Open your Bibles to the book of 1st John, the epistle of 1st John. And we're going to be looking at 1st John here, not only this week, but in the ensuing weeks to come. I want to give you a little bit of an introduction to the epistle of 1st John. This book, this letter, is written by the Apostle John himself, right? That's the beloved one of Christ, the one who said he laid back on the Lord's breasts there. And he's the same one who wrote the Gospel of John. And if he wrote 1 John, I guess you could figure he wrote 2 John and 3 John, although in deep theological circles, there's debate about that, but we're not gonna, I don't buy it. I believe they're written by John the Apostle. He also wrote the revelation of Jesus Christ. The revelation of Jesus Christ. This epistle was written somewhere between 90 to 95 AD. So was, by the way, it's estimated that the revelation of Jesus Christ was also written about 9192 AD as well. And John is writing this epistle to the churches in Asia at this time. Now, John at the place of the writing, he's located in Ephesus. We know Ephesus from Revelation 2, don't we? To the church that lost its first love. By the way, Ephesus, what a legacy of pastors it had. You know, I mean, first it was founded by Paul, and Paul stayed there for a few years. Then it was Timothy. Then it was John. There probably was a carryover between Timothy and John. And then there was Polycarp, one of the early Christian martyrs who also... Phenomenal teachers of the Word of God at the church in Ephesus. And at the time of this writing, the Apostle John is the last remaining apostle of Jesus that is alive. He's the last one. He's advanced in age. He's probably in his mid-80s. at the point. His reputation has preceded him, that in the churches of Asia, many people go to look for the Apostle John, to hear what the Apostle John has to say. He's the last remaining Apostle of Jesus. Just think about that from his perspective. He saw his comrades, his brothers, all be martyred for the faith. All of them. All of the groupings in Acts 1-12, James, Peter, Paul, Matthew, Thomas, all of them martyred. for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now John is probably serving as an elder in the church. He could be the actual pastor of the church. And John is writing this epistle, this letter to the churches in Asia to contend for the faith. That's what it is. Heresy had entered in. False teaching, false doctrine. By the way, you always have false teaching, false doctrine. We shouldn't be so amazed today at what we see, the amount of false teaching and false doctrine that is pervasive. But specifically, this epistle calls for a return to the fundamentals of the faith and to refute those that have departed from the faith and were beginning to share another doctrine. And John is contending specifically against a doctrine that is in its infancy, but it's catching on, and it will, in the second century and the third century, become prevalent, and that is the doctrine of Gnosticism. Gnosticism, right? And Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. Right? So just imagine, Gnosticism is this kind of knowledge. And those that espouse Gnosticism said you needed this type of knowledge over and above the scriptures, right? And Gnosticism taught that all matter, all matter, this, that, this, was inherently evil. It was inherently evil. Anything that you can handle, anything that had substance was inherently evil. And in order to truly know God, you had to have this higher mystical ascendant knowledge. So you had to have some kind of mystical experience. You had to be translated. to another plane. And when you get to that other plane, well then you really can know God. Now they didn't think of God in the classic Judeo-Christian sense. The God that they were speaking about and they tried to merge or syncretize with Christianity was an entirely different God. It was a spirit being. The origins of Gnosticism come from the early Greek philosophers such as Plato. Right, so this is an integration of philosophy, merging it into Christianity. Can I tell you something? That is the formula of just about every single false teaching and false doctrine. Take something from the world, take man's thinking, and syncretize it or integrate it with the gospel. In the Old Testament, this was the sin of Israel. Israel would go into the captured lands and they would adapt the ways of the pagans around them. They would adapt the ways of the Canaanites. The technical term for this is syncretism, right? You're merging the two. What happens when you merge purity with impurity? What do you get? Impurity, right? It's amazing, if you merge impurity with purity, you don't get purity, you get impurity. You've heard about the Samaritans, right? The Samaritans were the 10 tribes of Israel. And the reason why in the time of Jesus that the Samaritans were so loathed by the Jews was simply this. The Samaritans bred, they intermarried with the pagans around them, and they adopted the ways of the pagans around them. And to the Jewish people at that time, they were considered half-breeds. They were considered no good. You see this in John chapter 4 when Jesus comes upon the woman at the well. She's a Samaritan woman, right? And she asked him a question. She said, well, you people say that to