Proclaim Jesus (1 John 1:1-4)

Proclaiming Christ Against Gnostic Error

Good morning, everyone. Glad everybody made it safe and sound. Thanks for showing up. You might not have done that, you know, and I would have been here, right? We're gonna be in the book of 1 John today.

And if you wanna turn there, we'll begin in that book. It's an amazing book, actually. And it's one of the favorite books that I have gone through in my life. It was very instrumental along with the gospel of John when the Lord was drawing me to himself so many years ago.

And it's probably resonated with me because it's simple. I need simple. I really do need simple. And so we're gonna jump in today. We're gonna be looking at some introductory work, kind of some background a little bit.

And then also we're gonna be looking at the first four verses. So we're gonna read that right now. What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the word of life.

And the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us. What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us.

And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write so that our joy may be made complete. Before we dive in though, let's go to the Lord with a word of prayer if you don't mind.

Father, we love you and praise you and we thank you for the beauty that we see all around us here in Sandpoint, Idaho. We love you and praise you. And we're thankful so much that you gave us this book, Lord, that has stood the test of time, that has given us the ability to know Christ, to have the wisdom and understanding that comes from the scriptures is amazing.

Help us, Lord, to glean your words, to bring it to our minds and our hearts and to help us to teach one another and to teach those that just don't know you, Lord. There's so many, it seems, that need to hear the life-saving words of your truth.

And Lord, help us to do that today, to understand it. And it just seems like the days are drawing nearer and nearer to your coming back again, Lord. And we want to share this gospel truth with as many people as we possibly can.

So we just commit it to you, Lord, go before us now in Jesus' name, amen. 1 John, as you probably already know, was written by the same John that wrote the Gospel of John. He also wrote 2 and 3 John and the Book of Revelation.

And the epistles were written to specific audiences, of course. They were written to teach, they were written to instruct, and they were written for error, to correct some kind of error that was going on in the church at the time.

You can look at books like Philippians. You can see Paul was addressing there, the preaching, those that were preaching out of envy and strife through personal ambition rather than pure motives. At issue also was antinomianism, the belief that there are moral laws that God expects, there are no moral laws that God expects Christians to obey.

And then you have in Galatians, a false gospel that was being preached by the Judaizers were teaching others to live according to Jewish customs. So there was different kinds of teaching going on in the epistles.

And 1 John is no different. There's instruction, there is encouragement, and there is an addressing of error. You see that very clearly. Now, the background of the book of John is interesting to me. It was written later, like 80, 90 is where we see that.

And it was written by the apostle John, as I already mentioned. And a lot of transpired since the teaching, or excuse me, since Christ died in 33. You saw in the fall of Jerusalem in 80, 70. I mean, the saints were pretty much scattered abroad at that point.

And so at the time that 1 John was written here, John was the only living apostle. He's the only living apostle. He was much younger man when he was with the Savior, of course, in those many years ago.

And now he's up in years somewhere around 80 probably is what we know about that. John had experience and he had wisdom. And that came across clearly in his writing. Age has a way of doing that, right?

Crystallizing the most important things. I see that more and more as my hair gets gray. I don't do as many dumb things as I used to do. And so I'm trying to phase that out of there, but age tempers us.

And we tend to look at things differently than when we were young. I love how the Lord uses the personalities of the individual writers of scripture. John being up in years, you can kind of hear it in his voice, that fatherly, that pastoral voice that he has.

If you look at 1 John 2 there, it says in verse one, my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. A pastor or a father would write something like that, wouldn't he? I mean, you'd look at your kids or you look at your flock and say, please don't sin.

Please don't sin. He no doubt over the many years saw the devastating effects of sin, right? I mean, all those years, all those scattered flock, everything, he's probably saw that. He said, but if you do sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

It's also believed that Ephesus was the headquarters of John where he actually wrote the book of 1 John. Ephesus had a history. It is believed that Paul started the church there on his second missionary journey.

In the early years in Ephesus, we saw things that so many things amazing were happening at the time. In Acts chapter 19 verse 11, it says that Paul was performing many miracles and many confessed their sins.

And then further down in the verse 19, it says those that were practicing magic came and burned their books. I mean, there was a lot happening at the time that the church was beginning. I mean, there was just a lot of good things happening.

But however, sometime later on, it seemed that the church began to go into decline. And we know that because over in Revelation chapter two, to the seven churches, John writes these words in chapter two.

