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Shouting.
Right.
From hill to thou.
Yes.
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Let's read 2 verses before we pray.
And our portion?
First, John.
First, John, thank you.
Chapter 3, uh, I mean chapter one and verses three and four, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that he also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things right we unto you that your joy.
May be full.
Our God and our Father, we think of what a privilege it is to be able to read these verses and to realize that as thy children, that thou has brought us into the realms of Thy love, that Thou art our Father and our God, and we are thy children and thy sons. And we thank Thee, Lord Jesus, for all that Thou hast done to make it possible the greatest things that we could possibly imagine.
Having a life, a divine life imparted to us that can give us to enjoy a relationship with the Father and the Son, to be able to enjoy communion with Thee.
And to be able to ponder upon these things and to be able to take them in and enjoy them. And we pray to you that it might help us to set our feet on a path that pleases thee, as it might be our desire to walk in a way that might be a testimony to this world of a people that are different than anybody else on this planet. So we do ask you for continued blessing. We thank you for the blessings and the portions that we've had before us. And we thank the our God and Father, We take it from thy loving hands.
We ask all these things in our Lord Jesus Christ, precious name. Amen. Amen.
All right, we are reading in first John chapter one and verse 3.
First John chapter one and verse 3.
That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things right we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness.
We lie and do not the truth, but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son planteth us from all sins. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar.
And his word is not in US.
You know, often times this world gauges, uh, the value of your life by the possessions that you have, the position you have in this world. You don't always look at the relationship you might have with your wife, with your children that they're, they care about how successful you are. But here what we really understand, don't we, that, that what really makes life happy, what really makes us happy.
Uh, and gives us joy in life is relationships, our wife, our children, our friends, our parents. Uh, that's what really brings substance to our life. It is not what you have. Umm, you could be just as happy in a small house with a happy marriage and you could be if you had a large house and your marriage wasn't happy. So it struck me, you know, in, in this 1St 14 where it says.
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That your joy may be full. Why? What was the thing that the Lord Jesus desired to start introducing early in the Gospels was a relationship with the Father, and then later on after.
Chapter 17 was what's been before us is that we might have a life that we could enjoy the father and the son. And then immediately after he raises from the dead, what's the first thing he does? He he sends.
Mary.
To go to the disciples and and to say.
Tell, tell them that I ascend onto my Father and to your Father and to my God and to my God. And that's really what was on the heart of the Father, wasn't it? That he could have those like his son, that he could have an object to love and that they could love him in return. That's what Christianity is really all about. It's not even the fact, you know, it never says we go to heaven. It says we go to be with Christ. And of course Christ is in heaven.
And why is that? Well, we've often times said it is because we're not interested in the place, we're interested in the object. And that's what this chapter has been taken up. That's what the address was taken up with, is that everything centers and circles around the Lord Jesus who's made everything, every blessing, the joy of our relationship, what gives a believer real, real joy, and that's to be able to dwell and enjoy the Father.
And the sun, that's what gives substance to everything that we are. It's a relationship. God has given us relationship that we cannot enjoy and understand what a relationship is. And it brings real value when we think about the fact that we can enjoy communion with one another, but with the Father and the Son, that's what really brings joy.
When God made man, He made him in his own image and likeness.
And God is triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that's from all eternity. It always was there. And so like you say in the very first chapter of the Bible, when it came to the creation of man, it says let us make man in our image after our likeness. And so it's not centered in one person like you say, it's relationships. And that is so true. It's so important to understand.
And through what the apostles have given us, because he says that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. What is fellowship?
Remember hearing somebody say, well, it's fellows on the same ship and sometimes sailors fight. That's not fellowship. Another word is communion. It's having common thoughts and desires and enjoyments and we have been given now a nature that is divine so that we can enjoy the things of God. It's not a forced thing. It's something that is natural.
To that nature we have been given that wonderful that we have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Beautiful, wonderful.
I would like to ask a question what here in first John you have him entitled Jesus Christ seven times and in Galatians you read the word you're all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. I I would like to know if somebody could explain the difference in the force and bearing of of those in titles.
I think it's pertinent, but I I don't know how.
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Difference between Christ Jesus and Jesus Christ well yes, in this epistle let Jesus Christ seven times.
Jesus Christ is usually the the man that has come into this world to accomplish the will of God and glorify God over the question of sin and so on. But when it's Christ Jesus and I was turned around the other way, it's referring to Him and it's gone back to heaven as a man and a glorified position.
And all our blessings are in God Jesus Christ. Our blessings are in Christ Jesus.
As he is as a risen, glorified man with the right hand of God.