worship God, you've got to do it down in Jerusalem. We say we do it up here in the mountains. What was that from? That was from when they merged together, right? And the religion became impure. And of course in Gnosticism, once you've had this mystical experience, you get to a plateau where you're like super duper spiritual. But guess what, very few people reach that plateau. What does that produce? That produces religious elitism. Oh, well, I had this experience. God definitely knows who I am. Now why is this all important? I'm gonna tell you why this is important. Because in Gnosticism, if all matter is evil, then Christ could never have been born a man. So what is the real impetus behind this? The real impetus behind this is to deny the incarnation of Christ. And if you deny the incarnation of Christ, if Christ never became a man, then Christ never could have taken our sins to the cross. There could never be redemption in Jesus Christ. And what have you done? You have perverted the gospel of salvation. You know, they contended that Christ was a spirit, that Christ commandeered a human body, but Christ departed that human body before the cross, so Christ never died, therefore Christ was never resurrected, and Christ was never a man. What did the Apostle Paul say? The Apostle Paul said, listen, if I or an angel or another person comes to you with any other gospel, let him be accursed. That word in the Greek is anathema. What it literally means is let him be damned to hell. So when we see these things, It's not a trivial little point, right? The Gnostics in the second century and the third century would write other Gospels. The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Judas. And you know what's remarkable about all these other Gospels? You ever watch National Geographic? Man, from the Bible, the other Gospels, you know, they didn't want to let these guys in. You know why? because they contradicted the Gospels as set forth in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're not historically reliable, they're not theologically reliable. It's in the Gospel of Thomas, where Jesus makes a really nutty kind of statement, or they claim Jesus made a statement, which was, thank God that you weren't born a woman, and that if anybody wants to see the kingdom of God, they can never be a woman, or something like that. It's like a really off-the-cuff statement. So it's really crazy, crazy nonsensical stuff. And is it any surprise that in this day and age, the world is clamoring Let us see those other gospels. I came across somebody who said, I read the gospel of Thomas. It's really good. It's really good. Maybe it's entertaining reading, but it's still not the word of God. So they were very, very intent on preaching this higher ascendant knowledge. They were very, very intent on denying the incarnation of Christ. And the Apostle John, the last remaining Apostle, writes this epistle to defend the faith. And in so doing, he's going to defend the character of God. In this epistle, the Apostle John defends the character of God all throughout the epistle. We see this, that John shows that God is faithful in verses 1 through 9. that God is just in verses 1 through 9, that God is light, that God is loving, that God is a promise keeper, that God is true, that God is unified. So he sets off immediately to defend the character of God. John writes in this epistle with a directness and a firmness as he presents truth in a very, very objective light. As a matter of fact, you'll see in this epistle, John is very, very black and white. He's very, what we would say is he's very binary. He's very black and white, right? And so John uses terms we see throughout this epistle, like light versus dark, the children of God versus the children of the devil. truth versus lies. And his main point is that those who claim to be Christian, listen to this, those who claim to be Christian must absolutely display the characteristics of genuine Christianity. Boy, there's a concept in and of itself, right? And primarily they must be of sound doctrine. They must demonstrate obedience to the truth of the Word of God. and they must show Christian love. The reason that John gives us for this is pretty simple. Believers in Christ, he states, have been given a new nature. Isn't that consistent with what John wrote in John chapter three? Unless a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven and the whole dialogue that's recorded with Nicodemus. And he says it is this new nature that gives evidence to the work of Christ in the heart of the believer. You see, the new nature is that which gives evidence to that new work. Now, over the next few weeks, we're gonna take a look at this. We're gonna embark on a verse-by-verse study of the epistle of 1 John, right? And the challenge that I'm gonna put before the church is really a two-fold challenge. It's really a two-fold challenge. First, we will read John's approach to the objective truth of the gospel. I want you to remember that. The gospel is truth. It is objective, verifiable proof. So we're going to launch into this, and we're going to take a look at what is this objective truth of the gospel, right? So that's number one. Number two, we're going to do so, I'm going to ask you for something. I'm going to ask you as we go through the