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John Miller

1 John • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

1 John 1:1–2:2

Fellowship

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Intro

1 John 1:

1 John 1:1–2:2 NIV

1 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. 2 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. 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. 4 We write this to make our joy complete. 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 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. 1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Over the next month or so, we’re going to be going through the letter of 1 John. There are two reasons for this: When John wrote this letter, he wanted to reassure the church that they were following the true Jesus and that they had eternal life, and he wanted to confront unbelievers who thought they were following Jesus but in reality, were not. He also wanted to protect the church from teachers who were teaching a wrong view of Jesus. So, here’s what I hope we get out of this series: If you’ve been coming to church for a long time, I want you to be assured that you know Jesus or I want you to realize that maybe you don’t really know Jesus, or that you’ve momentarily stopped following him. Following Jesus or not following him affects every area of our lives as individuals and as a church. So, open up to

1 John 1:1–2:2 NIV

This is the word of the Lord

1-4

John, who wrote this letter, was one of the Apostles who had followed Jesus when he was alive on earth. He writes this letter as an old man, and in verses 1-4, he’s sort of giving his credentials. During this time, the Christian church was still pretty new, and a lot of the apostles had died or were getting older, and so some people split from these churches and started preaching messages that were antithetical to what Jesus did and taught. And so he opens up his letter with the preface of “I was there in the beginning, I knew Jesus, I physically saw Jesus, I heard what he taught, I saw what he did, I saw him die, and I saw him raise to life again.” And I’m writing to let you know what is true and what is false. I’m writing to proclaim to you the true message and what it means, so that you won’t be lead down the wrong path, and so you can have fellowship with God the Father and Christ the Son and with us and with each other, as believers and followers of the true Jesus. So, one of the major things that John addresses in this letter is what it looks like to truly follow Jesus, or to truly be Children of God. And so, after this preface in verses 1-4, John moves first into talking about who God is, then he talks about walking in light verses walking in darkness and how sin affects our relationship with God and with others. And what John is getting at and what I want us to understand this morning is that to have true fellowship with God and to have true fellowship with each other, we have to be walking in the light.

Fellowship

But, we first need to understand what the word fellowship means. Fellowship is more than association. All of us in here are associated with each other because we go to the same church. Maybe you’re more associated if you go to the same school all week. All of us know each other to some extent, but fellowship goes deeper than that. When John talks about Fellowship, he’s talking about participation. Specifically, participation with each other in the new life given to us through following Jesus. If we follow Jesus, we share with each other the new life that he gives us and we have in common the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us. The theme of this whole first chapter is fellowship and there are three things we need to understand about it.

Fellowship is Personal

First, it’s personal. At the end of verse three it says “And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” God is personal. We worship a personal God, who brings us into a personal relationship with him. We worship a God who saw the brokenness caused by human sinfulness, and instead of keeping his distance, came down to us. He revealed himself to us, to humanity, in a way that we would be able to understand him. God is transcendent, meaning he is outside of our full capacity to understand him completely, but he accommodates to us. He makes himself known to us in ways that are familiar to us. And he wants and offers us a personal relationship with him. And what this means is we can know him and be known by him. We don’t worship a distant, far-off God. We worship a God who is present and is with us at all times, and our fellowship with him is personal.

And when we have this fellowship with God, when we follow him, worship him, and surrender our lives to him, we are then able to have fellowship with each other. I’ve said this before, but community is one of the most important things that people can have. A place to belong and a place to be loved is so important to our health and joy and happiness. But, community is often a place of a lot of hurt for us. All of us at some point have probably been hurt by either our church community or the communities we’re in Monday - Friday. Sadly, churches screw up community all of the time. All of us, even if we follow Jesus, are sinful and have our messes that we’re dealing with, and that often spills over into our fellowship with each other. We say things we shouldn’t have said, or we act in ways towards each other that we shouldn’t have, and so we divide ourselves up. And this happens because we aren’t truly in fellowship with God. Looking again at verse three, our fellowship with each other is tied to our fellowship with God. It’s only through knowing Jesus that we can have true fellowship with each other. And what this looks like is that the things we learn in church, the things we learn about Jesus and how he teaches us to live, these things need to be lives out in practical ways. Ultimately, what this entire letter is talking about is that if we truly have a relationship with God, fellowship with God, then we’ll be in right relationship with God’s people (each other). We have to live out what we’re soaking in. Sadly most of us are like sponges that never get squeezed out. A sponge soaks up water. But, if the water is never squeezed out, the sponge starts to stink, then it gets moldy and nasty, and it becomes gross. But that’s exactly how a lot of us are with church. We come and we soak up so much information, and then we never actually use it. We never put into practice. So we have all of this head knowledge, we know so much about God, and we know what’s right and wrong, and we become bitter, or legalistic, or judgmental. And we miss the main thing that Jesus wants us to do: love one another. As we go through this letter, love will be brought up a lot, but if we aren’t loving each other, we don’t have true fellowship with God.

