The very beginning, a very good place to start. Well, actually, 1 John, in this letter, says that the very beginning is a necessary place to start. When I read Margaret, our daughter, a children's book, Putting Her to Sleep, I start at the very beginning. I don't start at the very end of A Very Hungry Caterpillar and then work my way back. I start at the very beginning of this book. So does John. In this letter, he writes at the very beginning about the doctrine of God. He will be speaking about exhortations, about applications to the people of God. But first, he starts with the doctrine of God. He will mix the application and the doctrine together throughout this letter. But first, at the very beginning, he starts with the Trinity. We are to look at the example of John. We are to see that he is speaking about the Trinity, the doctrine of God, and we are to find joy in that. But we must understand that we today, just like the first recipients of this letter, must believe in the Trinity to find joy. You must believe in the Trinity to have true joy. John writes for a variety of reasons in this letter. We see at verse 4 that he is writing that their joy might be complete. Also in chapter 2, in verse 1, he is writing so that they might not sin. Then also in 5.13, he is writing to give them assurance that they might know that they have eternal life. So these different reasons why John is writing this letter are plain to us, that we might see what he is conveying to the people of God. But first, in these four verses that we're going to focus on today, we must understand the doctrine of the Trinity. Before getting to the application of the rest of this chapter and the rest of the letter, John wants us to zoom in And look at the Trinity, the full nature and orb of the Trinity, the majesty of the Trinity. So that's why he begins here. And from there flows the doctrine of salvation, sanctification, doctrines and teachings about wisdom and joy and assurance in eternal life. So the first fundamental Christian doctrine that John wants us to believe is first, you must believe that the word became flesh. Look in verse one. It says that which was from the beginning, which existed from the very beginning, the word became flesh. As we looked at in John 13, Jesus washed the disciples feet. He physically came to earth, walked and lived with his disciples, with the people. came to earth as the God-man. Jesus, after he rose from the grave, he came to his disciples on the shore of Galilee and he called out to them as they were fishing, Peter and John and the others. And he said, come and have breakfast. He physically lived and ate and slept with the disciples. And John was there. This doctrine of the incarnation is fundamental to our Christian religion. This doctrine that John spoke of in his gospel in the very beginning, John 1, 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Yes, God, Jesus, is the creator of all things. We see that in John 1, that he is the creator of all things. He created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the word. and the word was with God, and the word was God," John writes. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that was made. So yes, Jesus is the creator. Well, in this verse, in verse 1, John is alluding back to his gospel and saying that Jesus came from the very beginning, from the incarnation, where the Virgin Mary, that he was conceived in her, of her very nature, but without sin. So John is hearkening back to John one in the incarnation of Jesus, two natures and one person, the God man. John says that he has seen and he uses the we, the plural, that it's he has seen, he has heard. He has seen the Messiah in his great works and his miracles, but also the other disciples, the other followers of Jesus during Jesus's earthly ministry, saw these things with their physical eyes. We today have not seen what happened 2000 years ago, but they did. He writes in verses one and two, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father was made manifest to us. John is proclaiming that word is apologetics, where we get our doctrine of proclaiming the truth of the word of God. Just like John the Baptist that heralded the coming of the Messiah, John is doing that here in this letter, as he did in his Gospel. But not just with our physical eyes do we see the Messiah. Did John and the disciples see the Messiah? But also with spiritual eyes. He uses the word seeing three times in these first four verses. He's speaking of a spiritual seeing. A scene of Jesus, the Messiah and the Trinity, God, the father, God, the son and God, the Holy Spirit. Go back to the gospels and go in your memory and think of the list of things that Jesus did physically on the earth. He healed the sick. He healed the lepers, healed the poor, and he talked to them. He healed the dead. Think of Lazarus. Think of Mary Magdalene and when he was raised from the dead, he physically touched those around him, but also he touched them spiritually. Those that he came and his children and the elect that he was coming to save, he redeemed them, not just with a physical touch, but with a spiritual touch. His work on the cross, his mission, why he came to earth was being fulfilled. And John wants us to see that here. John, in these verses, speak of the incarnation of Jesus coming to earth. But he's also countering false gospels, false teaching that was infiltrating the church in the later part of the first century and the second century. Children, I have a question for you. What do you do with weeds in a garden? You pluck them. They're not supposed to be there. So using that analogy, John is plucking these false teachings. This Antichrist, as we go throughout in the series, looking at the false teachers of First John, John the Apostle is targeting in. He has a bullseye on these false teachers, these heretics, and he calls them that. As we know from church history, these proto-gnostics, or these docetists, the branch of the Gnostics, they rejected that Jesus came in the flesh. They denied what John is teaching here in his gospel, that Jesus came in the flesh. The Word of God, the Logos, the logic, came and dwelt among us. They were denying that. And they were infiltrating the church. They were speaking false heresies to this church in the first century. And as John, the apostle and shepherd of their souls, is writing to counter