My father went to heaven 16 years ago this week. His last year of life, he came to the church and said, I'm struggling with my assurance. And what that means. That's you today, the letter of first John is for you. If you were told when you became a Christian, that all would be good, and when bad things happen, you said, has God left me? First John is for you. If you realize that you spend the majority of your life in spiritual darkness, and don't know Jesus Christ, first John is for you. Please rise with me now as we read a selection from that letter. You'll find it on page 1021 of your Pew Bible. Going to open with the purpose statement of the letter in chapter 5, verse 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. Turning to chapter 1, verse 1 of first John, page 1,021 of your Pew Bible. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life. The life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son, Jesus Christ, and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light, and him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we may chem a liar and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And turning over to chapter 5, verse 18, we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life, little children, keep yourselves from idols. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Perhaps you've had this experience, it happens to me a lot, because I'm a bit of a watermelon connoisseur, but I was pushing a buggy through Walmart with four or five watermelons in it, and this lady grabs the front of my buggy with both hands, keeping me from getting to the cash register, and she says, sir, you have to put that watermelon back
it's bad. If you buy enough watermelons, you meet people, and everyone has a theory. There's the thump test, the roll, the watermelon, the how brown isn't underneath, the stem. I did have one lady who would just hold it up to her ear and then handed it back to me, she said, it's good. And I know I'm probably gonna lose half my audience here, but the bottom line is you don't know until you open up the watermelon. That's why I buy four or five. When we come to first John, we have to ask ourselves the question, is John giving his opinion on a closed watermelon, or does he, in fact, as he claims to know the truth, and if you'll pardon the analogy, John is saying, I've opened it, I know it, I've seen it, I've heard it, I've touched it, I know the truth. And he says that that which was from the beginning reminds us of Genesis 1, 1. It also reminds us of the start of John's own gospel. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, the word was God, he was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, without him was not anything made that was made. And him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness. The darkness has not overcome it. Let me ask you, as we enter the fall, Pastor Tim Tensley is going to walk us through the book of John. I want to spend some time this morning asking about who this man was. He was a man who said, I've seen the truth
when he comes to the tomb of Jesus in John 20. It says he and Peter are running there, and he gets there before Peter. And it says he sees the garments of Jesus on the floor, but no Jesus. The word there is, he sees it. It says Peter comes in after him, kind of stumbling in, and it says that Peter sees the garments on the floor. But it's a different word. The Greek word there means in Southern language, he takes it in. He sees with understanding. Jesus isn't here. And then there's this third word that John uses, and he says the other disciple that is John, who had reached the tomb first, went in, and he saw and he believed. He saw with understanding and faith. And it's that word that John uses in his letter here. I saw Jesus. I saw it with faith and with belief and understanding. But not only that, he tells us, he also touched the word of life, the truth. Don't pass over that. We can hear truth. But the only way you can touch truth is if the truth is incarnational. That is, if God Himself becomes man and dwells upon us. We give Thomas a hard time. Thomas is the disciple who after the resurrection says, I don't think he rose from the dead and I won't believe it so I can touch his hands. And we know the scene where Jesus says, come, if that's what it takes, come. Feel the nail holes in my hand. John's given us a little confessional here that he got in line. And he went up also and saw and touched the resurrected Jesus. But more so he's heard in verses one and three. He heard the gospel, the word of life. If you have a Tom Tom, one of the GPS units in your car, I like Mr. T. He's my favorite voice. But I'm really bad with directions. And more often than not, my GPS unit is saying, turn around at your next earliest convenience. Or as Mr. T puts it, I pity the fool who doesn't turn around right now. Listen to how John starts the book of Revelation. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet saying, write what you see in the book and send it to the seven churches. Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. Makes clear that we hear the truth because the truth makes itself known to us. We're not here with opinions about God. God is different than a watermelon on multiple fronts. Let me give you one this morning, and that's that God reveals Himself to us and calls us to Himself. And John says, because of that, we're called to respond. And in verse two of verse John, he says, we are to testify. That is, we're to give an account of the gospel. The word there is the same word we use when we say martyr. Someone who dies for their faith in Christ. That is, we give an honest account. We don't say, come to the gospel. It's easy. We say, come to the gospel. There's nowhere else to go. But Jesus is good. And in eternity He calls us to something sweeter than we can ever imagine. Not only that, but we are to proclaim it. That is, we are to have an essence of authority about it. That woman at Walmart grabbed my buggy and shook it in the middle of Walmart with hundreds of people around. She was sincere. She was sincerely wrong, by the way. The watermelon was delicious. We're to have that kind of impact, not just because we believe our opinion, but because what we're saying is absolute truth. So we can proclaim it wherever and we have authority to do so. And He says, finally, I wrote it down so that we can have fellowship together. We're to send that message out so that others can receive it and know the gospel and come and be baptized and know eternal life in the love of Jesus Christ. Have you ever been to a little league soccer game and seen the parent on the bleachers jump off and say, good job, Johnny. Way to be in fellowship with other children. Or if you've seen the parent yell, get the ball. Push them. Go score. There's something about our American culture that fundamentally we may not want to say it, but we do sort of believe that my greatest joy comes at someone else's expense. My greatest joy will come at someone else's expense. But the gospel message is my greatest joy comes when you know the same life-giving salvation that I do, that's powerful. And it's right here at this point when John says, on one hand, you have your own call to eternal life. On the other hand, you have a call to proclaim it to others that he hits apex of his statement. He says, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you, God is light. And in him there is no darkness at all. