Introduction to First John

Well, beginning today and for the first time of quite a few over the next few weeks, please turn in your Bible to the first epistle of the Apostle John, 1 John. If this were a classroom setting, I would ask a question and then wait patiently for your answers, but I'm certain if I did, I would see at least some people struggle. Struggle with the answer. And that question is, "What is a Christian?" Now that might surprise you to hear me say that I think people would struggle with the answer to that question, but I promise you they would.

What is a Christian? I often do an exercise when I'm doing discipleship with individuals or in class settings where I ask what the meaning of the word "good" is, define the word "good," and you have to not use any antonyms, that means opposites, and you can't just use another synonym. You can't just say a simple synonym. Define the word like the dictionary defines a word. And you might find that that's a simple exercise, but you should try it right now in your brain. If somebody asked you to define the word good, how would you define it? It's not easy because pizza is good, but God is good. And how can that one word mean both things and still mean the same thing? It's not as easy as it might seem to define the word "good."

Well, the same is true of the word "Christian." You might think it's obvious because we use the word all the time. We use the word of ourselves. We use the word of things and organizations and belief systems. But do we know the meaning of the word "Christian"? What does it mean? What's the accurate definition of it? If you ask Google or anybody else, the answer is going to be something along the lines of people who adhere to Christian teaching. Is that what makes a Christian? If you just adhere to Christian teaching, you are now a Christian? Is that how that works? Or the other side, somebody might just say, "Well, it's somebody who believes." Or somebody that says they're a Christian. If anybody identifies as a Christian.

Remember, Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." That might as well be an answer to, "What is a Christian?" Somebody who does the will of His Father. We know for sure that Christian in the New Testament in the first century when the word was first established and coined, that word used to be a derogatory term. You would never happily call yourself a Christian unless you were welcoming the persecution that came with it. You can think of the word Christian as, you know, like an insult, like a racial slur or something like that in our day. Like calling somebody, like if you called me a redneck, I could take that as a compliment or an insult, right? I can take that as a compliment or an insult. But most people when they say it, they mean it as an insult, right? They don't mean it as a compliment. Well, Christian is the same. The word Christian, if you call somebody a Christian or you are called a Christian, you might think, well, hallelujah, I'm thankful that there's something going on in my life that they think I'm a Christian. But in the first century, it was a bad word. It was a derogatory term.

So the real question is, is how do you define the word Christian? Well, I suggest to you, you read the book of 1 John. 1 John is pretty much what it means to be a Christian, the test of being a Christian, the job description of a Christian, the definition of a Christian. That's pretty much what the book of 1 John is about. It's about the test of your genuine connection to Christ if you have it, whether or not you have it. The word Christian used to mean one of Christ or Christ one, somebody associated with Christ. You read it over and over in the book of John. John says something a lot in this book, and it might surprise you how many times he says it. He says it a lot, some version of it. He says, "I write," or, "I am writing." Or we have written, or we write. Some version of this book you are reading right now that is in writing has been written. Lots of versions of it.

"These things I write to you that your joy may be full." We'll look at that one this morning. "I write to you that you not sin." That's in this book too. "I've written concerning those who try to deceive you." That's in this book too, something John writes about. "I've written to you that you may Believe, John will write later in the book, and that if you believe, you might know you have eternal life. These are the things that John writes about.

Unlike other books, I've said multiple times from the pulpit, this is a rare exception because we're preaching 1 John, where so often I say from the pulpit, I say that a book to whatever degree suffers more or less from decontextualization. For example, when you enter into the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, those books suffer a lot when you take verses out of context, meaning you can miss the whole meaning of the book. We all use the example, right, when Paul tells Timothy, "Do not let them despise your youth." That thing gets used at like Christian schools all the time and for youth groups all the time with young people. "You're a teenager. Do not let them despise your youth." That has nothing to do with what Paul is saying to Timothy. Nothing. You're literally abusing the text if that's how you use it.

Now, wait, timeout. If you properly interpret it to say Timothy was a young man and therefore would not have likely been respected by the older people of the church, and that Paul was telling Timothy that his youth was not de facto a reason that the older people should not respect you, and to make sure that the call of God on your life was affirmed by the laying on of hands and everything else, that you are indeed a man of God even though you're younger than the typical person called a man of God. Therefore, you, Timothy, should not be despised because you are younger as a pastor in a church with older people who are typically prone to respect older people. If you do all that and then say it's okay to be young and serve the Lord, then I'll allow it. But just to think automatically that youth there means teenager is a misuse of the text, right? So, by the way, you should all be able to do that with every verse, what I just did. That's not something only pastors should be able to do. Everybody should be able to do that.

This book, 1 John, is one of the books that suffers the least from decontextualization. That doesn't mean it doesn't suffer. It can. Verses definitely can be used out of context. In fact, the one I just sort of quoted, 1 John 5, "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." That verse gets abused all the time to give assurance to people who haven't read the things that John wrote. You have to read chapters 1 through 4 before you say in chapter 5 you should know you have eternal life. He gives all kinds of tests whether or not you should know. So it can suffer, but it suffers less because— and the reason it suffers less and can be used a little bit more like Proverbs in the Old Testament, where you can take a verse or two and read it and apply it and use it without having to know the entire book at all times, the reason is because John is doing what the Proverbs do. He's giving individual nugget thoughts repetitively. He's giving— sometimes it sounds like he's repeating himself. He's being redundant. He's not, but it sounds like it. So that if you take a verse from John, 1 John, and use it correctly, make sure you understand the main meaning of the book, which I'm going to tell you in a second, then the book doesn't suffer as much like other books do, like Hebrews might or other books.

