Fellowship as God intended and how to keep it. 1 John 1

These are my notes for a recent  sermon I preached. What I did not know until I arrived at church was that a former member had returned to make apologies for his behaviour and to restore his fellowship with us.God provided us with an illustration of the passage and the sermon. He also confirmed to the returnee the rightness of his repentance. 

The musical note at the bottom of the post should activate a recording of the sermon, but it was made on my smartphone so there are some issues with it. Most of it is quite audible.  

I pray that it blesses you.

1John 1

                                     

What the fellowship is like.

John proclaims historicity of Christ from his personal experience and of others.

A generation that is dying off and many of his friends are already martyrs

Eternal Jesus

Eternal Life

Eternal Fellowship and therefore

Eternal Joy (complete)

Can we say “We”?

We need personal experience of Jesus that has a real testimony. This is what God has done, is doing and I believe He will do.

We need a corporate experience of Jesus etc.

There is a proclamation. This is two-fold. One is to the unbeliever but the other is to ourselves. The Bible often does this. The salvation history of the Jews is recounted, sometimes by way of encouragement and sometimes by way of rebuke.

There is a personal proclamation of Jesus.

There is a corporate proclamation of Jesus.  Come to our Church and see what God has done, is doing and what we believe that He will do.

There is Joy, deep, eternal Joy.

Maintaining and repairing the fellowship.

The message sets a challenge we cannot meet.

Verse 6. Walking in darkness breaks fellowship, if it existed. If we claim fellowship we lie and do not live according to the truth.

This is the religious ‘Christian’ who does not really know Jesus.

Verse7  blazes out with Hope. Come into the light and be made clean. It’s the opposite of religion.

Verse 8 is for everyone including the Christian

Verse 9 Confession leads to forgiveness and cleansing

Verse 10 If we deny our sin we make God a liar and lose the truth. This is perilously close to blaspheming the Holy Spirit.  Mark 3:28 – 30 Isaiah 5:20

We can lose the truth, the light and the word. It’s hell. No truth, no light and no Word of God to rescue us – if we do not confess our sin.

If we confess our sin, we gain all of these things. Consider –

We have the truth, we have the light and we have the Word – in us.

That means we are all able to proclaim, to witness, to preach, to teach and even to prophesy.

Individually and corporately.