Address—R. Thonney
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We'll read the whole chapter. It's only 10 verses.
First 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 in 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. 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 to 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 cleanses us from all sin. 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. We say that we have not sinned. We make Him a liar, and His word is not in US.
A good part of You'll remember that last conference last year we had this chapter in the readings.
It's always a chapter that I enjoy so thoroughly.
And since we were in the readings this year on John chapter 15.
And speaking about abiding in Christ, I'd just like to go over this chapter briefly.
Perhaps in a little different context that we may have heard it before.
But I just the burden of my soul is this afternoon is.
That although we speak of abiding in Christ, although we speak of fellowship or communion, that I really wonder of times how much there really is in the in our souls individually with the Lord. Sometimes it seems that fellowship one with another is what is so tremendously emphasized, and it is important to have fellowship one with another.
But if you'll notice in this chapter of the four times that fellowship is mentioned.
Only the last time it mentions it as fellowship one with another, it comes last of the four times that it is mentioned. The first time it is mentioned in verse three, it is fellowship with the apostles, and that fellowship is fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. To me this is the extremely vital part of Christian life.
Dear young person, and I speak to myself as well.
And this, what I say this afternoon would be applicable to everyone of us that you and I have been made in such a fashion.
That it is impossible for that life of yours to be completely satisfied.
Apart from that intimate fellowship with God as Father, with the Lord Jesus Christ, that is what you were made for. It seemed to be that way when God made Adam in the 1St and put him in the garden. He came down in the cool of the day, and it seemed to be that God the Creator and man, the creature walked side by side in happy intimate.
Fellowship.
You are made that way and I was made that way.
And you and I cannot be satisfied fully without having that fellowship.
With the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, Adam sinned. He lost it all.
And when God restores something, he never restores it just the way it was before.
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He always restores it in the fuller measure. And so now we can know fellowship.
Not only with God as Creator, but with God as Father.
Something far more intimate, something far more intelligent as well.
But to me, dear brother and sister and the Lord Jesus, we're going to understand.
What this means it is an individual matter.
And sometimes the collective fellowship, one with another, is so emphasized.
I really and truly believe that our ways, our walk, our talk, our manifesting, that we don't know what it is to have that fellowship with the Father and with His Son, and we maintain an outward conformity to certain things that are necessary to be accepted amongst those we know as brethren and learn fellowship with. But we are not walking in fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
And little by little, the enemy of our souls gets us away. Sure, we maintain fellowship with some of our fellow young people, fellow brethren, for a time. But the time comes when the test is going to lay at our door and we're going to fall down. Dear young person, my desire this afternoon is to encourage you to cultivate that fellowship with God as Father.
With the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in this chapter, this is what John is Speaking of, the beginning of the readings, our brother mentioned that John, his ministry is with the family of God. It's not so much the Church of God, it's the family of God and the family life. What is normal and family life is fellowship, especially what should be normal as fellowship with the Father.
With his son sometimes in our family lives that fellowship is broken, but it's not normal for that thing to be that fellowship to be always broken. It's normal for there to be that link of fellowship between the father and individual, each one with each one of his children. And so in this chapter we begin that first verse. He says that which was.
From the beginning, I just like to point out that expression because it occurs.
Again and again in this epistle. Notice in the second chapter and the.
Seventh Verse. For example, brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye have had from the beginning. The word, the old commandment, is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. It is an expression that occurs time and again in this epistle.
And if you'll each time you notice that little expression that which was from the beginning.
You can come right back to the first verse of the first chapter. It will help you to understand what it means.
Speaking here, John of divine life, eternal life, manifested in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so the apostle says that which we have.
Heard that which we have seen with our eyes.
Which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of light. You notice these little phrases. There's a progressive nearness to hear something, and maybe at the other end of the building you'll hear it, but you didn't see it. To see it, perhaps you need to be a little closer to look on it or contemplate it. You have to be a little bit closer yet and to touch it to handle it.
You have to be right there. So there's a progressive nearness. And I like to thank the apostle John saying in effect here.
