The Way Of Fellowship

The Way Of Fellowship

1 John 1:1-2:2

    In his book, titled "The Safest Place On Earth,"  Christian author Larry Crabb writes this, as a part of the book's introduction.  One block west of the luxury beach hotels…was an ordinary big-city street, noisy, dirty, heavily trafficked…. We walked in front of a wood-slatted porch…where at least a hundred chairs were arranged in neat rows and columns, none touching. Most of them were occupied by a motionless retired man or woman staring straight ahead at the street…. No heads turned to follow a passing taxi, or to chat with another porch-sitter…. There was no conversation, no evidence that any of these people had been created by a relational God to enjoy intimate relating. These people’s souls were asleep, numbed by years of lifeless relationships and pointless conversations. No doubt these conversations had all seemed important at the time — business deals, romantic encounters, child scoldings, religious meetings — but maybe such encounters had never touched anything deep enough to stir life….

I wonder if the Spirit feels as we did when He walks by a group of Christians…. Every Sunday morning we stand, then sit, then sing on command…. Most of us sit still while someone talks to us. At some point we reach into our wallets and drop a mixture of green and silver into a big bowl with velvet lining to keep the silver from clanging. We’re doing a lot. But I wonder if the Spirit, who lives in a circle with two Others who are always relating, sees us as my wife and I saw the retired folks on the Miami Beach porch: lined up in chairs facing straight ahead with no life passing back and forth among them….

Even when a few of us gather together to relate, do we somehow manage to keep our souls to ourselves, never really meeting, neither giving nor receiving what is most wanted? We may arrange our bodies in a circle, but our souls are sitting in straight-backed chairs facing away from the others. We all play it safe because none of us feel safe in the group…. Have we found ways to “do church,” even to participate in small groups that don’t require real connecting?

Churches are rarely communities. More often they are social machines that run smoothly for a while, break down, then are fixed so they run smoothly again or noisily chug along as best as they can…. Our interactions rarely create community — they more often substitute for it. (xi – xiv, slightly edited to shorten and tell.)

      This morning as we examine 1 John 1, we learn that God desires us to be in fellowship, both with Himself and with one another.  There are things that hinder that fellowship, and we will learn about them from today's text.  Today we see that … 

Fellowship Is Possible (vv. 1:1-4)

Fellowship Happens In The Light (vv. 5-7)   and …   

Fellowship Overcomes Sin (vv. 1:8-2:2)

1. Body
1. Fellowship Is Possible   (v. 1:1-4)
1. In fact, God desires it.  
1. It's True!
1. We saw, heard and touched the Eternal
2. John 1:14 -- And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth
3. What the Disciples report was not simply a spiritual/mystical phenomena. 
2. Life was...
1. manifest to us and then...
2. declared to you
3. We can fellowship in fullness of joy!
1. fellowship implies one with another
4. You may have had an experience like the young man who went to the movies with his family. On the way in, he stopped to purchase some popcorn. By the time he got into the theater, the lights were already dim and he couldn’t find his family. He paced up and down the aisles in near darkness, peering down each row. Finally, in desperation, he stopped and asked out loud, “Does anyone here recognize me?”
   
   Christians should have deeper fellowship one with another because they recognize one another. You know that I fall short of the glory of God and the requirements of the law. You know that apart from Christ I can no good thing. You know that when I want to do good, sin is right there with me. You know that I am tempted to depend on the resources I have been given to make life work out the way I want. You know that my “capacity for relationship” is changed by the sin nature into a desperate longing for relationships that end up being an indignant demand for self-fulfillment: I need love, so love me! We can have a deeper fellowship because we can admit the truth about who we are in ourselves; and that honesty comes from our confidence that in Christ we are new creations.
   
   But there is something more significant in 1 John than mere recognition of one another. The bar celebrated in Cheers has some of that. We have a relationship that comes from a sharing in the fellowship of the Trinity, the perfect relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
   
   Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. What does this mean? It means, first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ. It means, second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ.” (Quoted in Foster, Devotional Classics.)
   
   C. S. Lewis: “He works on us in all sorts of ways. But above all, He works on us through each other. Men are mirrors, or ‘carriers’ of Christ to other men. That is why the Church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important.”
   
