Review
(1 John 1:3 NKJV) that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
(1 John 1:4 NKJV) And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.
Last time we learned that in giving this reason for writing his letter John wants to accomplish three things:
1. John wanted to explain what true fellowship is all about
Koinonia - "a joint participation with someone else in things held common by both."
Last time we learned that koinonia means to have a joint-participation in the goings on of the local church. It is involving yourself in the things that go on in the local church--learning and obeying the teachings; attending communion service; participating in the prayer service; welcoming in to the assembly and supporting the evangelism and mission those of like precious faith.
There is a passage of Scripture that teaches about this kind of fellowship. The context is where the apostle is sharing with the Corinthian believers about the Macedonian believer's generosity.
(2 Cor 8:1 NIV) And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.
(2 Cor 8:2 NIV) Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.
(2 Cor 8:3 NIV) For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own,
(2 Cor 8:4 NIV) they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing (kononia) in this service to the saints.
(2 Cor 8:5 NIV) And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will.
Paul was bragging to the Corinthian believers about the Macedonian believer's generosity. There was a need in the body of Christ and though the Macedonian Christians didn't have much they gave out of their poverty and beyond their ability on their own.
This act of generosity describes one aspect of fellowship: it is the mutual ministry of the body to itself. When the body has a need, it responds to care for its need. When it has lost its ability to care for its own need we say that that body is sick.
To illustrate the mutual ministry of the body take a look at how your own body functions. When you have an itch, your body scratches itself. When you have a cut, your body heals itself. When you are hungry, your body feeds itself.
You get yourself some food. Your hand brings it to your mouth. Your mouth tongue and teeth sends it down your esophagus to your stomach. Your stomach breaks it down and relays it to your intestines. Your intestines further digests it and sends it on to your bloodstream and your blood stream carries the nourishment to the rest of your body.
This is the ministry of the body to itself. The body of Christ is to minister to itself in like manner.
Fifty-eight times in the Bible it uses the phrase "one another". It says, "Love one another, Care for one another ... Greet one another ... Encourage one another ... Pray for one another ... Counsel one another ... Share with one another ... Help one another ..." It is the mutual ministry of the body to itself.
God never meant for one man -- a super star pastor -- to meet everybody's needs. But He meant for all of us to be ministers to minister to each other.
When we started this church nine years ago, Debbie and I did most of the ministry in the church. I wrote out the bulletin, typed it up and print it out. Deb and I planned ministry events. We stored all of the church equipment in our house and every Sunday we would load it and the nursery equipment in our van and take it down to UMBC where we rented a classroom and set it all up. We'd do the service.
When it was over, we'd load it all into the van and haul it back to our house. During our first year as a church, I was the church secretary, the treasurer and the maintenance man. We literally did everything in the church.
But as the church began to grow, we began to give the ministry away. The church spreads all the ministry around. In too many churches we have this one-man superstar who Rick Warren says, "tries to minister to everybody. If you get sick and in the hospital then Superman Pastor comes flying in with his cape and he sprinkles pixie dust around your bed. Here a prayer, there a prayer, everywhere a prayer, prayer.... Then he flies off into the sunset. And we say, "Who was that man? And I didn't even get a chance to thank him!""
That's good for ego, but it's not good for a church.
The Bible describes the church as the body of Christ.
(1 Cor 12:14 NKJV) For in fact the body is not one member but many.
(1 Cor 12:15 NKJV) If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body?
(1 Cor 12:16 NKJV) And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body?
(1 Cor 12:17 NKJV) If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?
(1 Cor 12:18 NKJV) But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.
Some of us are hands and do hand things. We do the lifting, literally and figuratively. Some of us need encouragement--the hands lift us up with encouragement.
Some of us are ears and do ear things. They listen. Isn't it good to have someone in your life that listens to you?
Some of us are eyes and do eye things. They see. The pastor can't see everything. I have people around here that bring things to my attention--things that I need to be aware of. There are people who notice when a member is missing and call to see if they are ok.
Some of us are arms and do arm things. They hold. They hold us accountable. In the Bible the arm is symbolic of comfort. Isaiah 40:11 says, "He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm…" The arm is also symbolic of strength. There are people in our church fellowship who provide comfort and others who stand guard as our protectors.
Some of us are legs and do legs things. They go places. We have those in our church who take the Gospel into our community. The Bible says, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!" (Romans 10:15)
The point is that koinonia means to have a joint-participation in the goings on of the local church. John wanted to explain what true fellowship is all about.
2. John needed to set forth the parameters or the requirements that must be met in order to have true fellowship.
People who have "fellowship" are individuals who share something in common. John's "fellowship" was with the Father and the Son. Consequently, if his readers have fellowship with John, then they have fellowship with God.
John wants us to know that in order to have true fellowship with Him, you needed to be a possessor of "the life" mentioned in verse one. You get to be a recipient of the life that John wrote about when you surrender your life to the lordship of Jesus, turning away from sin and receiving His forgiveness.
