God Is Light — Three Lies and the Truth

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday evening service, October 11, 2026 1-2-3 John · Unit 2 · 1 John 1:5-10

► Watch this lesson on video (40:58)

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Three Lies and the Truth

This is the lesson the way it was preached on Sunday evening - near word for word. The “uh”s and the starts-over are taken out; the sentences are left the way they were said. Bible verses are printed exactly as they read in the King James. Anything marked GOING DEEPER was NOT preached on Sunday evening - it is extra study for anyone who wants to dig further.

Well, it is good to have the opportunity to be here again this evening. This is the second lesson on First John - and you remember a couple of weeks ago we talked about the Apostle John and how he was an eyewitness there in Ephesus. He kept talking about how he had literally SEEN Jesus with his eyes and touched Him with his hands. And we learned why John wrote this first letter: its purpose was so that those who read it would have the same kind of fellowship with God, with Jesus, and with one another that the Apostle John had with God, with Jesus, and with his fellow worshippers . . . and also so that our joy in Christ might be FULL.

We talked about fellowship - and when we hear that word we think, “Oh, we are going to go drink a cup of coffee, we are going to go eat a meal.” Well, in the days in which this was written, the word actually referred to PARTNERS who own something together. The example we used was this: it is supper time, and I am acquainted with the family, I am acquainted with the cook . . . and the door is cracked open and they stick me a plate out through the crack in the door, and I sit out in the yard to eat. As opposed to - they open the door and invite me in, and I sit down at the table with the rest of the family. Now that is two types of fellowship, and one is quite a bit closer than the other. And that is the idea here, people . . . we can be a saved, born-again child of God, just as saved as the Apostle Paul, and have a DISTANT kind of relationship with the God who saved our souls - or we can have a very close fellowship with the God who saved our souls.

The Message John Heard

This evening we are going to begin with chapter one and verse five, and notice that verse five mentions “the message.” Now he is talking about the message that he is reporting.

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” - 1 John 1:5 (KJV)

So John is telling us that the message he is putting down in this letter is not something he sat down and thought of, and it is not the result of his studies over several different years. The message he is giving is something he HEARD - these ears heard it directly from the mouth of Jesus Christ. This is coming directly from God.

Now “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” - well, what exactly is that supposed to mean? If Jesus is light, then, “Preacher, what about people like me that have a lot of shadows, to put it politely? What about people like me who possess a lot of darkness in my life? If God is light, what kind of shape does that put me in? Does that mean I am lost? Does that mean I have to keep doing something in order to drive the shadows away so that I will not become lost?”

Well, we are going to read all of these verses - one John one, five through ten.

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” - 1 John 1:5-10 (KJV)

Notice here there is an “if we say . . . if we say . . . if we say” - and an “if we confess.” Now the one point of our lesson this evening is this:

GOING DEEPER · THREE LIES AND TWO TRUTHS

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

Look at how these verses are built. Verse six is a lie . . . and verse seven is the truth. Verse eight is a lie . . . and verse nine is the truth. And verse ten is a lie - and then the chapter stops. That is three lies and two truths, and John answers the third lie in chapter two.

God is not asking for a perfect record - God is asking for an honest walk.

God is asking that we avoid these three lies, and not say these untrue things in an effort to build ourselves up in our own eyes and in the eyes of others.

In God Is No Darkness at All

Now we are told here that in God there is no darkness AT ALL. This is significant in the language this was written in: John uses “no” twice - he doubles it. John doubles the “no” he uses in this verse, and I will tell you what that means in just a second. According to the source I looked at, John used the strongest way possible for the language to say NONE. There is no darkness in Jesus Christ or in God at all. And if we go to James one and seventeen, we read where there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” - James 1:17 (KJV)

Now the significance of this - think about the difference between light and darkness. Light shows what is actually THERE. If God is light, doesn’t God’s word show us what we really are? You see the connection there. Light shows us what is actually there. A lot of times, especially with kids in the house, we play pretend a lot - that is just something Grandpa and the kids do. But when you turn the light on and everything in the room is clearly exposed, you cannot pretend anymore. You cannot pretend there is a boogeyman over here in the corner when the light is on. “Grandpa, there is no boogeyman in the corner - I can see.” So light takes the pretense completely away.

Darkness, on the other hand, is the opposite of light - and it does the opposite THING that light does. Light exposes . . . darkness hides. It is easy to pretend something that is not true in a place of darkness. So walking with God - notice the way this scripture words it: “If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” So walking means that if we follow God’s will, if we allow God’s word to expose what we really are, then we are walking out in the open . . . we are walking where there is no place to hide. If we are not walking with God, then we are walking in the shadows - we are walking in darkness.

GOING DEEPER · WHEN THE POWER GOES OUT

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

For you little ones - when the power goes out at night and the house goes black, the first thing Mama does is find the flashlight. And when that flashlight comes on, whatever is on the floor shows up - the toys, the shoes, the dog. Well, God is a light that never goes off, and nothing in God’s house stays hidden.

Now why would we choose to walk in the darkness instead of in the light? There is a scripture - I think it is John chapter three, you can correct me - that says they avoid the light because their deeds are evil. I am not quite sure where that is. Is that John third chapter or not? I do not know - the preacher is not the only one that does not know about it. But you see, if we choose to point our lives in that place of darkness, we do so because we are trying to HIDE what we are. If we choose to walk in the light as He is in the light - in other words, walk so that the truth shines on our life and shows us what we really are - well, then we are not trying to hide anything. Notice what this scripture says: if we confess our sins, if we agree with God that we are sinful, we are not trying to hide anything.

It is like the Apostle Paul talked about the law being our schoolmaster, drawing us to Christ. If God’s word did not expose what I really was, then how would I ever become aware of my need for God? When I got sick with my cancer - if I never felt bad, if I never suffered, I would never have gone to the doctor and I would have died. So pain and suffering, we do not like it . . . humility, we do not like it . . . shame, we do not like it. But without some of these negative things we would never be aware that we were in need, and if we never understand that we are in need, we would never seek a Savior. I mentioned this morning about the mountaintops and the valleys - you sort of see what I am getting at. It is just impossible for us to always remain on those mountaintops, and the valleys are just as necessary, or even more so, than the mountaintops.

“Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” - Hebrews 4:13 (KJV)

Naked - that is, completely exposed - and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

A Shadow Needs Something in the Way

Now think about a shadow. In Him is no shadow, neither variableness or turning . . . in Him is no darkness at all, not even any dim places. A shadow is the result of something standing between an object and the light. And you will notice, just the way it is by nature, a shadow ALWAYS points AWAY from the light. A shadow never points toward the light. You see the significance of that in our lives? If we are walking in darkness, if we are looking for shadows to hide things, we are going in the complete opposite direction of the light.

And the sun never casts a shadow on itself. Well, “Preacher, that is kind of a duh.” But again, that is an example teaching us there is no darkness on the truth. In fact there are no DEGREES of truth . . . there is no such thing as a half-truth. If God is light, God is truth, and in God there is no darkness at all. That means there is no half-truth, and there is no “well, this is true under this circumstance, but under this circumstance over here the truth can change.” It does not work that way.

The Bible tells us there are three that bear record in heaven - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Well, “in him is no darkness at all” teaches us that there is nothing in between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There is nothing that blocks the light of the Father from reaching Jesus Christ . . . nothing that blocks the light of Jesus from ever reaching the light of the Holy Spirit, and then all the way back around.

Now you remember there were some individuals in the churches in the days of John, there in Ephesus. These individuals were promoting the error that Jesus was not here physically - He only SEEMED to be. Their reasoning was that the physical part of the world had to be dirty, and there was no way anything physical could be clean and righteous. So Jesus, being God - being God in the flesh - could not have been here in the flesh, because the flesh is sinful. Well, these individuals claimed to walk with God. They claimed to be in the light . . . and while walking in the light of God, they also kept a hold of their darkness. They put their hands tight around the error they were promoting. And what John is simply saying is this: you can say what you want to, but darkness and light cannot exist in the same place. They cannot exist together.

GOING DEEPER · WHOSE WORDS WERE THESE?

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

The false teachers in those churches taught that sin belonged to the body - to the low, physical world - and that the ones with the “higher knowledge,” or the saved soul, had gotten above all that. So “we have no sin” was not something John made up. That was their SLOGAN. And when John says “if we say . . . if we say . . . if we say,” he is quoting their own words back to them, one at a time, and holding every one of them up to the light.

Three Things People Say

Now there are three things people say in the verses we were looking at, verses five through ten. “If we say we have fellowship but . . .” and then they give an excuse. “If we say we have no sin” - that is a lie. And “if we say we have not sinned” - that is also a lie.

So notice first John one and six, the first one we look at.

