Together, 1 John is a small and powerful little book. You've got five chapters. In 1 John, it's a book of comfort for us sisters. It's a book of comfort. John is an older brother. We don't know exactly how old John was. I don't know exactly how old John was. He's an older brother. He might be 80. He might be 80 plus. He's an older brother. And one of the things you know when you walk through 1 John is frequently he addresses the church, this is the church in Ephesus, as little children, okay? It's kind of like Brother Jimmy was talking about this morning in regards to the youth. And that was a good Sunday school lesson and I was very thankful to find out I might have grounds to be called a youth still, which feels pretty good in my mid-40s, thank you very much. Timothy, younger brother, told not to let anybody disregard him for his youth. children to him, right? And the point is, brothers and sisters, you gotta see his pastoral heart, okay? You gotta see his pastoral heart. Now, I've heard some really great sermons through 1 John. I've also heard some pretty blistering sermons through 1 John, and you gotta be careful with that. Alright, here's why. You can lose the pastoral heart of John if you preach the book of 1 John in a blistering kind of way. You know what I'm talking about? where you go through all these different tests of your assurance and things of that nature. I think the heart of John is to give you signs. He's giving you things to grab hold of. He's not trying to remove things to grab hold of. He's trying to give you, as a pastor, okay, he's an apostle, but pastorally, giving you things to hold onto when you feel like the life, your life is, your spiritual life is life, hope, assurance. John wants your joy to be complete, as we'll see in just a moment. That is, verse 4 that we'll read in just a moment, is really the purpose statement of 1st John, okay? John, brothers and sisters, John wants your joy to be complete, okay? What is joy? Joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Joy is not that temporal kind of that highs and lows we go through. Am I happy? Am I not happy? How's my day going? How's my week going? Joy is the result of knowing my life is held in the hands of a faithful God. He is holding my life together. And I have been justified by faith. I belong to Jesus. I've been justified by faith. All my sins, past, present, future, have been fully atoned for by the blood of Christ, and I've been adopted, and I belong Him, and I'm being sanctified. His spirit lives in me, and it's as if I'm there. If you guys think about, like, Ephesians 2, we are seated with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Look, we're not there yet. We're not in heaven yet, but from the perspective of the triune God, it's as if we're already there. Joy comes from knowing who I am, who I belong to, where I'm going, what life's about. Who's in control of this thing called life? Well, if you know the Lord, you have the answers to all those things, and now your joy's complete. The folks who don't have their joy complete are folks who are going through this life and they don't know the Lord, they don't have fellowship have the abiding Holy Spirit in dwelling them. And so they don't have the fullness of joy. They don't have complete joy that John is gonna talk about. So let's read together. We'll just get our feet wet a little bit this morning. Let's read together 1 John 1, 1 through 7. And we will be encouraged as we think about knowing God. All right, so this is the word of the Lord to us. The Apostle John says in John 1,1, that which is from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon at our hands of Hamel concerning the word of life, the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us, that which we have seen and heard we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son, Jesus Christ, and these things we write to you, that your joy may be full. This is the message which we have heard from him, and declare to you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practice the truth. But as we walk in the light, as he is in the light, We have fellowship with one another. In the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. Brothers and sisters, that is a beautiful word of the Lord to us. In the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. Father, we thank you that we have a sure word. And we pray, Lord, that every foot will be planted at the end of verse seven, that the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, has cleansed us from all sin. That we have a father, we have a brother in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit who is our comforter, who dwells with us, and therefore we are in fellowship with the Lord and in fellowship with one another. We praise you, O God, because we have not been left as orphans in this world, but we have the spirit of adoption that cries out, Abba, Father. Bless us, we humbly pray, as we begin this journey through the book of 1 John, and we pray it bear much fruit. In this we humbly pray, in Christ's great name, amen. All right, brothers and sisters, so the blessings of knowing God, knowing God. Brothers and sisters, Joy, that John talks