Stay on the Path

Live in Fellowship  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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If you’ve been paying attention the last several weeks, you might recall that I have been intending for us to start a study of the Book of Jonah since the beginning of the year.
But something keeps coming up, and this week’s no different.
I apologize to those of you who have been looking forward to that study, but I started something last week that really needs to be carried to its conclusion, and to do so we will have to set Jonah aside until after Easter.
If you’ve read the Book of Jonah, you will remember that it ends with Jonah sitting under the hot sun after God sent a withering wind to dry up the vine He had provided to shelter Jonah as Jonah sat outside of Nineveh and sulked.
So, at the end of that book, we have Jonah sulking about the fact that God had delayed judgment against the city of Nineveh and sulking about the fact that he could no longer sulk in the shade. He looks for all the world there like a 12-year-old who didn’t get his way.
Now, many of you are parents, and you may have learned that, sometimes, the only thing you can do with a sulking 12-year-old is to leave him to his own misery.
So we’re just going to leave Jonah to sulk for a few weeks. When we get back to him after Easter, perhaps he will have a better attitude.
But this week, as I thought about last week’s message about the importance of accountability and confession within the context of the community of the church, it struck me that there’s more to this matter of Christian fellowship that we should explore.
So, today we begin a series of messages from the book of 1 John. I have entitled this series, “Live in Fellowship,” and you’ll see as we progress through this book that living in true fellowship as believers requires living in true fellowship with God in Christ Jesus.
Just as there are varying degrees of intimacy among friends, each of us can have varying degrees of intimacy with God. And just as your most fulfilling friendships are those that are the most intimate, your most fulfilling relationship with God will come as you become more intimately connected to Him through Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And here’s where all of this connects to what we were talking about last week: The closer you draw to God, the closer you will draw to His people — the body of Christ, His church.
In fact, what we’ll see in this short book is that John argues one cannot be separated from the other.
So, as you are turning to 1 John, chapter 1, let me give you a little background.
Although the author of this letter isn’t named, church tradition going all the way back to the earliest church fathers attests that the Apostle John wrote these five chapters, and he probably did so in the early 90s A.D.
Whatever translation you are reading probably names this book as the “First Letter of John” or the “First Epistle of John,” but many commentators agree that it was more likely a sermon delivered by John, because it lacks both the greeting and the closing that were included in most Greek letters from that era.
Early church tradition held that John ministered in and around Ephesus, which would explain why the churches of that part of Asia Minor were the recipients of the seven letters to the churches that Jesus dictated to John in the Book of Revelation.
And, so it’s a good bet, though not a given, that the apostle wrote this message to Christians in and around Ephesus, especially when we recall that Christ’s letter to the church at Ephesus in Revelation, chapter 2, is a warning about that church having left its first love.
Having left its first love — having grown cold in its love for Jesus Christ — can it be any wonder that the recipients of this message had to be reminded so often to love one another?
We will see in a moment that John wrote this message to Christians “so we might enter into the fullness of the eternal life that we possess. However the subject of this letter is not eternal life but fellowship with God. Fellowship with God is the essence of eternal life.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003)]
Fellowship with God has three aspects that John addresses in three different cycles of this book. Those aspects are righteousness, love, and belief.
Today, we’re going to look at righteousness as John discusses it in his first cycle.
Let’s start with a quick look at John’s introduction. Some of it will sound very familiar to those of you who were part of our Zoom Bible study this week, where we asked and answered a few important questions about the first few verses of John’s Gospel.
Let’s read verses 1-4 of this message.
1 John 1:1–4 NASB95
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— 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— 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. These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.
Jesus chose John as one of His apostles because John had been there with Jesus during His ministry on earth. John had heard Jesus with his own ears, had seen Him with His own eyes, had looked at and touched Him. And so, John was one of the 11 disciples who had firsthand knowledge of Jesus’ teaching and His miracles, of His death and resurrection.
He could give eyewitness testimony that Jesus was who He saidHe was — the very Son of God, sent to earth to live a sinless life as a man and to offer Himself as a sacrifice to save those who would put their faith in Him as the only one who could provide reconciliation between we who were lost in our sins and the holy God who created us to be in fellowship with Him.
And as an eyewitness to those events and a disciple of Christ, John was chosen as one of the apostles — the sent ones — who would go out and proclaim the gospel to the world.
He was sent to tell the world that salvation — reconciliation between sin-broken mankind and a perfectly righteous God — is only available through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.
We who put our faith in Jesus as our only means of salvation receive eternal life, whose essence is fellowship with God, and through our shared fellowship with God, we then have fellowship with one another in Christ.
But we must never forget the perfectly holy character of this God with whom we are now in fellowship. John describes Him in the next verse as Light.
1 John 1:5 NASB95
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
When I was a kid and we used to go camping as a family, it seemed like we always had some old, crummy flashlight that we took along with us. Do you remember them? They had little bulbs and reflectors, and those little bulbs always seemed to have an imperfection that would cast a spot of shadow in the area where you shined the flashlight.
There would be a big, round area of light with a dim spot or two somewhere, usually right in the area where you were sure the bear was hiding in the woods.
God is not like that. There is no spot of darkness in Him. His light is pure and bright. There is no blemish in Him, because there is no spot of sin in Him. He is perfectly righteous, and “in Him there is no darkness at all.”
So what should that say about we who are in fellowship with God by virtue of having come to Jesus in faith?
Verse 6
1 John 1:6–7 NASB95
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
What it says is that we who say we have fellowship with God — we Christians — should walk in the light, as He is in the Light.
We Christians who are being transformed into the image of the sinless Christ should be known as people who are ever working to LOOK like Jesus, to be people whose walk — whose everyday way of life — reflects goodness and righteousness, rather than sin, because we have been cleansed of sin by the blood of Jesus, shed on that cross at Calvary.
