June 5th Sermon, “Journey to Fellowship with God”
KEY SCRIPTURE:
I Jn 1:5-9, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
7 But 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.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
1: GOD IS PERFECT – no darkness in Him at all.
2: We are created to have FELLOWSHIP with Him, but we are imperfect.
3: If we confess, He IS FAITHFUL and WILL FORGIVE US and PURIFY US.
CHAPTER 2
1 My 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.
2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
3 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.
I recently asked our youth group, “How many feel God’s presence on a regular basis?”
Some said they’re having Bible studies at work, some said they never gave much thought to it.
Either way, we know God is present everywhere and all the time, but feeling His presence is often just a result of acknowledging His presence.
That’s the difference between presence and fellowship.
Presence is easy. I can be present with my wife or my children in front of the TV, but as long as it siphons away all our attention from each other, there’s no real fellowship.
One of my favorite preachers used to say, “Fellowship is realizing you’re not the only fellow on the ship.” God is with you – all the time!
The question is, “What are you doing with His presence?”
People say it all the time in church, “I felt God’s presence in this morning. Wasn’t it wonderful?” That’s great, I think we should! But did we also really fellowship with God?
FELLOWSHIP IS THE KEY TO A REAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
If you read through the Gospels closely, you’ll find Jesus sneaking off time and time again, praying in solitary places and getting away to spend time with the Father.
Mark 1:35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
Luke 4:42, “At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place.”
Matt 26:36, “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray."
These scriptures reveal some of Jesus’ habits, the way He lived, the things that were important to Him. We learn – not necessarily that Jesus loved to get up early, but that He made Himself get up early in order to spend quality time with His Father.
Fellowship was extremely important to Christ’s Mission, and so it should be extremely important to us as well.
Turn to the book of Genesis where God and His first few people demonstrate established patterns of fellowship. They made it a point to meet in a special place and at regularly set times. That’s why it seemed strange to the Lord when Adam and Eve didn’t show up at the appointed time in the place where they met to walk together in the cool of the day. Let’s go there together… (Gen 3:8-9)
Gen 3:8-10, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
? Why did Adam and Eve hide? Because they felt guilty. They sinned. They didn’t want to be around God any more because He is perfect and they were no longer transparent.
1 – They felt guilty and ashamed.
2 – They didn’t want to face the unknown punishment.
Adam and Eve’s SIN BROKE THEIR FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD!
The same way you feel dirty and distant from God when you sin, they felt first in the Garden of Eden.
And before you get too angry at them for committing the first sin, let me ask:
What sin got them expelled?
Sin... Their sin was eating fruit... What is yours?
All they did was eat the wrong fruit! So many of us have eaten from this same fruit in its various forms, and it always boils down to the same thing: sin is disobedience and defiance toward God.
That attitude breaks our fellowship with Him.
Adam and Eve taught us that the knowledge of good and evil comes at a high price. Heaven and Hell, we know what we have heard and read. They are, to the human individual, frightful – even Heaven in its Glory is awesome and fearful to consider.
Heaven & Hell separated by sin / lack of:
These destinations, one where souls suffer eternal death and the other where we experience eternal life, are separated by things, which can be classified as sins. And sins are individual in themselves. To one man, drinking wine is a sin. To the other, eating meat is a sin, while his friend or brother may have no guilt consuming the same. And the ultimate rule of faith and conduct comes to us in the form of law: the laws of man – speed limits, the law of the land, and the laws of God: Mosaic laws, as impossible to keep as the laws of the land we have today with its chapters and sections as numerous as the sand.
We are ignorant to many of these state and federal laws, yet they govern our lives, and if the government so desired, they could search your home, find every pirated movie, every violation and prosecute you to the letter of the law.
Indeed God has the ability to search every corner of your heart and He knows every compromise and every false motive. He knows every violation, and those violations are the same sins which separate us from eternal life.
How do we live under the weight of the knowledge of Good and Evil? It is a heavy thing and in some way, it weighs upon each and every one of us…
Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden and forced to toil for their food, kept outside the sacred garden till the day they died: all a testament of separation from God by guilt, and they had to live with the results of their Garden sins for the rest of their lives.
