You would, once again, open your Bibles to the first epistle of John, chapter 1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life. Most holy God, You are light, and there is no darkness in you. You are holy, holy, holy. You are worthy of all of our worship, of all of our obedience. We come before you as needy sinners, desirous to worship you aright, and though we recognize our best of works require the cleansing blood of our Savior. Lord, we ask for your spirit, that you would give me utterance to proclaim your word, and that your congregation, your people, would hear your word, and that your word would not come in word only, but with power. Lord, we thank you for this time we have together. In Christ's holy name, amen. I've chosen this passage of scripture. Just as many of the epistles, the apostles can serve as examples to us of what is pastoral preaching. And on this day that we are gathered together in light of the ordination of an elder, myself, it is important to remember what is pastoral biblical preaching because as pastor Robert mentioned There is a dearth of preaching. There is much apostasy and many people who have been ordained to the ministry have lost their target And they're pursuing other things. So pursuing they believe the primary the primacy of preaching is perhaps to reach felt needs To bring as many people into the church as possible to minister to the socially oppressed, and there's a place for some of those things. Not denying that, but what is the goal? What should mark pastoral preaching? When we look at the epistles of the apostles, they can serve as examples to us what is biblical preaching. So we come to the epistle of John as just one example. We could go to Paul, we could go to Peter, and we could see similar themes. But John shall serve our purposes today. John, his style is often cyclical. It's almost that he repeats himself over and over again. And these opening verses, these opening 12 verses, very much are the summation of the whole epistle. He goes over himself. And so this epistle is primarily written, we see in the conclusion, that they may know that they have eternal life. It is written for the encouragement of God's people. Primarily. The context of this epistle is that some false teachers have crept into this congregation. Perhaps the congregation in Ephesus, perhaps That's traditionally where we believe that John ministered towards the end of his life, but perhaps a different congregation. The scriptures themselves do not tell us where he's writing to. But regardless, false teachers have crept in with a new message. And this message is what we call proto-Gnosticism. It was a early cult that brought in philosophy of the Greeks, it brought in the mystery religions of the Romans and the Greeks, and decided to influence Christianity. The summation of it is, some of the key tenets are that the physical is bad, the spirit is good. And in John's particular context, Sometimes it could reach into asceticism, but for John it leads into antinomianism It tells you since the body is bad since the flesh is bad live however you want Because it's just the flesh. It's not spirit and so John is writing to confront this message because false teachers have came come and they told the the believers this message and that they were the spiritually enlightened ones who received this message from God, and then they broke fellowship with these believers. And so the believers are left with this idea of, are we Christian? Are we the people of God? Is this message true? And so John comes to minister to these people, to confront the false teaching, but also to encourage the true people in the word of God. But how John does this is significant for us, because he does not come in a polemical way as we often would. He doesn't come, okay, let me tell you what they're teaching, and let me break it down point by point. But rather, as a good physician of souls, he brings them to their God. In the opening verses he declares who God is. And so our first point is that he manifests the glory of God. And then he moves from there and exposes the wolves that may still be in their midst or may simply be refuting the lifestyle and the contradiction of life of those who left. So he manifests God. He exposes the deception of man, and then finally, he comforts the saints with the propitiation of Christ. So first, let's observe in the first verse. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, the word of life. For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. John is alluding to his gospel that begins in Eternity Past. In the beginning was the Word, the eternal Logos, and that Logos, the eternal God, in the person of the Son, was made manifest unto man. The God has condescended in the person of Christ and made manifest Himself unto us. This is denied by the false teachers. Because the false teachers said the flesh is bad. And you say, no, God has manifest Himself in the person of the Son. That God became man and yet ever remained the eternal God. Not losing any of His divinity and yet taking on humanity. and the mystery of the hypostatic union, as we call it, that God and man come together in the person of Jesus Christ. He's setting down positive doctrine. He's setting down the affirmation that Christ has come into the flesh, and that it's something that they've heard, which they have seen with their eyes, which they have looked upon, this idea of looking upon, is not simply seeing, having a visual sensation, but it's beholding. Possibly John is alluding to the manifestation of Christ in the Transfiguration where the person, the humanity of Christ was glorified as it were. And they saw the majesty of the God-man. This is something that John has seen And our hands have