1 John

Very exciting today. We're starting a brand new series in the book of 1 John. And, before we read our first passage from that book, there are 2 other readings. That we are going to look at first. And so if you would like to turn, firstly, to 2 Peter chapter 1, versus 12 to 21.

That's on page 1222 to Peter chapter 1 versus 12 to 21. Peter has been talking about the precious great promises of the gospel and the new life that they produce. And in verse 12, he says. So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body.

Because I know that I will soon put it aside as our lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me, and I will make every effort to see that after my departure, you will always be able to remember these things. For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about coming of our lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from god the father when the voice came to him from the majestic glory, saying, This is my son whom I love. With him, I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above you must understand that no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophets' own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from god. As they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. If you'd like to turn back and your bibles now to John chapter 1, So on page 1063, and we'll take 2 readings from the first chapter.

Verse 1, John 1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god. He was with god in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Verse 14. The words became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory the glory of the 1 and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth.

And lastly, if he wants to turn on now to 1 John, 1 on chapter 1 on page 1 2 2 5. Verse 1 of chapter 1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at, and our hands have touched. This we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared.

We have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. God is light.

In him, there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him, and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, We have fellowship with 1 another, and the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

If we claim we have not sinned, We make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. Oh, good morning. My name's, Pete Woodock. I'm pastor of the church. If you're visiting, it's good to have you with us.

And, it was mentioned in in prayers, but it is it is fantastic thing to have, couples here that have been gone through the battles, been married for 35 year. I mean, Jackie, you don't even look 35. Yeah. I know. Gosh.

But it is it is a fantastic. It really is. And for younger, those of us that have been married a bit younger, I think I'm 33. Is that Wesanne? Is that right?

Yep. Brilliant. She forgot as well. Those have you if you're a young marriage, you look look to people that have been going the distance because it's really important. And that's the wonderful thing about church.

It's not just a group of young people or everybody the same. It's people that have, been around the block, if you like. Sorry. But, you know, and and marriage is such an important thing. It's more important really to celebrate an anniversary of 35 years than actually, and actually birthdays, really, because this is really commitment, and it's brilliant.

So thank you for being amongst us. We're looking at, a new series in 1 John, if you wanna, turn to that passage in 1 John. Let me pray. Father help us now to look into this, to feel the weight and the joy of it in Jesus' name, amen. Now you all know that, you've heard this teaching.

It's around all the time that you you can be anything you want to be. I mean, it's just a constantly trundled out sort of theory and philosophy of life. You can be anything you wanna be. You just have to believe in your self. And you've heard that.

You you hear it all the time. But the idea I think is probably gone deeper into our thinking and into our cultural thinking than we might first imagine. So for instance, what do I mean by you can criticize, and you can mock that philosophy of life, and people get it. So I believe in myself, I believe I can fly. Okay.

Fly, splat. And at that level, we get it. But it's gone deeper. It's got a deeper grip. So much so that we can laugh at a surface mocking and criticism of it.

But it's still got a grip on us. What I believe in yourself for philosophy leads to and actually has has actually come from is something called dualism, dualism. It's a dividing of facts from belief. I believe I can fly. The fact is you can't.

It's a dividing of facts from belief. And it's led to us sort of having 2 compartments. We compartmentalize our lives, like 2 stories, of a building. Now once you get this, once you understand this, you'll notice it everywhere that people are are doing this sort of dualism. So there's a split dualism, between, in ourselves.

We can believe 2 different things at once. Or, what we believe about human beings. So we separate the body from what we would now call the authentic self. It's it's as I say, it's like living on 2 floors. You have the ground floor, if you like, the body, what is true about our body.

And then you have the upper floor, the authentic self. You could put it put it like that. So we divide. We separate. We compartmentalize belief and facts.

We divide. We separate. We compartmentalize experience from truth. The ground floor of truth, the upper floor of experience, and the upper floor always wins when it comes to that. So let me let me try to root it.

The promise that you will get an a star or whatever it is nowadays but an a star in your exam if you believe in yourself is going to be threatened by the fact of an exam. Isn't it? And the fact of the exam, when you come out of the exam, exposes that you didn't get an a star, you've got a c. But because you believe in yourself, therefore, the facts must be wrong. And therefore, you question the whole exam, and people even have legal action against the exams and against the teachers.