scriptures to read the scriptures from an inside out perspective. Most of the way that the Bible has been taught has been from an outside in. What do I mean by that? When you're reading the Bible, when you're studying the Bible from outside in, the preoccupation is yourself. What does this mean to me? What does this have for me? I sometimes get a little bit perturbed when I hear preachers say, well, you know, the Bible is a manual on how to do things. No, it's not. The Bible is the revelation of the glory of God. from Genesis to Revelation, right? So I want you to retrain your thinking. Rather than saying, what does this have for me? I want you to take a look at the words of the Scripture and say, where do I see the glory of God? Where do I see the glory of Christ? Where is Christ glorified? Because if you find where Christ is glorified, it will indeed have a profound impact on you. Instead of looking for a nugget, we've become way too textualist. in the church today. We always have a verse to whip out of the pocket and shoot it for every situation in life. So I want you to take a look at it from an inside out. The word comes and I want you to look for the glory of God in this scenario. In one premise, one premise regarding this epistle is for us to be able to trust, listen, to trust the character of Christ. This is a point that John wants to make all through the epistle. You can trust the character of Jesus Christ. And in seeing a holy Christ, a sufficient Christ, a risen Christ, Then we can anchor ourselves in the truthfulness of Scripture, and if we are anchored in the truthfulness of Scripture, we can behold the glory of God. That's the thing, oh, church, I really want us to get this. If we are anchored in the Scripture, And we will know the glory of God. And so today we're going to begin, we're going to look at verses 1 through 4. And John is going to start out in verses 1 through 4 as he begins to reveal the biblical view of Christ. He is going to jump into this right away and talk about the glory of Christ, the biblical view of Christ. Turn with me and look at 1 John verse 1. It reads, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld with our hands and handled concerning the word of life. I want you to see this right here. Right at the onset, from the beginning of the epistle, we see the distinctive marks of John's writing, the distinctive marks of his authorship. And in this opening verse, John parallels his distinct style like that of the Gospel of John that he wrote, right? He immediately starts at the very beginning. How does the Gospel of John begin? John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. and the word was God. Just as in John's gospel, he takes us back to the beginning. Here in John's epistle, he takes us back to the beginning of the gospel. Beginning of the gospel. Look at this term. What was that, or as the King James says, that which was from the beginning, refers not going all the way back to creation, but the beginning of the gospel. And we need to ask ourselves, well, what is at the beginning of the gospel? And the answer isn't a what, the answer is a who. And who is at the beginning of the gospel? Jesus Christ, none other than Jesus Christ. And the answer is Christ in the form of man. He takes us back. He's gonna take us back to Jesus Christ. And John, as he is beginning to move forward this, immediately places an emphasis on the person of Christ and his physical nature. Notice what John says, look forward in verse one. What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld and our hands handled. Notice that John lists four, four ways that the Son of God was revealed. Let's look at each one. First, Christ was revealed by John by what? We heard. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the very, very word of God. John heard. John heard, not someone else. John the apostle heard the calling of Christ. John heard the words of life. John heard the gospel message. John heard the parables, the teachings, and the private words of Christ. John can positively affirm the word from who? A spirit? A ghost? No, he heard the word from a man. Jesus Christ, right? Secondly, John writes, what we have seen with our eyes. Now I want you to get this because this is good stuff. This is profound, right? John was there from the inception of Jesus's ministry. John was one of the inner three, right? Peter, James, and John. Right? John saw when Jesus walked on the water. John saw when he healed the sick. John saw the mountain of transfiguration. John saw when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. John saw when Jesus entered Jerusalem to the praises of the people. John saw Jesus on the cross while standing next to his very mother Mary. John went running with Peter. Think about this. John went running with Peter and saw the empty tomb. And the Gospels say John believed immediately. He went in, looked in, saw the empty tomb. He believed. He said Jesus is risen from the dead. The very things that he was telling us he believed. John saw when Jesus first appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. John saw the ascension of Jesus Christ in heaven. In short, John had seen it all. The totality of Jesus' ministry. So what we have heard, the words of Christ, what we have seen, John was an eyewitness