We Are A Forgiven Fellowship: Series: The People Of God – Studies In 1 John
1 John 1:1-2:2 September 18, 2005
Intro:
What does it mean to be “The People of God”? That question has been nagging me recently, rattling around in my heart and in my mind. What does it mean for you and I to be the People of God – not just individually and as families – but together, corporately, as a church? What should it look like to be “the people of God”, how should we act and react, who are we when we look deep within our community, where are we different from the world around us, and why would anyone outside of us want to become a part of the people of God?
This morning I want to launch our fall sermon series, entitled “The People Of God – Studies In 1 John”. As we walk together through this short book right near the end of the Bible, we are going to discover some of the answers to that question – “what does it mean to be the people of God?”. We are going to be challenged, loved, and inspired by what was likely a sermon by John, the beloved disciple of Jesus who also wrote the Gospel of John.
I wanted to begin by reading the whole book, start to finish, out loud. But although it would only take less than 15 minutes, that is more time than we have together so I ask you to do that on your own this week.
Background:
Why 1 John? It is not often that I find something really profound in a “preface”, but I did in preparation for today. In John Stott’s commentary, he says: “John writes as a pastor to his people in language which every modern pastor will understand. He loves them. He is deeply concerned to protect them from the enticements of the world and the errors of false teachers, and to see them established in faith, love, and holiness. So he appeals to what they are and what they know. He warns them, exhorts them, argues with them, instructs them. All this will find an echo in the experience of every pastor who has been entrusted by the Chief Shepherd with the care of a flock.” (Stott, The Letters of John (rev), Tyndale NT Commentary, p. 9). In me, that was more than an “echo” – I thought “yes! absolutely!! that is me!” I love you, I’m concerned for you, that is why I too will warn, exhort, argue, and instruct. So that together we might, in John’s words, “walk in the light.”
1 John 1:2-2:2
So let’s get started! This morning we are going to look at chapter one and the first two verses of chapter 2.
“1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4We write this to make our joy complete.
5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
1My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
Outline:
Let me break this up into a really simple outline: vs 1-4 are John’s introduction. vs. 5-10 address three false claims. And 2:1-2 wrap up the discussion about sin and forgiveness.
A Witness, A Proclamation, And A Purpose: John’s Introduction (vs 1-4):
John doesn’t begin by identifying himself by name, which is very unusual in the NT letters (Hebrews is the only other one) – that is the big reason why I mentioned a moment ago that I believe this is likely a sermon John preached which was written down and then shared with other Christians and churches. Instead of introducing himself by name, John identifies himself by his direct experience with Jesus – “we heard, we saw, we touched”. That gives us great confidence that the author of this book really knew what he was talking about.
I want you to notice what he proclaims about Jesus, because he makes some pretty amazing observations. Jesus is “from the beginning”, He is “the word of life”, He existed before He came to earth, and He came to earth and was really there – He “was with the Father and has appeared to us.”
Now, I want you to stop and let that soak in for just a moment. The same Jesus that we have already worshiped, that we have already prayed to, has been around since the very beginning. He was with God, was part of the miracle of creation, was present at the fall into sin and already knew what He would have to do, THEN He entered into human experience and lived and died and rose again, and STILL today He wants to be an intimate, close, involved part of your life and my life. That is pretty amazing!
What is the purpose of all this? Like any good preacher or teacher or writer, John tells us upfront, and his purpose might surprise you: it is to have fellowship together, and to have complete joy. Vs. 3 says, “We proclaim… so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” This is a bit of a surprising statement – John does not say that the goal of his proclamation is salvation, or of a relationship with God – rather he begins by saying the goal is “fellowship with us”. He elaborates by defining that fellowship as fellowship with the Father and Son, but he doesn’t start there – he starts with human fellowship.
To really understand this, we need to understand what the Bible means by “fellowship”. It is not polite social gatherings over mediocre coffee, where we say “how are you?” and someone replies “fine” and then we talk about the weather or the Edmonton Eskimos or whether Brad should marry Angelina. Instead, let me quote John Stott again: “(fellowship) is the meaning of salvation in its widest embrace, including reconciliation to God in Christ…, holiness of life…, and incorporation in the church... This fellowship is the meaning of eternal life… (Fellowship) denotes that common participation in the grace of God, the salvation of Christ and the indwelling Spirit which is the spiritual birthright of all believers. It is our common possession of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which makes us one.” (p. 68).
This is my first answer to the question I’ve been wrestling with – what does in mean to be the people of God? It means that we hold salvation together, in common. We are deeply connected and united with God and likewise with one another. It is not a matter of us being a bunch of miscellaneous saved individuals who like each other and so spend time together – the Biblical concept of fellowship is of such deep relationship and love that we hold all things, including our relationship with God and our experience of salvation and our life in the Holy Spirit, TOGETHER. I really believe that the heart of Christian fellowship is unity, and that unity is only present where Christians who are different love one another. Unity without difference is uniformity; Biblical fellowship (and in fact, the very nature of the Kingdom of God) is about diverse people united by a common love for God and for one another. That, John says, is why he is writing. And that is what will make “our joy complete” (vs. 4).
