Address—C. Buchanan
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To begin this meeting with singing #106, I will read the third stanza.
Says here, and oh tis joy, the path to trace by thee so meekly trod.
Learning of thee to walk in grace and fellowship.
With God.
That word Fellowship.
A long time ago I heard this explanation. Its fellows in the same ship. If that's not the origin of the word, it's a likely result anyway to have common things together, Communion together. In fact, in the scripture, the two words fellowship and communion are used interchangeably.
English is an interesting language.
We sang and spoke many times this morning about worthy.
Worthy is the lamb.
I heard this explanation of the way that word developed in the English language as starting out.
With two words.
Put together ending with SHIP.
Worth.
No, it's called first of all worthy ship.
Well, that was too long, so they contracted called worship. And when you talk fast and say worship, you just say worship. Well, fellowship with God. Some brothers start this 106. We'll sing the whole hymn.
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Let's pray.
One John. Chapter One.
I, John. Chapter one that.
Which was from the beginning, which we have heard.
Which we have seen with our eyes.
Which we have looked upon.
And our hands.
Have handled of the word of life.
For the life was manifested.
And we have seen it. And bear witness and show unto you that.
Eternal life.
Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
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, these things rightly 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 cleanseth us from all sin.
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.
Few verses in chapter 4.
Chapter 4, the same book, the end of verse eight, God is love, and this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.
Here is love, not that we love God, but that He.
Loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
No man has seen God at anytime.
If we love one another.
God dwelleth in US, and His love is perfected in US. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him.
And he and us, because he hath given us of his.
Spirit.
And we have seen and do testify that the father.
Sent the son to be the savior.
Of the world.
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Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God.
God dwelleth in him, and he and God.
And we have known and believed.
The love that God hath to us or toward us.
God is love.
We stopped there. This book.
We have.
A piece of revelation.
From God and it is a revelation of God.
Otherwise we could not know.
But by the grace of God, we do know God.
And God is.
Hebrews 11 It says, He that cometh to God must believe that he.
Is.
He is the eternal.
He is the great I am.
That is life, but more than life.
Eternal.
And God is light.
We read that in the first chapter.
Amazing to me.
That twice in the 4th chapter God says has written God is love.
Why did he put that there twice?
It's not a vain repetition.
Perhaps it's because we're so slow.
To believe it.
To know it.
Yesterday we heard of the love of God and the love of Christ and its drawing power.
In that chapter that was used, that was spoken of as a motive, and it is perhaps the most powerful.
That a servant of God can ever have.
To know, to believe.
The constraining power of the love of Christ.
There are two other motives in that chapter.
They are the glory.
To be present.
With Christ.
Think of that.
That's where we are headed, the glory present with Christ.
The other motive there for the servant.
Is the judgment seat of Christ? In those chapters that proceed 2 Corinthians 5, we have in the third chapter the ministry that's committed to the minister who is brought before us. In the 4th chapter we have this ministry in earthen vessels.
And then we have the motives, and oh, that motive of the love.
Of Christ.
Than just to say that in the 6th chapter.
Of two Corinthians we have the moral traits.
That are seen in the servant.
Well, we're not talking about that, but the revelation of God.
And there's a good deal right in this first chapter that we read.
We've been having.
In Colossians 3.
About setting our affections upon.
Things which are above, since ye then be risen with Christ.
Set your affections upon things which are above.
Yes, and God is sufficient in himself.
For everything.
Except.
Objects upon which to display is love.
And he's sufficient in that, in that he has made us to display that love upon us.
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Now he had one son that he loved so much.
But he wanted more like him.
And we shall see him, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Like Christ in glory.
Now the word of God is where we get the revelation of God and from God.
And your chapter here begins with.
That which was from the beginning.
And the beginning is the beginning of the manifestation.
Of eternal life on earth in the person of God's Son. Become a man.
That's the beginning here in our chapter. It's Christ come, the manifestation of that life in the person.
The apostle speaking, says we that which was from the beginning, which we.
We the Apostles have heard.
Talking about.
Jesus bringing those disciples together.
And Jesus, the manifestation of the life, come from God.
Hearing.
Hearing Jesus speaking, how intimate it was.
For those disciples, those strongers, not only did they hear him.
We have seen with our eyes, yes.
They saw Jesus.
And so remarkable was the sight that they left their eyes there.
Which we have looked upon.
Looked upon, that's more intense.
Then the intimacy for those who walk with the Lord Jesus as his chosen apostles in that day was that.
They handled him.