Because the facts don't comply with my belief in myself. You see how it goes? Or put in another 1 just to illustrate it. The fact might be that there are only 2 genders, male, and female. That's the fact.

That's the scientific evidence. And I am born a male, but I want to identify as a female. You see this? There's the the lower floor, the ground floor of the fact, and then there's the upper floor of the feeling of what I want to identify with, and I want to stay in the upper floor, perhaps, and identify as a female But not not only that. I want you to live in the upper floor, and I want you to deny the ground floor, and I want you to say that I am a female when I was born a male.

That's that's how it works. You see it everywhere. Now there's nothing new about this dualism. It's been around for centuries. In various forms and in various guises.

You can go right back to Plato, the great philosopher, and, actually, beyond him. But the reason I mention it is because at the time of the writing of this little letter, 1 John, from the pen of an apostle of the lord Jesus Christ. That is someone who is set apart by Jesus with the historic facts, the eyewitness account of Jesus. At the writing of this little letter that we call 1 John, this type of dualism, this type of thinking was new to the church and was coming in to the church. And it was eventually then gonna go on and be called something that we now know as gnosticism, which was a whole sort of lot of strange, complicated teaching under the under this this big title The teachers of this dualism, this gnosticism John actually calls in this letter deceivers and liars and people who will lead you astray.

So he he's very strong on this. So he wants us to get this. And they were challenging the very foundations of historic Christian truths. They had this dualistic view of Jesus, the car compartmentalized had 2 floors of Jesus himself. You have Jesus the body, and Jesus, the spirit, the upper floor.

They were teaching stuff like that. They were separating Christian truth from Christian behavior, you can have a difference. You can believe 1 thing, but behave in in a very in a very different way. They were compartmentalizing, knowing god, and treating Christians with hate and disdain and walking out on the church. They were compartmentalizing holiness with immorality in the body.

You can have both because you can separate them. You know, I can do anything in the body. Please don't call it sinning because the body is just that compartment. If you looked at the the authentic me, you would see that I love god, and I'm not sitting inside. That sort of stuff.

So according to their philosophy, they were separating the body and the spirit. It was like oil and water. And, they were incompatible. They were polar separates. And, because of that, you could treat them separately.

As long as you concentrate on the spirit, it doesn't matter what you do with the body. Okay. Sounds all very heavy. Let me try and illustrate it. I met a bloke in Lester Square some years ago when I was doing some evangelism.

And I got talking to him and, he was totally devoted to god. He said he was totally devoted to god, and it was quite an interesting conversation and it felt like we were sharing fellowship. He was telling me that he loved god and served god and was committed and was very religious and and so forth. And as he was going, he said, I'm just I said, where are you off to now? I mean, this is how the conversation went, where are you off to now?

He said, I'm just off to find a she because I I want some sex. And I said, wow. What? How do how do you what? I I'm confused.

You you just said you were devoted to god. He said, I am. Why are you questioning that? I said, what are you going to? Prostitute.

And he said, no. You've got to get this. What happens is when I go into the prostitute, it's only my body having sex, my spirit comes out of my body. And god looks at my spirit. He doesn't look at my body.

And so god is always happy with me in spirit, but it doesn't matter what the body does. That's dualism. That's what's going on. And this dualism, if it was allowed to run riot, is gonna have a devastating effect on the church and on Christian life. So there are people that could literally say, we believe in Jesus.

We are Christians ground floor. Yeah? But we have a higher experience of Jesus. In the upper floor, and if the 2 contradict, we go for the upper floor. So Jesus Outwardly appears like he's got a body, but it wasn't.

It was a ghost body, or it was just, sort of, host You know, Jesus' body was like a zombie, and Jesus' spirit came in, and they were 2 separate sort of things. So that sort of stuff. Or we know god, ground floor stuff. Of course, we know god, and we love god, but we hate these Christians, and we'll walk out on them and condemn them. Upper floor.

Or I can do things with my body that the scriptures absolutely say is sin. But my authentic me doesn't sin because I really do love god. So Christian Truth is really insignificant as I live in the upper floor and have enlightened experiences and show that I am a really spiritual person. I remember reading some some time ago, of a very famous actor who absolutely said I actually heard him interviewed as well. I read it and heard him interviewed, said that he absolutely loves his wife.

