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

The Word of Life — 1 John 1:1-4

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday evening service, September 27, 2026 1, 2 & 3 John · Unit 1 · 1 John 1:1-4 · Luke 24:39 · 1 Corinthians 2:9 · John 15:11

► Watch this lesson on video (51:15)

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You might want to put your fingers in a few places tonight - 1 John 1, Luke 24, 1 Corinthians 2, and the gospel of John chapter 15 . . . so John, Luke, Paul, and then John again.

Two weeks ago we started looking at First John - who wrote it, who it was written to, and why it got written . . . and tonight we are going to open it and start to CLIMB. We have been talking about staircases here lately, so to go right along with that, tonight we start climbing the staircase that we find inside the letter of First John.

Now I want us to use our imagination for just a minute. Let us put ourselves somewhere around the year AD 90 - almost sixty years after the resurrection . . . and one by one, all the men who had actually walked the dusty roads with Jesus Christ in the flesh are GONE - according to history, they are all dead. Peter has been crucified. James - who was John’s own brother - died by Herod’s sword. Thomas went all the way to India, and died there being thrust through with a spear.

And there is ONE man left alive who was there with Jesus - and now he is up in his eighties, maybe his nineties, living in Ephesus, a big crowded Roman city over on the coast . . . and he is the last human being on this earth who had literally walked beside Jesus Christ before the cross. John stood near the cross when most of the others ran. John ran to the empty tomb. John watched the risen Lord cook fish for breakfast down on the shore . . . and at the last supper, John leaned his head over against Jesus and heard His heart beat.

That is the man who is sitting down to write a letter - and he is not writing it to a king, not to a council, not to a missionary board . . . but to ordinary believers in house churches - to people a whole lot like the people sitting in this room tonight - people who had been fed some dangerous ideas by some very persuasive men.

Now what does the last eyewitness want them to know FIRST - before he brings up anything else? If it had been me, I would probably have started with a list of rules . . . you really need to do this, and this, and this. But John does not start with a rule. Not a ritual. Not a list of do’s and don’ts. He starts with this - it was REAL. I heard Him with my ears. I saw Him with my eyes. My hands touched Him . . . and the reason I am telling you all of this is so that you can have the very same thing that I have.

So let us hear these first four verses the way John’s readers heard them the very first time they ever read them.

“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 (shown - brought out where it could be seen), 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.” - 1 John 1:1-4 (KJV)

The last eyewitness wrote it down for one reason - so that our joy might be full.

The Evidence - Four Words That Close the Distance

Now John opens this letter the way a witness opens his testimony up on the stand in a court of law . . . not with a theory, not with an argument, not with a “well, judge, this is what I THINK happened.” I have watched just about every Perry Mason there ever was, and I do not recall a witness one time starting off with what he thought - they start off with EVIDENCE. And this is the touch-it, see-it, hear-it kind of evidence - the kind that leaves no wiggle room, no way to just brush it aside.

Look at what he does in that first verse. He piles up FOUR words - four action words, four verbs - and they tell us the four ways the apostles came to know what they knew. And they are not thrown at us in random order. Remember, God is the One who authored this Book . . . He just used a man as the pen . . . so these four words were laid down in a particular order, on purpose - and every one of them gets CLOSER than the one before it.

“Which we have HEARD.” That one is the farthest away - because sound travels . . . we can hear a man talking clear across a field and never be anywhere close to him. Hearing is the easiest thing we do - it takes no effort at all. As young as little Eliza is, she can already hear . . . it does not take much.

“Which we have SEEN with our eyes.” Now with this one we have to be in the same room. We have to be PRESENT to see a thing . . . that is closer than just hearing - and it takes at least a little effort . . . we have to open our eyes and turn our head.

“Which we have LOOKED UPON.” That third one is a gazing word - a staring word, a STUDYING word . . . not a quick glance, but time actually spent taking it all in - the way we look at something that truly matters to us . . . the way we look at the one person on this earth we love the most.

“And our hands have HANDLED.” That fourth one is the closest of them all - it means within arm’s reach. We cannot handle what is not right there in front of us . . . it is physical CONTACT. The eternal Word of life - in the man Christ Jesus - came close enough to TOUCH. Do you see what John is doing here? He is describing the incarnation - that is God putting His own divine nature down inside of human flesh, in the form of the man we know as Jesus Christ . . . God existing in a flesh-and-blood body, a man with five senses just like the ones we have. And every one of these four words closes the distance one more step - until there is no distance left at all, and an old man’s hand closes around the actual body of Jesus.

And notice how he starts it - “that which was from the BEGINNING.” John opened his gospel the very same way - “In the beginning was the Word” . . . he is telling us that what he touched did not START when he touched it. The Word was before all things . . . the eternal God stepped down into time and became touchable.

Now here is something else for us to notice. That word “handled” - the very word John reached for - just happens to be the same word Jesus Himself used on the first Easter. Three days after the cross, the Lord stands in a locked room full of scared disciples, and He says -

“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.” - Luke 24:39 (KJV)

HANDLE me. The resurrected Jesus said that same word - and John was IN that room, and heard Him say it. So sixty years later, when this old man writes “our hands have HANDLED,” he is not just reaching for any old word . . . he is using Jesus’ own word. That first Easter is hiding down inside the very first verse of First John.

Two weeks ago we met the men who had walked out of that church teaching that Jesus only SEEMED to have a body. And John does not answer their philosophy with a better philosophy . . . he takes the witness stand, and he gives four action words as evidence - I heard Him, I saw Him, I studied Him, and these hands of mine literally TOUCHED Him.

Now somebody might say, well preacher, that is just a good story that got bigger over the years. I was at work one day and a fellow was telling about a fish he caught - said it weighed four pounds and thirteen ounces . . . but it got away before he ever got it up to the boat. Well now - if it got away, how did he know exactly what it weighed? A story grows like that when there is nobody left to correct it. But this is not that. This is an old man saying, MY hands were there . . . and what my hands touched changed everything for me - in life, and in death - and I am telling you now, so that it can change everything for you too.