about, is the blessing of knowing God. Have you ever thought about the audacity in a postmodern world of saying, I know God? That's an audacious statement. In a postmodern world, there's no absolute truth, you're not really supposed to know much of anything, for certain. And so what John's talking about here is the certainty that you and I know God. through faith in Jesus. So John writes again around their age of 80 and he's writing to the church of Ephesus. Now all the churches, all the churches were constantly under an onslaught of false teachers, heresies, wolves in sheep's clothing, and so a major reason that John is writing that there are those who would upset the church and deceive God's God. Okay, now think about this, you know, when John wrote his gospel, we spent about two and a half years in the gospel of John. John the Apostle is writing like an evangelist, right? He wants people to be converted, to know they have eternal life through faith in Jesus. John here, again an apostle, is writing pastorally, and he wants to confirm the church, he wants them to have assurance, he wants to make sure that their feet are planned on the bedrock of of Christ by faith alone. And so, 1 John is largely about assurance of salvation. How do we know that we know? It's about assurance. And he does write about knowing God. So, this book has been, I mean, this is a life-changing, life-transforming book for me personally because about 1995, we had, in the fall, our church had a special speaker. and he came and he did a series on 1 John. And I remember leaving one of these meetings and thinking, if that's a Christian, I'm probably not a Christian. If that's what a Christian is, because I thought being born again is you went from one part of church building to another part of church building, you shook hands with the preacher, and I did that, right? I did that already. And so when I left that meeting, going through uh first john i thought that's a christian i'm probably not uh but going to my home really in in like the spring of 1996 a little bit later reading first john on my own and then the lord drew me to himself not just through first john but reading john's gospel and other parts of the testament the lord drew me to And so, let's see, three big points here about knowing God. First of all, John wants us to know. John wants us to know he knew the Son of God. John knew the Son of God. Number two, John wants us to know. We can know the Son of God, got it? So John knew the Son of God, we can know the Son of God. Number three, how do you know? that you know the Son of God. All right, so John knew the Son of God, we can know the Son of God. How do you know that you know the Son of God? First of all, John knew the Son of God. This is in verse one. So this is the message which we heard from him. He declared to you, that's the first verse. Sorry, verse one. That which was from the beginning, we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, in our hands have handled concerning the word of life." John is an eyewitness to our Lord Jesus. Brothers and sisters, Christianity rises and falls on the person in work of Jesus. So John wants his audience to know So everybody has to come to the conclusion. Who is he? Was he a liar? A liar is somebody who purposely deceives people. And John's point here is he's not a liar. I knew him. I was with him. You can't fool somebody for three years, day in, day out, walking around with Jesus. I heard him. I touched him. I saw him. He's not a liar. He is who claimed to be. Was he a lunatic? Was he a crazy man? There are self-deceived people, after all. You know, you'll meet folks who are mentally, I've met folks who are very mentally ill and maybe demon-possessed, and they said, but there's one lady at the Sands. She introduced herself as the Holy Spirit. I had to inform her that, indeed, she is not the Holy Spirit. I think you're just high on meth, all right? There are people who are deceived. There are lunatics. Jesus is not a lunatic, okay? Jesus was the soundest. of sound minds. He's not a liar. He's not a lunatic. He's not a legend. This is the accusation of the skeptic. The story of Jesus grew over centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries and over time, over time, over time, he became God. He went from being a good man to a very godly man to the God man over the course of centuries. John's saying, no, no, no. I knew him. I'm an eyewitness. I walked with him I saw the signs, I saw the wonders, I heard the teaching. He's not a liar. He's not a lunatic. He's a sound mind. He's not a legend that grew over time. He indeed is the Lord. He is God in flesh, God in person. He is that which was from the beginning. John is saying that he knew the Son of God. He defends his deity. He was from the beginning. And in verse three, we see that he had, he said, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a son of God. He is the eternal son. There was never a time when he did not exist. He's always been. He was before the beginning, before day one of creation. He's the eternal son. He was there at creation. He is the creator himself. He is from the beginning. This is what John knew. And it's also, of course, what our Lord taught. Before Abraham was, our Lord would say in John 8. Before Abraham was, I am. Or in John 10, the Father and I are one. Or in John 14, I'm Philip. