The Recipe for Fellowship
Rev. Res Spears
Walking in Truth and Love • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Y’all have heard me say before that I’m not the chef in our home. That responsibility falls to Annette.
And she does a wonderful job at it. I can’t think of anything she’s made that I didn’t like.
But cooking dinner every night can be a chore. Not only do you have to DO the work, you have to plan what you’re going to do in advance.
I where someone said this week they were surprised no one ever told them one of the hardest parts of being an Mom is having to decide what to make for dinner EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT.
If she were in here right now, I know Annette would agree with that sentiment. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to get her to suggest where we should go when we go OUT to eat. She’s already decided enough.
Anyway, a couple of years ago, we discovered an answer to this problem. From time to time, we subscribe for a couple of months to a service called Hello Fresh.
Perhaps you’ve heard of it. You choose your weekly meals online, and they send you the ingredients, all bagged up together, so that all you have to do — Ha! ALL you have to do, listen to me! — is chop and slice and cover and toss the ingredients and then cook them in the oven or on the stove.
The meals take a half hour or so to prepare, and they’re delicious.
But Annette was talking about one of these recipes while we were eating one night, and she said she’d just “eyeballed” the amount of some ingredient or the other that was required. And my mind was blown.
“I would’ve thought that a recipe would need a specific amount of each particular ingredient for the best flavor,” I said. And then it occurred to me that it might’ve been wiser to keep my mouth closed.
“Well, that’s right, but you get a feel for these things after a while,” she said. She didn’t even give me a withering look.
Now, THIS is why I don’t cook. If the recipe calls for a quarter cup of chicken stock, I’m going to be sure I don’t use one drop less than a quarter cup.
If it calls for a teaspoon of paprika, I’m not going to use a teaspoon and a quarter. I’m going to need to measure it under a microscope to make sure I’m doing it the right way.
For me, at least, the recipe is not open to interpretation. There’s no room for fudging or estimating or “eyeballing,” not if you want things to turn out the way they’re supposed to.
I just have a hard time imagining a world where it’s OK to go about such things all willy-nilly.
Now, I don’t know if the Apostle John was a cook. The Bible doesn’t tell us anything about his ability as a chef.
But if he WAS handy in the kitchen or around the campfire, I like to think that he would’ve been a guy who followed his mother’s recipes to the “T.”
And that’s because in 1 John, the letter we will begin studying today as part of our series, “Walking in Truth and Love,” he gives us a recipe for fellowship with God.
Now, you’ll recall that we’ve been looking at John’s letters in reverse order, and I told you we were doing that, because 2 and 3 John give us the context to help us understand 1 John better.
Third John was written to an individual Christian named Gaius, who lived in the Roman province of Asia Minor. And 2 John seems to have been written to a particular church in that region, possibly to the one where Gaius worshiped.
2 John, on the other hand, was written to be shared among the churches of that region. In fact, it reads less like a letter than a sermon or an address.
John seems to be writing an address that was to be read in one church and then sent along to another church nearby and so on.
But the concepts he shared in the other two letters — especially the concepts of truth and love, are fundamental to the message in this letter.
And it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that one or both of the others were shared with the other churches, as well, because his argument in 1 John builds on what the Holy Spirit revealed through him about these concepts in the other two letters.
If you’re someone who takes notes during my messages, you should write this down.
Some version or another of the word “love,” for example, appears 48 times in 1 John. Clearly, this is an important concept for John, and it’s part of why he’s known as the Apostle of Love.
But we have to remember what he meant by this term. Love for John — biblical love — is the choice one makes to desire the very best for someone else, whether they deserve it or not and whether they return that love or not.
It’s the decision that I am going to honor the needs of another person ahead of my own desires, regardless of how they might treat me.
It’s the kind of love Jesus showed at the cross, where He who knew no sin took upon Himself the sins of the world and their just punishment so that all who believe in Him can have eternal life.
“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” He didn’t wait for us to clean up our act. He didn’t wait for us to show that we love Him. If He’d waited for those things, none of us could be saved.
No, He went to the cross to give His life as a sacrifice while we were still enemies of God because of the rebellion of our sins.
So, love is packed with a much deeper meaning in Scripture — including here in 1 John — than we normally give to this term.
“Truth” is another important concept for John. Some version of this word appears 16 times throughout this letter. And, as we discussed a few weeks ago, for John, truth is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who is Himself the ultimate truth.
I want to encourage you to read this letter through a couple of times during the coming week. It’s a short letter, and it’ll take you just a few minutes to finish. And as you read it, I want to encourage you to underline or circle some words.
Love and hate. Truth and lies or deceiving. Light and darkness. John makes a great deal out of comparing and contrasting these concepts.