Now here is a HOOK to hang your hat on. On the day that our believing feels a little thin - a day of trouble, a day of weakness - what does our faith actually rest on? Does it rest on a MOOD - strong faith when we feel good, weak faith when we do not - or does it rest on an old man’s hands, on the record?

The Fellowship - a Seat at the Table

Now WHY did John write any of this down? He tells us right up front in verse three - he declared it, he made it public, he put it in writing . . . so “that ye also may have FELLOWSHIP with us.” And watch how he traces the connection - “truly our fellowship is with the FATHER, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” This connection does not just run sideways, believer to believer to believer . . . it runs UP - to the Father, to the Son, to the men who saw Him, and then on down to US who take it all by faith.

Now that word “fellowship” - it is a Greek word, and we are going to take a run at saying it one time . . . koinonia. And we have let that word go soft on us over the years. We use it for the coffee after service, for the meal down in the fellowship hall . . . but in John’s day, “fellowship” was a BUSINESS word - it meant partners who OWNED something together. Not folks who simply got along. If Bro. Ken and I were partners in his accounting firm, there would be a connection between us that ran a whole lot deeper than “well, Kenneth is a good buddy and we drink coffee together.” It would be shared life. It would be partners who owned something together.

So John is saying - what I have with the Father, and with the Son - this inside access, this shared life - this FELLOWSHIP can be YOURS too . . . so that we will not be somebody standing out in the yard watching the family through the window - but somebody who belongs at the table, on the inside of the house.

Think about the difference. There is a hungry man out in the yard, and the family is sitting down to supper. One way to feed him is to crack the door, hand him a plate, and let him eat out there on the sidewalk. He gets FED . . . but he is not inside. The other way is to open the door all the way and say, pull up a chair . . . sit down here with the family. Now he gets fed EITHER way - but one of those is a whole lot better than the other. Being handed a plate through the crack in the door - that is being connected to God through service . . . but sitting down at the table - THAT is fellowship with the God we serve. And John wrote this letter so that we could pull up a chair, pass the cornbread, get SECONDS . . . and get plumb bloated on peach cobbler at the end of the meal - instead of standing out on the sidewalk, satisfied with crumbs on a styrofoam plate handed through a crack in the door.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” - 1 Corinthians 2:9 (KJV)

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the FEAST God has laid out for the ones who will pull up a chair at His table. That is the whole difference between a plate through the crack and a seat at the table.

And that is exactly why the evidence back in verses one and two matters so much. A fellowship built on a made-up story - built on a philosophy, built on religion - is a house built on the SAND . . . and before the weather turns, there is not a nickel’s worth of difference between the house on the sand and the house on the rock . . . they both look fine. It is only when the rain comes down and the wind begins to blow that we find out which is which. And when that house on the sand goes, the Book says great was the fall of it - not a partial loss . . . a TOTAL loss, nothing left to salvage. It is first cousin to what Paul says over in First Corinthians three about the wood, the hay, and the stubble -

“If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” - 1 Corinthians 3:15 (KJV)

Saved - yes . . . but everything he had built his confidence on, burned clean up. A fellowship built on the seen, the heard, the HANDLED testimony of the last apostle is a house built on the ROCK - the storm comes, and it makes no difference at all, because the house is still standing when the sun comes back out.

The last eyewitness wrote it down for one reason - so that our joy might be full.

The Joy - a Cup Kept Full

Now here is the direction this whole letter has been headed all along - and John comes right out and tells us, before one single hard verse ever shows up.

“And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” - 1 John 1:4 (KJV)

Let that one soak in a minute . . . because some of what is coming in this letter sounds HARD. Do we really know Him? Do we really love our brother? Are we really walking in the light? Questions like that can give a person cause to worry . . . but this verse right here is the KEY that unlocks every hard passage we are going to run into in this letter. Find an empty spot in your Bible at the top of every chapter in First John - there are five of them - and write these words up there in that white space: “that your joy may be FULL.” Because when we come to a verse that does not make us feel warm and fuzzy at first glance, the reason it is even there is so that our joy may be full.

And the word John uses for “full” carries the idea of being filled - and being KEPT filled. Filled, and standing filled . . . continuing to stay filled. This is not being filled with joy on one good Sunday - not after one exceptional service where everybody drives home glad. This is a cup that God means to top off, and to keep topped off . . . my cup runneth over, and it just keeps running over. Our faith may go up and down. Our mood may go from the mountaintop to the valley and back. But for our joy to be FULL - that part does not have to rise and fall with it.

And if that sounds a little familiar, it is because we have heard it before - from Jesus Himself, in the upper room, the night before the cross.

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

Jesus said it at the table . . . John HEARD Him say it at that table . . . and sixty years later he writes it down again - because it is STILL the goal.

Now think about this from a daddy’s side of the supper table. When a good father asks his children some hard questions - Wyatt, were you being kind to your little brother today? are you treating your cousins right? - is he trying to trap them . . . is he building a CASE against them? Of course he is not. A good father asks the hard question because he wants his children to be WELL - and to be enjoying the full run of everything he has already provided for them under his roof. That is exactly what God is doing in every hard verse of First John. God is not prosecuting His children . . . God is a Father, checking to see that His children are enjoying the home He has already PAID for - and He paid for it with His own blood.

So say it plainly for the tender heart that is listening tonight - these tests are not scales that we weigh our salvation on. John is writing so that rattled, worn-out, ordinary believers can quit doubting - and so the counterfeits will quit pretending. A question from a FATHER is not a summons from a judge. I am an engineer - I can work about any math problem you put in front of me, or used to could . . . but I could not begin to tell you how many math problems I got WRONG getting there. We have to miss a few, as we learn.

Now think again about that HOOK - have we been reading First John as a threatening letter . . . or as a joy-filling letter? Which way does our Christianity RUN - on a low-grade dread, or on a cup that is kept full?

