The Fellowship of the Body, Part 2

1 John 1:1-7

     If you have your Bible's, you might look at 1 John for just a moment, Chapter 1.  We are studying the fellowship of the body in connection with a series we're doing on the body of Christ.  If you haven't gotten in on this series, I don't usually advocate these specifically, but I would encourage you to get the tapes of this series and become acquainted with this divine information, because it's really important to an understanding of your relationship to the rest of the body of Christ to Christians to Christ Himself.

But we come tonight to the subject of the fellowship of the body continuing where we began last time.  I want to review for a moment.  Last week we gave you some basic general principles regarding the fellowship of the body.  We are all a body, Christ is the head, all of us are members, our resources are in Him, our strength is in Him, our wisdom is in Him, our life is in Him, and we minister and move and work together as a body.

We've talked about many of the ramifications of that.  One of the aspects of our life as the body is fellowship.  And fellowship is a very important thing, and as I said last week, we gave you some...some basic principles.  Tonight, I want to just review them very quickly and then I want to move to some new areas.

First of all, we talked last time about point number one the basis of fellowship.  And I'm reviewing for a minute.  We talked about the basis of fellowship in 1 John 1 and verse 3.  It says, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you," and that's John referring to Christ, he saw Christ, he saw His light, "that ye also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ."

Now, there you have the basis of all fellowship which is a right relationship to Christ and God.  There is no fellowship apart from that.  The grounds of our fellowship then is salvation.  That is, I'm talking about our fellowship both with God and with each other.  Salvation is the grounds of our fellowship.  And as I just said there are two facets to fellowship.  There is my fellowship with God and my fellowship with other believers.  And they are distinct in many ways.

But the basis of both is salvation.  When you receive Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior, when you come to know this Christ who gave His life for you, you enter into fellowship with God.  And then you are placed into the fellowship of believers.  So both of them take place at salvation.  Now, the fellowship we have with God, first of all, is different from the fellowship with each other.

The word fellowship is kiononia.  Literally kiononia means partnership.  When you receive Jesus Christ, now watch this, you went into an unbreakable partnership with God, an eternal fellowship.  Now here's an important point, remember it. Our fellowship with God, now watch this, is basically non-experiential.  Say it again, our fellowship with God is basically non-experiential.

It is a fact, we are in kiononia with God.  That means we are in partnership with God.  Now, I say that because I want you to understand this principle.  No Christian at any time is ever out of fellowship with God.  Now, that may violate some of the thoughts that you've had in the past.  Hang on.  We'll defend ourselves in a moment.

No Christian is ever out of fellowship with God.  Kiononia means partnership, you can't severe that relationship.  You are always in fellowship with God.  Now you can have two people that can enter into a marriage, a partnership.  Now, they may not talk to each other, but they are still in partnership.  You can have two people in the same business, they own the same business, they're partners, they may not like each other, but they're still partners.  Now, that's a very crude way of saying, that you and God are in an eternal partnership.  You may not really be acting like a partner to God and you may be violating some of the partnership standards, but the partnership maintains itself.

Our fellowship with the Trinity is non-conditional.  Once you're saved, you enter into permanent fellowship with God.  It is non-experiential.  We often say when everything is going great and everything is happy and we're kind of tuned into the Lord, I'm in fellowship.  And when you're not plugged into the Lord and you're kind of sinning in your life and you're a little bit diffident about your Christian life you might say well, I'm out of fellowship.  No, you're always in fellowship.  You are a kiononias or kiononas, I mean.  A partner of God.

Then you say, well, what about when we...when we're...you know, when we sin and it's just not like it should be.  What does that mean?  Well, that's verse 4, "And these write we unto you, that your joy may be," what, "full."  It's the difference of a partnership where there is full joy and a partnership where there is not full joy.  In other words, if you want to rightly evaluate your Christian life, say it this way.  I am experiencing full joy in my fellowship with the Father.  Or I am not experiencing the joy of my fellowship with God.

In other words, the issue is not whether you're in or out of fellowship.  The issue is whether you're experiencing or not experiencing full joy in that fellowship.  And that's true of marriage.  You're not in or out of the fellowship, you're just either experiencing joy or not experiencing joy, right?

Our fellowship is eternal and it never ends.  The joy of it is the key.  And the joy of our fellowship with God is what is effected by sin.  Now this is clearly taught here in Chapter 4.  Full joy...pardon me in Chapter 1, verse 4.  Full joy is the experience of fellowship, right?  Fellowship exists, the experience of it is full joy or not full joy.