to the miraculous works of Christ, to it all. John knows that Jesus is not some ghost, no, not a phantom, not a specter, not a mist, not a state of mind that you can conjure yourself into. What John saw Listen, was objective, what John saw was indeed God incarnate, God in the form of man, the living God, the Messiah. And the point is, who can contend with this? This is the point. Take a look at the third issue. John has already said what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and here's the fourth one, what we beheld with our hands. Finally, in John's opening comment, he speaks that Christ, this Christ, was able to be touched. John refers to himself in the gospel as the disciple whom Jesus loved, who lay back on his breast. Well, you can't lay back on a ghost. You're going to fall right through. There's nothing there. You can't lay back to a state of mind. He talks about Christ in his personhood as the physical Christ. and that he was able to touch him, embrace him, work with him, alongside with him, and it was indeed a human being, a man, not some, you know, not some ghost. Note the similarity to John's Gospel. Look at your Bibles to John 1.14, the Gospel of John. John 1.14. John writes these words concerning Christ. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Notice that the word, the word in the Greek is, how do I put this? The word in the Greek, the logos. is an expression, it's a thought expressed, but it's expressed in Christ, right? In the beginning was the Lagos. The Lagos was with God. The Lagos was indeed God. He was that word. How did God create the world? He spoke the word. How did God give the law? He spoke the word. You'll always see a centrality of the Word of God all the way from Genesis straight through the Revelation. As a matter of fact, in the Revelation, when it talks about when Christ finally comes at his second coming, and it's written about, hey, here he comes, he's got a sword, he's got a sword, and his name is what? The Word of God. That's how Christ is described at his second coming. But look at John 114. And the Word became flesh. and dwelt among us. He dwelt among us. He tabernacled among us. He pitched his tent among us. That's the point of John 1.14. Not that there was this imagination. The point was that God, the Word Himself, descended from heaven and tabernacled among us. Look at John 20.31, the Gospel of John 20. Verse 31, what John writes, he writes these words, but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you have life in his name. He was beheld. You know there's gonna be a day for every believer. We will behold him. and we will handle him aren't you looking forward to that day when you stand in the glory of heaven and there before you stands the son of god and to fall at his feet with your arms wrapped around his ankles crying glory glory glory holy is the lord god almighty my goodness I don't know if there'll be a big line there, but I know when it gets to be my turn, you're going to have to pry me off with a crowbar. So John talks about what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld, and here's the fourth one. Notice what he says. Handled. What we have heard, seen, and beheld, and handled with our hands, and handled. A vision cannot be handled with your hands. These four statements are intended to immediately establish the personhood of Jesus Christ. He wastes no time with it at all. Eliminate the incarnation, eliminate Christ was a man, that Christ took upon himself the penalty for our sin, for all who would come to him in repentance of faith, and you pervert the gospel. And there is no salvation. There's no salvation. That's the whole point behind every false doctrine, every false teaching, is to produce a damnable heresy that prevents men and women from coming to faith in Christ. Now, The reason for all of this that John does is very, very simple. Because the redemption of the human race goes back to a person. Go back in your Bibles to Genesis chapter three, verse 15, this is Always say this is the most important verse. I can't say that but definitely one of the most important verses in all of Scripture Genesis 315 I'm going to show you this Adam and Eve partook of the fruit in partaking of the fruit they fell in sin depravity entered into the human race and Therefore immediately all offspring of Adam and Eve would be corrupted by the natural depravity of sin. No one is born right. No one is born in a right relationship with God. You're born into enmity against God. And after that, God speaks to the serpent. Now I want you to listen very carefully here in Genesis 3.15. 