1 John chapter 1. We're also, I'm going to kind of bounce through parts of chapter 1 and parts of chapter 2 is really how I'm going to move tonight. And just look here in this text at what I think John lays out here as tests of the faith. And I think you could almost say that about the entire book of 1 John, that it's written, in fact, John says that it's written so that you may know that you have life in the Son, that you may know. It's a book about the people of God being able to examine themselves according to the Word of God and have some assurance. But here in the first couple of chapters, first several verses really, there is these things that are laid out before us that I think are helpful as we constantly seek to examine ourselves in the mirror that is the Word of God. You know, there are continually in the life of any church or the life of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ in general, I think there's the same problems that persist in year after year, in church after church. A lot of problems that come up and that Paul addresses in his letters, John addresses it, and we're reminded, I think, as we read these things, whether it's about the Corinthians, whether it's about here in 1 John, we can see ourselves and our churches and the churches we've been involved in in pieces and parts of some of these texts of Scripture. But I want to look at this piece of 1 John and kind of be reminded of our own need to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as individuals and as a body to be made more into the image of Christ as we again examine ourselves. We understand that the book of 1 John is written really largely in response to some rampant heresy that was going on in that time. Basically, there was kind of this large-scale movement that held that Jesus was not human at all. They discounted the bodily aspect, the incarnation aspect of who Jesus was. Because in their foundational beliefs, they really thought that the flesh itself was evil, and we know that to be true, but Jesus incarnated in a perfect manner, living a perfect life. His was not. And so they didn't want to have any realization that Jesus was human by any stretch. They discounted his fleshly appearing. And so they were denying the fullness of who Jesus actually was, and in doing so, they undermined the gospel. And so in these first pieces of 1 John, we're going to be confronted with some tests of the faith. And I think we're going to be able to look at these and discern ourselves and maybe ministries that we're connected with or people that we listen to preach and teach on the radio, on the internet. I think these are some things that we can look out for. And so to start with, I want to look here in chapter 1 and just read verses 1 through 3. The Bible says this, that, "...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 concerning the word of life." The life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us." What does John say as he's talking about Christ and who He is and His nature? First of all, he acknowledges His deity. He says, that which was from the beginning. The Lord Jesus Christ in eternity past existing. So he puts that out there in the beginning. But then he goes into the more human side of who Jesus is, the human reality and fullness of who Jesus was. He speaks about the things that could be observed through the senses. that which we have heard, we've seen with our eyes, looked upon, our hands have handled. He says, we have touched Him, we've seen Him, we've heard Him speak. John is making sure that his listeners, his readers, understand that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, God incarnate, He's all of that. He's divine. He's God. But He was also in the flesh. This is of the utmost importance. That's why John is putting it out there. And He says that they know these things, He was manifested, but then He says, we testify or we declare to you. We declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. And verse 3 goes on to say, that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you may also have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. He's testifying, He's declaring these things for a reason. Why do we proclaim? Why do we testify? Why do we tell the truth of who Jesus is? Why do we tell the truth of the eternal life that is in Christ? Well, here the Apostle John gives us some interesting reasons. He says that they declare it, there in verse 3, that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. He says, we proclaim the gospel, we declare the fullness of who Jesus actually is and all that He did. Why? So that more people would walk in fellowship with us as we walk in fellowship with the Lord. This is the purpose of gospel proclamation. But we've gotta make sure, and I think this is what John's hammering home right at the beginning in this letter, that we don't preach some sort of nuanced gospel where we hold back the things that maybe some people don't want to hear because we're afraid that it'll be distasteful to them. We tell them the fullness of who Christ is and all that he has done and all that he has taught so that they might come to know the true Christ of the scriptures. We proclaim Christ because we're commanded to, but we don't do it just because we want to hear our head rattle. We don't do it just because we want to be the ones speaking words. We do it because the desire of our heart should be that we would see more people walk in the same kind of fellowship that we have with the Father through the Son. Not only that, He says that if this happens, He says the reason He's telling them this, the reason He wants this to take place is for the sake of joy. You see that there? That your joy may be full. The reality of the gospel, the fullness of the gospel proclaimed and then received produces eternal life, and if you know that you have eternal life, and I know that I have eternal life, if we meditate, ruminate, think on that for any length of time, it should produce in us joy. But a false view of Jesus produces death and lacks joy. If we're proclaiming a Jesus that's all judgment and no love, that's a problem. Right? There's not much joy there. If we preach a Jesus that's, He's all happy, clappy, love, but there's no justice and judgment, guess what? That's a dead gospel too, and ultimately it's empty, and it doesn't produce real joy. We've got to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ, who for the sake of the glory of God, for the sake of the glory of the Father, for the sake of love for His people, laid down His life, yes, for the sake of love, but also He who has said He will return to judge the quick and the dead. The fullness of who Christ actually is. There are thousands upon thousands, if not millions upon millions of people in the world today calling themselves by the name of Christian who have perverted in some way the true