3. John wanted his readers to have true fellowship with him.
*John wanted his readers to know what it was like to be a recipient of the forgiveness of God.
*John wanted his readers to know the joy of the Lord (1:4).
*He wanted his readers to know the benefits of being a Christian.
*John wanted to know the joy that comes when your brothers and sisters walk in the truth. (3 John 1:4)
After John explains his reason from writing his letter he writes this:
(1 John 1:5 NKJV) This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
When John uses the imagery of God as "light" he is writing about God's self-revelation. God has revealed Himself to us! (cf. John 8:12; 9:5; 12:35, 36).
The truth of the matter is that if God hadn't revealed Himself to us, we would still be groping about in the darkness.
Jesus said in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."
The Bible says that we did not reach out for God, He first reached out to us. 1 John 4:19, "We love Him because He first loved us."
The Psalmist concurs with this truth:
(Psa 14:2 NKJV) The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
(Psa 14:3 NKJV) They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.
Paul in Romans reminds us that we did not have God in our minds or hearts. We do not naturally seek after God:
(Rom 3:11 NKJV) There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.
Because man is not inclined to seek after God, God had to take the first step towards a relationship with man by disclosing or revealing Himself to man. The Apostle Paul writes:
(Rom 1:20 NKJV) For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
Paul is saying that God made Himself known to man. One day we all will stand before God and Paul says that no one will be able to utter an excuse for not knowing God.
I want to use the remainder of this message to share with you what God has disclosed to humanity about Himself.
God is Spirit
This means two things:
God is non-corporeal meaning He is non-material. God cannot be seen by the human eye.
He is a person and has personality; He is self-conscious and self-determining.
John 4:24 - God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Even though God doesn't have a body, the Bible says such things as:
"The eyes of the Lord ... run to and fro through the whole earth" (Zech. 4:10),
"Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem?" (Isa. 50:2), and
"Thou hast a mighty arm" (Ps. 89:13).
We call those descriptions anthropomorphisms. This word comes from two Greek words: anthropos (man) and morphe (form).
An anthropomorphism is a biblical occurrence where God reveals Himself to a person or persons in human form.
There are also occurrences in the Bible where God reveals Himself in what are called theophanies. A theophany is a manifestation of God that is tangible to the human senses. In its most restrictive sense, it is a visible appearance of God in the Old Testament period.
Examples of theophanies are where God appears as a man to Abraham in Genesis 12 and to Jacob in a dream in Genesis 28. God chose to reveal Himself to Moses as the burning bush and later to His people as the pillar of fire and cloud. These are all theophanies.
God who is spirit used anthropomorphisms and theophanies to show reveal Himself because humans cannot perceive God nor understand God without His help. In Exodus 33:20 God says, “no man shall see Me, and live."
Closely related to God's attribute of spirit is His attribute of invisibility.
God is Invisible
First Timothy 1:17 refers to God as invisible.
No man has ever seen God at any time (John 1:18). In Exodus 33:20 God says, "No man [can] see me, and live." Nevertheless in the Old Testament, as we have just learned, God represented Himself by the Shekinah--the divine light, fire, and cloud.
In the New Testament He represented Himself in the person of Jesus Christ (John 1:14, 18). Jesus said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). In Colossians 1:15 describes Jesus as “…the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.”
God is invisible. He cannot be seen by the human eye. Yet His eternal power and divine character are known and clearly seen by the things He has made.
Romans 1:20 - For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
Look at a flower or an insect and you will see the visible results of the power of an invisible God!
I John 4:12 - No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Just because God cannot be seen directly does not mean He does not exist. The proof of God’s presence in the Christian is by the believer’s demonstration of the love of Christ.
God is Life
God has absolute life in Himself and is the source of all life. Life is the vital principle, or breath of life, which God imparted to man, making him a living soul.
The psalmist says in Psalm 84:2 - My soul longs, yea, even faints for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God.
Life is also the gift of God, mediated or given through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul wrote in I Thessalonians 1:9 telling of how the Thessalonians had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
This "Life" is not synonymous with endless existence, which is also true of the unsaved--the unsaved will live for eternity as well but not in heaven with God.
(Rev 20:10 NKJV) The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
(Rev 21:8 NKJV) "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
The unbelieving, Christ-rejecting—those who chose not to follow Jesus Christ will also be tormented day and night, forever and ever.
The "life" of God is qualitative, involving the imparting of a new nature, resulting in fellowship with God in Christ, and is not interrupted by spiritual death.
(John 3:16 NKJV) "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
(John 10:10 NKJV) "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
This "Life" will find its perfection and the full reality of blessedness with God when the believer spends eternity with God in the life to come.
(1 John 3:2 NKJV) Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Man was created with the ability to commune with God and interact with Him. But man fell as a result of sin this relationship was marred.
