The Foundation of Assurance Is Jesus | 1 John 1:1–4

Speaker 2: So first John's where we're gonna be.

If you want to get your Bibles already ready for that, that would

be a good place for you to turn.

It's a short book, but there's a lot inside of it, and we're gonna have to.

Give a lot of time and attention to make this valuable for you.

It's deceptively simple and endlessly deep, and I wanna

show you some of those things.

But before we do that, uh, I wanna start by encouraging you with a quote that I

came across a while back, but found and still find incredibly helpful sermon's.

Title is called The Foundation of Our Assurance is Jesus.

And we'll come back to that in a second.

But let me, uh, encourage you with this here.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is noted as saying this, I would not give a fig for the

simplicity, this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity

on the other side of complexity.

Sit with that a second.

See if you can track what he's saying there.

There's a kind of approach to difficult topics.

Where on the near side of complex subjects like our faith, like theology,

like the action of our faith and how it works together with our faith.

There is a, a tendency when you're early in this stage to oversimplify something

to the point that it's simplistic and it's not accurate to what you're being taught.

That is one error that can happen with complicated

subjects or difficult subjects.

Complexity.

As he says here, he says, I would give my life however.

For the simplicity on the other side of complexity on the near

side of complexity is simplistic.

On the far side of complexity is simple.

You're gonna find that to be true in your study of the gospel of John,

rather the letter of John first John, which is closely tied to and

connected to the Gospel of John.

One tendency to read this letter is to read it simplistically.

And to see that it's circular nature and it's circular and repeated words are

simple to the point of being simplistic.

And you might say to yourself, this seems pretty obvious.

Why would John spend so much time saying these things over and over again?

But as you study this book, and what I'm gonna promise to you as you hang with me

these next eight or nine months, is that the more you study this, the more you put

your mind into the, the, the letter of First John, the more you'll find it to be.

Incredibly rich, and yet the circular nature of the book, its repetition is not

meant to be understood simplistically, but it is simple simplicity on the far side

of complexity after studying it, after thinking about it, after discerning it.

So I don't want you to make the mistake of seeing John as a simple book.

I want you to see it simply without oversimplifying it.

This is gonna be important because one of the subjects that we're gonna

tackle with this particular letter is the tap, this topic of your salvation

and your assurance, uh, which is this topic of saying, how do I know that?

I know I'm right with God?

How can I be assured that my relationship with God is built to last?

Uh, as Jesus says that my relationship with God is built on

the rock and not built on the sand.

How do I know that?

How do I know that?

I know to quote the series title.

And John's intention in writing is to help you know that you know, in

fact, that's one of the things he's gonna say near the end of the book.

Let me just take you there really quickly.

First, John chapter five, starting at verse 13.

This is one of John's stated reasons for writing this little letter.

He says, one John five 13, I write these things to you who believe, and he is

talking to an audience of believers who believe in the name of the son of God.

That you may know that you have eternal life.

I want you to know that you know, is what John is saying.

And so even though there's lots of things that we're going to read

and study together that might cause you pause and say, I'm not sure if

I have what John is talking about.

John doesn't give you a line to say if you're this tall, you can get on

the rollercoaster of Christianity.

He doesn't give you clear measurements to say, well, if you've sinned

this many times today or this week, you're clearly not a Christian.

He gives you something much more practical and more realistic, and yet also at the

very same time, much more challenging.

He gives you these broad and beautiful brush strokes of what the Christian life

is meant to look like, and his intention is to encourage you who believe and to

give you the assurance that your walk with God is solid on the solid ground.

It's making progress.

So we're gonna read a lot about what John has to say about your salvation,

your faith, ultimately your assurance.

And this is critical for us because we live in the land called the Bible

Belt, and some have called Texas the belt buckle of the Bible Belt.

You know that there's a church, you throw a rock at any corner.

You're gonna hit a church, you'll hit something with a, a, a beautiful

campus and usually really great.

Uh, a really great landscaping, sometimes large parking lots.

There's churches everywhere.

We're meeting in a church and not all of them are bad.

That's a great thing, by and large.

But one of the challenges in our particular area is that faith has

become something that is easy.

It's expected.

And it's part of the cultural ethos.

Even though things are changing in Texas and the demographics are shifting into

something entirely other than what Texas used to be known for, there's still a

reminiscent sense of Christian faith here.

It's expected.

It's normal.

You talk to your server or your barista and you say, Hey,

where do you go to church?

Or as Pastor PJ said recently in a sermon, do you have a faith?

No one's offended by that.

At least not initially.

I mean, we're not in Austin, so it's a little more practical up here.

People expect you to say, well, yeah, I go to, I go to Prestonwood, or I

go to Lighthouse, or I go to Compass.

Faith is an expected thing around here, and that's wonderful in one sense,

but also terrifying in another because then you can easily do something

that Jesus s warns us against.

And Matthew chapter seven, you can grow presumptive or assuming that you have a

relationship with God because you're near people who have a relationship with God.

Jesus says in one of the scariest passages in the Bible, not everyone

who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.

No one who says that.

That is, just because you confess with your mouth as Romans 10 says,

doesn't mean that your heart is right, just because you're saying Lord.

Lord, you call it Jesus, king and Lord, and master doesn't

mean that you are right.

Two Corinthians 13.

Paul says, test yourself to see whether you're in the faith or do you

not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you unless

indeed you fail to meet the test.

He says, we find that scripture gives us some clear warnings not

to assume and presume upon the Lord when it comes to our relationship.