He says, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance and that you cannot endure evil men. He says, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not. And you found them to be false.

And you have perseverance and have endured for my namesake and have not grown weary. So far so good, right? But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. You've left your first love.

Then came the warning, you continue on and you're not gonna be a church anymore. He says, I'm gonna remove your lampstand if you don't repent. The church needs love and it needs doctrine, needs truth.

The church in Ephesus seems to have started to gone downhill but that wasn't really unusual because it seemed like we can read all of Asia Minor was also having the same problem because in 2 Timothy 2 .15, it says, you are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia Minor, or excuse me, just Asia, turned away from me.

When life in the faith got tough, everyone abandoned ship, it seemed like. They were on their own way instead of following the way. You could say the same thing is happening in the church today, couldn't you?

You could look all across the landscape of our churches today. And you can see that the churches are not necessarily hating all of the things that God hates, abortion, homosexuality. You don't see church discipline being done anymore.

There's a lot of people that are in the church, but they're not really of the church. They are abandoning for some reason. And then in 2 Timothy even further on down, just a little further down in 2 Timothy, Paul wanted people to come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

And then in chapter three, even says this, that the people were always learning and never able to come to the truth. You ever know anybody like that? I mean, you give them the answers of Jesus, you talk to them, you answer those questions and they say, yeah, but what about this?

And you give them the truth and it's, what about that? That's kind of what was happening in Asia Minor, is that the saints had started off well, but they were abandoning. So you kind of get a sense of the writing of 1 John, what was happening in Ephesus and Asia Minor and to where this letter was going.

It's a backdrop to what we are going to be studying today. The book had purpose, had purpose. If you turn over to 1 John chapter five, when I read that, 1 John chapter 5 .13 says this, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

That would be an amazing news to saints that were being scattered all over the place that the church was faltering. It would be really important to know that these things I have written to you, John says, so you know you have eternal life.

I mean, isn't that such a gift to us all that we know that we have eternal life? The letter also has a clear emphasis on the characteristics of a believer. If you turn back to chapter two, we're gonna read that.

1 John chapter two, verses three and four. It says, by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. The one who says I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.

That's important to know when you consider any church to be able to look very simply and easily and say, that's the characteristics of a believer. I mean, can you imagine in Asia Minor, people defecting from the faith for a variety of different reasons?

It would be good to know what does a believer look like? Well, John talks about that and we're gonna be getting into that, hopefully in the weeks to come. We also see that John wrote to confront false teaching that was infiltrating the church in the form of Gnosticism.

You've probably heard this term and this word before, but Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, which basically means to know. It means to know. They claimed to be the superior thinkers. They were the ones who had the higher knowledge of life and spiritual things.

This knowledge was limited to the select few though. This wasn't to anybody. Anybody could attain that status. The only glaring problem that I see with this is that it wasn't based on anything biblical.

That's the problem, right? The knowledge that they had gained, it was through their own intellect and through mysticism. So that was infiltrating. They also taught that matter is evil and spirit is good.

That matter is evil. Everything that we see in this world is evil and the spirit is good. I mean, taken to its logical conclusion then, since Jesus had a physical body and he could not have been God, he would have been evil.

That's the problem, right? This is the heresy that was infiltrating. This is an attack on the humanity and the deity of Christ. That's what that is. He could not be fully God and fully man at the same time.

Don't we see that at the heart of almost every religion today, Jesus, everything rests on him. Is he God or just a man? You can go down through Mormonism. You can go down through Jehovah's Witness. You can go down through all these religions and it all hinges on who is Jesus.

You can imagine that when you separate the physical world from the spiritual, it only causes more problems, right? It would be easy to look at the physical body knowing that it's evil and to say, well, I mean, you can't really hold me accountable, right?

I mean, what can I say? I mean, my body's evil. So I do all these evil things. I mean, what can I say, right? You can see how the licentiousness and sin would abound with that kind of philosophy. You can see that.

My physical body sins. That doesn't affect my spiritual life though, is what they say. My physical life, hey, I can go over here and do all the things I need to do and sin and do whatever, but my spiritual life, I'm good.

I'm good. That's a form of compartmentalizing and I don't think that's healthy. So all of that really to bring us back to the opening verses of 1 John. So what was from the beginning? What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the word of life.

And the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us. And what we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us.

And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write so that our joy may be made complete. Notice that John just begins the book very abruptly, doesn't he?