That God and his desire to share fellowship with us that have been now born into God's family. And I'm speaking to those who have been born into God's family this afternoon.
Dear young person, you're not a believer in the Lord Jesus. What we're saying this afternoon doesn't apply to you.
But if you would like to know what it means to be born into God's family.
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John 112 Says to all that received him to them.
Gave you power to become the sons of God to them that believe on his name.
And if you would want to know what it means to be part of God's family?
You must receive him, you must believe on his name. It's as simple as that.
Then you become part of God's family and.
Even though you may be tending toward the world, you are still part of God's family. And what we're Speaking of this afternoon applies to you, dear young person. It applies to you. So this life that was manifested in John's gospel and the person of the Lord Jesus, that eternal life that was with the Father is now manifested in John's epistle in the children.
Of God.
And he says here that which we have heard.
Dear young person, are you cultivating fellowship?
With the Lord Jesus in your life individually this morning before you came down to breakfast or to meeting.
Did you have a quiet time for Lord Jesus to speak to Him in prayer?
To open His precious word and to read it. Was there time for that in your life? Is that a practice daily in your life? I say without that you cannot maintain fellowship. It doesn't seem so important to open the Bible and read four or five verses in the morning.
What's the difference if you miss it for a day or two and go off to work without doing it?
Oh, dear young person, it is extremely important because it is through this means that you and I can maintain that fellowship with the Father and with His Son. I really and truly fear that there are many perhaps present this afternoon who are going on in an outward way, conforming themselves to what their brethren might require them to act like.
But who are not maintaining fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
I just want to say to you, if that's the case in your life, you're missing the greatest joy possible on the face of the earth to walk through this world and fellowship with the Lord of glory, with God as your Father, intimate fellowship with him. May the Lord stir your heart, your young person, It's going to take energy, spiritual energy.
Exercise is what makes us grow, but exercise takes time and it takes energy.
Whether it's in the physical level or the spiritual level, and if you're going to know what it means to grow.
Spiritually, it's going to take you some time. I suggest if you have a hard time getting up in the morning.
Set your clock a little earlier. Set your alarm clock.
I know it's hard and that thing rings just to not reach out and shut it off and go back to sleep. Discipline yourself.
Get up out of that bed, put some water over your face so that you're awake, and then get down to some fellowship with the One who bought you with His precious blood. He wants to walk in your company through this world. He wants to share every detail of your life with you. Do you know what it means? That intimate fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
Well, the apostle says here that which we have heard. Have you heard him?
That which we have seen, Have you seen the Lord Jesus?
That which we have looked upon are contemplated. Have you contemplated him? You say, How can we do that?
That's why we have the four Gospels. Dear young person, dear young brother and sister, when I go through the four Gospels, I contemplate him. I see him, I hear him.
And it can become so close to a person that we can actually say with the apostles as well.
That which our hands have handled of the word.
Of life, oh, may it burn in your heart and mind though reality.
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Of this fellowship with a Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
May the Lord stir you not to be satisfied with mere outward fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
If you don't know what it means to have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
It's an empty thing if you don't know what that is. In fact, I like to think of verse 7, where you have fellowship with the Father and fellowship one with another as the result.
Have you been in fellowship with the Father? And I being in fellowship with the Father?
The automatic result is that there's fellowship.
Between ourselves as well, but it only comes second.
It only comes last in the mention of fellowship in this chapter. Remember that, dear young person.
It's important that only secondarily important.
First of all.
Primary in this question of fellowship.
Is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ? Or to go back to the Gospels.
To read through those gospels and even to read of him in the epistles.
To read of Christ in the Old Testament as well all those figures that we have to see him, to contemplate him.
I marvel at that person.
As I contemplating walking through this world of perfection, never.
Any imbalance in his character, as there so often is in mind, and as there so often is in our brothers and sisters in Christ. Never any imbalance there.
As he stood before those Pharisees and the doctors of the law.
I've often thought the most fearful person to stand before is a lawyer.