And so on the one hand we have John who's saying, I write these things to

give you an assurance about your faith.

And on the other hand, scripture tells us in a few places, Hey, be careful that

you're not just making assumptions about your walk with God just because you're

near people who have a walk with God.

There should be clear evidence or scripture calls fruit.

Galatians chapter 5 22 23.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

There should be fruit or evidence of your relationship with God.

And so we wanna look at this letter because we don't want to assume.

I wanna avoid assumption.

So the first reason we need to look at this is we wanna avoid the assumption.

The second reason we wanna look at this is I want you to enjoy assurance, to avoid

assumption, and to enjoy assu assurance.

First, John is necessary for us because John in, as a pastor in,

he's very pastoral in this letter.

One thing I've learned after reading this thing over and over

again is that John writes like a man who cares about his people.

He's not throwing swords with his mouth and saying, you guys

ought to be better by now.

What's wrong with you?

Shape up or ship out, you know, stop acting like this.

You ought to grow up.

He's, he's a pastor, he's a father.

He's a man who cares about his people.

And consequently, because your pastors at this church care about you, we want

you to enjoy the assurance that comes with knowing the God that has saved you.

And to do that well, we have to know what genuine assurance looks like because

we don't want to fall prey to Matthew seven having a false assurance note.

Again, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, he says, many will say

to me on the day, Lord, didn't we?

And then they're gonna fill in the blank with all of the good works

that they've done for the Lord.

These men possessed assurance even to their dying breath,

and they face the Lord.

And he says, the scariest words depart from me.

I never knew you.

And so we gotta be clear that we can have an assurance that

is misleading, a foe assurance.

I want you to have genuine assurance, which means we need to know from one John

what that genuine assurance looks like.

Most important question you can ask yourself.

Is going to be what is the foundation or the basis of my assurance?

What gives me confidence that I am right with God?

How do I know that?

I know how you answer that question is critical to your experience

of the blessing of assurance.

To answer it wrongly, and all of us are tempted to do this.

To answer it wrongly will leave you shaky and unsure.

You'll come to a crisis of faith where you're saying, am I even a Christian?

Am I even a man after God's own heart?

I wanna be a Christian.

I can't because I can't do these things that you're measuring yourself

against a standard that maybe God doesn't want you to measure.

And so we're, we're trying to write attention here in this letter.

On the one hand, I want you to love and revel and cherish the

grace of God in Christ Jesus.

I want you to so savor the fact that you are saved by grace.

That it is a doctrine that you clinging to for life and for

health for the rest of your life.

On the other hand, I don't want you to take grace and say, well,

consequently I could do whatever I want.

As Paul says in Romans six, shall we continue to sin that Grace

May have bound by no means how?

How can we who died to sin still live in it?

He says, and therefore, I want you to avoid license.

Don't want you to see grace as a ticket to sin, but I want you to see

grace as freedom to do righteous.

To live righteously in God's sight first.

John is going to help us with all of these things.

I love this letter for you guys.

I'm so excited for the next nine months.

God willing, we will get through all of this, but of course, we're

only doing a sermon a month, so this is gonna go pretty quickly.

Here's how you can get the most out of John.

All I want you to do before you show up to this meeting every

month is to just read first.

John, before you get here, I would love for you to read through the letter.

If you're a slower reader, it might take you 25, 30 minutes.

Um, and because John is so deceptively simple and endlessly deep, uh, you

might be tempted to slow down during certain sections, and I'm, I'm just gonna

encourage you, just read through it.

Just read through all five chapters before you get here, even if you

woke up 30 minutes early to do that before you arrive to the sermon.

That would really help you get a sense of where John is going.

And again, I don't want you to feel anything less than John's pastoral

heart as we go through this letter.

Well, speaking of John, let me just give you a couple introductory markers

before we dive deeper into this.

Here.

I keep on referring to John.

Well, what John are we talking about?

Uh, you'll notice that the letter doesn't begin with a a from John to these people.

It's really and technically an anonymous letter, and yet it's anonymity is not to

be, is is not something that should throw you off because based on the language.

We're pretty confident that this is from the Apostle John.

This is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John, which Pastor PJ

preached through a couple years ago.

In fact, if you wanted to pair Pastor PJ's preaching, you could go back through our

catalog, download the sermons, and listen to them in light of our series here.

So this is gonna be John, a son of Zedi.

Uh, we don't have evidence in the text itself besides the fact that

it matches so closely to the gospel of Johns stylistically, and even in

vocabulary and even in the simplicity.

When you learn Greek, uh, for the first time when you go to elementary Greek,

one of the letters that, uh, a Greek professor will make you read through

is gonna be First John or the Gospel of John, because John's language is

so simple, but he is not simplistic.

Uh, John is far from that.

He is simple.

He's not simplistic, and so the language is easy, at least on

its face, superficially, but challenging reading to be sure.

The audience, who's John writing to?

Well, again, notice he doesn't address it to any particular group of people.

He's not saying to the the Athenians, he is not saying to the church at Ephesus.

He just jumps into his, what I think is his sermon.

And so it seems likely that who John is referring to is likely

the church in or around Ephesus.

John spends his final ministry days in this region, and consequently

he becomes a father to all of these people in this area.

At least that's how we understand it.

This makes the most sense of John's.

Timeline and his ministry.

So if Ephesus is the most likely candidate, the church at

Ephesus, they've gotten a lot of inks spilled on the scriptures.

You might know this.