“If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:” - 1 John 1:6 (KJV)

What these individuals are doing is putting the label of Christianity on their lives and DIVORCING the label from the life. They are pretty much saying, “My being a Christian really does not have anything to do with my behavior or my manner of life.” Well - duh. Can you not see the inconsistency in that mentality? Now the walk they are talking about, to walk in darkness - once again, the purpose of this evening’s lesson is that God is not looking for perfection, He is looking for basically honesty. There is not a one of us who can honestly claim that we never walk in darkness, or places of less light, or places that are shadowy. What this is talking about is not sinless perfection . . . it is talking about the PATTERN of our life.

I have been walking for over sixty-eight years. There has been an occasion or two when I have stumbled, scraped my knee, fallen flat on my face. But the pattern of my life is that I am walking upright on my feet. That is the pattern of my life - my life is not defined by the few times I have stumbled. That is the idea here: the pattern of our life, not the fact that we stumble.

You ever go to the supermarket and stand there in front of the magazine rack and pick out a magazine and look at it? Well, how is that different from SUBSCRIBING to that magazine and getting it in the mail regularly, once a month or twice a month? There is a difference between a subscription and “I am just going to look at this magazine one time.” There is a difference between patterning our life after our pet sin - subscribing to whatever it is - and just a one-off. Folks, none of us are perfect. We have all been guilty of picking one off the rack and looking, just one time. Well, to walk in the light is to subscribe to RIGHTEOUSNESS.

So the pattern it is talking about is not just a bad day. It is not talking about the individual who stumbles and says, “Oh, man, I hate that I stumbled.” It is talking about when you WALK in darkness - the individual who has a paid subscription for the foreseeable future to whatever it is.

Then verse eight - the second lie.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” - 1 John 1:8 (KJV)

Now the second lie fools the person who is telling the lie. The first lie is intended to fool OTHERS - to make me appear different from what I really am. With the second lie, I am actually deceiving my own self. It is like this: “Brother Kenneth, I have not subscribed to this magazine - I just borrowed yours.” And just because I borrowed it and did not really subscribe, that is not the same thing - that is different. You see the pattern? I am patterning my life after error, whether I borrow that error or whether I subscribe to it . . . but in my own mind I am deceiving myself, because I justify it. I have not officially bought into whatever sin it is that is leading me astray. A classic example of that - I remember a past president we had who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and he just redefined what sin was and made the problem go away - or at least tried to. That really does not work.

And the third lie - and this is really the worst one of all - verse ten.

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” - 1 John 1:10 (KJV)

Now notice what it says: we make Him a LIAR. Who do we make a liar? We contradict God. We can fool others, we can fool ourselves, and we can contradict God by subscribing to this way of life that is in error.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” - Romans 3:23 (KJV)

Romans three and twenty-three pretty much nips this in the bud. Every person who has ever been born could put their name right there - erase “all” and put their name there - and it would be one hundred percent valid. “For Fred has sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “For Bobby has sinned and come short of the glory of God.” You get what I am saying? To say otherwise is to tell God, “You were mistaken.”

I have got an example here that I thought was kind of cute - I was kind of proud of it myself. A pretend FENCE. Let’s just get a herd of cows and pretend that there is a fence around those cows. Do you think the cows will stay in that field? Well, I am going to live my life and just pretend that I am righteous. Do you think that is going to do any good? The only one I am deceiving is me. And the way to realize we are just pretending the fence is there . . . if we go out at midnight on a new moon and walk where we are pretending that fence is, well, we can convince ourselves that the fence is really there. But if we go out at noon in broad daylight and walk in that same place, the pretending will not work. God is light. And if we look at God’s word, we will see ourselves exposed as we really are - which may not be comfortable, but it is NECESSARY, because if we never see our sin, we will never seek a Savior from that sin.

So God is not asking for a perfect record . . . He is asking for an honest walk.

The Truth - Walk in the Light

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” - 1 John 1:7 (KJV)

First of all, if we walk in the light - if we pattern our life after God’s truth - we will have fellowship with one another, at home and in church. And the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all sins. Now on the surface you may say, “Well, preacher, that sounds like after we get saved we have to do good stuff to maintain our salvation.” The idea here is that you have to understand this is talking to the FAMILY. Now you remember what the purpose of the letter of First John was. The gospel of John, I am going by memory here - “that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” And then First John - and I may have my Johns mixed up, forgive me if I do - is so that his joy in you may be full . . . so that your cup will be full and STAY full. Well, how does that cup stay full?

GOING DEEPER · THE MASK WE WEAR IN THE CHURCH DOOR

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

Walking in the light gives us two things. The first is fellowship with one another - not just fellowship with God, but with each other, at home and in the church. And fellowship means partners who own something together. Well, nobody can be partners with a MASK.

Suppose I walk into the church with a smile on my face and anger in my heart. When we go into business with someone, when we put our name on the title next to our partner, we expect them to have skin in the game - just like we have something to lose. People, if I am unwilling to practice in my life - or at least TRY to practice - what I preach from the pulpit, how can our partnership in this church be genuine? And if we are wearing a mask of hypocrisy - and I am not talking about an occasional stumble, I am talking about a subscription to one of the three lies - then we are not in fellowship with God, and we are not in fellowship with each other, and we will not be until we CANCEL the subscription.

All right, I have always been kind of bad about this - I will dip my spoon into the soup and I have to concentrate really hard, because I have always had a little bit of a tremor, and if I am not careful I put as much food in my mouth as I possibly can. I am a horribly impolite eater. But I have got this spoon, and it is holding all the liquid I can possibly put on it. Well, if I start trembling, that liquid comes out of the soup. For our joy to remain full - if I take my eyes off of Jesus Christ . . . you remember what happened to Peter. He was sinking in the water until he did what? Until, “Lord, save me.” Jesus reached out, and when he saw the Master, he quit sinking. Well, when we take our eyes off of the truth, this cup of joy starts shaking, and what was a full cup, some of it starts splashing out.

Now I want to correct a possible misconception. The Bible is not telling us that if our joy ever gets full, it is going to stay full no matter what. It is telling us that we CAN have a full, complete joy. And if we walk in the light, that cup will remain full . . . it will not spill over, empty out, and we will not get the tremble. It remains topped off.

So if we walk in the light we will have fellowship one with another, each other, at home, and also His blood will cleanse us from all sins. The blood KEEPS ON cleansing. Now we are not talking about our salvation - this is addressed to the family, and it is talking about fellowship, not sonship. So if we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus constantly cleanses our life, so that if we are a Christian today and choose to walk in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will give us the strength and the motive to be a Christian tomorrow. That kind of thing.

The Confession

Now one John one and nine. I want to say this is really important scripture - but what scripture is not important?

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” - 1 John 1:9 (KJV)

To confess does not mean to pull out a list and name everything we did wrong. The first thing wrong with that is that it is not possible - we cannot possibly know all the wrongs we do. We sin ignorantly. We sin in ways we do not even realize. To confess is to SAY THE SAME THING that God says about our sin. “Well, preacher, I just made a mistake.” It was not a mistake - it was a sin. “Well, preacher, you just do not know what I was going through. I was sort of justified in that.” I do not have to know what you were going through. No, you were not justified in that - God says it was a sin. “Well, preacher, I am not as bad as they are.” Well, you may not be, but that still does not excuse our sin. Confession is when we stop hanging a “but” on the end of an excuse.

The kids mess around in the kitchen, and they come in the living room with chocolate all over their face. “Mom” - or Sarah, or Granny - “have you been in the cookie jar?” Well, why would you ask a kid if they have been in the cookie jar when it is so obvious they have? It is to get the child to realize, “Well, maybe I should not have done that. I probably should have asked permission for that.” That is pretty much what David did. We are not going to go there and read it, but in the Fifty-first Psalm, David pretty much got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. We cannot get our hand out of the cookie jar until we ADMIT that it is in the cookie jar. We cannot remove our hand from where it should not be until we realize, “My hand should not be there.”

GOING DEEPER · DAVID JUST AGREED WITH GOD

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

God already knows - and confession is us finally saying what God has known all along. That is exactly what David did. Psalm 51:3-4 - “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.” There is no excuse at all in David’s confession. David simply agreed with God that he had SINNED.

And it says that God is faithful and just, if we confess our sins. To be FAITHFUL means that you can count on God to keep His promise - if we agree with Him about our sin, He will forgive us. And to be JUST means that the price for that sin we committed has already been paid. First Peter two and twenty-four - there is a little comment I want to make.

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” - 1 Peter 2:24 (KJV)

It would not be right, it would not be proper, it would not be fair, it would not be according to the law for God to hold you and me accountable for sins that have already been paid for. He is faithful - He will keep His word and forgive - and He is just. He is not going to hold me accountable for a debt that He already paid on the cross.

GOING DEEPER · ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS - THROUGH THE WHOLE HOUSE

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

And notice what God cleanses - “all unrighteousness.” God does not just cleanse the one sin we named in our confession. The named sin opens the door . . . and the cleansing goes all the way through the entire house, the complete life.