It can twist your words around to mean what you are to.
Interpret what you didn't mean at all.
And as the Lord Jesus stood in the midst of those doctors of the law.
And they tried to trip him up time and again. They had to go away marveling at the perfection. They couldn't catch him. They tried to lay hold on his words. They couldn't do it because there was absolute perfection. That's your life, young person. That's my life now. That's the life you and I possess by being born into God's family.
But are you cultivating fellowship in that lifestyle?
Dear young person, I'd like to ask you. I'd like to stir your minds.
To examine yourselves in the Lord's presence. You know what it means to have fellowship with God in that way as Father and with the Lord Jesus Christ just like to come down to verse three. Now me there's something extremely important here 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.
You'll notice that the first fellowship here mentioned is with us.
And John the Apostle speaks not only for himself.
But he speaks in the plural, including with him those other apostles who were witnesses of all that Jesus did and taught.
They declared those things that they saw and heard.
So that we might have fellowship with them.
And then he goes on to say that this fellowship is truly with the Father.
And with his son, Jesus Christ. Now where have they declared those things to me? Here's the touchstone, dear young person. It's in the Word of God.
In Acts chapter 2 and verse 42, a verse that we often quote, it says they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers.
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The adjective apostles modifies both doctrine and fellowship. It was the apostles doctrine. It was the apostles fellowship. You and I cannot lay down the conditions of this fellowship. There are many different fellowships in this world, many different religious congregations that have their fellowship, and if you want to belong to one of those religious denominations, you have to subject yourself to the conditions that they lay down.
Therefore, in that way you will become part of their fellowship.
But when we're Speaking of the Apostles fellowship, dear young person.
It is on the ground of the Apostles doctrine and there is a constant.
Need I find in my own soul, and I want to stir your minds as well this afternoon, dear young person.
To livingly be in the word.
Not just to read it as a habitual form, but to let it become something that lives in our lives. Fellowship is a living thing. You can't enjoy fellowship while you're asleep.
And spiritual sleep has overtaken a large part of God's people.
Has it overtaken you? I know at times.
Has overtaken me.
And you know, sometimes sleep is so subtle a thing.
You don't even realize that you're just about to go to sleep.
And you're there.
Does that happen to you? It's happened to me on the road quite a number of times.
But I say, dear young person, my desire is to wake you up this afternoon.
We're living right at the end. At any moment, the Lord Jesus is going to come from heaven and give that shout. We're going to be raptured into his presence.
To meet him face to face, It's a reality. We're not just talking about doctrine.
It's something that's a reality, but it's not showing in our lives as a reality.
Yes, I know everyone would.
Accept that as the doctrine that we hold.
But I don't not satisfied with that. Merely, dear young person, my desire is for you.
That you might know it in a living, real way. The doctrine of the apostles is therefore the basis of the fellowship of the apostles. If you want to know what this fellowship is, you want to experience it, you must be into the doctrine, the teaching of the apostles. And that's what we have.
Especially in the New Testament, we can't divorce it from the old, but the apostles.
Are spoken of in Ephesians chapter two, I think it's verse 19 or 20 of the foundation build upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
So I cannot lay down the rules and regulations here.
If I could put it in that way, I cannot lay down the conditions. I cannot lay down the ground.
The ground has already been laid. The apostles have given us.
What they saw, what they heard, and on that ground.
I must know what is fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
That's the touchstone. That's the way I can live and fellowship.
With God the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Sometimes we use those terms and I really believe we kind of give the impression that it's something so high and exalted that we just don't know where to touch here.
In a practical way. But I say here's the touch, here's the place you can touch this.
In reality, it's in the Scriptures, in the Word of God.
There is where you can hear. There is where you can see.
There's where you can look upon that eternal life, that which was with the Father.
And there is where you can handle it as well, if we can speak it in that way.
Spiritual and so he says.
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He that they have given us this doctrine, that.
We might have fellowship with them, and that fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Now, since Paul or John here speaks in the plural, I'd like just to touch on a few points.