They get a lot of attention.

And so John is there, he is their pastor, at least one of

their pastors at this time.

But maybe this letter, uh, yeah, this letter is meant to be a circular letter.

So that would mean it would also go to a lot of the churches in,

in and around Asia Minor, perhaps.

And that's why we think there's so little here in terms of specificity

to a certain group of people.

Uh, he calls them his little children.

In fact, this is one of the things I love most about John.

He's likely an age of John.

He, you might know, he lives the longest we suspect of all the apostles.

Uh, he is probably in his later years at this point.

If we think that the gospel of John was written around 90 ad we think First

John was written between 90 and 95 ad, give or take, and on top of that,

some have even suggested that second John might have been a cover letter.

Four.

Uh, for First John as a way to introduce the letter because Second

John, very similar in language, very similar in content, and yet in this

one he actually says the elder to the unelected lady and her children.

There's an address there.

That one actually functions like a letter where First John doesn't have

the same elements of the letter.

In fact, first John, again, it's anonymous.

It doesn't say who it's from, doesn't say who it's to, and it, it gives us the sense

that this is more sermonic in tone, which would account for a lot of the repetition.

I think it's a compelling idea to think that First John was meant to

be a sermon read out loud by the church that he was writing it to,

which would be one of the reasons you see so much repetition, so much

circularity in John, in John's thinking.

He's trying to do what all good teachers do, which is to repeat themselves.

Why does John write then?

Well, first John is written, we think based on the internal

evidence, primarily because of division taking place in the church.

There's a large group of people in this church at this time who

leave the church because of a, a, a doctrinal, a doctrinal fight.

You're gonna read about this in chapter two, where he says, therefore,

uh, he says, they went out from us that said this, this large group

of secessionists, these, these, uh, antagonizes, they went out from us.

But they were not of us.

John is trying to console them for, if they had been of us, they

would have continued with us.

So John is trying to help them wrestle through this difficult

season of a church split.

People that they knew and loved and perhaps were doing ministry with

suddenly up and leave the church, and John's trying to reach them

and say, guys, don't sweat this.

Let's think this through.

Let me give you the assurance that you need to know that your faith

is not in jeopardy just because you've suffered this traumatic loss.

In fact, let me encourage you with this whole letter about what

genuine faith, genuine doctrine, and genuine love looks like.

One of John's reasons I already noted here is that he wants

to assure you as his reader.

You're gonna see three themes repeat over and over again

in the first letter of John.

Uh, John is writing to help clarify true obedience, true doctrine,

and true love, true obedience, true doctrine, and true love.

You're gonna see this over and over again, and I'll highlight them to you and

point them out as we come across them.

It's true obedience, true doctrine, and true love.

That's really the flavor that John gives us as we're trying to ask and

answer the question, how do I know that my faith is legitimate, is real?

Well, the fruits he's gonna point to is true obedience,

true doctrine, and true love.

Okay?

All of that is just a starting place for getting us into the gospel of John.

I mentioned to you John's language and his Greek is quite simple, but as we

enter into these first four verses, you're gonna find that the simple Greek.

Is deceptively simple and endlessly deep.

Let me read along with you as we read through these first four verses, and

then I'm gonna slowly take us through this section to give you a sense of

what I think John is trying to do.

Here's what it says.

Read along with me in your Bibles, please.

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 testified 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 are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Okay.

Jam packed.

I wonder if when you read those first few verses you're saying,

what is John trying to say here?

It's so tangled and twisted.

These are some of the most challenging verses in the New Testament.

Let me try to diagram for you what I think he's doing.

Are you able to see, gentlemen, can you see B behind me?

Let me back up then.

It is gonna be important for you to see.

Is that better?

Great.

Okay.

John begins with four relative clauses.

It is, they're describing something without giving you the verb.

So he begins by saying, he's starting this whole thing, saying that, which was

from the beginning, which we have heard.

Which we have seen, which we've looked upon in touch with our

hands concerning the word of life.

So he's saying a preamble.

He's ramping up to his main idea, but he doesn't get to his

main idea until verse three.

Let me show you that, which was from the beginning.

By the way, he's talking about Jesus here, and yet he's not using a masculine

pronoun to refer to him that is neutral.

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, is clear.

He is talking about more than just a subject.

He's talking about the subject that is Jesus Christ.

He says, concerning the word of life, commentators are divided about what

he's exactly doing here, but it's clear to me, at least however much

you take my word for it, that he's intending to communicate not only the

message about Jesus, but Jesus himself.

John loves to do these things where he gives you simple language

that has depth of meaning.

That is, he's intending to say more than one thing, even as

he says the one thing itself.

So he's saying the that which was from the beginning, which

sounds a lot like John one.

One, right?

In the beginning was the word.

The word is with God.

The word was God.

He's doing something similar here and that he's given you simple

ideas that have depths of meaning.

So when he says that, he's talking about the message, but he's also

talking about the messenger.

Jesus himself, who was from the beginning.

That is the agent of creation.

The one who's pre-existent, the one who came and was born as a baby.

He was from the beginning, and we have heard him.

We've heard him, we've heard his message.

We've looked upon him and have touched him with our hands

concerning the word of life.

Let me continue.

Verse two is a parenthetical statement.

You'll notice that there's two big dashes on the front end and the back

of M dashes is what those are called, but they're, it, it's meant to signify

that this is a parenthetical statement.

There's not m dashes in the Greek text.

You should know this.