His Hands on the Record

Let me bring it back around to that old man in Ephesus - at a rough table, in a city that had no idea it was making history that afternoon . . . the hands that had touched the risen Jesus, now wrapped around a pen.

Our Christian faith is not a philosophy. It is not a mood that passes off when life gets hard. It is not a tradition that everybody just keeps repeating because it is a familiar way of life. Our Christian faith is eyewitness TESTIMONY - the kind of evidence that stands up in a courtroom, because the witness was actually THERE. And that testimony is filed, it is sealed, it is given under oath . . . I heard Him. My eyes saw Him. I gazed at Him across a table, on a hillside, and out on a boat in the middle of a storm. My hands touched Him. Four words. One old man . . . and his hands are on the official record.

He wrote all of it down so that WE - on a Sunday night in Dardanelle, Arkansas - could have exactly what he had . . . that whole chain of real FELLOWSHIP that runs from the Father, through the Son, through the witnesses, all the way down to our church pew this evening - so that we can pull up a chair and sit as FAMILY at the table, instead of being handed a plate at the door.

And here is one more reason we can be at peace when nothing around us is - the Bible calls it the peace that passes all understanding. Somebody looks at a child of God and cannot figure it out . . . the house is leaking, the car is breaking down, the dog is sick, the shoes do not fit and there is no money to buy any more - what in the world is wrong with you, how can you have any peace at all? I will tell you how. This world is not my home . . . I am just passing through. And are we not glad we KNOW that.

John wrote all of this for one reason - not to make us nervous about where we stand . . . but so that OUR joy - not somebody else’s joy, but ours - could be full, and could keep standing full. Every hard verse that is coming in this letter is aimed at that same target. God is after our CUP - and He means to keep it full.

The last eyewitness wrote it down for one reason - so that our joy might be full.

The deep study on these four verses - where we open up the Greek and say some of these words out loud - is Wednesday, October 7. Bring a pencil.

Please consider what you heard this evening.

Scripture Used

1 John 1:1-4 · Luke 24:39 · 1 Corinthians 2:9 · 1 Corinthians 3:15 · John 15:11 (all KJV)

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Every lesson is kept on the Lessons page. The whole series is on the I, II & III John page.

Opening the Letter

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday evening service, September 13, 2026 I, II & III John · Series Introduction · 1 John 1:1 · 1 John 2:19 · 1 John 1:4 · 1 John 5:13 · 1 John 5:11-12

Watch this lesson on video (47:47)

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We are going to start a new series tonight, and here is the way I have it laid out - the way I hope it works. Every other Sunday night we will do a lesson from 1, 2 and 3 John, and on a Sunday night we will kind of skim the surface. Then the next time I preach on a Wednesday we will go a little bit DEEPER . . . the first layer of the onion on Sunday, the second layer of the onion on Wednesday. And the Sunday nights in between we will do the Route 66 thing . . . I have got eighteen or so lessons prepared for this, and that may change a little as we go along.

Now, 1, 2 and 3 John - is it a prophecy? Is it just a book? Or is it a letter? It turns out it is a LETTER . . . and it is a letter that has been addressed to US - we will touch on that directly.

There are some names we will run across tonight. Ephesus - you remember that was the city where John pastored as he got older . . . and the seven churches of Asia were the churches in that part of the country. Smyrna - that was the one church in Revelation chapter 2 that had NOTHING wrong with it . . . and two men we have probably not run across before. One is named Polycarp - he was one of the preachers at Smyrna, and he learned from the apostle John firsthand. The other was Irenaeus - a young preacher in one of those churches who learned from Polycarp. Hang on to those names, because the reason I am going through them will show up in just a moment.

A Letter Has Come to This Church

Let us use our imagination for a minute. I said these three books are actually letters - so suppose a letter showed up in the church mailbox this week . . . it was hand-written . . . there was no return address on it, and the reason there was no return address is that after reading the first line or two, it would be obvious who had written it. “Oh - I recognize that, that is Brother So-and-so’s writing. That is what Brother So-and-so always talked about and always said.”

Now suppose the man who wrote that letter was literally the LAST living person on earth who had personally walked with Jesus Christ before the cross. This same John is the John in the Gospel of John who leaned on the breast of Jesus at the supper - he was the John who stood at the cross - he was the John who ran to the empty tomb . . . and he was the John who ate the broiled fish with Jesus after Jesus had come up out of the grave.

Well, that is what 1 John is. It is not a textbook - it is literally a LETTER . . . it was written by the last eyewitness of the “person Jesus” there was, to the churches he pastored in the country around Ephesus. And one of the reasons it was written - was that something had gone WRONG in those churches. Some of the members - members that the church TRUSTED - had been overcome with a particular error . . . and we are going to touch on that here in a minute.

So this evening I am not going to go line by line and verse by verse and actually preach the letter. I am just going to hand you a little bit of information - who wrote it, why it was written, and how he put the letter together . . . the way it is structured. Because there is a HUGE difference between reading a letter that was written to somebody else and reading a letter that was written to us. I could read a letter that was written to Brother Ken . . . but if I read a letter that was written to ME, there is a significant difference in how I am going to look at what is in it - and that is the idea here.

Now I want to point out that this letter was written to the churches in the days of John - but by extension it was also written to THIS local church, here, today . . . if we find a book in the Bible that was addressed to a church in New Testament times, we can add the address of Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church to that same letter . . . literally.

So here is the point of this evening’s lesson, and this is the first time: This letter is addressed to us. It is addressed to Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church.

Who Wrote It - the Last Man Who Touched Him

I have already said the man who wrote it was the last person alive who had touched the flesh of Jesus Christ. Now this is where some of the details start to matter, and when I explain the error that was found in these churches, you will be able to connect the dots. Notice 1 John chapter 1, verse 1.