Three False Claims And The Truth That Combats Them (vs 5-10):
The next section is John’s response to three false claims. Each has to do with attitudes towards sin, and so he begins by passing along a message that Jesus had taught (which, interestingly enough, is not in any of our Gospels). That message is by metaphor – God is light. That metaphor continues in the first of the false claims, which Stott calls “the misconceptions of people who want fellowship with God on easy terms” (p. 78).
1. The claim to fellowship with God which is not backed up with action. (vs. 6). Have you ever seen this? Someone who claims to be a Christian, but everything you see about their life and choices and priorities seems the opposite? Maybe you see it when you take an honest look in the mirror. John is pretty blunt – he says that is a lie. We cannot be Christians if we habitually and consistently live a life of sin. We must be different, and that brings us to –
Verse 7 is the positive alternative – “walking in the light”. It is like walking onto a dark stage, into the spotlight. We then walk in the light, following it, going at its pace, and then we are safe (idea from I Howard Marshall’s commentary NICNT). And notice the result, once again surprising: “we have fellowship with one another” and forgiveness. That kind of fellowship I spoke about a moment ago comes as we choose to live and “walk” in the light – to be obedient, to do the things God has commanded us to do, and to do so in openness and vulnerability and community.
Most of us here today don’t really like the spotlight. We don’t like the idea of other people looking at us, we don’t like the thought of being too closely scrutinized, we’d rather just go about our own business. We are afraid that if we really step out into that spotlight, our “real” selves might show, others might see that we are not all put together and “ok” and victorious and happy and beautiful. They might even see our sin. We think that if we step into the light, our sin will be revealed and we will be driven back into the darkness having been humiliated and hurt. That is partly true – we begin to see that in verse 7 – that when we walk in the light, our sin will be exposed to one another (that is included in the idea of “fellowship”) but then comes the opposite – we are not driven back in humiliation, we are instead “purified” by Jesus. Note the process: exposure to the light and thus our whole selves are revealed, we have fellowship, and we are forgiven.
2/3. The claim to be without sin (vs 8), and the claim to have not sinned (vs 10). These two are pretty similar, so I’ll deal with them together. I don’t imagine many of us would make that claim today. If I asked for a show of hands, “how many of you claim to be without sin?” I don’t think we’d get any serious affirmative responses. But let’s go ahead into verse 9, where John writes the opposite: “if we confess our sins”. Scripture is clear that confession of sin is not to God alone but to one another (James 5:16), which is consistent with the concept of fellowship we have been talking about. How many of us have done that anytime recently? Honestly, vulnerably, in humility confessed our sins to one another, can I have a show of hands for that? Perhaps our unwillingness to truly confess sin is a modern equivalent of this false claim – our lack of confession to one another is basically the same as saying we have no sin, since if we did we would have to confess it. Or maybe it is even deeper than that… Maybe we don’t truly believe that many of our actions and attitudes are actually “sins”. Do you ever find yourself rationalizing sin – “oh, it’s not really that bad, nobody else is getting hurt, besides it’s no where near as bad as what so and so is doing…” This again is where true confession in Biblical community brings life – we step into the light and others help us see how devastating the sin is to us and then help us overcome it.
Verse 9 is one of my favorite promises in Scripture. John puts it so plainly, so simply, and yet the truth is so profound that it will forever destroy our tendency to self-condemnation. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” No questions, no caveats, no 100 “Hail Mary’s”; just beautiful, pure, undeserved, forgiveness. Based in the character of God – “faithful and just” – and thus unchanging.
This is the second answer to my “big question” about what it means to be the people of God – we are forgiven. The penalty paid, the accusation withdrawn, the record wiped clean, the grime cleared out, the offense forgotten, the spiritual damage undone, the dead brought to life, the darkness overcome with light. The people of God are a forgiven people. You and I are a forgiven people.
Living it! 1 John 2:1-2
And since we are a forgiven people, we should live like it. That is where chapter 2:1-2 takes us. I love John’s balance. Lest anyone think that the availability of forgiveness makes sin any less of an offense to God, he quickly comes back to the purpose of the Christian life – to live a life that reflects who we are as forgiven and redeemed and renewed children of our heavenly Father – which is a life without sin. That is the goal, purpose, and intention.
Yet even still, there is a message of grace and hope and forgiveness. We should be walking in the light, living in the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, acting out of our renewed nature, fighting with God’s power against sin – but we need not fear if we blow it. Jesus is there for us. In fact, Jesus is right next to the Father, speaking to God in our defense. Not making excuses, not trying to pull the wool over God’s eyes, not making the sin look like anything less than a direct slap in God’s face, not arguing before the Judge – but instead atoning for the sin, and embodying the love of the Father for you and for me. Never be afraid to confess – Jesus is right there wanting to walk through it with you and bring you the forgiveness He bought for us on Calvary.
Conclusion:
There is a lot of truth in this passage, so let me end by bringing you back to two main points expressed in one phrase: the people of God are a forgiven fellowship.
As you go from here into the week ahead – let me encourage you: live like it. Live as a forgiven, freed, unfettered child of the Almighty God and the Eternal Lord Jesus. And live that in fellowship – real, deep, meaningful, self-sacrificing fellowship. Then, like John, your joy will be complete.
