Pray with me if you would. Our Father, we come before You this evening giving thanks that You receive us, not for anything that we have done with our hands or that we have thought out with our minds to please You, but Lord, alone and solely for the sake of Jesus who bled and died on our behalf. Father, we look to You who hear us through Him to open our ears. Lord, You who made the ear and the mind to perceive and understand and hearts to receive Your Word. Lord, we pray that You would open our ears, that You would soften our heart, that you would illumine our mind, that we could hear your word. Father, I pray that you would bless the words of my mouth to the praise of your name, that we would be encouraged and strengthened in your word and brought to greater faith and trust in your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. The sermon tonight is from 1 John 1-4. 1 John 1-4. It reads there, "...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 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 and 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. And 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." You know, there's this famous optical illusion out there that you've probably seen before, either on the internet or just on a magazine or something. It's a picture with two pictures in it. One is a bunny rabbit with its ears, and the other The ears turn into a bill, and it's a duck. I don't know if you've ever seen it before, but it's this pretty famous image where you have two things happening at once. It's an optical illusion. You can't see them both at the same time. It's a strange thing. And it's not the only one. There are many of these images where there are two pictures together in the same place. And often, if you're like me, you've come to one, and you see it, and you think, I only see one. until somebody looks at it and says, no, do you see the duck? Or no, do you see the rabbit? And then suddenly, what you were completely blind to, completely couldn't see, pops out and you see it. And then the thing that you were seeing, that you thought was there the whole time, disappears. That's the way it works with these things, and they're interesting. Well, I always thought, I always thought that that thing was always a static image, that they never were anything but just still pictures. But then the other day, all the way on the other side of the lane over there, I was standing in my house, and one of the college students was sitting in a little chair, and she was holding her phone, and she was smiling and looking at something. And I thought, what is she looking at? So I walked over to her, and I asked her what she was looking at. She gladly stood up and gave me the phone. And I took the phone in my hand, and I saw this silhouette of a ballet dancer. And she had her foot in the air and was pirouetting around and around and around and around and around. And I thought, why was she laughing and smiling at this? It's quite boring. And then she said to me, you know, if you think about it, you can make her turn the other way. I thought, no you can't. This is a video. It's recorded beforehand and it's downloaded onto the internet. And once it's there, it just is the way it is. You can't make a video change. And she insisted, yes, yes you can. And I insisted, no, no. But I took it up again and I looked again closely. And what did I see? ballerina spinning clockwise just like she had before again and again and again and Kelly says no it's there and I said no it's not at this point everybody else that was there took took a interest in what we were talking about and my wife gets hold of the phone and sure enough she takes the phone and she looks at it and she goes oh Look at that! She turned! And I said, no, she did not just turn. And she said, yes, she did. And so my wife is telling me she saw something that I hadn't seen and Kelly had seen. And I thought, no, there is no way this could happen. I was skeptical. I didn't believe my wife. I didn't believe Kelly. And I remained steadfast, and I resisted every attempt to try to tell me otherwise. You guys are foolish, and you're seeing things. And they said, no, no, it's there. And I remained hardened in my skepticism. And I said, no, no, it can't be there. It's impossible. And then Kelly takes her phone back. And she slows down the video. And then she puts it before me again. And she says, look. And I looked. And the strangest thing happened. That ballet dancer that could not turn, that would not turn, all of a sudden, she turned. And I went, oh. She turned the other way. You see, it had been like that all along. She had been able to turn both ways, but I was blind to it, and more, I refused to listen to my friend and my wife tell me otherwise. I trusted in myself and my experience. Of course, all that's good fun, looking at a YouTube video and seeing these ballet dancers change ways, but I think here, in this little section of the Apostles' Letter, 1 John, John invites us into an experience of real historical events. Events that, like a recorded video, can't change. They are set. They are the way they are. But he invites us into his experience of those historical events. Or better, he invites us to experience this one thing that he experiences, that we might know as he does, and see as he does, and our joy might be his joy, that his joy might be shared with us. Or to put it more simply, John invites us, as Kelly invited me, to slow down, to look again, so