Fellowship Part 6 - Learning to be Like Jesus

 

Fellowship Part 6 – Learning to be Like Jesus

 

These short studies from the epistle of 1 John are intended to teach us about the importance and benefits of being a part of the fellowship of believers – that is, being an active member of the body of Christ through participation in an active, biblically based congregation of believers.  Of course it goes without saying that if the individual believer is not an active part of the fellowship of believers, there is no way he/she can take advantage of the benefits being enumerated in this study series.  What must not go without saying, however, is that even participation in a local congregation of “believers” may fall short of realizing the benefits if the congregation as a whole is has not achieved a level of maturity in which biblical koinonia actually exists.  Thus, this series is addressed as much to the church as a whole as it may be to individual believers.  Churches – that is, the collective congregation, not just individuals – must strive to reach koinonia so that as new believers are added to the fellowship, they are able to realize the biblical benefits of that fellowship.

As we progress through these studies, the key verse of the entire series has been 1 John 1:7

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 cleanses us from all sin. (ESV)

Over the last couple of articles, we explored the idea of the believer “sinning less”.  The idea we want to explore today is somewhat related to it as we explore the idea that:

 

A person fully living in the fellowship of believers is learning to be like Jesus.

 

We continue to be in the first five verses of 1 John 2, which read:

 

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. 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. (ESV)

 

Part of what we do together as a congregation – a fellowship – of believers is to help one another learn how to be like Christ.  Now we know that we are all imperfectly accomplishing this task, but the beautiful promise to which we all hold is that, as believers, we have been predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.  As Paul says in Romans 8:29

 

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (ESV)

But knowing that we will never achieve that end does not mean we forego the pursuit of it in this life.  As we mentioned in Part 5 of this series, Paul himself encouraged us to pursue that goal with all our being:

 

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14 (ESV)

 

Thus, we continue the pursuit of Christ-likeness even though we may not ever reach the goal in this life.  This is part of the responsibilities – and benefits – of being in the fellowship.  We encourage and help one another to learn to be like Jesus.  In these first five verses in 1 John 2 (see above), John has given us two aspects of learning to be like Christ that we need to acknowledge and adopt – and these aspects apply not only to the individual, but to the congregation as a whole.  The first aspect is found in the first part of 1 John 2:5, which says “but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected…”  Thus, the first idea here is that

 

Those in the fellowship of believers are learning to be obedient.

 

This is a critical aspect of learning to be like Jesus.  After all, Jesus is our ultimate example of what it means to be obedient.  As Paul tells us in Philippians 2:8,

 

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (ESV)

 

Jesus made it clear that those who wish to be called his called his disciples must be obedient to his words.  In John 8:31-32, Jesus says:

 

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (ESV)

 

Likewise, in John 14:15, he says as simply as possible:

 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (ESV)

 

A believer who is truly a part of the fellowship will strive with all his/her heart to be obedient to the commands of Jesus.   As John continues this epistle, he will make this even more clear and - as he has alluded to in 1 John 2:5 - will further draw the parallel between our obedience and our love for one another.  It is that love for one another than binds us together in koinonia.  Without it, we may be a group with similar interests and ideals – but we are not a fellowship.  As this series of studies progresses, this will become self-evident.

However, this also translates to the church as a whole.  A church that is functioning in koinonia will be obedient to the mission of the church – the Great Commission.  When a collection of obedient believers begin working together as a single unit, the result will be a church that reaches its community for Christ.  That means a very good indication of a church that is not experiencing koinonia is a church that is/has failed to reach its community for Christ.  Sadly, too many of our churches fall into this category.

The second aspect of learning to be like Jesus that we get from 1 John 2:1-5 is not terribly different from the first, but I do want to make a differentiation.  In 1 John 2:6, John says "whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked."

 

So the second aspect of learning to be like Jesus is that:

 

Those in the fellowship of believers are learning to do the same things Jesus did.

 

So how is this different from simple obedience?  Honestly not much in principle, but perhaps a great deal in practice.  What we need to remember is that being obedient means far more than simply not breaking the commandments.  Being morally upright is part of being obedient, but it is not the whole of being obedient.  Worshipping God is part of being obedient, but it is not the whole of being obedient.  Many believers are under living under the false premise that if they worship God and live morally they are obediently living out their faith.  This is not true.  James 4:7 says:

 

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (ESV)

 

One of my favorite verses in scripture is found in Micah 6:8, which says:

 

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God? (ESV)

 

Throughout scripture, we are taught that righteousness is more than about not doing the wrong thing, but rather about always doing the right thing.  Micah teaches us that the “right thing” is as much about being just, kind, and merciful and about living in humility as it is about not breaking a set of moral guidelines.

