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Mills River SDA Church

Cory Reeves

May Your Joy Be Full

For the next couple weeks, I want to look at what many call the love book.

I've even heard it called the perfect book because it is a great example of the gospel.

I was blessed by the study I've done on 1 John 1, and hope I can share that with you today.

This first sermon I've entitled, May Your Joy Be Full.

Now, all the texts are in your study guides.

I would, if you don't have 1, make sure you raise your hand high.

He's come, they're coming around with them.

I Would suggest though that you still open your Bible to at least first John We're gonna go back and forth through that several times And it'll be nice to refer back as you're thinking So I'd recommend you just leave it there.

The rest of the texts are pretty much in your outline.

We're gonna comb through this pretty heavily.

There's some things, some thoughts I didn't put in, but there's quite a bit in here.

Jumping right in to 1 John 1, verses 1 and 2.

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 concerning the word of life, the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us." So The first thing that pops out to me is this word of life.

The Greek word here is logos, which a lot of you know is the word that refers to God's word.

It's a word actually full of much more meaning than just that.

And when you combine the logos of life, the Word of life, we see that it is so much more than just some words on a piece of paper.

Now the Gospel of John gives us some more details.

Going to John 1, 1 to 3, starting out at the beginning there as well.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

All things were made through him and without him, nothing was made that was made.

John 1, verse 14, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

I want to make sure we all think about this for a minute.

Jesus is this Word, and He speaks through it to us.

It is easy to kind of nod our heads and think, you know what, that makes sense.

But when you start dwelling upon it, it's so much more than I think we can understand.

Have you ever read something out of this and said, I don't know how this was written for all these people in this room, but it was written for me.

This word is made flesh and dwelt among us.

Jesus writes letters to your heart in this.

The other important piece in this I feel is that Jesus came full of grace and the word truth.

We're going to talk a little bit about that word here later.

Now you see back to 1 John 1, it reads, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life.

The life was manifest, and we have seen and bear witness.

You see, here John is trying to give a basic testimony.

I've seen with my eyes, I've felt with my hands, Jesus was here." You've got to remember, when John was writing this, remember when Christ was crucified and buried, there was a lot of rumors that they wanted to start because they wanted it to seem like the person they just crucified didn't raise from the dead.

John is trying to convince people right here, it's true, I've seen it, I've touched him, I've seen him come back.

He is the word that the Bible speaks of, that we've talked about.

And in 1970, he was the newly installed president of Washington Adventist University.

They happened to be having a get-together with the school, a picnic, near Camp David.

Some of the kids got the brilliant idea, Dr.

Ackers, we've got this really nice Cadillac we can borrow, let's put you in it, We'll drive over to Camp David, pull up to the guard shack, and we'll all have a great laugh.

You've been there on those good idea moments, haven't you?

And so they get going and they put him in the middle and they drive up.

Just as they drive up, they don't lie, the guards look in and they say, the president has arrived.

He was the president of Washington Adventist University, right?

This guard clicked his heels, put up his hand, saluted, hit the button, and said, go on through.

So in awe, they kind of just keep driving.

Ackers looks at the students and said, we've got to turn around.

Meanwhile, back at the guard booth, I'm getting ahead of my notes but that's okay.

Meanwhile, back at the guard booth, the guy pushes the button and says, the president has arrived.

To his shock and amazement, the response comes back, What do you mean?

Before anything else can happen, their poor little Cadillac is surrounded with Secret Service agents.

That poor Cadillac, as the story goes, gets torn apart looking for bombs.

Every file, every record of everything they've ever done in their lives is pulled instantly.

They're reminding them the whole time, we never lied, you invited us in.

Which is true, they did invite them in once they got to the shack.

And in the end, the Secret Service didn't put anything on their records, didn't do anything to them, and thanked them a little bit for showing them a weakness in their system.

They should have known where the president was instead of just letting them in.

In the end, here's what he had to say, in the end, they were just thankful that we alerted them to the weakness of their security plan.

You see, in John writing this message, he is telling them, look, I've seen this.

That's why he's so adamant about seeing, feeling.

He wants to make sure he's clear that the mission had been accomplished.

Jesus wasn't coming to be a king on this earth, He came and fulfilled His mission.

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May Your Joy Be Full

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