John the writer lay in his bosom.
And then he says of the word of.
Life now that was the person of Jesus here.
Manifesting that life.
Further down in our chapter it says God is linked. It is the light that makes.
These things, no.
Light makes the life known.
And light in the Word makes the love of God know.
And God was determined to make himself.
Known.
To us.
And to do that.
He has to bring us into fellowship with him in two communion with him to have common thoughts with God.
To agree with him.
What we have got?
Has come to us through the apostles.
That we is the writers of this book in particular.
Those who walked with Christ.
And we will include.
Paul, who was as one born out of due time. Who could say, have not I seen the Lord?
He had perhaps the brightest sight of the Lord of all.
Seeing him.
In heaven.
Seeing him there.
To confirm that, let's go back and check these things out as.
The Old Testament begins to reveal these things to us beginning in Psalm 22, where we have David writing by the Spirit about the Lord Jesus and His work of redemption upon the cross. It begins with atonement.
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But it takes up all the six hours on the cross prophetically.
Written 1000 years before it took place.
And what we want to see is what the last verse of Psalm 22 states.
To connect it with this we in our chapter in one John.
It says.
In Psalm 22, verse 31, And they shall come.
And shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born that he.
Hath done this.
Now there are two ways of looking at this and the present day way of looking at it is what John the Apostle is writing for our benefit. In first John one, he was one of those that came.
And declared the righteousness of God, who is Christ.
Unto a people that were not born when John wrote the book, but are living and present in this room in 1993, telling us about Jesus on the cross, even as Philip could tell the eunuch and preach Jesus from.
Isaiah the same.
From the Psalms we know who it was that did it, and what it was that he did. But they shall come. Also there is a prophetic thing in the Psalm, for the Psalms are always prophetic.
The some of the Lord's brethren, the Jews, will go forth with the gospel of the Kingdom.
In the seven years and convict.
Some of the Jews, a Jewish remnant, gathered together for the millennial day.
Out of the people who are living on the earth after we're gone, those who haven't heard the gospel, the grace of God will hear.
About Jesus and it will be convicting to some of those Jews.
And they will learn that they as a nation were guilty of crucifying their Messiah. And they shall hear and they shall learn that Jesus indeed was their Messiah. That's ahead of us. But now we know it. Let's go to Isaiah chapter.
Eight and get a few more words.
We won't read much, but we'll begin with verse 16, Isaiah.
816 bind up the testimony, seal the law among.
My disciples. Here's a reference to those days when the Lord was to be with his disciples, sealing up the testimony and recording the testimony, writing it down, putting it in the book so that we would know.
Jesus as our Savior, the revelation of God.
God manifest in the flesh that life manifested. Verse 17 I will wait upon the Lord.
That hideth his face from the House of Jacob, and I will look for him.
But then he says in verse 18, Behold I and the children.
Whom the Lord hath given me? This little part of the verse is quoted in Hebrews, chapter 2.
Referring doubtless to the children.
Gathered out by the gospel of the grace of God and brought into heaven.
Introduced there we can picture Jesus taking us in when he comes and turning to the Father says look, here's the children you have given me and I say you and I receive indirectly what the apostles received directly were putting the importance upon the word of the apostle, but all of the word where we get the revelation.
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From God and the revelation of God, and when he reveals himself, he is the eternal God.
He is late and he is loved back in our chapter.
First, John.
For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness. Verse two and showing you that eternal life.
Which?
Was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
This was the living experience of John, a Peter of Matthew, of the 12 having Jesus.
The word of life.
Manifested in the form of the man.
Christ Jesus.
Who was then the manifestation of God himself? The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, says this writer in the Gospel.
So they saw, they heard, they looked upon, they handled.
And that life was manifested, that life which was always there.
So that in his gospel.
John begins in the beginning was.
The word he starts with imaginary, beginning wherever you want to put it, as far back as your thought can go.
And says to us the word was already there because he is.
Eternal God, but God.
Want each other. He wanted those with whom he could commune and make his thoughts known before you see.
When God made Adam and Eve, he placed them in the paradise of Eden.
And they being moral creation above.
The animals are a little lower than the angels were to be tested to see how far they could go.
In that creation.
Then it wasn't long, perhaps before the 2nd Sabbath as we might think. The fall came in.
And I like to think.
Of God.
Having his fellowship.
With his creature interrupting.
You and I.
Interrupt our fellowship with our Creator.
And with our Redeemer.