So does that mean Christians never sin? Of course not! Look at verse 8.
1 John 1:8–9 NASB95
If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
When you became a Christian by putting your faith in Jesus, your sins were forgiven.
You were given a new Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, but you still retain the old flesh, and that flesh is still drawn to sin, and each one of us still falls prey from time to time to the sin that crouches at our door.
But John tells us there is hope, because “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The Christian who goes through life thinking that everything’s OK because he put his faith in Jesus and therefore never worries about sin is deceiving himself. He is demonstrating that he doesn’t really believe that sin is that big deal a deal to God.
And, as we saw last week, this kind of Christian is well on his way down a path that leads to hardening his heart against God and against the conviction of the Holy Spirit. He is falling away from God, rather than drawing closer to Him in fellowship.
The only thing more dangerous than that would be to claim that we’ve never sinned at all. That’s what John writes about in verse 10.
1 John 1:10 NASB95
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
Until you acknowledge the bad news, you cannot benefit from the good news. Until you confess that you are a sinner — that you have fallen short of the perfect righteousness of God — you cannot be saved. His word is not in you.
But, praise God, once you acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you can do nothing to save yourself from the just penalty for your sins — once you have done that and put your faith in Christ as the one who took your penalty and paid your debt — then you experience the full measure of God’s grace through salvation in Jesus.
That is the glorious message of the gospel — the message that the innocent died for the guilty, the message that you and I can have eternal life, fellowship with God Himself, by His grace through faith in Jesus.
But this book was written primarily for those who had already done so. This book was written for Christians who are still subject to temptation — to we who still suffer from spiritual blind spots and therefore sometimes do not even recognize that we have fallen into sin’s traps.
This book was written to people who need fellowship with one another not just so they can talk about the weather and the Super Bowl, but so they can encourage one another, so we can call one another to our sides to give each other courage to stand against temptation.
So John continues this thought in verse 1 of chapter 2.
1 John 2:1–2 NASB95
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
If you are walking in the Light, then you shouldn’t be looking for shadowy spots off the path.
John is saying something very basic here. Don’t what? Don’t SIN! Don’t be enticed to step off the well-lit path, because there are bears out there!
Psalm 119:105 NASB95
Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
But the bears in the shadows sound like they’re having a party, and they’re nice bears, and we can have some fun over there, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got them trained anyway.... And so, we step off the well-lit path and into the darkness of sin.
Do you want to know how amazing God’s grace is? He has seated His righteous Son, Jesus Christ, at his side so that Jesus can advocate on our behalf when we who know better and are called to walk in the light choose to step out of the light and into darkness.
And so, when we who know better and whom God has every right to expect to live lives of righteousness choose to do what we know we should not do, Jesus looks at His Father and says, “I died for that sin. Your just wrath for that sin was satisfied at the cross.”
Now, some might take this as a sort of “Get out of jail free” card, as a license to sin whenever and however they want.
But John has something to say about that. Look at verse 3.
1 John 2:3–4 NASB95
By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
A person who has come to know Jesus Christ will be one who keeps His commandments — to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
"If you love Me,” Jesus said, “you will keep my commandments.”
You can’t confidently claim to love Jesus if you don’t keep His commandments — if your life isn’t marked by a growing pattern of righteousness but rather a continuing pattern of sin for which you feel no conviction by the Holy Spirit.
If your life isn’t marked by a growing pattern of righteousness — an increasing desire to do what is good and run from what God says is evil — then you need to take a hard look at the faith you claim.
Is it faith like what we saw in the Book of Hebrews last week — faith that has been deceived by sin that has caused you to believe something about God that isn’t true and draws you away from your fellowship with God?
Or is it faith that was never faith at all? Is it the faith of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, faith in yourself to decide what is good and evil?
True faith in Jesus manifests itself in love for Jesus, and true love for Jesus manifests itself in keeping His commandments.
Look at verse 5.
1 John 2:5–6 NASB95
but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
How can you know that we are in Christ? How can you know that you have been saved?
Where are you walking? Are you walking on the well-lit path, or are you walking in the darkness?
Jesus, the Light of the world, walked in perfect light. You and I might step off the path from time to time, but if we are following Jesus, we must always be noticing that the light around us has dimmed, and we must confess our sins and step back into His light.
There will come a day, when we are in heaven, praise God, when there will be no more dark patches for us to wander into. In our glorified bodies, we will no longer have even the temptation to sin, much less the temptation to try to justify it.
But God, in HIs infinite wisdom, has allowed us, while we are still here, to continue to fight this battle against temptation and sin so we can see that it is by His grace not only that we WERE saved, but by His grace that we are BEING saved and by His grace that we WILL be saved.
God’s grace is the beginning, middle and end of our salvation. His grace is over, around, in, and through it all.
Perhaps He allows this struggle to continue within us so we will recognize that we, even as Christians, are utterly lost without His grace.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know the particular sins that crouch at your door. I don’t know the things you struggle against. I do not know what tempts you to step out of the light and into the darkness.
But I do know this: There is something there, just off the well-lit path, whispering lies to you, telling you it’s not a big deal, telling you that you’ve got it under control, telling you it’s not so dark off the path.
Don’t listen to the lies. Stay on the path. Stay in the light. Abide in Christ. Walk as He walked.
Each step you take off that well-lit path is one step further from an intimate relationship with God. And each step you take away from that true fellowship makes it harder to get back.
Each time you convince yourself that your sin isn’t a big deal or tell yourself that at least you’re not sinning like that other guy, you take yourself one more step away from the intimate fellowship with God for which you were created in Christ.
Confess your sins. Step back into the light. Be forgiven and cleansed.
God’s grace awaits.
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