So not to confess our wrongs does not mean that we become lost. It means we are still saved. But what it is telling us is that we have stopped minding our Heavenly Father. And once again, first John one and nine is written to the FAMILY. If we confess our sins - who confesses? The family confesses - He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now one John two and one:

“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:” - 1 John 2:1 (KJV)

Oh, he is writing us this letter so that we can live perfectly sinless lives? No, he is writing it so that we can AVOID sin. If we do not avoid sin, we have an advocate - a go-between that will take our sins and argue on our behalf, so that we can escape judgment, because that sin has already been paid for. Now that does not mean we are going to avoid consequences, because we set things in motion - that is just the way life is.

GOING DEEPER · FELLOWSHIP KEPT OPEN

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

A guard here, so no one misreads it. Verse nine is written to the family of God. Verse nine keeps FELLOWSHIP open . . . it does not buy back being His child. A child who sins is still a child - 1 John 2:1. And neither is verse nine a formula for the lost to say in order to get saved - or “re-saved.” The lost come to salvation by repentance toward God and faith in the Son, not by some act of naming their sins.

The Operating Room

I will leave you with this thought, and try to be honest. In terms of confession - “Well, I did this, but . . .” - is there a “but” hanging on the back end of our confessions? Now this is not a threat so that we have to be afraid we are going to become lost. It is an INVITATION to step into the light, to see what our problems actually are so that we can go to Jesus for forgiveness. What this is designed to do is to show us that our hand is in the cookie jar where it has no business. And once we admit that, once that is exposed to us by the light of God’s word - “Oh, my hand should not be there. Oh, thank You, God, for showing me. Forgive me” - that is what God is looking for.

I have asked the musicians to come forward as we prepare for an invitational hymn this evening . . . but one other example, talking about God is light. I suppose most everybody has either been in an operating room or knows a little bit about one. An operating room has lights that will just blind the fire out of you . . . just real bright. Well, why is that? So the doctor can see to cut out every little bit of what is wrong. We understand that you would not want a doctor operating on you in a dark operating room, would you? Well, why are so many so intent on living their lives in the dark? God’s word is the light, and the light is intended to expose what should not be there - not so that we can reach in and cut ourselves, but so that we can take that to God in prayer and ask Him for forgiveness, and ask Him to remove the cancer of sin - or however you want to phrase that.

GOING DEEPER · THE QUESTION TO TAKE HOME

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

God already knows we do not have a perfect record - His Word says so: “For all have sinned.” God is not waiting for us to get everything right before He forgives us or before we start following Him. He is simply looking for somebody who will agree with Him. I am only going to ask one question tonight, and I do not want you to answer it out loud: is there anything we are still keeping in the dark . . . and not calling a sin?

Please consider what you heard this evening as we stand and sing.

Enter His Gates — Thankfulness Is Worship’s Front Door

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday morning service, October 11, 2026 Give Thanks · Lesson 1 of 7 · Psalm 100

► Watch this lesson on video (36:38)

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Thankfulness Is Worship’s Front Door

This is the lesson the way it was preached on Sunday morning - near word for word. The “uh”s and the starts-over are taken out; the sentences are left the way they were said. Bible verses are printed exactly as they read in the King James. Anything marked GOING DEEPER was NOT preached on Sunday morning - it is extra study for anyone who wants to dig further.

Well, it is good to see each of you in our services this morning . . . and we are going to talk this morning about how important it is to be THANKFUL. I want to start with a verse that shows us just how important being thankful to God actually is.

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” - Romans 1:21 (KJV)

Now it is interesting to note that one of the very first things Jesus named, when a people drifted away or turned their back on God . . . was how that people became UNTHANKFUL. We have all heard about that house built upon the sand in Matthew chapter seven - well, the idea here this morning is that thankfulness is pretty much the FOUNDATION that is holding our lives together. Our life is either built upon the sand - we understand the metaphor there - or our house is built upon the rock. A house built upon the sand will collapse when things get stormy . . . a house built upon the rock will stand. And if we are thankful to God in our lives, well, it goes a long, long way in strengthening the very foundation of our lives.

Notice the One Hundredth Psalm, verses one through five.

“Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.” - Psalm 100:1-5 (KJV)

Now we see five verses that we just read, and there are SEVEN commandments in these five verses . . . and right smack dab in the middle of those commandments is the commandment to enter into His gates. How? With THANKSGIVING. So the one point of our lesson this morning is this:

Thanksgiving is the way into the front door of all worship.

The point there is that we cannot worship with an unthankful heart.

The Gate Is What Comes First

Now you will notice here in the scripture that the gate is what comes FIRST. Look at verse four.

“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” - Psalm 100:4 (KJV)

Enter into His gates - not empty-handed. This sets up a picture of the way they worshipped back yonder in the Old Testament. The Jews went to the temple, and the first thing they encountered was the GATE. Well, when we come to worship God on Sundays and Wednesdays, what is the first thing we encounter after we get out of the parking lot? It is the front door. So I want you to picture the gate as pretty much the same thing as our front door - and they entered the gate of the Old Testament temple not empty-handed, but carrying thanksgiving.

And when we walk through the door of this church house, do we walk in empty-handed? Typically we are carrying our Bibles with us when we walk through that door. So that is a picture I want you to put in your head: the Old Testament saints went through the gates of the temple carrying thanksgiving . . . just like we walk through that back door, hopefully carrying our Bibles. And after we walk through that door carrying our Bibles, where is the next place we go? We carry our Bible into the auditorium, where we offer worship to God - where we praise God as opposed to praising one another. In the Old Testament they did it the same way every single time, and they did not deviate from it, just like we do. In order to get into the auditorium to offer worship, you have to go through the door.

Well, the idea is that the worshipper is supposed to carry something into the worship service. He is supposed to carry a thankful HEART . . . and he is supposed to carry an attitude of praise. You see, thanksgiving is equal to a thank offering - or at least it was, back in the Old Testament temple worshiping days. It was a gift to tell God, “Thank you, God.” And that is the idea behind the phrase, “enter into his gates with thanksgiving.” Do not come empty-handed. Do not come to this church house with a blank mind - “Well, what has God ever done for me? What in the world do I have to be thankful for?” When you go through that door, go through it with an attitude that you have already begun to count your blessings . . . “I am coming here to worship a God who has already blessed me this way, and this way, and this way, and this way.”

If we enter this church house with that attitude, I guarantee you our worship will go a great deal better . . . our worship will be a great deal more pleasing to God than if we come through those doors not carrying thanksgiving, but carrying a LIST of stuff that we want God to give us. You see the difference in attitude? Come through the gates of the house of worship carrying a thankful attitude - not just a wish list.

Notice the Order

Now I want you to notice the order here. Let’s look at verses seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen of the One Hundred Sixteenth Psalm.

“I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people, In the courts of the LORD’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the LORD.” - Psalm 116:17-19 (KJV)

You will notice the way that is worded - he OFFERS thanksgiving. And once again, the idea of thanksgiving is a thank offering. You know, we pass the plate and you put a dollar or whatever it is in the offering plate, and we always think, “Well, that is the offering.” But in the days of the Old Testament they actually brought SACRIFICES . . . and the first sacrifice they gave was an offering that represented their thankfulness to God. So picture that. And notice the order: “I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD.” I am going to tell You how thankful I am before I even start praying. I am going to tell You how thankful I am before I start pointing to my wish list.

So I simply want to reinforce the concept here that before one request was ever made to God in prayer, the worshipper entered into the door of a house of worship with an attitude - in this case, with a literal offering of thankfulness - and THEN he went into the auditorium to offer praise unto God.

GOING DEEPER · THE WORD BEHIND “THANKSGIVING”

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

The word the psalmist uses for “thanksgiving” in verse four is the Hebrew word for the THANK OFFERING. It is the same word the Law uses for the offering a worshipper carried up the hill in his own two hands - a gift that said one thing and one thing only, “Thank You for what You have already done.” And the little heading above the psalm - “A Psalm of praise” - reads in the Hebrew “a psalm for the thank offering.” So when we read “enter into his gates with thanksgiving,” we are not reading about a feeling . . . we are reading about something carried through the door.

“Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.” - Psalm 95:2 (KJV)

The Back Door to the Want List

Now, most of our praying - and I am just being honest, I am looking at it from my own perspective - most of our praying comes through what I am going to call the BACK door . . . straight to the want list. What I mean by that is that we skip the front part, the thanksgiving part. Notice Philippians chapter four and verse six, and we are going to go back to the Eighty-ninth Psalm in just a second, so you might want to put a finger in the Psalms.

“Be careful (full of worry) for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” - Philippians 4:6 (KJV)

Be careful for nothing - now that means do not be full of worry, do not be anxious about anything. And the thing that is intended to take that anxious attitude away is this: “but in every thing by prayer and supplication WITH THANKSGIVING” - thanksgiving for what we have already been blessed with - “let your requests be made known unto God.”