So I'm not going to say it's okay to decontextualize verses from the book of 1 John. Don't do that ever. But I am also going to say it's a handy book to get a verse or two out of. 1 John 1:9 about confessing our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. That's a good verse to know. And then we'll contextualize it as we go in the series. But I do want you to just make sure you know that I know that so that we can know the way you handle books in the Bible is as important as how you handle any verse of the Bible. You got to handle the book and the verse the broad context and the specific context. And 1 John is one of those books where you don't lose the whole book like you do in other places when you misuse a verse or only use a verse out of its context.

So I'm going to suggest to you, and you're going to see after today, I'm going to do the same thing with the titles of every sermon after today like I did with the book of Hebrews. In the book of Hebrews, I said, I tried to use the word superior in every title to push home the theme that Christ is superior in every way. To what the Jews might have leaned on in the Old Testament. I'm going to do the same thing with the book of 1 John. And in this case, I don't know if it's as forced as it was in the book of Hebrews, but there's some of that in there where I'm making sure that the title of the sermon, in my opinion, relays the meaning of the book. And the simple meaning of the book is, what is basic Christianity and what is a Christian?

So you might think of every sermon and every chunk of Scripture we're going to look at together as a sort of treatise, a sort of display, a sort of polemic, a sort of argument as to what is a Christian. And so a lot of the sermons are going to be, "A Christian is something," or "A Christian walks in His commandments," "A Christian walks in the light," whatever the title of the sermon might be. And I would challenge you, if you want to make sure you can function in this world where so many people and things and organizations are calling themselves Christian, If you need help with that and want to know— first of all, if you're the person that just believes that at face value, this letter should help you with that to make sure you're more careful to think because something is labeled Christian that it is Christian. Also though, on the other side, if you're a person who's trying to be discerning and you're struggling with knowing what is Christian and whether it deserves your attention or not, the book of 1 John can help with that. There's some real basic things in the book of 1 John that once you hear them, when he talks about Jesus coming in the flesh, for example, that will just wipe out a big old broad stroke of things you don't need to listen to anymore and wonder if you should give them attention. So John is really helpful in that.

So like I said, like Proverbs, there are individual statements with a broader theme. Of course, the theme in Proverbs, a big theme is wisdom. The theme in 1 John is true Christianity as opposed to false Christianity, not just professing Christianity but actually living Christianity. So at the end of 1 John, you as an individual should know whether or not you're a Christian, but also you as a Christian, if you are one, should know what's real Christianity and what isn't. That's the idea. It will help you discern what real Christianity is. And again, there's some real basics in here. There's some real challenges in this book. Oh my goodness, this book gets right into your backyard. I've heard over the years that when you preach a sermon, people say, "You're preaching right at me." Have you ever heard that? You've heard that a lot, right? "You were preaching right at me." I've actually had people accuse me of bringing their problems into the pulpit and preaching about them, and I didn't even know their problems. Like, why did you say that? Who told you? I don't know what you're talking about. That has happened to me for real.

Well, John is going to get— the way one person said it, he's going to be checking your mail. John's going to know what's going on. He's going to challenge you about the way you think of the brethren, about the way you think of the Lord. There's a challenge even in our text today. There's a very specific word that John uses today that I don't think we have been using it correctly, and I was challenged by it as I studied.

Let's pray. Father, now as we open John's letter, his first letter, I'd ask that we would gain what we're supposed to from it. This is— I've already said it, but this is a book that doesn't seem to suffer as much from decontextualization, but it can very much suffer from being ignored or dismissed and not applied to our lives. Father, if we read this book and weren't more faithful after reading it and studying it, there would be a problem. This book is challenging, but it's also clarifying. It has such great information in it. It's so clear and so poignant. It gets right to the heart of so many matters. And Father, there should be no reason we, your people, led by your Spirit, trying to accurately handle your word. Don't leave different when we study this. I can thank you in advance for the change that comes from it. I can thank you for preserving it. Thank you for John and his testimony. Thank you for his faithfulness. Thank you that your Spirit gives such clear words and teaching. And now we just ask, Father, that we would internalize it and live it once we do. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, normally when you begin a book, you do what's called an introduction, and I You might think that's funny for me to say that in a technical way. It's called an introduction. But I mean that literally. In theology, the word introduction is used in a technical way so that if I say the introduction to the book of 1 John, I don't mean it in the more colloquial way we use the word introduction, like I'm going to introduce the book to you. No, an introduction is a formal thing when you introduce the book, its author, its intended audience, its purpose, that kind of thing. So I'm doing sort of a quick broad overview introduction to the book. It's going to be very brief. There's not a lot to say about it. By the way, there's not a lot to say about it because there's not a lot to know about it, right? There's not a ton of historic information that's, I don't know, solid or accurate.

But the author is widely and completely accepted. I'd say completely because there's always somebody that's going to argue with it. But the author is John, the Apostle John. And I think that is kind of important because I often talk, I feel like I need to correct something. That I say a lot because I have preached these books, but more in survey fashion. I feel like I need to maybe correct me a little bit because normally when I'm teaching canonicity and how we got the New Testament, the way the New Testament was given to us, I almost always say as sort of a matter of fact— by the way, I'm correct, it just needs clarification, okay? I'm not a liar. But the idea is I always say that the books that are at the end of the New Testament are at the end of the New Testament because they were the last ones accepted into the canon of Scripture, meaning recognized as Scripture. And that's true of Hebrews. It's true of James. But it's not as true of 2nd and 3rd John. It's not— that argument is not as full on those last epistles as it is the others. They are later in the New Testament primarily because they were the latest written. So I want to make sure and say that. I don't want you to think that I just think all the books at the end are at the end because they were the last ones. It is kind of true, but John was probably written around 95, something like that, AD. So his was one of the last letters written.