When it comes to morality, our world today has abandoned the truth of scripture.  The moral laws of God stand as absolute truth and we do well to defend them and live by them.  And we know that Jesus is the truth.   In his own words, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”… (John 14:6).  However, living in truth is only one half of the equation.  John also tells us from that same gospel that there were two sides of Jesus – grace and truth.

 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.  John 1:14 (ESV)

 

Living in grace is about being kind and merciful – it’s about loving your neighbor as yourself, like the Good Samaritan.  It’s about selfless service to those who need help.  It’s about not showing favoritism or prejudice.  It’s about brining people to the feet of Jesus in their sin rather than ostracizing and condemning them for their sin.  There is a difference between openly accepting sinful behavior as being normal and without consequence and recognizing that we come to Jesus first in our sin before he removes that sin from our life.  To openly accept sinful behavior in the church as normal is a denial of Jesus’ truth, but to prevent those who are sinful from coming to Jesus is a denial of Jesus’ grace.  We may not be able to welcome them as part of the fellowship (i.e., membership in a church) until they repent, but we must not prevent them from coming to our churches so that they may be introduced to Jesus. It is a fine line that Jesus teaches us how to walk.

Jesus ate with sinners.

Jesus touched the unclean.

Jesus healed the sick.

Jesus helped the downtrodden.

BUT: He did all this with the goal of bringing them to a knowledge of the truth - not condemning them but not condoning their behavior either.

As both individuals and congregations who both claim the name of Jesus, part of what we must do to achieve koinonia is to learn how to be more like Jesus – which includes all aspects of obedience – truth and grace.  Let us examine not only our own hearts in this matter, but the personalities of our churches.

 

Next time: The light of fellowship.

 

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 24-25 (ESV)

Fellowship Part 5 - Learning to Sin Less

 

Fellowship Part 5 – Learning to Sin Less

 

 

As we are continuing in this series of short studies through the epistle of 1 John, we get to a series of articles that will deal with the characteristics of someone who has truly taken advantage of being in the fellowship.  As a reminder, the key verse of this series of studies is 1 John 1:7

 

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 cleanses us from all sin. (ESV)

 

In the previous article, we talked about how the removal of sin from our lives is one of the results of being a part of the fellowship.  That is because

 

A person fully living in the fellowship of believers is learning to be sinless.

 

That is the characteristic we will explore today.  That is not to say that such a person will actually be sinless.  We saw in chapter 1 that if we believe we have no sin, then we are liars.  But consider what John says in 1 John 2:1

 

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin…

 

You see that, right?  John wrote this letter, in part, so that we would overcome sin in our lives – that we would sin less – even if we cannot actually be sinless.  Fortunately, since we can’t truly be sinless, John also reminds us in that same verse that

 

…But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

 

Thank you, Jesus for being our advocate.  But if John is writing to us so that we do not sin, then apparently there an expectation towards that outcome.  So how do we reconcile John’s intent in writing the letter with the reality that we know we all sin? We reconcile it by recognizing our goal versus our reality and coupling those together to see our responsibility.  Starting first with the goal.

 

Our goal is to become sinless.

 

There is a movement among many Christians to downplay the idea of living holy and striving to live without sin. In this twitter-oriented, short attention span world, we latch on to certain catch phrases that become excuses for how we live our lives.

I’m just a sinner saved by grace.

I’m not perfect, just forgiven.

God’s not done with me yet.

All of these statements are true, but none of these statements should be excuses for attempting to live holy.  Repeatedly in the book of Leviticus, as God was laying out the requirements of the law, God said “Be Holy for I am Holy.”  The apostle Peter quoted these verses in his epistle.  In 1 Peter 1:15-17 he says

 

but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (ESV)

 

 

We read those social media quips and we use them as an excuse to stop trying to be holy and sinless. No – our goal has ALWAYS been to be holy as God is holy.  That means our goal is to be without sin. 

Knowing we can never achieve that goal is no excuse for pursuing it. Thus, we pursue absolute sinlessness, but we recognize our reality.

 

Our reality is that we still sin.

 

And that sin – all of it – everything we have done and still do – incurs the holy, righteous wrath of God the Father. That is why John says here we have an advocate with the father. 

 And that sin – all of it – everything we have done and still do – incurs the holy, righteous wrath of God the Father.

