Week of Meetings 01 1 John 1: — Svend Christensen

The Fellowship and Assurance of First John

Nice to be here this morning. Turn with me, please, to the first epistle of John. The first epistle of John. Lord, we're going to bring a series on this epistle, simple messages on assurance and related subjects.

The epistle of John, chapter one. The key word in this epistle, no doubt, is fellowship. Other key words, the words like know and love, are some of the outstanding words that stand out. Let's read from verse one, then.

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.

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that he also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. This then, and these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

This then is the message, which we have heard of him, and declare unto you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness we lie, and do not the truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleansed us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

May the Lord bless to us the reading from his holy word. You know, to the believer, every day should be a thanksgiving day. It's a good thing to get thanks unto the Lord, says the psalmist. And this should be the believer's continual occupation, and the highest occupation is it not to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

We shouldn't say thanksgiving day, but that only every day should be a day when we're really praising the Lord, and we have so much to thank him for. Think of what he is in himself. By the way, can anyone hear me all right?

There's a loud speaker here, and I have one that's still louder in here if you want me to turn it up, but I don't want to speak too loud unless it's necessary. We don't want to give you the... I remember one time I went to a conference, and it turned out to be quite a small building, and there were three speakers that afternoon, and I took a seat right at the front.

Well, these men were of the temperament, they've commenced with a shout, they continued with a shout, and they ended with a shout. And by the time the sermon was over, I had a headache that was just standing out here, you know, so the next meeting I got there a little earlier, I got in the back seat.

So we don't want to just be a continual shout to you in your ears, but we do pray God the Holy Spirit will use his word, and that it will come home to our hearts in clear, audible tunes. Now, just a few words by way of introduction.

I don't want to take a lot of time of introduction. I heard a man one time introducing a book during the Sunday school class, and he took all the time to introduce the book and all the things about it, not really about it, but certain things to the right and so on.

So by the time I felt that when he finished and time was up, I felt like I thought I was hungry, came in to get a meal, and the cook, he described all the things he had put in that meal for you, all the calories and the vitamins and all this, and how, what kind of soil it took to grow it, and the type of fertilizer used, and all these details were all brought in there.

By the time he was telling about all this, I was just so hungry, you know, but it was time to quit. So we do not want to take all our time by the way of introduction, but just a few things we just want to point out.

John as the Eyewitness Author of First John

The writer was, no doubt, there's no disagreement on this, I do not believe, the beloved disciple John. John the son of thunder. He was the brother of James, you remember. He was one of the close associates with the Lord Jesus, who laid on the bosom of the Lord Jesus.

And when you get real close to the Lord Jesus like John did, then you're in a condition to write about love, and write about assurance, and write from personal experience which John does in such a wonderful way.

So the writer's John, the time of writing was no doubt around 95 to 98 AD. This is the last of the writings in the New Testament, the writings of John. John was no doubt the youngest of all the apostles, and he wrote especially to the Christians of Ephesus, then Asia Minor, and of course to the whole church at large, just like Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

Now it's an amazing thing that in this epistle, 1 John, there's no quotations that we're aware of from the Old Testament. That doesn't say it's not as much the word of God, but most of the New Testament epistles have many quotations from the Old Testament.

Maybe Brother McKay will correct me afterwards, but I'm not aware of any quotations here in this epistle from the Old Testament. Now the theme of course is the Lord Jesus, and you might write over the epistle, it's a gateway to fellowship with God.

Now the purpose of the writing, we can look right within the epistle, I'll just name five of them, there's others too. Look at verse four, or first verse three, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly all fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

That's reason number one. Number two, verse four, these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. Verse one of chapter two, my little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not.

The purpose of writing is that they sin not. Warning against false teachers in chapter two, twenty-six, these things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. And then in John chapter five, verse thirteen, an emphasis we'll be bringing out from time to time about assurance, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

What a wonderful verse. How many, many people we have seen come into realization of the assurance of eternal life from this wonderful verse. These things have I written unto you that believe that you may know that you have eternal life.