And so, fellowship is personal, but it’s also peaceful. In verse four it says “we write this so our joy may be complete.” The completion of Joy is peace. Our fellowship with God and with each other brings true peace. And this is dependent on us being certain that Jesus came in the flesh, gave his life for us and then rose from the dead. And because of this, when we’re in true fellowship with God, he’s actively changing us. We’re being transformed. We’re being made new. We’re actively avoiding sin, and when we sin, we confess it. We’re taking captive our thoughts, and we’re turning everything over to God, as he’s in the process of making us Holy. And when we do this, when we’ve surrendered and we’ve given our lives to God and we allow him to change us, we’re more patient, we’re less competitive, we’re more loving towards each other, we’re kind to each other, and we belong to God and to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and there’s true joy, true peace, because there’s true fellowship.

God is Light

So far we have fellowship with God and with each other as personal and peaceful, but it’s also pervasive. Starting in verse 5 John writes, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” God is light, and light removes darkness. There is no darkness within God. Looking at verse 6 “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” We can’t have fellowship with God while still walking in darkness. Now, I said earlier that those who follow Jesus still struggle with sin. This is part of our lives on this side of eternity. And so, if we sin, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re walking in darkness. But, if we habitually sin, if there’s a pattern, and if we’re ignoring this pattern of sinning, we’re walking in darkness and we’re not in true fellowship with God. If we’re walking in darkness, ie, if we’re making a habit of gossiping, making a habit of excluding others or making others feel unwelcome, if we’re making a habit of not loving one another, then we don’t have fellowship with God. Walking in darkness looks like selfishness, exclusivity, anger, bitterness, jealousy. Walking in darkness can be any number of things that lead us away from walking with God and having fellowship with him. And if we don’t have fellowship with God, we can’t have fellowship with each other.

But, looking at verse 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 sin.” Walking in the light means that we’re living differently. There should be a noticeable change in the lives of those of us who follow Jesus. When we follow Jesus, when we walk in the light, the darkness if removed from us. And this can be really painful, because we’ve been living in darkness for so long that it’s comfortable. It’s easy. It sucks, but it’s familiar. Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t leave us there and he rescues us from it. And by rescuing us, he makes it possible for us to walk in the light as he is in the light, and as we walk in the light with Jesus, then we have true fellowship. As we walk in the light, we’re able to love each other. As we walk in the light, our individual characters are changed, and we no longer live like the rest of the world, but as Children of God.

But, there’s a condition to all of this. Our sin still has to be dealt with. Jesus dealt with it on the cross, but we now have to confess it. And this is where it gets hard, because all of us know that we’re sinners. All of us know that there are bad things we do towards ourselves or towards others. We have sinful thoughts our sinful actions, and we know this, but we don’t want to admit it. I know I don’t. I don’t want to admit when I’m walking in darkness. Not at all. I don’t want to admit that the way I sometimes treat others is sinful and selfish. I don’t want to do it and I’d rather convince myself that I’m not sinning. But this is a lie, and I’m deceiving myself, and we’re deceiving ourselves if we don’t think we’re sinful. And so what we need to do, and what I want us to do now is take a look at our lives. Take a look at our own sinfulness and brokenness and confess it to God. Confess to him areas that you need him to shine his light on and reveal what’s hidden beneath the darkness. Confess to God how you’ve hurt your friends or family or people in the youth group if that’s the case. I want us to have a time of confession. Not public, but between you and God. Because, as it says in verse 9, 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. And later it says 1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. We have to confess our sins, and God is faithful to forgive us of our sins, and our relationship with him is restored and our fellowship with each other is also restored.

So, what I’m going to do is just play my guitar, and we’re going to pray. We’re going to confess our sins to God, and ask him for forgiveness. And if necessary, you can move around the room and ask for forgiveness from each other. Don’t worry about offering. We’ll deal with that later.

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