What IS a Christian? - A Christian Fellowships

A Christian Fellowships

Bible Passage: 1 John 1

Introduction

Good evening students and welcome to the Grove! I’m pastor Keenan and I’m so glad you’re here with us. I hope to meet all of you by the time y’all leave and make sure if you haven’t gotten any food get some after the sermon.

So there’s a good amount of you who I haven’t seen before and you’re about to listen to me preach for 30 minutes. So let me tell you a little bit about myself before I get into all that.

I’m 25 years old. I grew up in O’fallon IL and went to OTHS. I grew up in a Christian household where both my parents were Christians and they brought me to church when I lived with them.

At the Age of 6 I accepted Christ as my Lord and savior and was baptized at age 8

I started serving in church at a young age and had a passion for God but lacked a relationship with Him.

Because of that in high school my passion stopped and I started smoking and doing other drugs drinking partying and messing around with girls.

I kept living in that lifestyle for about 4-5 years and turned my back on the church and God.

When I was 19 I went through a psychotic break because of the drugs I was doing and it caused me to realize how stupid and prideful I had been and rededicate my life to God.

A year or so later I got involved in a church and started serving. Around this time God would miraculously heal me of my mental condition and call me to ministry shortly after that

I met my wife Skylar who you saw sing tonight at church but she was dating another guy then they broke up and I swooped in and took my shot with her.

We got married last year and now we’re here.

If you want to know more of my story I’m available to talk after service.

Now that you all have gotten to know me let’s get to know the text together.

Everyone turn to 1 John 1 with me and let’s read God’s word together

1 John 1 CSB

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Pray

Tonight we will be looking at 1 John 1 learning three ways how a Christian fellowships

1. Christians have fellowship with each other

In order to better understand the first point let me tell you a story that might help us get what I’m about to say

Who’s like me that you have family that you see every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Birthday, etc. but not like every week or consistently?

I love my family right but I don’t get to see them all the time except during holidays and special occasions. I have cousins and aunts and uncles who I know them to a degree and I know them only to the degree they show me when they come in town right? Like do you ever sit back and think about do I really know my uncle? Or my cousin? Like could they be a serial killer lowkey?

I have cousins my age who we act like we know each other when we get together but because we don’t make the effort to spend time and get to really know each other it’s kind of a fake relationship in a way. We are pretending to be something we aren’t.

If we aren’t careful as a church family here at First and the Grove, this can be how we are with each other here.

Let’s look at Scripture to see what God says about fellowshipping together.

1 John 1:1-4, 7

1 John 1:1–4 CSB

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

1 John 1:7 CSB

If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

John here is talking to the church here about why he’s writing to them and talking about why and how Christians have fellowship with each other.

Let’s break down what the greek word used for fellowship here historically has been used for.

It’s the word κοινωνία which in most greek writing was used in context about the intimacy of knowing each other in regards to the marriage bed and the knowing of each other and gathering during a communal meal.

The word fellowship isn’t us seeing our family during thanksgiving and Christmas like I talked about earlier, it’s deeper than that, it’s more relational than that, it’s having a shared responsibility, having a common mission, and truly being together.

So, here’s your first point,

Christians Fellowship with each other

I know that you may be saying in your heads but Pastor Keenan I know this already I come to church and I try to talk to Christian friends at school.

And don’t get me wrong these are not good first steps and I’m glad you’re here.

But I want you to think about your family and my family I talked about that only meet and talk during special events and holidays

If you are only fellowshipping with your brothers and sisters in Christ on a once a week basis and don’t speak to each other throughout the week, how is that any different than meeting for special events?

Well what if I don’t have anything in common with anyone else or an excuse I gave in high school, the other Christians at my school are weird and I don’t want to talk to them.

In reality I was just using that as an excuse to not talk to other Christians because at that time I didn’t care about growing my fellowship with other Christians. I just wanted to hang out with people that weren’t bad but also I could go out and have fun with.

Since we’re kickstarting our youth nights here now is a good time for all of us in here tonight to take fellowshipping with each other serious. At first part of our vision is to gather as a church family and grow our family time.

So let’s take this seriously and start a rythm this week to fellowship with one another

2. Christians bring non-believers into fellowship

Now don’t hear what I’m not saying

I’m not saying Christians should live inside their own little bubble and live their lives not being friends with and talking to non-Christians

Obviously if that were the case some of you or your friends wouldn’t be here right now and I’m glad you’re here if you aren’t apart of our church family

I don’t know about you but when I really like something I want my friends to be excited about those things with me. For instance, I play a good amount of video games and when I really like a game I’m usually trying to tell Skylar or my friends about it to show them and convince them how fun or good of a game it is. I’ll usually do everything it takes even if it means buying the game for them or buying Skylar a skin on COD to get her to play. For other people it might be an artist.

I know we have some swifties in here. I can’t relate but I know how much you care about your Taylor Swift. If you’re a true swiftie you are trying to talk to people and convince people to appreciate and enjoy taylor swift or go to her concerts with you.

Whether it’s being passionate about a video game, a sport, an artist, when you really love something you want to get everyone you love on board

Maybe you’re starting to get where I’m going here

Let’s look at verses 3 and 4 because John here is writing about the exact thing I’m talking about

1 John 1:3–4 CSB

what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Here John wants the church he’s writing to to be in fellowship with him and the other apostles and the way that they can is by knowing who God is and by believing and trusting God, that He came down on earth and died for our sins and was resurrected three days later.

