Sermon: Testimony of the Word of Life

And let's go ahead and pray and ask for the Lord's blessing upon His word. As we turn to it this morning. Let's pray together.

Our God, we are thankful that you are a God who is spoken and a God who now continues to speak. You've spoken in your word that has been handed down through the ages, this good deposit, and you speak to us this morning as we hear it red and as we hear it preached you. Pray that it would not fall upon closed ears or dumb minds or hard hearts, but that you would make us willing vessels by your grace and by the influence of your spirit,

that we would be attentive, that we would be engaged, that we would be stirred, and that we would leave this place saying, we have heard this very day. We have heard from the God of heaven and earth. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen for John chapter one, verses one through four. This is the holy er, sufficient word of God. 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 his son, Jesus Christ. And we're writing these things so that our joy

may be complete. Well, the grass withers and the flower fades. The word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Well, this morning we're beginning a summer series in the book of First John. And oh, what a refreshing little book. Uh, this is as we turn to it and, uh, walk our way through it over these weeks. The, the author doesn't actually mention his name at the beginning, but it is no doubt the, the Apostle John, we gather that from similar language that is used in the gospel of John and in the second and third John, uh, where it's more easily, uh,

to identify him. And it's also the tradition of the church from the very first century that this was indeed pinned by, uh, the Apostle John. It was pinned about the same time that second John was written. We're not quite sure which one was written first. I tend to believe that second John was First John and first John was second John. But it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter on the interpretation of this book as we go through it.

Uh, this letter was written not to a church. Like many of Paul's letters were written to a church. This is not true of First John. Uh, this is what we would call a Catholic epistle has often been called that you confess that this morning you believe in the Catholic church, not Roman Catholic, but rather the universal church. And so this was a letter that was to go out to all the churches and they were all to read this letter.

And we will see as we go through it that he wanted them to read it for very specific purposes. So we have John writing this letter to all the churches, this beloved disciple of the Apostle Jesus or of of of Jesus Christ. And this apostle will often refer to himself in the gospel. You'll remember that he wrote in the gospel of John, he will call himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. And he is now writing this letter out of love.

It's, he has received the love of Christ. He has known the love of Christ. He has experienced the love of Christ. And you're gonna find when we go through this book that the love of Christ just kind of oozes out of his pores. And he wants them to know this love of Christ, to experience this love of Christ, to enjoy this love of Christ. Three points this morning, John's testimony, John's proclamation and John's intention, his testimony,

his proclamation, his intention. First John's testimony. Most of us in this room, we love action. We want action. We want to take action. We hear something and we go, okay, but I want to do, or someone gives us a speech and we say, okay, give me, give me the application. I'm, I'm ready to do. But that's not John's focus at the start of this little letter in the Greek, the first two and a half verses are just one long sentence.

It is just clause after clause after clause. The SV does a good job of capturing this with all the commas and dashes that it puts in there. And when you read these verses, it seemingly takes forever to get to that central action verb. The doing. Where's the doing? John, for those of you that love the diagram sentences, okay, maybe the two of you in the room that love the diagram sentences, this is the sentence for you.

It's just close after close, after close, after close, after close, after close, after close. Where's that verb? Where's that main central verb? And as readers, you're meant to kind of sit, sit on the edge of your seat waiting for that central active verb that finally comes in verse two. But you have to wait for it. Why? Simply to build anticipation.

And the PCA, the denomination that we're part of every year, the, the PCA, all the pastors in the denomination and then ruling elder representatives from each church gather together for what we call our general assembly. And so you will have about 3000 men that all descend upon one city this year it's in Chattanooga. And there we will all gather together to do the business of the denomination in that court of the church, the general assembly.

And what happens on the first night of the assembly, what happens at every assembly is that at least one person on that opening night will get up and that person will walk to a microphone and that person will stand to nominate someone to be the moderator of that year's general assembly. The moderator is the person that will help to navigate that assembly through all the business that it's doing and will stand up front.

And it's, it's quite an honor. It's quite a privilege. It's uh, something that, uh, that uh, that men receive after many years of labor. When I first came into, uh, the PCA, uh, it was pretty regular practice that that nomination speech, that someone would walk up to the microphone and when they were getting ready to give that nomination speech, they would not say the person's name that they were nominating. They wouldn't start with that.

Instead, what they would do is that they would give a speech and you would have to wait for that name. They would give the person's biography, then they would give their qualifications and then they would give their service in the church and then they would give the nature of their character. All of that was expressed. And then after eight or nine or 10 minutes of hearing the description of this man, then the speaker would say, fathers and brothers.