“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;” - 1 John 1:1 (KJV)

We have HEARD . . . we have SEEN with our eyes . . . and our hands have HANDLED. We have actually put our hands on Jesus Christ. Now that is not written just to sound nice and give comfort . . . if you look at it, it is a whole lot like a witness taking the stand in a courtroom - “this is what I saw FIRSTHAND,” is what John is saying.

And by the time this letter got written, the number of people left alive on the earth who could say that - I have seen Him with my eyes, I have touched Him with my hands, I have heard Him with these ears - had been narrowed down to ONE man. John was the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve, and he was the last one of the twelve still living . . . he was an old man, and he was pastoring - taking care of the churches in the country around Ephesus.

Now here is one of the ways we know that, and we are going to look at a little bit of history. This is history - it is not written to us in the Bible - but according to history it goes like this. I mentioned a couple of odd names at the beginning . . . Polycarp - who in the world would be named Polycarp? Well, this was a pastor the apostle John taught personally, and he was the pastor of the church at Smyrna - the very same church that got the letter in Revelation chapter 2 with not one single word of rebuke in it. Now the oldest records - and when I say records, I mean letters that were written a long time ago, at that particular point in time, and actually survived - one letter of Polycarp’s has survived all the way down to us, and in it he quotes 1 John.

And according to history, at about eighty-six years old they stood that old preacher up in a stadium full of people and ordered him to curse Christ. Polycarp is reported to have said - “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” And right after he said that . . . they lit the fire and burned him alive.

Now Revelation chapter 2 - we are not going to go there tonight - but verse 10 is where Jesus tells the church at Smyrna to be faithful unto death. And one of the pastors of Smyrna was a man who actually WAS faithful unto death - he did it.

Then there was the other man, Irenaeus. He did not know the apostle John himself - but he was taught by Polycarp, and he later wrote, in letters that have survived, that he could still remember right where Polycarp sat when they were in church together . . . he remembered how Polycarp talked about the apostle John, and how he would tell about the conversations he had had with him. And he says plainly, in the letters that have survived, that John the disciple of the Lord had written this letter at Ephesus.

So one man knew John - that is Polycarp . . . the next man, Irenaeus, knew the man that knew the apostle John. You see how this information passed straight from John to a man who knew him, to a man who knew that man.

Now I realize history is not SCRIPTURE . . . what we have just gone over is some letters that survived, and they are not the Bible at all - and we do not build any kind of doctrine on Polycarp or Irenaeus, because the Bible proves itself. But what we have here is a word found OUTSIDE the Bible - agreeing with what the Bible has already said.

So - when we open up this letter - we are reading something the last apostle wrote – and it is not the voice of a stranger . . . it is the voice of one of our fathers in the faith. And I think we would all agree that the apostle John earned the right to correct us - and he did, in these three books, as we will see - and he corrected us with a great amount of tenderness, because he loved us.

Now think about this . . . if the last man alive who had touched Jesus sat down to write one last letter - how CAREFULLY would we read that letter if it arrived in our mailbox?

Why It Was Written - Something Got In

Let us touch on why John wrote it. The letter never names a city . . . and there is a reason for that - it was intended to be passed from one church to another. You remember there were seven churches in Asia, and these churches met in HOUSES. I have actually pastored a church once that did not have a church building. We met in one member’s house one Sunday and a different member’s house the next Sunday . . . we just kind of went around that way - and that is the way these churches operated at that time. Ordinary, everyday people were the members, and they had been saved and brought into the fold ten, twenty, thirty years after the crucifixion . . . and according to history they were living in a world totally saturated with idol gods. If you walked three miles to work, or rode a donkey to work, it would be impossible not to pass a shrine or a temple to some idol.

And one of the problems in these churches was that they were beginning to be POISONED. Now here is the thing - what was poisoning them was not coming from the outside in . . . some of the members of these early churches were in error, and they were spreading poison from WITHIN. Notice 1 John 2:19.

“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest (shown up for who and what they were) that they were not all of us.” - 1 John 2:19 (KJV)

According to history, certain teachers had risen up from the membership of these early churches, and they claimed to have a HIGHER knowledge of God than the ordinary church member out in the pew. Do you think that is still sort of common? You do not have to look very far to find somebody who claims to be a preacher and has raised himself up - SELF-elevated - above the congregation . . . well, that was beginning to happen in that day. They claimed to be part of a secret inner circle, and they claimed to have knowledge that those in the pew had been denied.

And when they walked out - when they left the church - that is the reference here . . . they went out from us, but they were not of us. And when they left they took members WITH them - there were those who were deceived and believed their lies.

Now one of the things they taught was not something that could be glossed over and ignored . . . it went to the very HEART of what we are as true worshippers. The thinking of that day said that anything physical was dirty - it was down low - and the spirit was elevated high. And their reasoning was, if the things of the flesh are down here and the things of the spirit are up here, then if Jesus was truly divine, truly from heaven, He could not have taken on actual flesh. So they taught that Jesus only SEEMED to have a body . . . the real Christ, they said, never suffered, never bled, and never died.

Can you see the seriousness of that error? If Jesus did not come in the flesh, those people were in the same boat as the Muslims are today - a god with no son, and no savior. If there was no flesh, there was no blood . . . if there was no blood, there was no payment for sin . . . and if there was no payment for sin, there was no SALVATION. You take away the body of Jesus, and you have taken away the cross. Take away the body of Jesus, and you have taken away the settlement of sin - and with it, every single hope that anybody who puts their faith in Jesus Christ has got. You have just taken it all away.

Now go back to the very first verse we read, and after hearing the error that was starting to prosper in these churches, notice the significance of what John says. Our hands have HANDLED . . . our eyes have SEEN . . . our ears have HEARD . . . of the Word of life. John did not come up with some fancy philosophy to answer them - he just gave an eyewitness account of the way it really was. “I was there, people. I saw Him with my eyes” - and you cannot see a spirit. “I touched Him with my hands” - and guess what, you cannot touch a spirit.