Now notice that mixture is...doesn't exist.  There's no mixture of fellowship.  You're either in the fellowship or out of the fellowship.  Not in and out of it.  You're not in and out of fellowship with God.  You're either in fellowship or out of fellowship.  And if you're out of fellowship, that means you're not saved.  You have no partnership with God.

Now, notice how he begins to teach us in verse 5.  "This then is the message which we have heard Him and declare unto you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all."  Notice there's no mixture.  You're either in the light or you're out of the light.  You're either in the light or in the dark, not both.

No Christian is ever in the dark.  No Christian walks in the dark.  We are in the light, walk in the light, and have continuous eternal fellowship with God.  The only experiential aspect of it is joy, full joy, or no joy.  Now, I'm reviewing some of the concepts from last week.

Now last week, we saw several cases in terms of these verses that we illustrated several times.  How that some people counterfeit their experience and they feel that they're in the light, when in fact, they're not.  You have a counterfeit fellowship.  Some people think they're fellowshipping, but they're not.

Verse 6, here comes the counterfeits.  "If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness," what, "we lie and do not the truth."  That's a counterfeit believer.  That's not even a Christian.  That's somebody who comes along and says well, I have fellowship and you look at their life and say no, you're not in the fellowship because you're walking in darkness and believers are walking in light.  That's the pattern of their life.

That in verse 6 is an unbeliever.  And specifically John's writings of the Nostics who were a group of heretics who didn't believe they were sinful.  And they were kind of infiltrating the church and saying we're in the fellowship.  What do you mean, we're out of the fellowship.  We're in the fellowship.  And John is saying to them in effect, how can you be in the fellowship when the pattern of life is darkness.  Your liars, you're not doing the truth.

All right, what did we learn then?  We learned number one that one believer is ever out of fellowship.  We learned number two, that all believers always walk in the light.  Now if we do the deeds of the darkness, which we can do, we do them in the light, isn't that right?

If you as a Christian sin, you do it in full light of what you're doing don't you?  You walk in the light and I walk in the light.  We are children of the light.  Remember how we talked about that.  Children of the day, we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His son.  We are in the kingdom of light.  We walk as children of light, we are not sons of the night, we are sons of the day, we walk in the light.

Now, if you sin and do the deeds of darkness you do them in full light.  And they're obvious to you, to God, and to most people around you.  And so it's an unbeliever in verse 6 who says he has fellowship, it's a counterfeit fellowship and the pattern of his life is darkness so he couldn't be a believer.  Then he gives the principle of a true believer in verse 7.  "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship," now watch this, "one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us from all sin."

Now there's the pattern of a believer who is a true believer, an honest legitimate believer.  Now notice it very carefully, we walk in the light as He is in the light.  Consequently, we have a fellowship, now watch this, with...one with another.  Now, who is the another here?  Not other Christians, God.  How do you know that?  Because later on it says "and the blood of Jesus Christ," what's the next word, "His."  Now what does the His refer to?  It refers in case to another.  God is view here.

If we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship with Him.  That's what it's talking about.  The pattern of a Christian is fellowship with God.  And then, of course, in verse 8 he brings up the fact that again the person jumps and says well, you know, the Nostics were claiming they didn't have any sin, so the person comes and says well we don't have any sin.  Well, if that's the case then you deceive yourself and the truth's not in you.

See the problem was the Nostics were claiming to be a part of the fellowship and denying sin.  And John is saying you can't do that.  You're walking in darkness and you're not willing to admit your sin, and yet you're saying you're in the fellowship. That's ridiculous.  You're not in the fellowship of God.  You're not...you're not walking in the light.  You're walking in darkness.  Now, what do we learn here.  We learned this, believers are always in fellowship with God, partnership.  We learned believers always walk in the light, never in the darkness.  If they do the deeds of darkness they do them while they're walking in the lot.  You don't ever do them in ignorance.  You don't ever do them without full light.  You do them in the view of the light and God and yourself and every other believer.

And thirdly, notice in verse 7, the blood of Jesus always cleanses all sin, always.  So we see three principles of our fellowship with God, it's eternal, we always walk in the light and the blood of Christ always cleanses all our sin.  And then in verse 8 we saw the Nostics who denied this, and they came along and said they had no sin and of course, if they said that, they couldn't be in the true fellowship obviously.  So then in verse 9, he gives that invitation.  Remember we mentioned that last time.  He says in effect, and this has many facets to it, but in effect he's saying if you counterfeit people would only realize that if you confess your sin, you know, if you'll acknowledge that you're sinners, which the Nostics denied, they denied sin, "if you'll acknowledge that you're sinners, God will be faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness."

