You take your copy of the scriptures in hand there and turn to 1 John. 1 John, we continue with the introduction to 1 John, the first epistle of the apostle John this morning. I’ll give me reading verses one to four. We’ll get into the book proper expositionally next week. John one, one to four. Let’s first ask the Lord’s blessing though. Join me in prayer. Ask the blessing upon the reading, the preaching and the hearing of his word. Now let’s pray. Our heavenly father, you’re the one who has spoken in various times in various ways to your people in the past. But in the last days you have told us that you’ve done so in your son, the incarnate word, and we pray, Lord, that you will open the mouth of your servant to proclaim that word in power and spirit. And we pray that the same spirit would open the hearts of all the hearers here assembled to receive your holy gospel and write it on their hearts and write your holy laws, even as you have promised to do so. We pray, Father, as you do, that we would hear the voice of Jesus speaking to us as sons and daughters of the King, by virtue of the faith you have given us and exercised for your glory and for our good. And then we would hear that voice as your children loved by our Lord, challenged and comforted by your truth. And in it all, Lord, we pray that we would remember our chief and your glory from which we are indeed overjoyed. We ask this in Christ’s name and all God’s people said, amen. Amen.

1 John 1:1-4. Please give your full attention, this is the word of our God.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our own hands, concerning the word of life, The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father, was made manifest to us, that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. Indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. So far the reading of God’s word. Grass withers and the flowers fall, but indeed the word of the Lord endures forever.

Well, I’ve mentioned to some of you in the past that when seminary students go to seminary, they begin to learn New Testament Greek. One of the first books they read through is 1 John. They do so because it’s not as complex as some of the other New Testament writings. The vocabulary is fewer. It’s more manageable. The syntax is straightforward. One of my, one of my Greek professor would refer to 1 John as baby Greek. He called it baby Greek, 1 John. But no one in those early classes thought it was baby Greek, right? We thought it was very old, mature, complex, hard Greek. And it was when you first start to learn. But the more you learn, especially compared to other writings in the New Testament, such as Luke’s writings, we understood that 1 John indeed was one of the easier books to learn and to read. But even the most sophisticated commentators acknowledge regarding 1 John that his style of writing can be very perplexing. They would admit that the opening verses of 1 John, though they’re not tongue twisters, commentators do confess that these opening verses do present us with, and I quote, an abrupt, exceedingly complex, complicated interweaving of obscure insider language. These are just a few of the things that you read about when people talk about 1 John. One person, one commentator referred to these verses as a grammatical tangle, grammatical tangle. And when we read these verses, naturally we ask, right, as we read through and we’re trying to avail ourself to the text and see what is going on, we ask things like, what is the witch that’s being talked about? The witch, W-H-I-C-H. Who is we, as John says? discusses as he talks about who is the we and what does what is we that we read about have to say about which to you right we have these pronouns and we don’t understand at times how these are connected and what they mean but we notice as we read this letter and it makes sense, and it’s there for us to understand, that this is written from the position of a seasoned man, right, John. It’s written from a warm and tender letter, is what it is, written from an experienced, seasoned man, a convicted man, a man of conviction. And these verses, and the letter as a whole, rather, are a passionate plea of proclamation. They’re a passionate plea of proclamation of Christ come in the flesh. Christ come in the flesh. John is testifying the truth of what he’s seen, what he’s touched, what he’s heard, what he’s looked upon. And for this man, John, what is his point? The point is what? It’s that Jesus is everything, right? Jesus is everything. Jesus is the point of passion and proclamation. for his life and all that he did. And his goal in writing is what? It’s joy, joy, joy that comes from salvation, from fellowship with the Father and the Son and with the apostles through the Holy Spirit. As I said, we’re gonna look at this a bit this morning. As I said, as you know, we normally, I preach expositionally through text and we are, but the introduction, sometimes they take a little more time to ground what we’re doing and where we’re at in a new book. And we’ll see as we do so, as we look through this, how important this was to the apostles, right? This apostolic deposit, that which was handed down to the church We also see a strong testimony of the needed commitments to the truth of God’s word, to the ability to know for certain, to biblical requirement to stand for that truth. What we have in these verses in 1 John 1-4, about the advent and incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we could put it this way. It really happened, and it really matters. It really happened, and it really matters. Or from our liturgy, the outline you have, Who’s that, and so what, right? Who are these pronouns being referred to, and so what, after all? And we could ask this for the whole of the book, and we’ll look at this more next week, but for those who first heard and received this letter, they needed to believe and trust the true message of the apostles. And in that congregation, as we look through the internal evidence of this book, we see that there were doubters, deniers, and departers from the faith, from that church. And that’s the flow, isn’t it, when we think about these things? Those are the steps downward and away from the