Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. If
you'd like to follow along in your Bibles, as this is a Bible
study, I'm gonna be preaching from the book of 1 John. The
epistle of John, the apostle John, the first epistle, he wrote
three, as well as the book of John, the gospel of John, and
then he was the human instrument that the Lord used to write the
book of Revelation. Well, he wrote three epistles,
1, 2, and 3 John. So we're gonna go to 1 John 1, and the title
of the message is The Fellowship of Light. The Fellowship of Light. Now these three epistles, 1,
2, and 3 John, are really fascinating parts of the Bible because they,
in very succinct, very short, precise terms, set forth the
issues of fellowship. and that is the fellowship of
true believers. Every true believer, every sinner
saved by grace, is in a family, and it's a spiritual family,
and it's made up of all who are, as I said, saved by the grace
of God, all whom God chose before the foundation of the world in
divine, sovereign, electing grace in Christ, all who are justified,
that is, they are forgiven of all their sins by the blood of
Christ, they are declared righteous in God's sight by Christ's righteousness
imputed to them, charged to them, and they are adopted, adopted
into the family of God. The adoption of grace is what
that is. The book of Ephesians speaks
of that quite a bit in Ephesians 1. And Romans also talks about
it. But they're adopted into a family. And when we who are saved, when
we're born naturally into this world, we're born in darkness,
we're born in spiritual death, and our thinking, our ideas,
our knowledge, connects us with the family of darkness, but when
we're regenerated, born again by the Spirit, we're brought
from the family of darkness, the world of darkness, into the
world of light, into the family of light. And all of that is
because of Christ redeeming us from our sins on the cross if
we're saved. And so it's a fellowship A oneness
of truth and a oneness of spirit under God by the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what fellowship is.
It's a bond of union that cannot be broken. Because it is set
forth and made firm, not by our works and not even by our decisions. Now we do, you know, when God
saves people, Those people make a decision, but their salvation
is not conditioned on their deciding. Their deciding is the result
of Christ having met all the conditions, and that's a difference. But this is the fellowship. Now,
what the epistle of 1 John does, it sets forth what I call the
benchmarks of fellowship. And there are several. The first
one he mentions is the fellowship of light. The fellowship of true
believers is a fellowship of light. And that means we walk
in the light, and that's what we're gonna talk a little bit
about today. And that light is the light of Christ, and listen
to this, it is the light of truth. You see, a lie cannot bond us
together in the fellowship of light. It's truth and truth is
doctrine. You know, a lot of people today
erroneously and unbiblically seek a fellowship without true
doctrine. And they'll say stuff like this.
And I've heard even whole congregations, local churches do this. They
say, come on in and worship with us and be with us, be in our
family. It doesn't matter what you believe. Well, that's a lie. That is not biblical. That is
opposed to the fellowship of light. Let me give you the other
benchmarks and then we'll come back to light. The fellowship
of light. Light is the first benchmark,
truth in Christ. We can also talk about the fellowship
of faith, which essentially is the same as light. What we believe,
that's the light. We walk in the light, we walk
in the truth. But it is a fellowship of faith,
all sinners saved by grace looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of their faith. It's also a fellowship of righteousness. Now, 1 John has a lot to say
about that. And that righteousness is not
just human morality or even Christian behavior. Now, understand what
I mean by that. Those who walk in the fellowship
of believers, the fellowship of God, we're to be moral people. We're to be honest people. We're
to be sincere and dedicated. We're to try to be good people.
And we're to do what Christians ought to do. But that's not our
righteousness before God. The fellowship of righteousness
is our fellowship under Christ. It is the perfection of righteousness
that can only be found in Christ. And it is seen in the beauty
and glory of His obedience, of the merit of His obedience unto
death as the surety, the substitute, the redeemer, the life giver,
the preserver of His people. And so when we speak of righteousness
in the Bible, we're not talking about just human morality or
Christian behavior. I know the book of 1 John talks
about doing righteousness, and I'll deal with that. But it's
a fellowship of righteousness. Those who are in the family of
God, in the fellowship of light and faith, they are righteous
in God's sight, but not by their works. They are righteous because
they stand before God in Christ, washed in His blood, clothed
in His righteousness. And then it's a fellowship of
love. And it's love of the brethren. Now we are to love all people
without exception. But the fellowship of love is
different. It's a divine love that binds
Christians together in the truth. Love without truth is spurious
love. It's not love. There's no love
in lying to people, in giving them false hope and false assurance.