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. What a shocking statement that would be. John knew Jesus is God. But he also knew Jesus is or was a man. He's the God-man. He was and is a man from his incarnation. So John defends the deity of Jesus and the humanity of Jesus. John's an eyewitness. He's not a second-hand hearer. He didn't just get testimonies from others. He was an eyewitness. Not a liar, not a lunatic, not a legend. to the Word of Life. This speaks about Jesus being God in human flesh. He is the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us. So John wants us to know, I knew him personally. Look, his senses. He heard him. He heard him teach. He heard his parables. He heard his sermons. He heard his private instructions. heard Jesus, remember this? Like Mark 4, for example, Matthew, Mark, Luke all had this account. On the boat on the Sea of Galilee, and the hurricane-like storm came up. And even the fishermen are saying, we're gonna drown. And they wake up Jesus, and what does Jesus do? They heard him say to the wind in the waves, be still. And the winds were still. They heard him say to a leper, you're cleansed. They heard him outside the tomb of Lazarus. Lazarus, go forth! And here comes Lazarus, four days dead, from the grave. They heard him. He says that I've seen, we've seen with our eyes. Again, this is our senses that John is talking about. He's not a phantom. He's not a ghost. This wasn't some dream they had after a bad taco dinner, right? This is not a vision that John has had. Jesus is a man that John knew. John wants us to know he knew him. John says, speaking of our Lord, which we have looked upon. Another way of saying that we saw him, but the point of this is it's a long, gaze, right? You ever scrutinize somebody? You ever have somebody kind of look at you like this that makes you feel uncomfortable? Like, what do you see? All right, what's wrong? That's what John is talking about. It's a long gaze. It's the same word that John uses in John 1 14, and we beheld his glory. John is saying this. Look, there's lots of skeptics, right? They're skeptics. They say, oh, people back then, they'll just believe anything. That's not true. What do you see when you read an honest reading of the Gospels is the disciples doubted. And well, even going back to the storm in the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was like their last effort. Let's try to row to shore. Let's try to bail out of this thing. Oh, no, we're dying. Let's give Jesus a shot. They struggled with unbelief. And even after his crucifixion, they weren't the first ones to run to the tomb, it was the ladies that go to repair his body. They were skeptical and they had doubts. But John says this, we gazed upon him, we looked upon him, we beheld his glory. And the skeptical say, well, you know, extraordinary claims, it demands extraordinary evidence. Well, here's what John is saying. John said our hands have handled concerning the words of life. You can't touch a ghost. You can't touch a phantom or a vision or a dream. John is saying we touched him. Remember that Thursday night before the crucifixion and there's the apostles gathered with the Lord, right? They're at the Passover meal with our Lord's Institute and Lord's Supper. And you see this phrase, John leaned upon his chest, okay? This is a kind of ancient Near Eastern way of reclining, relaxing. They have a low table and they're on the floor, and they're just kind of leaning on each other, and that's what John is doing. John is, he's handled, touched the Word of Life. Do y'all remember, John was there, Thomas wasn't there at first, at the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus. So John, Thomas said, unless I touch him, I'm not gonna believe it. John was there when he saw Jesus say, touch my hands, touch my side, Thomas. Don't doubt, but believe. John touched the Lord Jesus. Touch me and see. Our Lord would say in Luke 24, another post-resurrection appearance, touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. So John touched the Son of God, the baby that Mary held and nursed and loved and nurtured. Jesus was the God man. He touched the Son of God. And John is saying to the church, he was really God. And he's really God, he's really man. Now there's a context of this, as you probably remember, okay? It's an early form of what's called Gnosticism. Early form. It was developed later on in the second century, but the basic teaching of Gnosticism was matter or physical things, it's either A, evil, or B, it's at least inferior to spiritual things. In a lot of ways, brothers and sisters, this is still around. modern-day narcissism, but you'll also just meet a lot of people who say something like, I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual, right? And you can be spiritual and live a totally immoral life because what you do with your body doesn't really count because you're spiritual. And so narcissism is an ancient heresy that has kind of modern relevance to our very day, right? It's still around in different