Through sin. This chapter is about that. To get that fellowship and to have it restored, we want to get into that. But there was God and he went out there in the garden.
And he says.
Adam, where art thou?
There he was hiding from God.
I don't think God had another Sabbath, for when Jesus was here he said my Father worketh hitherto and I work. God worked those 4000 years to see if there was yet anything that could be produced out of the first atom. We've had that nothing came before God.
The Lord came.
And with all his power in miracles displayed.
Having life and giving life. Raising from the dead.
They rejected him.
Sent him out of this scene but he finished his work whereby he is getting.
Children, the God.
Jesus could say I am the way, the truth.
And the light, no man come unto the Father, but by me.
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He has undertaken to bring children into the glory. He has gotten us started on the way. He's going to bring us all the way home. But we're being tested now. And who is working now? Jesus went up on high. The character of this age is Christ the man in the glory and the Spirit of God down here working.
To save and to gather to his name and have a people who are in fellowship with God.
To walk in fellowship with God, I tell you it is.
Possible. It is expected. It is the way of joy and happiness.
Let's go on.
That which we have seen, says John, the apostles included, and her declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. Now we come to the first fellowship stated here. We don't want to miss this.
For the way we get into the fullness of fellowship is in the order we have it here.
I'm afraid.
Than in our failure.
And breakdown and division.
We have felt and tried to restore.
Fellowship with brethren.
First, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way to start with, nor does it work that way when sin comes in.
We have to first of all be in the fellowship with the apostles.
That's Acts 2. That's the very beginning.
They that received his word.
Were baptized.
And then they continued steadfastly in the apostles.
Doctrine.
The word that they wrote, that's what we're reading. John was an apostle. This is John's teaching by the Spirit of God.
By the way, we did find the Trinity mentioned in those few verses we read in the fourth of John.
The Spirit and the Father and the Son.
Yes, God is interested in us. He wants us to know Him.
And to.
Walk with him so that we can have fellowship with him, but we have to obey the teaching of the apostles if we're going to have fellowship with the apostles.
If I if you lie and do not the truth.
When it's condemned by the apostles doctrine, I don't have fellowship.
With the apostles according to the doctrine they wrote.
What we have got to do is read this book and abide by the teaching.
Of the apostles has given to us by the Spirit of God.
And obey it. Then we have common thoughts.
With the doctrine of the Apostles and we are in.
Fellowship with the Apostle.
Let's turn at this point back to 2nd Corinthians chapter 6.
To get those two words brought together fellowship and communion.
I think this was touched upon here in these meetings.
Verse 14. Two Corinthians 6.
14.
Paul certainly was an apostle. He gave us these words B.
He not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship?
Hath righteousness with unrighteousness, And what communion?
Half light with darkness there, I say.
Fellowship and Communion mean the same thing. They are interchangeable.
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And you and I cannot have fellowship with darkness.
And fellowship with the light at the same time.
In our epistle.
Perhaps the last chapter first John, it says.
The whole world lieth in wickedness, or in the wicked one.
That's out there.
That's the world under Satan's control. It lies there.
We can't go along with that and have fellowship with the apostles.
If we go along with the apostles and our separate.
From the darkness and walk in the light as he is in the light.
We have fellowship one with another.
But the immediate effect.
Of having fellowship with the apostles. What is it right here? Quickly it says.
Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
We'll go back and read in First Corinthians chapter one.
To understand how it's put there.
To desire that place.
No fellowship.
I Corinthians.
Chapter One.
Verse nine God is faithful.
By whom you recalled under the fellowship of his son.
Jesus Christ, the highest possible kind of fellowship.
For the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus is that He has called us to have common thoughts with Him.
Fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
And so the light comes in and that's what we have coming down.
Here in these verses.
But the desire from God by the apostles expressed in verse 4.
Of our chapter These things rightly unto you, that your joy may be full.
I don't believe it's possible to have a greater joy.
The fellowship with God.
Fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord to agree.
Wholeheartedly with him.
The plea in the gospel is Be reconciled to God.
Have his thoughts about these things?
Well.
The joy is ours if we follow the doctrine of the apostles.
And enjoy fellowship with the Apostles, which brings us into this.
Fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. Verse five. This then is the message which we have heard of him and declared you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. Now we come to this statement.
God is light.
Light makes manifest.
And if God was going to reveal himself, he.
Had to come out into the light.
Now he did not do that in the full sense.
Until.
Jesus.
Dispensed his spirit there on the cross.
And what happened?
The veil of the temple was run entwined from the top to the bottom.