nature of Christ. They either want to mess with His eternality and say, well, yeah, maybe He is God, but He didn't really become God until a certain point. That's not what it says. It says He was there from the beginning. That's not what the Bible says. It says He was the one who's with the Father. Then there are those who, like the ones that John was preaching against, that are out there saying things like, well, you know, Jesus's flesh was just a, it was just kind of a shell, it was wicked, and so we don't really have any ties to the flesh. No, Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, why? So that he might live a perfect life that we couldn't live, and die a perfect death that we can't die on our own behalf. If you remove the humanity of Christ, 100% God, but 100% man as well, if you remove that, then the gospel is undermined. There remains not then a sacrifice for sin. And then there are those that go the other direction. And they'll just say, well, Jesus was a good man, but he wasn't God. He was a good teacher. He was a great philosopher. He was a holy man of sorts, but just a man. Again, we have just then produced a gospel of good works that leads to death. Just try to do what this guy says, but there's nothing rooted in the divine in the midst of that. There are so many people in the world believing a halfway gospel. They don't believe in the triune God. They don't believe in the humanity and the divine nature of Christ. One way or the other, they err. So we've got to make sure that, first of all, one of the tests of the faith is that we believe in the true nature of the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed to us in the Scriptures. I want to jump ahead just a little bit, down to verse 8. And I could go through this whole thing and lay out test after test, but these are just the ones that I've picked out for the sake of this evening. The next thing that if we're going to have our mind right, if we're going to have the gospel right, if we're going to walk in the faith, we have to have our mind right about what sin is and its existence, really. Look at verse 8 and 9. It says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. Sin is a reality. Not because John said so, just, but because Jesus said so. Jesus constantly spoke to the sins of those that He encountered. He rebuked sin when it was in His presence. He didn't wink at it. Right? Even the woman at the well, when she left from Him, what did He tell her? Go and sin no more. That's what He told her. I'm sorry, that's the woman caught in adultery, but you know what I meant. Go and sin no more. That's what Jesus said. Sin is a reality, and if we're going to declare the message of Christ, if we're truly going to be in the faith, we can't actually come into relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ legitimately until we recognize that sin's a reality, not just out there, but in here. I have to recognize that I am a sinner in need of a savior. And so sin is a reality. And not only that, walking in darkness and sin is incompatible with salvation. Right? If we continue to walk in that kind of path, we must repent. That's what he tells us to do. He's not asking for perfection. He's not saying that we have to be perfect even though that's the standard. He's telling us right here that there is a mechanism in place for us to walk in almost continual fellowship with God if we will walk continually in confession, repentance of sin. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This isn't a message, again, the book of 1 John isn't written out there necessarily for the broader world. He's writing this to Christians. He's telling Christians who are saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that they need to be always repenting, confessing sin. Repentance unto salvation is one thing, and it does cleanse us for sins past, present, and future. But if we want to walk in the full power and strength of God in fellowship with Him constantly, we have to be repenting constantly, because we sin constantly. Perfection is an impossibility in this body of this old man, right, that we're all supposed to leave behind. It's the height of arrogance, I think John's telling us here, to say that we do not sin or we cannot sin. And I've taught this here before, but there's a really small group. It used to be much more prominent a couple hundred years ago in church history, this teaching of Christian perfectionism. Now, I think there are godly people that go a lot longer without sinning than I do, all right? The Bible's pretty clear. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. We are those who are full of the Holy Spirit, seeking to walk in faithfulness and obedience, but we are constantly having to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. And sin is part of that battle. Saying we have no sin puts us on equal footing with God. Exposes us as Liars, that's what he says if you say that you that that's where you're at. You're lying. You're lying to yourself. You're lying to others you're lying to God and so if we're going to test whether we've got our heart right, our mind right, if we're walking in the faith, number one is, do we know who Christ actually is, the true nature of Christ? Number two, do we really have a grasp of the reality of sin, not just out there, but within us, constantly needing to be dealt with through the power of the Holy Spirit within us? I think one of the next things that John presents is actually down in chapter 2 and verse 3 and 4. And this is actually all over the book of 1 John. but I would call it the test of obedience. John very simply writes this, now by this we know that we know him. If we keep his commandments, he who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. Go on and read verse five there, he says, but whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. What's he tell us? Obedience is required. And friends, just saying that in this day and age, even in a Bible-believing evangelical church, if you just look people in the face and point to the Bible and say, the Bible says obedience is required, there's people out there that are gonna say, man, y'all just a bunch of legalists. Y'all just think you're supposed to do what the Bible says. And it's like, yeah, we actually do think that. We can acknowledge in our own humanity, in our own sinful flesh, that there are times when we will be disobedient and we need to be repentant. But obedience is a requirement of the Christian. If we don't proclaim that to those who call themselves Christians, and if we don't lay that out even as an expectation in a presentation of the gospel, then we're presenting a gospel without allowing somebody to count the cost, as Jesus has said. We need to tell people, yes, that you need to repent of your sins and believe in the gospel. You'll be delivered from the punishment of death, hell, and