It's written by John. Some of the things that attest to it being written by John is Polycarp, who is a well-known early church father, seems to allude to John's book. But definitely Irenaeus, who was a student of Polycarp, definitely attributes this letter to John. So those are early people within one generation of John that say this letter was written by the Apostle John. I'm not really making an argument so much as just telling you that there's historical data that says that it was written by John. It's also internally consistent with the gospel. I don't have time to go into it today, but one of the tests of whether a book belongs in the Bible is whether it's consistent with the overall teaching of the Bible, right? That's why some of those non-canonical books were rejected. But this is consistent with John's Overall teaching in the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation, all of John's teachings are internally consistent with each other.

Now, the recipients is hard. So if you happen to have the book open and you were to look at chapter 2, verse 20 and verse 27, that is about the extent of the argument as to who the audience is of the book. And if you go look at those verses, you're going to say, "There's no audience mentioned." Yeah, there is. It's the word "you." Now, that doesn't mean Y-O-U in the room. It means Y-O-U, the recipients of the letter. So whoever that Y-O-U is, they were the recipients of the letter. So we don't really know who intended to get this letter, who was supposed to be reading this. We don't have that. Like, we know who the Galatian letter was written to, and it wasn't a church, it was multiple churches. We know who the Colossian letter was written to, the Colossians, right? We know that, to the saints at Colossae. The Roman letter. We know who the audience of those is because it's in the book. Well, we do not know who the audience is, whoever that Y-O-U is in those verses.

Some people say that John may have been at Ephesus. Some people say that the audience may have been at Ephesus. It depends on who you talk to. Maybe it might have been to Asia Minor. So we don't really know the audience. So of all the letters— not all, but of many of the letters— when we talk about where I'm— especially me, I do this a lot because that's just a habit that I have formed when you open the New Testament to just immediately consider the context of the book. So when I open John, I've got to remember John 20:31 that says it's written to believe in Jesus, and that's its main theme, right? Or when I open 1 Timothy and he says— and 2 Timothy— that how we're to conduct ourselves in the house of God, that's the meaning. Or Peter says, this is the grace of God. I'm writing to you about the grace of God. When the author tells you why the letter was written, I'm just used to contextualizing like that to make sure that when I open a book, I don't just grab a verse. I think of the verse in its context.

Well, we don't know the overall audience, the recipients, the intended people that were going to read this, but I can at least, at the very least, say I kind of know why they got it, the purpose. You see that in your notes. I say the date and purpose, 95 AD. I think it has multiple individual purposes and facets, but its main purpose, again, is to study and to define genuine Christianity. And I guess I should ask you first, if John in this letter has the intent that people would know and understand true Christianity, does that mean the definition of Christianity is up to us or up to God? Who owns the definition of Christianity, us or God? Do we get to say, "I am a Christian because I say so," or do we have to say, "I am a Christian because John says so"? Does his letter define Christianity or does my letter define Christianity. That's the value and purpose of this book.

There's lots of things in it, not to sin, to make sure you have joy, to address errors, and the specific error probably on John's mind is Gnosticism. I'll mention that again a little bit this morning. That's one of the heresies that's addressed in it. So you might think it sounds really enlightened and really spiritual and super spiritual to say, "I am a Christian because I feel like a Christian," or Christianity is this. Way. It's a way of thinking. Christianity is not a destination, it's a journey. I'm not religious, I'm spiritual. People say these kind of things all the time. You might think that that sounds enlightened and that you are really, really super duper spiritual when you say such things. But if John says this is what a Christian is, for example, a Christian can't say he loves God while he hates his brother, right? If you hate your brother, you're not a Christian. If John does that and irons it out for us, then it is not super spiritual to say, "No, I can hate my brother as long as I really love Jesus and sing songs to Jesus in my car." That might be your definition, but it isn't God's. And so the purpose of this letter is to get all that settled, to make sure that the real definition of Christianity is not tampered with, it's not abused, it's not manipulated.

The Bible tells us what a Christian is. The Bible defines what a Christian is. And God did not ask for our input on that. So as we open the book, as we look at the first verse, which we will here in a moment, as we start unpacking the letter of John to the people, as we start trying to see what the main purpose of the book is and see it unfold, I think you're going to agree with me that at the very least, John is saying this is what a Christian is. You're going to agree with me before long. Right away, actually. John's going to do it himself in the very first verse.

So look at the first verse with me. And I'm going to do the thing. I don't know if it bothers you. No one's ever told me it bothers them. And if it bothers you, don't tell me. It'll hurt my feelings if it bothers you. So I'm going to keep doing it. So you might as well try to be on board with me doing it, which is where I chop verses in pieces, okay? In my defense, the Bible is written in sentences, okay? It's written in sentences and paragraphs. That's true too. But it's also written with individual words. And because of the grammatical historical need to interpret those words and phrases, to separate them in phrases is what you have to do to actually study them properly. So that when I present them that way, I'm sort of presenting them as study chunks, not flow of thought chunks, right?

So please, imagine your mechanic telling you every single time how an engine works from the bottom to the top, instead of just fixing the water pump. Okay? Okay, before I tell you about the water pump that I fixed, do you know how combustion works? Okay, so I am breaking it down to its elements. I know that can be tedious, but I do it for myself and to stay on track and to be linear when the text is linear.