   J. I. Packer, God’s Words, 193: “We should not...think of our fellowship with other Christians as a spiritual luxury, an optional addition to the exercises of private devotion. We should recognize rather that such fellowship is a spiritual necessity; for God has made us in such a way that our fellowship with himself is fed by our fellowship with fellow-Christians, and requires to be so fed constantly for its own deepening and enrichment.” Fellowship Happens In The Light   (v. 5-7)
1. His children want to be near Him.
5. God Is Light
1. to fellowship with Him, we can't leave the Light
6. If we stay in the Light, we fellowship with His own
1. walking in darkness equals habitual and intentional
2. John 3:19 -- And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil
3. Making decisions in the dark can lead to some regrettable consequences. Back in the days before electricity, a tightfisted old farmer was taking his hired man to task for carrying a lighted lantern when he went to call on his best girl. “Why,” he exclaimed, “when I went a-courtin’ I never carried one of them things. I always went in the dark.” “Yes,” the hired man said wryly,” and look what you got!”
7. Light is where the cleansing happens
8. Example:  You have your choice between two nearby Laundromats.  One is dark, dirty and dingy.  The other is well-lit, bright and clean.  Which do you chose to use for your laundry?Fellowship Overcomes Sin   (vv. 1:8-2:2)
1. We see our condition, and God provides the Solution.
9. Acknowledge sin
1. present sin (v. 8)
2. past sin (v. 10)
3. Look at the hypocrisy we fall into when we fail to confess and repent. We become proud, where our Scriptures tell us to be humble (1 Peter 5:5). We find excuses for our own sins, but none for the sins of others (Luke 11:46). We think ourselves better than others, when clearly we are not (Philippians 2:3). We seek to be masters of others, instead of servants of all (Mark 9:35). We complain about hardship, when we are supposed to endure it joyfully (James 1:2). We conveniently overlook the fact that 1 John was written as a manual for Christians, not as a brochure to prospective converts.
4. Confessing sins is like taking out the garbage of our souls.   It is a stinky affair, but if you don’t get rid of that stuff, the problem only gets worse
10. Avoid sin
1. not sinning is our ultimate goal
2. Rom. 6:11 -- Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord
11. Advocate forgiveness  
1. 1 John 4:10 -- In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins
2. The Christian life is not difficult to understand; it's just impossible to accomplish--that is, apart from the work of the Spirit in our lives. At bottom, God wants us to be honest with him about what we are and who he is.
2. Conclusion 
1. Do you know the way of fellowship?  What's your plan to make it safely through this life?  Have you heard the story about Linda?
2. In the fall of the year, Linda, a young woman, was traveling alone up the rutted and rugged Canadian highway from Alberta to the Yukon. Linda didn’t know you don’t travel to Whitehorse alone in a rundown Honda Civic, so she set off where only four-wheel drives normally venture. The first evening she found a room in the mountains near a summit and asked for a 5 A.M. wakeup call so she could get an early start. She couldn’t understand why the clerk looked surprised at that request, but as she awoke to early-morning fog shrouding the mountain tops, she understood.
3. Not wanting to look foolish, she got up and went to breakfast. Two truckers invited Linda to join them, and since the place was so small, she felt obliged. “Where are you headed?” one of the truckers asked.
4. ‘Whitehorse’
5. “In that little Civic? No way! This pass is DANGEROUS in weather like this.”
6. “Well, I’m determined to try,” was Linda’s gutsy, if not very informed, response.
7. “Then I guess we’re just going to have to hug you,” the trucker suggested.
8. Linda drew back. “There’s no way I’m going to let you touch me!”
9. “Not like THAT!” the truckers chuckled. “We’ll put one truck in front of you and one in the rear. In that way, we’ll get you through the mountains.”
10. All that foggy morning Linda followed the two red dots in front of her and had the reassurance of a big escort behind as they made their way safely through the mountains.
11. Caught in the fog in our dangerous passage through life, we need to be “hugged.” With fellow Christians who know the way and can lead safely ahead of us, and with others behind, gently encouraging us along, we, too, can pass safely.
12. True fellowship is possible, but it only happens in the LIGHT, and when it happens, as designed, it overcomes sin.