 That is why John says here we have an advocate with the father. Consider what John says in 1 John 2:2

 

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (ESV)

 

Jesus is the propitiation of our sin.  Propitiation – that is a big word but one of the most important ones in Christian language.  Propitiation means that Jesus satisfied the righteous wrath of God on our behalf so that we don’t have to face it.  How exactly did he do that?  God poured out his wrath on the cross.  Jesus took on our sin debt and paid the penalty associated with our sin.  He literally faced the wrath of God and endured hell on our behalf so that we do not have to face that wrath ourselves.

 The result is that we are in a very interesting situation.  We still experience the presence (and the potential earthly consequences) of sin in our lives, but we have been relieved from facing the eternal consequences of those sins. 

So when we examine our goal to be sinless – to be holy because God is holy - and compare it to the reality that we still sin, then we can conclude that we have a responsibility.

 

Our responsibility is to sin less.

 

Indeed, this is the objective of sanctification in our lives – to become more and more like Christ by sinning less and less in our own lives.  A characteristic of someone who is part of the fellowship of Christ is someone who is striving to sin less.  Consider how Paul says it in Romans 8

 

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:12-12 (NASB)

 

Our responsibility – our obligation if you will – is to strive to remove sin from our flesh. It is a lifelong pursuit that we will never achieve in this life, but for which we never stop striving.  Again, Paul’s words are important here:

 

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14 (ESV)

 

The goal for Paul was the perfection that ultimately will come when we are glorified at the resurrection.  He recognized that he had not already obtained it nor would he obtain it on this side of glory, but that does not change the fact that he was pressing forward toward that goal.  He even tells us to forget the past and strive for the future.  In other words – don’t worry about yesterday. You should be doing better today than you did yesterday, and you should do better tomorrow than you are today.  This is our responsibility.

Even though Paul says “forgetting what lies behind”, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to occasionally look behind just to make sure we really are making progress.  Can you look back at your life 20, 10, 5, even 1 year ago and say that where you are today is further along on the journey of sanctification than you were before?  If not, then perhaps we need to ask the question why not?

This is not a responsibility you are to try to bear on your own.  One of the major purposes of the church is to walk with one another, helping one another with this process.

So in conclusion, one of the key characteristics of someone who is in the fellowship is someone who is relentlessly pursuing a sinless life by sinning less.

In the next article, we will look at the characteristic that a person who is living in the fellowship is someone who is living in obedience.

 

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 1 Timothy 6:15-16 (ESV)

Fellowship Part 4 - The Result of Fellowship

 

Fellowship Part 4 – The Result of our Fellowship

This is part four in a series of short studies on our fellowship in Christ, our koinonia.  It is based on a study through the epistle of 1 John and the key verse for the entire series is 1 John 1 7, which says:

 

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 cleanses us from all sin. (ESV)

 

The idea is that as believers in Jesus Christ, we have a close bond – a bond that for all purposes should be even closer than familial or romantic bonds.  It may not all ways work out that way in practice, but it is part of the gift we have from the Father as being adopted as his children by faith.  Thus, we ought to aspire to realize it within our churches and in our relationships with other believers.  As we have worked through the first three parts of the study, we’ve learned how the shared unity that we have because of the gospel is the basis for this bond.  We’ve also learned that one of reasons we don’t realize this level of fellowship is because we are not always meeting the prerequisite of that fellowship, which is to walk in the light.  I would refer you to the first three short studies in this series as a refresher on those point.

In this short study, we look at the result of the fellowship that we have, which is clearly outlined in the last part of 1 John 1:7.  Specifically

 

The result of our fellowship is the cleansing from sin.

 

Now right away, you have probably taken a step back.  After all, is it not true that our sins are forgiven because of what Jesus did on the cross?  Doesn’t the classic hymn not ask and answer that question:

 

What can wash away my sins; nothing but the blood of Jesus.

 

Of course, the answer is yes.  When you put your faith in Jesus, all your sins were forgiven.  In fact, it is not just your past sins, but your present and future sins as well. This is where the last three verses of chapter 1, taken in context with verse 7, inform us of a greater truth as it relates to “cleaning us from all sin”.  As a matter of fact, it is a slight mis-interpretation of the intended understanding of a very famous and well know verse that get us moving in the right direction.