And so this love is the love of God that is shed abroad in
the hearts of God's people that binds them together in the truth. Now, when we talk about loving
those who aren't in the truth, we're talking about loving them
enough to work in seeking their salvation. We don't bring them
into, God doesn't put them into the fellowship until they come
to faith in Christ. And if they don't believe in
Christ as he's identified and described and separated in this
book, They're not in the fellowship of faith. And though we love
them to the point that we want to see them saved, we don't love
them in the fellowship of our family. It's kind of like, if
you look and think about your earthly families, you may love
a lot of different people, but you have a special love for your
children, a special love for your mother, your father, your
brothers and your sisters physically. So think about that. Well, let's
go back to first John one. Let's begin reading verse one.
And he begins talking about the fact that John the Apostle was
an eyewitness of the things that transpired in the obedience unto
death of Christ. He says in verse one, that which
was from the beginning, which we have heard the hearing of
faith, which we have seen with our eyes, Remember Christ said,
you must be born again or you cannot see the kingdom of God.
But these are things that John heard and saw with his own eyes.
He was an eyewitness and which we have looked upon and our hands
have handled of the word of life. John's telling you, I'm not giving
you second-handed information. I'm giving you firsthand eyewitness
of what I saw the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the word of life,
That's who He is. The word word here is the word
logos. You probably know that word,
you know, from the Greek. Everybody speaks of it. John
1 in verse 1, in beginning was the word and the word was with
God and the word was God. That's Christ. The word, John
1 14, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. That's Christ.
Christ is the living word of God. He is the incarnate Word of God. God manifests in the flesh. He is the communication. He's the logic. He's the revelation
of God. The Bible says that in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. If you want to know anything
about God, the triune God, the one God in three persons, Father,
Son, and Spirit, you must see Him and know Him as He's revealed
in the Son, the Son of God incarnate. The Bible speaks of the glory
of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. That face there
is that which identifies Him. It's the glory of His person,
who He is, As I said, God manifests in the flesh, the God-man, that's
what it took for Him to do the work that He was sent to do,
to redeem His people from their sins. And it's the glory of His
person and the glory of what He accomplished in His obedience
unto death as evidenced by His resurrection from the dead. Christ
is risen. What does that mean? That means
that the righteousness by which God has justified all His elect
people, has been established through the redeeming work of
Christ. And it's sure and certain to accomplish its final goal,
which is the glory of God in the salvation of every sinner
for whom he chose, every sinner whom he justified, adopted, redeemed
on the cross, every sinner who he brings to faith in Christ.
Well, John says, I saw it all. And in verse two now, look, the
King James translators put a parenthesis around it, and that's okay, but
he says, for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear
witness, that's what we're talking about, Christ crucified, risen
from the dead, and we show unto you that eternal life which was
with the Father and was manifested unto us. Now, eternal life. Everlasting life. What is that? Christ said in John 17 in verse
two, or verse three, this is life eternal, that they may know
thee, that is God the Father, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast
sent. The essence of eternal life,
living forever in the eternal bliss of fellowship with God,
is a relationship, a union with the Lord Jesus Christ. and that's
manifested in the person and work of Christ. It's not manifested
magically by visions in a cloud or dreams or anything like that. It is actually manifested, made
known, come near us in the person and work of Christ. It's all
about Christ. He that hath the Son hath everlasting
life, John wrote. He that hath not the Son hath
not life and shall not see life. You see, if you wanna live forever,
you must have your sins washed away, forgiven forever. And there's only one ground upon
which God will forgive sins and wash them away. And you know
what it is? The blood of Jesus Christ. He's gonna say that later
on down here. He says, the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth us from all sin. That's amazing, isn't it? If
you wanna live forever in the eternal bliss of fellowship with
God, you must have a righteousness. I must have a righteousness that
answers the demands of God's law and justice, a perfect righteousness
with no flaw, no error, no sin, And my friend, we don't have
that by our works or by nature. How do we come into a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice perfectly? and
it's through the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said it this way, that I
may know him and be found in him, in Christ, not having mine
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Jesus Christ, the righteousness which is of God
by faith. It is first by the faithfulness of Christ to do
what he came to do. That's what righteousness is.