Because every man in there is either a father in the faith or a brother in the faith, fathers and brothers. It is my great honor to nominate as moderator of the 51st general assembly of the Presbyterian church in America, Mr. Roy Brown own. Now why all that anticipation? Why do that? It's not just for the anticipation, rather it's, it requires the listeners to focus on the substance of the man rather than get distracted by his name.

And in a very similar way, John is putting the subject first and he gives it a very long runway. So we aren't distracted by the verb. It's not the the do the, the action that is primary in his full thought. Rather John knows that it's the subject of which he speaks that is most important. The action represented by the verb only matters because of the subject. And he's testifying about the subject. And Paul does the same thing in his writings in

Colossians 1 28. He will say, him subject, we proclaim, it's a subject that matters. And so John begins that which was from the beginning. And then he goes on for two and a half verses before he ever gets to the do.

I'm pretty convinced that John uses this language intentionally, that which was from the beginning, he's echoing the way that he begins his own gospel, the gospel of John, which echoes the way that the Bible itself begins. So John one, one he writes, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. And the word was God. In the beginning was the word. And then you are forced to go back and you go, oh, well that makes me think of another pastor.

Yeah, yeah. All the way back to Genesis one, one. And how does Genesis one, one begin in the beginning? God, nothing else. There's nothing else that existed. Just God. He was and is and ever shall be. I am who I am. He exists. And John echoes that when he gets to John one, one, the gospel of John in the beginning was the word. Okay? So, so the word is God. Ah, but here's where it gets interesting. In John one, one, John says, in John one, one, the word

was with God. Wait, so there was something else there besides God? No, because then John says in John one, one, the word was God. In the beginning, God. Genesis one, one, John one, one in the beginning was the word that is distinct from God but is God.

I remember one of my seminary professors, he is one of the top Greek scholars in the world. I remember him taking us through John one, one, the gospel of John one, one. And I remember my mind just exploding, oh, this is beyond beautiful.

It's brilliant. John one, one rules out every heresy surrounding the person of Christ what our ESV translates as the word was. God. It's not actually the order in the Greek words, the Greek throws God all the way to the front of the sentence.

And it doesn't have an article before it. So it, it doesn't have an article as the or Ann or a it doesn't do that. This John one one doesn't say the God was the word. There's no article so that the person of the word is not confused with the person of God, the Father. John's making it clear the word Jesus has the divine attributes of God the Father, the word was God, but he is not the Father. The word was with God. Martin Luther said it so well, the great reformer, the lack

of the article destroys sabellianism. The word order destroys arianism. That is no article distinguishes the Son, the word from the Father. They are not the same person. Sabellianism, oneness. Pentecostals in our day and age don't have an argument,

but he also makes it clear that Jesus is God and that destroys any sense of Arianism. Modern day Jehovah's witnesses have no argument.

And John who knows his readers, who knows the gospel that he has written, who knows the Old Testament scriptures, knows by this one little phrase at the beginning of this book, that which was from the beginning would lead them down an incredible theological doctrinal trail all the way back to the gospel of John. And all the way back to Genesis itself

is pointing them to the God the son who was made flesh. That which was from the beginning. And then you go all the way down to the end of the verse one, to get to the one of whom he speaks. This is he said the word of life. He's testifying of him. This subject dominates the beginning of his epistle. And for right reason, when you begin to understand this, this one who has always existed, who is very God of very God who has no beginning, he becomes flesh.

That's a subject that captures the entire passage and he gives a long runway to, he wants this to dominate. He now gets into this testimony of the word of life as he calls it. The person of the sun made flesh. Verse one, we have heard, we have seen with our eyes, we have touched with our hands. As he says in verse two, the life was made manifest the word of life. The son of God who has always been John is testifying, was made manifest.

He was perceived by us. Our senses captured him in his flesh

and not in some kind of mystical way. John's saying we heard him, but it was not some distant voice echoing from the heavens. That alone could be a kind of auditory hallucination. No, he says we saw him with our own eyes, but that alone could be a kind of visible hallucination. So John says, we touched him with our hands, but that alone could be a kind of tactile, his hallucination. But they're not alone. They hear, they see, they touch

all confirmed that he was made manifest. And notice he's saying it wasn't simply me.