To me, a supremely important doctrine of the apostles.
In the New Testament.
I just want to say sometimes practical ministry is emphasized.
Dear young person, you cannot get practical ministry in its right context except you understand the doctrine.
And that's why it's so important.
To listen, to learn.
The doctrine of the Apostles, because upon that doctrine.
Upon that, teaching doctrine means teaching is based.
The fellowship and so.
I'd like to just mention five points I've just jotted them down that I feel are supremely important.
And that we really need to focus in on from time to time.
Perhaps I sound repetitive. I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm sorry. I cannot apologize for being repetitive on this. I find in my own Christian experience that I'm forgetful.
I'm forgetful and we need to have these things refreshed, brought newly on our.
Memory to enjoy them in in our souls. The first thing I'd like to speak of is the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ, his present position in glory. Never before this dispensation was it true that there was a.
Living, resurrected man of flesh and bones in the glory of God.
That is one of the cardinal truths of this dispensation.
And even though he sits there at God's right hand, a real living man, Dear young person, let the truth lay hold of you as I would desire in my own life, that we are intimately, eternally united to Him as a head to the body. When there are problems in your life, what is your immediate reaction?
Go to some brother or some sister.
Or to your mother or your father. Well, God may use those people and not saying he won't.
But as we would grow in our Christian lives, what is desirable is to grow up into Him in all things, to have him livingly in view. Somebody say something to hurt you during this conference.
Did he feel it too?
He sure did.
He felt it. Did you take it to him?
That's the 1St place we should run.
You know these things are practical.
But the way we react, brethren, shows that off times we are being caught.
In the current of this world's thinking.
What I mean that here in the United States of America, we're told to be self-sufficient to have confidence in yourself. You can do it.
Have enough confidence in yourself. There's nothing that you can't do.
That's what's instilled in our minds right from our Utah.
In the schools of the United States and Canada.
That's not Christianity.
That's this world.
Remember down in Bolivia one time, just to give a practical illustration. Perhaps I've told this before.
When?
In the winter time in the Santa Cruz area, which is the tropical area of the country, we get strong S winds that are very cold that sweep into there and.
There was a brother in Montero that we that was while we were living there and he used to get bad asthma attacks when these winds would come in. One day his little boy came into the house and said, my father's calling for you. Come quick, he's sick.
And I ran over to the house where he was, and there he was sitting up in bed gasping for breath and said, oh, brother, what can I do for you? I'll run and get my Jeep and we'll take you to the hospital right away.
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Get down on your knees, Pray, please.
That's why he called for me. It was a rebuke to me. Why is it that's so instilled into us to run to human aid, first of all, instead of going to the one whose head, not only of his church, that head over all things, to the body?
It was a lesson to me. I trust I won't forget it. But I say, dear young person, we learn these things and then we begin to forget.
This is why I want to challenge you, not only individually as he had, but in a collective sense as well when there's problems.
In our meetings, do we get together to discuss it?
Without going and humbling ourselves in the presence of Him who is head over all things to His church.
Would there be so much haste? Would there be so much hurry, so much forcing of things, Dear brethren, if we would go to Him and let in His presence first of all.
May the Lord give us to know what it means to hold the head.
It's one of the cardinal truths of this dispensation #2.
But I'd like to speak about is the presence of the Holy Spirit of God in this world.
So another cardinal truth of this dispensation is here as a person.
To indwell believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to unite them.
Together in one body in Christ.
That mean anything to you dear young person? The fact the Holy Spirit of God indwells your body as a believer in the Lord Jesus and unites you to every other believer in the Lord Jesus Christ on the face of this earth.
Well, it's a wonderful truth, and it is characteristic of this dispensation too, the presence of the Spirit of God.
Here in this world.
You seek to be led by the Spirit.
Do you seek to as scripture exhorts us in Galatians chapter 5?
To walk in the Spirit so that you won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
Spirit of God is here as the power of that new life.
That we have in Christ.