14 and 15, and the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you more than all the cattle, and more than every other beast of the field, and on your belly you shall go, and thus shall you eat all the days of your life. Now notice these words. And I will put enmity between you and the woman. Who's the woman? It's the descendants of Eve. There's gonna be an enmity, there's gonna be a war, there's gonna be a striving against the serpent who is Satan and God. There's gonna be enmity. The strife, the horrors we see in this world is a result of the depravity of sin and the enmity of God, right, the enmity between God. But notice what he says here. and between your seed and her seed. And he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. This is the gospel's first appearance in the scriptures. This is called the Proto Euangelion. It's the first appearance of the gospel, right? Now this is the Lord Yahweh curses the serpent, causing man to sin, but God tells of a future redemption. God states that from the seed of the woman, from the lineage of a woman, will come one who will deal a death blow Satan So there's gonna be a descendant from the woman and That descendant is gonna rise up and deal a death blow To Satan now. I want to call your attention to something else notice He said note that in that verse he It's not a she It's a he He shall bruise you on the head. He will deliver the final mortal wound to Satan. And we know that he must come from the line or the lineage of the woman. Now it could only, here's the point as it relates to 1 John. It can only be a person because it's a descendant of the woman and it can only be a male person. We know throughout all of history there was one man who fit that criteria. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the one that delivers that death blow to Satan. Listen, have you ever thought about if you have come to salvation in Christ, you have been able to come to that salvation in Christ because of Christ atoning death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. The resurrection from the dead was a sign that God showed the entire history, that he accepted the sacrifice of his son on the cross. And because of that, death has no longer a sting. We talk about that all the time. If somebody walked into this room right now and put a bullet between my eyes, guess what? My eyes are going to close. My body's going to collapse. But I'm telling you, in a nanosecond, I'm alive, more alive than I've ever been in my life. And we know a day is coming when the trumpet is gonna sound, and there's gonna be a shout of the archangel, and the dead in Christ are gonna rise first, and we which remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord, and thus we shall ever be with the Lord. Do you know that if you are in Jesus Christ, if you are born again, if you are saved, if you are manifesting the fruits of the Holy Spirit, you are never going to die. This junky body that for me today is all mosquito bitten. This lousy body with its scars on the knees and everything sagging and falling apart. This body will die and to that I say hallelujah. But I will have a new risen body. I will have a glorified body. And guess what? In an appointed time, in eternity future, Satan, every demon that ever tortured you, every demon that ever made your life miserable, every demon that ever tempted you, every demon that ever caused you to succumb to sin, every principality of hell, every whatever there is in hell, will be cast into the lake of fire, and guess who's gonna cast them? The seed of the woman, the he, Jesus Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. That's right, this person was Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth. And I wanna call your attention again because here you see Paul is not pulling any punches. Hey, we're only in the first verse. And he's not pulling any punches because he knows the seriousness of false doctrine. Today the church doesn't recognize the seriousness of false doctrine. We're very pleased to call everybody Christian. Everybody's a Christian. Everybody's a Christian. But truth is truth. Truth is objective. Truth is verifiable. And it's verifiable in the scripture. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of truth. It's objective. Hey, listen to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in John 14, six. I am the way. I am the truth. And I am the life. John immediately goes to work to dismantle the falsehoods of the eras of Gnosticism. He ends this by saying, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld with our hands and handled concerning the word of life, concerning the word of life. Here, John uses that same phrase, word, that he used back in John 1.1. This word of life that John speaks extends from Christ throughout the entire gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only did John hear, see, and handle Jesus Christ, but John was transformed by the gospel. And notice, he has dedicated his entire life to the proclamation of that truth. And John will indeed pay a penalty for his fidelity. You know why John was sent to the Isle of Patmos? I hope most of you know that, right? John was exiled. He was exiled from Ephesus because of the preaching of the gospel. But do you know why they exiled him? Church history records that they arrested John, and they put a big vat of boiling oil. And they figured, well, this is one sure way to get rid of him. We'll just throw him down into the vat of oil. And so when it came to get John, they took John, they tied him up. The oil was bubbling. I'm assuming it must have been a big cauldron of oil. And they took John and they threw him in the oil. But there was one problem. Nothing happened to him. He didn't even get a blister. The Lord defended him. And so what they figured out, well, if we can't boil him, let's ship him off to a rocky island out there in the Aegean Sea, and let's let him rot. And what did God do with that exile? It was on the Isle of Patmos. that the Lord gave John