handled the word of life, for the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and made manifest unto us. John here is using the word we, predominantly not in the sense of that the minister experiences, but rather the apostles. He's bringing the message of the apostolic witness, that the apostles have seen this, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, have inscripturated it for us in his holy word. And so he grounds his teaching, his positive doctrine, in the apostolic witness, which we have right here. And so that's a way to examine pastoral preaching. Is it grounded in the Word of God? Is it grounded in the apostolic witness? I say that that's the primary thing that John is doing, is that he's grounding it in the apostolic witness. But there is an analogy that we can make, that though it's not John's primary purpose, there is an analogy to the minister. In that, as the godly John Bunyan said, he preached what he smartly did feel, that the proclamation of the word does come from a deep experience of Christ, deep experiences of these truths, that they're not just intellectual concepts in the man's brain, but is proclaiming what he has seen, heard, and felt. In this apostolic witness that John is proclaiming, it's not the God simply of the philosophers. It's not God as creator primarily, but it's God as redeemer. It's God in the person of his son, the redeemer of his people. That is what John is proclaiming. He's not simply bringing philosophical arguments for God. He's saying that God has come in time to redeem his people. verse three, that which we have heard, that which we have heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. He has a purpose. They have fellowship with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ as the as the Son of God, the eternal Son of God has eternal fellowship with the Father. And He's saying, I'm bringing this message. I'm not bringing this to convince you intellectually. I'm bringing this message that you might enter into the fellowship with God. That you might enter into the fellowship with the saints of God, with the apostles. And that you may enter into fellowship with the Father. This is why every minister needs to proclaim the Word of God, needs to proclaim that this is the only way to bring fellowship. It's not about philosophy, politics, psychology. Those cannot bring you into fellowship with God. They have their place. But the message that the minister is to bring is the message of reconciliation. The message that brings men to know their Creator. That brings men and women, young and old, to know their Redeemer. These things I write unto you, that your joy may be full. There's a textual variant in this. If you're reading some versions, it says that our joy may be full. It's a minor variant. It doesn't change it all that much. However, as the The received text presents it and also, as I believe, the context. John is writing this for the comfort of these people. It makes sense for him to say that your joy may be full. He's writing that your joy may be full. That you would no longer be discouraged. That you would know and rejoice in God. That is The Apostles of Light, and that should be everyone who desires and who ministers the Word of God, is not... Yes, there is a certain degree that an elder recognizes the sovereignty of God, and he must be faithful, even when no one hears. But that should not be their desire. Their desire should be that many would come unto a Savior, that many would rejoice in this Christ. Dear congregation, I mean, that's something that we can all pray for. Understanding this, I'll get into this later, but understanding pastoral preaching, this is not for you to pull up a spreadsheet or a checklist and you check whether or not somebody is doing it, that may have its place. It's primarily so that you can pray. Pray that the men, that God would raise up men who have this heart. That you pray for myself and for Pastor Robert, that we would grow in this. Grow in our desire to see salvation. grow in our desire to see revival, true revival, not the false stuff we often see, but true men and women coming to know their God. Thus, when that reflects, and that is seen in the ministry, that is a reflection of the character of God. God says in Ezekiel that He has no desire for the destruction of the wicked. that Jesus Christ said, why will you perish? He weeps over Jerusalem. It's a reflection of the love of God that when the minister desires to see salvation. This then is the message which we have heard and declare it unto you that God is life. and in him is no darkness at all. This is the summation of the apostolic message. This is fascinating because often we think that the summation is that sinners are saved or that sins are forgiven and that is a key crucial aspect of it. But the message that the apostles proclaimed is the holiness and perfection of God. How does that relate. I mean, this message that God is light. Light can sometimes mean incomprehensibility in the Holy Scriptures, but here it means holiness. How does the message of the Apostles, how does the message of Scripture that God has sent his Son to reconcile sinners unto himself, that he has provided a sacrifice, a lamb, How does that proclaim that God is light? Because in the cross, you see God's hatred of sin. We see the love of God, most definitely, but we also see the hatred of God. That God would not wink at sin, even when it was imputed onto his own son. You think that God will wink at your sin. He would not even pass over His Son when He bore the sins of His people, having no sin in Himself. This is the message that God is holy. He will not pass over your sin unless you are in Christ, unless Christ has borne it for you. You stand before