Uh, so what we're doing here, what we're seeing is that an editor is

trying to help us see, we think verse two is a parenthetical statement,

and I would be inclined to agree.

So notice here John ends with concerning the word of life.

All of this is about the word of life, which again, I'm gonna argue is both

about the subject and the subject.

Capital S Jesus.

So we're talking about the message and the messenger, and then John in a

parenthetical statement says, here's what.

Here's what happened.

That life was made manifest.

It was revealed to us, and we've seen it and testified to it and

proclaimed to you the eternal life.

He's talking about Jesus, but he is also talking about your

eternal life in and with Jesus.

Which was with the father and was made manifest to us.

So you again, you begin to see some of the, the parallels here.

Jesus fits this description, so does the message about Jesus, and I think

that that dual meaning is intended.

You'll also notice in the language that John uses here, that it sounds

a lot like a courtroom deposition.

We testify, we proclaim.

We, we've seen, I saw this with my hands.

I looked on him, I touched him.

I, I, I, I saw the, the risen Christ.

I saw the preen, uh, not the pre in Christ.

I saw Christ.

I engaged with him and it's real.

And I promise you, I swear.

And it's like you can imagine John holding his hand on the Bible.

If there was one saying, I testified to you, this is true.

I am not lying.

You'll also notice curiously.

That when John is giving this preamble into his subject matter,

he uses a lot of plural pronouns that which we have heard, right?

We testify, uh, the life was made manifest and we have seen it.

So the question of course in your mind is, well, who's the we?

Is this a plural?

We is this a we of majesty?

You know, John, with the Royal, we saying, well, we have determined these things.

It's likely that John is intending to communicate the witnesses, not

only of himself as being an an actual eyewitness, but those who.

In the community of John, as well as the apostles could say, this is true.

We have seen this, we have heard this.

There's more that could be said about that, but I think that's a really

good, uh, hook to leave your mind on.

John is not talking about we plural, we as in majesty, but the, we as in

the apostolic community and those who have received the testimony, there's

a lot of, uh, in the, in this first letter of John, there's a lot of

arguments that John puts forth to say, who's the authority that you rely on?

For, for the word.

Now, who do you rely on for trusted information about God?

And of course he's establishing his own.

He's reminding his community.

Look guys, I'm not just a a a, a hypo, a hypothetical.

I ideator about the gospel.

I saw Jesus, I witnessed him, I understood him, and he was made manifest.

He was revealed to us.

We've seen it.

We testified to it.

We proclaim.

We're telling you we're we're declaring to you.

And he was with the father and he was made manifest to us.

John picks up again in verse three.

So remember verse two is a parenthetical.

Verse three is John now picking up his train of thought, which

is why he goes back a few.

He goes back a a few steps and says that which we have seen and

heard, we proclaim also to you.

So he's saying, okay, I, I, I lost my train of thought.

Or rather he inserted a different thought and then goes back to it.

We have seen and heard and proclaim also to you the word proclaim.

Is the primary verb that governs the last two, the last two verses.

So everything leading up to this leads to verse three saying, I'm telling you

all this so I can proclaim it to you.

I'm testifying, I'm witnessing to it.

Verse three, I say these things and I've I've, I've seen these things,

I've heard it, and I'm proclaiming to you, I'm telling you them.

I want you to know these things.

Imperative that you understand this John is saying, and then he tells us why.

So that you may have fellowship with us, which is mind blowing

if you stop and think about that.

I write all these things.

I want you to know this so you can have fellowship with us.

And again, who's the us?

I think he's talking about all of those who have bended and and

bowed the need of Christ, those who have received and accepted

the apostolic authoritative truth.

I want you to have authority, uh, fellowship with me and

those who profess this faith.

And I want you to have fellowship with all of those who call on the name of Christ.

I think that's intended.

And then notice.

John drops a bombshell.

I want you to have fellowship with us.

And by the way, our fellowship is not just hunky dory Fellowship.

Our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ.

This is John dropping credentials again to say, look, these, this

is the authoritative community that God is establishing.

We're gonna find out later on in the letter that the secessionists,

the defectors, also claim to have fellowship with God.

And so John is beginning to sow seeds of who are you gonna trust,

who are you gonna listen to?

You're gonna have fellowship with us if you believe these things.

And our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ.

So one of the reasons he's writing is that he cares about your fellowship, that you

are fellowshipping with the right group.

But finally in verse four, he says, we're writing these things.

So that our joy may be complete.

And so John, again, pastorally, he's concerned not only about their

stability and their faithfulness, but about their spiritual temperament.

He wants 'em to have joy.

How much joy?

Well, complete joy.

Partial joy.

No full joy.

You remember Jesus saying a lot about this, and so there's the,

there's the gist of the opening.

John is sowing seeds that he's gonna revisit later.

And so we'll try to do the same here.

I just want you to see what John is doing.

John is giving us a preamble into this.

Extraordinary letter, and it begins with the simple and yet profound

declaration of who Jesus is.

These verses, verses one and two, are meant to point us to

the foundation of everything else that we're about to discuss, and

so let's just start it that way.

Let me just tell you point number one, then you ought to trust in the biblical

Christ alone for your salvation.

That's what John is doing.

He's pointing your attention and his first century.

Audience's attention, not to their works.

He doesn't talk about anything yet except to, let's talk about the biblical Christ.

Let's talk about the Christ who came in real life, who lived in real history,

who had real flesh and real blood, and real bones, and that Christ is the one

that I'm testifying to when it comes to your assurance in Christ, to your

knowledge of whether or not you are saved, whether you know that, you know.