Many of us have probably memorized 1 John 1: 9, which says “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Many of us understand this verse to require confession as a prerequisite for forgiveness of sins.  However, that is not biblically correct.  First of all, it says we are BOTH forgiven AND cleansed from our sins, and that is an important distinction.  Second of all, the first word of the verse, which is often translated “if” can (and probably should) be translated as “whenever we confess” or perhaps even “if we have confessed.”  The conveyance is the idea that we confessed our sins when we placed our faith in Jesus.  Certainly, we live our lives in confession because we continue to sin (more on that in a moment), but the idea is that we have once and for all been forgiven and are continually being cleansed.  Why is that important and how does it relate to fellowship?  It is important because the idea of cleaning carries with more than just forgiveness, but rather a removal.  When we wash something we don’t cover the stain, we remove it entirely.  To say we are being cleansed from sin is to say that sin is being slowly but surely removed from our lives.

In truth, we must admit to still having sin in our lives.  In fact, both verse 8 and verse 10 tell us we are liars if we say we have no sin.  Nevertheless, I believe John is trying to tell us an important role that our fellowship has in the process of removing (a.k.a., cleansing) sin from our lives – just as verse 7 indicates.

To understand that, we have to make an important presumption.  That presumption is that fellowship is a presumption of salvation.  The counter to that presumption is that being a part of a fellowship – and let’s be honest and call this what we mean – that being an active part of a local church – is not necessary to call yourself a Christian.  This is the biggest lie that the world is buying into right now and it is bleeding into church culture.  We are somehow being convinced that participation in church life is optional. 

When the Covid pandemic hit, the greatest tool available to churches was the livestream.  Livestreamed church services are almost ubiquitous now. However, even before the pandemic, there were many churches on TV, radio, podcast, and yes, even livestreaming.  In fact, the church I was pastoring at the time began livestreaming almost a year before the pandemic hit.  We did it because a number of our members were homebound. 

As we have come out of the pandemic however, it seems many church-goers view the livestream as a pajama alternative to actually getting up, going to, and participating in the worship service.  Many more so-called believers have altogether abandoned the notion that church attendance is important at all.  A recent Gallop poll says that for the first time since they started polling in 1937, less than half of all Americans say they belong to a church.[1]

This is not God’s design for us as believers. Biblically speaking, you are presumed to be a part of a fellowship if you have received Christ And there is a reason for that – and John is telling us that reason here.

 

Fellowship facilitates sanctification.

 

All our sins may have been forgiven when we put our faith in Jesus, but we are on a journey of sanctification that involves not the forgiveness of sins, but the cleansing of sin from our life – the removal of sin from our life – the progressive process of becoming more like Jesus Christ. And to be blunt… you can’t do that outside the context of the fellowship of the church.  If you say that you can, you are only fooling yourself and you are the one who will suffer spiritually because of it.

Part of what we are supposed to be doing as a function of this whole koinonia thing is to encourage one another to live and be better followers of Jesus. That is why the author of Hebrews wrote these words:

 

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25 (ESV)

 

To be absolutely blunt – the reason many of you are not progressing in your sanctification is because you have not been consistently participating in church life – in the fellowship of the saints.  And some of you are not just failing to progress – you are regressing.  And let us be honest. Even among those of us who do attend regularly, we are not holding those we love accountable to this important practice. We are making excuses for those we love because they have chosen not to be a part of the fellowship of believers – and we are either blind to or are choosing to ignore the fact that they are drifting further and further away from Jesus.  I’ve seen this with my own eyes in the lives of church members and family of church members.

You may say – well what about missionaries who go out into remote places to start new churches and don’t have a fellowship? First of all – a person who makes the decision to do that is a person who is already in such close fellowship with Jesus that they can stand a little time alone without a church body.  If you are simply choosing NOT to participate in the fellowship I can assure you that you are not in the same spiritual frame of mind or circumstances as that missionary. 

Second, a missionary is not a person who has decided the church is not necessary.  A missionary is a person who has decided the church is SO necessary that they are willing to go to new places to start new churches. That missionary would give anything to have the kind of fellowship to which you have access but have chosen to sacrifice that blessing for the sake of the gospel in the hopes of starting new fellowships where they previously did not exist.  Can you honestly say that it is for the sake of the gospel that you did not attend church last week? 

Third, those missionaries have hundreds if not thousands of people praying for them every day – so even though they don’t have direct fellowship – they have the benefit of indirect fellowship through the prayers of support they are getting from the Christians who sent them. What’s more, they still have support mechanisms in place through their missionary agencies.  They are NOT out there going it alone.

You simply cannot say the same thing about those who simply decide they don’t NEED church. In fact, someone who says they don’t need church is actually REBELLING against what Jesus has specifically instituted. We have to stop making excuses why we refuse to participate in the fellowship. And if they are not participating in the fellowship because they think the fellowship is broken, then I would say that is even MORE reason to participate – to help fix it.