the revelation of Jesus Christ. How glorious, how spectacular is this? This word of life. John speaks and he declares and John would continue to declare that gospel even as he had to watch his friends, his fellow apostles, all suffer martyrdom and die. John himself knew, he lived in Ephesus, he knew it was not easy being a believer in Christ in a society and a culture that hates Christ. That's very much like us. We're in a society and a culture that hates Christ. Shared with you on good, what was it, Easter Sunday, the Saturday before the article in the New York Times. Let's do away with God on Easter. Let's do him away. He's responsible for all the heinous crimes against humanity. Look at verse two with me. John writes, and the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. You know, verses two and three are gonna pivot on the truth that he laid forth in verse one. And he's gonna reiterate many of the similar statements here regarding the life of Christ. Notice it again, he says, what we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you. There's an interesting thing. He saw it, he bore witness to it, but notice what he does not do. What doesn't he do? He doesn't keep it to himself and be silent. We saw it, we beheld it, and we proclaim it to you. the necessity of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what did he proclaim? Specifically, it is the eternal life, the message of the gospel in Jesus Christ, which he himself was a recipient of. So what he received, he gave. There's many times when I find myself in prayer, I'll be praying and I'll say, Father, I pray that you would fill me, fill me so that it would pour out. not fill me so I could hoard it, not fill me so I could walk around with a super duper cool feeling. We as believers ask the Lord to fill us so that the word would pour out of us and then we come back to the Lord and say, fill me again. I remember early in the 70s, ooh, I'm dating myself here. It was a very famous chorus we used to sing in the church at the time. You might remember this. Fill my cup, Lord. I lift it up, Lord. Come and quench this thirsting of my soul. We used to sing that in the church. Fill my cup, Lord. I lift it up. Do you lift up your cup to Christ? What's your cup look like? Is it dusty? Do you have to look around and say, now, where's that cup? Where's that cup? Oh, Lord, here it is. Is it dry? Do you even present it to the Lord? And you know what the cup is, right? It's your vessel, it's your soul. What did Jesus say in Matthew 5? Blessed are those who hunger. and thirst for righteousness. Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? You know, that's a telltale sign of whether or not you are in Christ. The righteous desire the righteous. The righteous desire Christ. Why? Because he is righteous. The righteous desire God because we desire the righteousness of God. We all need to come to a place where here's my vessel, Lord. I'm parched. I'm dry. I lift it up to you, Lord. Will you pour in so that I could pour it out? Christianity is not an individualistic religion. We're going to see this right in his words. Christianity is about the fellowship of the body of Christ. And in order for us to be effective as Christians, we need to be filled with the Spirit of God. and our mouths need to be open to proclaim the word of God. Do you think Peter and Paul and James and the Apostle John were convicted because they were private with their religion and they felt that it had no place in the public discourse? Do you think they were convicted because they were silent about the gospel? Do you think they were convicted? Now listen, every time I say this, right, every time I say this, I know people pull back. They'd pull back, right? Oh, what do you mean, pastor? You want me to be on Colonial and Aletheia? You want me out there, you know, with a sign that says, you know, the kingdom of God? Hey, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I made a statement on Bible study a few weeks ago, Tuesday night. I said, I'm gonna make a statement that sounds very controversial. But the statement was this. We need to evangelize the church. We need to evangelize the church. The evangel, the good news, is not merely, you know, hey, come to Christ, repent from your sins, and be saved, and then it ends. That's not the truth. The evangelist, the whole counsel of God. As a preacher, I stand up and I declare the whole counsel of God. And as a preacher, I'm gonna share with you, if you come to me with a problem, I'm gonna point you to the word of God. I'm gonna give you what? The evangel. I'm gonna give you the good news. Did Jesus go to his disciples? And did Jesus say to his disciples, hey, believe in me and you shall have eternal life. And they said, okay. And he goes, all right, guys, you got it all. There's nothing else I need to do. No. What did he do? In every circumstance in their life, it was the Word of God, the Word of God, the Word of God. He gave them the Word of God. The apostles preached that great message on Pentecost. They preached the gospel of salvation. They preached the Word of God, right? And what did they do? Okay, 5,000 are saved. Our job is done. Let us go from here. No. What did they do? They kept instructing them in the Word of God. They kept instructing them in the faith. They