3rd like to speak on what we speak of so much as the assembly. The body of Christ is the assembly or the church. The word is the same in the original. There's no difference between the word church and assembly.
Found in several areas that there's the understanding that church is the universal thing and assembly is the local thing. I don't think Scripture will bear that out. There is in Scripture.
What is the local assembly? The Church of God, which is at Corinth. He speaks of the local expression of the whole. So when the Church of God met, they met as the expression of the body of Christ in the whole world. That is the assembly. Just want to challenge a bit our expressions here, dear young person, your young brother and sister, the way we use that word.
Assembly.
Sometimes we're getting away from the true spiritual connotation of that word, but in Scripture, when I see it used, it includes every true believer in the Lord Jesus. And if you're going to specify it by saying a certain locality.
Like the assembly of Addison, you would have to vision in your mind's eye every true believer in the Lord Jesus.
That resides in Addison.
That is the assembly in Addison.
Sometimes we use that, and I'm afraid what our vision is, is only those gathered to the Lord's name.
I remember in years gone by that it seems to me that.
Older brethren used the word gathering more.
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Is relating to those gathered to the Lords name. I remember Ch Brown making a comment one of his.
Addresses that if the Apostle Paul were to send a letter to the assembly at Des Moines, the postmaster wouldn't be able to deliver it.
Because the assembly is divided and scattered in so many areas.
I'm not saying that there's not a local expression of the assembly, that's another matter.
The testimony, the local expression. But when we use the word assembly.
Dear young person, remember that it includes every true believer.
In that locality, even though they may not meet together with us.
They are part of God's assembly and so these are things we need to.
Perhaps challenge our vocabulary. It gives wrong impressions to people sometimes when we use that freely.
And relate it to merely those who were gathered to the Lord's name.
The Lord give us not to embrace a smaller circle than what scripture?
Embraces when it uses that word assembly.
The fourth thing that I would like to speak of justice briefly is the matter of Christ as the center of gathering. And I'd just like to say, dear young person, may the Lord give you in the the grace to.
Not focus in on ourselves. I'm afraid this is what is coming across so often to people.
That we speak of the divine center and the way we speak of it. We speak of it as if this is it.
I remember an older brother when the meeting was in Oak Park who was talking to some of us younger brothers about.
The divine center and he said to me, he said to us, he said.
I cannot tell you that it is here. I cannot tell you that.
If I believed it was elsewhere, I would be somewhere else, he said.
But if I would tell you that it is here, there would be danger that you would go on what I say and not on scripture.
And you must go on scripture entirely.
Because faith is always based on the word of God and not based.
On anything outward and visible.
It results in a visible outward expression perhaps, but.
To speak of the divine center, dear young person, let's always refer to Christ, attract to him. The disciples in the Lords day said that they saw one casting out devils, and they rebuked him. For he follows, not us.
You see the focus.
US. And if you get eyes on us, brethren, we're going to be turned away.
From the divine center.
We must keep our eyes on the center, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
One last thing.
That has concerned me a bit in recent times.
Is the truth of the priesthood of all believers.
Every true believer in the Lord Jesus.
Born into God's family is also born into the priestly family.
In the Old Testament, to be born to be a priest, you had to be born into Aaron's family.
The New Testament to be born a priest. To be a priest, you have to be born into God's family.
But it seems to me.
As I travel about a bit.
That in different little meetings there's long silences in the breaking of bread.
In the prayer meeting.
Doesn't seem to be a sense of liberty.
For those who are younger.
And I want to exhort you, dear young person.
To make use of your priesthood.
Scripture speaks of liberty to enter the holiest.
With boldness.
Oh, that gives me joy in my soul. You make use of that liberty, you say I might stumble around and mistaken my expressions. Yeah, you might. I did that myself quite a number of times and still do.
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But I want to encourage you to keep, to go ahead and do it. That's why the Lord Jesus.
Is at the right hand of God as our great High Priest to help us in that weakness?