Thank you. So when it says done, does that connect them with deity? Jesus Christ connects them as a man. So it's bringing out the both aspects of what we've been Speaking of here, isn't it? These altogether God and altogether man?
Fellowship is something that is cultivated and.
Brother and his address this afternoon mentioned the importance of.
Keeping close to the Lord by reading the Word and prayer. And I think that's so important to to encourage our young people to be into the scriptures on a daily basis because that's what's going to feed you.
It's so easy to neglect the scriptures. I find that when it comes to reading the word, it seems like there's a whole bunch of other things that get in the way.
And we have to make a decision what is primary, what is, uh, important in our lives. And so I want to encourage our young people and the older ones too, to get into the scriptures.
Last year at the conference in Oaxaca, I was talking to a group of younger brothers and they seemed to really be enjoying the Scriptures and the Lord at the conference. So I said, do you read the Bible yourselves in your own homes? Yes, sometimes I say, what do you mean by sometimes? Well, maybe two or three times a week.
Well, I say, uh.
Uh, you, when you eat food for your own sustenance, do you just eat two or three times a week? Oh no, no, no, we eat every day. Also, your body is more important than your soul. Is that what you mean? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. But you know, rather than we neglect our souls. And the Lord Jesus said a man shall not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
Take up the Word of God and don't read it in a rush. Even though you read just a few scriptures. Read it diligently and meditate on it because it's like a piece of bread I put in my mouth. I'm not going to just put it in my mouth and swallow it straight down. No, I'm chewing on it for a while until it gets down to where I can take it in. And we need to do that with the Word of God to to take time to read the scriptures.
You know what I find to read a chapter in the morning? How long it takes.
Generally most chapters are fairly short. There are some that are longer, but even when they're longer I noticed that it's 6-7 minutes is you can read a whole chapter that's longer, and sometimes when they're shorter chapters is two or three minutes. You mean you don't have that much time to read?
The Word of God. I want to encourage you to set aside some time. If you're real busy, set aside by a particular decision on your part to read the scriptures. You will not regret it in later years. And then take time to pray as well. When we read the Word, He's communicating His thoughts to us. When we pray, we're telling Him our thoughts. And we need both.
They're both important in maintaining fellowship with the Lord. Member one time asking another young man if he had time to read the scriptures. He says, no, I don't have time to read the scriptures, but I pray. I say, well, that's like saying to God, God, I want you to listen to me, but I really don't have time to listen to you. How does that sound to you? Oh, that sounds kind of lopsided. He told me. I said, yeah, I agree with you.
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We need ball. We need to read the scriptures.
Let it sink into our souls. You know, sometimes I read in the morning and I read a chapter and after I've read it, I said no. What in the world did I read? I was thinking about something way off in the distance and I wasn't really paying attention to what I was reading.
Brother, let's give diligence. Fellowship is a real thing. The Lord Jesus is a real man. He understands us. He knows how we feel. You may feel like you're betrayed. You're you may feel like nobody understands you. He understands what it is to be a human being because he is one.
And we can go to him and it's such a wonderful thing to have this fellowship. And like it's been brought out in verse 4, this is what gives true and lasting joy is to have fellowship with Him.
And fellowship has to be true. Fellowship is based on the principles of the Word of God, because we find with the early church in Acts chapter 2.
That in going on together, there's a list given and the order of the list is very important as to the things that they continued in, they continued in the apostles doctrine or teaching and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayers. And so it was the apostles doctrine, it was the truth of God that was given to the apostles. That was the basis for fellowship. It was the basis for breaking of bread. It was the basis for prayers. Those are what we might say are the collective meetings, the assembly meetings.
And because people say it doesn't matter, doctrine isn't important, principles aren't important. We're all believers and we just agree to disagree. But that's not true fellowship. And not only that, but sometimes we confound fellowship with activity. Now, activity amongst the people of God is good, and I'm glad when our young people are together for a ball game or some activity. We need that. But that's not fellowship in itself.
True fellowship, brethren, is our enjoyment of the Father and the Son in our souls, so that we can then share that with our fellow believers. And so again, to go back to the story we had this morning of the prodigal son, when the prodigal was brought into the father's house and sat down at the table, and a table in Scripture often speaks of fellowship or communion. What was that fellowship centered on?
It was centered on the fatted calf because I believe we learned all through Scripture and culminating in this chapter as we'll see, that the basis God has always taught that the basis for fellowship has always been the death and the shedding of blood of an innocent victim. That has always been the basis for fellowship. And so just to go back and thought to the Garden of Eden.