So I'm breaking up the verse into a couple of chunks here. First verse of 1 John, "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." And then, of course, it says, "Concerning the word of life." That's the last half of the verse.

John seems— what a strange way to start a letter. That is a strange way to start a letter. "That which was from the beginning." John, what do you mean? What are you talking about was from the beginning? Well, we know that what he means is concerning the word of life. It's the word of life that's from the beginning. But why would he say, "That which was from the beginning," and then talk about touching things and hearing things and physical senses? And you notice he's talking about physical things, but he's not naming the physical person that he's talking about. But he is in a roundabout way. He's clearly saying, I'm going to tell— I'm going to test whether or not you are of Christ. That's what a Christian is, right? Somebody that is of Christ. And I need you to know before I start that I saw some things, I heard some things, I touched some things. And those things were Jesus himself. I walked with him. I heard him with my own ears. I touched him. We were close.

So the things I'm going to talk to you about here in a little bit are not just conceptual things. They're not just abstract things. This is concrete. I was there. So John is giving sort of like a forensic testimony here, like he's on the stand. He wants to make sure that if you think that it's important what you think or what you feel, you need to know John thinks it's important what really happened, the facts. The facts are I saw Jesus. I lived with Him. I walked with Him. I heard Him with my own ears. So do you think I'm going to go with your feelings, or do you think I'm going to go with my real-life, actual, truthful experience? So don't take for granted that I walked with Jesus when I start talking.

So for example, the Gnostic heresy. I'm not gonna go into too much depth because we will handle it a little bit more when we get there. But the Gnostic heresy was essentially saying that all matter, physical matter, all material things were evil, intrinsically evil. In other words, your physical body, this old body that's breaking down, evil. The earth and the physical parts of it, evil, broken. And the only thing that is valuable or good is spiritual, invisible. So eventually it became— Gnosticism became like what we think of as enlightenment, that you become more spiritually advanced, you become more elevated, you become less physical and more spiritual, right? So Gnosticism was essentially that all matter and physical things were evil.

So it seems like John out of the gate is saying, Yeah, that's wrong. Because I touched Jesus, his body that was born of Mary. I touched it. I heard that mouth, his mouth, talk to me and give me the words of life. I saw him with my own eyes, dead, buried, and then risen. So John is saying matter matters. Now, matter isn't all that matters, because he doesn't say, I saw, heard, touched, handled, walked with experienced Jesus. He doesn't say that in that concrete of language. He says, I saw, heard, touched, looked upon all those things concerning the word of life.

Now here's the part where I can help you with hermeneutics, the art and science of biblical interpretation. This is the part where the uber theologians who really think they're the ultra theologians And I've heard pastors do this too, teachers do it, commentaries do it. When it says concerning the word of life, they immediately jump to the idea of the incarnate word Jesus. Meaning John said, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, right? So what John has in mind here is the incarnate word Jesus. And that does make sense because he's saying, I'm talking about a physical experience I had, and the only physical word was the incarnate word Jesus, right? Almost safe, except for the part where this book goes over and over again about the things that are declared, the things that are said, words.

So is it the word that is the logos that is in John 1:1? If you say that, you're smarter than me, because I don't want to go farther than this text goes. I only want to go as far as this text goes. So I think what he's saying is, I'm going to speak to you the words about the physical person Jesus and the things that are associated with him. But it could mean— there's a slight chance when he says concerning the word of life that he means the capital W Word as in Jesus come in the flesh. The reason I bring that up to you is because I want you to— as you heard me talk through that, I want you to hear the hesitation I have in jumping to a spiritual conclusion or an ultimate conclusion of something that seems so obvious. It would only be obvious if everybody knew John 1:1. And the first letter of John is not John the Gospel. They're separate. Same author, maybe even the same audiences would have seen them.

But that idea of hermeneutics of two different books with two different intentions, two different audiences, has to be taken into consideration when you're interpreting the Bible. Don't just jump to conclusions like that. This happens really— most of the time it happens is when you're in the Old Testament. And you interpret all the Old Testament passages with a New Testament interpretation and get in trouble. You get in so much trouble. And that goes the other way, too, where somebody in the New Testament is reading something in the New Testament saying, oh, this is exactly the same thing that happened in the Proverbs. That's not always safe. There are right ways and wrong ways to do that.

So he is saying, we touched, we heard, we saw, we walked with. I'm suggesting to you that from the beginning is the beginning of the gospel, because John was not at creation. Right? The beginning of Jesus on earth. And I think he could even mean broader and more generally, everything that we experienced physically while Jesus was here. I'm about to declare to you how it pertains to the words of life. I'm going to give you the words of life, and it comes from a position of somebody who experienced life in the person of Jesus. We are eyewitnesses. He doesn't say, I'm going to confirm your feelings about being a Christian or what you think is most important. He doesn't say we saw, heard, walked with, experienced physically all that. Now, what's your side of the story? No, no, no, this is all concrete, forensic, legal statement. It almost sounds again like he's in court. Like this is a testimony, an eyewitness testimony. We saw it. There were more than one of us too, right? So that would fit the law's test of proof. And it concerns the word of life. You can't touch words, but you can definitely touch what the words are about, and they did. And I would suggest to you too that this is also a very beautiful beginning to a book about whether or not you're a Christian, because all Christians have eternal life. All Christians experience what the word of life brings.

Well, what about this life? Look at verse 2. This, the life that he's just talking about, concerning the word of life, the life was manifested, and we have seen and hear with— and sorry, bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. That eternal life which was with the Father and manifested to us.

