Sermon Tone Analysis

This morning we’re going to continue our journey through the Epistle of 1st John.

It is Christianity 101.

The Apostle lays out for his readers the foundation of what it means to be a Christian.

It involves faith and practice.

In John’s mind you simply cannot divorce the two.

On the Faith-side, he writes that If you proclaim faith in the risen Christ, you will have some very specific theological beliefs about the Christ.

You can’t just believe ‘anything you want’ about Jesus and call yourself a Christian.

On the Practice-side, he writes that If you proclaim faith in the risen Christ, you will live a very specific lifestyle.

It is a lifestyle lived in holy fellowship with God the Father and fellow believers.

If you are living contrary to that, you are fooling yourself, and you simply are not a Christian.

We began a couple of Sundays ago by jumping right into John’s prologue—vv.

1-4:

/“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

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.

We write this to make our joy complete.”/

(1 John 1:1–4, NIV84)

In this passage there are five points I want you to see:

* Christ our life has eternally existed with the father.

* Christ our life was manifested in the flesh.

* Christ our life has obtained for us fellowship with the Father

* Christ our life has obtained for us a fellowship with other believers.

* Christ our life has obtained for us the fullness of joy that comes by drawing other people into the joy that we have in fellowship with the Father and the Son.

We’ve looked at the first two already.

They are theologically breath-taking in scope.

John tells us the Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

He is the Righteous Servant who was incarnated and is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.

He is Life and when we turn to him in repentance and faith, his life become our life and that’s the essence of the New Birth.

/"And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."/

(1 John 5:11–12, NIV84).

This morning, we’re going to examine the last three points of this passage: Life in Christ provides us a Vertical Fellowship with God the Father, that also brings us into a Horizontal Fellowship with fellow believers.

!

III.

CHRIST OUR LIFE HAS OBTAINED FOR US FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER

* /“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.”/

(1 John 1:3, NIV84)

#. the key word in this verse is fellowship

* ILLUS.

As Baptists, we often define fellowship as synonymous with food.

We thoroughly enjoy each other’s presence, but it’s just so much better if it’s over a plate of fried chicken, potato salad, green beans, and a roll, all washed down with some sweet tea.

#. we all know that there’s more to it than that

#. the Greek word in the New Testament that we translate as fellowship is a word that we’ve all come to recognize because it’s been anglicized

#. it’s Koinonia and means to have in common or to be in communion with

#. in verse 3 the word refers to both a horizontal fellowship—the kind we have with fellow believers—and a vertical fellowship—which we have with God the Father through faith in the Son

#. the later allows for the former

#. the focus in the second half of the verse is on a vertical fellowship between us and God

#.

Biblical fellowship is the personal experience of sharing something significant and having something in common with others.

It's the pleasure of being in a group where you see eye to eye on essential things

#.

fellowship is the experience of having common beliefs, and common affections, and common values with others

#. to say that you have fellowship with God is to say that you have come to share His values, and His affections and His beliefs

#. there's no way to fellowship with God if you have different values than His

#. if you don't see eye to eye with God ...

#. if you don't believe what God believes ...

#. if you don’t love what God loves ...

#. if you don’t delight in the Fellowship of God, it's all over

#. there is no fellowship without these things

#.

so then, just how do we fellowship with God?—Very practically this is what I think it means to fellowship with God day by day:

#.

First, it means living in the Scriptures—reading them, hearing them, memorizing them

#. it is primarily through the Scriptures that God speaks to us

#. if you don't know the Word you can't fellowship with Him because fellowship is a two-way give-and-take, and the first step is to hear a Word from the Lord

#.

Second, it means to pray in faith regularly

#.

God speaks to you a word through his Scriptures, and then you speak to God in prayer

#. in the strength of this two-way conversation you walk in the light and obey Him

!! A. THE GIFT OF FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER COMES THROUGH THE SON

* /"No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also."/

(1 John 2:23, NIV84)

#. if you desire fellowship with the Father, you must welcome the Son into your life

#.

this is why we preach the gospel—that sinners might welcome the Son into their lives and in so doing achieve fellowship with the father

#.

Christ Our Life Has Obtained for Us Fellowship with the Father

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IV.

CHRIST OUR LIFE HAS OBTAINED FOR US A FELLOWSHIP WITH OTHER BELIEVERS

* /“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.”/

(1 John 1:3, NIV84)

#. the focus in the first half of the verse is on horizontal fellowship

#. our fellowship, the fellowship that we experience here on a Sunday morning in our Bible study classes, and in our worship, and in the hallways, is absolutely fundamentally based on what we have seen and heard of the Christ

#. there are several implications in this for us and our church

#.

First implication: The great danger to the church is that it tends to base the unity of fellowship on experience and not theology

* ILLUS.

When I was in Bible College, it was drummed into our heads that “The rope that held Southern Baptists together was our common passion for missions which was financed through the Cooperative Program.”

When, as a young pastor, and I would attend any kind of denominational event, it was repeatedly mentioned that “The rope that held Southern Baptists together was our common passion for missions which was financed through the Cooperative Program.”

Then, beginning in the late seventies, a lot of us began to notice that many of the people who were telling us that the rope that held Southern Baptists together was missions, were folks who held some really dissimilar theology from rank-and-file Southern Baptists.

Missions, we discovered, is not and cannot be the only tie that binds Southern Baptists together.

There are some core doctrines that must be at the center of who we are as a people called Baptist or we must simply drop the name.

The result was a conservative resurgence where grass-root church members took back a denomination that was being led down the path of doctrinal error and theological irrelevancy by a group of theological and denominational elitists.

Because of the conservative resurgence among Southern Baptists, we’re not debating whether-or-not we should ordain openly gay clergy.

And because of the conservative resurgence, Southern Baptists are not debating when life begins.

And because of the conservative resurgence Southern Baptists are not debating which parts of the bible are true and which are not.

It’s the only time in modern history—perhaps all of history—that a denomination has been brought back from the brink of theological liberalism.

#. when John wants to establish fellowship with this group of Christians, what does he do?

#. he writes them a letter full of theology

#. the temptation in the Church today, is to accentuate Fellowship to the detriment of Theology

#. sometimes to the point of overlooking heresy

#. we cannot and must not forsake fundamental doctrines of the faith for the sake of fellowship

#.

Second implication: The great danger to the Christian is that we tend to base our relationships on feelings and not truth

#. does not this text teach that Christians should not marry unbelievers?

#. let me say to all you young people so that it’s firmly planted in your mind—Marriage is, first and foremost, for fellowship, and you can't have it at the level that matters if your spouse isn't a believer, and doesn't see eye to eye with you on Christ, and doesn't esteem Him

* /“The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper suitable for him.”/