truth, right? They doubt that Jesus came in the flesh, was the Messiah. And then they deny that he came in the flesh and was the Messiah. And then they depart. They secede or pull out or leave the church. And they leave for a non-church or a false religion, even the false religion of secularism, by the way, or alleged atheism. And they do so because we know that man is created, Scripture tells us to what? To worship. Man is created inbuilt, innate in him is to worship. He will worship something or someone, either the one true and living God or a false God. And very often that false God is the God of self, right, the God of self. But John the Apostle, because he loved Jesus and he loved those to whom he’s writing, is concerned about this. He’s worried about them potentially leaving the faith and about true believers being damaged or shaken by the lies of denying the truth, these seceders, these deniers. And he’s concerned and he’s worried about them. flirting with these lies. He’s worried about them entertaining these corrosive lies about the truth. And this is important for us as well, even in our day, is it not, brothers and sisters? We cannot think for a minute that these challenges and dangers and lies aren’t a reality in our own lives and culture and society. They most certainly are. and dangers for us. And we, like they, are called again and again always to trust God’s Word, to trust the Word of the Lord, despite the lying claims to the contrary. And this, indeed, is the zeitgeist, right, the spirit of the age, the ethos of our day, where the worst possible thing you can do is believe that truth is truth, right, to believe that truth is truth. And the truth is not relative, but it actually can be known and should be believed. Again, one of the worst things a person can believe in our society today is that God’s Word is true and should be submitted to and believed. Any other belief system is okay, according to the culture of the day, except that one, right, except that one. And it’s not new. This is not a new lie or a new pressure, of course, in our day, but today is very en vogue, and it’s frustrating for those who try and have dialogue with people holding to these beliefs. It’s popular to hear them say things like, well, it’s fine. with whatever you wanna believe, just don’t think it’s true for me, right? You hear this very nonsensical term, true for me, or that it’s, don’t assert that it’s more true or more valuable than any other opinion, right? As if something that’s true can be more or less true. And sadly, many in the church have fallen into believing this as well, right? People today, many of them have an allergy to conflict, or they equate conflict with being mean or being hateful or disagreement with being mean or hateful. Like that’s one of the worst things that can occur is a disagreement. People have an aversion for and lack the will to stand for the truth. And much of this, of course, is born out of the overwhelming influence of a culture all around us. And this is why we talk about that it’s so absolutely critical and the necessity to be strong and established in our biblical worldview, in a Christian worldview, right? We’re told in scripture that we must take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, right? We are not called to be weak or fearful. We’re called to speak the truth in love, and we cannot speak the truth in love if we don’t know, believe, and stand for that truth. God’s Word tells us in Romans, let God be true, though every man a liar. Truth is not a convention of the populace, but mercifully and wonderfully, Christ came and accomplished redemption for his people. He gave the Spirit to them, and he calls us to believe, and he enables us to stand for that truth. John, in this letter, is giving a defense for that truth, a proclamation and a defense of that truth against those who deny Christ’s coming in the flesh. And we’re called to do the same, right? You and I are called to do the same. And remember that fisherman in the New Testament, Peter, what did he say, right? 1 Peter 3, but in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you, yet do with gentleness and respect, right? And so, you know, one of the false lying ideas of what has come to be known postmodernism, and surely we’re beyond postmodernism currently, But this false idea that if we can’t have perfect knowledge, or we can’t know everything, then we can’t know anything, right? This is another thing that’s popularly held, if not deliberately, at least subconsciously, this is the ethos of what people have been steeped in in our culture. And it’s false, of course. Because why? Because God is not crippled to preserve his word by the limitations of man. And God is able and he has given man in general common grace, but also especially regenerate man, the ability to know and think and reason. And he’s given us his word, that is the truth. And more importantly, he has given us his spirit, John 16 tells us to guide us into all truth. And so it is a lie that we can’t know the truth. Another complaint that we come up with in dialogue with people in this regard, sharing our faith, talking about worldview issues, is that people have a problem with, they lodge the complaint or the accusation or the protest, well, you just think you’re right, right? Have you ever heard that? You just think you’re right, or you just wanna be right. And on the face of it, it’s not clear what the statement is trying to accomplish. I imagine it’s an attempt to shut down the conversation. But it’s not an argument, it’s an assertion. And usually what it is, it’s said as an insult or a criticism for someone who’s taking a stand and trying to adhere to the truth of God’s Word. But why is it a negative thing to want to be right? Isn’t that kind of self-evident? Why is it a negative thing to want to be right in our beliefs? And I think what it means is you’re being rude in asserting these things. And indeed, if it means that you’re being rude, then yes, it’s inappropriate. But in reality, why is it wanting to be right in my thinking? And am I believing a bad thing, something to be attacked for? Would the person rather I want to be false in my thinking? No one, them included, want