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If you've ever been on a diet or been with someone with food allergies, you know what it means to take that carten off, turn it over, and look and see what's in the package you're about to eat. What are the ingredients? And John tells us in this letter, there's two ingredients to God that you have to know so that you can be assured of your salvation. And the first one is, God is light. The second one we're going to interact with next week, first John 4.8, God is love. But it's compelling, isn't it? That in all of John's writings, light comes before love and understanding who God is. In this letter, sin is mentioned 17 times. If you're trying to give me assurance of faith, is that the best way to do it? You're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner? 17 times? And John says, absolutely it is. Because until you stand in the light of Christ and recognize who I am and who he is, then the depth and the breadth and the length and the height of God's love can't be fully understood. When I do marriage counseling, I sit down with a couple and I say, there are six people who enter your marriage. There's the person you think you are. There's the person she thinks you are. And there's the person you really are. And the same three for the other side. We spend a lot of our time talking to God, pretending to be someone we're not. But one of the things that happens is when you stand in the light, you gain sight and you understand the terrain around you, including your own sinfulness. So that some of the great men of Scripture Isaiah says, and woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. Peter says, he fell down at Jesus's knees saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Paul says, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. So a recognition of our own sin, recognition of our own rebellious hearts, but then a recognition of God's goodness and grace. And John gives three affirmations in the text for us. And the first is this text in verses six and seven. And we say, we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness. We lie and do not practice the truth. We walk in the light as he is in the light. We have fellowship with one another. Interesting, isn't it, that one of the tests and affirmations of our faith is that when we get together with other believers, we have fellowship and we worship the Lord together. I challenge you if you're here and it's ever crossed your mind to say, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, but I sort of practice it on my own. Find that in the scriptures. Because the scriptures call us to be together in fellowship. But then there's also in verse eight and nine. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Donald Gray Barnhouse tells the story. And he says, I was talking to this gentleman. And I said, I know another guy like you. And he became a believer later in life. And after a fairly sorted past, and he married a fine Christian woman. And shared with her one time about his past. And she said, I want to tell you something. You are a fine Christian man. But I also know something of the workings of the devil. And I know that you will be tempted. And I hope you never fall. But if you do immediately, the devil will tell you, you've ruined everything. You might as well continue in your sin. That above all, you should not tell me because it will hurt me. But I want you to know that this is your home. This is where you belong. I want you to know that there is full pardon and forgiveness in advance for any evil that may come into your life. The heart of that wife is the heart of God. Who says, you can be assured of your fate not just because you're living well, but because when you're not living well, you take that to the foot of the cross. When you're not living well, you repent. And in that repentance, you see the work of God in your life. We're not going to pretend sin doesn't exist on this side of eternity. But we're going to affirm that those who believe in Jesus Christ set the good and the bad. I recently went clothes shopping for my children for school. We went to a major name brand retailer. And I learned something I didn't know. You can buy a nice clean pair of blue jeans. But for ten to twelve dollars more, you can buy a pair of blue jeans that have been pre-torn, pre-worn, and pre-ripped. And there's a part of me as a father that says, are you kidding me? I told my son that for eight dollars, I'd do it for him. But you know as I went home and thought about that, how often do I go to God and I try to put on the best I got? When in fact God calls me to show up in my tattered clothes. He calls me to come to the foot of the cross and my ripped up blue jeans and t-shirt. He calls me to come to the foot of the cross, empty handed. I seek a life of righteousness, but where I fail, I rely on Jesus Christ. The first affirmation that we live in community together in fellowship. The second that we are affirmed by our faith in how the Lord and the Spirit works in our life to sanctify us, but also to call us to repentance. And third that we have the doctrinal truths that we are sinners. They God forgives sin, and he does it through the person of Jesus Christ. And so we turn to the end of John, and we see these three statements. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he has been born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. There's an eschatological reality that is to say on this side of eternity I will struggle with sin, but in eternity Jesus Christ will save me from that. I have confidence in the gospel that God is working in me. Also we know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. There's a citizenship choice, and the gospel calls you not to be part of the city of man, but the city of God. And John says, if that is where you've placed your faith, your hope, if you've seen and understood with faith, then know your king is greater than the king of the world. You will be protected that you are safe. And then finally we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true. And the truth is not just information, it is, look at the next part, in His Son Jesus Christ, that doctrinally we know from the pages of Scripture, if you'll pardon the analogy one more time, the watermelon has been open, and we know whether it's good or bad, and Jesus is good. And then He ends and says, stay away from idols. Stay away from anything but Jesus Christ. If you find your joy in anything but Jesus, if you find your hope in anything but Jesus, if you find your salvation in anything but Jesus, if you find your peace, your mercy, your protection, your meaning, your propitiation in anything but Jesus, if you find anyone to be your advocate other than Jesus, your solace, your companion, your fellowship, or your light, then turn, turn back to the light of the gospel. It's not just informational, it's relational, and it's grounded in the personal relationship of a loving God who calls you to Himself. Let's pray. Father, as we hear even the heart of the gospel that you call us to Yourself, Lord, it's hard because we know in the light our sin shows forth. But we also know in darkness there is no hope. Call us individually to the light, call us corporately to fellowship with one another, to encourage one another to sound thinking and sound action. But also to repentance at the foot of the cross. Call us to know the truth of the gospel that we might be set free in Christ's name. Amen. Please rise now and receive the Lord's benediction. May the Lord bless you and keep you, may He make His face to shine upon you, may He be gracious to you and give you His peace. He is good and good to do it, and all of God's people said.