He says we, we have heard, we have seen our hands touched. He was made manifest to us. He says by the end of verse two, this one who was from the beginning now perceived was not a figment of their imaginations. He wasn't the result of wishful thinking. He wasn't a ghost, he was bodily before them. And with them they heard him, saw him touched him.

I've often thought that doubting the historical Jesus takes more faith than believing in him.

Or to put it more poignantly, rejecting the historical Jesus isn't skepticism, it's willful belief against evidence.

Magi gazed upon him in a cradle. Crowds heard him preach. Lazarus heard his call from the grave. Mary sat at his feet. John leaned against his chest. Mary Magdalene saw him hang upon across Mary, the wife of CLO heard him cry out, my God, my God, why you forsaken me? Peter saw his resurrected body on the beach. He walked with disciples and talked with disciples and hundreds of them saw him in his resurrected body. Thomas felt his nail wounds.

They heard him, they saw him, they felt him. This word, he's the subject.

And when you have such a subject, the verb is a distant thought.

It only matters because of the weight of the subject.

As John says, as a gospel. And the word became flesh. The son of God became flesh and we perceived him with our senses.

It was made manifest to us.

Now, why is Jesus called the word here? There are multiple reasons, but let's just underscore the one that is kind of in the forefront of, of John's mind here in the context it seems like is this, is that the person is the message.

So we often talk about the gospel and we'll say, you know, this is the gospel. What is the gospel? Preach the gospel. Well how do you, how do you define the gospel? How would you define the gospel in one word? If I was to ask how do you define the gospel in one word, the answer is Jesus. He's the message, he's the gospel. We preach Christ and Him crucified him. We proclaim He's the subject. So we've spent all of this time in these verses,

John is wanting us to focus on the subject because now that we have some semblance, because you can't pull fully grasp this, but have some semblance of the subject. Now he's gonna get to the action verb.

Second John's proclamation, verse three. He finally gets to the main verb that which we have seen and heard that word of life, we proclaim, we proclaim, we, we announced, we, we herald, we declare. It's a little bit of a odd thing in our culture. We don't really do much proclaiming, we don't do much announcing we don't do much heralding. Uh, you know what I mean? Nobody even talks like that anymore. You don't say, oh man, he he was heralding this afternoon.

Nobody does that. You don't do that anymore. I was trying to think of couple places in our culture, where do we actually do that? Uh, and the two that came to mind that I can think of is each year when there will be that joint meeting of Congress and you have all of the representatives and all of the senators meeting in the chambers of the House of Representatives and there the sergeant of arms will walk into the room

before the president of the United States come in, comes in and he will herald, he will proclaim Madam or Mr. Speaker, I present to you the president of the United States of America. It's fact, it's proclaimed, it's declared, it's heralded or I think of what I get the great privilege of doing, there will be two young people of the opposite sex that will walk into this building from two different families with two different names.

And they will come down this aisle and they will exchange some vows together and they will look at each other with starry eyes and butterflies and all kinds of, ah, just love in the air. And they will kiss each other and then I will say, face the congregation and they face them. And then I will say, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present to you Mr. And Mrs. John Smith.

It's fact. It's declared, it's it's heralded. He says, we proclaim, he's announcing the son of God who became flesh to them. And it's so very important when you begin to understand the importance of this subject, it almost seems silly that you and I would talk about anything else.

We are so much more readily proclaimers and heralds of how great the Chicago Cubs are or how great the Detroit Tigers are. Not as good as the Cubs, but just okay, when there's this,

it seems so silly

or at the very least how little we proclaim about this subject.

'cause look at the fruit that comes from embracing this subject. Proclaim our third point, John's intention. There are three things that he gives as his intention that his readers might know life, that they might know fellowship. And then he speaks of joy life he's proclaiming in writing these things concerning quote, the word of life. He says, John will say in John one, in him was life and the life was the light of men.

Jesus says of himself, I'm the way and the truth and the life He will save himself. I am the resurrection and the life. He says in John six, my father gives you the true bread from heaven for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And then Jesus will say of himself in that discourse, I am the bread of life. And then he closes the whole thing in that discourse and John six, by saying it's the father's will that everyone

who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. So John is bearing witness, he's testifying, he's proclaiming, he's heralding this one who has always ever been from the beginning who became flesh and he's proclaiming him because John has known, John has experienced and John has enjoyed this life that only comes through this one's subject Christ and he wants them to know it

and to receive it and experience it and enjoy it because it's not found anywhere else. Jesus. Jesus said, I am the way and the truth of life and no one comes to the Father except through me. You don't get it anywhere else.