I mean, he doesn't use any kind of an introduction. He's not writing to one specific individual. He just really jumps right into it. But I thought to myself, when you're dealing with error, what's the best approach?

When dealing with error, what is the best approach? Well, to me, you confront error with truth. And is there any greater truth than that of Christ? There any greater truth than that? So John starts there.

He starts addressing the gnostic error with the very person of Christ. Now, I wanna bring to your attention something here because if you look down, all the way down into verse three, it says this, look at the word proclaim.

And the life was manifested, we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life. You get all the way down there, that's what is the heart of this matter today, is that what John has seen from the beginning, what he has heard, what he has handled and touched, that's what he's proclaiming.

That's what he is proclaiming. And I think that's an important note because we're gonna be talking a little bit about that. It's the subject of the message, Christ. So what was from the beginning, we see the same language in the gospel of John, right?

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God. And it said the word was God. Remember that? In John 1, what was from the beginning is what we have seen and heard from the beginning of what? Well, we can say creation for sure.

I mean, Christ was before creation. But I think in the context here, we could also say it's the beginning of the gospel. I mean, I think that fits here very well, the beginning of the gospel, because I mean, think about it, what we have seen, what we have looked at, what we have handled.

I mean, all these things pertain to Christ in the beginning of his life, and therefore the beginning of the gospel. So I think it fits very well in the context of this passage that we're talking about the beginning of the gospel.

It was the word that became flesh and dwelt among us. When you get to the beginning, the word was already in existence is the idea. When you get to the beginning, the word was already in existence.

Love that.

Eyewitness Testimony to the Word of Life

John's testimony in this interacted with the word of God in four different ways that we see. First, what we have heard. I mean, that's pretty basic, right? But I can't tell you how many times I've told my kids, don't believe everything you hear.

Said that a number of times, don't believe everything you hear. So there's a second level, right? What we have seen with our eyes. What we have seen with our eyes. That brings another layer of credibility to it, doesn't it?

Because you didn't just hear it now, you actually saw it with your own eyes. And that word to see is perceiving. The word is implying not a mere act of seeing, but John's seeing and really understanding Christ.

I mean, that's a different level. And then he goes to the third component. It says that we beheld. We beheld him. Your NASB or whatever you're looking at might say looked, but we beheld. It's to gaze upon something that kind of, you know, gets your mind and your conscience going.

And it's not just a mere, oh, hey, I just glanced over there and saw that. No, he gazed upon him. I can imagine that kind of gazing was being done. And when John was viewing the transfiguration, if he was actually seeing anything, because he was probably on his face worshiping the Lord, but to behold is to view attentively.

And it's more than just looking. And then fourth, it says, and our hands have handled. John actually handled the word of life. I mean, that's pretty amazing. When you think about John leaning on Jesus' breast.

I mean, in John chapter 13, everything that John mentioned speaks really of a physical body, doesn't it? Speaks of a physical body. Now that's before his death. Yeah, sure, he had a physical body before death, but what about after death?

Was it just spirit or was it a physical body? Well, Luke chapter 24, 39 says, see my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Touch me and see for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have, right?

This proves that Jesus was more than a spirit, was more than a spirit. Even after the resurrection, he had a physical body that could be touched and handled. Jesus wasn't some Casper the ghost, where you reach through and try to grab him and you just grab air.

No, he wasn't like that at all. Jesus himself says, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones. John here hits right at the heart of the Gnostic heresy, doesn't he? Comes right after it. Remember their belief was that matter was evil and the spirit was good, that Jesus couldn't be God because he had a physical body.

That was the idea. John crushes their argument by proving that from his eyewitness account, his firsthand testimony that Jesus did in fact have a human body and that he was divine as well. To confront error, you do so with this kind of truth.

You do so with this kind of truth. That moves us to verse two. And the life was manifested. Is there any, I should ask, is there any questions? Verse one. Get going and I forget to ask questions. Is there anything there?

All right. Verse two. And the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father and was manifested to us. It says the life was manifested.

John's message is that we proclaim the life, that which was manifested. We're supposed to proclaim the life that which is manifested. When we say the life was manifested though, what does that word convey?

The word manifest. It is to reveal something that already exists. To reveal something that already exists. I love that because Christ certainly was coming into existence, but he existed before, right?

That's beautiful. He was manifested. He was revealed to us through a physical body. Jesus is the ultimate reality, isn't he? I mean, he's the ultimate reality. The ultimate reality entered this world in human flesh for human eyes to hear or for eyes to see, to hear and to touch.