As though God saying.
With relief that it was done.
Now I can come out in light to my creature.
And bring them into the light as suited for the light, for redemption's work is done which has put away our sins and suited us for that light.
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Well, God is light and that speaks to the conscience, and in Him is.
No darkness at all. What a contrast. There is no agreement between light and.
Darkness.
So we've got this next verse coming up 6.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie.
And do not the truth? How simple and black and white is the truth in this epistle?
What do you say?
Do you say you have fellowship with him?
Now where are you walking?
Out there in darkness.
Or in the presence of the God whose light.
But if we walk or since we walk in the light, it should read in verse 7.
For the true light now shineth.
Yes, the veil is rent and God has come out into the light and we have the light.
The Word of God to guide us in the path.
Of his choosing so that we can walk with him.
And enjoy that fellowship with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ.
But it says, if we walk, or since 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 cleanseth us from all sin.
The fact is that the light is there.
And the believer here is looked at as in the light.
But it's walking. It's where you go down a path. I go down a path.
Is it the path of the light of the word of God for me to walk in?
Or do I head off into the darkness?
Or do you go off into the darkness?
If you walk in the light for the light is there and I walk in the light.
We are together as brethren. Why are not we all together?
Some are not walking.
Where the light shines.
We have to get back to this book.
Search that way, where the light directs us in holiness to walk with the One who is holy and true.
He never and can never change his character of holiness and truth.
We can know that way of holiness and truth through the light of the Word of God where that path is.
Well, as a brother said this morning in the Sunday school, we've got.
Our worst enemy in here.
And.
We breakdown.
And we fail.
And we don't always have that fellowship.
But it goes on and says here.
The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.
So what we find out practically is.
Then what the light reveals.
The sin covers.
Now this and these verses are excellent in the gospel.
To get into that communion, that fellowship the first time, to move out of Satans world, into the path of walking where the light puts you and I walking with God, so that there is a provision here.
Verse 8 says if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US for all. If sin and come short of the glory of God, well, we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. We've got to confess.
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That we are sinners.
But then we go to the book and see that one died for our sins.
And the way of being restored to communion.
That we want to talk about a little bit in verse nine is very simple.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our.
Sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now, this is not aimed at any particular person.
Has gone off and openly brought shame upon himself.
Or his family. Or somebody else.
Only.
It's aimed at all of us.
It's a necessary path.
To enjoy fellowship with God.
It's just confession.
Who so confesses and forsake of his sins shall have.
Mercy, What is Rita saying is that when I sin.
What I've got to do is to come to God and tell Him.
That I have done that. He knows it already.
It shouldn't be hard. No secret to him.
He already knows that I told that lie. I stole that thing. He knows it.
And the disobedient child is unhappy. We all want to be happy. We say We want to be happy, but we certainly don't like to confess our sins, do we?
It may be even harder, and I suppose it is.
To confess sins to a neighbor.
Or a brother than it is to God.
For God is readily disposed to forgive us.
When we confess.
It says here, if we confess our sins, he is faithful, He's always the faithful God. God is faithful and that he has called us into the fellowship, His Son Jesus Christ, First Corinthians one, He's always the faithful God. But what does it mean just to forgive?
I think a brother quoted yesterday God.
Cannot.
Judgment twice, demand once that my bleeding savior's hand.
And then again at mine.
When I confess my sins? When you confess your sins to God.
He has to forgive us because Jesus has already.
Born that sin, the guilt of it, and washed it away in his precious blood.
So that.
Children, young people, and particularly we who are old.
Be quick.
To tell God.
About that sin.
He knows it.
He wants the repentant heart to tell him to confess it and to agree with him.
That it was wrong.
And he has to forgive us. He is just to the work of Christ.
To forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That last verse of Psalm 22, they shall come.
And declare his righteousness unto people that have been, have not been born, that he hath done this.
That's that, the righteousness of God.
So, fellowship, Communion, what a blessed thing it is, and how tender it is, how easily it is interrupted.
And the hurt continues when we can't have full fellowship with some of our brethren.
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But, brethren, we can have.
Full fellowship with God.
And we can have fellowship with brethren who walk.
Where the light puts us, let's sing in closing #300 and.
11 while the several paths dividing.
We, our pilgrimage, pursue.
May our shepherds, safely guiding, still be kept in constant view.
May the bond of blessed Communion. There's the word.
May the bond of blessed communion, every distant soul, embrace.
Till an everlasting union we attain our resting place #311 Please.
We are glad this person.