We find that, as was said, man was made in the image of God so that God could have fellowship with his creature. He couldn't have fellowship with the lower creation in that same way. And so man was placed in the garden. But what happened? What what happened? Sin came in and sin separates. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, the prophet says. And so sin came in and separated.
Man received a conscience. He knew he was a Sinner. Adam and Eve hid themselves. They tried to make coats of aprons of fig leaves to try to better themselves and cover their nakedness. But what did God do so that there could be a could be at least some measure of fellowship restored? He made some coats of skin, and though the blood is not mentioned there, or the word sacrifice, I think we all see very quickly.
That God could not have clothed Adam and Eve with coats of skin unless it necessitated the death.
And the shedding of blood of an innocent victim or victim. And not only that, but God immediately announced the news that the woman's seed would bruise the head of the serpent. How could God bless Adam and Eve? Yes, he drove them out of that garden.
Yes, they were not allowed back in, so they would not eat of the tree of life and live forever. But how could God bless Adam and Eve, and how could he bless all? Down through the Old Testament, God was looking forward to the death of his Son. And those sacrifices, from Abel's sacrifice on all to the heart of God, were just pale reflections, feeble foreshadows of what was really in his mind and heart, that his Son.
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Would go to the cross, become the sacrifice for sin, and shed his blood.
And not to get ahead, but that's why in this chapter, at the end of verse seven, it says and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
When I was a child and I learned that part of the verse for my Sunday school text, I used to wonder why it appeared here in first John. It almost to me seemed out of context until I understood That's the basis for fellowship with the Father, faces for fellowship with the Son, and they our basis for fellowship with one another is nothing else but the blood of Christ. That is the basis of it, of it all, the death and the shedding of the blood of the Lord Jesus.
Has brought us back into a position and a fellowship with God and the Son like none. Even in the Old Testament where that cloud of witnesses that Dave was bringing before us, they never understood. They never enjoyed the closeness of relationship that you and I have now in being able to address God as our Father, to have the very nature and life of God, to be the possessors of eternal life and have fellowship with the Father, the Son, and with one another.
Just in connection with this fourth verse 2, there's another comment made by the Lord Jesus in the 15th of John.
In connection with this, just go back to the 15th chapter for a moment.
Of of John's Gospel.
The Lord Jesus has been bringing many things before them, and in verse 11 He says, These things have I spoken unto you. Now notice this, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy may be full, but there must be a difference between my joy and your joy. What was it that the Lord was referring to when He said my joy? The Lord Jesus had walked through this world as a man in perfect communion with the Father.
Thought was his joy and delight, and his joy and delight was to do the Father's will.
And he says to his disciples, I want to leave that same joy with you.
And brethren, what is going to bring us real joy in our souls as we pass through this world? It is to have fellowship with the Father, with His Son, and as a result, with one another. That's the joy, so joy the Lord Jesus had here in this world, even in difficult circumstances. He could rejoice in spirit even when things were were troubling. You and I can have that same joy. And remember, brethren, He doesn't want to wait till He has us home to have our fellowship and communion. He has made provision now.
So that all along the path of faith and service, as the children of God, we can have joint participation, we can have fellowship and communion with divine persons.
There's a picture of this in the Old Testament in the rainbow that came and what God put in the sky after Noah had gone and his family threw the flood. And it's a picture of Christ being set in his proper place at the right hand of God and all his very glories that he is required to redemption. And it's interesting that God said to Noah, he said, I put the rainbow in the sky and I'm going to look at it. And when I look at it, you look at it and our eyes will meet on the rainbow.
That's a picture of having fellowship together with God, one common.
Interest, which is, of course, the glory of Christ.
Genesis Chapter 9.
You talked about umm in verse 3. Umm, I'm sorry, verse four says that your joy may be full.
And and then it's, it's almost like a challenge. Have you, have you been in a relationship, someone you love deeply and, and you have broken communion?
There, there's something about that when that happens that disrupts everything about your being. It just does.
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Somebody you love deeply and, and, and maybe the person that communion has been broken. That person was right and you're wrong. Sometimes you defend yourself. Sometimes you take a stand and and umm, and there should be an emptiness. So if if our joy should be full. The next two verses are really talking about our walk, isn't it where it's talking about how to maintain to understand the character of what God is and that if we say that we walk in the light.
And yet we're walking in darkness and we're liars, aren't we? That communion is not real. We're not enjoying the depth of that communion as we should. So it's really talking here, isn't it, about who we are as children that that communion. If we really are enjoying that communion and if it really gives us joy, are we not having set before us a standard that is ours to recognize that we might walk so that we might maintain the joy of that communion?
Am I wrong about that?