All of the reality really begins and ends with Christ, doesn't it? I like what the KJV kind of lays out for this verse as well. It puts a little twist on it where it says, for the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness to it.

It bears witness to it. The NASB has testimony, but I like the idea of the witness. To bear witness. Someone that testifies or bears witness is someone that is committed to that truth. Someone that's committed to that truth.

John the Baptist, for example, he came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. That word witness though, it's an interesting word. It's the same word that we get the word martyr from.

Same word we get the word martyr from. So John the Baptist was a witness to the truth and he was also a martyr. I like that. So verse two says the life was manifested. And then later on in that verse, it says, and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life.

The life was manifested. The physical body of Jesus, who is the word of life, is the one being manifested. He's the one being manifested. That life, that message, it says is eternal life and is what we are proclaiming to you now.

John's eyewitness testimony is about the message of Jesus. It's about Christ and it's about that message, about the gospel that brings life. He gave life to that message. To his disciples, he said, hey, go out and preach the gospel to all people.

We should be doing the same thing. Gnosticism though here is again, John is hitting at the heart of it. That Jesus is human and he is divine. There is no mistaking that Jesus is human and divine here.

The eternal life came down in human form. John comes back to Jesus' pre-existence with the father. Christ was with the father. You see that in verse two there. In eternity past, but then was manifested to us.

It was manifested to us. Something that already existed was being brought into being. The word of life, that which is eternal, the one who was with the father is the subject of what was manifested to us.

Jesus is physical in nature and he is divine. He's not simply a spirit, but he is God incarnate, isn't he? So you see, John continues to develop the strongest defense possible against the Gnostic heresy, that the physical world was evil.

Physical world couldn't be evil if Jesus was God. Moving on to verse three. Is there any questions on verse two? All right, verse three. What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also so that you too may have fellowship with us.

And indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. So the goal and result of proclaiming the gospel is that it achieves fellowship. I really think that's beautiful because it's what we long for.

You know, there are a million kinds of clubs out there that all seem to want to bring us into some kind of a fellowship. I mean, there's car clubs, there's knitting clubs, probably all kinds of different clubs, but all of them are designed to kind of create fellowship, aren't they?

All of them seem to be that way. I mean, I belong to a club called the Coeur d 'Alene Bowmen because I like to archery hunt. And so I go to this club and, you know, we all get our bow and arrows out and we shoot.

And, you know, it's designed to have fellowship, you know, but you know what, I can go to that club and I really don't have fellowship. I mean, I go, I shoot, I do this thing. I'm around other people that are doing that thing, but I don't really have the deep fellowship, you know, that I probably would desire.

I mean, I could go to any kind of a business Christmas party, for example, be around a lot of people and I could still not have fellowship, you know? And I think the greatest expression of fellowship that we have is in Christ.

I mean, this is the deepest level of fellowship that we can have. And that's beautiful because I can tell you, without it, it's a struggle. So the Greek word for fellowship is called koinonia, called koinonia.

And it means to share in common. It means to share in common. The act of sharing in the activities, kind of like what we're doing now, we're sharing everything in common, we're getting together. And I like it because koinonia is expressed in three different ways in the New Testament, that fellowship.

First, God has called us into fellowship with himself. John says that our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 1 .9, it says, God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship.

You see, God is the one calling us into fellowship. It says, God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. The primary focus of our Christian life is having fellowship with God and with each other.

Without a relationship with God, people are lost. I mean, sin separates people from God, doesn't it? The unbelievers. That is the reason for us to go out and witness. It's to go out and share this news of the gospel of Christ.

It's to bring those that really need it, that are broken and hurting, bring them into the fellowship with Christ and with the brethren. Jesus commissioned the disciples to do it, and he also commissioned us to do it.

We're supposed to have an answer for everyone that asks us for the hope that lies within us. And if we do that, who knows, God might save them. But from the beginning of time, it is clear God wants relationship.

Adam and Eve, Moses, he chose the nation Israel. Christ dying on the cross to bring us in relationship with him. Positional use of koinonia in the New Testament is seen in John chapter 15. I love this because for me, it really paints the picture.

I'm very visual and I need that, about what fellowship and what relationship is to our Savior. John chapter 15, verses one through six, we're gonna look at that. It says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Remain in me and I in you, just as the branch cannot bear fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned.