that. These people making these accusations. But is it more noble to want to think that I’m in error? It’s silly thinking. It’s completely silly. It’s like the idea that the attack on organized religion I just say, would you rather my religion be disorganized? Right, it doesn’t really make sense. But again, in order to explain the gospel, to deliver the most precious thing in all of history, the most precious message, you need to know the truth. You need to want to be correct in what you believe about the gospel, the truth from God’s word. And Ephesians 4 tells us, commends us to speak the truth in love, the truth in love. Not to speak our opinion on what we’re shaky and unsure about, or to speak the truth, or to speak what we don’t really believe and don’t want to dare assert that it’s true in love. No, we’re to speak the truth in love. Ephesians 4 goes on to say that, talks about this putting on and putting off, it’s to put on the new self, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth, the truth. And even John in this letter of 1 John, we’ll go on later to say in chapter 3, little children let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth, right, in truth. So we’re to be people of the truth. And so let’s look now as we go to begin to answer this question, who’s that, right? Or you see there in verse 1, that which, right? What is being spoken of here? And from the beginning of this letter, we see that it’s a bit different from other letters, as we mentioned a couple weeks ago. There’s no greeting, as is customary. There’s no audience or author given explicitly. There’s no geography. There’s no occasion, as in other letters, nothing that we would normally associate with the beginning of an ancient letter of any type. And the only parallel we have in the New Testament of this kind of thing is the book of Hebrews, right, the book of Hebrews. And while 2 and 3 John are also different a bit in that they have very truncated greetings, it’s pretty clear that they are to be read as letters. But this is not so clear with 1 John. And so this opening, these opening verses creates the rhetorical effect of a bold proclamation, right, which fits the letter as a whole. And it’s interesting that that verb of what’s going on, what John is doing, just like in John 1, right, he holds out for quite a bit what he’s talking about. The truth that came through Jesus Christ, where he starts to define who the word is. And at first, John, we have this same thing. It’s not until verse three that he says, that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also. We proclaim to you. And so he’s talking for quite a while, the emphasis on what he’s proclaiming, not the proclamation. And so that’s why he does that. He holds out. It’s this tension that’s being built in the way that he writes. And everything that John is going to say is based on what? The truth, it’s based on the truth and significance of the historical and spiritual realities given in these first four verses. And these first four verses talk about what? Right, this is, again, John’s longest canonical letter, right, the longest letter that he writes. And these opening verses raise these important spiritual issues relating to what? To Jesus Christ, to the apostolic proclamation of Christ, and to fellowship with God. Regarding Christ in verses 1 and 2, John draws attention to his preexistence, right, his physical existence on earth, and his status as the word of life. And this apostolic proclamation of Christ consists of eyewitness testimony, right, for the purpose of bringing about fellowship with the community of believers and fellowship with the Father and the Son. And we notice that John, he likes to speak recursively, right? He talks about similar things again, and over and over. He lays the same ground in different ways, and he says the same thing in these numerous ways, and it’s quite beautiful, really. And he does this in his gospel as well. Admittedly, the pronouns can be perplexing. And we’ll look at this a little bit closer next week. but they go on rhythmically, right, rhythmically, these pronouns, what he’s talking about, for nearly three verses, and there’s even, like, a parathetical phrase in there. Yet the message itself is plain enough, and that is that fellowship with God requires apostolic fellowship, right, fellowship with the God-appointed, God-preserved teachings of the apostles about Jesus Christ, right, as they were inspired, and they taught these things and handed them down to the church, and this is very important. Right, John is concerned that they are in fellowship with his, John’s, and the apostles, right, he says, we teaching, and therefore with the triune God. And again, we’ll look at this more in detail next week as we walk through the text slowly, I promise we will. But let’s take a moment to see the harmony of what’s going on here, what John is saying, and what is important to him to the rest of the New Testament. And this is something that we see. It’s very important for John that his hearers believe the teaching that he and the apostles, we handed down and proclaimed to you. And so we look at the pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. We see in 1 Timothy, Paul doing what? He’s instructing Timothy in certain aspects of what Timothy is to do. Paul never, by the way, we looked at this last week a little bit or a couple weeks ago, Paul never tells Timothy to what? To work miracles. He never says heal or speak in tongues, Timothy, right? Paul doesn’t appoint apostles, right? He deals with pastors, right? Timothy is a pastor because that foundation laying stage has already been laid. And Paul tells Pastor Timothy to preach the word, to preach the word. He says to guard the deposit, that which was handed down to him, right? That is the apostolic deposit or instruction. And he says, guard it and pass it down, Timothy, right? You see, the truth gets passed down to the church. And because it is passed down or handed over, that’s what the Greek word means, it’s used in these passages, it means to hand over. And it can be translated, and it is, as the deposit or that which is given by hand, that which is communicated from one person to another. It’s