John wants you to say, let's look first toward Jesus.

In fact, a.

A great saying to the faith said, for every look you give to yourself.

Do you know this one?

Take 10 looks at Christ.

You're gonna have to look at yourself.

When you start examining your faith, you're gonna have to look at yourself.

But instead of having some kind of spiritual naval, navel gazing,

where you're stuck looking at yourself in the spiritual mirror.

It's good to say, let me take my first look and even my first 10 looks at Christ.

Who is he?

What has he done for me?

How have I related to him?

How have I responded to his gospel?

John starts there.

He was from the beginning.

We've heard him.

We've seen him.

We've looked upon him.

We've touched him.

This word of life, he is the eternal life.

He's the place that my assurance is based upon, and I can't

do anything better than that.

What does this mean then, practically speaking.

Several years ago, I got interested in Jehovah's Witnesses, not because

I was interested in joining their faith, but because I was interested

at learning and understanding so I can dismantle their faith.

And so I did something very foolish.

I started attending their gatherings.

I know.

Thank you.

Their services are as dry as bones, spiritually.

Uh, man, it is, it is very different than what you'd expect in a gathering

like this or any church gathering with a, a church that is actually

following the Biblical Christ.

Uh, but I made friends with an older lady who invited me over for

a study, and I said, absolutely.

I, I have my, I'm thinking, great.

The Lord has given you to me.

I'm gonna win you to the faith.

You're gonna, you're gonna understand that this is, you've

been wrong this whole time.

She's been a Jehovahs Witness for all her life.

At that point, I went to her home and she opened up a little book with

me, I think the book was called, reasoning from the Scriptures,

and she began to walk me through.

Why the Jehovah's Witnesses are right about Jesus.

I'm a young man at this point, and I realized at that point I was outgunned.

This lady knew her Bible better than me.

She showed me in her own literature how all these pieces make sense and they fit.

And while I was in the lion stand, I came to this realization.

This is incredibly foolish of me, number one.

And number two, if I'm ever going to do this again, I better master my Bible

because I have so much confusion sewn into my heart right now because of this,

this woman, this faithful Jehovah's Witness, I'm, I'm a little nervous.

How do I deal with these texts that she gave me?

The problem for me in part was that I, I, I knew my Bible at least reasonably well.

But I really wrestled to defend what I knew to be true because I was outgunned.

I was outmaneuvered functionally, I was biblically illiterate.

Here's why that's important.

If you're gonna trust in the Biblical Christ stands the reason

you gotta know his word, you gotta know who he is from his word.

You gotta master the word.

You gotta have a sense of who the Christ is that you're

trusting by knowing his word.

I mean, this is why John calls him the word of life in the first verse.

I can't trust the Christ that I don't know.

I can't put my faith in him if I don't know who he is.

It is critical that I know the word of life.

Jesus must reveal himself to us through His word so we can trust him.

You can't trust in someone you don't know, and which is why I think when

it comes to your faith and your assurance, you have to make sure

that you are in the word frequently.

One of the, uh, ex-members of DC talk deconstructed, and one of the things

that he said in an article was this, I don't think that God rather, I don't

think that God that I believe in is going to just all of a sudden ignore

me because I don't believe every single thing that's written down somewhere.

Did you catch what he said?

I don't think that the, God, lemme try that again.

I don't think the God that I believe in is just going to all of a sudden ignore

me because I don't believe every single thing that's written down somewhere.

Uh, okay, okay.

Maybe.

But you notice what he did there.

He undermined the very foundation of his trust in the Lord.

What God does he have in mind?

If it's not informed by the scriptures?

How can you trust in the God that you do not know?

This is one reason men, we are, we are almost fanatical about making sure that

you're in the word because we care so deeply that you are informed and shaped

by the word more than you are even shaped by my preaching, pastor PJ's preaching,

pastor Mark's preaching, et cetera.

We wanted to be men of the word.

You're gonna trust in the Biblical Christ.

It has to start by trusting his word.

Secondly, what we want you to trust in the Biblical Christ,

instead of second rate Messiahs.

This is related to what we were talking about with Jehovah's.

Witnesses mean you could talk about the Mormons, but even then

take, take them outta the equation.

Lots of people have a second rate Messiah, they just don't know it.

But Jesus that many people carry around in their minds is not one

shaped and informed by scripture.

It's shaped by sentimentalism.

It's shaped by some Hallmark cards, perhaps maybe a few blogs

that they read online somewhere.

Maybe an influencer that tells 'em about Jesus on the, on the web somewhere.

Uh, people have an idea, uh, of their messiah, of Jesus that's shaped

by something other than scripture.

This is why John begins with, we've seen him, we've touched

him, we've looked upon him.

This is the real deal.

There are many false Messiahs out there, and we could talk about all the

different cult groups and the different opportunities to, to be misled, but

I'm, I'm less concerned with that.

They're, they're a threat for sure, but I'm more concerned with the Jesus

that you have in your own imagination.

All of us have deficiencies when it comes to Jesus.

Our job is to discern where there's deficiencies are by again, measuring

ourselves and measuring our understanding of him according to his word.

You'd be able to define the biblical Jesus, which is why

I put that in our point here.

It's the Biblical Jesus, not the one that we've invented.

The biblical Jesus is meek and mild.

To be sure he is full of grace and truth.

He is wonderful and glorious, and he's also the judge.