Our fellowship is intended to help us walk the Christian walk in such a way that together we are more sanctified and more like Christ, cleaning sin from our lives little by little as we share our close personal bond.

I pray that you will begin to see the importance of this fellowship and commit yourself more fully to a local fellowship of believers.  That is the first step in beginning to experience the koinonia that Jesus intends for his church.

In the next few articles in this series, we will begin to take a closer look at what this kind of fellowship looks like.  I encourage you to get a head start on it by reading the second chapter of 1 John and perhaps focusing on the first 5 verses for the next short study.

 

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

 

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[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/358364/religious-americans.aspx

Fellowship: Part 3 - The Prerequisite of Fellowship

 

Part 3 - The Prerequisite of Fellowship

This is a series of articles on our fellowship together as believers in Jesus Christ.  It is taken from lessons learned from the epistle of 1 John.  While that letter was written as a defense against false teaching, an significant part of that defense throughout the letter is the  importance of knowing, understanding, and living out the ideals of Christian fellowship – that is, being IN Christ with the rest of the body of believers.  

These first few articles in this series come from 1 John 1:1-10.  If you have not already done so, I would encourage you to pause and go read them now.

 

Waiting….

 

Welcome back.  In Part1 of this series, we defined the greek word for fellowsip, koinonia, as the act of sharing and participating in life through a close personal bond and we pointed out that, as Christians, our bond of fellowship is Jesus himself.

In Part 2 this series, we discussed that the basis for our fellowship is the gospel.  More specifically, it is the unity because of our common fellowship with the heavenly Father that is made possible because of the gospel.

In this article, we want to look at the prerequisite of our fellowship.  How can we begin to experience and live that fellowship?  The answers are found in verses 5-7 of chapter 1, which read:

 

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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 cleanses us from all sin. (ESV)

 

You may recall from Part 1, that I have adopted 1 John 1:7 as the key verse in this whole series.  Take a moment and read it again… carefully.  That verse gives us the answer to the question.

 

The prerequisite to koinonia is walking in the light.

 

Of course this immediately begs the question, what does it mean to walk in the light?  It reminds me of when Jesus was talking to his disciples right before going to Bethany to resuscitate Lazarus.  In John 11:9-10, in response to his disciples concerns about possibly being stoned to death if they go to Bethany, Jesus said:

 

“Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” (ESV)

 

Think for a moment about what light represents.  Light represents the ability to see and the ability to know where you are going and what you are doing.  But it is so much more than that.  In fact, one cannot ignore what John says in verse 5 here – that God himself is light.

 

To walk in light is to walk in the ways of God.

 

That seems like a bit of an overstatement of the obvious, but it the foundational truth of being a part of the fellowship of Christ.  We cannot consider ourselves to be in true fellowship with God and, therefore, in true fellowship with other believers if we are not ourselves walking in the ways of God.  If we have not committed ourselves to walk in his ways, then we cannot genuinely call ourselves believers. 

Unfortunately, if you are like me, you need something a little less abstract than just “walk in the ways of God”.  So let me give you something a bit more concrete.  Let me give you three aspect of walking in the ways of God that you can begin working on today.  The first is truth.

#1. To walk in light is to walk in truth.  Light is used as a metaphor to represent all that is good, right and true. Unfortunately, we have reached a point where society has perverted the idea of truth.  But Jesus taught us how to determine the truth.  In his high priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus prayed these words

 

Sancify them in the truth; your word is truth.

 

But we know from John 1:1 that Jesus himself is the incarnation of the very word of God.  And in John 14, Jesus says

 

I am the way, the truth, and the life…

 

Walking in truth means following the path set before us by Jesus.

#2. To walk in the light is to walk in transparency.  Light is used to reveal that which was previously hidden.  This is true for our lives as well.  We cannot be walking in the light when we keep part of our lives in the darkness – hidden from each other. Trust me when I tell you there is great freedom in not bearing all those burdens alone. Some of you guys are going to die and stand before Jesus and one of the questions you are going to ask is “Why was my life so hard and difficult”.  And his response is simply going to be “because you didn’t live it in fellowship with other believers”.  It’s pretty simple when Galatians 6:2 says

 

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

 

We are not meant to bear all these burdens alone. There are lots of reasons we don’t feel comfortable living in this kind of transparency. One of them is because of our own pride – our unwillingness to accept we cannot do things on our own. That we cannot overcome our own weaknesses or that we somehow need help.  That is pride and God opposes the pride – but he exalts the humble.  Another reason we are unwilling is because of fear.  We simply don’t trust each other with our secrets – and probably for good reason.  Nevertheless, true Christian fellowship should be a place of absolute safety – where we can share even our darkest secrets without fear of judgment or condemnation.