I always try to come up with examples that are everyday relatable. We do not do horseback rides anymore, but we all know what that means and we see it on TV all the time. Well, picture my want list to God in prayer being carried on the back of a horse . . . and what do you think that horse is? The horse is the attitude of THANKFULNESS. If thankfulness is not there, my wish list to God has nothing to carry it. Can you think of it that way?

Here is another way. If you spend any time over in Russellville you are going to get stopped at the train tracks - and what is typically at the front of the train? The ENGINE. Well, thankfulness should typically be at the front of our prayers. And what is at the back end of a train? The caboose. Oftentimes we get the two reversed and we want our wish list to pull everything . . . and if we have time, and if we are having a good day, “Oh, well, thank you, God, for my good day.” Does that mean we are not supposed to be thankful when our day is not good? Last time I checked, the Bible says that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose - now, there are some conditions in there, and I am doing that from memory, but that is close. The idea is that if we have a good day, well, yes, God has a hand in that . . . but if we have a bad day, God also has a hand in that. You remember the song - I am not going to go there - but it makes a valid point: the God on the mountain is the same God that is in the battle.

God’s Front Porch

We live in a rural community - say “rural” three times, that is one of the most difficult words there is to say - and if you go to a neighbor’s house you go up on the porch and say, “Hey, how you doing?” You have some little small talk, and THEN you get down to what you really went over there to visit with your neighbor about. Nobody who expects to get what they are needing just jumps up on the front porch, throws the door of the neighbor’s house open, goes inside, and says, “Kenneth, now this is what I want you to do.” That is just not the way it is done. If we ever did something like that, it would show that I did not have a whole lot of respect for Kenneth . . . I was not concerned about being courteous, and this is Kenneth’s house, and I am not honoring him at all - I am just barging in there making demands.

GOING DEEPER · RESPECT SHOWS UP AT THE DOOR

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

Respect for God does not wait until we have found our seat - it shows up right at the door. Psalm 89:7 - “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.” The fear of the LORD we stood on last Sunday morning - that deep respect for who God is - is the very thing that makes a man stop at the porch and say hello before he asks for a single thing.

Notice the One Hundredth Psalm again, verse four. Enter into His gates with WHAT? Thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise - be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. Well, the idea of our example about barging in the front door and making demands is this: verse four is describing God’s FRONT PORCH. And thanksgiving is the greeting we are taught here to give to God out on the front porch, before we ever enter the door of His church house.

Now, is that the way we approach worship? Let’s put it this way. Do we walk through that door back there with a Bible in our hand, intent on worshiping and praising God? Or am I going to leave my Bible out in the car and bring a magazine in - I am going to go through that door intent on looking at this magazine while that preacher gets up there and goes on and on and on? You see the difference? Do we enter into His courts with thanksgiving . . . or do we enter into His courts empty-handed, carrying something we value in the flesh and leaving what is valuable to God on the outside? How in the world do we expect to worship if we enter into church with that kind of attitude?

I just want to throw a cautionary note out here. I am not talking about the possible loss of our salvation, people. I am talking about God’s saved, born-again children. It is possible for a child of God to have an attitude of thankfulness for everything God has done for them . . . or it is possible for that same child of God to ignore everything God has done for them and simply live a selfish life in terms of this world. Such a child will not lose their salvation - but they will lose all the BLESSINGS that God desires to give them.

Back when I was growing up, I liked TV probably a little bit too much when I was younger. And I remember on the rare occasions when company did come to see us, the first thing Daddy did, while they were still out in the yard before they ever got in the house, was turn the TV off. Well, what was that for? It was a show of respect - this person has come to visit, and I am not going to spoil our visit by watching television and ignoring the visitor. So when we come through that door and settle down here in the auditorium to worship God, are we like watching television in our mind? Are we thinking about all the stuff that is going on out in the world and ignoring whose house this is? I have got a news flash for you . . . God can read our minds, folks. You may fool the preacher, you may fool the person sitting next to you, but no man is able to fool God.

Something else I have noticed at our house - the kids come over, and the first thing the kids do is sometimes one thing and sometimes another. They hit the door and the first thing they say is, “Where is Granny? Where is Granny? I want to give her a hug.” Oh, that is a good thing, right? But sometimes they go through the door and the first thing they say is, “Where are the cookies? Where are the cookies? Where are the cookies?” And they put Granny’s hug in second place. Well, my point is that oftentimes we do the same thing with God. We come to church looking for COOKIES, when the first thing we should do when we come to church is hug God’s neck and thank Him for what He has done for us.

GOING DEEPER · FOR THE ONE WHO CAME IN HURTING

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

This is not a rule that says God will not hear a prayer that skipped the porch. Peter, sinking in the water, did not stop to say thank you first - he cried out, and he got no lecture on manners. Matthew 14:30 - “But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.” The gate of thanksgiving is the pattern for our daily walk . . . it is not a lock on the door for the one who is desperate.

So when was the last time we went to God in prayer and did not ask Him for anything . . . when the only purpose for our prayer was to say, “Thank You, God”? When is the last time we prayed that kind of prayer? Once again, thanksgiving is the way into the front door of all worship - we cannot worship without thanksgiving.

We Are Thankful Because of What We Know

Now, another thing that is interesting . . . why are we thankful? In regard to our relationship to God, and the things we are talking about here, we are thankful because of what we KNOW. Look first at verse three of the One Hundredth Psalm.

“Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” - Psalm 100:3 (KJV)

Know ye three things. Now, has someone ever done something really good for you, really nice to you, and you benefited, but you did not know who that person was? You did not know who to thank. Or perhaps you were just so busy with life you did not even notice anybody doing anything good - you just trudged on through life. Well, you never singled anybody out to thank them because you were ignorant of what they had done for you. That is the stage I want to set here, and that is the point I want us to realize. If we are unthankful to God, there could be several reasons - we could just be rebellious, mean, whatever, selfish - and that is one lesson. But what I am talking about this morning is this: if we are unthankful to God, is it perhaps because we are IGNORANT of what God has done for us? We do not know that God has paid off the mortgage. We do not know that God has done this, this, or this. If we knew who it was, we would single them out and thank them. The purpose of the lesson this morning is so that we will know what God has done, and perhaps that knowledge will move us toward a thankful heart.

Thanksgiving is basically a CONCLUSION, if you will - a conclusion based upon things we have been made aware of in our lives. You cannot thank that neighbor for something he did while you were away if you are unaware of what your neighbor did for you. There are three facts that should draw us toward being thankful, and all three are mentioned here in verse three.

Fact one: the LORD, He is God. God is the one who spoke all things into existence. God is the one who has the power - literally the power of life and of death. Don’t you think it is appropriate to be thankful to that God?

“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:” - Isaiah 45:5 (KJV)

I have done good things for you, and you do not have a clue who I am . . . well, that is on us. The point is there is no one else for us to thank.

Fact two: God made us on purpose. “It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” He made us on purpose, in His own image. Well, what do you mean by the image of God? There are three that bear record in heaven - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost - and we are made in God’s image. We have a mind, we have a body, and we have a spirit. We think with our mind, we feel with our body, and our spirit is the part that has life. We could chase that further, but we are going to stop there. And the Bible tells us that God created the earth to be inhabited - inhabited by who? To give US a home.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” - Genesis 1:27 (KJV)

Don’t you think God deserves a thank-you for making us - for giving us a place to live?

Fact three: we belong to Him. We are the sheep of His pasture. Now this is kind of against our culture - we do not know a whole lot about shepherds and sheep - but basically a shepherd is the individual who literally takes care of the sheep. Sheep are not like a bunch of cows. Sheep, I have read, are about the dumbest animals on the earth . . . just dumb as a box of rocks. Well, the shepherd takes care of those sheep, and that is what the shepherd does. And the PASTURE is the field where the shepherd feeds the sheep.

So let’s transition from an agricultural scene to a spiritual scene. Jesus is the Great Shepherd. We are those dumb sheep. And where does Jesus feed us spiritually? Does the New Testament church pop into anybody’s mind? That is the pasture . . . that is the field - the area where the Shepherd, Jesus Christ, feeds us as His sheep. So you might wonder, “Well, what is the purpose of the church?” If you want to spend your life hungry, okay, then spend that life as a child of God OUTSIDE of the church - because the church is where the feed is.

A thankful heart is aware of all three of these facts: the LORD is God . . . He has made us, and we did not make ourselves . . . and we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. We possess a thankful heart because we are aware of what God has done for us. Now, if you are aware of what God has done for you and you just do not care, well, that is a whole different kettle of fish, and we are not going to go there this morning. But if you are a saved, born-again child of God and you are made aware of just some of what God has done for you, then you cannot help but develop a thankful attitude toward God.

