There are three major themes that we’re going to cover in 1 John 2:3–11. One is that we are going to realize that if we say we have fellowship, then we need to be obedient to God’s Word. There is a major difference between having a fellowship versus having a relationship. We all have a relationship with Jesus Christ, but very few of us actually have fellowship with God. When I talk about fellowship, it means having an intimate time between us and God. Three things need to be working in our lives. First, we are going to have to understand that we are to be obedient to God’s Word. There’s a desire, a heart, a passion to want to apply God’s Word in our lives. Second, if we say that we are faithful, then we would be able to surrender our will to the will of God according to 1 John 2:6–8. So we’re able to give up the very thing that we are hanging on to and do whatever God wants us to do—that is hard to do. It’s easy to say it, but it’s tough to do it. And thirdly, in verses 9 through 11, we are going to begin to love the way that God wants us to love. We are going to love anyone, regardless of what color they are, where they live, rich or poor, tall or short, skinny or fat. We are going to love people—God’s way. So if we say, “Hey, I have fellowship with God,” then it will be evident in our lives by our obedience to God’s Word, by surrendering our will to the will of God, and finally by the way that we love people.” So if we can honestly say that we do all three things, then there is no doubt that we have fellowship with God. If we don’t, then we have a relationship that is falling short. And that relationship means that we have come to the cross, but we’re still in the tomb. What we want to do is to get through the tomb, off the cross, and be resurrected, walking in the newness of life; putting off the old man and putting on the new man and begin to die to ourselves. That is a major issue.
The Apostle Paul says in 1 John 2:1–2, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate (defense attorney) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” So the first thing we realize is that God’s love is bigger than us. He will love us but He’s also big enough to love anybody at any place at any time. Verses 3, 4, and 5 says, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” (If we are going to keep His commandments, there is no doubt we love Him.) He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (If we say that we have fellowship but we’re not keeping God’s Word, then we’re not telling the truth.) But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected (complete or mature) in him. By this we know that we are in Him.” So that is the greatest evidence of our love: when God begins to perfect, to complete and mature that work in our lives. So God is working for us and not against us. He’s not trying to deal with our sin; He’s now dealing with our relationship and our maturity, and trying to help us. So often, we find that God is somehow working against us only because of our sin. The Bible says, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. Here is what we need to understand. When a man and a woman have a child, it was because they had fellowship. That means that they had an intimate moment with each other and so, she conceived and had a son. And that means that they were in the same bed at the same time and shared a little special moment of their lives and during that special moment, produced a boy. And so they brought a boy into the world through a time of fellowship, intimacy, and now a relationship has been born, their son is their son; that’s a relationship. Through the years, it has always been a fellowship; holding him and enjoying him. But if he got arrested and was thrown in prison, would he still be their son? Yes. Would he be in fellowship? No. Is he still part of a relationship? Yes. They can never get rid of that. Similarly, when we came to Christ, we were justified—just as if we didn’t sin. God took that sin away and made us as sons of God. We have a relationship with God.
But there is more to it than that. That is the beginning point and not the end. Now comes the real growth in our lives. What makes fellowship? It means that everything is there. When the son is older and comes over to hang out with his parents and spend time doing things together like, throwing a ball around, or watching a movie, guess what? They are fellowshipping. In other words, it’s closer than it was before. But if the son gets nasty, and gets into trouble and goes to prison, then they don’t have that anymore. They’ve lost their fellowship with him. So what we need to understand is that we will never lose the relationship, but we can lose the fellowship.
Let’s now look at another situation involving a husband and wife. A fight occurs, so the husband storms off to another room. The fellowship between the couple has just been broken. He went to his room to think things over, because he is in trouble with his wife. And after thinking about it, he wants to make amends, but she wants nothing to do with him. Now, are they going to get a divorce? No. Are they upset with each other? Yes. Are they going to get back together? Of course. But right now, they do not want to see each other. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he was wrong. So he goes back to her and says, “I’m sorry.” All of a sudden, they hug and kiss, and guess what? They’re back in fellowship. But then the next day, she says something pretty nasty and they’re separated again. Here’s the point: as long as we’re walking and fellowshipping with God, we have a great relationship. But when we get self-righteous, when we get prideful, when we do things that are not pleasing to God, and now we’re being disciplined, we lose something. We have broken our fellowship with God. We will not hurt ourselves as much as we hurt our relationship with the Lord.
There was a national survey about church membership done by D. L. Moody years ago. It said that “Ten percent of the people cannot be found; twenty percent never attend church; twenty five percent admit they never pray; thirty five percent admit they never read their Bible; forty percent never contribute to the church; sixty percent never give to missions; seventy percent never assume any responsibility in a church. We just want to come, receive and go; eighty five percent never invite anyone to church; ninety-five percent never have won anybody to Jesus Christ; and a hundred percent all expect to go to heaven.” What’s wrong with this picture? It means that there is no fellowship; there is no responsibility.
“How can we know when we’re in fellowship?” There is an evidence of fellowship. Firstly, very simply, if you look at my life, you should see three things. If I talk it, you should be able to see it. If I pray about it and praise God, you ought to see it. It will always be according to my obedience to God’s Word—all the way across the board. Secondly, am I submissive to God’s will? Am I doing it God’s way and not my way? And thirdly, am I loving people the way that God wants me to love people? That is a tough thing when you look at it. It’s hard, but if I understand the other side of it—to be without God, that is more frightening to me. So I’m willing to do what God wants. I’ve been shot, gone through many tight situations, horrible things have happened in my life, so I want nothing to do with Satan. I want everything that God will give me.