#3. To walk in light is to walk in love. Not to get too far ahead in this walk through 1 John, but take a peek 1 John 2:10-11

 

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him[b] there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (ESV)

 

Walking in light is a prerequisite to fellowship, but our love towards one another is an indication of the extent to which we are walking in light. If we don’t truly love one another, we cannot truly be in fellowship with one another. This is the nexus between love as one of the key themes of this letter and our koinonia with each other.

 

Without love, there is no fellowship.

 

Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the concept of love has been distorted and perverted.  We are not talking about a selfish, emotional, “this is how I feel”, “the heart wants what the heart wants” kind of love that we are talking about here.  John is referring to godly love.  Godly love is unconditional, selfless, and always seeking the good of the other person.  It is a love that transcends romantic love.  It is a love that transcends familial love.  And it is a love that transcends the love we have for our closest friends.  It is a love God has for us and for which he expects us to show to others.  I encourage you to take some time to go read 1 Corinthians 13.  There you will find the kind of love we are talking about here.

 

After chapter 1, we actually will not see the word fellowship appear again – because the rest of the letter is all about what it means to be in the fellowship and how to be certain you are a part of the fellowship. So before we go any further, let me ask you a few important questions about your fellowship with believers based on these ideas of walking in the light.

How is your walk with God?  Are you walking in truth – that is, are you walking in the ways of the incarnation of truth itself, Jesus?  Do you live by his example?  Are you walking in transparency?  Or are you keeping secrets.  Are there parts of your life that you are keeping hidden?  Are there areas in which you know you need help but are unwilling to seek that help from fellow believers?  Are you walking in love? Do you love one another with the same kind of love that God has for you?

I dare to say we all have some work to do here, which means we can all experience an even greater level of fellowship that we currently experience.  It is something to look forward to and something to work on with the help of the Holy Spirit guiding us.

 

But we are not quite done with chapter 1 yet.  There is still a little more to glean here.

 

Next: The Result of Fellowship

 

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.   Ephesians 3:20-21 (ESV)

 

Fellowship: Part 2 - The Basis of Our Fellowship

 

Part 2

The Basis of Our Fellowship

 

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 cleanses us from all sin.  1 John 1:7 (ESV)

 

This article is part of a series of articles dealing with our koinonia, our fellowship in Christ, as believers in Jesus Christ.  It comes from lessons learned from the epistle of 1 John.  This particular article is about the basis of our fellowship and comes from 1 John 1:1-10.  If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to stop here and go read those verses.

Dramatic pause…

Ah, good, you are back.

As a reminder from the Part 1 of this series, koinonia is the act of sharing and participating in life through a close personal bond.  In that article, I explained how the close personal bond that ties us together is Jesus Christ.  However, what exactly does that mean?  In what way does Jesus bind us?  In other words, what is the basis of our fellowship?

The answer to that question is found in the first 4 verses of 1 John 1, which read:

 

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—2  the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.  (ESV)

 

Do you see it there in verse 3?  John says that everything he has seen and heard is being proclaimed to “you” for the very purpose of including “you” into the fellowship – a fellowship not only with John but with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ as well.  What exactly did John proclaim?  The answer of course is the gospel.

 

The basis of our fellowship is the gospel!

 

Also notice as John describes the gospel that he doesn’t describe it as something that he has witnessed.  Rather, he describes it from the perspective of all the witnesses.  Look how many time he says “we”

• That which we have heard
• That which we have seen with our eyes
• That which we look upon and touched with our hands

In these 4 verses, the words we or us or our occur about 13 times (depending upon the translation used).  His whole emphasis is on the collective of the church as a whole.  Jesus established – indeed he continues to establish – the church not from the witness of one person but from the collective witness of the whole; and the emphasis on the whole has not diminished in over 2000 years. 

Since the bond of our fellowship is the church, and since the basis of that fellowship is the gospel, and since the gospel is all about Jesus, look at how John refers to Jesus in these verses.

First, he refers to Jesus as “The Word of Life”.  He tells us that Jesus was the word of God made manifest and that the word of God has come in the flesh.  The idea here is not that we just read about God through our bibles, but that we understand the incarnation of God’s word through the life of Jesus Christ and that we experience God himself through our faith-based fellowship with Jesus Christ.  That is what is meant by the word manifest – to be revealed in such a way as to be fully understood.