GOING DEEPER · WHO BOUGHT THE GROCERIES

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

Think about a child at the supper table. That child did not buy the groceries . . . did not cook the meal . . . and did not build the table it is sitting at. Nothing on that table is a result of anything he did. But a child who has been raised right - raised to respect God and to respect his mama and daddy - says “thank you” anyway. Not because he feels like it on that particular night, but because he knows where the supper actually came from. It was a GIFT. The thanks we offer comes from what we know about the kindness and the mercy of God.

And the sheep have more to be thankful for than just the pasture. They have the Shepherd - because of how the Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep. John 10:11 - “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” And everything a sheep needs comes from the Shepherd. Psalm 23:1-2 - “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.” We can always look past our circumstance to the circumstance of the cross.

Thankfulness Does Not Depend on the Weather

Let’s look at verse five.

“For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.” - Psalm 100:5 (KJV)

I have seen this so many times I have lost count. Everything is going good, we are on the mountaintop, and, “Oh, I am thankful to God” . . . but that thankfulness evaporates when we are no longer on the mountaintop and we are down in the valley. Thankfulness is not dependent upon circumstances. The God we love, serve, and are thankful to on the mountaintop is the exact same God who is in charge of everything when we are down in the valley. God’s purpose is not to keep us on the mountaintop - God’s purpose is to teach us, to mold us, to shape us into what we need to be. Sometimes we need that mountaintop experience, but we also need those valley experiences.

I am thinking of a sculptor, or a whittler. I want to whittle this stick of wood and make a certain shape, and I cannot shape that wood without cutting something OFF. We cannot be shaped into the Christians God desires us to be without ever having something cut off of our lives. So feelings come and feelings go . . . but God’s goodness, mercy, and truth are always strong, and they are always available to us. Is our thank-you something that is built upon how our week has gone - or is our thank-you built upon who God is, as the One who is holding our particular week?

The Homework

I have asked our musicians to come forward as we prepare for an invitational hymn, and I am going to give you a homework assignment. I am putting before you the idea that every prayer you offer this week, you offer that prayer through the gate of thanksgiving.

Now, I am going to go through the prayer . . . and I want you to recall to your mind what you are thankful for. Pick THREE things. And not just general stuff - “I am glad to be an American,” or whatever - but, boy, I dodged the bullet on that one. Anybody ever been there? Well, who do you think nudged you over so that bullet did not hit you? I am speaking metaphorically. What about that person - “Preacher, I just could not have done that without so-and-so”? That is a blessing from God, and that is something we should be thankful for. What about when circumstances just kind of start falling in around us, and, “Man, I never expected that to work out” . . . but you know, it did? Duh. These are things we should be thankful for.

GOING DEEPER · THREE THINGS, NAMED PLAINLY

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

When we said to name three things before we ask for one, we meant specific things, not general ones. Name the MERCY God extended to us this week - the one we know for certain we did not deserve. Name the PERSON who helped us, who was a blessing to us this week. And name the PROVISION we received - the help that came in just when it was needed. “I could not have made it through the winter with that hole in my roof.” That kind of thing.

And here is what we will find out, if we do this assignment. The worshipper who comes in through the gate of thanksgiving is a person who is already worshiping by the time he gets to the courts . . . and half of what he came in to complain about looks entirely different from inside the house of worship. So which door have we been coming in - the front door or the back door?

And one other little caveat. I do not know how y’all do at mealtime, but what we should all do when we sit down and put our feet under the table is pray out loud - thank God for the meal, and thank Him for His blessings. If you do not do that, I strongly encourage you to begin doing it. And for those who have little children - where in the world do you think they are going to learn how to pray if we do not teach them? If Mom and Daddy never pray in front of them, how are they ever going to learn to pray, or what to pray for? It would not hurt a single thing for your children at the supper table to hear Daddy pray out loud, “God, thank You for the food, and thank You for that neighbor who really helped me get out of that mine. I do not know what I would have done without their help.” There is nothing wrong with that. Nothing to be ashamed of . . . and that is not being Pentecostalish.

Have you ever been upset because somebody came up to you and said, “Thank you for what you did”? Has it ever rubbed you the wrong way? Well, have you ever been a little upset because somebody OWED you a thank-you and it never came? Do we really want to offend God like that? I would a lot rather God be glad that I thanked Him than a little bit put out with me because I did not thank Him. “Oh, well, I am thankful, but I am too ashamed to say it out loud where other people can hear.” We need to pray about these things.

What "In Jesus' Name" Actually Means

Not a password we add at the end . . . it is the ground we have been standing on the whole time.

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A note on the Scripture in this study: every verse is printed WHOLE. The words set in ordinary type are the ones this lesson leans on and emphasizes . . . the words in italics are the rest of the verse, printed so that nothing is ever handed to you as a fragment with the remainder missing.

Nearly every prayer any of us has ever prayed out loud ended the same way. In Jesus' name, amen.

And I would guess that most of us have never really stopped to ask what this actually means... It has become the way we signal that we are finished – sort of like hanging up the phone.

But the Lord did not give us those words as a sign-off… He gave them as the whole ground of the asking . . . and if a man gets this one right – then it will CHANGE the way he comes to God for the rest of his life.

WHERE THE PROMISE COMES FROM

He said it in the upper room – the night before He died – and He said it more than once:

John 14:13 — “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

John 14:14 — “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”

John 16:23 — “And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.”

John 16:24 — “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Understand what He is telling them . . . those men had been praying their WHOLE lives – they were Jews – they knew the psalms – they prayed at set hours and had ever since they were old enough to know what prayer was… And Jesus says – up to right now – you have never asked anything IN MY NAME...

So – something new was about to open up... Something was about to open up – that was not available to Moses or David or any prophet who ever lived . . . and it opened AT THE CROSS...

FIRST — WHAT IT IS NOT

Let us clear the road – because there is a bad use of this concept – that has hurt a lot of people.

Praying in Jesus’ name – is not “a formula”. Those words are not a code that unlocks the vault . . . if they were – then the promise would be running on the words themselves – and a man could get anything he wanted by remembering to say the magic at the end . . . nobody who has prayed for ten years believes that . . . because we have all said the words over things we did not get.

And it is not a blank check. Whatsoever ye shall ask does SOUND like a blank check – right up until you read the rest of the sentence that He put it in – and we are going to do exactly that when we get to Part Seven . . . because that is going to be the whole subject in that part…

And notice – what we see in John 14:13 – He tells us what the asking IS FOR – that the Father may be glorified in the Son… That is not a blank check . . . that is a check with a purpose written on the memo line.

SECOND — WHAT A NAME MEANT

In the Bible – a name is not a label . . . a name is the man – it referred to his character – his authority – everything he is – and everything he is good for.

So – to arrive ‘in a man's name’ – is to come to that place with HIS standing instead of your own . . . a deputy comes in the name of the county . . . a boy sent to the store in his daddy's name – can charge it to his daddy's account – and the store is not looking at the boy at all… The store is looking at whose name is on the account.

And that is exactly what we are talking about… The name signed on the check decides ‘which account’ it draws on.

Now think about what that means when we pray… I am not asking God to look at me and decide whether I have been good enough this week… I am asking on another Man's account . . . and that account has never been overdrawn… Not I my own name -but in Jesus’ name I pray…

✍️ AUTHOR'S NOTE

This concept is actually an EYE OPENER… The idea is that if we sign a check for everything we buy – it is not going to be very long – before we run out of money and have to start doing without until we work for some more… but if a rich man signs the check – we will never run out of money – we will never have to do without… The idea here about prayer – is that when we get past the mistaken notion – that our prayers depend upon US – and finally realize that God is the rich man signing the check – it is then that we can stop trying to work and earn more ‘prayer credits’ – and simply depend upon Jesus… — C.T.

THIRD — THIS IS WHY WE CAN COME AT ALL

Now put it together with what the writer of Hebrews says – because he is talking about the same thing from the other side.

Hebrews 4:14 — “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.”

Hebrews 4:15 — “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Hebrews 4:16 — “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

Let us therefore come boldly. Therefore – on account of the High Priest just named . . . the boldness is not ours and it never was . . . it is borrowed, and it is borrowed from Him.

And He is not a High Priest who cannot understand... BUT He was tempted in all points like we are… He knows what it is to be tired . . . He knows what is like to be hungry… He knows what is like to be lied about… He knows what it is like to have His friends go to sleep on Him – the one night He needed them to stay awake.

Now here is the part that ought to steady a man when he does not feel like praying:

Hebrews 7:25 — “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

Romans 8:34 — “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”

He ever liveth to make intercession. Right now, while you are reading this, He is praying . . . that is what He is doing . . . and when we pray in His name – we are not starting something up – we are joining something that has been going on without a break since He sat down.