Picture that old man in a courtroom. On the one side you have those who say nothing of the flesh can be holy - they are on that side like they are in a court of law - and the apostle John is on the other side. He does not ARGUE with them . . . he simply takes the stand and raises his right hand - “I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” And every claim these impostors had to a higher knowledge just disappears against the eyewitness of the one man left - who had actually touched what they claimed was only a spirit.

Now there are two verses of Scripture it would do us well to write somewhere in our Bible. You do not have to - but these two verses give us the purpose, the reasoning, behind the writing of this letter. Yes, it was written to the churches in Asia . . . but if it is a letter written to a church in New Testament times, it is a letter that has been written to THIS church.

“And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” - 1 John 1:4 (KJV)

Why did he write it? That your joy may be FULL. And 1 John 5:13 - same song, second verse.

“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.” - 1 John 5:13 (KJV)

That ye may KNOW something - that it may be SETTLED in your mind and heart that you have eternal life. So the letter was written to fill up our joy, and to help us to know something . . . no fear, no doubt, no guessing, no hoping and wondering all the way to the graveyard whether or not we are going to make it when we finally die and stand before God. Now, if we are not sure whether we have been saved, how is it possible to have very much joy in our life? That is how those two verses are connected.

I have actually heard people who spent the majority of their lives in a New Testament church say, “Well, preacher - I hope I make it. I hope I make it.” Well, 1 John was written to counter that attitude . . . it was written to counter that fear and that doubt. People, we do not have to HOPE we make it. If our hope, our faith, our trust is in Jesus Christ, then there is no doubt - we are saved to the uttermost, and nothing can undo that.

So for the second time, the point of our lesson this evening: This letter is addressed to us. It is addressed to Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church.

How the Letter Is Built - the Lighthouse Staircase

Now I want to take a few minutes and point out how this letter is structured. 1 John does not argue in a straight line the way Paul’s letters do. Paul builds a case like a LAWYER - point one proves this, point two proves this . . . and the proof gets a little more definite every time Paul makes a point. John does not go in a straight line - and he does not go in a complete circle, either. Everything I read as I prepared for this lesson - talks about how John goes in a SPIRAL.

I have mentioned before that it is like a lighthouse. You have a circular staircase inside a lighthouse, and a window on the north side. When you are down at the bottom you look out that north window and you see something. Then you go on up the staircase, and you are still looking out that north window - but you are a little bit higher, you are on the second floor . . . it is the same view, but you can see MORE, because you are higher. That is the way 1 John is put together. He comes back around to three tests, over and over - it is like looking out that north window at three different levels. Every time he goes to a higher floor, he sees things that could not be seen from the floor below.

Now on the surface, if you do not know that, it feels like, “Well, he is kind of going around in circles - did we not already discuss that?” But when a man gets to the very top of that staircase, he sees things from up there - that were simply not visible from the first floor. Keep that in mind when you read through 1 John, because that is exactly the way it is structured.

Let me point out what the three windows are - three windows, three tests - and what they are for. They are there to tell what is REAL from what is COUNTERFEIT . . . bear in mind the error that had been introduced in these churches: Jesus did not really come in the flesh. That is obviously the counterfeit. “Well, I have touched Him - I have seen Him” - that is the real thing. So these tests are designed to separate what is real from what is not.

The first window is OBEDIENCE - do we keep the commandments of Jesus Christ? The second window is LOVE - do we love our fellow brethren? The third window is TRUTH - do I confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?

And there are three porches, if you will - three landings - and the verses for them are on the handout I gave you. On the first landing the tests EXPOSE what is really there. On the second landing they MANIFEST - they show - what is actually there. And on the third landing the window opens up straight into God Himself. Now this is a picture that will carry through this entire series of lessons. On the first landing, love exposes a liar - did He come in the flesh, or did it only seem that way? On the second landing, love buries the sin of Cain. You remember the sin of Cain? He was jealous of his brother, because his brother was doing it the right way and Cain was convicted in his heart - he just did not have the backbone to do it the right way, and he was jealous and angry at the brother who did. And on the third landing, love opens up the heart of God, and we can see what godly love is really like.

Then you have got 2 John and 3 John, the two little books on the end . . . 2 John is a door we SHUT - we shut the door on error - and 3 John is a door we OPEN - we open the door to what is true.

So as we look out these three windows, there is probably one of them that puts a little bit of dread in our heart. We are not as obedient as we ought to be . . . we do not love the way we know we ought to . . . or, “I know enough truth - I am satisfied with the level I am at. I am going to stay down here on the second floor,” when there are higher floors and better views available.

This Is Not Somebody Else’s Mail

As we bring this to a close, I want to point out that this letter is not somebody else’s mail. It is OUR mail . . . and those two verses - the purpose verses, as we are going to call them - joy made full, and knowing without any doubt at all that we have salvation. Now the tests we are talking about, the windows we are looking out of, are not the destination. They are not the final place we are going to be - they are the PATH we use to get where we ought to be.

You see, John is not writing this letter to make a saved person start doubting his salvation. He is writing it so that normal people, just like you and me, can STOP doubting - and so that those who are counterfeit can be seen for what they really are.

So as we start out, first of all, we need to commit ourselves to the CLIMB . . . there are eighteen lessons, unless I add some more, and we need to commit to climbing those eighteen steps one paragraph, one verse at a time - willing to say, “I am not going to skip any steps. I am not going to skip over something I know in my heart I ought to do.”

Second, it would be good to keep that little handout I gave you. That is our floor plan - the floor plan of the lighthouse, for lack of a better way to put it.

And third, I want to make certain we have settled the question of who this letter has been addressed to. It has not been addressed to some church a long time ago . . . it has been addressed to our specific local New Testament church, TODAY. So for the third time: This letter is addressed to us.

Now if there is somebody here this evening who has never believed on the name of the Son of God . . . if there is someone here who doubts that Jesus actually took on real flesh, shed real blood, and literally rose again with a real body - remember, He ate some fish and a honeycomb, and He said to Thomas, come here, put your finger in these wounds in My hand - then that is something we need to take care of before we ever begin climbing this staircase.

