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Aug 28, 2022

Fellowship with God

Passage: 1 John 1:3-10

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Life Together

Keywords: holiness, sin, fellowship with god, fellowship with people, genuinely saved

Summary:

What is the basis of having real fellowship with other believers? With God? How do we practically do that? This message looks at what the Apostle John points to as the means for enjoying real fellowship with the Father and one another.

Detail:

Fellowship with the Father

1 John 1:3

Aug 28, 2022

Goal: to memorize 1 John 1:3, as well as understand it, and pursue living it out. 

Reminder for memorization: Repetition Reinforces.  So I will be having us repeat this verse several times throughout the morning. 

1 John 1:3

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ.

First let’s understand just this verse:

  1. “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard”  (referring to Jesus Christ. Belief in Christ is evidence based.)
  2. “So that you also may have fellowship with us”  (ie. “we want you to be a part of what we are experiencing” …come join us!  … what is this group about? What unites us?’ 

Examples:   - we watch the Seahawks play every week of the season at this sports pub.

  • We ride our bikes on Saturday mornings for a couple hours

So what is John experiencing and wanting others to be a part of…

  1. “and our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ.”   (Fellowship with God! Is what this group is all about)

-Recite the verse- (Me, then as a congregation)

“Fellowship with God” 

That phrase would mean so much to a 1st Century Jew…to John (much more than it means to us). 

Who in the OT related to God in a way that would be described as fellowship (close relationship with/to)?

-Adam

-Enoch (23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.)

-Abraham  (James 2:23 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, (Gen. 15:6)” and he was called God’s friend.)

-Moses (The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. (Exodus 33:11a)

How do I experience fellowship with God? 

It begins with belief in God, just as it did for Abraham. Recall,

James 2:23 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”(Gen. 15:6) and he was called God’s friend.)

Romans 4:23-25

23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

John 15:13-15

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

14 You are my friends if you do what I command.

15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

So it comes through belief…what is the evidence of saving belief…because there is some measure of belief that is not saving? For example, just recognizing mentally the truth that God exists and there is no being like him or greater than him is not a saving belief. 

Example: James 2:19 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. 

So what is evidence of saving belief? In other words, how do I experience this ongoing fellowship with God Almighty that John is talking about? 

His answer is what we are going to look at the rest of today, found in 1 John chapter 1:

Answer: walk in the light…keep his commandments. 

-recite verse- (no visual)

Now let’s look at 1 John 1:3 seeking to find answers to this question: How does John say one experiences this mind-blowing reality of fellowship with God?

Read 1 John 1: 5-10

5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.

8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Truth #1: God is light, in him is NO DARKNESS

Which means if we want to have fellowship with God, we have to get in the light, conform our lives to his nature.

-What is his nature like?

-How do I live into that nature? (walk in the light)

Truth #2: Fellowship with God is experienced by walking in the light. (How you live)

-not by just claiming to believe something or have something (fellowship with God), but by living it out. 

1 John 1:6

6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.

Restated in 2: 4-6

4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God[a] is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

Break this down:

If it can be shown biblically that you are engaging in sin and are unrepentant of it, you are walking in darkness and therefore do not have fellowship with God. 

Personal examples I know of:

  1. If you are having sex with anyone who is not your spouse, you are engaging in sin…an act of darkness, and therefore need to repent of it AND God will cleanse you of that and your fellowship with him be restored.

(verse examples: 1 Corinthians 6:18

18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin[e] a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Matthew 5:27

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Example?: I have a good friend who told me that his girlfriend is pregnant….etc._

  1. If you are getting drunk or high, you are engaging in sin…

(verses--Galatians 5:19

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,[d] drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do[e] such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Peter 5:8

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Example?)

  1. If you are aborting your children, or supporting this sin, you are supporting an act of darkness, not an act of light.

(example:

 Exodus 20:13 13 “You shall not murder.[c]

Does this truth mean that we should fear our salvation when we sin? No, so long as our response is to confess our sin to God and repent. Notice how he says

  1. 9 if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
  2. 2:1 If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 

Truth #3: A life characterized as walking in the light is a life of regular confession (and forgiveness.)

This is something we should probably do every day but especially when we sin. (confession)

So when you sin, you don’t need to doubt your salvation. 

But the opposite…we can never surrender ourselves to our sin. We should always be growing in sanctification. (ex. Less outbursts of anger/rage, longer periods of time between slip ups of sin etc.)

Here is a very sad story…one of the things that happened this summer is I had a friend from college who struggled with pornography who told me that he just decided he was done fighting it. It was too much of a struggle and so he stopped fighting it and now, he has lost his virginity and had sex with multiple people.

Truth #4: The evidence of the power of God at work in someone’s life is holy living. This is our assurance of salvation (according to John):

Not a sinners prayer that you made years ago. 

Not the fact that you believe (mentally think) God exists or any host of truths about him. 

Not going to church every week. 

-2:3 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments

-2:5b By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

-3:10 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

-3:19-24  19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God,[d] and God[e] in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

-4:13 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

5:2  2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

Not speaking in tongues. Not a high zeal and passion for a short amount of time. It is changed living into eternity. 

Truth #5: Our fellowship (bondedness) with one another comes from (the source is) fellowship with God.

-therefore, when we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another. (ever felt an ancient bond with strangers?)

-and conversely, when someone who was walking in the light walks in darkness, you no longer have fellowship with them (soul fellowship) and you will feel the growing distance between them and you. 

Benediction:

3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.