And Paul settles the traffic pattern in one verse:

1 Timothy 2:5 — “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;”

There is ONE. Not one among several . . . BUT one mediator – and this ONE MEDIATOR has a name – and that is the name in which we come to God in prayer...

📖 FROM THE PULPIT

I am sorry sir – I can’t let you in the room – only family can visit… but I am his pastor – and I am allowed to enter – not because I am a good person – but because of who I represent… As an Engineer – I worked at many factories – and I always had a badge which allowed me to get into the plant… When I walked up to the gate – it was not my education that allowed me to enter – it was the badge…

Likewise – when I offer a prayer to God – He does not hear that prayer because of how good I am – or because of how long I have been saved – or because I am a preacher – the only reason He hears it – is because of whose name it is attached to…

In the name of Jesus – says that I am depending upon a Man who raised HIMSELF from the dead – literally the sinless Son of God – who took my place in death… We pray in the name of a Man – who died over 2000 years ago – but that same Man claimed victory over death – and those who believe IN HIM – will one day experience that same victory over death… — C.T.

SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PRAY IN HIS NAME?

Three things . . . and not one of them has to do with the last four words we say before amen.

One . . . it means I am not asking God to look at ME.

He is not going back over my week to see whether I did good enough to deserve an answer… If that were the deal – not a single one of us would ever get a thing... I am asking on somebody else's good name . . . and His name has never one time been turned down.

Two . . . it means I have to ask for the kind of thing HE would ask for.

Suppose a mother sends her son to the store and tells him – you tell the man at the store that your mother sent you for a loaf of bread... And when the boy gets to the store – he asks for a candy bar instead of a loaf of bread . . . and says that his mother has sent him.

Now he DID use her name . . . but he did not use it for what she sent him after... That is not asking in his mother's name – that is using his mother's name to get what HE wanted.

Three . . . it means I quit trying to get in some other way.

There is one door, and Jesus said so Himself:

John 10:9 — “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

A man does not need a second door – when the first one is standing wide open.

Simple truth: In Jesus' name is not how a prayer ends . . . it is WHY a prayer gets heard to begin with...

NOW LET ME GUARD THIS

I am not saying that we should quit saying the words . . . we SHOULD say them… They are a good thing to say out loud every time – and they remind us who we are counting on.

What I am saying is this – do not lean on the saying of them.

Think about it this way. Two men pray.

The first man never says the words at the end . . . but the whole time he is praying – he knows ‘good and well’ that he has no business being there at all – except that Jesus died for him.

The second man says the words just right . . . but down underneath – he is really figuring that God ought to hear him – because he has been pretty good lately.

The first man prayed in Jesus' name. The second man did not . . . and saying the words did not make it so.

The name – is not a stamp that we put on the bottom of the letter . . . it is the ground we were standing on the whole time we were talking.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name . . . that door had never been open before, and it cost Him His life to open it.

So - when you arrive tonight in prayer – at God’s throne of grace… come boldly – not because of anything about you – but because there is a Man at the right hand of God who ever liveth to make intercession – and He told you to use His name.

The mail is in the box, the rope is on the rock, and the name on the account is His.

TRY IT THIS WEEK

Say “in the name of Jesus” at the front of our prayer this week instead of the end...

Start our prayer with it – Father, I am coming to you in the name of Jesus Christ – and then ask _____. . . see if putting Jesus’ name first might change what we find ourselves asking for.

And when we ask for something, hold it up beside that name for a second and see whether it fits . . . that is not a test to make us scared to ask . . . it is the very question which Part Seven that comes next is built on.

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NEXT — Part Seven: Asking According to His Will. He said ask what ye will. John said if we ask according to his will . . . those two verses have troubled more praying people than any other pair in the Bible . . . and they belong together.

The Word of Life — The Deep Study (1 John 1:1-4)

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Wednesday evening service, October 7, 2026 I, II & III John · Unit 1 Deep Study · 1 John 1:1-4

► Watch this lesson on video (40:06)

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This is the lesson the way it was preached on Wednesday night - near word for word. The "uh"s and the starts-over are taken out; the sentences are left the way they were said. Bible verses are printed exactly as they read in the King James. Anything marked GOING DEEPER was NOT preached on Wednesday night - it is extra study for anyone who wants to dig further.

THE WHOLE LAST LESSON IN ONE SENTENCE

Our scriptures this evening will be 1 John chapter 1, Luke chapter 24, Jude chapter 1, John chapter 15, and then Second Peter chapter 1.

Tonight we're going to go over 1 John 1-4 a little bit slower, a little bit more in depth than we covered these verses last time we talked about them.

If you missed our last lesson on First John, don't worry about it. And you may not have missed it. You may have been here and you may be thinking, "Man, I don't remember a thing in the world that preacher taught in that lesson." No problem. I'm going to give you the whole thing in one sentence. And I know Andy's thinking, well, if you can condense it into one sentence tonight, why couldn't you condense it into one sentence when you preached it?

Well, John had his hands, his physical hands, on Jesus Christ, and he wrote this in a letter so that you and I could have the same type of relationship with Jesus that he had.

Now, it was significant that he put his hands on Jesus, because - and we'll touch on this a little bit later - there was an error circulating in the churches of Ephesus that Jesus really didn't come in the flesh. And that's as far as I'll take that. But that's why it's significant. John's saying, "I saw Him. I heard Him. I studied His features. And I actually touched Him." That was to oppose the false doctrine that was prevalent at the time, leading some people astray.

EPHESUS AND THE LAST EYEWITNESS

Now Ephesus, where the letter of First John was written - at the time that it was written, Ephesus was one of the biggest; it was very crowded, and - well, this just popped into my mind - it was soaked with religion.

If you can kind of picture that: the temple of Diana, that was one of the seven wonders of the world. And every idea that you can imagine was for sale on the streets of this particular city. That was the setting when this letter of First John was written. That's what life was like.

And the apostle John was literally the last human being - remember, he was the last of the twelve apostles - he was the last human being that was an eyewitness to the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Again, I mentioned this a second ago. You remember that there were teachers going out, leaving the churches there in Ephesus, and they were teaching that Jesus only seemed to have a real body. There was some reasoning behind that philosophy, but we'll touch on that later. And we watched in our last lesson on these scriptures how John answered that error: "I touched Jesus." He said, "I saw Him, I heard Him, and I studied His life." And that was to oppose this false doctrine.

Well, tonight we're going to do basically the same thing, except we're going to go a little bit deeper, because we're going to look at the grammar that the Apostle John used - the words that he chose. We're going to see how these words did exactly the same thing - give exactly the same testimony - that I saw Him, I heard Him, I studied His life, and I touched Him. The grammar that he used, the words that he chose to write, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is going to do the same thing that his testimony of what he saw and touched did.

1 John 1:1–4 — “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”

Now He's given us the purpose of the letter. These things we write unto you so that your joy might be full.

Remember, there's the purpose - the point to the lesson. We've kind of got in the habit of repeating it three times. The purpose of this evening's lesson is to show that John is not decorating some philosophy. He's building a relationship. He's showing you and me how to build a relationship with God. And every word that he uses in these first four verses is doing a particular job in this construction.

Now we know that the Bible is God's word, and I just want to point out: nothing in God's word is by chance or random. The words that the Apostle John used, the words that Paul used, the words that Matthew used, were not just given to chance. They were used on purpose. The Holy Spirit specifically laid on their heart: use this word, use that word, use this other word. And He did this a number of different ways - their experiences in life. They came from different backgrounds, had different levels of education, different kinds of experiences, and God rolled all of that up together and made sure that they wrote exactly what He wanted them to write.

THE SHAPE OF THE SENTENCE

Now, before we look at the words I'm talking about here - the words that are building this relationship that John had with God, and the relationship that he hopes that you and I have with God - let's look back at verses one and two and ask ourselves: do we recognize what the Apostle John is doing in these first two verses?

If we're looking for words that are going to be beneficial in helping us build our relationship with God, there should be a main action word. You remember from - well, I don't know if it's grade school anymore - but you remember what a verb is in English? It's a word that shows action. What is the main verb in verses one and two? Let's read them right quick and see if you can recognize it.

Hint: it ain't there.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.

Now, I put this together like John is a witness in a courtroom. So the terminology that I'm going to use in the remainder of the lesson is kind of directed toward that example. John is an eyewitness, like in a courtroom. He's an eyewitness of the physical body of Jesus Christ. That's why I emphasized the fact that he was the last eyewitness. If you're going to court and you want a reliable eyewitness, John is the one that you want - and he's the last eyewitness that's remained alive.

So John spends verses one and two gathering up everything that he heard, saw, looked upon, and touched. But you see, he's building the moment. He's building anticipation. He still hasn't told us what he's doing with all this evidence. Why are you telling us what you saw, heard, touched? Well, he doesn't tell us that until verse three. He says, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you."