Definitely absolutely is bowled over in love with his wife. Yeah? But he had to move on from her for a younger woman because there was a higher and greater love in him. For the younger woman. Do you see how dangerous this stuff is?

2 levels. He loves ground floor, truth, his wife, so he says, experience is that he actually doesn't love you at all. But he's a good bloke, and he's a lovely man. Listen to, John in verses 5 to 6. Of chapter 1 of 1 John.

Listen to him, because he's very clear. He does have 2 2 places, light and dark. But look at him, he says, in verse 5. This is the message we have heard from him and declared to you, god is light. In him, there is no darkness at all.

If we claim to have fellowship with him, god, and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. It's very clear, isn't he? John? Now these, you've got to get this. You go, I'm I'm underlining this because I wanna show you how dangerous this is.

These false teachers, these gnostics, as they're going to be called, these teachers of dualism They would reinterpret it this way. They and they would use Christian vocabulary. That's why they're so dangerous. They use Christian vocabulary and they sound sort of sound. This is why they're dangerous, and that's what makes them more deceitful.

They would say something like this, ah, If you are enlightened, then don't worry about what you do. It's the inside that counts. Walking light. We do in our authentic selves inside. That moral or immoral behavior, as you call it outside, has got nothing to do with it.

You see, what what they're actually doing is they're actually claiming to have a superior knowledge that makes them more enlightened, and that's why they can live this life. If only you were more enlightened, you would know that we can live our life like this. What they're really saying is that you can do dark deeds of darkness while walking the light. If only you understood the 2 stories, If you only understood the 2 floors, we can believe this stuff on the ground, but you can live it out differently in your own experience. 2 floors.

Now, John wants to counteract the confusion going on here that these folks' teachers are causing in the mind of honest Christians. And for this reason, in his counter He often uses very gentle and very affectionate, words to real Christians, but caustic condemning words to those who are false. You've got this this. So here's the apostle John, He sits down and he writes this letter, and he shows clearly the distinction between what is real and what is false, who are really children of god, who are true children of god, and who aren't. And he's gonna show us, and we'll see as we go through the book, that John is gonna show us that that when you're born again into god's family, there are certain birthmarks And if you don't have those birthmarks, you're not a true Christian.

You have to have these certain marks to show you that you're a true Christian. So here's John. He's an old man. He's at the end of his life. He's perhaps feeling that time is short because it is.

And he's anxious for his little ones, his grandchildren, his little ones as he's caused them, and he wants to teach them how to live in this world with these false teachers and, these troublesome, contradictions that are coming in. Now when you study the letter, as as we'll see. It has 2 effects. There are many that the deceive themselves that they're the children of god and they are not, and this letter will show they are not the children of god. And then there are others that doubt whether they're the children god, and I'm not sure.

But when you finish studying, gosh, when you finish studying, this, this letter, then, you'll see that you can have an assurance that you are a charter god. And that, and that I wanna say is what true preaching does. I hope we do this in our church. Through preaching afflicts the comfortable and brings comfort to the afflicted. That's what true preaching does.

And I I and pray for us to do this. So we don't come here just to hear nice thoughts. We come here to hear truth. That will attack any lies within us. And so the whole point of this letter is this apostle of Jesus Christ telling us Who's authentic Christian?

What authentic Christianity really is and what it isn't like? And so he gives us a series of tests to make sure that we are authentic, we are real. He's not really interested in people self identifying that they're Christians if they don't have the birthmarks of what it is to be a real Christian. So he tests look at chapter 4 and verse 1. Just see see what he's doing there.

He he says about tests here. 1 John 4 verse 1, he says, dear friends, do not believe every spirit, don't believe every person or every person whatever they're saying or every spirit that they claim to have, but test the spirits to see whether they are from god. Because many false prophets have gone out into the world, and this is how you can recognize the spirit of god Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from god. But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from god. So tests, and he gives these tests Now just 1 more thing to say before we get into this.

If you're used to reading Paul who writes many of the New Testament book, Then, and we've been looking at Paul, we did a whole series in Romans. You'll know the way Paul writes is he basically builds up a case. He adds 1 truth on top of another truth on top of another truth, and he sort of goes in a linear straight line way, and then he applies it at the end. Truth, more truth, net bit more truth, bit more truth application. That's how Paul largely writes, but John doesn't write like that.