Probably, uh, it's more an absolute fact. I think you're finding a not going back. But he says in that second verse for the life was manifest and we have seen it, but he says he showed on us eternal life, which was with the father. So that eternal life, that relationship was with the father and the son before he ever came into this world. But now it's been manifest and I think it's.
Talking here about something that we have we have eternal life and of course let's based upon what our brother just said the blood of Christ, but they never had it until he rose from the dead and then he said, go on to my brethren and announcement to them that I have sent unto my God and to your God. So then they had he breathed into their nostrils the breath of life that is he gave them resurrection life and.
And so it doesn't tell you how you get it right now. It doesn't tell you how you get this life, but it's saying that you have it because you are a believer. You have believed in Christ and his resurrection.
And so it's it's something that we have, it's a Christian. This is a quote for Mr. Darby. A Christian is not just a man who's born again. He's a moral. He's a man who's born again and in dwelt with the Spirit of God. And so when we are that we have this capacity, how we enjoy it is another thing, isn't it? And so first, John is really telling you it's really an abstract thing where it's telling you what you have. And so the reason that we can understand each other.
And enjoy these things together is because we have that same life. We are what we are and we are where we are in spite of ourselves and in spite of our actions. We may not enjoy it, but I am in the light. If you're a child of God, you are in the light. You may choose to turn your back and walk on the shady side of the street, but you are in the light. And I believe as we go on to the 7th verse, we learn we're in the light. We have fellowship one with another, and it's the blood of Jesus that is the basis of it. That those are facts as Burn said. Again, as I said this morning at the end of the meeting.
What we learned from first John is that we have, we are brought into fellowship with the Father, we are in fellowship with the Son, and we are in fellowship with one another. There's plenty of other exhortations in other parts of Scripture and even some later on in this epistle as to the practical side of it. But I, I do believe here what we have, as Vernas said, is the fact that that abstract truth that this is where we are and what we are.
Can you give a definition of abstract truth? I often times hear it, and there's a number of people I'm sure, like myself, that just don't really know what that means. Something that's true.
That's what it is. Something is true. Not how you, uh, enjoy it, but something is true of you. It's not a messy painting you see in an art gallery that you can't understand. That's usually what we think of abstract, but it is absolute truth. Yeah, absolutely. Matches burn. Matches burn. That's, uh, it's characteristic of matches, that the match may not be lit, but that's characteristic. Yeah. I find that very helpful. Seriously. Instead of using the word abstract is what's characteristic, I think. Yeah. So if we're gonna have fellowship with God.
In verse five, it tells us that God is light. We're gonna have to have, we're gonna have to be in the light. And that's where we are if we do have fellowship with God, because God is light and you can't, you can't change that. That was true in the very first chapter of the Bible. God said let there be light, and then he divided the light from the darkness. There's a separation in the whole Word of God.
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You cannot mix those two things, light and darkness. They don't mix. You have darkness in the room and you turn on the lights. What happens to the darkness? It's gone. They don't mix those two things. And so in our lives too, if we're going to have fellowship with God, it's going to be in the light. Can you hide things in the light? You know, sometimes we're like the Samaritan woman when the Lord Jesus.
Said to her go call your husband and come here. She thought she was just kinda cover up the bad stuff of her life and she said I don't have a husband.
She didn't realize that she was in the presence of one who was God in the flesh. And so he said, you rightly said.
Uh, I have no husband because you've had five husbands and the one you now have isn't your husband that you said, right?
All of a sudden she realized she was in the presence of one. She could not hide anything. And I love the response in her. She goes back into the city and she says to the men of the city.
Maybe some of them she had sinned with. She says come see a man that told me all things that ever I did is not just the Christ. Had he told her everything she'd ever done? No, he had focused in on a certain facet of her life. But rather than what it really impresses me is that when somebody tries to hide things in their life, it hinders fellowship. You cannot avoid it. It does.
And when a person comes out into the light and confesses it, however shameful it might be, it frees them completely. That woman was a free woman after that. Oh, the blessedness of just getting out into the light and letting it be known to God just what you are. He already knows it, but He wants you to come out into the light as well and not try to hide anything. Somebody that tries to hide things is not a free person.
But we walk in the light because God is in the light.
God is right, I should say.
Is that not the practical, practical result of this? But I just, I give an illustration of abstract truth. Cork floats. Oh, say, well, I'll tie a sinker on it. But you've modified it and gone. John does not modify anything. He gives you just exactly what it is. You have eternal life. Cork floats. You can't. We might modify it. And you say, well, I don't enjoy it. You still have it.
Right. So it's, it's, it's, it's that's the understanding of John. He tells things like they are, and that's the way you understand things.
