts? When we are in fellowship with Christ, what does that look like? That's where moving forward in the text, moving down through verses five and following in the letter, there is a walking in the light.

Of course, the expression of walking, that's generally how they got around. You might have a donkey for a long trip, but basically, you were walking. Very rare that you'd be sailing or riding. You're going to be walking.

This is your normal course of life, and so it is not simply that you would have an intellectual knowledge of these things, but it is a life of walking in the light. When you consider that passage, what you see is that your joy is not full by you getting it right in your life.

Your joy is made full because Christ got it right. And there is a contrast for those who walk in darkness. Those who walk in darkness say, I don't have any sin or I have not sinned, versus those who walk in the light, who confess their sins and look to Christ for cleansing and forgiveness, and see him and understand him as the propitiation for their sins.

Walking with him. Because it's righteous, it's not ours. And this is not anything different than what Jesus said in John 15, about what it means to abide in him, to understand who he is, confessing who he is, rejoicing in who he is, walking with him.

We experience the joys of our salvation in our obedience. Again, obedience isn't getting everything right, because some of your obedience is confessing you got it wrong. Going back to the cross again and again and again.