First John's chapter 1 verses 1 through 4 is the morning text for Pastor John's sermon.

Please turn your Bibles there. There's a Bible in the pew in front of you if you haven't brought one today. First John chapter 1 verses 1 through 4. That which was from

the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and

touched with our hands concerning the word of life, the life was made manifest and we saw

it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which is with the

father and was made manifest to us that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to

you so that you may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the

father and with his son Jesus Christ and we are writing this that our joy may be complete.

Let's pray together before we begin. So plainly, so bluntly you said, Lord Jesus, my sheep hear my voice.

And they follow me, and I give them eternal life.

Oh God, I pray that people will hear your word and thus confirm that they are sheep.

In Jesus great name, Amen.

We begin a series today on the first epistle of John, which will carry us for 21 weeks in 1985, Lord willing, and I invite you to study along with us as you read those texts before we preach on them.

I'm not going to talk a lot about the authorship of this book,

even though there are some very crucial implications about affirming that it was the

Apostle John, which I do affirm. Here are the five things that I want to draw out of these four verses with you and we'll go back and we'll take each one of them and unpack it.

First, Christ our life has eternally existed with the Father.

Christ our life has eternally existed with the Father.

Second, Christ our life was manifested in the flesh.

Third, through Christ's incarnation, John and we have obtained fellowship with the Father and the

son. Fourth, therefore John makes his proclamation of Christ the foundation of human fellowship. Fellowship. And fifth, John Longs for the fullness of joy that comes by drawing other people

into the joy that we have in the fellowship with God and the sun.

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