There's so much here that when— if you know a lot of the false teaching and heresies, that's what, by the way, incidentally, what we're talking about in Sunday school right now is heresies. I could have put that in the bulletin, but that's our subject. When you spend a lot of time needing to be sharp against false teaching, a verse like this is so jam-packed full of stuff that you could explore. Like, you could take so many tangents from verse 2 of 1 John chapter 1. There's so much said here. But I want to try to the best of my ability to keep it in its context.

So the things we tasted— not tasted, touched, saw, heard— those things we experience. John said, I experienced them for real from the beginning of the gospel, the time that Jesus came. I saw it all. I was there. I experienced it. I was one of his apostles. I walked with him. I was his friend. And I know all of that. And now he gave us the words of life. Remember when Jesus when he was preaching hard things about his flesh and everything, and the crowds turned away because they couldn't handle what he said and it was too hard for them. And then Jesus said to his disciples, "Are you going to leave too?" And then the disciples said to him, "Where can we go? You have the words of life," right? And so John is now saying, "We stayed with him and we have the words of life, and now I'm going to give you those words of life." And he says, "That life that Jesus gave us and that now we relate to you via these words and that we all who who believe have the eternal life, was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you— that's what you do with words, you declare them— to you that that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us.

So the word manifested is a wonderful word here. Ah, such a good word. I'll get to it in a second. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the— okay, so that's Jesus. In him was life. Right? Jesus contains life. Eternal life is found in him. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. These are all word-related things, life-related things, Jesus-related things. And then John here is saying this idea that things that we have seen, the things that we have seen are based on the word of God. They're based on the life that God gives us through the word. And then it says this life that we're talking about was manifested and it was manifested in Jesus. He doesn't say that. John doesn't say that explicitly here, but we know that's what he means because he's talking about the things they witnessed, right? So the idea is in Jesus was life. He's the way, the truth, and the life. He came to us. He was the Word of God. He gave us the Word of God. And now this Word of God that we're about to give to you was manifested, and we're giving testimony. You can see the word testimony here, witness. That's courtroom language. We're giving testimony of this. And when it says manifested, that word is a— you've heard the word epiphany. Right? Epiphany.

The last part of that word, P-H-N-Y, that last part of that word is where the word manifest comes from. It's phaneroo, is the Greek word. And that idea is a— the word is manifest, appeared, shown, whatever, whatever the right way, whatever helps you understand it. It's manifest, it's shown, it's displayed. So when you have an epiphany, it's like a special knowledge was shown to you, was manifested to you. That's the meaning of the word epiphany. So this Word became flesh. They saw Him. They walked with Him. He declared the glory of God. He had eternal life. He spoke of eternal life.

But I do want you to know something. This is the part where we could go off on a long tangent, where a doctrine that has suffered in the last years is the doctrine of patriology. Do you know what the doctrine of patriology is? What is a padre? A father. The doctrine of the distinction of the Father in the Godhead. Is getting lost because people think that being Christ-centered means to be Christ only and to neglect the Father. There's books written about this. These kind of things don't really— they might not affect you as directly as they could affect you, but it is really important that John makes the point here in the opening of his letter, this eternal life, where was it found? Where was it to begin with? It was with the Father. Do you see that? So where do you normally think of eternal life coming from? We normally think of Jesus the Son, and it is indeed true here too. But I want to make sure we're clear that the Father is the one where the life is from. The Father has life within himself, and it comes through his Son. And incidentally, the Spirit also gives life, we learn from John 2. So make sure you're a good Trinitarian. Make sure we don't slip into Christomonism or Unitarianism. Or modalism, any of the heresies associated with not seeing the Trinity, all three members of the Godhead at work in salvation.

So John is essentially saying here before we get into verse 3 about what's going to be declared to the people, the audience, the you, the Y-O-U. I'm going to talk about real Christianity in a moment. I'm going to talk about our faith. I'm going to talk about what it means to be a Christian. I'm going to talk about things that might look Christian but aren't Christian. So I want to talk about a lot about people who say they're Christian but aren't doing what Christians do. Now I'm going to do that in a minute, but before I do, I want to make sure you know the place I'm starting is that everything I'm telling you comes on good authority from the one we walked with, from the Father who sent him, from the one who gives eternal life, the source of life himself. Before I talk to you about what it means to have eternal life, you need to know who I'm bringing it from. And that is the Almighty and His Son.

So I want to make sure we're clear. A real Christian has to understand that God is about to define what a real Christian is. How do you know that? Because I come in His authority. I come in His name. I come to you bringing that manifested word, that life that was manifested in the word I'm about to declare to you. God has life. He gives life. You, if you're going to call yourself a Christian and say you're the recipient of life, have to agree that that the Father gives it through the Son, that the Spirit gives it. You have to agree with the foundational doctrines. This is just in his introduction that John is doing this. He hasn't even given us the doctrine yet. He just started off by saying, Jesus is real. The gospel is real. I witnessed it. And I'm about to tell you how to live it. But he hasn't even gotten into the lessons yet. He's just anchoring down the reality. I saw it. I walked with him. I am an eyewitness to the majesty and the power and the one who gives eternal life. And so what I'm about to say to you, you better listen. I come to you in his authority, the one who gives life. It was manifest in the Father. It was manifest to us. Do you see the us there? It's plural. So John is saying probably the apostles there, probably referring to the apostles specifically. He could be referring just to the early church and the recipients. Whatever it is, that's a group. Incidentally, that is a far cry from false teachers. False teachers don't usually use the word "us," just so you know. It's a side little note to watch out for false teaching. False teachers usually say, "Me and what I know." But John, even though he's saying he's an eyewitness testimony, he's still using "us." And he's going to talk to little children with love and affection. So John doesn't elevate himself. Highly.

