Turn with me, if you would, to
1 John 1. Let's read the first four verses
together here. 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 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 you
also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship
is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things
write we unto you that your joy may be full. I would like to,
I don't want to say end our time together, that sounds too permanent.
I want to finish out this particular weekend looking at the joy of our fellowship. The absolute joy of our fellowship. Hannah and I have traveled basically
from the east coast to the West Coast because of fellowship. You asked me to come. There's
a lot of preachers in this country. There's a lot of preachers between
us. And you asked me to come because of fellowship. And in thinking about how wonderful
and special it is that God has given His people a true fellowship. It's bigger than relatives, it's
family. One that we should cherish, one
that we shouldn't take for granted. And in thinking on What is the
basis and the grounds of our fellowship? I want us to look
at this particular subject this morning. The joy of our fellowship. The joy of our fellowship. Now
as I said last night, I'll say again, I love the dictionary.
I think everybody ought to just have a dictionary and open it
and look it up. Webster's Dictionary says, fellowship
is companionship. It is people of the same interest, same activity, same feeling or
experience. It is an association of friends. That's what fellowship is. and
association of friends. We're in 1 John. Turn over to
3 John, just a couple of pages over. I just think this verse
is so precious. 3 John, verse 14, it says, But
I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name." Isn't
that sweet? Friends. Friends. That's a true fellowship, an
association of friends. Now back in 1 John 1, At the
end of verse 3, it says, Truly our fellowship, and this is an
amazing statement. This is an amazing thing to get
a hold of. Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His
Son, Jesus Christ. Let's think about what that's
saying. Truly, our companionship, our friend-to-friend association
is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Now that's a fellowship I want
to be a part of. The reason why we have true fellowship
with each other is because our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son. That's the whole basis of our
fellowship. We would not be here if it was not for that. We wouldn't
be here if it was not for that. That is the basis of our fellowship. What could a brick mason and
a computer guy and a member of the National Guard who had to
step out for a minute. What could all y'all possibly
have in common? Really. What could you possibly have
in common? God the Father and God the Son. It's not work. It's not age. It's probably not
personal interest. God the Father and God the Son. What could possibly bring all
of us together right now in a meeting hall in Yuba City, California? What could possibly do that?
God the Father and God the Son. God the Father and God the Son.
Verse 3 right here says, That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with
us. And truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things
write we unto you, that your joy may be full." Now I want
us to look at this fellowship that God has given to us for
just a moment. And I want us to start with what
it is that makes us acceptable to be in a fellowship with Almighty
God. We just read that we are in a
fellowship with God Almighty. God the Father and God the Son. We are sinners by nature. and sinners cannot have fellowship
with God Almighty. Not by nature. Verse 5 says, 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. And that's what
we are, is darkness. Men love darkness rather than
light. Men are without form and void
and dark. That's what man is by nature.
God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Verse 6, it
says, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk
in darkness, that's in ourselves, that's in our sin, that's in
everything that we are by nature. We lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, which is
Christ, we have fellowship one with another. In the blood of
Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. Cleanseth. Hath cleansed us. Does cleanse us. Cleanses us. If we are in fellowship with
God the Father, and God the Son, then that means the blood of
Jesus Christ has cleansed us from all sin. All sin. That had to happen. That was
the only way that we could be allowed into a fellowship with
God the Father. If we have fellowship with God
the Father and with His Son, what that means is, the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ has cleansed us from all sin. cleansed us from all of our sin. That is what had to happen in
order for us to have fellowship with God. Our sin had to be dealt
with. It had to be put away. We had
to be totally cleansed from it. One of my favorite verses in
the Scripture is Jeremiah 50 verse 20. It says, in that day,
the sin of Israel is going to be sought for. And it shall not be found. and
the iniquity of my people, it will never be found. It does
not exist. It's gone. God is going to say,
see if you can find one spot on them. It's not going to be
found. Isn't that glorious? He will
present us faultless. Can you imagine the joy of the
Lord. Jude talks about Him with joy,
presenting His people faultless before the throne of the Father.