that, he's saying no, no to these false teachers, no to their special knowledge, no to their secret revelation of their denying that what they taught was that the flesh wasn't needed for godly living. It was only the flesh that could be used for immorality, while the soul was important. That only God cared about our spiritual and our soul, but didn't care about our body. John is saying that we, as both body and soul, Christ in his divinity and his humanity, or central to the gospel message. So in our own lives, is the physical body important? Is it important for you? God has saved you both body and soul. Is how we think about burial practices, about morality, about the physical temple of God important? John is saying, yes, as we go throughout this letter, he speaks about these issues. But at the beginning, he speaks about the body, the humanity of Christ. We must also discern, and we see in these passages, that John is targeting these antichrists. He's writing this letter to counter them, and they are speaking clear heresy versus doctrinal error that Some believers disagree on it, but still remain Orthodox, faithful. We must have the wisdom today to discern between what is clear heresy, a rejection of the Trinity, and those disagreements regarding baptism or other practices amongst Orthodox Christians in the Protestant world. We must discern and have wisdom and draw our knowledge from the scriptures of what they teach regarding heresy and error. Second, in these verses, we see that the second fundamental Christian belief is you must believe that there is fellowship between the three persons. Now we get to the heart of the Trinity. It is commonly said that the confession of the Trinity is the heartbeat of the Christian religion, the very heartbeat of the Christian religion. So in verse three, John says, That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. John is paying the beautiful picture of the Trinity in these words. He is proclaiming that both that the father, the son and the Holy Spirit are one. and three distinct persons. So how do we see that in these verses that Jesus is equal with God and the Holy Spirit is equal with God and the father is equal with the son and the Holy Spirit? Well, going back to John's gospel, he wrote in Chapter 10, I and the father are one. As he's interacting with the religious leaders of his day, he tells them over and over again, I and the Father are one. He says that in various ways. This doctrine of the Trinity is central to us today in 2019. If you're a member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, either here in Topeka or another congregation, The second vow that we have taken, the question is asked, do you believe in the one living and true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is revealed in the scriptures? So the second question in our questions for church membership is about the Trinity. Even this week, the Presbyterian Church in America at their General Assembly is taking up an overture, Overture 33, to amend their vows to be like ours, to include the Trinity. How central the Trinity and that doctrine is to our Christian life. It is not something that we can just have an option of confessing, but Christians are to confess the Trinity. We are to live it out in our own lives. John later says in chapter 5, For there are three that testify, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And these three agree. They are one in their being. Children, if you remember the short of catechism, it asks how many persons are there in the Godhead? And we know that answer. There are three persons in the Godhead. And they are of the same substance. Back in the fall, during our church history class, Dr. Garcia in the patristics class was teaching a seminary students about the councils of the church. He was going through them and talking about the heresies and the different heretics that would come against the church and speak falsehood. And he was describing this church history throughout the centuries. And one of the East Asian students raised his hand, and he said, can you tell us more about this trinity? We're talking about the history of it. But what about the doctrine? What is the substance? This is such a mystery. And we do acknowledge that it was a mystery. And Dr. Garcia stopped, and in our third hour of that class that day, He got out his pen and on the board, he drew triangles and he drew and filled the board with the doctrine of the Trinity. Yes, it was a mystery, but us students, our hearts were beating and we were writing down everything that was on the board. The East Asian students were recording his lecture and we were just soaking it in, the doctrine of the Trinity. We would take we took pictures of the board afterwards. That excitement, that amazement that we had, he said afterwards that if you don't shout hallelujah for the inner Trinitarian love and unity of the father, there's something wrong with you as a seminary student. And that was true. A lot of us shouted in our hearts, hallelujah, as we came from this hour learning and sitting And hearing about the doctrine of the Trinity from 1st John and from the Gospel of John, we saw that God in his eternal love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit between each other flowed out as a model, not our idea of a relationship between a father and a son on the earthly level, but the spiritual level. That the father's love for the son, And inner Trinitarian love is the model for our love in fellowship. And we see that throughout the Gospels. We see that the father speaks, that he is pleased about his son, his ministry, and also the Holy Spirit came down as a dove. This fellowship that we see in our verses today, It's the Greek word koinonia, and it speaks of the deep and rich fellowship amongst believers that John writes about here at the beginning of the Trinitarian love that the Father has for the Son. The Son has sent the Holy Spirit, and all three of these persons of the Trinity have love and unity and fellowship for one another. And so, too, John is going to write He does say that the fellowship that the Trinity has for one another is the model that we as believers, first century believers and believers today are to have for one another. If you turn over, turn back to John chapter 17 in the Gospel of John. Verses 20 through 26, the very end of the high priestly prayer and The