“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” - 1 John 5:11-12 (KJV)

This is the record - the testimony, the sworn word . . . and the day of grace is TODAY. Take the Son - put your faith in Jesus Christ - and then start climbing this staircase, too.

We have been having lessons about a staircase in 2 Peter, and now there is a staircase up this winding lighthouse. And you do not get to the top of a staircase in one giant step . . . one step at a time, people. We do not get to be the kind of Christian we will be later all at ONCE - it takes one step at a time. So, okay . . . I will admit I am less than what I ought to be. I am less than what I could be. But I am going to be one step higher, one step closer to that goal tomorrow. I am still not going to be what I ought to be - but I am going to be closer, and I am going to take another step. And that is a summary of the rest of our Christian lives. One step at a time.

Please consider what you heard.

Scripture Used

1 John 1:1 · 1 John 2:19 · 1 John 1:4 · 1 John 5:13 · 1 John 5:11-12 · Revelation 2:10 (all KJV)

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This lesson opens the I, II & III John series. Every lesson is kept on the Lessons page.

One Book, One Author, One Story

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday evening service, September 6, 2026 Route 66 · On-Ramp 1 · Luke 24:27 · 2 Timothy 3:16 · 2 Peter 1:21 · Proverbs 9:10

Watch this lesson on video (28:12)

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This morning we learned that the God who made everything has the right to make the law . . . and this evening we are going to begin a rather lengthy series - we are going to look at the Book - where He wrote that law down. Now this is going to take, oh, about two years. We will do other things off and on - so it will not be a steady diet of this and nothing else . . . but tonight is the start of it - and the one point of our lesson this evening is this:

One Book. One Author. One story - and the story is Jesus Christ.

Why We Call It Route 66

I have named this series Route 66, and the reason is simple . . . there are 66 books in the Bible.

Now some of us are old enough to remember when Route 66 was THE road. They called it the Mother Road, according to some articles I read. One highway, Chicago to Los Angeles . . . eight states, three time zones, a little over two thousand miles. It ran through farms and deserts and mountains . . . through little towns with one stoplight, and through big cities that never went to bed. You could stand on that road in Illinois or stand on that road in Arizona - SAME road - different scenery - depending on where you were . . . but no matter where you were standing on it - that road led to the same place.

Well - what I am leading up to is this - we hold Route 66 in our hands EVERY service. Sixty-six books . . . written across fifteen hundred years - on three continents - in three languages - by some forty different writers. There were kings and shepherds - King David was one of them. Part of it was written by a doctor - remember Luke was a physician. There was a tax collector - Matthew. There were fishermen - most of the disciples made their living that way - and a tentmaker - the Apostle Paul. There was Daniel - one of the big wigs in Babylon . . . and does anybody know who the fig picker was? I learned this one myself . . . Amos. The man who wrote Amos made his living picking figs.

Genesis does not look like Psalms. Leviticus does not read the way Luke reads. But this Book is ONE ROAD - and every mile on this road is going to the same place. Brother Ken touched on it this morning. No matter where you are - no matter what the scenery looks like - no matter what book you are in - it all points where? To Jesus Christ.

So here is the plan . . . starting sometime in October, we are going to drive the whole highway. On Sunday mornings - not every Sunday morning, but every six weeks or so - I will have a sermon that introduces a particular BLOCK of books. I have divided them up . . . the history - the poetry - the gospels - the letters - blocks like that. And then on Sunday evenings - just about every Sunday evening - we will actually get down into one of the books that morning introduced. Morning gives us the MAP of the block - evening gives us the MILES.

So what is the one point of our lesson this evening? One Book, one Author, one story . . . and the story is Jesus.

One Author Behind Forty Writers

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” - 2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV)

Now think about what we have said so far - forty writers, fifteen hundred years . . . put that in perspective. Fifteen hundred years ago from today would be the year 526 . . . a long time ago . . . a thousand years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The point is - most of the men who wrote the Bible NEVER met each other . . . Moses never read Matthew - and David never heard of the Apostle Paul. You have a shepherd somewhere around 800 BC and a prisoner in Rome around 60 AD - and they could not compare notes - they could not coordinate their stories - they could not agree on a plot.

And yet we have ONE story. One unbroken story that tells us in Genesis about a paradise lost - and tells us in Revelation about a paradise restored. A promise made in the Garden of Eden - the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head - Genesis 3:15 - and that promise was kept on a hill outside Jerusalem some four thousand years after it was first penned. Then there is the picture of a sacrifice - the ULTIMATE sacrifice - running all the way through . . . the coats of skin God made for Adam. The ram caught in the thicket on Mount Moriah in Abraham’s day. The lamb whose blood was spattered on the lintel and the doorposts in Egypt. Every one of them a picture, and every one of them pointing to the DAY John looked up and said, “Behold the Lamb of God.”

No committee wrote that . . . no group of men sat down and put that together. Forty men across fifteen centuries kept one story straight - and they did not do it by accident. There is one AUTHOR behind all the human writers.

“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” - 2 Peter 1:21 (KJV)

So - the unity of the Bible is one of the standing proofs - if you are looking for proof - that this Book really is what it claims to be. It is not sixty-six books that men collected over the years - it is ONE Book that God gave to reveal Himself to mankind.

Now we talk about landmarks in this church a lot - those things most surely believed among us - and there are twenty-one of them. If you have them numbered - I believe this one is the second… We believe in the infallible, verbal inspiration of the whole Bible, and that the Bible is the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice. There is nothing else NEEDED . . . we do not need some new program to supplement what God has already given us in the Book.

Somebody will say - “Well, what about the Old Testament? We don’t do the sacrifices anymore.” It is not that the Old Testament is no longer valid - and the OT is certainly not some afterthought tacked on to the New. The Old Testament - like Brother Ken was saying this morning - is FULL of pictures. The Bible calls it a shadow of good things to come. The Old Testament way of worship is NOT what we practice today . . . but the pictures the Old Testament gives us of what worship looks like - those are still good.