By doing that John and the apostles have fellowship with God

What John wants is for the church he’s writing to to have that same fellowship with God as they do

And what does John say what comes from this, complete joy

Here’s your second point,

Christians gather outsiders into Fellowship with God then the church

How many of us in here really felt what I was talking about earlier about loving your favorite thing so much that you have to get your friends on board?

Take Pause

I know that you love your friends

As a Christian what is the number one way to love someone?

To be the light to share the Gospel with someone so that they can be in fellowship with God and you in a way that is deeper than it would ever be if they weren’t saved.

If you want to have your friends who don’t know Jesus to share apart of what you’ve experienced and to have a deeper more meaningful relationship with your friends then the thing you’re worried about sharing the Gospel with them is actually being flipped on you.

You’re worried about whether or not they will still accept you for who you are and stop being friends.

But if you don’t take the opportunity to share the Gospel with them and they don’t have the opportunity to make that decision because you are not sharing with them

Then you’ll never have your joy be made complete with them. You’ll never get to experience the joy that it is to bring your best friends to Christ and to share the most meaningful thing in your life with the people you care about the most

This week start to have gospel conversations with your friends who don’t know Jesus

See what happens from it.

Don’t just invite them to church. But tell them about Jesus, who He is to you, and what He’s done for you and wants to do for them and how they can have that.

Some of us in here right now maybe don’t have that passion or fire for Jesus that makes us overflow and want to tell others about Him.

maybe you’ve not felt like you have been in fellowship with God, Or you don’t even know what that means, or it’s been a really long time since you’ve felt like you’ve been close with God.

3. Christians have fellowship with God

I remember when I was in middle school and high school I would go to church every week and I would even play guitar for our youth band. Despite going to church every week I didn’t spend any time in the Bible and in prayer. I was missing the aspect of God time. Because of this, on the outside to some people I was getting away with tricking them. I was even doing such a good job I was tricking myself thinking that I was doing okay and I was okay with God. But if someone were to peel back the layers of what was really going on in my life and in my heart and my fellowship with God they would’ve seen that there was virtually no fellowship with God. I was on the student leadership team but I showed up to my leadership training strung out because I was up all night because I was with a girl and smoking weed with her. I played worship on wednesdays but I was listening to SuicideBoys, Future, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, consistently wihtout listening to anything else. That was affecting the way I viewed people and was talking. I would talk like I knew the Bible on youth group nights but I hadn’t read my bible since I was in 3rd or 4th grade. I was the only thing i was doing late at night was playing video games or watching porn. I was really good at faking being a Christian because I could go to church and do enough to get by. I cared more about what my family, my friends, and my church thought about me rather than what mattered to God. That caused me to even fake myself out. But I couldn’t fake out God. He knew I had no fellowship with Him. Without fellowship with Him my life was a mess and he couldn’t care less what “church” things or “good things” I was doing.

Maybe some of you here are like me and you do good things, or church things as a cover for all the stuff that you’re doing.

Maybe you have no fellowship with God and you know you need Him to save you and to have fellowship with Him.

Maybe you have no fellowship with God and you’ve convinced yourself you’re ok because of the good things or church things you do.

But let’s look at verses 5-10 to see what God says how we can have fellowship with Him and what it look like

1 John 1:5–10 CSB

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

John here is saying that we can have fellowship with God if we ask Him to forgive us of our sins because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross.

He also says that if we are walking in darkness then we are lying and aren’t practicing the truth.

Practicing the truth is not only what we show others but what’s going on in our hearts and what our relationships with God are like.

Like how I was acting like I had no sin and making people think I wasn’t doing anything wrong but was really behind close doors sinning, we deceive ourselves. Because everyone has sinned.

If you are here tonight and have been saved but you struggle with having fellowship with your church family, struggle with bringing others into fellowship with God and the church, and struggle with your fellowship with God, then I’m glad you’re here because you can fix that tonight.

Your relationships with everyone else is only a reflection of your relationship with God.

So if you struggle with those two it’s because there’s something lacking in that last point.

Tonight if you have been saved and you’ve felt convicted because it’s been a long time since you’ve been in fellowship with God I want you to not shy away from that conviction. That’s God calling you back and wanting more for you.

So how do I have fellowship with God?

First, that means start talking to God and listening to Him by getting in your Bible. Have God time consistently in the week.

How can you do this?

Set goals

Make it your goal to read the new testament.

Start In matthew and read one chapter a day and if you can handle more than one a day do it.

Once you get done with matthew move onto mark, then do the same thing, then luke, and so on until you get to Revelation.

And start by doing your God time 5 times a week

if you want to do more than do it

But if you’re someone in here tonight that has never had fellowship with God, you don’t know what being saved really means, or you know that you need to get right with God, I want you to hold your fist up with me.

Five Fingers

If you want to be saved tonight and have fellowship with God and be good with Him I’ll lead you to make that decision

You can do that by praying to God tonight

there’s no specific prayer that saves you but it’s about what you’re saying and what you mean.

Prayer of salvation

Call to respond if accepted Christ

Close in prayer

Call to respond