kinds of forms. But he's addressing here Gnosticism, and the Gnostics would teach that Jesus is fine, Jesus is God, great, okay? Had a different view of God, of course. But they said, look, he most certainly was not a man, because man is evil, because man is flesh and bones, blood, that's matter, matter is evil, matter is inferior. John is saying, Jesus is not a ghost. He's not a phantom. He didn't just appear to be a man. He is the God man, and he knew him. He heard him. He touched him. He saw him. Jesus is the God man, and he is the only man qualified to live the life that we could not live, who went to a those who would believe upon him. He is the only one who can wash away our sins. He's the only Lamb of God that can cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So John wants us to know, number one, he knew the Son of God. Number two, John wants us to know that we can know the Son of God. That we can know the Son of God. So he says, discerning the word of life, in verse two, the life was manifested. we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us that which we have seen and heard we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship was with the Father and with this Son Jesus Christ okay so John wants us to know that we can have fellowship with the Son and one of the things I want to point out is Again, it's the humility of John. John is not here to talk about his cloud and boast about, hey, I was an apostle, so y'all buy me a jet plane or whatever, right? John is a humble servant, and he says, I'm here to bear witness and to proclaim to you eternal life. It's beautiful, it's humble, it's wonderful. So, John gives us three blessings of eternal life, and you can see it's so easy here in verse three. One of the blessings of eternal life is fellowship in the body of Christ. That you might have fellowship with us, John says. Fellowship with the body of Christ. Number two is fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and with the Father. So fellowship with God. Fellowship, koinonia, is sharing, it's having something in common. So one of the great blessings of eternal life is to have a faith family, right, is to have Fellowship one with another, people that know you, that know about you, people that love you, people that share eternal life with you, that share one body, one spirit, the same goals that we have to make disciples. We have fellowship with each other because we have fellowship with our Lord Jesus. Now, a few things. that I wanted to say about that as we think about John's great desire that we have fellowship with each other. Number one, John's passion, brothers and sisters, was to reclaim Christ, the only message that brings eternal life. So here's my question for us. Do you know God? Do you have fellowship with Jesus? Do you have fellowship with him? Do you have the same drive that John has? John's drive is passion. is to know Christ and to make him known. Do you? Do you share this same drive? Brothers and sisters, if your heart is not one that has a great desire to see people saved and grow in their walk with Jesus, your heart's cold. You need to go to the Lord about that. Your spiritual life is not going well right now. Number two, John loved the church. This is pretty basic and evident, but John loved the church. And the reason John loved the church is because Jesus died for his church. And y'all remember that most of the apostles weren't there when our Lord was crucified, but John was. Behold your mother, brother, behold your son. That was John, right? John was there and he knew what the cross meant. He knew the meaning behind it. He was not a victim to those mean hypocritical Pharisees and awful Roman centurions. I'm going to try and tell people in the nation. So, John loves the church. Brothers and sisters, here's the question. Do you love the church? Do you love the people of God? You should. And if your heart is waning from that, again, your heart is cold right now. You need to go to the Lord about that and to seek His strength and counsel for these things. Brothers and sisters, our fellowship with each other is a blood-bought joy and privilege. It's a blood-bought joy and privilege. And our fellowship, brothers and sisters, is richer than any other human institution. So therefore, brothers and sisters, I implore all of us to prioritize the gathering with the saints because it is a much more precious fellowship than any other human institution that can be created, even if they're good things. This is a priority. And one of the great blessings of eternal life is fellowship with God and fellowship with other believers. And we can know the blessing also of joy. This is another result of eternal life. And that's in verse four. And these things we write to you that your joy knowing God. It is not some, you know, mystical experience. It's not, you know, 10 steps I need to take to have more joying in my life. Joy is a work of God's Holy Spirit. Joy does not always manifest itself in big smiles. Sometimes you feel joy in tears, okay? My mother went home to be in heaven back in October and, you know, I had joy in the Lord because I know she's with our Lord Jesus and so if somebody you know where