the grave. But we better also tell them that Jesus becomes Lord and Master of your life and you owe Him absolute loyalty and obedience. That's the fullness of the proclamation of the gospel. We have to obey. We claim Christ as our example. We call ourselves Christians, which literally means little Christ, those who walk in His footsteps. But if we don't seek to walk as He walked, then we're hypocrites. We lie about our faith. really if we do not obey. That's what John says again. He's very plain spoken. You say I know him, you don't keep his commandments, you're a liar and the truth's not in you. That's pretty plain spoken from the Apostle John, who sometimes could be a little bit, you know, he could mince words a little bit. He wouldn't even name himself in his own gospel. He called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, which I think is a cool thing. He didn't even name himself when he beat Peter in a foot race. But he writes here and he keeps very clear language. He says, if we're going to be what Christ has called us to be, we have to keep his commands. Obedience has been the call from the beginning. Repentance and faith, which we always proclaim, that's the mechanism of the gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit that he leads us to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But that in and of itself is an act of obedience. Because when Jesus was here, proclaiming the kingdom of God, what did He say? He said, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. What do the apostles say? Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Believe on Christ. It's a response to a command of obedience. Even our faith in Christ, it's not a request. We like to present it there, that God's asking you to do this, God's asking you to do that. That's not what the Bible says. God commands that everyone everywhere repent. That's what the word of God says. And so repentance even in and of itself is an act of obedience, even when we come into the kingdom. And so one of the ways that we assess our faithfulness, or whether or not, maybe perhaps whether or not we're in the faith, is are we walking in obedience? And finally for tonight, I'd just talk about the test of love. The test of love. It's farther down in chapter two, beginning in verse nine. It says, he who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light and there's no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. He says, obey me. He says, don't have fellowship with darkness, which is really what he talked about at the end there of chapter one. He talks about the reality of sin, the nature of who Christ is. He tells us about the test of obedience. We better believe on Him. We better obey what He says. And then He speaks about loving the brethren. Again, written to Christians. Now, I think we're commanded to love everybody. We're commanded to love our neighbors. We're commanded to love our enemies. But here, He's talking about brothers and sisters in Christ. Love the brethren. To love the brethren shows the heart devoted to Christ. We are called to love the lost, we are called to love the enemy, we are called to love the wicked even. But we will never love the lost, we will never love the wicked, we will never love our enemies if we can't get our minds and hearts around loving one another within the body of Christ. It's not possible. If you can't love your brother who's walking in the light with you and walking in obedience to the Word of God, seeking to walk in this life, this Christian life together, if love doesn't exist there, one or both parties are probably pretending about something, or their heart's not right about something. But we definitely can't go out there and love people enough that Christ is using that to draw them. You're not going to love the wicked man. You're not going to love the lost man. You're not going to love the man down on his luck. The woman. Living a lifestyle that turns your stomach. You're not gonna love that person if you can't love the brethren That's why I think he begins here That's why Jesus tells us will be known by our love for one another because people are gonna see people of all kinds of backgrounds all kinds of different places they've come from people that look different from one another and they're gonna see them walking together in the unity of the gospel and say How is that possible? And we'll say it's possible because of who Jesus is and all that Jesus has done and the love of the brethren will draw people to Christ through the power of the Spirit of God. So if you don't love the brethren, don't say you love God. That's what John says. Look, I know. Guys, I've been doing this a little while. Not every Christian that you ever met is the most lovable human that ever walked. And I'm one of them. We can be prickly. We can be opinionated. We can think this while you think that, right? We're not always going to agree on everything, but our love should allow us to come to agreement underneath the authority of the scripture through the love expressed by Christ through us to one another. So if you don't love the brethren, John says you're walking in darkness. So what are the tests of the faith? Recognizing the true nature of who Christ is, 100% God, 100% man. It's recognizing the reality of sin, not just out there, but in here and your need to continually walk in repentance. It's looking at the test of obedience. Are you walking in obedience to His commands? And it's looking at the love for the brethren. If these things are not consistently existing in each of us, we had better assess ourselves prayerfully before the Word of God, before God Himself in prayer, and ask Him to show us whether or not we're in the faith, and if we are, where we need to repent so that we can get right and walk with Him. Do you have a right view of Jesus? I hope you do. I hope you know him as he is, not as you want him to be. Do you recognize the reality of sin? Are you walking in obedience? And do you love the brethren? How do you answer those questions between you and God? My prayer is it'll challenge you. It's challenged me. I pray it'll challenge you, move you towards repentance where necessary, and we can walk together more faithfully to the glory of God. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for the day. Thank you for these folks here. Thank you for your word. Pray you'd use it. Use it in my life, use it in theirs. God, I pray that you would just do mighty things, things that are beyond our own skill, our own wisdom, our own thought processes, Lord, that you would just work in each of us, work in our families, work in our church, that we might be a beacon of the gospel, a beacon of love for one another that you would use to draw people to yourself. God, we love you. Help us to love you more, obey you better. To the glory of God, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.