You have to understand things like they are not modified.
So that's the difference between abstract and concrete. Yeah, I was gonna go first. John gives us its abstract from the standpoint that it tells this is what a Christian is. This is the this is a picture of one who has fellowship with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. So I left a box of matches out on my table, on my deck, and it rained on them and they got soaking wet and they won't burn, but it's still true.
Yeah, that's the concrete, but the abstract is matches burn. So I can say, well, you know, I read the Epistle to 1St Corinthians and and what I'm reading here in First John, that doesn't look like those people in First Corinthians. They must not really be Christians. No, that's not the point. This is a picture which we have in many places of this is what a person is who is a Christian who walks in fellowship with God.
But all of those problems where we might say, well, that doesn't look like a Christian there, that's where the Father goes to work in his discipline to bring us to communion with him, to repent of those things in order that we might have fellowship with him and with one another.
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Thor versus 8-9 and ten only for the loss.
Well, I think it's, uh, I think it's a contrast between light and darkness. Uh, era it says if the sixth verse, if, uh, if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. So we have there that that would be darkness. If we say that and we don't, it doesn't. But if we walk in the light, he is in the light, We have fellowship one with another.
And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse us from all sins. That's.
That's the one who is the Lord. But I and I think if we say, but it just says as we say, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in this, that's darkness. If we confess our sins and only and only those who are born again do confess their sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's life.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in in such darkness, I, I.
As well as.
So 8-9 and ten I would say applied to believers.
What apply to believers?
To know the difference between our state and our standing. When we're saved and we're a Christian, we're perfectly righteous in God's sight because we are seen in Christ. That's never going to change. It's a done deal. That's our standing before God, but in our personal walk, and I think this is where these verses come out. There's five ifs in a row for six verse 7, verse 8, verse 9, verse 10.
Our state can change every day, every minute, whether we're enjoying that truth of our standing or not. And I'll just use this as an example, and I think Bob alluded to it. If I'm a little kid, when I was a little kid, I hate to admit it, but my mom said don't have a cookie and I win. And I took a cookie out of the cookie jar. Do I want to go see my mom? No possible way. Why is that? Because I know in my soul that I sinned against her.
I don't wanna be in her presence because I'm wrong. I broke the rule. So he says in here, this is how we have, umm, how our state changes. In verse nine, he says if we confess our sins. So I go to my mom and I say, mom, I'm really sorry I couldn't cook and she's gonna take care of that. She's gonna give me any spanking because she's a good mom and she loves them. So she gives me a spanking. Now that sin is gone. It's been painful. Now we're best friends again and we're back in the community.
So with that, as we walk in this light, our state is inconvenient out of community, inconvenient out of community. And it says right here in verse eight, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in. So if you bump into some, oh, I don't sin anymore, really, what does this verse say? But it says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So we're back in communion with the Lord.
Which is our state, our standing pardon may never change. The standing was always true. Like you were saying her, that's absolutely true. It never changed. But I couldn't enjoy that. And that's where that joy came in when you were talking about babe.
A happy Christian is a Christian that walks with the Lord. You look at Peter, he looks miserable. When he was denying the Lord, he went out and wept bitterly. He was not a happy soul. When we walked far off from the Lord, we're not happy. We're miserable. We don't enjoy sin, we don't enjoy the Lord's presence. It's cold. It's it's not a nice thing, but when we walk right through the Lord, it's a beautiful thing.
Verse 6, verse eight, and verse 10 all say if we say it's easy to talk the talk.
Sometimes the reality is different, so that's what he's testing in verse six. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.
He talks in black and white. John talks in black and white. He doesn't talk in any Shades of Grey. You're lying. You're not doing the truth if you say that you have fellowship with him and are accommodating something that you know is wrong.
Caffeine fellowship that cannot be, not even if it's just a little. What we term a white lie cannot be. Then the contrast is verse seven if we walk in the light as he is in the light.
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We have fellowship one with another, and like Brother Jim has brought out the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from all sin. In other words, that which hinders fellowship is sin.
And that which removes sin so that there can be fellowship is the blood of Christ.
That's a cleansing that takes place.
Once for all for the believer.
When we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior, the cleansing that it speaks of in verse 9 is.
Uh, governmental forgiveness and cleansing when we confess our sins.
Just to go back to verse 8, just like to call attention to the fact that verse 8 and verse 10 are quite similar. But if you look closely, verse eight really speaks of the root principle of sin, the nature in us. If we say that we have no sin, that's the nature.
We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US. Verse 10 speaks of the act of sin.