Spotless in the presence of His glory. And that's what happened
is the Lord Jesus Christ cleansed us and purged us from every spot
and every stain. The end of verse 5 says, God
is light And in Him is no darkness at all. The darkness of sin,
it cannot dwell with Him. It cannot have fellowship with
Him. And the darkness of sin is all
that we are in this flesh. Verse 8 says, 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. So the only way
that we could be allowed to enter into a fellowship with God the
Father and God the Son was Christ the Redeemer had to come to us.
And He had to enter into a fellowship with us. The only way we could
enter into fellowship with Him was He had to enter into fellowship
with us. A fellowship with our sin. He had to enter into an association
with it. He had to enter into the feeling
of it. He had to enter into the experience
of it. And He had to shed His blood
and die to pay the debt of that sin for us, to rid us of it. He had to take it into Himself.
In order to wash us and to cleanse us from every stain, He had to
stain Himself with it. and He accomplished that on the
cross of Calvary. Turn with me, if you would, over
to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9, it says, Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the
kingdom of God. And such were some of you." And
we hear these things and we cry, that is me. If you want to know
who some of us are, that's me. I'm one of us. and we get so
down on it, we cry, oh my sin, my sin, we just get so consumed
by it and so depressed by it. Verse 11 says, and such were
some of you. The Scripture says, but you are
washed. Don't you love how the Scripture
does not deny our sin, it does not excuse our sin, it does not
say, you are not as bad as you think you are. The Scripture
says, you are so much worse than you think you are. but you're
washed. It says you are sanctified, you
are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit
of our God. So our fellowship with God is
only because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that washed
us and cleansed us. I want to flip back and forth
a little bit between 1 Corinthians and Philippians. So hold your
place right here and turn over to Philippians chapter 3. Philippians 3, the end of verse
8 says, the last little phrase at the end of verse 8, it says,
that I may win Christ. Can we enter into that? If we
just want to get down to the heart of it, what do you want?
What do God's people want? What do you need come the end
of this life? Is that not it? That I may win
Christ. and be found in Him, not having
mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith, that I may know Him." I want to know Him. This is life eternal that we
might know Him. He said that I may know Him and
the power of His resurrection. I want to know the power and
the experience of that resurrection with Him. And the fellowship
of His sufferings. What is our fellowship? What
is the basis of our fellowship? His sufferings. His sufferings. We all want and need for our
sufferings to be found in His sufferings. We pray that His
sufferings was our sufferings. There is a judgment to come outside
of Christ. In Christ it's over. Isn't that
good news? It's over. Judgment is over.
It's appointed unto man once to die. You did. How was it? It's over. It's over. That's our fellowship. His sufferings. That's the reason for our fellowship.
That's the basis of our fellowship. That is the foundation and the
focal point and the common interest. Our common interest is His sufferings. The suffering and the shed blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is solely what unites God's
people. His accomplishment for us in
that. That is our message. His sufferings
and what He accomplished for us. That is our gospel. Everybody talks about the gospel.
We're going to have a gospel singing. We're going to sing
gospel songs and we're going to gospel this. What is the gospel? It's Him. He's the gospel. It's a person. He is our message. He is our
gospel. He is our ministry. I want people
to have, you know, houses and good clean water and lots of
humanitarian things. I want all that. But He's the
ministry. He is the ministry. He's our
all. The redeeming blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself. That's our all. Hold your place
here in Philippians and go back to 1 Corinthians. I told you
we're going to just bounce back and forth here for a second.
This time chapter 1, 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Verse 3 says, Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God
always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you
by Jesus Christ. And don't we thank God for every
brother and sister that He's called into this fellowship.