And that is one of the reasons I thought it proper to preach through all sixty-six books. A church that believes the Scriptures are the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice - ought to know SOMETHING about all sixty-six of them. So let me ask - no show of hands - how many of the sixty-six books have each of us actually read? By the end of this series - if the Lord does not come back first - this whole church will be able to say - “Well - I may not have read every one of them front to back . . . but I have at least read part of every one.”

The Story Is a Person

Now the story we are talking about is not just a story . . . it is a PERSON. You go down the highway and you pass the mile markers, and every mile marker on this road points to the person Jesus Christ.

“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” - Luke 24:27 (KJV)

This was on the road to Emmaus. Jesus had been raised from the dead - and two of the disciples were walking that road - about seven miles, I think – discouraged - and Jesus fell in beside them and they had no idea who He was. And what did He do for seven miles? “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in ALL the scriptures the things concerning HIMSELF.” ALL the scriptures - things concerning HIMSELF. Jesus Himself testified that this whole highway – Moses - the prophets - all of it - is about Him.

Jesus is the seed of the woman in Genesis. He is the Passover lamb in Exodus. He is the offering in Leviticus. He is the brazen serpent in Numbers - and the prophet like unto Moses in Deuteronomy. He is the kinsman redeemer in Ruth. He is David’s greater Son . . . He is Job’s living Redeemer. He is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and the Sun of righteousness in Malachi. And then Matthew opens - and the shadow of the Old Testament becomes FLESH - flesh that can be seen and touched.

We are going to fit another little series in betwixt and between all this - First, Second, and Third John. John testifies that he has seen and touched this Christ. There was false doctrine going around in his day that said anything holy could not be made flesh . . . if God was perfect and holy - He could not be flesh and blood. That is one reason John says - “I have seen Him - I have touched Him - I have handled Him” - and the rest of those three little letters chase that error down. We will get to that LATER.

So - on Sunday evenings we will have sixty-six lessons - but not sixty-six subjects. One PERSON - seen from sixty-six different angles. Every lesson - and I have most of them at least roughed out - takes ONE key verse - a particular verse in that book that unlocks the reason the book was written. In the gospel of John it would be, “these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” That is the key that unlocks John . . . you find that verse - and it explains the purpose of everything else in the book. And we are going to do that sixty-six times.

When those two disciples got to Emmaus and found out who had been walking with them - they said, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he opened to us the scriptures?” Well - that is the goal . . . my hope is that as we go through these sixty-six verses - we will have that same kind of burning in our hearts - as we open the Scriptures and see things we never really noticed before.

Let me say it again. One Book. One Author. One story - and the story is Jesus.

The Trip Rules

You go on any trip and there are usually a couple of rules. “We are not stopping every ten minutes for the bathroom” - that kind of thing. So here are the rules for this one.

Rule number one - every lesson stands on its OWN. They are connected - but you do not have to hear this Sunday’s lesson to understand next Sunday’s. You can miss a Sunday and not be lost. Every book has its own key - its own verse that opens that particular book.

Rule number two - the morning lessons and the evening lessons work TOGETHER. October the 4th - I believe - is the first of what I am calling the landing sermons. That Sunday morning introduces the first block of books - and then that evening - and the evenings after it - we actually take the trip through them. Morning says - “Here is Matthew - here is Luke - here is John.” Evening asks, “Now what was the purpose of Matthew? What was the purpose of John?”

Rule number three - bring your BIBLE . . . sixty-six books means one Sunday night we may be in Obadiah. Anybody ever read Obadiah? Another Sunday we may be in Nahum - or Philemon - books a lot of us have never really read. And when we are done - there will not be a book in this whole Bible that we have not opened together - and gotten something out of.

Now here is one thing I decided while I was laying this out. I thought, well - do we just start in Genesis and drive straight through to Revelation? And I thought - no . . . we are not going to drive it in that order. Remember the staircase in Second Peter? Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance . . . all the way up. We are going to take these books in STAIRCASE order - following the tools we need to climb that staircase. So - it will not start in Genesis and end in Revelation.

What do you suppose the first lesson will be, then? Think about Proverbs. If we do not have wisdom – knowledge - and understanding - we really do not have anything - do we?

Closing

Our first REAL stop on this road is going to be Proverbs.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” - Proverbs 9:10 (KJV)

You see, Genesis shows us where the WORLD began . . . but Proverbs shows us where WISDOM begins.

“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” - Isaiah 40:8 (KJV)

So - you have one Book - one Author - and one story. And who is the whole Bible about? It is about Jesus Christ.

I hope I have whetted your appetite a little . . . it will take a long time to get through sixty-six books - and there will be some pauses along the way so it does not get stale. But if the good Lord has laid anything at all on your heart this evening - I encourage you - while you have the time - to take advantage of it.

Scripture Used

2 Timothy 3:16 · 2 Peter 1:21 · Luke 24:27 · Proverbs 9:10 · Isaiah 40:8 (all KJV)

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Every lesson is kept on the Lessons page, and this series has its own home on The Route 66 Journey.

The Rock of ages

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We believe . . . we are convinced . . . we are sure . . . that our worship is relying (or founded) upon the teaching that The Holy

Spirit (and not any man) is the divine (or the heavenly - not earthly) administrator - and that this divine one is the (manager or the

superintendent) that is acting on behalf of Jesus Christ in His churches.

What this means is that The NTC is not an organization that has been built upon the talents – upon the commitment or upon the

strength of mankind . . . but rather the NTC has been built upon the strength of only ONE man . . . the MAN Jesus Christ.

The question that will naturally arise next is the meaning of Matt 16:18 regarding the words of Jesus about the foundation of The NTC which He says here - that He built upon “this rock” . . .