If we say that we have not sinned, sometimes we admit that we have acted in sin, but we don't like to admit our own guilt. We blame somebody else, just like Adam did, who blame God and blamed his wife, and he blamed the serpent.
But if we're going to get back into fellowship with God, it's important to recognize not only that I've sinned, but I've sinned because I allowed my nature of sin to act. And that's what broke that fellowship with God. And when that is recognized and we confess it, then there's the basis to be restored to fellowship in the family of God. And so I look at those.
Last three verses as restoration once fellowship has been lost.
If we, if we talk and I'm, I'm sorry, I'm probably part of the confusion here.
What, what I said earlier, but if we talk about something that's real, that's umm, as we've said, abstract, umm, uh, when it talks about a believers talking about a believer and that's all we're looking at is what he is as a believer, we're talking about somebody that's lost.
We're talking about somebody that's lost. And so it's it's not comparing when you fail. It's looking at you as a child. It's looking at you the way the father enjoys you. It's looking at what you are as having a nature that can enjoy the father and the son. And and that's taking this up in that character. But there are those who are professors and they're not real. And you know they're not real by their life.
And so it's really drawing a contrast that way.
A real believer enjoys being in the light. A professor that's not real walks in darkness. And if we saw that, it would help us to understand what the following verses mean and how it applies so.
I'm sorry if I added any confusion.
So we could say these are tests of the truth, right? This is a picture of what? A Christ. This is a picture of one who walks in fellowship with the Father and the Son.
And these are the things that are to characterize them.
They do not walk in darkness. Well, here you have a person who's walking in darkness. He professes to believe, to be a believer. A believer does not walk in darkness. Yeah. And umm. And if we, I think it's interesting too. If we go back to the fifth verse, there's a reason why the apostle emphasizes that God is like, this is the message he says that we're bringing. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. A Vern, you mentioned the Gnosticism. The Gnostics were dualists. They believe there was a good power.
And an evil power that we're constantly at war with one another. And he's telling them, no, there is only one God and he is light.
There is no darkness in him whatsoever, and it's it's been emphasized before by writers hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Evil is always a privation of something that is good. You can't think of pure evil. There's no such thing as pure rust. It's always on metal.
00:50:20
Even even the most graphic example of evil that you could think of, Satan is the corruption of something that was once good.
The anointed chair of the Covereth. So the darkness is from some privation, some corruption of something that was once good. Think of all of the things that are prevalent in the world around us today. They are the corruption. They're a deviation from something that God initially set up.
As being good or a blessing for man, but man, he turns it to corruption. And so when we're having a picture of a Christian here, we get tests for truth. And I think that's where you have the thought of the word, if you might say it's like an if of argument. This is his argument here that that if we were to say this, then that is not the picture of a believer of one who has fellowship with the Father and the Son. So they are tests for the truth. They can be.
Goes for our conscience to help us understand what God intends the believer to be.
When we apply these things, we need to recognize that these principles apply to us, and there is a nature within me that is, uh, Versailles applies to. I recognize that.
Yes, it's a nature, the same nature as an unbeliever may have, and in that sense it's abstract. I think it's what you mean, but it's something that's written. This was written to believers in the Lord Jesus. It was not written to those who were unbelievers. And so we need to recognize that that sin nature in US is inherently bad and to recognize that the truth is not in US. Of course, that's speaking about the old nature.
Abstractly, if you want to put it that way.
But then verse nine shows that when fellowship is broken, brethren, and I think this is very important for especially for our young people.
I find that sometimes young people get off into some line, some uh, uh, way of, of, uh, sin in their lives and they don't seem to know how to get back. I remember speaking to a young man one time who got off into some serious sin and was away for quite a while. And we went to visit him one time and asked him, have you ever confessed this to the Lord?
Put his head down and he said after quite a while he said, no, I only confessed to the brethren.
I said, well, let's read verse nine. We confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Confession is not asking for forgiveness.
It's recognizing what we have done and why we have done it and telling the Lord about it. And that's extremely important if we're going to get back into fellowship with the Lord. And that's what we're being told here. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Confession is more than asking for forgiveness.
Why ask a person for forgiveness? I'm not really thinking of the bad thing I might have done. I'm thinking of his attitude toward me. And so since I think his attitude is negative towards me, I say please forgive me. What God wants, brethren, he's he's he's ready to forgive us, but what he wants is confession that we recognize what we have done that's wrong and to tell him so that's important to.
You know, if we're going to get back into fellowship.
And it's when we do that, that then he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. That's governmental forgiveness. It's not judicial forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness is what we receive once the beginning of our Christian life, when we accept the Lord as our Savior. But this is government forgiveness. He has government in his household and his family and.