kept pounding the faith. See, the evangelism doesn't end when somebody says, I want to accept Jesus Christ. It only begins. And it ends the day that you go home or the Lord Jesus bursts that eastern sky and we all go home together. We need to evangelize the church. What's preaching? Evangelizing the church. What's preaching? Continuing the word of God. Why are we going painstakingly word by word by word through the word of God? Because I'm evangelizing the church, and we need to evangelize one another. Well, we're not gonna go as far as I'd like to go. I just, if you give me a few more minutes, I'll finish verse two. John says the life was manifested. The life of Christ was manifested. It appeared. And he goes on, he says, and we bore witness of that. Here he goes, he's reiterating. Now, remember I told you when we were studying Isaiah chapter six, why do the angels cry holy, holy, holy? A three-time cry. Jesus, whenever he would want to make an important point, would say what? Verily, verily, I say unto you, two times, listen up. When you heard Jesus say that, the disciples knew, listen up, something really important is coming here. John is using very similar structure here. He talks about in verse one what we have seen, what we have heard, what we beheld, what we handled with our hands. Look at verse two. The life was manifested and we have seen and we have heard. bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. Here it is. It was manifested. We saw it. We beheld it. We proclaimed it to you. It was manifested to us again. There goes the second time. Look at verse three. And we have seen and heard and proclaimed to you Also, that you may have fellowship with us. Indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ." There go three points again. Listen, this is important, what John is telling the churches in Asia. I, myself, bore witness of this. I myself saw Christ. I myself heard the words. I myself beheld his hands. That life that was in Jesus Christ, the man, was manifested to us. As he begins to dismantle this heresy that says Christ was some kind of spook, some kind of specter. some kind of ghost. John knew the importance of what Jesus taught in John 17 3 when he said, and this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. The Apostle Paul makes a very similar point in Colossians 128. Colossians 128, which is our verse as a church. Every Christian is a proclaimer of the gospel, and every Christian, every believer in Christ is compelled to tell. Did you hear that? You are compelled to tell. Some people tell tens of thousands. Some people tell a thousand. Some people tell several hundred. Some may tell 50. But all are compelled to tell. Listen to the Apostle Paul in Colossians 1, 28 and 29. and we proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every man complete in Christ and for this purpose I for this purpose also I labor striving according to his power which works mightily in me You know, we adopted that verse for a very reason. If you look at our material, it says Colossians 128, for we proclaim Him. Because that's what we do. We proclaim Christ. We don't proclaim anything else. We don't proclaim worldly philosophies. We don't bring worldly philosophies into the church and say, oh boy, isn't this neat? Let's see if we could align it with the gospel. That's part of the problem in the church today, integrating these false teachings. We don't bring politics in and say, let me tell you how the platform of the Republican Party fits the Christian agenda. We don't do that. Let me tell you something, you've heard me say this a million times. If you're looking for hope in a man or a woman to run for office, you're out of your mind. It's not gonna happen. The foundations have crumbled. And unless we are convinced of who we are in Christ, that is the only thing that's gonna make it through these days. You must be convinced of who you are in Christ. The Apostle Paul says we proclaim him admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom, and here's our goal as a church, that we may present every person complete in Christ. People come and go in this church. I got no problems with it. People come and go. But let not one person say the gospel was not proclaimed in this church. Let them say, I'm sick of it. All he does is talk about the gospel. And when I go on Tuesday night, it's the same thing. It's the gospel. When we meet to pray, it's the gospel. And when we have a special event, it's the gospel. Hey, do that and leave if that bugs you. But no one will say the gospel's not preached here. I love my little sister Ava over here, because my sister Ava keeps score. Several weeks ago, I preached a message and she came up to me with a little piece of paper. And she walked up to me and she said, 257. I said, 257 what? She said, 257 times, that's the amount of times you mentioned God or Jesus Christ. And I looked at her, did I not say this to you? I said, well, let nobody say that Christ is not proclaimed and God is not proclaimed in this church. It's sad because you can go to some churches and they won't even mention the name of Jesus Christ for the fear of offending someone. They won't talk of the exclusivity of Christ, that there is salvation in none other. And I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to do that. But