a holy God. This truth about God being manifest in the person of Christ is not simply for our head knowledge. I've already been lighting on this, but we see John apply it this way. But it's exposed false professions and hypocrites who joined themselves to Christ's church. This is another calling of the minister. Not only is he to manifest the glory of God, the holiness of God, the glory of the cross, but then he is to apply that to the people And to those who have crept in, who have living a hypocritical life, he is to expose that for the purity of the church and for the salvation of that hypocrite. He says, if we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we do not the truth. We lie and do not the truth. The evidence, if we say we have fellowship, if we say that we know this Holy God, if we know that God is light, that we have fellowship with the Apostles, that we have fellowship with Christ Church, we have fellowship with the Father, we have fellowship with the Son, and walk in darkness, Paul says, you lie. The Apostle love, as he is often called John, is not as politically correct as we are. He says you lie. He doesn't pass over that. He doesn't simply say, well, you're slightly mistaken. He says, you're lying. You may not be lying with your doctrine. You may not be lying with your articulation of Christian doctrine. But you're lying with your life. He says, but if we walk in the light, As He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us with all sin. This verse makes it clear that though He said, if you walk in darkness, you are a liar, but He also, this verse makes it clear that the believer, though he walks in the light, he is not sinlessly perfect. He needs the cleansing blood of Christ. So what is it to walk in the light? What is it to live in the light and not in the darkness? If it's not sinless perfection, what is it? To walk in the light is to be ruled by God rather than by sin. Your life is marked, your overall life is marked by obedience and not marked by sinful disobedience. It is the life that lives in loving fellowship with God's people. It is a life that desires to glorify God in all of his life, and to love his neighbor as himself. It is a life, and it is a person who grieves over his sin. As is commonly said, when we hear, when people hear about sin, they say, well nobody's perfect. That's true, but nobody, The phrase, nobody is perfect, is the pain, the agony of the believer, and it's the pillow of the hypocrite. To walk in the light is to hate sin. Sin first in your own heart, not first in the culture. So for the sin in your own heart. The sin still remains in you. That is what's walking the light. But this verse also, conversely, as he said, if we say we have fellowship and we walk in darkness, we lie. And then if we walk in the light, we have fellowship. Therefore, if we don't walk in the light and we don't have fellowship, The blood of Christ does not cleanse us of our sins. It is giving evidence that we don't know forgiveness. This is important also to understand. I don't want to be misunderstood. This is evidence of your salvation. It's not the ground of your salvation. The cleansing blood of Christ is the ground of your salvation. That Christ is your advocate is the ground of your salvation. But this is the evidence that when you When you have union with Christ, you have union with His death, but you also have union with His life. And therefore, if you don't have union with His life and walking as He walked, you are fooled if you think you have union with His death. That you have union with His cleansing blood. as the Passover clearly pictures it. If you're not cleansed by the blood of Christ, the blood of the lamb is not on your doorpost and the angel of death is awaiting to slay you. But if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And so the reaction of the hypocrite is to say, Yeah, I'm not perfect. Or, no, I don't walk in darkness. I apologize. I do not walk in darkness. I'm good. I don't sin. I'm not living like the world. I live a good life. I'm honest. I pay my taxes. I pray. I go to church. He says, if we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Not only do we lie to others with our lives, as he said, those who walk in darkness, But we even lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves that we're okay. We tell ourselves that we're good. We tell ourselves that God is okay with me. God is okay with me. He says the truth is not in him. He doesn't know the truth. He can't even judge himself rightly. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The mark of the one who walks in life is that he confesses his sins. He doesn't hide them. He seeks to walk in the light and he confesses. He's honest with himself. The unbeliever doesn't confess his sins. The unbeliever, the hypocrite, paints his sins as just character flaws. The true believer confesses his sins first and foremost to his God, to his Redeemer. And then, as he has offended a brother or sister, he confesses his sins to them. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. How is He faithful? Because He has promised. He has promised that all who come to Him shall have life. As those who have attended the Wednesday Bible study of Christ saying that, if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall have life. That there is life in Christ. And to those who come to Him and receive that cleansing, He is faithful. He has promised through covenant that He will forgive His people. As a believer, you're going to have the Lord's table this afternoon. It's God confirming His fidelity, His promise to forgive you of your sins if you are a believer. How is He just? Because He's punished the sins upon His Son. That He can be just and the justifier of them who believe in Jesus. Because sins are dealt with. Sins are not just passed over. Sins are dealt with definitively in His Son. And so God can be just and He is faithful to forgive those who come unto Him. Who confess their sins before Him. Not to a priest, but to God. and to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. This is not true for you. If you do not know Christ, confess your sins right here, right now. Not before anybody, but confess your sins to God. Finally, As John is bringing this portion of the exposure of the deception of unbelievers, he says, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. There's a progression here, or should I say digression. The beginning, it says, He walks in darkness and he lies with his life. Then it says, I no longer sin. I walk in perfection. He says, you're deceiving yourself. But then further to say, I lived a pretty good life. I have not sinned. The condemnation is even greater. Because you're calling God a liar. God has said, all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And to say that you are OK. You may have messed up a few times. You're to call the holy God a liar. And all this, denying that you've sinned, denying that you have to walk in the light, denying that you have ever sinned, it's to deny the prime message of the apostles that God is light. It's to think that I, okay, my sin doesn't matter that much. demonstrating his pastoral care, though he exposes hypocrites through the high calling of a Christian, that we are to walk in the light. He exposes them, yet he recognizes that true believers often, we are often so sensitive of ourselves. We see it so well, and then when we hear this high calling, this calling to walk in the light, often we can become discouraged. He encourages true believers that they have all their sins forgiven through the propitiation of Christ. And this is my final point, the propitiation of the saints. He says, my little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate for the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. It's interesting, his point. He says, my little children, I write these things that you don't sin. This high calling that he brings, and that the free forgiveness of Christ, he believes will produce holiness. That those who confess their sins are freely cleansed. and that they have a high calling in Christ. Often we think, and was the accusation in the time of the Reformation, that justification by faith alone, free forgiveness of God, will produce lawlessness. But the Bible has it turned over. That truly the only way to promote holiness is not by saying you need to work really hard to be accepted by God. It's rather to say, In Christ, you can be accepted by God as ungodly. God justifies the ungodly. You come to Christ and you get everything. You don't have to work yourself up. And John says this promotes holiness. He writes these things that they do not sin. And if we sin, If any man sin, he's got to work himself back into good pleasure with God, and you've got to work back that relationship. God is mad at him, and he's got to work really hard to get back on God's good side. No. He says you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. It's the idea of advocate. It's the idea of a defense attorney. It's the idea of somebody defending you. It's the advocate that the Father even gave you. And this advocate, this defense attorney, is also the judge. See, and when we sin, Jesus Christ is ready to forgive us. Because He has borne our guilt. And He's Jesus Christ the righteous. Over and over again. God is righteous in his forgiveness of sinners because Jesus Christ is born at all for his people. So he's the defense attorney but he is also the propitiation. He's the propitiation of our sins and also the sins of the whole world. This verse is commonly used to promote general atonement that Christ died for everybody, no matter who they are. Christ died for every individual human on earth that ever existed, that ever will exist. Christ's blood is for everyone. However, there's various problems with that. One, the testimony of other portions of scripture where he says the shepherd lays down his life for his sheep is evidence of against the general atonement idea that Christ died for every individual person. However, even here, even in this passage and in the context of this epistle, first the idea of propitiation is the idea of a wrath-bearing sacrifice that definitively deals with wrath. If he has dealt with wrath for every single individual person on the earth, then the wrath of God is completely alleviated and therefore everyone, universalism, everyone comes to heaven. And so the idea of a propitiation we see also in the Day of Atonement. In fact this word in the Greek, one of the few times it's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament is for the Day of Atonement. That word Atonement is translated propitiation here and in the Old Testament, in the Greek translation, they translated the word kapor as propitiation. The propitiation on the Day of Atonement, the sacrifice for the people, the high priest was representing not every single nation, he was representing the people of God. And so he He had the 12 tribes upon his breast. He was not representing every single person. He was not representing the Philistines. He was not representing the Egyptians, the Assyrians. He was representing Israel, the people of God. And then finally, against the idea of a general atonement, there's a whole context of the first century. We often read the Bible as if It is the early 17th century in the canons of Dort, as if it's a debate between Arminianism and Calvinism. It wasn't the primary debate in the time of the writing of the New Testament. God's