You see that was an invitation.  And so you see there's distinction here.  Believers are always in fellowship, they always walk in the light, God always cleanses all their sin.  That's the pattern of believing.  We're never out of fellowship.  We're never out of the light.  We're never in a position where God isn't cleansing our sins.

You see some people have said that verse 9 means that if you don't confess, your sins aren't forgiven.  That's not what it means.  Other people say the only time God ever forgives is when you confess.  That's not what it means.  All your sins already have been forgiven, because you walk in the light.  That's what it says remember in 2:12, "I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you."

So he's giving in verse 9 and invitation to an unbeliever and he's saying in effect, if you'll only realize that you must confess your sin, the God can forgive.  But there's another facet here and I want you to see it.  I want to add a footnote to verse 9.  You know, verses in the Bible are like diamonds.  You just think you've discovered the brilliant facet, and you turn it around and there's another one.

And all the...after all the hours and literal years that I have spent studying 1 John 1:9, I have discovered every day this week, something new about this verse.  It's terribly frustrating, because you just get to the point where you think you've got it and some...the Spirit of God throws some whole new thing at you and it just flies off the page.  Well, grab this one.  This is not only an invitation to an unbeliever. 

And if you're brain isn't in gear now, you're not even going to get the message, but it's not only idea to an unbeliever to stop being a counterfeit and admit your sin like the Nostics who were the heretics hanging around the people John was writing.  It's not only to them that they might know that they need to confess their sins initially at the point of salvation to be forgiven.  But this verse also has a continuous aspect that applies to a believer.

So if somebody says to me do you believer 1 John 1:9 is for a believer or an unbeliever, I'd say yes.  Because it also, while it is an invitation to an unbeliever, it is also a characterization of a believer and what better way to give an invitation to an unbeliever than to characterize a true believer, right?

Now watch how this is a characterization of a true believer.  Watch it, verse 9.  "If we are confessing our sins, He is faithful and just to be forgiving us our sins and cleansing us for all unrighteousness." Now all those verbs are in a linear content and that means that they are continuous action.  So there is a continuation process.  It's not just once confessed, once forgiven, once cleanse, and that's it.

That's implied there obviously.  That's the initiating of salvation.  But there is also implied the possibility of continuation in these words.  They could mean just once and I feel that initially that's what he's saying.  He's saying that to the Nostics, you must come, acknowledge your sin, confess it, and that's the way you're forgiven and cleansed.  But then in the linear Greek, there's also the continuation process which characterizes a believer.

Now hang on I want you to get this.  We say then that it is not only an invitation to unbelievers, but it is a description of Christians.  You say, well, how do you mean?  How does this describe Christians?  All right, this way, the counterfeit believers who've said they were in the fellowship, but weren't, and they were walking in the darkness, they were denying sin, right? 

That's what he said back in verse 8 and he used the we there to.  "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."  That's what the false ones were doing, denying sin.  You know what true Christians do.  They don't deny sin.  Verse 9, what do they do?  They confess sin. 

Now hang on this is really beautiful.  This is going to give you some insights into this.  So this verse is also strategically important for a believer and it says this, that whereas an unbeliever is constantly denying sin, a believer is constantly confessing sin.  Now watch this, it does not say he has to.  It says he will.  You see the difference?  It is characterizing the believer.  It is not a cause of forgiveness, it is an effect.  The true Christian is not the one who denies sin, the true Christian is the one who just keeps on confessing them, right?

I had a guy who came to me one time at UCLA after I had spoken over there and he said...he said, "I don't believe you ever have to confess your sin.  I take 1 John 1:9 purely to a...to an unbeliever, you never have to confess your sin."  You don't have to.  And he gave me this long lecture and all the verses.  And I said, "I agree that it's for an unbeliever initially, but let me ask you this, just between you and me, do you confess your sins?"

He said, "why do you ask?"  I said, "I just want to know."  I said, "do you confess your sins?"  He said, "yes, and that's what bothers me."  You see it is not...it is first of all a requirement, but not for a believer, right?  It's a requirement for an unbeliever.  It is a result for a believer, you see.  It's the most natural thing in the world for a believer to just confess.

When we do something wrong, it just kind of comes out.  And you see the idea here is not if you confess on then on that basis you will be forgiven and if you don't confess sorry, you're sins not forgiven.  That would send us to hell.  And you know what, that would make salvation...a salvation by works, do you know that?