And this is why it can be quite confusing. Confusing. He writes about the same things again and again and again from a different angle. Yeah? So it's a bit like going up a spiral staircase with a sort of column of truth in the middle.

And as you go around, you see the same truth from a different angle, slightly higher, slightly lower, slightly, you know, around the corner a bit. And that's how he writes he's saying the same themes again. So we're gonna set because he wants to rub it in and get it into our hearts. So here's my first point then. After all our introduction, are you ready?

I hope you're with me. 1, an authentic Christian knows the authentic Jesus. Here's the first test. An authentic Christian knows the authentic Jesus. Versus 1 to 3, let me read it again.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched This we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared. We have seen it and testified to it, And we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we've seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us And our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. Now this is an amazing start to a letter, isn't it?

I mean, he just starts. Yeah? He he doesn't there's no greeting in this letter, and actually there's no sign off. In this letter. He starts and he ends.

He starts with Jesus and ends with don't be an idol. Don't be an idol. It's it's quite interesting. There's no hello There's no sort of niceties. This is 1 of those weird conversations.

In fact, this happened to me funny enough now just thinking about it. I was going into Sainsbury's in, in, Epsom. I parked my car and a bloke just propped out and said, what are exhaust pipes for? And I had to explain what exhaust pipes for. And when I explained, he said, thank you, and went off.

It was really odd. And here's John. There's no hello. There's no greeting. Excuse me.

Do you mind if I just ask you a question? He's straight in there. Straight in there. An authentic Christian knows the authentic Jesus. He's straight in there about Jesus.

Straight in there. See, if you get Jesus wrong, then you won't follow Jesus. You've gotta get him right. And this is the foundation test. Test number 1, basics, foundation, basic number 1, a, you know, the first course that you're gonna do in Christianity.

Who is Jesus? If the Jesus you believe in isn't the authentic Jesus, then you cannot be an authentic follower. Of Jesus. So it's absolutely essential, and so John straight in here with this test. I actually remember when I was first a Christian, I was very young and only just become a Christian, and a friend wanted to introduce me to another friend that he thought I would get on with.

This bloke was called Martin, Mar in as he he was from the sort of, you know, that area, Southwest area. Marin. His wife was Kathy, she would always say, oh, Marin. Oh, Marin. I'd never met Martin before.

I'd heard he was a strange character. I walked into his home. I was introduced. He was had a great big theological book called the sovereignty of god in his hands. It's about hundred pages.

I've got it and read it at home, but hadn't read it then. I didn't even know what it was. And he had this book his lap. He didn't look up when he was introduced to me, and he carried on reading, and then he asked me a theological question without looking up. What do you think about I can't remember what it was.

What do you think about and I was just just a young Christian. He hadn't even looked at me. Kathy's going, oh, Martin. Why do you have to often ask him that? And it was just quiet.

And I answered. And I got it correct. I think it was luck, but I got it correct. He looked up and said, It's lovely. And this this is this is Johnny wants to know whether you're a brother or a sister, and so he starts here with Jesus, clear authentic description of who Jesus is.

And by starting there, He's showing us that Christianity isn't just some sort of philosophy or religion or even experience Christianity is about a person. Jesus. It's about knowing him. Jesus He goes on and says in chapter 5 and verse 12, whoever has the son has life Whoever does not have the son of god does not have life. You either have the son or you don't have the son.

You're either in relationship with this historic Jesus or not. And if you're not, you don't have life. If you are, you do have life. You can't separate Jesus from Christianity. You can't have 2 compartments here.

And it's so important And because he's gonna go on and talk about behavior, it's very important that you don't separate who Jesus is and from your behavior. There's no 2 compartments. 2 true Christianity is Christ. It's about Christ. You get Christ wrong you get Christianity wrong, so he starts with this test.

It's very, very important. Which Jesus are you believing in? Because there's hundreds of them. Is it the Jesus of this historic, atmospheric witness, and then look at him. Look at this Jesus.

He's bold over with him. He has to start here, because there's nothing more glorious and great and wonderful. Is there? Look what he says in these verses. That which is from the beginning.

He starts from the beginning. That's what we read in 1 John. This isn't the beginning of John's letter or even the beginning of the message. It's it's just the beginning of Christ. Who had no beginning.