that we might share in his joy. So what is this thing? What is this that we are invited to see as he saw? Notice how vague the description of it is at the very beginning. John starts with, that which was from the beginning. That. It's literally just one word. And in the Greek, it's even shorter. It's one letter. It's an omicron, they call it. It's a little o. It sounds small. That. It's a pointing word. When we use the word, it's in the context of conversation, and we use our fingers and we say, that pew there, or we look up and we nod to it and we say, that pillar right there. And then the Philippines, they point with their lips and they say. But we know in the context of the conversation what it is they're pointing to. We understand what that is. Did you know that we find ourselves in the midst of a conversation here with John? There's much that has come before this book. I mean, look at it all, right? It's all there. There's a conversation, a whole Old Testament, 22 books of the New Testament preceding this one little word that John has to speak to us. And he is speaking about that. That. Not just a particular passage of that. But the whole thing, the message, the writings from the beginning, the law, the prophets, the gospels, Paul's letters, he's referring to that message, that word, that. The word that was in the beginning. that one that was with God, that one who more was God, through which all things were made and without which nothing was made, that was made, that, that which took on flesh and dwelt among us, that." And you see, it is a conversation that includes more than just the scriptures, you know. It includes all of creation, everything that there is. The world in which we live and move and have our being, in which the old King James has it, we have our conversation, this world that we live in. The Jew of John's day, the Israelite, was conversant with this. with these scriptures. But everyone, all of us, without fail, are conversant with the other part, the creation of all things, the world that we live in. And that, that, the scriptures, and that, this world, this life that we live in, is what John is speaking. It is inclusive of all of these things. That, that which was from the beginning, that which was from the beginning. What beginning? What beginning? I think I hinted at it just now, the beginning of all things. Yes, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, but also Exodus. Because you know that the Passover, the feast of the Passover was the beginning of the Jewish nation. And in Exodus 12.2, the month that they celebrate Passover in is called, he says in Exodus 12.2, this month shall be for you in the beginning of months. The beginning of months. So creation, the formation of the people of Israel at the Exodus when they're brought forth from the land of Egypt and the bondage to Pharaoh. And more, more, it refers to one other beginning as well. Mark 1.1 says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, creation, Exodus, and John the Baptist's voice in the wilderness announcing the coming ministry of Christ John the Apostle is writing to us here as a partaker of all three of these things. He is a man like you and I. He is a human being, a descendant of Adam and Eve. So he knows creation and that beginning. He is a Jew, a son of Zebedee. And you know what? That means he practiced the Passover. He knew the beginning of months. And John, John was there in the hearing of John the Baptist's words and saw what he was pointing to. And as one of the company of the apostles, this one, the beloved one, writes, that, that which we have heard, that which was from the beginning, that which we have heard. It's interesting he starts with his ears, the hearing, that which we have heard. It's important, you know, because our eyes play tricks on us, like my eyes played tricks on me when I was looking at that phone. I didn't see what was there, but I trusted my eyes. Our eyes play tricks on us, and it's no accident that God has called us to walk, not by sight, but by faith, by faith, not by sight. And as you know, If you don't, you'll find out here. As you know, faith, faith is born of hearing. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. John begins then right where he ought to begin, in the right place. He, his ear, his ear as our ears, informs his eyes, not the other way around. It was the Baptist's testimony, his voice, that marked Jesus out. For as the Gospels records, as John's Gospel records, John the Baptist was standing with his two disciples and he looked at Jesus. even as he walked by and said, behold, the Lamb of God. And the two disciples that were with him heard him say it, and they followed Jesus. They heard him say this, and then they too saw what he saw and followed. Because before that moment, Jesus is just another of the great crowd who've come to hear John preach. Another man, another rabbi come to be baptized in the waters of the River Jordan. But with John's words, The man is singled out, and more than a rabbi standing here now, but instead of simply a rabbi and another man, it's the very Lamb of God, the one to whom and about whom John has been preaching and preparing a way. The Word made him look, and looking, what did John the Apostle see? Because you know, he continued to look, and he watched as this man He saw by the River Jordan, walked out of the River Jordan, and began a ministry where he worked wonders. He taught with authority. He wowed the crowds. He