He also loves us enough to discipline us for our disobedience.

It's important that we have a full orbed image of Christ instead of

trusting in a second rate Messiah.

John later on in his, in his little letter here, is gonna

say something to this church.

He's gonna say, beloved, do not believe every spirit, just because the spirit

comes to you in a polished, uh, a polished looking display, or it's a

great looking video, highly produced.

Don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Your vision, your image, your understanding of Jesus will be shaped by

somebody and something is it Scripture.

And those whom you trust to open up scripture with you.

Third, we trust in the biblical Christ instead of our performance.

And notice that John says, we proclaim to you the eternal life.

John anchors your faith in Jesus, and he never wants you to

look at yourself as the primary arbitrator of your faith in Christ.

He doesn't want you to look at yourself and say, oh, have I done well this week?

And is that evidence of my faith in the ultimate sense?

You will look at your performance, you will look at the works that you're doing.

You will look at your sin tendencies.

You will look at the, you will have to look at them of necessity, but

again, I'm looking primarily at Christ, my faith, my hope, my trust

is in Christ, the eternal life that was with the Father took on flesh.

He lived the obedient life that we have never and could never live.

He went to the cross bearing our sin.

And judgment that we deserved, and he rose bodily on the third day, Jesus.

Amen to uh, God's Amen.

The Father's amen to Jesus was demonstrated by raising him from the dead.

He is who we put our trust in.

We never graduate from the gospel you never do.

Gentlemen, if you know the gospel, praise God, you'll only

ever go deeper in the gospel.

You will never, ever move beyond it.

The gospel must anchor your heart.

In every single thing that you do, you'll never forget like

the Apostle Paul that you are.

And once were an object of God's wrath and apart from Christ, you possess

nothing of value, your values in him.

And consequently, we trust in him instead of our performance.

But again, we're trusting in the biblical Christ.

You might remember Luther in his 95 thesis, he, he wrote as thesis

number one, he says, when our Lord and master Jesus Christ had repent.

He will, that the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

I only take one small issue with that word.

Um, in that I would've loved for him to articulate its repentance

and faith, it's ongoing.

And I, he intended that.

I, I'm confident I'm not, I'm not, uh, criticizing Luther by any stretch.

Not in my league, but I would say all of life is repentance,

but all of life is faith.

It's like when you become a Christian, you realize that the doorway to

Christ is repentant faith in Christ.

But then when you open the door and you go into the house, you realize, oh, the whole

house is repentance In faith, the rest of my life is repentant faith in Christ.

My whole life, I, I open the door every, the whole Christian life, the whole

Christian mansion is repentant faith.

Knowing that, you know, begins with knowing who you know.

Your faith and assurance have to be grounded in who Christ is.

Anything short of this.

And you will perpetually struggle with knowing whether

or not you're right with God.

Knowing what you know begins with knowing who you know.

Okay, uh, these next two points here, um, we're gonna, these next two points

are tangential to the main point.

My main point here is, is as we start this, Jesus is the

foundation of our assurance.

That is the main idea.

If you don't hear these next two points, that's okay, but they're

related to what John is saying.

Lemme show you here verses three.

In fact, let's just stick with verse three.

Remember he's picking up again that which we have seen and heard.

We proclaim also to you so that you two me have fellowship with

us and indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son.

This concept of fellowship is, is front loaded in, in John's letter.

You're, you're gonna see this next time we meet, but here he says it twice.

We're gonna see it just a little more.

He's trying to paint the picture here that when you become a Christian,

when you become united with Christ, that union is not merely to Christ.

That union is to a fellowship.

It's to a community.

As others have said, upon conversion, we gain both a new father and a

new set of brothers and sisters.

You are saved not only to the Lord, but you are saved to a community.

John is trying to highlight this.

We've seen him, we've heard him.

We proclaim to him so that you too.

The reason why the purpose clause so that you too may have fellowship with us.

I want you to see that there is a vital connection between faith and fellowship.

John moves quickly to this idea.

You're saved, you're made right with Christ, but you're saved

for the purposes of being united to a community of believers.

I like how Joseph Hellerman says that.

He says, indeed, the phrase personal relationship with God

is found nowhere in the Bible.

The phrase personal relationship with God is found nowhere in the Bible.

I'm just quoting here.

He says, according to the New Testament, a person is saved to community.

And I thought he said that so well, because that's so true.

You find that much of the imperatives and the indicatives in scripture are plural.

They're written to a community of believers, and that's

not incidental to the time.

I think that's intentional by the spirit of God to say, you're

saved to a community of faith.

That's critical.

You're saved to a community of faith.

So I want you to see these vital connections, uh, vital

connection number one here.

Uh, vi.

The first vital connection is that faith produces fellowship.

That's the vital connection your faith produces.

It, it's a, it's a tag alone.

You ever seen those motorcycles with the sidekick on the,

on the, on the other side?

I'd love to do that one day who ride the motorcycle foot, pastor

PJ in my sidekick and just roll around town, show up to church.

It'll have the Compass Bible Church logo on it with lights.

Great day if you ask me.

When you are saved, when you are given the gift of faith it produces, it leads

to, it comes alongside with fellowship.

You cannot separate what God has joined together.

These things are intended to go together.

This is why John so quickly jumps to this.

We want you to have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is

with a father and with his son.

You are united to a community.

You are saved to the family of God.

John calls his audience little children, implication.

He's a spiritual father among spiritual children.

Your relationships are no longer merely biological.