Now John delays this explanation on purpose, because again, he's building anticipation. He wants us to understand the importance and the significance of the testimony he's given before we ever find out the direction that this evidence is pointing. If you were in the courtroom listening to his testimony, and he goes through, "Well, this is what we've seen, heard, touched," and everything - by the time he gets down to verse three and says, "This is what we're going to declare unto you," you're starting to get anxious. You're saying, "Okay, I understand what you saw, what you heard, what you touched - but now get to the point." That's the attitude that he's building here. The evidence comes first. And what the evidence points to - what all this means - he purposefully waited a little bit later to explain that.

GOING DEEPER · ETERNITY COMES FIRST
Not preached on Wednesday night — extra study.

Notice what John puts first. This letter does not start out "John the apostle, to the churches" - there's no greeting and no title. The first words put down by his pen are "that which was from the BEGINNING." Whatever a man puts first in his sentence, he puts there on purpose. So John puts eternity in front of everything else - exactly the same way he opened his Gospel: John 1:1 — "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The One John touched did not begin being God when John touched Him. He existed before all things - and then He came within arm's length. Watch the distance close in John's four verbs: heard - seen - looked upon - handled. That is the Incarnation (God come in the flesh) in one sentence. And we close that same distance today: Romans 10:17 — "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." We hear the Word from a distance; sitting under the preaching of it brings us closer; believing what we hear brings us closer still; and repenting - putting that belief into practice - brings us as close to God as we can get.

THE MAP: EVIDENCE, FELLOWSHIP, JOY

Now I'm going to read these verses again. I'm going to paraphrase them just a little bit. My attempt here is to make it be heard closer to the way the words come across in the Greek. So listen, and see if you can determine the direction that this passage is going. (This is Pastor Chuck's paraphrase - not the King James.)

"That which was from the beginning, which we heard, which we saw with our own eyes, which we gazed upon and which our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life - what we have seen and heard, we're reporting to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father, with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write, so that your joy might stand filled full."

And the word full - we'll get to that in just a minute. It doesn't just mean it's full today and empty tomorrow.

There's four verbs that he uses in his testimony: heard, saw, gazed, handled. And then there's a statement of fellowship, followed by a statement of his purpose. Now, the evidence comes first. The fellowship which this evidence is intended to produce is what comes next. And joy is the final destination. Now, this is like a map of the opening of the letter of First John.

And the whole point: if we have faith in the testimony of the apostle John, then we can experience the same attitude in our heart that he experienced, having actually heard, seen, and touched. If our faith is weak, then the testimony of the Apostle John kind of doesn't mean much - because we really don't believe it. It's not real to us.

That's the whole point of the testimony of an eyewitness and relying on it. To rely on the testimony of an eyewitness means that we have confidence in that eyewitness, and that what that eyewitness says is real. It sort of almost puts us in the circumstance that the witness is describing - and that's the idea here. John is doing this so that the relationship that he has with the God that he actually touched and saw and heard - so that we might have that same type of relationship.

DECLARE WE UNTO YOU - THE CHAIN OF FELLOWSHIP

1 John 1:3 — “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Now this phrase here, "declare we unto you" - that's the kind of talk that we would expect to hear in a courtroom. You've watched enough Perry Mason to realize: when a witness takes the stand, he doesn't get up there and say, "Well, this is what I think." It's not speculation. It's: what did you see? No opinion - just the facts.

And then John traces the fellowship that he has with God. See how exactly he phrases that: "that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." Now this fellowship is with God, with His Son Jesus, with John, and with one another - and that kind of makes up a chain. I'm going to refer to that as the chain of fellowship.

You see, this chain of fellowship is where the eyewitness testimony is supposed to lead. That's what the eyewitness testimony is intended to produce: "that ye also may have fellowship with us" - with the apostles, the remaining eyewitnesses, even though there's only one left, John. "And our fellowship is with the Father" - referring to God. And our fellowship is also with God's Son, Jesus Christ. So you have an unbroken chain of fellowship.

If we believe in our heart that this eyewitness is telling the truth, then the effect of hearing that eyewitness will be that the relationship that we have with Jesus and with God will be the same type of relationship that John - who actually touched Jesus - had with Jesus and with God.

And the last word of the whole passage that we just read is the purpose of everything that he wrote: so that your joy may be full.

THREE WORDS: HANDLED

Now we're going to look at three specific words this evening. And with every one of these words, we're going to ask: I wonder why the Apostle John picked that particular word?

The first word we're going to look at is "handled." Why did John use this particular word? In our language there's like a dozen different words that pretty much mean the same thing. We can just pick any one of them and it's no big deal - the context of a conversation will allow the listener to understand what we're talking about. Well, the Bible didn't leave anything to chance.

The word here is pronounced psay-lah-FAH-oh, and it's not the ordinary word that's typically used for touching. It's the feeling-after kind of touch. Now, what I mean by that: it's like if the lights were all out and we were feeling around on the wall to find the light switch. It's that kind of feeling.

And it's not used here by accident, because it's the exact same word that Jesus used on Easter when He showed Himself to His disciples. That takes us to Luke 24:39. Notice the word "handle" when we get here. It's not just touch. It's touch - making sure that what is there is what you think it is.

Luke 24:39 — “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”

Now Jesus is saying, "Make sure that it's really Me." And John was actually in the room here when Jesus said it. In fact - now, we don't know - but John's hands may have actually been those hands that reached out and handled Him, touched Him, to make sure that He was who He claimed to be. And sixty years later, the same hand that reached out and made sure that it really was Jesus wrote down the exact same word that Jesus had used.

So think about what that does to the claim that Jesus had no real physical body. John doesn't write a lengthy paper trying to argue his point. He uses one verb against this whole philosophy.

And once again, if you'll notice where that word is used: I've got here in my notes that the word he used pretty much has Easter right in the middle of it. For there to be a resurrection, there had to be a physical body. And after Jesus was resurrected, He said, "Touch Me and make sure that I'm who I claim to be." So again, this is John's method to oppose the false doctrine that Jesus really didn't have a physical body - that He only seemed like He had a physical body.

THREE WORDS: FELLOWSHIP

Now, the second word we're going to look at is fellowship. And this is pretty interesting. There's quite a bit that I learned from this word fellowship.

In the original, it's pronounced koy-no-NEE-ah, and we used it in a previous lesson to describe partners who own something together. Well, tonight we're going to go just a little bit further in the definition. The root word from which this word fellowship comes is pronounced KOY-noss, and it means common. It's talking about something that is held in common - jointly owned, jointly lived in. It's like an apartment that is shared by two different people: each one responsible for half the rent, both names on the title, kind of thing.

Now Jude uses the root of this word fellowship.

Jude 1:3 — “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

"The common salvation" - that's the root word, and it means something shared. The common salvation - the one salvation that all of us hold together. That's what Jude's talking about.

So when John says "our fellowship is with the Father," he's talking about something that belongs to God - the life that is in God. And he's talking about how the life that is found in God is now held in common with everyone who is in that chain of fellowship - with everyone who is a believer in Christ.

So "fellowship" as it is used here in this passage is not talking about the coffee time that we have after Sunday school. It's actually referring to co-ownership - co-ownership in the one thing that matters the most.

Now obviously, the one thing that matters the most, first of all, is the salvation of our soul - because if we're not saved, nothing else matters. After we have been saved, what is the one thing that matters the most? Our fellowship with the God that saved our soul. Not to keep us saved, not to keep us from becoming lost - but the relationship that we will have in God forever and forever and forever. Will we be a close friend with God in heaven, or will our friendship be a little more distant? Will we live in the city with direct access to God in heaven, or will we be on the other side of the walls, outside the city, kind of thing?

GOING DEEPER · INSIDE THE CITY - AND OUTSIDE IT
Not preached on Wednesday night — extra study.

Some readers have been taught that everyone outside the heavenly city is lost. Look closely at the language. Revelation 21:24 — "And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it." Saved people, walking in the city's light. Revelation 22:14 — "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." The right to enter is tied to doing His commandments. The Bride is inside because she made herself ready: Revelation 19:7-8 — "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." And a child of God who lived careless - like Demas, who "loved this present world" (2 Timothy 4:10) - is still saved: 1 Corinthians 3:15 — "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." That does not mean that we stop being saved - but it means we stop minding our heavenly Father, and we lose the closeness that could have been ours.

GOING DEEPER · THE FAMILY WORD OF THE EARLY CHURCH
Not preached on Wednesday night — extra study.

KOY-noss - "common" - was the family word of the early church. Jude's "common salvation" is the koinos salvation: the one salvation that we all hold together. When the early believers used this word, they were not describing a meal after service; they were describing what they jointly owned - the very life of God - and a family that holds that title together.

THREE WORDS: FULL

Well, the third word we're going to talk about is the word "full." It's pronounced pep-lay-ro-MEN-ay. And this is the finished-and-still-standing form of the word for "fill." Now, by finished and still standing, I mean something that got filled - a cup, a bucket, a vessel - that got filled up at some time in the past, and it's still full right now in the present.

