United In The Light Of Life

9.10.25 [1 John 1:1-2:2] River of Life (9th Sunday after Pentecost)

2 Cor. 13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. 

What truly unites people? 

It’s the kind of question all kinds of people would love to know the answer to. The answer to the question ‘What truly unites people?’ is worth millions to Fortune 500 companies, blue-blood sports franchises, political think-tanks, and our own armed forces.

What truly unites people?

Is it common interests? It might seem that way. If you like something that I like, it’s likely that we will like each other.  But we’ve all seen that go south quickly. Two people might share an interest in some sport. What happens when they compete against each other on the links or the pickleball court? It can get nasty, right? Even if they’re not the ones exerting themselves, it can be divisive. They may discover they root for each other’s arch rivals. Or that they have very different views on the star player or the head coach or where the team is headed. 

People may bond a bit over shared interests, but it doesn’t truly unite people. What about common values or goals? 

Again, it seems like they unite people. And it can have a way of bringing people together. But what happens when shared goals are achieved? People no longer have a reason to work together. So they go their own separate ways. They were never truly united—they were just working together. Even values lack the power to pull people together. You may value living in a safe community and your neighbor might value the same thing. But that won’t mean that you see eye to eye on the Second Amendment. You and a friend might both value honesty and integrity. But what happens when you have to have a tough-but-truthful conversation? Does that ever fracture a friendship? 

World-weary folks might suggest that what truly unites people is a common enemy. They’ve seen people join forces when their livelihood or their very lives are at stake. They cooperate and collaborate and fight shoulder to shoulder and have each other’s backs. Until the foe is vanquished. Then the newly formed team is no longer necessary.

To be united is to be joined together. To become a unit. To think and speak and act as one. To lay down the me and pick up the we. 

Being truly united is a beautiful thing. It’s precious. And it’s worth celebrating. That is why people throw big parties for weddings. We are celebrating what God has united into one flesh. 

But it isn’t the only uniting God does in this world. That uniting is actually a shadow of the uniting John describes in the first chapter of his first letter. He uses a different word for it, because he’s describing the fruit that is produced by this uniting. Fellowship. 

In these first verses, John talks about fellowship with the Father, fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, fellowship with us (the other Apostles or the church at large), and fellowship with one another. 

But fellowship is one of those words we usually only ever think about when it comes to church. The kind of word that when you hear, you just nod your head like you know what it means, because you don’t want to stick out. It’s a little ironic that we say we know what fellowship means just so that we can feel like we belong. 

But fellowship isn’t about sharing a cup of coffee or sitting down at a potluck luncheon or recognizing someone as being from your church. Fellowship is about being united and thinking and speaking and acting as one. Laying down the me and picking up the banner of we.

So how do we do that? What’s the secret? How do we get united?

Well, John tells us, flat out, we can’t initiate our unity. We cannot create fellowship with one another. Only the Word of life, the Light, can do that. That is why Jesus, 1 Jn. 1:1 that which was from the beginning, the Word of life 1 Jn. 1:2 appeared. John and his fellow disciples saw Jesus with their own eyes. They heard him proclaim Jn. 6:68 the words of eternal life with their own ears. Their hands even touched his resurrected & glorious flesh. They beheld the Light of life. 

And you and I have, too. Not in exactly the same way the Apostles did. There are moments they remembered with Jesus that were Jn. 20:30 not recorded in the Scriptures. But the ones that were written and preserved were for our benefit. That we might see him and know him as the Son of God and that by believing in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, we might Jn. 20:31 have life in his name. 

Yet, even though we have seen the light of life, the goodness of the Son of God, the power of the Prince of Peace and Lord of lords, we are drawn to wander into the darkness. 

The disciples were drawn into the darkness on the night before Jesus died. Even after spending years with the living Word of life, when he told them he was about to leave them, they began to argue over which one of them was the greatest. This wasn’t some one-off. This happened repeatedly, typically on the heels of Jesus talking about his passion. The darkness seduces us to think about me. My glory. My place. My position. My power. My wants. My needs. 

That’s not fellowship. That’s not unity. And we see that in how the disciples responded to Jesus’ arrest and death. They scattered. They ran for their lives. They denied knowing him. They hid behind locked doors, afraid that what had happened to Jesus would happen to them. 

They had common goals—restoring the kingdom of Israel—but they were not united. They had common fears and enemies—the Sanhedrin, the Romans, & the cross—but they were not united. They had many things in common, but they were not united.

Only when Jesus walked into their midst and declared Jn. 20:19-23 Peace be with you! Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven were they truly united. With these words, Jesus was drawing them into a divine fellowship. They became one with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They were united and equipped to deal with anything and everything. Sin, death, and the devil. 

And John tells us here that Jesus has done the same for his people today as he did for his disciples on Easter Sunday. We have been united in Christ. We think and speak and act as one—not perfectly all the time—but better and better as we walk in the light. 

John uses an illuminating illustration in comparing following Jesus to walking in the light. It would have resonated deeply with his first readers, but we might miss the picture today a bit because we live in a world where light is at our fingertips. 

When was the last time you were engulfed by darkness? It just doesn’t happen much to us. We drive down dark roads, but we have headlights. We walk down dark hallways, but they are familiar and we have flashlights on our phones to light the way. We don’t often find ourselves lost and in the dark. 

But imagine you were lost and in the dark. And then some mysterious figure appeared with a torch. He told you that you were really lost and he offered to lead you back to where you wanted to be. Would you follow him? You would if you trusted him. If you didn’t trust him, you might go along with him for a little while, but you’d be uneasy. You’d be scrutinizing his every move, not clipping his heels. 

Don’t you see that’s what Jesus did? He found you when you were lost in sin. He brought light and life to those living in the land of deep darkness and death. He is faithful and just and forgives sins and purifies us from all unrighteousness. He is the atoning sacrifice for us. And not just for us, but also for the sins of the world. 

But sometimes we scrutinize our Savior rather than follow his light. We wonder if he really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to right and wrong. We deceive ourselves and act as if sin isn’t a big deal. We delude ourselves into thinking being better than the guy down the street means that we’ve been good enough. That’s the kind of darkness that we were dwelling in. That’s the kind of sin that separates us from our Savior. Remember who Jesus is and who he has made us to be. 

We have fellowship with him because he made a connection with us. He appeared as the Word of life who gave up his life for us. We have fellowship with Jesus because he created a conviction in our hearts and minds. We believe in him. We have fellowship with Jesus because he is committed to us. He is faithful and just. He forgives sins. He pays our debt. And he makes us clean. He purifies us. 

Fellowship has three components: Connection. Conviction. Commitment. That’s what Jesus has done to unite us. And walking in his light, following where he leads us is a what being united, sharing fellowship is. 

Christ has connected us to himself and to one another. He is not ashamed to call each of us brothers and sisters. And that is what we are. 

Christ has convicted each of us of our sins and our need for a Savior. And he has convinced us through his means of grace that he is our Savior. We believe in him. We proclaim that shared conviction with our creeds. With our worship songs. With our lives. We lay down the mantle of me and pick up the banner of we. 

And Christ has made us committed to one another. You don’t walk in the light alone. We walk together. We share burdens and sadnesses and challenges and blessings and joys. And we have something that is priceless. True unity. Not momentary commonality. But a unity that lasts for eternity. So our joy is complete. Amen.