If you even have that, your relationships are spiritual and they are more enduring

than even your closest biological relationship For those who are not

Christians, if you have a biological relationship with another Christian,

you share some DNA, that's amazing.

You're, you're doubly close.

But scripture speaks about our relationship in the deepest

and most intimate ways.

This is a privilege of your relationship to God.

Whether you wanted it or not.

The men around you are your brothers in the faith.

If they have professed saving faith in Christ, these are the men that

you will live with and die with.

This is how God designed this to work.

You want assurance.

Assurance is gonna happen amidst the community of God's men and women.

He wants you to experience that within the community, and he, I think, rarely

gives it to you apart from this.

Because what we find out is that we need one another, which is why there are so

many in the scriptures to call each other out to help stir one another, up to love

and good deeds to encourage one another.

And all the Bos you see the day drawing near, we need each other critical.

In fact, I could say it the other way, fellowships strengthens your faith,

so you ought to experience this.

Fellowship is a gift of faith, but it also strengthens faith.

Once you are saved to the community of God, you are now empowered to serve

through God's strength in that community.

John says, we write these things so that you two may a fellowship with

us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his son.

What you have is an upside down T.

Okay?

You have a vertical relationship, a vertical fellowship with God that is

intimately connected and entwined with a horizontal relationship with one another.

You remember in one Peter chapter three, it says this.

He says, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor

to the woman as the weaker vessel, since you remember this part, since they are

heirs with you of the grace of life.

But as you share a common destiny, you are equal footing when it comes

to your relationship with God.

He says so that your prayers may not be hindered.

That's true for your wife, who is your fellow heir if she's a Christian.

But I think it's also true in our relationships with one another.

And I could make this case more, more succinctly if I had a little more time.

But I would go to first Corinthians 11 to develop this idea that God cares so

much about how we treat one another.

That he would much rather discipline us to the point of death

than to let us mistreat and Ms.

Love the Bri, the bride of Christ and the body of Christ.

So we have an upside down T.

These things go together.

Horizontal relationship, horizontal fellowship, vertical fellowship with God.

They go together.

They are not to be separated.

You ever think about how hard this is for us as men?

I know for a fact that there are men who are very dissatisfied with the community.

God has placed in men.

Um, heard things like, and I, I I don't have.

The kind of relationships with these men that I want.

They're not saying these words, but let me just make this make sense.

Superficial.

They're not running as hard as I am.

Um, they're, you know, they, they don't, they don't show up to these

events and I, I wanna hang out with them and they don't do those things.

And when we talk, we're only talking about things like the rangers, I, yada, yada.

And I think, okay, I get that.

I understand you want depth, you want, you want a greater and

deeper relationship with these men.

And, and more than just a superficial, let's talk about the weather.

Let's talk about the sports things.

I get that.

But remember what Paul says.

In, in chapter 15 of Romans, he says, we who are strong have a responsibility

to bear with the failings of the weak.

If you count yourself strong, one of the challenges I would offer you when you

experience fellowship that is deficient in your mind, not reaching to the level that

you want, is to look at your own soul for a second and say, maybe I'm the problem.

Maybe, maybe my expectations are too much and, and maybe I'm asking

to be served when God is putting me in a position to serve others.

And maybe my attitude, even if I just keep it to myself, bleeds out

and it, and it hinders the way that people want to connect with me.

And maybe I just need to be okay that this is providentially where God has me.

Might be true too, that God's moving you along.

That's possible.

But I just wanna bring up in your mind when you think about fellowship.

Whether it's in your community group weekly, which I think is great, it's

a great way to make sure that it's structured into your schedule, or

whether it's you meeting for some for breakfast with somebody opening up a

couple of chapters of scripture or just talking about how's marriage, how's life?

Just keep in your mind here.

God intends for you to use this vehicle fellowship to strengthen

your relationship with him.

The vertical fellowship, these things are built by God for you to grow, and when you

find people irritating or frustrating, or.

You know, they don't listen or their breath stinks or they talk too loud,

or I don't like what they talk about.

Just know God is sanctifying you through these very same people and

he charges you to care for them.

Charges you to Philippians two, to consider others as more

significant than yourselves.

I think 98% of our fellowship issues would evaporate if we approached

our relationships that way.

Our community groups, even our, our small groups that we have outside

of community groups, our, uh, our.

Just our normal gatherings.

Fellowship is part of the way that God gives you assurance.

When he saves you, he saves you to a community.

They're hard.

I'm not gonna deny that, but notice how he ends and we are writing these things

to you so that our joy may be complete.

Where the prior plurals, I think were speaking to the apostolic community,

the authorized agents of orthodoxy.

I think our here refers to his audience and himself.

I'm writing these things to you so that our joy, my joy, as one

of your pastors and your joy as one of my people may be complete.

I want you to see the connection between joy and, and write doctrine about Christ.

Write, belief about Christ, and write fellowship.

I think joy here is a byproduct of those two things.

I would love for you to realize that full joy is a byproduct.

It's a happy tag along to right thinking about Christ and Real

Fellowship with brothers and occasionally sisters in Christ,

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together, one of my favorite books about community.

By the way, you should read at least the first two chapters of that book.

Excellent.

He says God has willed that we should seek and find God's living word in

the testimony of other Christians in the mouths of human beings.

Therefore, Christians need other Christians who speak God's word to them.

And another book, one author says it this way,

oops.

We will skip that.

Actually,

I could show you in the gospel of John, John 1511, Jesus says these things

I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.