All right, verse 3: That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you may also— sorry, that you also may have fellowship with us. I have a— I'm standing far back because of my old eyes, and when I stand far back, the lights reflect off my iPad, so the words aren't as clear as they could be. It's the Word's fault, right? No, it's my age. That is doing it. "That which we have seen and heard we declare to you." So the things he just talked about, the things I was an eyewitness of, I'm now sharing them with you. The words of life, I'm going to give them to you. The word declare here is a neat word. You hear us always talk about the word gospel, euangelion. That's where we get evangelism. This is the word apangelion. It's a neat word, like report, to give a message, to report a message.

I've come officially to give you a message. So these things we have seen and heard, I am now reporting to you. It says, I'm passing along to you my eyewitness testimony for you to consider, for you to internalize. So it's like, again, it's like witness stand testimony. Some are going to think that you can rely on your feelings. Some are going to think that you can rely on other teachers, maybe somebody you like better, somebody who's more charismatic and more lively. There might be any number of reasons you might listen to somebody else, but I'm telling you, we're going to give you the real words of life. The real thing from the real Jesus. I'm going to give them to you.

And then this next part, this is the part where I'm going to camp. This is probably, for me anyway, the biggest lesson of the morning. Lesson meaning takeaway. Something for you to pack up and take with you this morning is the second part of verse 3 when he says, "That you may also have fellowship with us." This is a hina clause in the Greek. Hina, that word is a purpose clause. You could translate it "in order that" or "with the goal of" or "with the purpose of," right? There's another clause like that, the haughty clause. But that one's a little more determinative. This one is, I'm doing A in order that B might happen, right? I'm doing A for the purpose of B to happen. And here he is saying, we declare that which we have seen and heard, all that stuff I just said that I saw and I touched and handled and looked upon concerning the words of life, and the life was manifested by the Father That thing that came when Jesus came called eternal life, now I'm going to declare that to you. I'm going to share it with you. I'm going to report it to you. And here's the first thing I'm going to report it to you so that— the reason I'm reporting this to you is so that you would have fellowship with us.

And you say, well, wait a second. Why is that so hard as a takeaway? Why would it be hard to take away that we have fellowship with John and the apostles? And here's my answer to that question. You didn't have that question, but I'm planting it in your head. Why would it be hard to have fellowship with the apostles? Why is that a difficult takeaway? Why is there a lesson there? How is that a lesson? Because we might not know what the word fellowship means. When you think of fellowship, it's almost certain, especially Baptists who love getting together to eat, we think of fellowship as friendship and companionship. That's what we think of. We think of fellowship as closeness, familial closeness, affection, proximity. We can almost, in our words, use friendship as a synonym for fellowship. That's the way we use the word. That is not what koinonia means. Koinonia is the word where we get communion. When we do the communion service, do we get the bread and the grape juice down here and then we say, we're just going to have this time where we really love each other and we're really close in our affection for each other. That's what we're doing here. We're taking this bread and we're taking this cup here so that we are We feel affection toward each other. We really think warm thoughts of each other. Our emotions are at a warm state so that we now, when we're together, are just really feeling the love with each other. Is that what we think of when we take communion? Is that what we say when we do the communion service? What are we talking about when we do koinonia? We're talking about accountability and faithfulness. We're not talking about affection, though there should be affection.

What John is saying is, I'm telling you the truth about the experiences we had, that we experienced in real life, about the true Savior, the true God, the true God-Man, Jesus Christ, and the life that came through him, in order that you will not be a heretic left outside of the body of Christ. There's as much warning in the word fellowship as there is warmth in the word fellowship. You cannot have fellowship with us if you don't walk in the truths that are associated with the reality of the Father sending the Son and giving eternal life. If you set those things aside, if you marginalize those things, if you minimize those things, you do not have a relationship with us who are Christians. So believe it or not, that's your first test of Christianity, whether you are actually in fellowship with the apostles. So when you read that, I know that if we just read through that quickly and we have our idea of fellowship in the way we think of fellowship as friendship and companionship and closeness and affection and all those things, if that's what you think the word fellowship means, if you think that's the end of its meaning, then you think, "Oh, that's sweet. Oh yeah, look, we have fellowship with the apostles. That's sweet. That's a nice guy of John to want to hang out with us. If he were here, we would have a potluck right now." No, John is saying, I'm writing to you these important, significant truths. If you deny them, you do not have fellowship with us. You are not one of us if you deny the things I'm telling you. We're declaring that this is the life that the Father sent, and if you don't listen to what we declare, you are not one of us.

I don't know— I know I never read it that way when I read it. When I read it, I plug the same meaning of fellowship in that everybody does. But when I study the word koinonia, when I study it in its context, when I see the warnings that are in and around this word, I now see, no, fellowship is not a promise of warmth and companionship. Here in this case, fellowship is, you better be in with us here or you're not. You better be the real thing that believes in the real thing that we touched and handled, the real eternal life that we're going to declare to you. You had better believe those or there is no fellowship. I'm writing to you with the very purpose that you would have fellowship with us. I'm not writing to you telling you I love you and want to give you a hug when I see you next time. And if you think I'm off base with that, then the rest of the verse fixes that. If you're doubting, "Wait, Sloan, no, fellowship is a potluck. Fellowship is friendship. Fellowship is family time at Christmas time. That's what fellowship is." Are you sure? Look at the rest of the verse. "And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." Now, do you think when he says truly here, he means no, really, really? Or do you think he means according to truth, according to the truths and the realities of the word of life, according to the truth incarnate, Jesus, according to the truth that comes from the Father? That's what he means. And truly, according to the truth, our koinonia, our, the ones writing, the ones declaring these things to you, John and the apostles likely, or John and the believers that are with him at the time, our fellowship, or by the way, the reader could be the our too in context. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Do you notice it doesn't say our fellowship is with our favorite people and having a good time laughing over a meal. It doesn't say that. The way we define fellowship a lot is not the definition here.