Looking at the first point again, “Why do I need to obey God?” By keeping His commandments. “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” 1 John 2:3 The key word is “know.” There are two words for “knowing” in the Greek language. Here’s an example: After the Lord was resurrected, Peter and John ran to the tomb to check. Peter looked inside the empty tomb and took off, but John gazed and beheld—all the difference in the world. One disciple looked in, “Okay, great,” but the other one knew that Jesus had risen from the dead. John looked and saw and just understood, whereas Peter just kind of looked and took off.
It’s kind of like some of us sometimes when we’re looking for something that we couldn’t find. So we’re looking and looking and looking, but we still couldn’t find it and then our spouse looks in the same place that we were looking and finds it. Why? It’s because we panic and our spouses did not. We’re desperately searching through everything hoping to find it quickly, while our spouses were just focused. It makes a big difference in life when you are tuned in—big time. And so we get so mad because we could’t find it and now we’re governed by that.
Before we got married, we had knowledge of our spouse. After we got married, because of that relationship, now it’s a different type of knowledge. Now we really know each other. And so what John is saying in verse 3 is that we need a second. We need to not just know, but we need to know by experience.
In John 15:8, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” So we need to bear fruit. In order to do that, we’re going to have to abide in the vine. If we are in the vine and we are going to abide then we are going to bring forth fruit—thirty, sixty, a hundred fold. John 15:11 says, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” So God wants you to have that joy and He wants that joy to be full. So if we understand what God is trying to do here, He is trying to take this knowledge that we have and He is trying to tell us that it’s centered around fellowship.
God, help us to be obedient to Your Word. Help us to know that and not doubt.
Why should we obey God? “He who says, ‘I know Him,‘ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” 1 John 2:4. Obeying God’s Word means submission and keeping true to His word..
So, if we’re walking around saying, “Hey, I know God. I love God. I’m in fellowship,” but we’re into drugs, sexual relationships, witchcraft, and all kinds of crazy things, then we are not in fellowship with God. If we are having an intimate relationship outside of marriage, what are we doing? “Well, the idea is that we are just making sure everything works before we get married.” God can make it work; we don’t need to worry about it. We’re lying to ourselves. We are not in fellowship. We’re in the flesh; and we can’t even be honest. We need to repent, but we can’t do that. No, we have to make excuses. Just come clean. David said in the Psalms, “Against you and you only have I sinned. So how dwells the love of God in us? How can God trust us? Where is the integrity? Where is the heart?
Look at Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Why is it that not every one that says “Lord, Lord” is going to enter into the kingdom? Because they do it their way. They don’t ask God how to do it. They don’t submit to God. They want to serve God their way, give the way they want to give, but they don’t want to do it God’s way. So God will say, “I never knew you.”
Clearly, there is a right way and a wrong way to be a Christian. The right way is that a church and a pastor is not in charge; God is in charge. He is the One who we give the preeminence to. He is the One who we want to get to know. And if we say that we love God and never hang out with Him, we are lying. If we say that we really have a great fellowship with God and never sit down and pray and seek God, then we are a liar. And that is what God is saying.
Secondly, we need to be honest with the will of God situation in our lives. “Lord, we did not wait for Your perfect timing. We went ahead of You. We did not listen to what You wanted. We knew what You wanted, but we didn’t do it, so now we’re stuck. Can You help us?” That’s what we should pray. We shouldn’t say, “I didn’t know.” Yes, we did. “Well, it just kind of happened.” No, it didn’t. We set the thing going a certain way. We have to take full responsibility.
Lastly, what happens when I obey God? 1 John 2:5 says, “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.” In John 14:15, it says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Why? Because it’s about obedience. That’s the key to the Christian walk. We say we love God—then be obedient. We say we want to serve God—then be obedient. We say we want to get married—then be obedient. It’s all about obedience.
And then in John 14:21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” Manifest means to make open, make public. God is going to publicly and openly bless our lives. He’s going to do things in our lives that we never even thought about.
Enoch walked with God and Enoch fellowshipped with God, and one day God took him. Why did God take him? He took him because He enjoyed him. That’s what God is asking of us. He is saying to us that if we had this fellowship with Him, we wouldn’t be stressed out. If we had this fellowship, we would be packing the place out in prayer because we all just want to touch the hem of Christ. Unfortunately, we don’t. What we have is a relationship with the Lord. The question we must ask is, “Are we willing to take another step? Are we willing to have more brokenness in our lives? God, draw us closer to You.
There’s a great little story about a girl and a grandpa: The girl loved grandpa so much that one day she left her grandpa so that she could sew him some moccasins. She had a little kit box that she used to sew the moccasins. So she was gone for about a month and grandpa started to worry and wondered what could have happened to this special little granddaughter. Finally she came back all excited and said, “Oh, grandpa, grandpa, I made something for you.” As she handed him the box, with excitement and joy in her heart, she noticed the tears that were running down his face. She asked, “Grandpa, why are you crying?” He answered, “Because I missed you for a month. I haven’t seen you or held you. I just missed you because I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t know if you were mad or what. I love these moccasins, but Honey, can we make a special little covenant between us and not tell anyone? Can we just buy the moccasins next time so that we would not have to miss any time together?”
This is a great illustration, because we can go through the same thing. “God, look what I’ve done for you! Look at what I have sacrificed for You. Look at how many things I have done in my home.” “Okay, that sounds great, but the question is, “How much time have I spent with God—loving Him?” “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).
In conclusion, when somebody says that we’re a Christian, we can say with confidence, “You bet I am.” Well, how do they know that? They know because they can see that we are keeping God’s Word. They know because they see us being obedient and yielding to God’s will. And finally, they know because they’ve seen us love people even when we have been stabbed in the back, and yet we have still loved them into the kingdom of God. People will know that we are Christians.