This is is before the foundation of the earth. The word was with the father, He's god the creator. That's what it's saying. He's taking us back into the mystical time of eternity. Here is 1 who has always always been.

We're not talking about some little cult leader or some little religious leader like Buddha or Mohammed who were created and made and had a time in history. Here's someone beyond history, bigger grander, That's what that term beginning means. You see it in the book of Genesis. You see it in the book of John, and you see it here in 1 John. He's the 1 from all eternity, the grand, glorious son of the living god We're talking eternal here.

We're not talking someone that you can believe in in just a little bit of time period. But 1 who goes beyond time is greater and bigger and knows all things. That which is from the beginning. Then look what he says. Which we have heard.

We didn't imagine this. This isn't made up stuff. It isn't that we had some kind of religious experience where things were beamed into our mind, and and we were taken up with some kind of weird religious thing and we wrote things down. We actually heard him with our own physical ears. We heard his voice he spoke.

We literally heard this eternal word. We heard him We could understand him. He was comprehensible. He didn't speak in a language. We couldn't understand.

If we didn't understand him because we were slow of mind, we could go to him and ask him questions. And say, what did you mean? And he explained what he meant. He said let me explain it. He gave us illustrations that was simple and clear for us to understand.

There was no sort of big, complicated philosophical stuff or mathematical readings that we just couldn't understand or only certain people. We were just ordinary working class blokes, and he made himself understandable to us. He spoke clearly. We don't have to guess. We don't have to go on some kind of special religious course to get into special religious language.

It was clear. We heard him speak, and he spoke with great authority, massive authority about god and life and death and the meaning of life and great authority because he could speak to a dead man and and say a word and he rose again there was power in his words. We heard that. We heard him speak about god as father. No man ever spoke like that before.

We heard him rebuke our errors. He exposed our heart. He warned us about things. He showed us how sinful we were. He showed us that we were not so unlike the enemies that wanted to kill him.

He showed our hypocrisy. It hurts sometimes his words. He said things like, are you dull? Have you got this yet? Okay.

I'll explain it again. He spoke. And when he spoke, it formulated stuff about godliness. He gave promises. He expounded the scriptures.

When he died and rose again, he did a bible study on the way to EMEA and took us through the whole of the old testament and showed us it was all about him. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard. We didn't imagine it. Which we have seen with our eyes. We didn't imagine it.

We saw him. We saw this word of life. The Greek word that's used sore is intensely studied. We gazed at him. Peter said in that reading, We gazed at his majesty and his wonder.

We gazed at him. We were in awe and wonder of him. How we saw him have compassion on people and outcasts, and we saw that he had power to fulfill his compassion. We saw these things. We saw the pain on his face when he was on the cross.

We saw that. That wasn't a fantasy. That wasn't a ghost. That wasn't a zombie. We saw the nails in his hands and in his feet.

We saw the crown of thorns on his blooded face. And blooded head, we saw him as the resurrection did lord. We saw him ascend to heaven. He's not a ghost. We saw him do these things.

We heard him do these things. That which we've handled, he says, or our hands have touched our version says. We bread from him when he fed 5000 people. We touched his hand. Thomas, put his finger in his side and in his hand.

Luke chapter 24, records Jesus making breakfast after his resurrection for the disciples on the Seashore And Jesus said, look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. This is real substance history. And you see what John is doing?

He's stressing these things in these verses. He's stressing the sensoriness, the physical, the heard seen, looked, handled touched. This is not abstract theory. This is not religious philosophy. This is the word of god.

We saw him. We bear witness. We were intimately involved with him. This is life come from god the father appeared to us. And then he says he's the word of life.

Look at it. The word of life, what a title? He's not just life, He's not just source of life. He actually is life. He says in chapter 5 verse 11, God has given us eternal life and this life is in the sun.

It's not just we we don't we don't just come to Jesus for life, and he sort of gives it as a substance and we move away from Jesus. That's true. But Jesus is life. His very being is life, and John is saying we had the privilege of being there. This is the incarnation, the infleshing of the eternal 1.

Now why is this important? Because People sometimes want Christianity without Christ, and you can't. You can't have that. You can have Buddhism without Buddha. Actually, in many ways you can have Islam without Mohammed.