There's no subject like this subject. There's no person like this person.

John. Second intention is that as leaders or listeners would have what he calls fellowship, he says verse three, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us. That's a word that many of you know in the Greek one, the few Greek words that kind of gets spread around the word koinonia, it's it's a great word. It speaks of deep intimate spiritual fellowship, spiritual communion. We're, we're together, we're we're sharing

things in common with one another. We have a oneness about us. And that's one of the most amazing things about when you come to Christ is that when you come to Christ and you receive this one proclaimed you, he gives you eternal life. You're united together with him. But it's not just that it's you and Jesus over here with eternal life. No. When you receive eternal life in Christ, you also receive life with his body that is enjoying eternal life.

You're brought into the living community, the eternal living community fellowship.

No matter how alone I may have been, no matter what I was or what I had done, no matter where I came from or where I had been, I now belong.

I have fellowship, I have a place, I have a people forever.

That's one of the interesting things about humanity is that every single person is looking for their place of belonging, looking for community. Now some of you are happy with like a crowd. Some of you are just looking for like two people no more, but everybody's looking for it. Where's my crowd? Where's my people? I mean from kindergarten classroom to a college classroom, from the workplace to the home. Everybody wants to know.

And in this word of life in Christ, you don't have to go find them. You already have them. You have them immediately. When you receive Christ, you are received into Christ's people. You don't have to try to belong. You already belong. You don't have to achieve. It's already been achieved. Romans 12, five. So we though many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Or I like how the NIV translates it

'cause it captures more of the essence there. It translates it. Each member belongs to all the others. This is one of the benefits that this subject provides. I have a place of belonging eternally.

You have to believe that about yourself. I belong. Now that doesn't mean that every local church is the best fit for you. I not every local church would would fit Jason Opolis well or me fit well into that. But I'm part of the church, the Catholic church, the universal church, what you confess this morning, I belong eternally and have fellowship, have true communion and union with the church forever.

And you have to believe that about yourself. I belong.

There's no fringe in the body of Christ. There's no outcast in the body of Christ. There's no constituency in the body of Christ. We received him proclaimed and so we belong. You have to believe that about yourself and you have to believe that about others.

They belong, but they're so immature. They belong. They're so different. They belong, but they, they belong.

When you receive Christ, you receive the body of Christ.

This is why the New Testament spends so much time looking at the dynamic within the church itself

and so often is pressing the need to pursue love and kindness and humility and grace and mercy and truth with one another. I truly think the ineptness of the church is often it's just tied to that. We just don't live in that union that we already have. We don't live in that communion with one another. I truly think that, that if the church lived more in that communion with one another, it would be like what was said of the church there in acts

by the opponents there in Thessalonica that that the church was turning the world upside down. Oh, that that would be

notice John continues and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ. And we accept the word of life and enter into fellowship koinonia true union and communion with one another that is always rooted in, grounded in the fact that you and I have entered into true union with God and are in true communion with God. That's the foundation, that's the environment in which you and I are in union and seek communion with one another.

When we received this subject proclaimed Christ, when we received him by faith we are mystically, but no less really and truly united with him. You're united with him. You're gonna spend all of eternity trying to figure that one out. I often think of John 14 and John 15 in John 14. You have Jesus in the discourse saying that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. But in theology we call the para caresses, the mutual

and dwelling of one another. The persons of the triune Godhead, the fathers in me and I'm in the Father. That's John 14. Then you get to John 15 and Jesus says that we are to abide in him, live in him even as he abides lives in us. Wrap your head around that

should below every circuit in your head,

the Son and the Father mutually and dwell one another and the son dwells in us and we dwell in the sun

CS Lewis trying to capture this. We'll use the language of that when you and I come to Christ that we enter into the Trinitarian dance. I like that because he's trying to use a metaphor to capture that which is uncapable

that we enter into union with the triune God, the three persons and yet one God that we enter into union with this God and we enter into the love and the joy and the delight and the peace of this triune God.

John's experienced it. He knows it to some degree and he's proclaiming so that they know and experience this fellowship,

life fellowship. Finally, John's intention in testifying to this subject and proclaiming him so that John himself might know complete joy,

their embrace of Christ, their embrace of Christ,

experiencing what he experienced, knowing what he knows, enjoying what he has, enjoyed them, experiencing Christ, knowing Christ, enjoying Christ. John's saying that makes our joy complete. It increases my joy.