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It's consequent on confession that there is forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness. It's so important to understand that that you might, once you break that fellowship, might come back to fellowship. You don't lose your salvation. You are always a child of God, but you can lose your fellowship with God with some little sin.
And it's that way until you confess it. Sometimes they give the illustration, if I say to my son, I don't want you going out tonight.
And he deliberately, knowing what I've said, goes out of the house, out onto the street. When he comes back, he sees that I'm not happy with him.
Maybe seeing that, he will say to me.
That if I've done something wrong, forgive me.
Is that what I wanna hear from him? No.
I want him to recognize what he's done wrong and to say so when he does, then there's the basis for restoring fellowship with him. And so this is what we have here in this verse nine. It's an important principle to apply in our Christian lives that we might maintain fellowship. Fellowship can be broken very easily. And so here is the way for restoration to that fellowship.
Mm-hmm.
Uh.
And then he says, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, that's really to keep us from going any further on that course. You get a similar thought when David said in the 23rd Psalm, he restoreth my soul. And as soon as he says that, he says and leads me in the paths of righteousness, that is, he brings me back into the right way. Because it's not just sinning and confessing and sinning and confessing and going on our own way. That's not what God wants from us. That's not what the Lord wants.
He wants heartfelt confession, true repentance, and then He can cleanse us from all unrighteousness, lead us in those right paths, not go continue on down that wrong way.
Could it be an all embrace tracing thing? Even if one was, if you take it the man was asked, is this how a man comes to the Lord? Or is this?
Confession after we're saved for practical sins, He says it's all embracing it. It would be true too, if he says if he can, if we confess our sins, only those who believe confess their sins. Isn't it so that that goes together? Repentance and confession goes together. Yeah, I'm. I'm not saying that. I'm not contradicting. I'm just saying.
It's all embracing. I I read this with Mr. Darby. They asked him that question. He said it's all embracing it. If, if a person is coming, he's the one who confesses his sin. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and plenty of all unrighteousness. But it's, you can use it practically like our brothers use it too. I would just say this to qualify your remarks that when I came as a repentant Sinner, I didn't have to confess my sins and thank God I didn't.
Because they were so numerous and many of them I wouldn't have known about, I had to confess I was a Sinner.
And so the man in Luke's gospel, he said, God be merciful to me, a Sinner.
He didn't confess his sins. He confessed that he was a Sinner. And when it says confess our sins here, it's very specific. As Bob said, it's more than my child just coming and passing me in the room and saying, Dad, I'm sorry and going on out of the room. That's not what I want. That doesn't restore fellowship or communion. And perhaps any of us who've had children have experienced that. Well, Dad, I'm sorry for whatever I did today. And then they go on up to their room. There's no fellowship restored in that.
But when the child comes and says dad, I am the one that disobeyed and threw the ball too near the house and broke the window.
Then I say, come, I've already forgiven you. In fact, I might even say I've already got the pane of glass here to replace the broken window. I was just waiting for you to come and confess so that perhaps we could go and do it, do it together. So when it says we confess our sins, it's very specific here, isn't it?
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And in verse eight is if we have no sin, which is the nature that produced that.
Bad act. And David, when he sinned in the Old Testament, in his confession he acknowledged what he had done was wrong, but then he recognized the root of it. He says, behold, I was shaping in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. He recognized the reason I did that was I let my old nature act and that's important if we're going to.
Uh, get full restoration. I sometimes say when there's bad weeds in the garden, what do you do? You pull off the tops of the weeds or you pull it out by the roots. Not that we're going to be able to pull out that sin nature, but it's important to recognize that that's the root of it, not anybody else but me. I allowed myself to act that way. And when we do that, then when we confess, he not only forgives our sins.
But he is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And I find that's a very helpful thing when you have some. Sometimes people have sins that they seem to be liable for. I mean they they fall for it very easily to go to the Lord to confess it. The Lord is able not only to forgive but to cleanse. You can't do the clean up job.
Middle of verse nine it says he is faithful and I know sometimes it's really hard for us and we do sin. We feel the magnitude of what we've done to be broken community but it said that all relationships are built on trust and when we understand that he is going.
The sin was originally taken care of judgment or judicially and governments what he's going to take care of. And when we realize we confess that sin and I say Lord, I'm sorry, I sinned. This is what I did.
I don't wanna do that again. When we send we, we lose the blessing. Do the commandments are are for the blessing of our souls. And when we say no, I know better than you, I'm gonna do that anyway. That's what sin is. We go and do that and then we're we lose the blessing. We feel awful and we're out of communion. But the thing that is so amazing is that he loves us even though he sinned, just like we love our children. My mom, when I took that cookie, she didn't hate my gut.