It's one of my favorite verses in dealing with a soul. And that word know, I understand in the original, I'm not a Greek scholar, but those that know it's found forty-one times. Sixty's of these times is the word know is there more something you know intellectually, but the other twenty-five times is a knowledge which is experimental.

Knowing Christ Through Personal Experience

And only what we experience is truly what we know. It's one thing to say, I know the truth. One thing to characterize the Fathers in chapter two, ye have known him. You can know another truth without really knowing him in the full sense.

Takes years of experience to go into maturity to really know him. Paul said after many years in the faith that I may know him. So you can come to know him like when you get married. You don't marry a girl unless you feel you know her.

After twenty years you know her better. After forty years you know her still better. We heard about a man yesterday and the lady who's couple have been married seventy-five years. They should know one another, shouldn't they?

So we really spend time with the Lord, that's when we know him. And oh, that we may go in for this type of knowledge, that we may know him in this real experimental way. Now in the gospel, believe is the main word running through there.

Here, know runs through the epistle. In the gospel it's the reception of eternal light. Here in the epistle it's the reproduction of eternal light. Eternal light flowing out through from the Lord to the Holy Spirit out to others.

Eternal light coming to us. Eternal light is seen in Christ in the gospel but especially should be manifested to us here in the epistle. Now coming down to chapter one, I'm not leaving you with many other introductory remarks.

Christ as the Eternal Word of Life

Verse one, that which from the beginning, here you have the Lord Jesus, the God-man set forth in these two first verses. That which was from the beginning, reminds us of the gospel of John again, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.

Write that. The Lord Jesus, he is the creator, he's the maker, he is the Almighty. I'm the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending. Here you have the deity of the Lord Jesus and this is something John spreads all the way through because of the heresy of Gnosticism and other heresies attacking the manhood as well as the deity of the Lord Jesus.

He's writing about this wonderful person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then notice, which we have heard, I like this, it comes right, not only the past, as to the beginning, but as to the present, which we have heard.

And now at the end of the verse he says the Word of life. The Lord Jesus is the one that's not only from the past, from the beginning, from the past, but he's right here, the Word of life, in him there is life and he's the one that begins life, he's the one that gives life, he is life in himself, the Word of life.

This is the one we're dealing with, the great I am that John writes about in his gospel, this is the same one John is writing about in his epistle. And then he comes in with that personal note here, which we have heard, seen, looked upon, our hands have handled.

The Lord Jesus himself, the Word of life, is the one they've handled and been in close touch with. First in connection with her, they heard the Lord Jesus, remember they were following, if you turn back please to the gospel of John chapter one, and the latter part of that chapter, verse thirty-seven, after John the Baptist had pointed him out, behold the Lamb of God in verse thirty-six, and the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

They heard him, they heard the Lord Jesus, he said to them, come follow me, we have personal experiences John, we know what we're writing about, this is not just a feeble, this is not some theory, we're writing to you out of, from personal experience, personal contact.