And one of the reasons he did so, as I suggested three weeks ago, is that there were people coming into the churches as early as the 90s A.D. who were spreading a false gospel.
We’ll hear more about these people in the coming weeks, but you may recall that 2 John included a warning of discernment about those whom the church would support.
Because supporting those who were teaching a message that was opposed to what Jesus had revealed about Himself was tantamount to participating in their evil work.
And that brings up one more important observation about the important words in this letter.
“Love” certainly is the fundamental concept upon which 1 John is built. But John doesn’t suggest that it’s the whole story. In fact, the second-most prevalent concept he writes about here is “sin.”
The words for sin and unrighteousness appear more than 26 times in this letter.
Listen, because I want you all to hear this well. It is impossible for us to fathom the depths of God’s love until we recognize the depth of our own sin.
And that’s the first step toward believing in Jesus. Before you can believe that He came to give Himself as a sacrifice in your place and on your behalf because of YOUR rebellion against God — whether great or small — you have to admit that you ARE a rebel.
You have to admit That you are a sinner. That you HAVE fallen short of the glory of God. That you, having been made in God’s image — in other words, made to reflect His character — have failed to do what you were created to do. And that your failure to do so defiles the holiness of the perfectly righteous and holy God in whose image you were MADE.
Only when we understand THAT can we begin to fathom the depth of love it took for God to allow Jesus to give Himself to pay the penalty we deserve for that kind of rebellion.
Only when we recognize THAT can we begin to see the power of Jesus’ love — a power so great that it held Him to the cross, even as He experienced the shame and grief of all of our sins.
And the question we should all be asking ourselves right now, as we consider these things, is WHY? Why would Jesus love us this much?
Why would He subject Himself to the physical and emotional and spiritual torment of the cross for the sins of the very people who nailed Him there, much less for yours and mine?
The short answer is that He CHOSE to do so. This was a choosing love, not an emotional one.
But the longer answer is that He wanted to enable us by God’s grace and through faith in Jesus, to become the people we were created to be. People who were made to be in fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I said a few minutes ago that I think of 1 John as a recipe for fellowship with God. As we study this letter in the coming weeks, you’ll see the ingredients of that fellowship: love, truth, belief, obedience, and walking in the Light.
And John’s point is that whatever we’re making, it isn’t fellowship with God if it lacks these things.
On the other hand, if we want to have a dynamic and healthy fellowship with God, we’ll have to leave sin, unrighteousness, deceit, and disobedience out of the mix.
John describes the ingredients of this fellowship. He describes what must be left out of the mix. He talks about the things we’ll need to watch out for that can spoil the recipe. And he describes how the whole thing will look when it’s done right.
But before he gets into all that, He reminds us of the glory of Jesus Christ and of the promise we who follow Him in faith have of eternal life — life the way it was always intended, in fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And, as with any good recipe, he includes a picture of the final product.
Let’s take a look at the first four verses of this letter, John’s introduction.
1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—
2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—
3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
4 These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.
What’s this “beginning” John talks about here? There are many possibilities, but based on what he says in the rest of this passage, it seems likely he’s thinking of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry here on earth.
In the passage we’ll study next week, John begins talking about truth. And as we’ve noted “truth” in his mind is the gospel message.
That Jesus, the unique and eternal Son of God, came to Earth in human flesh, born of a virgin. That He lived a sinless life and thereby showed us what it looks like to be completely obedient and submitted to God.
That He gave Himself as a sacrifice on the cross to pay the just penalty we deserve for our sins against God, sins which the sinless Jesus bore upon Himself at the cross. That when the punishment we deserve for our sins was complete, Jesus gave up His life.
That He was raised from the dead on the third day to demonstrate that God had accepted His sacrifice as full and complete payment of our debt for we who would place our faith in Jesus.
And that all who follow Jesus in faith will be raised again from the dead, just as He was, to spend eternity with Him and with God.
But when they began to follow Jesus, John and the other disciples didn’t understand all of this. In fact, what we see in verse one is a progression of understanding.
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He’s describing a progressive recognition of the grace of Jesus, of His compassion, of His mercy, and of His love.
First, they heard Him teach. Then, they saw or observed with their own eyes the miracles He did to confirm that He spoke with the authority of God.
Then they looked at Him. The Greek word here suggests gazing on something with admiration. And then they touched Him.
In their time together with Jesus, they grew closer and closer to Him. Their fellowship with Him only deepened.
They grew progressively more convinced that He brought, as Peter put it in John 6:68, “words of eternal life.” And in the following verse, Peter says that as a result of hearing those words, “We have come to KNOW that You are the Holy One of God.”