They're just sort of messengers of a of a message But Jesus isn't just a messenger. He is the message. So Christianity completely depends On a person, Jesus Christ, you can't be authentic Christian without knowing Jesus Christ. That's my first point. Here's my second.

Please bear with me. There's some big truths here. It'll probably be the longest 1 ever. Yeah? Suck me after this.

Here's my second point. My first point is the authentic Christian knows the authentic Jesus My second point is the authentic Christian knows the authentic Jesus. Yeah? It's the same point. Just a bit louder and a bit stronger.

Yeah? Or the authentic Christian trusts the Jesus of historical apostolic witness sounds a mouthful. Have a look again. Let's see what that means. Did you notice the word we in those first 3 verses of 1 John chapter 1?

Notice it. Let me read it again. I'll emphasize that word. That, which is from the beginning, which we heard, which we have seen in our with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched. This we proclaim concerning the word of life, The life appeared, we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life.

Which was with the father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you that we have see what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father and with the son Jesus Christ. Now who's the we in that? It's not the royal we, it's not the queen, you know, that says we, when she means I, The we isn't all Christians here.

There's a separation. First, too, we proclaim to you. There's a we and a you. Yeah? Who are the we?

The we are the apostles. The we are the people that are called by Jesus Christ to pass the message on, who are eyewitnesses The we is the authoritative people that are the original seers. This letter has the authority of Jesus Christ because the person who wrote it is sent from Jesus and saw Jesus. It's an authoritative declaration. John and the other apostles have this unique authority because they're eyewitnesses and because they were separated for Christ or sent by Christ to report on this revelation of Christ.

Now hold it. Let's get this. False teaching threatens the church when the church fails to acknowledge the distinction of the authority of the apostles. If I start saying to you, my witness to Jesus is this. My witness to Jesus is this.

My that has not the same authority as the apostles. Now, look, look, Can we just stop here? I know time is ticking away, but this is so important. The implications are really important. Please tune in here.

Really important. Jesus and the apostolic testimony, those were called by Jesus sent by Jesus and were, with eyewitnesses. Jesus and the stolic testimony to Jesus are not to be compartmentalized or separated. They are woven together in these verses, The life of god in Christ cannot be experienced by us. If we divorce ourselves from the true authentic testimony, They can be experienced by us once we put the testimony in a particular time and it was revealed to the apostles.

Let me try and explain it in a number of ways. The only way you and I are going to find eternal life is by finding him who is incarnate, the 1 who appeared, the eternal 1 that has appeared. That's the only way you can find it. And the only way that we can possibly find that is by the god appointed testimony of those who saw and heard him. It is the testimony, their testimony that leads us to an authentic Jesus and therefore to authentic Christianity.

It's not religious ritual. It's not experiences that you have in church or out of church. It's not mystical techniques that lead you to eternal life. It is the teaching of the apostles. Very important.

Paul writes this in Romans chapter 10 verse 17. Faith That's trusting god. Faith comes from hearing, hearing what though. Song, a mystical experience? No.

Faith comes from hearing the message. There's a body. There's a message. There's a body of information. And the message is heard through the word of Christ.

You see that in verse 3. Just look at verse 3 of 1 John 1. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ. Now we're gonna look at that verse again next week.

I'm battling here, so please help me. By concentrating. You cannot have fellowship with the father and with his son. You cannot without going through the authentic, apostolic witness. You can't do that.

You can't separate the 2. Thanks very much. You can't separate the 2. You can't have an experience of Christ, the real Christ without going through the apostles Christ. 1 writer writes this.

Tune in. Theostics wanted to short circuit that process and have eternal life direct without any reference to historical events or apostolic instruction. They wanted to experience the spirit of Christ without any commitment to the incarnation or the atonement or the resurrection. In a word, they wanted to cut Christianity free from doctrine and reduce it to just another form of oriental mystices a technique for expanding your consciousness, the kind of non addictive LSD That is what Christianity was for them, but John says here, you cannot do that. They wanted to put aside the scriptures, the writings of the apostles.

Now we do that in many ways. There's lots of ways that we are tempted to do that. So this is why it's so important. 1 of the ways is something like this, and you'll see the different floors, the different levels. Back to that.

We believe in scripture. We believe in John. We believe in the scripture. Ground floor. We believe in scripture.