let me tell you this, and I'll close with this. I just want to tell you I had a lot more to go through, so I'm sparing you, all right? You'll get it next week though. Let me just say this. We're in a serious hour. Can everybody agree to that? We're in a serious hour. Take a look at all the foundations that are crumbling. Our government is crumbling. And let me tell you, this isn't political, but we have a wicked government, okay? I'm gonna tell you something else. Our system of justice. Why do you get frustrated watching the news? I'm gonna tell you why you get frustrated. You get frustrated because you're looking for justice in an unjust world. And here's a bulletin. You're never gonna find it. not with the level of consistency that scripture says. So our justice system is eroding. Our economic system is eroding. The church will always stand, okay? I wanna be clear with this. The church of Jesus Christ will always stand until such day that he who restraineth the mystery of iniquity will continue to do so until it is taken out of the way. Until Christ comes for his church, this church will stand. It's just not gonna stand in the way you think it's gonna stand. The manicured lawns. The big mega centers. The church that has the Starbucks in the lobby and the gym and the softball fields and the soccer fields. The church that's being used by Planned Parenthood on the middle of the week for a meeting. That church is not gonna be there. That church is crumbling. I praise God. for the type of church that we are today. Because I know if we got kicked out of this place and we didn't have any other place, I know we would be meeting, no matter where it is. Maybe in a park, maybe in my house where we started. Hey, we went back there twice, what's three times? But I know we will continue to meet, and that's what's meeting across the world. That persecuted church in North Korea, that persecuted church in China, that persecuted church in the Islamic country, those persecuted churches that were up in Canada and in England during the so-called pandemic, all these other different things. Those Christians are meeting. That is the church. And the reason they're meeting, the reason they risk all is one reason. Because Christ means more to them than anything else in the world. And until we get to that place where we see that even our lives are not worth it compared to Christ, then we're going to be looking for justice in an unjust world. John knew what that was about. And John proclaimed. And let me tell you, and I'll close with this statement, it's not a fake close, it's a real close. I mean this now. I'm not being, I didn't mean it before, it's just some things got away. That would be a lie if I meant it, but I really didn't mean it. But let me just share this. What is Christ's worth to you? What is Christ's worth to you? That's the definitive test. Would you give your life for Christ? Would you give it all away for Christ? If nobody saw, there was nobody saying, oh, you're so brave, Would you do it? Would you do it? What is Christ's worth? We're going to see in 1 John what Christ is worth to that church. And I pray that as we undertake this study, that the Spirit of God open our heart, that we would have that binary vision. We would love our Christ more than anything else. Let's bow in a word of prayer. Father, there are times that the beauty of your word overwhelms us. Two verses, two and a half verses, Lord. And it is packed with such depth. Oh God, we need you in the worst way. God, will you strip away from us? Anything that we're holding to, that's not Christ. That could be religion and its formality. That could be tradition. That could be our moralism. We want to do the right thing and do good things. That very well is our sinfulness. This fallen nature, Lord God, that just thrives day after day after its own will. Oh God, I look so forward to the day when we will be delivered from the presence of sin, our glorification. Father, will you humble us as a church? May you speak to every heart that's here today, Lord. I pray that if there are any here that are outside of Christ, any here that are not saved, that they would go home with an uneasiness, Lord, with a conviction in their heart. Oh God, I pray that it would weigh on them, weigh on them, Till they say, I can't do this anymore, God. Have mercy, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner, God. Save me from your judgment, dear Lord. Save me from the wrath of God that is to come. Make me new in Christ, O God, please, Lord, lest I die. Father, I pray that if there are any here that are in Christ, but Lord, whose cup is dry, who are content with minimal efforts, who may even be feeling disenfranchised, I pray that they, too, would leave with conviction. When they're alone, Father, You would lay hold of their heart. They would lift up their cup, themselves, to You, Father, and repent and say, Father, fill my cup. I've not been the person that you want me to be. I've become consumed with the world and the things of the world. But Father, I've seen and tasted of your goodness. But Lord, here's my cup. Fill it up, Lord. And pour me out. wherever you see fit, Father. That's my prayer, Father. And so I thank you. I bless you and I praise you, Lord. And I thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.