Mt 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

At this point in our lesson, I will forego any attempt to argue that “this rock” upon which the church was built - refers to “the rock of

ages” or to Jesus Himself as opposed to the rock of the disciples or the small stone that the name Peter represents . . . once again such

an interpretation (that the church was not built upon Peter as the first pope) but instead that the NTC was built upon Jesus Himself as THE

ROCK of ages upon whom the gates of hell "could not" PREVAIL against or overcome is (in the absence of proof) . . . a belief that must result TOTALLY from an act of faith.
Consider the fact that a few weeks or months after Matt 16:18 Peter even denied that he knew Jesus . . . I know that Peter was a good man . . . but he was "only" a man . . . and the gates of hell did prevail over his fleshly strength as he denied Jesus.
So this gives a bit of strength to the interpretation that "the rock" referred to "the rock of ages" (Jesus) and NOT to Peter or any other man who possessed a sinful nature such that he was not able to escape the practice of sin in his life . . .
Romans 7:  22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
 24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

If we are looking for some sort of proof to lead us to the understanding that The church was built upon Jesus rather than being built upon Peter . . . consider Eph 3:21

Eph 3:21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

The only proof that we will be able to uncover . . . that this is the proper interpretation - is found as we look at the basic purpose of

what the church is . . . and what the church was designed to do.  Now our lesson is about “the role” that The Holy Spirit of God is supposed to play in the church . . .

To be the superintendent (or to be the manager in Christ’s stead) “in His churches” refers to how The Holy Spirit (in the absence of Jesus) acts on behalf of Jesus IN regard to the church.

As we read Eph 3:21 . . . we understand that “Unto him” refers directly to Jesus Christ not to the apostle Peter.

Unto Jesus Christ be GLORY . . . the word glory refers to the following terms: honour – praise – or worship . . . Do you think that it is ever

appropriate to bring such honour – praise or worship to ANY man . . . even if that man was an apostle of Jesus?

To bring honour unto Jesus “in the church” which was either established upon Peter as a man - or upon Jesus as the son of man (God in flesh) . . .

we need look no further than the foundation or the root of the church that Jesus established . . . if the church rests upon the shoulders of

Peter . . . then how are we able to give honour unto Jesus through the church?

Not unto Peter (not unto the Pope) . . . but unto Jesus be glory in the church . . . The word praise refers to paying tribute or the giving of credit . . . once again if Jesus built the church upon Peter . . . explain how being part of 

the church gives credit to Jesus instead of giving glory or credit to the man Peter upon whom it is assumed by many that it was built.

To worship Jesus in the church would simply not be possible if the church in which we offer such worship . . . was built upon a man instead of being built upon the son of man – Jesus Christ.  
Not to argue the point at all . . . but to simply express the notion that I accept by faith the interpretation that Matt 16:18 teaches us that Jesus built the New Testament Church NOT upon Peter . . . but

upon HIMSELF . . . and that the phrase “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” was given to us as all the proof we need that Jesus was talking about Himself instead of

Peter as being the foundation upon which the church has been built.

As one of God’s children . . . have you ever wondered what it would have been like “to be alive” during the personal ministry of Jesus . . .

What would it have been like to know Jesus personally – the way that Peter, James, John and the other disciples knew Him?

If I could have known Jesus personally . . . then I would have listened to . . . and I would have obeyed EVERYTHING that He told me to do.

It is true that today we cannot know Jesus in the flesh . . . but we can know Him in Spirit.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

If having known Jesus in the flesh – if He had asked you one day to leave your occupation and “follow” Him in a new way of life as a

“Christian” would you have done it . . . If Jesus had ask you to leave your present religion and to “follow” Him in a NEW religion called

New Testament Worship in a “church” rather than in the Old Testament Temple style of worship according to the tradition of the Jews . . . would you have done it?

In your defense . . . you have never met “face to face” with Jesus in this manner . . . but what I hope you will understand . . . is that you HAVE met “heart to heart” in this manner with the SPIRIT of Jesus Christ. 

The book that we call “The Bible” is commonly called God’s Word.

The basis if my belief “as a Christian” begins with the LITERAL interpretation that The Bible is genuinely “the breath of God” . . . just

as surely as if God Himself had actually spoken “every word” of The Bible to me in a “face to face” encounter.

I totally understand that this particular belief of the verbal inspiration of Gods’ Word cannot in any way be proven to be true . . . it is not

my intent to argue this point at all . . . it Is however my point - to simply say that this is where I have placed my faith . . . and this

“perception” of what (I believe) The Bible really is - has drastically altered (or changed) not only the direction of my life . . . but this one

act of faith has also brought about a change in the direction of my worship.

The point being . . . that if I choose to disregard what The Bible “teaches” that I should do with my life . . . then in reality I have actually

chosen to disregard what God Himself has “taught” me to do . . . I say this because of “the faith” that allows me to accept The Bible as literally being God’s Word.

This concept of “believing” that The Bible is actually God’s Word is essential to a proper understanding of how The Holy Spirit is supposed to function in our individual lives . . . and also in the churches where we worship.

So before we continue with the next lesson . . . I want you to evaluate your "perception" of what we call God's Word (The Bible).

To enter into any meaningful discussion of God or "religion" . . . the individuals in that discussion must BEGIN their discussion by lining up at THE SAME starting point . . . like the beginning of a race.
 If we do not believe what I have described God's Word to be . . . then the remainder of our discussion about the Holy Spirit and The NTC . . . is pointless . . .

If I line up at one starting point . . . and if you begin at a different location (or starting place) in our discussion . . . then we are not running in the same race . . . which means that we cannot be discussing the same thing.

Answer the question about your perception of The Bible - if you accept (through faith) that it is genuinely and literally God's Word . . . THEN and ONLY THEN can we can proceed from the SAME reference point to learn what The Bible (what God) is attempting to teach us.

To learn what God is attempting to teach us with The Bible . . . is the purpose that the The Holy Spirit serves in our lives . . . we will learn more about this in the next lesson . . .