Don't we thank God for each other? It's like we come in together
and we have a moment of real. Everything out in that world
is fleeting and it's... This is real. Worship around
our Savior is real. This is going to be eternity.
This is glory. This is a foretaste of glory
divine. He said, grace be unto you. That's
what I pray for you. I pray God's grace be to you
and God's peace be on you. And He said, I thank my God always
on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by
Jesus Christ. Verse 5, that in everything you
are enriched by Him in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as
the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you. so that you come behind
in no gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That
means you believe. You believe the Word. You believe
on Christ who shall also confirm you unto the end. He'll keep
you. He'll keep you believing. that
you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." These
are three of my favorite words in the Scripture. Verse 9, God
is faithful. I'm not, but He is. God is faithful by whom you were
called unto the fellowship. of His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord. Every soul who is in this fellowship
with God the Father and God the Son is called into it. And don't we love and thank God
for the sovereign call. Don't you thank God that when
He says, come, we come. He doesn't wait on sinners to
hear His call. He doesn't wait on sinners to
accept His call. He says, come to Me, and we come
to Him. And I've heard men say, well,
you know, if He wants one of His own to come, He'll drag them,
kicking and screaming. That's not so. Every one of His
people say, yes sir, I would be happy to. I come willingly. I come gladly. I come running.
I come running to you. All of God's people are called,
sovereignly called into this fellowship. They are all hand-selected
by God the Father into this fellowship. He chose who He would allow into
this fellowship with His Son. He did that before the foundation
of the world. This privileged fellowship is
of God. It is all of God. It's not something
that any man or woman can decide to do or earn. It's not something
that any man or woman is worthy of. He chose who He chose. And thank God, this is who He
chose. He chose sinners. That's who
He chose to be in this fellowship. He said, I did not come to call
the righteous, but sinners. Chief sinners. And that is such good news to
me because that's what I am. That's what I am. I have to believe
in my heart that every time I tell people I'm a sinner, they have
to be a little puzzled by that. They have to be a little shocked. The preacher is admitting he's
a sinner? Isn't that called scandal? Yes,
I believe it is. I'm a sinner. But thank God,
that's who He chose to call into fellowship with His Son. That is such good news to me.
God the Father chose this fellowship and He chose to make it up of
sinners. And in time, His Holy Spirit comes to each one of those
sinners and notifies the sinner of His calling. And that's what
the declaration of the gospel is. It is a notification of a
call. It is a notification of what
God has done for a sinner. He notifies that sinner, number
one, that he is a sinner. That's something that we don't
know at first. The Spirit comes and says, you're a sinner. And then he notifies that sinner
that God the Father chose to save sinners. He notifies that sinner that
Christ shed His blood to redeem sinners. And with that notification,
the sinner is called into the fellowship and made so willing
to come. Just so willing to come. Turn
back to Philippians, this time chapter 2. Philippians 2, verse 1. It says, If there be therefore
any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship
of the Spirit, any fellowship of the Spirit, if the Spirit
has called us into this fellowship. And he went on to say, if there's
any heart, that's what bowels means, if there's any heart and any mercy. Verse 2, he said,
Fulfill ye my joy. that you be like-minded, having
the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. And that's what
fellowship is, being of one accord, one mind. Verse 3, let nothing
be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind,
let each esteem other better than themselves. And that's what
fellowship is. That's what fellowship is. Verse
4 says, Look, not every man on his own things, but every man
also on the things of others. That's what true fellowship is.