Hearing, Seeing, and Handling the Living Christ

We heard him ourselves, what a wonderful voice to hear, when the sheep hear the shepherd's voice for we heard it John says, we heard his voice, and this is the one we're telling you about, and today we need to hear him by faith through the Word of God, the true sheep they hear his voice still, the stranger they'll not follow, we still hear his voice as the Word of God comes to us through his servants, and then the second word he says we've seen him, look at verse thirty-nine, when they said master where dwellest thou, he said unto them come and see, they came and saw where he dwelled and abode with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour, come and see for yourself, the way you really get to know someone is to live with them, and they came and they dwelt with him, and this is the wonderful part about the Lord Jesus, John after all these years of this old man now, at the end of this pilgrim journey, he can still write so wonderful about the Lord Jesus, word could fail us to rightly describe this wonderful person, and he says we went and we saw him, we saw him, we saw where he lived, we saw how he lived, and we can talk to you now about him, we've seen him, then we looked upon him, and I think that goes on beyond that, we not only went and we spent that little time with him then, but we looked upon him, we observed him, we watched him, we scrutinized him if you like for three and a half years while we're with him, we really examined him, and he's the one we're telling you about, we can say to you there's no sin in him, there's no spot in him, we love him says John, we love because he first loved us, we've seen him, three and a half years we observed him, we ate with him, we slept by him, we saw him in action, we heard the gracious word that was seated out of his mouth, and then he says we handled him, and I think that we have the force here, not only the life of Christ suggested, and the whole ministry, and taking us right to his death, but even after his resurrection, you remember in the last chapter, the two chapters of the gospel of John, he said reach forth by hand, he said to Thomas, we've handled him, a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones that you see me have, he says in Luke, we handled him, he is real to us, and when something is real to you, what do you want to do, you want to share it with others, and this is John, this is why we're writing this, when you really have something good, and when the love of God is in your heart, what do you want to do, you want to share that what you have with others, and this is what the world needs, they need people that really know the Lord Jesus experimentally like this, that have truly handled him, that know something about him, by knowing him first as savior by faith, hearing him through his word, understanding him, seeing him with the eyes of all hearts, scrutinizing him, I said were you study all about him in the sacred book from Genesis to Revelation, and then as you see him at the right hand of the majesty and high, as we have communion with the living Christ, we need to go out and declare this to others, and this is what John is writing about, then you have in verse 2, the Lord Jesus manifested at the word of life, we've handled the word of life, for the life was manifested, you remember in John chapter 1 it says, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, God was manifested in the flesh as Paul in his epistle to Timothy, and again in the Corinthian epistle he says God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, he was manifested, the word became flesh and he dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth, oh how lovely it must have been to have seen the Lord Jesus in person like that, and yet how much more wonderful it is to see him now by faith and see him through the precious pages of the holy lips.

So now, in the verse 1 you have the Lord Jesus as God, now you have in verse 2 the Lord Jesus manifested at the word of life, and there's three main words running through this epistle too, one is life, the other one is love, and the third one is light, and here you have the word of life, the Lord Jesus, the one who has life, I've come that you might have life, he says, and that you might have it more abundantly, he was life and he was the giver of life, and his life was manifested, we have seen it, he says, in verse 2, verse 1, for the light was manifested in verse 2 too, and we have seen it, and bear witness, first we see the Lord Jesus, then we bear witness, then we show unto you that eternal life, which was with the father and was manifest unto us.