But up a floor, we want to inter you gotta interpret that scripture for our day. You don't understand. If you're really enlightened about the scriptures, interpret it for the day, change it. We're living in very different days to John. Now you hear that argument a lot.

You see the 2 floors? They want us to believe they believe the scriptures, but they want the interpretation that they put on It happens all the time. And what they're really doing, although they probably wouldn't say this, What they're really doing is claiming divine inspiration like the apostles. Yes. God spoke to the apostles, but he speaks to me.

And they're putting their direct revelation on the same level as the direct revelation of the old testament prophets and the apostles. And so you bypass the scriptures. Now, this is so important. Just go over to 2 Peter. We had it in in the reading.

I don't know what page number it is. You can shout it out somewhere. But 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 12 to 21. Let me read them again. 2 Peter chapter 1 versus 12 to 21, what page is it on of the church bibles?

1 2 2 2. There we go. 1 2 2 2. Yep. Right.

In verses 12 to 15, Peter's basically saying I wanna remind you of these truths. I know you know them, but I need to remind you. I'm not gonna be here for long. I'm gonna remind you. I'm happy to remind you.

I want to remind you. I'm gonna remind you. You gotta be reminded. In other words, this is so important. And he goes on and on and on.

I'm gonna depart. I won't be with you. Long. So you gotta remember who who's gonna who's gonna tell you the gospel if if all the apostles are gone. I wanna remind you.

I wanna remind you. That's the first thing. Then the second section 16 to 18 is I'm an eyewitness. I saw him. I heard him.

Same stuff as John. I saw him. I heard him. The majestic glory. We saw him.

We heard him. We saw him. So I wanna remind you that me as an apostle, we saw him, we heard him, we eye witnesses, blah, blah, blah, then we come to 19. It's all about the scripture written down what Peter wants to remind them. Look verse 19.

We, see it's the same we. That's the apostles. Also have the prophetic message as, something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it. As to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning rises in your hearts, there is a body of information written down that you can rely on from now to the end of the universe. Yeah?

Verse 20, above all, you must understand that no prophecy of script came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets Though humans spoke from god as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, Jesus explains that carrying on by the Holy Spirit. He says that When I am gone, the spirit will remind you carry on the truths that you were taught by me. This isn't fable. This isn't made up.

This isn't ecstatic utterances that we've had We have written down in scripture the apostolic testimony, and you would do well to listen to them and pay attention to them. Yeah? He's really going for it because I'm gonna go. The apostles won't be there. Paul writes into Timothy.

These very famous words. All scripture is god breathed. It's the god breath. And is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that servant of god may be thoroughly equipped for every god good work. Now, Get this.

Here it is. God god didn't leave for the ongoing message to be clear. He didn't leave a ruling religious council of men. It's not the way he did it. He left are writings of the apostles.

He didn't leave an apostolic succession as some denominations say, like bishops are the apostolic succession or popes. He left the body of writing of the apostles. He didn't leave the Holy Spirit to bypass the Holy Spirit scriptures and just speak into my mind, the authentic self. God's message came through prophets that were written down. And apostles that were written down.

The direct revelation that we need from god is written down here. And as a preacher, I don't come here and claim direct revelations from god like the apostles. I tried to preach the apostles. That's what an evangelical is, and that's why we call ourselves evangelical. Evangelicals don't say look within They say listen to the body of the message that's passed down by those sent by Jesus and those who are eyewitnesses who wrote it down.

But I don't want this just to be academic. The scriptures are glorious. Look at verse 3 again. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with for the father and the son This is gorgeous, dynamic, wonderful stuff. The scriptures are the Holy Spirit word through the apostles to our hearts.

Now with all of that, let me apply. Gosh. Here we are. I've got, how many have I got? First 1, the authentic Jesus is where you can know god.

If you don't come to him, you won't know god. Jesus is where we find god. And it's the Jesus of the scriptures the apostolic witness where you find god, not just any old Jesus. So it's very, very important this. And by the way, this is this is the problem that these people have that they, you know, like Richard Dorky's, I know he gets blasting, but he's very welcome.

But, the this is the problem. With those that say they want to find god. So if you read Dorkin's book on god, you'll find that he hardly ever looks into the Bible, and he certainly doesn't talk about the historic Jesus. You won't find god outside of the Bible. That's the truth of it.