Verse 5, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a
name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth,
and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That right there is our fellowship. We all have this mind in us,
how amazing it is that God Almighty, the One who thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, because He is God. He humbled Himself. He came to us in fellowship with
us, took upon Him the form of a servant, made in the likeness
of this sinful flesh." You know, can you imagine how many angels
fell with the adversary? But our Lord did not choose to
take upon the nature of angels, did He? But He did for the seed
of Adam, the seed of Abraham. He chose to, in fellowship, take
upon the likeness of this sinful flesh, and He humbled Himself
all the way down to the death of the cross. And because of
that, God the Father has highly exalted Him, and we do too, don't
we? God has given Him a name above
every name, and we cry, Amen. And at the hearing of His name,
I love the thought that in glory, and all of God's people do it
right now in heart, but I just would love to hear Michael the
archangel say the name, Jesus of Nazareth. And every soul there
hits the dust. Every knee bows. Every tongue
confesses He's our Lord. That's our Lord. We're in fellowship
on that. We're in total agreement of that
to the glory of God the Father. Because He loved us, He put Him
on the throne. He made Christ to be King. That's
the fellowship of the gospel. The fellowship of the gospel.
That's what all of God's people cling to and want to be identified
with. The fellowship of the good news
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fellowship of the
hope that that gospel brings for sinners in the person and
the work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, go with me
if you would back to 1 John chapter 1. Let me read some verses to you
and then tell you something and I'll be done. 1 John 1 verse 3, it says, That
which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that you
also may have fellowship with us And truly our fellowship is
with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these
things write 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 cleanseth us from all sin. In closing, I want to read something
to you that Charles Spurgeon told his congregation in one
of his messages. He said, during this last week,
and there's some words in here that I don't know what they mean.
I'll just read them and we'll just assume we know what they
mean. But in his preaching to his congregation, he said, during
this last week, I have been with Brother Offord, a man in the
congregation, another pastor, I don't know. During this last
week, I've been with Brother Offord conducting prayer meetings He used to travel and preach
in different places throughout the week. And he, Brother Offord,
told one evening a tale which I made him tell every evening
afterwards, everywhere they went. He said, Brother Offord, you
tell it again. He said, I made him tell it every
evening afterwards for I thought it so good. There was a poor man living on
Dartmoor who had been employed during the summer in looking
after horses and cows and so on that were turned out on the
moor. He was a perfect heathen and never went to a place of
worship, perhaps since he was a child. For him, there was no
Sabbath. After a time, he grew very ill. He was over 60 years of age.
And having nothing to live upon, he went into the workhouse. While
he was there, it pleased the mysterious spirit to make him
uneasy as to his soul. He felt that he must die. And
the old man had just enough light to let him see that if he did
die, all was wrong with regard to a future state. He had a little grandchild who
lived in a neighboring town, Plymouth, I think it was. And
he asked leave for his grandchild to come in every day to see him.
As he was very ill and near death, that was allowed. She came in
and He said to her, Read the Bible to me, dear. She complied,
and the more she read, the more wretched the old man grew. Read it again, said He. The more
she read, the more dark his mind seemed to be with a sense of
guilt. At last, one day, she came to
that passage in the first epistle of John. You know it. The blood
of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. Is that there? He asked. Yes, grandfather, replied the
little girl, that is there. Is that there? Oh yes, grandfather,
it is there. Then read it again. Read it again. She again read, the blood of
Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. My dear, are
you sure it is just like that? Yes, grandfather. Then read it
again, dear. The blood of Jesus Christ, His
Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Then, he said, take my finger
and put it on that verse. Is it on that text, child? Is
my finger on that blessed text? Yes, grandfather. Then, said
he, tell them, alluding to his friends, that I die in the faith
of that. And he closed his eyes and doubtless
entered into eternal rest. Spurgeon said, and I will die
in the faith of that truth by the grace of God. And so will
you, I trust, brethren and sisters, die with your finger on that
text. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all
sin. That's our fellowship. That's
our fellowship. May that be our fellowship now
and forevermore. That'll never go away. Throughout
all of eternity, in glory, we're going to be crying, thank God
for the Lamb that loved us and washed us from our sins in His
own blood. That's our fellowship. Amen. Thank you all for having me.
Thank you for having us. Thank you for letting Hannah
come with me. It has truly been our privilege. We love you all
in Christ. We sincerely do. We look forward
to the next time.