He also refers to Jesus as “The Eternal Life.”  Notice he doesn’t say that we proclaim how to have eternal life; he say we proclaim the eternal life, meaning Jesus himself.  Jesus is the embodiment of eternal life. Certainly we are granted eternal life when we put our faith in Jesus, but Jesus IS eternal life.  There is no life without him and there will be no eternal life that does not have him as its focus.  Indeed, eternity without Jesus is eternal damnation.

However, what I really want you to notice is what it says in the second half of verse 3, which I have already mentioned briefly.  He says “our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”  The basis of our fellowship with one another is the one thing we all have in common with one another, the fellowship each of us, as believers in Jesus Christ, have with the heavenly Father himself.  Said differently…

 

The basis of our fellowship is our UNITY in the gospel.

 

The gospel brings each of us into fellowship with the Father and, as a result, that common fellowship with the father becomes a common bond that creates unity between us – all made possible because of the gospel.

Does that mean we cannot have fellowship without the gospel?  Well, yes… and no.  Outside the gospel, the only fellowship we can have with one another are earthly things we may have in common – hobbies, interests, groups to which we belong, etc. Unfortunately, these can change over time.  At different times throughout my lifetime, I have been a musician, a golfer, a geocacher, a frisbee golfer, a camper.  I have held numerous job positions at several different companies. I have been a student and I have been a teacher.  Each of these “idenitities” that I have worn have been accompanied by its own unique bond of fellowship.  In some cases even true friendships have been formed.  But these things are all temporal.  They come and they go and with them the associated fellowship is often broken.

Believe it or not, even church membership can be a fellowship with have with each other, but unless that fellowship is based on the gospel, not simply on church membership, it is nothing more than a temporal bond that ebbs and flows with time and circumstances.  

True koinonia - the fellowship we have in Christ - is different because it is based on a unity that goes beyond interest, beyond race, beyond even time itself.  It is a unity based on an eternity founded in the gospel itself.  That makes our relationships to fellow believers - fellowship in Christ - supreme over all other relationships.  Everything else is just a cheap imitation of the fellowship we have in Jesus.

How sad it is that the supremacy of our koinonia is so often unrealized. 

My concern… my fear… yeah, even my suspicion… is that most of us have never experienced true koinonia.  How do I know this is true?  Because it has always been true.  Conflict existed in the church in the first century and it has continued to exist in the church down through the ages. 

2 Corinthians 5:11-21 (for your outside reading) tells us of the ministry of reconciliation that we have been given in Jesus Christ.  First God reconciled us to himself, then he gave us the ministry of reconciliation so that we may have unity in Christ and may share with others how they, too, can be reconciled to God and be a part of the fellowship.  If we are not founded in the knowledge of that which unifies us and are not committed to the idea that our unity in fellowship is more important than almost anything else,[1] we will continue to wallow in conflict and find more and more ways to show the world why they shouldn’t be a part of our fellowship.  

Here's the thing.  When we really experience true koinonia, it is life changing.  It is only then that we truly understand what it means to be part of the fellowship.  Until that time, we may be members of a church, but we don’t really understand what it means to be a part of the church.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that if you have never experienced this that you are not saved, just that you’ve never gone deeper in your fellowship than the imitation fellowship that anyone can have.  And therein lies the problem with many of our churches today.  If the fellowship we experience inside the church is no different than the fellowship we can experience being a part of any other social organization, then what really will draw people to Jesus Christ and the church.  This, too, is why so many people today say they are “spiritual” and even say they are “Christian” but have no love or desire to be a part of organized religion.

The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the gospel.  It is truth.  We either believe and accept it or we do not.  But it is the fellowship of the church that is a testimony of the power of the gospel in the lives of believers.  If we do not experience this, then we are truly missing out on one of the greatest testimonies to the gospel itself.  More than that, we are personally missing out on the abundant life Jesus intended for us. We are just living a shadow of what was intended, and if that’s the case, it is no wonder no one wants to join us.  But Jesus intended so much more for us than that. True koinonia results in a life full of joy and satisfaction and belonging.

There is absolutely nothing like the friendship and fellowship that is founded first and foremost on the gospel.  I hope you will consider this and commit yourself to pursuing this next level fellowship, and in the next article, we will begin to examine how we can find that fellowship.

 

Next time: The Prerequisite of Fellowship

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.       Romans 16:25-27 (ESV)

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[1] Truth and Sound Doctrine – the one thing that supersedes unity itself.  We must always defend doctrinal truth.