silenced Jewish leaders. He submitted to the violent hands of the Romans. He suffered the death of crucifixion on the cross. But that, of course, That's not the end. That wasn't the final thing. He saw something else. He saw an empty tomb. He was there with Peter and looked and saw where Jesus had lain and it was empty. And he was with the other disciples as well in the upper room when they were standing and suddenly Jesus appeared in their midst and says, peace to you. And he with them, according to the gospel of Luke, was troubled by what he saw. This one who had heard and looked now saw again, and this time he wasn't sure about what his eyes were telling him. And he with all the disciples was troubled and thought that he with them was seeing a ghost. But Jesus says to them, why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? Why, when you see this thing, are you beginning to make questions and make excuses for what your eyes are telling you? Don't you see my hands and my feet, that it is I myself? Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. See, John heard. And what he heard, he saw. And what he saw, he looked upon. And what he looked upon, he handled. He touched Jesus with his hands. He held in his hands a man once dead. Now, before him, living, here before him, before his very eyes, stood the death of death in the body of Jesus Christ, whom John the Baptist, at the beginning of his ministry, at the beginning, in the very beginning, John had heard and seen point to this man, and not just alive, Alive with such life that his eyes couldn't recognize him at first. And the only way he could trust his eyes is by touching with his hands. He needed both things. Not just alive, but a life that was more alive than this life. Life that had to be touched to confirm his sight. That kind of life. Sorrow of death turned to the joy of life that swallows up death. This, this is that. This is that which John experienced. He had seen it. He had touched it. He had touched him. And he writes to us that, that one 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 hands concerning the word of life. The life was manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father and was made manifest to us. Now there are two reasons why he presents it this way, two reasons why he describes that which he is describing using all of this language of sensory uses, eyes, ears, hands. Why all this illusion? First, to assure us that here before us, here before John, what he's talking about is not a mere dream or an illusion or some phantom of his imagination. No, no, and it is not a ghost like he thought with the other disciples. No, this is history. This is history, and like all other history, it's an event that's been seen by someone, or touched and heard by someone, and then is brought to someone that didn't see, didn't hear, and didn't touch, and is told them. It's testified, it's witnessed to, and here John is doing that very thing. So John here is testifying and letting us know that here is not a dream or an illusion or a fiction, but here is a witness of a history that happened. John saw Jesus die. John saw and felt Jesus alive from the dead. He saw him eat. Here's a man alive. And secondly, secondly, the man part is important. He tells us this way because it's a very human way. We're bodily creatures, we live in a body, we experience things with our bodies, seeing, handling, hearing. And here he testifies not only that he as a human experienced that which was from the beginning, but more, he bears witness to the fact that what he saw and handled was a man. He heard, saw, and touched Jesus. It may seem silly to say it, but brothers and sisters, Jesus was a man. Jesus was a man. Flesh and blood rose from the grave. Not just any flesh and blood either. Our flesh and blood, yours, mine, flesh and blood. So John saw and felt Jesus both before and after his death. So he knew what he was experiencing and feeling afterwards was the same one that he experienced before. Here was a man like himself, like us, that had conquered death. Death no longer held the victory. A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Could it really be true? Could death be conquered and crushed under the feet of a man like you and I? He showed him, he showed them his hands and his feet. And if there were any doubts, he adds to Thomas the doubter, put your finger here. and see my hands. Put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." And perhaps if you're a careful scholar or a student of scripture, you might notice something of a problem here. Maybe you recall that there's a verse in scripture that says something like this, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of God. It is true. It is true. Flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of God. So how does this flesh and blood inherit the kingdom of God? It's impossible for man to inherit what God has for his children. No human being can ascend the mountain of the Lord. None can approach the throne of the ancient of days and take the book in their hands and open it up. None is worthy. But what is impossible for us is possible for God. Man in himself can't conquer death. But God can. God has. God in man, as man, as a man, for us men. For us. Remember, the word that was God took on flesh. And in the flesh, he died and he rose again. As Acts 2.24 says, because, because, for this reason it was impossible for him to be held by death. The man Jesus Christ was the God of