George Whitfield was um, the great evangelist of the first great awakening in the 18th century. And he was a man much like Johnny. He dwelt in this room. He proclaimed this one who has no beginning, who was from the very beginning that became flesh. And he would travel throughout the British isles and throughout the American colonies and he would reclaim this word of life because he wanted people to know and experience

and enjoy this Christ that he knew and experienced and enjoyed. There was a time he was in London and while he was in London there was a large carnival or what he will call a festival that was happening there in London and and so he will go out to preach there amidst all of these clowns and performers and puppet shows. And he shows up at 6:00 AM in the morning and he says there are about 15,000 people at the carnival at

6:00 AM in the morning. And so he drags out a pulpit and he says this in a letter with a heart bleeding with compassion for so many thousands led captive by the devil at his will on the day of the fair, at six o'clock in the morning I ventured to lift up a standard among them in the name of Jesus. And he preached that morning and he wrote this, they gazed, they listened, they wept. And I believe that many felt themselves stung

with deep conviction for their sins. And then he retired for a few hours and then noon came around. He decided he would go out at noon and he would preach Christ again. He wanted them to know and to experience and enjoy this one that he had come to know this word of life. So noon, he goes out and he says, there are between 20 and 30,000 people at this point. And as he preached, people left the clowns and they left the singers and they left the the puppeteers

and they left the drummers and they made their way over to hear about this word of life. And the entertainers were not happy with this. And so Whitfield wrote, I was honored, quote, honored with having a few stones, dirt rotten eggs and pieces of dead cats thrown at me. And then he wrote, my soul was indeed among lions, but the greatest part of my congregation, which was very large, seemed for a while to be turned into lambs.

And then he retired again and he decided to come back out at six o'clock and he was gonna preach again. Let 'em throw the dead cats. I'm coming again. And he begins to preach. And the people again left the worldly entertainers and Whitfield writes this, this Satan could not brook. The enemy's agents made a kind of roaring at some distance from our camp at length. They approach near. And one of the clowns attended by others who complained

that they had lost much money on account of my preaching. Got up upon a man's shoulders in advancing near the pulpit, attempted to slash me with a long heavy whip several times, but always tumbled down with the violence of his motion. Dead cats, clowns, wielding whips. And he keeps on preaching.

And then he wrote, soon afterwards, they got a marching band with drums to pass through the congregation and he will write in this letter that he will preach for three hours because he has to constantly stop because they would send this marching band with drums through the crowd and it would drown him out. And so he would just begin singing and then once the drums had gone through, he would start preaching again. Why would you do this?

Why afflict yourself with enemies that are slandering you and saying harsh things against you who are throwing dead cats at you and rotten eggs at you and clowns that are trying to whip you and drums that are trying to drown yourself out. Why would you keep giving yourself to this?

'cause he knew how great the subject is

And it brought him such great joy.

He wanted them to experience what he experienced and knew in the son of God made flesh for sinners.

He says this, at the end of the exhausting day, he went back to his place of rest and he wrote at the end of that 6:00 PM preaching for three hours, he said, I had pockets full of more than a thousand notes from people brought under concern for their souls. And I read them amid the praises and spiritual acclamations of thousands who joined with the holy angels in rejoicing that in such an unexpected, unlikely place and manner, so many sinners were snatched out

of the very jaws of The devil. It was worth it

As joy was complete.

They had known, they had been gripped by the grace of Christ, they were experiencing Christ and they were now enjoying Christ. And it was worth it.

The subject's worth it.

I pray you know Christ and you are enjoying Christ and you are experiencing Christ. This one who has always been, who became flesh for sinners and suffered for sinners upon that cross and was buried in the ground for sinners and raised on the third day for sinners so that you might have life and fellowship with God and no everlasting Joy. I pray you all know that. And if you know him, if you know this subject, then he's worth

Proclaiming.

Let's pray.

Or Father, we are thankful

or thankful that you were willing to send your son into this world. And oh Son, we give you praise and thanksgiving that you were willing to come and to be treated by the harshest of sinners in the harshest of ways and to become sin for us that we might become the very righteousness of God and might know life and joy eternal.

Would you loosen our tongues to be proclaimers of you? Would you give us a boldness and a compassion and desire to see others know and experience and enjoy you as those of us in the room have, oh, you are the most glorious subject of all of the universe. You are the object of our faith and of all of our heart, and we give you praise and we pray this in your strong name, Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.