also translated in English often as the tradition, the tradition, right, that which was entrusted, that which is deposited or delivered. And that word tradition is related to the word traitor. I don’t know if you know this linguistically, but under persecution, when believers were commanded to hand over, that’s the word, to hand over their religious writings, the scriptures, they were referred to as traitors. It’s the same thing, because they handed over those things, that scripture. And so the apostles have the truth from God and they hand it over to the church, they deposit it, they deliver it to the church. And that comes to be called the tradition. The tradition is just the truth that the apostles teach, right, as a revelation from God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And in 1 Timothy 4, Paul tells Timothy this. He says, if you put these things before the brothers, you’ll be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed, right? The word of faith, the good doctrine. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness. Command and teach these things, Timothy, Paul says. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, conduct, love, in faith, and purity. Until I come, he says, devote yourself to the public reading of scriptures, to exhortation, to teaching. He says, practice these things. Immerse yourself in them. Keep a close watch over yourself and on the teaching, right? This is very important. This is what Paul is emphasizing to Timothy. And indeed, in 2 Timothy chapter 1, he says this, follow what? The pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, right? That’s what you are to follow. The pattern of sound words that you heard from me, Paul says, in faith and love, that are in Christ Jesus. And he says, by the Holy Spirit who dwells within, and here it is, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Guard the tradition, guard that which was handed down to you, entrusted to you, Timothy. And then he goes on. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. And then he adds, share in the suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, right? So you see the emphasis there. It’s very important to Paul, the good doctrine, command and teach, be an example, read, exhort, teach, practice that word, watch yourself in the teaching, follow the sound words, guard the good deposit, and what? Pass it on, entrust it to faithful men who can teach others. And we’ll look closer again at who’s that, you know, this part of it. Who’s being talked about in these verses? And the so what, the big so what. And it means everything. It really matters. But for now, let us remember this, brothers and sisters, that Jesus, the source of eternal life, the Messiah, entered into his creation. as John said, and he came in the flesh. He was a real man with a real body. And he lived the perfect life for you who believe in him in your place. And he died on the cross for your sins who believe in him in your place. And he rose again on the third day so that you would be right with God and live with him in glory forever. And these are the truth, right? This is the truth. The deposit of God via the apostles, by which we come to have fellowship with him, with the gospel. And God loved us so much that he preserved these truths, all of his word, exactly as he desired. It was inscripturated for our good and protection and security, sovereignly by the Lord. And our great God and Savior is in control of all things. This included, of course, in the sovereign triune God provides for his people. He cares for us. He orders things for our good. He orders his church in unity and diversity through his word and spirit. And I don’t think it’s just me. Maybe you think this as well, but sometimes I fail to trust in God’s sovereignty, that he’s a sovereign and good God. And sometimes I’m frustrated that things aren’t as I would have them to be. And sometimes we distrust God’s way and wisdom and sovereignty in the world, in our lives. And if you do, and as you do, go through this frustration and distrust, dear Christian, let us go to him again and plead with him to help us to trust his ways, right? Plead with him to give trust and to believe that the truth, to believe the truth is what he says it is. that his word is truth, and that the message of his sure word is the message of the gospel of life in Jesus Christ to all who believe. And let us remember, brothers and sisters, it was Christ’s work to do the will of the Father, and his trust and his belief was impeccable, was impeccable. Entrust yourselves, brothers and sisters, to his love and to his work. Avail yourself. of the very things that he has given to grow that trust and faith in your hearts. And that’s what the means of grace, word, sacrament and prayer. Learn to despise these things. They are given for us, for our good, for our nourishment and our growth. Look to the gospel for life, for insurance, for trust, for growth and for obedience. And as you turn back to your life, as you return to your pilgrim lives this week, Go knowing that the source of all the grace that you need is that self-same Jesus Christ, right? Our beloved and holy, perfect and tender Redeemer. Know that he loves you, that he died and rose again for you, and that he even now and forever lives to intercede for those who are called by his name, that love him, that have been united to him through faith. What a glorious comfort and joy we have as his people, brothers and sisters. Let us praise him and rejoice for all of our days in reality, in the certainty of that word of truth, in Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your mercy and love towards us. We thank you that you have given us a sure word, all that we need for life in Godliness. Father, we praise you and thank you for that word. And we pray, Lord, that you would give us the faith to believe that word, to believe what you say about us, that we are dead to sin and been raised to walk in newness of life. Father, we pray that we would do so evermore, giving you glory, reflecting the love and a person of our Savior, Jesus Christ, for his glory and for our good in a world that is so need of the gospel. We ask this all in Christ’s name, amen.