“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, concerning the Word of life.” (1 John 1:1) “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). We have an advocate with the Father. In other words, we have a district attorney; we have a defense lawyer so that when Satan comes and begins to make false accusations against us, we have someone who is going to take our place and represent us and that person is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. The court is set. God is the judge. Our case is now open. Satan makes his case, but Jesus stands up and says, “Father, I died for them.” And the Father says, “Case dismissed. That is it; it is done.” And that is the wonderful thing about being a Christian—we do sin, but by the grace of God, we are sinning less and coming to know Jesus Christ and what He has done.
It’s a great insight to know if we are or if we are not really a Christian. How would we know? I have had that question asked of me for over thirty–forty years. How do I know that I am really in fellowship with God? To clarify this, we need to make a distinction between having a relationship and having a fellowship. When you have a child, it is because of a sweet fellowship you had between you and your spouse. The intimacy between the two produced a child, and that we know is a wonderful thing. But things change and relationships change. All of a sudden one day, the child grows up and wants to take us on. He answers us with “no” as an answer. What do we say? We say, “Go to your room.” And so he goes to his room and cannot come out until he is willing to ask for forgiveness. Well, did he ever break the relationship with us? No. When we brought our children into the world, they are ours for the rest of our lives, like it or not. They could come back when they’re seventy-five years old and still ask us for money because we are the parents.
As far as fellowship, that is something completely different. When a child is bad, he goes to his room. Although we may have a relationship with our child, we may not be in fellowship with him at that moment. That may never happen until he repents. If he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw the rock through the neighbor’s house.” Our answer might be, “Great, let’s go take care of it.” And so, we walk over together and apologize. Now, he is back in fellowship and to reward him, I might ask, “Hey, you want to go to In n’ Out? ” And so now we’re out celebrating that the son has realized his mistake. That is fellowship.
Fellowship is coming to a place in our Christian walk when we know that we are right with God. When that happens, three things are evident: First: Obedience to God’s Word. “ Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.” (1 John 2:3-5) So the reason why we can say that this thing has taken root or that Christianity is really real is because for the first time in our lives, we are now being obedient to God’s will. We may not understand it, but we are going to be obedient. So if God says, “I want you to do this.” Our answer should be, “God, I would like to do this.” If I say that I walk with God, then I ought to walk like He did, in humility. “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) That is what he is saying—that we would walk the way that God walked. “ Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning” (1 John 2:7) The old and new are exactly the same. The Old Testament is now becoming alive in the New Testament. “ Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.” (1 John 2:8)
So how do we shine? We shine by submitting. Which brings me to the second evidence of knowing if we are right with God: Submission. We are going to find that we are now submitting one to another and to God’s way and Word, because now we are on God’s side. If we want to find a marriage that is shining, find couples that are willing to submit to the fear of God and those couples will shine for the glory of God. It can’t be just one person and not the other submitting. Both individuals have to do it. Find a ministry that is willing to do what God wants and they will shine for the glory of God. Everyone has to do it.
And finally, the third evidence: Loving. We are loving God’s way. That means that we are loving people that we may not normally like. It is not based upon color, nor is it based upon position. We are just loving people because they are people. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
Look at 1 John 2:9–10, “ He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.” If we say that we love God but hate our neighbors or hate our relatives, then we’re in trouble. If we love the light, we are not going to stumble. “But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:11) That person is lost because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
There is a tombstone that says: Remember friend, when passing by, as you are now, so once was I. As I now am, soon you will be. Prepare for death and follow me. But someone has scratched out the words “Follow me,” and changed it to: To follow you, I am not content until I know which way you went. That is an important point to know. Which way did he go—to hell or heaven? We need to know that.
The word, “abide” in 1 John 2:10 means to take off our shoes. It means that we are to sit down. We’re going to relax. We’re going to chill out for a little bit and understand what God is trying to say. Life is really a walk, not a hundred mile sprint. It is a long distance walk, so we need to prepare ourselves. We need to have our staff and shoes ready and be ready to go. So, if we are going to walk in the way of God, we are not second guessing ourselves. We really want to do this for the glory of God.
So, we need to check our obedience to God. Is it good? How are we doing when it comes to submission? Are we submitting one to another in the fear of God? And are we walking in the light and love of God?
Going back to 1 John 2:7, “ Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning.” All it is saying here is that the disciples had the commandment from the beginning. So who did they hear from? They heard from Jesus Christ. It was John who said that we heard the Word from the very beginning. The moment they came to know Christ, they heard God’s Word.
Well, it was also written in the Old Testament. So what is he trying to do? Is he trying to confuse us? No. Let’s look at John 13:34–35. John says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” In other words, the Old Testament is like “facts,” but the New Testament is like “freshness.” We read the Old Testament and it consists of a bunch of facts. We bring Jesus Christ into the New Testament and it is just full of freshness in our lives. We bring Christ into the New—it is principle versus practicality. We have a principle that we follow, but then we see Jesus Christ and He makes it very practical in our lives. Or thirdly, it is like having the law but then all of a sudden, we find Christ and now we know what He is trying to say. It is just God changing the old wineskins into new wineskins. It is God working in and through our lives.