This should be the normative experience for followers of Christ. It will surely be the experience for us in heaven and on the new Earth when Jesus makes ALL things new.
But it’s also supposed to be how we experience fellowship with Jesus NOW.
Remember that when the Bible talks about eternal life, the emphasis is always on the word “life,” not the word “eternal.”
When we turn to Jesus in faith, we immediately enter into a relationship with Him that is able to be characterized — to the extent that we are obedient — by true fellowship with Him and with God through the Holy Spirit.
This fellowship can and will extend into eternity, but it’s available to you as a follower of Jesus RIGHT NOW.
That’s what the recipe in 1 John is all about — fellowship with God in Christ. Jesus called it “abundant life.”
And He came so that we could HAVE this fellowship — this abundant life — for which we were created.
It was something very few people in the Old Testament seem to have had. They COULD have had it by faith in God, but most seem not to have put their faith in Him.
And so, God MANIFESTED this life in the person of His Son, who was incarnated in flesh and blood.
Now, it’s important to note that Jesus had existed with His Father from all eternity. John puts it this way in the introduction to his Gospel account:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
In Him was life, and the life was always there shining in the darkness for mankind to experience through faith. But in mankind’s spiritual darkness, we did not comprehend the Light.
But then, the Life was manifested to us. Jesus came in human flesh. God Himself could be heard, seen, and touched in the person of His Son.
And in their experience walking with the Light of the world — as they fellowshipped with Him who IS eternal Life — everything changed for the disciples.
Look at the progression of verse 2.
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They saw the Life for which we were all created manifested in Jesus. Then they testified about it. In other words, they bore witness to it. If someone asked them about Jesus, they’d tell.
And then they began to proclaim it. They were announcing it, sharing it, declaring it. They weren’t going to wait for someone to ask. They were going to make sure to tell everyone they could tell.
Once again, this should be the normative response of ALL believers. As we come to know Jesus better — as our fellowship with Him grows and deepens, so should our desire to tell others about Him.
One clear sign of a Christian in weak fellowship with Jesus is that that person doesn’t feel a sense of urgency to share the gospel with others.
The disciples had come face to face with this gospel, and John says here they were now compelled to proclaim it.
Having heard, seen, and touched the Life, they could not imagine keeping it to themselves. They would now proclaim Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
And their reason for doing so was that they wished others to experience the blessing they had experienced.
They now had fellowship with the Father through their fellowship with the Son, and they wanted others to experience that same blessing — and through that blessing to be blessed by having fellowship with one another through the Holy Spirit.
That’s what we see in verse 3.
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John says the Apostles were proclaiming the gospel so that those who heard and believed could also have fellowship with them.
So they could experience the life for which they were created — not just in fellowship with Father and Son, but also in fellowship with one another.
This word. “fellowship,” carries both the idea of positive relationships among people AND participation in a common goal.
Now, guess what that goal is.
That even MORE people might come into fellowship with God, fellowship with His Son, and fellowship with one another through faith in Jesus.
It might seem odd that we have focused on missions and evangelism during our study of John’s letters.
But when we see that part of the concept of fellowship is this idea of having a common goal — and that the common goal is proclaiming the good news of a Savior who died so we can be forgiven for our sins — then it makes perfect sense for these letters to be the foundation of a deep dive into missions and evangelism.
We are blessed so we can bless others.
We who have placed our faith in Jesus have been blessed with salvation not simply so we can raise our hands and say, “Thanks, Lord. I’m good now.” We’re blessed with salvation so that we can share that blessing with others.
“Go and make disciples of all the nations.” That’s what Jesus said. In other words, “You’re my followers. Now, go and make other followers all over the world.”
John and the other Apostles took this commandment of Jesus very seriously. In fact, look at what he says about it in verse 4.
4 These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.
The greatest joy of the Apostles would come from bringing others into fellowship with the Father and the Son. And ALL who have that fellowship would then share in the joy that such fellowship brings.
As we move into the rest of John’s letter in the coming weeks, we’ll talk less about evangelism and more about the other concepts I mentioned earlier.
But I want you to keep in mind this purpose statement we see in verses 3 and 4.
John wrote this message under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to encourage believers to pursue growing positive relationships with God, with Jesus, and with one another and ALSO to remind them of their common goal — to win others to Christ.
Here is the picture of the completed product at the top of the recipe.
Here is a picture of the fullness of joy in the knowledge that we have mixed truth, love, obedience, and walking in the Light so we can enjoy the life for which we were created.
So we can relish deeper relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And so we can joyfully share the completed recipe with others.
I’m not much of a cook, but I like a good recipe. And this is a great recipe. Let’s follow it.