Jesus intends for the Christian to have a full joy in following him.

Here's how you do this according to what we're reading here.

So I, I would love for you pursue your joy by deepening your knowledge of Christ.

Deepening your knowledge of Christ, you're never gonna expand it to the point of ha

learning something, perhaps brand new, uh, but deepening your knowledge of Christ

will help you understand him better.

I mean, think about the friends that you've had for 20 or 30 years.

Anyone have that?

That's a special thing.

If you have friends who are 20, 30 years in the making, you realize that that

friendship is special in ways that someone that you've known for 20 days, even if

you're firing in all cylinders, you like them, you talk about the same things.

You have similar lifestyle, similar seasons.

Those are great, but those 20 years, 30 year relationships are so special.

There's context, there's perseverance.

They're seeing someone in all kinds of, in all kinds of seasons,

they know you, you know them.

You've seen them get married, you've seen them have kids, you've seen

them do all sorts of things, get fired and go through that season.

You've seen them, you know, struggle with their weights.

You've seen them struggle with their wives, you've seen them

and they've seen you, and there's something incredibly rich about that.

I dare say that your relationship with Christ is that on steroids, and it's

not that he's learning more about you.

You are, however, seeing more and more of him deepening the well of your

understanding and your love for him.

Seeing new shades of his character, of his nature, exploring new territories, not

of brand new novel realities, but rather the depths and the riches of Christ.

Ephesians chapter three, Paul's praying for his audience and he says, look,

I, I'm praying that you have eyes to see the height, the depth, and then

the width of the love of Christ Jesus.

I think that's what John is getting at here.

So I'm gonna encourage you, man, to deepen your knowledge of Christ.

I would argue that your capacity for delight corresponds to your depth.

That knowledge paves the way deeper knowledge paves the way for deeper joy.

Second, I wanna encourage you to pursue your joy by investing in

fellowship with other church members.

Remember, John writes that our joy may be complete.

This is a plural.

He's including his audience.

He's riding so that we may have fellowship with one another.

I'm gonna encourage you not to lose steam in your investing of fellowship,

and I applaud you 'cause you're here.

Praise God for that.

You're here, you're doing the thing.

I pray that you would not lose steam in investing in fellowship because the

payoff is there and in just like the market, there's gonna be ups and downs.

There's gonna be bull markets and bear markets.

Even in your fellowship, you're gonna have seasons where it feels

great, others where it doesn't, but you have to keep on investing to

keep committing to these things.

John wants them to have fellowship with him with one another, and he wants

'em to stay in that proper fellowship.

He's gonna fight for them to have that two potential hindrances.

Number one, conflict.

I want you to expect conflict with brothers that you love.

Please expect it.

Please expect conflict.

Please know that the church is not perfect.

She's in progress, and that includes everybody in your small group.

That includes your pastors.

Your pastors will disappoint you.

I can promise you that.

Just be around us long enough and we will disappoint you with the decision.

Or a thing that we say, a, you know, an insensitive remark from

the pulpit or from whatever.

We're gonna hurt you.

You're gonna hurt each other.

Expect that in this community, the difference is that Jesus gives us

marching orders for how to deal with that when you have conflict.

Jesus doesn't say, Hey, no sweat.

Shake it off and move along.

He actually says, look, if some, if your brother has something against you.

You go and reconcile you, you go figure.

If you know your brother has something against you, you go figure it out.

You go, you initiate.

And then same gospel, Matthew, Matthew 18.

He says, if, if you have something against your brother, whose

responsibility is it to resolve it again?

You So either way, either way, whether you are the offended or the offender,

you're, you're not released from it.

You have a responsibility to resolve the conflict.

There are times when your conflict will result in a parting of ways.

It happens, but that's not the ordinary way that God

designs our fellowship to work.

You need to expect conflict to come.

Secondly, uh, if conflict is one issue, connection is another.

Um, I like Proverbs 1125.

You can write this one down.

We'll end on this.

Whoever brings blessing will be enriched and one who waters

will himself be watered.

If you're struggling with connection, pour into the lives of others, serve them.

Think about giving without necessarily needing to receive.

God will take care of you.

He will.

He will provide for you.

One way or another, God will provide, give and don't expect to receive.

Proverbs 1125, whoever brings blessing will be enriched, the

one who waters himself be watered.

That's our first sermon on the letter of John.

I want you to realize that John's point is that you trust in the Biblical

Christ alone for your salvation.

He points to Jesus, the real Jesus who lived in time and

space in history, who was really crucified and really rose again.

And then I want you to see that John zeroes in on fellowship right away,

your horizontal fellowship feeding into your vertical fellowship, both

of them mutually reinforcing you.

You need both.

Thirdly, John wants you to see that joy is his intention.

He wants you to know the joy that comes from having a right doctrine

about Christ and a real fellowship with those who are in Christ.

This is only the beginning.

We have so much more territory to cover, but let me pray for us.

As you know, head to your small groups.

Oh Lord.

Thank you so much for the gift that we have in Jesus Christ who lived for us.

He died for our sin.

He rose from the dead, defeating sin and death and then he ascended

to your right hand and we now trust and believe that someday he

will return to receive his bride.

Until then, Lord help us to remain faithful to the real Christ

that is revealed in scripture.

Help us to remain in, uh, intent and investing in the relationships

with those who are in Christ.

And Lord, let us know the joy that comes with harvesting these

kinds of things in our lives.

We love you.

Help us now in our small groups.

In Jesus name, amen.