I mean, that fellowship, that closeness that we have with the Savior, he's brought us into this. Those that he loves, he says he prunes them. He interacts with our souls. I mean, he connects with us on such a level that you can't find that in a car club.

You find that in the person and the fellowship of Christ. That's the beauty of that, isn't it? Another way that Koinonia is expressed in the New Testament is that verse three and also verse seven is referring to here, is that the result of living in Christ demands that we live honestly.

I think if we live honestly, keep a short list of sin, we cannot deny sin in our lives, but we can confess it. We keep a short list. You know, sin doesn't separate, sin, I should say, separates unbelievers from God.

But sin in a believer's life does not separate us from God. We are in constant fellowship with God, no matter whether we sin or we don't sin. And that's this challenge, right, is it's so grievous when we sin.

I hate it, sorry,.

Mainly because that I know that it grieves my Savior, and I don't like that. We want to keep a short list of sin, we want to focus on Him, because that fellowship can never be broken with Christ, no matter what we're doing.

And third, it says that John, basically, it's for fellowship with others. Koinonia, fellowship with others. It's a relationship that we have with each other. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

That's Acts 2 .42. So they had all things in common. I mean, that's what a relationship and fellowship with Jesus produces in our lives.

We don't care.

We want to share, we want to build up the body, we do whatever is necessary. I mean, fellowship with the saints is vital, like we're doing today, it's very special. Remember when we lost those privileges earlier this year?

We didn't come to church, we listened to Jim online every Sunday. I mean, it's just not the same as being here. I remember that Sunday in May, when we came back, you know, I'm not a big Twitter fan, but, you know, I wrote this on Twitter that day.

I said, church today reminded me how precious it is to gather with the saints, worship, hymns, fantastic sermon, precious communion time, all the God's glory, freedom, never take it for granted again.

I mean, you know, my 30 followers on Twitter, you know, liked that three times and I got shared once. I was pretty excited about that. But it was refreshing to be among the saints, right? I mean, we fellowship together and we share things that we have in common.

It's a common bond that we all have together. It's the reason we enjoy fellowship together. When I got saved, I mean, I didn't care anything before I got saved about coming to church and the saints, I could care less.

But after I got saved, you know what? I was in church every Sunday. I went every Sunday evening. I went every Wednesday. I went for every special service. I went for every potluck. It's the reason why I hate goulash.

And I just wanted to be among the saints. It didn't matter to me because I wanted to learn about the Lord. So that fellowship, that koinonia is about that. And then we'll close here with verse four. These things we write that our joy may be made complete.

I don't know about you, but the fellowship with the Savior puts something inside of you, that inner strength, that joy, that can't be just found anywhere. It says, these things we write so that our joy may be made complete.

Something happens when Christ is proclaimed. When he is known among the people and they come to him, the result is that they have joy. Martin Lloyd-Jones sums up joy in a nice way in his book, The Life of Christ.

I couldn't think of any better way to sum this up. He says, joy is something very deep and profound, something that affects the whole and entire personality. In other words, it comes to this. There is only one thing that can give true joy, and that is contemplation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He satisfies my mind. He satisfies my emotions. He satisfies my every desire. He and his great salvation include the whole personality and nothing less. And in him, I am complete. Joy, in other words, is the response and the reaction of the soul to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, close quote.

I love that. I love that. Because no matter what's happening on the outside of our world, no matter what, you have that strength, that inner joy inside of you that no one can take away. You can take my house, my car, whatever it is, but you can't take that joy from me that the Savior gives.

That's beautiful. Joy is experienced when we obey Christ. These things I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full. That's John 15, 11. Love that. David knew the joy which John mentions.

He said, in thy presence is fullness of joy. Psalm 16, 11. I will tell you this, sin always promises sorrow. Or joy, I should say. Sin always promises joy, but it always produces sorrow. Always produces sorrow.

There is brokenness as we look out across our land, so I'll ask you today, I mean, are we proclaiming Christ to everybody we can? Are we sharing his gospel? False teaching needs to be corrected. We need to bring those that don't know Jesus into the fellowship of the saints.

And there's no greater joy than to see someone come to know Jesus as our personal Savior. Any questions? Let's pray. Father, you alone are worthy to be praised. Your words are very clear and very true, and it's penetrating to read the scriptures.

It helps us to understand how to live, and we thank you so much for salvation, for the way, Lord, that you draw people to yourself, for saving grace that we have and watching over us and guiding us. And we just give you the praise, Lord, and thank you for all you do in our lives.

In Jesus' name, amen.