How can we shine like Him? Well, only by abiding in Him. 1 John 2:8 says, “Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.” So the darkness is gone. The Holy Spirit says that we have been saved by that marvelous light. We were once children of darkness. We were once lost, alienated from God. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His namesake, has saved us. And so God has shined His light into our lives and now the marvelous light has set us free. Sometimes we get lost, but God can pick our feet up and place them on top of the rock. Many times in our hearts and lives, we go astray, but God wants us to stay in the light and that is not hard to do if we say no to evil and yes to God. But if we are unwilling to say no to sin, then it is going to be pretty hard to say yes to God. What happens in our lives is that we get saved, but we stay at the edge. It reminds me of a story about a mother who tucked little Johnny into bed. It is a second bunk and everything is hunky dory. She kissed him good night and made sure that the sheets were tucked in tight and then went downstairs to open her Bible and read a little before her husband got home. About five minutes into her reading, she heard a thumping noise. Knowing exactly what had happened, she ran upstairs, hoping that little Johnny did not break his neck. As she turned the corner, he is busting up—laughing his heart out. “Hey, Mom, I guess I got in and stayed too close to the edge.” She answered, “Johnny, you need to go all the way over. Scoot all the way over, son.” That is what we do sometimes. We want to see how close we can sin before we fall. We need to go all the way over—get as far as we can into the things of God. and not stay on the edge. If we stay on the edge, then Satan is going to beat us and the Holy Spirit is going to go after us. We are going to be like a tree that is just beaten to death. Why? Because we stayed in too close. We are right by the edge. And because of that, we are going to have problems in our lives. Either get in or get out, but do not live on the fence is what John is saying. If we are in the Word, we are not going to be by the fence. We are going to go deeper and deeper into our walk with the Lord.
And then thirdly, how can we love like Him? We can love like Him only by abiding in Him. 1 John 2:9, “He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now.” If we say, I hate my brother, then we are in trouble because we are not in the light. If we are not in the light, then we are not going to be in Christ. Every time we say no to God, we let darkness into our lives. Every time we say no and we let sin into our house, we drive darkness deeper inside our homes. And with that darkness comes principalities and Lucifer and all the weird things that we are going to go through—paranoia. Weird things are going to happen because when we open the door to darkness, we have no idea what we are doing. We are playing with something that we ought to be afraid of. Now we are going to be led into darkness because our eyes are blinded and we have no knowledge of what we are doing. Now we are being deceived. And Satan has done it; he has hooked us. And now we do not know where we are going. We have no direction, so we are walking around, groping and looking for something going on.
God said in Zechariah 3:2, “ And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan!” He did not even mess around with Satan. God made him and God did not mess around with him. So when we start to play with darkness, we are in serious trouble. If we open a door to Ouija boards or other objects connected with the occult, we are now going to open a door to demon possession—someone taking over your body. That is the last thing we want to do. We should not be playing this game because it has an influence on our lives. We should be playing with the light. We should be loving the light and fellowshipping in the light. That is where truth is born. When we play with darkness, there is no truth. There’s only lies and every lie is of the devil because who is the originator of lies? Satan. He is the father of all lies. So if we are not going to repent, then guess what? We are in darkness. If we are unwilling to forgive, we are in darkness. If we will not go and say, “I’m sorry,” we are in darkness.
The Apostle Paul said in Hebrews 9:14 that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses our conscious. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” And so we ask God’s forgiveness. The Holy Spirit takes it all off and now it is crystal clear and we can see what we are doing. So, what are we going to do? Are we going to go light or dark? Is our language dark or light? Is our attitude light or dark? Do we have a chip on our shoulder? That is dark. If we are giving, that is great. That is the light. We have to make a decision. It was the grace of God that taught me that lesson; that opened my eyes to how Satan gets in our lives. It is not through sexual sin; it is just saying that we do not want to do this. “We do not want to forgive. We will hold that bitterness in.
We are messing with Satan; we are messing with demons; and we are messing with God. That is not a good thing to do. So if it is between God and Satan, which side are we going to go on? We will go on God’s side every single time. Revelation 3:16 says, “So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.” Jesus does not want gray areas in our lives. We must choose between light or darkness.
We are blinded, but the love of God can come in and save us. He can open our eyes and put our feet upon the rock. If we would just love God; if we would just love each other, and accept each other’s faults; if we could just be obedient to the Word of God and to whom we work for and if we could just submit to the things of God and to where we are going, life would be so much easier.
And then there’s the issue of anger. How we can destroy or ruin people and not realize it. If God had given you a position as a foreman, you may have taken advantage of it and have hurt people. You may have hurt your friends due to an anger issue. Or you’re married, things are going great and you’re starting to have kids. Now all of a sudden, there are too many kids, and so you are overwhelmed and start to cop an attitude. Maybe you are going through the change of life and you begin to to take it out on your husband. That is just the way it is and that is okay. The question is, “Are we in control or out of control?” Most of the time, we are in control and we just do it because we do not know why we do it. Satan uses us and God wants to use us. Who are we going to give our bodies to?
If we say, we do not have an anger problem, we just abuse everybody. We pull strings. We just manipulate everybody. Why do we not motivate people? How about this? Why don’t we just learn to love one another? Get rid of Satan, get rid of darkness and live for the glory of Jesus Christ. That is a lot easier.