First you see the Lord Jesus for yourself, this is the primary thing, if there's someone here this morning, what you need more than anything else, if you're not saved, you need to see the Lord Jesus through personal experience, you need to know him for yourself, and when you really know him, I remember in my early experience of salvation, I was just like bursting inside, I couldn't contain myself, I just had to tell somebody, and this is how John felt here, he just had to share, remember that program years ago on the radio, they used to have money, money, money, money, money, it came on there many years ago, and then they'd cry out, share the wealth, John said, when you get something like this, you want to share, we show it unto you, we first bear witness, and then show it unto you, sometimes the order's different, with the Lord Jesus healed the man called Legion, he first told him, return to thine house and show them, and then to whom do thy friends, and tell them, here the order is reversed, but nevertheless, there's a progression here, after you've seen him, then you can't help but bear witness, and then show unto you, and it's the showing that really counts, may I say something practical here, does your neighbor know that you're a Christian, does your neighbor know that you're late with the Lord Jesus, do they see the characteristics of the Lord Jesus in you, in everyday living, in everyday deeds, in everyday talk, are you the first one they can go to for help, the one they say, that person, he's like his master, he's so kind, he's so understanding, he's so loving, do they see you like that, do you bear witness by your life, as well as by your lip, later on we see the very contrast to that in verse six, have the eternal life, the seven titles given to the Lord Jesus in this epistle here, one of the word of life, the second one here, eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us, now here you first have the personal experience, then the public testimony, they declared, and then you have this particular proclamation, we show it unto you, from personal experience, come into verse three and four now, we have the Lord Jesus the center of the fellowship into which we are brought, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye may have fellowship with us, John why do you want us to fellowship with you, oh John that's because our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, and as they say it's out of this world, it's out of this world, the fellowship we have, like the Scotsman said, is better felt than telt, you must experience this to know it, and all fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, and we want you to enjoy this fellowship, now what is fellowship, what do we mean by the word of fellowship, sometimes people say fellowship is two fellows of a ship, but it's more than that, fellowship means a partnership, it's a joint participation in a common thing or common interest, it brings you right into a partnership, this is a real fellowship, this is the thought of the word fellowship, sometimes you ask people are you in fellowship, and they don't say yes I'm in fellowship, but it's a sharing in having things in common, then with who's the fellowship, with the Father and the Son from the divine side, from the human side, it's with one another, that you might have fellowship with us, and oh how wonderful fellowship is first with the Lord, with the Father and with the Son, and how wonderful it is with one another, have you ever been stranded somewhere for six months where you never had any fellowship with the Lord's people, I've had that experience, I was only saved three months when I had that experience, I was sent out to the edge of the Sahara Desert while serving with the Canadian Air Force, I was only saved a short time, and out there, we were just out in the edge of the desert, we were about a mile from a little Arab village that you could smell that far, but it was just so dirty and you couldn't, you just couldn't get near, you couldn't understand what they said, the Air Force had no Christian fellowship among the boys that I knew, they're all unsaved boys, I was just a young believer, and the only time I had a real wonderful time was when I could be with the Lord, when the boys vacated the little tents and they went to their entertainment, I used to be on my knees and spend that time with the Lord, and I, under the mosquito net, every day for four hours during the theater, reading his word and having fellowship with him, this is an experimental thing, and I may say I was the happiest man in the desert, but I'll tell you, even with that, you miss fellow Christians, and when I got back to England, I happened to be again stationed at a place outside of York, only twelve and a half miles, and I was the only Christian there for a while, then a boy came in and he was killed a short time after that, and it seemed that the Lord kept me alone, but a number of miles from me, there was not a seat with about a dozen Christian boys on there, every tent I had out on my bicycle, and I was there to have fellowship with these fellows.

Fullness of Joy in Fellowship With God

Oh, when you're alone for a long time, with no other Christians around you, it's a wonderful thing to have fellowship. Christians make use of the fellowship. Sometimes people say, oh, you'll have to go to meetings all the time, no you don't, but you should want to.

This is the thought, isn't it? Do I have to go? You can't say that sometimes. Why, if you love the Lord, oh, you just love to be in his presence, you love to get together, where two or three are gathered together, my name there, but I'm the midst, and enjoy the fellowship together.

Why do I go to meetings? Friends, I go because I want to go. I don't have to go if I don't want to, do you? If it's only out of duty we go, that's not high enough a motive. We go that we may have this fellowship, and enjoy the fellowship with the Lord Jesus.

Oh, what a fellowship it is. What a fellowship, what a joy divine, how good it is. And he says, now I'm writing this through, verse four, and these things I write unto you, that your joy may be full. God's desire is not to make Christians miserable, but he wants us to be joyful.

I want you to just be running over with joy, my cup running over, like the psalmist said. This fellowship is for your benefit, it's for your good. I have erased all this, so you think of it, friends, that little creatures down here on the earth can have fellowship with the mighty God of the universe.

Think of this great maker. Oh, when you think of the greatness of God. I was just reading the other day in the Daily, Our Daily Bread, about the largest dictionary that they had on display, it had 800 ,000 words in it.

And Dr. Walter Wilson, you know, he was standing looking at it, and the man that was in attendance there, he was wondering what he was thinking, and he said, is this the largest one yet? Well, he said, the largest in the world.

He said, it's too small. He says, you'll at least need many, many more. He says, there's so many known, and it goes into the billion stars that we know about, and God named them all by name, and you mean to say that out of 800 ,000 words, you can name all these stars?