It's not what I do. It's not even what I decide.
It's what Christ did in His obedience unto death as evidenced by His
resurrection from the dead. Now, those for whom He died will
be born again and they will believe in Him. And so that righteousness
comes to us in knowledge and in believing by the revelation
of God. Bible says in Romans 10 and verse
4, for Christ is the end, the fulfillment, the perfection,
the finishing of the law for righteousness to everyone that
believeth. And that believing comes through
hearing the gospel and faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. You must be born again. And so
it's manifested. Look at verse 3. He says, that
which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. Not only
did we see Christ, but we heard what he said. And this is a big
issue now. You know, if Christ had come
to this earth and taken upon himself sinless human flesh,
body and soul, which he did, but had not spoken, had not kept
the law, had not gone to the cross, there'd be no salvation.
Salvation is in Christ, but not just simply in who He is, but
in what He did and what He said. He had the words of life. It's
what Peter said, to whom shall we go? You have the words of
life. He preached the gospel. And the gospel was about Him.
And the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth. So John says in verse three,
that which we have seen and heard, we declare unto you that you
also may have fellowship with us. And truly, our fellowship
is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. John's saying
that what we've seen, we tell you about it. We preach it to
you. And our goal is that you might
believe it. And in believing it, you have
fellowship with other believers. Now, if you reject it, you don't
have fellowship with other believers, if you remain ignorant of it.
The Apostle Paul spoke of this when he talked about his brethren
in the Jewish nation physically. He said, my heart's desire and
prayer for them is that they might be saved. They have a zeal
of God, but they're ignorant of God's righteousness and going
about to establish a righteousness of their own. Paul is talking
about a division there that exists between his physical kinfolk,
his physical family. We're not in fellowship, he's
saying. My heart's desire and prayer to God is that they might
be in fellowship with us, that God might bring them to faith
in Christ. Many believers, in fact, I'll
say it this way, every believer in every generation has physical
family members who are unbelievers, who do not know Christ and do
not care for Him, do not even reject Him. And so even though
there's a physical bond there, even a love bond as physical
love can go, there's no spiritual love there. There's no spiritual
fellowship there. Now, how's that fellowship come
about? As God gives the gift of faith under the preaching
of the gospel and brings sinners into the family, and what we
find out is this, truly, our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son, Jesus Christ. It's a fellowship under God. It's a divine fellowship, you
see. It's a union. of souls brought
together under the grace of God. There's not one person in this
family who can say, I'm in this family because I did certain
works or that I made a decision. No, it's all by the grace of
God. Paul said, by the grace of God,
I am what I am. I'm completely forgiven of all
my sins. On what ground? Well, I turned
toward God and repented. Well, believers do that, but
that's not the basis of their forgiveness. Oh, I cried all
night and felt sorry for my sins and reformed my life. Well, you
may have cried all night. Some do, some don't. You may
reform your life. But that's not the basis of forgiveness. What is it? The blood of Jesus
Christ. Somebody says, well, I don't
agree with that. Well, if you're ever in a church service and
they open the hymnal and say, let's sing nothing but the blood,
don't sing it because you don't believe it. What can wash away
my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And that means nothing. Nothing, not even my tears of
repentance can wash away my sins. It takes the blood of Christ.
Why? Because in order for my sins to be put away, for the
debt to be paid, the penalty be paid, death has to occur. The death of a God-appointed,
suitable, able, willing substitute has to take my place under the
law. Having my sins imputed to them,
charged to them and dying in my place. And there's only one
person who did that. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what brings us into fellowship.