The word truly is an interesting word here. I don't— the time doesn't allow me to dig in too deep. Well, I guess it does. It isn't the word like the normal words associated with truth. It's the word, believe it or not, it's the word "but," B-U-T. So if you were to read what just happened there, "I'm writing these things, we're declaring that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you in order that," or with the purpose of, "that you would have fellowship with us." And I believe, again, that fellowship means you were with us, you're one of us genuinely. You're not just a Christian in name only. You're not just a professor. You're not just somebody who says they're a Christian. You're a real Christian. You actually have fellowship with us. And then he says, 'But our fellowship is with the Father.'

Doesn't that read weird if you say it like that? Because that word that's there is not actually the word 'true' or 'amen' or 'alētheia.' It's not the normal words. It's the word 'but.' But if you follow me here, it might even hit home a little harder if you do it the way— I'm gonna paraphrase it. Okay, this is a terrible translation, but a pretty good paraphrase. Something like this. We want you to have fellowship with us, but just so you know, the important thing to know is that we have fellowship with the Father. Something like that, okay? We would definitely want you to be in line with us, but more important than being in line with us is that we're all in line with the Father. That would make sense of the truly. So genuinely, actually, what I'm really saying is the real understanding of what I'm trying to get you to see is we have fellowship with the Father. And when we say we want you to have fellowship with us, we're saying we want you to have fellowship with the Father and with His Son. That's what we really want. So it's almost emphatic. It's almost an amplification. So it's hard to translate. I looked at a ton of translations, and all of them kind of translate it like this. But really, truly, actually, the real thing we're saying here is our fellowship is with the Father, and we want you to have that too. This is like when Jesus is talking about I and the Father are one. He prays that we might be one with Him the way He and His Father are one. So there is the oneness with Him, but then there's the oneness with the Father that is sort of amplified and to the highest degree.

Real quick, to hammer that point home even further, that fellowship here at the beginning of the book of John and the teaching of the book of John isn't just about being friendly and calling yourself a Christian and thinking you're okay with other Christians or affections or heartwarming happy times at potlucks, okay? If you think that I'm pushing it. And you say, "Sloan, I feel like you're stressing that right there, that this fellowship is with the Father and with the Son. You seem to be making— drawing a line that says fellowship is not warmth and affection and familial connection and those kind of things, but instead faithfulness, accountability, in line with truth." Now, I'm not saying this one doesn't come from that one, okay? When you're faithful and you're in line with truth and you listen to the one that came and you have eternal life, You're supposed to have warmth and fellowship and affection and all that other stuff. We're supposed to have that in the Lord, okay? But the Lord is supposed to be central. And if you think I'm off base with that, look at the very last verse of the whole book. What's the very last line? What is it? What's the very last words of the book? "My little children, have warm, affectionate, familial love for each other." What is it? Say it. Somebody say it out loud. Ah, keep yourself from what? Things that aren't the Father and the Son.

I'm writing so that you will have fellowship with us. We have fellowship with the Father and the Son. There's countless rivals to the Father and the Son, all of which will make you think you're better off for having them. You can have fellowship with the internet if you want. You can have fellowship with the media if you want. You can have fellowship with YouTube if you want. You can have fellowship with your favorite politician if you want, or your doctor. There's all kinds of places you can find fellowship, but John is not writing so that we would just have warm affection and companionship. He's saying the things I'm going to write to you, if you listen, if you take the test of Christianity, will show that you are with the Father and the Son instead of idols. So I can't stress it enough. John feels like a nice guy. Years ago, I had an argument with someone who now I probably should call and apologize to.

Because the argument was this. My friend, who I love dearly, was saying he believes that John was a tough guy. Like if you were to walk with John in real life, you might find out that he's tough. Like he's straightforward and he's curt and he tells it like it is. One of those guys, right? And I was saying, I think he's probably a teddy bear. I think John is a sweetheart and a nice guy that if you're around him, you might just want to hang around him because he's nice. I mean, look at all those things. John, this is your mother. Mother, this is your son, right? Look at all that. He's the beloved one that leans on Jesus at dinner. He's the one who talks about love more than anyone, right? All those things. History says that when he was old, they would carry him in, like, not a wheelchair, but like a a wheelchair but with poles, right? They would carry him into church, and when they would carry him into church, he would be saying, "Love one another. Love one another." I don't know if that's true, but in my mind, that makes John a sweetheart. But now that I'm studying his letter, I think maybe John is a little more straightforward than I give him credit for. Like, maybe I wouldn't want to hang around him so much because he might be challenging me all the time, saying things like fellowship doesn't mean fun and watching a ball game. Fellowship means you're walking according to truth. It means you're faithful. It means you're accountable. It means you want to be a good Christian, a real Christian, not just a Christian in name only. And instead of idols, you follow the Father and the Son, and you're close to them, and you walk in truth. You're going to see that over and over again. You're going to see him say that if anybody lies, the truth isn't in them. He's going to say walking in the light. All this stuff is coming. I've already got a bunch of these sermons prepared.