Fellowship: Part 1 - An Introduction to 1 John

 

An Introduction to 1 John

The epistle of 1 John is one of the most powerful, cram-packed books in the Bible.  There is so much truth and practical application in such a very small letter.  It’s truly awesome - and it is relevant even in our culture today. In fact, John Stott once wrote that “John’s three letters struck me as still extraordinarily relevant to the current scene in the world and the church.”[1]   I’d like to spend some time pulling out some of those truths to see how they might apply in our Christian walk.   

We all have such short online attention spans.  Therefore I want to keep these articles short, meaning I will only be able to deal with small sections of 1 John at a time.  That means it will take quite a few articles to work through the whole letter, but I believe it will be worth it because of the wealth of truth this epistle has to offer.

Today’s article is will essentially introduce the blog series and the epistle in general.

Of course, most conservative Christian scholars believe wholeheartedly that this letter was written by the Apostle John.  My ESV Study bible says that the epistle was written in the 90s A.D.  According to John MacArthur,[2] the fact that there are no mentions in the letter of Emperor Domitian’s persecution (which began in 95 A.D.) suggests that it was written in the early 90s.  This means that more than likely, he wrote this letter during the time he lived in Ephesus.

Most commentaries agree that the reason the letter was written was to address certain false teaching in the church, most likely Gnosticism. However, in reading through 1 John, a dominant theme begins to emerge.  That theme is the idea of fellowship, or in the Greek, koinonia.  Certainly, not every thing John deals with in 1 John ties directly into this theme, but the letter as a whole is all about what it means to be a part of the fellowship – to be IN Christ.  Love, which is a key component of fellowship, is addressed throughout the letter and will come up repeatedly as part of these articles.

Because fellowship is such a dominant theme of 1 John, I have adopted that as the main title of these articles.  As such, I’m adopting 1 John 1:7 as the key verse for the series:

 

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 cleanses us from all sin.   ESV  

 

I would encourage you to memorize this verse.

To finish out this introductory article, let’s take a moment and focus on that word, fellowship – or, as it occurs in the Greek, Koinonia.  When we think of fellowship in the context of the church, we almost always think of getting together to eat.  At least I do, especially as a Southern Baptist.  We Southern Baptists love our potluck dinners.  In fact, if you mention “let’s have a fellowship” there is an extremely high probability that whatever gets scheduled will have a meal as part of its primary focus - and I can assure you that meal will almost always include some good old fashioned southern fried chicken. To our fault, while Koinonia may encompass this concept of fellowship, that’s not really what John has in mind here.

Similarly, outside the context of church, we think of fellowship in terms of hanging out together, maybe visiting with friends, maybe watching sports together, or playing games like UNO or Bridge or spades. Again, Koinonia may encompass all that, but it is also so much more than that.  Let me give you my personal definition of Koinonia as I understand it.

 

Koinonia: The act of sharing and participating in life through a close personal bond.

Think about the many things that may bond us.  We can have koinonia because we belong to a football team, in which case it is the football game that binds us together.  We can have koinonia because we are part of a quilting club, in which case it is quilting that binds us together.  There are many ways in which we can be bonded together to form koinonia. 

But for the church, that bond is something altogether different and special. For the church, the close personal bond that ties us together is Jesus Christ.  In other words, when we talk about the fellowship of believers – that is, the church – our koinonia is not getting together to eat, and it is not getting together to watch a football game.  We have been bound together as a family of God, adopted as children of God through our faith in Jesus Christ.  He is our savior, or Lord, and our brother, making us brothers and sisters IN CHRIST.  It is a bond that supersedes all other bonds, even the familial bonds of blood. 

Our koinonia is being a close part of one another’s lives as if we were family – living our lives FOR Jesus.  That is how we are intended to be as a church. The church is not a place where we come on Sunday and then we don’t really see each other again until the next Sunday.  That’s not church. If we are going to live as and function as a church in the way Jesus called us to live and function – we must figure out how to move beyond surface “fellowship” to true koinonia – true fellowship in Christ.

The next couple of articles are going to focus on 1 John 1:1-10 and will dig more into this idea of fellowship.  In fact, we will look at three important aspects of fellowship resulting from chapter 1 of 1 John:

The Basis of Fellowship,

The Prerequisite of Fellowship, and

The Result of Fellowship

I encourage you to read 1 John – at least 1 John 1:1-10 before moving on to the next article.  If it is not already out there, be looking for it over the next few days.

 

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

 

Romans 11:33-36 (ESV)

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[1] From introduction to 1 John, Zondervan Handbook to the Bible.

[2] The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, 1-3 John.