somebody's at they're not lost right I was sad you know I wasn't gonna see her again in this life and in the flesh and that may be sad but you have joy because you know where she's at and you know the Lord's in control and you know the Lord is her shepherd and that's the kind of joy that we need to focus on it's an overflow of knowing our Lord sadly would y'all just think about this sadly a lot of folks don't That's a sad thing, okay? Sometimes we are probably seen as being dour and that kind of thing. Well, we should be a joyful people because we know that our God is in control. Joy is a gospel fruit. Joy is a gospel privilege. Joy is a gospel reality, okay? So, he writes to us that your joy may be full. Brothers and sisters, your joy is going to be full when you know that you know that you know your bedrock truth is I know my identity in Christ, that he is mine, and I'm his, I'm in Christ, and Christ is in me. That joy is the joy of knowing the Son of God is not ashamed to be called my brother. That joy is knowing that heaven is my home. and that I belong to him. We can know the Son of God. Number three, how do we know that we know? And look, we're just gonna dip our toes in. You ever been in a pool, it's kinda chilly outside, you're just gonna kinda dip your toes in a little bit. You'll get the deep end later. That's kinda what we're doing here this morning, we're just gonna dip our toes in a little bit because that's what this book is all about. How do we know that we know? Verse five, this is the message which we heard from him and declare to you that God is light, and him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practice the truth, but if we walk in the light, as he's in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son, cleanses us from all our sins. So how do we know you have experienced the life-changing power of the gospel. Brothers and sisters, there was a time in all of us when we were still dead in our trespasses and sins. And part of that is you have things kind of flipped upside down. Good can be evil and evil can be good. And the light seems dark, it doesn't seem fun over in that light. In the dark, that seems fun, that seems like light, that's confusion, okay? It's being disordered, it's being dead or trespasses and sins. What happens to us when we experience the life-changing power of the gospel? There is now a new power, a new affection, a new position, a new status, all these things are true. And so John here is concerned about our walk, about a walk in the light. You used to walk in the dark, okay? Now John says if you've experienced the life-changing power of the gospel, you're gonna walk in the light. You know this, that walk is a Hebraic phrase, okay, it's a Greek word, but it's a Hebraic phrase and Hebraic mind. It talks about the way you live your life, okay? And so John is saying here, how do you walk? He's concerned about a walk. Do you have a walk with the Lord? Those who experience the new birth walk in the light. This walk changes our affections. It's changing our character. It's changing our worldview. It's changing our priorities. It's changed our hope. Our hope used to be based upon things that we did and who we are. Now our hope is only built on Jesus. and our status and our position in him. So we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the dark. John is saying we lie and do not practice the truth, but if we walk in the light as he's in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, the son cleanses us all our sins. This is very similar, you might recall, to what the Lord said to himself in John 8. I am the light of the world, but he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Brothers and sisters, this is really what the book of John, 1 John, is concerned with. Are you walking in the light? How is your walk? Who do you know? It's all about knowing God and having faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and if you do, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us. Do you see this? From all sin. Now, John's gonna deal with sin in these next verses. We'll see it together next week. But can we just hit the pause button for one second and give praise to our great God and King Jesus, that through faith alone we've been cleansed all our sins past, present, and future cleansed. It's been washed away. Brothers and sisters, this is a great way for us to end our sermon this morning. It is to give praise to Jesus and to remind ourselves of who we are because of who he is. So look, are you in the light your sins. Is your faith, is your faith in Christ alone? If it's not this morning, fix your gaze, fix your heart on the finished work of Jesus. Take it off yourself. Our best efforts is like filthy rags. And so what you need is the finished work of Christ. You need the righteousness of Christ. Father, we thank you for the word of God. It's always a lamb. Lord, we most humbly pray that as we walk through John's letter, that we'd be encouraged in our hearts and souls to grow, and that our joy would be full, and that we'd find our rest and assurance in the finished work of Jesus. Bless us, we most humbly pray, and we ask these things in Christ's great, great name, amen.