people understood that God provides an atonement for his people, those whom are represented. It wasn't about Arminianism and Calvinism. What was it about? Jewish exclusivism or Gentile inclusion? Did the Messiah come to save simply the Jewish people or did he come to save the nations? John, this is why I brought up about Ephesus and the uncertainty. The Bible does tell us that John in Galatians, that John and Peter went to the circumcised. That John and Peter went to the Jews. And Paul and Barnabas went to the Gentiles. So there's reason to believe that John is writing in a Jewish context, that he's saying this is not simply the propitiation for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world, the sins for the holy nation. So it's not the question of does this propitiation extend beyond God's people, rather, who are included into God's people? Is it simply the Jews, or is it every tribe, tongue, and nation? It is easy to get stuck here in this debate about Calvinism and Arminianism and lose the purpose that John is getting. He's saying this is a propitiation for all sorts of people, young, old, black, white, Jew, Gentile, poor, rich, no matter who you are, your race, Your age does not preclude you from coming to Christ. He's not the God of the white man. He's not the God of the black man. He's not the God of the poor. He's not the God of the rich. He's the God of every tribe, tongue, and nation. And that you can be certain, if you come to Him, your sins are forgiven. Some concluding applications. What do we learn from the calling of faithful preaching in John? Faithful ministers display the glory of God and expose false believers and comfort the saints. Faithful ministers in His preaching displays the triune God in all of His attributes. His holiness, His wrath, His incomprehensibility, His mercy, His grace, His sovereignty are all to be displayed at some time or another. in the preaching of the Word of God. And this doctrine is not to remain up in our heads, but is to expose unbelievers that they may come to a Savior and to comfort the saints that this holy God has been reconciled in Christ. Thus, you should, if you are looking for a church, to examine the preaching of the word, whether or not it is faithful to that calling. And if you are part of a church, and you believe that church is faithful, as many of you are members of this church, it's not, as I stressed before, it's not so that you become the elder's greatest critic, and say, well, I don't think you display the glory of God enough, or I don't think you are evangelistic enough, but rather You to labor in prayer for them. That they would be faithful to their calling. Faithful to proclaim this Christ unto you. Faithful to proclaim the message of free salvation to the people. And now John's applications. That is the main focus I have here is John's. The true Christians live a markedly different life than unbelievers. If you are here, your life, your talk, your thoughts, your amusements are not any different than the people you work with, your unbelieving family, your unbelieving friends. The Bible does not give you any assurance of salvation. You're not saved by your works, no. But if you are rooted in the Word of Christ, if you're rooted in Christ, there will be produced fruits. And if you do not have those fruits, it gives evidence that you are a barren tree. The answer is not to try harder. It's not to clean up yourself and say, OK, I'm going to be a better Christian. I'm going to be more faithful. No. The answer is to come to Christ. and behold Him. Come and see the sin-bearing Lamb of God. And turn from your sins and turn unto Him for salvation. Turn unto Him for strength over your sin. He welcomes all sorts of sinners. He is glorified in the salvation of great sinners. The only thing that precludes you from coming to Christ It's not your previous lifestyle or your current lifestyle per se. It's whether or not you trust in Him. It's whether or not you believe that He cleanses you from your sins and He gives you His Spirit that you may walk with Him. Finally, true Christians are fully forgiven by Christ. If you're here trying to follow your Savior, and you're weary of your failings, but you have a sincere desire to follow Christ, a sincere desire to love Him, to love His people, to love your neighbor, though you fail, the Bible can offer you assurance that you are fully forgiven. If you are trusting in Christ today, He says, you are forgiven. Go and sin no more. Those who love God and His people, yet see their sins that paint even that love, are those in whom the Spirit of God dwells. They are the ones who have been pardoned by the blood of Christ, and the ones who have Jesus as their advocate. They are the ones that are the beloved children of the Father. Rest in his mercy and his love and pursue him all the more. These things are written for us that we may know that we have eternal life and that we have sin no more. Amen. O most holy God, we thank you for the salvation that we have in Christ. We thank you for the free pardon that we have in Christ. We thank you that you are our God, and that you have sent your Son to die for such as we. Oh, give us grace. Forgive us of our past failings, the failings this morning, this week. Forgive us of our sins and give us grace to pursue you all the more. Lord, we thank you for this time of fellowship. We thank you for the food that is to be set before us. We ask that you bless this food to our bodies and bless our conversations. And that Christ be exalted. And that this day we'd have greater knowledge and greater love of our Savior. Lord, convict those who do not know you. Bring them no rest. until they find the rest in You. In Christ's holy name and for His glory, Amen.