You will find god there though. The problem with them is they're they're actually looking in the wrong place, and they're looking at the wrong time. If they opened the scriptures, they'd find god because he appeared. And here's the apostolic testimony, but they won't do that. So they won't find god.

Even though they say things like, well, they like to change the rules, don't they? These new atheists, and they like to talk about sort of green, soup dragons going around the planet. Is there a green soup dragon going around the planet? Doubt it. Why do you ask?

Do you believe in that? You can't prove there isn't. You can't prove there is. So therefore, and they but you were asking the wrong question. Are you a fool?

I thought you were claiming to be 1 of the great intellects of our day. But are you so foolish? God never said he declared himself as a green suit dragon. I don't know where you got that from. You're reading too many fairy tales.

If you looked at what the claim was that Jesus had appeared is the word of life and we saw and heard, then you would find god. Why are you looking in the wrong place? We believe in a historic person, and that's why people get all worked up if we're just going on our own experiences. Because if it's just my experience with god, then why is my experience better than your experience, and that causes problems. How dare you say that your Christian experience is better than my Buddhist experience?

And they're right to argue like that. But we're not arguing like that. We're saying, no, no, no, there's a historic person called Jesus, and there were eyewitnesses to who he is. They saw, they heard, they touched. So that's what we proclaim, not just my experience, because we all have different experiences, and your right 1 is no better than the other.

So the authority authentic Jesus is where we can know god. Secondly, the script in the scriptures, we experience the living god. As I say, this isn't dry academic. It's when we read the scriptures, and my dear friends keep getting into the scriptures. This is why we preach When we read the scriptures, you start to hear him.

You hear god, the word of life. You start to see him. Wow. You start to handle him. It's the word of life.

It's almost like you're touching him. He touches you through his word. This is what Jesus is like. I thought he was like this, but he's not. He's like this.

And he rebukes us and encourages us and trains us in righteousness. In the scriptures is the holy spirit, revelation of god through the prophets and the apostles, and it's alive and living and sharper than a 2 edged sword. We don't have to go anywhere else to experience god there. Thirdly, Be very careful of hollowing out. Be very careful of ignoring the truth of the apostolic witness and going just for the upper story of experience.

You hollow out that way. If you're not careful, you'll have all of the peripherals That's why I mean hollowing out. All of the things of Christianity without the heart, which is Christ. Christ is the heart. It's what happens to religious people.

They all talk about various things. I mean, if you listen to some of the anglican bishops at the moment, I know there are good ones, but not many. You know, they talk about the clothing that you have to wear in church. You listen to people. Some of our Korean friends, totally into this.

They can't understand why a preacher would who doesn't wear a suit and a tie. And and that becomes the most important thing, the outward dressing and clothing and religiosity. Instead of Christ, And we judge people on what they look like rather than do they know and love price? Are they living for Christ? We need to recenter on the apostolic witness and keep reading the scriptures We don't believe cleverly invented stories or myths or legends.

So I was at a conference recently, and some of the new songs I have to say I have a big worry. I love new songs. I listen to modern music. I like modern alternative rock. I'm into music.

The band were brilliant. The words were crap. The music wasn't good, but the band was so good. I just enjoyed into them, but be very careful of the slogans and words that are christianized, but they are not rooted in any meaning within the song itself. Words like love are thrown in and kingdom.

John Scott writes, About a bloke who said to him, when I go to church, I feel I want to unscrew my head and put it under the seat. Anybody done that? In other words, that person is saying I just want an experience. That's dangerous. That's hollowing out.

You've gotta get into the apostolic teaching. And then the last thing, gosh, way over time, and I'm so sorry. If you haven't come to him oh gosh. Would you come to him? He's so magnificent.

John Sainor, I touched him. I saw him. The word of life appeared. Life appeared. And we have fellowship with him.

We're gonna see that what that means next week, fellowship with the father and with his son We know God. It's magnificent. This authentic Jesus This isn't this isn't just academic stuff I'm talking about. This isn't just waffling on about, well, that's what he believes about the scriptures. This is where you find life you see him and hear him and touch him, and he touches you, and you come into friendship with him.

It's amazing. The authentic me is when you're united with him, when truth and experience work together. Father god help us with these great truths in Jesus' name, our, ma'am.