all creation and death couldn't hold him. His victory is our victory. It can be shared because he was a man. Perhaps there are some of you listening to my voice, somebody in here that's thinking, yeah, yeah, I hear what you're saying. Sounds good, but it also sounds antiquated, strange to my ears, living in the culture that we live in, and you're right again, it may sound strange, antiquated, but let me ask you a question. Is there anything stranger and older than death? Is there anything stranger and older than death? Think about death for a minute. Your death, think about your own death. Isn't it a strange thought to think about that you will die? Strange. It's so different than what we experience in life. And you know, as I do, that it's been around for a long time. So it's not something that we can get away from. It's not something we can flee. It is an ancient foe before whom all of us, every single one of us will bow. We are all ruled by this ancient tyrant. We all know he's coming, and we recognize its strangeness, the way it doesn't seem to fit in our lives. the way it seems to come from somewhere else. And so often we ignore it or try to not think about it. But here is a man. Here is a man that, like you, has seen for himself death's defeat. A man like you, who has seen this ancient foe, this thing that all of us are going to experience, and all of us don't want to think about, and all of us want to flee from, he has seen death's defeat. And he says to you, here, here, he says, here, John says here, listen, like Kelly did to me, listen, look again, look at Jesus whom I have seen and I have touched. He, he is for you also. It is emphatic in verse three where it reads, we proclaim also to you, also to you. It is not for us only, not for us apostles only, not for us Jews only, he is saying, but for you also, also to you. Not for us and those like us only, but also to you. Even if you are one who is skeptical, also to you. Even you who may be visiting tonight and think, oh, well, this is for the church people and it's not for me. Well, John is writing right here and he says, no, also to you, also to you. But I don't really fit in. No, the word of God says to you, also to you. But it's my parents' thing. It's real for them, but also, also to you. John is emphatic. Are you a human being? Do you have flesh and bone? Do you breathe the breath of life? Does your heart beat? Then this, brothers, sisters, friends, visitors, everybody in this place, it's for you, also to you. You are not excluded from hearing this message because it's for you as a human being. And for those of us who have believed and received this message, you should hear in what I just said something of a call upon your own life. A call that you are free and bound to tell people it's for them. You have received something that is for them as human beings. Paul said, I preach the gospel to every creature, does he not? Every creature. He seeks to it, it burdens him. And this is a call for you. It's not just for us. It's not just for those like us, it's for them, the neighbor that you've been wanting to talk to, them, the co-worker that you thought about talking to, your friend that you hang out with. For them, to you, a human being, Jesus became man. Flesh and blood rose from the grave. You see, Jesus, Jesus is for all men. And he's freely given himself to us so that we can really give him to others. The reason why Kelly wanted to share that video with me was because she was confident that I would be able to experience what she experienced. simply because she, despite her differences from me, is a human, and I am a human, and so she knew that as humans we could both look at this thing and see it change, the dancer. And here John, who has come to know this for himself, and to share in it, and proclaims it to you, to you who like him are human, who have flesh and blood, He knows that like himself, you can hear this and understand it and believe it. You who have ears to hear and eyes to see and hands to handle. And he calls us into fellowship with him and the rest of the believing community. Fellowship in this one thing that was from the very beginning is an invitation to share eternal life, which is from the Father. And now, now has been made manifest to us, to John, and John preaches, writes to you. Listen, God made that which was his eternal life. an incommunicable attribute that we can't experience, we can't have as sinful men. He took eternal life, he took on flesh so that he could make what was incommunicable to us, what we couldn't have as sinful men, that we could have, that he could communicate to us, removing the obstacle that was in the way. Think about it. All our combined struggles in this life as mankind throughout all history have been nothing but an attempt to lay hold of this thing, eternal life, has it not? We've wanted it with all that we have and all of our striving after peace, liberty, happiness, all of it is reaching after this thing that's promised, life, eternal life, never-ending life. And even though we've been successful at times in achieving justice and peace and happiness, you know what happens to those successes? They die. They die, they pass away. This whole world, everything passes away. But now, John is telling us that it's truly possible with him and the apostles and all who have believed upon Jesus to have fellowship, to actually have part in that thing that everybody's reaching for, life, eternal life with the Father and