Only through a proper understanding of man's relationship to God, and belief that Jesus died for the sins of the world to give man back the life God intended, can one once again have this qualitative existence of life in a right relationship with The Giver of Life - God.
God is spirit; He is life.
God is Infinite
Psalm 145:3 - Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.
II Chronicles 2:5 & 6 - And the house that I build is great: for great is our God above all Gods. But who is able to build him a house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? Who am I then, that I should build him a house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?
Jeremiah 23:24 - Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.
There is no way to fully understand the vast greatness of God. Infinity is the term man uses to describe something that cannot be counted or measured. Infinity describes God for God is surely immeasurable.
The Bible teaches that:
*God is infinite in love. - Jer 31:3 "The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: "Yes, I have loved you with an *everlasting love…"
*God is infinite in mercy. - Lam 3:32 Though He causes grief, Yet He will show compassion According to the multitude of His mercies.
*God is infinite in power and strength - Job 11:7 "Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?"
*God is infinitely wise - Psa 147:5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.
It ought to encourage us that God is infinite.
We need to put our trust in the God who has no limits.
We need to learn to cry out in prayer to our Heavenly Father who is infinite in all His ways.
We need to speak of the greatness of our God in the world and among His people.
We need to praise our God according to His infinite greatness like King David:
(1 Chr 29:11 NKJV) Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all.
(1 Chr 29:12 NKJV) Both riches and honor come from You, And You reign over all. In Your hand is power and might; In Your hand it is to make great And to give strength to all.
God is Immutable
The immutability of God is the perfection of God by which He is devoid of all change in essence, attributes, consciousness, will, and promises.
Malachi 3:6 - For I am the Lord, I change not… The immutability of God means that God doesn’t change.
No change is possible in God, because all change must be to better or worse, and God is absolute perfection.
There is no reason for change in God to exist, either in Himself or outside of Him. There is no reason for God to change because there is no change that would make Him better.
Change is either for the better or for the worse. Yet both are inconceivable with God because He doesn't change. That sets Him apart from everything else because everything changes.
(Psa 102:25 NKJV) Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
(Psa 102:26 NKJV) They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed.
(Psa 102:27 NKJV) But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
James 1:17 - Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
What does the unchanging character of God mean to us as Christians? Comfort. Since God loves us, He loves us forever. Since He forgave us, He forgave us forever. Since He saved us, He saved us forever.
a) 2 Peter 3:9--"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise."
b) Romans 11:29--"The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." That means God doesn't change His mind.
c) 2 Timothy 2:13--"If we believe not, yet he abides faithful; he cannot deny himself."
d) Jeremiah 31:3--God said of Israel, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love."
e) Isaiah 54:10--God also said of Israel, "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed."
f) Isaiah 46:10--God said, "My counsel shall stand."
For us to be rightly related to an unchanging God-- we are the ones who have to go through a drastic change. Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).
This change is good! Walter Hawkins wrote a song with the words:
A change a change has come over me
He changed my life and now I'm free
He washed away all my sins
And He made me whole
He washed me white as snow
He changed my life complete
And now I sit sit at His feet
To do what must be done
I'll work and work until He comes
A wonderful change has come over me
Though God is immutable, unchanging, he changes us and this change is good!
God is Truth
In Pontus Pilate's judgement hall, he asked Jesus, "What is truth?" (John 18:38)
Truth is the interrelated consistency of statements and their agreement with the facts of reality and the facts themselves.
The word "truth" suggests an integration of character, and allegiance to virtue.
Truth is a kind of reliability, which includes and goes beyond the literal meaning to include those aspects of personal behavior.
The concept of truth is derived from the character of God, and is the exact opposite of the concept of lying. The Bible says and teaches, "It is impossible for God to lie."
Deuteronomy 32:4 - He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgement: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
John 17:3 - And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Psalm 19:9 - The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
Psalm 57:10 - For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.
The attribute of truth for God means that whatever God says He will do.
When He says those who believe in Jesus shall have eternal life, you can rest assured that will take place.
When He says “I will never leave you nor forsake you” He keeps His word. (Heb 13:5)
When He says, “I will supply your needs” He will! (Phil. 4:19)
When He says He will provide you a way out of temptation, He will make a way of escape. (1 Cor. 10:13)
When He declares He will protect you from the flaming arrows of the enemy. (Eph 6; Ps. 91:5)
When He says Satan will be thrown into the Lake of Fire forever, it will happen. (Rev. 20 :10)
Jesus is the personification of truth. In John 14:6 Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
God’s Word is the communication of truth. In John 17:17 Jesus prays to the Father, "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”
Back in our text of 1 John, John writes:
(1 John 1:5 NKJV) This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
When John uses the imagery of God as "light" he is writing about God's self-revelation. God has revealed Himself to us because if He hadn't revealed Himself to us, we would still be groping about in the darkness.
The Bible says that we did not reach out for God;
The God who is spirit, invisible, life, infinite, immutable, and truth first reached out to us.