Gospel of John chapters 14 through 17 speak of this trinity, the doctrine of the Trinity just jumps off the page as John is as Jesus is speaking to John and the other disciples. In these last verses of Jesus, his high priestly prayer, he writes of the unity and the love that the father has for the son, the oneness he prays that the oneness that the Father has for the Son would also be the oneness between the Father and those elect that Jesus is dying for. Those believers, you today, this oneness amongst each other. He prays for that. And he says that that is a reality, that that is a truth, that this model and this reality that Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit are one, is also the oneness and the love that they have for us, for you, the children of God. This is a massive doctrine. This is an important doctrine that John is setting forth in his letter at the very beginning. And what does this produce in our lives? It produces joy. Christ, as the one that has paid for our sins, has given us ultimate joy. And so we look at verse four. Where does verse one and two and three lead us? They point us to the joy that we have in Christ. The third fundamental Christian belief is you. I and all believers must believe that ultimate joy flows from union with Christ. Ultimate joy flows from union with Christ. John writes in verse four, and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. We, the collective, the disciples in his day are communicating to his audience, communicating to us that our joy, that your joy may be complete. And how is that worked out? But from the joy of the Trinity, that the joy and love that they have amongst the persons flows out through Christ, the Messiah, who are looking to Jesus Christ as our Savior. That he is our joy, he's the one that we find joy and happiness in. The Apostle Paul saw this joy. He writes in Philippians, he says this. Indeed, I count everything a loss because of surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Paul found this joy in Christ. John found this joy in Christ. And Jesus said our joy would be complete in him, in him, is all fullness of joy. We sang in Psalm 51 that salvation and joy are connected, that we have in Christ. So how can we apply this, this truth of the Trinity, this doctrine of the Trinity that we see in these first four verses of the letter to our own lives? Well, do you have the joyful affections of Christ in your own life? Are you united to Christ? Do you abide in Him as He is the vine and you are the branches? Do you have your affections fixed on Christ? Has He given you this joy? I pray that that is the case today. Sometimes it is hard, as we still have the flesh and the wool and the devil coming down and tempting us, that our affections are sometimes hampered, almost like a wet rag on our lives. We don't feel the joy of Christ that He has given to us as believers. We don't sometimes appreciate the doctrine of the Trinity. We don't appreciate the truth and the beauty of the love and the unity of the father, son and Holy Spirit, this same love that the father showed to Christ during his ministry. Christ shows to us the Trinity, all three of the persons have showed to us, they model it in the Trinitarian love and unity. So we are to love others, the brethren. And John will write that in his letter. He writes in these five chapters that we have about the love that we are to have amongst brothers and sisters in Christ. So we are to believe in the Trinity to have true and ultimate joy. Joy that comes from our union and abiding in Christ. This doctrine in these first four verses is not optional. The doctrine of the Trinity is the core, the heartbeat of the Christian religion. It is fundamental to acknowledge that Christ came in the flesh. He came to earth roughly 2000 years ago for you, for your salvation. And if you're here today, that you don't have that salvation, that union and communion with Christ in the Trinity. I call that you repent and believe on Jesus Christ for salvation, for without Christ, you will not have joy and happiness in life and you will not have joy and happiness in the life to come. So we as believers, brothers and sisters today are to confess these three fundamental truths. We are to believe that Christ came in the flesh, that the word The word of life came in the flesh. We are to believe in the fellowship, the deep communion and union of the three persons of the Trinity. And we also are to believe that ultimate joy, true biblical joy flows from our abiding in union with Christ. So as we look at this letter that John wrote, the rest of the chapters, as we see the application, the exhortation that John writes, Let us first remember the beginning of the letter that he speaks of the truth of the Trinity, the doctrine of the Trinity, that it is one of love and unity. And without that, you will not be able to understand the rest of this letter. If you don't understand this beginning doctrine of the Trinity, of the love that they have amongst each other. You will not understand the application. You won't have the ability, the joy, the love, the show amongst brothers and sisters without being united to Christ and believing this core doctrine that is central to the Christian faith. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Father, we know that you have sent your son in the flesh, the God-man to earth, fully God and fully man. Holy Spirit, we ask that you would guide us in our Christian life. Those here that do not know Christ, we pray that they would confess their sins, repent and believe only on Christ for salvation. No works. anything but the name and person of Jesus Christ, the sweet fellowship that you have amongst the three persons, the triune God, that we would have that love amongst believers. And the joy and happiness in our own heart would flow out from us, knowing that the source of that fountain is you, Father. that you have joy and all fullness of joy, and that Christ is the source of that joy. You being one God in three persons have all joy and happiness, and that we can have that joy in our lives and show that to others. We thank you for that love that you have shown in the work, in the finished, accomplished work of Christ. We pray that you would teach us throughout this letter that John, your servant, wrote this inspired word of God. We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.