I didn't wanna have anything, you know? I didn't wanna be with her because I knew I'd sinned, but she didn't hate me.
I would steal her son. And when we sin and we come back and we say Lord I, if we confess our sins, we say Lord I sin. It says he is faithful. We can count on him. He is going to bring us back and we're going to see.
Ourselves. And we see what God sees of us. He sees something that's perfectly clean.
And to our mind, I know my own heart. To our mind, it doesn't make sense.
Does does God have bad vision? No. It's because of the glorious person of Christ, that blood that washed away all that sand.
He sees when God the Father looks at us, He sees the righteousness of Christ.
And we can walk in that communion and that in that, in that presence, that presence of mind that he loves us, He's crazy in love with us. He bought us, He paid everything that we would belong to him. And when you read in Revelation about the rise of Christ, she's perfect. And when we think about ourselves, we're like, how does this even add up? How does this make sense? It is work in our lives.
And we're just gonna be true that we're gonna be there and we're gonna be beautiful in every single aspect.
Because he loved it. And so sometimes in our lives, we, we have a hard time in our minds letting know of stuff. And it speaks about an evil conscience. And that's a conscience that brings up what's happened to us over and over. Hey, but you did this. Remember, Matt, you did this, you did this. That the accuser of the brethren, the enemy of our souls, He wants us to stay away from the Lord so he can drive us further and further and further apart. If, if we sin, it doesn't matter what it is. And the Lord brings it to our mind. Even if you're driving your car, stop.
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And confess it right then, 'cause that's how people get way far away. There's a little teeny thing and they let it grow and don't. If your conscience is, hey, you did this, just remind the devil to say, hey, there's a quote that goes when the devil reminds you of your past, reminds him of his future.
The Lord is faithful.
Good to see that we don't have to beg God.
And he's just as well because there is a righteous basis that has been established on which God can do it. God never forgives or restores on the basis of compromise. Man operates on the basis of compromise. I was in business for a number of years and there's always arbitration between the employees and the the, the salesman and the buyer and the.
Different aspects of business and you sit down, people down at the table and you usually have to bring them to a common denominator, which necessitates compromise.
Sometimes on the part of both parties, but God never compromises. He's faithful and He's just because, as we've been saying, the work of Calvary has taken care of it and people struggle with this. Well, what about the sins I've committed after I'm saved? But when the Lord Jesus died on the cross and bore my sins in his own body on the tree and shed his precious blood to wash those sins away, how many of my sins were future at that time?
They were all future at that time and it's all been taken care of through the work of Calvary. I'm not afraid of one charge of sin being brought up against me as to my eternal destiny and security. By one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified our sins and iniquities. He'll remember no more. And so it's not a question of our security or sin being raised as to our eternal destiny and so on.
But again, as we've been saying, it has to do with fellowship and the enjoyment of the place that we have already been brought into, rather than I say again, we are in the light since we're in the light. And really that's what the the the sense of the if in verse seven is. It's in the old English. It really has the sense of since we walk in the light.
Since we walk, I'll give you another example. It's out of context but just to make my point. In Colossians 3 it says if he then be risen with Christ.
Seek those things which are above is that if any question there no, we are risen with Christ. It's since we are risen with Christ. Now seek those things that are above since we walk in the light as he is in the light. We're also in fellowship with one another. If you're in the light and I'm in the light, since you are and since I am, we are in the light. Again, the practical side of it is a very different issue and so it's not a question here of.
Are be where we stand.
But there is the question then of when sin is allowed in our lives, what do we do? We come and confess that that specific sin so that we can be restored, not to the light, but so we can be restored to the enjoyment of fellowship and communion with the one who is always, always dwells in the light where there's no darkness.
This thing #47 in the pendant 47 and independent.
God and mercy sent his Son to our world right now, and I'm Jesus Christ.
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God ordered the energy of God.
Oh my God.
Right, you're welcome again.
Our God or Father?
01:15:00
We give thanks that through the Lord Jesus we have.
Our sins forgiven, but we're here in this world, and we haven't a nature within each one of us that goes the wrong way.
And we give thanks that we have a meeting.
Deal with the sins that crops up.
In our lives as believers.
OK, the Keystone account short and not to let them stretch out as we heard this afternoon.
Help us to confess in that thing in which we have sinned.
And you get it taken care of so we can have.
Happy fellowship once again. Yes, we give thanks for providing this to me.
All through the Lord Jesus and that precious blood he shed, He of thanks in his name He meant.