So you haven't got enough words. And this is all God, He created all this, this tremendous universe that's infinite. We have no idea in our limited capacity how great God is. He's just beyond the wildest imagination of human thought.

This great God, why, will be all eternity exploring the wonders of His person, and this great God, did you ever think when you got to the end of space, what would be there, cement wall? And what would be on the other side of the wall?

It's just dazzling, isn't it? And this great God, He has brought us right into relationship with Himself. He has, His Son has been manifested. Christ has come in, and He has revealed the Father to us.

He has manifested the Father. He has brought us right into His own family, so we now say, Father. And we are one with His children. And all this is for our good that Your joy may be full. I should say there's something wrong with us if the God of this mighty universe that upholds all these things by the word of His power, there's something wrong with us if He fails to fill us with joy.

And if we're not full of joy, it's not God's fault. He has made every provision for us to be Christians that are full of assurance and joy. That's why there's so much of a knowing here. You can't have real joy unless you really know you're saved, and when you really know you're saved and you keep in fellowship with the one that saved you, that's when you will have this fullness of joy.

I've written unto you, He said, that you may have joy. That's the outcome of this fellowship, wonderful joy, the fact of joy. Joy came first through faith in the Lord Jesus. You remember in 1 Corinthians 13, there's the three words there, faith, hope, and love.

And I may use them here. Faith, when we come into this fellowship, that's how we come into it, through faith. And then as we go on in this fellowship, we enjoy it now, appreciate it, because of His love, and we enjoy the love of God in the fellowship and the future we have hoped.

But faith and hope are going to give away, but love will endure forever. And this is the love we are basking in now, that we've brought into now. We've brought into this fellowship of love. And we may have that fullness of joy, joy unspeakable and full of glory, the Scripture says.

And of course, that joy is based on the divine relationship with the Lord, or fellowship with the Father and His Son. Thank God that joy is not dependent on happenings. You can be joyful even though you're passing through sorrow.

You can be joyful even though you have reverses financially and in trouble in your family, whatever the stress and the strain or the trial may be that we have, we can still be more than conquered through Him that loved us.

We can have this fullness of joy inwardly. We can be above the clouds, like when you fly way up in there, you look down, you see all the clouds below you that obscure everything below. All you see is the clouds, but we are enjoying the sunshine.

And so in your soul you can enjoy that joy unspeakable and full of glory. Is that your enjoyment today? Are you in full fellowship with the Father and with His Son? Are you in full fellowship with your brother and your sisters?

You know, God wants us to enjoy one another's fellowship. That doesn't mean to agree with everything they think or believe, but are you in fellowship with them? Do you enjoy the fellowship? God wants you to enjoy that fellowship.

I see my time is gone, so we're going to close right here. I didn't finish, but I'm going to close anyway. So I think it's better for them to stop in good time. If they don't speak any more than half an hour, and that's good advice.

So dear friends, isn't it wonderful? We know this wonderful God as our Father, this wonderful One that from the beginning, the Lord Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning of the ending, we know Him as our very own Savior.

And we know He's redeemed us all, brothers and sisters, that we'll have fellowship together so we can enjoy the good things of God. And may we, as we leave this meeting, may we not sort of come down and get talking about everything material and earthly.

Let's keep the fellowship about the things of God as we commune one with the other. Let's talk about the Lord while we're here. Keep the conversation spiritual. Then it'll not be wasted. We can talk about so much.

You said it's a lovely day. Yes, thank God it is. But we all know it is. We haven't had much rain lately. No, we haven't. We're all aware of that. We're praying for rain. But let's get talking about the things of the Lord.

Father Bob Willie will ask you to come. Sing a couple of verses of number 140. 140. O Christ in thee my soul hath found, and found in thee alone the peace, the joy I sought so long, the bliss still now unknown.

Now none that Christ can satisfy, none other name for me as love and life and lasting joy, Lord Jesus, found in thee. We'll sing the first and the last verses of 140.