If you were saved by confessing your sin, that would be work.  Continual, continual, continual, that'd be as bad as making sacrifices in the Old Testament.  Your sins have already been cleansed, you do never have to ask God to forgive them.  Confession doesn't mean that.  You never have to ask God to forgive your sins as a Christian, but you will because He has forgiven them, find yourself opening up your heart in confession to God.

You say what's confession?  Simply this, acknowledging my sin to God.  It's not begging Him to forgive it, He already has, hasn't He.  2:12, "Your sins are forgiven you for His name sake,"  That's done with.  And so we don't have to confess to be forgiven, but we do confess because we are forgiven. Isn't that the way love works.  Isn't it easier to open up and be honest with somebody you dearly love than it is to somebody who's your task master?

When we confess, it's because we know we violated God's grace see?  And so it's in affect and not a cause.  So when you look at 1 John 1:9, you see the basis of fellowship.  The basis of fellowship initially is an initial confession where God forgives and cleanses all sin, right?  And then that kind of confession becomes the pattern of life, not where we any longer need to ask to be forgiven, but where we're constantly by the very nature of our salvation opening up our hearts and admitting to God what we are.  You see?

So it has both an immediate emphasis to an unbeliever and a continuous mark of a Christian.  A Christian is one who is constantly acknowledging sin.  And then he wraps it in verse 10, "On the other hand, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and His word is not in us."  Now that can't be a believer.  Can't be.  That's the counterfeit again who's not willing to admit sin.  Whereas the believer, in verse 9, is constantly willing to acknowledge his sin and say God I confess you and I thank You for already having, what, forgiven it.  Right?  Past tense.

There you have the basis of our fellowship.  What is the basis of our fellowship?  Salvation.  And once we're in fellowship with God it is the pattern of our lives to acknowledge sin.  That's the way Christians are.  Not asking forgiveness, that's not confession.  Not asking forgiveness necessarily, but simply acknowledging sin.  Because we're already forgiven.

All right, now that's the basis of fellowship and that was a review.  Secondly, the nature of fellowship.  Now, the nature of fellowship and here we are leaving our fellowship with God and we're talking about our fellowship with the rest of the body of Christ.  Will you remember this?  Don't say I'm out of fellowship with the Lord.  You're never out of fellowship with God.  You're in a partnership with God that is eternal, all right?

When you say I'm out of fellowship, what you really mean is, you are missing the joy of that partnership and it may be that you are out of fellowship with other believers.  You can never be out of fellowship with God, but you can sure violate the fellowship of other believers and be out of that fellowship in the sense of the joy of that.  Although positionally, you're not even out of that fellowship are you?

Once you get into the body of Christ, how do you get out?  No way.  So once...once you establish that partnership with other believers, how do you get out of that?  You don't.  You're never out of fellowship.  Now you may miss the joy of full...the full joy of that fellowship, but you're in it, because kiononia means partnership.

All right, the nature of fellowship, Acts Chapter 2, Chapter 2.  And we're going to learn some just thrilling things here.  The nature of fellowship, Acts 2:42.  Now may I say this?  Here we come to the experiential aspect of fellowship.  That is on a level with each other.  Fellowship with the Trinity is non-experiential.  It's just something that God did and He made us partners with Himself and that's the way it is, it's a fact.

But our fellowship with each other, we really experience.  We know what it is to have a warm loving fellowship with believers and we know what it is to miss the joy of that fellowship don't we.  That's a really experiential thing.  But in the purest sense our fellowship with God is a...is an established partnership.  Although there is a sense in which it is also a joyous communion.

All right, in coming to Acts Chapter 2 and looking at the nature of fellowship, in one word the nature of fellowship is unity.  That's the nature of fellowship.  If you're taking notes, you want to put that word down.  Unity is the nature of fellowship.  Now verse 42, "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers." 

Now beginning at Pentecost they establish themselves in a fellowship.  They were put into the body of Christ that fellowship was established.  But then I'm talking mostly now about the experiential end of their fellowship, not so much the identification with the body of Christ, but the experiential end of their fellowship.  They established it and it was a beautiful kind of fellowship in which they shared everything.  They shared everything they had.  It was a giving and receiving partnership.

Over in the 4^th Chapter of Acts in the 32^nd verse, "And the multitude of those that believe we're of one heart and of one soul, neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common."  Isn't that great?  They shared everything they had. 

You know the results with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all.  And here's the results, neither was there any among them that lacked for as many we're possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles feet and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.  And Joseph who by the apostles was surname Barnabas, which is being interpreted the son of consolation, a Levite of the country of Cypress, having land sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet.  And there's an illustration.

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