How many believe Adam and Eve went to Heaven when they died? Why? We know they still heard from God, but the fellowship was changed forever, until Jesus came. Today, we’re going to look at that sin and that fellowship, and how Jesus has revolutionized your fellowship with God the Father once and for all.
Sins of the Past
The sins of the man dying of cancer who thought maybe he blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
Is he free from that sin today?
What do we do with sins that we don’t feel are worthy of forgiveness?
Sins of the Present
The pastor’s wife who was seen flipping someone off on the road.
The daily sins we commit, how sick and dark we are, and how insecure we are in our salvation when we realize who we really are on a human level.
What do we do with the ugliness we find in ourselves – deeply engrained in our personality?
Sins of the Future
Peter – his sins. Jesus called him out on sins he hadn’t even committed yet!!!
Matt 26:34-35, “"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times."
35 But Peter declared, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the other disciples said the same.”
Mark 14:72, “Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times." And he broke down and wept.”
What do we do with the knowledge that we will sin against our Lord again, no matter how hard we try?
It makes me sick who I am sometimes because I want to please God, but it is impossible – except through Jesus Christ.
The Place of Repentance
When you come to church, most of you head straight for the Fellowship Hall. But there’s a little space between the parking lot and the fellowship hall.
That’s the place where the mind and heart make a transition from whatever you were occupied with on the way to church – to the fellowship you’ll have with your church family.
In the same way, God has made for us a special place, between our distractions and our fellowship with Him. This is the place of repentance.
It’s this place I come to more often than I think I should, and I spend a lot of time there because I know myself and I realize I’m coming to fellowship with a God who is perfect without any fault, and He can see through me.
This place of repentance makes me exposed and broken. It has a fountain where I can be cleaned; the fountain of scarlet blood, and that blood washes me white as snow.
I leave the place of repentance naked and clean. It’s a humbling experience, but necessary because Jesus humbled Himself to make it for me, so I could have fellowship with the Father like He has fellowship with the Father.
God is moved by humility and repentance.
Sins of a Bible Character.
Luke 18:9-14, “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men-- robbers, evildoers, adulterers-- or even like this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."”
James 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”
Matt 11:29-30, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."”
Remember this when you walk away from that place to fellowship with God. Satan will do his best to convince you that it didn’t work, that you’re not clean.
He will remind you about the things you did in the past, about the person you are today, about how short you fall from deserving to be in God’s fellowship, about the fact that you’re prone to sin again.
You have to defeat those thoughts by persisting in faith, trust and hope.
Faith: because you cannot please God or be saved without believing.
Heb 11:6, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Rom 10:9-10, “That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
Hope because without hope in Christ there is no hope at all…
Rom 5:1-2, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
Rom 4:18-21, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead-- since he was about a hundred years old-- and that Sarah's womb was also dead.
20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,
21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”
Trust
Some people have all sorts of questions about faith, about life, about Christianity. It’s fine to have questions. Some of the answers are still a mystery to us today. The problem with questions is that you can be so focused on the questions of your faith that you begin to question God.
Trusting God with your faith, with your eternal salvation, especially when you feel insecure about your own righteousness, can be scary. But it is the only way to find peace and rest in the Lord.
In your heart, if you love Him and if you have removed the idols, and if your heart and mind are in pursuit of Him continually, if you are hungry for that place of fellowship then you just trust Him with it.
Just trust Him with it.
Heb 10:35-39, “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
To Him who overcomes:
The right to eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God.
Escape the second death.
Hidden manna, a new name in Heaven.
Authority over the nations.
Rev 2:26-28, “To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations--
27 'He will rule them with an iron scepter; he will dash them to pieces like pottery'-- just as I have received authority from my Father.
28 I will also give him the morning star.”
Heb 10:36-39, “You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
37 For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay.
38 But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him."
39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”
Persevere in faith, in trust, in hope, and overcome to the end.
Notice as you read through Revelation chapter TWO that the condition for salvation is always repentance, and He has made that place for you through Jesus Christ.
(Conclude: with prayer, open the altar for repentance.)
God has made a special place for us today: a place of repentance…