with the Son. As he writes in verse three, that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you. So they listen to it. You too, you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. You remember why I asked Kelly to look at the phone? Remember what she was doing? She was smiling. She was smiling. There was some joy that she was receiving and experiencing as she looked in that phone. And that, that was why I wanted to look. I wanted to see what was giving her joy. And I assume, I assume, now I'm guessing, but I think this is true, that she gave me the phone thinking that I would experience the joy and the smile that she was experiencing so that when I experienced what she experienced, her experience would be all the more. Right? Isn't that why we share things? Isn't that the way it always is with us humans? Good things are always better when we share them. And I suppose that partly explains why we have social media. I mean, the very button on social media is called share. We want to share things. We want to share things. We click to share. We share in order not to be alone. And you know, it's been that way from the beginning. God said to Adam, it's not good for man to be alone. It's not good. The Lord created us for this, putting us in families. Adam had Eve. We all have a mother and father and sisters, some of us, and brothers, some of us, but all of us have some sort of family We are created for communion, for a life shared, made for fellowship, one with another, but one who is opposite us, one who is not us, one who is outside of us, different yet the same. It is the mystery behind all of our relationships, the mystery that has been there from the beginning, a desire to share something with someone other than us. And that mystery from the beginning, and the reason for it, is revealed to John, and he tells it to us as he's seen it in Christ. It's revealed to us in Christ. Christ Jesus shared the dying life of man that we might share in the eternal life of God. Christ Jesus shared in our dying life that we might share in the eternal life of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, a life that they share in communion with one another and they share with us by means of Jesus Christ who took on flesh, flesh like us, so that he that first created now recreates us. recreates us, renews us, gives us new heart, and sets us in a new community that the joy that we know here in our individual experience we might share with our brothers and sisters. We have known that we who believe have known that what Paul John is talking about is true. And it's joyous. It makes us joyful and we want to share it with other people. And so we come and we worship together. Is that not true? We want to share together the joy of our salvation and our taste of eternal life. So John writes to us and he says. He writes for this reason that our joy may be complete. You may notice there's a note in your Bible by the word are. right beside the word are and on the bottom it says some manuscripts read your and apparently there's a bunch that go both ways but you know what the beauty of it is it's true both ways Kelly could not experience complete joy unless I experienced joy in it and somehow me not experiencing her joy when I picked up the phone was robbing her of the fullness of joy that she was hoping to have For John beheld the one who for the joy set before him endured the cross and found in that joy a joy all his own. Just like Kelly who looked in the phone and found a joy, John has seen a joy in Jesus that he wants to share with us. So that we too, Mike, through his testimony, although we haven't seen Jesus, although we haven't heard his voice, although we haven't handled his body, that what he touched and what he felt we might believe upon because of his word and experience with him joy, full of glory and inexpressible joy. Blessed are those, Jesus said, who have not seen and yet have believed. Blessed are you who haven't seen and yet believed. You see, I refused to listen to Kelly and my wife testify about things that they saw in the video. I stubbornly held fast to my own vision and experience of the things. I trusted in myself alone. And for this reason, I was kept from a joy that they were sharing together. So John here writes, he writes that we, that we who believe, that we might believe with him, that we might believe with him and know the joy of communion. Here, here is communion, not only with John the Apostle, not only with one another, but communion with God the Father and God the Son. Here is eternal life. It is for you. It is for you. Forsake your stubbornness. Leave it alone. Forsake your excuses. Listen, listen to John and look, look again at Jesus. Fullness of joy awaits you there. Amen. Let's pray together. Our Father, we. are aware of our own stubbornness so often when we hear the message of your sons rising from the grave and the reality of life to come just on the other side of our own deaths. Lord, we are aware of the testimony of John here before us, and Lord, we pray in your mercy, fill us afresh by the work of your Spirit with believing hearts that we might take hold of that which John lays out for us to share with him, and that we, with John, with John, might have joy full of glory and inexpressible. Lord, we pray that you would so fill us and work in us that we would be a believing people and trust in you. In Jesus' name, amen. Our final hymn this evening is hymn 588, Who is on the Lord's Side? 588.