And what makes me righteous before God? Not my works, not my obedience,
not my experiences, not my decisions. Only Christ on that cross. His
righteousness alone. makes me righteous before God
as it's charged to me, imputed to me. Look at verse four. He
says, and these things write we unto you that your joy may
be full. My friend, if you've ever been
brought to Christ truly, that's the kind of joy that no human
being can conjure up within themselves. It's joy and peace in believing,
Paul wrote in Romans. Believing what? Not just in believing
anything, but it's joy and peace in believing that Christ is my
whole salvation. I'm secure because of Him, not
because of me. I am secure in Christ, who is
on the throne of God in heaven, seated at the right hand of the
Father, ever living, to make intercession for me. My sins
cannot be charged to my account. Why? Because Christ died. I cannot be condemned. Oh, I
tell you, preachers all over this land are preaching a false
gospel, trying to get people in line and to do this and not
do that, based upon the threat of condemnation. That's a wrong
motive, my friend. That doesn't make you a child
of God in the family of God, in the fellowship of faith. That
doesn't make you a willing, loving bond slave of Christ. That makes
you a mercenary. That makes you a legalist. But
my friend, why should I obey God out of grace and love and
gratitude? That's joy. And the fullness
of that joy grows in me as I see more and more of the glory of
Christ's person and the power of His finished work. And so
here's the light now. Here's the fellowship. What I've
been describing in these first four verses here, what John's
been describing rather, and I've been reading, is the fellowship
of light. Look at it in verse five. This
then is the message which we have heard of Him from Christ
and of Christ and declare unto you that God is light. And in him is no darkness at
all. What a great, great testimony
of the gospel of light. Children of light. Christ said
that he, he said, I am the light of the world. The light that
lightens everybody. There is certain light that lights
everybody in the sense of reason and rationale and thinking. The
man by nature uses those things in a wrong way, rejects the gospel
and turns them into darkness. Christ told the Pharisees one
time, he says, you've got the law of Moses and he called that
light. He said, but the light in you is darkness. How do you
figure that? The light in you is darkness.
Well, how many people today have a Bible and read their Bibles,
but they don't know its message. They miss Christ. They read the
Bible as either a book of moral stories like Aesop's fables,
children's stories, They read the Bible as a book of morality. Oh, I need to do this, I need
to do that. But they don't read the Bible
to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Christ
spoke of that in John chapter 5 when he spoke to the Pharisees
who were supposedly masters of the scriptures, the Old Testament
scriptures. And in John 5, 39, he says, you
do indeed search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life, but they are they which testify of me. They read
the Bible. They sold, they're like people
today. People today have scriptures on their bumper stickers. The
Pharisees had it sewn into their phylacteries on their robes. They prayed on the street corners.
They held prayer meetings, they were religious, but they missed
Christ. They missed the power of His
blood. There's power in the blood, the song says. They missed the
righteousness of Christ, the perfection of righteousness that
can only be found in Christ. But let me tell you something,
when the gospel is preached and the power of the Holy Spirit
and God turns that light on, then you'll see. You must be
born again or you cannot see these things. Christ told his
disciples, when they asked him, why do you speak in parables?
And he said, because it's a judgment against those who continually
reject the light, reject the truth. He said, they have ears,
they don't hear. They have eyes, they don't see.
They close their eyes and they shut their ears because they
don't wanna be converted. They don't want to give up what
they're so proud of, their religion, their works. their experiences,
and that's the way it is with people today. I know because
I was there. And it takes the power of God,
the power of light to blast us out of that false refuge and
bring us into the fellowship of life. You see that? It takes
the power of God or we won't let go. Religious experiences
and religious decisions and all of that, nothing compares to
Christ in the glory of his person and the power of his finished
work, his blood and righteousness alone. That's the power of light. That's the fellowship of light,
which believers are brought into. And we don't bring people in
or kick people out. It's God who brings them in by
His grace. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive. Albany, Georgia, 31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.