I thought about a post hole that's been filled with concrete. That post hole gets filled with concrete how many times? Just once. When it gets filled up with concrete, that concrete doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't disappear. It never drains out. Well, that's the idea here. He's saying your joy is not going to run out later: "I'm telling you this so that your joy may stay completely full."

John 15:11 — “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”

This is a quote from the Gospel of John. And it's the exact same word that the Apostle John used in his letter, First John. And once again, he heard this word that Jesus used at the last supper, the night before His crucifixion. And about sixty years after the crucifixion, John remembers, and he uses this same word. He's pretty much quoting Jesus. Jesus is saying, "I've told you these things, and the purpose for which I've told you is so that your joy might be full, and so that My joy might remain in you."

And what the apostle John is saying over here in the letter of First John - he's giving us this eyewitness testimony that Jesus was in fact here in a physical body. And everything in the letter has been written for the purpose that we can experience and keep the same level of joy that the Apostle John had.

But again, it's all kind of pointless if we don't really believe the eyewitness testimony. Then we're wasting our time if we think we're ever going to receive this type of joy.

GOING DEEPER · A CUP GOD TOPS OFF
Not preached on Wednesday night — extra study.

The same kind of promise shows up in other places - a cup God intends to fill and keep full. Psalm 23:5 — "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." And on the mountain: Matthew 5:6 — "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." The idea being that we will be filled as long as we remain hungry. A caution for careful readers: these are different words in the original - it is the same kind of promise, not the same word as "full" in 1 John 1:4.

THE HARD VERSES - AND WHY THEY ARE THERE

The word "full" is pretty much going to determine how we read verses in First John that we look at and think, "Hmm, that's a little harsh."

I'm not going to go into detail - we'll single out these verses in later lessons. I just want to kind of skim the top right now. There are some difficult sayings in the book of First John. He says, "Now I've written this so that your joy may be full." Well, so why did you tell us in First John 3:6 -

1 John 3:6 — “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.”

Well, my goodness, I sin every day. What's that saying? And we'll talk about this later.

1 John 3:15 — “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”

Now wait a minute - I really don't like so-and-so very much. And if we're not careful, we'll read verses like this and we'll walk away a little bit unsure. We'll walk away filled with doubt instead of walking away being confident.

John tells us exactly why he wrote the whole letter, and these difficult verses are in that same letter, and they fall under the same reasoning. Notice First John 5:13:

1 John 5:13 — “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

He didn't put these difficult verses in here to cause us to doubt. He put these things in here so that we may know without a doubt that we have eternal life. So there is something more to these difficult scriptures than what we see right on the surface. But the thing that we should be aware of for every verse - even those verses that we don't understand yet, but we will understand them - is that the purpose of the book is so that our joy will be full, so it'll remain full, and so that we will no longer have any doubts about our salvation. So that's the promise that is hidden in the book of First John.

UNDER PRESSURE: WHO IS LORD?

Now, they were under a little bit of pressure back during the day of the Caesars. You know how political correctness is kind of the thing today, and if we are not politically correct, then we stand to suffer the consequences, as it were. Well, one of the social pressures that people were under in the days of John, when he wrote this book, was that everybody was being pressured for Caesar's official title to be "Lord and God."

There's a phrase in Latin, Dominus et Deus - that was the title of Caesar in that day, and it was becoming more and more popular to put this title on Caesar. Well now John is kind of caught between a rock and a hard place, because his Lord and God is not Caesar, but Jesus Christ. To say that Caesar was Lord and God was to pretty much be in agreement with these naysayers that had said Jesus really didn't come in the flesh.

It's kind of like being tested. Now, has anybody here ever been - you go to work and the boss says, "You're going to have to be here every Sunday to work, or I'll find somebody else that'll fill your position." Or for the younger people, a coach: "We're going to have practice on Sunday mornings and Wednesday night, and if you're not here for practice, I'm going to fill your position with somebody else." And a very common example: "If everybody else is doing it, and you don't do it too, I'm not going to let you play with us. I'm not going to let you sit at our table." This popularity thing is really on steroids for younger people.

Well, what I'm getting at: this is an example of someone else wanting to be the Lord of our life. Now Caesar had the title God and Lord, and he wanted to use that title to be a dictator, with nobody questioning - that was back in the government. Well, the people we live with on a day-to-day basis - our friends, our bosses at work - they're not claiming to be Caesar. But if they make these kinds of demands on us, then what they are demanding is that we replace Jesus as our Lord and God, and let them be our Lord and God, because they are attempting to control the direction of our lives.

Well, do we like the idea of being a star player on the team more than we like the idea of pleasing God? Well, if we do, we'll suffer the consequences.

GOING DEEPER · WHEN THE TEMPLE WAS GONE - AND THE FOUR ERRORS
Not preached on Wednesday night — extra study.

Two things from the study that did not get preached. FIRST - the letter was written somewhere between AD 85 and 95, and by then the Temple in Jerusalem had been in rubble for fifteen to twenty-five years. For over a thousand years the Temple was where a man went to meet God. So where does a man go now? John answers in verse one: to the One John put his hands on. John 2:19 — "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." John 2:21 — "But he spake of the temple of his body." The building is gone, but the meeting place is a Person. SECOND - the teachers who went out made four claims: that Christ never came in the flesh; that they knew God without keeping His commandments; that they had no sin; and that they loved God while they hated their brother. That is not four random mistakes - that is a pattern, and John answers each one as the letter goes along.

FAITH THAT DOES NOT RIDE ON CIRCUMSTANCES

As we're about ready to finish: I've noticed a lot of people in my life - if everything is going good, oh, they're on cloud nine. They're just happy to be associated with Jesus, and they claim to have faith, and everything's fine and dandy. But when the train jumps the track - when they have a flat, when they don't get that raise, whatever - they don't really feel that way anymore. In other words, their faith is dependent upon circumstances. No, no, no. If our faith is dependent upon circumstances, we will never grow in the faith.

Now you see, God literally put Himself in the flesh of a human man. Now that's the incarnate Christ - you've heard that expression. Well, why did God literally take on the form of a human man? He took on the form of a human so that He could suffer death for all men. If He had not been a man Himself, He could not have suffered for us.

2 Peter 1:16 — “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”

There's that courtroom word again - eyewitnesses. So if we believe the testimony of the witness, we can have the exact same fellowship with God as the Apostle John did. If - "Well, I'm not quite so sure about that" - then we're not going to have the same type of fellowship.

FELLOWSHIP IS THE POINT

Well, I'll just leave you with this. You remember the song "God on the Mountain"? Well, the God on the mountain is also the God in the valley.

And the idea is that fellowship is the point. Fellowship is the point of the whole thing. "Well, preacher, I thought you said it was so our joy would be full." Well, duh. We cannot have joy if we do not have fellowship. You go home to Mama, and if Mama's out of sorts, there ain't no joy going to be experienced there.

Marital ups and downs, I suppose, are kind of a common thing. But I learned a long time ago - first of all, I'm not perfect. I realize that my wife is not perfect. I think she is really, really close. But the point is: I don't care if I don't get my way about a particular thing. Now, we're not talking about anything in the Ten Commandments. We're just talking about the things of life. I have learned it is not worth upsetting the apple cart just to get my way. It's just not worth it. So I don't care what it is - if I really would rather have the red one, and she's going to get upset if we get the red one, whatever she says goes. Because I value peace in my house. I value fellowship in my house more than I value anything else.

The other side of that coin - this is the way it is with my spiritual life, with God. I'm just as normal as anybody else. I've got my will - what I want, and the way that I wish it would go. But nothing - and I've learned this - nothing is worth more than joy and sweet fellowship with God. Yeah, I can get my way. I can do what I want - but at a cost. It's just not worth it.

So the most important thing: one, the salvation of our soul. Secondly, after we're saved, what's the most important thing? The fellowship that we have with the God that saved us.

Are you in fellowship with God? Do you want to be in fellowship with God? Do you want that fellowship to be stronger and better? Please consider that as we stand and sing.

GOING DEEPER · FOR THE TABLE AT HOME
Not preached on Wednesday night — extra study.

Three questions for a family or a class: 1) FULL JOY IS THE DESTINATION. Knowing that is where the letter is headed, how does it change the way we read the hard verses that are coming? Have we been reading First John as a threatening letter or a joy-filling one? 2) COMMON - JOINTLY OWNED. Shared life, not just social time. How is that different from what most folks mean by "fellowship"? 3) DECLARE WE UNTO YOU. That is witness language. What is the difference between an eyewitness report and a man's opinion about God - and why does it matter on the days believing is hard?

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The Word of Life • The Deep Study — 1 John 1:1–4 © Chuck Trusty Bible Study Series