With all of that, then verse 4 to me makes way more sense, and it is way different than I might have thought before I just said what I said. If I hadn't done the study of verses 1 through 3, then read the whole book multiple times, then prepared the outline of the whole book in advance, got the whole book outlined and ready to go— I don't have the sermons done, but I have the whole book outlined— if I didn't see the giant snapshot of the major themes in the book of 1 John, I might have thought that what John cared about mostly in verse 4 was that I would have full joy. I might have thought that, because that's kind of what it says, isn't it? I mean, it says it. You take that verse and he says he's writing these things that your joy may be full. So it says right there, that your joy may be full. I mean, it's so clear. It's clear as day that what John wants— he says it so clearly. He says it. Look at it clearly with me. That your joy may be full. I hope you are all getting my dumb illustration here. And these things we write. What things is John writing about? How does the book end? How many warnings are there in the book? How many challenges are there in this book? How many tests are there in this book? When John says, I am writing, you need to make sure you, Christian, know he means the whole book. Not just the second half of the verse that screams that your joy would be full while the writing is a whisper. No. In fact, I might go the other way and say the writing is the scream, the joy is the whisper, or at least the normal volume. That this book is written so that you would be in line with the truth and the reality of the real one who gives real life, the one who came in real life named Jesus on earth Tangible, real, concrete, not abstract, not your feelings, not philosophy, not the thoughts of the day. Real Jesus, real person, real life. This life was manifested and given to us through the words that are being declared here. Those words declare in a way so that we could have fellowship with the apostles, with the real truth believers, And he says those real truth believers have real fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

By the way, His Son, Jesus Christ, what a title. I didn't even talk about the title. His Son, Jesus, the Emmanuel, God with us that saves. That's what Joshua means, the Lord saves. And Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, all built in one title. By the way, that's what that Christian fish means on the cars. I think you know that. Right? This thing? That's my Christian gang sign. The Greek word for fish is ichthus. And so that's an acronym. Jesus the Christ, God's Son and Savior. That's why the fish is the fish. There it is in a title right there in verse 3. And these things— what things, John? What things? The things that we're talking about. The life that was manifest. The words of life. These things we're declaring to you. We're writing to you. Why? Because you will only have joy when you have real fellowship with the real God. That's the only time you're ever going to have genuine joy is when you are actually connected to the real Father and Son. Not when you feel joy, not when you're trying to get your circumstances to fit. Let me tell you what John didn't just say. He did not say, I care most about your joy being full. He did not write that. He says, I do care that your joy is full, but the thing that's most important is that the truth gets declared and you get in line with it. That's the value to you, dear reader, is to be in line with the living God. It is not circumstances that bring joy. It is having fellowship with the Father and Son and His people.

When Jesus prayed this, He says, He's praying to His Father, now I come to you. And these things I speak in the world that they, that's the world, may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. What was Jesus' joy? Remember when Jesus talked to the woman at the well and the guys come back later and they talk about food and all that? And they, he says something about food. He says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me. What brought Jesus the most joy? Was it companionship? Was it being together at a football game? Was it a barbecue? Was it a potluck? Was it Christmas time? What brought Jesus the most joy? It was to glorify His Father. How can Christians have the most joy? By having Jesus' kind of joy. And that is to believe that God sent His Son and we have a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. To be connected, to be accountable with the real God and His real Son, Jesus. And not follow counterfeits and idols and others who claim to be Christian, others who only say they are Christian, others who slap the name Christian on something and think that's sufficient. It happens over and over again where people say all the time, like I told you about my neighbor years ago saying, "I used to be a Christian." And I said, "No, you didn't." There is no such thing as a used to be a Christian, right? You can't be kind of Christian. That's like being kind of pregnant. You can't be kind of Christian. You either are or you're not. You don't make something a Christian by sticking the bumper sticker on it that says it's a Christian. A real Christian has fellowship, true fellowship, accountability, connection, communion with the true God. And John wants it clear to us that if you say you walk with Him, if you say you're a Christian, just saying it, just claiming to be a Christian has implications. There's consequences if you say it and don't mean it. There's consequences in being a fake Christian. So not everything that's called Christian is Christian, including people.

The real thing can stand the test, and John is about to unpack this whole letter and give us the test. So if you ever wondered whether you're a Christian, boy, you're in for a treat, or at least you're in for instruction. This book is going to tell you whether you are or not. If you thought you were and you thought you were because of something you did— I remember years ago somebody told me they were born a Christian. They were a Christian from birth. And by the way, they weren't even Presbyterian when they said that. It was a Baptist that told me that. I was born a Christian. What they meant was they were born into a Christian family and that just meant they were always Christian. That's not what that means. Being born into a Christian family doesn't make you a Christian any more than being born in America makes you a patriot. How are we doing on that front lately? Are you a real Christian and how would you know? Maybe read through the book of 1 John this week. You'll get the idea right away. Oh boy, this is— if I was being interviewed right now and John was interviewing me, and he is in the book, you'll find out real quick if you're the real thing or not. And it's challenging.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for giving us such a clear letter and a clear author. He does such an amazing job by the work of the Holy Spirit in relaying what you want us to see here. And I am asking that we would see it, that our claims of Christianity would stand the test of what it means to be a real Christian. And I would ask, Father, that whatever degree off we might be from our definitions and understanding, that you would use the book of 1 John to correct us. Please be merciful to us. We're human and we definitely can misconstrue things and mis— get your word wrong. So help John, please use John to help us get right where we need to get right. In Jesus' name, amen.

Would you stand, please?