Do it. Exercise your priesthood, dear young person. Sometimes it's painful to see, even at these conferences, in a prayer meeting, that we seem to wait on those only who are so-called in the work.
I don't like to use that word.
But we kind of wait and wait and wait. There's a lot of brothers. There doesn't seem to be liberty to get up and to pray.
The Lord encouraged us to exercise our priesthood for going to not exercise it. We're going to gradually fall back and I fear this is what is happening in many areas into what we know as the camp where there was only a certain ones who took the part and all the rest didn't.
May the Lord exercise us as to these things. Dear brethren, I'd just like to say before closing now, just touch on the end of this chapter.
These are all things that we've spoken of that are included in the doctrine of the Apostles.
And dear young person, if you and I don't livingly hold these precious, precious truths in our souls, we're going to lose out what is known as the Apostles fellowship. And therefore we will not know what it means to be in fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ either. I fear we are maintaining an outward position there, but we don't know the inward reality. And that's what I want to exhort you about this afternoon.
To stir you up about because this is the greatest thing in the world.
Notice verse four. It says these things right we unto you, that your joy may be full.
Get that?
Not half full.
Is your joyful right now young person?
Young brother, young sister and the Lord Jesus is a full.
If you know what it means to walk in fellowship with God as Father and with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Your joy is going to be full, but it's on that ground that we've spoken of. The Lord stir us to get into the Word, to search out these precious truths, to know them for ourselves, not just because somebody else has said it. To know it for ourselves, to lay hold on it, to let it sing down deep into our hearts.
There's something that impedes fellowship.
It's what is called here in this chapter sin.
Sad to have to mention that word in this chapter.
But it's a reality in our lives, too. It happens all the time.
What about it?
In the last three verses of this chapter, I'd just like to briefly point out.
The way to restoration when sin has come in and broken fellowship.
In your life and mine, so often there are those who perhaps maintain an outward.
Position of being in fellowship so-called.
But who are not in fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
And my desire is that you would know how to get back if that has happened in your case. It happens in my case many times.
That's why we need to practice what is known as self judgment continually, dear young person.
And in verse eight it says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US.
Notice verse 10. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in US.
It seems that those two verses are just about the same, but if you look closely, I think you'll see that.
Verse 8 treats of sin, the root, that old nature that I have.
For Madam and verse 10 speaks of those individual.
Acts that that evil nature produces. It's not only the act.
That we need to recognize, but we need to recognize that why I did that bad thing was because of an evil root that was within my own breast. I see so many people that don't seem to be able to get over their problem because they recognize, yeah, they did the wrong thing, but they point the finger in the other direction. Those folks out there, they're the responsible ones. They're the ones that are guilty and causing that problem in my life. I say if sin is entered your life to your young person.
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You are responsible, and there's not going to be full restoration in your case until that accusing finger comes right back to your own breast.
You recognize it. That's the first step toward restoration.
Not only what we've done, but I've done it because.
Of this evil nature inside here.
Second verse nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Notice this verse closely please. It doesn't say if you clean up your life and then get back to the Lord. No, it doesn't say anything of that sort says if we confess.
Then the rest of the verse is what he does. He is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse.
So often I find that souls don't go back, don't get back to the Lord, because they think they've got to clean up the act.
They've got to clean up their lives. You can't do it.
The Lord is the one that does that. Your part is to confess it.
Sometimes we recognize we do wrong, but we try to excuse it. That's just the way I am.
I encourage you, instead of doing that, to get into the Lord's presence to layout that problem that you may have in your life.
Before the Lord and say Lord I know it's wrong, confess it.
Not excuse it, confess it. And if we confess our sins?
He is faithful and justice to forgive us our sins.
And that cleanses from all unrighteousness.
For their young person, my desire this afternoon has been that to stir your minds and your hearts, that you would know in a deeper, fuller measure what it means to have fellowship with a Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Remember, that's the way you're made, and it is impossible that you're going to be satisfied apart from fellowship with God.
As Father and with our Lord Jesus Christ.
Shall we pray?